La Cierva y de Hoces, Ricardo

b. 1926, Madrid

   Historian

   After taking his first degree in Rome, and doctorates in Chemistry and Letters at the University of Madrid, La Cierva entered the Official School of Journalism. As professor of Geography and Contemporary History at the Complutense University of Madrid, he developed a specialism in the history of contemporary Spain, with particular reference to the Civil War, and came to be regarded as virtually the official historian of Francoism, with studies like Historia de la Guerra Civil española (History of the Spanish Civil War) (1969), Francisco Franco, un siglo de historia (Francisco Franco, a Century of History) (1973), and 1939, agonía y victoria (1939, Agony and Victory) (1989). In the final years of the Franco regime, he was associated with a reformist group within the administration, and was one of those who resigned in sympathy with the sacked Minister of Information, Pío Cabanillas, in October 1974. La Cierva's later career is an interesting example of the fluid nature of political loyalties during the transition to democracy. After the elections of 1977, he became a member of the UCD parliamentary coalition led by Adolfo Suárez, whose nomination as Prime Minister by King Juan Carlos he had described in 1976, in a memorable newspaper headline, as "a huge mistake". He served as senator for Murcia from 1977 to 1979, and sat as a member of the lower house between 1979 and 1982. During the second of these periods, he was appointed Minister of Culture, an event which was greeted with considerable surprise, given the fact that he had not only been an apologist for the Franco regime, but had worked for the censorship apparatus, acquiring in the process a well-merited reputation for severity. He was particularly notorious for creating difficulties for writers who wished to publish on the Civil War from a point of view sympathetic to the Republican side.

   EAMONN RODGERS