title: Francisco Franco

text: On 26 July, just eight days after the revolt had started, foreign allies of the Republican government convened an international communist conference at Prague to arrange plans to help the Popular Front forces in Spain. It decided to raise an international brigade of 5,000 men and a fund of 1 billion francs to be administered by a committee of five in which Largo Caballero and Dolores Ibárruri ("la Pasionaria") had prominent roles. At the same time communist parties throughout the world quickly launched a full scale propaganda campaign in support of the Popular Front. The Communist International (Comintern) immediately reinforced its activity, sending to Spain its Secretary-General, the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitrov, and Palmiro Togliatti the chief of the Communist Party of Italy. From August onward, aid from the Soviet Union began; by February 1937 two ships per day arrived at Spain's Mediterranean ports carrying munitions, rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, artillery, and trucks. With the cargo came Soviet agents, technicians, instructors and propagandists.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The Communist International immediately started to organize the International Brigades, volunteer military units which included the Garibaldi Brigade from Italy and the Lincoln Battalion from the United States. The International Brigades were usually deployed as shock troops, and as a result they suffered high casualties.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In early August, the situation in western Andalucia was stable enough to allow Franco to organise a column (some 15,000 men at its height), under the command of then Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Yagüe, which would march through Extremadura towards Madrid. On 11 August Mérida was taken, and on 15 August Badajoz, thus joining both nationalist-controlled areas. Additionally, Mussolini ordered a voluntary army, the "Corpo Truppe Volontarie" (CTV) of fully motorised units (some 12,000 Italians), to Seville, and Hitler added to them a professional squadron from the Luftwaffe (2JG/88) with about 24 planes. All these planes had the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them, but were flown by Italian and German nationals. The backbone of Franco's air force in those days was the Italian SM.79 and SM.81 bombers, the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 21 September, with the head of the column at the town of Maqueda (some 80 km away from Madrid), Franco ordered a detour to free the besieged garrison at the Alcázar of Toledo, which was achieved on 27 September. This controversial decision gave the Popular Front time to strengthen its defenses in Madrid and hold the city that year, but with Soviet support. Kennan alleges that once Stalin had decided to assist the Spanish Republicans, the operation was put in place with remarkable speed and energy. The first load of arms and tanks arrived as early as 26 September and was secretly unloaded at night. Advisers accompanied the armaments. Soviet officers were in effective charge of military operations on the Madrid front. Kennan believes that this operation was originally conducted in good faith with no other purpose than saving the Republic.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Hitler's policy for Spain was shrewd and pragmatic. The minutes of a conference with his foreign minister and army chiefs at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on 10 November 1937 summarised his views on foreign policy regarding the Spanish Civil War: "On the other hand, a 100 percent victory for Franco was not desirable either, from the German point of view; rather were we interested in a continuance of the war and in the keeping up of the tension in the Mediterranean." Hitler distrusted Franco; according to the comments he made at the conference he wanted the war to continue, but he did not want Franco to achieve total victory. He felt that with Franco in undisputed control of Spain, the possibility of Italy intervening further or of its continuing to occupy the Balearic Islands would be prevented.


title: Francisco Franco

text: By February 1937 the Soviet Union's military help started to taper off, to be replaced by limited economic aid.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The designated leader of the uprising, General José Sanjurjo, died on 20 July 1936 in a plane crash. In the nationalist zone, "political life ceased". Initially, only military command mattered: this was divided into regional commands (Emilio Mola in the North, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano in Seville commanding Andalucia, Franco with an independent command, and Miguel Cabanellas in Zaragoza commanding Aragon). The Spanish Army of Morocco was itself split into two columns, one commanded by General Juan Yagüe and the other commanded by Colonel José Varela.


title: Francisco Franco

text: From 24 July a coordinating "junta", the National Defence Junta, was established, based at Burgos. Nominally led by Cabanellas, as the most senior general, it initially included Mola, three other generals, and two colonels; Franco was later added in early August. On 21 September it was decided that Franco was to be commander-in-chief (this unified command was opposed only by Cabanellas), and, after some discussion, with no more than a lukewarm agreement from Queipo de Llano and from Mola, also head of government. He was, doubtlessly, helped to this primacy by the fact that, in late July, Hitler had decided that all of Germany's aid to the Nationalists would go to Franco.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Mola had been somewhat discredited as the main planner of the attempted coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlist monarchists and not at all with the Falange, a party with Fascist leanings and connections ("phalanx", a far-right Spanish political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera), nor did he have good relations with Germany. Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles, and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Alicante (he would be executed a few months later). The desire to keep a place open for him prevented any other Falangist leader from emerging as a possible head of state. Franco's previous aloofness from politics meant that he had few active enemies in any of the factions that needed to be placated, and he had also cooperated in recent months with both Germany and Italy.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 1 October 1936, in Burgos, Franco was publicly proclaimed as "Generalísimo" of the National army and "Jefe del Estado" (Head of State). When Mola was killed in another air accident a year later on 2 June 1937 (which some believe was an assassination), no military leader was left from those who had organised the conspiracy against the Republic between 1933 and 1935.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco personally guided military operations from this time until the end of the war. Franco himself was not a strategic genius, but he was very effective at organisation, administration, logistics and diplomacy. After the failed assault on Madrid in November 1936, Franco settled on a piecemeal approach to winning the war, rather than bold maneuvering. As with his decision to relieve the garrison at Toledo, this approach has been subject of some debate: some of his decisions, such as in June 1938 when he preferred to advance towards Valencia instead of Catalonia, remain particularly controversial from a military strategic viewpoint. Valencia, Castellon and Alicante saw the last Republican troops defeated by Franco.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Although both Germany and Italy provided military support to Franco, the degree of influence of both powers on his direction of the war seems to have been very limited. Nevertheless, the Italian troops, despite not always being effective, were present in most of the large operations in large numbers. Germany sent insignificant numbers of combat personnel to Spain, but aided the Nationalists with technical instructors and modern matériel; including some 200 tanks and 600 aircraft which helped the Nationalist air force dominate the skies for most of the war.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco's direction of the German and Italian forces was limited, particularly in the direction of the Condor Legion, but he was by default their supreme commander, and they declined to interfere in the politics of the Nationalist zone. For reasons of prestige it was decided to continue assisting Franco until the end of the war, and Italian and German troops paraded on the day of the final victory in Madrid.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The Nationalist victory could be accounted for by various factors: the Popular Front government had reckless policies in the weeks prior to the war, where it ignored potential dangers and alienated the opposition, encouraging more people to join the rebellion, while the rebels had superior military cohesion, with Franco providing the necessary leadership to consolidate power and unify the various rightist factions. His foreign diplomacy secured military aid from Italy and Germany and, by some accounts, helped keep Britain and France out of the war.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The rebels made effective use of a smaller navy, acquiring the most powerful ships in the Spanish fleet and maintaining a functional officer corp, while Republican sailors had assassinated a large number of their naval officers who sided with the rebels in 1936, as at Cartagena, and El Ferrol. The Nationalists used their ships aggressively to pursue the opposition, in contrast to the largely passive naval strategy of the Republicans.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Not only did the Nationalists receive more foreign aid to sustain their war effort, but there is evidence that they made more efficient use of such aid. They augmented their forces with arms captured from the Republicans, and successfully integrated over half of Republican prisoners of war into the Nationalist army. The rebels were able to build a larger air force and make more effective use of their air force, particularly in supporting ground operations and bombing; and generally enjoyed air superiority from mid-1937 onwards; this air power contributed greatly to the Nationalist victory.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The Republicans were subject to disunity and infighting, and were hampered by the destructive consequences of the revolution in the Republican zone: mobilisation was impeded, the Republican image was harmed abroad in democracies, and the campaign against religion aroused overwhelming and unwavering Catholic support for the Nationalists.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 19 April 1937, Franco and Serrano Súñer, with the acquiescence of Generals Mola and Quiepo de Llano, forcibly merged the ideologically distinct national-syndicalist Falange and the Carlist monarchist parties into one party under his rule, dubbed "Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista" (FET y de las JONS), which became the only legal party in 1939.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Unlike some other fascist movements, the Falangists had developed an official program in 1934, the "Twenty-Seven Points". In 1937, Franco assumed as the tentative doctrine of his regime 26 out of the original 27 points. Franco made himself "jefe nacional" (National Chief) of the new FET ("Falange Española Tradicionalista"; Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx) with a secretary, Political Junta and National Council to be named subsequently by himself. Five days later on 24 April the raised-arm salute of the Falange was made the official salute of the Nationalist regime. Also in 1937 the "Marcha Real" ("Royal March") was restored by decree as the national anthem in the Nationalist zone. It was opposed by the Falangists, who associated it with the monarchy and boycotted it when it was played, often singing their own anthem, "Cara al Sol" (Facing the Sun) instead. By 1939 the fascist style prevailed, with ritual rallying calls of "Franco, Franco, Franco."


