Vasco Lourenço: a paradigmatic path of the Coup d’Etat/Revolution of April 25, 1974

Abstract

The aim of this biographical essay is to provide a summary of the role played by today’s Colonel Vasco Lourenço and several other MFA leaders in the set of processes of global political and social transformation that took place in Portugal – and in the non-autonomous territories previously under the tutelage of Lisbon – from 1973 (on the eve of what became the Military Coup/Revolution of April 25, 1974) to 1986, the year of Portugal’s integration into the EEC. It also seeks to analyze both the choices that Vasco Lourenço and many of his MFA comrades sought to make and the options they rejected.
Some information about Vasco Lourenço’s personal, professional, and civic journey is provided to contextualize his involvement in the process that, in 1973, led to the creation of the Captains’ Movement and, later, the coup d’état of April 25, 1974. The main political and ideological currents that emerged within the Armed Forces Movement and the relationships established with other protagonists of the Portuguese revolutionary process (political and union forces, the Church and “Catholic Action,” the Liberation Movements of non-autonomous territories, and diplomatic representations) are analyzed. The implications of the choices made by Vasco Lourenço and other members of the Group of Nine are identified.