Carlos Arias Navarro

Carlos Arias Navarro (Madrid, December 11, 1908-ibidem, November 27, 1989) was a Spanish politician, President of the Government during the Franco dictatorship and the transition.

He had a degree in Law, and worked as a notary and prosecutor. After the start of the Spanish civil war, he had a prominent role in the harsh repression that occurred in Malaga after its conquest in 1937, which is why he was known as the "Málaga Butcher".

He was the civil governor of León, Tenerife and Navarra, as well as General Director of Security (1957-1965), Mayor of Madrid (1965-1973), Minister of the Interior (1973), last President of the Government under the Franco regime after the internship of Torcuato Fernández-Miranda due to the death of Carrero Blanco and first of the monarchy of Juan Carlos I (1973-1976). Arias was accused of having tolerated state terrorism while he was president of the Council of Ministers, especially for the events of Montejurra (1976). He resigned on July 1, 1976; the following day he was awarded the marquesate of Arias Navarro.

His mortal remains are found next to those of his wife in the Mingorrubio cemetery in the Madrid neighborhood of El Pardo.

Biography

Training and early years

He was a Doctor of Law from the Central University of Madrid, an official of the Ministry of Justice of Spain in 1929, a prosecutor in Malaga and Madrid and a notary. He sided with the rebel side during the Spanish civil war. Manuel Fraga (in The Gyratory Cannon) and José María de Areilza (in Diary of a Monarchy Minister) consider that before the war Arias Navarro was vaguely fond of the left in various aspects such as anticlericalism. Determining influences in his formation were that of Professor Sánchez-Román or that of Azaña, under the orders of which he worked in the Ministry of Justice.

His participation as a prosecutor in the councils of war that the Francoist side promoted to punish and, where appropriate, execute significant supporters of the Republic during the Civil War and the postwar period in the city of Malaga, earned him the nickname from "The Butcher of Malaga". Due to this repression, he is credited with having participated in the death of more than 4,300 loyalists to the Government of the Republic.

Positions in the Franco regime

After the establishment of the Franco dictatorship, he was appointed civil governor of León (1944), and later he would be in Tenerife (1951). On October 15, 1954, he was appointed civil governor and provincial head of the Movement of Navarra, replacing Luis Valero Bermejo. This position meant his appointment as national councilor of the Movement representing said province. In 1957 he agreed to the position of Director General of Security, a high body in charge of public order and control of the police forces.During this period he highlighted the arrest of the communist leader Julián Grimau, who would later be sentenced to death. Arias distinguished himself at the head of the General Directorate of Security in its repressive work against the anti-Franco political opposition, being the right hand of the Minister of the Interior Camilo Alonso Vega. He was in this position for eight years, until 1965, when he was appointed mayor from Madrid.

His management in the mayor's office of Madrid resulted, among other things, in the construction of the Torre de Valencia, located behind the Retiro park, which already raised controversy during its construction as it was considered to break the perspective of the Puerta de Alcalá from the Cibeles fountain, and which has been described as an "attack against the landscape of Madrid". The reasons for the permission given by Arias to its construction seem to be based on the political charges of Javier Carvajal, architect of the work.

In June 1973, he was appointed Minister of the Interior in the new cabinet headed by Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. Shortly after, the assassination of the President of the Government (December 20, 1973) made it possible for him to be appointed to the same position, thanks to his proximity to the dictator's family, which allowed him not only to avoid his dismissal for incompetence, but also to guarantee himself a position favorable with respect to the other candidates for the succession.

Presidency of the Government

During his first government (1974), Arias gave signs of opening up the regime in what came to be called the "spirit of February 12." For this reason, he was well received by the pro-Franco sectors and widely publicized by the media. The anti-Franco opposition, on the other hand, was very skeptical of that announcement. However, from the outset the pressures from the so-called "bunker" (the name by which the most immobile sectors of the dictatorship were designated) quickly frustrated that attempt. Since the proposals that were intended to liberalize in the end turned out to be very short-sighted, they soon disappointed public opinion. His government action was punctuated by drastic immobility that prevented him from making changes or reforms.

On February 24, a homily by the Bishop of Bilbao, Antonio Añoveros Ataún, was read in the churches of Vizcaya, in which, in a non-direct way, he was in favor of the use of the Basque language, also making a defense of the values and culture of the Basques. The Arias government reacted indignantly at what it considered a serious attack on the unity of Spain and ordered the house arrest of both the bishop and his vicar, going so far as to send a plane to the Sondika airport to transfer the bishop out of Spain. the Vatican as well as the Episcopal Conference supported Añoveros and were firm, even threatening excommunication from the entire government if the bishop was expelled. The Añoveros case even came close to leading to a diplomatic conflict with the Vatican. Finally, Arias had to back down from his intentions, but since then the crisis that existed between the Church and Francoism. A few days later another event took place that overthrew the will of the opening: on March 2, the Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich was executed, sentenced to the vile garrotte for the death of a police commissioner that occurred during the operation for the arrest of another anarchist, Xavier Garriga. Despite the wave of indignation and the protests that broke out throughout Europe, neither Franco nor Arias himself were in favor of commuting the death sentence. With these two facts, the opening announcement of “February 12” was definitely discredited. The first cases were even beginning to appear, within the ranks of the regime, in which greater openness was requested and calls for reforms, just as some personalities did through the publications of the “Tacito Group”.

