Word: madrid
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hardliners, alarmed by the leftward turn of events in Portugal. The promised "freedom of political association" never materialized. Almost inevitably, muted anti-Franco opposition turned to violence. Separatist movements in the four northern Basque provinces and in Catalonia gained momentum, and this summer FRAP emerged, gunning down policemen in Madrid and Barcelona...
...bomb threat at the Louvre, the first in the museum's history, sent police hunting through hundreds of Egyptian sarcophagi and Oriental vases. Early last week a delegation of French artists and intellectuals-among them Actor Yves Montand and Leftist Author Régis Debray-flew to Madrid to protest the sentences. They were quickly expelled. Official notes of protest were issued by the European Economic Community and United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. Even Pope Paul VI issued a personal plea for clemency...
...thing to urge liberalization of the Franco regime; it is something else again to expect that regime to tolerate terrorists. Spanish officials were dismayed at the outcry. They note that while Spain has had eight executions since 1960, France has had ten (admittedly nonpolitical) since 1964. The Madrid government is torn between its desire to win European respectability and its response to public opinion at home, which runs strongly against political terrorism. Says a highly placed aide in the Spanish Cabinet: "It is a dilemma of conscience. The man in the street, your cook, your taxi driver, is very happy...
Awaiting Trial. Franco responded to the terrorism by increasing security forces and setting up strict border watches to prevent infiltration of political dissidents from France and Portugal. In recent weeks there have been elaborate roundups of suspected terrorists in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao, with as many as 82 arrests in a single day. An estimated 200 now await trial by military tribunals...
...cost Spain more than moral opprobrium. While Franco's regime was being denounced in Western Europe last week, Spanish diplomats in Washington were negotiating a new five-year treaty of "friendship and cooperation" with the U.S. In return for continued American use of four military bases in Spain, Madrid was asking for nearly $2 billion in U.S. military equipment. By week's end, however, the otherwise friendless regime was reportedly willing to settle for $750 million and a handshake...