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Adolfo Surez Dies at 81; Led Spain Back to

Democracy
By RAPHAEL MINDER MARCH 23, 2014

MADRID Adolfo Surez, Spains first elected prime minister after the
Franco dictatorship and a key figure in the countrys transition back to
democracy, died here on Sunday. He was 81.
A family spokesman, Fermn Urbiola, announced the death. Mr.
Surez was admitted to a Madrid hospital last Monday with a
respiratory infection that developed into pneumonia. He had been
treated for Alzheimers disease for a decade.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Surez led a new generation of Spanish
politicians who filled the power vacuum left by the death of Gen.
Francisco Franco in late 1975.
The government announced three days of official mourning and
said that Mr. Surez would receive a state funeral. In a televised
address on Sunday, King Juan Carlos called Mr. Surez a loyal friend
who had helped lead the country back to democracy, calling it one of
the most brilliant chapters in Spanish history.
King Juan Carlos picked Mr. Surez, who was then 43, to form a
government in 1976. At the time, Mr. Surez was a successful but
relatively obscure apparatchik of the Franco regime. He had little of the
power-brokering experience that was required to heal deep divisions in
Spanish society after four decades of dictatorship and international
isolation.
Still, despite his ties to Franco, Mr. Surez was relatively free of
any of the stigma that might have attached to him as a member of the
regime. He was too young to be associated with the horrors of the
Spanish Civil War and the early and most brutal period of Francos
rule.
By June 1977, when Spain held its first democratic election since
1936, the year the civil war began, Mr. Surez epitomized the changing
face of Spain and the emergence of a new middle class, Robert
Graham wrote in Spain: A Nation Comes of Age, a book about Spains
democratic transition.
Mr. Graham, a foreign correspondent in Madrid during Mr.
Surezs premiership, added: His clean, youthful looks were in
themselves a breath of fresh air. He represented what many Spaniards
aspired to be a provincial boy made good, with a devout wife and a
large happy family.
The 1977 general election was won by the Union of the Democratic
Center, formed just ahead of the vote as a loose, center-right coalition
that included several candidates who had served in the Franco
administration without being linked to its most Fascist component.
Mr. Surez did not run as the official leader of the U.C.D., but he
made an address to the nation on the eve of the vote that positioned him
at its helm. He could claim direct backing from King Juan Carlos, who
had himself been handpicked by Franco and crowned only two days
after the dictators death.
The point of departure is the recognition of pluralism in our
society we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of ignoring it, Mr.
Surez told lawmakers in 1976.
This pluralism included the Communist Party, which had been
banned under Franco. In a secret meeting with Santiago Carrillo,
Spains long-exiled Communist leader, Mr. Surez offered to legalize
the Communists in return for a pledge that they would join the election.
His engineering a wave of political conciliation and a smooth
switch to democratic elections as well as a successful referendum on
a new constitution in 1978 were the high water marks of his
premiership. Much of it afterward was rife with tensions within the
leadership of his own UDC and cabinet reshuffles.
 By the start of 1981, Mr. Surez was facing an internal party
rebellion and trailing in the polls behind the Socialist Party. His
response was to resign, a decision he did not fully explain, although he
hinted that any other option, including calling an early general election,
risked making Spains return to democracy a parenthesis in history if
the Socialists took power and provoked a takeover by the military,
which was dead set against their running the country.
In fact, in February 1981, a month after Mr. Surezs resignation
announcement, a group of military officers did attempt a coup, starting
with a takeover of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Spains
parliamentary system, while it was in session voting on the appointment
of a successor to Mr. Surez.
Stunned Spaniards followed events live on radio as members of
Spains military police fired shots into the air and most lawmakers took
cover behind their seats. A few, however, including Mr. Surez and his
deputy prime minister, Manuel Gutierrez Mellado, stood up to
challenge the rebels.
The coup attempt, denounced by King Juan Carlos in a television
broadcast, was over within a day. Several officers involved were
sentenced to long prison terms.
Afterward Mr. Surez sought a political comeback, leading a new
party, the Democratic and Social Center, known as CDS. He was re-
elected to the lower house of Parliament in 1982, but the CDS failed to
make a major impact and gradually lost support. Mr. Surez resigned
his party leadership and retired from politics in 1991.
Adolfo Surez Gonzlez was born on Sept. 25, 1932, in the agrarian
region of Castile and Lon. His father was a lawyer. Mr. Surez studied
law at Salamanca University. He joined the ranks of the National
Movement, the only political party under Franco, with the support of
the governor of Avila, the city where Mr. Surezs family lived.
Initially the governors personal secretary, he rapidly climbed the
ranks of the National Movement and was promoted to his own
governorship, of Segovia, another city near Madrid, in 1968. He spent a
few years running Spains national radio and television.
 Mr. Surezs wife, Mara Amparo Illana Elrtegui, died of cancer
in 2001. A daughter, Mara Amparo Surez Illana, died of cancer three
years later. His survivors include four other children.
Although he had won popular support cast as an outsider to
Spains establishment, Mr. Surez was rewarded by the king with a
noble title, Duke of Surez, after stepping down as prime minister. His
last public appearance was in 2003. Two years later, his family said Mr.
Surez had Alzheimers disease and could no longer remember having
led Spain.

Correction: March 23, 2014

An earlier version of this obituary erroneously attributed a distinction
to Mr. Surez. He was Spains first elected prime minister after the
Franco regime; he was not the first prime minister after Franco. A
previous appointee had served briefly during a transition period.
A version of this article appears in print on March 24, 2014, on page A19 of the New York
edition with the headline: Adolfo Surez Dies at 81; Led Spain Back to Democracy.

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