The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état (Portuguese: Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964) was the overthrow of Brazilian president João Goulart by a military coup from March 31 to April 1, 1964, ending the Fourth Brazilian Republic (1946–1964) and initiating the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985). The coup took the form of a military rebellion, the declaration of vacancy in the presidency by the National Congress on April 2, the formation of a military junta (the Supreme Command of the Revolution) and the exile of the president on April 4. In his place, Ranieri Mazzilli, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, took over until the election by Congress of general Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, one of the leaders of the coup. Democratically elected vice president in 1960, Jango, as Goulart was known, assumed power after the resignation of president Jânio Quadros, in 1961, and the Legality Campaign, which defeated an attempted military coup to prevent his inauguration. During his government, the economic crisis and social conflicts deepened. Social, political, labor, peasant, and student movements, along with low-ranking military personnel, rallied behind a set of "base reforms" proposed by President Goulart. He met growing opposition among the elite, the urban middle class, a large portion of the officer corps of the armed forces, the Catholic Church and the press, who accused him of threatening the legal order of the country, colluding with communists, causing social chaos and weakening the military hierarchy. Throughout his tenure, Goulart had faced numerous efforts to pressure and destabilize his government and plots to overthrow him. Brazil's relations with the United States deteriorated and the American government allied with opposition forces and their efforts, supporting the coup. Goulart lost the support of the center, failed to secure the approval of the base reforms in Congress and, in the final stage of his government, relied on pressure from reformist movements to overcome the resistance of the legislature, leading to the peak of the political crisis in March 1964. On March 31, a rebellion broke out in Minas Gerais, led by a group of military officers with support of some governors. Loyalist troops and rebels prepared for combat, but Goulart did not want a civil war. The loyalists initially had the upper hand, but mass defections weakened the president's military situation. He traveled successively from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, Porto Alegre, the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, and then to Uruguay, where he went into exile. By April 1, the coup leaders controlled most of the country, securing Rio Grande do Sul on the 2nd. In the early hours of April 2, Congress declared Goulart's position vacant while he was still within Brazilian territory. Efforts to defend his presidency, such as a call for a general strike, were insufficient. While some sectors of society welcomed the self-proclaimed "revolution" by the military, others faced severe repression. The political class anticipated a swift return to civilian rule, but in the following years an authoritarian, nationalist, and pro-American dictatorship took hold. Historians, political scientists, and sociologists have offered various interpretations of the event, viewing it both as the establishment of a military dictatorship and the culmination of recurring political crises in the Fourth Brazilian Republic, similar to those in 1954, 1955, and 1961. On the international stage, the coup was part of the Cold War in Latin America and coincided with several other military takeovers in the region.
Terminology
After taking office, Castelo Branco defined the process that brought him to power as "not a coup d'état, but a revolution". The term "revolution" also appears in the first Institutional Act (AI-1). This concept of revolution is more inspired by the pronunciamentos which overthrew a government and claimed to reaffirm popular sovereignty, rather than by a radical break with the established order, as in the Russian Revolution of 1917. It remained in use among the military during and after the dictatorship. However, for Ernesto Geisel, an Army officer who served as president from 1974-1979, what happened was not a revolution, because a revolution is in favor of an ideal and the 1964 movement was just "against Goulart, against corruption and against subversion". Gilberto Freyre praised what happened as "a 'white revolution', promoting political and social order". Current historiography uses the term "coup" for the process. There was a capture of state bodies by military force, and the new owners of power were above the previous legal order. This can be seen in AI-1's preamble — "constitutional processes failed to remove the government", and the "victorious revolution defines legal norms without being limited in this by the normativity prior to its victory". The seizure of power also occurs in a revolution, but in its modern sense this is followed by "profound changes in the political, social and economic system". What happened in Brazil was defined as the defense of the established order against disorder. The term counterrevolution is used by some military officers and academics, with both positive and negative connotations. There is also the term "countercoup". Rejection of the term "coup" to place the event in a positive light, as may take place in present political discourse, is evaluated as revisionism or negationism. The classification of the coup as "civil-military" is widespread and is not recent. One of the first authors to use it was René Armand Dreifuss, in 1981; however, the term was used in the sense of "business-military", referring to specific civilians, and not generically to civilians as the entire non-military population. Since at least 1976, several authors have called the event a "political-military", "business-military" or "civil-military" "movement" or "coup". "Civil-military" is used because civilians not only supported, but also carried out the coup. The relative importance of the military was greater in the final stages and in the realization of the coup. It could only begin with the deployment of troops. Firepower, available armaments, vehicles employed, and troop size were important and purely military considerations, even though there was no combat.
