Iberia (65 page)

One of the recurring jokes in Madrid concerned just this matter.
There was this management consultant who was explaining to a
group of businessmen how he operated in selecting candidates
for top jobs in Spain. ‘This morning, for example, three
contestants for a major job. All equally well groomed, equally
educated. So I asked each one privately how much is two and two.
The first said instantly, “Four.” Solid man, quick, stable,
conventional. Second man thought a moment, saw a trap and
said “Twenty-two.” Imaginative, willing to take a chance, best
type of man to head a project entering new fields. Third man
thought a long time looked at me suspiciously and asked, “What
do you want to know for?” Finest type of scientific mind, probing,
not easily satisfied with snap decisions, can be trusted to get at
the heart of things. And that’s how we judge men in this business.’

‘But which one did you hire?’

‘Oh, the Duque de Plaza Toro, of course. We’ve got to have a
title.’

 

I myself had been vaguely involved when a major American
automotive company sought Spanish management for its Iberian
branch. They had settled upon a most promising young man with
training in London’s equivalent of the Harvard Business School
and several years’ experience with a German motor company in
France. To me he seemed an inevitable choice, but Spanish
advisors warned the Americans, ‘We think you’d do better with
the Duque de Plaza Toro.’ So the Detroit experts had an interview
with Plaza Toro, who arrived in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes,
dressed flawlessly, ten pounds underweight and with manners
that could have charmed Artaxerxes. When questioned about his
qualifications for the job, the duque said, ‘I’d want a hundred
and twenty thousand dollars a year. And for this I’d let you use
my apartment.’

 

‘But what exactly would you do?’

 

‘Do? I’d represent you…introduce your people to the right
circles.’

 

‘Have you had any business experience?’

 

‘Me! Of course not.’

 

Understandably, the Detroit people chose the trained young
man, and their business went promptly to hell. He had been great
in an interview, but he couldn’t seem to get anything done. The
leases that Detroit needed were not forthcoming: import
agreements were stalled and remained so. In despair the
Americans sought private counsel as to what had gone wrong,
and were told, ‘Nothing. Everything’s about the way it ought to
be at this stage, and the young man is doing a fine job…inside.
But what you need now is somebody like the Duque de Plaza
Toro…outside.’

 

Against their better judgment, the American firm hired the
duque for $52,000, and within a few weeks everything was moving
smoothly and continues to do so. The duque appears now and
then in his Mercedes, hands over his apartment for business
negotiations with men of equal breeding who represent other
firms, and everyone is happy, especially the young expert who is
left free to run the business.

 

The Marqués de Bassecourt was no figurehead. He worked
long hours at his ministry, specializing in tourism, and through
watching him I learned something of the new spirit that animates
Spain. ‘We literally work seven days a week to ensure that you
tourists get an even break,’ Don Luis said. ‘Inspectors, loans to
small businesses, new hotels, new roads. For example, how many
minutes did it take you this time to get through customs at the
airport?’

 

‘I noticed that. From the time the plane landed till I was free
to go, nine minutes.’

 

‘It’s one of the shortest waiting periods in Europe and we’d
like to make it even shorter.’

 

‘How many tourists last year?’

 

In his methodical way he took a piece of paper, ruled it into
columns and wrote down these startling figures:
Number of Tourists Entering España
Year
World
United States

 

1951
1,263,197
44,677

 

1954
1,952,266
203,029

 

1965
14,251,428
687,106

 

1966
17,251,796
733,109

I told him that my dismal experiences in Toledo had more than
instructed me about the sudden flood, and he said, ‘All problems
like that we’re going to clean up. We’re going to build a first-class
hotel there. We’re very excited about the future.’

I asked him if he thought Spain could continue to give the
foreign tourist good value, quoting a recent study which gave the
following index figures for tourist costs: New York 100, London
94, Paris 90, Rome 79, Madrid 39. ‘We’re aware of the problem,’
he said. ‘We can’t control all prices. Wouldn’t want to if we could.
But we can police services, and that we’ll do, because tourism is
too valuable to us to be abused.’

