a distant perspective. Presence of prince Juan Carlos at the honorary tribune during the 1965 Victory Day parade made it clear that Franco was leaning towards the Alfonsist dynastical solution. The carlohuguistas also realized that the Valiente-sponsored posibilismo has crashed. Their social radicalism was losing its pro-Falangist tone and was taking an increasingly Marxist turn instead. Valiente, isolated in the executive, was not in position to prevent it, especially that the new wave or reorganisation left the party management in hands of Zavala and his team. At the time, the carlohuguistas already controlled the Carlist student organization Agrupación Escolar Tradicionalista (AET) and the trade-unionist Movimiento Obrero Tradicionalista (MOT). In 1966-1967 the Traditionalist old guard were effectively sidelined into decorative bodies. Valiente was bombarded with alarm messages which denounced subversive revolutionary infiltration of Carlism; however, guided by loyalty to the king, which seemed to have endorsed the course advanced by his son, and judging the charges as exaggerated, he did not mount firm opposition. Increasingly bewildered, isolated, in disagreement with the course promoted by the prince and consumed by tension, he tried to hand his resignation as jefe delegado; it was eventually accepted by Don Javier in late 1967 and made public in early 1968. Last years (1968-1982) Few weeks before getting his resignation accepted, in late 1967 Valiente was nominated to the Cortes, hand-picked by Franco from the pool of his personal appointees. The exact mechanism of the nomination is not clear, though as master of his trademark balancing game the dictator might have intended to play Valiente against Don Carlos Hugo. It is neither clear whether his resignation from jefatura delegada and his appointment to the Cortes were interrelated. Valiente accepted the nomination and in a letter to Don Javier he pledged to continue working for the Carlist cause. In 1968-1969 his relations with the claimant remained cordial, though impaired by health problems of both politicians. It changed when in 1970 Valiente was re-appointed to the Cortes, again as Franco's personal appointee; in an effusive acceptance letter Valiente thanked the dictator and declared that "estoy y quiero estar siempre con Vuestra Excelencia". Don Javier demanded that the nominee declines the assignment. However, Valiente was already determined not to give in. In a personal letter to the claimant, dated November 1970, he underlined his loyalty to the Traditionalist principles, implicitly suggesting that it was Don Javier who might have abandoned