In November 1973, he returned to Lisbon, on the invitation of Salazar's successor, Marcello Caetano, to head the Overseas portfolio: which he refused, due to the government's intransigence on the Portuguese colonies. A month later, on 17 January 1974, he was asked to be the Vice-Chief of the Defence Council of the Armed Forces, on the advice of Francisco da Costa Gomes, a post that he would be removed from in March. Shortly later, he would publish Portugal e o Futuro ("Portugal and the Future"), where he expressed the idea that the only solution to the Colonial Wars was the discontinuation of the conflict.