Humberto Delgado
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Humberto Delgado (15 May 1906 in Torres Novas - 13 February? 1965 near Olivenza) was a Portuguese general and politician.
Although initally a staunch support of the right-wing dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, and the youngest general in Portuguese history, his passage as a military attaché to the Portuguese embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1952 pushed him into the defence of democratic ideals, and inspired him to run as a candidate to the Portuguese presidency in 1958.
In a famous interview on 10 May 1958, in the Chave de Ouro café, when asked what would be his attitude towards Salazar, he made one of the most famous quotations of Portuguese politics: obviamente, demito-o (obviously, I'll sack him).
He was neverthless credited with only around 25% of the votes in the highly rigged presidential elections of 1959, despite the consensual opinion that he was the true winner.
He is expelled for the Portuguese army, and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy before going into exile.
In 1964 he founded the Portuguese National Liberation Front in Rome.
He and his Brazilian secretary, Arajaryr Moreira de Campos, would be murdered in 1965 by the regime secret police (PIDE) in the Spanish village of Villanueva del Fresno, near the border town of Olivenza, when trying to clandestinely enter Portugal. Their bodies would only be found some two months later.
In 1990, He was posthomously promoted to Marshal of Portuguese Air Force - being the only person to hold this rank - and his body was moved to the National Pantheon, in Lisbon.
