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Franco "relaxed" his grip sooner than his (official) death. Here's some info on how Ike ended Spain's isolation which directly led to the "Spanish Miracle":

http://www.answers.com/topic/spain-under-franco

The End of Isolation (1953-1957)

The increased tensions between America and the USSR in the 1950s, forced the American government to search for new allies in Europe. Franco's was a proclaimed anti-Communist, which made him a very reliable key ally on cold war.

Isolation was broken in 1953 when President Dwight Eisenhower visited Spain and the Spanish government signed the Concordato agreement with the Vatican. Several treaties allowing opening of military bases in Spain were signed in 1953. The American government in return gave Spain economic aid, part of it as donation, part of it to be returned.

In 1953 Spanish wealth reached back the pre-war levels of 1935, leaving behind the disasters of the war and the struggle of isolation. Spain joined the UN in 1955.

The Desarrollo, the Spanish Miracle (1957-1973)

The Spanish Miracle (aka Desarrollo) was the name given to the Spanish sheer economic boom between 1959 and 1973 and it is the most remarkable phenomenon and the most important legacy left by Francoist Spain as Spain largely surpassed the per capita income that differenciates developed from underdeveloped countries and induced the development of a dominant middle class which was instrumental to the future establishment of Democracy.

The boom was bolstered by economic reforms promoted by the so-called technocrats, appointed by General Francisco Franco, who put in place neo-liberal development policies from the IMF. The technocrats were a new breed of economists linked to Opus Dei, who replaced the old Falangist guard.

The implementation of these policies took the form of development plans (planes de Desarrollo) and it was largely a success: Spain enjoyed the second world highest growth rate just after Japan and became the ninth largest economy in the world, just after Canada. Spain joined the industrialized world and left behind two centuries of poverty and endemic underdevelopment since the loss of Spanish Empire at the beginning of 19th century.

Albeit the economic growth produced noticeable improvements in Spanish living standards and the development of a middle class, Spain remained less economically advanced relative to the rest of Western Europe (with the exception of Portugal, Greece and Ireland). At the heyday of the Miracle, 1974, Spanish income per capita peaked at 79% of the Western European average, only to be reached again 25 years later, in 1999.

The recovery led to an increase in (often unplanned) building on the periphery of the main Spanish cities to accommodate the new class of industrial workers brought by rural exodus much similar to the French banlieue.

The icon of the Desarrollo was the SEAT 600, the first car for many Spanish working class families, produced by the Spanish SEAT under FIAT licence.

Franco's last years (1973-1975)

The 1973 oil shock severely affected-oil dependent Spain, and brought the economic growth to an halt in 1975. This caused a new sprawl of strikes (nominally illegal at the time).

Franco's declining health gave more power to Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, but he was assassinated by ETA in 1973. Carlos Arias Navarro took over as President of the Spanish Government, and tried to introduced some reforms to the decaying regime, but he struggled between the two factions of the regime, the bunker (far-right) and the aperturists who promoted transition to Democracy.

But there was no way back to the old regime: Spain was not the same as post war times and the model for the now wealthy Spaniards was the prosperous Western Europe, not the impoverished post-war Falangist Spain.