This week, one of the most important portuguese politicians of the last Century - Mário Soares - died.

Notoriously, he was of the key people in stopping a communist rule of Portugal following the 1974 revolution against the long standing right-wing dictatorship.

One of the stories about him during this period is that he - along with US Ambassador to Portugal Frank Carlucci - convinced Henry Kissinger (Secretary of State at the time) to support a democratic Portuguese Republic, instead of letting the extreme communist parties rule Portugal - which Kissinger prefered, as a "communism vaccine" for other european states - or letting a Pinochet-style coup revert the country back to a right-wing dictatorship.

So, what do we know about the US plans for post-revolution Portugal? How did the US see the rise of a potencial communist country inside NATO? Was a military intervention on Portugal or a support for a coup on the table?