Henry A. Kissinger

---- Brazilian Itinerary ----

May 30 to June 17, 1962

<table><tr><td>May 29</td><td>leave Boston</td></tr><tr><td>May 30 to June 5</td><td>Rio de Janeiro</td></tr><tr><td>June 6 to June 8</td><td>Sao Paulo</td></tr><tr><td>June 9 to June 10</td><td>Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo</td></tr><tr><td>June 11 to June 12</td><td>Minas Gerais and Brasilia</td></tr><tr><td>June 13</td><td>Salvador</td></tr><tr><td>June 14 to June 16</td><td>Recife</td></tr><tr><td>June 17 to June 18</td><td>Rio de Janeiro</td></tr><tr><td>June 18</td><td>arrive Boston</td></tr></table>

NOTES ON BRAZIL

May 30 to June 18, 1962

TABLE OF CONTENTS

<table><tbody><tr><td>Rio de Janeiro, May 30 to June 5</td><td>Page 1</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Niles Bond, Deputy Chief of Mission</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Samuel Wainer, Publisher of Ultima Hora</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Professor Alceu Amoroso Lima, University of Rio</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Ambassador Carlos Alfredo Bernardes, Secretary General of the Foreign Office</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Carlos Lacerda, Governor of Guanabara State</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Dr. Candido Mendes de Almeida, COBAST</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Dr. Nascimento Brito, Publisher of Jornal do Brasil</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with George Kafka, Professor, Institute of Economic Research</td><td>34</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Carlos Alfredo Bernardes, Secretary General of the Foreign Office</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with UNI student leaders</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Anisio Teixeiras, Economist and Educator</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Gilberto Crockett da Sa, Special Adviser on Labor Affairs to President Goulart</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>Sao Paulo, June 6 to June 8</td><td>Page 55</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Conceicao da Costa Neves, Vice-President of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Sao Paulo</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Francisco Prestes Maia, Mayor of Sao Paulo</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Dr. Julio de Mesquita Filho, Editor of "O Estado de Sao Paulo"</td><td>58</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table of Contents (Continued)

Sao Paulo (continued)

<table><tbody><tr><td>Conversation with Carlos Alberto Alves de Carvalho Pinto, Governor of the State of Sao Paulo</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Herbert Levy, Federal Deputy, Chairman of UDN</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Dr. José Bonifácio Coutinho Nogueira, Candidate for Governor</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Cunha Bueno, Federal Deputy and with General Nelson de Mello, Commanding General of the Second Army</td><td>75</td></tr><tr><td>Minas Gerais and Belo Horizonte, June 9 to June 10</td><td>Page 80</td></tr><tr><td>Minas Gerais, June 11</td><td>Page 84</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Orlando M. Carvalho, Rector of University of Minas Gerais</td><td>84</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Milton Campos, Senator, UDN leader</td><td>87</td></tr><tr><td>Brasilia, June 11 to June 12</td><td>Page 89</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Professor Hermes Lima, Head of the Civil Household of President Goulart</td><td>90</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Bocayuva Cunha, Congressman</td><td>97</td></tr><tr><td>Salvador, June 13</td><td>Page 100</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Juracy Magalhaes, Governor</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>Recife, June 14 to June 16</td><td>Page 110</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Gilberto Freyre, Anthropologist and Cultural Historian</td><td>113</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Celso Furtado, Director of SUDENE</td><td>118</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Cid Sampaio, Governor of Pernambuco State</td><td>121</td></tr><tr><td>Rio de Janeiro, June 17 to June 18</td><td>Page 123</td></tr><tr><td>Conversation with Moreira Salles, Finance Minister</td><td>124</td></tr><tr><td>Summing up</td><td>Page 126</td></tr></tbody></table>

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May 30, Rio de Janeiro

On arrival in Rio I was met by a member of the United States Embassy, by a representative of the Brazilian Foreign Office, by a representative of the Governor of the State of Guanabara and by Barbosa, a former member of the International Seminar.

I then spent some time with the Foreign Office official going over my program, which had not progressed much beyond the point that had been communicated to me by the Brazilian Embassy weeks ago. I asked him to cut down the visit to Sao Paulo and to substitute some provincial cities instead. We decided that I would stop in Belo Horizonte as well as in Salvador where I have introductions.

********

In the late afternoon I went to the American Embassy where I met with Niles Bond, Deputy Chief of Mission, the Labor Attaché, the Military Attaché, the head of the AID program and the public affairs officer. Niles Bond told me that the political situation in Brazil is extremely confused at the moment. Congressional elections are taking place in October, and most of the cabinet members are standing for re-election for their Congressional seats. Because of a curious provision of the new Brazilian constitution, no member of Congress can hold a federal office in the three months prior to elections. This provision taken from the previous Presidential system is, of course, entirely inappropriate for the Parliamentary regime which was installed in order to resolve the crisis caused by Quadros' resignation. Thus Goulart, the President, whose power was supposed to be curbed last year by combining a Presidential with a parliamentary system, has an opportunity to appoint a new Cabinet. There is every chance that the Brazilian system will revert to its original form, and that the Cabinet's

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relation to the Congress will be modeled on that of the French Cabinets
under De Gaulle.

According to our Embassy officials the danger of a Presidential take-
over would be greater if Goulart were not quite ill. He may resign or
take an extended leave. In this case, chaos may descend because Goulart
rose to the Presidency from the Vice-Presidentcy when Quadros resigned and
now there is no Vice-President in this deeply divided country.

Goulart was described as a complete opportunist who had made his career
in the past through Communist backing and was now trying to ingratiate
himself with the Right. The head of our AID program told me that Goulart
was very ambivalent about the Alliance for Progress. He was constantly
telling us that we were not getting the credit we deserved. On the other
hand, he has refused to make any statement endorsing the Alliance for
Progress urging us first to get the support of the labor groups (which are
Communist-dominated and which he knows would under no circumstances
support any American policy.)

I asked Bond about the Alliance for Progress. He replied that the
Alliance for Progress, while improving the situation somewhat, had not
really gotten under way yet. He said that he hoped very much that there
would be major progress by the end of July when the President visited
here. I asked him how there could possibly be major progress by the
end of July. He said, "Well, perhaps they can build some schools." I did
not see how schools could be built in sufficient quantity to make any
difference, but he seemed to think that it was possible. To me, this
appears as if we are working on a rather close margin.

The military attaché then explained to me the methods of cooperation
between the Brazilian armed forces and the United States armed forces. He

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said that the military were the most pro-American element in the
country, but that some of the political leaders were attempting to break
up their unity in order to be able to play off factions against each other.
I will form my own observations about this, and it will be more useful
than repeating here what I have been told at the Embassy.

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May 31, Rio de Janeiro

I will start with the last appointment because it is still fresh in
my memory. I saw Sam Wainer, who is the publisher of *Ultima Hora*, an extreme
left-wing paper published simultaneously in Rio, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre,
Recife and Minas Gerais. It has a total circulation of about a million.
In a country with a literacy rate of 50 per cent this is a rather remarkable
figure. I knew nothing about Wainer except a brief note from Goodwin's
assistant that I should see him. I, therefore, had no particular pre-
conceptions.

Wainer is a medium-sized, gray-haired man who received me in his office
at the north end of town, which is the older part of Rio. The office is
rather small and very busy. Wainer, a very nervous man, was chain-
smoking cigarettes and drinking an endless series of cups of coffee. He
is extremely vain, fancying himself as a Machiavelli moving political
figures around for his own ends. It is equally possible-- indeed more
likely-- that he is manipulated by them, partly because of his vanity,
partly because of his chronic financial difficulties.

After an exchange of pleasantries, Wainer said that he had just
returned from the United States. He had seen Lippmann, whom he called the
official spokesman of the Kennedy Administration. He had chided Lippmann
for visiting Brazil only after forty years of being a journalist. This
indicated the low priority the United States was giving to Brazil. He was
happy that I was coming at an earlier stage of my career.

I asked Wainer about the political situation in Brazil. He replied
that three main groups were contending for power. On the Left there was
a populist movement that wanted to come to power by insurrection and which
was inspired essentially by Castro. This he claimed was rather small. He

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refused to identify any of its leaders. When I asked whether Governor Leonel Brizolla of Rio Grande do Sul was one of these leaders, Wainer said that Brizolla was an opportunist who might use the Communists but was not a radical himself. In this respect, he said that Brizolla was very similar to Goulart. The difference between the two (incidentally, they are brothers-in-law) derived from the positions they occupied. Brizolla wanted to get power and Goulart already has it. It was a basic rule of politics that once you are in power you cannot conduct a very radical policy because the penalty is to suffer the fate of Robespierre. Getting into power, on the other hand, requires an extremely radical posture.

I said that it was also possible that in order to achieve power it might be necessary to appear moderate and once power was seized one could afford to be more radical. If that interpretation were correct, Brizolla might reflect a truer picture of the Brazilian Left than Goulart. If one came to power by moderate means, one could perhaps stay in power by radical means. Wainer smiled and said that this too was an option. However, the choice does not have to be made until *after* power is seized.

I asked where the Left was strongest. Was it the Northeast? He said Americans always looked for simple answers. Having believed that Castro came to power through agrarian support, they looked around in Brazil for some place which also had an agrarian problem, fastened on the Northeast, and declared it to be the likely area for Castro infiltration. He did not think that the revolution in Brazil, if it came, would come from the Northeast. Starving people did not make revolutions. The revolution, if it came, would originate in the South where the physical means existed. However, he was opposed to the extreme populist movement because even if temporarily successful it could not stay in power. The United States would

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never tolerate a Communist-dominated government in Brazil. We would
foment a counter-revolution and then support it. The extreme left-wing
group, in other words, was bound to produce civil war in Brazil.

It is interesting to note that all of Wainer's objections to a
Communist coup were of a technical nature and not objections in principle.
He opposed a revolution solely because he did not think it could succeed.

The second group Wainer identified was composed of the reactionary conservative groups. He located their support in the Air Force, in the Navy and among the large landowners. They wanted to bring into being a right-wing dictatorship. They were the chief forces opposed to Goulart. Where the left-wing groups would make Brazil a captive of the Soviet Union, the right-wing groups would turn it into a satellite of the United States. A right-wing victory would involve Brazil in the cold war in a way it should not be.

Then there was a third group, with which Wainer identified himself. This represented the democratic forces within Brazil, the people who wanted to extend the range of political participation and to turn Brazil into a progressive country. Until the end of World War II only three groups had mattered in Brazil: the Army, the Church and the economically dominant classes. Since World War II there had developed a proletariat which would play an increasingly influential role in Brazilian life. It would dominate the future. It would insist on democratic progress.

