Is ‘Killing the President’ documentary or epic fantasy about the murder of Carrero Blanco?

Black Dodge Dart car launched into the air When he crossed Claudio Coello Street in Madrid, relatively close to the United States embassy, ​​he found himself on the porch of a building belonging to the Society of Jesus. On the same day, ETA claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.

Authors and conspiracy theses

Existing speculations about who carried out the assassination and their motivations are very diverse: from the suspicious location of the events to the thought that ETA would not have been able to carry out an action of this technical level.

Carlos Estévez, Paco Mármol, Antonio Rubio and Pilar Urbano, among others Hypothesis on the involvement of internal forces of the regime, CIA or other types of international actors have only one source: speculation. Without documentary support or concrete evidence, they were unanimous in stating that no one wanted Carrero alive, and in this regard they explained the ineffectiveness of the Forces, for example the failure of the Central Documentation Service (SECED) to predict ETA’s plans. Public Order (FOP) to guarantee the admiral’s safety or “suspicious coincidence” that the attack occurred next to the North American embassy. Predictions are scary.

To most of these writers, ETA members were puppets in the hands of an external agent, from the CIA (or even the KGB) to Freemasonry, including disgruntled Francoist factions who would ensure that the investigation did not proceed.

Mistakes, misinformation and post-truth

These conspiracy theories and their derivatives are discussed in detail. kill the presidentMovistar Plus+ recently released. A documentary series three parts It has the tone and fast pace of other products based on true crimes. Its director, Eulogio Romero, described it as an exercise in clarifying facts that “hide much more than meets the eye” and emphasized respect for “all previous ideas and research”.

Nothing is further from reality. The documentary supports the alleged “unofficial versions” and The result is confusing. Now let’s look at the theses put forward and why they are wrong.

1. There was no police investigation. It was claimed that there was no desire to investigate the assassination and the case was “left to die”. This is completely wrong. According to the extensive research done by Fernández Soldevilla and García Varela, it was researched for four years, as confirmed by the very comprehensive summary of more than three thousand pages they analyzed.
2. The case summary has been lost or hidden. This claim is incorrect. The summary was not in the vault of the Supreme Court and was not lost. It was always located in Madrid’s regional judicial archive, along with other summaries affected by the 1977 amnesty; This is the second reason why no convictions were made for the assassination.
3. It was stated that the explosive used in the attack was C4 of US military origin. This is not true. The report and analysis included in the summary revealed that the compound of the bomb intended for Carrero was C2. It is also an explosive seized in the thefts carried out by ETA in different magazines, such as in Hernani (Gipuzkoa) in January 1973.
4. It is constantly repeated that “Someone is helping ETA.” This claim is repeated throughout the documentary. However, at no point is the name of the only accomplice for whom there is evidence and confirmation that she participated in the logistics of the attack and the necessary cooperation: Eva Forest, who would also have a key role in the Rolando cafeteria massacre of September 1974, as recorded in the last episode of the podcast Sierra Delta Contra.
5. Nobody wanted to investigate. Fake. Many interveners embrace this argument to strengthen their conspiratorial thesis. But there are many direct and complementary studies of the assassination conducted by historians: Antonio Rivera, Toño Castellanos, Gaizka Fernández, Charles Powell and the author.
6. The day before the attack, Kissinger was notified to leave Madrid immediately. There is no concrete evidence to verify such a claim. However, there are also telegrams from the United States embassy to the Secretary of State with recommendations, one of which is dated December 7, 1973. Americans feared a violent attack on Kissinger because of the turbulent environment marked by terrorism in Spain. and FRAP, worker and student conflict, and poor preparation of the FOP.
7. Madrid was not closed as a “cage” that would allow ETA members to escape. Of course not. Even if it had been done, it would have been of no use because ETA members stayed in Madrid for a month, hiding, waiting for the police alert level to drop. They repeated this measure in the attack on the Rolando cafe in 1974, when the Spanish capital was not yet closed. So this conspiracy theory falls under its own weight
8. ETA leader Ezkerra worked for the CIA and sold another gang leader, Txikia, to be killed by the Police. This is a guess. It is difficult to accept this statement when there is no verbal or written source to support it. If Ezkerra worked for the CIA, as with other individuals of Basque descent on the FBI’s payroll, there would be some documentary remains in North American archives.

Conclusion

Topics like these come up again and again in a documentary. priority of conditional use and the story against historical facts. These, although less exciting, should be the prevailing elements in a proper documentary. ETA alone managed to contain the Franco regime, and Carrero’s death meant enormous propaganda for his cause.