Background
Political
The democratic period that began in 1946 after the ousting of Getúlio Vargas was marked by opposition between national-statists and liberal-conservatives, divided by their attitude towards foreign investment, alignment with the United States and state intervention in the economy and labor relations. In three moments — Getúlio Vargas' suicide in 1954, Marshal Lott's counter-coup in 1955 and Jânio Quadros' resignation in 1961 — some military personnel and politicians from the liberal-conservative bloc attempted coups, creating serious crises that neared civil war, but they did not have enough support in society and in the Armed Forces. In 1964, the conflict was between the same blocs, but the coup found sufficient basis to succeed. Given previous coup attempts, what happened in 1964 was not solely a result of the immediate situation. The three major parties were the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), the National Democratic Union (UDN) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD). The PTB represented Vargas' labor legacy, the PSD was born out of Vargas' political machine, and the UDN came from Vargas' opposition. Increasing urbanization gradually expanded the PTB's votes. The PTB and PSD were allies for most of the period. The UDN represented the right, the PTB leaned to the left and the PSD was in the center. The 1960 election installed Jânio Quadros as president, supported by the UDN but positioning himself above the parties, and João Goulart, from the PTB, as vice-president. Jânio and Jango were on opposing tickets, since in the electoral system at the time the president and vice-president were voted on separately. Once in power, Jânio isolated himself and, after a short time in office, he resigned in August 1961, probably in a political maneuver to have his resignation refused and to return strengthened to office. He counted on the strong rejection to his vice-president, who was on a trip to China, among the military. Jânio was popular among the military, and Jango, an old foe. In 1954, when Goulart was Vargas' Minister of Labor, he was already considered very leftist and was dismissed from office due to the "Manifesto dos coronéis". Jânio's maneuver failed, and his resignation was accepted. But rejection to Goulart did materialize when the three military ministers, among them Odílio Denys, the Minister of War, vetoed the vice-president's return to the country and inauguration. Leonel Brizola, governor of Rio Grande do Sul, began the "Legality Campaign" to overturn the veto. He received widespread support across the country, and general José Machado Lopes, commander of the Third Army, joined the cause of constitutional succession. Both leftists and conservatives formed a coalition opposing the military ministers. Conservatives devised a solution to the crisis: Jango would take office, but under a new Parliamentary Republic, in which his powers were reduced. The next presidential election was scheduled for 1965. The strongest pre-candidates were Juscelino Kubitschek, for the PSD, and Carlos Lacerda, governor of Guanabara and staunch oppositionist, for the UDN. The PTB's best options would be Brizola or Goulart himself, but the law did not allow re-election or the candidacy of relatives (Brizola was Jango's brother-in-law).
Socioeconomic
Both Jânio and Jango inherited from Juscelino Kubitschek (JK) a modernizing but unbalanced economy and were unable to overcome the Brazilian economic difficulties of the early 1960s, especially the growth of inflation and the deficit in the balance of payments. Inflation rose from 30.5% in 1960 to 79.9% in 1963 and 92.1% in 1964. Brazil's GDP grew by 8.6% in 1961 and only 0.6% in 1963. Wage erosion concerned both the middle and working classes. The failure to overcome the economic crisis was due in part to pressure from domestic (workers and business) and external interest groups. Increasing costs of living boosted the organization and activity of trade unionism. There were 430 strikes in the period from 1961 to 1963, compared to only 180 from 1958 to 1960. The General Workers' Command (CGT), which emerged outside union legislation, organized the "first strikes of an explicitly political nature in Brazilian history". According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute there were food shortages, pushing inflation and drawing attention to the countryside. The country was more agrarian than at present: in the 1960 census, only 44.67% of the population lived in cities. In Brazil's Southeast, this figure reached 57%, and in the Northeast, only 33.89%. The land had highly concentrated ownership and was worked with outdated technologies. Social mobilization also reached the countryside, where land invasions and violent conflicts took place. The Peasant Leagues, concentrated in the Northeast, reached their peak and radicalized, calling for "land reform by law or by force" in place of the moderate path proposed by the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). They went into decline after 1963 due to the regularization of rural unionization by the government and the organization of unions by the Catholic Church and the PCB. The period witnessed an intense popular mobilization. Unionists and members of the Leagues joined other members of the left. They were heterogeneous but united in their defense of banking, fiscal, administrative, urban, land and university reforms, collectively known as "base reforms", "in addition to extending the right to vote illiterates and enlisted ranks of the Armed Forces", legalizing the Communist Party, maintaining an Independent Foreign Policy, and achieving "control of foreign capital and a state monopoly of strategic sectors of the economy". Both the left and Goulart sought an alliance to achieve said reforms while simultaneously seeing themselves as autonomous actors. The left distrusted Goulart, heavily criticizing his efforts to conciliate with political forces to his right. In the Armed Forces, movements of low-ranking personnel such as sergeants and sailors clashed with officers over internal demands, such as the rights to run in elections and to marry, and also advocated for reforms. There were organized intellectuals, and some Catholics formed the Popular Action. Students campaigned in the National Union of Students (UNE). The PCB was well organized and successful in the unions in cooperation with the PTB. Leonel Brizola stood out within the political class, attracted fame with the expropriation of American companies and had many followers. He unified groups in favour of the base reforms into the Popular Mobilization Front and mobilized his political base into the Grupos dos Onze. In the opposition, an important development was the rise of the Brazilian Institute of Democratic Action (IBAD), linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Institute of Research and Social Studies (IPES), which brought together the "cream of Brazilian business community". Beyond carrying out ideological propaganda, these organizations were a center of conspiracies.
