its historical clock set permanently at 1939.10 On closer inspection, however, Spain—or at least northern Spain and the cities—was changing quite rapidly. Franco was a rigid and truly reactionary dictator, but unlike his neighbor Salazar he was also an economic realist. In 1959 Spain abandoned the autarkic practices of the past two decades and, at the instigation of a group of Opus Dei ministers, adopted a National Stabilization Plan intended to stifle the country’s endemic inflation and open it up to trade and investment. The initial economic impact of the Plan was harsh: devaluation, budget
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