"Someone pulled the trigger, it's obvious"

Ángel Viñas is convinced that Francisco Franco ordered the assassination of General Amado Balmes Alonso, the military commander in Gran Canaria, to clear the way for the Civil War, which broke out on July 18, 1936.

The historian has no documents to prove it, but he holds that otherwise there is no explanation for the version the Franco regime later gave of the incident: that General Balmes' gun had accidentally gone off as he tried to clear an obstruction while holding it against his abdomen.

Franco made sure the Dragon Rapide - the airplane set to fly him out of the Canaries to the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco to start the uprising against the Second Spanish Republic - would land on the island of Gran Canaria, rather than Tenerife, where he actually was. Franco then went to Gran Canaria to attend the funeral of General Balmes, who died on July 16, and from there embarked on a journey that would change his own destiny and that of the Spanish nation.

Viñas - a university professor, an erstwhile diplomat and the author of several books about republican Spain - sets forth his reasons for suspecting murder in La conspiración del general Franco (or, General Franco's conspiracy), published by Editorial Crítica. It all began with his desire to research Britain's hostility towards Spain's Second Republic; from there, he investigated the British origin of the Dragon Rapide and its passengers, and found out that the plane flew to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria under questionable circumstances. Donning his detective's cap, the historian reached conclusions that seriously question the official version of events regarding the death of General Balmes.

Viñas' book is also critical of Spanish historians who simply took for granted the fact that Balmes died accidentally, without asking themselves the kinds of questions that might have incriminated Franco.

Question. You are indignant, that much is plain to see from your book.

Answer. I am one of those people who believe that Francoism set up a story, a dogma, a doctrine to explain the origins and development of the Civil War and its consequences. And that dogma has very little to do with reality.

Q. You mean it was manipulated.

A. Yes, they manipulated a rather mythological past for their own political convenience. It's a bit like what happened in the USSR under Stalin. The Soviet case is much more flagrant because the crimes were also in a different order of magnitude, but substantially, when you scratch beneath the surface, Franco's focus is no different from Stalin's. [...] Both sides made up a story to explain something that is hard to explain. For instance, the death of General Balmes.

Q. You award Franco an enormous capacity for Machiavellian cunning.

A. No, no. It's not that Franco was Machiavellian; he was simply an astute man. He was not a great general, either; he had no experience running wars; his only experience was with the Spanish Foreign Legion in Morocco, and that was an utterly paltry colonial war. He was a courtesan general and a political general. That is how he behaved during republican rule. As for Franco the statesman who could anticipate the future... that's the kind of nonsense invented later on to feed his ego. Under the Republic, Franco clearly knew where his own interests lay, and he served them with strictness and discipline.

Q. His interests lay in rising up against the government.

A. If it's true what Pedro Sainz Rodríguez [an architect of Spain's democratic transition] said on several occasions, then the entire operation set up by Franco in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was orchestrated to get himself placed at the helm of the Spanish army in [the protectorate of] Morocco. Before dying, Don Pedro told me that perhaps what Franco wanted all along was to become Spain's High Commissioner in Morocco, and that may well have been his immediate goal in July 1936. But things did not turn out the way he figured - they actually went better. The accidental death of General José Sanjurjo paved the way. That death was an accident.

Q. Because you believe that Balmes' death was no accident.

A. I was suspicious as I researched the presence of British intelligence services on board the Dragon Rapide. I began seeking out documents until I found out about the Balmes incident...

Q. And that is when you began your detective work.

A. Yes, you could say that. I was very sensitive about the Balmes issue. It seemed strange to me that he would shoot himself like that. I went to the Canaries, talked to people here and there, and met someone who was a relative of Balmes' aide in July 1936. He told me that Balmes and Franco had a one-on-one meeting around May 1936, and that Balmes came out of it looking very serious indeed. This was cause for conversation around the dinner table at the aide's house: what could Franco have told Balmes to make him look so circumspect after an apparently friendly meeting...?

