PORTUGAL: White Chips

Perched insecurely on the edge of Europe, little Portugal has only two white chips to back her hand in the big international cutthroat game. One is her carefully preserved neutrality, the other her possession of the highly strategic Azores. Last week the world could see how cannily she was hoarding them.

From Lisbon came word of two recent decrees of the Portuguese Government. One forbade aliens to go to the Azores without first visiting Lisbon, getting a personal O.K. from authorities there. Presumably the ubiquitous, stiff-backed German "tourists" would get no visas.

Secondly, the Portuguese cracked down on the refugees who have been funneled through Lisbon from all Europe since the start of World War II. By a new law, refugees who do not have visas or immediate steamship or plane reservations must go to prison, pay for their keep (50¢ to $1.50 a day) while they are there. Stated reason for this decree was to keep wealthy refugees from buying up food supplies, creating a shortage, but it would also isolate fifth columnists disguised as fugitives from Hitler.

Inspecting the growing garrison in the Azores (TIME, July 21), General Antonio Oscar de Fragoso Carmona, Portugal's President, repeated that peaceful Portugal would, if necessary, fight for her Atlantic islands.