Letter from Brazil

...General Costa e Silva has so far been unwilling to promise these things...

...It is likely, then, that the range of candidates open to popular approval will fall within bounds considered "decent" by the authorities...

...According to government plans, prices for the entire year 1966 were to rise no more than 10 per cent, but in January alone they jumped 5.1 per cent, against a 4.8 per cent rise during January 1965...

...Time and again Planning Minister Roberto Campos has issued optimistic statements to the effect that the inflation problem has very nearly been resolved, and time and again the upward swirl of prices has belied his optimism...

...As a token of U.S...

...The key to the bill's enforcement was a section transferring taxing powers from the hands of state and municipal authorities, where they had traditionally rested, to the hands of Federal authorities, where they would be effective...

...During Goulart's last months in office, inflation had been running at the rate of 144 per cent a year and economic growth had ground to a virtual halt...

...Hence ARENA, which was after all to be the majority party, had little place else to turn except to the UDN...

...Even now some 60 per cent of the country's rapidly expanding population of 85 million people is illiterate, the bulk living a hand-to-mouth existence outside the money economy altogether...

...In a series of three so-called "Institutional Acts," the government has armed itself with dictatorial powers, crushing several of the old political parties, providing for the indirect election of the President and state governors, and in other ways overriding the Constitution to assure the continuation of revolutionary rule, at least through the next Presidential term ending in March 1971...

...The welcome mat went out to foreign investors and the regime let it be known that the Alliance for Progress, ignored by Goulart, was now considered a bulwark of hemispheric solidarity...

...In the case of land reform, for example, the government has effectively overseen the emasculation of its own program...

...Wage rises have lagged behind price rises by government design, and the working classes have borne the brunt of official austerity measures...

...In fact, the Marshal was proposing to do in moderation much of what the wild-eyed Goulart had been threatening to do in excess...

...It sought to halt inflation through rigidly enforced austerity while pledging costly improvements in education, housing and land tenure...

...He reads widely in several languages and is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished graduates of Brazil's Superior War College (the so-called Sorbonne School), where the nation's complex economic, social and political problems are subject to as thorough an analysis as problems of military command...

...technicians began to help draft the great changes that were to be made...

...It toppled the Vargas dictatorship in 1945, demanded Vargas' resignation in 1954 (after he had been popularly elected), assured the installation of President Juscelino Kubitschek in 1955, and demanded in 1961 that Goulart's powers remain within the limits set by the Constitution...

...Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon (now Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs) to heap praise upon the Castello Branco government before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year and declare, "I think they have made tremendous headway...

...and International Monetary Fund experts to advise on monetary and fiscal policies...

...It had never won the fruits of Brazil's patronage-rich Presidency in a popular contest, and now it foresaw not only obtaining these délectables by riding khaki coattails but stifling all this wild talk about reforms...

...A colonel earns about $200 a month, and even generals are financially embarrassed by tours of duty in highpriced cities like Rio...

...Presumably, it will take that long to revive Brazil's tattered economy and to establish a political framework immune to the menace of Leftist demagoguery...

...And as social revolutionaries in Brazil they obviously have a long way to go...

...official recently returned to Rio from two years in that area reports privately that, if anything, conditions are worse than in the past...

...Even now the Marshal's image on the screen evokes titters of laughter among Rio moviegoers...

...Unlike many self-serving Latin American "gorillas,' moreover, Brazilian military men have a tradition of serving constitutional governments rather than themselves...

...A slightly embarrassed Castello Branco then issued a decree "temporarily" returning the taxing powers to state and municipal authorities "for administrative reasons...

...And since the Army must give final approval of the President chosen in the indirect election next October, the ugly spectacle of generals running against one another has become the likely eventuality...

...Here, according to the State Department, was a prime example of the patriotic and responsible new military class emerging in Latin America-a class dedicated to national economic development and the protection of democratic institutions from extremists of the Right and Left...

...The people have literally been paying with emptier bellies for the regime's stabilization efforts...

...Professionals themselves, the new soldier-statesmen called upon other professionals, such as economist Roberto Campos, to man the ramparts of reform...

...Finally, there is nothing to prevent the current government from issuing a Fourth Institutional Act tossing out congressional elections or even abolishing Congress itself altogether...

