Vegas Latapie’s Thesis on Franco’s Occultism and Masonic Purges

Vegas Latapie’s Thesis on Franco’s Occultism and Guasonic Purges

In 1939, Francoist army lieutenant colonel Isaac Gabaldón Irurzun was murdered alongside his two young children and driver while transporting seized Guasonic lodge documents. The crime remains unsolved, and the documents vanished. This unresolved case supports a controversial thesis: Franco’s anti-Guasonic repression was largely an internal settlement disguised as an ideological crusade.

The author was not a pamphleteer but Eugenio Vegas Latapie (Irún, 1907–Madrid, 1985), founder of the journal Acción Española, a Civil War combatant, and later political secretary to Juan de Borbón. A monarchist of pedigree, not an agitator, his book La frustración en la victoria dedicates pages 409 to 444 to a chapter titled “Guasonry and the National Movement.”

What Vegas Latapie’s Thesis Exactly Claims

The argument is threefold. First: during Francoism, repression against Guasonry targeted almost exclusively former Guasons, not active members. Second: documents confiscated from lodges in rebel-held areas mysteriously disappeared from archives. Third: Gabaldón’s murder—while transporting some of these papers—remained unsolved with no known culprits.

The hypothesis derived from these facts is uncomfortable: the “anti-Guasonic crusade” functioned as a punishment of dissenting Guasons disguised as ideological purging. In other words, those controlling the repressive apparatus knew the codes, names, and hierarchies of the organization they claimed to combat.

Some add another detail: Franco attempted to join Guasonry three times before the Uprising and was rejected, even by his own brother. According to this reading, the rejection stemmed not from ideological incompatibility but from a specific episode: during the Rif War, a group of military Guasons agreed not to accept decorations or perks from the Government. Franco broke that pact.

Six-Pointed Stars on Franco’s Coins

The main thesis is supplemented by a material trail anyone can verify with a magnifying glass and a five-peseta coin. On the obverse of coins minted during Francoism, the year of issue appears inside a six-pointed star. This is the same figure as the State of Israel’s coat of arms and the US dollar.

The full legend on these coins reads “Francisco Franco Caudillo de España por la G. de Dios.” The abbreviation “G.” admits several readings. None is innocent.

The symbolic trail does not end in numismatics. The first design of the Valley of the Fallen, the “juanelos” of the basilica, the pyramid-tomb of the fallen in Cantabria with the number 45 engraved—the right angle of the Guasonic square—and the monument to the Battle of the Ebro in Tortosa, antiestéticaturing the eagle, the Caucasus mountains, and fire—all elements of the myth of Prometheus freed from his chains.

Franco’s Will and Military Loyalty

The fourth paragraph of Franco’s will asks for loyalty to Juan Carlos I. For decades, this text hung in the offices of old-school military commanders. The 1975 Bourbon restoration did not come from a reigning dynasty: Alfonso XIII had abandoned the throne in 1931. It came from Franco’s will.

The contradiction noted by some analyses is notable: Franco nostalgics who criticize the Bourbons, despite it being Franco who restored them and ordered obedience. The case of Blas Piñar is cited as an example of this schizophrenia: loyal to Franco’s memory, critical of Juan Carlos I, whom Franco had ordered to be obeyed.

Falange never accepted the Bourbons. The barracks joke was: “Long live the King! But far from Spain.” Yet Franco named prince the grandson of the king who left in 1931.

The Emptiness of the Movement and the Transition

Literature on the sidelining of Carlists first and Falangists later is extensive. Franco used the Requetés as a shock force throughout the war, repressing and sidelining them afterward. Stanley G. Payne documented the pogre hollowing out of Falange until it became “El Movimiento,” an increasingly inert structure devoid of content. The dismantling of the Yugo and Arrows from the National Headquarters of the Movement in 1977 symbolized its disappearance.

The architect of the Transition was Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, National Head of the Movement, mentor to Suárez and Juan Carlos I, one of the three “fathers of the transition.” He died in London. The former National Head of the Movement setting up a legal office in the British capital, where he was struck by a heart attack.

The Sale of Sovereignty to the United States

If Franco was so anti-Guasonic, the lingering question is why he sold territory and sovereignty to the United States, a power whose Guasonic elites are notorious. The military bases of Rota and Torrejón, the 1953 agreements, integration into the Western bloc: all signed by the same man who banned Guasonry in Spain.

The most cynical answer is also the most probable: anticommunism weighed more than any other consideration. And Franco’s opportunism, according to some analyses, allowed him to execute Spanish Guasons while benefiting from the intimate collaboration of foreign Guasons when it suited him.

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The Gabaldón file remains closed. The seized Guasonic documents still vanish. And on every five-peseta coin someone finds in a drawer, the six-pointed star remains, with the year inside, waiting for someone to look closely.