In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Five Jefe Nacional, 1934-1936 By mid-I934 it seemed that Jose Antonio's earlier pessimism had been justified. Whatever initial momentum may have existed had been lost, and the letters to the Madrid office pledging affiliation had declined to the merest trickle. The left expressed its hostility in the most violent manner, the right was critical and disdainful, while the centrist government of the Radicals showed a heavy hand, momentarily paralyzing the party's activities with its prohibitions. The Falange would soon be able to resume its activities, but the immediate future was not encouraging. Thanks to Jose Antonio's place on the rightist list, the party had a voice in the Cortes, but a vote or two in parliament (counting the temporary affiliation of Eliseda) was of scant use to a strongly antiparliamentary movement. Jose Antonio cut a curiously contradictory figure in the Cortes , where he refused to join any rightist minority-he emphasized that in many matters the Falange was as much opposed to the right as to the left-and hence played a completely solitary role. He also had some initial difficulty adjusting to the practical dialectic of parliamentary debate, since the two most salient characteristics of his public discourse were a tendency toward philosophical abstractions on the one hand and the use of lyrical and poetic forms of expression on the other, neither of which was very useful in the prosaic repartee of the Cortes. Though most of his infrequent speeches were carefully prepared and not extemporized, they achieved little. This is particularly true of his first interventions. As his rival Gil Robles put it: Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera was a much more academic than parliamentary orator. His careful intellectual formation, the doubts that many times assailed his sincere spirit, and his repugnance at living in an ambience that violated his sensibility all reduced considerably the effectiveness that his parliamentary interventions, correct and incisive, merited. He faced the tumult that his speeches sometimes provoked with more personal courage than skill in dialectical fencing.1 115 II6 PART TWO. JOSE ANTONIO AND FALANGE ESPANOLA Even his close friend, the cedista Serrano Stiner, would write later that his presentations were "stylized, too academic, and lacking in vigor" and sometimes created a "painful" impression.2 One of his initial concerns remained the defense of his father and of the Dictatorship. When, in one of the early sessions of the new Cortes, Indalecio Prieto condemned as "systematic robbery" the Dictatorship's concession of the Spanish telephone contract to ITT, Jose Antonio was infuriated and literally leaped across three rows of seats in an attempt to physically assault the obese Socialist. Others stopped him short, but a general brawl broke out between left and right. This resulted in perhaps the worst scene that ever took place on the floor of the second Cortes and, to the left, no doubt seemed a perfect expression of "fascism." Once order was restored and Jose Antonio had gained control of himself, he presented a perfectly judicious speech criticizing the constant denunciations of the actions of the Dictadura. In an interview with journalists immediately afterwards, he insisted that he harbored no "instincts of a bully," but would always respond to what he considered an insult.3 Jose Antonio could never overcome the contradictions of his nature, an unstable combination of careful, elegant lawyer and direct-action tough. It was the former image that he normally tried to present in the Cortes, where his personal charm soon won him friends, not merely on the right, but also among the center and occasionally on the left as well. Except when trying to assault a fat, middle-aged Socialist, he normally did not present the appearance of a fascist in parliament. He worked to improve the effectiveness of his infrequent Cortes remarks, and later the ultra-rightist Ramiro de Maeztu would remark that in eloquence of figure and gesture, the Falangist leader reminded him more of the British Labourite Ramsay MacDonald, when the latter was young, than of Mussolini or Hitler. Jose Antonio's antagonistic monarchist comrade Ansaldo told him, with some sarcasm, that he perfectly embodied the image of a proper president for the International Anti-Fascist League.4 By June I934, however, Jose Antonio felt the full weight of the government 's pressure, when the investigating committee of the Cortes submitted a report authorizing his impeachment for illegal possession of firearms . He had declared ownership of six guns found on Falangists serving as guards and...

Share