International
Latin America was in the United States' sphere of influence, but not considered very important in the 1950s. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. government was fighting the Soviet Union's expansion of influence through the policy of containment and was under domestic pressure to display a tough foreign policy. In practice, in Latin America even reformist but non-Marxist rulers, such as Goulart, could be targets of American pressure, which occurred through economic incentives or support for coups d'état. The Cuban Revolution, in 1959, brought Latin America to the center of attention and introduced the goal of avoiding its repetition in the rest of the region. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 made the balance of forces in the region lean towards the U.S. to the detriment of the USSR, allowing a tougher attitude towards Latin American governments. A new economic assistance program, the Alliance for Progress, was supposed to prevent a new Cuba by supporting democracy and reforms (such as land reform) and overcoming underdevelopment. U.S. policy towards the region did not materialize this ideal. Military coups, such as in Argentina and Peru, in 1962, and in Guatemala and Ecuador, in 1963, were an international phenomenon, and the authoritarian governments installed were recognized by the U.S. It was through these coups that the goal of preventing new socialist and communist governments in the region was achieved. Latin American communists were influenced by developments in the socialist bloc, such as de-Stalinization, the Sino-Soviet split and the Cuban Revolution. Communist parties under Soviet influence, such as the PCB, were in crisis, as Cuba contradicted their belief in a peaceful step towards socialism. Fidel Castro's government was allied with the Soviets at the international level but supported armed struggle as the instrument of revolution. The socialist bloc was also relevant as a hypothetical alternative to the United States as a source of credit and economic support, although it would not be able to replace the Americans in the event of a rupture. The bloc had intelligence activities on the continent, including in Brazil, through Czechoslovakia's StB, but was taken by surprise by the coup. According to socialist activist Plínio de Arruda Sampaio, Goulart had asked them asked to moderate their confrontations with the right, as he had met with the Soviet ambassador and been warned against any "less than institutional" measures, because supporting Cuba was already too expensive for the USSR, and supporting Brazil as well would be impossible.
Goulart government
1961–1962
Jango took office in September 1961. In foreign policy, he continued the Independent Foreign Policy, expanding relations with the socialist bloc and opposing the sanctions proposed by the U.S. against Cuba. This foreign policy did not consider an alignment towards either superpower as requirement. Even so, negotiations with the U.S. were important due to foreign debt and the regulation of foreign capital. Internally, the priority was, from the beginning, to recover the full presidential powers subtracted by the implantation of parliamentarism. To do so, Goulart would need to pressure Congress to overthrow the parliamentary Additional Act, possibly with a constituent assembly, or bring forward the plebiscite scheduled for 1965 in which the system of government would be submitted to popular consultation. The anti-parliamentary coalition was broad, as even the president's enemies wanted a return to presidentialism. Through strong labor, military and political pressure, in September 1962 Congress brought forward the popular consultation to January 1963. In October, elections were held for Congress and eleven state governments. Depending on the analysis, "the correlation of forces in Congress has changed little" or "the result of the polls gave victory to the leftist, reformist and labor candidates". The IBAD, supported by multinational companies, funded the campaigns of countless opposition candidates. The financing was controversial and investigated by a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission; the following year, the president closed the institute. In 1977, former American ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon admitted U.S. funding of the opposition in the election.
