Word: leopoldo
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Since the failed coup attempt, Spanish civilian politicians, led by Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, have moved far more cautiously in liberalizing one of Western Europe's most monolithic and centralized governments, and Madrid has thrown the national police into a straightforward drive against the terrorists with a good deal of success. So far this year ETA killings are down to 28, about half the 1980 rate. Last week the government announced the arrest of seven alleged ETA members in Vizcaya province and the seizure of substantial quantities of arms and ammunition. In an attempt to rebuild its popularity...
Faced with these questions, Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotek>last week told the Cortes, the country's parliament, that "we do not know" who was behind the bank raid. Some high officials believe, however, that members of the political underworld are being recruited and trained for terrorist operations with military or police connivance, and that the financiers are wealthy supporters of the old Franco regime, who are deliberately trying to destabilize Spain. As the evidence mounted, Prime Minister Calvo-Sotelo finally admitted that the bank raid was "not an isolated action of common criminals...
...himself in the plot, as well as a number of high-ranking army officers, even though the King repudiated the plotters and almost singlehandedly prevented a takeover. Juan Carlos has denied the charge, but most political analysts agree that the leaked testimony will put additional pressure on Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo to avoid a full-dress court martial of Tejero. Such an exercise would almost certainly embarrass the throne, infuriate the army and possibly precipitate another coup...
...that changed, however, less than a month after the aborted coup when ETA gunmen killed two army colonels. Suárez's successor, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, felt compelled to grant the army and navy limited, border-patrolling duty in the Basque region-a first step, critics charge, toward a new cycle of violence and repression whose main victim could be democratic government in Spain...
...this explosive atmosphere, the new Prime Minister, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, chose to proceed as if he were walking through a minefield-which he was. To assert civilian control over restive soldiers, Calvo-Sotelo had to crack down on the known conspirators, but not so hard as to trigger another putsch. To remove the roots of discontent in the armed forces, he also needed to show rapid progress in curbing the Basque separatist terrorists, whose bloody attacks against the paramilitary Guardia Civil and police had inflamed the franquista officers. Here too, Calvo-Sotelo had a problem...