Lord Halifax made the much-anticipated compromise offer to Brazil on December 6, 1940. Halifax, known as “the holy fox” for his astute diplomatic skills, tried to explain the British dilemma to the Brazilian ambassador to London. The British could not release the Siqueira Campos without undercutting its own blockade policy, he pointed out, and Great Britain would therefore need to ask Brazil “to take certain measures to make the blockade more effective.”54 In other words, the British would release the cargo only if the Brazilians would help them to save face. In truth, after discussing the question, the British cabinet was keen to drive a hard bargain with the Brazilians over the conditions of the compromise, with the intention of showing Rio and Washington that it was serious about the blockade—the enforcement of which it deemed vital for its war effort. In the hopes of enlisting support from the State Department, Lord Halifax contacted Cordell Hull to plead Great Britain’s case. “The Brazilians did not have a good technical case . . . and it is hoped that you will give your support in Rio to the British request for a balancing concession on the part of Brazil,” he told his American colleague.55
Great Britain outlined the “balancing concession” it wanted from Brazil in a rather long and wordy list of demands, which included the immobilization of all enemy ships that were in Brazilian ports and the cessation of all LATI (Italian airlines) flights in and out of Brazil.56 Not only would such measures ensure that there would not be a repeat of the Siqueira Campos affair, but they would also tighten Great Britain’s blockade against the Axis powers. To try to encourage a speedy conclusion to the crisis, the British embassy in Rio pleaded in its covering note: “The British government are anxious that the passengers of the Siqueira Campos should be spared further inconveniences owing to the detention of the ship and will therefore welcome a very early reply from the Brazilian government.”57
The British received a quick response, but it wasn’t the answer for which they had hoped. Aranha took their offer to the president and advised him that Great Britain’s conditions were unacceptable—Brazil couldn’t allow itself to be strong-armed into abandoning its economic ties with the Axis completely. The president concurred.58 When Vargas convened his cabinet to discuss the British demands, the meeting focused not on whether to accept the offer, but rather on what measures Brazil might take to retaliate against the impounding of the Siqueira Campos, such as the seizing of British properties in Brazil. The military were calling for a break in Anglo-Brazilian relations, and Aranha was finding such pressure increasingly difficult to withstand.59
Keen to resolve the whole affair before it cost him his job or irreparably split Brazil from the Allies, Aranha sought American help in finally bringing the crisis to an end. “England is trying to throw Brazil into the arms of Germany,” he claimed, but went on to suggest that Brazil was willing to work with the British.60 “I thought the terms were an affront and impertinent in tone, but upon careful study they are more reasonable than they seemed at first,” he acknowledged. Working with the full knowledge of the president, but not Dutra or Góes Monteiro, Aranha was desperately trying to cut a deal before his countrymen’s outrage made such a compromise impossible.
The Brazilian army was looking less and less interested in coming to terms with Great Britain. On December 11, Góes Monteiro vented his anger about the British to the Americans in a manner that made Washington extremely concerned that he was looking to push Brazil into the German camp. The general fumed that:
The British do not realize the irreparable harm they are doing to their cause and interests in Brazil by their stubborn and unreasonable attitude. Whereas 90 percent of the Brazilian population was formerly pro-British, that situation has changed. They have played right into the hands of the Germans. There is no need for the Nazis to make propaganda here. The British are doing it for them. Even with a satisfactory solution to the case the harm has been done. The British forget their huge interests in this country such as the São Paulo railway, Western Telegraph, London Bank, packing houses, etc., which we may take over if the Siqueira Campos is not released. The British forget the facilities received from our naval and port authorities in provisioning and repairing their vessels. They have over one hundred intelligence operatives in this country all of whom are known to us. They have been allowed to work unmolested, but we intend to stop this situation.61
Góes Monteiro may have been blustering, but his threats were enough to rattle the Americans—who knew full well that if Brazil stopped receiving British ships in its ports or moved to arrest Great Britain’s spies, it could cause a diplomatic firestorm that would in all likelihood lead to a break between the Allies and Brazil.
Whether intentional or not, Góes Monteiro’s threats spurred American efforts to broker a settlement, and by December 13, Rio and London seem to have agreed to the outline of a deal to secure the release of the Siqueira Campos. In a sign of a thaw in Anglo-Brazilian relations, Aranha instructed the department de impressa propaganda, or DIP—the department of press and propaganda—to suspend any references to Great Britain in newsreels shown in Rio.62 Yet despite Aranha’s efforts, anti-British sentiment in Brazil was proving almost impossible to control.
