Abstract
This chapter deals with the international dimensions of the Portuguese colonial crisis, focusing on the beginning of the war in Angola in early 1961, and on the reaction of several countries to the problems Portugal was facing in that territory and, in the following years, in Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique. It begins with a general overview of Portuguese colonialism in the context of the Cold War and then analyses the positions taken by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961 regarding Portuguese colonial crisis. The argument presented here is that Portugal was able to circumvent the difficulties felt in the United Nations (UN) and in the relationship with the United States by developing and strengthening its relations with the above mentioned European countries. Contrary to what Salazar, the leader of the Portuguese government, would claim in 1965, Portugal was not ‘proudly alone’ in its military efforts in Africa and diplomacy was playing a central role in the Portuguese strategy of resisting decolonization.
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Notes
See also L. N. Rodrigues, No Coração do Atlântico: Os Estados Unidos e os Açores, 1939–1948, Lisbon, Prefácio, 2005.
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Marcos, Salazar e de Gaulle, 2007, pp. 110–114.
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A. M. Fonseca, A Torça das Armas: O Apoio da Republica Tederal da Alemanha ao Estado Novo, 1958–1968, Lisbon, Institute Diplomático, 2007, pp. 94, 127–30.
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NARA, DSLF 68D401, Entry 5296, Box 6, EUR/SPP, Message from USARMA, Lisbon to ACSI, DA, 19 June 1964. See also Crollen, Portugal, the United States and Nato, 1973, p. 132.
Nogueira, Diâlogos Interditos, 1979, pp. 163–166.
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See also A. Telo, ‘As guerras de Africa e a mudança nos apoios internacionais de Portugal’, Revista de História das Ideias, 16, 1994, pp. 347–369;
Pinto, O Fim do Império Português, 2001.
W. A. Nielsen, The Great Powers and Africa, New York, NY, Praeger, 1969, pp. 288–291.
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Rodrigues, L.N. (2015). The International Dimensions of Portuguese Colonial Crisis. In: Jerónimo, M.B., Pinto, A.C. (eds) The Ends of European Colonial Empires. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394064_11
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