<h6><b>Eduardo González</b></h6> <h4><strong>On November 20, 1975, a “taciturn autocrat with a mediocre face,” a “provocative general, leader of a victorious military insurrection, an all-powerful dictator,” the man who “ruled Spain with an authoritarian hand for 39 years,” the “last and most successful fascist dictator in Europe,” a man whose death “put an end to 36 years of dictatorial rule,” died in Madrid. These are some of the terms the international press used to report on the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the fiftieth anniversary of which is being commemorated. The Spanish press, obviously, could not afford such liberties.</strong></h4> William Chislett, a staff writer for the prestigious British newspaper The Times, was at that time one of the few international correspondents in that “second-rate European country” called Spain, as he himself recalls (the pejorative expression is not Chislett's; he is simply noting a widespread opinion at the time, even within Spain itself). The main news agencies (Reuters, Associated Press, and UPI) had offices in Madrid, but only a few major media outlets (The New York Times, Time, The Daily Telegraph, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, De Telegraaf, and the BBC) had permanent correspondents, the rest making do with hiring freelance journalists. The situation changed suddenly with the news of Franco's deteriorating health. Faced with what was presented as a historic turning point, prestigious newspapers such as the Financial Times, The Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times, in addition to The Times itself, decided to send some of their top reporters to Madrid, as was the case with Chislett, who arrived in the country in the summer of 1974, when the dictator suffered his first serious health crisis, raising serious concerns for his life. From August 1975, Chislett worked at The Times as an assistant to Harry Debelius, correspondent for the newspaper and other media outlets, such as Voice of America, ITN, and the BBC, in an office located in a building belonging to the evening newspaper Informaciones. As Chislett recalls, international correspondents, however democratic their countries of origin, were forced to work under the circumstances of a dictatorship that considered the press "an instrument at the service of state policy." Foreign journalists were free to write whatever they wanted, but their reports had to be submitted to the Ministry of Information. All copies of foreign publications had to be sent to the Ministry the moment they arrived at Barajas Airport, before their sale at Spanish newsstands could be authorized (or not), or, at best, their distribution in Spain could be hindered. As a result, several media outlets (The Times, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine, in particular) were especially affected by these restrictions, so their correspondents opted to "publish at the end of each month the number of days on which the distribution of their publications had been prohibited." "This decision greatly displeased the government, which wanted to give the impression abroad that foreign newspapers could be distributed without restrictions in Spain," recalls the British correspondent. "This decision greatly displeased the government." For their part, both Televisión Española (TVE) and Radio Nacional de España (RNE) went to great lengths to glorify and, in doing so, downplay the international media's coverage of Franco's death, without going into details and, of course, avoiding any critical content. The program "España a las ocho" (Spain at Eight), broadcast by RNE on November 21, alluded to the "unprecedented coverage" by the media in West Germany, the praise of Franco as a "great man" in Italian newspapers, the fact that "such extensive obituaries had never been seen" in British newspapers, and that the New York Times had dedicated a full page to the event amidst "maximum media attention." <h5><strong>The French press</strong></h5> Despite everything, the international press more than fulfilled its responsibilities inherent to freedom of expression during that period, responsibilities that Spanish journalists obviously did not enjoy. One of the countries that showed the most interest in news from Spain was, understandably, France. From the very moment Franco's first hospitalization was announced in July 1974, the French press focused on a topic that, as could be expected, they treated as the first step toward the end of the Franco regime. In the case of French radio stations, things were complicated by a "logistical" problem: the news of his death caught them in the middle of a strike, and they were unable to report it in time. News from Spain came in rapid succession between October and November 1975. On November 1, the renowned cartoonist Plantu, of the liberal daily Le Monde, depicted the dictator in striped pajamas, reading a newspaper in bed with the headline “Franco’s Obituary.” Around the same time, the “republican right-wing” newspaper, Le Figaro, ran a two-column headline: “The Caudillo’s Illness: Political Imperative and Medical Ethics.” Both newspapers followed Franco’s illness with particular interest, and on November 21, the day after “the biological event” (a euphemism coined by the regime to refer to the dictator’s death), both Le Monde and Le Figaro led with the exact same headline: “General Franco is dead.” Le Monde ran a five-column headline and reported that the dictator would be buried “next to José Antonio Primo de Rivera.” On its front page, the newspaper, which described the deceased as a “taciturn autocrat with a mediocre face, the archetype of the cold monster,” included a review titled “The Far Right Mobilizes Its Troops,” explaining that Franco had died as an absolute monarch, surrounded by his courtiers and with the status of head of state until the very end. With his death, “an entire history collapses, a fragmented façade crumbles into a thousand pieces.” For its part, Le Figaro referred to Franco as the “man of the Crusade” and defined him as “a provocative general, leader of a victorious military insurrection, an all-powerful dictator, accomplice and ally of France’s worst enemies.” That memory of the distant past was also illustrated by another great cartoonist from Le Monde, Konk, who depicted Saint Peter holding three keys, with an angel in front of him giving the Nazi salute and holding a book in his right hand entitled Gott Mis Uns (God with us, in German), as a kind of spiritual testament from Franco. Le Monde also dedicated a tribute, with figures, to the million people who died during the Civil War, the 