PORTUGAL: Bargain Bases

For more than three years Portugal watched the dregs of World War II drift down from France and Spain across her borders. Rich refugees in dust-covered Rolls-Royces, tattered fugitives from Axis terror, arrogant diplomats and businessmen from Italy and Germany crowded the narrow streets of her aged, smelly towns. Over the lavish seaside resort of Estoril the wide-winged U.S. Clippers glided down to Lisbon’s Tagus River and at the inland Cintra airport planes of the Lufthansa and the British Airways stood side by side. Portugal was open to all warring nations. Neutrality was profitable and, if one did not look too closely, respectable.

Last week this existence on borrowed time suddenly ended. Into the little harbors of Portugal’s Azores, over 1,000 miles out in the Atlantic, British warships sailed to establish bases. To expectant Portuguese came an announcement from Dictator-Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar: Portugal, harking back to a treaty signed 570 years ago with Britain, had agreed to let the Allies use the Azores.

End & Beginning. Leasing the Azores did not yet mean war for Portugal. The day of the announcement that Allied ships had sailed in, Germany’s Minister Baron Oswald von Hoyningen-Huene talked with Salazar for an hour, came out smiling. Berlin’s reaction was formal: a protest, vague threats of retribution, nothing more. Portugal was a neutral no longer; she was a participant.

Absolute Belligerency? Now that he had half-stepped into World War II, Salazar might continue to dictate neutrality, but war could be dictated by greater powers:

> Germany might dictate it with bombs on Portugal’s harbors, last week crowded with vessels unloading war supplies.

> The Allies might dictate it to get other useful bases: Angola and Mozambique in Africa, the Cape Verde Islands off Dakar. They might even desire Portugal itself for a march into Hitler’s Fortress via Spain.

> Japan might dictate a declaration in the Pacific by further encroachments. Jap soldiers already held Portuguese Timor, were bullying their way through the streets of Portuguese Macao, across the Pearl River from Hong Kong.