The professional soldier

Where had Antonio Ramalho Eanes sprung from? The question was to bemuse Portuguese commentators for months afterwards. For a year after the departure of General Spinola, Portugal had had no leader, but had been buffeted about between rival groups of soldiers, none of them strong enough, apparently, to grasp absolute power. Suddenly, out of the ferment, had sprung a leader, a man of few words but backed by disciplined units no one knew still existed, and had cut off Portugal’s other more garrulous soldiers in mid-sentence. With his dark glasses and stern, unsmiling face, the newly promoted General Eanes looked almost a caricature of a Latin military dictator. But, like almost everything else about him, his looks were deceptive. When they forced him to take off his dark glasses and wear civilian clothes, to look more democratic, he ended up looking like a mild-mannered bank clerk.