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco's advisor on Falangist party matters, Ramón Serrano Súñer, who was the brother-in-law of his wife Carmen Polo, and a group of Serrano Súñer's followers dominated the FET JONS, and strove to increase the party's power. Serrano Súñer tried to move the party in a more fascist direction by appointing his acolytes to important positions, and the party became the leading political organization in Francoist Spain. The FET JONS failed to establish a fascist party regime, however, and was relegated to subordinate status. Franco placed the Carlist Manuel Fal Condé under house arrest and imprisoned hundreds of old Falangists, the so-called "old shirts" ("camisas viejas"), including the party leader Manuel Hedilla, to help secure his political future. Franco also appeased the Carlists by exploiting the Republicans' anti-clericalism in his propaganda, in particular concerning the "Martyrs of the war". While the Republican forces presented the war as a struggle to defend the Republic against fascism, Franco depicted himself as the defender of "Catholic Spain" against "atheist communism".


title: Francisco Franco

text: By early 1939 only Madrid (see History of Madrid) and a few other areas remained under control of the government forces. On 27 February Chamberlain's Britain and Daladier's France officially recognised the Franco regime. On 28 March 1939, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the "fifth column" General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out under the guns of the Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Victory was proclaimed on 1 April 1939, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered. On the same day, Franco placed his sword upon the altar of a church and vowed to never take it up again unless Spain itself was threatened with invasion.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Although Germany had recognised the Franco Government, Franco's policy towards Germany was extremely cautious until spectacular German victories at the beginning of the Second World War. An early indication that Franco was going to keep his distance from Germany soon proved true. A rumoured state visit by Franco to Germany did not take place and a further rumour of a visit by Goering to Spain, after he had enjoyed a cruise in the Western Mediterranean, again did not materialise. Instead Goering had to return to Berlin.


title: Francisco Franco

text: During the Civil War and in the aftermath, a period known as the White Terror took place. This saw mass executions of Republican and other Nationalist enemies, standing in contrast to the war-time Red Terror. Historical analysis and investigations estimate the number of executions by the Franco regime during this time to be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Stanley G. Payne says the total number of all kinds of executions in the Republican zone added up to about 56,000, and that those in the Nationalist zone probably amounted to at least 70,000, with an additional 28,000 executions after the war ended. Recent searches conducted with parallel excavations of mass graves in Spain by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica), ARMH) estimate that more than 35,000 people killed by the nationalist side are still missing in mass graves.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Julián Casanova Ruiz, who was nominated in 2008 to join the panel of experts in the first judicial investigation, conducted by judge Baltasar Garzón, of Francoist crimes, as well as historians Josep Fontana and Hugh Thomas, estimate deaths in the White Terror to be around 150,000 in total. According to Paul Preston, 150,000 wartime civilian executions took place in the Francoist area, as well as 50,000 in the Republican area, in addition to approximately 20,000 civilians executed by the Franco regime after the end of the war. According to Helen Graham, the Spanish working classes became to the Francoist project what the Jews were to the German Volksgemeinschaft.


title: Francisco Franco

text: According to Gabriel Jackson and Antony Beevor, the number of victims of the "White Terror" (executions and hunger or illness in prisons) between 1939 and 1943 was 200,000. Beevor "reckons Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000." Julius Ruiz concludes that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain."


title: Francisco Franco

text: Despite the end of the war, Spanish guerrillas exiled in France, and known as the "Maquis"", continued to resist Franco in the Pyrenees, carrying out sabotage and robberies against the Francoist regime. Several exiled Republicans also fought in the French resistance against the German occupation in Vichy France during World War II. In 1944, a group of republican veterans from the French resistance invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia, but were quickly defeated. The activities of the Maquis continued well into the 1950s.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The end of the war led to hundreds of thousands of exiles, mostly to France, but also to Mexico, Chile, Cuba, and the United States. On the other side of the Pyrenees, refugees were confined in internment camps in France, such as Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions (mostly soldiers from the Durruti Division). The 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs were divided into four categories: Brigadists, pilots, "Gudaris" and ordinary "Spaniards". The "Gudaris" (Basques) and the pilots easily found local backers and jobs, and were allowed to quit the camp, but the farmers and ordinary people, who could not find relations in France, were encouraged by the French government, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for "purification" according to the Law of Political Responsibilities.


title: Francisco Franco

text: After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy France regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirables", they were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named by the Chilean President Pedro Aguirre Cerda special consul for immigration in Paris, was given responsibility for what he called "the noblest mission I have ever undertaken": shipping more than 2,000 Spanish refugees, who had been housed by the French in squalid camps, to Chile on an old cargo ship, the "Winnipeg".


title: Francisco Franco

text: In September 1939, World War II began. Franco had received important support from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War, and he had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. He made pro-Axis speeches, while offering various kinds of support to Italy and Germany. His spokesman Antonio Tovar commented at a Paris conference entitled 'Bolshevism versus Europe' that "Spain aligned itself definitively on the side of...National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy." However, Franco was reluctant to enter the war due to Spain recovering from its recent civil war and instead pursued a policy of "non-belligerence".


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 23 October 1940, Hitler and Franco met in Hendaye, France to discuss the possibility of Spain's entry on the side of the Axis. Franco's demands, including large supplies of food and fuel, as well as Spanish control of Gibraltar and French North Africa, proved too much for Hitler. At the time Hitler did not want to risk damaging his relations with the new Vichy French government. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader said that he would rather have some of his own teeth pulled out than to have to personally deal further with Franco).


title: Francisco Franco

text: Some historians argue that Franco made demands he knew Hitler would not accede to, in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that Franco, as the leader of a destroyed and bankrupt country in chaos following a brutal three-year civil war, simply had little to offer the Axis and that the Spanish armed forces were not ready for a major war. It has also been suggested that Franco decided not to join the war after the resources he requested from Hitler in October 1940 were not forthcoming.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German Army against the Soviet Union (the Blue Division), but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to defending Catholicism. Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain.


title: Francisco Franco

text: According to some scholars, after the Fall of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis stance (for example, German and Italian ships and U-boats were allowed to use Spanish naval facilities) before returning to a more neutral position in late 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against the Axis Powers, and Italy had changed sides. Franco was initially keen to join the war before the UK could be defeated.In the winter of 1940 and 1941, Franco toyed with the idea of a "Latin Bloc" formed by Spain, Portugal, Vichy France, the Vatican and Italy, without much consequence. Franco had cautiously decided to enter the war on the Axis side in June 1940, and to prepare his people for war, an anti-British and anti-French campaign was launched in the Spanish media that demanded French Morocco, Cameroon and Gibraltar. On 19 June 1940, Franco pressed along a message to Hitler saying he wanted to enter the war, but Hitler was annoyed at Franco's demand for the French colony of Cameroon, which had been German before World War I, and which Hitler was planning on taking back for Plan Z. Franco seriously considered blocking allied access to the Mediterranean Sea by invading British-held Gibraltar, but he abandoned the idea after learning that the plan would have likely failed due to Gibraltar being too heavily defended. In addition, declaring war on the UK and its allies would no doubt give them an opportunity to capture both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco, as well as possibly launch an invasion of mainland Spain itself. Franco was aware that his air force would be quickly defeated if going into action against the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Navy would easily be able to destroy Spain's small navy and blockade the entire Spanish coast to prevent imports of crucial materials such as oil. Spain depended on oil imports from the United States, which were almost certain to be cut off if Spain formally joined the Axis. Franco and Serrano Suñer held a meeting with Mussolini and Ciano in Bordighera, Italy on 12 February 1941. However, an affected Mussolini did not appear to be interested in Franco's help due to the defeats his forces had suffered in North Africa and the Balkans, and he even told Franco that he wished he could find any way to leave the war. When the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, Franco's foreign minister Ramón Serrano Suñer immediately suggested the formation of a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion. Volunteer Spanish troops (the "División Azul", or "Blue Division") fought on the Eastern Front under German command from 1941 to 1944. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers' battle against the Soviet Union.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco was initially disliked by Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American declaration of war on Spain to overthrow Franco's regime. Hitler may not have really wanted Spain to join the war, as he needed neutral harbors to import materials from countries in Latin America and elsewhere. He felt Spain would be a burden as it would be dependent on Germany for help. By 1941, Vichy French forces were proving their effectiveness in North Africa, reducing the need for Spanish help, and Hitler was wary about opening up a new front on the western coast of Europe as he struggled to reinforce the Italians in Greece and Yugoslavia. Franco signed a revised Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941. Spain continued to be able to obtain valuable German goods, including military equipment, as part of payment for Spanish raw materials, and traded wolfram with Germany until August 1944 when the Germans withdrew from the Spanish frontier.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Spanish neutrality during World War II was publicly acknowledged by leading Allied statesmen. In November 1942, US President Roosevelt wrote to General Franco: "...your nation and mine are friends in the best sense of the word." In May 1944, Winston Churchill stated in the House of Commons: "In the dark days of the war the attitude of the Spanish Government in not giving our enemies passage through Spain was extremely helpful to us... I must say that I shall always consider that a service was rendered...by Spain, not only to the United Kingdom and to the British Empire and Commonwealth, but to the cause of the United Nations." According to the personal recollection of US Ambassador to Spain Carlton Hayes, similar gratitude was also expressed by the Provisional French Government at Algiers in 1943. Franco placed no obstacles to Britain's construction of a large air base extending from Gibraltar into Spanish territorial waters, and welcomed the Anglo-American landings in North Africa. Spain did not intern any of the 1,200 American airmen who were forced to land in the country, but "gave them refuge and permitted them to leave."


