the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt twelve)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

In the chaos of the day, the exact timeline of events is murky. There are conflicting reports on exactly when the population surged on the PIDE headquarters, and reports of gunfire throughout the day and of emergency cars driving wounded civilians away from the action in the mid-afternoon, likely the result of various failed popular incursions on the building, pushed away by the violent response. It’s generally accepted, however, that at around 20: 00, a group of around six hundred civilians from Terreiro do Paço congregate once again in front of number 20 António Maria Cardoso, baying for the heads of those inside, with shouts of ‘Assassins!’ and ‘Death to PIDE’. PIDE’s first response is to set loose an attack dog, which the crowd manages to scare off with sticks and rocks. Then, paving stones are prised from the ground, the mob putting their hands to anything they can hurl at the building, lashing out in hatred. And then–at around 20: 10–agents of the political police open fire from the upper windows and balconies, into the centre of the crowd, following a direct order from Fernando Silva Pais. The bullets meet bodies, dozens of them, as the civilians scatter and dive. They kill Fernando Carvalho Guesteira, seventeen years old, a waiter. They kill José James Hartley Barneto, thirty-eight, father of four, a clerk at the National Confectioners’ Guild. They kill João Guilherme Rego Arruda,* twenty, a second-year philosophy student. And they kill Fernando Luís Barreiros dos Reis, a 23-year-old off-duty soldier who happened to be taking a holiday in Lisbon on the day of the coup, and who, joining his voice with the civilians around him, becomes the first and only military death of 25 April. The hail of PIDE bullets doesn’t discriminate–the lucky ones are the men and women who dive behind parked cars or into alleys, taking grazes or even a few bullets in the back or even coming out unscathed altogether. In addition to the four dead, the PIDE bullets injure upwards of forty-five more–the vast majority in their late teens and early twenties.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt eleven)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

In her song ‘Cheira a Lisboa’, Amália Rodrigues, Portugal’s undisputed queen of Fado, sings that Lisbon smells of the coffee shops of Rossio. This early afternoon, just gone noon, Rossio smells of gasoline and blistered asphalt as Maia’s convoy enters the square and begins to veer left, trying to fit its enormous frames into the narrow Rua do Carmo. The square seems to vibrate with the rumble of the M47 tanks. Maia spots a column of infantrymen from the 1st Infantry Regiment, packed into the backs of transport trucks, rolling into the square from the other end. He exits his jeep to speak with the commander. It’s another push from the government–they’ve been sent to stop Maia’s column, but the commander says they’re with the revolutionaries. Maia orders them to follow along, and the convoy gains several dozen more heavily armed soldiers. Celeste Caeiro is here now, among the crowd, clutching her bunch of carnations in her hands, her eyes wide as she watches her city taken over by machines of war she’s only ever seen on grainy footage of military parades. One of the M47 tanks passes a few feet in front of her, and the man atop it looks down, smiling.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asks the man, with a sudden surge of courage.

‘A revolution!’ he replies.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt ten)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

On the morning of 25 April 1974, Celeste Caeiro is on her way to work. Celeste is forty years old–short, with a tight mop of greying hair and thick round glasses, she heads from her tiny downtown apartment to the self-service restaurant Sir on the ground floor of the Franjinhas, where she works as a cleaner. Celeste knows the owner is preparing a celebration of sorts–the restaurant first opened exactly one year ago. The cunning marketing strategy for today, she’s heard, is to offer gentlemen customers a free glass of port, and give ladies a carnation. The flowers arrived yesterday, dozens of large bunches in anticipation of the lunch rush. As she arrives, Celeste is surprised that the restaurant is dark, the door closed, with no sign of the cheerful decorations she was expecting. She pokes her head in and sees the owner hunched by the radio, which is tuned to Rádio Clube Português, the room strewn with large unopened bunches of red and white carnations. His expression is grim. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

‘We won’t be opening today, Celeste.’ He gestures at the radio. ‘Something’s happening in the centre, some sort of military operation. They’re telling people to stay home.’ They stand for a few moments in the dark restaurant, listening as the radio plays the military tunes the MFA has lined up for the gaps between their missives. ‘You’d better go home too, Celeste,’ the owner says. ‘Here–take some of these with you.’ He gestures at one of the large piles of flowers strewn around him. Celeste grabs a bunch and leaves, facing the notion of an unexpected day off, curious about the events that have caused it. She walks to the metro station at Marquês de Pombal and travels two stops down, to Restauradores.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt nine)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Dina holds it together enough to crack a joke. ‘You mean we’re not going to the opera tomorrow?’ He’d forgotten. They have tickets to La Traviata. It’ll have to be for another time.

Otelo kisses his sleeping eight-year-old son on the head, and embraces his wife one final time. ‘Until Friday, my love. I’ll be here to have lunch with you.’ He exits the house with his uniform in a bag. He remembers, too late, he’s left his pistol behind. Walking back into the house, he sees his wife on their bed, arms wrapped around her knees, sobbing heavily.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt eight)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Portugal and the Future (Portugal e o Futuro) hits the shelves on 22 February, and it’s an immediate bestseller. Costa Gomes’ review turns out to have been burying the lede. Spínola reaffirms his statements on the solution to the colonial problem being political and explicitly not military, and goes one step further, stating that that political solution must base itself on the self-determination rights of the respective African peoples. He doesn’t advocate for full independence, but rather a federated system with each of the nations governed by representatives of the black majority–avoiding by all means the creation of ‘new Rhodesias’. Spínola also acknowledges that, given the nature and development of the conflict, it might already be too late. The PAIGC, for example, had declared formal Guinean independence in late September of 1973, a claim already recognised by a plurality of world nations that flipped the framing of the Portuguese presence from territorial defenders to unwanted invaders. Even Spínola’s intermediate solution might be unachievable. Among the staff officers, Spínola’s book unlocks an avenue of thought and furious discussion that many at that point still consider treasonous–decolonisation. Regardless of the viability of his plan or conclusions, having a prestigious senior officer make a compelling case for national self-determination, in a book published on Portuguese soil, sends shock waves through the military establishment. It seems, for the first time in decades, possible to discuss the Homeland and its History.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt seven)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

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.’

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt six)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Portugal’s need to plumb the depths of its manpower to feed the war machine means that, since 1961, a conscription system has been in place, pushing the vast majority of young men hitting the age of twenty into a two-year mandatory stint in the Army and thus into the thick of the war. In 1971 the conscription age is lowered to eighteen–and by 1973 a significant majority of Portugal’s male population of ‘recruitable’ age is fighting overseas. A proportion of that conscripted stock is put through a short officer training course and allowed, for the duration of their two-year service, to hold officer rank and command a company. Many of these militia officers are held in some degree of contempt by the full-time staff officers, not having undergone the full four-year training and not having initially chosen the military as a career. Their relationship to the war is different by default, being able to return home after their two-(or, later, three-) year service rather than thrown, repeatedly, into the relentless meat grinder the African front has become for the majority of full-time officers in the Portuguese military. It’s militia officers that make up the bulk of those addressing the Congress of Overseas Combatants–their return to civilian life means pushing the argument for continuing the war effort, under the guise of ‘not betraying the Fatherland’, is easier. As the war progresses and the officer stock depletes, those conscripted officers who had done their duty in the early to mid-’ 60s and returned to civilian life are occasionally called back in to fill the vacancies, after another short training course. Some are made to do so ten years after their initial conscription, when they are handed the rank of captain and sent, terrified, unprepared and unwilling, into the front to command a platoon of forty men in the African bush.