He professed that he had joined one of the paramilitary "groups of eleven" being organized by maverick leftist leader Leonel Brizola: according to some, he was a treasurer to Brizola's organization. Francis suffered political harassment after Goulart's fall in 1964, being eventually banned from the mainstream press. In 1967, however, he edited the cultural supplement of "Correio da Manhã", a major newspaper that would be wound down by the dictatorship in early 1969.