Right up to his death in 1970, it was Salazar’s proud boast that not only had he kept Portugal out of the devastating foreign wars of the century, but he had navigated his country between the Scylla of rapacious market capitalism and the Charybdis of state socialism. In fact, he had all too successfully exposed his subjects to the worst of both: material inequality and exploitation for profit were more marked in Portugal than anywhere else in Europe, while the authoritarian state in Lisbon smothered all independent opinion and initiative. In 1969 just 18 percent of the adult population was
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