‘How about taxis in Madrid?’

He threw up his hands. ‘What city is handling its taxi problem
sensibly? Is Madrid as bad as New York, where you simply cannot
get a taxi in the evening?’

‘I think it’s worse,’ I said. He shrugged his shoulders, as if he
were the mayor of New York, and asked, ‘Who can tell taxis what
to do?’

Through Don Luis I met a series of minor government officials
who introduced me to other Spaniards, and slowly I began to
overhear a type of discussion which earlier I had rarely heard:
‘What is going to happen to Spain when Franco goes?’ In what
follows I will not attribute opinions to specific persons, for to do
so might cause embarrassment, but they do not come from Don
Luis unless I so specify. It was a man from Badajoz who established
the theme.

‘You must start, Michener, with the fact that Spaniards are
utter bastards to govern. We are Texans cubed.’

 

Once the marqués said, ‘In the hundred years prior to the
generalísimo we had one hundred and nine changes of
government, twenty-six revolutions and three major civil wars.
Would you agree that an attitude toward government which
produces such results needs overhauling?’

 

‘We lie awake at night wondering what’s going to happen when
Franco goes. We say little in the newspapers, but that doesn’t
mean we don’t discuss it among ourselves. It is topic one.’

 

‘Forget the trappings about monarchy this or monarchy that.
The fundamental fact is this. We will never go back to the United
States pattern of a two-party system. It works for you. It doesn’t
work for us. Through some miracle you are able to divide your
country into two parts from September to November, then unite
it again the morning after election. Believe me, this is a bigger
miracle than you imagine. In Spain we also used to divide into
various parties and in the campaign we’d say such dreadful things
about each other…well, the matter of pundonor comes in.
Anyway, on the morning after the election the only thing an
honorable man could do was shoot the son-of-a-whore who won.
I think that if you were to ask a hundred average Spaniards, a
good eighty would say, “Let’s have no more party fighting.”

 

‘What will take its place? Here we get to the second
fundamental. You must view Spain as a nation on a three-legged
stool. Church, army, landed families. If any one of the three
topples they all go down. We have what you might call an ipso
facto oligarchy to which the only alternative is anarchy. Therefore,
the three legs of the oligarchic stool must support one another.
And this they do, not always happily, so that what we will have
when Franco goes is something roughly like the present form of
government.

 

‘What the Protestant norteamericano sees as the Spanish
Church is really two churches, and in his mind he must keep them
separated, as they are separated in Spanish life. First there is the
hierarchy, meaning the cardinals and bishops. With not more
than two or three exceptions these men are the creatures of the
regime. They were put in office by the oligarchy, were supported
by it and will be loyal to it until death. They oppose all liberalism
and have been badly shaken in recent years by the winds of reform
that have been sweeping through Rome. At the Vatican councils
they voted against every proposed change, and when they lost to
the liberal wing of the Church, they returned to Spain more
determined than ever to save Spain from the liberal errors of their
own Church. Opposed to them are the young Spanish clergy who
foresee that if Catholicism does not liberalize, it may be eliminated
when Franco goes. So a kind of second Church has grown up
consisting of educated Jesuits, priests from worker families,
seminarians who take the conclusions of the Vatican councils
seriously, and all who vaguely want the Church to sponsor social
justice in a tired land. The differences between these two arms of
the Church are much greater than the differences between
Republicans and Democrats in the United States.’

 

Another said, ‘In your country the Catholic Church argues
over matters of liturgy, celibacy of priests, birth control and
similar points of procedure. In Spain we are riven apart by
fundamental matters like Pope John’s two encyclicals,
Mater et
Magistra
and
Pacem in Terris
, and especially the Council Schema
XIII, with their startling statements on freedom of speech, freedom
of belief, freedom of assembly, separation of Church and state,
the right of labor and so on. These documents constitute a
refutation of everything the Spanish hierarchy stands for, and the
young liberal priests know it. If the plan goes through to make
Pope John XXIII a saint, his day will not be celebrated in
Spain…unless the young priests win the current battle.’

