New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
Lost Freeway
Banned
I thought The Donald didn't care about that sort of thing.Trump will make him say Merry Christmas come Jan 20th
A Red Carnation
“The tune stuck in Sloane’ ear, a goddamned earworm that refused to leave his head. Luckily for his perceived sanity, it wasn’t as if the others crowded into the dive bar sipping their beers weren’t deaf to the song, it having been played on the radio on a loop for the last thirty minutes. Weird, but the Portuguese people had gotten used to weird – such as the weird that was a life of waiting for the latest body bag to arrive from the colonies. A nation that had been at peace for so long now plunged into conflict. It had sapped whatever innocence they felt in the plains of Angola and the swamps of Mozambique… the consequences of which Sloane would soon fucking see.
“As such, he was the only one in the bar who flinched when the clap of a field gun boomed from the direction of the Presidential Palace…”
“The tune stuck in Sloane’ ear, a goddamned earworm that refused to leave his head. Luckily for his perceived sanity, it wasn’t as if the others crowded into the dive bar sipping their beers weren’t deaf to the song, it having been played on the radio on a loop for the last thirty minutes. Weird, but the Portuguese people had gotten used to weird – such as the weird that was a life of waiting for the latest body bag to arrive from the colonies. A nation that had been at peace for so long now plunged into conflict. It had sapped whatever innocence they felt in the plains of Angola and the swamps of Mozambique… the consequences of which Sloane would soon fucking see.
“As such, he was the only one in the bar who flinched when the clap of a field gun boomed from the direction of the Presidential Palace…”
Above is an excerpt from Hunter J. Thompson’s bestselling semi-autobiography A Red Carnation, detailing his vacation turned Pulitzer Prize-winning junket into the middle of one of the Cold War’s hottest moments. It was through his writings that the West would get an inside look into what would become known as the “Carnation Revolution.”
It started in Lisbon on April 25th, 1975 at 12:20 AM, when Rádio Renascença broadcast "Grândola, Vila Morena,” a banned-song in Estado Novo Portugal. This was the signal that the Armed Forces Movement gave to take over strategic points of power in the country and "announced" that the revolution had started and nothing would stop it except "the possibility of a regime's repression.” Tanks and other armored vehicles would take to the streets, what forces loyal to the government of António de Oliveira Salazar and his allies having been deployed to Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea to fight the communist-aligned rebels, darting towards important governmental and communication centers. Whatever loyal forces were sidelined by massive crowds of demonstrators, waving crimson flags of the outlawed Portuguese Communist Party – the leaders directing the demonstrators’ actions from the safety of the Soviet Embassy.
By dawn the regime had fallen, Salazar and dozens of other government bigwigs fleeing to the single loyal military base remaining near the capitol – luckily for them, a naval one, hopping on a Navy cruiser bound for Luanda. The Armed Forces Movement and their Communist Allies in the “National Salvation Junta” had taken control of Portugal.
By 1975, it was clear that neither would collapse as had the MPLA in Angola. In neither colony did the rebel groups have rivals the Portuguese could ally with, and the Soviets had strong pipelines to the insurgents through friendly regimes on the borders. When Portugal strategically pulled out of Guinea in September 1974 after losing a total of 10,000 casualties since Angola was won, morale in the Metropole took a nose dive. Salazar, holding on to power despite a stroke early in 1972, and his ministers expanded conscription and began further crackdowns on civil liberties in response.
Promises of liberal reforms promised as the Angola War was winding down were thusly reneged to shock and anger among much of the bureaucracy and exhausted military. A group of young army officers under the aegis of Chief of the General Staff Antonio de Spinola began to plot against the Estado Novo government. Desperate for outside aid (nations such as the US, UK, France, and Francoist Spain not options), the MFA turned, against Spinola’s advice, to the Soviet Union and the underground Communist Party led by the exiled Alvaro Cunhal – having grown popular among the working class on the strength of robust Soviet aid and the increasing radicalization of the nation’s labor force.
