Evening star., 1943-05-07
BY BLAIR BOLLES,
Co.. c..<

LISBON, April "a (By mail0 -
Lisbon still is a capital where you
are advised to talk in low voice
in the cafes and streetcars.
Keen cared Axis and Allie d
agents swell the population.
Portugal looks out over the At
lantic but it never knows when
it will be seized from behind.
1t has been watching the Afri-
can campaign with restrained
nervousness, not knowing wheth-
er the Germans will try to bal
ance the Allied gains in Tunisia
by a thrust through the Iberian
Peninsula.
Allied agents in this capital of
intrigue have fixed June | as the
critical date in Portugal's history.
If 1t has escaped German domina-
ton by then, they say, Portugal will
be safe from Germany forever. The
Germans have been increasing the
number of their agents here during
the past week One hotel which
housed five German agents on April
l now has 38.
Ship Out Copper Coins.
The Germans have undertaken a
minute program for the economic
milking of Portugal. 1t was the
custom of German agents to get all
their Portuguese change in 20-cen-
tavo copper pieces and then export
them to Germany, where the copper
has a strategic value for war pur-
poses.
They bought cases of canned sar-
dimes and shipped the empty tin
cans to Germany for use in the war
factories. Portugal, to save its cop
per supply and its coinage, has be-
gun to issue 20-centavo piece one
half the size of the old coin and con-
tanning less than half as much cop
per.
The Germans enjoy some advan-
tages here over Allied representa-
tives. They are permitted to tele-
phone to Germany. but Americans
are denied the use of the trans At
lantic telephone to the United States.
The Nazi espionage in Lisbon works
we'll Three hours after the Clipper
plane sank in Lisbon Harbor, Feb
ruary %, the German radio carried
the full passenger list. This list was
kept confidential even from the
plane passengers.
Kurt Sell at Lisbon.
One of the Germans stationed
here is Kurt Sell who for eight years
was the .CNB representative in
Washington. He lives at the elegant
Estoril Palace Hotel, half an hour
from Lisbon, by an Atlantic beach.
The hotel was developed as a holi-
day resort for British colonial Of
flcials assigned to Africa who could
not afford the trip to England for
vacationing.
The international political use to
which Lisbon is put is an embarrass-
ment for Prime Minister Salazar.
who has been Portugals benevolent
dictator since 1928. His future is at
stake in the course of the war. An
intellectual who occupies an impor-
tant position here told me:
IF the Axis wins, Salazar is saved.
If the Allies win, Portugal is saved"
BY his epigram, he meant that
Salazar manages Portugal by an
theology related to the Fascism of
the Axis and that his system cannot
survive Axis defeat. Commercially
and economically, however, Portugal
depends on England, and to a lesser
degree the United States. England
buys Portugals wine, cork and tin.
England's navy secures Portugal's
line OF communication with her At
lantic and African colonies.
Threat from Underground.
The development of an under
ground revolutionary movement
of size impossible to calculate
here is advanced as one of the
threats to Salazar's future. The
groups opposing the dictatorship
have had a cautious voice in the
weekly newspaper Sol, which is
scheduled to appear each Friday
The issue of April 16 carried long
article on the workings of popular
government in Switzerland. 1t was
completely historical. but the police
objected to its use in a front-pag
headline of the words peoples gov
ernment."
Sol did not appear on April % in
this country, where there is no such
thing as peoples government. The
police department is run by Capt.