Spain: A Unique History Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the far side of the Retiro Park, and an even more lengthy series of introductions to a large number of veteran Falangist militants, most of whom were willing to talk with me.
    Here once more the timing was good, because Ridruejo had only recently passed from nonsupport of the regime to active opposition. His generosity and his effort to be honest, objective, and self-critical were impressive. All the later years of his life were characterized by a deep moral concern not to repeat the errors of his youth but to make amends for them and to do all he could to achieve a responsible and democratic future for Spain. I never achieved the personal friendship with Ridruejo that I did with Vicens and Maurín, but I was deeply grateful for his assistance and extremely impressed with his intellectual and moral seriousness.
    At that time no archives dealing with the Falange were open, so my research was conducted in two quite different dimensions. The first was the official publications, newspapers, and secondary literature available in the Biblioteca Nacional and the Hemeroteca Municipal; the second was oral history with Falangist militants from the 1930s and with survivors of other political groups, as well. At that time the term "oral history" was scarcely used, and I had had absolutely no training in it. I simply threw myself into the water and learned to swim. If I had had appropriate methodological instruction, I would probably have done better, but interviewing is a matter partly of intuition, of asking the right questions, and of rapid adjustment, not merely formal techniques. The majority of the Falangists and others whom I interviewed sought to be helpful, though of course often not very objective, and sometimes provided important information and data. Only a minority refused to speak seriously or made elaborate efforts to deceive. The relatively good results that I obtained were partly the product of timing, because they could not have been achieved to the same extent a decade earlier.
    A photocopy of the official police report on my activities that had been prepared in 1959, which I recently obtained, observes of its subject that "his appearance is innocent in the extreme though, in fact, he has possession of documents and contacts that are very interesting, having interviewed people ranging from General Aranda to Ridruejo, Suevos, and Hedilla." It goes on to detail two primary documents, copies of which had been provided by my interlocutors, some of whom, of course, were in contact with the police. The report concludes, almost plaintively, that "the work of Stanley Payne is attractive and innocent in appearance," which made it possible for me to carry out research that for someone in an official or political capacity "would be against nature, inherently more difficult, more suspicious. As it is, he can even publish a book in all tranquility there .... beyond the state and in any event relying on the United States, without having to deal with the Spanish government, despite the latter's authority." 12 All of which was true enough.
    The first person whom I sought when I arrived in Madrid was Juan Linz, and our long talks together in the autumn of 1958 were invaluable, the beginning of a half century of friendship and scholarly collaboration that has benefited me more than my contact with anyone else. Juan was an invaluable source of information, analysis, and advice on Spanish affairs, indispensable in forming my first informed perspective on contemporary Spanish politics and history. By the early part of 1959 he was back in New York, beginning his teaching career at Columbia (later moving to Yale in 1968). Juan Linz is the most outstanding analyst of comparative modern European politics that I have encountered — probably the best in any country during the later twentieth century — combining encyclopedic empirical knowledge with a depth of analysis, comparative study, and scholarly imagination, which have been unrivaled.