With Spinola and Cunhal leading the National Salvation Junta, Portugal’s first free election was subsequently set for August and opposition parties scrambled for a seat at the table. The two leading candidates were that of the center-left Socialist Party and the pro-democracy rightist (most of the hardline rightists fleeing for the colonies after Salazar and the other governmental officials) Social Democrats. Other smaller parties were formed in the vacuum post-Carnation, one being the Radical Left Front under the young and charismatic Jeronimo de Sousa – basically a trade union party in the tradition of Bevanite Labour except for a fairly anti-American stance. However, the looming spectre remained the Communists. Buoyed by funds funneled to them by the KGB (Semichastny eager to secure a warm water port directly on the Atlantic), they quickly outmuscled the other parties in capturing the confidence of a public sick of a backbreaking tax burden funneled to the colonies and hungry for change.
For the first time since the short-lived Spanish Republic, the Soviet Union had secured a friendly regime west of the Elbe. Cunhal’s gratefulness would be evident when the Portuguese Republic signed an economic and defense treaty with the USSR on the 62nd anniversary of the October Revolution, two Soviet Airborne Rifle Divisions entering the Iberian nation by year’s end.
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With the Portuguese government collapsing nearly overnight, the ongoing situations in the colonies were thrown into unsteadiness at best and chaos at worst. Portuguese Angola, protected by its treaties with Mobutu in Kinshasa and Savimbi in Benguela, flooded with refugees of the former regime such as Salazar and Costa Gomes – soon joined by a rout of democracy advocates fleeing the Communists. Luanda became the seat of the Government-in-Exile, Marcelo Caetano taking over as interim Prime Minister as the government scrambled to coordinate its existence without the Metropole to rely on. Hastily passed foreign aid packages requested by Wallace and Crossman greatly helped, but the lack of any functioning military was high on the worries of Caetano and his ministers.
A large and elite army was available, but practically halfway around the world in Mozambique. Already struggling to fight against FRELIMO (lacking a UNITA ally to turn against the communist insurgents), General Arriaga now had a hopeless situation with the elimination of support from the Metropole. Receiving a message from Caetano requesting information as to how the military could handle protecting Angola, Goa, East Timor, and Macau while still holding on to even part of Mozambique, Arriaga replied that he could do one or the other – not both. Luanda subsequently authorized him to save what he could, but to get his divisions to the stable areas. Such led to the order to abandon all of the northern provinces, leaving FRELIMO in the position of consolidating more territory than it was prepared to.
To the southwest, a regional giant was casting a worried glance at the events across its borders. Sensitive to even a whisper of regime shifts in its neighbors, the Apartheid government of South Africa had been rocked more than anyone of the swift collapse of the Estado Novo regime. Being in a state of panic and worry since April, Prime Minister B. J. Vorster and his Emergency Council had dusted off their contingency plans. One of the bedrocks of South African foreign policy had been the maintenance of nothing but friendly regimes on its borders to prevent any support being given to the maze of internal terrorist groups undeterred by the now-nuclear state. Lourenço Marques falling to FRELIMO was on the top of the list (as well as the list of Ian Smith and the Rhodesian government) of disasters. South Africa was not about to simply let things be without acting.
Contacts were immediately made to Arriaga in Lourenço Marques, giving him an offer he couldn’t refuse (to borrow William Shatner’s famous phrase in The Godfather). Hard pressed, Arriaga and Caetano acquiesced with tacit approval from Washington and London. Orders were passed from Luanda and Pretoria to respective military commands while Machel and the other communist leaders were celebrating their good fortune.
On the 14th of May, over twenty thousand mechanized infantry of the South African Defence Force raced across the border between South Africa and Portuguese East Africa. Under the command of Lt. General Magnus Malan, Portuguese forces rapidly joined the juggernaut while what FRELIMO irregulars inhabited the southern reaches were rapidly swept aside under the weight of SADF firepower. Arriaga received Malan a mere four days later in a confetti-filled ceremony in Lourenço Marques, while over a month would pass before Gaza and Inhambane provinces were fully secure. Machel feared that the juggernaut would be unstoppable and begged the Soviets for more aid. However, Malan halted at the Save River – ordered specifically not to cross.
Samora Michel and FRELIMO would secure the remainder of the country, creating the People’s Socialist Republic of Mozambique headquartered in Beira and allied with the Soviet Union and other Communist nations across Africa. In Moscow, Semichastny reportedly raised a glass of scotch to the portrait of Comrade Lenin hanging over his fireplace – the Soviet Empire was expanding. Slowly and methodically, but expanding.