I asked Wainer what he meant by democratic progress. He said that the problem could be illustrated by the imminent elections. The present Congress was reactionary and had blocked all progress. The constitution was an uneasy compromise which had no real standing among the people. The President was the only constitutional ruler of Brazil and the parliamentary

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form of government which had been imposed last year could not be taken seriously. On the other hand, the upheaval started last summer was not yet finished. It only underlined the unworkability of the new constitution.

I asked whether he was identifying democratization with a return to the old constitution. He replied that the old constitution was also inadequate because it, too, had blocked economic and social progress. In the fields of taxation, civil service and expropriation progress was very difficult even with the old constitution. The only remedy was to transform the forthcoming Congressional election into an election for a constitutional assembly which would then draft a constitution consistent with the desire of the Brazilian people for social progress. I asked whether it was not against the constitution simply to omit the Congressional elections. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Our constitution is a very flexible instrument and we can always find some reason for doing what we ought to do."

I asked him, in that case, why was he so upset about the constitutional change last summer? He said his objection was not based on constitutional principles. He opposed the change because the parliamentary regime had given an exorbitant influence to the Congress which was very reactionary and the next Congress would be even more reactionary. I said that if the next Congress would be very reactionary, how could a constitutional assembly be so progressive? Wainer replied that a constitutional issue would enable him and his friends to rally the people and obtain from them a mandate for the social transformation of Brazil.

I asked why it was necessary to change the constitution in order to have a social advance. Was it not possible simply to legislate specific reforms? He was extremely evasive, saying that he wanted a constitutional

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change which would make possible a fundamental transformation of the social
system. Legislation would then take care of itself. In Latin countries
the difference between constitutional change and legislative change was
not so great. I said that if this were true, why was he placing so much
stress on a constitutional change? Why did he not simply try to get
legislative changes? He smiled and said that he would hate to be a student
taking one of my examinations.

I asked Wainer how he would go about achieving his end of transforming
the congressional elections into a constitutional plebiscite. He replied
that the great opportunity would come within the next two or three months
when the President would have to reconstitute his Cabinet. The President
could create a Cabinet of technicians dependent on him and attempt to
govern on the model of De Gaulle. The constitution could then be changed
by substantially the same methods that De Gaulle used in France-- that is,
by plebiscite.

Goulart, according to Wainer, was not confused like Quadros. He was
a superb politician whose analysis of the situation is very similar to
Wainer's. Quadros had discredited himself last year by proving that he
was not a leader. He had looked at everything in personal terms. He had
not understood that a social revolution could only be made by social forces
and not simply by personal magnetism. Goulart in this respect was much
more of a statesman. He would move only after having rallied his forces
and he knew that the existing political parties were his real enemies.
Quadros remained extremely useful as an irritant to the existing order,
but he had foregone any possibility of national leadership. Goulart
represented the hope for social progress in Brazil.

Another possibility would be to let the congressional election take

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place by October 7th as scheduled and then bring pressure on Congress to hold another election for a constitutional assembly. This Wainer thought was the less happy solution. In any event, the need for constitutional change was perfectly clear to Brazilians, and there would be no difficulty in getting the issues before the people.

I said that the constitutional issues were still not clear to me after all the explanation he had given. Wainer replied that the chief need was to establish a presidential system in which the President could really engage in economic planning and bring about the social transformation of Brazil. Goulart had been given this advice and he was inclined to believe that Goulart would be moving in this direction within the next four to six weeks. I asked whether the stories I had heard of Goulart's illness were true. Wainer said it was not an incapacitating illness and it had given Goulart the feeling of mystique which he needed to carry out the tasks that were before him.

Wainer added that in order to understand the prospects before Brazil two factors had to be kept in mind: First, no one liked the present constitution. Therefore, there would be no real opposition to constitutional change. The force required to bring about the constitutional change had to be measured not in absolute terms but relative to the weakness of the opposition. Even Kubitchek, who is a middle-of-the-roader if there ever was one, had insisted that the present constitution could not work. The Army, which in the past had blocked social progress, was no longer united. The First Army in Rio, the Second Army in Sao Paulo and eighty per cent of the officers of the Army located in Rio Grande do Sul were in favor of bringing about a constitutional change which would permit social reform. The rest of the Army was probably in favor of attempting to work with the

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present constitution. However, they were handicapped by the fact that they were split off from the Air Force and the Navy. He therefore thought that within the next year or so there would be a radical change in the constitutional system of Brazil.

This should be welcomed by President Kennedy, who represented the most progressive force available in the United States. He mentioned an incident where he was taken to meet the President by Goodwin. Goodwin had introduced him to the President by saying that he was the President's most consistent critic in Brazil. Thereupon, the President took out a pencil, adopted a fencing posture and said, "Let's go to it." I asked what Goodwin might have been referring to and Wainer said, "Well, I have been critical of the United States and even of Kennedy but you have to keep in mind that I was then in the position of a radical out of office. Now that my man, namely Goulart, is in office, and also now that we have become a national newspaper, we are adopting a much more responsible and moderate position." He had urged all of his friends to understand the United States and he had even urged his Communist columnists to moderate their attacks on the United States.

Wainer had objected to the Cuban invasion and would continue to do so. We were making Castro a hero by putting him on the front pages of all the newspapers and we were forcing Latin American governments into impossible choices by such conferences as Punta del Este. I asked him whether he criticizes the Soviet Union as well in his newspapers. He said that he criticizes the Soviet Union about ten per cent of the time and the United States about ninety per cent of the time. On the other hand, this gave him the legitimization to criticize the Brazilian Communists-- a much more important task than attacking the Soviet Union.

He added that the facts of geography oblige Brazil to belong to the

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American system. Nothing could change that. The United States would never tolerate a Communist government or a pro-Soviet government in Brazil. It would take steps like the Russians took in Hungary to prevent this. On the other hand, it was to America's interest for Brazil to conduct a policy of independence because in this way it could have a much greater influence in Africa and other parts of the world. The United States should be less concerned with Brazilian foreign policy than with supporting the democratic forces in Brazil. I asked what he thought of the Alliance for Progress. He replied that it was a useful step, but it could have not effect in Brazil until the constitutional changes of which he had spoken had been effected. After that, American support might prove decisive.

If I understand Wainer correctly, he was urging an end of representative
democracy since, by his own account, a democratic election can only return
reactionary congressmen. Also, his vagueness as to the specific reforms
he had in mind-- except by constantly invoking the word progressive-- could
mean a genuine confusion. It could also mean that he was being deliberately
evasive, and that he has a rather clear idea of what he wants, which is a
popular mandate for an essentially dictatorial populist regime. His tactic
seems to be to disarm his opposition by claiming United States support.
Wainer, who by his own account has constantly opposed us, now asserts that he
has the ear of the White House and of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State. I am in no position at this time to judge whether Wainer represents
the important forces in Brazil, but he certainly represents what seems to
me a rather sinister element.

I had started the day (May 31) by being called for by my Foreign Office
escort, Tavares, who is one of the most inefficient, if charming, men that I

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have ever met. Not a single appointment that I had requested had been made. He has difficulty locating people on the telephone. When he locates them, he gets the time wrong. When he gets the time right, he mixes up the arrangements for the car. He is puzzled by my desire to see so many people. When I told him that I was eager to see at least three people a day, he said that two people were the most anyone could stand, because I needed plenty of relaxation. We have finally settled, however, on three people a day.

********

I spoke at the National War College which is located on a peninsula in the Bay on the location of the first settlement of Rio, a dramatically beautiful setting with a barren rock on one side and the sea on the other. I was received by the Admiral in charge of the school, by Ambassador Gibson-Barbosa, the Chef de Cabinet of the Foreign Minister, by the head of the Cultural Division of the Brazilian Foreign Office and by the representative of the War Ministry. Things started half an hour late. The student body of the War College-- in contrast to ours-- is taken not only from the military services but has senior officials from other ministries as well as from industry and a few professors.

The meeting was conducted by simultaneous translation. I lectured for a little more than an hour. Afterwards I had coffee with the Admiral and with Ambassador Gibson. In the happily informal manner of things in Brazil, two newspapermen came strolling in and started joining the conversation, taking notes avidly. God knows what they are going to report tomorrow, since neither of them spoke English and no one bothered to translate what they said to me or even to introduce them to me.

This was followed by a question period lasting about an hour. The

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questions were rather intelligent, some dealing with nuclear diffusion to France, others with anti-guerilla warfare. All of them were prefaced by exceedingly subtle flattery and the whole session was conducted with an extraordinary good humor.

********

From the War College, I drove back to the hotel with my Foreign Office escort and the officer of the American Embassy, by the name of Shields, who was assigned to look after me. We spent some time trying to get my schedule straightened out and Shields assumed the responsibility for making some appointments to the obvious relief of Tavares.

********

Tavares then took me to lunch with some friends of his, and here he was obviously in his element. The friends were upper class Brazilians. One of the men, a journalist, was married to the great-granddaughter of the last king of Naples, who is, in turn, a French marquise. They live in a duplex overlooking the Copacabana beach. The atmosphere was extremely reminiscent of semi-serious Roman society.

People kept wandering in and out all the time, and after the first ten minutes no one bothered to introduce anyone else. Finally, my host took me off into a little room where I had a long talk with a correspondent of _Le Figaro_ who has been in Brazil for four years. He said he was like the man who came down for the carnival and spent the rest of his life. I also talked with a journalist called Antonio Callado who had recently completed a book about the Brazilian Northeast. He explained that the Peasant Leagues had been formed originally as a defense mechanism to prevent the taking over of more of the poor peasants' land. But their leader, Juliao, who saw himself as a Castro type, now was not satisfied with redressing the original

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grievance. He is seeking to transform the Peasant Leagues into a national movement. Callado considers the Peasant Leagues in their present form a useful counterweight to the big landowners. On the other hand, the Peasant Leagues could not solve the problem of the Northeast. Distribution of land is no solution because there is simply not enough land to go around. And the problems of marketing and efficient use of machinery would be even more severe after land redistribution than before.

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## June 1, Rio de Janeiro

I started the day with an appointment with Professor Alceu Amoroso Lima, who is a professor of literature at the University of Rio. Lima said that his spiritual homeland was France. He added that in order to understand Brazilian politics it was necessary to grasp Brazilian psychology. Brazilians were a lyrical people, in contrast to the Spanish-Americans who were an epic people. The genius of Brazil was the spirit of compromise. The slogan of Brazil is "the scheduled revolution will not take place." Whenever Brazil's armies maneuver, one knows that a settlement is in sight. There is no Brazilian Thermopylae. At the same time, the situation in Brazil was unfortunate and, except for the tradition of accommodation, one would have to say that it was revolutionary. People had not yet recovered from the disappointment of the Quadros resignation, nor did they have any confidence in the existing government. What the outcome would be was not clear, because the unrest was more in the minds of the leaders then in the minds of the people whose grievances were very specific.

