The World: Cunhal: A Formidable Communist

For much of the past four decades he has been in prison (14 years in all) or in exile. The rest of the time he lurked in a shadowy, hotly pursued underground movement. Even so, Alvaro Cunhal, 61, secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party, is surprisingly well known. A brilliant lawyer with blazing black eyes and a mane of thick silver hair, he returned from Eastern Europe to a tumultuous red-banner welcome only a few days after the April 1974 revolution that toppled the old right-wing dictatorship. Since then, with his debonair good...

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