Brazil : The Fortunes of War (9780465080700)

by Lochery, Neill

  The problems facing Brazil were the same ones that Vargas had dealt with during the war, but though he had outlined plans for solving Brazil’s economic and infrastructure woes, Dutra did not share Vargas’s vision.

  The economic gains that Vargas had helped Brazil to reap from the war had proved insufficient to fully and instantaneously transform the country. He had sown the seeds for growth, however. Following the war, conditions were slowly starting to improve in terms of fuel supplies and shipping. Many merchant ships that had been converted to wartime service were decommissioned and returned to the civilian economy and were able to help deliver more fuel and other urgent supplies that were vital for the economy. This growth was recognized by Brazilians across the country as the result of Vargas’s strong administration, instead of being connected to the current regime.

  19 The Final Act

  It took another four years, but Getúlio Vargas eventually did return to the presidency. On October 3, 1950, the ex-president defeated Eduardo Gomes and Cristiano Machado in Brazil’s second postwar presidential election, winning more votes than the combined total of the two other candidates. Vargas’s victory was proof of his continued popularity among Brazil’s masses, but it was also the product of an energetic and brilliant campaign. Vargas felt he was the only man capable of extracting Brazil from the mess in which it found itself at the dawn of the 1950s, and he had vied for the presidency like a man possessed.

  On January 31, 1951, Vargas took the oath of office at the Tiradentes Palace in Rio. It was the same place where, nearly a decade earlier, the president’s old friend and sparring partner Osvaldo Aranha had announced Brazil’s break of diplomatic relations with Germany and Italy. Among the foreign dignitaries who attended the inauguration was Nelson Rockefeller, with whom Vargas met prior to taking the oath of office. A more auspicious ceremony is hard to imagine.

  In his speech at the inauguration, Vargas thumbed his nose at the people who had forced him from office some five years earlier. He was still angry at the military’s treatment of him in October 1945 and at the lies that had been written about him since that fateful evening when he had been ousted from power. “The people have carried me back to the presidency,” he proclaimed to the huge crowd that had gathered in front of the Tiradentes Palace.

  Following his speech, Vargas toured Rio in a large open-topped car, standing on the backseat as onlookers threw confetti from the city’s skyscrapers and soldiers saluted their new commander in chief. Cariocas turned out by the hundreds of thousands to cheer the new president, bringing the city to a virtual standstill.

  When Vargas eventually reached the Catete Palace, the new seat of the presidency, he paid a less than glowing tribute to his predecessor, General Dutra, for arranging such a fair and free election. When questioned by journalists, Vargas couldn’t resist also taking a swipe at Adolf Berle, who he believed had stoked the military’s discontent with him in September and October 1945. Though he didn’t mention the former ambassador by name, President Vargas left little to the imagination when he commented that US-Brazilian relations had been hijacked by certain officials who didn’t understand their true nature.1

  Vargas had waited a long time for this day, and he struggled to control the pent-up frustration that he had harbored since being removed from power. Yet despite his palpable anger, a sense of wild optimism was sweeping through the city and the country as a whole. It was the holiday season in Rio, and Carnaval was on its way. January 31 was a hot summer day in the city; the sun was shining, the city’s hotels were filled to the rafters with rich foreign guests, and new sambas were being written in tribute to the country’s new president. Vargas was back on top, and Brazilians were obviously happy to have him there.

  As the light dimmed over the Atlantic Ocean and shadows lengthened across the Catete Palace, the president and his entourage, including Alzira, left Rio and—in time-honored fashion—headed up the winding road to Petrópolis to escape the city’s oppressive heat. By every measure, it had been a triumphant day for the president, one that seemed to have confirmed his place in Brazilian democratic political history. And that evening, as he puffed on his large corona cigar in Petrópolis, surrounded by family and friends, Vargas went to work finalizing the composition of his new government.

