Everything we still don't know about February 23rd

BarcelonaOn February 23, 1981, General Alfonso Armada entered Congress with a vision of a "national salvation government" and left under arrest after the coup attempt failed, due in part to infighting among the coup plotters. According to accounts published since then, that government would have included Armada himself as Prime Minister, along with the socialists Felipe González (Economic Vice President), Gregorio Peces-Barba (Justice), Javier Solana (Transport), and Enrique Múgica (Health); the communist deputies Jordi Solé Tura (Labor) and Ramón Tamames (Economy); from the UCD (Union of the Democratic Centre) Pío Cabanillas (Finance), José Luis Álvarez (Public Works), Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón (Education and Science), and Agustín Rodríguez (Industry); and from the Popular Alliance, Manuel Fraga (Defense) and Manuel Saavedra (Interior). Among those present were other military officers such as José Antonio Sáenz de Santamaría (Minister of Autonomy and Regions) and representatives of civil society, including the former Francoist minister José María López de Letona (Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs), Carlos Ferrer Salat (Minister of Commerce), Antonio Garrigues Walker (Minister of Culture), and Luis María Anson (Minister of Information).

This was the list—which Armada denied when he was tried—that he jotted down in his diary while arguing with an irate Antonio Tejero, who was enraged because he had joined the coup to restore a military dictatorship, not to change the names of the ministers. The Civil Guard lieutenant colonel had been holding the Spanish government, the members of parliament, and the staff of the lower house hostage for more than five hours. Among them was the congressional doctor, Carmen Echave, who heard them speaking and was one of the first to realize that Armada had not come to reason with Tejero. How many of those people whose names were in the general's address book knew what was going on? This is one of the mysteries that remain to be solved regarding that attempted coup that shook Spain's fledgling democracy 45 years ago. But there are many more.

The involvement of Juan Carlos I

This Wednesday The Spanish government will declassify the documents These documents, which have been kept secret all these years, will be published, according to Spanish government spokesperson Elma Saiz. The documents include "153 units" corresponding to "reports, transcripts of conversations, and some images." "Everything we found that was classified," she said after the cabinet meeting that approved the release. Sources at La Moncloa (the Prime Minister's official residence) specify that the documents were classified by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and the Interior, but claim not to know the details of their contents. Andrea Zamorano reportsNow, everyone will first look for what they can glean from Juan Carlos I's role. Armada, who had been very close to the then-king during his years as Secretary General of the Royal Household, was unable to speak with the monarch on February 23rd because Sabino Fernández Campo, his successor, prevented it. The general intended for Juan Carlos to bless the operation that would abruptly end the UCD government and install a military officer at the head of the Spanish executive. Armada's two main partners, Lieutenant Colonel Tejero and Army Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch, were convinced that the king endorsed the coup because Armada himself had explained it to them. "Of course he was in favor of occupying Congress, because he thought the king supported it," Milans replied. during the military trial that took place a few months later at the Army Geographic Service in MadridAs head of the Valencia military region, he deployed tanks to the streets and eventually withdrew them when Juan Carlos ordered him to do so by telephone. "I thought he had backed down," he noted. Milans refused to explain who else was involved in the attempted coup. During the trial, Armada fled the courtroom when questioned about the king's involvement. In fact, he even denied knowing the details of what, he claimed, Tejero and Milans had organized. The strategy, which led Tejero and Milans to confront him, calling him a "traitor," initially worked for him, as he avoided a conviction for rebellion. However, a year later, the Supreme Court equated his sentence to that of his associates—who would ultimately receive 26 years in prison, with Tejero serving the longest, a total of 15 years. Armada died in 2013, without ever having heard the audios of Juan Carlos I that OK Daily published last year"Word of honor, I laugh, love, at Alfonso Armada. He's spent seven years in jail, he's gone to his manor "From Galicia, and the guy has never said a word. Never! But this other one is just chattering away..." he told his lover, Bárbara Rey, comparing Armada's silence to the supposed verbal incontinence of his successor as Secretary of the Royal Household, Fernández Campo. In the memoirs recently published by the King Emeritus, however, the version is different: Juan Carlos believes that Armada betrayed him by staging a coup behind his back.

Armada's meeting with socialists in Lleida

Several Socialist Party officials were called to testify as witnesses at that trial: the then-mayor of Lleida, Antoni Siurana, and the PSOE leader Enrique Múgica, among others. They were summoned to explain the content of the meeting they had in November 1980 with General Armada, who was then the military governor of the Lleida region. Múgica, who ended up being one of the names Armada noted in his notebook of potential ministers during the 23-F coup attempt, acknowledged that the general asked them to get involved to help improve the political climate, and alluded to a possible government between the PSOE and the UCD, headed by an independent. "At no point did he propose himself as president of this government, nor did his proposal include the possibility of forming that cabinet outside of constitutional procedures," explained Múgica, who wrote a report of that meeting to send to the party. For many years, that report has been used by the right wing to try to link Felipe González, the then Secretary General of the PSOE, to the preparations for the coup.

In an interview a few years ago with The VanguardSiurana recounted how that meeting went. "Joan Reventós—the first secretary of the PSC at the time—called me and told me that Múgica would be coming to Lleida the next day and that he would like to meet the military governor. Obviously, I knew him; he was the mayor, and Armada was a very sociable fellow. Reventós suggested we go somewhere discreet, and I ventured to say that in Lleida, the most discreet place was my house." Siurana personally picked up Armada to take him to lunch, and the mayor's wife also joined them. Siurana left that meeting convinced that Armada was "a very pleasant man," but in retrospect, he explained in the interview, he did notice "that he was gauging our opinions." "But in no way did he give us the impression that he was looking for us as accomplices. I absolutely deny that we had any feeling of doing anything unconstitutional or conspiratorial." In fact, Siurana made a point of reminding everyone that Armada had also had lunch with Jordi Pujol and Josep Tarradellas.

Tarradellas's premonition

Besides meeting with Armada on occasion, Jordi Pujol also met with Enrique Múgica in August 1980. The former president of the Generalitat recalled this in the second volume of his memoirs, remembering how the then-socialist leader had raised the possibility of forcing Adolfo Suárez (UCD) to resign and placing a military officer "with a democratic mindset" at the head of the Spanish government. Múgica did not appreciate this revelation and dismissed it as "a mere whim." But beyond any intuition Pujol might have had after that meeting, what President Josep Tarradellas experienced could be described, at the very least, as a premonition. In July 1980, when he had already handed over the presidency of the Generalitat to Pujol, Tarradellas was already speaking of the need for a "surgical blow" to Spanish democracy, and in November he insisted on the necessary "change of course." He categorically ruled out a coup, although it was never known for certain whether he knew anything. He met with Armada on February 10, 1981, when the general said goodbye to him because he was leaving Catalonia to return to Madrid as Deputy Chief of the Army Staff.

Who paid for the attempted coup? What was the position of European and international governments and organizations? How many calls did the Zarzuela Palace receive that day? What private stance did the other army generals take? What role did the state's secret services play? Questions that we will find out if they have answers this Wednesday.