Between April 1974 and November 1975 the

word s attention was gripped by political events

in a small country of nine million people which

had been all but ignored over the preceding

half-century. A comatose dictatorship was

overthrown by a handful of young, revolutionary

army captains, and western Europe s first

revolution since World War I1 was underway.

Within months, the military radicals, in alliance

with the Communist party, had deposed the

president they themselves had installed, and

had opened the floodgates of change. Farm

seizures, nationalizations and workers takeovers

swept the country, crippling the foundiations of

Portugal s old.fashioned economy. Portugal s

African empire was dissolved almost overnight.

As Ithe results of Portugal s first free elections,

held in April 1975, were derided by Portugal s

soldiers, the country seemed to be heading

toward a Nasser-style, left-wing army

dictatorship.

But in the summer of 1975 the large majority

of Portuguese who had voted for the country s

democratic parties rose up in a unique popular

explosion, which threatened to split the country

into two armed camps - the anti-Communist

north and center and the Communist south.

Civil war was averted only when the radical