The Kingmaker

At 62 General Francisco Franco is in good health, but his influential religious mentors, who take a long view of history, worry about his succession. Seven years ago they persuaded Franco to promulgate a law declaring Spain to be "a Catholic and social state which, in accordance with its tradition, is constituted a monarchy." But Franco bucked at letting touchy, British-trained Don Juan de Bourbon, son of the dethroned Alfonso XIII, move into Madrid's Royal Palace. So he added a subtle clause saying that it was a question of "awaiting the right moment to install the first King of the legitimate dynasty."

Last week General Franco and his advisers, in five black limousines, on which the usual markings of El Caudillo's ownership were concealed, traveled Spain's ragged roads to the Palacio de las Cabezas, manor house of a 100,000-acre ranch run by the Count of Ruisenada. There, in well-barricaded privacy, Franco sat down to lunch with Pretender Don Juan (who was allowed back into Spain on a passport describing him as Count of Barcelona). It was their first meeting in six years, and Juan's first visit to Spain since the Civil War, 18 years ago.

Royal Schooling. Over a long luncheon and until late into the afternoon, avoiding mention of Don Juan's own claims to the throne (Franco has never forgiven him for certain anti-Franco remarks made in 1945), they discussed the education of Don Juan's son, Juan Carlos, great-great-grandson of Britain's Queen Victoria. The 17-year-old Juanito has just completed his secondary education at Madrid's aristocratic St. Isideo high school and is at present staying with his exiled parents in Estoril, Portugal. The question, already taken up in an exchange of letters through ducal couriers, was how the slim, shy, blond Juanito should be trained as absolute monarch over what may well prove to be a turbulent Spain. Franco gave Don Juan a fill in on latterday Falangist philosophy, talked about Spain's need for autocratic rule in order to avoid opening the door to "chaos" (i.e., democracy). The way to make an autocrat out of Juanito: intense military and religious" training.

The upshot of the meeting was that Pretender and Dictator agreed that Juanito should be handed over to the guardianship of Lieut. General Carlos Martinez de Campos, Duque de la Torre, a hard-fisted former artilleryman who is Franco's close friend and has family ties with Don Juan. The duke, a member of the Spanish general staff, will have charge of a large staff of tutors, mostly from the Spanish naval college, who will instruct Juanito in military science, mathematics and history, prepare him for officership in the Spanish navy.

Royal Waiting. The only issue that Don Juan balked at was the extensive theological training which Franco had planned for Juanito. But at the commodious villa in the fashionable Madrid suburb of Chamartin where Juanito and his retinue will take up residence some time in January, there will be a chaplain to guide the princeling's spiritual life.

But kingmaking takes time. Under Franco's 1947 Law of Succession, the prince must be 30 before he takes the throne. Presumably, therefore, another 13 years will elapse before Juanito, even if his education is found to be satisfactory, is eligible to step into the shoes of a 75-year-old Franco.

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