Former King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Seeking Relevance, Publishes Book

The royal treatment is not what it used to be for Juan Carlos I of Spain.
A half century ago, as a young king, he renounced the absolute powers that the dictator Francisco Franco had bestowed upon him as his successor. He set the country on the path to democracy, installing himself as the guarantor of a parliamentary monarchy that has made Spain modern.
But last month, as Spain celebrated the 50th anniversary of that transition and the monarchy he helped restore, Juan Carlos was persona non grata at the main commemoration event. A combination of financial, sex and elephant-hunting scandals had led more than a decade ago to his abdication, then self-exile in Abu Dhabi and a general policy of lying low. His participation at the events was limited to a family lunch back at his old palace. He arrived, and left, early. It has all left him feeling left out, like a birthday boy struck from his own party’s guest list.
“It’s ridiculous that the child doesn’t appear at his baptism,” Juan Carlos, 87, has taken to saying, according to Laurence Debray, the co-author of his new memoir.
A half century after Juan Carlos helped birth and rescue Spanish democracy, and more than a decade after his tragicomic fall, he is hoping for a reconsideration and a resurrection. The memoir, “Reconciliation,” is packed with family grievances, mea culpas and some appreciation for what he calls Franco’s “intelligence and political sense.” He included a rare recounting of the death of his younger brother, killed, he said, by a ricocheting bullet when they played with a gun as teenagers. And there was a fair share of self-aggrandizement — “I gave freedom to the Spanish people” — in the hopes of a return to relevance, and perhaps liquidity.