Lima then explained the regional differences of Brazil. He said the gauchos of the South, in Rio Grande do Sul, were very much under the Spanish influence. They were extreme in their loves and in their hates, capable of shedding blood, and the raw material for serious revolutions. The people of Rio were equable like the climate of the area in which they live. The people of the Northeast were economically the most depressed, but spiritually the most heroic. They were proud, loyal, capable of standing and of dying for principle. Lima thought that this was the area where the requirements for a revolution existed, both in the spirit of the dedication of the people and in the feroceness of their loyalty.

The reason why, despite all grievances, the situation was not hopeless

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was that the Brazilians, contrary to the Portuguese, were not a very grasping people. When Portuguese come to Brazil, they try to save money. By contrast, the typical Brazilian was not interested in saving money. All the servants of Professor Lima, regardless of their income, never have any money and usually spend what they get as soon as they receive it. Also the Brazilians are enormously hospitable. When Professor Lima studied in France, he noticed that a French family would buy precisely the number of cutlets to feed the members of the family for dinner. If a guest came, nothing would be available. This was unthinkable in a Brazilian home, where there is always room for one more. The basic conviction is that God is a Brazilian and that everything will work out if one does not worry about it too much.

In this respect Kubitchek was quintessentially Brazilian. He was interested in developing a capital city. He therefore took the easiest way and printed money to do it. Now Brazil has the roads and the capital and the development, and who will pay for it-- this is in the hands of God, who has always come through in the past and will no doubt come through again. Talk of revolution should therefore be taken with a grain of salt.

I must say these observations fit in with my own. I am very much impressed by the suave, friendly, pleasant manners of the Brazilians, by the ability of Brazilians of all political views to sit down and discuss without acrimony, and, I must add, without ultimate seriousness.

I have also found that the Brazilian method of doing business-- while irritating at first-- is not at all ineffective. It is true that my Foreign Office escort arrives late every morning and has not done any of the things he promised to do the night before. Yet it is also true that during the course of the day those things do get done somehow. I have not yet been on

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time for an appointment. At the same time, I have never had any sense of urgency during the appointment. The conversations have always gone on in a leisurely fashion, as if the people had all the time in the world. Indeed, the one appointment which the Embassy arranged for me with a group of senior military officers-- even though it was technically managed much better-- was much less successful. We met on time, we stood around having drinks but the conversation suffered from the fact that (as too often at United States Embassy functions) there were simply too many Americans present and, secondly, everything was done so stiffly and self-consciously that the Brazilians were thrown off their stride.

********

My Foreign Office escort and I then went on top of Corcovado Mountain which is a tremendous mountain rising to a height of about 2500 feet from Rio bay with a huge statue of Christ on its summit. The view from there is the most spectacular of any city that I have ever seen.

********

After lunch we went to the Foreign Office where I called on the Assistant Secretary General in charge of American affairs, Ambassador Valle. It was a courtesy call and the conversation was rather brief.

I then called on the Secretary General of the Foreign Office, Ambassador Carlos Alfredo Bernardes. The Brazilian Foreign Office is located in an 18th Century palace with verandas fronting a beautiful courtyard in which there is a reflecting pool. The pool is surrounded by very tall palms. Swans swim in the pool. The difference in architecture between the grace of Itamarati and the Statler Hilton effect of the American State Department tells a great deal about the style of life and the culture that produces these two societies.

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The Secretary General greeted me in a very large, very high-ceilinged room. He is a rather tall, very suave man obviously with some Negro background and rather languid manners. He was accompanied by Ambassador Castro, whom he introduced as the chief negotiator for Brazil in the disarmament negotiations at Geneva.

I began the conversation by thanking Ambassador Bernardes for the hospitality that had been shown me. He turned immediately to the issue of disarmament. He said that he had been very discouraged by Brazil's first experience with disarmament negotiations. He had found that it was much harder to make progress than he had assumed originally. The positions of the United States and of the Soviet Union seemed irreconcilable.

I asked him which of the two positions he preferred. He evaded an answer, stressing instead the importance of independence both for Brazilian foreign and domestic policy. He made it very clear that Brazil would try to find some middle position. He asked me some technical questions about the test ban. Specifically, he wanted to know whether an atmospheric test ban could be inspected by national inspection systems. I told him that my impression was that national inspection systems were probably adequate for this purpose. He then said that Brazil had supported the neutral resolution calling for an end to all nuclear testing, to be monitored by national inspection systems. If a suspicious event occurred, the country where it took place had the option of inviting foreign inspectors. I asked him what he meant by option. He said that it was fully understood by everybody that there existed a moral obligation to invite inspectors. I asked whether he thought that the Soviets understood this. He said that he could not be sure, but he had convinced the Indians of the correctness of his interpretation. I said that it seemed to me that some way should be found to express this

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understanding. Would Brazil be willing to make such a statement? He was evasive, but he indicated that Brazil was probably not prepared to do so.

He then asked me for my opinion with respect to a treaty banning all tests and monitored only by national inspection systems. I told him that I had not looked at scientific data recently, but that from all the information I had had such a system would be too unreliable. It, therefore, seemed to me that if there were to be a complete test ban there would have to be inspection stations inside the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union did not want to have an inspection system inside its territory, then perhaps it might be possible to agree on an atmospheric test ban. But the Soviet Union should not be encouraged to press for a ban on all tests and national inspection systems.

I asked him where he got the idea that national inspection of underground explosions might be sufficient. He said that the British delegation at Geneva, while it had formally supported the American position, had given him to understand that it would welcome the neutral approach. The British held the view that the next series of tests would make clear both to the Soviet Union and to the United States that anti-missile defense was too costly and that therefore they would not want to test anyway.

I had to break off the conversation at this point because I had a meeting with Governor Lacerda of Guanabara Province. The Secretary General invited me to a luncheon for the heads of the various divisions of the Foreign Office for Monday, June 4, at the Copacabana Hotel.

********

I called on Governor Lacerda at the Governor's Palace which used to be the palace of the Crown Prince. It has a beautiful formal garden. At the entrance to the palace there are many cages with exotic birds from all over Brazil.

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Governor Lacerda is a charismatic personality. He had been described to me as a ruthless demagogue and I can well believe it. He was one of the persons responsible for the downfall of Quadros by going on television and denouncing his policy as pro-Communist.

I asked Lacerda about the domestic situation, particularly about Wainer's comments that a constitutional change was imperative. Lacerda said that the people who had talked to me about constitutional change almost certainly had not told what change they had in mind. This was no accident. These people wanted to bring about a fluid situation so that they could then have a free hand in interpreting the popular mandate. Certainly if he had the choice he could prefer to return to the presidential system. But he also knew that if a constitutional crisis was provoked-- under the pretext of turning the next congress into a constitutional assembly-- an extremist shift would be likely.

I asked him what kind of extremist shift. He said that it was possible for either the extreme Left or the extreme Right to take over. I asked him to which group he belonged. He said he belonged to the Center. I said that it seemed to me that the Center in Brazil was extremely wide. I had had the pleasure the day before of talking to Mr. Wainer, who had also assured me that he was of the Center. Could Governor Lacerda tell me in what respect he differed from Mr. Wainer?

Lacerda said that Wainer was a swine and an opportunist. He had been a Communist in 1938; after the Nazi-Soviet pact he had published a newspaper which was supported by the Nazis; in 1941 he had shifted sides against the Nazis after they had invaded Russia; then when Vargas needed Leftist support credits had been made available to Wainer through the Bank of Brazil to start the newspaper *Ultima Hora*. In short, Wainer was the kind of man who

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destroyed societies, he did not build them. When Mr. Wainer said that he belonged to the Center, this was entirely a tactical device. Everybody knew that Wainer was a Communist or so close to it that it did not make any difference.

Lacerda than returned to the current situation which he described as extremely tense. The Left groups were obviously organizing for some kind of trouble, and they were being tacitly supported by President Goulart, who had always been a demagogue. The Right groups were organizing in order to forestall this. The attempt by both sides to prevent the other from taking over might lead to some kind of anticipatory putsch. He thought anything could happen.

As for his own position, since last year he had been very skillfully isolated and he no longer had the power. The Commander of the First Army in Rio had been appointed by Goulart and was a pronounced Leftist. The police of the state of Guanabara used to be federal police and therefore had no loyalties to him. He knew that the Communists had infiltrated the Army and the government, and yet he was powerless to stop it. Lacerda repeated again that he was opposed to a constitutional referendum this year because the only result of it could be to change Brazil into a kind of Yugoslavia.

One of the reasons for the Governors' Conference which was to take place the following weekend was to enable the Governors of the various states to move into the vacuum of authority created by the Goulart presidency and the parliamentary system. He stressed the extremely grave view he took of the domestic situation. It was quite possible that dramatic things could happen. If they did, the end result would be some extremist solution and even if the Right should temporarily win the long-term gainer would be the Communists.

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I then turned to foreign policy. Lacerda said that the so-called independent policy of Brazil was unprincipled and that he was strongly opposed to it. Brazil belonged to the Western system of values and should support the United States. To be sure, Brazil had to act with more dignity than in the past when it had considered itself to all practical purposes an American satellite. The present policy, however, went too far. It was indistinguishable from that of India and was bound to fail. I asked whether Lacerda was opposed to the policy because it would not work or because it was against his principles. He smiled and said this was a very good question. He would confine himself to saying that he did not think the policy would work. If the policy were to work, Brazil would have to obtain support from both sides. This is clearly not the case. The so-called trade deals with the Eastern Bloc were being used to finance subversive activities or to enrich small selfish groups. No one could tell how many Communist spies were getting into Brazil at any given moment.

I asked about the Alliance for Progress. Lacerda said that he was for it, but to be effective there had to be major governmental reforms. Compared to the tasks that had to be accomplished, the contribution of the Alliance for Progress was paltry. For example, the United States always talks about land reform. However, the distribution of land is a relatively minor problem. In Brazil there is not an over-all shortage of land. The real obstacle to progress was the low educational level of the people. It is essential, therefore, to start an educational program by which the surplus population can be taught useful trades and by which industry could be moved into the Northeast. There was no sense in simply redistributing land when there was no possibility of taking care of it properly. Moreover, Lacerda argued the Alliance for Progress was not always supporting the right people. Far from encouraging our friends, the Alliance for Progress was being

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exploited by many Leftists who were attempting to ride into power on our
coattails. The United States could wind up in the ironical situation of
financing a revolution.

