A Stunning Win for NATO

By Michael S. Serrill

"Well, it looks like they've pulled it off," said one Western ambassador in Madrid as a wide smile spread across his face. There were similar signs of relief around Europe and in Washington last week after Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez Marquez achieved a remarkable turnaround in public opinion and won a referendum that will keep Spain in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Only a week before the election, most polls had predicted that Gonzalez would go down to a crushing defeat in the vote and be forced to make Spain the first country to withdraw totally from the 16-member alliance. But when the votes were counted, the pro-NATO group had won by a surprisingly large margin. The final tally showed 52.5% for continued membership, 39.8% for withdrawal, and the rest of the ballots blank or invalid.

Gonzalez called the vote a "triumph for the Spanish people." It was also a triumph for Gonzalez. He had taken office in 1982 on an anti-NATO platform, but then changed his mind and supported continued Spanish membership. During the campaign, he hinted that he would resign and call early elections if he lost. "I always said that the final result depended on Felipe's final address, and I wasn't far wrong," said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Inocencio Arias. After lying low for much of the prevoting skirmishes, Gonzalez pulled out all the stops in the last few days. He used the government's special access to the single, state-controlled television network to hammer home the importance of the referendum and the reasons for voting yes.

Government ministers fanned out across Spain and gave warning of dire consequences if the people voted no. Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez appealed to Spanish pride by saying that Spain would have to pull out of the European Community, which it had just joined on Jan. 1, or be a "second-rate" partner. Another official hinted that Barcelona would lose its bid for the 1992 Olympics and that plans for a World's Fair in Seville would be scuttled. Gonzalez, in a last, powerful address that mentioned the Atlantic Alliance only twice and peace 40 times, warned darkly of "political instability," which is something the Spaniards, now in their tenth year of democracy, have reason to fear. Lamented one opposition leader: "They have warned us of everything except an invasion of AIDS."

Even so, to many the effort seemed hopeless only two weeks ago. Anti-NATO activists were attracting hundreds of thousands to rallies. Also, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, head of the Popular Alliance, the main conservative opposition party, urged people to abstain, claiming the referendum was just a political ploy by the Socialists. One prominent voter who ignored the boycott was popular King Juan Carlos, who said he was doing his "civic duty" when he and Queen Sofia cast ballots amid television cameras at a school near their Madrid palace. The King does not vote in municipal and general elections so that he is not seen as taking sides in partisan politics.

Though the referendum stipulated that Spain's armed forces will remain out side NATO's military-command structure, as is the case with France, nervous European and American leaders were exultant that a damaging blow to the alliance's prestige and unity had been avoided. Congratulations from heads of state poured into Gonzalez's office. On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told a Senate subcommittee, "By electoral standards it is a huge landslide." He said the vote underscored Spain's commitment to a free society.

Elated Spanish officials celebrated their victory deep into the night. At a Socialist Party gathering, Foreign Minister Fernandez Ordonez, who had been under tremendous pressure from other European capitals, beamed. Said he: "The vote will make my job a little bit easier." Even in the hurly-burly of a raucous crowd, his sigh was clearly audible. --By Michael S. Serrill. Reported by B.J. Phillips and Jane Walker/Madrid

With reporting by B.J. Phillips, Jane Walker/Madrid