 

On the other hand, a defender of the Church insisted, ‘If you
look at the three elements of our oligarchy, Church, army, landed
families, it has got to be the Church which will lead us to liberal
revisionism. Watch! In the years ahead you’ll see the conservative
army called in to discipline the liberal young leaders of the new
Church.’

 

‘The army is much more the key to Spain than outsiders
imagine. I include the Guardia Civil as part of the army. In the
press you can say things against the Church and maybe you’ll get
away with it, because everyone wants to slow down the Church
a little bit. But you are absolutely forbidden to say anything against
the army. They rule. You asked me the other day why individual
issues of newspapers are sometimes confiscated. You wondered
if the editor had said something against the Church or Franco.
It’s almost always because they said something against the army.
That cannot be tolerated. You also asked which of the three
claimants to the throne will finally be installed as king, supposing
we have one. That the army will decide.’

 

I asked, ‘Then why doesn’t the army rule outright?’

 

‘Because if it did there would be rebellion, and the army knows
it. Like the German army the Spanish army has rarely been
sagacious. If it were able to rule, we’d probably have a military
dictatorship right now. But, of course, if it were a sagacious
dictatorship, it would confirm most of the freedoms we now
enjoy, so in the long run things would be about the same.’

 

Another informant challenged these statements about the army.
‘Because the army is conspicuous don’t overestimate its
importance. Of fifteen recent cases when editions of newspapers
were confiscated by the censors, only one involved the army.
Fourteen involved the hierarchic Church, which is heavily
protected by the regime. Jesuit papers were closed down because
they supported young priests against police brutality. Two were
shut down for criticizing the reactionary attitudes of the hierarchy.
Several were disciplined for publishing articles on the succession.
And five saw their editions confiscated because they were too
enthusiastic in defense of freedom. One suffered because of its
editorial, “Protest is not always morally wrong.” The censor held
that it was.

 

‘The landed families, the third leg to the stool, play a powerful
role in Franco’s Spain because he can trust them. They’re
conservative. They’re smart. They’re self-disciplined. Whether
they can drag themselves into the twentieth century I sometimes
doubt. A fellow like your friend, the Marqués de Bassecourt,
knows what the score is. So do hundreds like him, but they aren’t
the ruling families, which are at least three hundred paces further
to the right than chaps like Bassecourt. I see the families
continuing as a kind of unelected senate, tough, conservative,
determined. A hundred years from now life in rural Andalucía
will be about what it is right now, if the families have the say. But
the Church and the army will bring pressure on them to liberalize
things a bit.’

 

‘The hope of Spain lies in a group you haven’t mentioned—the
new industrialists…the fellows who are building the apartment
houses along the Mediterranean…the big printing plants in
Bilbao…the factories in Barcelona. They know. They travel to
Germany and Poland. They have suppliers in Rome and New
York. They don’t fill any of the government positions yet, but do
something more important. They supply the taxes and they insist
upon modernization of social patterns, education, military service;
I have great hopes for this new class of Spaniards.’

 

I asked why they didn’t exercise more control in government,
and my informant said, ‘Because this is Spain and control will
always rest in traditional hands, like that of the Church, the army
and the landed families. If the industrialists made one false move
they would be wiped out overnight and their businesses
expropriated.’

 

I suggested that if this were done, Spain would be bankrupt
again. ‘That has never bothered a Spaniard. If he feels the
industrialists are modernizing Spain too fast, he’ll eliminate them,
even though it means economic chaos for another fifty years. But
the question you pose is academic. The industrialist knows he
must move forward slowly with the rest of us. That’s why I place
so much hope in his accomplishments. Within the Spanish pattern
he’s going to create wonders.’