Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
The conquest of North Africa, important as it was, was meant to be the first round in the more important battle for Italy. Possession of the North African coast was the key to the invasion of Italy, as it had been in Roman times. Logistical support for the coming Italian campaign would be more secure if transshipment facilities were available in the Azores.
A final factor influencing the Allies strategic planning for the Azores Islands was the role they could play in supporting operations in the Far East. Material shipped from the United State: across the Atlantic could be stockpiled in the Azores, safe from German aircraft attack, then transshipped by plane across north Africa, through Egypt, and reach bases in British India, when it could be used in support of Allied efforts against the Japanese Empire. As the war in Europe wound down in early 1945, the importance of bases in the Azores Islands to the war in the East grew.
Portugal's position early in 1943 was not encouraging for the Allies' hopes. She was one of Europe's largest producers of tung sten, a metal with the highest melting point known, vital for the manufacture of tank armor, as well as armor-piercing projectiles. Portugal was exporting the majority of her tungsten to Ger many, across Spanish rail lines, despite pleas from the Allies to reduce the quantities of the metal she shipped to the Axis. To be fair to Portugal, however, it should be said that Germany was after all, the biggest local market for war materials. As a neutral Portugal could not very well refuse to sell to Germany, or ever be seen to reduce her exports at the request of a belligerent power without appearing to take sides in the conflict.
Additionally, and this was a point that weighed heavily or Prime Minister Salazar's mind, German bombers were only a few hours flying time away from Lisbon should he steer his country in a direction that seemed to favor the Allied cause. In fact Salazar believed that Germany would finally win the war, so then was no real point in upsetting the nation that would ultimately decide his own country's destiny. Salazar's neighbor, Generalis simo Francisco Franco, openly declared his support, moral if no practical, of the Nazis, and Portugal's land army was no mater for Spain's. It was not in Portugal's national interest, therefore to grant the Allies basing rights in the Azores. This was Salazar's position early in 1943, and he made it known both to the Allies and the Germans.
In the face of Salazar's reluctance to grant them base rights in the Azores Islands, the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff had prepared a plan early in 1943 code-named "Lifebelr," This called for the seizure of the islands by military force. Churchill and Roosevelt understood that the consequences for the course of the war were dire, should this plan have to be put into operation, for Portugal certainly would have to declare war against the Allies, and Spain inevitably would have been drawn in on the German side. However, air bases on the islands were so necessary to the Allied effort that the consequences of their seizure were deemed worth the gain.
By the middle of 1943, Salazar had come to understand how strongly committed the Allies were to the goal of base rights in the Azores. Accordingly, when the British ambassador renewed discussions with Portugal about the Azores, Salazar decided to alter his position on the issue. Stating that Portuguese-British relations had been friendly before 1943, and recalling Wellington's campaigns in his country against Napoleon's army of occupation, Salazar declared that granting base rights to the British would only reflect their two country's long standing friendship and would not indicate a change in Portugal's status as a neutral. Shortly afterwards, Salazar agreed to lease land in the Azores, at Lagens, Horta, and Terceira, for the construction of air bases. However, the concession was to be for British use, exclusively. All other belligerents (meaning specifically the United States) were excluded from operating out of the airfields to be built by Britain in the islands.
The German and Japanese governments protested Salazar's concession to Britain, but by excluding United States' operations from the islands, Salazar hoped to mollify the Axis powers some-what. He also increased Portugal's exports of tungsten to Germany. The German government continued its protests, but with its armies on the defensive in Russia, beaten in North Africa, and bearing the brunt of the fighting in Italy, the Nazi government was in no position to intervene militarily in Portugal. By the end of 1943, the British had constructed airfields and were conducting effective anti-submarine patrols from the islands.
While Salazar's concession to the British benefitted the Allied cause, his exclusion of United States forces meant that American aircraft and war material could not be stockpiled in the Azores. Since America really was the "Arsenal of Democracy" the Allied purpose in obtaining base rights there was still frustrated, and the effectiveness of the bases for the Allied war effort was only a shadow of what it could be if United States participation were allowed. Accordingly, American diplomacy in Portugal was directed towards three goals.
Following Salazar's concession to the British at the end of 1943, Charge d'Affairs George Kennan, the ranking US. foreign service officer in Portugal, was instructed that his government desired to reach the following objectives as quickly as possible. First, he was to obtain Salazar's permission for United States forces to make strategic and tactical use of the British airfields in the Azores. This objective had the highest priority, since the Allies were planning the invasion of France for mid-1944, and the Azores bases would play an important role in the logistical support of the operation. Important as it was, this first objective was really only an interim one.
Kennan's second objective was to persuade Salazar to grant the United States bases of their own, independent of the British. This second objective was discussed in detail in cables sent to Kennan, and later Henry Norweb, from the Department of State. It was far-reaching in its simplicity, and its long term consequences seemed to have escaped Salazar's notice. Independent United States bases in the Azores reflected some of the underlying rivalry between the British and American general staffs, and this was, certainly, one of the objective's motives. Another was the potential importance American bases would have when the European war was won and Allied attention turned to the war in the Far East. Bases in the Azores would serve as important staging points on the air route from America to India.
The Department of State looked further than just the end of the war, however, when it weighed the importance of independent American bases in the Azores. The Department of State realized that, in the post-war world, air bases there would have strategic implications for the control of the European land mass in the event of hostilities with America's inevitable rival, the Soviet Union. The islands would have both strategic and tactical roles to play in the game of post-war geopolitics. They would also be commercially important to America's future, since the same refueling capability that attracted the United States Air Force to the Azores attracted Pan American Airways there.
A third objective of United States policy toward Portugal was to prevail upon Salazar to halt shipments of tungsten to Germany. Without Portuguese supplies of the metal, Germany would have to obtain this vital element elsewhere, and would face a delay until the new suppliers could increase production to meet the new demand.
By early December 1943, when he was recalled to Washington, Charge d'Affairs Kennan had successfully negotiated United States use of British bases at Horta and Terceira and their extension and improvement by US. army engineers. R. Henry Norweb was appointed Ambassador (personal rank; in 1943 the United States maintained a legation, not an embassy, in Lisbon) to Portugal in November. For the first month of his tour he and Kennan worked closely together, allowing Norweb time to get the feel of the negotiations and to learn from Kennan the best way of dealing with Salazar.