Spain: The First 25

For the stocky little general with the impassive face, it was a day of memory and triumph. Exactly 25 years ago, with the Spanish Civil War not yet three months old, an army junta met in the Old Castile capital of Burgos and elected him Chief of Government of Nationalist Spain. Since then, the world and its leaders* have changed many times. The Great Depression was followed by world war, which was followed by agonies of reconstruction and the cold war; nations were born, others swallowed up. But Francisco Franco Bahamonde, 68, was...