The Most Excellent Torcuato Fernández-Miranda The Duke of Fernandez-Miranda GE KOGF |
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84th Prime Minister of Spain 3rd of the Francoism (1939–1975) |
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In office 20 December 1973 – 31 December 1973 |
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Leader | Francisco Franco |
Preceded by | Luis Carrero Blanco |
Succeeded by | Carlos Arias Navarro |
3rd First Vice President of the Government 3rd of the Francoism (1939–1975) |
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In office 9 June 1973 – 31 December 1973 |
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President | Luis Carrero Blanco |
Preceded by | Luis Carrero Blanco |
Succeeded by | José García Hernández |
Minister-Secretary General of the Movimiento Nacional | |
In office 29 October 1969 – 3 January 1974 |
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President |
Francisco Franco Luis Carrero Blanco Carlos Arias Navarro |
Preceded by | José Solís Ruiz |
Succeeded by | José Utrera Molina |
Personal details | |
Born |
Torcuato Fernández-Miranda y Hevia 10 November 1915 Gijon, Asturias, Spain |
Died | 19 June 1980 London, England, United Kingdom |
(aged 64)
Nationality | Spain |
Political party |
Falange (1939-1975) Movimiento Nacional (1975-1980) |
Spouse(s) | María del Carmen Lozana y Abeo (1946–1980) |
Children | 2 |
Don Torcuato Fernández Miranda y Hevia, 1st Duke of Fernandez-Miranda, Grandee of Spain, KOGF (10 November 1915 – 19 June 1980) was a Spanish lawyer and politician who played important roles in both the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and in the Spanish transition to democracy.
Fernández Miranda was born in Gijón, Asturias, on Spain's north coast, in 1915. He died of a heart attack in 1980 while traveling to London.
By the age of 30, Fernández Miranda had already served as a lieutenant for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War and begun a promising career as a law professor; that year, he earned a chair at the University of Oviedo, of which he would later serve as rector, 1951 to 1953. He was destined to make his biggest impact in public service, however.
Franco chose him to serve as the government's Director-General of University Education in the mid-1950s, and gave him an even weightier assignment in 1960: Fernández Miranda was entrusted with the political education of Prince Juan Carlos, whom Franco had tapped to carry on his regime as King of Spain, after the dictator's death. After having endured years of military training, Juan Carlos credited Fernández Miranda with being the first of his tutors to teach him to rely on independent thinking.
In the final years of the Franco regime—the dictator would die 20 November 1975—Fernández Miranda also played an important political role as a high-ranking member of the Movimiento Nacional (National Movement), the dictatorship's only legal political party. He served as interim Presidente del Gobierno (prime minister) for a few weeks in December 1973, after the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco. He had been Carrero Blanco's principal deputy prime minister. Although Fernández Miranda was one of the top candidates to succeed Carrero Blanco, the job of prime minister—Franco's last, as it would turn out—went to Carlos Arias Navarro.