Word: caudillo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...early as 1949, after the U.S. had excluded Spain from NATO and the Marshall Plan and voted against its acceptance into the U.N., redbaiting cold warriors had begun to show support for Franco. One Congressional representative, James J. Murphy (D-N.Y.), even called E1 Caudillo a "lovely and lovable character." President Truman had a different assessment of Franco's personality. He was reported as saying to the admiral he sent to deal with the Spanish government, "I don't like Franco and I never will, but I won't let my personal feelings override the convictions of you military...
...delay tactic; Kissinger probably wants to wait until after the shift of power. And sizing up the nature of this shift seems to have been the reason for Ford's visit to Madrid, where he reportedly spent more time with Prince Juan Carlos than with El Caudillo...
...people admire a fighter more than the Spanish, who prize la valentia y el coraje (valor and mettle). This is why even his foes voiced respect for Generalissimo Francisco Franco last week. Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Spain's frail, 82-year-old Caudillo suffered a heart attack that would probably have killed most men. Yet neither that nor a chain reaction of complications that followed broke the dictator's grip on life. Franco's physicians and the Spaniards who gathered outside the Pardo Palace to pray or wait had no doubts about the outcome...
Throughout the next week, Franco alternately rallied and faded closer to death. Then last week the doctors decided to act. With no choice and hoping that el Caudillo was strong enough to withstand surgery, they had him wheeled from his bedroom to the infirmary of his personal guard's barracks, 200 yards from the palace, for an attempt to halt the massive internal hemorrhaging. In a three-hour operation, Dr. Manuel Hidalgo Huerta, an old friend, removed one bleeding ulcer from the wall of Franco's stomach and tied a large gastric artery that carries blood...
Juan Carlos assumed all of Franco's powers, except the positions of head of the Movimiento National and of generalissimo of "the Three Armies"-posts el Caudillo retains for life. The Prince, however, already wields sufficient authority to launch Spain's post-Franco epoch. His first official function, in fact, clearly symbolized that power had been transferred to him; he presided over Friday's Cabinet meeting, which was held around the dining-room table of his Zarzuela Palace rather than in the dining room of Franco's El Pardo...