Adolfo Suarez

Adolfo Suárez González (Cebreros, Ávila, September 25, 1932-Madrid, March 23, 2014), 1st Duke of Suárez and grandee of Spain, was a Spanish politician and lawyer, President of the Government of Spain between 1976 and 1981.

Suárez, whose childhood was spent in Ávila, graduated in law from the University of Salamanca and did his doctoral studies at the Complutense University of Madrid. He held various public positions during the Franco dictatorship: he was civil governor of Segovia, attorney in Cortes and general director of Radio and Television. Despite being unknown to public opinion at the time, he was appointed Prime Minister by King Juan Carlos I in 1976.

As Prime Minister, Suárez was one of the key figures in the Spanish transition, the process through which the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco was left behind and Spain was established as a social and democratic state of law. During his presidency, various measures were carried out that reformed the previous system, such as the "self-liquidation" of the Francoist Cortes or the legalization of political parties; The legalization of the Communist Party was especially notorious. He was elected president under the Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) coalition in the 1977 general elections, becoming the first president of the government of the new Spanish democratic period, a position he would hold during the constituent and I legislatures. In 1981 he resigned as president of the Government for the dismantling of the UCD.

After his resignation, he created the Centro Democrático y Social (CDS) party together with other UCD leaders and was elected deputy in Cortes in several general elections, until he abandoned politics in 1991. He retired from public life in 2003 for having been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He passed away from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2014. Following his death, he was awarded the collar of the Order of Carlos III and the Madrid-Barajas Airport was renamed in his honor.

Early years and family

The first-born son of Hipólito Suárez Guerra (La Coruña, July 1907 - Madrid, March 22, 1980) and Herminia González Prados (1910-July 18, 2006), Adolfo Suárez was born in Cebreros by decision of his mother, who had his family roots there. However, his residence was already established in Ávila, where the couple moved shortly after getting married. He also had four younger siblings: Hipólito, María del Carmen (married to Aurelio Delgado Martín), Ricardo and José María.

His mother was very devout and the daughter of small businessmen, while his father was a court solicitor, son of the clerk of the court —player and womanizer— with whom he never got along.

Suárez was never a good student. He went through several schools, he didn't read and his hobbies had more to do with parties, sports and card games. He also reciprocated the religiosity of his mother, founding and presiding since his adolescence various organizations linked to Catholic Action.

He married Amparo Illana Elórtegui (1934-2001) on July 15, 1961, with whom he had five children: María del Amparo "Mariam" (1963-2004), Adolfo (1964), Laura (1966), Sonsoles (1967) and Francisco Javier (1969), and four grandchildren: Alejandra and Fernando (Mariam's children), and Adolfo and Pablo (Adolfo's children).

His wife, Amparo Illana Elórtegi, died of cancer on May 17, 2001, at the age of 66, and his daughter Mariam, died three years later, on March 7, 2004, also of cancer, at the 41 years of age.

Training

He studied law on his own in Salamanca, graduating not without difficulties. At the beginning of 1955, he had just gotten his first paid job at the Ávila charity, when his father ran away from home as a result of a business scandal. Unable to support the rest of his family on his own, in August he met the Falangist linked to Opus Dei Fernando Herrero Tejedor, who had just been appointed civil governor and provincial head of the Movement in Ávila and would become his political tutor. since then, helping him to establish himself in this profession. At the beginning of the 1958-1959 academic year, he entered the Francisco Franco Residence Hall —located in the University City of Madrid— with the aim of beginning to prepare for oppositions. He received his doctorate in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid.

Political career

He held different positions within the structures of the Franco regime at the hands of Herrero Tejedor. In this way, in 1958, he became part of the General Secretariat of the Movement, rising, in 1961, to head of the technical office of the deputy secretary general, attorney in Cortes for Ávila in 1967 and civil governor of Segovia and provincial head of the Movement in 1968. In that year he had to face the tragedy of Los Angeles de San Rafael. In 1969 he was appointed General Director of Radio and Television Broadcasting, where he had already held other positions between 1964 and 1968; he remained in this position until 1973.

In 1975, again at the hands of Herrero Tejedor, he was appointed deputy secretary general of the Movement, a position he would take office on March 24, and which he would hold until the death of his mentor on June 12 of that year in a car accident. On July 11, 1975, he also became president of the Unión del Pueblo Español (UDPE) political organization, a position he held until December 12, when he was replaced as president of the political association by Cruz Martínez Esteruelas..