title: Francisco Franco

text: After the war, the Spanish government tried to destroy all evidence of its cooperation with the Axis. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 14 June 1940, Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier (a city under international control) and did not leave until the war's end in 1945.


title: Francisco Franco

text: After the war, Franco allowed many former Nazis, such as Otto Skorzeny and Léon Degrelle, and other former fascists, to seek political asylum in Spain.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco had a controversial association with Jews during the WWII period. He made anti-Semitic remarks in a speech in May 1939, and made similar remarks on at least six occasions during World War II. In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers. Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Contrarily, according to "Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution" (2005):


title: Francisco Franco

text: Spain provided visas for thousands of French Jews to transit Spain en route to Portugal to escape the Nazis. Spanish diplomats protected about 4,000 Jews living in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. At least some 20,000 to 30,000 Jews were allowed to pass through Spain in the first half of the War. Jews who were not allowed to enter Spain, however, were sent to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp or deported to France. In January 1943, after the German embassy in Spain told the Spanish government that it had two months to remove its Jewish citizens from Western Europe, Spain severely limited visas, and only 800 Jews were allowed to enter the country. After the war, Franco exaggerated his contributions to saving Jews in order to improve Spain's image in the world and end its international isolation.


title: Francisco Franco

text: After the war, Franco did not recognize Israeli statehood and maintained strong relations with the Arab world. Israel expressed disinterest in establishing relations, although there were some informal economic ties between the two countries in the later years of Franco's governance. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, Franco's Spain was able to utilise its positive relationship with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab world (due to not having recognised the Israeli state) to allow 800 Egyptian Jews, many of Sephardic ancestry, safe passage out of Egypt on Spanish passports. This was undertaken through Francoist Spain's Ambassador to Egypt, Angel Sagaz, on the understanding that emigrant Jews would not immediately emigrate to Israel and that they would not publicly use the case as political propaganda against Nasser's Egypt. On 16 December 1968, the Spanish government formally revoked the 1492 Edict of Expulsion against Spain's Jewish population.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco personally and many in the government openly stated that they believed there was an international conspiracy of Freemasons and Communists against Spain, sometimes including Jews or "Judeo-Masonry" as part of this. While under the leadership of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government explicitly endorsed the Catholic Church as the religion of the nation state and did not endorse liberal ideas such as religious pluralism or separation of Church and State found in the Republican Constitution of 1931. Following the Second World War, the government enacted the "Spanish Bill of Rights" ("Fuero de los Españoles"), which extended the right to private worship of non-Catholic religions, including Judaism, though it did not permit the erection of religious buildings for this practice and did not allow non-Catholic public ceremonies. With the pivot of Spain's foreign policy towards the United States during the Cold War, the situation changed with the 1967 Law on Religious Freedom, which granted full public religious rights to non-Catholics. The overthrow of Catholicism as the explicit state religion of Spain and the establishment of state-sponsored religious pluralism would be realized in Spain in 1978, with the new Constitution of Spain, three years after Franco's death.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco was recognised as the Spanish head of state by the United Kingdom, France and Argentina in February 1939. Already proclaimed "Generalísimo" of the Nationalists and "Jefe del Estado" (Head of State) in October 1936, he thereafter assumed the official title of ""Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado"" ("His Excellency the Head of State"). He was also referred to in state and official documents as ""Caudillo de España"" ("the Leader of Spain"), and sometimes called ""el Caudillo de la Última Cruzada y de la Hispanidad"" ("the Leader of the Last Crusade and of the Hispanic heritage") and ""el Caudillo de la Guerra de Liberación contra el Comunismo y sus Cómplices"" ("the Leader of the War of Liberation Against Communism and Its Accomplices").


title: Francisco Franco

text: On paper, Franco had more power than any Spanish leader before or since. For the first four years after taking Madrid, he ruled almost exclusively by decree. The "Law of the Head of State," passed in August 1939, "permanently confided" all governing power to Franco; he was not required to even consult the cabinet for most legislation or decrees. According to Payne, Franco possessed far more day-to-day power than Hitler or Stalin possessed at the respective heights of their power. He noted that while Hitler and Stalin maintained rubber-stamp parliaments, this was not the case in Spain in the early years after the war – a situation that nominally made Franco's regime "the most purely arbitrary in the world".


title: Francisco Franco

text: This changed in 1942, when Franco convened a parliament known as the Cortes Españolas. It was elected in accordance with corporatist principles, and had little real power. Notably, it had no control over government spending, and the government was not responsible to it; ministers were appointed and dismissed by Franco alone.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 26 July 1947, Franco proclaimed Spain a monarchy, but did not designate a monarch. This gesture was largely done to appease the monarchists in the "Movimiento Nacional" (Carlists and Alfonsists). Franco left the throne vacant, proclaiming himself as a "de facto" regent for life. At the same time, Franco appropriated many of the privileges of a king. He wore the uniform of a Captain General (a rank traditionally reserved for the King) and resided in El Pardo Palace. In addition he began walking under a canopy, and his portrait appeared on most Spanish coins and postage stamps. He also added "by the grace of God", a phrase usually part of the styles of monarchs, to his style.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco initially sought support from various groups. His administration marginalised fascist ideologues in favour of technocrats, many of whom were linked with Opus Dei, who promoted economic modernisation.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco adopted Fascist trappings, although Stanley Payne argued that very few scholars consider him to be a "core fascist". Regarding the regime, the "Oxford Living Dictionary" uses Franco's regime as an example of fascism, and it has also been variously presented as a "fascistized dictatorship", or a "semi-fascist regime". Francisco Cobo Romero writes that, besides neutering left-wing advances by using an essentially antiliberal brand of ultranationalism, "in its attempt to emulate Fascism, Francoism resorted to the sacralization and mystification of the motherland, raising it into an object of cult, and coating it with a liturgic divinization of its leader".


title: Francisco Franco

text: All in all, some authors have pointed at a purported artificialness and failure of FET JONS in order to de-emphasize the Fascist weight within the regime whereas others have embedded those perceived features of "weak party" within the frame of a particular model of "Spanish Fascism". However, new research material has been argued to underpin the "Fascist subject", both on the basis of the existence of a pervasive and fully differentiated Fascist falangist political culture, and on the importance of the Civil War for falangism, which served as an area of experience, of violence, of memory, as well as for the generation of a culture of victory. Under the perspective of a comparative of European fascisms, Javier Rodrigo considers the Francoist regime to be paradigmatic for three reasons: for being the only authoritarian European regime with totalitarian aspirations, for being the regime that deployed the most political violence in times of rhetorical peace, and for being the regime deploying the most effective "memoricidal" apparatus.


title: Francisco Franco

text: With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the consequences of its isolation from the international economy. Spain was excluded from the Marshall Plan, unlike other neutral countries in Europe. This situation ended in part when, in the light of Cold War tensions and of Spain's strategic location, the United States of America entered into a trade and military alliance with Franco. This historic alliance commenced with the visit of US President Dwight Eisenhower to Spain in 1953, which resulted in the Pact of Madrid. Spain was then admitted to the United Nations in 1955. American military facilities in Spain built since then include Naval Station Rota, Morón Air Base, and Torrejón Air Base.


