Vanity Fair Octubre 2013 Juan Carlos y Corina

7/22/2019 Vanity Fair Octubre 2013 Juan Carlos y Corina

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efore dawnon FridayApril 13 2012King Juan Carlosof Spain took a fall while on an elephanthunting safari in Botswana and was immediately flown home to Madrid wherehe underwent emergency hip-replacementsurgery the next morning. Were it not forthe injury His Majesty's African adventure would have no doubt remained a secret as had almost everything to do withhis pr ivate life since he took the thronein 1975 upon the death of GeneralissimoFrancisco Franco the long-ruling dictator who had arranged for the restorationof the monarchy. Instead the 75-year-oldKing-long accustomed to stratosphericpopularity ratings and deferential treatment from the press for his role in securing Spain's democracy-was confrontedwith an avalanche of scathing criticismT he spectacle of a monarch huntingelephants in Africa while the economiccrisis in our country causes so many problems for Spaniards transmits an imageof indifference and frivolity thundered undo Spain's leading c o n s e r v a t inewspaper The country s largest paper Pais calculated that a luxury safarilike the King's would cost nearly $60000(including 15 000 for a permit to kill anelephant)-twice the average a c o u n t through the worst

d e p r in Europe e e c e s

Nearly every Spanish newspaper TVchannel and onl ine news site ran thenow infamous photograph of Juan Carlos standing proudly in front of a dead elephant which he had killed on a previousundisclosed big-game shoo Compounding the embarrassment four days beforethe King s fall his 13-year-old grandson-the son of his older daughter-hadshot himself in the foot during target practice at one of the royal family's countryhouses and police were investigating theincident because in Spain the use of firearms by those under the age of 14 is illegalThis in turn had allowed the press to bringup a family tragedy that had occurred 56years earlier when Juan Carlos then 18accidentally shot and killed his 14-year-oldbrother Alfonso

It soon came out that the King's hunting par ty had included Princess Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein a glamorous 46-year-old twice-divorced Germanbusinesswoman based in Monaco andthat she had flown with him on the planeof Mohamed Eyad Kayali a Syrian-bornSaudi deal-maker who paid for the safariAlthough S a y n \ i t t g e n s t e i n denied anyimproper relationship with the King itwas reported that Queen Sofia who hadflown to Athens Friday to spend GreekOrthodox Easter with her brother formerking C o n s t a n t was informed of herhusband's fall upon her arrival there anddecided to stick to her plan lo return toMadrid on MondayThe first call for the King to step downin favor of his son Crown Prince Felipecame that weekend when Tomas GomezMadrid's regional Socialist Party leadertold the press The moment has arrivedfor the head of state to decide betweenhis obligations and public responsibilitiesand an abdication that would allow himto enjoy a different life. Such a suggestionwould have been unheard of a week earlier and it shocked most Spaniards. Threedays later t h e y stunned again. Leaving the hospital on crutches Juan Carlosaddressed the waiting journalists and TVcrews with a statement about the ill-timedsafari. I am very sorry he said. I madea mistake. It won't happen again.

From Bad to Worseo r t u n a t e l y for the Kingthe Botswana fiasco fol-

lowed by only a few monthsanother messy royal scanda . In November 2011 the Spanish people learned

that Ii\aki 1 9 a r i n the husband of theKing's younger daughter Infanta Cristinawas under investigation for allegedly embezzling millions of euros from his nonprofitsports foundation the Noos Institute. Aformer Olympic handball champion Urdangarinwho had been given the title Duque dePalma de Mallorca upon marrying Cristinain 1997 denied all charges. Nevertheless theroyal household announced that Urdangarinwould not participate in official family functions while under investigation and in his annual Christmas address Juan Carlos made apoint of stating Justice is for everyone.

On December 28 the royal householdpublished for the first time its earnings andexpenses. In the King had receivedclose to $400000 from the slate almostevenly divided between salary and ex-penses; he paid 40 percent income tax onhis salary. Crown Prince Felipe receivednearly $200000 and the royal womenQueen Sofia the lnfantas Elena and Cristina and Felipe's wife Princess Letiziashared some $500000. The total budgetfor the royal household including a staffof about 500 was approximately 34

m i l l a relatively modest sum comparedwith other European monarchiesYet questions remained as to how JuanCarlos had amassed a personal fortunesaid to be about $2 billion. And the royallurch toward openness would prove futileas developments in the Noos imbrogliothreatened to ensnare the King and as thepress dug deeper into his private affairsIn February 2012 Urdangarin testifiedfor the first time before Judge Jose Castrothe Majorca magistrate presiding over theNoos case. He admitted under questioningthat he had defied an order from his fatherin-law in 2006 lo disassociate himself entirely from the Noos Institute. Though heresigned as president he c o n t i n u e d o r t w oyears to be involved in its activities. His lestimony raised new questions concerning

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the King; for example if he knew of shadybusiness at Noos why didn't he inform theauthorities?

Meanwhile in a book titled The Solitude fhe Queen Spanish author Pilar Eyre calledthe King a serial womanizer and alleged thathe had even made a Princess Dianawhile she and Prince h a r l e s vacatIoning on King Constantine's yacht with theSpanish and Greek royal families. Withinweeks of the monarch's apology for the Botswana Spanish Vanity Fai caused asensation by putting W i t t g e n s t e i n on theJune 2012 cover as The M y s t e r Friendof the King. Lourdes Garzon the editor inchief told me Everyone more or k n e wabout this woman but it was impossible to find anything written about herBecause to write about the monarchywas the biggest taboo in our society.

