Salazar, António de Oliveira

Salazar, António de Oliveira (əntô`ny thĭ lēvā`rə sələzär`), 1889–1970, Portuguese statesman and dictator. After studying at the Univ. of Coimbra, he became professor of political economy there. Profoundly religious, Salazar was the leader of a political group committed to putting into action the social principles expressed in the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. He was elected a deputy in 1921 but withdrew from the chamber immediately, viewing its proceedings as futile. After the military coup of 1926 Salazar was briefly minister of finance, and in 1928 he was recalled to office by Gen. António de Fragoso Carmona. Given the full financial control that he demanded, he put Portuguese finances on a stable footing for the first time in the 20th cent. As premier after 1932, Salazar was generally considered a dictator. He introduced (1933) a new constitution that established a corporative and authoritarian state. Political opposition was effectively suppressed. Salazar supported the Nationalists during the Spanish civil war (1936–39), but he maintained relations with Portugal's traditional ally, Britain, and permitted the Allies to use the Azores as a base during World War II. After the war he set in motion several economic-development programs, but there were signs of increasing opposition to his regime. In his final years he devoted considerable resources to the attempt to suppress revolts in Portugal's African colonies. In 1968, Salazar suffered a severe stroke and was replaced as premier by Marcello Caetano.

Bibliography

See study by H. Kay (1970).

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Salazar, António de Oliveira

(born April 28, 1889, Vimierio, Port.—died July 27, 1970, Lisbon) Portuguese prime minister (1932–68). A professor of economics, he was appointed by Pres. António Óscar de Fragoso Carmona as finance minister (1928) and later prime minister (1932). His new constitution established the authoritarian New State, curtailing political freedom and concentrating on economic recovery, and he thenceforth ruled as a virtual dictator. Sympathetic to Francisco Franco and the Axis Powers, he maintained Portugal's neutrality in World War II, and after the war he led Portugal into NATO. He greatly improved the country's transportation, utilities, and education systems. He fought to preserve Portugal's African colonies after the general decolonization. Incapacitated by a stroke in 1968 after 36 years in power, he was not told when he was replaced as prime minister.

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Salazar, António de Oliveira 

Born Apr. 28, 1889, in Santa Comba Dão, Beira Alta Province, Portugal; died July 27, 1970, in Lisbon. Portguese state figure.

Salazar graduated from a Jesuit school and then from the University of Coimbra, where he was an economics professor from 1917 to 1928. He was one of the founders of the Catholic Center Party (1918) and was elected a deputy to parliament from that party in 1921. For a few days in 1926, after the military coup, and again from 1928 to 1940 he was minister of finance; in 1930 he was also minister of colonies. From 1932 to 1968 he was prime minister and the de facto dictator of Portugal. He was also minister of war from 1936 to 1944 and minister of foreign affairs from 1936 to 1947. In 1930 he founded the fascist National Union Party and proposed a “unitary corporative republic.” He helped draft the 1933 constitution and the addendum to it—the Colonial Act—which gave final expression to the establishment of a corporative fascist state in Portugal. Beginning in 1968 he was no longer active in government because of ill health.