title: Francisco Franco

text: According to Preston's estimates, Franco's forces killed about 420,000 Spaniards in the theatre of war, through extrajudicial killings during the Civil War, and in state executions immediately following its end in 1939. The first decade of Franco's rule following its end saw continued repression and the killing of an undetermined number of political opponents. In 1941 the prison population of Spain was 233,000, mostly political prisoners. According to Antony Beevor, recent research in more than half of Spain's provinces indicates at least 35,000 official executions in the country after the war, suggesting that the generally accepted figure of 35,000 official executions is low. Accounting for unofficial and random killings, and those who died during the war from execution, suicide, starvation and disease in prison, the total number is probably closer to 200,000.By the start of the 1950s Franco's state had become less violent, but during his entire rule, non-government trade unions and all political opponents across the political spectrum, from communist and anarchist organisations to liberal democrats and Catalan or Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled with all means, up to and including violent police repression. The "Confederación Nacional del Trabajo" (CNT) and the "Unión General de Trabajadores" (UGT) trade unions were outlawed, and replaced in 1940 by the corporatist "Sindicato Vertical". The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the "Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya" (ERC) were banned in 1939, while the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) went underground. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) went into exile, and in 1959 the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco's Spanish nationalism promoted a unitary national identity by repressing Spain's cultural diversity. Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions while those traditions not considered "Spanish" were suppressed. Franco's view of Spanish tradition was somewhat artificial and arbitrary: while some regional traditions were suppressed, flamenco, an Andalucian tradition, was considered part of a larger, national identity. All cultural activities were subject to censorship, and many, such as the Sardana, the national dance of Catalonia, were plainly forbidden (often in an erratic manner). This cultural policy was relaxed over time, most notably during the late 1960s and early 1970s.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco also used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity. He promoted the use of Castilian Spanish and suppressed other languages such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque. The legal usage of languages other than Castilian was forbidden. All government, notarial, legal and commercial documents were to be drawn up exclusively in Castilian and any documents written in other languages were deemed null and void. The usage of any other language was forbidden in schools, in advertising, and on road and shop signs. For unofficial use, citizens continued to speak these languages. This was the situation throughout the 1940s and to a lesser extent during the 1950s, but after 1960 the non-Castilian Spanish languages were freely spoken and written, and they reached bookshops and stages, although they never received official status.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The Catholic Church was upheld as the established church of the Spanish State, and it regained many of the traditional privileges which it had lost under the Republic. Civil servants had to be Catholic, and some official jobs even required a "good behavior" statement by a priest. Civil marriages which had taken place in Republican Spain were declared null and void unless they had been confirmed by the Catholic Church. Divorce was forbidden, along with contraceptives, and abortion.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Most country towns and rural areas were patrolled by pairs of "Guardia Civil", a military police force for civilians, which functioned as Franco's chief means of social control. Larger cities and capitals were mostly under the jurisdiction of the Policia Armada, or the "grises" ("greys", due to the colour of their uniforms) as they were called.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Student revolts at universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s were violently repressed by the heavily armed "Policía Armada" (Armed Police). Plain-clothed secret police worked inside Spanish universities. The enforcement by public authorities of traditional Catholic values was a stated intent of the regime, mainly by using a law (the "Ley de Vagos y Maleantes", Vagrancy Act) enacted by Azaña. The remaining nomads of Spain (Gitanos and Mercheros like El Lute) were especially affected. Through this law, homosexuality and prostitution were made criminal offenses in 1954.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Spain attempted to retain control of its colonies throughout Franco's rule. During the Algerian War (1954–62), Madrid became the base of the "Organisation armée secrète" (OAS), a right-wing French Army group which sought to preserve French Algeria. Despite this, Franco was forced to make some concessions. When French Morocco became independent in 1956, he surrendered Spanish Morocco to Morocco, retaining only a few cities (the "Plazas de soberanía"). The year after, Mohammed V invaded Spanish Sahara during the Ifni War (known as the "Forgotten War" in Spain). Only in 1975, with the Green March, did Morocco take control of all of the former Spanish territories in the Sahara.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In 1968, under pressure from the United Nations, Spain granted Equatorial Guinea its independence, and the following year it ceded Ifni to Morocco. Under Franco, Spain also pursued a campaign to force a negotiation on the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, and closed its border with that territory in 1969. The border would not be fully reopened until 1985.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The Civil War ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed, and daily business severely hampered. For more than a decade after Franco's victory, the devastated economy recovered very slowly. Franco initially pursued a policy of autarky, cutting off almost all international trade. The policy had devastating effects, and the economy stagnated. Only black marketeers could enjoy an evident affluence.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On the brink of bankruptcy, a combination of pressure from the United States and the IMF managed to convince the regime to adopt a free market economy. Many of the old guard in charge of the economy were replaced by technocrats ("technocrata"), despite some initial opposition from Franco. The regime took its first faltering steps toward abandoning its pretensions of self-sufficiency and towards a transformation of Spain's economic system. Pre-Civil War industrial production levels were regained in the early 1950s, though agricultural output remained below prewar levels until 1958. The years from 1951 to 1956 were marked by substantial economic progress, but the reforms of the period were only sporadically implemented, and they were not well coordinated. From the mid-1950s there was a slow but steady acceleration in economic activity, but the relative lack of growth (compared to the rest of Western Europe) eventually forced the Franco regime to allow the introduction of liberal economic policies in the late 1950s. During the pre-stabilization years of 1957–1959, Spanish economic planners implemented partial measures such as moderate anti-inflationary adjustments and incremental moves to integrate Spain into the global economy, but external developments and a worsening domestic economic crisis forced them to adopt more sweeping changes. A reorganisation of the Council of Ministers in early 1957 had brought a group of younger men, most of whom were educated in economics and had experience, to the key ministries. The process of integrating the country into the world economy was further facilitated by the reforms of the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan.


title: Francisco Franco

text: When Franco replaced his ideological ministers with the apolitical technocrats, the regime implemented several development policies that included deep economic reforms. After a recession, growth took off from 1959, creating an economic boom that lasted until 1974, and became known as the "Spanish miracle".


title: Francisco Franco

text: Concurrent with the absence of social reforms, and the economic power shift, a tide of mass emigration commenced to other European countries, and to a lesser extent, to South America. Emigration helped the regime in two ways. The country got rid of populations it would not have been able to keep in employment, and the emigrants supplied the country with much needed monetary remittances.


title: Francisco Franco

text: During the 1960s, the wealthy classes of Francoist Spain experienced further increases in wealth, particularly those who remained politically faithful, while a burgeoning middle class became visible as the "economic miracle" progressed. International firms established factories in Spain where salaries were low, company taxes very low, strikes forbidden and workers' health or state protections almost unheard of. State-owned firms like the car manufacturer SEAT, truck builder Pegaso, and oil refiner INH, massively expanded production. Furthermore, Spain was virtually a new mass market. Spain became the second-fastest growing economy in the world between 1959 and 1973, just behind Japan. By the time of Franco's death in 1975, Spain still lagged behind most of Western Europe but the gap between its per capita GDP and that of the leading Western European countries had narrowed greatly, and the country had developed a large industrialised economy.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In the late 1960s, the aging Franco decided to name a monarch to succeed his regency, but the simmering tensions between the Carlists and the Alfonsoists continued. In 1969, Franco formally nominated as his heir-apparent Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, who had been educated by him in Spain, with the new title of Prince of Spain. This designation came as a surprise to the Carlist pretender to the throne, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, as well as to Juan Carlos's father, Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona, who had a better claim to the throne, but whom Franco feared to be too liberal.


title: Francisco Franco

text: However, when Juan Carlos asked Franco if he could sit in on cabinet meetings, Franco would not permit him saying that "you would do things differently." Due to the spread of democracy, excluding the Eastern Bloc, in Europe since World War II, Juan Carlos could or would not have been a dictator in the way Franco had been.


title: Francisco Franco

text: By 1973, Franco had surrendered the function of prime minister ("Presidente del Gobierno"), remaining only as head of state and commander in chief of the military.


title: Francisco Franco

text: As his final years progressed, tensions within the various factions of the "Movimiento" would consume Spanish political life, as varying groups jockeyed for position in an effort to win control of the country's future. The assassination of prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco in the 20 December 1973 bombing by ETA eventually gave an edge to the liberalizing faction.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 19 July 1974, the aged Franco fell ill from various health problems, and Juan Carlos took over as acting head of state. Franco recovered and on 2 September he resumed his duties as head of state. A year later he fell ill again, afflicted with further health problems, including a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Franco's last public appearance was on 1 October 1975 when, despite his gaunt and frail appearance, he gave a speech to crowds from the balcony at the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid. On 30 October 1975 he fell into a coma and was put on life support. Franco's family agreed to disconnect the life-support machines. Officially, he died a few minutes after midnight on 20 November 1975 from heart failure, at the age of 82 – on the same date as the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, in 1936. Historian Ricardo de la Cierva claimed, however, that he had been told around 6 pm on 19 November that Franco had already died.


title: Francisco Franco

text: As soon as news of Franco's death was made public, the government declared thirty days of official national mourning. On 22 November Juan Carlos was proclaimed King of Spain. There was a public viewing of Franco's body at the funeral chapel opened in the Royal Palace; a mass and a military parade were held on the day of his burial.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco's body was interred at the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caídos), a colossal memorial built by the forced labour of political prisoners ostensibly to honour the casualties of both sides of the Spanish Civil War. It was located only 10 kilometres from the palace, monastery, and royal pantheon of El Escorial built by Philip II. On 1 April 1959, Franco had inaugurated its huge underground basilica as his monument and mausoleum, saying in his own words that it was built "in memory of my victory over communism, which was trying to dominate Spain." The project's architect, Diego Méndez, had constructed a lead-lined tomb for Franco underneath the floor of the transept, behind the high altar of the church in 1956, a fact unknown to the Spanish people until almost thirty years later. Franco was the only person interred in the Valley who did not die during the civil war. He was buried a few metres from the grave of the Falange's founder, Jose Antonio.


