Spanish Intelligence in the Early Days of Late-Francoism: Fault Lines and Continuity

Abstract

Conflicting factions within the late-Francoist regime, starting around 1968, prompted a slow-paced decline of the regime’s internal power structures, with an uncertain expiry date. Clandestine groups within universities and workers’ organizations pressed for regime change at different levels, and voices also emerged from within the Catholic Church and the army, often with the aim of restoring Spain’s international relations with its European neighbors and ending isolation. Increasingly rattled by the violence and the organized terrorist activity of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the repressive apparatus of the regime was determined not to relinquish control. It retaliated with large doses of information, disinformation, propaganda, and outright violence. Late-Francoist Spain thus presents a case study of practices and dynamics initiated during a nondemocratic period, whose legacy survived over the years and influenced the intelligence apparatus of the democratic country in which the Spanish now live.