Marshal Francisco da Costa Gomes, who died on July 31st aged 87, was president of Portugal from 1974 to 1976, as revolution swept away the old order.
His ambiguities had earned him the nickname the "Floater", or the crafty one, but that too reflected the country's dilemmas. He was one of the leading figures in the April 1974 revolution led by the Armed Forces Movement, a post-colonial drama complicated by Cold War ideological pressures, and became president that September.
Francisco da Costa Gomes was born in Chaves, northern Portugal, the son of smallholders. His father became an army captain, who died when his son was only seven. The young man's higher education took in Lisbon Military College, the cavalry school and the universities of Coimbra and Oporto.
In 1931, when the national-traditionalist regime of the Estado Novo was in its third year, he joined a cavalry regiment and the Republican Guard.
He was a supporter of the dictator Dr Salazar's policy of neutrality during the second World War. Later, he served in the then Portuguese colony of Macao and, from 1954 to 1956, was with the Portuguese military within the NATO headquarters staff.
One of his colleagues was Humberto Delgado, who became the first general to rebel against the Salazar regime in 1958. By contrast, Francisco da Costa Gomes joined the cabinet as army under-secretary. But soon after the outbreak of armed resistance in Angola in 1961, he was dismissed, suspected of being involved in an attempted coup, the aim of which was to find a political, rather than military, solution for the "overseas issue".
Salazar managed to outwit the conspirators, and assumed the defence ministry himself, opting for confrontation with the African liberation movements.
In 1961, there was massive retaliation against the Angola uprising, but the year ended with India's invasion of Goa, the oldest of Portuguese overseas possessions, and the expulsion of its Portuguese administration.
After serving as second-in-command of the Portuguese forces in Mozambique from 1965 to 1968, Francisco da Costa Gomes became commander in 1969, before taking over in Angola the following year. He was later known to have been one of the instigators of an understanding with Jonas Savimbi, leader of the UNITA movement, which was also the avowed enemy of the Soviet-supported MPLA guerillas.
From 1972 until March 1974 - only a month before the coup - he was chief-of-staff of the armed forces in Lisbon. Meanwhile, his friend, Gen Antonio Spinola, had published his book Portugal And The Future, openly restating the view that Portugal, faced with colonial wars in Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola, and diplomatically isolated, had no other solution but to negotiate with the African nationalist groups. With the coup, Spinola was to become president of the revolutionary junta.
Spinola tried to push the revolution towards a more right-wing, even neo-colonialist, course, but was forced into voluntary exile. So, resisting mounting Western pressures, while realistically believing that post-colonial Portugal could not find stability without Western support, Francisco da Costa Gomes emerged as president in September 1974, and steered a difficult course. He also prevented the communists from creating a Cuba-like regime, which would have been internally and externally unsustainable.
Francisco da Costa Gomes played an important role in consolidating the new regime, although he settled for the limited libertarian aim of a parliamentary democracy.
After being replaced as president by Gen Ramalho Eanes in July 1976, he dedicated his active retirement to support peace and green causes. It left many party politicians unsure of his ideological views. In effect, however, he was first and foremost a frustrated patriot who, while not necessarily agreeing with them, realistically abided by the will of the majority of the Portuguese people and the reality of the circumstances. He is survived by his wife and son.
Francisco da Costa Gomes: born 1914; died, July 2001