New Era Cabinet

In a dictatorship, the Cabinet is a battleground where the chief predators of the regime establish their power positions and fight off attacks and incursions by others. The backbiting is likely to be bitterest as the body politic nears the point of exhaustion. In Spain, which is facing a major economic crisis as a result of 20 years of political mismanagement and economic neglect, Cabinet meetings during the past six months have been getting rougher and tougher; Monarchists boldly attacked the Falange Party, the Falangists demanded complete control of the state apparatus, and church representatives quietly plugged Christian Democracy. Two weeks ago Generalissimo Franco called in his 16-man Cabinet. "Gentlemen," said he, "I should appreciate your finishing all your pending affairs today, because this will be the last meeting of this Cabinet."

Then the horse-trading began. Several times the Falange--the only political party in Spain--has been on the point of making public demonstrations and was stopped only by the fear of starting something they could not control and the disturbed state of the country (strikes in Barcelona, riots in Seville). Franco, aware that a party which is afraid of its public is nothing to be afraid of, cut the Falange down a size.

Distributing Favors. Falangist Labor Minister Jose Antonio Giron, an ambitious orator who has been a Cabinet member for 16 of his 44 years, was dropped; militant Falange Chief Jose Luis de Arrese was shifted to the Ministry of Housing; Jose Solis Ruiz, the new secretary general of the party, was made minister without portfolio. The Falange was furious, called these changes an attempt to deal the party "a death blow." To appease the hotheads, Franco fired the most violently partisan of the Monarchists, Fernando Suarez de Tangil, Count of Vallellano, but at the same time strengthened the position of other Monarchists in the Cabinet. The jubilant Monarchists later threw a huge party at the Ritz.

When the proclamation announcing Franco's fourth Cabinet in 20 years (the others: 1936, 1945, 1951) appeared three days later, the big surprise was not the points award in the Monarchist-Falangist struggle but the appointment of respected Economist Pedro Gual Villalbi to take charge of Spain's downsliding economy. Spaniards noted that four of the 18 Cabinet members belong to Opus Dei, an ascetic Roman Catholic secular order which leans more on the Vatican than on the controversy-torn Spanish clerical hierarchy and has long campaigned against graft in government. Said Franco: "They bring a New Era to Spain."

For Western Eyes. Swearing in his new Cabinet last week at El Pardo Palace, General Franco, decked out in his martial best, black army boots sparkling, looked mighty pleased. The effect, though Franco remained in complete control, was also meant to be pleasing to Western eyes.

The fascist Falange appeared to be on the way down, the monarchy on the up and up (though the country has no King).* The economy was getting serious attention at last, and the presence of the Opus Dei was a promise that the old freebooting days, with their widespread corruption of government office, would be curbed. All that Franco needed was dollars, about $800 million. If the U.S. did not respond to his New Era window dressing, the crafty Caudillo hinted broadly, the Soviet Union had volunteered to kick in half a billion in gold for a very small consideration: Spanish neutrality.

*Franco is educating Bourbon Prince Juan Carlos, 19, but has not yet said he will, nor said he will not, make the boy King.

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