WORLDWATCH: NATO: Who Needs It? - Gene H Hogberg - November 1975

Gene H Hogberg

LENINGRAD, U.S.S.R.: The sleek, three-masted vessel anchored here in the harbor of the "Annapolis" of the Soviet Union carries a message by its very presence. It's the training ship of the Portuguese navy - a navy which, on paper at least, is still a part of NATO. Spokesmen for Portugal's leftist Armed Forces Movement - instigators and protectors of Portugal's 1974 "flower revolution" - claim that their nation is still committed to the Western alliance. But the Soviet and Portuguese flags flying cozily side-by-side in Leningrad harbor, along with the casual ambience between the bearded, scraggly-haired Portuguese midshipmen and their crew-cutted Soviet counterparts suggest that Portugal's AFM leaders are also looking elsewhere for "sailing instructions." - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library