Word: spinola
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...France, West Germany and Portugal were all less than one year old. In Italy, Premier Mariano Rumor headed a chronically unstable coalition (the 37th since 1943). The Labor Party of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson held only 298 of Parliament's 631 seats. Portuguese President António Spinola had no constitutional basis of power and held office at the pleasure of the group of young military officers who deposed the half-century-old dictatorship last spring. Belgium's coalition Cabinet was preoccupied by the linguistic differences that divide the country. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt...
...since proved to be a weak leader, who was better trained to build bridges for the army than act as Premier. Under him the A.F.M. has begun to show some basic ideological contradictions, with its main faction going with Gongalves toward the left and the others moving right with Spinola...
This has been all to the advantage of the monocled and aloof interim President. Spinola, relaxing for the past few weeks in a thermal resort north of Lisbon, has managed to play a deft political game via long distance. His primary bid has been for greater presidential powers, including the dismantlement of the A.F.M. and a declaration of a state of siege to deal with economic problems...
...Communist Party. The ubiquitous red-and-yellow hammer-and-sickle party posters in every Portuguese town indicate that the Communists are the best-organized and -financed party in the country. Minister Without Portfolio Alvaro Cunhal, 60, the Communist leader, has emerged as the government's best politician after Spinola. Counseling moderation and condemning the Maoist left and labor unrest, Cunhal says that his short-term aim is the nationalization of transportation, mines, steel and "other fundamental sectors," plus agrarian reform. Cunhal's speeches round the country outdraw those of any other politician, and his Communist Party has embarked...
...nightmare to many others in Portugal, from the old aristocratic families that control most of the country's major businesses to the Socialist Party, which is bidding for more leftist support but is not so well organized as the Communists. The strength of the Communists clearly causes Spinola concern. "We cannot consent to the installation of a dictatorship under the cover of liberty," he said recently. "If the silent majority does not wake up and defend its liberties, the 25th of April will have been in vain...