> A staunch Catholic, he was opposed to communism and socialism but distanced himself from Nazism and fascism. Come on, how distanced was he from Hitler and Mu

> A staunch Catholic, he was opposed to communism and socialism but distanced himself from Nazism and fascism. Come on, how distanced was he from Hitler and Mussolini? Sure, Portugal remained "neutral" during WW2, but we still sold the Nazis tungsten ore, and filled the central bank with stolen Belgian gold. There was a big espionage ring on lighthouses to surveill the Mediterranean allied ships, and Aristides de Sousa Mendes died in disgraced after saving many jews by giving them visas to escape France. In 1937 when anarchists nearly killed Salazar and the political police spent a month arresting drunks, while the bombers read about big arrests on the papers, Salazar called Mussolini to send him his best investigators to solve it. They didn't, the police chief got egg on his face, and the guys that cracked the case were fired, the official version remained, since the drunks they rounded up had their pictures printed in the front pages (pretty banged up from the torture). He was so Catholic, the official papal newspaper was censored as much as all the others.