1981 Spanish coup attempt

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1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt
Part of the Spanish transition to democracy

Antonio Tejero bursting into the Plenary Chamber of the Congress of Deputies, gun in hand
Date23–24 February 1981
Location
Madrid and Valencia, Spain
Result

Coup failed

Belligerents

Spain Kingdom of Spain

Supported by:
European Union EEC

Francoist Spain Neo-Francoist rebels

Commanders and leaders
Strength
All of the Spanish military and police corps except for the rebels 1,800 men (in Valencia)
200 Civil Guards (in Madrid)
Dozens of tanks and other military vehicles
Casualties and losses
None

A

Spain's democratization process. King Juan Carlos I
played a major role in foiling the coup, and the monarchy emerged with renewed legitimacy as a result.

The coup began on 23 February 1981 when Lieutenant-Colonel

Felipe Gonzalez pardoned the former.[1]

Background

The coup attempt was linked to the

Democratic Center Union
(UCD) coalition of conservative parties could not contain:

  • almost 20% unemployment, capital flight, and 16% inflation,[2] which were caused by an economic crisis
  • difficulty devolving governance to Spanish regions
  • increased violence by the Basque terrorist group ETA
  • opposition to the fledgling democracy from within the Spanish Armed Forces

The first signs of unease in the army appeared in April 1977. Admiral Pita da Veiga resigned as

Communist Party of Spain (PCE) on 9 April 1977, following the Atocha massacre by neo-fascist terrorists. In November 1978, the Operation Galaxia military putsch was put down. Its leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero, was sentenced to seven months in prison.[3]

While seditious sentiments grew in sectors of the military and extreme right, the government faced a serious crisis at the beginning of the decade, and its position became increasingly untenable in the course of 1980. Key events saw the resignation of the

Minister of Culture, Manuel Clavero on 15 January; the restructuring of the government on 3 May; the motion of no confidence against Adolfo Suárez moved by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) between 28 May and 30 May; the resignation on 22 July of the vice-president, Fernando Abril Martorell, which produced a new reshuffle in September; and the election in October of Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón
, alternative candidate of the official bid for president of the centrist parliamentary group promoted by Suárez.

The growing weakness of Suárez at the heart of his own party led to his televised resignation as prime minister and president of the UCD on 29 January 1981.

Lemoiz nuclear project, José María Ryan, was found murdered, having been kidnapped a few days earlier.[7] Meanwhile, there was no further news about industrialist Luis Suñer after his abduction.[8]

In this atmosphere of mounting tension, the process of choosing Suárez's successor began. Between 6 and 9 February, the 2nd UCD congress in

Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was named candidate for prime minister.[9]

Political flashpoint

Tensions came to a head on 13 February, when news emerged of the torture and murder in

Interior Ministry
there were resignations in solidarity with the torturers. El Alcázar newspaper judged the government's actions a show of weakness that needed to be stopped.

Against this extraordinary backdrop, Calvo Sotelo presented his proposed government on 18 February, but, during congressional voting on the 20th, he failed to obtain the necessary majority approval for confirmation as prime minister, so a new vote was scheduled for the 23rd: the day the conspirators had chosen for their coup attempt. As planned, the coup would require Tejero and General Jaime Milans del Bosch as its principal instigators, with a minor role being played by General Alfonso Armada, a confidant of King Juan Carlos I.

Coup

Captain General Jaime Milans del Bosch
during the attempted coup of 23 February 1981.

Assault on the Congress of Deputies

Bullet holes on the ceiling of the Plenary Hall.

Several TVE cameramen and technicians filmed almost half an hour of the event, providing the world with an audiovisual record of the attempted coup (which would be broadcast several hours after it ended). Moreover, members of the private radio station SER continued their live broadcast with open microphones from within the Congress of Deputies, which meant that the general public was able to follow along by radio as events unfolded. As such, the date is sometimes remembered as "the Night of Transistor Radios" (La noche de los transistores).

