Word: spain
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Beyond Houston, the communications web stretches around the earth-and above it. Key parts of the network are the huge radiotelescope dishes at Goldstone, Calif., Madrid, Spain, and Canberra, Australia, 17 ground stations, four U.S. Navy ships scattered over the seas and eight communications planes-all receiving and transmitting vital bits of data throughout the mission. No one is more aware than the astronauts themselves of how impossible a flight would be without such support...
...found in the person of Prince Juan Carlos of Borbón, who has been perfectly trained to take up the high mission to which he might be called, I have decided to propose him to the nation as my successor." Thus Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who has ruled Spain for the past 32 years, presented his chosen successor to the Cortes, Spain's tame Parliament. In a roll-call vote, the Cortes overwhelmingly and obediently endorsed Franco's choice...
...delegation from the Cortes drove to the Prince's palace outside Madrid to inform him officially that he would succeed Franco as Chief of State when the Caudillo, now 76, steps down or dies. Later the same day, Juan Carlos, whose new official title is Prince of Spain, drove to the Cortes for the investiture. Kneeling at Franco's left, the Prince swore his loyalty "to his Excellency the Chief of State and fidelity to the principles of the National Movement, and the fundamental laws of the Kingdom...
...Dynasty. Then the Prince of Spain made a five-minute speech that raised some doubts about whether he is really as tame and tractable as he is supposed to be. After declaring his sympathy for Spain's rebellious youth, the Prince declared that "the cult of the past must not be a brake on the evolution of a society that is changing with dizzying rapidity." Despite the obvious allusion to a need for reform and accommodation in Spain's archaic social structure, Franco smiled at the Prince throughout the speech...
Franco insists that selection of Juan Carlos, whose ancestors ruled Spain for 231 years before his grandfather fled the throne in 1931, does not represent a restoration of the old dynasty. On the contrary, he argues, Juan Carlos represents the start of a new dynasty that owes nothing to the past. From a legal standpoint, Franco's ploy blocks the claims of Juan Carlos' father Don Juan, (who now lives in Portugal) and those of other pretenders to the throne, since Franco has not restored the old line but started a new one, whose first-born sons will...