Early life Fraga was born in
Vilalba,
Lugo Province, Galicia. Trained in law, economics and
political science, he began his political career in 1945, during Francisco Franco's reign. Fraga married Carmen Estévez Eguiagaray, whom he had met in 1945 in the Faculty of Law, on 17 January 1948. They had 5 children:
Carmen, Isabel, José Manuel, Ignacio and Adriana. He also adopted Amalia.
Propaganda Minister during the dictatorship Fraga started in the Franco cabinet in 1962 as
Minister of Information and tourism. He played a major role in the revitalization of
Spanish tourist industry, leading a campaign under the slogan
Spain is different!. On 8 March 1966, he attempted to dispel fears of a
nuclear accident after the
Palomares hydrogen bombs incident by swimming in the contaminated water with the American ambassador,
Angier Biddle Duke. Fraga authorized the execution of
political prisoners under the Francoist State. A notable case is the execution of communist leader
Julián Grimau, whom he called "that little gentleman" () in a press conference when asked about his detention and
death sentence. His death sentence caused a large controversy outside of Spain. Grimau was executed by firing squad in 1963. Fraga never publicly apologized or expressed regret for Grimau's execution. Another notable case was the assassination by Spanish police of Enrique Ruano, a
student activist who opposed the Francoist State. Fraga telephoned Ruano's father and threatened to arrest his other daughter, Margot, who was also an anti-Francoist, unless she immediately stopped her activism. The then-director of Spanish newspaper
ABC, Torcuato Luca de Tena, later confessed that Fraga ordered him to publish a manipulated copy of Ruano's personal diary in order to present Ruano as a mentally unstable person who killed himself. Later in the decade, Fraga established himself as one of the more prominent members of a reformist faction in the government who favoured opening up the government from above. He introduced an
a posteriori censorship law, which was based on lifting pre-publication censorship and a reduction in its strictness. Additionally, a certain sexual liberality in films was popularly summarized in the expression
Con Fraga hasta la braga ("With Fraga [you can see] even the panties"). His departure from the government was prompted by the
MATESA affair: the debt of the important publisher
Manuel Salvat Dalmau was tangled with members of the
Opus Dei, faction which Fraga opposed. When he published this information, the
caudillo Franco expelled both sectors.
Ambassador to the United Kingdom In 1973, Fraga (according to his memoirs he had been in the shortlist for becoming prime minister along
Carrero Blanco and
Raimundo Fernández Cuesta), accepted a proposal by Foreign Minister
Laureano López Rodó to become Ambassador to the United Kingdom, under the conditions of the stint no being longer than two years, having the ability to appoint a counsellor and a press officer and not being excessively constrained by the Francoist administration. He also wanted to finish a book titled
La España de los 70. under
Carlos Arias Navarro, a post he held until 5 July 1976. This was the first government with
Juan Carlos I as
chief of state. By this time, Fraga believed Francoism could not be maintained forever. However, while he still favoured liberalization from above, his vision entailed an extremely gradual transition to full democracy. The drastic measures he took as interior minister and head of state security during the first days of the
Spanish transition to democracy gave him a reputation for heavy-handedness, and deeply damaged his popularity. The phrase "¡La calle es mía!" ("The streets are mine!") was attributed to him as his answer to complaints of police repression of street protests: he claimed that the streets did not belong to the "people" but to the state. He was known to be an admirer of
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. During a
clash at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in
Vitoria (
Basque Country) between police and striking workers, on Fraga's orders the police stormed into a packed church into which 4,000 demonstrators had retreated and went on a shooting spree, resulting in five dead and over 100 wounded. Replaced as party leader by
Antonio Hernández Mancha, Fraga ran first in the People's Alliance list for the
1987 European election and was subsequently elected MEP. He served as member of the
European Parliament until 1989. With the AP in headlong decline, Fraga briefly resumed the leadership of the party in 1989. With the addition of several lesser Christian democratic parties and the remnants of the Democratic Center Union, he refounded the People's Alliance as the
People's Party (PP). Later in the same year, Fraga encouraged the election of
José María Aznar as the party's new president. Fraga was then appointed as honorary president of the PP.
Regional President of Galicia and Fraga in 1996 Manuel Fraga returned to his Galician homeland in 1989, and following the results of the
1989 regional election, with the
People's Party in Galicia (PPdG) winning a simple majority in the regional parliament, he became
President of the Xunta of Galicia. He remained in charge for almost 15 years until 2005, when the PPdeG lost its overall majority. Fraga was widowed on 23 February 1996. Fraga saw his credibility damaged in late 2002, when the oil tanker ship
Prestige sank off the Galician coast. It caused a massive oil spill that affected the shoreline in the northwest of the region. Fraga was said to have been slow to react and unable, or unwilling, to handle the situation. In 2004, a power struggle between factions of PPdeG further hurt the party's image. Subsequently, in the autonomous elections of 2005, Fraga and the PPdeG lost their absolute majority in the
Parliament of Galicia. Despite their obtaining a 45% plurality in the elections, a left-government coalition developed between the
Socialists' Party of Galicia (PSdeG) and the
Galician Nationalist Bloc, making socialist
Emilio Pérez Touriño the new president. Fraga remained on the political scene from Galicia, as a member of the Senate representing the
Parliament of Galicia.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a member of the Galician Popular Party, succeeded Fraga as head of the PPdG on 15 January 2006.
Later life in Madrid (2008). Fraga was designated as member of the
Senate by the
Parliament of Galicia in 2006. His funeral was attended by
Prince Felipe and
Princess Letizia. ==Overview==