The Siqueira Campos affair had pushed Brazil to the brink. Rumors circulated in British circles in Rio that Vargas’s government was drafting legislation to seize British assets in the country.63 Aranha, meanwhile, feared Germany was using the crisis to make further inroads among the Brazilian public. “I will do my best to restrain the surge of anti-British feeling,” Aranha assured the Americans, “but . . . this is most difficult in view of the German-inspired agitations toward vigorous retaliatory action against the British.”64
Ultimately, however, Aranha’s efforts prevailed. On December 15, Rio and London reached a deal to release the Siqueira Campos. The agreement followed the lines proposed by the British: Brazil agreed to seize Axis ships in Brazilian harbors. In order to help seal the deal, Aranha gave his word that this would be the last shipment of weapons that Brazil would try to acquire from Germany. On hearing the news, President Vargas wrote in his diary, “Finally, it was a relief and a time of high emotion. I was resolved to taking a strong line to vindicate the country, but understood that losses could result and preferred a peaceful solution.”65 Such a solution seemed, at long last, to have been found—and Aranha, Vargas’s foreign minister, could take the lion’s share of the credit.
On December 21, 1940, the Siqueira Campos took on coal in Gibraltar and, with its passengers and German armaments still on board, set sail for Rio.66 The crisis, however, was far from over. Angered over their perceived humiliation at the hands of the British, the Brazilian army was looking for a confrontation—not just with Great Britain, but also with Aranha, whom it believed had caved in to Anglo-American pressure. It was going to be a long and dangerous summer for President Vargas and his left and right eyes.
6 Escape from Rio
December marked the start of the sweltering summer season in Rio de Janeiro, and it was a difficult month for people who—like President Vargas and other fixtures of Brazil’s political firmament—had to continue working in the city. Jefferson Caffery labeled December “the three shirts a day month” and, to be sure, the menswear of the time exacerbated the problem. Short-sleeved shirts were still frowned on in 1940, particularly on public transportation. It was a time when men wore white pure-linen suits and carefully pressed long-sleeved shirts with no ties. The cost of a three-piece washable suit made by a local tailor ranged from $15 to $25, a pittance for well-to-do foreigners, but most diplomats, Caffery included, preferred to import both their linen and light wool suits—linen for the summer, and wool for the cooler months.1 Wealthy Carioca ladies wore light summer dresses in pastel shades, which were imported from Europe or copied by local seamstresses from European designs.
To make matters worse, December marked the start of the summer social season, when the evenings of Brazil’s political leaders and foreign d
iplomats were taken up with formal events that demanded either black or white tie. At dinner parties, most men opted to wear a white dinner jacket; they were lighter and more suitable for the climate. Ladies wore long European-style silk dresses to such events, and the cost of a locally tailored gown ranged from $30 to $100.2 Both gentlemen and ladies on the Rio social circuit were advised to have at least two of everything, since—as the American embassy warned—“the dry cleaning in Rio is of a very inferior and unsatisfactory quality. It is therefore well to depend upon it as little as possible.”3
The final clothing requirement for summertime was, of course, the bathing suit. Men wore Brazilian trunks, which were shorter and tighter than was traditional on the French Riviera or in the United States. Women’s bathing suits revealed the thigh and shoulder, and in most cases came without any decorative frills that would have detracted from their tight lines. Cariocas were more daring than European and American bathers when it came to showing skin, but away from the beach their attire remained conservative—a reflection of the continued influence of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, while President Vargas was holed up in the Guanabara and Catete Palaces grumpily going through the diplomatic cables, most regular Cariocas tried to escape the oppressive, sticky heat of the city by spending as much time as possible on one of the city’s beaches. It was only a ten-minute drive from the center of Rio to its most famous beach at Copacabana, where the air was cooler—even in the middle of the day—than it was in the city center. Thanks to the winds that whipped along this exposed piece of coastline, Copacabana’s temperature could be four or five degrees lower than that of the city center. The cool breeze and shadows cast by the growing number of tall apartment buildings and international hotels that lined the outer edge of Copacabana’s wide beachfront boulevard made the summer heat all the more tolerable. Fittingly, Copacabana was known locally as “the lung through which the city breathed.”4
The most celebrated of all Rio’s hotels was the Copacabana Palace, where the rich and famous could enjoy ocean views, fine dining, and a world-class wine collection. The hotel was to Rio what the Ritz Carlton was to Nice, a status symbol and exclusive preserve of the privileged. During the summer season it was extremely difficult to secure accommodations at the hotel, with tourists and visiting dignitaries warned to book well in advance.5 The war in Europe had increased international interest in Brazil, given its strategic importance to the Allied side, making it all the more difficult to reserve a room at the hotel. Yet the exclusivity of the Copacabana Palace was not its only appeal. The hotel’s air-conditioned restaurant made it a blissful oasis in the midst of the sweltering city—and made the hotel a favorite haunt of Osvaldo Aranha, who preferred to lunch there with foreign dignitaries rather than inviting them to the ministry of foreign affairs, which lacked such an amenity.
Cariocas could normally count on an occasional rainstorm to cool the city, but December 1940 wore on without any sign of a break in the weather. Fortunately, the period between Christmas and Carnaval in late February was classified as a holiday season, and very little happened in Rio during that time—allowing people with means to try to escape the heat by leaving the city. Some headed up into the cooler mountains, where many Cariocas kept summer homes; others went to ranches or the homes of family members far from the bustle of the city. Not everyone, however, was so lucky.
