PIDE

The agency that would later become the PIDE was established by the Decree-Law 22992 of August 1933, as the State Surveillance and Defense Police (Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado) or PVDE.

[1][2] During the Portuguese First Republic and the following Ditadura Nacional regimes, the police services were reorganized several times, with the remote ancestors of PIDE appearing.

According to Professor Douglas Wheeler "an analysis of Lourenco's career suggest[s] strongly that British Intelligence Services' influence had an impact on the structure and activity of PVDE".

The sailors, affiliated with the Communist Party, had attempted to sail two Portuguese Navy ships out of Lisbon to join the Spanish Republican forces fighting in Spain.

Also in 1936, with the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and in 1937 with the attempt against Salazar's life by anarchist terrorists, the PVDE started focusing its battle against communism and the underground Portuguese Communist Party.

During this pre-World War II period, several Italian and German advisers came to Portugal to help the PVDE adopt a model similar to the Gestapo.

Writers such as Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond) were based there, while other prominent people such as the Duke of Windsor and the Spanish Royal Family were exiled in Estoril.

The Spaniard Juan Pujol Garcia, better known as Codename Garbo, passed on misinformation to the Germans, hoping it would hasten the end of the Spanish State—he was recruited by Britain as a double agent while in Lisbon.

Conversely, William Colepaugh, an American traitor, was recruited as an agent by the Germans while his ship was in port in Lisbon—he was subsequently landed by U-boat, U-1230, in Maine before being captured.

For example, law student Aurora Rodrigues was arrested for association with the Portuguese Workers' Communist Party and was kept awake for weeks and repeatedly drowned.

Yves Guérin-Sérac, a former officer of the French Army and founder of the OAS right-wing terrorist group during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), set up "Aginter Press" in Lisbon and participated with the PIDE in covert operations.

[citation needed] In 1969, Marcelo Caetano changed the name PIDE to DGS (Direcção-Geral de Segurança, "General Security Directorate").

The death of Salazar and the subsequent ascension of Caetano brought some attempts at democratization, in order to avoid popular insurgency against censorship, the ongoing colonial war, and the general restriction of civil rights.

Unidentified agents - desperate after being surrounded by rebellious troops and a throng of civilians - opened fire from the top of the building, killing four demonstrators.

[4] After being sanitized, the corporation continued its operations in the Portuguese colonies under the name of the Military Information Police (Polícia de Informação Militar).

This led to the establishment of the Sistema de Informações da República Portuguesa (SIRP, Intelligence System of the Portuguese Republic) in 1984.