http://actualidad.terra.es/sociedad/articulo/juan_carlos_borbon_599613.htm
Juan Carlos de Borbón or a 'brief' reign that lasts already three decades
In 1975, died the dictator, nobody could think that don Juan Carlos de Borbón, this melancholy and silent Prince that on November 22 he was proclaimed A King, and who the opposition in the exile was labelling of 'brief', would turn little later into the King of all the Spanish, in the protagonist of a reign who lasts already three decades.
A reign astride between two centuries and the longest had in Spain in democracy, in a regime of freedoms. A reign that Carmen Iglesias, catedrática and academic of the Language and of the History, defines as 'miraculous'.
Before a few Spanish Parliament that there was vitoreado his arrival to the Throne ' from the emotion in the recollection to Franco ', whose corpse was remaining at the same hour exposed in the Royal Palace, till then Prince of Spain did not speak this day of democracy, but yes of concord and reconciliation.
New historical stage Began a new stage of the history of Spain, with a King who had the goal clear to reaching, though he was conscious, as he would admit twenty-five years later and in the same place, the old palace of San Jerónimo's Career, of which ' the way was uncertain and full of difficulties '.
On November 27, five days later, there was celebrated in the Church of the Jerónimos a mass of Holy Spirit in the one that already was started feeling that the things were going to change, that the ' tie and good tied ' of Franco's political testament, read for tearful Arias Navarro one in the morn' A kingdom of justice ' In a cold day but with the Sun, very different from the gray morning in which the Spanish knew the death of the dictator, after a long and long agony, the cardinal Tarancon was asking the King that it out of all the Spanish, that promoviera ' a kingdom of justice ', without discriminations.
A kingdom in which ' no form of oppression enslaves anybody and which receives the differences and, respecting them, put all to the service of the community '. The words of Tarancon, which the Spanish could follow across a television that still one saw in black and white, were indicative of what would happen immediately later.
If at the funereal obsequies of the dictator, in the Plaza of East, there had been present a sinister Pinochet of dark glasses and the first Philipine lady Imelda Marcos, between the guests to the solemn ceremony in the Jerónimos there were the president of France, Valery Giscard D'Estaing, and the German chancellor Walter Scheel. Another information that was announcing the change that was for coming.
In 2000, on having celebrated his first quarter of century in the Throne, the own King was admitting that from the beginning it had clearly that there could no be Monarchy without democracy. ' How?, he did not know it ', was adding at the time this King born in the exile and educated in Franco's Spain.
The commitment to reconcile the Spanish An education that from Estoril the Count of Barcelona monitored attentivly, his father, from whom don Juan Carlos inherited, according to the historian Javier Tusell, the commitment to reconcile the Spanish, a mission ' that the King always recognized and without which his historical significance is not understood '.
In 1975, don Juan Carlos does not provoke the enthusiasm of the people. He is perceived as a provisional King, as a young, high and fair monarch, on whose duration in the Throne jokes are done. The same one would comment little later to Santiago Carrillo, in full Transition, which, after having happened many years becoming the idiot, many people believed that he was.
Making the transition possible
Were times in which this methodical and tidy man, of affable mien and conciliator, firm, disciplined, intuitive and sensitive, this young man Príncipe that the left side was considering a 'dummy' and the monarchic ones a 'traitor' to his father, used of form discreet but decided to prepare the way that made possible the Transition.
' He should have appeased - wrote Tusell - the declarations of his father, to avoid the distrust of The Dun one, to attract the youngest reformists of the regime and to connect with the opposition, at the same time as he was explaining to the politicians of he was that one day there would be democracy in Spain, though he did not know how he would come near to it '
In 1969, after an interview with the Prince, married already a Greek Princess, Sofia, and father of three children, which was an ambassador at the time of the United States in Spain, Robert Hill, was writing a report for the Department of State in the one that was revealing that don Juan Carlos ' knows that the monarchy is not popular and that his task is to construct a viable and modern monarchy, with popular support '.
Hill was emphasizing his intelligence, and a certain naiveté, owed ' to his youth and to his lack of political practical experience ', but he was thinking that the Prince ' can survive or not to the tensions of the postfranquista Spain, but I am sure - he was writing - of that it tries to try, according to his to deal, to modernize the Spanish politics and, to being possible, governing the country '.
Seven years later, during the first trip of the Kings to the United States, the newspaper 'New York Times' was publishing an editorial with a significant holder: ' A king for the democracy '.