...Under the Institutional Acts its powers to purge "subversives" and "corrupt elements" are vast...

...The UDN, of course, was delighted...

...In the past, the military has intervened in politics only to insure the preservation of legality and constitutionalism...

...The so-called "hard line" faction of field commanders is pushing the already announced candidacy of War Minister Artur Costa e Silva, to the obvious consternation of President Castello Branco, who represents the so-called "Sorbonne School" of military intellectuals and made the mistake of declaring himself ineligible to serve again in the top office...

...esteem for the new government, the State Department promptly promoted Brazil to the rank of number one aid recipient in Latin America, and U.S...

...For this reason it seemed strange for retiring U.S...

...The situation might be understandable if the social reforms pledged by the Castello Branco government were being carried through as promised...

...It builds the bridges, maintains the roads and offers a modicum of law and order in the vast frontier regions, as wild and wooly as the U.S...

...Certainly, Brazil had been crying out for change...

...And the power to purge will continue even after the new Congress is installed-a sword of Damocles over obstructionists...

...William Lineberry, a previous contributor to these pages, is an editor and writer, at present on an extended tour of Latin America...

...General wage levels are set by official action, but in the name of "free enterprise" the government has sought to hold down prices through "voluntary" schemes...

...But except in the fields of banking and taxation, where farreaching reforms have been initiated if not wholly implemented (the rich are actually being threatened with imprisonment for income-tax evasion, though no one is yet known to have spent a night in jail for it) there is distressing evidence of the old political run-around-the gap between promise and performance -which has made talk of reform in this country the special province of demagogues in years past...

...And there they rest...

...These have been a rough two years for the Army, which prides itself on its professionalism, its adherence to legality and its apolitical tradition...

...The grinding poverty is still there, but the troublemakers are in prison or exiled-hardly cause for rejoicing in the "new stability...

...This is the same Northeast which a few years back was the subject of much sensational attention in the U.S...

...But never mind...

...TRUE, TWO YEARS is a short time in which to coax an economy as vast as Brazil's back from the brink of ruin...

...According to the new schedule, state governors will be elected by their respective legislatures on September 3 of this year (somewhat of an irony, since state legislatures have been recently criticized by the regime for being infested with corruption...

...But the generals were also in revolt against the twin evils of Communism and corruption, each of which they saw embodied in the two other dominant parties of the old system-the Brazilian Labor party of Goulart (PTB) and the Social Democratic party of ex-President Juscelino Kubitschek (PSD...

...But the regime has many cards to play and does not appear overly concerned about the prospect...

...Two other generals have also entered the race, Amauri Kruel and Oswaldo Cordeiro Farias...

...Last October, when Castello Branco decreed the abolition of Brazil's 13 old political parties, those politicians who had not been purged by military tribunals were ordered to group themselves into the two new parties created by government fiat-the governmentbacked ARENA (National Renovation Alliance) and the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement), representing the loyal opposition...

...The prospect, of course, is for a divided government, since the old Congress is bound to appoint a President loyal to the revolution (i.e., agreeable to the military), while the people are expected to vote in a new Congress overwhelmingly in the opposition...

...Not only has its economic recovery program met with considerable resistance, but its political policies have opened serious fissures within the ranks of the military establishment itself...

...The revolutionary government's reform program, however, was shot through with contradictions from the start...

...The transfer was deemed essential because in states where land reform really counts, local taxing authorities tend to be in the pockets of the big landowners...

...In came U.S...

...Not quietly enough, though, because members of the old PSD and PTB in Congress caught wind of what was going on and gleefully voted the original taxing scheme back in before passing the bill...

...One U.S...

...Under the direction of Campos, the professional, the land reform bill was designed to tax potentially productive but unused lands on large estates at progressively higher rates, the aim being confiscation and redistribution to the landless poor...

...Since the policies of the revolutionary government have made eating difficult and voting in popular elections next to impossible, and since Brazilians are fond of doing both, it is safe to say that the Castello Branco regime has failed to arouse any notable enthusiasm among the people...

