BRAZIL: Communism in the Corps

BRAZIL Communism in the Corps An ugly fact came to the surface in Brazil last week: organized Communist influence in the army’s officer corps. As yet the government has taken no action to root it out.

After the war, when Brazil’s Communist party had not yet been outlawed, a handful of able Communist schemers moved in on Rio’s Club Militar, an old social and fraternal organization open to all Brazilian officers. Organizing Cell No. 2 of their Democratic Front of National Liberation inside the club, they gained influence by lobbying in Congress for more pay and privileges for officers. In the club’s 1950 elections, they helped elect as club president General Newton Estillac Leal, the candidate of Getulio Vargas, then launching his political comeback; at the same time, they worked their own men into key jobs on the club directorate.

Taking over the club’s monthly magazine, Revista do Club Militar, the Communists quietly converted a staid review of tactical problems and social functions into a party-line organ. Revista editorials blasted the U.S. and U.N., called the Korean campaign a war of “Wall Street imperialism,” described U.N. troops as “butchers,” and criticized Brazil’s government for cooperating with the West.

President Eurico Caspar Dutra’s regime finally squelched the Revista. But when Getulio Vargas returned to power last January, Estillac Leal became his War Minister. He permitted the Red editors to revive Revista. When criticism flared, Estillac protested that he was a busy man and took a leave from the club presidency. Army anti-Communists grew angrier. After a bitter campaign, they won a promise that a referendum vote would be held on whether the membership really supported the Revista’s leftist editorial policy.

Last week, on the day before the scheduled vote, officers flocked to Rio from all over Brazil. Commies strung wires into the high-ceilinged hall of the Club Militar, prepared to broadcast their last-minute speeches by loudspeaker into the streets below. That evening the War Minister was summoned by President Vargas. After an hour’s conference, Estillac Leal went straight to the club, announced that he was resuming the presidency and—to permit “a cooling-off of passions”—postponed the referendum for 30 days.

Obviously, such a postponement meant nothing. But if stalling for time was the embarrassed government’s idea of how to deal with Communism, nothing could please the Communists more.