Visoes do golpe: A memoria militar sobre 1964, and: Os anos de chumbo: A memoria militar sobre a repressao (review)

Visões do golpe: A memória militar sobre 1964. 2d ed. Edited by Maria Celina D'araujo et al. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 1994. Index. 256 pp. Paper.

Os anos de chumbo: A memória militar sobre a repressão. Edited by Maria Celina D'Araujo et al. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 1994. Glossary. Index. 326 pp. Paper.

Despite a recent upsurge of public and academic interest in the period of military rule in Brazil (1964-85), members of the armed forces themselves have been extremely reticent to speak publicly about their experiences during, and responsibility for, those controversial years. As part of a Getulio Vargas Foundation- sponsored study, however, in 1992 and 1993 researchers Maria Celina D'Araujo, Glaúcio Ary Dillon Soares, and Celso Castro were able to collect extensive oral histories from a number of important military officers. These interview have been transcribed, edited, and published in three separate books. The first, Visões do golpe, contains the officials' reflections on the period from 1961 to 1967, while the second, Os anos de chumbo, focuses on the security state and ensuing repression, beginning with the 1964 coup and ending in 1974. There is additionally a third text, A volta aos quartéis: Memória militar sobre a abertura, not reviewed here, which covers the period of political opening during the Geisel and Figueiredo presidencies.

In introducing the reader to these testimonies, the editors explain that their intention is neither to endorse nor repudiate the accounts. "This book does not commemorate, does not condemn, and does not judge" (p. 8), they write in the introduction to Visões do golpe. Indeed, apart from providing introductions in which they note consistencies and disparities among interviewees' responses to particular questions, D'Araujo et al. strive not to lay their own interpretations onto the officials' words. Certainly they leave their marks on the text--in the questions asked, the manners in which the interviews were held, the editorial decisions made in publishing them--but ultimately the transcripts are provided without commentary, allowing the reader to interpret them as she will.

Not surprisingly in such a bare-bones approach, the texts read repetitively at moments, as we see a similar set of questions put before each interviewee. At the same time, however, the starkness of this method provides fascinating glimpses into the thoughts of those to whom we do not have much access. And while there is clearly no unanimity of opinion, the overall effect, nevertheless, leaves one with a general sense of military logic about the period, one in which old grievances play a large role, at times complicating scholars' initial contentions. In Visões do golpe, for example, interviewees portray the 1961 resignation of President Jânio Quadros as leaving a much more profound mark than historians have usually recognized. The parliamentary compromise upon which João Goulart was allowed to assume the presidency--often viewed as the imposition of a powerful military that was able to outweigh constitutional procedure--was, in fact, understood by many here as a major setback. One general specifically labeled the 1964 coup which deposed Goulart a "revenge of 61" (p. 84). Meanwhile, although officers conform with the interpretation that strong anticommunist sentiment was a crucial factor, they claim it was not fear that Goulart himself was communist that motivated them, but rather their concerns that he proved to be a poor administrator who simply allowed the Left too much influence. "The incompetence," said one conspirator, "was much greater than the subversion itself" (p. 40).

Moreover, throughout the book a story emerges of a planned coup that was significantly more reactionary and less organized and formal than is usually portrayed. One interviewee described the myriad groups of plotters as...