Kaúlza de Oliveira de Arriaga, OA, GCC, OC, OIH (18 January 1915 – 2 February 2004) was a Portuguese general, writer, professor and politician. He was Secretary of State (junior minister) of the Air Force between 1953 and 1955 and commander of the Terrestrial Forces in Mozambique from 1969 until 1974 during the Mozambican War of Independence. Ancestry He was a son of Manuel dos Santos Lima de Arriaga Nunes (1885-1940), a sculptor and son of a medical doctor from Pico Island, Azores, and his Portuguese Brazilian wife, Felicidade Eugénia Martins de Oliveira (1894-1987), daughter and granddaughter of goldsmiths. The couple married in Porto on 20 June 1914. Career Arriaga completed a degree in mathematics and engineering at the University of Porto and then volunteered for the Portuguese Army on 1 November 1935. Taking a military and civil engineering course in the Military Academy which he graduated from in 1939, he was later assigned to the general staff of the Portuguese Institute of Military Studies. Here he petitioned for reforms to the conscription system, as well as training and the integration of paratroopers into the Portuguese Air Force. Arriaga commanded, as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, the Portuguese forces in Mozambique from 1969 until 1974, taking over from General António Augusto dos Santos and organizing the Operation Nó Górdio ("Gordian Knot Operation") in 1970. This operation was the largest and most expensive military operation performed by the Portuguese Armed Forces during the entire Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974). Arriaga was a major political figure in the Estado Novo regime before the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 in Lisbon, holding a number of public positions such as Head of the Ministry of Defense Cabinet, Secretary of State for Aeronautics, Professor of the Institute of High Military Studies, President of the Nuclear Energy Joint Commission and Executive President of the oil company Angol SA. In 1977 he founded MIRN, a right-wing political party, and was its chairman until the party's extinction after the 1980 Portuguese legislative election. He died from Alzheimer's disease in 2004, in Lisbon. Decorations Arriaga received a number of awards and citations during his career, including: Officer of the Order of Aviz Grand Officer of the Order of Military Merit of Brazil Commander of the Legion of Merit of the United States of America Grand Cross of the Order of Christ Grand Officer of the Order