Abstract:

Pre-elections polls have never before been so disqualified in Spain. It will need quite a few years of impeccable work and new favourable electoral conditions for the professional activity of public opinion researchers to recover the image and the respect that without any doubt they enjoy in other Western countries. The big national debate in Spain on Spain's staying in or leaving NATO became one of the biggest political storms imaginable, even to the point that many commentators remembered the old dichotomy of "the two Spains" (which has caused us Spaniards so many headaches throughout our history). Let us look at the development of Spanish public opinion on NATO, from the start of the post-Franco democratic period until the moment just before Spain's joining this organisation (1975-81).