On cue, shops and banks shut down all over Madrid. Government offices closed, loosing a flood of loyal bureaucrats onto the streets. They joined blue-shirted youths carrying the black-and-red banners of the Falange, aging veterans proudly sporting their Spanish Civil War ribbons, and thousands of ordinary men and women. By high noon, an estimated 500,000 Madrileños had crowded into the broad Plaza de Oriente, which faces the imposing 18th century royal palace. For two hours, the mob waved banners—one read GOD SAVE US FROM WEAK GOVERNMENT—sang hymns, chanted Falangist slogans, and shot their right arms up in a rigid fascist salute to the empty second-floor balcony.
Not until the horde had settled into a ravenous chant of "Franco! Franco! Franco! Franco!" did the Caudillo step onto the balcony. Dressed in a heavy gray overcoat, and looking all of his 78 years, he could hardly have found his reception disappointing. When the crowd saw Prince Juan Carlos, Spain's future king, at Franco's side, they shouted "Franco solo! Franco solo!" Paling visibly, the young prince quickly stepped back. "Spaniards!" croaked Francisco Franco in his high voice. "Thank you for this explosion of faith and enthusiasm, seconded by the people who believe in the destiny of the motherland."
Street Referendum. Though it was all carefully orchestrated—right down to the light planes towing VIVA FRANCO banners overhead—the mammoth rally nonetheless gave evidence that Franco could still count on the fealty of the working-class Falangists who brought him to power 31 years ago. The last time he had called for such a show of public allegiance was in 1946, when his seven-year-old regime was under extreme pressure from abroad to democratize. This time, the threat was internal—perhaps the most serious Franco has faced.
The focal point of the crisis was not in Madrid, but 130 miles away in Burgos. There in a military court 16 young radicals from Spain's northern Basque country are on trial on charges of assorted "separatist-terrorist-Communist activities." The 16 are members of the E.T.A. (for Euskadi at Askatusana—"Basque Land and Liberty" in Basque), a small, militant group of terrorists who profess to be fighting for local autonomy.
The regime had envisioned the trial as the climax of a two-year campaign to crush, once and for all, a nationalist resurgence in Spain's four Basque provinces. But the kidnaping of Eugen Beihl, a West German diplomat still held hostage somewhere in Spain, proved that the E.T.A. was still in business; moreover, when the trial got under way, an unprecedented wave of strikes, demonstrations and clashes with police erupted in every major city in Spain. Thus the courtroom drama escalated into a kind of noisy street referendum on the regime itself.