1963–1964
Presidentialism won by a large margin in 1963 and Goulart had a "new beginning", with full powers. He intended to carry out the base reforms, but the proposed land reform was defeated in Congress and the possibility of voting on the other reforms was difficult. Friction between the Executive and Legislative branches increased as the right opposed the reforms, and the left demanded their immediate implementation. PSD support was lost throughout 1963. The percentage of bills passed dropped to 7% in 1963 from 13 to 15% in 1959–1962. Nonetheless, Goulart still managed to pass some important measures throughout his term. Meanwhile, in the economy, the Triennial Plan, proposed to face the crisis, required a social pact with workers and businessmen to limit wages, credit, prices and government spending. After a few months, the plan was abandoned for lack of political support and the crisis continued. In September, sergeant candidates in the previous year's election had their ineligibility reaffirmed by a Supreme Federal Court (STF) decision. Navy and Air Force sergeants launched an armed revolt in Brasília but were quickly defeated, with some fighting, by the army garrison. The sergeants' movement received sympathy from the left, but politically it was badly damaged. The press became very critical of the president. The following month, Carlos Lacerda gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times and discussed the possibility of a military coup against Goulart. Military ministers were outraged. Jango requested Congress to approve a state of emergency, but he was heavily criticized by both the left and right, withdrew the request and was left with a weakened government. At the end of 1963, after the failure of the last attempts to reconstitute a base in the center, the president reconnected with the left. At the end of February 1964, he definitely opted for a confrontational strategy, believing in the strength of the left. A rally on the Central do Brasil railway station, on the 13th, and the presidential message to Congress, on the 15th, marked the end of conciliation. A schedule of presidential rallies until May 1, which would coincide with a general strike, would pressure Congress to pass the reforms. The opposition's reaction was also confrontational. On the 15th, the governor of São Paulo, Ademar de Barros, demanded the president's impeachment and called the population to the streets; on the 20th, the opposition organized the March of the Family with God for Liberty. In the Navy, the conflict between admirals and sailors peaked, on the 25th, in the revolt of sailors who refused the order to appear at their posts until their arrested leaders were released and their demands met. The left supported the sailors, and the government granted them amnesty, drawing the indignation of officials in general and attacks in the press. The military crisis was deep, and officers refused to board ships. On the night of the 30th, the president did not back down and aggravated the crisis by attending the meeting at the Automóvel Clube with those same low-ranking military personnel. This would be the last act of that republican period. On the 31st, general Olímpio Mourão Filho, head of the 4th Military Region/Infantry Division (4th RM/DI), began an offensive from Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro to overthrow the president. With the rapid progress of the revolt and Goulart's retreats, by April 4 he was in exile in Uruguay.
The conspiracies
In addition to suffering a coup attempt in his own inauguration, Goulart was the target of preparations for another coup attempt from the beginning of his term. By the end of 1961, there were already some conspiratorial groups, albeit isolated in society. The military conspiracy was decentralized and poorly organized until the eve of the coup. Civilian efforts to weaken the government, on the other hand, were better organized, and their prior destabilization was crucial to the success of the military intervention. The military conspirators ran into the "inertial legalism" of most officers who did not want to risk their careers, and on the eve of the coup the majority of the military had not taken sides. In March 1964 the radical left denounced the coup's imminence, but it came as a great surprise. The president and his circle were aware of the conspiratorial activity, although they were unable to identify its centers. The Federal Information and Counterinformation Service (SFICI) intercepted messages from the conspirators, but little was done, as it was not directly subordinated to the president but to Argemiro de Assis Brasil, head of the Military Cabinet from 1963 to 1964, who had an overly confident attitude. The government's coup-proofing policy was known as the military apparatus, that is, naming loyal officers to key commands, in addition to expecting support from enlisted ranks. There were efforts to distance the president from the left, and opposition funding of the 1962 elections would not make sense if the coup had already been decided. The conspiracy gained strength after the restoration of presidentialism in January 1963. After the Sergeants' Revolt and the request for a state of emergency in late 1963, many officers became suspicious of the president's intentions and joined the conspiracy with a "defensive" intent. The PSD's passage to the opposition on March 10, 1964, was considered a signal by civilian and military conspirators. Throughout the month, radicalization fueled the assumption that the president was seeking a self-coup. Parliamentarians came to agree with the conspirators. In military memory, the month's events led to the accession of the undecided and formed the trigger for the coup.
