A Cry for 'Discipline! Discipline!'

The honeymoon ended quickly for Portugal's new government--if, indeed, it had ever begun. Last week, less than three weeks after Premier Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo was sworn in as head of the Sixth Provisional Government, Lisbon was swept with rumors of impending coups by extremists on both ends of the country's wide political spectrum. First the Socialists, largest of the three parties in the Pinheiro de Azevedo coalition, issued communiques warning of an imminent leftist attack on the Premier. Almost immediately the Communists countered with an equally alarming communique suggesting that "when certain forces announce a coup from the left, it can be suspected that there is a coup from the right in preparation." At week's end Pinheiro de Azevedo's regime was still in power. But no one was willing to pre dict how long it would last, even though it was the first Cabinet since the revolution that has even come close to representing Portugal's non-Communist majority.

The exchange of coup threats between Communists and Socialists culminated a severe spate of military and civilian disorder. It began with a series of violent protests by veterans of Portugal's African wars. They included an abortive attempt to kidnap the Pinheiro de Azevedo Cabinet and peaked when a leftist mob looted and burned the Spanish embassy, consulate and ambassador's residence in Lisbon, causing some $22 million in damages.

No Takeover. Angered by the fact that the rioters had been egged on by the country's leftist-controlled radio and television stations, the Premier ordered the military to seize Portugal's broadcasting facilities and allow only government press releases and news agency reports to be aired. But many of the soldiers who were sent to occupy the stations joined forces with the leftist broadcasters and refused to carry out the takeover order. Two days later, Pinheiro de Azevedo had the troops withdrawn and asked the networks to comply voluntarily with the censorship rules. Most of the stations agreed to tone down their antigovernment broadcasts.

Whose Drum? The mini-mutiny raised a question that is being asked more and more frequently in Portugal: To whose drum are the soldiers marching? Most of the military forces in northern Portugal still support the government, but units in the south are openly rebellious, and the two-camp situation could easily degenerate into civil war. Last week extreme leftist army commands were distributing arms to civilians in the south. At least 30,000 weapons have been stolen from the military, perhaps without much resistance, since the beginning of the revolution, and most of them are in the hands of leftists. When an officer of COPCON, Portugal's internal-security police, recently admitted that he had given 1,500 automatic rifles to left-wing civilians, General Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, COPCON's openly radical chief, implicitly defended him by boasting: "If there were a revolution, I would arm the people myself." Saraiva de Carvalho, who has given only tentative support to the Pinheiro de Azevedo government, has also warned: "If I see a turn to the right, I will enter the opposition."

But even that is not certain. Says a Western diplomat of Saraiva de Carvalho: "He wants to run with the hare and ride with the hounds." As COPCON chief.

Saraiva de Carvalho was responsible for enforcing the Premier's order to seize the broadcasting stations. When he met with the radio and television network chiefs at the Ministry of Information early in the week, he strongly urged compliance and scourged them for creating the kind of tense political climate that could lead to a right-wing coup. Later, when confronted by a leftist mob outside the ministry, he silenced their jeers by saying that he was only carrying out orders; when the crowd suggested that he join them in a protest march on the Premier's palace, the compulsively agreeable COPCON boss quickly obliged.

The only bright prospect for the Pinheiro de Azevedo government is that it will soon start receiving financial and technical help from abroad. As long as the pro-Communist regime of Premier Vasco dos Santos Gonc,alves remained in power, the U.S. and Western European governments held back. Now, Western nations are prepared to discuss aid programs which, for a start, could total more than $200 million.

While political aficionados continue to feud over Portugal's swings to the left and turns to the right, the ordinary Portuguese is simply trying to negotiate a straight line home, where he shuts himself in at night with his wife and children and hopes that the country will still be there when he gets up in the morning. The most popular rallying cry of last week's many demonstrations was one that was chanted by 40,000 Portuguese at a pro-government demonstration organized by Socialist Party Leader Mario Scares: "Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!" As yet. unfortunately, the Pinheiro de Azevedo regime has not shown that it can fulfill that mandate.

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