'VIVA LA CIA'?

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP88-01350R000200610003-4
Release Decision: 
RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 16, 2016
Document Release Date: 
September 27, 2004
Sequence Number: 
3
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
February 26, 1979
Content Type: 
NSPR
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PDF icon CIA-RDP88-01350R000200610003-4.pdf79.48 KB
Body: 
Approved For Relea 04L1i M13FCJA-RDP88-01350 26 February 1979 6 Vwa La C11 PIP NEGAtIVt and nefarious though Eta's present tactics may be, two Eta men v, ho v, ere murdered in December must be numbered among the. found ers of Spain's present regime. Joaquin Maria Azaola, aged 55, 1 was shot by three youth in Bilbao on December 19. Eta-Militar announced that he had been "executed" because he had become a police informer. In the summer of 1974 Azaola was one of the organizers of an Eta operation! whose aim was to kidnap Prince (now King) Juan Carlos and his wife, father, and children in the Mediterranean while they were sailing to Monte Car- lo: Azaola, posing as the secretary of a rich Belgian, hired a big yacht for the purpose. The hostages were to have been. landed in the south of France and con- cealed until Franco released 100 BasqueI prisoners and paid a ransom; but they might well have been killed. Azaola had doubts about the plan and con- sulted a member of the Basque govern- ment-in-exile, who advised him to con- tact the Spanish police. He did so and cancelled the operation. Were it not for Azaola, King Juan Carlos, the pi- lot of Spain's transition from dictator- ship to democracy, might never have ! come to the throne. And but for 29-year-old Jose Mi- guel Benaran, who was killed by anti- Eta activists at Anglet, in Southwest France, on December 21, the man hold- ing Spain's political reins when Franco l, died would, barring an accident, have been Admiral Carrero Blanco, the dic- tator's close adviser and prime min- ister and his choice to supervise the succession. Carrero, a tough Right- winger, was the head of the main secret services and controlled the adminis- tration: He was committed to insuring the "continuity" of the Franco regime after Franco, and King Juan Carlos C 4 'f :SPA r-rj would have found it almost impossible to persuade him to concede reforms of a democratic nature. He was assas- sinated in central Madrid on Decent- ber 20, 1973, by four Eta men 'Alto placed an explosive charge beneath the street he drove along every morning and blew the car he :vas driving in oser a five-storey building. The man who detonated the charge was Jose Miguel Benaran. A former Spanish secret agent, Luis Gonzalez-Mata, alleges in a recently ' published book, Terrorismo Interna- cional (Argos, Barcelona), that the CIA knew something about the Bas_ clues' preparations to kill Carrero. The Eta men neglected some elementary security precautions-so flagrantly that even my inexpert eye was surprised, as I noted in an article after the assas- sination-and their carelessness at- tracted the attention of a CIA officer in the nearby American embassy. Un- like most Spanish stories about the CIA, Gonzalez-Mata's account shows the agency in what many democrats will consider a favorable light. Having consulted Washington, the CIA's Ma- drid station not only did not denounce or interfere with the plotters, it helped them discreetly (Gonzalez-Mata says), thus contributing to the demolition of authoritarianism in Spain. So should Spanish democrats spray "Viva la CIA!" on the walls of Ma- drid? That would be a delightful sight. Unfortunately, Gonzalez-Mata can't be sure; he knows only part of the sto- ry. That's my trouble, too. I wish some kind CIA defector (or nondefector, preferably) would lend me the appro- priate file for an hour or two. Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-0135OR000200610003-4