Factors, reasons and interpretations
Reaction to social movements
Authors such as sociologist Florestan Fernandes and historians Caio Navarro de Toledo, Lucilia de Almeida Neves Delgado and Jacob Gorender interpreted the coup as a reactive and preventive measure against a "growing and autonomous organization of civil society". While several authors consider a victory for the left to have been impossible, Gorender concluded there was a pre-revolutionary situation in early 1964, and the coup was a counter-revolution. Octavio Ianni also described a pre-revolutionary situation, but one that could not lead to a rupture with existing institutions as in the Russian Revolution. According to authors such as Ianni and Francisco Weffort, the populism that existed since the Vargas Era collapsed as workers began to act autonomously, while businessmen linked to international capital abandoned the populist system. The constant strikes "are interpreted as positive signs of the advance of workers' political awareness", but they also wore down the government, bothered the population during the suspension of services and alarmed businessmen. The right affirmed the imminence of a "syndicalist republic". Military testimonies emphasize the action of the unions, considering them as infiltrated by the communists and increasingly capable of putting pressure on the government. For Edmundo Campos Coelho, this reflected the fear of losing their own influence over the government, in addition to an organic conception of society, in which the gains of a specific group harm society in general. Communists did have influence in important trade unions, and Goulart was tolerant towards unionists, allowed the rise of PTB and PCB in the unions and used them as a political tool. However, he was harmed by them when their pressure made the Triennial Plan unfeasible. The president tried to regain control and weaken the same unionists he had previously supported, but without success, and at the end of his government he tried to rebuild labor support. In the Armed Forces, the political mobilization of enlisted personnel was rejected by officers as an attack on military hierarchy and discipline, even though officers were politically engaged. In 1963, sub-lieutenant Gelcy Rodrigues Côrrea's speech — "we will take our work tools and make the reforms together with the people, and may the reactionary gentlemen remember that the soldier's work tool is the rifle" — caused a serious crisis among officers. Leftists envisioned the lower ranks fighting on their defense, even though this section of the military had not sufficiently organized itself to play this role. Furthermore, the president sought the support of enlisted ranks, and his tolerant attitude towards the Sailors Revolt and speech at the Automóvel Clube gave the impression that he "spurred the crisis". For conservatives, the military was being subverted. Military testimonies list attacks on hierarchy and discipline as one of the main motivations for the coup. Historiography agrees that there were disciplinary problems in the lower ranks of the Armed Forces in the 1960s, although specifically in the Army (and not in the Navy or Air Force) the evidence indicates that sergeants remained loyal. Many authors and a large part of the left consider the Sailors Revolt, in particular, as the work of agents provocateurs of the Navy or the CIA. More recent ones challenge both these accusations and the conservative view that military underlings were being subverted; instead, they are considered autonomous agents.
Stalemate in the base reforms
During the coup, Goulart told Tancredo Neves that the target was not him, but the reforms, and he could stay if he abandoned them. Several authors agree that the objective was to prevent the reforms, as they benefited and harmed certain sectors of society, were associated with the radical left and even branded as revolutionary proposals, although they were part of a national-developmentalist project of capitalist progress. A contrary view does not consider the reforms as the central motive, as they were not entirely rejected and Goulart even had support among conservatives at the beginning of his term. Some authors consider that there was room for negotiation throughout the term. Opposition parliamentarians were not categorically opposed to the reforms. Landowners and other groups strongly rejected the proposals, but some anti-communist sectors considered them an instrument to ward off communism, and this was precisely a precept of the Alliance for Progress. Land reform was not a taboo, and even the IBAD held a symposium on it in 1961. The failure of the proposals is attributed to Goulart's lack of negotiation skills (an existing and also contested assessment), or, among authors with conjunctural explanations of the coup, to the "decision-making paralysis" of the political system, as described by Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, and the radicalization and mutual disrespect for democracy, according to Jorge Ferreira and Argelina Figueiredo. For Figueiredo, author of Democracia ou reformas? Alternativas democráticas à crise política: 1961-1964 (1993), possibilities to carry out reforms within the institutions were impeded by radicalism on both sides, and thus, the coup's losers were partly responsible for their own defeat. Argelina is criticized for taking "the focus of her explanation away from the civil and military right, IPES, the U.S. Embassy, etc." and for her understanding of an undemocratic left. For Moniz Bandeira, Jango fell precisely because he tried to conciliate.
