... was a General of the Portuguese Air Force. He contributed to the revolution of 1926 that overthrew the republic and established a military dictatorship. He was a loyal supporter and member of the regime; one of his roles was director general of the Secretariat of Civil Aeronautics, in which guise he presided over the founding of TAP, the Portuguese national airline. In 1941 he wrote in praise of Adolf Hitler, but as World War II progressed (with Portugal officially neutral) he began to lean towards the Allies.
His appointment in 1952 as Military and Aeronautic Attaché to the Portuguese Embassy in Washington DC pushed his ideology in a liberal democratic direction. In 1958 he stood against the regime's Américo Tomás in the election for President of the Republic, promising to break the iron grip that Antonio de Oliveira Salazar had established on Portugal since becoming prime minister in 1932. When asked how he would deal with Salazar, if elected, Delgado made one of the most famous statements in Portuguese political history: "Obviamente, demito–o!" ("Obviously, I'll sack him!") He was officially credited with only 25% of the votes, but it is now believed that he was the victim of a massive election fraud and had actually won the election.
Delgado was subsequently dismissed from the military, and this cost him his immunity from Salazar's PIDE secret police force. Leaving his wife and three children in Lisbon, he flew to Brazil in April 1959. He became the president of the Portuguese Patriotic Liberation Front, in the hope of ousting Salazar. Finally, after almost six years in exile, he travelled to Spain, believing that he was going to meet 'revolutionary Portuguese officers'.
In April 1965, the decomposed remains of Humberto Delgado and his secretary and long–term lover (a Brazilian woman named Arajaryr Campos) were found in rural Spain, five kilometres from the Portuguese border. A post–mortem examination, supplied by Spanish authorities to the Lisbon court, concluded that Delgado had been beaten to death and his female companion stranged.
Lisbon's airport was renamed in his honour in 2016, to mark the 51st anniversary of his assassination.
© Haydn Thompson 2017