An accident in the callista: this was the fall of António Salazar, the Portuguese dictator allied with Franco

The fall of Antonio Salazar, the dictator who ruled Portugal for forty years, occurred literally when received the callista at his summer residence Estoril and when he sat down he hit his head which left him disabled, so he was replaced and when he recovered he was made to believe that he was still the head of the Government.

Italian writer and journalist Marco Ferrari Account in “The incredible story of António Salazar, the dictator who died twice” (Discuss) the farce organized by his ministers to make him believe that things were still the same, for which simulated government meetings were called, state visits and he was given manipulated copies of the press.

After the fall and due to the seriousness of the consequences, the jurist was chosen to replace him. Marcelo Caetano, former minister in several governments, and what seemed like a replacement without major consequences, had to be reconsidered after the partial recovery of the octogenarian Salazar.

The essay also covers the forty years of Salazar’s government, which emerged in 1933, the decisions made, the control of the colonies, the creation of the secret political police, the PIDE, which had more than 20,000 officials and some 200,000 informants, the terrible penitentiary centers in the fortresses of the colonies. It also reviews the women who were in the life of the dictator, who never married and is believed to have died chaste, of which the most important was the governess who attended him, María de Jesús Caetano Freire, and who had a great influence on the dictator.

Marco Ferrari discovers the complex personality of Salazar, a shy man, a former seminary student, unsociable, austere, very religious, who hardly traveled and that he only left Portugal three times to meet with Franco in Spain.

Both dictators, although quite different physically, in training and in character, needed each other. Salazar supported Franco during the Civil War with men and supplies, apart from being one of the first governments to break with the Republic.

Unlike Franco or the Italian dictator Mussolini, his regime was not interventionist or played to mobilize broad masses in party events. He knew how to band in World War II by giving a base to the allies in the Azores and selling materials to Nazi Germany.

According to Ferrari, Salazar and Franco “felt invested with a superior mission that would put an end to chaos and ruin fighting extremism and communism. It is not surprising that Franco followed Salazar’s advice to stay out of the second world conflict.

With the decolonization process in Africa in the 1960s, Portugal did not grant independence to any of its colonies, an empire that encompassed Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, East Timor and Macao.

The last two years of Salazar’s life were a great play performed by the real rulers. After all, they owed their positions to the longest-serving dictator in Europe who died convinced that he was still the undisputed president of the Council of Ministers and the most powerful man in Portugal.