On December 11, 1975, he entered the first cabinet of Arias Navarro formed after Franco's death. At the suggestion of Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, Adolfo Suárez was appointed Minister-Secretary General of the Movement.

On June 9, 1976, in a speech on the Law of Political Associations before the Spanish Courts prior to his election, he quoted some verses by Antonio Machado, who died in exile:

We will lay the foundations for a lasting understanding under the rule of law.

And let me finish that I remember the verses of a great Spanish author.

It's open today/morning. Tomorrow, infinity. / Men of Spain, not the past has died, / is not the morning in yesterday written.

President of the Government

Pre-constitutional period

Adolfo Suárez on August 29, 1977, surrounded by Max van der Stoel and Joop den Uyl.

When in July 1976 King Juan Carlos I commissioned him to form the second government of his reign and the consequent dismantling of Francoist structures, Suárez was a perfect stranger to a majority of the Spanish people. However, at the age of 43, with not a few difficulties, he was able to bring together a group of politicians of his generation who had reached democratic convictions through various paths. He knew how to bring together, along with "converted" Falangists like him, Social Democrats, Liberals, Christian Democrats, etc., and between 1976 and 1979, he dismantled the Franco regime with the complicity of anti-Franco forces such as the PSOE and, especially, the Communist Party of Spain and its leader, Santiago Carrillo, who described Suárez as an "intelligent anti-communist".

In this task he had the help of Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, among others, who achieved the self-liquidation of the Francoist Cortes and carried out the Political Reform Project, in the face of a suspicious democratic opposition and with the collaboration of Lieutenant General Manuel Gutiérrez Dent, in charge of reassuring and controlling, as far as possible, the high military spheres, made up for the most part by soldiers who had participated in the Civil War and prone to the Franco regime.

Democratic period

On June 15, 1977, for the first time in Spain since 1936, free general elections were held. Adolfo Suárez stood as the victor of them, at the head of a conglomerate of centrist formations, united around his person, under the acronym UCD (Union of Democratic Center). The Cortes that emerged from those elections, converted into constituents, approved the Constitution, which the Spanish people endorsed on December 6, 1978.

Third Government of South America (May 1980).

Photographed in his inauguration speech at the Congress of Deputies (March 1979)

Photographed together with Rafael Arias Salgado and Marcelino Oreja chairing a meeting of the Council of Ministers (1980)

On March 1, 1979, Adolfo Suárez won general elections for the second time, and began his third term as Prime Minister. However, the victory in the general elections was very much in the background after the access of the left to the main municipalities of the country after the first municipal elections in April. The agreement between the PSOE and the PCE allowed large Spanish cities to be governed by mayors from opposition parties.

It was a stage of government full of political, social and economic difficulties. In 1980, the PSOE presented a motion of censure that, although defeated beforehand, further deteriorated the image of a Suárez, devoid of support in his own game. Finally, on January 29, 1981, he chose to resign both as president of the Government and of the Unión de Centro Democrático.In his message to the country, which lasted ten minutes and was broadcast by Televisión Española at 7:40 p.m., he he claimed:

This gave rise to the belief that he was resigning due to pressure from the military. This theory seemed confirmed by the attempted coup that took place during the inauguration of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo. However, some authors —Javier Cercas, Javier Tusell and Charles Powell among them— insist on fatigue and the lack of support from the Crown as the main factors for his resignation. Other authors such as Gregorio Morán refer to a specific episode that combines military threats with the lack of real support, all of which together with the ongoing rebellion of the Christian Democrat members of his party, who have already agreed with those of Alianza Popular, such as the decisive causes of resignation.

In 1981, the King granted him the title of Duke of Suárez by virtue of his role in the Transition process.

Later political life

Adolfo Suárez, along with the CDS deputy, Francisco Javier Moldes Fontán, celebrating the success of the party in the 1986 elections.

After his resignation, he left the UCD on July 28, 1982, together with other former UCD leaders he created the Centro Democrático y Social (CDS) party, which he publicly announced three days after leaving the UCD, and with the that appeared to the elections of the 28 of October of 1982, being chosen deputy by Madrid. He revalidated his seat in the 1986 and 1989 elections, but in 1991 he resigned as president of the CDS after the poor results of his formation in the municipal elections and definitively abandoned politics.

In 1996 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord for his important contribution to the Spanish Transition to democracy, of which he is considered the great architect.

