The Long March

The star of the show was Generalissimo Franco, who had been 20 years in power, but the monarchists of Madrid had their own special reason for making the most of the Victory Parade. For days beforehand they distributed bright green handbills announcing what Franco's censored press had kept to itself--that 21-year-old Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon, grandson of Spain's last King, Alfonso XIII, would be marching as one of the air cadets.

From the monarchists' point of view, the parade started auspiciously enough: Franco got only light applause as he mounted the reviewing stand to the strains of the national anthem. But after that, everything seemed to go wrong. Though the curious crowds did politely applaud the prince, they did not make nearly enough noise to drown out the occasional boos and hisses 'of young Falangists, who belong to Franco's only authorized political party. When the air cadets passed the central reviewing stand, the national television cameras, manned by Falangists, suddenly developed a convenient "technical difficulty" that kept Prince Juan Carlos' face off living-room screens. Later, while Franco's police stood passively by, 500 Falangist toughs surged into the parade route with banners proclaiming: "Franco, Yes! We do not want imbecile kings!"

Franco is presumably grooming the prince--but ever so slowly--to take the throne after Franco goes (but not before). To judge by last week's parade the prince's march to the throne might take a long time--and if the Falangists had their wa'y, he might never get there.

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