The 23-F documents reveal suspicions of "confidential interviews" between Juan Carlos I and the coup plotters prior to the trial

Madrid / BarcelonaAmong the information declassified this Wednesday by the Spanish government regarding the attempted coup of February 23, 1981, are notes from the Spanish intelligence services. The then Higher Center for Defense Information (CESID) prepared one in early February 1982, almost a year after the events and a few weeks before the trial of those responsible, which recorded suspicions that Juan Carlos I had held "confidential and secretive interviews" with "some of the main" perpetrators of the 23-F coup. "It is asserted that, in fact, the King has met confidentially with Lieutenant General Milans del Bosch; it indicates that above all else, the aim is to ensure that the Crown is not harmed by the proceedings and that, in any case, attempts to do so do not come from the main defendants and those with a known monarchist vocation," the CESID document states.

According to intelligence services, those asserting this came from "certain qualified circles of Cantabrian opinion" and even from "military" circles in Madrid. The CESID (National Intelligence Center) gave credence to these sources. "Let us reiterate that this is not a 'popular' rumor but rather belongs to quantitatively restricted segments of opinion," concludes the statement, which also mentions a meeting between "a very important member of the royal household" and General Armada, discussing with him behaviors related to the oral hearing of the trial. The same person allegedly attempted to meet with Milans del Bosch, who reportedly "demanded" that the meeting be directly with Juan Carlos I himself, without intermediaries. You can consult here the CESID note that mentions these meetings of the emeritus king and his entourage.

Many questions remain unanswered to understand how that military operation of 45 years ago was planned, who knew about it, and why it failed. However, there is one question that has loomed over the State for years and that, to this day, remains unresolved. What role did King Juan Carlos I play? This is one of the key questions in the documents that were declassified at 1 p.m. and which, pending full analysis, are expected to help answer the question.

The monarch's speech

One of the most memorable images of that day was the monarch's speech: in the early hours of the morning, dressed as a captain general, Juan Carlos appeared before the cameras to call for "calm" and, to dispel any "confusion," to make it clear that he had ordered the civil and military authorities to preserve "constitutional order." Before that, however, he spent the day making calls, following weeks marked by the resignation of Alfonso Suárez as Spanish prime minister and the first failed investiture session of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo. Some of these calls are known, such as the one he had with the then-president of the Generalitat, Jordi Pujol, to whom he uttered the phrase—"Relax, Jordi, relax"—which would become famous. Others have remained completely secret.

Of all those calls, one is key. While Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero stormed the Congress and Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch launched a military offensive on Valencia, General Alfonso Armada, the third key figure in the coup attempt, picked up the phone and dialed the Zarzuela Palace. Armada was no ordinary military officer: he had been the King's instructor and served as Secretary General of the Royal Household until 1977. Various journalistic and historical accounts portray him as a military man with political ambitions, who had sought to lead a coalition government that excluded the nationalist parties.

What did the King and Armada discuss on February 23rd? The most official account available to date is the one that emerged during the trial of the thirty people convicted for the coup, with sentences of up to 30 years in prison for Tejero, Milans, and Armada. During the investigation, Sabino Fernández, who was the Secretary General of the Royal Household on February 23rd, testified that there had been a conversation between the King and Armada, and that afterward, Juan Carlos I handed him the phone. Armada allegedly told him that he was prepared to "sacrifice himself" and assume the presidency of the Spanish government to avoid a "bloody end." Fernández simply told him that if he did so, he could not claim the action in the King's name. But he also wanted to make it clear in his testimony that the idea of ​​the general going to Congress did not originate with him. "I had no decision-making power, and on all occasions, I acted on orders and in the name of His Majesty," he stated.

Who gave the order?

Was it, then, the king who did it? Sabino Fernández couldn't clarify, because he wasn't called as a witness at the trial. The official version that appears in the sentence is that this authorization came from General José Gabeiras, Chief of Staff. However, what Juan Carlos I recounts about this episode in his memoirs also doesn't coincide with what Fernández said. According to the emeritus king's account, what he conveyed to Armada was the following: "I'm not giving you any permission, and don't go there [to Congress] in my name." There's also no record of the meetings that Armada—pardoned after five years in prison—may have had with the monarch around that time. There's still more information that suggests the events didn't go as smoothly as Juan Carlos described them in his book, Reconciliation. These are audio recordings from the 1990s where he can be heard discussing the plot with his lover, Bárbara Rey, published by OKDiario: "I laugh, darling, at Alfonso Armada. Seven years in prison, he's gone back to his family home in Galicia, and the guy never said a word."

The version of those convicted for the 23-F coup attempt leaves even less room for interpretation. During the 23-F trial, Milans testified that Armada, Tejero, and he—and others he declined to name—had prepared the coup out of "patriotism" and that Armada had promised them the king was aware of it. Over the years, Tejero became more explicit about the king's alleged role in the coup, corroborating Milans's account and going even further: "I screwed King Juan Carlos over completely. He had a government to his liking prepared with General Alfonso Armada. But they needed a military officer to carry out the coup. That was me," he said in a telephone interview with El Español. Tejero, who was 91 years old at the time of this interview, argued that he refused because he wanted to include left-wing parties in the government.