Francisco da Costa Gomes
Francisco da Costa Gomes [ fɾɐsiʃku dɐ kɔʃtɐ gomɨʃ ] (* June 30, 1914 in Chaves, † July 31, 2001 in Cascais ) was Portuguese Marshal and President of Portugal departing from 1974 until 1976.
Francisco da Costa Gomes was the son of Captain. He studied at the Military College and later at the University of Porto. From 1946 on, he was entrusted with high offices in the Portuguese armed forces and temporarily NATO. He was Under Secretary of State, but in 1961 released from this position because he favored a political solution to the colonial question.
From 1965 he was a senior officer in Mozambique, then commanding the Portuguese colonial forces in Angola. He tried with limited success to an understanding with the resistance group UNITA. In 1972 he was appointed Chief of the General Staff and already deducted in March 1974 again because he advocated the withdrawal from the colonial war and together with General Antonio de Spinola refused to participate in a trust for the dictator Marcelo Caetano rally.
He was one of the protagonists of the movement of the armed forces to overthrow the dictatorship MFA ( Carnation Revolution ). On April 25, 1974, he appeared as one of the seven officers of the junta of national salvation to the public and took to September 30, 1974, the responsibility of the head of the General Staff, after the resignation of António de Spinola, he was the second President of the Third Republic of September 28, 1974 to July 13, 1976, he handed the office of the people's elected successor, General António Ramalho Eanes.
Francisco da Costa Gomes saw himself as a soldier and not a politician. As a soldier, he came early to the conclusion that the colonial war was not justifiable. In the Carnation Revolution in 1974, he succeeded against the drifting to the right General António de Spinola, as well as against the urging force of Portuguese Communist Party under Álvaro Cunhal.
In the international peace movement, he was a member of the organization founded in 1981 Generals for Peace.