Operación Ogro ("Operation Ogre") was the name given by
ETA to the assassination of
Luis Carrero Blanco, the then Prime Minister of
Spain in 1973 and the successor of Spanish
caudillo Francisco Franco. This attack was carried out on 20 December 1973. An ETA commando group using the code name Txikia (after the nom de guerre of ETA activist Eustakio Mendizabal killed by the
Guardia Civil in April 1973) rented a basement flat at Calle Claudio Coello 104,
Madrid on the route over which Carrero Blanco used to go to Mass at San Francisco de Borja church. Over five months, this group dug a tunnel under the street - telling the landlord that they were student sculptors to disguise their real purpose. The tunnel was packed with 80 kg of explosives that had been stolen from a Government depot. On 20 December 1973, a 3-man ETA commando group disguised as electricians detonated the explosives by command wire as Carrero Blanco's
Dodge Dart passed. The explosion sent Carrero Blanco and his car 20 metres into the air and over a five-storey building. The car crashed down to the ground on the opposite side of a Jesuit college, landing on the second-floor balcony. Carrero Blanco survived the blast but died shortly afterwards. His bodyguard and driver were killed instantly. The "electricians" shouted to stunned passers-by that there had been a gas explosion, and subsequently escaped in the confusion. ==References==