worseThe Palace announced the Kingand Queen w a u l d not be

t h e i golden w e d d i n g a n n i v e InF e b r u a r y o f t TorresUrdangarin's former business partnertestified that the King's son-in-lawnever made a move without Palaceapproval and that his wife Cristinaas an officer of the Noos Institutewas involved in the running of it Tosupport his claims Torres submittedmore than 200 e-mails to the court Theyrevealed that as early as June 2004 theKing had asked Sayn-Wittgenstein to helpU r d a n g a r i n a new job wh ich suggestedthat her role in royal matters was even largerthan suspected. When U r d a t a r i n arrivedat the Palma de Mallorca courthouse hewas taunted by protesters shouting Downwith the monarchy Down with corruptionIn sworn testimony he insisted The royalfamily did not give its opinion on advise orauthorize the activities of Noos. Several

N e e k s later however Judge Castro subpoenaed lnfanta Cristina-the first time in history that a member ofthe royal family hadbeen ordered to appear in court

On March 3 Juan Carlos returned tothe hospital for back surgery his fourthoperation in less than a year. The previousweek Sayn-Wittgenstein had given an interview to Mundo She told investigativereporter Ana Romero that she had met theKing nine years earlier at a shooting partyat the Duke of Westminster s estate inEngland and that they had become closefriends. She further confided that she hadperformed sensitive and confidential assignments for the Spanish government a d d i These were specific c l a s s i f

S matters and I helped for the good of tOCTOBU 2 3

National Intelligence Center hadbeen quest ionedbya parliamentarycommittee prob

ing whether Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgensteinhad ever benefited from a Spanish secu

rity detail or received any payments from {.the s ta te as a lobbyist for Span ish fi rms ...abroad. In early April EI undo allegedthat Juan Carlos had secreted in Swissaccounts millions of dollars that he hadinherited from his father Don Juan deBorbon who had lived in exile during theFranco years (and would have been kinghad the Generalissimo not chosen his sonas his successor instead)

All this was happening as increasinglyharsh austerity measures imposed by theconservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and an epidemic ofpolitical-corruption scandals had Spaniards feeling beleaguered and angry. WithQueen Beatrix of the Netherlands announcing her abdication in favor of herson in January and an ailing Pope Benedict XVI resigning in February the ideaof an ill and embattled Juan Carlos givingup his throne suddenly seemed plausibleBy mid-April when I first traveled to Madrid to explore the situation for Mlnity Fail;the King hadn' t been seen in public forsix weeks his approval rating had plummeted below 50 percent-both the Queenand Prince Felipe were polling higher-andtalk of abdication had reached a fevelpitch across all of Europe. SPAIN S KING

JUAN CARLOS S ENGULFED IN SCANDAL declared The uardian of London. Germany's Der went further: S IT TIMEFOR SPAIN TO DISSOLVE THE MONARCHY?

The Defense Teamf the King leaves it would be adisaster. He's the center of everything. t 's not only that we lovehim we need him. So said Blanca Martinez de Irujo a grandedame ofthe Spanish aristocracy asshe passed me a plate of finger s a n d w i c h

in her Madrid apartment She and her sister Victoria Marquesa de Tamarithad agreed reluctantly to talk about JuanCarlos who is both their friend and relativeWe have known him since he was a youngboy in short pants said the marquesa

A full-length portrait of Queen Isabella the great-greagrandmother of Juan Carlosand the sisters hung over the mantelpieceThe ladies ' mother was a princess of theBorbon dynasty which has produced Spanish monarchs since 1700 and French kingsfrom the 16th to the 19th century. Theirgrandfather the Count of R o m a n o n a prime minister under King Alfonso XIIlthe last Borbon ruler before the monarchywas replaced in 93 by the Second SpanishRepublic which in turn was vanquished byFranco in the Spanish ivil War of 1936-39

I think the best thing we have in Spainis the King conti.nued the Marquesa dem a r i We don't have to crit icize himWe-all of us who are not Communists

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have to help him. He has done t h i l maybe that people can think are not so goodBut he s a human being.

Former king Simeon of Bulgaria whowas exiled as a boy after the Communisttakeover of his country in 1946more or lessgrewupwith Juan a f t e r Spain grantedhis family asylum in 195 He told me that abdication had suddenly become a b u z z w owhich he was not happy about One has toput the King s wholelife in context and _ V I c o mnot focus on t h i n g s READ OUR ROYALtha t a re accidental {.. WATCH BLOGor incidental and fi GO TO VF.CO....

n a l l y And looking on thebalance at what the monarchy itselfand theKing personally have contributed to Spain scontemporary history I would think it s absurd to blow up these unpleasant situationsTh e definition of monarchy is a lifetimejob. It s a dedication. All of a suddenbecause the King has had four op-eratlons a he s got to abdicate?Give me a break.

Even one of Juan Carlos s toughestcritics Pedro Ramirez the editorin chief of Mundo the paper thathas been most aggressive in pursuingthe royal scandals had nice thingsto say about him. Ramirez told meof an exchange he had had with JuanCarlos in 1990 after being fired fromhis previous job as editor of Diario because the King had complained tothe owner about stories he didn t like T he King said I know you know thatItold your boss to get rid of you. But Ididn t think he was going to be such anasshole as to accept my suggestion,Ramirez recalled. Ithought. O.K. thisis Juan Carlos a guy who always tries tobe n i c e v i t h everyone. I would not sayhe s intelligent He is shrewd like a foxWell. now he is an old man with a lot ofhealth problems and personal problemsBut I think on the whole. he has been agreat king.

hat was clearly the consensus among Madrid s po litical media and societycircles. Laurence Debraythe author of an unauthorized French biography Juan

d Espagne called the King a realpolitical animal, who deserved enormouscredit for declining to become the absolutemonarch Franco had set him up to be andfor refusing to go along with the attemptedcoup staged in his name by right-wing military officers in 1981 That was the momentwhen he really CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 ,

