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In São Paulo last week, Delgado celebrated the coup with convivial glasses of red Portuguese wine, raisins and crackers. Chatting happily with newsmen, he answered overseas phone calls and fired off stirring communiqués informing the U.S. and Britain that the capture of the Santa Maria "does not represent mutiny or piracy but only the seizure of Portuguese transport by Portuguese to fulfill Portuguese political objectives." The act, he cried, "will contribute greatly to the liberation of Portugal" and prepare the way for setting up a "provisional government."
In Lisbon, the Salazar government spluttered denunciations of the "wicked act committed by this gang of pirates," and likened it to "the barbarian practices that made the Caribbean Sea an area of dishonor, which took centuries to clean up." Panic-stricken that a similar fate might be in store for the Santa Maria's sister ship, the Vera Cruz, which was en route to Brazil, Lisbon rushed ten secret servicemen by plane to Rio de Janeiro with orders to allow no visitors aboard when the Vera Cruz docked. The Portuguese government appealed to the U.S. and Britain to recapture the Santa Maria and return it to its rightful owners.
Lost Sight. A British frigate glimpsed the Santa Maria sailing in the general direction of Africa, but then, surprisingly, lost sight of it. Four U.S. destroyers, two tankers, a nuclear sub and 18 planes combed the area, but found nothing. The pirated liner seemed to have vanished from the map until a Danish freighter, chugging along a normal shipping lane, radioed that it had passed the Santa Maria and exchanged greetings. At the Pentagon press room in Washington, someone put up an ironical sign reading: "Sleep soundly tonight. The Danish merchant marine is watching over you."
Neither Washington nor London had much appetite for putting a shot across the Santa Maria's bow and sending aboard a party of marines. Part of the difficulty was to decide just what crime had been committed. The 1958 Geneva treaty on Rules of the High Seas, specifically states that piracy involves the action of one ship against another, and therefore could not apply to the Santa Maria. Though Portugal is a NATO member and a centuries-old ally of Britain, Washington and London shrank from the worldwide clamor that would ensue if these particular rebels were handed over to Dictator Salazar.
Hope of Asylum. There seemed little chance of capture by the Portuguese navy, whose major elements are four destroyers, twelve frigates and three submarines scattered among Portugal's far-flung possessions. Galvão announced that he was headed for Angola, the Portuguese African colony where he was once inspector general. But when trouble erupted in neighboring Congo last year, Lisbon rushed several battalions of crack troops to Angola, which would be more than a match for Galvão's 70 rebels and whatever sympathizers he may have in the colony. Brazilian observers speculated that Galvão was simply cruising about in the Atlantic until newly elected President Jânio da Silva Quadros takes office this week, in the hope that he will grant asylum to Galvão and his men.