To sum up, Lacerda said, the Alliance for Progress had two major short-
comings: (1) Many regions were incapable of meeting the requirements for
a program approach since they simply lacked the technical and intellectual
resources to plan properly. Therefore, the areas that were most in need
of Alliance for Progress funds were least likely to get them. (2) The
Alliance for Progress lacked a political orientation. Affirming the
desirability of social reform in Brazil was not a political act since
everybody claimed to be for it. What the Alliance for Progress lacked
was a criterion by which one could distinguish enemies of democracy from
friends. Without this criterion the Alliance for Progress did not enable
the democratic forces in Brazil to do what Gasperi accomplished in Italy
in 1948 when faced with the largest Communist party outside the Soviet
Union. He isolated and contained them.

On the evening of June 1st Ambassador Gordon gave a dinner for me at
the Embassy. He invited the following guests: Deputy Renato Archer,
the Under Secretary of State; Ambassador Carlos Alfredo Bernardes, Secretary
General of Foreign Policy; Dr. Candido Mendes de Almeida, COBAST; Former
Ambassador João Portela Ribeiro Dantas; Mr. Samuel Wainer of Ultima Hora;
Professor Vladimir Reisky de Dubnic; Dr. Luiz Alberto Bahia of VISÃO;
Dr. Israel Klabin, Klabin, Irmaos & Cia.; Dr. M. F. Nascimento Brito, Jornal
do Brasil; Admiral Luiz Teixeira Martini, Director, Escola Superior de
Guerra; Dr. Trajano Pupo Neto, National City Bank of New York; Dr. Luiz
Simões Lopes of the Vargas Foundation; Minister Niles W. Bond and Mr. Robert
H. Shields.

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The American Embassy is a very handsome old Brazilian house with a veranda in the rear facing Corcovado Mountain and free of the somewhat nouveau riche chic of many other Embassies that I have seen. Gordon has made an enormous impression in Brazil. He wears infinitely better than some of the Ambassadors who have received much more publicity.

During dinner I sat next to Almeida, who was head of the technical cabinet of Quadros, charged with economic planning. He is young, energetic, suave and filled with the conventional cliches of the Left. He told me that during the presidential campaign he had supported Lott, the opponent of Quadros. After the election, Quadros went off on a trip to Europe and did not return until shortly before his inauguration. He then had six weeks to prepare his State of the Union message and a program for his administration. At this stage he appointed a staff of which Almeida was the head, with functions somewhat similar to those of Sorenson in the White House. When Almeida had been offered the job, he had told Quadros that he had worked for his opponent. Quadros replied that he would think it over. The next day Almeida received a telegram telling him to report to Brasilia within a few days. Almeida considers Quadros a highly talented, highly unstable man. He does not preclude a brilliant political future for Quadros, particularly if Quadros wins overwhelmingly in Sao Paulo. I asked him whether that was likely and he said a victory was highly likely, but an overwhelming one did not seem in the cards.

I then asked Almeida about the Brazilian political situation. He answered that Brazil faced two closely related problems: nationalism and the social transformation of Brazil. Brazil was the first country in Latin America that had become a nation. Nationalism would henceforth be its essential characteristic. I said that nationalism was a vague word and I

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did not fully understand its relevance to the domestic situation. He replied that nationalism was crucial, if for no other reason than to rally the people for the right domestic policy. The precise content of nationalism was much less important than to assert Brazilian independence symbolically and then to use a national foreign policy as the platform for social change. This had been Quadros' idea. It was the inevitable program of any progressive Brazilian policy.

Almeida added that his observations would become clearer if I considered that Brazil's domestic institutions had reached an impasse. Things could not possibly continue as in the past. Since Quadros' resignation there was no authority in the country. The most pressing problems were simply being ignored. The parliamentary system had no standing. It had legality, but not legitimacy. The President was constitutionally too weak and perhaps in any case unsuited to carry out the necessary tasks.

Beyond the immediately pressing problems such as inflation the basic contradictions within Brazilian society had to be resolved: the contradiction between capital and the proletariat, between the Northeast and the South, etc. The basic contradiction was that future progress of Brazil depended on planning and governmental allocation of resources while the present constitutional system-- and even the previous one-- was incapable of this. Some kind of fundamental change was inevitable and could not be delayed much longer. (Note: the word contradiction is, of course, awkward. I have kept it because the use of Marxist terminology by a man certain to wind up in key positions is itself very significant.)

I said that I had been impressed during my brief stay in Brazil with the way people always talked about constitutional or social change without defining what the change should be. He admitted that he was in the same

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position. A major constitutional crisis was imminent though he could not predict its course or even describe in detail his own preference.

Conditions had never been more favorable for a crisis because it was no longer produced only by the forces of the Left but also by the forces of the Right. The conservative elements were clearly getting ready for a coup and this, in turn, might lead to an anticipatory coup on the Left or vice versa. Beyond that, a contradiction had developed between international capitalism represented by the United States and the national capitalism of Brazil. Among the strongest opponents of United States policy in Brazil were the capitalists of Sao Paulo who considered the conditions of the Alliance for Progress as interference in Brazil's domestic affairs. They saw in the current situation an opportunity to reduce the competition of American capital.

The Alliance for Progress might have the curious result of bringing about the "objective conditions" for a kind of national socialist revolution. I asked him whether he could be more specific. He said, "Well, something perhaps like Titoism-- which may be socialistic but which is not dominated by Moscow."

At that point Linc Gordon proposed a very charming toast recollecting the occasions he had spent at my house in Belmont and then assembled us in one of his drawing rooms where he formed the Brazilians in a circle around me, a procedure to which they were not at all accustomed. After about fifteen minutes of discussion on disarmament and NATO, I turned the conversation back to Brazil and asked what they meant by constitutional change and by revolution. The discussion again took the form with which I had by now become familiar: an emphatic affirmation of the need for social and constitutional change. Wainer in effect summarized the conversation of

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the previous day except that he was much more cautious.

Bahia, one of the newspapermen present, also spoke of the need for
constitutional change. It was necessary to have constitutional reform and
to fight the elections on that issue. I said that it was hard for me
to understand how you could fight an election on the issue of constit-
utional reform if they were unable to tell me what reforms they had in mind.
They replied that the mere prospect of constitutional reform would galvanize
the people. Wainer, who again took the most extreme position, said everyone
was against the constitution. Therefore, it had to be reformed and it was
enought to get a mandate to do so. It is obvious, of course, that though
everyone may be against the constitution, they are so for different reasons
and that Wainer is asking for a blank check.

I asked why it was not possible simply to introduce reform legislation
into the congress and then fight the election on the issues raised by
the legislation. This did not seem attractive to any of the Leftists in
the room. I asked why Goulart did not appoint a strong Prime Minister.
Linc Gordon said that it seemed to him that Goulart would never appoint a
rival to himself in the form of a strong Prime Minister. The rest of the
conversation turned inconclusively around the issue of legislative versus
constitutional reform and whether there would be a revolution before or
after the October elections.

One of the striking impressions is the fundamental misunderstanding
between Brazilians and Americans produced by a different use of termin-
ology. When Americans speak of social reform they mean specific remedies
for well-defined ills. The Brazilians-- particularly of the type like
Almeida-- mean a constitutional upheaval. They are uninterested in specific
remedies. They are sometimes even hostile to them as merely dealing with

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symptoms and not causes. When the United States speaks of improving social conditions, it has in mind raising standards of living. The Brazilian Left would have as its top priority the achievement of some form of state planning. It is no accident that so many Brazilian Leftists are in-different or hostile to the Alliance for Progress. And I doubt that we can win them over by showing a concern for reform because their notion of reform is so different.

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June 2, Rio de Janeiro

I spent some time with two newspapermen this morning. One was from
*Il Globo*; the other from *Jornal do Brasil*. Afterwards I called on the
publisher of *Jornal do Brasil*, Dr. Nascimento Brito. His paper is supposed
to be one of the most enlightened and intelligent papers in Rio. I asked
Brito about the conversation of the previous evening. He said that he
did not agree with everything that Wainer had said though its general
tendency was correct. He did not think that the division of politics into
Left, Right and Center was very helpful. He proposed instead a definition
of revolutionary, reformist and Rightist. I told him that to the uniniti-
ated this sounded like practically the same thing. He said no, there was
an important difference, but he did not explain what it was.

I asked him to which group he belonged. He said he was a reformist.
I asked where Lacerda belonged. He replied that Lacerda was also a
reformist. I asked where Wainer belonged. He said, "Well, Wainer belongs
everywhere." I said then, therefore, also in the reformist group. He
laughed and said that perhaps slogans were not so important after all. It
was important to understand, however, that Brazil was heading for a revolution.
A number of groups were plotting against each other. He had certain
information to that effect. Things would certainly get worse before the
year was out. I asked him to explain in what way things would get worse
and which groups were plotting. He said I was asking questions like a
newspaperman. All he could be sure of was that something was going to
happen. I asked him whether he was in favor of a revolution. He said he
preferred an evolutionary solution though he favored many of the goals of
the revolutionaries.

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Brito then turned to foreign policy and said that an independent foreign policy was an absolute prerequisite for Brazil's domestic policy. I asked him how he distinguished an independent policy from non-commitment. He replied that as a matter of course Brazil was part of the Western Hemisphere system, but outside the Western Hemisphere it was free to make its own choices. The time was over when Brazil could be treated like Nicaragua or Honduras. I said that it was not in our interest to have Brazil in a satellite status. However, I was trying to get clear what he meant concretely. Was the independence of Brazil demonstrated only by voting against the United States and taking actions different from the United States? He replied that Brazil could support the United States, but that it had to be a Brazilian decision. I said that as long as Brazil supported the United States, how would public opinion be able to distinguish this act from Nicaragua? He said that was a good point and perhaps to prove independence, Brazil would have to oppose the United States more than the merits of the issues might justify.

I asked about the role of the armed forces. Brito suggested that he call in the superintendent of his newspaper, a former major in the Army and head of public works of Sao Paulo. The superintendent (whose name I did not get) is a dapper little man with a tremendous rhetorical style. He explained the situation in the Army as follows: the generals were very pro-American and pro-West. However, the colonels and the majors were extremely nationalistic and quite anti-United States. If any government attempted to conduct a pro-Western policy, the colonel level of the armed forces would undoubtedly rebel. In his judgment, the majority of the Army would stand for no other course than the kind of independent foreign policy now being conducted. Of course, Brazil was part of the Western Hemisphere

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system. But it could no longer tolerate having an American ambassador prescribe what Brazilian foreign policy should be.

This applied also to the domestic situation. If any general attempted to install a conservative pro-Western regime, the colonels and the majors in the Army would undoubtedly disobey. At any rate, there were already enough generals to create a counter-element to the old pro-Western group. And as long as the Army was divided it would not move. It was clear that the superintendent identified himself with the majors and the colonels, not with the generals.

