Francoism never has been placed on trial (unless the varied judgements of historians count). Silence was at the heart of Spain’s transition to democracy – enshrined in the pacto del olvido. The past, and men like Serrano Suñer, were to be left alone. There were no hearings, no truth commissions and no formal process of reconciliation beyond the business of constructing a new democracy. This was no South Africa, no Chile, no Argentina. The mechanics of repression – police files on suspects and informers – would not be made public, as they would be in East Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic. Nor was Franco’s Spain a defeated Germany or Japan, forced to confront its own guilty past. In fact, it was Franco’s own men who would, largely, oversee and manage the Transición. They would do so in a way that made sure neither they, nor those who came before them, could be called to account for anything they had done on behalf of el Caudillo. ‘The political class turned into angels, proud of the almost Mafioso omertá when it came to talking about themselves,’ wrote one of the handful of critics of that transition, Gregorio Morán.
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