“Even today, there are many people, many communists, calling the then general secretary Álvaro Cunhal a traitor, the communists themselves do so, because he retreated at a certain point, after having ordered the advance, he retreated. And, as I say in the book, Álvaro Cunhal justified himself by saying that ‘Careca messed up’. Careca was Rosa Coutinho. Why? Because they misread the situation, they said they were going to have the intervention of the marines, advanced, and then that didn’t happen”he detailed.
Vasco Lourenço also admitted that he was forced to read other works to write this memoir because “there were theories that had passed him by”, although he had been at the “center of events”.
“For example, the theory of Pires Veloso and Pinheiro de Azevedo who defend, together, that the 25th of November was a coup led by the PCP through Melo Antunes and Ramalho Eanes. That had never crossed my mind. But what is fact, that is written in their books”he exemplified.