From Brito's office I went to the Copacabana Palace Hotel where the Embassy had invited a number of generals and admirals to meet me. There was one Embassy official for every guest at a long table. A serious conversation was therefore very difficult. There was a very brilliant general who was Inspector General of the Brazilian Air Force whom I asked about the rumors that the armed forces were plotting an upheaval. He said of course if an upheaval were being plotted he was not likely to tell me.

However, it was absolutely against the tradition of Brazilian politics for the armed forces to initiate revolution. The armed forces were the protectors of the constitutional order. As long as the constitution was maintained, the armed forces would do nothing. However, if any group tried to take over the country, the armed forces would undoubtedly step in. He was supported by a general of the Army, who told me that they were having a serious problem of Communist infiltration. The number of Communists among the officers may be as high as ten per cent. The most serious problem was in the areas where the Governor had established close personal relations with the lower levels of the military command. He

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mentioned particularly Porto Alegre and Governor Brizolla.

For the rest we spoke of curricula in the armed forces schools,
training, equipment and similar matters.

********

In the afternoon Barbosa, a former participant in the International Seminar, took me to a peninsula south of Rio to show me some beaches and magnificent tropical forests. From the top of a hill one had an absolutely breathtaking view of Rio. While Rio itself looks like a provincial Italian city, its setting is unmatched. I know of no European city-- or any city in the world-- whose setting can approximate Rio's.

********

We went from there to the Embassy where I met Linc Gordon, who took me home. We spent the evening at a private dinner gossiping about Harvard and Washington and similar matters.

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June 4, Rio de Janeiro

My Foreign Office escort took me to Petropolis, the old imperial summer capital in the mountains about thirty miles from Rio. The drive is through very lovely scenery and the town itself is fairly pleasant. The imperial palace is extraordinarily modest, rather sweet, but otherwise not of any distinction.

********

Upon my return to Rio in the late afternoon, I went to the house of Alvez, where I had had lunch on my first day in Rio. He had invited a group of Leftist journalists. The difficulty was that the appointment was set for six and people came straggling in as late as 7:30. I had another appointment at 8:00.

I talked to a young deputy whose father had been Quadros' Foreign Minister. He stressed the crucial importance of an independent Brazilian foreign policy, along the lines I had already heard from a number of others.

Then two other journalists took me aside and spoke to me at great length about commodity prices. They claimed that the total amount of support from the Alliance for Progress was much less than what had already been lost through the drop in the coffee market. They then also talked about the need of a Brazilian foreign policy independent of the United States. At the same time they complained that we were not supporting them in the GATT negotiations. I told them that these two arguments seemed to me inconsistent. They could not claim a neutral posture in the cold war and demand full United States support in the trade negotiations. Finally, Alvez said, "Let's face it; we are blackmailing you. This is our first chance to blackmail you. We are enjoying blackmailing you and we are going to continue blackmailing you and you have to understand this. But this does not mean you should do the same thing to us."

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This account may not do justice to the off-hand and rather apol-
ogetic manner in which these arguments are advanced. There is lacking
in Brazil as far as I have been able to tell the wild xenophobia of the
Indians or Pakistani. The Indians consider themselves superior to other
people. The Brazilians are amazed to find themselves a major power. One
sometimes has the sense that they do not really believe that they are as
important even as Sweden and that they constantly insist on independence,
not out of conviction, but out of the feeling that if they do not reiterate
their claim often enough somebody might forget about them.

********

I then went to dinner with Israel Klabin, a leading Jewish industrialist of Brazil, who had invited a Brazilian diplomat and a professor from the Institute of Economic Research by the name of George Kafka. Kafka insisted that I must take nothing that anyone told me in Brazil seriously because the Brazilians loved rhetoric. They often used eloquent phrases which seemed provocative only because they liked their sound. Moreover, everything was deliberately kept vague. Constitutional reform was the slogan of the day because concrete legal and administrative reform was a complicated subject requiring careful thought. Constitutional reform has a nice progressive ring to it. But this does not mean that those advocating it would have the foggiest idea of what to do. No matter what the constitution, laws would not get passed. If laws were passed, they would not be carried out. In fact, the only reform that Brazil really needs is a law forcing everybody to obey the existing laws.

The same applied to the constant demands for economic planning,
according to Kafka. It is a mistake to insist on total programming for a
country like Brazil. There had been economic development for thirty years
without it. Capital could find its way by itself if it were given to

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specific projects. Such priorities as were needed could be established
by the national budget. Planning in a country like Brazil-- which is
already suffering from overbureaucratization-- was likely to compound
existing evil.

In any case it was very dangerous to consider Brazil by Western or
North American standards. Every American who comes to Brazil is impressed
by the fact that there is no authority. On the theory that a vacuum
cannot be maintained, he comes to the conclusion that a revolution is
imminent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Brazil is governed
through a series of offsetting vacuums and any exercise of authority
would be resisted. Revolution is imminent only in the slogans of intell-
ectuals who do not make revolutions.

I must say that, while this is plausible and even elegant, I remember
similar arguments being made about China. I suppose they could have been
made about Russia in 1917. Of course, Brazil is not a country made for
violence. I do believe, however, that the tendency to compromise makes it
possible to govern by totalitarian means once power is seized by whatever
methods. The absence of violence in the Brazilian character will also
make for low resistance to extremist groups once they become well organized.

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June 5, Rio de Janeiro

The Foreign Office gave a lunch for me at the Copacabana Palace Hotel. Present were the Secretary General Bernardes, six assistant secretaries and Ambassador Gibson Barbosa, the Chief of Cabinet of the Foreign Secretary. Bernardes began the conversation by pointing out that he wanted to have a frank exchange of views. He and his associates would speak to me very openly and they would hope that I would do the same. I told them that they had to understand that my views were those of a Harvard professor who often agreed with the government but sometimes did not. If they wanted to find out about the official American position, they should talk to Ambassador Gordon.

Bernardes then said that one of the chief problems of Brazil was the excessive influence of the Brazilian military. The size of the armed forces in Brazil was out of all proportion to any reasonable security needs. This enabled them to interfere in political life in an extremely unhealthy manner. The problem was how to reduce the role of the armed forces. He asked me what I thought of the security requirements of Brazil. I said that my studies have concentrated on European defense. I had not really thought very much about the problem of Brazil. Bernardes asked whether there was an American interest in maintaining a very large Brazilian army. I said that the American interest was that Brazil should retain her independence and that she should be able to defend herself from threats from the outside. What kind of forces this required, I was in no position to say. Bernardes said that he could not think of any threat to Brazilian security. Was the United States interested in having Brazilian troops participate in a general war? Was this a justification for a large Brazilian Army?

I replied that I doubted that the Brazilian Army was considered by the

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United States as in the first line of defense in a general war. The kind of armed forces Brazil maintained had to correspond primarily to Brazil's own security requirements. Bernardes, who was obviously trying to get me to say that the United States considered Brazil's armed forces excessive, asked me what I thought of a proposal Chile wanted to submit to the OAS. According to it there should be a regional disarmament pact in Latin America including demilitarization, abolition of foreign bases and an agreement not to buy foreign military equipment. Bernardes said that he was very favorably inclined towards the proposal. While it was impossible for the Brazilian government to reduce the Brazilian armed forces by administrative action, it might be possible to do so as a result of an international agreement.

I asked him just what provisions such an agreement would contain. He replied that four conditions were being discussed: a) A cut of the armed forces by at least a half and preferably by more. b) To transform the Army into small units primarily useful for guerrilla and anti-guerrilla action. c) A prohibition against the importation of foreign military equipment and d) The abolishing of foreign military bases on Latin American territory.
Bernardes asked me about the United States attitude toward such proposals.

I replied that, speaking for myself and not for the United States government, I would separate the problem into three parts. The first concerned the size of the Latin American army; the second had to do with the source of the military equipment; the third with the impact of such an agreement on other parts of the world. As to the first, I had the impression that the only United States interest in South America's military forces was that they be adequate to insure the security of those concerned. Beyond this, I could see no United States interest in large military forces. Not having

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studied the problem, I was in no position to say whether the desirable force
level was smaller than the existing one.

As for the second condition, the prohibition of the importation of
foreign military equipment, this might have the paradoxical result that each
Latin American country would build up its own armament industry. Thus, it
would lead to a militarization rather than to a demilitarization of Latin
America. The provision as explained by Bernardes also failed to distinguish
between the OAS obligations and other foreign countries by treating the
United States on a par with countries outside the Hemisphere. My instinct,
therefore, would be not to deal with the source of arms.

The third problem to consider, I pointed out, would be the impact of
a Latin American regional arms agreement elsewhere. If done at all, it should
be drafted so as to offer no precedent for similar proposals in Europe.
The strategic situation in Europe is entirely different from that of Latin
America. Bernardes should keep in mind the efforts of the United States to
bring about alternatives to nuclear war in Europe. Bernardes said he would
think these matters over.

Bernardes then asked whether the United States in pushing its social
and economic program was going to concentrate on some key countries or on
some key areas. I said that this was not a subject to which I had generally
addressed myself, but that it seemed to me that we could not deal with scores
of new countries individually. We should concentrate on key countries or
on some key areas. As far as the Western Hemisphere was concerned, however,
I would think that the problems were to be treated more or less as a unit,
even though it was of course clear that a prosperous Brazil was essential
to any constructive Western Hemisphere policy.

I then asked Bernardes to explain what they meant by an independent

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foreign policy and how it differed from a neutralist policy. Bernardes replied that until very recently there was only one Brazilian foreign policy and that was the one dictated by the United States. This has to be changed. Brazil has become a nation, perhaps the first nation in Latin America. Brazil owes it to herself to take an independent position. I asked Bernardes whether independence precluded their agreeing with the United States from time to time. He said of course we would expect to agree with you most of the time. I then asked how, if they agreed with us most of the time, their policy would differ from the policy he said they were trying to end. How would public opinion know whether their con- currence was based on independence where previously it had been based on what he had called subservience? Bernardes said they were in the process of establishing their credit-- presumably by disagreeing with us-- so that later they could afford to agree without any difficulties. I have the impression that what they really have in mind is to adopt a policy close to that of the uncommitted. This was reinforced by Bernardes' insistence that Brazil ought to be free to trade with any nation and to profit from its position in relation to all the other nations.

I then asked about the Alliance for Progress. Bernardes replied that the Alliance for Progress was a useful first step. However, it contained several features which were either unrealistic or unwise. In particular, our proposal that there be an overall plan for Brazil was simply not work- able. Brazil did not possess the technical competence to make an overall plan. If it purported to make a plan it would be either ficticious or it would not be carried out. The Alliance for Progress would therefore be forced to support individual projects rather than overall development programs.

