PORTUGAL: At Last, the Good Guys Seem to Have Won

For months, left and center in Portugal had been warily eying one another, waiting for some kind of decisive showdown. Last week the long-awaited confrontation took place, when far-leftist air-force units — primarily paratroopers — attempted to take control by seizing military bases. In a remarkable show of strength and will, the moderates quickly struck back. With the support of loyalist troops — notably Colonel Jaime Neves' 900 commandos ("the animals," as the rest of the military calls them) — Premier José Pinheiro de Azevedo's regime routed the radicals, and moderate forces gained command. "The far left is finished," said one top military official. Added an elated diplomat in Lisbon: "I am going to send off a cable now saying that the good guys won."

The extremists made their move before dawn Tuesday when the paratroopers seized the country's three major air bases and two other air-force installations, along with Air Force headquarters in downtown Lisbon. The moves were well-coordinated, and the leftists, who had earlier taken over Lisbon's television station, began broadcasting anti-government propaganda. The rebels then waited for President Francisco da Costa Gomes, known to some of his detractors as "the Portuguese marshmal-low," to give in to their demands, which included the ouster of Air Force Chief José Morais da Silva.

Under strong pressure from moderate politicians — Socialist Leader Mario Scares, Major Ernesto Melo Antunes. the dominant moderate voice on the ruling Council of the Revolution, and Premier Pinheiro de Azevedo — the President for once stood firm. He went on TV to declare a state of emergency, and he urged the rebellious paratroopers to end their "adventurous counterrevolutionary action." More important, he sent Neves' tough, red-bereted commandos to regain the air-force installations. All five of them were recaptured without bloodshed. The only deaths occurred when the commandos moved into the headquarters of the leftist military-police; in the Shootout that followed, two commandos, one military policeman and six civilians were killed. Portugal must be credited, though, with a highly civilized form of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary politics. Since the April 1974 revolution, despite intense turmoil, fewer than 20 people have been killed.

Song and Dance. At the Lisbon TV station, one leftist officer was appealing for popular support for the rebels when his eyes started to wander nervously from the camera, as if his TelePrompTer had gone berserk. "They tell me I have to get off," he said. "It's probably for technical reasons ... No, it's not?" He was cut off, and Lisbon transmission was taken over by a station 175 miles to the north in Oporto, a conservative stronghold. The program switched from the hortatory sounds of rebellion to the happy song and dance of Danny Kaye's 1963 movie The Man from the Diners' Club.