The limits of détente: The United States and the crisis of the Portuguese regime

The Nixon administration came into office with the goal of improving U.S. relations with the autocratic Portuguese regime. Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger aimed at restoring, at least in part, the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Portugal – a ‘special relationship,’ which had, however, gone through difficult and turbulent times during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. This was particularly the case after the 1961 American embargo on the sale of arms that could be used in conflicts in the Portuguese colonies (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau).1