THE SALUTARY FASCIST INTERLUDE:

Nobody wants to talk about António de Oliveira Salazar. The left resent him because he doesn't fit their profile of a right-wing dictator. He despised fascism, which he dismissed as "pagan Caesarism." Likewise, he said Hitler's racism was "essentially pagan, incompatible with the character of our Christian civilization."

Salazar rarely used his secret police to suppress political dissent. When he did, it was limited to the militant communists who tried to blow him up in 1937 as he made his way to church. After the bomb went off, shattering the windows of his car, he dusted himself off and said to his entourage, "Everything is over now. Let's go in for Mass."

Dr. Salazar opposed the Axis Powers' expansionism, beginning with Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. During World War II, he helped victims of the Third Reich escape Nazi-occupied Europe; Casablanca got that much right. He lent material support to the Allies during World War II, and he would have gladly joined the war on their side. Salazar remained neutral only for fear of driving his neighbor, Francisco Franco, into Hitler's arms.

The right, meanwhile, doesn't like to talk about him for fear of being called fascists ourselves. 

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