On January 29, 1981, during a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez resigned. "I am leaving without having been asked to [...] I am leaving so that this system of freedoms, for which I have suffered greatly [...], is not abruptly interrupted [...], but it has been worth it. If my sacrifice once served to build democracy, this one must serve to prevent its destruction." "I have lost the trust of the powers that be, I have lost the acceptance of the press, I have lost legitimacy in the eyes of the opposition, I have lost the credibility of a large part of our electorate, I have lost my own party [...]". The moment was solemn. The Minister of Defense, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún, inappropriately requested the floor and announced the appointment of General Alfonso Armada as Deputy Chief of the Army Staff. Prime Minister Suárez glared at him.

The emeritus king is "well" and "calm," despite the attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel. It hadn't occurred to me to worry about him, but this news published this Monday on RTVE It reminded me that, indeed, Juan Carlos I still lives in the Persian Gulf. His mansion in Abu Dhabi is under construction, and for the past few months, he has been staying in a luxury hotel in the United Arab Emirates. No one should worry, because the escalating conflict doesn't seem likely to prevent him from returning to Sanxenxo this month to participate in the regattas.

This week no relevant secrets about the 23-F coup d'état have been revealed, but it has left us with the hilarious phone conversations of Antonio Tejero's wife and a new strategic blunder by Alberto Núñez Feijóo for history. Carmen Díaz Pereira, Tejero's wife, discovered on the night of February 23rd what it feels like to be on the losing side. While half of Spain waits with bated breath to see if they will be rounded up like in 1936, this woman, sensing that the coup was failing, moved heaven and earth to try to get her husband out of the mess he had gotten into for being “a fool” and “an idiot”. “If they've left him like a cigarette butt. For God's sake. It's undignified”, she complains to General Fajardo. It's clear that she considers her husband an idealistic dreamer who has been tricked by some cowardly generals. “So good and so honest. Always with the homeland up, down [...] and all he wants is to end terrorism so that people live comfortably and in peace”, she tells a friend. “Have you seen what a disgusting army?”, she tells another. The friends she speaks to, presumably also military wives, try to encourage her by telling her that her husband is a “hero”, but she is suspicious. She knows, long before her husband does, how it will all end and that he will be a scapegoat. “A wretch” who has been “deceived”. Seen through these conversations, February 23rd becomes a sad Valle-Inclanesque farce. Of course, a farce that could have cost many lives.

The declassification of the February 23rd documents confirms what we already suspected at the time: that Tejero's rashness, the impetuous coup plotter, was a stroke of luck. He raised the curtain prematurely, indignant at the indecisiveness of his fellow conspirators. Too many would-be dictators. Only Milans del Bosch followed suit, leaving the others in a strange limbo that had the effect of dissolving alliances and generating a certain disarray among those who had long been mobilizing and pressuring for a hardening of the regime: they were seeking a drawing-room coup, with the king as a Spaniard, and instead found themselves facing an onslaught. And so, the situation suddenly changed.

When the coup of February 23rd took place, I was a young boy in high school. At home, we heard President Pujol's speech on the radio, and my father's comment—"Just like Companys in 1936!"—didn't help to calm the family atmosphere. Then the king spoke, and we understood that the tried It had failed. But the truth, with all its twists and turns, has gradually come to light as the key figures of that era have given their accounts. Books and documentaries have added—or removed—layers of mystery. And this week, ironically coinciding with Tejero's death, that chapter of historical memory has been officially closed with the declassification of official documents. As Javier Cercas predicted, there has been no sensational revelation. Perhaps because many documents were destroyed; perhaps because many things, who knows if the most important ones, were never written down.

One of the conclusions from the declassification of documents related to 23-F is that it has not served to resolve the main mysteries surrounding the coup attempt. Much of the information they contained was already known, and within the documentation, no content that could be relevant to providing definitive answers has been found. Let's review some of the aspects left open by the papers.

Pedro Sánchez takes the lead, and Alberto Núñez Feijóo delivers the final blow: Juan Carlos I should return. After everything we've read about the king's role during this intensive course on February 23rd that we've just been given, what importance can the emeritus king's tax and romantic scandals possibly have? How can the king who brought democracy and saved it continue to live punished in exile? The fact that crucial conversations from that day and the days before aren't recorded anywhere is no longer important. And those with connections get amnesty.

There have been sighs of relief among supporters and defenders of the 1978 Constitution upon discovering that the documents related to the February 23rd coup attempt have turned out to be rather weak and contained nothing relevant regarding King Juan Carlos's involvement in the preparations. This relief is rather debatable, because the image of a head of state who has had to take refuge in the United Arab Emirates for defrauding his country's treasury could hardly be more damaged. But these supporters and defenders still cling to the myth of Juan Carlos as the savior of the democracy we all built together, and they believe that this is enough (and surely it will be) to sustain the narrative of the supposedly providential parliamentary monarchy.