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Given that Estado Novo Portugal had been a founding member of NATO, the Carnation Revolution’s ties to the USSR had caused great upheaval in the Western World. Wallace and Crossman, both of whom commanded military units stationed within the country. Estado Novo had been an indispensable ally, especially since the Rockefeller Administration pushed for anti-Communist alliances regardless of authoritarianism within the governments following Nixon’s Assassination. The aftermath of the Carnation Revolution left Curtis LeMay and Peter Shore ordering naval vessels toward the Iberian Coast in combination for Francoist Spain entering full mobilization.
The main concern for NATO was Lajes Air Base on the Island of Sao Miguel in the Azores island chain. Established as a Mid-Atlantic fighter base and a waystation for transport flights (the American Airlift to Israel during the Yom Kippur War often using it for refueling or emergency landings), over 1,200 American and other NATO personnel were subsequently trapped in the middle of Communist-controlled territory. The local Portuguese garrison had declared for the Revolution and Cunhal barely a day after Salazar and Caetano fled for Luanda, and it soon received a new commander in MFA logistical planner Colonel Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho.
Having radicalized during the brutal fighting in Angola and Mozambique, de Carvalho was noted to despise the United States. Normally, the tense standoff developing between the Portuguese forces and the NATO defenders would have lasted until Helms and Callaghan negotiated a withdrawal with the National Salvation Junta. However, the matter was complicated when several dozen Portuguese military officers led by General de Spinola himself arrived seeking asylum. Knowing their plans for installing democracy had failed, they knew the only hope of not being shot for counterrevolutionary activity was to flee and pray the US/UK would give them asylum or for amnesty from Caetano. De Carvalho’s demands that they be returned for trial were rejected by Lajas Base CO Captain Jeremiah Denton, who decided afterward to unilaterally evacuate without clearance from Washington – over concerns the communication lines were compromised.
Leaving several dozen volunteers behind to man the perimeter defenses, the remaining NATO personnel and Portuguese refugees packed wall-to-wall in five C-141 Starlifter transports which touched off the runway to shock and anger from the Portuguese troops. Defending them against the SAM and fighter support under de Carvalho’s command were four Texas Air National Guard F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors in Lajas for a training mission – led by Major George W. Bush, son of Senator George H. W. Bush and son-in-law to the late President Richard Nixon. Executing a series of maneuvers that would be forever taught at the USAF Academy, Bush’s command fended off whatever the Portuguese threw at them. Bush’s F-102 would later be shot down (he would often state afterwards that “It was five to one, I got four” regarding it). The flight commander would be one of sixty-five American prisoners taken by a furious de Carvalho.
Old Hunter J. Thompson, ever the survivor, would be stuck in the country till September before finally being smuggled into Fascist Spain with three Estado Novo military officers aboard a donkey cart. He jokingly remarked afterwards in his article (which would be the basis for A Red Carnation) that the smugglers were “the most goddamned honorable, if smelly, people in the entire country. Made me wonder if the Liberty Conservatives weren’t right after all. Those rat bastards didn’t care if we were fascist, socialist, American, Sambo, or fucking Martian – only that we could fatten their wallets. If that ain’t anti-discrimination I don’t know what is.”
With sixty-five Americans being held hostage in a military barracks in the middle of Lisbon itself, the United States and George Wallace were faced with a world situation that had rapidly gone to hell in a handbasket in mere months.
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On the one hand, a fascist dictator is dead. On the other hand, communism is here.
Awesome! And a unique hostage crisis.
Universal healthcare, as a general rule, is unrepealable.
Awesome! And a unique hostage crisis.
Universal healthcare, as a general rule, is unrepealable.
Welp, it looks like the Portuguese switched from an authoritarian right-wing government to an authoritarian left-wing government I guess we will have to see what happens, Franco and Wallace will probably be angry. Also, poor Dubya I hope Wallace deals with the hostages appropriately.
I don't care about who wins in 1976 I just hope the Dems retain a majority in one of the houses so the Republicans don't repeal AmCare
I guess we will have to see what happens, Franco and Wallace will probably be angry. Also, poor Dubya I hope Wallace deals with the hostages appropriately.I don't care about who wins in 1976 I just hope the Dems retain a majority in one of the houses so the Republicans don't repeal AmCare
I love this TL! A very good update, I'm interested in seeing how Wallace reacts to the revolution in Portugal.
You took quite some time to prepare the update, Congressman, but I have a lot of comments regarding this update.
The historical FSP was a tiny far-left group expelled from the Socialist Party and without grass-roots support.
