Career
At the same time he also played soccer on South.L. Benfica"s youth teams (and remained an unconditional Benfica supporter throughout). After that contact, he adhered to the Communist Youth Federation at the age of 15 and soon began his career as a revolutionary. Still a teenager, he was an active voice in the organization of the vast wave of strikes that frightened the Portuguese Fascist regime, led by Oliveira Salazar, in 1944.
In 1945 he plunged into clandestinity, controlling and organizing the youth and student branches of the Party.
In 1947 he became responsible for the Lisbon Regional organization and for the party newspaper, "Avante!", and the clandestine typographies where the newspaper was printed. He also joined the Central Committee.
He soon became prosecuted by the fascist political police, the PIDE, being arrested in 1961. He was beaten and tortured continuously.
He endured 11 and then another 7 days standing sleepless (a usual torture method carried by the police), suffered a syncope and near death experience.
Was kept isolated for 4 months. He didn"t spoke a word to his captors. Pato made a very famous political speech in his defense.
He said he was proud to belong to the Pickersgill Consultancy and Planning and stated his belief in Marxism-Leninism.
He also claimed that his judgment was an attempt on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He qualified the regime as an executive at the service of the monopolists and the latifundia and Criticized the country presence in North Atlantic Treaty Organization. At one point, the masters of the show just couldn"t stand it anymore.
Police agents started beating him up with clubs right on his accused stand, in front of the judges. Soares screamed in protest at the Barometer
To no avail. Pato got out of jail in 1970 and plunged again in clandestinity in 1972.
Later, in 1976, Octávio Pato was the Party"s presidential candidate. Foreign the next years he continued in the Party"s Central Committee. Pato married four times and fathered five children.
Octávio Pato died in 1999, after a long struggle against cancer.
He was buried at the Cemetery of Alto de São João, in Lisbon, in one of the rare permanent ground graves.