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Bernardes objected also to the demand for social reform. Such a
demand would be appropriate for some Central American countries, but it
was not appropriate for Brazil. In Brazil it was generally known what
needed to be done and the major problem was to get enough investment so
that the rate of growth would enable Brazil to do what was necessary.
The United States demand for social reforms was likely to encourage
nationalism. In any case, it was a problem for Brazil and not for the
United States. To sum up: the Alliance for Progress should concentrate on
individual projects; it should drop the demands for an overall program.

I then asked about Brazil's reaction to Castro and the American
policy towards Castro. Bernardes, seconded by the people on his staff,
argued as follows: Castro had not been understood in the United States.
We had cut off all of Castro's avenues of escape. Therefore, we had
driven him into the Communist camp. Brazilian policy was very similar to
the policy of the United States at the time of Suez. Had we supported
Great Britain and had we behaved towards Nasser as we were now behaving
towards Castro, Nasser would today be a Communist. I asked whether they
did not see some differences between Nasser and Castro in terms of the
Communist party support. Bernardes said, of course there was some differ-
ence, but the basic point is that Castro is even now engaged in a struggle
with his Communists and that the United States was making a serious mis-
take in ostracizing him. Brazil's most useful role would be to keep open
Castro's options to return to the American system. Bernardes also argued
that it was improper to deal with Castro in the OAS. The OAS was designed
only to deal with hemispheric problems. Castro had become a cold-war
problem and the OAS should not deal with the cold war. I said that if this
were accepted, then no problem involving the United States could ever be

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raised in the OAS as the United States was engaged to some extent in the
cold war. He said this has to be decided from case to case.

My overall impression is that the independent foreign policy of
Brazil may well be required by domestic opinion. On the other hand, one
should not underrate the enormous vanity involved in being identified with
international positions to which both sides then pay attention. Until
recently no one ever heard of a Brazilian disarmament policy. Now Brazil
is one of the authors of a plan on nuclear testing. This posture has
attractions which transcend Brazil's judgment of the intrinsic merit of any
given dispute. Of course, a nation of seventy million is entitled to its
own foreign policy. It would be undesirable for Brazil to have a satellite
status, yet it would seem to me important to make clear that we know how
to distinguish between friends, enemies and uncommitted. Otherwise, there
will be a gradual demoralization of the pro-American elements and a gradual
increase of a kind of nationalism that can define itself only as anti-
American.

While I had come to Latin America thinking of the Alliance for Progress
as something like the Marshall Plan, it is clear that this is not the
Brazilian reaction. At best they consider it marginally useful. At worst
they look at it with hostility. I would say that the majority look at it
with indifference. It has certainly not yet become a major force.

********

I went from lunch to the Regional Labor Court of which a former
Seminar participant, Barbosa, is a judge. The whole labor system in Brazil
is a heritage from the Vargas period. It was modelled on the corporate
state of Italy. The labor unions were artificially created by the dictator
Vargas in order to gain support for himself. Very few of the labor leaders,

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so I am told by our labor attaché, have come up through the labor movement. The vast majority are state appointees. The labor movement in the past has been a device for attaining political power rather than an organization to improve the condition of the workers through specific reforms.

The labor courts fit into this pattern. They exist on three levels: the lower court, a regional court and a supreme court. Every labor dispute theoretically has to be brought before one of these courts. The lower courts have a representative of labor, a representative of management and a professional judge. The regional court has seven judges and a representative each for labor and management. Lower courts deal with individual grievances. The regional courts deal with appeals from the lower courts as well as disputes between management and unions where individuals are not involved, such as the interpretation of contracts or major settlements for a whole group of workers. Theoretically every labor dispute has to go before one of these courts. Its award can be appealed to a higher court but to discourage appeals the higher court usually makes the award more unfavorable to the appealing party than the original verdict. Strikes are theoretically not permitted though they occasionally occur. While this system is in theory extremely equitable, in practice the workers do not have nearly the resources of management in fighting their cases. Our labor attaché tells me that on the whole the labor courts work to the advantage of management. Also, they become a device by which the political parties bid for political support of the workers. I visited each of the courts and was introduced to its president.

From the labor courts, I went to the Foreign Office where I talked to

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the Rio Branco Institute (the equivalent of our Foreign Service Institute) and to a number of foreign diplomats about American disarmament policy.

After the talk I had dinner with a few members of the American Embassy prior to having a meeting with the leaders of UNI, the national student movement. These officers-- mostly of middle rank-- told me that the situation in Brazil had visibly deteriorated in the last two years. The pro-American elements were becoming demoralized and Leftist elements were gaining in strength. The Leftist elements were claiming that they were being supported by the Kennedy administration, and there was no effective rebuttal.

While the Brazilians were not basically a revolutionary people and while it was hard to conceive of any efficient administration in Brazil, a determined group that somehow got hold of power might be able to use the very passivity of the Brazilians to stay in control. This was illustrated by the manner in which the Brazilian student movement had been taken over by the Communists. Some years ago a Communist infiltrated the Catholic student movement of Rio and ran for national office with its support. Once in power he had transformed the whole apparatus of the national student movement into a Communist tool. Today, the Brazilian student movement is a Communist instrument. Elections are held in out of the way places to make attendance of non-party members difficult. Squads of goons intimidate the democratic factions. The democratic group, on the other hand, is usually well meaning but not adept either at parliamentary procedure or at the roughhouse tactics which the Communist students use. Moreover, most Communist student leaders are full time organizers. Their sole contact with the University is to register for one course a semester. The pro-democratic student leaders, by contrast, are full time students and only part time

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organizers. At a recent conference of students which was held outside of Belo Horizonte most pro-democratic leaders who came were either intimidated or bribed. One of the most appealing bribes is a free trip to Havana; and the influence of Castro on the student movement is considerable.

The situation in Brazil, according to these officers, was a morass. The Left sought to create a chaotic situation and then to claim a mandate for a revolution. Many people considered friends by many Americans were really very slippery customers interested to wind up on the winning side. As long as Communism seems to be making strides elsewhere there is no real chance of stopping it in Brazil. For example, Celso Furtado of SUDENE, the development organization for the Northeast, was definitely giving preferential treatment to Communists. One test of employment for SUDENE was a favorable attitude toward Castro. Another man these officials were suspicious of was Anisio S. Teixeira, often described as Mr. Education of Brazil. While Teixeira pretended to be very pro-American, in fact within the Ministry of Education he was blocking many of the things we were trying to accomplish.

********

I then left for UNI headquarters to meet with some student leaders. I was accompanied by an almost completely incompetent American student whose chief virtue was that he spoke Portuguese and was to act as an interpreter. The meeting started in the usual fashion. It was set for nine o'clock. We arrived at 9:30 and found only one Brazilian present. By ten o'clock there were three; by 10:30 I was engaged in a hot debate with about thirty. Debate is not really the correct word. These students were as doctrinaire as the Japanese Zengakuren that I had met several years previously and they were more bearable only because of the charm with which they presented their

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arguments. They told me that a socialist revolution was inevitable.
Capitalism would not work in Brazil and was unacceptable in any case.
The political and economic exploitations of Brazil by the United States
had to stop. All industry in Brazil had to be nationalized and the pro-
cess had to begin with the expropriation of American capital. The
capitalist system was at the root of Brazil's evil. American capitalism
was at the vanguard of all reactionary forces of the world.

I asked them whether they could give any other definitions of
imperialism. How about Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe? I received
the standard answer that the Soviet system in Eastern Europe-- whatever
its shortcomings-- represented a social advance while American policy
represented reaction. All progressive forces in the world accordingly
had to treat the United States as their natural enemy. Any weakening of
the United States was beneficial for world peace and social progress.

I asked them about the Alliance for Progress. They said that this
was merely another capitalist device. Only those projects which improved
communication were of interest to the student movement and these only
because they would facilitate revolution.

The student leaders said that they were engaged in a program to
organize and radicalize the peasants. They had formed so-called "flying
wedges" of students to act as spearheads. They had already had successes
which they considered spectacular. Specifically, they had arranged
meetings for twenty thousand people in small provincial capitals which
had a population of only about eighty thousand. The Peasant League move-
ment which had started in the Northeast was now being put on a national
basis. In this manner tremendous pressures could be put on the vested
interests.

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We then got into an endless discussion about the American situation. Several leaders were introduced to me as avowed Communists and all of them were, if anything, to the left of the Communist line. Their major arguments about the United States were familiar: the capitalist exploitation of other countries; support of Franco's Spain, of German militarism; the domination of the United States by big monopolies and of the American government by the Rockefeller interests. At several points I became rather rude and pointed out that they were either too ignorant to discuss politics or that they were deliberately lying. At this point one of the UNI leaders shrugged his shoulders and said that even if one particular point was wrong, the objective basis to which it referred was correct and therefore what he was saying was objectively true.

They made much of the fact that the head of two large motor companies had been secretaries of defense. Also there was some complicated argument about the relation of Secretary McNamara to Pan American Airlines which eluded me. The conversation, which I cannot repeat in detail, was merely a repetition of standard Communist argument. It lasted until well after midnight.

The UNI leaders then took me around the building which is really an extraordinary place. The students have built a steel door on the first floor to hold off the police. This is to enable them to shout slogans from the windows as long as possible and to lead student demonstrations that are presumably going on while the police are trying to arrest them.

The whole atmosphere is entirely conspiratorial. I saw a collection of posters which the students are putting up all over the city. According to the UNI leaders, thirty per cent of the posters came from Cuba, thirty per cent from Communist China, twenty per cent from the U.S.S.R. The rest

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were prepared in Brazil. The material, according to my guides, was prepared by student groups in the donor countries.

The posters revealed their origin. Many showed a third of the United States as having been stolen from Latin Americans. There were posters about American oppression of Puerto Rico; posters of Cuba and of Yankee exploitation of Central America.

I asked whether they would accept posters from American student groups. They replied that they would accept posters from any progressive American student organizations, but not from reactionary interests. Unfortunately there were no progressive student organizations in the United States.

The conversation caused me to reflect about the wisdom of senior American officials seeking out student groups in Latin America to debate with their leaders. The Attorney General has repeatedly observed that the student leaders he met on his trip were extremely ill-informed about the United States. This is true, but the implication that this condition could be remedied by better propaganda or by a better effort by our local embassies is less obvious. The fact is that the student leaders I have met in Brazil (just as the student leaders I had previously met in Japan) are not accessible to the American Embassy. Nor are they in the slightest interested in the truth. They are interested in spreading the gospel that they have learned and our version of reality is of no conceivable interest to them. Visits by senior Americans only convince them either of our naïveté or are used to enhance their standing. At any rate I would be amazed if any of these leaders is in the slightest touched by any argument which I or any other American could make to them. I think we should reconsider the wisdom of seeking out student leaders of such groups. It would seem to me much wiser that we concentrate on students who are not Communist, even if they are not the leaders.

