Every journalist, every media outlet would always be willing and eager to interview only the most powerful person in the world, who, unless proven otherwise, is the President of the United States. On March 12, 2004, the day after the most horrific massacre Spain has remembered since the Civil War, the White House offered Lorenzo Milá, TVE's Washington correspondent, a joint interview with George W. Bush and the First Lady, Laura Bush , to the Spanish Embassy to express condolences to a friendly people. And what's more, the president announced news that Milá had not expected: while the government of José María Aznar insisted increasingly unconvincingly on attributing the attacks to ETA, Bush assured that there was no need to rush to point it out Who it was? As the person responsible, he offered to cooperate in the investigation and never stopped drawing parallels to the attack on the USA on September 11, 2001.
The next day, the 13th, the White House could not overcome its confusion when it discovered that TVE had not broadcast the entire interview, but only a few short excerpts on Telediario. They protested against Ambassador Javier Rupérez, whom the presidential couple had visited the previous afternoon. TVE, then chaired by José Antonio Sánchez, with Alfredo Urdaci as news director, was unimpressed. Disregarding the exceptionality of such an interview and the relevance of what was said there was another ingredient in the mountain of lies that tore Spain back then and whose wounds have not yet healed.
Public television is taking revenge for one of the most dishonorable moments in its history by broadcasting, after the news on Tuesday evening, a documentary that revisits this conversation and in which Milá and Rupérez remember those hours of shock and perplexity: The Interview, That was never broadcast (21 minutes). Urdaci did not want to comment on this broadcast (and did not do so on the same evening in Lo de Évole on La Sexta, where this episode was accessed). The documentary and raw footage, Lorenzo Milá's full interview with George Bush after 11-M (seven minutes unedited), have been available on RTVE Play since Sunday.
In these seven minutes, the Republican president seems very close to the pain of the victims and praises Aznar: the Spanish “are lucky to have him as president” because he knows what “the war on terror” is and fought ” Terrorist organizations like ETA.” But without being asked exactly, he said clearly: “We still don't know who did it.” “I wouldn't exclude anyone.” It goes on to say: “The US government will become the Spanish government “The facts will be known and it will be easier for the government to know how to proceed.”
Between the lines it said: We don't know who did it, and neither does the Spanish government, although they claim to know. And in private, Bush was much clearer: the US president responded to Rupérez when the ambassador attributed the attack to ETA. “Well, my services tell me that maybe it wasn’t them, but someone else…”. The more I didn't know exactly who it was, the less I knew who it wasn't.
Lorenzo Milá had not seen the recording of the interview for 20 years. He believes that this valuable material was hidden not only because it contradicted the official version, which insisted that it was ETA while the Islamic trail continued to grow, but also because it was no longer convenient for Aznar to do so Bush's great ally, with whom he had proudly posed in the photo of the Azores that preceded the Iraq War. Through the obedient Urdaci, Aznar rebuked the world leader with whom he had managed to develop a close relationship. “In this context, we understood that they did not like being friends with Bush, who linked this to Iraq,” Milá says today.
The credibility of the state-controlled media was at its lowest point at the time (that of other private media remained even longer). On April 3, four Islamist terrorists blew themselves up in Leganés and killed a police officer when they were cornered. The great dizziness could no longer be sustained. That it took us 20 years to realize that this interview in its entirety was not just part of gross political manipulation: it was a crime against journalism. What public television professionals know how to do well when their bosses allow them.
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