The attack on the Rolando cafeteria, perpetrated on September 13, 1974 by the terrorist group ETA, was the last act for Arias to abandon any hint of reform; the attack also increased the virulence of the immobilist discourse. That attitude contrary to the reforms that Arias Navarro already held was backed by renowned ultras, such as General Iniesta Cano or the Falangist José Antonio Girón de Velasco. In fact, the latter had already published an article in the newspaper Arriba where he warned about the liberalization and democrats "infiltrated" in the structure of the regime who tried to destroy the spirit of July 18. Thus, the different crises of the Franco regime were adding up to become a perfect trap for the dictatorship itself.

At the beginning of 1975, the Arias government found itself faced with frontal opposition from the student sectors, the workers' front and an increase in the terrorist problem with the actions of ETA. A good part of the workers' conflict was related to the effects of the crisis oil prices of 1973, which had resulted in a significant increase in inflation. The activity of the illegal unions (particularly the Comisiones Obreras, associated with the PCE) grew at the same rate as did the detachment of the employers from the labor policy of the regime. This caused an anomalous situation as many employers preferred to negotiate directly with the illegal worker representatives and ignored the vertical Union.

Carlos Arias Navarro together with Franco in 1975.

That summer an especially serious event occurred for the Franco regime, and for Arias Navarro in particular, as was the arrest of several officers of the Armed Forces accused of belonging to the clandestine Democratic Military Union (UMD). In this environment of opposition to the regime, the repression was fed back with the approval of a decree law against terrorism, which in practice implied the establishment of a permanent state of exception.

The end of 1975 was a succession of events (September executions, the Green March, Franco's illness and death) that revealed Arias Navarro's inability to lead the government. That same year, the United States offered to go to war against Portugal, a country in which the so-called "Carnation Revolution" had taken place and which at that time was with a leftist government in Lisbon. The revolutionary events that since 1974 they were taking place in Portugal made him less supportive, even if possible, of continuing with the opening policies in Spain. Thus, before the North Americans, Arias Navarro came to show himself willing to invade Portugal. On the other hand, in the midst of immense international pressure for the executions in September, and coinciding with the last days of Franco's life, Arias Navarro gave in to Morocco and by the Madrid Agreements ceded the administration of the Sahara province to Morocco and Mauritania. Finally, it was Carlos Arias Navarro who was in charge of announcing the death of Francisco Franco through the television channel of Televisión Española, pronouncing the famous quote: "Spanish, Franco is dead".

Resistance and openness: Francoism without Franco

After the dictator's death on November 20, 1975, the new King Juan Carlos I placed his trust in the first government he formed and was expected to lead the first reforms. However, Arias Navarro lacked the necessary leadership and found himself continually outclassed by those ministers with the greatest drive, especially Manuel Fraga (Government) and José María de Areilza (Foreign Affairs). His continuous disaffection with the rhythm and intensity of the changes and his insistence on preserving the legacy of the dictator, in a society that publicly demanded democratic normalization, finally led to his downfall. On the other hand, two events took place that darkened the image of the government: on March 3, 1976, during the so-called "events in Vitoria", the Armed Police fired shots at several demonstrators that resulted in 5 deaths and more than a hundred of wounded. Several months later the "events of Montejurra" took place in Navarra.

On July 1, 1976, after a tense meeting with the king, Arias Navarro finally resigned. The following day, the king granted him the title of Marquis of Arias Navarro. After he left, it was made public that Arias Navarro had systematically spied on the telephone conversations of all those who had been his ministers, but also of the then-Prince Juan Carlos.

Later career

Tomb of Arias Navarro

In the first democratic elections of 1977, he joined the Alianza Popular (AP) party, led by Manuel Fraga, being a candidate for the Senate for Madrid, but he was not elected. After this failure he did not occupy any other relevant role in Spanish politics again. He died at the end of 1989 at the age of eighty and was buried in the Mingorrubio cemetery.

Tributes

In 1973, his successor as mayor of Madrid, Miguel Ángel García-Lomas Mata, gave his name to a park created in the Madrid neighborhood of Aluche, but this name was never used by the population of Aluche itself, which always He has called it Parque Aluche. The tribute was withdrawn in 2016 by the Madrid City Council and the Latina Municipal Board in accordance with the Historical Memory Law, and this green space was renamed Parque Aluche.

In the municipality of Puerto de la Cruz, a housing complex bears his name.

Recognition

• Gold Medal to the Penitentiary Social Merit (1946).
• Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit (1950).
• Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1959).
• Gold Medal of the Order of Police Merit (1960).
• Grand Cross (white distinctive) of the Military Merit Order (1961)
• Grand Cross of the Order of San Raimundo de Peñafort (1962)
• Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio (1973).
• Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (1977).