HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 339

control in his zone. In that area he pursued
a policy of socioeconomic development,
public works, and public welfare that, to
some of his allies, seemed dangerously lib-
eral. He was, however, widely popular
among the local population and gradually
developed national recognition. All of Spain
became regular listeners to the general's
nightly radio broadcast, tuning in at 10:00
P . M . to hear him alternately berate the per-
sonal foibles and political aberrations of the
Republican leaders and indulge in a mix-
ture of paternalistic and folksy comments
on a wide range of subjects. While most
intellectuals considered Queipo's programs
vulgar and outlandish, there was no doubt
that he achieved a celebrity that was
unprecedented in his use of the radio
waves. The broadcasts furthermore gave
him a recognition level to which he had
always aspired.
By the time the war ended in early 1939
Queipo had been deprived of his radio pul-
pit and stripped of most of the civil author-
ity that he had long held in the south.
Worse yet he was passed over for any major
recognition in his own professional career.
The man who had always insisted that he
was a straightforward, plain-spoken soldier
and called for military rule in Spain was
disgusted to find himself marginalized by
fascist politicians and outranked by newly
promoted nonentities. As usual he did not
keep his opinions to himself, publicly
rebuked Franco, and was dismissed from
the army. Conciliatory efforts were made
on his behalf by more prudent officers, and
Franco relented, appointing him head of a
special military mission to Italy. Queipo
remained in Rome until 1942, increasingly
frustrated and embittered by the emptiness
of his assignments. He returned to Spain

shortly before the collapse of Italy in World
War II.
Queipo de Llano fought against many
enemies during his career, most of them
generated by his own temper and uncon-
trollable sense of resentment. He persisted
in the delusion that “courage” and “forth-
rightness” would always be honored;
instead, he suffered a career of what he per-
ceived as rebuffs and exclusions at the
hands of more sophisticated players in mili-
tary and national politics. He remains an
unforgettable figure, however, as the “radio
general” of the Spanish civil war.

Quental, Antero de (1842-1892)
Portuguese writer and political activist
Turning against his aristocratic background
and Catholic schooling, Quental became an
advocate of social reform who denounced
the privileged status of the hereditary nobil-
ity and the cultural dominance of the
church. He was the leading spirit in the so-
called Generation of 1870 movement that
advocated an inspirational and cleansing
mission for Portugal's writers and intellec-
tuals. He expressed his revolutionary pas-
sion in Odes modernas (Modern odes, 1865)
and organized a series of public lectures by
like-minded young activists, notably E ÇA DE
Q UEIRÓS . The failure of his agitation to stir
feelings of guilt among the ruling class or to
rouse the passive masses frustrated and
depressed him. He was, moreover, open to
the sneering criticisms of those who could
point to his own privileged origins. Unable
to find spiritual renewal in his Christian
roots, he turned to Eastern religions, dab-
bled in marxism, and, for a time, advocated
a pan-Iberian reform movement that would
sweep away all the social and cultural dec-