title: Francisco Franco

text: A mass and a military parade took place on the day of his burial, 23 November 1975. As the cortège with Franco's body arrived at the Valley of the Fallen, some 75,000 rightists wearing the blue shirts of the Falangists greeted it with rebel songs from the civil war and fascist salutes.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The major European governments, who condemned Franco's regime, declined to send high-level representatives to his funeral. Some of the few foreign dignitaries and government representatives who attended were: Nelson Rockefeller, Vice President of the United States, Lord Shepherd, Leader of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom (Harold Wilson caused controversy within the Labour Party by sending him to represent the UK Government), Prince Rainier III of Monaco, King Hussein of Jordan, Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines and the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, dictator of the Philippines, Hugo Banzer, military dictator of Bolivia, and Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, for whom the Spanish Caudillo was a role-model. It was made clear to Pinochet that he was not welcome at Juan Carlos's coronation.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Following Franco's funeral, his widow Carmen Polo supervised the moving of crates of jewely, antiques, artworks, and Franco's papers to the family's various estates in Spain or to safe havens in foreign countries. The family remained extremely rich after his death. Polo had a room in her apartment in which the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with forty columns of twenty drawers, some containing tiaras, necklaces, earrings, garlands, brooches and cameos. Others contained gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, topazes, and pearls, but the most valuable jewels were kept in bank vaults.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 11 May 2017, the Congress of Deputies approved, by 198–1 with 140 abstentions, a motion driven by the Socialist Workers' Party ordering the Government to exhume Franco's remains.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 24 August 2018, the Government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez approved legal amendments to the Historical Memory Law stating that only those who died during the Civil War would be buried at the Valle de los Caídos, resulting in plans to exhume Franco's remains for reburial elsewhere. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo Poyato stated that having Franco buried at the monument "shows a lack of respect ... for the victims buried there". The government gave Franco's family a 15-day deadline to decide Franco's final resting place, or else a "dignified place" would be chosen by the government.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 13 September 2018, the Congress of Deputies voted 176–2, with 165 abstentions, to approve the government's plan to remove Franco's body from the monument.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco's family opposed the exhumation, and attempted to prevent it by making appeals to the Ombudsman's Office. The family expressed its wish that Franco's remains be reinterred with full military honors at the Almudena Cathedral in the centre of Madrid, the burial place he had requested before his death. The demand was rejected by the Spanish Government, which issued another 15-day deadline to choose another site. Because the family refused to choose another location, the Spanish Government ultimately chose to rebury Franco at the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo, where his wife Carmen Polo and a number of Francoist officials, most notably prime ministers Luis Carrero Blanco and Carlos Arias Navarro, are buried. His body was to be exhumed from the Valle de los Caídos on 10 June 2019, but the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that the exhumation would be delayed until the family had exhausted all possible appeals.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 24 September 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the exhumation could proceed, and the Sánchez government announced that it would move Franco's remains to the Mingorrubio cemetery as soon as possible. On 24 October 2019 his remains were moved to his wife's mausoleum which is located in the Mingorrubio Cemetery, and buried in a private ceremony. Though barred by the Spanish government from being draped in the Spanish flag, Francisco Franco's grandson, also named Francisco Franco, draped his coffin in the nationalist flag. According to a poll by the Spanish newspaper, "El Mundo", 43% of Spanish people approved of the exhumation while 32.5% opposed it. Opinions on the exhumation were divided by party line, with the Socialist party strongly in favour of the exhumation as well as the removal of his statue there. There seems to be no consensus on whether the statue should simply be moved or completely destroyed.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In Spain and abroad, the legacy of Franco remains controversial. The longevity of Franco's rule, his suppression of political opposition, and his government's effective propaganda sustained through the years have made a detached evaluation difficult. For almost 40 years, Spaniards, and particularly children at school, were told that Divine Providence had sent Franco to save Spain from chaos, atheism, and poverty. Historian Stanley Payne described Franco as being the most significant figure to dominate Spain since Philip II, while Michael Seidman argued that Franco was the most successful counterrevolutionary leader of the 20th century.


title: Francisco Franco

text: A highly controversial figure within Spain, Franco is seen as a divisive leader. Supporters credit him for keeping Spain neutral and uninvaded in World War II. They emphasize his strong anti-communist and nationalist views, economic policies, and opposition to socialism as major factors in Spain's post-war economic success and later international integration. Abroad he had support from Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer and many American Catholics, but was strongly opposed by the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The American conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr was an admirer of Franco, and praised him effusively in his magazine, "National Review", where the staff were also ardent admirers of the dictator. In 1957, Buckley called him "an authentic national hero", who "above others", had the qualities needed to wrest Spain from "the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihilists", i.e., from the democratically elected government of the country.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Conversely, critics on the left have denounced him as a tyrant responsible for thousands of deaths in years-long political repression, and have called him complicit in atrocities committed by Axis forces during World War II due to his support of the Axis governments.


title: Francisco Franco

text: When he died in 1975, the major parties of the left and the right in Spain agreed to follow the Pact of Forgetting. To secure the transition to democracy, they agreed not to have investigations or prosecutions dealing with the civil war or Franco. The agreement effectively lapsed after 2000, the year the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica) was founded and the public debate started. In 2006, a poll indicated that almost two-thirds of Spaniards favoured a "fresh investigation into the war".


title: Francisco Franco

text: Franco served as a role model for several anti-communist dictators in South America. Augusto Pinochet is known to have admired Franco. Similarly, as recently as 2006, Franco supporters in Spain have honoured Pinochet.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In 2006, the BBC reported that Maciej Giertych, an MEP of the clerical-nationalist League of Polish Families, had expressed admiration for Franco, stating that the Spanish leader "guaranteed the maintenance of traditional values in Europe".


title: Francisco Franco

text: Spaniards who suffered under Franco's rule have sought to remove memorials of his regime. Most government buildings and streets that were named after Franco during his rule have been reverted to their original names. Owing to Franco's human-rights record, the Spanish government in 2007 banned all official public references to the Franco regime and began the removal of all statues, street names and memorials associated with the regime, with the last statue reportedly being removed in 2008 in the city of Santander. Churches that retain plaques commemorating Franco and the victims of his Republican opponents may lose state aid. Since 1978, the national anthem of Spain, the "Marcha Real", does not include lyrics introduced by Franco. Attempts to give the national anthem new lyrics have failed due to lack of consensus.


title: Francisco Franco

text: On 11 February 2004, Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo and others presented a motion for the "Need for international condemnation of the Franco regime" to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In March 2006, the Permanent Commission of the Parliamentary Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution "firmly" condemning the "multiple and serious violations" of human rights committed in Spain under the Francoist regime from 1939 to 1975. The resolution was at the initiative of Leo Brincat and of the historian Luis María de Puig, and was the first international official condemnation of the repression enacted by Franco's regime. The resolution also urged that historians (professional and amateur) be given access to the various archives of the Francoist regime, including those of the private Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) which, along with other Francoist archives, remain inaccessible to the public as of 2006. The FNFF received various archives from the El Pardo Palace, and is alleged to have sold some of them to private individuals. Furthermore, the resolution urged the Spanish authorities to set up an underground exhibit in the Valle de los Caidos monument to explain the "terrible" conditions in which it was built. Finally, it proposed the construction of monuments to commemorate Franco's victims in Madrid and other important cities.


title: Francisco Franco

text: In Spain, a commission to "repair the dignity" and "restore the memory" of the "victims of Francoism" ("Comisión para reparar la dignidad y restituir la memoria de las víctimas del franquismo") was approved in 2004, and is directed by the social-democratic deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Recently the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARHM) initiated a systematic search for mass graves of people executed during Franco's regime, which has been supported since the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party's (PSOE) victory during the 2004 elections by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government. A "Ley de la memoria histórica de España" (Law on the Historical Memory of Spain) was approved on 28 July 2006, by the Council of Ministers, but it took until 31 October 2007, for the Congress of Deputies to approve an amended version as "The Bill to recognise and extend rights and to establish measures in favour of those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship" (in common parlance still known as Law of Historical Memory). The Senate approved the bill on 10 December 2007.


title: Francisco Franco

text: Official endeavors to preserve the historical memory of Spanish life under the Franco regime include exhibitions like the one held at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya (Museum of Catalan History) in 2003–2004, titled "Les presons de Franco". This exposition depicted the experiences of prisoners in Franco's prison system, and described other aspects of the penal system such as women's prisons, trials, the jailers, and prisoners' families. The Museum no longer maintains its online version of the exhibition.


title: Francisco Franco

text: The accumulated wealth of Franco's family (including much real estate inherited from Franco, such as the "Pazo de Meirás", the "Canto del Pico" in Torrelodones and the "" in A Coruña and its provenance have also become matters of public discussion. Estimates of the family's wealth have ranged from 350 million to 600 million euros. While Franco was dying, the Francoist Cortes voted a large public pension for his wife Carmen Polo, which the later democratic governments kept paying. At the time of her death in 1988, Carmen Polo was receiving a pension of over 12.5 million pesetas (four million more than the salary of Felipe González, then head of the government).


