El Caudillo

More than 100,000 Spaniards dug out faded blue shirts and jaunty red berets last week, and traveled in wheezing trucks, buses and trains into Madrid. They carried food in paper bags, and their fat wineskins gurgled. Along silent streets, devoid of trappings or large 'crowds, thousands of them marched in units to the capital's big soccer stadium. Only there, with fluttering banners, the blare of martial music and the thud of boots, did it seem at all like the old days. Veterans of the Blue Division sported Nazi -Iron Crosses on their chests. The huge crowd roared and raised fists into a forest of Fascist salutes. Spain's one & only legal political party, the Falange, had gathered in national convention.

It was the first national convention in the Falange's odd and darkling 20-year history--a fitting occasion to mark the

Falange's emergence from several years in the shadows. Spain's Dictator Franco rules by a shrewd playing off of three groups: army, church and party. When the Nazis and Fascists rode high, Generalissimo Francisco Franco let his Falange ride high. When Hitler and Mussolini were beaten, Franco discouraged the Falange's Fascist salute and uniformed parades, hoping thereby to gain a little credit with the victors of World War II. After a long, wily fight, his strategy paid off. He signed a concordat with the Vatican, a great gain for the church. (Last week Spain's Cardinal Primate decreed that all priests in Spain must, during each Mass, invoke God's blessing on Dux Noster Franciscus, Our Leader Francisco.) He signed a treaty with the U.S. for American bases on Spanish soil, a tremendous boost for the army.

When Falangist leaders came to him recently, wanting some signs of favor too, Franco hesitated at first, then permitted the big national convention. It was time to show that the Falange was still very much alive, that no outsiders could tell Dictator Franco how to dictate.

Working in Silence. On the big day of the show -- the 20th anniversary of the Falange's founding--el Caudillo togged himself in the traditional black coat and snug red beret, and trod into the jam-packed stadium. The crowd exploded in a rhythmic roar: FRAN Co FRAN Co FRAN Co FRAN Co! From a lofty dais, Franco hailed the party: "There is no substitute for the Falange! Only by the continued impetus of the Falange can we guarantee the future of Spain." He candidly explained why the Falangists had been kept under wraps since war's end. "The world situation . . . made advisable the working in silence and the avoidance of action which could be exploited by the malice of our enemies." But, careful as always to juggle the elements on which he builds his power so that none gets too strong, the Generalissimo also praised the army, reminded the party that he still thinks of the Falange as "flanking the army"--that is, slightly less important.

Then, through a double line of banners, the Dictator walked away from the cheers and rode back into the strange solitude from which he rules Spain.

On his heavily guarded, high-walled estate, El Pardo, nine miles northwest of Madrid, he lives the life of a country squire, with no close friends, and, since the marriage of his only child, Carmencita, no family except his wife. El Pardo has everything he desires--rivers for salmon and trout fishing, reserves for deer and partridge, polo grounds, a theater where uncensored foreign movies are shown, and a chapel where the Dictator spends hours on his knees before a reliquary of St. Theresa of Avila.

The great disappointment of his life is that no son has been born to succeed him. The Franco regime will end with the death of Franco. But he has taken steps to insure, if possible, that the name will not be forgotten in centuries to come. A few miles north of El Pardo, on the Peak of La Nava in the Guadarrama Mountains, Franco's prisoners, as many as 6,000 working at one time, have hacked out a monument to el Caudillo. Every few days Franco himself drives up to inspect it, as sculptors and craftsmen apply the finishing touches.

Behind barbed wire and guarded by sentries, the prisoners labored for eleven years; as a special reward, one day was pared from their sentences for each three days they worked on La Nava. They hollowed out the entire peak, and fashioned inside a crypt larger than St. Peter's in Rome. Some day, Franco intends, the crypt will receive the bodies of all Spaniards who died under his leadership in the Civil War--150,000.

Elevators to the Top. An enormous stairway leads up from the valley to the crypt's entrance. Along it stand 14 chapels, one for each Station of the Cross. On the summit towers a stone cross 500 feet high. From the deep interior, elevators rise into the top of the cross, and lights will make it visible at night from miles away.

Franco designed the monument himself, with technical help from the late Architect Pedro Muguruza, and the Dictator personally supervises every stage of construction. He allows no one inside without a special permit from his immediate staff. One of the few so honored came away overwhelmed: "It will last for eternity . . . Perhaps, like the Pyramids, it will outlast even the memory of the man it was built to glorify."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.