Word: lisbon
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...week the Directory was installed by the Armed Forces Movement (M.F.A.), the revolution's founding group, and assumed powers previously wielded by the M.F.A.'s 30-man Revolutionary Council. There were immediate signs that the new triumvirate's opponents could expect tough treatment. Arriving back in Lisbon after a visit to Cuba, Saraiva de Carvalho warned: "The M.F.A. is prepared to take the path of very hard repression. It is becoming impossible to have a socialist revolution by completely peaceful means...
...sake, respect the political feelings of the majority of Portuguese. To do this, Soares would have to define and present a realistic economic and social program and have the courage to mobilize the mass of nonradical Portuguese in support of it. Says one hopeful European diplomat in Lisbon: "As the economy slides and as the regime's lack of authority becomes more evident, the moment could arrive." If and when it does come, it could be the only chance that Portugal's revolution has of accomplishing something other than merely exchanging one dictatorship for another...
Meanwhile, Premier Gonçalves was apparently struggling to assemble a new Cabinet-the fifth since the coup. Al though President Costa Gomes announced at midweek that "a new government has been formed," its composition had not been revealed by week's end. Observers in Lisbon therefore concluded that Gonçalves was having great difficulty in persuading any civilians, except Communists and radical leftists, to serve in a Cabinet that would wield little real power, would be dominated by the military. Certain to be absent from the Cabinet are the moderates-the Socialists and centrist Popular Democrats...
...with the moderates and were outraged by Gonçalves' ineptness as an administrator and his increasingly close relations with Communist Party Boss Cunhal. Whether or not this assessment was correct, Soares seems to have overplayed his hand. At a mammoth rally of 50,000 Socialist supporters in Lisbon, he demanded the ouster of Gonçalves. Apparently viewing the speech as an attack on the military's ability to rule the country, the Council's members closed ranks and backed Gonçalves...
What catalyzed these officers and politicized their anger was opposition to the seemingly endless, futile wars Lisbon had been waging since 1961 against liberation movements in Portugal's African territories. Many of them had spent almost all of their military careers in Africa. Not only did they bear the brunt of the fighting and physical hardship, but they were appalled by the wars' drain on their country-an estimated 300 killed annually and a continuing expenditure equivalent to 40% of Portugal's national budget. "The officers of the M.F.A. came to realize that they were sitting...