Duncan Alastair Simpson's Blog, page 2

Collaboration PIDE/LP/GNR

[image error]

This letter of denunciation to the PIDE (Aug. 1962) provides a good example of collaboration between the Estado Novo’s various policing entities. It was sent to the PIDE by a member of the Portuguese Legion (LP) to report on the activities of a local agent of ‘subversion’. In response, the PIDE instructed the local GNR to discreetly investigate the suspect, which it did. In turn the GNR confirmed to the PIDE that the accusations levelled against the suspect were well founded.

Smooth collaboration of this kind did not always prevail, however, as policing bodies frequently competed among each other. Also, much of the information gathered by the LP was sent to the Ministry of the Interior, which then transmitted it to the PIDE if necessary. In this particular case, the LP denouncer wrote directly to the PIDE, perhaps because he felt in some way personally threatened by the suspect. Note that he provides 3 witnesses in a bid to add weight to his denunciation.

The denouncer’s dilemma

[image error]smart

Many of the spontaneous letters of denunciation sent to the PIDE were anonymous. Whether the denunciation was ‘genuine’ or instrumental, their authors were obviously keen to avoid any direct contact with the secret police. But by making an anonymous denunciation, the denouncer in effect gave up any claim to a ‘reward’ for his/her deed. The author of the present letter, reporting on the activities of a group of ‘subversive’ individuals in January 1962, appears to have found a solution to this dilemma, by promising to reveal his identity upon conclusion of the case – ‘to see if you give me something because I am very poor’. The move may have been designed to lend the denunciation greater verisimilitude and ensure that the PIDE responded to it. It may also have resulted from the denouncer’s own uncertainty or instrumental purposes regarding the information provided. But the determination not to miss out on any potential material compensation was also undoubtedly present in many of the letters.

smartIn this unusual ending to an anonymous letter of...

[image error]smart

In this unusual ending to an anonymous letter of denunciation sent to the PIDE in January 1962, the denouncer threatens to take up the case directly with Salazar should the ‘suspect’ escape his due punishment.

He needn’t have bothered. As a rule, the PIDE valued any information sent to it ‘from below’, and thoroughly investigated any reports of political dissidence. In this particular case, the ‘suspect’ was indeed a supporter of General Humberto Delgado – a reminder that a significant proportion of the denunciation letters were ‘genuine’ in content (often containing at least some element of truth about the denounced), and not merely opportunistic instruments of private conflict resolution.

Emigrants and the PIDE

[image error]

One particular type of denunciation, not infrequent in the PIDE Archives, are the denunciations made by Portuguese emigrants (in this case in France) against other Portuguese emigrants, usually accused of having emigrated illegally or of spreading ‘blasphemies against Dr. Oliveira Salazar [sic]’.

Often these letters were rooted in personal rivalries. But they usually contained an element of truth and as such contributed to the PIDE’s efforts to keep an eye on the increasingly large Portuguese community of emigrants in France. In this particular case, from 1962, the denouncer included the holiday address of the ‘suspects’ in Portugal, in order to facilitate the PIDE’s task. The fact that parts of the letter were underlined in red by the PIDE agent who received the letter, indicates that the political police took these letters seriously. An investigation was launched into the activities of the two ‘suspects’. In this way the PIDE’s ‘capillary operation of power’ spread beyond the national borders.