Attempt on Franco's Life

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Historic sites · Year: 1936

During the little more than four months (from 13 March to 16 July 1936) that Franco was in Santa Cruz de Tenerife as Captain General of the Canary Islands, it was rumoured, without convincing evidence, that the future leader of Spain and dictator for forty years was the target of an attempted assassination.

There are three versions of this alleged event that have not been documented. The first is recorded in the book Crónica de vencidos by researcher Ricardo García Luis, which presents the testimony of Antonio Tejera Alonso, known as Antoñé, who apparently was one of the three anarchists involved. His account is presented as confused and inconclusive. The second testimony is found in a 1937 work by local journalist Víctor Zurita; and the last is included in Mi vida junto a Franco by Francisco Franco Salgado-Araujo, the general's first cousin. Neither of these latter two books provides sufficient evidence to prove the veracity of the events. 

In general terms, the three versions state that the attempt to assassinate Franco took place on the night of 14 July (Zurita dates it as the 13th), when three members of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) tried to shoot him in his private quarters in the Captaincy building, having accessed the place from the roof of the neighbouring premises. There was, with an entrance from the Rambla de Pulido, a canteen run by the Catalan anarchist María Culi Calou, better known among her comrades as Maruca, a link that allowed the three anarchists access to the building. According to Antoñé's own testimony, when they reached the canteen's roof they headed to the corridor above the Military Command garden and walked along it towards the door leading to Franco's room. Once in front of it, they found it locked and tried to force it open. The general, alerted by the noise, began to call for help, so the anarchists had to retreat the way they came amid a gunfight. The other two accounts narrate the events differently: when the attackers were climbing the garden wall to reach the central pavilion, where Franco's rooms were, they were surprised by sentries, which caused the gunmen to flee through the newly opened streets of that part of the city that was being urbanised at the time.

All these events remain unproven; reliable documentary evidence is lacking to support them, so very few historians have echoed the incident. Had the conspiracy been true and successful, contemporary Spanish history would have been very different.

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