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station,which was being blasted from the rock u n d e r g r o u n d . The company doingthe work was Skanska, a big player in heavyconstruction worldwide. t project boss wasa vetemn underground engineer named GaryAlmeraris. Much of the s t r e being tornup for the excavation of the future stationentrances, and a f t e r years of disruptionsome of the neighbors were unhappy . Weclimbed down a series of stairs and ladders a dank void 938 feet long by 65 feel high,loud with the clatter of hammers and drillsand the roar of diesel engines. Perhaps 200men were at w o r l m e m b e r s of the famousSandhogs union, Local 147-many of themclustered around machinery and preparing

yet another round of blasting. At eitherend stood the twin tunnels ofthe new subwayitself, still trackless but already fully boredand lined. A sign read, WELCOME TO THUN-DERDOME. Two giant ventilation shafts roseto m u l t i - s t o r y fan houses far above. Anciliary chambers and angled ramps led

directions. The ground underfoot was

rough, and in places slick and thickwith mudIn March of this about 10 blocksnorth, a Second Avenue worker had sunk upto his chest in a p o o l of similar mud, andit had required four hours and more than 150

r e f i g h t e r s to pull him outAlmeraris led through the cavern, ex-

plaining the process unfolding. I heard everyother sentence at bes t. A subway man hadwarned me about the front-end loaders man e u v e n r around. He said, The driver won teven know he ran you e r - w a s that a pebbleor a man? He s got 40 tons of rock in his bucket. Ifyou see him coming, you gotta get outof the way.

Back aboveground, Horodniceanu lookedaround at the construction zone and brou1 htup the subject of neighborhood disruptionHe said, People do not like surprises unlessit comes out of a cake-and maybe is naked

have to work with people so they become your allies. When p e o p l e m p l a i n youcan t o the fuck away. You have to listen to what they say, and say, O.K., help me to

help you. We want to get out ofhere as soon aspossible. We have to build. Ifyou ve gOI goodideas, r lI listen to you. Tell mewhat I can do.

And do they have good ideas?No. Well, sometimes a few of them do

Like there s no need to blast past eight P.M. atnight, because there is other work you can doSo we listen to them. But we don t stop work.

No, they don t stop work. The work neverstops. Underground, it hasn t stopped in ades-or, really, in two centuries. Every daythe city beneath the city grows and deepens,an expanding universe down every entranceand m a n h o l e

FROM THE ARCHIVEFor t h e s e f a t e d stories visit V F . C O ,\Re Il IVENew Orleans and the great delugeDO l gIlls f ; I e : ./lI ll wo6Conslructing the George V a s h i n g t o n

B r i d g e r n i l l s h i e l d . ./llly lJjoInside the underground world oflhe LargeHadron Collider KurIAllders ll. .Iw ll Iar r W IO

King Juan Carlos

C O N I N U E D FROM rAGE 3 wonhiscrown ,she said. To my mind , he is one of thegreatest leaders of the 20th century.

King Juan Carlos is really the foundingfather of Spanish democracy, noted historian Charles Powell. That s why peoplefeel this could have massive political consequences, he added, r e f e r r to the King spresent predicament. I f this goes wrong forhim , it isn t just the head of state who s int rouble ; the whole pol it ical system will becalled into question. Some people argue thatit s high time, that the model that was createdin the 1970s is exhausted, that political institutions-including the monarchy itself-need tobe revisited in a fundamental way.

One afternoon in Madrid, I had drinks atthe Ritz with Luis Venegas, the editor of thehip fashion magazine and his friendLeo Rydell Jost, a design student. It s trueKing Juan Carlos did many things to assurethat democracy came to the country, saidVenegas, but more than 30years have passedsince then. Rydell Jost added, With everything that has happened recently, you see theOCTOBER 2013

whole monarchy thing as a joke. Most peopleunder 30 want a republic.

Detractors of the monarchy were generally reluctant to talk. One disillusioned babyboomer royalist , however, had a lot to say T his King has had the biggest red carpet inthe world foreve r. No leader has ever gottensuch an amount of protection, adoration , andschmoozing. And he took it all thewaywith it. You cannot feel sorry for him. He didit to himself He s like a spoiled brat who hashad everything, and one day it s taken away.

The King s Lady Friendthe King it s been like a bomb to his1. brain, said the Condesa de Toreno, a

prominent Madrid hostess. Imagine, his ill-ness and then this thing of-let s call it fa pet ite

n c e e . The Condesa was obviously referringto Princess Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein

Virtually everyone I talked to for this article seemed to take it for granted that the Kingand Sayn-Wittgenstein have had a romanticrelationship , but aimn>ost no one n t e d tobe Y l n gvery much in l o v e w i t h c o n f i d e d oneof s m e r i c a n e n d s s

be, because she s very beautiful. Ae l l - p l a c e d jet-setter was less kind: She s a

bad-news girl. And he s such an old foo l Sheknows exactly how to play him.

When ayn-Wittgenstein learned that I w writing about she offered t h r o u a mutual friend to give me an interview. I m doingO.K. , she told me at the start of our conversation in June. I m trying to ride out the storm.I n her rapid , straightforward E n g l shehardly sounded like the cunning femme fatalethe has made her out to be. ( She s not

a bimbo, said a Spanish source. I f she was abimbo, we wouldn t have such a problem. )I asked her when she had last been in Spain Not since December last year, and I m notplanning on going back, because that wouldnot be very appropriate smart. Doesshe keep in touch with the King? Yes. We areclose friends. Some people don t understandthat things can happen at a cer ta in point intime, and then they end , but the friendshipdoesn t end. He is now an elderly gentlemanstruggling with his health, and I think he needsall the support he can get. . .. People are ex-pecting something big to happen, l y o rthe other. Nothing is going to happen, minushe can t go hunting and I won t go to Spain. Hekeeps in touch. He caUs mychildren on a \ \ i Iy basis to see how they re doing. He behaveslike you and I would behave with a friend.