500,000 exiles and 300,000 political prisoners registered during the dictatorship (not including the estimated 50,000 or so executed during the postwar period, already in "peace"), and the "half a million defeated Republicans" who ended up in "three prisons and fifteen concentration camps in France," in a clear condemnation of the French government's treatment of Spanish refugees. The two newspapers mentioned gave extensive coverage not only to Franco's death, but to the entire Transition process. Between November 1975 and December 1978 (the approval of the current Constitution), Le Monde dedicated more than 850 news articles and 56 headlines to the political process in Spain, figures surpassed only by the British media. <h5><strong>The British press</strong></h5> Indeed, the UK newspapers followed everything that happened in Spain during that period with enormous attention, especially The Times, which, with 1,261 articles, was the newspaper that published the most news about our country during the aforementioned three-year period. With two correspondents of the caliber of the late Harry Debelius (who had been in Spain for twenty years and whom ABC even accused of participating in “a propaganda campaign against the unity of Spain” because of some reports about the Basque Country) and the aforementioned William Chislett, the great pioneer of the British press reported the dictator's death with the headline “General Franco appeals on his deathbed to his enemies to forgive him.” After explaining in detail the terms of the will read live by the Prime Minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, the newspaper highlighted the sense of calm that reigned in Madrid: “Apart from the fact that most of the city center's population carries at least one newspaper, there is little to indicate that Franco has ceased to exist today.” However, according to The Times, the international perception was very different: “Most of the world sees Franco's death as an opportunity to establish a democratic regime in Madrid.” “Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister, who recently described Franco as a ‘bloody murderer,’ said today that his death raises hopes that the necessary steps will be taken to give the Spanish people the opportunity to build a society based on freedom, social justice, and democracy.” “Franco ruled as if politics were a branch of military science,” the London newspaper added in its obituary for the dictator. The rest of the British press was much more belligerent. This was the case with The Sun, which didn't dedicate its front page to Franco's death but did refer to it on the second page with a striking headline: “The last fascist.” “Generalissimo Francisco Franco was the last and most victorious fascist dictator in Europe. He had triumphed because he had survived. Until yesterday.” Another newspaper with a typically sensationalist tone, The Daily Mail, published a “Requiem for Fascism.” The text is devastating: “For us, his death holds unshakeable symbolic significance. A terrible era in human history has been definitively brought to a close. The age of Fascism is over. The last of these little men in military boots is gone, those repulsive and comical little men who ravaged half a century. Only Charles Chaplin remains to dance on their graves.” The Daily Mirror resorted to the most subtle irony. The front-page headline was simply: “Miss Spain ends her meteoric rise.” Miss Spain (Olga Fernández Pérez, 18 years old) had decided to voluntarily withdraw from the Miss World pageant to attend Franco's funeral. That was the front-page story. Inside, a common caption illustrated the images of Franco and Prince Juan Carlos and Princess Sofía: “Last decree of the dead dictator: FORGIVE ME!” The British public broadcaster, the BBC, was more concise in its coverage. After highlighting that Franco had ruled “with an iron fist for 39 years (including, therefore, the three years of the Civil War)” and mentioning the will read by Arias Navarro, it concluded with a very expressive paragraph: “General Franco victoriously led the Nationalist armies against the loyalists during the Civil War in the 1930s, with the support of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy.” <h5><strong>The USSR</strong></h5> One of the countries whose press reacted most quickly to Franco's death was, ironically, the Soviet Union, whose restrictions on freedom of information were comparable to those in Spain. As EFE reported at the time, both the TASS news agency and Radio Moscow picked up the story almost immediately, simply adding that, according to the Law of Succession, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón would succeed the dictator as King. However, a few days later, as revealed in a cable from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Eurasian Affairs (released by WikiLeaks), the official newspaper Pravda warned that the "reactionary oligarchy" would do everything possible to preserve Francoism without Franco, but that "the working class, the workers, all the democratic forces of the country" would firmly strive to bring about political change. <h5><strong>The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune</strong></h5> Across the Atlantic, The New York Times featured Franco's death on its front page, noting that he had died "after 36 years of dictatorial rule in Spain." "In his final days, his struggle for physical survival was linked in the minds of many Spaniards to the political survival of the authoritarian regime he founded," the New York newspaper wrote. "Even before his death, the Spanish political world was focusing its discussion on what the post-Franco era might look like under Juan Carlos," it added. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune took a more balanced approach to judging Franco: "Hated by his enemies, revered by his admirers, feared by many, and perhaps misunderstood by many more." Separately, the powerful International Herald Tribune (whose members, The New York Times and The Washington Post, jointly dedicated more than a thousand articles to Spain between November 1975 and December 1978) reported that, “with the death of General Franco at age 82, 36 years of dictatorial rule have come to an end” and the conditions are now in place for Spain to “calmly” begin “a new era with Prince Juan Carlos, its first king since 1931.” After reporting the most obvious details (the circumstances of the death, the will), the American newspaper added that Juan Carlos would take “the name King Juan Carlos I, given that his father, Don Juan, Count of Barcelona, has refused to renounce his aspirations to the throne.”