Anti-communism
Goulart and the communists
Anti-communism is considered a fundamental element of the coup both in studies and among the military. The 1961-1964 period was a high point of anti-communist sentiment in Brazil. It was associated with the Cold War and Brazilian anti-communists who were mostly pro-American and considered communism as the work of Soviet imperialism. However, the sentiment had local roots since the 1930s, when the Communist Uprising took place. The problem would not be Goulart as a person, but the pressure he would receive from the communists. Jango was responsible for transforming the PTB from a dam holding back communism to an ally of the PCB, and the attempt to prevent his inauguration in 1961 already had anti-communist motivation. Anti-communists did not believe Goulart was a Marxist but feared that his alliance would pave the way for the Communists to advance. Testimonies in the Oral History of the Army are unanimous in claiming that communists were infiltrated in the government, but not in associating Jango with communism. Olímpio Mourão Filho thought that Goulart was not a communist, but he and Brizola would be killed by the communists and Luís Carlos Prestes would take power. The distinction continues to be made in some military writings in the 21st century. A similar opinion outside the military is that of Lincoln Gordon, for whom Goulart would stage a non-communist coup but then, due to his incompetence, fall victim to a communist coup. The PCB had influence in organized labor, the intelligentsia and the government, but it was exaggerated by its enemies, and after the coup, there was surprise at the fragility of the communists. Well-informed anti-communists were thinking of a presidential coup with communist support but spoke to the population of an imminent communist revolution. They also used the communist label for the entire radical left—the military right had an elastic definition of who was a communist. Smaller groups in the left, and not the PCB, were the advocates of an immediate socialist revolution. The PCB believed in several phases of revolution, of which the first would be peaceful, bourgeois-democratic and in alliance with the "national bourgeoisie". The military saw this through the lens of its Revolutionary War Doctrine, taking pacifism for deception and a tactic of psychological manipulation, which would be the first stage in the communist seizure of power.
Revolutionary War Doctrine
The Revolutionary War Doctrine was taught to officers and disseminated by civilians, such as the UDN deputy Bilac Pinto and the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, by Júlio de Mesquita Filho. It envisaged five stages of communist advancement. After psychological action in the first, the second would be the formation of a network of local organizations and the infiltration of the state apparatus. Ongoing social unrest was seen as proof of this step. The first two, although bloodless, were considered the most critical and difficult to fight. The third stage would consist of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, followed by liberated zones beyond the Army's reach on the fourth, and in the fifth, the violent seizure of power by a revolutionary army. According to the Doctrine's theorists, claims by enlisted personnel that they'd react with their weapons against a coup and the organization of Peasant Leagues and Grupos dos Onze constituted the third stage of the revolutionary war in Brazil. In the countryside, the Peasant Leagues attracted fears. The right saw revolutionary potential in the Brazilian countryman, which served to justify the coup as a defense of legality. Part of the left thought the same, and some members of the Leagues even formed a guerrilla movement, the Tiradentes Revolutionary Movement. The organization received support from Cuba. Its discovery and dismantling in 1962 brought repercussion disproportionate to its size. However, the strong reaction that the coup leaders expected in the Northeast did not materialize. In Pernambuco, the outbreaks of peasant reaction that did appear were unarmed. The Grupos dos Onze were associated with communism and revolutionary warfare, generating fear among conservatives. They existed by the thousands and were formed as the future "embryo of a revolutionary party", with the function of resisting a coup. According to Brizola, their function would be legalistic, and they had no paramilitary character. According to one of his aides, there were plans to use them under the command of sergeants, participating in the occupation of barracks and arrest of officers. However, they did not react during the coup, as they still had no concrete organization. The press had published many actions attributed to them, but they were mostly imagined.
Legality and democracy
As a part of rhetoric
Neither side of the political spectrum declared itself anti-democratic, but the conceptions of democracy were different: for the left, it was synonymous with reforms, and for the right, with legal formalism. An anti-democratic character of the left is a controversial thesis. Among the right, democracy could be associated with the restriction of freedoms to fight dangerous ideologies or just mean free enterprise. The word was common in the name of anti-communist groups, where it could just be an empty label, although for many the authoritarian future that ensued was a disappointment. Coup-mongers took for themselves the banner of legality, using defensive language as they conducted their offensive. The defense of legality and the Constitution, not explicitly directed against the government, appeared in March 1964 in speeches at the PSD convention. The Brazilian Bar Association accused the president of threatening the legal order. In the military, legal justifications for the use of force circulated in documents from 1963 onwards, such as the reserved circular released by Castelo Branco on March 20, 1964. Castelo cultivated an image of a loyalist, which helped to obtain defections. The Constitution and the Constitutionalist Revolution were strong themes at the March of the Family in São Paulo. Newspaper editorials during the coup presented the government as the one breaching legality. Congressmen justified removing the president as a way of defending the democratic regime. This legality could be "linked to a moral, traditional and Christian law" or even to "a revolutionary legality linked to the popular will". From this respective, illegality would be the CGT's actions, the breakdown of hierarchy in the Armed Forces, the generalized chaos and disorder, the approval of base reforms by unconstitutional means and the president's intentions to prolong his rule and attempt a self-coup.
