RE: Portugal: Salazar and Africa

Christopher Jones writes: "Salazar is inseparable from the African colonies, and he was no mere "front man", to use Marxist language.  He correctly recognized that Portugal in the community would be just a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  And that is exactly what it is today: a poor backwater on the edge of Europe with incredible social tensions.  Instead, Salazar wanted to maintain Portugal's historic colonial relationships and went so far as to keep up the image of Goa and Dao long after Indian troops had taken back these towns.  For him, the Portuguese empire was the only way to prevent Portugal from becoming a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  This idea was even picked up in Portugal e o Futuro by General Antônio de Spínola, who advocated the transformation of the empire into a sort of strengthened commonwealth.  Even Spínola, the man who was chosen by the radical Marxist officers of the MFA (Movimento das Forças Armadas) saw that Portugal without her colonies and integrated in Europe would become even more dependent on the big families.  What has become of Portugal?  It is now a playground for the wealthy, sporting some of the continent's best golf courses.  it also has grinding poverty, an almost non existent social welfare system and stratospheric real estate prices that in Lisbon means that many Portuguese can no longer afford the rent".

RH:  This ties in with Mrs. Heinz Kerry's denunciation of the Portuguese dictatorship, I wonder what she thought in the decades of chaos following the "liberation" of the Portuguese African colonies.  What does she think of  the Soviet destabilization  of the continent and Castro's armed intervention there?  While Angola and Mozambique fell into chaos, Portugal itself seems to be doing better than Christopher suggests.