People's Heartbeat

The measure of a tough dictatorship is that it does not have to appease public opinion. In the early days of his rule, Spain's Francisco Franco showed no sign of caring what people might think about his repressive acts. But today Spain, a U.N. member, is a generation removed from the martial aftermath of its civil war. Last week Franco, looking for scapegoats for the recent Falange-student riots in Madrid (TIME, Feb. 20), found it expedient to appease two important blocs of Spanish opinion.

First Franco fired Education Minister Joaquin Ruiz Gimenez, 46, an energetic Catholic intellectual of mildly liberal tendencies, who last November made a speech calling on the government to "listen to the people's heartbeat." Thus he was a natural target for Falange Party criticism of the "dangerous freethinking atmosphere" on Madrid University campus. But the Falange was not the only voice in Franco's ear. Possibly for the first time, the grievances of Spain's rising middle classes (of whose restlessness under rigid Falange controls the student riots were a symptom) also claimed Franco's consideration. To satisfy them, Franco fired the Falange Party Leader, Raimundo Fernandez Cuesta.

For several tense days before Madrid returned to an outward calm, plainclothesmen patrolled the streets, and thousands of grey-uniformed, Tommy gun-toting police stood by for instant duty. Foreigners were halted and asked to show proof of their identity. Prizewinning Cinema Director Juan Antonio Bardem (noted for his outspoken film Death of a Cyclist) was picked up while making a new picture with U.S. Filmactress Betsy (Marty) Blair, wife of Hollywood's Gene Kelly. While the Falangist newspaper Arriba hysterically blamed the "hostile foreign press" for instigating violence, Dictator Franco postponed his dearly loved annual deer and boar hunt to study his people's heartbeat.

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