The state visit to Guinea and Cape Verde by Craveiro Lopes, whom he escorted due to his protocol responsibilities, seemed never ending. On the other hand he kept a beautiful memory of the President's official visit to London (25-28 October 1955). This visit gave him the opportunity to publish another work, entitled Uma velha Aliança (An Old Alliance), where he retraced the structure of the Portuguese-British friendship through official texts that had united the two countries, from the 1353 trade treaty to the agreement on the use of facilities in the Azores, from 17 August 1943. Marcello Caetano, then Minister of the Presidency, wished to see him as National Secretary of Information, Popular Culture and Tourism, a position he held for a brief period (6 February 1956 to 9 January 1958) and which he did not enjoy. Despite his attempts to freshen up Palácio Foz by releasing banned plays, active politics did not seduce him. "I deeply desired to leave that hornet's nest, where I had inadvertently entered, without mask and gloves" (Memorial, p. 90).

He escaped from the position as quickly as possible and was appointed First Class Minister, with ambassador credentials, to fill the vacancy in Rome left after the death of António Ferro. This leap in his career did not sit well among his peers. He languished there ten years before receiving a promotion to full ambassador and felt his appointment to Canada (20 December 1962) was a punishment. He eventually came to appreciate Canada, where there was blatant ignorance of Portugal. At a very difficult time internationally, with the onset of the Colonial Wars, he conceived an ambitious series of lectures at universities in Toronto, Quebec City, Montreal, Saint John’s, (Newfoundland) and Vancouver, to publicize the work of the Portuguese expansion. His efforts were crowned with the unveiling of a statue of Gaspar Corte Real (1965) and his being awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in Law. His thesis on the Portuguese precedence in the discovery of Newfoundland contradicted the official Canadian version, which attributed the feat to Venetian Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), in the service of Henry VII of England. Published in French by the University of Montreal, with the title La découverte de Terre Neuve, it earned glowing reviews from the newspaper Le Droit (Ottawa, 18 August 1964). Memorial University in Newfoundland and the University of Montreal launched courses in Portuguese maritime history, without any requests for financial backing from Portugal. With Os Descobrimentos portugueses nas Histórias do Canadá (Portuguese Discoveries in the Histories of Canada, 1969) he tried to show errors and probable reasons for the omissions or misrepresentations of Canadian historians (nine French-speaking and 14 English-speaking). Strangely, the work did not arouse interest in his home country. He was then appointed to Brussels and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, on 25 January 1967. Portugal was not well regarded in Belgium, which had been forced into the decolonisation of the Congo. He then wrote a work clarifying the profound connection over the centuries between Portugal and Flanders: Présence du Portugal en Belgique.

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