At 18:00, the roll-call vote for the swearing in (investidura) of

Guardia Civil agents led by Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero and armed with submachine guns, burst into congressional chambers.[10] Tejero immediately took the Speaker's platform and shouted "¡Quieto todo el mundo!" ("Nobody move!"), ordering everyone to lie down on the floor.[11]

Most of the deputies dropped to the floor, except for three: acting minister of defence and deputy prime minister, General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado; acting prime minister, Adolfo Suárez; and Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo, who calmly lit a cigarette and remained seated.

As the highest-ranking military official present, Army General (and Deputy Prime Minister) Gutiérrez Mellado refused to comply, confronting Tejero and ordering him to stand down and hand over the weapon.[12] Outgoing Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez made a move to join Gutiérrez Mellado, who briefly scuffled with several civil guards until Tejero fired a shot into the air, which was followed by a sustained burst of submachine-gun fire from the assailants. (The shots wounded some of the visitors in the chamber's upper gallery). Undeterred, arms akimbo in defiance, 68-year-old General Gutiérrez Mellado refused to sit down, even after Tejero attempted, unsuccessfully, to wrestle him to the floor. Their face-off ended with Tejero returning to the rostrum and Gutiérrez Mellado returning to his seat.

After several minutes, all the deputies retook their assigned congressional seats. The captain of the Guardia Civil, Jesús Muñecas Aguilar [es], strode to the Speaker's platform, demanded silence and announced that all those present were to wait for the arrival of "the competent military authority."

At 19:35, acting prime minister Suárez stood up and asked to speak to the commanders. Shots were fired in response, and a guard flashed a submachine gun towards the deputies' seats, demanding silence. One of the assailants ordered, "Mr. Suárez, stay in your seat!" Suárez was about to reply when someone else shouted, "siéntate maldita sea" ("Sit down, damn it!") (Historically, this phrase is attributed to Lieutenant Colonel Tejero, although it was probably Lieutenant Ramos Rueda.[

the informal
"tú" - replied, "Tú ya no eres presidente de nada!" ("You are no longer the president of anything!")

Shortly afterward, five of the parliament's deputies were separated from the rest: Prime Minister Suárez; the opposition leader,

Felipe González, and his deputy, Alfonso Guerra González; Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo; and the Defense minister, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún. The insurgents' hope, in taking both the executive and legislative authorities prisoner, was to create a power vacuum
that would force a new political order.

Almost at the same time, the

Captain General of the Third Military Region, Jaime Milans del Bosch, joined the coup with a revolt in Valencia, ordering tanks to be brought out onto the streets and declaring a general state of emergency in an attempt to convince other senior military figures to align with him in supporting the coup. At 21:00 that evening, the Director of National Security, Francisco Laína, published a statement on RTVE announced that, under the instructions of King Juan Carlos I, a provisional government would be formed with the undersecretaries of different ministries in order to ensure State government in alliance with the Assembly of Military Chiefs of Staff (Junta de Jefes del Estado Mayor) and led by himself.[13]

The coup was vehemently condemned by member countries of the

EEC, especially since Spain was in preliminary negotiations for membership (eventually joining in 1986). Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK, called the coup a "terrorist act."[14] Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State, described the coup as an "internal affair".[15]

Meanwhile, another insurgent general, Torres Rojas, failed in his attempt to oust General Juste from the Army's Armoured Division No. 1 "Brunete", resulting in Torres Rojas having to abandon his plan to take control of key strategic points in Madrid, including State radio and television headquarters and, therefore, firsthand control of the information as events unfolded.

Armada's soft coup

Originally, Armada, one of the coup's conspirators, had advocated a "milder" course of action, which he then proceeded to implement. Arriving at the Palace of Zarzuela, the royal residence, Armada offered the monarch a trade-off: the king would head a new "government of salvation" that would replace the democratically elected one in the hopes of appeasing Tejero and his forces and thereby avoiding a return to the full military dictatorship the conspirators were demanding.

The King, however, refused to receive Armada, who, shortly before midnight, entered the Congress of Deputies alleging that the King had ordered him to assume leadership of the government. As Armada was not the "competent military authority" that Tejero had been waiting for, the latter rejected Armada's claims with "My general, I didn't assault Congress for this" and, after that, ignored him.

