Spanish nuclear programme

During the rule of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, it was reported Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, (he was killed by an underground mine placed in a tunnel dug by the terrorist group ETA, in a street less than 800 feet away from the US Consular Offices in Madrid, calle de Serrano), who was reported discouraging cabinet ministers from joining the Axis during WWII, considering a possible reprisal naval attack to harbors and coastal towns from Britons, had in mind the launch of a nuclear weapon program. Its main purpose was "to strengthen Spanish international position, turning the country into a weapons power" for having more respect among the international community. According to a CIA report dated May the 15th of 1974, Franco's government was developing a civilian nuclear plan, which deserved the attention and surveillance of the United States.^[1] Among its objectives, it was included the construction of facilities to enrich uranium. CIA's defiled secret report stated that Spain has uranium mines in its territory, one of it in the: 'El Cabril', nuclear cemetery, and several nuclear power plants. First Nuclear Reactor in Spain, handed by the USA, came in 1961, and Nuclear Plants for generating Electric Power begun operating in 1969. Local press reports indicated some teaching research reactor operators in universities, when they realized that it had Plutonium as a byproduct, looking for an use for it, started research on Nuclear Weapons. One of these reactors, in: 'Ciemat', Madrid, was reported suffering a leak that contaminated surrounding soils, and a very small unit in the Barcelona University, in the shape of a beehive cell, made by refractory bricks, was dismantled in the last decades of XX century. As early as 1965, sources such as Time magazine included Spain in the list of countries who could develop nuclear weapons.

References

1. "CIA Reveals Franco Nuclear Plans". theolivepress.es. January 27, 2008. Retrieved April 19, 2016.