Back in 1936, just after the parliamentary elections, the bottom fell out. Radicals from each side were doing atrocious acts to each other, so the right wing military decided to take matters into the their own hands. The uprising led to a civil war and the beginning of nearly forty years of a nondemocratic society under a fascist leader. 45 years later, as the future of the fragile government struggled to keep things together, ideas of doing a repeat overthrow swirled around the political halls, pressrooms and army barracks. The date chosen was the voting and investiture in parliament of the interim Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo who was standing in for the recently resigned Adolfo Suárez. Calvo Sotelo was from a prominent family in Spain. His father was a writer and his uncle was a former Finance Minister whose assassination practically triggered the Spanish Civil War. Just as all of Spain was sitting back and watching an otherwise uneventful congressional session take place, the session was suddenly and abruptly interrupted by a group of guardia civil officers and soldiers demanding silence and firing shots into the ceiling…
…I was 5,000 miles away shooting hoops.
(There’s more to come)
