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| 1970, Aug. 6 |
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| Renewal of U.S.-Spanish agreements on military bases, for a period of five years. | 1 |
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| Dec |
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| THE BASQUE PROBLEM. On Dec. 1 the honorary West German consul at San Sebastian was kidnapped by Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a Basque nationalist group demanding independence for the Basque provinces. The kidnapping was to protest the court-martialing at Burgos of 15 Basque nationalists charged with having assassinated a hated police official in 1968. The incident led to widespread protests on the part of Spanish intellectuals and church authorities and signaled the beginnings of a long terrorist campaign for Basque independence from Spanish rule. | 2 |
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| Dec. 4 |
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| On opening the court-martial, the government proclaimed a three-month state of emergency in Guipúzcoa province that permitted searches without warrants and the indefinite detention of suspects. Emergency measures were extended to all of Spain on Dec. 14 and represented a move away from the state's limited policies of political liberalization in the 1960s. | 3 |
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| Dec. 28 |
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| The court-martial's verdict, in which six of the Basque prisoners were sentenced to death and nine others to unusually long prison terms, led to widespread unrest in the country and induced Franco to commute the death sentences and reduce the prison terms. | 4 |
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