After the 23-F coup attempt, only about thirty people involved in the uprising were tried, many of whom received full or partial pardons, or obtained reduced sentences and early release in the following years. Despite the gravity of the events, the Spanish government and part of the establishment argued that, after consolidating democracy, it was necessary to reduce tensions with the army.

We'll finish this now. immersion in the 23-F which has been going on for days, not without highlighting the irony of fate that it means Tejero died yesterdayPrecisely. Today is the day of reckoning (the final tally). Winners: Pedro Sánchez, who, by declassifying these documents, has steered the political conversation for almost a week and it's worked out brilliantly for him. Winner: Juan Carlos de Borbón, who appears as someone who stopped the coup, with two very large asterisks: they haven't declassified the conversations the king had on the afternoon of the coup with the various captains general of the military regions, and therefore we don't know if he was testing them out; and second, we'll never know if in the days before the king hinted that he would be willing to support what was called "a change of course." Otherwise, nothing new, beyond rubbing our eyes at the fact that a diagram, a schematic that looks like something a primary school student would draw, showing several possible coups, has been kept confidential.

In a twist of fate, Antonio Tejero, the former Civil Guard lieutenant colonel who led the 23-F coup attempt, died just hours after the Moncloa Palace declassified confidential documents related to that fateful day. He was 93 years old and never recanted or renounced his Francoist ideology. The analysis of the documents declassified on February 25, 45 years after the coup, does not fundamentally alter the account of events we already knew and confirms the key role of King Juan Carlos that night in persuading the main conspirators, especially General Jaime Milans del Bosch, who had deployed tanks to Valencia, to back down.

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."

All the coup plotters claimed to be speaking on behalf of the king. This was the case with General Alfonso Armada, Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch, and Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero. But no one has ever been able to prove that they had Juan Carlos I's approval to attempt the coup d'état of February 23, 1981. The 153 documents declassified by the Spanish government this Wednesday, in fact, support the official narrative that the king was one of the saviors of democracy, the official title he was given from that day forward. The king spoke with Milans del Bosch and Armada to demand that they stand down, and his personal secretary, Sabino Fernández Campo, spoke with Tejero. who, in one of those coincidences that seem worthy of conspiracy theories, died this Wednesday at the age of 93

The death of Antonio Tejero Molina at the age of 93, coinciding with the declassification of parts of the secret documents surrounding the plot, has given double prominence to the Lieutenant Colonel of the Civil Guard who carried out the last successful military coup. It was the afternoon of February 23, 1981 (23-F), when the Congress of Deputies was voting on the investiture of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as head of government. Tejero burst in shouting “Everyone to the floor!” at the head of 265 members of the Civil Guard who fired warning shots and kidnapped the parliamentarians. Jaime Milans del Bosch joined the coup in Valencia, where he was Captain General and brought tanks into the streets. However, the leader of the coup was General Alfonso Armada, who encouraged Tejero's assault on Congress and later presented himself as the savior of the deputies: he offered to negotiate with Tejero for the formation of a broad-spectrum government that the general would preside over if the parliamentarians voted for him. But when Tejero heard that Armada's executive included socialists and communists, he considered it a “botch job”. He said he had not pulled off that “feat” to end up like that and aborted the maneuver. When King Juan Carlos I condemned the coup on television in the early hours of the 24th, it collapsed. The implicated military personnel were tried in a court-martial, and Tejero was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was released in 1996. After the trial, he withdrew from public life and allowed himself to be honored in prison by the stream of civilians who visited him (buses came) and bought his paintings. And, although he might have considered fleeing, he did not. Nor did he publish his testimony, even though the publishing house Planeta offered him a blank check in 2000. He became the “great silent one” of 23-F. In February 2016, the newspaper El Mundo reported that Tejero had written memoirs in prison, and the military man explained that one of his sons wanted to write a book about him. It would not be surprising, therefore, if the “Tejerista” vision of the coup were to emerge. But it seems unlikely that it would overturn what we know about the events, well documented by historian Roberto Muñoz Bolaños (El 23-F y los otros golpes de estado de la Transición, 2021). In fact, he points out that, above all, the civilian plot of the so-called “Armada solution” needs to be clarified: the plan that Armada devised to lead a motion of no confidence in Congress against Adolfo Suárez, which would lead him to preside over a broad-spectrum government. When the choice of Calvo-Sotelo as president thwarted him, Armada activated the 23-F coup. Thus, according to Muñoz, the most important of the archives on coup plots still inaccessible due to the official secrets law are likely the data on meetings of “economic and political sectors since 1977 with the aim of replacing Suárez” and making “a conservative turn” in the political change, meetings that gave birth to the aforementioned “Armada solution”. Nothing was declassified about this yesterday. However, if Tejero's testimony were to come to light, the plot he led among lower-ranking military personnel and civilians could be unraveled. This could include the Frente de la Juventud, so that its members would be the ones to occupy Congress. Likewise, it could shed light on a previous coup plot that Tejero orchestrated with fellow military man Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas: the so-called Operation Galaxia, which aimed to occupy Moncloa in November 1978. Once discovered, the plot was downplayed to avoid causing concern, and those involved were sentenced to a few months in prison.

