Word: madrid
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...head of government to Carrero Blanco, 70, who presumably would have become the real power behind Juan Carlos after Franco's death. That plan died along with Carrero Blanco in December 1973 when Basque terrorists set off an explosive charge as the admiral drove from morning Mass at Madrid's San Francisco de Borja Church...
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...
...ended with the capture of Madrid by Franco's forces in early 1939. More than 500,000 Spaniards had been killed in the fighting; nearly 100,000 more were victims of wartime terror and firing squads. There were to be other victims. Franco's victorious forces took a bloody and merciless revenge on their political enemies. Between 1939 and 1942, nearly 2 million people were imprisoned by the Franco regime for supporting the Loyalists, and perhaps 200,000 of them were executed...
...murmur about the need for social freedoms and political privileges to accompany the economic advances. Franco, determined to maintain firm control over all aspects of Spanish life, would not sanction such reforms and indeed did not understand the need for them. Students demonstrated for educational reforms at universities in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Santiago, Valencia and Seville and doggedly battled police who sought to stop them. Liberal priests and moderate bishops changed the Roman Catholic Church from a staunch supporter of the regime to an independent and often critical force for change. Increasingly rebellious workers defied the government-run syndicates that...
Spain is ready to give up the Sahara but has wanted the territory's 70,000 nomads to decide their fate by referendum. Madrid asked the U.N. Security Council to act to halt what it called the Moroccan invasion; the Security Council asked for moderation on all sides. At the same time, Madrid sent a special envoy, José Solis Ruiz, head of the National Movement, to Marrakech to talk to Hassan. Solis and the King are old friends, and the Spaniard said that their discussions were conducted in "an atmosphere of extraordinary friendliness." The Moroccan government said, however...