On 22 December, the government publishes new legislation that effectively repeals Ordnances 353/73 and 409/73, reverting access to the permanent staff to officers who had completed ‘normal training’, through the regular Military Academy courses. A week later, new guidance comes out massively increasing staff officer salaries across the board–the largest pay rise any of the officers have seen in many years. It’s a bribe–at least that much is obvious to the MOFA executive. To their surprise, however, the government payout only elicits a few raised voices from the officer base declaring victory and questioning the Movement’s need to exist. Focusing energy on to the issue of prestige has struck a chord–and it doesn’t take much to convince their colleagues that the ordnances were only a symptom of a greater problem, one that a pay rise also doesn’t fix. The new laws also create the role of vice chief of staff of the armed forces, a position, second in the military hierarchy, conjured from thin air almost exclusively to deal with the question of António Spínola. The general had returned from Guinea in early November and spent several months in an administrative limbo while the regime figured out what to do with him. Spínola’s highly crafted image, of a respected and effective military man and politician, means the usual route of pushing him into a National Assembly role or a senior post in military academia is likely to ruffle feathers. It’s clear to anyone who’s paid attention to the general’s ascent that his goal is the presidency, but Tomás taking a third term means the second best choice, for now, is to make him the second most powerful military officer in the country. When Spínola takes on the role officially, on 15 January 1974, he delivers the speech he had warned Vasco Lourenço to watch out for one month before. Among the bureaucratic platitudes and thanks, one line in particular stands out: ‘The Armed Forces are not the Praetorian Guard of Power.’
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