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Alien: Covenant is a 2017 science fiction action horror film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by John Logan and Dante Harper, from a story by Michael Green and Jack Paglen. A joint American and British production, the film is a sequel to "Prometheus" (2012), the second entry in the "Alien" prequel series, and the sixth installment in the "Alien" franchise overall, three of which have been directed by Scott. The film features returning star Michael Fassbender, with Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, and Demián Bichir in supporting roles. It follows the crew of a colony ship that lands on an uncharted planet and makes a terrifying discovery.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In 2012, before the release of "Prometheus", Ridley Scott discussed the prospects of a sequel and new trilogy, and this film was confirmed that August. Principal photography began on April 4, 2016, at Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park, New Zealand, and wrapped on July 19, 2016. Effects houses Odd Studios and CreatureNFX provided the film's makeup and animatronic creature effects. Scott said the first cut of the film was two hours and 23 minutes long, which was eventually edited down to the 2 hours and 3 minutes of the released version.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Alien: Covenant" premiered in London on May 4, 2017. It was released on May 12 in the United Kingdom, and on May 19 in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but underperformed at the box office; its worldwide gross was $240 million against a production budget of approximately $100 million, not including marketing costs.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In a prologue, business magnate Peter Weyland speaks with his newly-activated android in a lakeside apartment. The android chooses the name "David" for himself after observing Michelangelo's statue. Weyland states that one day they will search for mankind's creator together. David comments on his unlimited lifespan as compared to Weyland's, which unsettles Weyland.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In 2104 AD, 11 years after the "Prometheus" expedition, the colonization ship "Covenant" is seven years from reaching planet Origae-6 with 2,000 colonists in stasis and 1,140 human embryos in cold storage. The ship is monitored by Walter, an advanced android model that physically resembles David. When a solar flare damages the ship, Walter reanimates his 14 human crewmates, themselves couples, and future colonists. The ship's captain, Jake Branson, is burned alive when his stasis pod malfunctions. While repairing the ship, the crew picks up a transmission of a human voice from a nearby planet, which appears eminently more habitable than Origae-6. Despite the protests of Daniels, Branson's widow, that this new "perfect" planet is too good to be true, the new captain, Christopher Oram, decides they will investigate.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: With pilot Tennessee maintaining "Covenant" in orbit, his wife Faris flies a lander to the planet's surface, where an expedition team tracks the transmission's signal to a crashed alien ship. Crewmembers Ledward and Hallett are infected by spores from fungus-like organisms. Oram's wife, Karine, helps the rapidly deteriorating Ledward back to the lander, where Faris quarantines both inside the med-bay. A small pale alien creature (neomorph) bursts from Ledward's back, killing him and mauls Karine to death. Faris attempts to kill the creature with a shotgun, but inadvertently triggers an explosion that kills her and destroys the lander. Nearby in the fields, another neomorph bursts from Hallett's mouth, killing him. The creatures attack the remaining crew, killing crew member Ankor. The remaining crew kills one neomorph before David, who survived the "Prometheus" mission, appears and scares off the other.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: David leads the crew to a temple in a city full of dead humanoids. He tells them that, upon his and fellow "Prometheus" survivor Elizabeth Shaw's arrival at the planet, their ship accidentally released a pathogen, which annihilated all fauna on the planet and Shaw perished when the ship crashed. Meanwhile, attempts to radio the "Covenant" are stymied by ion storms. When the remaining neomorph infiltrates the temple and kills crewmember Rosenthal, David tries to communicate with the creature, becoming incensed when Oram shoots it dead. Oram questions David, who reveals the aliens are a result of his releasing and experimenting with the pathogen to produce new lifeforms, before tricking Oram into being attacked by a facehugger. A new form of creature, the protomorph, later erupts from Oram's chest, killing him.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: As the others search for Oram and Rosenthal, Walter finds Shaw's dissected corpse, used by David as material for his evolving creature designs. David states that humanity is a dying and unworthy species, and his designed creature is a "perfect organism" that will eradicate them. When Walter disagrees, David disables him and then threatens Daniels. Walter heals himself and engages David, allowing Daniels to escape.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Elsewhere, another facehugger attacks security chief Dan Lope. Crewmember Cole quickly cuts it off, leaving Lope with acid burns on his face. The now fully grown protomorph kills Cole, while Lope escapes and meets up with Daniels. Tennessee arrives in a lander to extract Daniels, Lope, and Walter, who says David has "expired". They kill the attacking protomorph and return to the "Covenant".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The next morning, Daniels and Tennessee discover another protomorph has burst from Lope's chest, killing him, and is loose on the "Covenant". It matures and kills married crewmembers Ricks and Upworth. Daniels and Tennessee lure the creature into "Covenant"s terraforming bay and eject it into space.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Covenant" resumes its voyage to Origae-6. As Walter puts Daniels in stasis, she realizes he is David but is unable to escape from her pod before falling asleep. David regurgitates two facehugger embryos, which he places in cold storage with the human embryos, and inspects the colonists. Posing as Walter, he sends a transmission in which he says all crewmembers except Daniels and Tennessee were killed by the earlier solar-flare incident.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: A number of actors appear in uncredited roles. Guy Pearce reprises his role as Peter Weyland, the trillionaire founder and CEO of Weyland Corporation (the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in "later" storylines) who died shortly before the destruction of the "Prometheus". James Franco appears onscreen in photos and a video as Jacob Branson, the original captain of the "Covenant" and deceased husband of Daniels; he also appears in deleted scenes and a short promotional prologue to "Covenant". Noomi Rapace, who played archaeologist Dr. Elizabeth Shaw in "Prometheus", appeared in a short promotional prologue to "Covenant" that was set in the period between the two movies, but does not act in the final cut of the movie itself, though her voice is heard from the planet early in the film and her image and voice appear later.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Other credited parts include Lorelei King as the voice of the "Covenant" computer "Mother". Goran D. Kleut is credited in two roles, as both a neomorph and a protomorph, while Andrew Crawford is credited as a neomorph.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Alien: Covenant" is the second film in the "Alien" prequel series, and the sixth installment in the "Alien" franchise overall. It is the third "Alien" film to be directed by Ridley Scott. In 2012, prior to the release of the first prequel film (fifth "Alien" film overall) "Prometheus", director Ridley Scott began hinting at the prospect of a sequel as the film leaves many questions unanswered. He said a sequel would follow Shaw, the protagonist of "Prometheus", to her next destination, "because if it is paradise, paradise cannot be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous." "Prometheus" co-writer Damon Lindelof cast doubt on his own participation, saying, "if [Scott] wants me to be involved in something, that would be hard to say no to. At the same time, I do feel like the movie might benefit from a fresh voice or a fresh take or a fresh thought." In June, Scott said an additional film would be required to bridge the >100-year gap between the "Prometheus" sequel and "Alien".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: , Fox was pursuing a sequel with Scott, Noomi Rapace, and Michael Fassbender involved, and was talking to new writers in case Lindelof did not return. In December 2012, Lindelof ultimately chose not to work on the project. Early on, Scott stated the film would feature no xenomorphs as he wanted to phase the xenomorph out to focus instead on David 8, whose A.I. is the new alien lifeform. However, Scott later made contradictory statements, confirming the xenomorph's presence in the film, mainly due to the feedback to "Prometheus".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: On September 24, 2015, Scott disclosed the film's title as "Alien: Paradise Lost". In November 2015, he revealed the new title to be "Alien: Covenant", and filming was set to begin in February 2016 in Australia. An official logo, synopsis and release date were released on November 16, 2015. During an interview concerning the development of the character of David since "Prometheus", Scott indicated the dark turn which David would take in "Covenant", saying, "'He hates them. He has no respect for Engineers and no respect for human beings.'"