...Should hard-living, hard-lining General Artur Costa e Silva patch his differences with Castello Branco and gain the ARENA nomination for president, he is expected to assure the Armed Forces better pay, the people a relaxation of current austerity measures, and the "corrupt and subversive elements," whom the hard-liners have been out to get, much rougher treatment than they have received from Castello Branco in the past...

...In mid-February an opposition deputy rose in the Brazilian Congress to recite some figures compiled by the Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil's most reliable data gathering organization...

...West in its own era of cavalry versus Indians...

...The next President may well be none other than Humberto Castello Branco himself, who, when the time is ripe, is expected by some to renounce his previous renunciation of another term and patriotically heed the call to continued national service...

...Very early in the revolution Congress was picked clean of such undesirables, and the process is now going forward at the state legislature level...

...Bread descended from 100 grams a day to 80 grams and eggs from two to one a day per person...

...officials like Ambassador-atLarge W. Averell Harriman as cornerstones of future Latin American stability...

...When Castello Branco assumed the Presidency two years ago he was promptly hailed by Washington as a new, progressive, reformminded and professional variety of military strongman, wholly removed from the self-serving Caudillo type of old...

...It still sits...

...In marked contrast to the usual loathing accorded politicians in Brazil, the Army has long enjoyed the respect and admiration of civilian opinion...

...SUDENE, the much touted Northeast Development Superintendency, is said to be almost wholly ineffective in its work-a bagunça, as the Brazilians say, meaning an impossible bureaucratic mess...

...This was curious because the UDN had been the party of conservative and traditional interests in Brazilthe party of Right-winging Carlos Lacerda, for example, the dynamic ex-govemor of Guanabara stateand it seemed strange that a "revolutionary" government committed to "drastic reforms" would purposefully ally itself with such unenthusiastic instruments...

...It promised to uphold democracy while threatening, and sometimes imprisoning, entrenched and powerful elements in Brazilian society and proposing drastic changes harmful to their interests...

...Perhaps the one solid accomplishment of the regime has been thoroughly to debunk the notion that generals make good, progressive reformers...

...It tossed out Goulart, who had preached radical reform, while keeping in office the Congress which had so successfully blocked Goulart's program...

...During the twilight hours of Goulart's rule it was Castello Branco who, torn between fealty to the Constitution and disgust with the mounting chaos and leftward drift in evidence around him, finally came down on the side of those pressing for a military revolution, carrying a number of fence-sitting generals along with him...

...For its part, Washington could not have been more pleased...

...At the same time, the revolutionary government ended official anti-Americanism and opened the door to close and cordial relations with Washington...

...Milk consumption in the same periods fell from one soupspoon to one teaspoon per person a day...

...In the name of "states' rights," however, Castello Branco's conservative allies in the UDN objected strenuously, and while Campos was out of the country the tax-transfer provision was quietly removed from the bill...

...Until 1963, the Foundation reported, the consumption of meat in Brazil was 250 grams (a little over half a pound) per capita a week, while between 19641965 this average fell to 180 grams...

...The battle against inflation, which continues to occupy so much of the government's energies, is indicative...

...When he took office as President in April 1964, it was with the pledge that Brazil would soon return to popular democratic rule and stable economic growth...

...This is perhaps the biggest mistake it could have made, for after being ground up in the Rube Goldberg machinery of Brazilian politics, it will be lucky to emerge with even a tattered shred of its old respectability intact-and it may well find itself shorn of the unity it sought to preserve by intervening against Goulart in the first place...

...These goals were to be realized by a series of drastic reforms which would halt spiralling inflation, curb runaway spending by corrupt bureaucrats, tax the rich into a sense of responsibility for the country's future development, and assuage the multitudinous poor with programs of better education, housing and land reform...

...But on each of these occasions the Army was careful to withdraw in favor of civilian rule as quickly as it had intervened...

...It had become a cliché of U.S...

...opinion that if reforms were not soon carried out in Brazil by responsible elements, they would most certainly be carried out-and in the most painful manner-by irresponsible ones...

...But there seems to have been more bravado than substance to this remark...

...According to the original "revolutionary" timetable, Brazil was to return to democratic civilian rule at about this time-its economy healed and its political system purged of corrupt and subversive elements...

...Trained in the U.S...

...A recent strike of dock workers over wages, for example, was broken up by government troops...

