Пол Престон – Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy (страница 14)

The day at Las Jarillas began with daily mass at which Juan Carlos often served as an altar boy. This was followed by the ritual raising of the Spanish flag. Although classes followed the general Spanish curriculum, there was – as might have been expected of a school whose teachers were all fervent monarchists – a degree of laxity when it came to Francoist political indoctrination. Fernando Falcó y Fernández de Córdoba remembered that, when they sat the exam for what the regime called ‘Formación del Espíritu Nacional’ (Formation of the National Spirit), none of the class knew the Falangist hymn ‘Cara al sol’ by heart. To avoid the scandal that this might provoke in Franco’s Spain, the exam question was magically replaced by another. The children were also given the opportunity to experience some aspects of ordinary life at Las Jarillas. José Luis Leal Maldonado recalled that the Las Jarillas football team always lost to the visiting team of the Las Palomas school. Juan José Macaya recalled a day when the boys discovered a hen house in the grounds of the estate. In spite of – or perhaps in reaction to – the discipline enforced at the school, they proceeded to kill several hens.⁹

In spite of Juan Carlos’s apparent contentment, certain aspects of his new life in Spain must have been difficult. Outside monarchist circles, his arrival in Spain had been greeted by some with a wave of ill feeling. With the exception of the monarchist daily ABC, the controlled press had marked his arrival with a series of articles featuring malicious and laconic comments about the young Prince, as well as carefully selected, mostly blurry photographs which made him look devious and sly.¹⁰ Rumours were spread to the effect that the young Prince was a sadist who watered the plants at Las Jarillas with lime in order to kill them.¹¹ Already at the age of ten, he was obliged to devote many hours to replying to the many cards and letters that arrived for him. He also served an apprenticeship in the boring business of official audiences for the endless streams of monarchists who, after securing the appropriate permission from the Duque de Sotomayor, visited him. Among them was the ineffable General José Millán Astray who arrived accompanied by his permanent escort of Legionnaires. He startled the Prince by shouting, ‘Highness! May the Virgin protect us.’ The tedium was mitigated by the obligatory gifts which ranged from boxes of chocolates to a magnificent electric car.¹²

A week before the end of his first term, Juan Carlos was visited by the monarchist General Antonio Aranda, a Nationalist hero of the Civil War. Aranda took notes of their conversation: ‘the boy is very likeable, lively and intelligent, I was utterly charmed by him since I thought he would be more sullen and he’s quite the opposite. He asked me about the Army and aeroplanes. This is what excites him and when I explained things to him in detail, he was really pleased. Just then, from the downstairs room where we were talking, we spotted a group of overdressed ladies and gentlemen arriving and the Prince, with total spontaneity and frankness, burst out, “What a drag! They’re coming to interrupt us! Weren’t you really having a good time telling me all this stuff? I know I was enjoying listening to you. Why don’t those people just go away?”’ The Duque de Sotomayor glided in to inform the Prince that he had to receive these new visitors. It was indicative of the ambiguous loyalties of the supposed supporters of Don Juan that Aranda’s notes soon found their way onto Franco’s desk.¹³

At the end of term, Juan Carlos returned home to Estoril for the Christmas holidays. Towards the end of December, José María Gil Robles took his own children and Juan Carlos to the zoo in Lisbon. With great sensibility, he reflected on the power struggle between Don Juan and Franco, in which the Prince played the role of shuttlecock. Gil Robles was struck by Juan Carlos’s subdued and sombre demeanour: ‘He is still just a child and entirely likeable, but I find him serious beyond his years and even rather sad, as though he were aware of the battle being fought over him. Watching him play in the park yesterday, and later at home, I could not avoid a feeling of sorrow. He is a loveable child. When I think about his future, I feel real compassion for him. What does the future hold for this little boy who, at the age of ten, is the object of such a bitter struggle?’¹⁴

