Marcelo Caetano

Early life and career

He was the son of José Maria de Almeida Alves Caetano and his first wife Josefa Maria das Neves. Graduated as a Licentiate and later a Doctorate in Law, Caetano was a Cathedratic Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. A conservative politician and a self-proclaimed reactionary in his youth, Caetano started his political career in the 1930s, during the early days of the regime of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Caetano soon became an important figure in the Estado Novo government, and in 1940, he was appointed chief of the Portuguese Youth Organisation. Caetano progressed in his academic career at the university, published several works and lectured law. In jail for political reasons, Álvaro Cunhal, a law student, the future leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, submitted his final thesis on the topic of abortion before a faculty jury that included Caetano.

Between 1944 and 1947, Caetano was minister of the colonies, and in 1947, he became the president of the executive board of the National Union. He also served as president of the Corporative Chamber between 1949 and 1955.

From 1955 to 1958, he was the minister attached to the presidency of the Council of Ministers and was the most powerful man in the regime after Salazar, who was approaching the age of retirement. Their relationship was tense at times, which stopped Caetano from being a clear successor. He returned to his academic career and maintained formally-important political functions such as the executive president of the National Union, Caetano became the ninth rector of the University of Lisbon from 1959, but the Academic Crisis of 1962 led him to resign after protesting students clashed with riot police in the campus. On the other hand, students who supported the regime tried to boycott the anti-regime activism. There were indeed three generations of militants of the radical right at the Portuguese universities and schools between 1945 and 1974 who were guided by a revolutionary nationalism partly influenced by the political subculture of European neofascism. The core of these radical students' struggle lay in an uncompromising defence of the Portuguese Empire in the days of the fascist regime.

Prime minister

In August 1968, Salazar suffered a stroke after a fall in his home and went into a coma. After 36 years in office, the 79-year-old was dismissed by President Américo Tomás (or Thomaz). Thomaz appointed Caetano to replace Salazar on 27 September 1968. However, no one informed the recovered Salazar that he had been removed as leader of the regime that he had largely created. By some accounts, when Salazar died in July 1970, he still believed he was prime minister.

Many people hoped that Caetano would soften the edges of Salazar's authoritarian regime and modernise the economy. Caetano moved to foster economic growth and some social improvements, such as the awarding of a monthly pension to rural workers who had never had the chance to pay social security. The three objectives of Caetano's pension reform were to enhance equity, reduce the fiscal and actuarial imbalance and achieve more efficiency for the economy as a whole such as by establishing contributions that were less distortive to labour markets and allowing the savings generated by pension funds to increase the investments in the economy. Some large-scale investments were made at the national level, such as the building of a major oil processing center in Sines.

The economy reacted very well at first, but in the 1970s, some serious problems began to show, partly because double-digit inflation started 1970 and partly because of the short-term effects of the 1973 oil crisis despite the largely-unexploited oil reserves, which Portugal had in its overseas territories in Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe that were being developed and promised to become sources of wealth in the medium to long term.

Caetano's political power was largely held in check by Thomaz. On paper, the president's power to remove Salazar had been the only check on his power. Thomaz, like his predecessors, had largely been a figurehead under Salazar. Indeed, Thomaz' decision to sack Salazar was the only time he used his presidential powers during his first decade in office. However, Thomaz was not willing to give as free a hand to Caetano.

Although Caetano had been one of the architects of the Estado Novo, he took some steps to blunt the harsher edges of the regime in the so-called "political spring" (also called Marcellist Spring – Primavera Marcellista). He referred to his regime as a "social state" and changed the name of the official party, the National Union to the "People's National Action" (Ação Nacional Popular). The PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, International and State Defense Police), the dreaded secret police, was renamed the DGS (Direcção-Geral de Segurança, General-Directorate of Security). He also eased press censorship and allowed the first independent labor unions since the 1920s.

Overthrow

By the beginning of 1974, signals of rebellion increased. The left-wing Armed Forces Movement was formed within the army and started planning a coup to end the regime. In March, an unsuccessful coup attempt was made against the regime from the right, organised by General Kaúlza de Arriaga. By then, Caetano had offered his resignation to the president more than once but his request was denied. There was now little attempt or political possibility of controlling the movements of the opposition.

On 25 April 1974, the left-wing military overthrew the regime in the Carnation Revolution. Caetano resigned and was taken into military custody.

The combined African independentist guerrilla forces of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in Angola; the PAIGC in Portuguese Guinea and the FRELIMO in Mozambique succeeded in their nationalistic rebellion when their continued guerrilla warfare prompted elements of the Portuguese Armed Forces to stage a coup at Lisbon in 1974.

The Armed Forces Movement overthrew the Lisbon government as a protest against the ongoing war in Portuguese Guinea that seemed to have no military end in sight, to rebel against the new military laws that were to be presented the next year (Decretos-Leis n.os 353, de 13 de Julho de 1973, e 409, de 20 de Agosto), to reduce military expenses and to incorporate militia and military academy officers in the army branches as equals.

Later life

After Caetano had resigned, he was flown under custody to the Madeira islands, where he stayed for a few days. He then flew to exile to Brazil, which was ruled by its own dictatorship. In Brazil, he continued his academic activity as director of the Institute of Comparative Law at Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro. He died in Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro of a heart attack in 1980. He was buried in the São João Batista cemetery in Botafogo.

Publications

Caetano published several books, including several highly rated law books and two books of memoirs in exile: Minhas Memórias de Salazar (My Memories of Salazar) and Depoimento (Testimony).

He was one of the world's greatest authorities in administrative law, and some of his works were studied even in Soviet universities. He also wrote Os nativos na economía africana in 1954. During his exile in Brazil, he pursued academic activities and published works on administrative and constitutional law.

Personal life

On 27 October 1930, Caetano married Maria Teresa Teixeira de Queirós de Barros, the sister of the politician Henrique de Barros. They had four children:

José Maria de Barros Alves Caetano (b. Lisbon, 16 August 1933)

João de Barros Alves Caetano (Lisbon, 12 December 1931 – 27 June 2009)

Miguel de Barros Alves Caetano (b. Lisbon, São Sebastião da Pedreira, 26 July 1935)

Ana Maria de Barros Alves Caetano (b. Lisbon, 7 December 1937)