BRAZIL: The New Day

A dictatorship had come to an end in Latin America’s biggest country. Getulio Vargas, the man who introduced modern authoritarianism to Brazil and the New World 15 years ago, was out of the Presidency. And it had all happened with remarkably little fuss. Said Rio de Janeiro’s Diario de Noticias: “The abdication was as easy as rotten fruit dropping off a tree. ”

No Kisses, No Killing. As fashion decrees in Latin America, the army had called the turn. But the army had broken with tradition: like the majors who overturned the government of Venezuela last month, the Brazilian generals had apparently been on the side of democracy.

Along with most other Brazilians, the Brazilian General Staff had long suspected that Vargas was up to some trickery that would postpone the Dec. 2 presidential elections and justify his staying in power. The tip-off came when Getulio made his notorious brother Benjamin (“Beijo”—the kiss) chief of the powerful Rio police. That meant violence. For natty little Beijo was even more famous for flourishing his gun in nightclubs than for kissing chorus girls.

Getulio’s War Minister, General Pedro Aurelio GÓes Monteiro, forthwith ordered the Brazilian Army, seasoned by its recent expedition to the Italian front, into the streets with an imposing display of U.S. tanks, half-tracks and machine guns. In no time Vargas was out and Supreme Court Justice José Linhares had taken over the Presidency. A new, largely civilian Cabinet was formed. Two days later, the tanks rolled quietly back to their lairs. No one had been killed.

Seringueiros & Garimpeiros. Last week’s palace coup hardly rippled the crowds of Cariocas on Rio’s lovely, white-sand beaches. The echo was even fainter to the great mass of Brazilians (some 75% illiterate) who crowd the sea coast and are scattered through the vast Brazilian interior. Seringueiros (rubber workers) in the flowered Amazon jungle, garimpeiros (diamond hungers) far to the west in the State of Goiaz, and gaúchos on the broad ranges of Rio Grande do Sul probably would not hear the news for days and weeks.

It was not that Brazilians had no taste for politics. But for 15 years Nosso Chefe (Our Chief) had made the decisions. Some of the Chief’s actions had been creditable: the public-works program, new schools, social security, wage increases (which had been vitiated by increased living costs). During the war, he had been a true and acknowledged friend of the U.S. But, under him, politics had been as abstract as a Picasso canvas. When, according to current legend, a prattling infant said, “Daddy, what are elections?” the parent answered, “Ask your grandfather!”

Now that the elections were to be held on schedule, the Brazilian-in-the-street would have to look sharp to measure up to democracy’s standards. The newly formed national parties would mean little. The political debates on the radio and in the press (if he could read) would at first be more confusing than Getulio’s streamlined dialectics. Many a voter would rely on the mayor’s or the priest’s advice when called upon to elect a President and Congress on Dec. 2.

Ex-War Minister General Eurice Gaspar Dutra, clammy-handed, reformed pro-Nazi creator of Brazil’s modern army, was the candidate of the old administration. Brigadier General Eduardo Gomes, legendary hero of a revolt 23 years ago, was Dutra’s opponent.

At week’s end correspondents in Rio heard that Getulio Vargas, a country squire of three days’ standing, wanted to return to politics on the Dutra ticket, as a candidate for senator. Brazilians were hardly reassured by Squire Vargas’ signed statement, front-paged this week in Rio’s O Globo, that he was a simple citizen, uninterested in public office.

In Rio, a bartender took down a Vargas photograph, prepared to throw it away. Then he reconsidered. Said he: “I am going to save the frame. Maybe I will need it.”