SPAIN: A New King With Clout

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The latest European crowned head to make a bicentennial visit to the U.S. is, in political terms, probably the most interesting. Accompanied by his attractive Greek-born wife Sofia, Spain's King Juan Carlos I, 38, is scheduled to arrive this week for a four-day ceremonial visit to Washington and New York City. Americans will be primarily interested in appraising the inexperienced monarch who is trying to guide Spain out of Franco's reactionary past into a progressive future, without disrupting the country and without antagonizing its emerging political factions, right and left.

Slowly but inexorably, the old order seems to be giving way under Juan Carlos. Last week the 565-member Cortes (Parliament) embarked on the first genuine post-Franco reform by voting to lift a ban on political meetings. The government of aging (67) Premier Carlos Arias Navarro also acknowledged that negotiations were under way for Juan Carlos' father, Don Juan, to renounce his claim to the throne. The traditional Victory Day, May 30, which celebrates the defeat of the Republican side in the civil war, was discreetly renamed Armed Forces Day. In another token of change, portraits of Franco are being removed from government offices.

Free-For-AII. In political Madrid there is a sense of great expectation on the part of left, right and center politicians alike. Reports TIME Madrid Bureau Chief Gavin Scott: "The old guard of political hacks who owed their positions to the Generalissimo lament his absence, of course. But even within the regime he left behind there is a prevailing opinion that Spain needs to press forward politically—and the process is becoming an exciting free-for-all."

The government's next reform will be a national yes/no referendum in October on proposals to create a bicameral legislature. The present rubber-stamp Cortes and National Council will be replaced in 1977 by a 300-member Lower House, elected by universal suffrage (long demanded by leftists). There will also be a 285-member Senate with "equal powers." Candidates for the Upper House will be put forward by an entrenched local power system that is the legacy of the Franco era: provincial authorities, government-sponsored labor unions and associations of businessmen. Forty will be members for life. The King will still have sole authority to choose a Premier, but his choice must come from three names submitted to him by the right-wing-dominated regency council, said Interior Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne, 53, who planned the constitutional changes.