António de Oliveira Salazar

I would like them to take back the concordat made with Adolf Hitler, the first treaty he ever signed, giving the church a monopoly over education in Germany in exchange for the dissolution of the Catholic Center Party to give the Nazi Party a clear run.

I'd apologize for the Lateran Pact with Mussolini, myself, also the first treaty ever signed by that fascist dictator.

I would also think I'd want to reconsider the fact that Father Tiso, head of the Nazi puppet state in Slovakia, was a priest in holy orders.

that the Croatian fascist puppet state, the Ustaše state of Ante Pavelic, was also operating under full clerical protection and disguise, as was the regime of General Franco and the dictator Antonio Salazar.

And I'd also want, I really think I would beg forgiveness for this, I don't think the German church should have asked Hitler's birthday to be celebrated from the pulpit every year until he died.

These are very serious matters, and they're not to be laughed off by references to the occasional work of Catholic charities.

And that's why, like, you've got, like, Matthew Schmitz and Adrian...

Vermeule praising Antonio Salazar in Portugal.

He was a right-wing dictator that integralists in Portugal loved until he had them all arrested when he became dictator because he didn't want them contesting his power.

And that sort of points to the two kinds of cases that are in the book.

This sounds like it could not possibly be true, but you know, like, you know, Tom and I would have these conversations where it's like, I cannot believe that this is like the thread that holds all of these together.

I will say it's weakest in Portugal.

It's there in Portugal, but in Portugal, they kind of, it's kind of like Antonio Salazar is kind of a sober enough person that he's not spreading this sort of thing.

But like, you know, and the stage in Croatia are like, you know, killing um uh jews left and right and serbs and spain doesn't even have any jews remember they kicked their jews out in 1492 or whatever uh whatever the year was what's the same year as columbus i don't know yeah no it was the same year it was it's a big year in spain it was a big year um they kick all their jews out and they're still anti-semites this is there's a really great uh there's a really great thing that i read while writing this book called anti-semitism without jews It was sort of like, I don't know.

But, you know, what I find truly profound today is how Público juxtaposes the current white hot panic we see in places like Brazil and France with how Portugal is processing its own deeply polarized history.

Oh, you're talking about the new interpretation center for the Estado Novo dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

Yes.

Yeah.

[música tensa] Quatorze anos antes, dezembro de 1963.

Passam cinco anos desde que Humberto Delgado se candidatou às eleições presidenciais contra Américo Tomás e o general continua a ser um problema para Salazar, mesmo estando exilado no Brasil desde 1959.

Um governo sem poder, um governo mentiroso, um governo que não perde um grande testemunho.

[ruído de maquina de escrever]

[ruído de objetos sendo colocados na mala do carro] Num dos porta-bagagens, há um garrafão, um saco com cal, uma picareta e uma pá.

Antes de entrarem em Espanha, mudam as matrículas.

[ruído de carros] A brigada da PIDE está prestes a encontrar-se com Humberto Delgado, mas o general acha que vai ter uma reunião política com opositores ao regime de Salazar.

O encontro foi marcado por uma pessoa em quem Delgado confia, um homem que vive em Itália e que se tem feito passar por um exilado próximo da oposição.

For nearly 50 years, it was a right-wing dictatorship.

ruled by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

He called his regime the new state.

The dictator demanded obedience and respect from his people.

This was the heart of the Estado Novo, the new state, a regime that had held a nation in its grip for nearly half a century.

Its leader, the frail and distant Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano, moved through these halls like a ghost, inheriting a legacy of authoritarian control from his predecessor, António de Oliveira Salazar.

He was a man steeped in the traditions of the past, yet he found himself presiding over a country that was increasingly restless, a nation simmering with frustrations that were no longer a secret.

The very stones of the palace seemed to absorb the whispers of discontent from the city outside, a city that was a mix of faded grandeur and stark poverty.

The Estado Novo regime was built on three main pillars: God, fatherland, and family.

It was a conservative, corporatist state that aimed to preserve a romanticized, traditional Portugal free from the messy influences of democracy and communism.

António de Oliveira Salazar, a former economics professor, had seized control in 1932 and molded the country in his image.

He centralized power, suppressed all opposition, and ran the economy with a strict, almost parsimonious hand.