  On the campaign trail in 1950, Vargas had talked a great deal about World War II and what he saw as the fruits of Brazil’s participation in the fighting. He reminded Brazilians of his close relationship with President Roosevelt and the US training and equipment that had made the Brazilian army, air force, and navy the strongest armed forces on the South American continent. With help from the United States, Brazil had also constructed modern airfields and naval facilities, which had since been converted into postwar airports and ports. The improvement of the air and road transportation system in the country’s interior was also directly attributable to Vargas’s wartime policies. Arguably the most important of all these projects, however, was the Volta Redonda steel mill, which had been built with the help of funding from the United States. The Volta Redonda mill had played a vital role in Brazil’s economic transformation during and after the war, and had helped to convert the country from an underdeveloped hinterland to an industrial powerhouse.

  Vargas could also point to a strengthened Brazilian nationalism as another of his achievements during the war. Key to this was his suppression of German and Italian influence in the country.2 His efforts from 1938 onward to bring the country’s German immigrant population into line with Brazilian national culture through education and language had helped to make Brazil a more unified country during World War II.3

  What Vargas did not highlight in his 1950 campaign were the opportunities he had missed and the decisions he had mistimed during the war. For a complex set of reasons—not least, the military’s reluctance to give up on the hope of continued armament supplies from Germany—Vargas hadn’t committed Brazil to the Allied cause until relatively late in the war. This had had the unintended effect of limiting Brazil’s returns. By the time Brazil did formally commit to the Allies, the tide of the conflict had turned in their favor. If Vargas had committed earlier, Brazil could have played a much more strategically important role in the war. His hesitation had been part of the problem, but so too had the extensive negotiations over the FEB’s equipment, training, and dispatch to Europe—all of which dragged on for so long that by the time the expeditionary force reached Europe, D-Day had already taken place and the Allies were well on the way to securing a total victory over the Axis. Vargas’s decision to recall the FEB as soon as the fighting in Europe ended also cost Brazil dearly in the postwar era. Had Vargas agreed to requests from the United States to leave the force in Europe to help manage the continent in the aftermath of the war, its presence there would have strengthened Brazil’s claim for a permanent seat at the United Nations. Vargas’s legendary caution, as well as the restraints the military imposed on his decision making, meant that Brazil had arrived at the party too late and had left too early.

  In 1950, however, Brazilians either could not see the ways in which Vargas had mismanaged the war or they didn’t care. They were intent on electing the architect of Brazil’s wartime policy, in the hope that he could reignite Brazil’s economy and return the country to the starring role on the world stage that it had played during the war. Despite the improvements brought by World War II, Brazil’s economy continued to lurch from crisis to crisis. Brazilians hoped that by winning back some of the international prominence Brazil had enjoyed in the previous decade, Vargas would be able to resuscitate the country’s economy as well.

  Brazil certainly had changed during the war—politically, as well as economically. The Brazilian electorate had higher expectations for their leaders, and the press was more aggressive, practicing a tabloid style of journalism that had been relatively unheard of during Vargas’s previous reign. To a certain extent, Vargas managed to adapt to the new Brazilian politics, al
though his leadership style changed in the process. He was no longer the cool politician who carefully weighed all available opinions and options before coming down on one side or the other.4 Instead, he aggressively took on his rivals and articulated his agenda in a manner that resembled that of his old friend, President Roosevelt.

  Vargas’s new style reflected his understanding that he could no longer rule by decree. Brazil had morphed into a democracy practically overnight, and he had to play by a new set of rules—and cater to a new set of Brazilians. Vargas’s constituency was a curious mixture of Brazil’s elites and its masses. He spoke directly to the latter in frequent national radio addresses and in mass rallies at football stadiums. His speeches and broadcasts were fiery and laced with promises of reforms, but he increasingly had trouble delivering on them. His dealings with Brazil’s national congress often left him frustrated. The masses appeared to stick with him nevertheless, but the elites slowly started to peel off from his camp.

