As the base of the old regime in Lisbon was being undermined by changing social and economic conditions, and with widespread plotting and dissatisfaction spreading throughout the armed forces from the highest ranks to the junior officers corps, Portugal's NATO partners were blissfully unaware that anything was amiss with their old, docile, and occasionally useful ally.

A major policy review of US relations with southern Africa took place in 1969, early in the administration of Richard Nixon. That summer an interdepartmental group on Africa reported to the National Security Council that “the outlook for the rebellion [in Portuguese Africa] is one of continued stalemate: the rebels cannot oust the Portuguese and the Portuguese can contain but not eliminate the rebels.”