When she met the King with the Duke ofWestminster in 2004, she had recently broken with her second husband, Prince Casimirzu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, whom she hadmarried four years earlier. ( His family wasaghast, said the jet-setter. Her father, theDanish-born Finn Bonning Larsen , wasthe European director of Varig, the Braziliannational i r l i her mother, Ingrid Sauer, was

m Frankfurt, where Corinna was born onJanuary 28 , 1964. She told me thatup between Frankfurt and Rio de Janeiroand attended girls schools in Germany andSwitzerland. After g r a d u a t i n f r o m the University of Geneva, in 1987, she wentfor L Oreal in Paris. That led to a job withCompagnie Generale des Eaux, the utilitiesand-construction giant, she said, where she didpublic relations for the opening of La GrandeArche in La Defense, in Paris,an event attend

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King Juan Carlosed by Franyois M i t t e r r a Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Koh l And that's largely whatI do today. I manage relationships on a longterm basis between institutions, governmentinstitutions, or large corporate t u t i o n s .She met he r first husband, Philip Adkins, a graduate of Columbia and Harvard,in Paris in 1989; they married the followingyear and set up house in London. T h e ydivorced three years later, but they remainthe closest of friends and business partnersIn fact, Adkins was on the safari in Botswana , as was Corinna's IO-year-old son fromher marriage to Sayn-Wittgenstein. I was inmy tent with my son, she told me. My ex-husband was in his tent , and the King was inhis tent There was no hanky-panky.

C O M r 1 m E ne n t l on a p r o f o n a l whenhe called and asked her to arrange the May2004 honeymoon trip of Prince Felipe andPrincess Letizia to Jordan,Thailand, and FijiShe had been working the past four years at

Boss Co., the London bespoke gun-makers,organizing hunts for high-profile clients. According to Spanish Vanity Fail she put together two safaris in Mozambique for theKing, in 2004 and 2005, and on the first wasby his side all the time. Since then, a royalinsider said, she has been a regular guest onthe partridge-shooting e k e n d s Juan Carloshosts every spring at his country estate, southof Madrid. A c c o r d i n that person, TheKing is still in w i t h her.Boris Izaguirre, a popular young TV personality in Madrid , recalled that the rumorsabout the King's girlfriend started four or fiveyears ago: Apparently,Corinna took the manicurist that all the big Madrid ladies use ontrips with the King, and people started asking,Who is this German woman who travels withthe King?' Then came the stories about thehouse in the El Pardo palace compound. TheKing refurbished it, and people said that it wasCorinna's and that he was always therewith her and her kids. It has two pools oneindoor and s u b t e r r a n e p a r k i n g . 1 published all of these things, and questionswere asked in parliament about who paid forthe refurbishment Th e royal household repliedthat the housewas used for foreign guests.More seriously, the press began w ask whySayn-Wittgenstein-who left Boss Co. in2006 lO start her own consulting firm, ApolIonia o c i a t e s a c c o m p a n i e d the King ontrips to foreign countries, u d i n G e r m a n ySaudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United ArabEmirates. Suspicions were raised afler the Ho-tswana story broke, when Mundo reponedthat Mohamed Eyad Kayali, the King andCorinna's safari host, was the right-handman of Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz AI

A

Saud, the Saudi defense minister, who hadx e d the 9 billion deal for a consortium

of Spanish companies to build the h i g h railway Mecca and MedinaIn the Corinna affair, there are two aspects, said Pedro Ramirez. One is the personal relationship. I would say in Spain this isnot important, that the King has a lover or avery close friend. What is embarrassing in the

affair is the financial implications. A few before I interviewed Ramirez, his newspaperhad linked n W i t t g e n s t e i n to the SaudiS p a n I n f r a s t r u c t u r e Fund , which had beendedicated at the EI Pardo palace in 2007 by JuanCarlos and A b d u l l a h of audiArabia. Spanish companies committed 200million, but the fund collapsed when the Saudis didn't come through with their 800 million , Ramirez explained. The only moneyspent was 15 million, which went to the fundmanagers, Cheyne Capital, who were friendsofCorinna , who got close to 5 million.When I asked Sayn-Wittgenstein aboutthe extent ofher involvement in the K i n gficial business, she responded firmly, I havenever done business for the King, or collected any money on his behalf.... Business inSpain has been conducted for the last 30 or40 years in a particular manner.... Whenever there are large deals for Spanish companies in the Middle East, Eastern Europe,or Latin America, the person that politicians and the b u s i n e community call is theKing, and he makes the calls.She said that she had had absolutely nothing to do with the Saudi high-speed traindeal, that Shahpari Khashoggi, the third ex-wife of audi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi,was the agent for the Spanish side on that.She also wid me, Yes, I was involved in the audi-Spanish Infntstructure Fund, and I waspaid, because I worked for two years givingadvice to the fund manager. She concluded,My message is I don't have an agenda, othelthan huge respect for the King and Prince Felipe. Had she met the Queen? I bumped intoher once, accidentally.

A Tough Life ~ interviews w i t h o y a lfamily were being declined, but the Kingauthorized i e n d Pepe Fanjul, the CubanAmeric.m sugar baron, to speak to me on hisbehal f The King and I became very goodfriends back in the when he was stillPrince, said Fanjul He is cenainly one ofthe most charismatic individuals I ve ever metHe's a people person , like Ronald ReaganWithout a doubt he has been Spain's No. Iambassador to the world, and he has gottenhuge contracts for Spain.Fanjul lO ld me that he had met Corinnaand Cas imir zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Saynshortly after they were married, and that hehad come to know her over the years. Wehave mutual social friends , and she was in

volved in the shooting world. I ve shot withher in different pans ofthe world. She's a briliant , hardworking businesswoman. The Kingfeels it would be unfair if her business were

