The Royal Household was so worried about these rumors that, in the lead up to the 1982 trial of the plotters, it deployed a representative to meet with Armada and Milans del Bosch and ensure neither mentioned the king in their testimony. According to a declassified CESID memo on the conversations, the aim was “to ensure that the Crown is not damaged by the legal proceedings.”
Death of a coup leader
Hours after the secret files were published Wednesday, Tejero, the most well-known of the plotters involved in the coup, died at the age of 93.
The lieutenant-colonel became the symbol of the failed attempt to overthrow the government just minutes into his takeover of the parliament, when cameras broadcasting the plenary session recorded him firing his pistol at the ceiling of the hemicycle.
An ultraconservative who had already been prosecuted for a failed coup attempt in 1978, Tejero was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his failed 1981 putsch. While higher-ranking officials involved in the affair were pardoned within a few years, the Civil Guard official spent 15 years behind bars.
Expelled from Spain’s gendarmerie, he sporadically participated in ultranationalist events, including a protest opposing the removal of Francisco Franco’s remains from their monumental tomb in the Valle de los Caídos.
In 2023 he filed a legal complaint against Sánchez for alleged crimes of conspiracy and attempted sedition in relation to his contacts with separatist political parties. The courts declined to pursue the matter.
Among the declassified documents published Wednesday are transcripts of the telephone conversations between Tejero’s wife, Carmen Díez Pereira, and close friends on the night of the foiled putsch. As it became increasingly clear that the attempted coup was doomed to failure, she is recorded as referring to her husband as a “wretch” and “fool” who had been misled by his superiors.
“What a wretch, so much love for his country, giving his all, look how they’ve deceived him,” she complained. “They’re going to abandon him like a cigarette butt on the floor.”