On January 29, 1981, Adolfo Suárez, the man who had led Spain's democratic transition, announced his resignation. Spain was in the midst of an economic and social crisis, with a deeply divided society and the memory of Franco's regime still very much alive. After Suárez, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo was chosen to lead the country. After failing in the first investiture session, Calvo-Sotelo faced a second vote on February 23. But nothing would go as planned. A few minutes after 6:20 p.m., while the Congress of Deputies was debating the issue, the halls of the Cortes filled with Civil Guard officers. The session was halted when some 200 armed officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, stormed into the chamber, firing shots. That day would go down in history, with iconic images that bear witness to the last attempt to end democracy in Spain.

The author of the failed coup d'état of February 23, 1981, Antonio Tejero Molina, has died in Valencia at the age of 93, according to various media outlets that have confirmed the information with the family. The death of the former lieutenant colonel coincides with the same day the Spanish government declassified documents about the 23-F coup d'état. Tejero had been in delicate health for several years and this Thursday night he gave up. Born on April 30, 1932, in Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga), he joined the Civil Guard in 1951, from which he was expelled after being sentenced to 30 years in prison for military rebellion. He served part of his sentence in Sant Ferran Castle in Figueres, a former military prison. In 1996, he was released having served only half of his sentence.

Antonio Tejero Molina, the mastermind behind the failed coup attempt of February 23, 1981, died Wednesday afternoon in Alzira (Valencian Community) at the age of 93, as reported by the law firm representing his family in a statement. The former lieutenant colonel's death coincides with the same day the Spanish government declassified documents related to the 23-F coup. Tejero had been in poor health for several years and passed away Wednesday afternoon. In the statement, the family's lawyers explained that "in the absolute conviction that death is not the end, [the family] is grateful for all the expressions of affection received during these difficult times and requests the utmost respect for their privacy."

Three months before February 23rd, there were already rumors of sabers in Spain. Alfonso Suárez's government was weakened and, within the Civil Guard, ideas and plans were already circulating about how to sabotage the constitutional regime. Some of them are detailed in an unsigned document, dated November 1980, which is among those declassified this Wednesday —and that some books on February 23rd had already been hinting at—. According to this report, consulted by the ARA, the coup plotters had planned several roadmaps to get rid of Suárez and replace his government with one more in line with their interests, without going through the ballot boxes under any circumstances. And, within the various factions of the military, there was a group linked to Operation Galaxia —another coup d'état plan from 1978 which also featured Antonio Tejero as the protagonist— which planned to kill King Juan Carlos I if he did not align himself with the new regime on the day of the coup d'état.

Three months before February 23rd, there were already rumors of a coup attempt in Spain. Alfonso Suárez's government was weakened, and within the Civil Guard, ideas and plans were circulating about how to sabotage the constitutional regime. Some of these are detailed in an unsigned document, dated November 1980, which is among the documents declassified this Wednesday—and which some books about February 23rd had already hinted at. According to this report, consulted by ARA, the coup plotters had devised various roadmaps to get rid of Suárez and replace his government with a more sympathetic one, without going through the ballot box under any circumstances. And, within the various military factions, there was a group linked to Operation Galaxia—another coup attempt from 1978 that also featured Antonio Tejero—that planned to assassinate King Juan Carlos I if he did not align himself with the new regime.

Six members of Spanish intelligence services were involved in the 23-F coup attempt. This is what the Higher Center for Defense Intelligence (Cesid) —the previous version of the National Intelligence Center (CNI)— admits in an internal document that the Spanish government declassified this Wednesday. "Some members of this unit actively participated in the events of February 23," acknowledges Cesid after having carried out an investigation that concluded that six people "either knew about the events before the 23rd" or "planned operational support." This collaboration "they carried out" and "later tried to cover up their participation by activating an operation that would justify their movements" that day, the report states.