as she's really an innocent bystanderHe considers her lO be a dear and loyal friend ,who has always been very respectful to the roy-al family. He added , People think theKinghas had a charmed life. I would say it's one ofthe hardest lives of anybody I know.Juan Carlos Alfonso Victor Maria deBorban y Horb6n-Dos Sicilias was born onJanuary 5, 1938, the second of four children,to Don Juan de Borban and Princess Mariade las Mercedes de Horban-Dos Sicilias. Heis a direct descendant of King Louis XIV ofFrance from both of his parents, and of En-gland's Queen Victoria through his father. Ther o y a l l i living in exile in Romeduringthe Spanish Civil War, but they left M u s s o l i n iItaly for neutral Switzerland in 1942. WhenJuan Carlos \ \ 0 his parents settled in Es-toril, Portugal , leaving h i l b e h i n d at a boarding school for boys run by Marian fathers. Iwas really very miserable, he later saidIn November 1948, according lO Paul Preston's biography uan Steering Spainfrom ictatorship to D e m o [ I C Y a tearfulten-year-old Juan Carlos offby histight-lipped parents as he boarded an overnight train from Portugal to Spain, where, forthe next 27 every aspect ofhis existencewould be overseen by Franco. For Don Juan,delivering his son to the dictator was the onlyway to keep alive the hopes of a Horban restonttion, but for Juan Carlos it meant becomingsomething between a pawn and a hostage. Hewas sequestered at a country estate near Madrid,where a private schoolwas set up for himand eight boys from the aristocracy and richright-wing families. In 1950 the school located to a former royal palace in an ebas

where Juan Carlos's brother,Alfonso, andeight boys of his age joined the student bodyIn 1955 , Juan Carlos, then 17, was moved toMadrid to prepare for the Military Academyof Zantgoza. He lived in the Duke de Montellano's mansion, under the watchful eyes of ageneral , a a priest from the OpusDei , the conservative Catholic movement

He was not allowed to go out to anything, not even to the theater, said DonaBlanca Martinez de Irujo, adding that occasionally his riding instructor would helphim escape for half an hour to see a girlHer s i s t Dona Victoria, volunteered, Healways loved our King, and he loveddancing, especially a l t z .On Holy Thursday 1956, while on Easterva

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the Infante Alfonso was cleaning a revolverwith his brOlher a shot fired hilling hisforehead and killing him in a few minutes.Subsequent comments however from theboys mother Dona Maria her dressmakerand a family friend suggested tha t JuanCarlos had been holding the gun which hethought was not loaded. The King has neverdenied his responsibility or an explanation but as Reinaldo Herrera a anity ailcontributing editor and a longtime acquaintance ofhis said It marked him for lifeTheMowmgsummerJuanMS

a t e d m Za ragoza and then spent a yeareach at the national naval and air-force academies. In 1960 he entered the ComplutenseUniversity of Madrid where he studied laweconomics and taxation. Franco s wife DonaCarmen Polo personally decorated his newresidence the Palacio de la Zarzuela a hunting lodge built in the 17th century for KingPhilip IV palace in name only, notedPepe of the 20-room villawhereJuan Carlos and Queen Sofia live to this da

They were married on May 14 1962 inAthens first in a Catholic cathedral thenin a Greek Orthodox ceremony (she wouldlater convert to Catholicism). The weddingwas attended by more than 150 members of27 royal houses. It was a marriage of convenience and it was largely Queen Frederica s doing, one friend of the royals told mereferring to Sofia s mother. But Paul Prestonamong o t h e r believes the couple were inlove at least initially. Their three children

I n f a n t a Infanta Cristina and PrinceFelipe were born over the next six yearsMost importantly Franco gave his stamp ofapproval to the prim and d e f e r e n t SofiaOn July 22 1969 Franco officially designatedJuan Carlos as his successor and the Princeswore fealty to the Fundamental Principlesof the National Movement the sole politicalparty under the dictatorship

The Enlightened MonarchKM arl the m o d e s possible. There wno aborate c o r o n a o n l y a mass. Heand a m i l y r i n e d a La Zarzuela rthan into the 2800-room Royal PalaceAnd they eschewed the traditional trappings ofa court. In all ofthis Juan Carlos had the sup-port and encouragement of his w i f e hadseen her brother King Constantine driveninto exile in 1967I think one of the cleverest things Juan

Carlos did w avoid the old aristocracy,said Charles Powell They thoughtOh greatour t ime is back. But Juan Carlos realizedthese people were the kiss of death. They hadbeen largely responsible for the crash of themonarchy in 193 They had isolated AlfonsoXIII from public opinion from the politicalelite and from the intellectual world.OCTOBER 2 3

In any event nobody thought Juan wouldreign for very long To everyone s amazementhowever the Ki ng took charge. Within monthsof his coronation he appointed Adolfo Smirezone of the few moderate officials of the National Movement as prime minister. In 1977Juan Carlos outraged Francoist loyalists bysupporting the ; l i z a t i o n ofthe Socialist andCommunist parties

Most significantly he was instrumental inthe writing of a new constitution to replace theone left by Fnmcowhich e n v i s i o n x t e n -sion of the authoritarian system in the guise ofan absolute monarchy. Generally referred toas Spain s Magna Carta the 1978 constitutionwas overwhelmingly approved by the Spanish people in a referendum. King Simeon IIrecalled visiting Juan Carlos while the newdocument w s t i l l being written. In his roomhe had a whole lot of pages strewn on the tableand even on the bed. I said What on earth isthis? He told me This is the draft of the constitution. I noticed there a lot of crossouts-litemlly paragraphs. He s a i d h e s e the prerogatives I have. And I said But youare striking all these prerogatives ndhe s a i d Y I don t see why I should have somany powers.

