PORTUGAL: The Fall of a Hero-General

Portugal’s fragile revolutionary government was still intact last week following ten days of political tensions that threatened to bring the country to the brink of civil war. Nonetheless, it had lost its first hero and a good deal of its innocence. General António de Spínola, 64, the hero-general of the Portuguese revolution, split with the young leftist officers who engineered the April coup and resigned as provisional President. In an emotional farewell address on television, Spínola criticized many of the government’s policies and warned that they would result in economic chaos, anarchy and “new forms of slavery.” He was immediately replaced by General Francisco da Costa Gomes, 60, an old friend and the second-ranking member of the ruling junta.

Spínola’s resignation was the climax of a long-simmering struggle between the young officers of the Armed Forces Movement, the rebel group that toppled the Caetano regime, and the conservative general they had chosen as the figurehead leader of their revolution. Tension grew after Spínola made a bid last July for immediate elections, which he would almost certainly have won, thereby acquiring vastly enlarged powers. The officers rebuffed him, fearing that he was attempting to take over the revolution for himself. Lately, Spínola had begun making appeals to the “silent majority” to “awaken and defend itself actively against extremist totalitarianism.” The appeal appeared to be a veiled warning against Portugal’s well-organized Communist Party.

Someone obviously got the message. Three weeks ago, well-financed political organizers, billing themselves as members of the “silent majority,” began drawing up plans for a huge pro-Spínola rally in front of the presidential palace in Lisbon. Huge posters showing a man saying “Maioria Silenciosa” (Silent Majority) began appearing on Lisbon walls. Buses were hired and free train tickets were given away to bring people into Lisbon from the countryside. Leftists soon launched a poster counteroffensive, tearing down the silent-majority signs or embellishing them with fangs and swastikas.

As the threat of violence between leftists and right-wingers mounted, friendly Western diplomats, as well as members of the government, warned Spínola that the rally was a cover for a countercoup led by extreme right-wing forces loyal to the old regime. The plot, according to the government, called for the assassination of both Spínola and Premier Vasco dos Santos Gonçalves. The purported aim was to create chaos if not civil war, thus enabling the extreme right wing to seize power.

Too Gloomy. Not until the day of the demonstration did Spínola finally call it off. By then, military units and leftist vigilantes had put up roadblocks around the city, searching cars for arms. Some 250 people, many of them prominent figures in the old regime, were arrested. When leftists on the ruling junta ordered Spínola to oust three conservative generals who were believed to be sympathetic to the rightist scheme, he balked—and then resigned.

Major Vitor Alves, a Minister Without Portfolio in the Gonçalves Cabinet, told TIME’S Robert Kroon last week that other members of the government had never had any quarrel with Spínola about the revolution’s fundamental aim of restoring civil liberties and holding democratic elections. “The trouble was,” Alves said, “that Spínola had a different analysis of how to go about this process. He was too pessimistic, too gloomy, too rigid.”

There are clear and substantive differences between the democratic-leftist politics of Premier Gonçalves and Spínola’s more conservative stance. Spínola worried that the junta’s policy of allowing all political parties to organize freely would permit the Communists to acquire too much power before the election. He also opposed granting outright independence to the African territories, favoring instead a referendum that would let them unite with Portugal if they chose. In recent weeks, he announced that he was taking the settlement of oil-rich Angola into his own hands, and had set up meetings with the white business community while ignoring representatives of the territory’s black liberation movements.

Foreign observers believe that the new team of Costa Gomes and Gonçalves will be a workable one. A career officer, Costa Gomes earned his stars in the African theater where, like Spínola, he came to oppose Portugal’s colonial wars. When Spínola brought out his controversial book criticizing Portuguese colonial policy last February, Costa Gomes, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Caetano regime, supported his deputy; both were ousted from their posts. His following in the military is said to be as large and as loyal as that of Spínola’s; he is also considered a better politician than his predecessor. The real winner in last week’s shake-up is undeniably Gonçalves, 53, a quick-tempered, idealistic former army engineer who is widely regarded as the principal architect of the April 25th revolution. Says one longtime political observer in Lisbon: “Gonçalves has about him a little bit of the style of the evangelist missionary who is committed to saving people’s souls whether they want it or not.”

As for Spínola, his own future in politics may not be over yet. Despite his resignation, he still commands a large following. If he decided to run for office, he could become a strong contender in next March’s elections. Although he said nothing about that last week, there are many who are doubtful that the last words have yet been heard from the monocled general.