==== Accusations of caudillism ==== There were accusations of caudillism, distinct from anti-communism but aggravated by it. Goulart was considered a potential or present caudilho by Carlos Lacerda, by several newspapers, pointing to opportunism, paternalism and dictatorial tendencies, and by Afonso Arinos, for whom the president practiced both caudillism, which he inherited from Vargas, and Bonapartism, by pitting the people against the institutions. Lincoln Gordon believed in a Janguist dictatorship with a nationalist character, along the lines of Vargas and Juan Perón. Some officers also feared the transformation of the Armed Forces into government militias. Two moments opened the president to suspicions of coupist intent. In 1962, alongside other pressures on Congress, the commander of the Third Army declared himself incapable of maintaining order if lawmakers did not bring forward the plebiscite on parliamentarism. The following year, during the request for a state of emergency, troops took to the streets in Recife and an operation by paratroopers against Carlos Lacerda was denounced. It was thus suspected that Goulart would intervene against the rightist governor of Guanabara and the leftist governor of Pernambuco, Miguel Arraes. At that moment, the left also denounced a coup by the president. In March 1964, the president's proposals were received with great suspicion: the right to vote for the illiterate, a plebiscite for reforms, the delegation of legislative powers to the Executive and a revision of the electoral law which would open a loophole for competition from blood relatives and the like, such as Brizola (the president's brother-in-law), and would even allow re-election. Some authors also discern coupist intentions in Jango's actions, such as Marco Antonio Villa and Leandro Konder, for whom a coup d'état may be seen between the tight deadlines and lack of consensus in the re-election proposal. However, in 1962, 1963 and 1964 there is no firm empirical evidence of Goulart's coup intentions. There is also evidence that in 1962 he refused proposals to close Congress by Brizola and general Amaury Kruel, then head of the Military Cabinet. Moniz Bandeira said to have heard from Jango himself that Brizola proposed a coup d'état on several occasions, but he refused. Lincoln Gordon claimed in 1966 to have "far more solid evidence than accusations in the anti-government Brazilian press" of dictatorial intentions, but in 2005 he said he had no more evidence for this than the rumors in the press.
Public opinion
In demonstrations and press
Conspirators took public opinion into account when deciding to launch the coup. In military memory, the March of the Family, the middle class, women and the press demanded and legitimized an intervention. The Marches, a phenomenon that started in São Paulo and multiplied to many other Brazilian cities, demonstrated a mobilized and socially heterogeneous opposition. This social base represented a part and not the whole of society. The opposition front included "bankers, businessmen, industrialists, landowners, merchants, politicians, judges and the middle class" — especially the urban middle class of liberal professionals, small businessmen and housewives. The middle class predominated, but blue-collar workers also attended. IPES participated in organizing the March in order to mobilize the middle class to its ends. However, it was not passively used as an instrument and had its own motives, fearing what it could lose in a radical redistribution. Furthermore, some anti-government activities followed a decentralized logic as the work of local groups with distinct demands. The marches expressed an anti-populist (against "demagogy, disorder and corruption") and anti-communist (against atheism and totalitarianism) ideology, rallying against perceived threats to individual freedoms and Christian values. Employers' unions, civil and class organizations, and women's organizations such as the Women's Campaign for Democracy committed themselves. Female presence was important in the organization of events and in the evocation of family and religion. Anticommunism could have a religious character, predominantly Catholic but ecumenical, as it also existed among Protestants, Jews, spiritualists and even Umbanda practitioners. Priests (like Patrick Peyton), pastors and rabbis participated in the marches. However, the Catholic Church was divided; conservatives were probably in the majority. In Brazilian Protestantism, the most visible participation was that of the Presbyterian Church, but the coup was also accepted in Baptist, Methodist, Assemblies of God and other publications. The mainstream press paved the way for the president's deposition, called for it in editorials and celebrated its occurrence. Jornal do Brasil, Correio da Manhã, O Globo, Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo openly defended Goulart's deposition, most famously with the Correio's "Fora!" and "Basta!" editorials. Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo and Tribuna da Imprensa were in the conspiracy. Among important newspapers, Última Hora was the only one that did not side with the coup. Its newsroom was vandalized during the coup, the opposite of 1954, when, after Vargas' suicide, O Globo and Tribuna da Imprensa had their newsrooms attacked. The smaller O Semanário did not join either.
