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and was ready to embark on the career of elder statesman. He was
prepared to work with some of his more progressive advisers to trans-
form the resources of the colonial empire into a basis for Portuguese
economic development on a scale not attempted since the late 19th
century. Investment of capital and encouragement to settlers in the
African territories were key elements in extracting the latent riches of
some 800,000 square miles for the benefit of the 35,000 square-mile
mother country. Unfortunate for his plan, the dictator was confronted
with an upsurge of anticolonialism that had already forced Britain and
France to surrender much of their overseas domain. Inevitably the
oldest empire of all became the target of international denunciation,
and Salazar's response of a revised constitution that made the “over-
seas provinces” an integral part of Portugal was greeted with derision.
As early as 1961 India snatched back Goa and its dependencies, which
had been Portugal's earliest footholds on the subcontinent. Beginning
in 1964 revolt spread across Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea, pre-
senting Salazar with the stark question. Should Portugal defy world
opinion and the prospect of bankruptcy to confront the colonial insur-
rections? Answering in the affirmative he levied conscription on a
scale that put one of every four young Portuguese men into uniform
and sent nearly a quarter of a million troops to Africa. The master
economist, who had rescued his country from its fiscal woes 40 years
earlier through shrewd, prudent calculations, now seemed ready to
risk everything on a gigantic gamble against the tide of history. He was
not to see the end of the game, for he suffered a paralyzing stroke in
1968 that obliged him to surrender power to a deputy. Salazar died in
1970 and was accorded a state funeral on a scale worthy of a national
hero, but the war went on.
Marcelo Caetano, the dictator's longtime associate, who had served
as university president, cabinet minister, and party official, took up the
reins of government when the prime minister became incapacitated
and retained them after his death. While maintaining the structure of
dictatorship he sought to convey an impression of moderation by easing
some of the regime's more repressive practices. He would recount in his
memoirs how he strove to keep a balance between conservatives and
progressives by adroit gestures that alternated between a hard line and
a glimmer of hope. Whether Caetano was simply not capable of sus-
taining this complex balancing act or whether the situation in Africa
was simply too ruinous to continue, he did not long survive the death
of his predecessor. As in the U.S. struggle in Vietnam, the Portuguese
employed warships to halt arms smuggling along the coasts and probe
the interior waterways, planes to scout for troop movement in the
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