Brazil and the United States: Convergence and Divergence

CHAPTER 7. The Rise and Fall of Military Government

163 7 The Rise and Fall of Military Government “Brazil is not a country that is open to external influence with regards to its internal politics,” commented Harry Shlaudeman, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil from 1986 to 1989.1 In the aftermath of the 1964 coup, the United States was unable to moderate the repressive policy of a succession of Brazilian military governments. Moreover, Brazilian diplomacy overtly began to emphasize a “nationalist” approach in what was essentially a return to the idea of the “independent foreign policy.” Brazil also looked beyond the United States for alternative export markets and sources of inward capital investment, a strategy that was stimulated by the external “oil shocks” in 1973 and 1979 and the resulting need to earn more foreign exchange from exports to pay for the rising cost of oil imports. The pursuit of a “nationalist” policy frequently resulted in tension with the United States. The Brazilian government particularly resented criticism that was made public over its record on human rights. Similarly, it insisted on the right to develop atomic energy for peaceful industrial purposes and signed an agreement with a West German consortium for the supply of nuclear reactors . Further examples of Brazil’s divergence from the United States were the rejection of President Jimmy Carter’s call for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and unwillingness to endorse the policy of President Ronald Reagan to counter the Communist threat in El Salvador and Nicaragua. During the 1980s economic factors brought about a return to closer bilateral cooperation because Brazil needed U.S. diplomatic and financial assistance in order to negotiate satisfactory terms for a resolution of the Debt Crisis. The United States, however, diverged from Brazil by forming the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) with Canada and Mexico in 1992. Brazil opted instead to join with Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay in establishing a separate customs union known as Mercosur. By taking the lead to promote 164 chapter seven Mercosur, Brazil was implicitly mounting a challenge to U.S. economic leadership of the hemisphere. The Military in Power The U.S. government was delighted with the success of the military coup overthrowing João Goulart, an event that Ambassador Lincoln Gordon described “as one of the major turning points in world history in the middle of the twentieth century” and similar in significance “to the Marshall Plan proposal, the Berlin Blockade, the defeat of Communist aggression in Korea, and the resolution of the missile crisis in Cuba.”2 As Gordon’s effusive language indicated, instead of being condemned for using violence to overthrow a constitutional government, the Brazilian military was credited with preventing the occurrence of “another Cuba.” The perception that they had bravely carried out their patriotic duty in saving their country from an imminent Communist insurrection was relayed in most contemporary newspapers and news magazines in the United States. For example, U.S. News and World Report dramatically entitled two articles “Now with Castro Turned Back—A New Start for Brazil” and “How Close the Reds Came to Taking Over Brazil.”3 U.S. officials envisaged a necessary but temporary period of military rule followed by the resumption of political and legal rights. This was based on a desire to see the installation of democratic government and also their reading of previous Brazilian history, which showed that the military soon gave up political control and returned to barracks. Such an outcome had occurred in 1930 when power had been handed over to civilian politicians, but fear of an imminent countercoup by pro-Goulart forces meant that the same option was ruled out in April 1964. The self-styled “revolutionary high command” representing the junta of senior military commanders likened their situation more to 1889 when the military had considered it incumbent on themselves to hold on to high political office for an indefinite period. Any constitutional barriers to this decision were easily removed. Ten days after the coup, the legal technicalities were dealt with by simply ignoring the 1946 Constitution and unilaterally issuing a series of decrees, beginning with Institutional Act No. 1, which declared the “revolutionary high military command” to be the legitimate government 165 The Rise and Fall of Military Government authority. In accordance with the views of military men accustomed to acting within a hierarchical chain of command, the act also substantially increased the executive authority of the office of the...