[4] As a friend of Franco he was instrumental in convincing him to join in the coup attempt of José Sanjurjo, Emilio Mola and other right-wing generals that led to the Spanish Civil War.

[8] As a cabinet Minister he took the lead in attacking the Constitutional proposals put forward by the Falangist hard-line of Manuel Hedilla, Dionisio Ridruejo, Agustín Aznar and Fernando González Vélez which sought to build Spain into a party state along the lines of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

[11] However, he remained committed to monarchism and, along with Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right leader José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones and the author Eugenio Vegas Latapié, he was one of the three main consellors of Juan.

[13] Increasingly distant from Franco, he was even accused by el caudillo of organising international criticism of Spain in a Masonic plot with Santiago Montero Díaz, a dissident from the Falange wing although Sainz Rodríguez had no link.

[15] Indeed, when the staunch Falangist Mauricio Carlavilla produced the book Anti-España 1959, which criticised the monarchist cause as a tool of Freemasonry, Franco indicated to Juan that he shared many of its views because of the prominence of Sainz Rodríguez in monarchism.