The key to Franco’s art was an ability to avoid concrete definition.
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The monarchist aviator Juan Antonio Ansaldo wrote of him "Franco is a man who says things and unsays them, who draws near and slips away, he vanishes and trickles away; always vague and never clear or categoric." John Whitaker met him during the Civil War: "He was effusively flattering, but he did not give a frank answer to any question I put to him. A less straightforward man I never met."
Mussolini's Ambassador Roberto Cantalupo met him some months later and found Franco to be "icy, feminine and elusive (sfuggente)". The day after first meeting Franco in 1930, the poet and noted wit José María Pemán was introduced by a friend as "the man who speaks best in all Spain" and remarked "I think I've just met the man who keeps quiet best in all Spain" (Tengo la sospecha de haber conocido al bombre que mejor se calla en España).
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Paul Preston, (1994) "Franco: A Biography". Prologue. Pg. 18-20