[1][2] He fought in the Spanish Civil War in the Republican faction.

[1] As a writer, he authored over 30 books, and translated important works such as the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

[4] As a candidate from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, he was the first leftist Mayor of Madrid after four decades of Francoist government.

[1] During his time as Mayor of Madrid, in addition to his support of the cultural changes of the Movida Madrileña, he promoted or finished many improvements to the city such as the traffic tunnels by the Atocha railway station, the development of incentives to use buses and other mass transports, the cleaning of the Manzanares river, the main market of the city (Mercamadrid) or the reorganization of the Districts of Madrid.

[5] He died in Madrid on 19 January 1986 from a cardiac arrest aged 67.