Word: gon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fall of Gonçalves represents the most devastating setback that military radicals and their Communist supporters have suffered since the start of the April 1974 revolution. The new Revolutionary Council appears to lean solidly toward the moderate-center; it contains seven moderates, eight swing officers and only four known cohorts of Gonçalves. Last week's actions also apparently restored the Council to its role as supreme arbiter of the revolution; its power had been eclipsed since the creation in late July of a ruling triumvirate composed of Gonçalves, President Francisco da Costa Gomes...
...Gonçalves' fall was triggered−inadvertently−by Costa Gomes. After first bowing to moderates' pressure two weeks ago and dismissing Gonçalves as Premier, he then sought to appease the radicals by naming Gonçalves as chief of the general staff−the country's top military post. This move set off an increasingly hostile reaction within the M.F. A. The first ranking officer to speak up against Gonçalves' appointment as chief of the general staff was the air force commander, General Jose Morais da Silva, who spoke...
Annoyed by this insubordination, Costa Gomes summoned Morais da Silva to Lisbon's Belem Palace to deliver a reprimand. But then the army chief of staff, General Carlos Fabiao, also spoke out against Gonçalves. The bearded Fabiao called an all-day meeting of army officers at Tancos, 80 miles north of Lisbon, to discuss the situation. "Speaking in the name of the army," Fabiao told newsmen before the convention, "I doubt that the figure of Vasco Gonçalves contributes anything to the unity of the army−to the contrary...
...Gonçalves rushed to Tancos to make an emotional plea for support, but he soon sensed that the mood of the meeting was strongly against him. "I came here to engage in selfcriticism, not to provoke disunity. Since this is not understood, I'm going away." By a 4-to-l margin, the army assembly voted to press for Gonçalves' ouster. So did a similar convocation of air force officers; they backed General Morais da Silva's argument that Gonçalves' appointment "could lead to a dictatorship of the minority...
Boycotts and Shouts. The denouement came late Friday, when Costa Gomes convened the M.F.A.'s General Assembly at Tancos, hoping to gain its backing for the appointment of Gonçalves as chief of the general staff. But the meeting was boycotted by delegates from both the army and the air force, which sent only their chiefs of staff to represent them. It degenerated into a shouting match. Seeing how little support he had, Gonçalves accepted the inevitable and−in the euphemistic phrase of the official communiqué−"declined the place of chief...