Maria Manuel Stocker, *Xeque-mate a Goa*, Lisboa, Temas & Debates, 2005, pp. 288
************* M.M.Stocker recounts the fall of Portuguese regime in Goa in 1961, presenting critically the diplomatic and military strategies adopted by Salazar. Points to his success in forcing India to stain its pacifist image, but also to his failure in sensing correctly the contemporary world politics and also the feelings of the Portuguese citizens at home. The «checkmate» in the title of the book suggests an analogy of «poker» game. The book seeks to analyse how Salazar failed to see the enemy hand as well as his own hand. He bluffed and lost. He trusted the virtues of Nehru and was hoping that he would balk before the self-sacrificing Portuguese troops. He believed that there would be no invasion at all, or if it did, it would provoke large massacre. In either case Salazar hoped to improve the image of Portugal in India and elsewhere, specially in Portuguese African colonies, which were simmering. Both his calculations failed. The author presents these developments in the context of the Portuguese political scenario at that time and also the political moves of Moscow and Washington to dismantle the European colonialism. The author makes an important contribution to our understanding of the Portuguese colonial history of the twentieth century, but despite a relatively dispassionate perspective gives in occasionally to "ifs". Suggests that Goa case could develop differently if Portugal had entered into democratic politics and respected fundamental freedoms without censorship and secret police which lied to the Portuguese people all along till the disastrous end and even after. The censored Portuguese media through SNI sought to provoke the nationalist feelings of the home population and world sympathy with such invented news as about a thousand troops and civilians killed by the invading forces. The Salazar regime failed to comprehend the disinterest shown by its NATO allies and the world super-powers in responding to his quest for sympathy and support. Born in Lisbon in 1957, the author obtained a degree in Political Sociology in Louvain in 1979. She worked as correspondent of national and international press and also for BBC in London, Brussels, Frankfurt, and elsewhere. The present research is backed by an extensive use of published and archival documentation from Portugal, India, USA, etc. Despite its near-completeness one still finds some important bibliographical items missing. Also the role of Goan MPs in the Portuguese Parliament hardly finds any mention. Was it really an useless representation. Not always to my mind: Dr. Foilano de Mello's speeches in the Portuguese Parliament touched on several sensitive issues, and he ended as persona non grata and into self- exile to Brasil. All in all, the book has little novelty to most informed Indians, but it may still fill a knowledge vacuum in the Portuguese society which was kept largely in the dark by the Portuguese political and academic establishment of the pre-1974 era. Teotónio R. de Souza ************ http://campussocial.ulusofona.pt/index_ingles.htm
