Brazil: Billion-Dollar Booster

Since 1961, the U.S. has poured some $780 million into Brazil only to see most of it disappear down the Amazon. The prospects became so disheartening that Washington aid to the wobbly, leftist regime of João Goulart gradually dwindled to a trickle. Last week, after eight months spent in careful observation of the revolutionary government of President Humberto Castello Branco, the U.S. announced that it is ready to try again with $453 million, a package that makes Brazil the greatest U.S. economic-aid beneficiary of any nation except Pakistan and India. With the addition of expected funds from international agencies and private capital, Castello Branco will be getting a 1965 boost totaling $1 billion.

The U.S. aid will be put up by half a dozen sources, from the Agency for International Development (AID) to the U.S. Treasury. The Brazilians will use it to reduce next year’s enormous $475 million budget deficit, to provide credits for farmers and businessmen, and for a host of seriously needed development projects (the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is making a $23 million loan for workers’ housing). To make sure the funds go where they should, Brazil has agreed to a regular review of progress, faces a cutoff in the flow of funds if performance is not good. “This is a calculated strategy on which the odds look good,” said U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon after the agreement was signed. “This time, for the first time, there is support—honest backing for a program from the President on down—and that is what will count.”