SPAIN: THE GONZALEZ GOVERNMENT IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T01058R000202690001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 2, 2009
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 17, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
Central Intelligence Agency Z~1
17 April 1985
Spain: The Gonzalez Government in Historical Context
Summary
Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez's major goal is to
modernize Spain and end its isolation in Western Europe.
Although Spain is much closer to the West European
mainstream than it was just three decades ago, enough of a
gap still exists to provide Gonzalez with his sense of
purpose as prime minister.
The Roots of Spanish Politics
Nearly two centuries ago, Napoleon said that Africa begins at the
Pyrenees. Although educated Spaniards did not need that gibe to know they
were different, they have disagreed over the years over what to do about it.
Would-be reformers on the left felt a strong sense of inferiority when they
saw that Spain had not kept pace with the industrial and democratic
This memorandum was prepared by
the Office of European 25X1
Analysis. It was requested by Peter Sommer, National Security Council.
Questions and comments may be addressed to John McLaughlin, Chief of the West
European Division, 25X1
EUR M85-10071
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
revolutions sweeping much of the rest of the Western world. They railed
against the Church's tight grip on intellectual life and the tight control of
government by a small aristocratic and upper middle class elite. Late in the
19th century, workers began to join this chorus, protesting one of the most
unequal social systems in Western Europe and calling for revolution against
large landowners and the country's few industrialists. These stirrings
frightened many Catholics, property owners, and other Spaniards who simply
wanted to live in peace. This conservative camp held that Spain should be
different from the rest of Europe -- that Spain represented tradition,
religion, and authority in an atheistic and materialistic continent.
Franco's Dictatorship
This fight between left and right carried into the 20th century and
climaxed in the civil war of 1936-39. That brutal conflict brought Gen.
Francisco Franco to power as the representative of the victory of reactionary
over revolutionary Spain. Franco justified his dictatorial rule by echoing
19th century conservatives who said that Spain was not suited for democracy.
He argued that Spain had less in common with the rest of Europe than with
Latin America and the Middle East and sought to associate himself with the
Third World.
Franco's Spain, therefore, remained an anomaly in Western Europe.
European leftists denounced Franco and conservatives were embarrassed by
him. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Franco was isolated and faced
mounting internal unrest. In the eyes of most Spaniards -- and many Europeans
-- the United States bailed Franco out when it signed a bilateral security
agreement in 1953, which provided economic assistance in return for the use of
military bases in Spain. Many Spanish leftists -- including a number in the
governing Socialist Party -- still criticize the United States for propping up
the regime that persecuted them.
To his credit, Franco did not turn the clock back in every area of
national life, particularly in the economic sphere. Economic growth began
climbing sharply in the 1960s, when Franco abandoned his efforts to promote
autarky and began to open the economy to competition and trade. In the 1960s
and early 1970s, Spain had one of the fastest economic growth rates in the
world. By then the rest of Western Europe had recovered from the war, and
Spain was able to benefit from its relative backwardness. Foreign tourists
flocked to its cheap resorts, foreign investors sought its low wages, and
emigrants sent large portions of their pay home from richer European
countries. In a breathtakingly short period of time -- far less than the
United States and Northern Europe had taken for similar changes -- Spain
changed from a backward agricultural country into an urban society with
relatively well developed industrial and service sectors and a large and well
educated middle class.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
I I
Transition to Democracy: The Rise and Fall of Suarez
The death of Franco in 1975 signalled another dramatic turning point,
this time a turn toward the political and economic mainstream in Europe. This
shift was eased by the economic and social transformation that had occurred
under Franco -- a transformation that muted the longstanding political
division between left and right and provided the basis for a transition to
democracy. The memory of the civil war reinforced the public's aversion to
political extremism and helped to keep the democratic transition peaceful.
King Juan Carlos's political skill and commitment to representative government
helped to move the process along, especially by winning the support -- or at
least the acquiescence -- of the military. One key move was his selection of
Adolfo Suarez, a former high-ranking Franco official, to implement the
transition.
Suarez not only had to manage the difficult process of establishing
democratic habits and institutions -- a task he carried out admirably -- but
also had to deal with the even more'difficult issues of regionalism and the
economy. Franco's repression of Basque culture and regional government, for
example, spawned the ETA terrorist movement, which Suarez tried to undercut by
returning major governmental powers back to local areas. But he ran into
trouble on two fronts: his reform was too slow to reduce Basque support for
ETA, and -- even worse -- the military interpreted his program as an attack on
the unity of the Spanish state.