Military occupation of Valencia

A simultaneous rebellion in eastern Spain fizzled.

air-to-ground missiles (which he claimed to have standing by with their engines running) against the tanks sent by Milans del Bosch, thereby forcing the latter to withdraw. This setback hinted the impending failure of the Madrid coup.[16]

Juan Carlos's repudiation

Juan Carlos refused to endorse the coup. The king, after protracted discussions with colleagues, was convinced of his military leaders' loyalty to himself and the Constitution. Two-and-a-half hours after the seizure, Juan Carlos phoned the president of the Government of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, and assured him that everything was under control.[3] Pujol, just before 22:00 that evening, made a short speech via national broadcasting stations inside and outside of Spain calling for peace. Until 01:00 in the morning (24 February), negotiations took place outside the Congress between the acting government as well as General Armada, who would later be relieved of his duties under suspicion that he had participated in planning the coup.

At 01:14 on 24 February, a speech by Juan Carlos was broadcast on national television, with the king wearing the uniform of the Captain general of the Army (Capitán General de los Ejércitos), the highest Spanish military rank, to oppose the coup and its instigators, defend the Spanish Constitution, and disavow the authority of Milans del Bosch. In the speech, recorded shortly before at the Palace of Zarzuela, he declared:

I address the Spanish people with brevity and concision:

In the face of these exceptional circumstances, I ask for your serenity and trust, and I hereby inform you that I have given the Captains General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force the following order:

Given the events taking place in the Palace of Congress, and to avoid any possible confusion, I hereby confirm that I have ordered the Civil Authorities and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take any and all necessary measures to uphold constitutional order within the limits of the law.

Should any measure of a military nature need to be taken, it must be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the nation, will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behavior of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution, which the Spanish People approved by vote in referendum.

From that moment on, the coup was understood to be a failure. Deputy Javier Solana stated that when he saw Tejero reading a special edition of the El País newspaper brought in by General Sáenz de Santamaría, which vehemently condemned the hostage situation inside the Congress, he knew that the coup had failed.[17] For his part, Milans del Bosch, alone and thereafter isolated, abandoned his plans at 5:00 that morning and was arrested. Scores of civil guards clad in military fatigues attempted to jump out of the first floor window trying to flee. Others ran out the front door into the arms of officers who had surrounded the building through the night. The deputies were freed that morning after emerging one by one from their all night ordeal shouting "Long Live Freedom".[18] Tejero resisted until midday on 24 February and was arrested outside the Congress building.

In popular culture

The event was made into a motion picture by Warner Bros. entitled 23F (Spanish nomenclature for 23 February, when the coup took place). Variety reviewer Jonathan Holland said the period detail of the film was good, but the film followed the officially sanctioned version and failed to scratch beneath the surface of what really happened.[19]

Legacy

Parliamentary deputies and government officials who were taken hostage during the failed coup commemorate its 30th anniversary on 23 February 2011.

The most immediate consequence was that, as an institution, the monarchy emerged from the failed coup with overwhelming legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the political class. In the long term, the coup's failure could be considered the last serious attempt by adherents to Francoist ideology to establish any long-term authority in the country.

The Supreme Court of Military Justice, known as the Campamento trial (juicio de Campamento), sentenced Miláns del Bosch, Alfonso Armada, and Antonio Tejero Molina to thirty years in prison as the key instigators of the coup d'état. Eventually, thirty people out of some 300 accused would be convicted for their involvement in the coup.[17]

The extent of any civilian involvement in planning the coup has never been thoroughly investigated.[

Sindicato Vertical (the only legal trade union organisation in Francoist Spain
), was the only civilian to be convicted.

After the events, the Socialist opposition agreed to a law, the LOAPA, to slow down the establishment of autonomous communities as envisaged in the Constitution, to placate the military.[9]

The bullet holes in the ceiling of the Spanish parliament were retained as a reminder of the coup attempt.

