Word: pardo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...been wielding for nearly four decades. Severely weakened by a series of heart attacks, Western Europe's last dictator at week's end was barely hanging on to life. As the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church were administered, his family gathered at El Pardo Palace, his countrymen waited expectantly for word of the inevitable, and officials prepared for a three-day national mourning period...
...side-had appeared on the Royal Palace balcony to accept the homage of a mass rally in Madrid's Plaza de Oriente and he seemed vigorous for a man of his years (TIME, Oct. 13). Then, in the midst of an Oct. 17 Cabinet meeting at El Pardo Palace, his official residence outside Madrid, he announced that he was feeling queasy and excused himself from the room. The next morning Spain was swept by rumors about the state of his health...
...backing to allow him to tell the enfeebled dictator it was time to step aside. Only the family members and some of Franco's closest and oldest aides refused to concur. When told about the doctors' announcement of Franco's setback, Arias apparently rushed to El Pardo Palace to get a signature on a document transferring authority to Juan Carlos. The doctors, however, stopped the Premier from entering the sickroom, warning that "it would kill Franco to take a pen in his hand...
After the death of Carrero Blanco, Franco spent most of his time behind the walls of El Pardo Palace, a luxurious retreat on the fringes of Madrid built by King Charles V in 1543. Except for occasional fishing trips aboard his yacht the Azor or official visits to the Valley of the Fallen, a monumental Civil War Memorial that was at one time intended to serve as his tomb, Franco rarely emerged from his palace. Even the fishing trips must have become a dispiriting confirmation of the mortality he hated to acknowledge, a further assault on the pride he took...
...other executions also took place that day as planned, one in Burgos and the other in Barcelona. There was no word from El Pardo Palace of Franco's activities of the day. Certainly the gas-station attendant had been ill-informed when he claimed that Franco always goes out on Saturdays...