Assassination of Luis Carerro Blanco

The problem of succession was something that was necessary for Franco to solve throughout his regime. The power vested in the Catholic Church and the military, as well as the success of the authoritarian coalitions in building up their nations and quashing potential rivals, kept them in power for decades, but the divides between factions that had been growing since the beginning of Francoist Spain were starting to cause issues for the question of succession. The question had become whether the regime would die with Franco.

Franco’s answer to that originally came with General Luis Carerro Blanco, a traditionalist military general, that would serve as Prime Minister of a revived constitutional monarchy that would see Juan Carlos at the head of a Francoist state. The assassination of Carerro Blanco by an ETA-placed car bomb in November of 1973, however, robbed the Generalissimo of this plan. Successors of Carrero Blanco would only radically change the system as it was, ironically leading to democracy. The question that Franco had avoided for much of his administration was reissued; other than Blanco and the young Juan Carlos, there were few that he could trust to rule in the Francoist manner.

The importance that this assassination has is twofold: Not only was it one of the most significant actions undertaken by the ETA, but it also, arguably, helped directly lead to democracy in Spain. Franco had few he could trust as capable leaders; the tendency of dictators like him was to promote individuals loyal to him over individuals that could feasibly lead Spain after he was gone. In the five years after the death of Blanco, not only was Spain to become democratic, but the Basque populations that his administration oppressed would become autonomous.

Image caption: This is a picture of General Luis Carerro Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco, a general and politician during Francoist Spain and, for a period before his death in 1973, the Prime Minister of Spain. He was Franco’s handpicked successor for after he passed away in order to maintain the regime’s power. As a staunch Francoist, he was trusted far higher than other potential successors as someone who would perpetuate the regime until Juan Carlos I was ready to rule. His premature death from assassination, ironically en route to mass, by the ETA rocked the regime to its core, leaving the regime without a successor and helped the regime better force the transition back to democracy, and it did, with Juan Carlos I and others, in the mid-1970s.