Spain’s exiled king recounts history, scandals in wistful memoir

Spain's former King Juan Carlos in Madrid on Dec. 27, 2011. (AP / Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

Mixing historic anecdotes and regret over his own scandals, Spain’s exiled king Juan Carlos I seeks to reconcile himself with his family and nation in newly published memoirs that offer dramatic reminiscences from one of the last surviving players of 20th-century history.

From holding Franco’s hand on the dictator’s deathbed to helping defuse a coup, the 87-year-old reviews well-known moments from Spain’s history in his 500-page book, published in French on Wednesday and in Spanish next month.

Seeking to mend relations with his estranged son, Spain’s King Felipe VI, Juan Carlos also confronts his individual pain and isolation -- from seeing his brother die in a childhood shooting accident to the romantic and financial “mistakes” that drove him back into exile in his eighties.

“There is not one day when I’m not overcome by nostalgia,” he declares from self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi, in the book, “Reconciliation”, co-written with the French author Laurence Debray.

“It’s like I’ve got Spain under my skin.”

Memories of Franco

Appointed by Franco to succeed him, Juan Carlos was widely credited with helping steer Spain to democracy after the fascist dictator’s death in 1975.

He recalls sitting beside Franco -- who acted as an almost “paternal” figure towards him -- as the ailing dictator lay dying in his hospital bed.

“He took my hand and said, as if it was his last breath: ‘Your highness, I ask you just one thing: keep the country united,’” Juan Carlos recalls.

“So I had a free hand to launch reforms, as long as Spain’s unity was not endangered.”

He also recalls putting on his general’s jacket to appear on television, ordering rebellious soldiers back to their barracks after they staged a coup in parliament in February 1981.

Debray judged Juan Carlos’s tale “a unique European life story”.

“He is one of the only surviving (world) leaders from the Second World War” generation, she said.

Despite being seen “as quite a cheerful man” by some, “he is a man who has been very alone -- very much torn between his family and Franco since his earliest childhood.”

Scandals

In 2014 Juan Carlos broke his hip on a hunting trip to Botswana with his then-mistress, Corinna Larsen -- a visit branded an unforgivable extravagance at the height of Spain’s economic crisis.

“I cannot avoid referring to that matter, because it had an unfortunate impact on my reign and my fate,” he writes.

He admits to “bitterly” regretting the affair, which, along with a subsequent lawsuit against him by Larsen, left him a “wounded man”.

Juan Carlos abdicated later in 2014, handing the throne to Felipe.

The elder king also discusses a US$100-million donation from Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah -- accepting which was a “serious mistake”, he writes.

Months after the payment came to light in 2020, he left Spain for the Emirates so as not to be a distraction for Felipe.

His wife, Queen Sofia, stayed in Spain.

“I bitterly regret that my wife has never travelled here to see me,” he writes. “I suspect that she does not want to annoy her son.”

Childhood tragedy

“Reconciliation” delves into the lonely childhood of the future monarch, who was brought from his family’s home in exile to Spain at the age of 10 and taken under Franco’s wing.

He recounts his grief at the death of his younger brother Alfonso when the two were “playing” with a pistol as teenagers at their family’s home in Portugal in 1956 -- a case that has never been fully investigated.

“We had taken out the magazine. We did not realize there was a bullet left in the chamber. A shot fired into the air, the bullet ricocheted and hit my brother right in the face.”

Debray, who moved to Abu Dhabi and spent two years interviewing the king in French to compile the memoir, called it “quite explicit” in its confessions.

“He says publicly that there are things he regrets,” she told AFP.

“It really is History with a capital ‘H’, but described from within, from his personal point of view.”

Now, Juan Carlos writes, he wishes “more than anything to return home to Spain” and mend relations with his son the king.

“I hope to be buried there with honours.”