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The initial screenplay was written by "Transcendence" screenwriter Jack Paglen in June 2013. In March 2014, Michael Green was hired to rewrite Paglen's script. Dante Harper later wrote a new script, but an extensive rewrite was performed by screenwriter John Logan. Logan had previously worked with Scott on "Gladiator".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: For Logan, the main concept was to adopt a dual plot line for the film that would combine the horror elements of "Alien" with the philosophical elements of "Prometheus". He said, "With "Alien: Covenant", I just really wanted to write something that had the feel of the original "Alien", because seeing that movie was one of the great events of my youth. It was so overpowering in terms of what it communicated to me and its implications, that when I started talking to Ridley about what became "Alien: Covenant", I said, 'You know, that was a hell of a scary movie.' I wanted to write a horror movie because the Grand Guignol elements of "Alien" are so profound. We tried to recapture that with "Alien: Covenant", while also trying to pay homage to the deeper implications of "Prometheus". In terms of tone, pace, and how we chose to play this particular symphony, we wanted to create a really frightening movie."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In late August 2015, Scott confirmed that he had started scouting locations for the film. In October 2015, the Australian government attracted the production of this film, and of "", to Australia by providing AU$47.25 million in grants. Woz Productions Ltd., a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, visited Te Anau, New Zealand, on March 28, 2016, to scout locations for filming in Fiordland.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In August 2015, it was announced that the film would star Rapace and Fassbender, while Rik Barnett was in talks to join the cast. That December, Katherine Waterston was cast in the lead role of Daniels; it was Waterston's second film alongside Fassbender, after "Steve Jobs". Summer Glau, Carolyn Murphy and Alice Eve were also being considered. Dariusz Wolski, longtime collaborator with Scott, was confirmed to serve as the film's cinematographer. In 2016, Ridley Scott stated that Noomi Rapace would not reprise her role of Elizabeth Shaw. However, in June, it was announced that Rapace would shoot a week's worth of scenes (though no new footage of hers appeared in the final film). Creature designer Carlos Huantes said in a 2019 interview that he believed it was the studio's decision to remove her from the film.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In February 2016, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, Billy Crudup, and Alexander England were reported to have joined the cast. In March 2016, newcomer Benjamin Rigby also joined the cast. In December 2016, it was announced James Franco had been cast in the role of Captain Branson, husband to Daniels and captain of the "Covenant". The role of Branson in the film was limited to a cameo appearance of the deceased captain.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Adam Savage went on a tour of several of the props and stage sets used in the filming which included an alien spaceship which had first appeared in "Prometheus". This set had to be recreated for "Alien: Covenant" as the set used in "Prometheus" had been destroyed. In an article for "The Hollywood Reporter", Patrick Shanley interviewed the art director for the film, Damien Drew, and creature design supervisor Conor O'Sullivan regarding the involvement of the San Diego Zoo and its representative Rick Schwartz as a consultant for the design of the realistic effects of the creatures and Xenomorphs appearing throughout the film as Scott wanted a more 'organic' feeling to the creatures as opposed to the 'biomechanical' inspiration of H.R. Giger which had inspired the creature designs in the original films. Scott provided anatomical studies and references from La Specola, a natural history museum in Florence, to O'Sullivan as inspiration.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The VFX supervisor Charles Henley summarized the several vendors that were used to support production of the visual special effects seen in the film when the selection process was discussed, stating, "Both history and need guided the decisions on which vendors we used. Ridley had worked with MPC on many previous projects, in particular "Prometheus" for which I was MPC's VFX supervisor as well as "The Martian". There had a been a lot of great digital double and creature work done at MPC on recent projects so there was confidence they should be the lead facility. Framestore had recently worked with Ridley on space for "The Martian", similarly Animal Logic now had the original crew who did the holograms for "Prometheus". Also as we were shooting in Australia there was good reason and incentives to use Australian-based companies and so Luma and Rising Sun came on board."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Principal photography for the film began on April 4, 2016, at Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park, New Zealand, and wrapped on July 19, 2016. Some footage was also filmed at Leavesden Studios in England, which included reshoots. The complete list of countries used for filming were listed by BFI in "Sight & Sound" as the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Previous partial lists often listed only one of the four countries involved in the development and production of the film.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Effects houses Odd Studios and CreatureNFX provided the film's makeup and animatronic creature effects, respectively, while Australian-based effects house Animal Logic provided the film's digital visual effects. Approximately 30 people from CreatureNFX worked on the project for almost six months building animatronics. Actors wearing creature suits with animatronic heads were used to portray the aliens on-set.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Pietro Scalia, the editor of the film, spoke of the structural difficulty of integrating the two story lines in the final editing of the film and how the need to keep momentum was important. He did this by not repeatedly jumping between scenes which he said made parts of the film "belaboured and tedious", as well as combining certain scenes and eliminating others. Another issue highlighted was the reveal of David as;


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Scott said the first cut of the film was two hours and 23 minutes long, which was eventually edited down to 2 hours and 3 minutes for the released version. Scott used test screenings to decide what to cut.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The musical score for "Alien: Covenant" was written by Australian musician and composer Jed Kurzel. Initially, Harry Gregson-Williams was selected as the film's composer. When the first trailer was released in late 2016, Kurzel was revealed as the replacement for Gregson-Williams. Themes from Jerry Goldsmith's original score for "Alien" were incorporated, as well as themes from Marc Streitenfeld's and Harry Gregson-Williams' score for "Prometheus". A version of "Nature Boy" sung by Norwegian singer and songwriter Aurora was used in the first trailer, while another song, "Under the Water", was used in a short promotional film featuring the character Daniels (Katherine Waterston) battling a xenomorph.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Melanie De Biasio's track "I Feel You – Eels Remix" was used as the soundtrack for the in-universe short film "Meet Walter", starring Michael Fassbender, that was created to promote the film.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Additional song credits include "Theme from "Alien"" composed by Jerry Goldsmith, "Das Rheingold, Scene 4: Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla" composed by Richard Wagner, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver, "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" by Fred Gilbert, "Ancient Flute", "Life" and "We Were Right" composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, and "Let Me Down Easy" by Paolo Nutini.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In the run up to release, 20th Century Fox released a number of short prologue films as part of the marketing for "Alien: Covenant". The first, called "Prologue: Last Supper", was directed by Ridley Scott's son Luke Scott and features the crew of the Covenant having a last meal before they enter cryosleep. The second prologue, called "The Crossing" and directed by Ridley Scott, reveals what happened to Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the android David (Michael Fassbender) following the ending of "Prometheus". Another was called "Meet Walter", starring Michael Fassbender and directed by Luke Scott, which was a fictional advertisement for the Walter series of androids.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Alien: Covenant" premiered on May 4, 2017, at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. The film was released on May 19 in the United States, in 2D and IMAX 2D. It was originally set to be released on October 6, 2017, before being moved up to August 4, and then again to its final date.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The version of the film released in China on June 16, 2017, was six minutes shorter than the version released elsewhere due to censorship with most of the scenes involving the aliens and a scene where the two characters played by Michael Fassbender kiss having been cut.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD releases of the film came out on August 15, 2017. The home release includes an audio commentary by the director and 22 minutes of deleted scenes and unused footage from the first cut of the film.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: The theatrical release of the film was accompanied by the release of a novelization by Alan Dean Foster, who also authored the novelization of the original "Alien" film from the 1970s. A companion volume about the film's art and stage design was released at the same time, written by Simon Ward and titled "The Art and Making of Alien: Covenant".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: A second "Covenant" novel by Foster was initially billed as a sequel to the film, before being revealed to be a direct prequel to "Covenant" under the title "Alien: Covenant – Origins". "Titan Books", as publisher of the book, released a plot summary in advance of its release on September 26, 2017:


