Alvaro Cunhal, 91:

Led Communist Opposition to Portuguese Dictatorships

Associated Press

Alvaro Cunhal, who led Portugal's Communist Party for half a century and
became a national hero after the overthrow of the country's dictatorship,
died Monday, the party said. He was 91.The party announcement did not indicate where Cunhal died or the cause of
death.

The government declared a national day of mourning Wednesday, the day of
Cunhal's funeral in Lisbon.

Cunhal spent nearly 35 years underground or in jail for his role in building
the Communists into the only well-organized opposition to the dictatorships
of Antonio Salazar and then Marcelo Caetano. He was living in exile in
Moscow when a bloodless 1974 army coup known as the Revolution of Carnations
overturned Caetano's government.

President Jorge Sampaio said Cunhal "has his place among us in the fight
against the authoritarian regime, in the revolution and the consolidation of
Portuguese democracy."

When Cunhal returned from exile after the coup, his party's showing in
elections propelled him into ministerial posts in four provisional,
military-led governments.

But he was unable or unwilling to soften his austere style to broaden his
support, and the country's leftist sympathies focused on Mario Soares and
the Socialists.

Cunhal was a strong candidate for prime minister in 1975. With support from
the Soviet Union, his party won 20% in a national ballot.

He wanted Portugal to pull out of NATO and become an ally of Moscow.

Cunhal applauded the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, praised the
Soviet war effort in Afghanistan and rejected the reforms of Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev.

He clung to his communist ideals long after the Soviet perestroika of the
1980s and, perhaps as a consequence, the party's influence gradually faded.

Its 7% share of the vote in the 2002 general election was its lowest point.

Cunhal was a charismatic and imposing figure, even in his later years, with
white hair, jet-black eyebrows and intense black eyes.

He retired in 1993, making way for Carlos Carvalhas, who had been groomed as
his successor.

Born in Portugal's Coimbra district, Cunhal entered communism from a
comfortable, middle-class family.

He studied law and graduated first in his class at Lisbon University.

He secretly joined the outlawed Communist Party at the university.

In 1960, when Cunhal was incarcerated in the dictatorship's top-security
Peniche prison, he and nine other political prisoners escaped by tying
bedsheets together. Cunhal was hailed as a national hero when he returned to
Lisbon after 14 years in exile.

Cunhal was a private man who kept much of his life secret. But a few years
ago, he revealed he was the author of several top-selling novels under the
pseudonym Manuel Tiago.

His pencil drawings done in jail also won praise.

Cunhal is survived by his partner, Fernanda Barroso; and a daughter from a
previous relationship.