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Twelve Partial Eclipse and Frustrated Resurgence, 1945-1958 As the war drew to a close, Franco developed a fairly clear design for the future course of his regime. Calling a meeting of the Junta Politica del Movimiento early in May 1945, he explained, as one camisa vieja remembers it, that "when a ship tries to stay on course, if it is necessary to lower some of the sails, they are temporarily lowered, which doesn't mean they are going to be thrown overboard." 1 So it would be with the Movement. The image of fascism must be totally discarded and a new identity found in Catholic corporatism, to make the Spanish system "the most Catholic in the world." Fundamental new laws would have to be introduced to give the regime more objective juridical content and provide some basic civil guarantees. A major effort would be made to attract new Catholic political personnel in order to win the support of the Vatican and reduce the hostility of the democracies. The FET would be de-emphasized but not abolished, for it was still useful, and no rival political organizations would be tolerated, though censorship might be eased somewhat. A municipal government reform law would be promulgated, and ultimately a new statute to legitimize the regime as a monarchy under Franco's regency would be submitted to popular plebiscite.2 In other words, there would be a formal metamorphosis of the regime from a completely arbitrary, semifascist caudillaje to a Catholic monarchy or, (technically, a regency), but no drastic change in the regime itself. The FET, now commonly called the Movimiento Nacional, would remain, though less prominent and even more subordinate than before. Thus when on 3 September Franco received a letter from Serrano Stifier (whose political thinking was now greatly altered) urging a complete change of government to include representation of "all non-Red Spaniards;' with the addition of liberals like Ortega and Marafion to the cabinet and total dissolution of the Falange, Franco merely wrote "je, je, je" in the margin.3 The first step was to develop a "Fuero de los Espafioles," or set of 401 402 PART FOUR. MOVIMIENTO NACIONAL IN POSTFASCIST ERA civil guarantees. This task had at first been assigned to Arrese but was transferred to the Instituto de Estudios Politicos, where Arrese had earlier placed in charge Fernando Maria de Castiella, the professor of international law who had once co-authored the now embarrassing Reivindicaciones de Espana. With origins in the Confederaci6n Nacional de Estudiantes Catolicos and the elite ACNP, Castiella represented the ultraCatholic rather than the fascist sector of the Movement. Though a veteran of the Blue Division, he was flexible and imaginative. Assisted by several intellectuals of the Instituto, he elaborated the terms of a new Fuero that was strongly opposed by Arrese and some of the core Falangists but largely accepted by Franco.4 Promulgation of the Fuero on 17 July 1945 was accompanied the following day by major cabinet changes, the primary features of which were the downgrading of the Movement and the installation of a leading Catholic layman and relative moderate, Alberto Martin Artajo, as foreign minister . The faithful Arrese would have to go, even though he had managed to domesticate the Falange and moderate its fascism,5 and for the time being the office of secretary general was left vacant. However, the Falangist Giron, whose pliant demagogy was quite useful, remained as minister of labor (a post that he would hold for a total of sixteen years, until 1957, making him Franco's most durable minister after Carrero Blanco). The Carlist Esteban Bilbao was replaced as minister of justice by Fernandez Cuesta, and Miguel Primo de Rivera, the outgoing agriculture minister, was replaced by a camisa vieja, an agronomist engineer from Arrese's circle , Carlos Rein Segura. Franco's childhood friend Juan Antonio Suanzes, a naval officer and head of the state industrial corporation, INI, had already replaced the too-independent and conniving neo-Falangist Demetrio Carceller as minister of commerce and industry in the preceding partial reorganization of 1944.6 Most of the changes that followed were purely cosmetic. The Movement was not at all eliminated but, for the time being, relegated to the background, and thus the annual Day of Victory, I April 1945, marked the last of the Civil War victory parades at which members of the Falange and its auxiliary organizations would march together with the military.7 One week after the Cabinet changes, the Vice...

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