title: Alien: Covenant

text: On April 26, 2017, 20th Century Fox released "Alien: Covenant In Utero", a virtual reality interactive demo teaser for "Alien: Covenant" for the Oculus Rift and the Samsung Gear VR. The experience was produced by RSA, FoxNext VR, MPC, Mach1, AMD Radeon, and Dell Alienware. The trailer is a first-person experience in which the viewer plays the role of a neomorph. The experience was executive produced by Scott and directed by David Karlak.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Alien: Covenant" underperformed at the box office grossing a worldwide total of $240.9 million, including $74.3 million in the United States and Canada and $166.6 million in other countries, against a production budget of $97 million, not including marketing costs. The film was a box office disappointment for the studio, especially when compared to "Prometheus" which had grossed a worldwide total of $403.4 million.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Fox released the film in several countries before the United States. It was released in 34 markets, where it debuted to $40.1 million, opening at number one in 19 of them. Its overall rank for the weekend was second behind the continued run of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2". The top openings were in South Korea ($7.2 million), the UK ($6.4 million), France ($4.5 million), Australia ($3.1 million), and Mexico ($2.5 million). In China, the film was released on June 16 and grossed $30 million, topping the box office.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In North America, the film was released alongside "Everything, Everything" and "", and was projected to gross around $40 million from 3,760 theaters during its opening weekend.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: It made $4.3 million from Thursday-night previews at about 3,000 theaters, and $15.4 million overall on its first day, which was below the $21.5 million Friday of "Prometheus" five years prior. It went on to open to $36.2 million, down 34% from "Prometheus"s debut, but still finishing first at the box office, as the third-highest debut of the series when not counting for inflation. In its second weekend, the film grossed $10.5 million, finishing fourth at the box office and dropping 70.9%. The film was pulled from 1,112 theaters in its third weekend and dropped another 62.3%, finishing sixth at the box office with $4 million.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: "Alien: Covenant" received generally positive reviews from critics. The film has approval from reviews compiled by review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""Alien: Covenant" delivers another satisfying round of close-quarters deep-space terror, even if it doesn't take the saga in any new directions." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 65 out of 100, based on reviews from 52 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, the same score earned by its predecessor.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Writing for "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw gave the film three stars out of five, stating that "Alien: Covenant" is "a greatest-hits compilation of the other "Alien" films' freaky moments. The paradox is that though you are intended to recognise these touches, you won't really be impressed unless you happen to be seeing them for the first time. For all this, the film is very capably made, with forceful, potent performances from Waterston and Fassbender." Geoffrey McNab, writing for "The Independent", stated that it "certainly delivers what you'd expect from an "Aliens" film—spectacle, body horror, strong Ripley-like female protagonists and some astonishing special effects—but there's also a dispiriting sense that the film isn't at all sure of its own identity." He found the screenplay "very portentous" and concluded that "the crew members pitted against the monstrous creatures are trying their darndest to blast them to kingdom come, just as they would in any run-of-the-mill sci-fi B movie."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" said, ""Alien: Covenant" is an interesting movie ... for all its interplanetary ranging, [it] commits itself above all to the canny management of expectations." Trace Thurman, from Bloody Disgusting, gave the film a mediocre review, noting that although watching "Alien: Covenant" will make viewers appreciate "Prometheus" more, "this is a film that was made as a response to "Prometheus" critics but tries to appease fans of that film as well and it doesn't fully work." He also criticizes the overfamiliarity of the climax and insufficiently developed characters. Collider's review of the film stated that Scott "finds himself stuck between two constructs—the action-horror beats of an "Alien" film, and the weighty, ponderous themes of a "Prometheus" movie—and by indulging both, he never fully satisfies either. The result is a messy film that is at turns, exquisite and infuriating."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In a review for "The Independent" Clarisse Loughrey gave the film five stars describing it as "relentless and overwhelming, but all in the very best of ways" and as a "mightily impressive piece of cinematic engineering" which has brought together the Alien franchise. Loughrey praised Katherine Waterston for her "impressive work" as Daniels and went on to single out Fassbender for playing a "deeply frightening, scene-stealing antagonist". Sinead Brennan for RTÉ, gave the film 7/10, but gave high praise to Fassbender who she says "steals the show; seriously, he's incredible". Meanwhile, Neil Soans in a three star review for The Times of India, highlighted Danny McBride's performance as the most surprising given his comedic roots.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com highly praised "Alien: Covenant", giving it four out of four stars and stating that the film's structure, although repeatedly borrowing from other "Alien" films, serves a purpose not unlike the James Bond film series or "Star Wars", "where part of the fun lies in seeing what variations the artists can bring while satisfying a rigid structure." He also emphasized that, like previous films of the series, real-world logic should not be applied to the film, and "[i]nstead you have to judge it by the standards of a fever dream or nightmare, a Freudian-Jungian narrative where the thing you fear most is what happens to you." Seitz later voted for it in "Sight & Sound" as one of the five best films of 2017.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In "New York" magazine, David Edelstein commented on David the android as representing a new generation of monster villains in the tradition of Frankenstein, stating, "In "Star Trek", that man-machine nexus was...hopeful. Here, there's some doubt about David's ultimate motives, which puts "Alien: Covenant" squarely in the tradition of the "Terminator" and "Matrix" movies. And, of course, the novel "Frankenstein", which carried the subtitle "The Modern Prometheus". No less than Stephen Hawking—who survived with the aid of machines—has predicted that we have 100 years to live before evolved machines take human imperfection as justification for destroying humanity".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Kevin Lincoln, writing for "Vulture", gave a strong endorsement of the depiction of David as an arch-villain in the film stating, "...one franchise is showing it's still possible for a modern blockbuster to have a great villain. In "Alien: Covenant", David—the android played by Michael Fassbender, first introduced in "Prometheus"—comes into his own as a fleshed-out, dynamic, and genuinely striking antagonist, one who isn't just an equal match for the heroes, but even becomes the central thread of the series. He's a huge part of what makes "Alien: Covenant" work."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Writing for "Vox", Alissa Wilkinson said that ""Alien: Covenant" is too muddled to pull off its deeply ambitious Satan allegories". She emphasized the Miltonic demonic aspect of the android David: "But David is a better Satan than Satan himself ... It's as if in the "Alien" universe, the devil has evolved, thanks to humans creating him. David, fatally, has the ability to create—something Satan never had—and he will use that power only to destroy. He doesn't have any real need to rebel against his maker, since from the moment he became sentient, he knew he'd already won. He is indestructible, and determined to make creatures that imitate his drive for total domination."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: At the 44th Saturn Awards, the film was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film, but lost to "Blade Runner 2049", another film by Scott Free Productions (and of which Ridley Scott was an executive producer).


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In September 2015, Ridley Scott said he was planning two sequels to "Prometheus" that would lead into the first "Alien" film, adding, "Maybe [there will] even [be] a fourth film before we get back into the "Alien" franchise" (which means there would be not two, but three sequels to "Prometheus"). Scott later confirmed in November that "Alien: Covenant" would be the first of three additional films in the "Alien" prequel series before linking up with the original "Alien", and stated that the "Prometheus" sequels would reveal who created the xenomorph aliens. The screenplay for the third prequel film was written during production of "Alien: Covenant" and finished in 2017, with production originally scheduled to begin in 2018. In March 2017, Scott said, "If you really want a franchise, I can keep cranking it for another six. I'm not going to close it down again. No way."


title: Alien: Covenant

text: Scott responded to a question about Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ellen Ripley in the prequels that, "Well, we're heading toward the back end of the first "Alien" so [using CGI] may be feasible. Ripley's going to be somebody's daughter, obviously. We're coming in from the back end. The time constraints of what's the time between this film, where we leave David going off heading for that colony, I think you're probably two films out from even considering her." In the audio commentary for "Alien: Covenant", Scott confirmed that a sequel to "Alien: Covenant", tentatively referred to as ""Alien: Covenant" 2", is being written by John Logan, with Fassbender, Waterston, and McBride reprising their roles. Scott also confirmed that the film will complete his prequel series, leading directly into the events of "Alien".


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In September 2017, the chief executive officer of 20th Century Fox, Stacey Snider, stated that, although "Alien: Covenant" was a financial disappointment, the studio still intended to proceed with Scott's sequel. Just days later, screen-graphics designer Carl Braga announced that the project had been delayed.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: In October, Scott stated that ""Alien: Covenant" 2" will focus more on the androids and A.I.s, as opposed to the xenomorphs. He said, "I think the evolution of the Alien himself is nearly over, but what I was trying to do was transcend and move to another story, which would be taken over by A.I.s. The world that the A.I. might create as a leader if he finds himself on a new planet. We have actually quite a big layout for the next one." In November 2018, the film's plot details were reported to take place on LV-426 (the world visited by the "Nostromo" in the original "Alien" film), with the extraterrestrial Engineers being featured in the film and being in pursuit of David following his nefarious actions against Planet 4.


title: Alien: Covenant

text: At the 2019 CinemaCon, it was stated that, after its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney "will continue to create new stories" in the "Alien" series. In May, "Variety" reported that another prequel was reportedly "in the script phase", with Ridley Scott attached to direct, but it was still uncertain due to the poor box office returns of "Alien: Covenant". In September 2020, Scott confirmed that a new "Alien" film was in development but it was unclear if this would be a sequel to "Alien: Covenant". In August 2021, however, a news report concluded that a sequel is currently uncertain.


title: John Malkovich

text: John Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.


title: John Malkovich

text: Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 films, including "The Killing Fields" (1984), "Empire of the Sun" (1987), "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988), "Of Mice and Men" (1992), "In the Line of Fire" (1993), "Mulholland Falls" (1996), "Con Air" (1997), "Rounders" (1998), "Being John Malkovich" (1999), "" (1999), "Shadow of the Vampire" (2000), "Ripley's Game" (2002), "Johnny English" (2003), "Burn After Reading" (2008), "Red" (2010), "" (2011), "Warm Bodies" (2013), "Cesar Chavez" (2014), "Bird Box" (2018), and "Velvet Buzzsaw" (2019). He has also produced films such as "Ghost World" (2001), "Juno" (2007), and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012).


title: John Malkovich

text: From the 2010s Malkovich began to appear on television. His lead roles include Blackbeard in the NBC pirate drama "Crossbones" (2014), Hercule Poirot in the three-part BBC One mystery series "The ABC Murders" (2018), and the title character in the HBO drama series "The New Pope" (2020). He has additionally made recurring guest appearances as Russian billionaire/criminal Grigor Andolov in "Billions" (2018–19), and has a supporting role as Dr. Adrian Mallory in the Netflix comedy series "Space Force" (2020–2022).


title: John Malkovich

text: Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953. He grew up in Benton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director, who published the conservation magazine "Outdoor Illinois". His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser), owned the "Benton Evening News" daily newspaper and "Outdoor Illinois". He grew up with an older brother named Danny and three younger sisters named Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa. In a May 2020 interview, he revealed that Melissa is his only surviving sibling. His paternal grandparents were Croatian immigrants from a place called Ozalj; his other ancestry includes English, Scottish, Serbian, French, and German descent. Malkovich attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, and Benton Consolidated High School. During his high-school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical "Carousel". He was also active in a folk gospel group, with whom he sang at churches and community events. As a member of a local summer theater project, he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's "America Hurrah" in 1972.


title: John Malkovich

text: After graduating from high school in 1972, Malkovich enrolled at Eastern Illinois University. He then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater, but dropped out. He studied acting at the William Esper Studio.


title: John Malkovich

text: In 1976, Malkovich, along with Joan Allen, Gary Sinise, and Glenne Headly, became a charter member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He moved to New York City in 1980 to appear in a Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play "True West" for which he won an Obie Award.


title: John Malkovich

text: In early 1982, he appeared in "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Malkovich then directed a Steppenwolf co-production, the 1984 revival of Lanford Wilson's "Balm in Gilead", for which he received a second Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award. His Broadway debut that year was as Biff in "Death of a Salesman" alongside Dustin Hoffman as Willy. Malkovich won an Emmy Award for this role when the play was adapted for television by CBS in 1985.