CONCLUSION

In a democracy there are institutions that protect individual freedoms against the potential tyrannies of government. The viability of these institutions is more important in safeguarding democracy than are the actions of any individual who occupies a place of leadership in that democracy. In the nineteen sixties, it became apparent to U.S. leaders that democratic institutions could not survive without a concern for social welfare and economic development. The Alliance for Progress was an attempt to have a coherent policy in Latin America that might respond to these concerns from within a democratic framework. When respect for democratic institutions collided with more accepted notions of self-interest and national security, however, words and action diverged with action on the side of self-interest. Thus, the U.S. government aligned itself with the military coup of 1964.

The stated U.S. policy toward Brazil under President Goulart, in the beginning, was to try “to encourage him [Goulart] to believe that cooperation with the United States [was] to his and Brazil’s advantage.”³²⁴ U.S. officials went about this task in numerous ways. Total U.S. economic and military assistance jumped from $41 million in 1960 to $117 million in 1961 to $250 million in 1962. At the same time, the United States withheld release of Export-Import Bank loans, to cover Brazil’s growing national debt, pending specific austerity measures on the part of the Goulart government. President Kennedy invited Goulart to Washington and laid the groundwork for a personal relationship between the two presidents. When problems arose for businessmen in Brazil, Ambassador Gordon and his staff stood ready to act as liaisons between the disagreeing parties.

As these more established avenues of diplomatic relations failed to achieve the desired cooperative spirit in Brazil, U.S. diplomats made efforts to influence the internal workings of the Brazilian political system. Officials at the State Department told Ambassador Campos that through Robert Kennedy’s visit they hoped to affect Goulart’s cabinet choices. The U.S. embassy disbursed funds in support of certain candidates in the October 1962 elections. The following year one U.S. consul suggested forming student organizations or pressure groups outside official Brazilian government sanctions that could serve as a base for anticommunist students. The large military assistance program was considered important in generating a pro-U.S. posture by that group, which was, in turn, considered critical in the “strategy for restraining the left-wing excesses of the Goulart government.”³²⁵

One result of these actions is that it raised the question of how far U.S. diplomats might go to encourage Brazilian cooperation, thus granting that U.S. policy makers would attempt to influence the internal working of Brazil’s political system. The question became one of degree: what amount and type of pressure were American officials willing to bring to bear on political events in Brazil?

As a result of U.S. policies and alliances during Goulart’s presidency, the United States became tied to a military government that has increasingly maintained its authority by force and repression.³²⁶ The discrepancy between policy rhetoric, and action earned the United States strong criticism and laid it open to attack by some who would attribute the Brazilian coup to U.S. direction.³²⁷ Documents declassified to date do not, in fact, corroborate this allegation.

There is no evidence that the United States instigated, planned, directed, or participated in the execution of the 1964 coup. Each of these functions seems to have been in the hands of Castelo Branco and his fellow officers. At the same time, ample evidence suggests that the United States approved of and backed the military overthrow of Goulart almost from the time of the plot’s inception. The United States reinforced its support by developing military contingency plans that could be useful to the conspirators should the need have arisen.

Good military strategy prepares for all contingencies. The Brazilian conspirators had an ally in the United States, but it was in the best interest of both the United States and the generals that the coup, if possible, run under Brazilian steam. The United States could be depended upon to act with discretion, a fact attested to by Vernon Walters’ discontinued practice of making social calls at the home of Castelo Branco during the period before the coup.

Messages between the embassy and Washington officials indicate that the United States was well informed of conspiracy plans and strategies. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the United States did not resort to second-guessing for designing the size, scope, and purpose of its contingency support plans. Cables document that Walters was in daily contact with Castelo Branco and other military leaders. That the United States was willing to coordinate with the Brazilians is reinforced by the ambassador’s contacting federal Petrobrás officials before canceling the U.S. POL operation.

This is not to deny that Ambassador Gordon was surprised at the timing of the coup, as he claimed to have been. Niles Bond’s forty-eight-hour warning and Vernon Walter’s process of elimination notwithstanding, indications are that Mourão also surprised his fellow generals when he began his march on the thirty-first, and that Castelo Branco had planned for the revolution to begin two days later.

U.S. policy makers did not wish to attach the United States to some splinter group that had little chance of success. All planned U.S. support was of a marginal nature. The coup was expected to be a Brazilian movement with U.S. materiel and presence available if needed to tip the balance. Hence Washington’s initial hesitation on March 31 when only General Mourão was moving. Once Mourão’s march became “the revolution,” the cables indicate that full U.S. government backing was available.