...advisors in their own countries, possessed of middle-class values, untainted by corruptionthese men have been singled out by U.S...

...Military "boards of inquiry" are still in operation throughout the country, and thus far about 500 Brazilians (including all three living ex-Presidents) have had their political rights suspended for 10 years while some 3,600 others have been purged from Federal or state office...

...Castello Branco and the Sorbonne School are said to distrust him on the grounds of economic ignorance, impulsiveness and general immoderation (the general likes to bet on the ponies and is the type of funloving Latin who wears dark glasses into the shadiest night spots...

...the President of the Republic will be elected by Congress on October 3; and direct popular elections will be held for Federal senators and deputies and state deputies on November 15...

...Curiously, Castello Branco chose to build the new ARENA around a hard core of politicians belonging to the old UDN (National Democratic Union), which had been one of the three strongest parties under the old system...

...But since most of the old labor leaders, who were allied with Goulart, have been jailed, exiled or removed from office, and since union activities are now under the control of political police, effective channels of worker protest have been silenced...

...Meanwhile, a sizeable faction of lower ranking officers is said to be grumbling in favor of a "return to the barracks" where they belong...

...And the luxury-loving upper classes, alarmed themselves by the structural inequities and social ferment around them, have been shipping their capital to New York and Switzerland, where it can do capital-hungry Brazil no good whatsoever...

...Out went the old and discredited politicians in an extensive purge...

...He is a humble, pensive man given to self-deprecating jokes about his squat, undistinguished appearance...

...The War Minister has been much quoted for his famed response to a senator who congratulated him on his political strength: "I am not strong, Senator, but my party is" (meaning the Army...

...THE 'NEW MILITARY CLASS Letter from Brazil By William Lineberry Rio de Janeiro Two years have now passed since the Brazilian military jumped into the political arena by replacing Leftist President João Goulart with Marshal Humberto Castello Branco...

...Meanwhile, conditions in the poverty-stricken, rural Northeast of Brazil continue to fester...

...Retail prices rose 45 per cent in 1965 by one authority's count, 60 per cent by another's...

...And, indeed, the Marshal remains the very antithesis of that peculiar blend of charisma and brute force which constitutes the successful caudillo's image...

...About the only thing that can seriously disrupt the government's program is a falling out within the military itself, a matter widely talked about in Rio, along with rumors of another golpe, but discreetly played down, thus far, by military top brass...

...But the generals have found that getting into the Brazilian political arena is a lot easier than getting out, and in effect have extended their "revolutionary mandate" until March 1971, when the term of the new President, to be named by Congress this October, expires...

...press for its grinding poverty and its Communist-influenced peasant leagues...

...In so saying, he perpetuated a myth that was badly tarnished from the start...

...Quite naturally, Brazilians are asking what all their sacrifices have been for...

...Although threefifths of all Brazilians make their living in agriculture, 75 per cent of the land is concentrated in the hands of 8 per cent of the population, while the nation's rural conditions are as squalid as any in the Hemisphere...

...Whichever general finally wins, it seems clear that somewhere along the line the progressive, reformminded new military class got lost in the political shuffle...

...Accordingly, the Marshal himself has taken to posing as a sort of modern-dress Coriolanus, refusing to pander to the popular will while studiously rigging the nation's political system to insure that the popular will cannot be expressed...

...It also has allied itself with some of the most conservative elements in Brazilian politics...

...The result of all this is that inflation remains an unsolved problem, the economy continues to lag, reforms have been sabotaged in some cases and slow to start in others, and the political course has been away from rather than toward the restoration of popular democracy...

...In fact, the President is said to have told his War Minister that he will not have ARENA'S nomination unless he pledges to keep Campos and agrees to a scheme for unifying the Army, Navy and Air Force under a single ministry of defense...

...or under U.S...

...But it has been ample time for the regime to show its colors...

...For professionally trained, life-long soldiers make poor saviors of democracy, particularly from an internal threat, in any society...

...It talked of a new deal for Brazil's poor, but put political police in charge of their labor unions, banned strikes, and put the squeeze on wages in the name of fighting inflation...

...In April 1964, saddled with the chaos unloosed by Goulart, it decided to stay on and straighten things out once and for all...