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June 5, Rio de Janeiro

I started the day by calling on Anisio Teixeiras at his office. He is an economist in the educational field, probably the most influential man in the higher education system of Brazil. He is a small man with sharp features, very bright eyes and an amusing way of talking. He said that I had come to Brazil at a critical moment. The old society was collapsing and a new one was being born. The nature of that new society was not yet clear. The Brazilian temperament prevented anyone from seeing too far ahead. Then, too, the country was geographically fragmented. Revolutionary groups or military units in one part of the country could not combine with similar groups in other parts of the country. It was very difficult for them even technically to fight with each other because most military units did not have enough gasoline to travel long distances. In any case, Brazilians never killed each other. A coup in Brazil could happen only if the whole army were united. This was no longer possible.

It was important to understand that Brazilian society was quite different from that of the United States. Brazil was not egalitarian nor did it have a tradition of equality of opportunities. Throughout Brazil's history there had been a few privileged classes: the army, the civil service, all coffee growers, the merchant marine, the navy and the industrialists. All the rest of the people were not part of Brazilian society, strictly speaking. Illiteracy was not just a condition of underdevelopment in Brazil. It was a method of government. The Brazilian upper classes had no sense of cohesiveness and no sense of national pride.

The United States had always been held together by a spirit of responsibility of the upper for the lower classes and of all people for the nation. Such a spirit did not exist in Brazil. Moreover, the people that went to the

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United States came to make a new life within the country. In the United
States the frontier had been a challenge. By contrast the Portuguese who
came to Brazil were exploiters. The frontier was something to which one
went in order to enrich oneself and from which one then returned to the
mother country. Portuguese settlement clung to the coast; it symbolized
the tentative commitment of the settlers to their new country. Many settlers
came to Brazil for a few years and then returned to Portugal. Even Brasilia,
the new capital, which is supposed to open up the country was not a frontier
phenomenon but an anti-frontier phenomenon. It was a way of paying civil
servants double salaries for maintaining houses in both Brasilia and Rio.
It was a place for the comfortable and not for the adventurous. There was
no such thing as a pioneer spirit in Brazil. It was not the challenge of
the difficult that induced people to go to Brasilia but quite the opposite.

These different attitudes, Teixeiras continued, were also expressed
in the Brazilian system of education which combined the worst features of
the European and the United States system. The European system was frankly
designed for an elite; its stress was on quality. The United States system
was one of the great innovations of history. Its purpose was to educate
everybody-- even at the expense of quality. Brazilian education is exclusive
like that of Europe, but it produced a very mediocre level of education, far
below United States standards. The reason was that Brazilians have no
sense of obligation and no real sense of quality. Once one is enrolled in
a university, it is practically impossible to fail. The only problem is to
get enrolled. It is very easy to get degrees on the basis of personal
acquaintance. At the same time, it is fairly difficult to get into the
universities though here, too, connections are quite useful. In many fields
the quality and even more the attitude of the faculty are abominable.

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Professors simply never show up for classes. Even when they take their teaching obligations seriously, their scholarship is atrocious since they are cut off from the main stream of literature by their language.

A very substantial exchange program with the United States was essential, particularly for faculty members. Even though some of the Brazilian scholars were not nearly up to the level of their American colleagues, the beneficial effect of having studied in the United States would radiate throughout Brazilian society. Exposure to a pragmatic society was all the more important because Brazilian intellectuals had to learn that language had other functions than being ornamental. People spoke so much about revolution in Brazil because it was much easier to come to grips with slogans than with concrete programs which were rather boring.

The Brazilian educational system had to be reformed so that Brazilians could learn that the great revolution of our time was not the Russian but the American revolution. America, Teixeiras argued, is the only society which has given content to the concept of human dignity on a universal basis. The United States system of education reflected the conviction that democracy and education were synonymous. Brazilians have to learn to look at America as a progressive rather than as a reactionary society. At the same time, he wished there were some people in America who could still remember the frontier and who could bring this message to Brazilians. The present generation of Americans were too bland. Their tragedy was their inability to convey the truth about themselves to a country like Brazil.

I asked whether Teixeiras was not proposing a series of paradoxes: a basic reform in Brazil was necessary but the Brazilian rulers would not carry it out; the United States could make a great contribution if we only had a few people of the vintage year 1880 who could explain what they had

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been doing then. He smiled and said this was exactly right. I said that it was a very Brazilian conversation: a brilliant statement of dilemmas coupled with few concrete solutions. He said this was in fact true. Brazilians do not like to think in concrete solutions. It was impossible to reform Brazilian methods of doing business. I asked him then how things could be changed. He said he had no idea of how they were to be changed but he knew the direction in which they should be changed if it were ever possible to change them.

I had to leave then to go to an appointment with the Special Adviser on Labor Affairs to President Goulart, Gilberto Crockett da Sa. His office is located in the former Presidential Palace in Rio. When we got there, he had forgotten about the appointment and gone off somewhere. We talked briefly to two of his assistants while we made another appointment with him for the afternoon.

********

At this point it may be well to explain the nature of the labor movement in Brazil. As I have already indicated, the labor movement was started by the late dictator, Vargas, as a means of solidifying his regime. The unions are not spontaneous creations of the workers but organs of governmental authority. The leadership is appointed by whatever government is in power and the government controls its finances. Moreover, the system of labor courts and the power to intervene in labor conflicts enables the government to use the labor movement as a tool. This is particularly true with a President like Goulart who comes from the Brazilian Labor Party. In order to solidify this influence, he has appointed a special adviser on labor problems, who in effect supersedes the Minister of Labor and who makes the labor movement in Brazil dependent on the Presidency.

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This was confirmed to me by Crockett da Sa when I saw him later. He said frankly the purpose of his office was to do the things the Labor Ministry would not do. I said our experience in America has been that when one has very strong Presidential advisers, they sometimes do the work of the departments. He said this was true and was the intention.

********

I went back to the Palacio Itamarati, the home of the Foreign Office, where the Secretary General gave an official lunch for me. Present were the heads of each of the Foreign Office departments; the Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force; a few other senior officials and parliamentary leaders. It was a rather dull affair except for a very charming toast by the Secretary General at the end of the lunch.

********

After that I went to the oldest monastery in America, a Benedictine monastery on a hill overlooking the harbor of Rio. It was built in the middle of the seventeenth century.

********

I then spent an hour in the Botanical Garden at the edge of a mountain on the outskirts of Rio.

********

At five o'clock I went back to see Gilberto Crockett da Sa. Our labor attache'd had explained to me previously that Crockett da Sa was an utterly unprincipled individual who had started out as a lawyer, lived by graft, and who in his personal life was one of the most immoral people in Rio-- a superlative which is not easily achieved.

Even though I did not ask him, he began by explaining that the Communists had no influence in the labor movement at all. Our labor attache'd then

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mentioned the names of a few Communists. At this point da Sa shrugged
his shoulders and said, well, there may be some Communists but they are
there only because we use them. I asked what the function of his office
was. He said its purpose was to fight for the democratization of the
unions. I asked how he did that. He said they only supported the demo-
cratic union leaders rather than the Communist union leaders; and, since
the President had such great powers in settling disputes, this was a
rather potent tool. I asked if this was the case, how the Communists had
gotten into positions of responsibility in the first place. He painted an
idyllic picture of free votes by union membership, which the labor attache'
later told me was entirely made up of whole cloth. It is well known--
according to our labor attache-- that none of the unions follow very demo-
cratic procedures in selecting the leaders. In the Communist unions in
particular the party machine is in complete control.

I asked him how the labor movement was being financed. Crockett
explained this as follows: Each worker-- whether he belongs to a union or
not-- must contribute a day's wages each year to the government for the
support of the labor movement. In addition, each union can levy dues as
it sees fit. I asked da Sa what happened to money collected by the govern-
ment. He explained the breakdown between the local union and federations,
which are groups of unions in similar industries like the A. F. of L. craft
unions and confederations which represent a combination of various different
craft unions. He told me what percentage went to each category and it
came to eighty per cent. I asked him what happened to the other twenty per
cent. He looked around, saw that our labor attache' obviously knew the
situation, also saw that I had a Brazilian Foreign Office man with me,
shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, "We have never said that we were

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perfect." In other words, twenty per cent of the labor taxes are taken by whoever controls the labor movement and no one knows what is done with it. Our labor attaché told me afterwards that this applies also to the social security system. Most of those funds had disappeared under the Kubitchek administration. It was generally believed that they were used to build Brasilia. At any rate, the funds have disappeared and most claims cannot be met.

Da Sa then explained to me that he and Goulart were trying to relate the labor unions more closely to the PTB (the Brazilian labor party) in order to get mass support for that party. They were determined to turn the labor movement into a more active and "progressive" social force.

After this meeting with Gilberto Crockett da Sa, both the labor attaché and my Brazilian Foreign Office companion were beside themselves with rage. They said they had never seen so many lies compressed into the period of an hour. They added that if I had been alone, with simply an interpreter, da Sa would have lied to me in a way that would have made God come down from Heaven.

********

In the evening I went to dinner with Gustavo Camara Simoes Barbosa, a former Seminar participant. For dinner we had a variety of Brazilian foods which I had not eaten previously. There was a group of guests, all of whom could speak at least a little bit of English. Barbosa comes from an old family from the Northeast. At the end of the meal my Foreign Office companion was asked by Barbosa whether he was the son of a famous lawyer in town. Whereupon he announced, "I am proud enough to say I am a self-made man and I am nobody's son." On this happy note the evening ended.

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June 6, Sao Paulo

We left for Sao Paulo from the downtown airport which is used for
domestic flights. The airport is at the edge of the bay facing Sugarloaf
Mountain. The flight over the bay went between stunning mountain peaks and
afforded superb panoramas. I was greeted in Sao Paulo by a large delegation
at the airport representing the Governor of the city, the Ford Motor Company
(for some reason I never discovered), and a large number of newspapermen.
The atmosphere in Sao Paulo is quite different from Rio. Rio is a somewhat
seductive, indolent city. Sao Paulo is teeming with energy. In Rio an
appointment expresses only a general willingness to meet. In Sao Paulo
appointments are kept. The atmosphere is most similar to Milan.

I had lunch with two officers from the local Consulate and with the
head of the Rockefeller office in Sao Paulo.

From there I went to a reception given for me by the Vice President
of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Sao Paulo, Conceicao da Costa
Neves, a phenomenally energetic and extremely charming lady. She is a
very vocal democrat. She showed me some magazines that were being distrib-
uted in Sao Paulo from China and some other pamphlets from Cuba. She
said that the United States had utterly failed in the propaganda battle and
that it was doing nothing equivalent.

