Francisco da Costa Gomes


Francisco da Costa Gomes, ComTE GOA was a former Portuguese military officer and politician who was the president of Portugal from 1974 to 1976. Earlier on, he had been deployed to Angola as part of the Portuguese Colonial War.

Biography

Gomes was born in Chaves, Portugal, on 30 June 1914. He was one of the eleven children of António José Gomes and Idalina Júlia Monteiro da Costa.
On 8 December 1952, Gomes married Maria Estela Veloso de Antas Varajão, daughter of João de Campos Varajão and his wife Angélica Martins Veloso, at the Cathedral of Viana do Castelo. The couple had only one son, Francisco da Costa Gomes.
In 1961, Gomes, acting as under-secretary of state for the Army, was involved in a constitutional "coup d'état" headed by the Minister of Defence, General Júlio Botelho Moniz, that tried to convince President Américo Tomás to remove an aged António de Oliveira Salazar from the premiership.
In 1970 he occupied the post of Commander of the Military Region of Angola, where he overhauled the chief-command and was the first to try to establish a military agreement with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola against the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and the National Liberation Front of Angola. However, during his tenure in Angola, Gomes also resorted to chemical warfare in forested zones. This took place in a period that saw Portugal come increasingly under the influence of the US which itself used similar tactics in the Vietnam War.
On 12 September 1972, Gomes was called back to Portugal to occupy the post of Chief of the Armed Forces—replacing General —but he was replaced in March 1974 for refusing to swear his loyalty to the President of the Council of Ministers Marcelo Caetano in a public ceremony.
After the Carnation Revolution on 25 April, Gomes was one of the seven military leaders who made up the National Salvation Junta. Between 25 April and 30 September, he was the second-in-command of Portugal behind António de Spínola. He became Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff again on 30 April 1974.
Following Spinola's resignation on 30 September 1974, Gomes was named as the President of the Republic by the reorganised Junta and served until 13 July 1976, when he was succeeded by General António Ramalho Eanes, who won the 1976 Portuguese presidential election. During his presidency, Portugal faced a turbulent period known as the Ongoing Revolutionary Process. Despite the ambiguity of his position, he was recognised for having prevented a potential civil war. He received an honorary promotion to Field Marshal in 1982.
Gomes died of respiratory failure at the age of 87 at the Lisbon Military Hospital on 31 July 2001. He was buried in the Alto de São João Cemetery.

Honours

National

Foreign