http://www.elpais.es/articulo/portada/sueno/Principe/elpepspor/20061015elpepspor_6/Tes/
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- There existed the possibility that the foundation was turning into a parallel court?
-Sabino had not allowed it. And the King, less. The foundation had to be another thing. In the crossroads, our way always was least travelled.
A couple of years later, in September, 1981, one day, to the return of the college, they said to the Prince that he was going to be present " at a very nice act in Asturias ", and that he had to read a speech. His first speech. Five paragraphs that he incubated to conscience. Still one sees repeating the text again and again, in a room of the hotel La Reconquista of Oviedo, opposite to the general Sabino. He did it well. They were minutes of nerves. The images of the epoch show to a King tenser than his own son. 87-year-old Fernandez Campo, remembers: " I Wrote the speech together with the King. It supposed an enormous emotion that the Prince was saying his first words in my land. The key age to promote the monarchy. And everything what was done in this sense, and besides across the inheritor, was positive. The foundation was a way of giving him to know in the entire world. And that in Asturias were considering him to be something own. And these traditions are always very suitable … ".
October 3, 1981 began everything. The first Prizes Prince of Asturias of the history. Joined the constitutional spirit that one was living in Spain. Times of illusion for the recovered freedom. Times that seem to be remote. Eight months before, Tejero had assaulted the Congress. The King stopped the blow. The poet Jose Hierro, the first prize Prince of Asturias of the letters, left the clear things this evening in his words of gratefulness: " Gentleman, if the present was not beginning on February 24, but it was calling in the evening of February 23, we would not be here (…). Your Majesty does not ask how many divisions a man of the culture can mobilize. He knows that a book or a picture created freely, they matter. Because of it he receives every year writers and artists. He does not need to turn them into writers or painters of chamber; on having respected them and to admire them has conquered his respect and admiration ". It was the accolade. The link between the Wreath and the culture (and the freedom) began to be tangible. The Prince admits that he did not understand Jose Hierro's message until years later. Still today he revises some old speeches of the winning ones. And he gets excited.
In opposition to what it could be thought, that year of the premiere is not the one that don Felipe remembers with fear, but the second one: that of the confirmation of the alternative. He tells prettily that the inaugural delivery of the prizes was like to be thrown from a springboard by the first time: since you do not know what is, you you do not think it very much …, and throw yourself. In the second edition, in 1982, one found in Asturias a much higher springboard. He was not comfortable, did not know anybody and had an orthodontics that was preventing him from practising well. To half of speech, in his own words, a soup of letters was formed in front of the eyes. He got stuck. There passed seconds that seemed to him minutes. He recaptured the text and worked out airy. There was an ovation in the theatre Campoamor. During a season, still he had infantile nightmares in which he was facing without words an immense audience.
A quarter of century later, both previous chiefs of the House of His Majesty the King, Sabino Fernandez CampO and Fernando Almansa, they coincide with that the speech of don Felipe in Oviedo " is the most personal and of major political background of that he declares ". The vizconde of Almansa's Castle goes just beyond: " Everything what is joined to the foundation supposes an authentic political test for the Prince. A political and institutional tool that every time has become better and bigger. Already it is not only the speech, also the presidency of the patronage, where he has known very important people of this country ".
- What type of control does exercise the House of the King on the foundation?
- From the times of Sabino, and though it is not written, the House is the last authority. There consults him everything. Besides, the Prince is on everything. And the chief of the House attends him and advises in all his functions. I was to his side in all the prizes as chief of the House. And it is true, the speeches of the Prince in the foundation are those of more political fret. Always they consult with the King. But they do not pass to the Government, because the Prince has neither statute nor political function. He is the inheritor.
- The foundation has become bigger of the foreseen …
- Yes, it has an impact that was not waited. A great transcendency. And an enormous visibility in the mass media. What implies a major responsibility. But, in nine years that I was a chief of the House, it never gave to me a problem.
This idea of the transcendency of the speech of the Prince is shared by Plácido Arango, president of the foundation between 1987 and 1996: " It Has political load. The Prince listens very much and then he tries to put messages of full current importance. And it has been like that since he was very young. The Prince always had clear what was going to be and to have to be the foundation. And in this sense, that of the prizes is a speech in which he believes ". The interested party it stresses: " It Is the most mine ".
In this sense, it is a good historical exercise to cross 24 interventions (in 1984 he did not come because he was dealing last year of Baccalaureate in Canada) of don Felipe in Oviedo. Not only it supposes a revision to hisbiography (his first official trip, the oath of the Constitution, his military career and university studies, the commitment with his generation, the admiration for the King, the love for dona Leticia …); also it allows to obtain valuable tracks on the way of thinking of someone to whom not always it is easy to know nor interpreting.
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Maybe he didn't realise they were asking him more general, about the presence of Leo in Asturias at all... I can't imagine they will be out of home 3 days and the child will remain at home. Letizia would surely miss her and cry and it's not good for her state to worry too much
