The Spanish Socialist Party, which stands disgraced for corruption and state terrorism in the view of many Spaniards today, came to power in 1982 with high hopes and clean hands.
Felipe Gonzalez's party consolidated democracy, steered Spain into the EU, rebooted the economy, and threw off decades of authoritarian social and sexual repression. He gained a reputation as an international statesman, and has been tipped as the next president of the European Commission. In Spain, however, he has become an intensely controversial figure.
To his supporters he is the greatest Spanish democrat of the century. To his detractors, who range from conservatives to communists, he has become the personification of the abuse of state power.
He himself would not deny that widespread corruption tarnished his administration. But he has rigidly denied any responsibility for the GAL'S dirty war against ETA in the 1980s, which ultimately led to the conviction for kidnapping of his then minister for the interior.
The emergence of the GAL was understandable, though hardly excusable. The PSOE expected that ETA would respond positively to the first government to be formed by fellow anti-Francoists. But the radicals simply upped the ante, killing more and more senior members of the armed forces in pursuit of the non-negotiable goal of Basque independence.
Having failed to purge the Interior Ministry's police forces of its Francoist commanders, elements in the PSOE clearly found the option of paying ETA back in its own coin irresistible. A shameful campaign which included torture, and indiscriminate shootings and bombings with victims as young as two years old, followed.
Gonzalez maintained total denial. But he did tell national TV that "if judges establish that my government was in any way involved, I will take political responsibility".
The Supreme Court has now established such involvement, but the former prime minister is still stonewalling. The party will back the former minister in taking his case to the constitutional court, and on to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. But as another, much more gruesome, GAL case comes to trial in the autumn, and several more are stacked up for the coming years, his credibility is likely to deteriorate further.