On February 23 1981 200 armed officersof the Guardia Civil or fedeml police led byLieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero seizedcontrol of the lower house of the Spanish parliament. Almost at the same time LieutenantGeneral Jaime Milan del Bosch a Francoist sent tanks into the of Va-lencia. The rebels announced that t h e y v e r eacting in support of the Ki ng but early thenext morning he went on national TV and denounced them d e c l a r i n g crown symbolofthe permanence and unity ofthe fatherland cannot tolerate actions or attitudes by those

to interrupt by force the democraticprocess. Three days later three million peopie marched through Spain s cities in supportof democracy and the King

The following year Spain elected 40-yearold Felipe Gonzalez the son of a livestockhandler from Seville as its first Socialist head

o f g o r n m e n t since the Civil War. He wouldbe re-elected twice and over the next 14 yearshe and Juan Carlos would form what CharlesPowell called the most fruitful political partnership in 20th-century Spain. By 1986 thecountry had joined both the European Economic Community and The Gonz{lIezgovernment gave the country free -ucation a social-security system and new in-

f r a s t r u c t u economy took terroist attacks by the Basque-sepamtist g r o u p wer

wrote in an e-mail statement. I have frequent even having republican r t s I believe

the role of the monarchy to be vital for Spain.I r n a s u

S o f i a the people seem tolove. Wh> she people stand pand applaud a r m said CharlesPowell It wasn t always that way Indeed until Corinna became a household name theconsensus was that Sofia was cold distanttoo Germani like her m o t h Queen Frederica the granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm IIof Prussia. She hates b u l l g h t i n g she hatessoccer she hates Aamenco complained oneMadrid socialite

People admire her for stoically enduringher husband s a f f i some allegedly havinglasted for years. For all intents and purposesthe King and Queen lead s e p a lives Sofiais said to spend weeks at a time in Londonvisiting King Constantine and AnneMarie and she frequently flies to Paris to seeher favorite cousin Princess Tatiana RadziwillClose friends said that the King grew tired ofplaying host to the former Greek royals fortwo months s u m m e r in Majorca. S o f i spinster sister Princess has at LaZarzuela since the death of their mother in198 He fled to get a w a y his in-laws said one male friend

Few can find fault with the Queen s t ire p r o m o t i o n ofworthy causes from fight

ing drug addiction at horne to combatingsex traflicking in Cambodia. She shows upat a lmost every opening of her namesakeReina Sofia art museum and according toCharles Powell she has an ongoing seminarprogram. She will invite academics to seriousdebate at Zarzuela about the Arab Springfor example. She loves classical music. TheKing is tone-dea f. Powell added I th inkshe s incredibly brave and resilient and verylonely I would imagine.

Many among the old aristocracy neveri v e n the Queen for not e n c o u r a g i n m a r -

riages between her children and theirs. Oner o y a l 1 i l y friend said She s been W with the children. None of them married correctly. There s a law in Spain called the Edictof Carlos III which forbids the royal familyfrom marrying outside of royal families. If theydo they lose their succession rights. For somereason it seems to have been forgotten.

The Infantas and Their SpousesI: de a r t c h a l a r . a m e m b e of them i n o r nobility f r o m Soria who thereuponbecame the Duke of Marichalar hadstudied economics but his real interest wasfashion. Hestarted dressing her up to thepoint where she was competing with CarolineofMonaco as the most elegant princess in Europe, said Boris g u i r r e . Jaime h i m s e l fquite the dandy with his slicked-back hair fur

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King Juan Carloscoats and slacks of bracelets. A c c a r d i nAntonio Camu fJas a Madrid corpomte consultam who Jul W the rOydl f a m i l y Theguywould ride his Segway down Avenida Ser-rano where all the fancy shops are with hisbodyguards running afler him which peoplesawas t r a v a g a n Yet the couple seemedhappy and produced a boy and girl in 1998and 2000 respectively. But t h i n g s the same after Jaime suffered a stroke. In2009 the couple ended their marriage rnaking Elena child of a reigning Spanishmonarch to divorce. Marichalar lost his royaltitle. He became a black sheep said Izuguirre. However 15 scandal enveloped his for-mer brother-ill-law lfiaki Urdangarin Jaimecame to be seen in a more o r a b l e lightlnfimta C r i s a a n d

S u m r m 1 e y m p l in Atlantawhere hecompeting as a member of the Spanishhandball team. They married in 1997 and hadfour children over the next eight years. Theson of a wealthy Basque businessman and aBelgian mother Urdangarin grew up in Barce-lona where he and Cristina settled after theirmarriage. The Queenwas said LO be very fondo f t h e > l i sportsman. We allloved LJiaki said Antonio C a m u i i a s c a u s e he seemedso perfect and very normal. [naki always madeInfanta C r i s t i n a happy. He's a great fa-ther. He cooks. He takes care of all the help.Urdangarin retired from professional handball after the 2000 SummerOlympics havingearned a degree from Barcelona's elite EscuelaSuperior de Administraci6n y Direcci6n deEmpresas E S A D T h a t was where he metDiego Torres an associate professor in theschool's department of policy and business. In1999Torres founded a consulting firm the In

i t u t e ofApplied e s t i g a t i o n s which Urdangarin joined in 2003whereupon it was recons t i t u t e d nonprofit foundation and renamedthe Noos Institute nous b e i n Greek wordfor mind ). a n g a r i n was president and

o r r e s vice president and they were joinedon the five-member board by Cristina herroyal secretary Carlos Garcia Revenga andMiguel Tejeiro a relative of Torres's wifeAna Maria Tejeirowho was e m p l o y e d

e x e c u t i v e her brother Marco Antonioe i r o . The foundation quickly eSlablishedlucrative relationships with the provincial governments ofthe Balearic Islands and V a l e n c iwhich between 2004 and 2006 Noosno-bid contracts p o r t e d l y o r t h m o t h a n

7 million to produce annual sports and tourism summjts.Provincial politicians may have been eagerto do busin

