Three attributes should be essential to anyone in public office: intelligence, integrity and dedication. If it is not an easy task to identify one of these qualities in a politician, much more difficult it would be to find two, and highly improbable to have all three simultaneously. For the good fortune of Portugal and the Portuguese, António de Oliveira Salazar was endowed - and liberally endowed - with this "golden triad" which defines the authentic governor of the Polis. Not only intelligence, but superior intelligence; not just integrity, but absolute integrity; not merely dedication, but total dedication to public affairs. In Salazar these three essential features were firmly anchored in a profound love of God and of Portugal. And this is precisely what explains the core of his political thought, in which the Nation is the supreme value in the temporal order and the State is God's Ministry on earth to procure the common good - the legitimate material well-being, the development of a virtuous life, the salvation of the soul, concepts which are obviously unintelligible to today's materialistic, hedonistic and globalist frame of mind.

In this book two philosophers and one historian take turns to explore particular aspects of Salazar s personality, political thought and work. With erudition, finesse d esprit and superb writing, Marcel De Corte, Pierre Gaxotte and Gustave Thibon will give the reader an invaluable insight into the complex and fascinating nature of the Portuguese leader. - From the foreword