The trip may have seemed as long and arduous as any expedition of Vasco da Gama, but the last leg of Portugal's journey from dictatorship to democracy was smooth sailing. Braving oppressively hot 90° weather, some 5 million Portuguese went calmly to the polls last week and, by an overwhelming margin, chose General António Ramalho Eanes (TIME, June 21) as their first democratically elected President in 50 years.
It was a notable victory for law-and-order and a stunning defeat for the Communists. Eanes, the tough, austere army chief of staff who put down...
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