Few people admire a fighter more than the Spanish, who prize la valentia y el coraje (valor and mettle). This is why even his foes voiced respect for Generalissimo Francisco Franco last week. Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Spain's frail, 82-year-old Caudillo suffered a heart attack that would probably have killed most men. Yet neither that nor a chain reaction of complications that followed broke the dictator's grip on life. Franco's physicians and the Spaniards who gathered outside the Pardo Palace to pray or wait had no doubts about the outcome of the autocrat's last...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
