European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 26, 1981, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Doily Mona Zine tub coup that fizzled Antonio Tejero Molina brandishing pistol during abortive takeover of the Cortes in new York times a late striking along the gentle incline Down to Madrid Prado lit up the Cortes building tuesday a series of television Crews from a dozen different coun tries arranged their cameras and correspondents to get it into guarded by National police in their Brown we Breakers and berets under Generalissimo Francisco Franco they wore stiffly crisscrossed with Patent leather the or was shut but decidedly like a patient coming through an at the band of rebels from the civil guard motor led by a lieutenant colonel seeking a military Takov had surrendered and been driven off in the 350 members of held prisoner straggled off to their families or party the kidnapping of Spain parliament was and ready for the history it seems will find no real parallel for though Back in Manuel Pavia Rode a horse inside the Cortes and dispersed the deputies with the Young Spanish democracy was counting its bruises but congratulating itself on after a Long night in which much of Madrid stayed up listening to the there was even a touch of jittery it was a humiliation the Peoples will was Shang Miguel a catalan said As he but we have Learned a lesson for the and perhaps we shall be Able to act so that this never happens when Antonio Tejero Molina announced his seizure of the he used a phrase going Back to the civil sin said in a Telephone Call to Jaime Milans Del who was relieved of his command in Valencia after apparent involvement in the the roughly meaning All is was used by Franco and his fellow rebels in civil War imagery was very much in the air monday the use of members of the civil guard evoked memories of the corps popular identification with the Franco through the radio reports about the loyalty of armed forces around the country went out of their Way to emphasize the loyalty of the african garrisons of Ceuta and it was those garrisons that Franco used when he rebelled at the Start of the civil War in Tejero seems to have regarded his storming of the Cortes As a gesture comparable to Francos flying to Africa to take command of the troops the signal for a general it will not be Clear until after an investigation and maybe not then whether he had Assur ances that other units would in any the political squabbling that has on in Spain lately in no Way resembles the us split of left and right that existed in lost cause Francos Victory Over the it is held by relatively but some of them like Tejero have guns and or know where to find the with his bristling Mustache and irascible incarnates every conceivable Spanish righting nobody is laughing much in Spain about the at tempted but there Are signs that the humorists May have a Field Day with its aside from the apparent hopelessness of the there was a substantial incongruity in the Way it the colonel and his men burst into the shout ing and firing gun bursts to get the legislators nothing the colonel announced that a higher military authority would arrive to explain but nobody Ever television left on after the journalists had been recorded the scene on videotape and it was broadcast after the first Tejero and his men had Noth ing to do but Pace while the deputies crouched peeping cautiously Over their chair it was not Long before the colonel began to resemble a master of ceremonies whose Star act had not there were other tragicomic glimpses of the explosive the news Agency Europa press asked his aged Mother what she think she i think i am at one Point in the after an intermediary suggested that he be flown out of the coun the colonel declined because he said he got air and after he ordered the deputies to he told in the injured tones of a Host left alone to tidy up you Are leaving and i face 30 or 40 years in the events of the 24 hours have thrown up some very individual images in the very individual capital there was the television Emilio who left his cameras thus allowing the nation to see the spectacle of an institution of political discourse being taken Over by those who shouted and there were the radio managing to pro vide an astonishingly Lucid account of a night of incoherent there were some of the there was vice prime minister Manuel Gutierrez a retired standing up to Tejero in the midst of the and being there was the Deputy who opened his told the invaders to shoot and then sat the second plot Over the past 24 nil of the major from the communists to the righting Alianza condemned the Putsch and backed King Juan Carlos and the but during the Franco there in Spain and the mystique of a lost cause that of the Republic there is today in Spain a mystique of another associated press for the Stocky civil guard officer it was the second plot in Little More than two years to take Over the Spanish government by Antonio Tejero Molinas first righting in got no further than a strategy session with four other officers in a Madrid cafe known As the in the so called Galaxy military units were to Kidnap Premier Adolfo Suarez and his cab inet and put an end to what the conspirators saw As the governments surrender to Basque terrorism and general the plot collapsed within a few Days when three of the five conspirators got cold feet and reported to Premier Tejero and the remaining army Ricardo Saenz de were arrested and became the first military officers since the 1975 death of Francisco Franco to face a general court martial on charges of the two men were kept under House arrest for More than a year while awaiting but in the court comprising four army generals showed surprising Tejero was sentenced to seven months imprisonment and Ynes Trillas to six their House arrest was taken into so both were released immediately and returned to they were not even reduced in 49 and is known As an impassioned nationalist who believes the weakness of successive Span ish governments since Francos death demonstrates that democracy does not work in february during his he said the Basque terrorists of the Eta Independence movement should be hunted Down by ruthless military action such As was usual under he accused the civilian governments of impeding such action through excessive allowing Eta to Mur Der More than 120 civil guards and police in the past three Tejero has had several years of direct experience of the Antiterrorist Battle As commander of civil guard units in the troubled Basque he was transferred out of the Region in 1977 because he refused to allow the newly legalized Basque Flag to be flown in his the details of the plot As they were unfolded at his court martial in May now read like a blueprint for his latest Premier Suarez and his ministers were to be held hostage until King Juan Carlos had agreed to name a new righting government regardless of whether such a government had majority support in the the National Tejero has consistently proclaimed his loyalty to the who is commander chief of the armed while rejecting the authority of the but his flamboyant righting activism has repeatedly landed him in trouble with his military named civil guard commander in his Southern Spanish birth in he called out his men to break up an officially authorized leftist no one to allowed to demonstrate Here because Spain to in mourning for victim of he shortly before the Galaxy he published an open letter to King Juan Carlos demanding a vigorous offensive against terrorism and its supporters including some members of the stars and stripes Page 13