Back from Exile?

The whispering behind locked Spanish royalist doors in Switzerland was all but deafening. Spain's royal family, in exile since 1931, was getting interested in the situation at home.

On the ninth anniversary of Spain's Civil War, Franco announced to the National Council of the Spanish Falange (fascist) Party the first step in his plan to adjust Spanish policy to the world's new climate: Spain, as a Catholic State, would in due course return to its traditional monarchy. When the time came for the dynasty to replace the dictator, the Cortes would receive its instructions.

Three days later the Generalissimo took a second step. From his 13-man Cabinet he fired nine Ministers, most of them Falangists (e.g., Falange Secretary-General Jose Luis Arrese). Of the new Ministers, some are monarchists (e.g.. Army Minister General Jose Fidel Davila).

In Switzerland royalist eardrums were strained almost to the bursting point. But the awaited word was not heard. Franco, though clearly a monarchist, had failed to say who would be king--or when.

Pretenders & Princes. Spain's Pretender is Don Juan, 32, youngest surviving son of the late King Alfonso XIII, but there is no love lost between the Pretender and the Generalissimo. In Lausanne, Don

Juan was "not impressed" by the Franco performance. He pointed instead to his own manifesto of last March (TIME, April 2), urging Franco to resign and make way for a democratic monarchy. In a Pretender, patience and perseverance are almost prerequisites, and in his 14 years abroad Don Juan had learned to wait.

He might have to wait some time. For at week's end Generalissimo Franco played his own prince. Through "informed diplomatic quarters" he let it be known that he was thinking of offering the kingship to Prince Alfonso Jaime, 9, son of Pretender Don Juan's elder (and deaf) brother Don Jaime, 37, who renounced his claim to the throne in 1933.

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