Alternative theories

The bloodless yet apparently chaotic unravelling of the coup, the plethora of unanswered questions as to its unfolding, the staunch monarchist allegiance of two main conspirators (Armada and Milans del Bosch), and the King's lengthy absence before he finally made a late-night public television address have fueled skepticism and conspiracy theories during the Campamento trial and have remained active ever since.[20][21][22][23]

These theories cast doubt on the sincerity of the King's defense of democracy and qualify the coup as an example of coercive realpolitik taken to the next level. In essence, this version of events alleges that the coup itself was orchestrated by the Spanish Secret Services in connivance with the King and the Royal House as well as representatives of the major political parties and mainstream media, among others. The plot's centerpiece and apparent motivation was the so-called Operation Armada, a "soft" coup modeled after Operation De Gaulle and aimed at a national-unity government headed by Armada himself, consisting of an array of ministers from all the main political parties. The first objective was to oust Prime Minister Suárez, who had been criticized relentlessly by the media and the political elite for months and was rumoured to have even lost the King's good graces, partly due to Suárez's ambitious reformist agenda which had, conceivably, gone off-script.[24] The second objective of the purported "soft" coup was a consequence of the former: to hurry still-toddling Spanish public institutions into fulfilling the convergence criteria the nation was being groomed for, namely NATO and EEC membership and the consolidation of an effectively bipartisan and ideologically moderate parliamentary monarchy.[20] According to the rationale behind the theory, this objective required both purging the armed forces of its most reactionary elements and frightening the common voter into accepting the monarchy and the two-party system as the institutional "default position".[20][23]

Yet another and more concrete objective would have been to neutralize an imminent and "hard" coup d'état planned for later that year, most likely on 2 May.

SECED chief José Ignacio San Martín. Two reasons have been cited why this alleged plot was considered particularly dangerous: San Martín's intelligence connections, and the fact that it was colonels and lieutenant colonels, rather than generals, who had direct control over the troops.[21][23]

According to these theories, Prime Minister Suárez got wind of Operation Armada long in advance, hence his sudden resignation in order to avoid it—given that the coup was to occur during the motion of no confidence in his government, scheduled to take place some weeks later. The plan went forward in spite of Suárez's resignation, but Tejero's failure to understand its ramifications, his guileless belief that he was at the heart of a hardcore coup plot, the media field-day prompted by his violent entrance in congressional chambers (and his crass, uncouth demeanor and language, which was captured by microphones and cameras in the building and later ridiculed by the press), and his refusal to accept the multi-partisan government proposed by Armada, resulted in the simultaneous aborting of the "hard" and the "soft" coup plots by those who had planned them.[23]

Former

CESID Special Operations chief José Luis Cortina Prieto, one of the three military officers acquitted during the trial, plays a ubiquitous role in these theories, some of which[21][26][27] place him as a major power player within the conspiracy as well as the man responsible for coalescing all the different coup plots into one and later neutralizing them simultaneously. Cortina, who graduated from the Zaragoza Academy in the same cohort as the King,[26] had been appointed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence services during the Carrero administration[28] and would later assist his brother in creating the Gabinete de Orientación y Documentación S. A. (GODSA [es]) think tank, which would be the germ of the country's main conservative party. It has been alleged[27][29][30][31][32] that during a lunch break in the 23-F trial, and after being subjected to a particularly intense grilling session by the prosecutor, Cortina grabbed a phone and was heard saying: "Como siga este tío así, saco a relucir lo de Carrero" ("If this guy keeps pressing me like this, I'll spill the beans about [what happened to] Carrero
"). The prosecutor's questioning allegedly lost a great deal of intensity when court resumed after the lunch break, and Cortina was finally acquitted.

Arguably up until a

José Luis de Vilallonga contains the following interview excerpt:

If I were to carry out an operation in the King's name but without his consent, my first move would have been to isolate him from the rest of the world and prevent him from communicating with anyone on the outside. Well far from it: That night I could have entered and left my residence at will; and concerning phone lines, I received more calls in a few hours than I had received in a whole month! From my father, who was in Estoril (and was also very surprised to be able to contact me by phone), from my two sisters in Madrid, and from friendly heads of State who encouraged me to resist.