Q. And what seemed strange to you about it?

A. That there was so much written information about that period, yet nothing about that secret meeting. I talked about it with Gabriel Cardona, the extraordinary military historian who recently passed away. "How does this sound to you?" I asked him. "Sounds very bad!" he replied. And he recommended that I read the book by Pinto de la Rosa, the military judge who took over the case of Balmes' accidental death at the time. And the absurdities he wrote, supported by the even more absurd things published in the press at the time, made me see the light. The death was no coincidence; somebody pulled the trigger, that much seems obvious.

Q. You say that Franco was very active at the time, and one of his activities may have been to get rid of Balmes...

A. His goal was to rouse the Canary Island garrisons of Tenerife and Las Palmas to revolt. He had Tenerife under control because he was there in person, but he still lacked control of Gran Canaria, and needed to do so through third parties. I'm suspicious of those third parties; for instance, Rafael Díaz-Llanos, who was in Las Palmas on a long-term mission on Franco's orders. That was on his service sheet. He could have gone there for other purposes, but I find it suspicious. Most people say that all the officials in Las Palmas were in favor of the uprising. No, no, no, we just don't know that. It's possible that some of them were, but others were not.

Q. What about Balmes?

A. Balmes was the general. And it turns out that Balmes was unconvinced about the coup. Later it was reported he was in favor, but that only came after the fact. I believe we're talking about a well-planned and well-executed murder that had to be concealed, and not only on July 17. The next day was the set date for the uprising and it was necessary to ensure that history would relate events the way Franco wanted them to be remembered.

Q. Yet Franco went to the burial.

A. He went to the burial because he wanted to kill Balmes and he wanted to be at his funeral in Las Palmas. The Dragon Rapide was waiting for him; he forced the British plane to land there because that was his plan all along, and he needed a pretext to go to Las Palmas.

Q. So everything was planned, then.

A. Exactly, everything was planned. Besides, we know it thanks to the testimony of the Marquis of Luca de Tena, who needed to go to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in early July. The marquis did not necessarily know what Franco was thinking, and Franco naturally would not have told him anything. What Franco did say was: "I want the Dragon Rapide in Las Palmas." That is when he could also plan his actions against Balmes.

Q. And who do you suspect of actually killing Balmes?

A. There are some papers at the military government headquarters that state that on the day of his death, Balmes was reviewing the weapons in the destination section. A general, reviewing the weapons of the handful of troops in that section? A general does not do that! Why did he? Probably because he wanted to make sure that his guard, the people closest to him, were armed. There was an official in the regiment who was in charge of weapon management. His name does not show up. He should have been there, and a few days later Franco sent him on top secret missions... It could have been him.

Q. And why won't you mention his name?

A. Because I am not certain. In reality, we do not know how Balmes died, but I do know that the version that's always been taken for granted makes no sense at all... By liquidating Balmes, Franco had control of the garrison and the path ahead lay clear; with Balmes against him, the uprising's timetable would have been thrown off course, and that was a big risk to take.

Q. So is murder.

A. That is why they had to cover it up. If it became known, it would be a matter of capital importance: he was killing, or ordering killed, a colleague of his before the declaration of war. It seems almost irrelevant now, considering the events that came later, but it was a premeditated assassination!

Q. The silence surrounding it continues to this day.

A. It was more convenient that way. Notice that when Balmes' widow requested a full pension, the jurists at General Headquarters refused because he did not die on active service but "due to a great imprudence" by placing the barrel of the gun on his abdomen... Who would do such a thing? And Franco acted like he didn't notice. And how could they not investigate the whereabouts of the gun, which the chauffeur misplaced somewhere...?

Q. What's odd is that nobody else was suspicious until now...

A. Yes, some people were suspicious. Paul Preston asked himself some questions in his biography of Franco. Why does Balmes not have a monument to his name, nor is he among the victims of the fallen in battle? Some unscrupulous individuals hold that the general simply had that way of holding a gun... Nonsense!

Q. So you did some detective work.

A. Yes, I did detective work, but nobody had better ask me for the assassination order. That's something you do verbally, you issue and order and that's it. Personally, I have no doubts about it. But I cannot say that I have found the assassination order. That's not something you find.