Álvaro Ferrary, Professor of Contemporary History
Suárez, always "pulling ahead".
With the death of Adolfo Suárez, the most decisive personality, together with King Juan Carlos, in the success of the Spanish Transition, disappears. The meeting with Don Juan Carlos in Segovia, in January 1969, where Suarez was Civil Governor, marked a turning point in his political biography. Something much deeper than an intense friendship immediately emerged between them. Suarez saw in Juan Carlos the ideal person to build a future without Franco, to which all Spaniards could join in peace. It was then when Suarez decided to link his political degree program to the figure of the future King.
The great opportunity was to be presented to him just four months after Franco's death, in March 1976, in the reshuffle of the Arias Navarro government that took Fernando Herrero Tejedor (his great friend and protector) to administrative office General del Movimiento and Suarez to position as Deputy Secretary General of that organization.
From then on, Adolfo Suárez was to be incessantly active. This would not stop until the process of political transition to democracy was completed.
Being at the head of the National Movement, the place where the territorial power of the State apparatus was concentrated, provided Suarez with an unequaled platform for action that he would know very well how to take advantage of. In the face of the convulsions of terrorism, in the face of the tensions provoked by the immobilists of the so-called bunker, his action would consist in "not stopping", in "not hesitating", in always "moving forward" and, above all, in "moving as quickly as possible" to get ahead of everyone.
His appointment as President of the Government in July 1976 by the King (he was 43 years old), was followed by the approval by the Cortes of the Law for Political Reform, on November 18, 1976. entrance It was a complex operation, by no means a success, but happily culminated, in December 1978, with the approval of the Constitution.
Adolfo Suárez had developed his apprenticeship in an authoritarian system, where politics was the privilege of power. This apprenticeship would be crucial for him to dismantle Francoism, in order to successfully carry out his efforts to incorporate all Spaniards into a new democratic framework , based on liberties and harmony.
Adolfo Suárez González, a great man, a great politician, a great Spaniard.