Adolfo Suárez received the Gold Medal of Castilla y León on March 21, 1997

Last years

Both his wife, Amparo Illana Elórtegui (May 25, 1934 - May 17, 2001), and his eldest daughter, María Amparo (Mariam) Suárez Illana (February 9, 1963 - March 7, 2004), lawyer, suffered and died of cancer. Amparo she died on May 17, 2001 at the age of 66, at her home in Madrid, after having undergone surgery in 1994 at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra for breast cancer she suffered from. Mariam died almost three years later, on March 7, 2004 at the age of 41 in Madrid. Another of Suárez's daughters, Sonsoles Suárez (1967), a television presenter, has also suffered from cancer. Suárez has two other sons who have been operated on for cancer, both successfully: Adolfo (May 5, 1964), who was the Popular Party candidate for the presidency of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha in 2003 and underwent surgery twice in in 2014 from throat cancer, Laura (who also suffered from cancer and was successfully operated on in 2012). She has another son, Francisco Javier, who has never been detected.

In 2003, on the occasion of the candidacy of his son, Adolfo Suárez Illana, for president of Castilla-La Mancha for the Popular Party, Suárez made his last public appearance, in Albacete, to support this candidacy. Since then he has not appeared publicly again, being precisely his son Adolfo who, in the course of an interview for the program Las cherries of Televisión Española on May 31, 2005, made public that the former president suffered from the disease Alzheimer's for two years, so he did not even remember having been President of the Government and did not recognize anyone, responding only to affective stimuli. That same year, from the program Protagonistas by Luis del Olmo (Punto Radio) a tribute was paid to him that was joined by Adolfo Suárez Illana, Santiago Carrillo and the next four presidents of the Government, broadcast live by Punto Radio and by the different Spanish television channels, belonging to the network of local channels- Vocento Punto TV provinces.

On June 8, 2007 and on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the first democratic elections after the dictatorship, King Juan Carlos I named him a Knight of the Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece for his important performance in the Spanish Transition, the which was delivered to him on July 16, 2008. When he was unable to attend due to his state of health, he received the Adolfo Suárez Illana award, who read a speech on behalf of his father. On September 23, 2007, an unpublished interview with Suárez, made in 1980, was published in the newspaper ABC. On June 12, 2009, the Adolfo Suárez and Transition Museum was opened to the public in Cebreros dedicated to his figure and the Transition.

Death

The remains of Adolfo Suárez are buried along with those of his wife in the Salvador de Ávila Cathedral.

On March 21, 2014, his son Adolfo announced that his father's state of health had worsened due to pneumonia and that the "end was imminent", making it known that he had been hospitalized for a few days. Two days later he died at the Cemtro clinic in Madrid, at the age of 81.

On March 24, the Ministry of Public Works approved a ministerial order, at the proposal of the President of the Government, for the Madrid-Barajas airport to be renamed Adolfo Suárez, Madrid-Barajas. It is the second Spaniard to give its name to a national airport, after the writer and poet Federico García Lorca, who gives its name to the Granada airport. In recognition of his work, the monarch posthumously imposed the Collar of the Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Carlos III, awarded by a Extraordinary Council of Ministers, thus achieving the two highest decorations in Spain along with the Golden Fleece that was awarded in 2007 and awarded while the Duke was alive a year later. It is the highest civil decoration awarded in Spain. The necklace, which is its highest degree, is reserved for members of the Spanish royal family, heads of state and government and citizens who have had the great cross, the second degree of decoration, for at least three years.

Tomb of Adolfo Suárez and his wife.

He was attended by great political personalities, the kings and princes of Asturias, the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, with his wife, and the three former presidents after his mandate (except Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, who died in 2008). Thousands of citizens also attended, coming to form queues of more than five kilometers in front of the funeral chapel installed in the Palace of the Cortes.

On March 25, after celebrating the mass corpore unsepulto, Suárez was buried at his express wish in the cloister of the cathedral of Ávila. Along with his mortal remains, those of his wife Amparo Illana were also buried, who until then had remained buried in the Chapel of Mosen Rubí in Ávila. On his epitaph is written "Concord was possible."

A roundabout was built in Alcalá de Henares, which also has the writing “La concordia fue posible”.

