Franco Picks a Right-Wing Heir

For days Dictator Francisco Franco labored over one of the most momentous decisions of his career. Not only was the 81-year-old Caudillo appointing a successor to President Luis Carrero Blanco, who was assassinated by Basque terrorists, but he was probably naming as well his own successor as the guiding hand of Spain in the fast-approaching post-Franco era.

In the end Franco chose more--perhaps much more--of the rigid policies that have governed the country since its Civil War. The new President will be Carlos Arias Navarro, 65, who was Spain's top cop as head of the Direccion General de Seguridad, the national security police, from 1957 to 1965. After that he became mayor of Madrid and last June he was made Interior Minister, in charge of state security, in Carrero Blanco's Cabinet. A harsh advocate of law-and-order, he has a wide following among the ultra-right wing, which criticized even the conservative Carrero Blanco for liberal tendencies. He may respond to the assassination by even greater repression of moderates and liberals--a move that would undoubtedly aggravate already sharp political divisions within the country.

Despite the political tensions, the country was curiously quiet in the aftermath of Carrero Blanco's murder. Predictions of widespread violence were proved wrong--at least for the moment. "The reaction has shown the maturity of the Spanish people," trumpeted Madrid's Nuevo Diario.

As an example to possible troublemakers, the government gave savage 12-to 20-year sentences to ten leftists convicted of organizing underground labor unions. To show that the state was secure and that the plot against Carrero Blanco had been uncovered, the Seguridad announced within 48 hours the results of its investigation. It pinpointed six members of the Basque separatist organization, the E.T.A., who it said were involved in the assassination.

All had escaped to France, where an E.T. A. spokesman in Paris explained to the daily Figaro: "Our first idea was not to kill Admiral Carrero Blanco, but to kidnap him and exchange him for our political prisoners.* El Caudillo doesn't interest us any longer. An attempt against him would have made sense 30 years ago. We wanted now to demolish the edifice provided for the succession, and I think we succeeded."

The swift identification of the terrorists seemed designed more to quiet the public than to catch the plotters. In fact, an E.T.A. source told TIME last week that none of the plotters was even in Spain at the time of the assassination. According to this source, the real killers were other members of the E.T.A.'s military branch, or so-called Fifth Wing. They had taken a basement room near a point traveled every day by Carrero Blanco's car and had dug a tunnel 20 feet under the road. They planted three explosive charges of nearly 40 lbs. each under the street, timed to explode at intervals of a tenth of a second to match the movement of the President's car.

Red sighting marks were daubed on a wall across the street so the terrorists would know when to trigger the explosives. There were two assassins. One peered through the window and gave directions through a walkie-talkie; at his command, the other pressed the plunger. The identity of these men has not been announced by the police--and is presumably still unknown.

* At least 100 Basques are political prisoners.

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