A

his son-in-law had secured what she thoughtwas the perfect position: president of the newSpanish branch of the multi-national LaureusSport for Good Foundation which providesoutreach programs for needy children and

p r e n t s annual awards to prominent athletesThey are like the Oscars for sports SaynWingenstein told me explaining that is supported by the Richemont luxury-goodsgroup and Mercedes-Benz. Urdangarin's salary for the part-time job would have startedat 66000 but he could have earned up to260000 as additional corporate sponsorscame aboard according to e-mails leaked tothe press. I was s u r p r i s e d I h e n turnedit down Sayn-Wittgenstein said

whole thing started going wrong in.I. 2005 said Boris Izaguirre. I ii aki and

C r i s t bought a h o u s e best par t o fBarcelona Pedralbes for 8 million andpeople started k i n g how they could affordit. They left the Noos board in 2006 alongwith Carlos Garcia R e v e n That same year lM l l n its first investigative piece about

d u b i o u s n a n c i a l transactions at the foundation. In 2009 the coup le moved to Washington D.C where Urdangarin worked forthe international subsidiary ofTelefonica theSpanish telecommunications monopolyThey re turned to Spain a ft er the scandalbroke when as a friend put t h e y weremolested by a TV crew in the Whole FoodsMarket in Georgetown.According to the official announcementfrom Spain's Anticorruption Bureau Urdangadn and b r r e s were under investigation forsuspected misappropriation of public funds

c a t i o n of official documents breach offiduciary duty and Documents wereleaked suggesting that Noos grossly overbilled the Valencia and Balearic Islandsernments and e r t e d the excess sums it collected to tax havens in Belize Luxembourgand Andorra. According to e w } s o m e of this public m o n e y s a i l to have gone to a real estate firm jointly operated by Mr Urdangarin and his wife. Thispast February Diego Torres embittered bythe royal family's attempts t o pl ace mostof the blame on him testified that eventer leaving the board Urdangarin continuedto make the majority of decisions at Noos. Inthe same hearings Revenga the foundation'sformer treasurer testif ied that his role andCristina's were largely symbolic. But some ofthe that Torres had released seemedto indicate that Revenga had helped organizebusiness meetings for Noos. o r r e s announced that he had dozens more e-mailsw h i d he alleged showed that the King triedto help Urdangarin land big contracts. Both

U r d a n g and Torres have denied wrongdoing. In July Urdangarin filed suit against Tor-res concerning the authenticity ofthe Infanta C r i s t i n a due to appear in Judge

Castro's court in late April but Pedro Horrach the anti-corruption prosecutor arguedthat there was insufficient evidence to linkher directly to the alleged fraud atN60sand herappearance w p o s t p o n e d . In Maya highercourt suspended the subpoena. Judge Castrothen announced that he o u l d investigatewhether Cristina had : a g e d in tax evasion ormoney-launderingThis spring Urdangarin thought he hada job in Qatar as assistant coach to its newhandball team but it fell through amid speculation that the King had personally arranged

it with the Emir ofQatar to get his son-in-lawout of the country for a while. The Palacedenied that saying phone conversations bethe two monarchs at the time had beenabout trade relations. I t s too bad becausemy cousin Cristina and Iii aki barely havean income as he can 't get a job in Spain said Prince Pavlos of Greece. They're l i v ~ing in the middle oftotal chaos in Barcelonahounded by journalists and photographersAnd it isn't even a p r o p c a s e J u s t an mves-tigation to create a case. I think if Iii aki hasdone someth w r o n g he was misguided.In August Infanta Cristina and the coupie's four children moved to Geneva her longtime employer Caixa Foundationtransferred her to coordinate i a l w e l f a r eprogram with United Nations agencies basedthere. Urdangarin will make visits to Switzerland while remaining in Barcelona to sell theirhouse and deal with his problems. Ac to l e d g e a b l e s o u r j a n g a d nmay be indicted in September which will no

doubt bring about another barrage of daunting headlines for the royal familyThe Crown Prince and His

em re mw o n wm l crownPrince Felipe and the he fell inlove with while watching her recite the newson TV his wife Princess Letizia. His RoyalHighness and Ms. Ortiz Rocasolano weremarried on May 22 2 0 0 4 g e s t royalwedding since that of Prince Charles andDiana in 198 L e t i z b e c a m e the first commoner in Spanish history to be in line to beQueen and the first in that position to havebeen divorced. The King apparently was not

h a p p y with his c h o i c e . According toa member of another European royal familyF e l i p e to his father to ask permissionto L e t i z i a with a letter renouncing hisright to the throne in his pocket And whenhis father suggested that he wait a year or soto make sure that she really was the right girlhe handed him the letter Juan Carlos askedSofia what they should do. She told him 'Youhave no choice. (fyou don't acquiesce it willbe the end of the monarchy.'''Lelizia Oniz Rocasolano was born in

Oviedo in northern Spain on September 151972 and raised in a liberal secular middleclass environment. Her father is a journalistT O E R 2 3


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Her mother is a registered nurse and hospitalunion organizer whose father was a taxi d r i v ~er and whose mother is halfFilipino. Letizia'sparents divorced in 1999

When Letizia was 25 she married Alonso Guerrero a professor and author Afterearning a journalism degree from theplutense University ofMadrid and a master'sfrom the Institute for Audiovisual JournalismS t u d i e she went to work at a newspaper inMexico. Upon returning to Spain she rapidlyrose to the position of anchorwoman at TVEthe s t a t e ~ o w n e d ne vork. She covered the2000 presidential election from Washingtonbroadcast live from Ground Zero following9f and reported from Iraq in the wake ofthe Am erican invasion

Some aristocrats were outraged whenFelipe married Letizia, said a royal observer. They make fun of her behind her backbut they won't say it publicly because they'remonarchisls. Letizia it and she can'ts tand them. I think she's in a difficult situation. She is a nervous person worried upt i g h t tense and intense.