The leaders of the non-communist parties are not Kerensky, some of them as former communists knew very well what communism is, and in otl everyone was in contact and prepared for any takevover attempt by the far-left. There were plans to transfer government to Porto and recover any lost territory.
In the event of a fraudulent result, the result would not be recognized neither by the population, who was well aware of what they wanted, nor by other parties, nor by the Armed Forces, which despite what might look to an external observer were not majority communist in any conceivable manner.
Anything above 24% for the entire far-left, which would have been suspiciously high, would be immediately recognized as a fraud.
Considering the level of violent hostility against the far-left in much of the country, the communists would not be able to gain in enough districts to get that.
Check the 1975 wiki page to get an idea on the actual support the communists commanded.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleições_para_a_Assembleia_Constituinte_de_1975#Resultados_eleitorais_por_c.C3.ADrculos_eleitorais
http://eleicoes.cne.pt/raster/index.cfm?dia=25&mes=04&ano=1975&eleicao=ar
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...x-Legislativas_portuguesas_de_1975_(Mapa).png
.png/220px-Legislativas_portuguesas_de_1975_(Mapa).png)
As I think I said in a previous comment, support for communism is very localized.
Declaring for the revolution is not the same as supporting communism, and this is the Azores, there were probably more Americans in the base than communists in the entire archipelago.
Sorry for the extensive nitpicking, but as a Portuguese, I don't feel the update to be likely to happen even with the POD.
but I have a lot of comments regarding this update.The Communists are not that popular.
The MFA knew the risks involved and would not want to jeopardize their goal of a democracy.
I think everyone would know that Jeronimo Sousa would be a communist stooge. Also traditionally, the equivalent to left-wing labour has been very pro-US and pro-NATO.
The historical FSP was a tiny far-left group expelled from the Socialist Party and without grass-roots support.
The leaders of the non-communist parties are not Kerensky, some of them as former communists knew very well what communism is, and in otl everyone was in contact and prepared for any takevover attempt by the far-left. There were plans to transfer government to Porto and recover any lost territory.
In the event of a fraudulent result, the result would not be recognized neither by the population, who was well aware of what they wanted, nor by other parties, nor by the Armed Forces, which despite what might look to an external observer were not majority communist in any conceivable manner.
Anything above 24% for the entire far-left, which would have been suspiciously high, would be immediately recognized as a fraud.
Considering the level of violent hostility against the far-left in much of the country, the communists would not be able to gain in enough districts to get that.
Check the 1975 wiki page to get an idea on the actual support the communists commanded.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleições_para_a_Assembleia_Constituinte_de_1975#Resultados_eleitorais_por_c.C3.ADrculos_eleitorais
http://eleicoes.cne.pt/raster/index.cfm?dia=25&mes=04&ano=1975&eleicao=ar
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...x-Legislativas_portuguesas_de_1975_(Mapa).png
As I think I said in a previous comment, support for communism is very localized.
The de is not part of the name. He should be referred as Carvalho. He is also not a communist, even though he shared some far-left and anti-liberal-democratic beliefs. He is also not the most stable person, reason why he ended up in an attempted coup, and involved with terrorists.
Declaring for the revolution is not the same as supporting communism, and this is the Azores, there were probably more Americans in the base than communists in the entire archipelago.
This would be seen as treasonous by everyone not communist and not accepted peacefully.
Sorry for the extensive nitpicking, but as a Portuguese, I don't feel the update to be likely to happen even with the POD.
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Next time:
Regarding how the Communists do so well (Spinola and the other military leaders - minus a few like Carvalho that were hoping to curry favor with a new authoritarian regime - felt they could control the communists and marshal the support of the left-wing unions), the main issues are the shift in Soviet foreign policy to advocate for expansion through National Liberation movements during the Khrushchev era and expanded under Semichastny and the third red scare following the Nixon Assassination. Both the Franco and Salazar regimes found aid from the west abundant, and felt no need to restrain themselves as much in their goals. The colonial wars became far bloodier affairs with less restrictions on human rights (especially when UNITA was drawn into the mix; joint units between Portugal and Savimbi's troops committed vile atrocities that standalone Portuguese units wouldn't have). In addition, greater dissent suppression at home - a must considering Portugal isn't that big to begin with, and yet they are trying to hold a large colonial empire - and increased Soviet activity led to the labor movement being radicalized much more as the Communists positioned themselves as the main opposition to the Estado Novo regime. The US and the UK are also seen in a negative light for their funding of Salazar even at his most authoritarian, so the Soviets are looked at by the population at large as a friend.
