Manuel Pedroso Marques
Biography
Manuel Pedroso Marques was born on August 1, 1935, in Lisbon. He studied Military Administration at the Military Academy. After participating, as a captain, in the “Beja Revolt,” which occurred on the night of December 31, 1961, he went into hiding. He requested asylum at the Brazilian Embassy in Lisbon and remained there for about three years.
Expelled from the Army, he was tried in absentia and sentenced to three years in prison. He left, “in a hurry,” for France, where he requested political asylum and obtained safe passage to Brazil, where he joined his wife and five-year-old daughter. They spent a total of 12 years in exile. In Paris, he served as a code instructor and worked at the Centre de Formation des Journalistses. In Brazil, he worked in management and publishing. He was editor of the Delta Larousse Encyclopedia.
He was also one of the founders of the Portuguese Socialist Action (ASP) in 1964. He returned to Portugal in September 1974. He served as deputy to Minister Coreia Jesuíno at the Ministry of Social Communication. Reinstated in the Army as a major, he headed the Army’s Dynamization Office. In 1975, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of RTP and would later serve as military advisor to Prime Minister Mário Soares. He was director of the Lusa Agency, the Diário Notícias and Capital newspapers, and publishers such as Bertrand and Difel. He wrote articles on political and cultural issues for various publications and published several works in the fields of political essays and history.
