Late Francoism (1968–75)

This chapter begins with the reaction of British diplomats and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials to the dramatic emergence of ETA across the summer of 1968, followed by the group’s effective dismantling in Spain over the next 12 months. The focus then turns to the Burgos Trial of December 1970 and its political fallout, particularly in relation to Anglo-Spanish relations and London’s evolving approach towards ETA and the “Basque problem”. In the wake of ETA’s assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Carrero Blanco in December 1973, London’s emerging view of ETA as a potentially dangerous agent provocateur to the most reactionary elements of the Spanish far-right was crystallised. The chronological narrative of this chapter is interspersed with multiple references to the provenance and development of ETA-IRA relations—a phenomenon which, for several reasons, had not yet fully registered among British officials.