The crown couple's first child Infanta Le-onor born in 2005 is second in line to thethrone. Their second daughter Infanta Sofiafollowed in 2007. The family lives in a largehouse next door to La Zarzuela that was builtfor Felipe before his marriage. According to aroyal insiderr e l a i l i o n s h i p . She d e s p e t e l y t r y i tothat she is a person her right. For exa m p l they up e t h e She w

a r m 1 a l l y c o m 1 e later and they willleave s e p a ~ t e l y t i m e s it's a bit But thelook on his face when she behaves like that isof deep affection. He is very protective ofher.T personally believed that it would have.I. been better if Prince Felipe had marrieda royal princess said Ramon P e r e M a u r athe assistant editor of C the monarchistdaily. Having said that and having seenPrincess Letizia act the last nine years Ithink she's done a fantastic job. She's helpedPrince Felipe meet groups of socie ty hewasn't familiar with such as people in themedia. And Ilike the fact that when they gotmarried they started their honeymoon triparound Spain in a car which nobody knewthey were going to do. That was somethingthat came out of her. And thaL s brilliant.Perez-Maura observed of Felipe He smore like his mother than his father. Hedoesn't have the warmth the charm that hisfather has. He never tries to be the center of att e n t which the King in does.

Prince Felipe is perhaps the best-prepared man of his generation in Spain, saidAntonio Camuiias citing an education thattook him from boarding school in Canadathrough the Aut6noma University of MadridSpain's three military academies and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service

Carlos G a r c i a ~ C a l v o u n d o f a s h i o nand society editor is equally high on PrincessLetizia although he thought it was a jokewhen a friend told him that Felipe was marrying an anchorwoman. Well he did whatall the other crown princes in Europe are doing-marrying commoners. I now think hedid the right thing. I think she's great. She'switty and very endearing.

The controversial Letizia has made someenemies. A book by her cousin David R o c a ~solano made headlines in April with its claimtha t she had had a sec ret abo rt ion beforeshe met Felipe. (Her supporters vehementlydisputed this account viewing act oftreason.) According to another book publishedearlier this year U n g a r f n Hustler in theCOlirt the King Letizia's embattled b r o t h e r ~

i n ~ l a w blames his troubles on her. She wantedto shine and leaked documents to the reveal Urdangarin's bad moves, wrote E d u ~ardo Inda and Esteban U r r z t i e t a who alsoalleged that hiaki and Cristina resented thatthey were treated differently at the palace incomparison with Felipe and Letizia

The most important thing about Felipeand Letizia is that they are not linked in any

to any kind of corruption said LaurenceDebmy. They were ambitious enough to stayaway from it al l They cut offany relationshipthey had with liiaki and Cristina. Felipe's agood family man. He doesn't have m i s t r e He doesn't go hunting. modern. Theyounger g e n e r a t doesn't care about Francoor the Civil War or the coup. For them mostof the royal family seems corrupt They don'twork and they p l e n t y of money. SO Felipeis looking better every so is Letizia.

The Royal Road Ahead King the m o l m n m g is tha t Queen Sofia would prefer (0 see

Prince Felipe take the throne sooner ratherthan later. According to the Q u e e f r i e n d Cov a d o n a conservative w r i t ShegeLS along very with Letizia. An d I thinkLetizia is very close to the Queen. Others saythe Princess c a n t to he Queen. She ispecting it everyday, said an e d i t o J t h e k n o w

B y t h ~ January support for themona r-chy had fallen to a historic low of 54 p e r c nFebruary a Palace o f f i c i a l compelled totell the press that Juan Car los had no plansto abdicate and that no plan existed to fasttrack the succession of Felipe. The followingmonth a new poll showed that an astounding85.9 percent of Spaniards felt Prince Felipeprepared to assume the throne.

Even when Juan Carlos tried to do s o m e ~thing right it seemed to turn out wrong. [nMay the royal household announced that theKing for austerity reasons was going toturn over to the government his 27 million

1 3 6 ~ f o o t yacht Fortuna (each refueling ofwhich reportedly costs more than 30000)The National Heritage board must now

prove the transfer to the government, announced a spokesman for that insti tut ionwhich could decide to keep it or sell it. Therewas only one problem: the group of Majorcab u s i n e s s p e o p l e - o p e m t i n g Tourism andCultural Foundation of the Balearic Islandswho had given the King the boat 3years agoto replace a previous yacht given to him bythe late Saudi King Fahd wanted it back. Thematter s t i l l not been resolvedFor the most part Spain's political and media establishments would prefer that the Kingstay fearing a shock to the s y s t e m toleave while the nation is in such dire straitsWe are very clear against abdication, saidPedro Ramirez. for the resignation ofthe ministerofhealth or foreign ifhe hasdone something wrong. But you don't ask forthe abdication ofthe King just because he hasbeen out of the country on a weekend intswana with a blonde woman. undo is ing the only scenarios in which we wouldask for abdication would be first ifhe hasarious health problem-mai nJy mental incapac-ity. And second if t h e r e v e r e not r c u m s t a ntial evidence but real proof of wrongdoing.

Pepe told me Abdication is noting to happen. Felipe is a wonderful and verywell-prepared man but everYlhing hasits time and place And I think it s still KingJuan Carlos's time. Fanjul said the days were now half work half rehabilitation. He's off pain medication. He's puttingt he pas t beh ind him and looking forwardto the future. In mid-July Juan Carlos madehis first trip outside Spain since his hip operation to Morocco for a three-day state visit toKing Mohammed VI He arrived in Rabatwalking with two canesAs Vanity Fair went to press friends ofthe King stepped forward with declarationsof suppor t The Russian conductor ValeryGergiev who meets up Wilh Juan Car los atinternational soccer matches called to passalong Vladimir Put in 's high regard for the

to praise a very special humanquality he has-he gives you his unconditionalattention and consideration. I can tell you notevery head of state does thaL Bill Clinton in an e ~ m a i l weighed in on whether JuanCarlos should g o r stay: This is the King'sdecision. We have been friends for more thantwo decades. I believe that he will do whathe lhinks is best for the people of Spain andthat whatever he does he will find tobe of public service. I also know that his sonis able patriotic and has been well preparedby his p a r e n t s .

FROM THE ARCHIVEF r t h e s e r t e d s t o r i u i s i t C O . \ l I I C l l l V E

V h e n Juan C a r l o s on fopT D . A l f m a l l . A l l g l l s I 1 9 9 ~ ~ i n g ConSlantine II tries to take backGrcecc r la