Due to Salazar's long rule, a detached evaluation of him is difficult. He is considered either a saviour of interwar Portugal and an exponent of Christian philosophy in politics, or a fascist-leaning dictator who obstructed his country's democratic evolution.[citation needed]
In 1983, historian Tom Gallagher criticised Salazar's excessive promises, writing that "Salazar was being deceitful when he told António Ferro in 1938, 'I estimate that within five years every child in this country will have the opportunity to read and write.' His true policy had been revealed six years earlier when he stated categorically, 'I consider more urgent the creation of elites than the necessity to teach people how to read.'"[155]
Historian Neill Lochery claims Salazar was one of the most gifted men of his generation and hugely dedicated to his job and country.[156]
According to American scholar J. Wiarda, despite certain problems and continued poverty in many sectors, the consensus among historians and economists is that Salazar in the 1930s brought remarkable improvements in the economic sphere, public works, social services and governmental honesty, efficiency and stability.[157][158]
Sir Samuel Hoare, the British Ambassador in Spain, recognised Salazar's crucial role in keeping the Iberian peninsula neutral during World War II, and lauded him. Hoare asserted that, in his 30 years of political life, he had met most of the leading statesmen of Europe, and regarded Salazar highly among those. Salazar was to him a learned and impressive thinker – part professor, part priest, part recluse of unshakable beliefs. He regarded him as ascetic, concentrated on serving his country, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Europe and indifferent to ostentation, luxury or personal gains. Hoare strongly believed in Salazar as "being a man of one idea – the good of his country", not wanting to endanger the work of national regeneration to which he had devoted the whole of his public life.[80]
Historian Carlton Hayes, a pioneering specialist on the study of nationalism, was the American Ambassador in Spain during World War II. He met Salazar in person and agreed with Ambassador Hoare. Hayes wrote that Salazar "didn't look like a regular dictator. Rather, he appeared a modest, quiet, and highly intelligent gentleman and scholar ... literally dragged from a professorial chair of political economy in the venerable University of Coimbra a dozen years previously in order to straighten out Portugal's finances, and that his almost miraculous success in this respect had led to the thrusting upon him of other major functions, including those of Foreign Minister and constitution-maker."[81] Hayes appreciated Portugal's endeavours to form a truly neutral peninsular bloc with Spain, an immeasurable contribution – at a time when the British and the United States had much less influence – towards counteracting the propaganda and appeals of the Axis.[82]
Morito Morishima, the Japanese minister in Portugal during World War II, praised Salazar in his post-war memoirs: "It was the result of Salazar's intelligence and political ability that Japan–Portugal diplomatic relations were maintained until the end war, and Salazar who was engaged in diplomacy with his calm attitude, firm theory and judgment, sophisticated expression was still vivid to my eyes. Every time I think about my stay in Portugal, I can't stop but thinking that if Japan had had one politician – just one – like Salazar, our country would have followed a different path and we would not be going through our current misfortune situation."[159]
Belgian diplomat André de Staercke, dean of NATO's ambassadors, who served for almost 24 years on the alliance council, developed a close and long friendship with Salazar. In his memoirs, Staercke dedicates a full chapter to Salazar and ranks Salazar, together with Churchill and Paul-Henri Spaak as one of the three greatest political leaders he has met in his life.[160]
The Portuguese literary historian, António José Saraiva, a communist and a fierce lifelong political opponent of Salazar, claimed that "Salazar was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable men in the history of Portugal and possessed a quality that remarkable men do not always have: the right intention."[161]
The Portuguese historian, scholar, and editor, A. H. de Oliveira Marques, wrote of Salazar: "He considered himself the guide of the nation, believed that there were things which only he could do ('unfortunately there are a lot of things that seemingly only I can do' – official note published in September 1935) and convinced more and more of his countrymen of that too ... He became more and more of a dictator, more and more inclined to deify himself and to trust others less."[162]
In November 1965, Time magazine said of Salazar: "Every four years, Premier António de Oliveira Salazar preserves Portugal's image as a democracy by blowing the dust off a few selected "opposition" leaders and relaxing police controls just enough for a few weeks to permit them to run for Portugal's 130-seat National Assembly. There are a few cracks in the facade. The assembly functions only as a rubber stamp. The opposition candidates are usually feeble old men left over from a regime that was discredited and overthrown four decades ago, and Salazar decides what they can and cannot talk about".[163]
The Portuguese poet, writer, and literary critic Fernando Pessoa wrote that Salazar was "capable of governing within the limits of his area of expertise, which is financial science, but not (capable of governing) with the lack of limits of government in general", adding that "What is wrong, here, is not that Sr. Oliveira Salazar is Minister of Finance, which I accept is right, but that he is minister of everything, which is more questionable."[164]
