Spain on the Eve

This report was completed in the middle of June and is based on a visit to Spain in May and early June. Early in July, the King dismissed the previous Prime Minister, and the new Prime Minister’s cabinet did not include Sen”or Fraga and other key reformists whose orientation I discuss. Rather than to rewrite the report, I prefer to let it stand as is, and have added a postscript assessing the new situation.—L. C.

When Senor Manuel Fraga Iribarne, then the Minister of the Interior, intellectual fountainhead and strongman of the Spanish government’s “reformist” wing, received me in his office, I could not fail to note the huge portrait of the young King over his desk. As I left I passed in his antechamber, though in a much less conspicuous place, a smaller photograph of Franco. This might well symbolize the present political climate in Spain. The reform tendencies are fairly evident. The official reformist spokesmen proclaim over and over that Spain will now enter an era of democracy, yet Franco’s authoritarian heritage, like a huge mortgage, still weighs down all attempts at reform

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