In January 1949, Juan Carlos returned to Las Jarillas. However, his sojourn there was dependent on the continuing ceasefire between his father and the dictator. Hostilities were once more imminent. Gil Robles complained bitterly that Franco was failing to fulfil any of the promises made to Don Juan on the Azor. Instructions had been issued that any references to Don Juan had to be to ‘His Highness the Conde de Barcelona’ which appalled the monarchists who referred to him as ‘His Majesty King Juan III’. Juan Carlos was denied the right to use his proper title of Príncipe de Asturias, and was to be referred to only as ‘His Royal Highness Prince Juan Carlos’.¹⁵ Throughout 1949, the relationship between Franco and Don Juan deteriorated and Juan Carlos would be the victim. Although Gil Robles and Sainz Rodríguez continually urged Don Juan to recognize that Franco would never make way for the monarchy, he continued to hope, on the basis of the blandishments of Danvila.

The Caudillo made occasional token gestures to ingratiate himself with monarchists, by giving the impression that he was devoted to their cause. Although determined never to cede power to Don Juan, Franco wanted to maintain the credibility bestowed by the link with him. At the end of February, for instance, he attended a mass in El Escorial on the anniversary of the death of Alfonso XIII and was extremely anxious to secure the presence of Juan Carlos at the annual parade to commemorate the Nationalist victory in the Civil War. According to Gil Robles, ‘He is determined that the Prince should watch the parade from a special tribune, lower than his own. The troops in the march-past will be ordered to render him full honours.’ Under intense pressure from Gil Robles, Don Juan informed a disappointed Danvila that his son would not be attending the parade.¹⁶ On 18 May 1949, at the opening of the Cortes, as if in retaliation, Franco made a long, rambling, self-congratulatory speech including, en passant, disparaging remarks about Alfonso XIII and his mother Queen María Cristina.¹⁷ As a result, Don Juan’s more militant supporters urged Juan Carlos’s immediate return to Estoril.

Oblivious to the gathering storm clouds, Juan Carlos returned to Estoril at the end of May 1949 for summer holidays which would last for nearly 17 months. At the beginning of July, Don Juan wrote to Eugenio Vegas Latapié, inviting him to Portugal and commenting, ‘Juanito is back from Spain full of the joys of spring. He always remembers you with great affection.’ Juan Carlos himself wrote to Vegas Latapié on 17 July, repeating the invitation. After a cruise in the Mediterranean with the entire family, Don Juan left for a hunting party in Scotland on 23 August. Vegas arrived at about the same time and spent nearly a month with Juan Carlos, one day taking him to see a doctor because he had broken a finger. When asked how he broke it, the boy replied ‘thumping my sister Pilar’.¹⁸ In opposition to the views of Gil Robles and Sainz Rodríguez, Queen Victoria Eugenia believed that Juan Carlos should return to Las Jarillas after the summer holidays. She was concerned that the boy’s life should not be turned upside down yet again although, in her determination to see her family once more on the throne in Madrid, she also inclined to Danvila’s view that Franco should be placated at all costs. Juan Carlos remained in Estoril while Don Juan dithered.

However, many of his supporters, including the Duque de Alba, Franco’s wartime Ambassador in London, expressed outrage at Franco’s exploitation of his good will. Gil Robles and Sainz Rodríguez worked at persuading Don Juan to drop the duplicitous Danvila and to refuse to allow Juan Carlos to return to Spain. He finally made up his mind after a long conversation with Gil Robles on 26 September 1949. Attempting to put some backbone into his master, Gil Robles baldly pointed out that his collaboration with Franco had severely undermined his credibility. The same man who had been moved by Juan Carlos’s sadness some months earlier now said, ‘Your Majesty must consider that the Prince is the only weapon that he has left against Franco. If you agree in the same terms as last year, you will be disarmed for good.’ Yet again it was obvious that, in Estoril, the needs of a future monarchical restoration would always be of far greater importance than the needs of the child. Don Juan was finally shaken out of his indecision when the plain-speaking Gil Robles made a prophetic warning: ‘Do not think you are indispensable. Within a few years, many will be placing their hopes on the Prince: some in good faith; others out of sheer ambition.’¹⁹