Sabino Fernández Campo, chief of the Royal House, expunged this from the Spanish edition.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Rincón, Reyes (22 June 2021). "Otros condenados que recibieron un polémico perdón". El País (in Spanish).
  2. ^ a b El Gobierno nombra Comisario Provincial de Tenerife a un convicto por torturas Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Armando Quiñones in elzapatazo.com, 29 March 2005 (in Spanish)
  3. ^ a b Madrid, Bill Cemlyn-Jones in (23 February 1981). "King Orders army to crush coup". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  4. ^ "Suárez: "No quiero que el sistema democrático sea un paréntesis en la historia de España"". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). 30 January 1981. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  5. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  6. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  7. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  8. ^ Alós Alzira, Carlos (30 January 2011). "Treinta años del secuestro de Luis Suñer". www.levante-emv.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  9. ^ a b "Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo: Post-Franco Prime Minister of Spain who survived an attempted coup and was determined to see the country join Nato". The Times. UK. 5 May 2008. Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 13 May 2008.
  10. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  11. OCLC 35055707
    . El Teniente Coronel Tejero y otros miembros de la Guardia Civil se dirigen a la Cámara, gritando: "¡Alto! ¡Todo el mundo quieto! ¡Quieto todo el mundo!... ¡Silencio! ¡Quieto todo el mundo! ¡Al suelo! ¡Al suelo todo el mundo! ¡Todo el mundo al suelo!"
  12. ^ És el que hi ha. (11 December 2013). "23F los pinchazos del golpe". YouTube. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  13. ^ ""Al amanecer se derrumbarán"". El Comercio (in Spanish). 20 February 2011.
  14. ^ "Thatcher y su visión de España". Hoy (in European Spanish). 14 April 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  15. ISSN 1134-6582
    . Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  16. ^ a b "Spanish Coup Attempt Ends in Failure". The Tampa Times. Vol. 89, no. 15. UPI. 24 February 1981. p. 2–A. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-43819-3
    .
  18. ^ "Spanish Coup Attempt Fails". Vol. 140, no. 73. Iowa City Press–Citizen. AP. 24 February 1981. p. 1. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  19. ^ Holland, Jonathan (4 March 2011). "23–F". variety.com. Variety Media. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  20. ^ a b c d "unrey.pdf" (PDF). 13 May 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 May 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  21. ^ a b c "Ultra Memorias – biografía de Ernesto Milá". Ernestomila.wordpress.com. página 4. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  22. ^ a b "Coronel Martínez Inglés: "El golpe del 23-F lo dirigió el rey Juan Carlos"". Alertadigital.com. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  23. ^ a b c d e La Gran Desmemoria. ASIN 8408121456.
  24. ^ Palacios Tapias, Jesús (10 December 2010). "Felipe González y el PSOE fueron quienes más avalaron al general Armada". Libertad Digital. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  25. ISBN 9788495440136
    .
  26. ^ a b Galán, Lola (20 February 2011). "Los que quedan del golpe". El País. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  27. ^ a b Capitán, Yolanda. "José Luís Cortina Prieto". Elespiadigital.com. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  28. ^ "El padre del comandante Cortina muere en un incendio ocurrido en uno de los pisos donde, según Tejero, se preparó el 23F". El País. 26 July 1983. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  29. ^ "Cortina, en el juicio del 23-F: "Como me jodan, saco hasta lo de Carrero Blanco": Crónicas del TEDAX-NRBQ del C.N.P." Barbagris-tedax.blogspot.co.uk. 21 February 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  30. ^ "La verdad sobre el magnicidio de Carrero, al descubierto: Peculiaridades posteriores al atentado (5 de 7)". Alertadigital.com. Alerta Digital. Archived from the original on 11 October 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  31. ^ "Arbil, nº114 Claves para entender la España actual: El Asesinato de Carrero". Arbil.org. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  32. ^ "la CIA en España" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  33. ISBN 9788497934596
    .
  34. ^ Tremlett, Giles (9 January 2021). "For Spaniards who remember 1981, the storming of the Capitol looked eerily familiar". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  35. ^ Hofner, Kurt (18 January 2021). "Stanley Payne on Weaponizing the Past". The American Conservative.

Sources

Further reading

External links
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