Spanish democracy also had.the misfortune of being born during the
worldwide economic slump of the 1970s. Suarez hesitated to follow other
industrial countries into economic contraction for fear of undermining support
for democracy. His attempt to keep the economy going with high government
spending fueled inflation, and his willingness to support trade union demands
for higher wages pushed up the cost of labor to employers and contributed to
increased unemployment.
Suarez's greatest failure, however, was his inability to mold the Center
Democratic Union (UCD) into a coherent political party. Suarez had created
the party in 1977 out of a diverse group of conservatives, liberals, Christian
democrats, and social democrats. Suarez, however, was unable to find any set
of principles to hold the UCD together once he had defeated the leftist
parties. The UCD quickly began to fall apart, and Suarez himself was forced
to step down. Conservative elements in the military -- already upset by
Suarez's decentralization program -- saw their worst fears of democracy
confirmed by this factionalism, and it was only King Juan Carlos's bold
intervention that saved Spanish democracy
Suarez's successor, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, led Spain into NATO in 1982 in
an attempt to give the UCD something to unite on as well as to channel the
military's attention away from Spanish politics, but entry into NATO added a
25X6
25X6
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
new element of divisiveness -- few Spaniards accepted Calvo-Sotelo's claim
that Alliance membership contributed to Spanish security and EC accession.
Indeed, his decision to enter NATO in the face of wide public opposition was
only one more black mark -- among,what were now many--against the UCD. In
October 1982, the voters subjected that party to what Spaniards called the
worst "punishment vote" in the history of European governing parties. From 35
percent of the vote and 165 out of 350 seats in the lower house of Parliament
in 1979, the UCD fell to 7 percent of the vote and only 13 seats--a rejection
so complete that the party soon disbanded.
Gonzalez and the Socialist Party
The principal beneficiary of the UCD's demise was the Socialist Party,
which won a four-year term with 202 seats and an absolute parliamentary
majority. The party was largely the creation of Felipe Gonzalez, its
secretary general and the new prime minister. Like Gonzalez himself (40 years
old in 1982), the party is young. Foreign Minister Moran, in fact, is the
only member of the cabinet who is over 50.
Despite the radical rhetoric and romantic Third World ideas of many
Socialists, Gonzalez recognized that the future of the Socialist Party would
depend on its ability to appeal to the broad cross-section of centrist voters
with moderate programs. In 1979 he made his most important step toward this
goal when he won a bruising fight with party radicals to remove Marxism from
the party's statement of principles.
Gonzalez: A Moderate Modernizer
Gonzalez has continued his moderate approach to modernization since
taking office. He has pursued austere economic policies to lay the foundation
for solid economic growth. Aside from reducing inflation and improving trade
competitiveness, progress has been slow. Private investment remains low, and
unemployment has risen from 17 to 22 percent during his two and one-half years
in office. Gonzalez believes, however, that his conservative policies and
his promotion of electronics and other "sunrise" industries will eventually
pay off.
Gonzalez regards reducing the political influence of traditional
conservative institutions -- particularly, the Church and the military -- as a
key part of his modernization program. His legislation partially legalizing
abortion and increasing state control over parochial schools has stirred some
*Those official unemployment figures, however, are almost certainly too high
-- possibly by as much as one-third -- due to the impact of the underground
economy.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7 25X1
controversy, but has been generally supported by public opinion. Military
commanders appear to have learned the danger of getting involved in politics
from the failure of the coup attempt in 1981, and the magnitude of Gonzalez's
election victory has reinforced this new reluctance. Moreover, Gonzalez has
dealt with the military adroitly, treating its institutions respectfully but
acting firmly against individual malcontents. Last fall, for example, he
sacked a high ranking general who publicly questioned the government's ability
to defend Spain's North African enclaves. At the same time Gonzalez has also
removed a principal cause of military unrest by placing tight limits on the
decentralization.process begun by Suarez. Gonzalez's tough anti-terrorist
policies also appear to have turned the.corner in the struggle against ETA,
and have won military approval.