  World War II had made Brazil’s military extremely powerful, as Vargas had found out the hard way in October 1945. In the early 1950s, his allies were forced to concede that if the military wished to stage another coup against Vargas, there was little the president would be able to do to resist. During Vargas’s term in office, the danger of a coup by some segment of the military was ever-present.

  An even more serious threat was Brazil’s ongoing financial crisis, which was fueled by inflationary pressures and which resulted in widespread unrest among the country’s working class—unrest exacerbated by anti-Vargas communist forces. The president’s long-standing personal problems, too, had started to resurface by 1953, two years into his rule. He slipped on a marble palace floor, fracturing his arm and leg. Alzira, who oversaw her father’s physical rehabilitation, noted that he appeared lonely and was suffering from acute insomnia—classic signs of depression. Vargas increasingly refused to have visitors to the Catete Palace, and with the exception of a few trusted friends and family he had less and less contact with other people. Many of his circle of political associates were starting to abandon him, whether because of his failed reforms or his confrontational style, or perhaps because they were positioning themselves for future elections. As his presidency wore on, Vargas came to rely on his own family more than ever, with Alzira taking on greater influence and Benjamin, whose shortcomings the president still refused to admit, remaining as much a behind-the-scenes force as ever.

  Vargas had at least one friend left: his “left eye,” Osvaldo Aranha. The former foreign minister returned to the fold when an increasingly desperate Vargas appointed him to serve as his minister of finance in mid-1953. Aranha was given the herculean task of trying to manage the Brazilian economy, but his influence on Vargas went well beyond his ministerial brief. The rehabilitated Aranha gave his fellow gaúcho much-needed counsel, and spent his time trying to push a tired and worn-out president toward the path of reform.

  Yet to some degree, Vargas’s hands were tied—many of the problems facing Brazil at mid-century were the result of US policies over which he had little control. In the years following World War II, the United States was focused on the international fight against communism and the extension of its Marshall Plan, a program intended to reconstruct Europe both physically and economically. Washington now lavished a great deal of attention on Brazil’s regional rival, Argentina, and on the strong nationalist movements that were emerging in other parts of South America, worrying—as it had once worried about Brazil—that unless it pandered to these unaligned actors, they would gravitate toward its enemy.

  The United States had moved on. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower was far less interested in Brazil than Roosevelt had been, and Vargas missed the attention that Washington had paid to both him and Brazil during the war.5 That attention wasn’t likely to be coming back anytime soon. The United States appeared weary of aiding Brazil; some US officials were calling for the country to take better care of itself economically. Indeed, whereas Aranha had once envisioned a full partnership between Brazil and the United States, the relationship between the two countries could now be seen for what it was: a marriage of convenience. It was a fact that Vargas, lying awake in his bed at night, surely reflected on with no small amount of bitterness.

  In the end, it was not the economy or any foreign policy issue that brought down Vargas a second time, but rather a largely unforeseen series of events and intrigues, the origins of which could be traced back to the fallout from the 1938 attack on the Guanabara Palace. Once more, the military’s attitude toward Vargas—and its willingness to intervene against him—was of critical importance in this new crisis, which occurred within the heated political climate that characterized much of Vargas’s final term in office.

  Carlos Lacerda, the publisher of Rio’s daily newspaper, Tribuna da Imprensa, was one of the most outspoken critics of President Vargas and his regime. Lacerda had previously tried to expose corruption within the Vargas administration, as well as secret deals that, Lacerda claimed, the president had struck with Argentina. Lacerda’s newspaper was full of scathing attacks on Vargas and the government, and these articles helped the publisher’s nascent political career; by the start of August 1954, Lacerda was well ahead of Vargas’s son, Lutero, in Brazil’s congressional elections.6 By this time, Vargas had few friends among the country’s civilian elite or within its armed forces, yet he retained enough power to worry Lacerda’s supporters (who counted among their number many members of Brazil’s military). Following unconfirmed reports that Lacerda’s life was in danger, the Brazilian air force decided to guard him on the campaign trail.

