[Jeffrey Frankel] A Cold War adventure in Portugal

Fifty years ago this month, I was in Lisbon working for the Banco de Portugal.

With me were four other MIT graduate students, including the future Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.

Inspired by Krugman’s reminiscences about that experience, and in light of our current geopolitical circumstances, I find myself reflecting on what we saw that summer.

Barely two years before our arrival, Portugal had shed a 48-year military dictatorship.

Following its 1974 Carnation Revolution, the country’s politics swun ...