Modernization is ultimately more a matter of attitudes and habits than of
economics or institutions. Despite the many changes in recent years, Spain
remains the country that invented "manana," and Spanish businessmen, farmers,
and academics are more relaxed in conducting their affairs than their Northern
European counterparts (Spanish labor productivity is approximately half of the
West European average). Gonzalez wants to change this. He has already shaken
up civil servants by requiring -- in a most un-Spanish act -- that they
actually put in a full day's work for a full day's pay. Previously, large
numbers of these usually poorly paid bureaucrats took off early each day to go
to second jobs where more often than not they were too tired to be fully
efficient. In the same spirit Gonzalez has banned multiple jobs for members
of Parliament and university professors.
The EC and NATO
Gonzalez's overriding goal remains the integration of Spain into
Europe. He has little use for the woolly-minded Third Worlders in his
party. Indeed, like many reformers before him and much of the younger
generation as well, he believes that Spain's future lies in becoming more
Western Europe -- a goal he is trying to realize by joining the EC.
Gonzalez's interest in EC accession, in turn, has been an important
factor in his decision to come out behind NATO membership. He realizes that
Spain cannot participate in Western Europe's economic and political structures
unless it cooperates in its military defense -- a concept still unpalatable to
much of the left. As part of his effort to keep leftists -- including many
Socialist Party members -- from bolting, he has accompanied his increasingly
pro-NATO statements with reaffirmations of a campaign pledge to permit a
public referendum on the issue. This approach has partly defused the issue,
but has locked Gonzalez into a risky political course. Opinion polls show
that, while only a handful of Spaniards consider NATO a major problem, that
the underlying two-to-one opposition to NATO has remained virtually unchanged
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
I I
Gonzalez faces a difficult choice in the next year. If he holds the
referendum by April 1986 as he has promised, he would have to throw all his
prestige behind the effort and might still lose. On the other hand, if he
tries to back out of the referendum and substitute an early election, he would
anger diehard NATO opponents and damage his reputation for honesty with the
electorate in general. Either way, he will have to expend much of his
political capital to keep Spain in NATO.
Why The Socialists will Probably Win the Next Election
One of the factors pulling Gonzalez toward an early election is his
knowledge that the Socialists would almost certainly win. An election
campaign would be decided largely on the basis of the domestic issues that
matter most to the voters, not NATO, and Gonzalez remains far and away the
most popular politician in Spain.
The Socialists would also benefit from the divisions of their principal
opponents. The Communists have fought so bitterly with each other over
policies and personalities that they have thoroughly discredited themselves
with the electorate. What remains of their share of the national vote -- 5
percent -- is now split between the mainline party and a pro-Moscow
The conservative and centrist parties vying to inherit the UCD's old
constituency are in disarray and badly divided. Their basic problem is that
only a minority of Spanish voters see themselves as right-of-center. In order
to beat the Socialists, they would have to hold all their own supporters and
make major inroads into the moderate left voters who supported the Socialists
in 1982. They would, in fact, have to hammer together a coalition that would
range all the way from unreconstructed coup plotters on the right to moderate
i eo ogica approach and pugnacious personal style have earned him
enthusiastic support from a small, staunch band of conservative supporters,
Fashioning such an alliance would be a daunting task. It is probably
well-nigh impossible for Manuel Fraga, the former Franco cabinet minister
whose Popular Alliance is the principal opposition party. Fraga's strongly
d 1 1
social democrats and Spanish style yuppies in the center.
but centrist voters continue to view him with deep distrust.
Gonzalez's Likely Legacy: A Stable and Self-Confident Democracy
Gonzalez has made a significant contribution to the consolidation of
Spanish democracy. His moderate and responsible conduct in office has
dispelled suspicion that the left, vanquished in the civil war nearly a half
century ago, cannot be trusted in power. It has also gone a long way toward
restoring Spaniards' confidence in their ability to govern themselves.
Decades from now historians may cite these gains as Gonzalez's greatest
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7
Distribution:
Original - Peter Sommer, NSC
Copy 1 DDI
1 ADDI
1 NIO
1 OD/EURA
2 Production Staff
4 IMC/CB
1 WE/IA
1 WE Division
1 Author
EURA/WE/IA 17Apr85 25X1
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/02 : CIA-RDP85TO1058R000202690001-7