SPAIN: The Unsolved Problems of Succession

HIS flesh hangs on an aged frame. His mouth sags. His palsied right hand sometimes shakes so badly that he must grip it in his left. His voice, always shrill, is strained and thin. Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde—known more familiarly as Francisco Franco and el Caudillo (the Leader)—turns 80 this week, a pinnacle granted few world leaders. The man who has ruled Spain since 1939 planned to celebrate quietly in Madrid's elegant Pardo Palace, where he lives with his wife Carmen Polo de Franco, 72, amid Goya tapestries, Velásquez...

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