Mapping the Landscape at the End of the Dictatorship in Spain

Franco's advanced age and ferment had led observers to the conclusion that the dictatorship would not outlive his own physical demise whenever that occurred. In December 1974 the British ambassador in Spain described the regime as dead. Franco was still able to arrest the process of disintegration but only temporarily. Still, the hardliners could make life difficult for the reformers. The danger lay in a possible dragging of the transition. A long process would fuel polarization. Ambassador Wiggin discerned nevertheless two positive factors for an orderly transition to democracy: there was a vast middle class having a lot to lose by a lurch to the left while the army had not undergone the harsh reality of a defeat in a colonial war. The ambassador guessed therefore that the bulk of the military supported a moderate political reform contrary to the Portuguese revolutionary experience.

In early May 1975 the British and the Americans agreed in Washington that they should jointly examine the prospects for Spain as Franco's rule seemed to come to an end. The British were prepared to expand their contacts with the opposition at a party level while they were not ready to do so with the military which they thought improbable to follow the Portuguese path.