The United States was not involved in the execution of the coup only because there was no need to be. Two weeks after the coup, Ambassador Gordon wrote Special Assistant to the President Ralph Dungan, “The best kind of contingency planning is always the kind that need not be put into practice, but it was very comforting for us to know that we would not have been helpless in the event of a less happy outcome.”³²⁸ Thus the ambassador’s later statement that the coup had been a “100% purely Brazilian movement,” and that “neither the American Embassy nor I personally played any part in the process whatsoever,”³²⁹ while true, tends to obfuscate the scope of U.S. policy makers’ intent, commitment, and activities in the events of March and April 1964.

U.S. officials appear to view U.S. interests in Latin America as being served if those nations do not pose a strategic military threat to the United States or block U.S. economic activity. To encourage the prevalence of these interests, U.S. policy makers can apply economic incentives, political pressure, and, if need be and as a last resort, military force.

In Brazil in the early sixties, U.S. policy makers applied economic leverage by giving and withdrawing U.S. aid from the central government. The tight rein that the United States maintained on its program assistance to the central government was justified by economic standards, but economic justification was inextricably entwined with political motivation. The embassy eventually limited U.S. assistance to “Islands of administrative sanity” that were “aligned with the purposes of the Alliance for Progress,” and were viewed as bulwarks against the threat of communism in Brazil. The effect, if not the purpose, was further to weaken the central government by fragmenting its control over the states.

Ambassador Gordon has argued that the central government had to approve any U.S. assistance in Brazil. This policy may have kept the central government informed of U.S. assistance, and perhaps of potential political alignments; but it diffused Brazil’s development planning away from the central government toward state governments and agencies and the United States. The argument that the central government retained veto power is weakened by the political infeasibility of the central government’s denying generous assistance to state or private entities for worthwhile projects and because the central government was able to offer little alternative funding.

Leaders must have some source of power. This power may come through popular mandate, congressional backing, or military control; or it can come from some outside source, such as the United States. Goulart was a weak president—that is, aside from any personal lack of leadership ability, he lacked organized political support. The parliamentary restrictions were a reminder to him of his general lack of strength in the military, the Congress, or with any of Brazil’s traditional power elites, and from the time of his inauguration the United States viewed him as suspect. Goulart attempted to manipulate military promotions to his benefit, but in view of events it would appear that this tactic did not bring the desired result of strong backing by the armed forces. Rather, it caused a split in the military and eventually contributed to Goulart’s overthrow.

Few economic leverages were available to Goulart to rally support behind his presidency; and, while the measures being encouraged by the United States might have been economically sound, they would have been politically unpopular. From this position of weakness Goulart would not, or could not, initiate needed austerity measures. Goulart’s vehicle for marshalling support was to create a spirit of nationalism and to call for structural reforms that might enlarge his popular base. The tactics of the United States were demeaning to President Goulart and tended both to attack his personal pride and to undermine his appeal for national pride. Goulart’s reaction was to rebel and turn to labor, his only traditional source of political backing. He attempted to use this strength in labor, as well as among students and noncommissioned military, as a springboard for expanding his power base.

In an analysis of U.S. policy, it seems important to consider not only the actions taken by U.S. policy makers, but also those not taken. One area not documented is what the implicit effect was of U.S. officials being friendly with those who were actively plotting to overthrow the government. U.S. officials went to some lengths to express their concern at the threat of the growth of the political left in trade unions and student groups and the potential these groups might have for contributing to a seizure of the government by Goulart. It appears that those same officials did not feel led to express a similar concern at the prospect of a military overthrow of the constitutional government. One might conclude from events in Brazil that U.S. officials look with less concern at a break in the constitutional order if it is perpetrated by that group with whom they are most friendly (in this case, the military as opposed to the president or political leftists or communist sympathizers).

U.S. cables and memoranda in 1964 refer to those who plotted to overthrow Goulart as the “democratic forces.” There seems to have been no conflict in the minds of U.S. officials over someone’s believing in the democratic process and at the same time plotting to overthrow a constitutional democracy, albeit a weak one, by military force. In retrospect, an interesting question to ask these officials would be what the grounds were for calling this group “the democratic forces.”

That U.S. officials felt some alliance with those who seized control of the Brazilian government on April 1, 1964, is reflected in their corresponding activities supporting the military ouster of Goulart. Indications are that U.S. policy makers believed and hoped that Brazil would quickly return to civilian control. The U.S. government cast its lot with the military conspirators, and the generosity of subsequent U.S. aid to the military regime indicates that, by and large, U.S. leaders considered U.S. interests better served by the generals than by Goulart.