Thirty-eight years ago today, Spain moved a significant step closer to liberation from its protracted state of fascistic tyranny when General Francisco Franco's named political successor – the recently appointed prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco, otherwise known as “the Ogre” – was assassinated by the Basque separatist organisation, ETA.
“Operation Ogre”, as the meticulously planned plot was called, had begun some eight weeks previously when two men posing as sculptors rented a basement room from which they dug a tunnel until reaching the street where the Ogre's car passed, without fail, every morning after attendeding Mass. At 9.45am on 20th December 1973, as Carrero's Blanco's Dodge 3700 made its way from Madrid's San Francisco de Borja church, 165 lbs of dynamite exploded directly underneath it – catapulting the vehicle over the five-storey church and onto a second-floor balcony on the other side of the street. This massive trajectory gave rise to the slogan, “Up Franco! Higher than Carrero Blanco!” and the 35-foot hole in the street generated sniggers of “one more pothole, one less asshole.” For far from receiving condemnation, this assassination was widely applauded throughout Spain by a wearied people eager to be rid at last of an unrestrained and merciless regime estimated to have executed almost two million non-combatants during General Francisco Franco's arduous near four-decade-long reign of terror.
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