With Eyes on Portugal and Looking towards Spain: The United States and the Polital Change in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

In the context of the Cold War, the end of dictatorships in Portugal and Spain are seen from the outside as a single issue that worries the West because it could lead to the political, social and economic instability of South-western Europe. This article also underlines the context of Détente which is our first focus. As a second objective, it is observed that in the case of Portugal the Ford Administration's position evolved from putting direct pressure on the Presidency and the interim Governments to take out the Communists from power to a more temporizing approach, which had been supported by European Governments and consisted in giving time and helping to moderate political sectors in order for them to react. Finally, we argue that the evolution of Portugal provided the U.S. with the insight to channel their actions on the impending Spanish Transition: supporting the reforms, the permanent Army observation, searching for contacts within the moderate opposition and, most importantly, the conviction that the best guarantee for the viability of the reform project was to bind the Europeans to it and, in essence, grant it its credibility. They were convinced that the key to stability in Spain was in Europeanization.