Rotonda Adolfo Suárez, Alcalá de Henares,

His state funeral was held on March 31, 2014 in the Almudena Cathedral. The ceremony was officiated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Antonio María Rouco Varela, and was presided over by King Juan Carlos I and King Sofia of Greece. He highlighted the presence of other authorities such as the princes of Asturias, the highest authorities of the State, as well as numerous foreign political personalities, including the Equatorial Guinean Head of State Teodoro Obiang, the President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso, as well as the Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirán; the deputy prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg, and of Portugal, Paulo Portas, and the Argentine vice-president, Amado Boudou.

Titles, distinctions and decorations

Nobility

• I duke of Suárez, great of Spain.

Spanish

Great weapons of Adolfo Suárez González, I duque de Suárez, Grande de España.

• Knight of the Order of the Golden Toy (8 June 2007).
• Knight of the necklace of the Order of Charles III (in posthumous title, March 24, 2014).
  • Big Cross Knight of the Order of Charles III (June 23, 1978).
• Grand Cross Knight of the Order of Elizabeth the Catholic (29 September 1973).
• Great cross of the Imperial Order of the Yugo and the Arrows (4 July 1975).
• Great cross of the Order of Cisneros (18 July 1972).
• Great cross of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio (1 April 1971).
  • Commander of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio (1 April 1967).
• Grand Cross Knight of the Order of Civil Merit (18 July 1969).
• Segovia Gold Medal (17 November 1969).
• Great cross of the Order of Military Merit, with white distinction (14 September 1970).
• Great cross of the Order of Naval Merit, with white distinction (1 April 1972).
• Gold Medal of Avila (12 February 1981; delivered on 9 June 2005).
• Adoptive son of Avila (12 February 1981; delivered on 9 June 2005).
• Alfonso X el Sabio de Toledo International Prize (21 October 1994).
• Madrid Gold Medal (30 November 1995; delivered on 10 November 1998).
• Doctor honoris causa por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (28 May 1996).
• Prince of Asturias Award of Concordia (13 September 1996).
• Gold Medal of Castile and Leon (22 March 1997).
• Doctor. honoris causa by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (30 October 1998).
• Ceuta Convivence Award (30 April 1999).
• Medalla de Honor de Madrid (15 May 2011).
• Extremadura Medal (in posthumous title, April 1, 2014).
• Adoptive Son of Madrid (in posthumous title, March 27, 2014).
• Grand Cross of the Order of Jaume I the Conqueridor (in posthumous title, March 2014)
• adopted son of Garachico (1981).
• Doctor honoris causa por la Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir (a posthumous degree, October 15, 2018)

Foreigners

• Great cross of the Order of Christ (Portuguese Republic, 20 April 1978).
• Grand Cross of the Order of Freedom (Portuguese Republic, 22 February 1996).

In popular culture

Literature

Like other real characters of the Transition, Adolfo Suárez appears in the novel by Fernando Vizcaíno Casas And in the third year, he was resurrected. In the 1981 film based on the novel, his role was played by José Sancho.

The book (a novelized historical essay) Anatomy of an Instant (Mondadori, 2009) by Javier Cercas focuses on the 1981 coup d'état in Spain, when Suárez was the resigning president. The "moment" to which the title refers is the one captured by the RTVE cameras, when the Civil Guard has occupied the Congress and Adolfo Suárez remains seated in his seat while the rest of the deputies (with the exception of Santiago Carrillo) are hidden under their seats, and Gutiérrez Mellado rebukes Antonio Tejero and his troupe. This work won the National Narrative Award in 2010.

Cinema and television

In the humorous film El gran Mogollón (1982), a parody of him appears, played by actor Pedro Ruiz.

On January 27, 2010, Antena 3 broadcast the film Adolfo Suárez, el presidente represented by the actor Ginés García Millán. The telefilm consists of two parts of 70 minutes. The first narrates his youth and his political career until he is sworn in as president. The second, includes the years of his government until the coup d'état of 23-F.

In the Spanish Television series Cuéntame cómo pasó, President Suárez, played by the actor Francesc Pagès, appears on several occasions in shots of public acts from the Transition era and also in interaction with the Alcántara family, especially Antonio Alcántara, a UCD militant and CDS supporter.

On February 23, 2011, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of 23-F, the homonymous film was released where President Suárez is played for the second time by Ginés García Millán.

On December 5, 2013, TVE broadcast a documentary about his presidency of the Government on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution.

In the Spanish Television series El Ministerio del Tiempo, he had a special appearance in the 9th and 12th episode of the 3rd season played by Jaime Pujol.