On 20 December 1973, an operation by the Basque separatist group ETA ended the life of Luis Carrero Blanco, who was the president of the Francoist Spanish government. His escort Juan Antonio Bueno and his driver José Luis Pérez Mogena were also killed in the attack.
A Black Dodge Dart was launched into the air as Carrero Blanco crossed Claudio Coello Street in Madrid. He was near a building housing a Jesuit society when the explosion and assault occurred on the same day that ETA claimed responsibility in a public statement.
Authors and conspiracy theses
Speculation about who carried out the assassination and why has always been broad. Critics point to the peculiar location of the attack and argue that ETA could not have achieved such a level of operational detail without external help.
Carlos Estévez, Paco Mármol, Antonio Rubio and Pilar Urbano, among others, have offered hypotheses about possible involvement by internal security forces, the CIA, or other international actors. All these ideas share a common claim: no one wanted Carrero alive. They also highlighted perceived failures in security services, such as the Central Documentation Service and the National Police, in predicting ETA’s plans or guaranteeing safety near the North American embassy. These predictions, they argue, reveal unsettling possibilities.
Some authors suggest that external agents manipulated events from behind the scenes, ranging from the CIA or the KGB to Freemasonry and dissident Francoist factions that would hinder the investigation.
Mistakes, misinformation and post-truth
Conspiracy theories and their variants are explored in detail. A Movistar Plus+ documentary series, three episodes long, presents a brisk, true-crime tone and seeks to clarify facts that may be obscured. The director describes the project as an exercise in weighing evidence while respecting prior research.
Yet the documentary has been criticized for leaning toward unofficial versions that can create confusion. The following points summarize why these theses do not hold up under scrutiny.
- There was no police investigation. Claims that the case was ignored are inaccurate. Extensive research by Fernández Soldevilla and García Varela spans four years and analyzes more than three thousand pages in a comprehensive summary.
- The claim that the case summary was lost or hidden is incorrect. The summary resided in Madrid’s regional judicial archive along with other materials affected by the 1977 amnesty, which is cited as a reason for the lack of convictions.
- The assertion that the explosive was C4 of U.S. origin is false. The analysis confirms the device used to target Carrero Blanco was C2, an explosive obtained from thefts conducted by ETA in different locations in early 1973.
- The repeated claim that someone helped ETA remains unproven in the documentary. The only clearly documented accomplice connected to the logistics is Eva Forest, who is also linked to another violent incident recorded in later episodes.
- The claim that no one investigated is debunked. Numerous historians, including Antonio Rivera, Toño Castellanos, Gaizka Fernández, Charles Powell, and others have conducted direct and complementary studies on the assassination.
- There were no decisive warnings about Kissinger visiting Madrid. While there is no firm proof of such a notification, there are telegrams from the U.S. embassy indicating concerns about a possible violent incident given the volatile climate in Spain, including terrorism and labor and student protests.
- Madrid was not sealed off as a containment zone intended to trap ETA members. Even if it had been, ETA operatives remained on the city streets for a period, effectively delaying a police response until the alert level dropped. A similar pattern was observed in later attacks like the Rolando café incident in 1974.
- Rumors that ETA leader Ezkerra worked for the CIA and arranged a hit on another gang figure lack credible documentation. Without verifiable sources, such claims are hard to substantiate in archives outside of speculation.
Conclusion
Episodes like this surface repeatedly in documentaries, sometimes prioritizing dramatic storytelling over the historical record. A careful examination of the evidence shows that ETA alone managed to challenge the Franco regime, and Carrero Blanco’s death served as a powerful propaganda instrument for the regime’s opponents while shaping the political narrative of Spain in that era.