  Concerns about Lacerda’s safety proved accurate. At around 1 a.m. on the morning of August 5, 1954, as the publisher returned to his small apartment in the Copacabana part of the city, a gunman shot at him from a passing taxi. Lacerda was only wounded in the foot, but his air force guard, Major Rubens Vaz, was killed. The attacker fled the scene, shooting at a police car as the taxi disappeared down one of Copacabana’s narrow, tree-lined avenues that link the neighborhood’s interior with the beach.

  Writing in his newspaper the following day, Lacerda laid down the gauntlet, accusing President Vargas of protecting the people who had carried out the attack. The result electrified an already volatile situation in Rio. Demonstrators marched past the Catete Palace calling for justice for the assassins and shouting anti-Vargas slogans.7 The president and Aranha watched from a second-floor window in the palace, twitching at the curtains like a couple of worried old men spying on their neighbors.

  The unrest did not end there. Major Vaz’s funeral became a major political event; hundreds of officers from all the armed services attended, among them Eduardo Gomes and Eurico Dutra, the two military candidates from the 1945 presidential election that Dutra had—surprisingly—won. Following the funeral, more than five hundred officers met at Rio’s Air Force Club to voice their anger and swap theories about the event’s links to the presidential palace. The air force subsequently launched its own investigation into the shooting, claiming that it did not trust the police to do the job.

  Worse soon followed. Shortly after authorities apprehended the taxi driver involved in the shooting, the head of the presidential bodyguard and the only person of color in the president’s inner circle, Gregório Fortunato, was linked to the plot, accused of hiring the gunman who wounded La­cerda and killed Major Vaz. Fortunato had joined the presidential guard when it was formed by Benjamin in 1938, and succeeded Benjamin as its head in 1950. Fortunato was a simple man with little education, and he had also proven himself something of an opportunist, violating the president’s trust by accepting bribes and arrangement fees from eager Brazilian bankers.8 Soon it was discovered that Vargas’s other son, Manuel, had transferred to Fortunato the deed of a property owned by the president in Rio Grande do Sul. The president denied any knowledge of the transfer, but it was another piece of evidence that he had somehow been invo
lved in the plot.

  President Vargas, who even before the crisis had been deeply depressed and racked by insomnia, was starting to sink. The situation demanded leadership and quick thinking, but Vargas hesitated; in the palace, a siege mentality deepened with each passing day. The president appeared to be sleepwalking toward a precipice.

  Meanwhile the military, led by the air force, was rapidly mobilizing against Vargas. Using helicopters and spotter planes, the armed forces caught the killer in a dramatic sweep of Rio, and his arrest appeared to bring the scandal closer to the palace. When investigators searched Fortunato’s files, they discovered a web of corruption and deceit that linked him to both the killing and other shady dealings.

  The calls for Vargas’s immediate resignation grew daily. When the investigation into Fortunato’s files was complete and its results disseminated by a hostile press, the country’s elites—from lawyers to academics to leaders of commerce—backed these demands. Dutra joined the fray, arguing that for the good of the country and the maintenance of law and order, the president should resign with immediate effect.

  Vargas, however, vowed to withstand the pressure, arguing that there was no evidence linking his son to the plot and that he had moved quickly to disband the presidential guard to ensure that there would be no repetition of the shooting. He had ordered all palace officials to cooperate fully with investigators. He had even tried leaving Rio for Belo Horizonte, in order to refocus attention on what he saw as the government’s good work there in dealing with the economic crisis.

  All his efforts failed. The media were interested only in the developing scandal and its implications for the president and the country’s future. Opposition forces made good use of radio to make their case for Vargas’s resignation, while the president—who had once mastered that medium but had since given up his regular broadcasts—looked more and more like a politician from a bygone age.