Everything about Luis Carrero Blanco totally explained
Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco (
March 4,
1903,
Santoña,
Cantabria –
December 20,
1973,
Madrid) was a
Spanish admiral and statesman.
Biography
Luis Carrero Blanco entered the
Escuela Naval Militar, the Spanish Naval Academy, in 1918 and participated in the Moroccan campaign of 1924-1926.
In July
1936, when the
Spanish Civil War erupted, Carrero Blanco found himself behind the coalescing
Republican line. Taking refuge in the embassy of
Mexico and later that of
France, he was able to sneak across the front and reach the
Nationalist side in June of 1937. Carrero Blanco then served in the Nationalist navy. After the Nationalist victory and subsequent installation of
Generalísimo Francisco Franco as military dictator (
Caudillo) of Spain, Carrero Blanco became one of his closest collaborators as well a chief of naval operations. He was said to be in opposition to Spain entering
World War II on the side of the
Axis powers, a notably different political position compared to some other
Falangists. Carrero Blanco himself was a
monarchist. Devoted to the
Roman Catholic Church, he was close to
Opus Dei.
With the infusion of American capital in the 1950s, the Franco regime's Falangist policies were liberalized, without relaxing authoritarian control. The Falange syndicalists resisted the economic opening of the regime to capitalistic influences, while the technocrats of Opus Dei "de-emphasized the role of the syndicates and favored increased competition as a means of achieving rapid economic growth. The technocrats prevailed, and members of Opus Dei assumed significant posts in Franco's 1957 cabinet" (
U.S. Library of Congress
). Carrero Blanco, without explicitly supporting political liberalization, aspired to economic integration with European markets. Carrero Blanco became a minister in Franco's regime in
1957.
Carrero Blanco was made vice-admiral (
1963) and admiral in
1966; he held the post of vice-president of the state council from
1967 to 1973.
His political career reached its zenith in June 1973 upon being named
Prime Minister of Spain and made a top deputy to Franco. It seemed as though it was only a matter of time before he'd succeed the ailing dictator.
1973 assassination
Within about six months of being named prime minister, Carrero Blanco was assassinated in
Madrid by four
Basque members of
ETA, who carried out a bombing while he returned from mass in an
Dodge 3700. ETA placed 80-100 kg of explosives in a tunnel they'd excavated under the street. The blast catapulted the vehicle over the church in front of which it had been parked, and it landed on a second floor balcony on the other side.
In their manifesto, justifying the murder, ETA wrote:
"The execution in itself had an order and some clear objectives. From the beginning of 1951 Carrero Blanco practically occupied the government headquarters in the regime. Carrero Blanco symbolized better than anyone else the figure of "pure Francoism" and without totally linking himself to any of the Francoist tendencies, he covertly attempted to push Opus Dei into power. A man without scruples conscientiously mounted his own State within the State: he created a network of informers within the Ministries, in the Army, in the Falange, and also in Opus Dei. His police managed to put themselves into all the Francoist apparatus. Thus he made himself the key element of the system and a fundamental piece of the oligarchy's political game. On the other hand, he came to be irreplaceable for his experience and capacity to maneuver and because nobody managed as he did to maintain the internal equilibrium of Francoism [...]".
This assassination, dubbed
Operación Ogro, was in retaliation for the execution of five political opponents by the regime (including some members of ETA) and was applauded by many opponents of the Francoist government. Since Carrero Blanco could have become the most powerful figure in Spain upon Franco's passing, his death was instrumental in the transition toward a democratic government in that country.
In his first speech to the Cortes on
February 12,
1974, Carrero Blanco's successor, the new prime minister
Carlos Arias Navarro, promised liberalizing reforms including the right to form political associations. Though he was denounced by hardliners within the regime, the transition had begun.
1978 reprisal assassination of Argala
One of the ETA members who had assassinated Carrero Blanco was himself assassinated by a car bomb in the south of France on December 21, 1978, by a Spanish far right group organized from inside the Navy (including one member of the
CESID secret service, another one of the
Servicio de Inteligencia Naval and the other belonging to the
Alto Estado Mayor), which received assistance from former
OAS member
Jean Pierre Cherid, former
Triple A Argentine member
José María Bocccardo and Italian
neofascist Mario Ricci, member of
Avanguardia Nazionale.
Argala, as the ETA member was known, was the only one who could identify the mysterious man who handed up to ETA Carrero Blanco's schedule and itinerary. According to Leonidas, former member of the Spanish Army who participated to the bombing against Argala, "the explosives came from a North-American base. I don't remember with exactitude if it was from
Torrejón or
Rota, but I do know that the Americans didn't know what for they'd be used. It was a personal favor they made to Pedro el Marino" (alias Pedro Martínez) who provided the explosives. Argala's assassination was claimed by the
Batallón Vasco Español (BVE). However, according to Leonidas, "BVE,
ATE or "
Triple A" are only labels of convenience used by the same group .
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