Often, it's a botched job and nothing important comes of it.

The partial declassification of documents from February 23rd has not brought about any historical shift in the definitive understanding of the coup. If anything, it has somewhat strengthened Juan Carlos's democratic image and revealed details that should come as no surprise: that six CESID agents were involved, that the king spoke with Milans del Bosch before the trial to protect the Crown, that some of the coup plotters regretted having let "the Bourbon" go free, and that the wife of the man who, coincidentally, died that day said: "He's a wretch, a fool"; "So much love for the homeland and look how they've deceived him."

The documentation confirms what was imaginable: that in 1981, with an ETA attack every four days and 32 murders in a single year, the situation was tense enough for some military personnel to take a block of paper and a pen and draw diagrams with several plans, not just one. And in the end, Armada, Milans, and above all, Tejero, took the right path, perhaps thinking that if they handed it to the king, a military man like themselves, on a silver platter, a coup would be possible. But all they delivered was a cacophony of machine gun fire in Congress, delivered by a group of clumsy gunmen.

The military of that era had been raised on the culture of the savior coup. They idolized the general who led the coup of July 18, 1936, and drew inspiration from the episodic pronunciamientos that punctuate Spanish history. That's why the press of the time reported on what they said in their speeches at the barracks. It was an army that didn't win wars abroad, that only kept watch on the enemy within. It's not surprising that the CESID (Spanish intelligence agency) reported that separatist events and attitudes "could arise" in the Basque Country and Catalonia, including a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) that would warrant deploying troops as a "deterrent." Now, surveillance is being conducted using other methods.