Duncan Alastair Simpson's Blog

My new article, co-authored with Ana Louceiro, focuses on the everyday life of common citizens under the PIDE. It is now available in Open Access via the following link: https://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/49511/1/ICS_DSimpson_Everyday.pdf

My latest article on the PIDE, published in Contemporary European History (CUP), is now available in Open Access at the following address:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/approaching-the-pide-from-below-petitions-spontaneous-applications-and-denunciation-letters-to-salazars-secret-police-in-1964/9E99309AFC9B3DFEF2812173DD0B2A8E

Two articles of mine have recently been published in academic journals. Both provide an in-depth analysis of some of the issues covered in this blog, and may therefore be of interest to you:

Duncan Simpson, ‘Approaching the PIDE “From Below”: Petitions, Spontaneous Applications and Denunciation Letters to Salazar’s Secret Police in 1964’, in Contemporary European History, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777320000612Duncan Simpson, ‘The PIDE Between Memory and History: Revolutionary Tradition, Historiography, and the Missing Dimension in the Relation Between Society and Salazar’s Political Police’, in e-Journal of Portuguese History, 18.1, 2020, pp. 17-38, https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:1161228/

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O retrato da situação social no Portugal de 1965 pelo prisma do Registo de Correspondência Recebida do Ministério do Interior: pede-se casas em bairros sociais e autorizações para emigrar, faz-se denúncias, alista-se na PSP, e até há o inevitável pedido de “colocação na PIDE”.

Para a população, despolitizada e envolvida na sobrevivência quotidiana, a PIDE não era uma ameaça ao seu “bem-estar” ou “liberdade”, ambos limitados pela falta de condições materiais, mas sim um dos poucos recursos disponíveis. Uma forma de sobrevência como as outras, normalizada.

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One of the most unusual cases of spontaneous interaction between Portuguese society and Salazar’s political police. In this letter received by the PIDE on 7 June 1963, a woman asks the political police to investigate the “moral, civil and political situation” of her husband-to-be. Indeed she senses that there is “something obscure in his life”. The PIDE replied that performing this type of “service” was not part of its mission.

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The PIDE could also be instrumentalised from below by individual citizens eager to get rid of intrusive ex-lovers. As the above report indicates, this Portuguese emigrant in France wrote to the PIDE to inform it that his ex-companion, who had followed him there against his will, would soon be returning to Portugal for a few days. He hoped that the PIDE would “prevent her from returning” to France. In order to lend greater weight to his claim, he brought “politics” to the matter, accusing her of having “engaged in propaganda against Portugal and its Government” whilst in France.

Those who opposed the New State often found ways to externalize their political views, either publicly or privately, and with varying degrees of subtleness. According to the following denunciation, received by the PIDE in February 1961, this ‘leftist’ suspect kept the portraits of Salazar and Américo Tomás (the then President of the Republic) in his house, hanging on the walls of a special room reserved to ‘certain individuals’, and in a slightly modified version…

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This anonymous letter of denunciation, received by the PIDE in 1962, is worthy of interest for the originality of its accusation. In it the author manages to combine both ideological and racial prejudice by branding the suspects as ‘um bando de siganos comunistas [sic]’.

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Paradoxalmente, as cartas de denúncia recebidas pela PIDE revelam muitas vezes um Portugal menos cinzento do que é costume realçar. Por exemplo, facilmente se pode imaginar esta cena de tasco onde, o álcool ajudando, Salazar é tratado, entre outras coisas, de ‘filho da p.’

De maneira geral, a PIDE mantinha uma certa tolerância relativamente a estes ‘desvios’ menores, desde que não resultassem de uma consciencialização política organizada, e que os seus efeitos não alastrassem à comunidade local.

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The PIDE did not limit itself to investigating the political ideas of the suspects being denounced. Part of its mission also included assessing their ‘moral standards’. To that end, PIDE agents discretely followed the suspects and sought to obtain information from neighbours or the local authorities. In the case of this ‘leftist’ militant in Porto (June 1970), the phrasing used by the PIDE agent to report on his alleged practice of ‘free love’ – based on hearsay and prejudice – is particularly noteworthy.