In 1955 de Morais was elected delegate to the Pernambuco Federal Assembly where he was instrumental in getting approval for the creation of the . about which he quipped "I am hopeless with money, yet am responsible for one of the big banks in the country". The military coup d'état of 1 April 1964 overthrew the João Goulart government. Left-wing politicians and activists were arrested. Paulo Freire recounts that de Morais had already been imprisoned and tortured – he, and his then wife – well before the coup (1962), "by the Police of Carlos Lacerda, in Rio de Janeiro", "because of his political activities" which meant that, including 1964 post-Coup, he spent "a total of two years in prison". Paulo Freire himself was arrested at the time of the coup and spent some time with his friend de Morais in the same tiny cell in the Olinda prison. Among the many incriminating counts the Military held against de Morais (he ranked an honorary 12th on the Junta's list of the 100 troublemakers who had their civil rights suspended for 10 years) were his and the Peasant League's Cuban sympathies, e.g. the hospitality he gave in his house, in 1961, to a visiting Cuban Central Committee member. During his captivity Clodomir, always a raconteur, wrote a series of stories from "deep Brazil". At a much later stage in life, de Morais would reminisce about those days of liberating struggle. de Morais was forced into exile for 15 years and was granted asylum at the Chilean Embassy in Rio de Janeiro.