As for the troops on the Azores, the crack units expected to be loyal to Salazar are in Mozambique; what's left in the Metropole are conscripts more likely to be radicalized. Still, it's less pro-Communist than it is anti-Estado Novo.
By the time the Soviets are allowed in, more developments have passed that allow Cunhal to portray the Americans as warmongering invaders.
I'm not saying Bevanite Labour is anti-American, I'm just saying that ITTL Portuguese trade unions are anti-American.
Sorry about the naming thing. I'm not familiar with Spanish/Portuguese name customs, so cut me a little slackYou took quite some time to prepare the update, Congressman,
The Communists are not that popular.
The MFA knew the risks involved and would not want to jeopardize their goal of a democracy.
I think everyone would know that Jeronimo Sousa would be a communist stooge. Also traditionally, the equivalent to left-wing labour has been very pro-US and pro-NATO.
The historical FSP was a tiny far-left group expelled from the Socialist Party and without grass-roots support.
The leaders of the non-communist parties are not Kerensky, some of them as former communists knew very well what communism is, and in otl everyone was in contact and prepared for any takevover attempt by the far-left. There were plans to transfer government to Porto and recover any lost territory.
In the event of a fraudulent result, the result would not be recognized neither by the population, who was well aware of what they wanted, nor by other parties, nor by the Armed Forces, which despite what might look to an external observer were not majority communist in any conceivable manner.
Anything above 24% for the entire far-left, which would have been suspiciously high, would be immediately recognized as a fraud.
Considering the level of violent hostility against the far-left in much of the country, the communists would not be able to gain in enough districts to get that.
Check the 1975 wiki page to get an idea on the actual support the communists commanded.
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleições_para_a_Assembleia_Constituinte_de_1975#Resultados_eleitorais_por_c.C3.ADrculos_eleitorais
http://eleicoes.cne.pt/raster/index.cfm?dia=25&mes=04&ano=1975&eleicao=ar
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...x-Legislativas_portuguesas_de_1975_(Mapa).png
As I think I said in a previous comment, support for communism is very localized.
The de is not part of the name. He should be referred as Carvalho. He is also not a communist, even though he shared some far-left and anti-liberal-democratic beliefs. He is also not the most stable person, reason why he ended up in an attempted coup, and involved with terrorists.
Declaring for the revolution is not the same as supporting communism, and this is the Azores, there were probably more Americans in the base than communists in the entire archipelago.
This would be seen as treasonous by everyone not communist and not accepted peacefully.
Sorry for the extensive nitpicking, but as a Portuguese, I don't feel the update to be likely to happen even with the POD.
Regarding how the Communists do so well (Spinola and the other military leaders - minus a few like Carvalho that were hoping to curry favor with a new authoritarian regime - felt they could control the communists and marshal the support of the left-wing unions), the main issues are the shift in Soviet foreign policy to advocate for expansion through National Liberation movements during the Khrushchev era and expanded under Semichastny and the third red scare following the Nixon Assassination. Both the Franco and Salazar regimes found aid from the west abundant, and felt no need to restrain themselves as much in their goals. The colonial wars became far bloodier affairs with less restrictions on human rights (especially when UNITA was drawn into the mix; joint units between Portugal and Savimbi's troops committed vile atrocities that standalone Portuguese units wouldn't have). In addition, greater dissent suppression at home - a must considering Portugal isn't that big to begin with, and yet they are trying to hold a large colonial empire - and increased Soviet activity led to the labor movement being radicalized much more as the Communists positioned themselves as the main opposition to the Estado Novo regime. The US and the UK are also seen in a negative light for their funding of Salazar even at his most authoritarian, so the Soviets are looked at by the population at large as a friend.
As for the troops on the Azores, the crack units expected to be loyal to Salazar are in Mozambique; what's left in the Metropole are conscripts more likely to be radicalized. Still, it's less pro-Communist than it is anti-Estado Novo.
By the time the Soviets are allowed in, more developments have passed that allow Cunhal to portray the Americans as warmongering invaders.
I'm not saying Bevanite Labour is anti-American, I'm just saying that ITTL Portuguese trade unions are anti-American.