Jango Page #6

As many other progressive

heads of state in Latin America,

he paid the price for his na:vet

in trying to settle

the military dispute over lunch.

The plot against Goulart

was well underway.

Telegrams confirmed that the minister

of war of the Jango administration,

general Amaury Kruel, was,

himself, part of the military group

plotting the coup d'etat.

Together at the palace, they

once again swore

loyalty to the president

and allegiance to the constitution.

The intention of the military chiefs

was exactly to have Jango

reach the end of his term of office,

since we only intended to start

an armed fight as a last resort.

We did prepare to

be able to face

any government action.

But, by late '63,

we received notice that the government

had been preparing a coup,

and those news were confirmed by

an individual we held in high esteem

and trust,

so we contemplated the possibility of

taking action before the government.

The armed forces tend to adopt

interventionist actions,

because usually in Brazil

social conflicts

are settled via the intervention

of the armed forces.

So the political entities behind

those conflicts

are the ones that invite the intervention

of the armed forces.

The manner in which such

intervention can be prevented

is to have the armed forces turn into

a neutral entity,

which is only possible

with the political and ideological

division of the armed forces.

The economic crisis, with an inflation

threatening to go beyond the 100% mark

would be one of the obstacles

affecting social development.

The general command of workers,

the compact group of PTB,

LeoneI Brizola and the

National Union of Students

called for basic reforms

as the immediate solution.

The three-year plan of Celso Furtado

and Santiago Dantas

suggested, first,

the sanitizing of the economy.

This is a very important point,

since it touches the very nature

of the Joo Goulart administration.

Joo Goulart had not been elected

president of the republic,

he had actually been part of a

PSD-PTB coalition.

And the head of the coalition was PSD,

the majority party.

When Jango was sworn into office,

he had to adjust such forces.

And l'd say that it led...

not so much to a dichotomy,

but rather to a double

orientation of the government,

or the forces

that supported the government.

One group was intent on recovering

controI over the situation.

I mean, the economy

was in a state of disarray,

and, as I said,

it faced a strong inflationary surge,

lack of payments,

domestic and foreign problems.

And it was necessary to recover

controI over that.

And my opinion, even back then,

is that it is impossible

to recover controI without growth,

in an orderly fashion.

Hence the three-year plan.

l'd say:
if we recover the reigns of the

situation, we'll make the economy grow

so we'll be able to introduce reforms,

that are the essence

of the government's policies.

That is why the three-year plan ended

with a list of the structural reforms

that were necessary.

But they resuIted from

an increased controI over the economy

and, therefore, a consensus

was necessary

to ensure a solid standing

for the government.

What happened was that the different

groups that supported the government

could not reach a consensus.

At least with regard to this strategy,

they couldn't .

And there were powerfuI groups that

believed that it was more important

to launch immediately

the reform plans.

And that is what prevented a consensus.

And president Joo Goulart was

torn between the two groups.

Attacked by unions

and business owners,

the three-year plan never left the drawer.

As a remedy for the economic crisis,

it had an effect that was

unacceptable to the government:

limits on salaries.

The General Command of Workers,

completely immersed

in institutional debates,

abandoned the strengthening

of its union foundations.

CGT exchanged the work at production lines,

where it worked side-by-side

with the workers,

for activities developed

side-by-side with politicians.

Strike was a word of order,

heard only by employees

of state-owned companies

sometimes with the cautious support

of industrial and trade workers.

When the command of workers realized

its mistake, it was too late.

March was around the corner.

ENOUGH EXPLOlTATlON

Jango intended to change

the face of Brazilian capitalism

by reducing social inequalities, giving

capitalism a more humanitarian, less

savage appearance.

Among his allies, his goals

were often mistaken

for an intention to end capitalism.

Other times, his allies thought he had

no intention of ending capitalism,

He had to put together a strategy

while battling the personal discomfort

of being the rich president

of a poor country.

The President was aware of

the influence of the church.

It was up tp Jango to convince the

high catholic hierarchy

that the social reforms that he

intended to carry out in Brazil

would establish the principles of justice

that were defended by Christianity.

The factions that supported Brizola, organized

all over the country in groups of 1 1 ,

described Brizola's battle

for power with the following slogan:

" A brother-in-law is not a relative.

Brizola for president."

The family ties were an

obstacle created by the constitution.

The proposed amendment

served as a weapon for the propaganda

against the government.

Travestied as a defender of the constitution,

the right wing got stronger.

The noisy campaign convinced

the middle class, the military,

the church and business owners that the

government wanted to change the constitution

to put an end to democracy.

In an interview to the

Los Angeles Times,

Governor Carlos Lacerda

announced that the Brazilian military

were setting the exact date

to remove Joo Goulart from power.

Military ministers, indignant,

wanted to have Lacerda punished.

JANGO FLlES TODAY TO

PROPERTY lN BRASLlA

Jango tried to use a state of emergency

to overcome, in a political manner,

the military reaction against the governor

and reestablish the authority of his administration.

The left wing suspected that the action

could adversely affect it.

One needs to look back on

those difficuIt and complex days,

when the pressure mounted

against us.

When it came from everywhere.

From our country and from abroad.

People truly didn't want

fundamental reforms to be made in Brazil.

We had been informed that,

in So Paulo, Ademar de Barros,

and in the state of Rio de Janeiro,

Carlos Lacerda,

were actively getting ready

to carry out a revolution or coup d'etat.

The state of emergency was

called in Rio de Janeiro

during a meeting between Jango,

his ministry

and the military ministers.

The news that got to

Braslia about the state of emergency

were really daunting for us.

We did not know at that time

if the correlation of powers

allowed the installation

of a state of emergency in this country

that would not be later

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