I asked her what she thought about the danger of revolution that I had
heard so much about in Rio. She said that all the Cariocas were good for
was talk. The key to Brazil was Sao Paulo. Whoever controlled Sao Paulo
controlled Brazil. Carvalho Pinto, the Governor of Sao Paulo, was not just
about to sit tight for a revolution. The trouble with Brazil was that when
something needs to be done, the people of Sao Paulo ask, "When can I do it?"

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The people of other regions-- particularly the Northeast-- say, "When is somebody going to do it for me?"

She added that, while the situation in Sao Paulo was good now, it would be very dangerous if Quadros were elected. Quadros had become an unprincipled demagogue and if he were re-elected, he would use the wealth of Sao Paulo to establish a base for himself in the Northeast, particularly in the Recife area. From these two areas he could put his grip on Brasilia. Last year many moderate people had had confidence in Quadros, but he had disillusioned all responsible individuals. Quadros was the worst kind of agitator-- a man who did not believe what he was saying and used the popular mood for his own ends.

She then gave an enormously dramatic and vocal explanation of what was needed in the economic field. She said the Alliance for Progress, while very useful, was deprived of effectiveness because it lacked an overall plan. I said that this was exactly the opposite of what I had heard in Rio, where I had been told that our insistence on an over-all plan jeopardized the Alliance. Thereupon she listed several specific projects which she thought should be pushed. In particular, she felt it was enormously important to develop education, health and similar infrastructures, particularly in the Northeast. This did not seem like over-all planning to me, but her emotion was stronger than her logic. Like many Brazilians, moreover, she seemed to identify planning with support of her favorite projects.

She asked me whether I wanted to go to the floor of the Assembly. She said, "Of course it is prohibited, but I am [acting] President of the Assembly, and who would rule it out of order?" She took me to the floor and introduced me to a Communist deputy. She said that Kennedy would receive a tremendous reception in Sao Paulo. From what I have seen, I can believe her.

**********

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We went to the office of the Mayor of Sao Paulo which is at the other end of town in an extremely modernistic building. Sao Paulo has some of the most modern and interesting architecture in Brazil. I asked the Mayor about some of the problems of the city. His reply sounded very similar to those of New York City officials. Sao Paulo contributed the majority of the budget of the State of Sao Paulo and nearly thirty per cent of the federal budget but received only six per cent in return from these sources.

Sao Paulo had the infrastructure to absorb a tremendous amount of economic expansion and, therefore, even though the Alliance for Progress in general supports the underdeveloped regions, he thought some money should be spent in Sao Paulo. In Sao Paulo the impact could be immediate. Progress in Sao Paulo helped the Northeast by attracting workers and thus relieving the problem of overpopulation. In Sao Paulo the slums, while serious, were nothing like in Rio. In Rio 25 per cent of the population was living in slums; in Sao Paulo only about five per cent; in Recife 50 per cent.

Francisco Prestes Maia then cited the corruption in Sao Paulo as an example of the difficulty of making progress in Brazil. Under the previous mayor, Adhemar de Barros, who also ran for President, there were over 500 employees on the city payroll who never showed up in their office and who were being used entirely for electioneering. He had made a survey of the contracts for street paving. He found that only 40 per cent of the work that had been paid for had actually been done and that had been inferior in quality. In the municipal cemeteries only 20 per cent of the work paid for had in fact been done. Corruption, in short, was one of the most serious problems of Brazil. The central government was incapable of dealing with it at all because of the parliamentary regime and because of a general lack of authority. The state government was in the hands of an able man, Carvalho

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Pinto, but he looked at the Mayor of Sao Paulo as a potential rival, and therefore Sao Paulo did not receive the consideration which he believed it deserved. He did not think that Communism was a serious problem in Sao Paulo. In the coming elections he said he would maintain a neutral attitude. The difficulty was that Adhemar de Barros was a crook but had a tremendous personal following. Quadros was a demagogue in many ways, but he also had a tremendous following. Bonifacio was the most appealing, but he was unknown and he did not look like a politician. Maia made several remarks which indicated some opposition to Carvalho Pinto and to Bonifacio, but he was careful to be noncommittal.

********

We then returned to the hotel where Adhemar de Barros came to see me and spend about an hour with me giving me an almost incredible account of a plot centered in Porto Alegre which was being made to overthrow the Brazilian government.

********

By that time it was 7:30 in the evening and I had been on the go constantly. I insisted on being left alone for dinner.

********

At 9:30 I had an appointment with Dr. Julio de Mesquita Filho, the Director of the newspaper "O Estado de Sao Paulo" which is the equivalent of the *New York Times* for Brazil. I also talked with his foreign editor. Mesquita told me that the difficulties of Brazil dated from the time of Vargas. Roosevelt had been the greatest enemy of democracy in South America because of the feeling of superiority which the United States had had towards Latin American countries. They preferred dictatorships because they were easier to work with and the people did not matter. Roosevelt had supported

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Vargas and so had every American ambassador in Brazil right up to the end.

Mesquita said that the worst effect of the Vargas regime was the demoralization of Brazilian political life. When one wanted to understand what was wrong with the present political life in Brazil, one had only to remember that President Goulart was a disciple of Vargas and owed his whole career to him. Vargas had had the good quality of knowing exactly what he wanted, even though what he had wanted was bad. But Goulart was a complete opportunist and utterly unreliable. The foreign policy of Brazil was completely irresponsible. Freedom was indivisible. There was too much of a challenge to democracy for the free countries to permit themselves the luxury of being divided into several groups. He thought that the policy of Brazil of trying to play the two sides against each other was unprincipled and against Brazil's basic interests. Dantas, the Foreign Minister, did not even believe in his own foreign policy. He was a pure opportunist eager to get re-elected and putting his re-election above every other concern.

The most discouraging aspect was that a man like Dantas could claim that his foreign policy was being supported by the United States.

Mesquita said that the situation in the central government was hopeless. Every politician was out only for himself. Goulart was extremely ambitious and without conscience. His brother-in-law, Brizolla, thought he could exploit the Communists but would wind up being exploited by them. Brazilian politicians, on the whole, possessed neither the capability nor the national spirit to develop long-range planning. The government in Sao Paulo was better. Carvalho Pinto was honest and one of the hopes for democracy in Brazil. Another man in whom we could have confidence, he said, was Lacerda of Guanabara. Yet another man was Juracy Magalhaes from Salvador. But the national politicians were a disaster and there was no way he could see for throwing them out. What can you do, he said, with a country which has had

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an inflation of fifty per cent every year; where the government knows it
and does absolutely nothing to stop it and even encourages it. Goulart
welcomed the inflation because he saw his chance in chaos. This was due to
a collapse of public morality.

I asked whether he was saying in effect that no matter what we did,
the central government would waste our aid. Mesquita said that a good
deal would be wasted. Nevertheless, for the sake of the people of Brazil,
we had to continue giving aid. If we worked with some of the state govern-
ments we could encourage honesty and efficiency. But we should not use
our aid to build up the Vargas followers who are now running Brazil. We
should find real democrats and encourage them. He was vague about how this
could be done.

Mesquita said that many of the problems were completely wrongly stated.
For example, a lot of people spoke about land reform as the key to the
situation in the Northeast. What did land reform mean in a country that
has huge areas which are underpopulated? Moreover, in some parts of the
Northeast the only efficient method of farming was in large units. If land
were distributed without improving the system of education and introducing
cooperatives for marketing, the situation would be worsened. One way of
dealing with the problem of the Northeast was to encourage emigration from
the Northeast to other parts of Brazil. But the problem of latifundia was
a Communist myth; it was a small problem but of no great consequence. Many
of the leftist groups were clamoring for expropriation of private lands
rather than the distribution of state land because expropriation had an
ideological flavor.

Mesquita was very encouraged by the Alliance for Progress, and by
Kennedy's energy and he was looking forward to Kennedy's visit. We talked

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somewhat about foreign policy problems. He asked me about disarmament and
Berlin. Then I spoke briefly to his foreign editor who is a very clever
Jesuit and whom I will see again. By this time, since we had to speak
through an interpreter, it was after eleven and I returned to my hotel.

********

Some random observations:

My first day in Sao Paulo, June 6, the Brazilian soccer team played
Spain in a preliminary game for the world championship. Suddenly while
I was talking to the Mayor, bedlam broke loose. People came running into
the office and embraced; firecrackers came flying out of windows. Brazil
had scored a goal.

After I left the Mayor and was driving downtown, cars stopped, people
jumped out and embraced each other; more firecrackers went off. Brazil
had scored another goal. Five minutes later, traffic stopped again. The
same performance was repeated. The game was over with Brazil winning two
to one.

A number of people have told me seriously that soccer is one of the
great unifying forces in Brazil, giving the country a sense of national
consciousness. They also told me (half facetiously) that should Brazil
lose, the tempers will be so short that the political situation is bound
to deteriorate. This may sound ridiculous, but anyone who had seen the
performance in Sao Paulo-- the most staid city in Brazil-- could well
believe it. In Rio, the newspapers reported that several people were killed
and about 30 injured in the demonstrations following the second goal.

-------

Sao Paulo is an extremely modern city with all the problems of American
modern cities such as traffic congestion, super highways and so forth.

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Architecture is much more interesting than in Rio. The percentage of the colored population is much smaller; in fact, the population looks much more Italian than in Rio. Things are much more efficient. Business starts around nine as compared to eleven in Rio, and moonlighting is not as widespread. In Rio, for example, the night manager of my hotel was a senior official in the cultural department of the Foreign Office, and he combines both jobs by never showing up in the Foreign Office until around noon.

I have been trying to see Quadros ever since coming here, but it is not an easy task. We have tried it through the American Embassy, through the Rockefeller office, through Emilio Fontana, a former Seminar participant who has known him for many years and through a personal friend of his. Quadros is an enigma. He is supposed to be campaigning for re-election, but no one ever knows exactly where he is. Even his staff claims to be in touch with him only sporadically. The other night he was announced for a television program and never showed up. On other occasions he suddenly appears on a television program, having bought time on short notice. A very short time ago we called his wife who told us that he had come in very late so that she could not talk to him, and he left early again before she had awakened. Of course, he may simply wish to avoid me, but all of his friends tell me that he is a most mysterious figure. Yet he is the most dramatic figure in Brazilian political life. Even now, when he is alleged to be discredited because of his sudden resignation last year, Quadros dominates the political conversations in Sao Paulo to an extraordinary degree. My guess would be that he is the man to beat in the elections, and after that he will be a major political figure again.

My program in Sao Paulo is being arranged by a group of students who

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have formed an association for the propagation of democratic values. It
is called INES, Instituto Nacional de Estudos Superiores. These students
represent some of the best families of Sao Paulo and attempt to act as a
counterweight to the Communist-dominated student movement.