Before the year has passed since Sanchismo arrived at Telefónica, via SEPI, the company is preparing an ERE in its Spanish offices affecting six thousand workers. Its effective (and independent) CEO, José María Álvarez Ballete, was announced in January. … His dismissal in the same palace of La Moncloa, in another bizarre Caesarian outburst, in favor of the “president’s man”, Marc Murtra, the executor of the economic recipe that defines socialism in general and María Jesús Montero in particular: ideology and ruin. And at its TV operator Movistar+, the state submarine is preparing to destroy more than a third of jobs (there will be 297 layoffs, i.e. 34.5% of the workforce).
Fortunately, the chainsaw was not pulled out in time to prevent the filming of Anatomy of an Instant, a series about the attempted coup of February 23, 1981, based on the wonderful book of the same name by Javier Cercas. Its director is Alberto Rodríguez, one of our audiovisual industry icons who has done a creditable job with his usual team of collaborators (Paco Baños, Manuela Ocon, José Manuel Moyano, etc. pure Seville talent) and, above all, with the help of the main screenwriter, Valete Cobos. Adapting a work like that of the writer from Extremadura/Gironde, which consists mainly of digressions, requires the ingenuity of a goldsmith. The result is a graceful, strict four and – a miracle! – Hardly episodes with an ideological heel.
The story of the “tejerazo”, conspiracy theories aside, has been closed (well) for many years, and it is positive that, in the midst of this new climate of civil war encouraged by the government, a TV series is coming along to update it for the elderly and tell it for the young. However, Alberto Rodríguez, perhaps due to his duty of synthesis, has omitted two names that should stand out among those responsible for stopping the coup, and whom Cercas highlights in his book – in keeping with all serious investigations.
José Aramburu Topete, Huelva of Calañas, was that day director of the Civil Guard, that is, the head of Lieutenant Colonel Tejero who did not hesitate to enter the Chamber of Deputies unarmed to demand the surrender of the rebels. More decisive was the intervention of General Guillermo Quintana Lacací, the military governor of Madrid, under whose jurisdiction was the Brunetti armored division, commanded by José Giusti, who called him to announce that he was preparing to march to the capital on the orders of Milanes del Boche. The tanks were already heading toward the M-30 when Quintana ordered them to return to their barracks. Three years later, the ever-cohesive ETA paid the price for this arrogant act to save democracy with dozens of bullets in the back. The killer is Henri Parrott, a prostitute who was arrested by chance in 1990 in Santiponce, when he was preparing to commit a massacre at the headquarters of La Gavidia. It would have been strict justice to honor these two heroes with a few lines of text.