Madam, - Patrick Fagan (February 22nd) writes that Salazar "was regarded as a benign dictator". Could he elaborate firstly on what precisely he means by this classic oxymoron, and secondly on who exactly regarded Salazar as benign? Significantly, Joseph Goebbels, in his diary entry of March 6th, 1943, wrote that he was able "to conclude that as long as Salazar is in power in Portugal, nothing really hostile to us will be done".
Incidentally, Eamon de Valera was not the only leader to express his condolences on Hitler's death - Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was the other. - Yours etc.,
STEPHEN RYAN, Harold's Cross, Dublin 6W