"Thus, in Europe in the 1970s, there was to be no ‘roll-back’ of Communism, and, crucially, no equivalent to the transformative changes that were to occur in Greece, Portugal and Spain, as conservative dictatorships collapsed in 1973, 1974 and 1975 respectively. At the same time, there was also the assumption that the Soviet Union and its allies would not seek to ‘roll forward’ by destabilising these and other European countries. Although the coup in Portugal on 25 April 1974 by the ‘Armed Forces Movement’ was followed, until April 1976, by instability, social turbulence and low-level revolutionary strife, and by talk of Communists gaining power through a rebellion, the Communists lacked sufficient support in the army. A coup attempt failed in March 1975. Moreover, the coup attempted in November 1975 by elements of the army opposed to a rightward move of the government failed. The army and the Socialists held the Communists off. The Soviet Union did not intervene, which it would have been risky for it to do, and Portugal remained in NATO. Kissinger had feared that Portugal would be lost to ‘the enemy bloc’. However, Portugal had no contiguous border with a Communist state, the Soviets had no direct overland connection to Portugal, and Soviet maritime connections to it were shaky."