For those who had to remain in Rio, December was a time for finishing up the previous year’s work and preparing for the next. President Vargas was doing exactly this as 1940 drew to a close. His wife, Darci, had already left Rio to go to the presidential retreat in Petrópolis, a mountain town favored by the city’s elite, while Alzira had departed for the family ranch in Rio Grande. Vargas was left alone to finish up negotiations over the budget for 1941, and to prepare his traditional end-of-year message to the Brazilian people.
Even under normal circumstances, Alzira didn’t like leaving her father—but in December 1940, she felt that he was especially exposed without her at his side. There were still rumblings in the army about Aranha’s deal with the British, which was seen as a slap in the face by the generals and the minister of war, Eurico Gaspar Dutra. After all that she and her father had been through, Alzira could only wonder how long such resentments would continue to simmer—and whether they would soon boil over.
Due to Rio’s excessive heat, Vargas had taken to working at night in the small pavilion on top of the hill at the back of the Guanabara Palace.6 He preferred to take meetings on the pavilion as well, hosting guests in the main palace building only reluctantly, if his visitors were members of the foreign diplomatic corps. Even the president’s weekly round of golf had become something of an ordeal; “played golf, very hot,” was a regular entry in his diary for December 1940.7
Vargas hoped to soon leave Rio for the season. Like the rest of the city’s residents, the president was winding down and preparing to move to his summer residence at the Rio Negro Palace up in the mountains in Petrópolis. The town of Petrópolis had become a virtual suburb of Rio, with diplomats, government officials, and local businessmen all relocating there for the summer months. The British ambassador spent two months a year in Petrópolis, at a summer residence the embassy owned there. The Americans, much to the displeasure of Caffery, did not have any such retreat; they claimed: “It was not practical to commute from there in order to keep up business or other daily activities in Rio.”8 On several occasions, usually during the month of December, Caffery pleaded with Washington to reconsider this policy and invest in a summer residence for the ambassador up in Petrópolis.
As Caffery no doubt knew, it was possible to commute from Petrópolis to Rio relatively quickly by 1940. The trip took only about an hour and a half, allowing many husbands and fathers to spend the workweek in Rio and join their families in Petrópolis on the weekends during the summer. Such flexibility was possible because the road to Petrópolis had been steadily improving; it was now one of the longest paved routes in Brazil, making its way through the flat hinterland of Rio before curving sharply and climbing into the mountains, eventually reaching a plateau from which the town, with its quaint red bridges and old villas, was visible.
At the height of the Brazilian summer, Petrópolis was a paradise compared to Rio. The temperature remained hot in the daytime but fell considerably at nightfall, allowing people to sleep in comfort. Whereas Rio reeked of pollution in the summer months, Petrópolis was suffused with the rich perfume of the woods that surrounded the town. One of its wartime residents, Stefan Zweig, marveled at “the charm of the place . . . The mountains have no sharp contours, but leave the town in gradual undulating hills, while flowers blaze everywhere in this town of the gardens.”9
Located in the center of Petrópolis, set amid beautiful gardens, was the impressive Rio Negro Palace, the president’s two-storied summer retreat. The palace had been constructed by the baron of Rio Negro and had been heavily modernized by the Vargas family; the president enjoyed entertaining there. Some of the most important meetings of his regime took place either over a meal inside the palace’s dining room or during walks around the gardens. Vargas noted that everybody appeared more relaxed when they visited him in Petrópolis; friends and foes alike dropped their masks and even the unemotional minister of war, Dutra, would manage a smile from time to time. When not engaged with official business, Vargas himself could take walks in the palace’s gardens, play golf at a nearby course, and stroll around the uncrowded streets of the town, chatting with passers-by.10 It was in Petrópolis that Vargas felt his mind was freest, and it was there that he was at his most creative and farsighted. Problem solving proved to be a much easier art in Petrópolis than in the stuffy palaces in Rio.
Yet in December of 1940, Vargas was most looking forward to a respite from his problems. With the Siqueira Campos affair seemingly resolved earlier that month, the president hoped to withdraw for a time and join hi
s wife in the mountain air. On the whole, it had been a good year. During 1940 his authoritarian government had become more popular in Brazil, with fewer threats from either the communists or the Integralistas.11 The high point of the year had been the signing of the agreement for the huge steel mill project, which Vargas believed would help transform the economy of Brazil—not least because it would allow the country to export steel.
Yet the crisis with Great Britain aside, the year had not been without its problems. By May 1940, the British naval blockade had cut Brazil off from around two-fifths of its prewar export markets, meaning that Brazilians were poorer in 1940 than they had been prior to the war.12 Vargas also continued to worry about the impact of the growing American influence in the country; he viewed US involvement in Brazilian affairs as a necessary evil, but wondered how far it would go. Jefferson Caffery—with his deep southern accent and pushy manner—had become something of an irritant to the president. What was more, Vargas understood that there were still men whom he couldn’t trust—most notably the chief of police—in key positions of his regime. How much of a problem this really was, however, would shortly become apparent.
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