“We must avoid bloodshed, I would have the socialist votes,” the coup general pressed Don Juan Carlos that night, according to the annotations of General Manglano, head of the Spanish spies between 1981 and 1995
Forty years after the failed attempt of the 23-F coup, one of the questions that remained open was revealed: General Alfonso Armada spoke with the King that day. And he did it twice.
According to the information published today by the newspaper ABC, Armada’s claim in those telephone conversations was to get his approval to take command and, somehow, proclaim himself President of the Government. Don Juan Carlos refused to receive him in Zarzuela.
All this is included in the diaries, hitherto unpublished, of the former head of the Spanish spies between 1981 and 1995 and to which the Madrid newspaper has had access. General Emilio Alonso Manglano (major general since 1985 and lieutenant general since 1987) wrote down the numerous meetings held with King Juan Carlos since he began to direct the Higher Defense Information Center (Cesid), weeks after the failed coup which also wiped out the entire intelligence dome.
In the first face-to-face meeting, in Zarzuela, according to these files, Don Juan Carlos told Manglano that Alfonso Armada telephoned him that day on two occasions. In the first he asked to be received, to which he refused, and in the second he sought his authorization to complete the coup. “We must avoid bloodshed, I would have the socialist votes,” General Armada pressed the King on 23-F.
Don Juan Carlos also told Manglano in that meeting the private conversation he had with his son, then 13 years old: “Felipe, you are going to see how they play with your father’s crown like a soccer ball.”
The head of Spanish intelligence had the habit of writing down the enormous information that was accumulating in different meetings and trips. Thus, during the fourteen years at the head of Cesid, he set up an immense personal archive with hundreds of documents, where he recorded his most relevant meetings and conversations. Died in July 2013, his acquaintances hoped that this vast information would come to light, but, over time, it was believed that these documents that are now released had disappeared.
.