Word: franco
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Caudillo, who has looked all of his 82 years since he suffered a near-fatal illness in mid-1974, was a dramatic reminder of how much more the regime needs to do to relax its often harsh rule and prepare Spain for a smooth transition into a post-Franco era once the Generalissimo dies or, less likely, steps down. At a time when Spain badly needs closer ties with Western Europe to help sustain its rise to prosperity and ease the coming transition, an all but irrational outburst of anti-Spanish emotions in European capitals has left the country more...
...anti-Spanish street demonstrations were clearly the handiwork of left-wing groups, a much broader spectrum was represented by the astonishing number of political leaders who damned the Spanish regime with rhetoric usually reserved for wartime enemies. Britain's Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, almost joyfully asserted that the Franco government was in its death throes, and Italian Christian Democrat Paolo Cabras branded the regime "a continuing curse against all free men." Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme described the Madrid government as so many "satanic murderers"; Reiulf Steen, chairman of Norway's ruling Labor Party, defined the Franco regime...
Papal Displeasure. Just about everyone with some claim to public authority seized the opportunity to take a poke at Madrid. In Turkey, Ankara's Mayor Vedat Dalokay not only denounced the Franco regime for having "committed a crime against all humanity," but ordered that the supply of water and electricity to the local Spanish embassy be cut off (the Turkish government quickly overruled...
Most painful for Franco, perhaps, was the displeasure demonstrated by the Vatican. Pope Paul VI denounced the executions as "murderous repression" -language exceedingly rare for the Holy See to direct toward any state and especially Spain, with which it has long maintained very strong ties...
...times last week this xenophobia became violent. While Franco addressed the rally, gangs of rightist youths roamed Madrid's streets, roughing up foreigners. Windows were smashed at the posh Castellana Hotel, apparently for no reason other than that the main entrance was flanked by poles flying foreign flags. The U.S., which did not join in the international denunciations, was pointedly spared such treatment. One group of young Franco supporters paused during a march in Madrid's diplomatic quarter to shake hands with the machine-gun-toting Spanish policemen guarding the U.S. embassy...