The scale of outside intervention in Angola remained largely hidden from public view until December 12, 1975 when a story by David Binder on the New York Times front page revealed the full extent of US clandestine involvement. Most public attention over the summer and autumn of 1975 remained focused on Portugal. The land seizures in the south, and some highly publicized but isolated seizures elsewhere in the country thoroughly alarmed small landowners and scared them into mutual political action and collaboration in August 1975. Often encouraged by local priests, mobs burned and sacked at least forty-nine of the Communist Party's offices in central and northern Portugal, virtually expelling the Communist Party from these regions.