==== Opinion polls ==== IBOPE polls at the time reveal a public with a good image of Goulart, eager for reforms and anti-communist without associating communism with the reforms or Goulart. In March 1964, in the city of São Paulo, the government was evaluated by 42% as excellent or good and 30% as fair, and 79% considered the base reforms necessary, either urgently or moderately. This support was focused on reforms for specific sectors, and not so much those with a general effect: in the capitals the average support for land reform was 70%, with support even from the middle and upper classes, and voting rights for enlisted military ranks was also accepted, but voting rights for the illiterate were rejected. In the 1965 election, 19% preferred candidates from the left (Miguel Arraes and Leonel Brizola), 45% from the center (Magalhães Pinto and JK) and 23% from the right (Carlos Lacerda and Ademar de Barros). 48.9% would vote for Jango if he could run for re-election. When presented with fewer candidates, there were 37% of voting intentions for JK and 25% for Lacerda. As for communism, in São Paulo in February, 44% considered it a growing danger; in March, 68% considered it a danger and 80% were against legalizing the Communist Party. In 1963, 63% of Rio de Janeiro's residents agreed with the prohibition of the Congress of Solidarity with Cuba. However, in March 1964, only 16% of São Paulo's citizens considered the measures proposed by the president as a path to communism, and 10% as demagoguery. In the polls after the coup there is a change of opinion about Goulart, with 54% of São Paulo's citizens in May considering his overthrow beneficial. 55% agreed with coupist views that he would close Congress or lead Brazil to communism. In Guanabara there was support for the purges and rejection of amnesty. However, in São Paulo and Guanabara respondents wanted direct elections and a succession to a civilian government, and in 1965 there was high dissatisfaction with the Castelo Branco government and especially the economy.
U.S. influence
Since his inauguration, Goulart had been the target of suspicion in the White House due to his past connections in organized labor. However, the deterioration of bilateral relations was gradual. The factors were many, such as the Profit Remittance Act directed at foreign companies, disagreements over Cuba, a threat to break with the U.S. and seek Soviet credit in 1962, Lincoln Gordon's interpretation that Goulart would stage a coup, the failure of stabilization by the Triennial Plan, the expropriations of American companies by Brizola and economic reasons. In Washington there was also concern about the Peasant Leagues and Cuban support for the guerrillas discovered in 1962. Lincoln Gordon feared a "major disaster" "which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s". A 2018 literature review defined the American role in Goulart's term as one of increasing the chances of a rebellion occurring and succeeding, but found the dynamics of the crisis were still fundamentally Brazilian. A Brazilian crisis with American influence weighing in favor of the opposition is the opinion of several historians. On the other hand, in the 1960s and 1970s Marxist scholars placed a lot of emphasis on the American factor. At a given moment, the U.S. decided to favor Goulart's deposition, but the chronology and reasons are controversial. The moment can be situated from 1962 to the end of 1963, and the attitudes at the beginning of the term, as ways of putting pressure, not overthrowing, the Brazilian president. In addition to financing candidates in the 1962 elections and directing resources to opposition governors, the negotiation of American credits, crucial for the Brazilian economy and easily granted to Jânio, was difficult for Jango, as the credits were conditioned to economic stabilization and distancing of the radical left in the trade unions. In a telegram of March 28, 1964, Gordon mentioned how "secret operations of pro-democracy street demonstrations ... and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-Communist sentiment in Congress, the Armed Forces, student groups and pro-American workers, church, and business" were ongoing in Brazil. Also in July 1962, ambassador Gordon favorably discussed with John F. Kennedy the possibility of a military coup in Brazil. The CIA had been monitoring military conspiracies for over two years before the coup and in 1963 looked for a military group to back. The December 1963 contingency plan mentions secret contacts with the Brazilian conspirators and, out of four hypotheses, it has two improbable ones, one similar to what actually happened (the removal of Goulart and takeover by Ranieri Mazzilli, president of the Chamber of Deputies) and one with a conflict in Brazil. In the event of a conflict, logistical support would be provided to the opposition, but not before the formation of an alternative provisional government and international recognition of a state of belligerence. Afonso Arinos later already confessed to having been appointed by Magalhães Pinto, governor of Minas Gerais, to seek recognition of a state of belligerence abroad. President Lyndon B. Johnson was briefed on the ongoing coup in 1964 and greenlit measures "to take every step" to support the opposition if needed. The American logistical operation had one of Castelo Branco's trusted men, General José Pinheiro de Ulhoa Cintra, as an intermediary in Brazil. During the coup, it was Castelo Branco who informed the Americans that logistical support was not necessary, and so the operation was deactivated. Codenamed "Brother Sam", the operation launched during the coup consisted of loading oil tankers in the Caribbean and munitions at air bases and sending a naval task force led by the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, docked in Virginia. The ships would arrive at the Brazilian coast from April 10, but with the cancellation, they returned to their ports. No troop landing would take place, although a land operation had been discussed years earlier in Washington. Although its role was to deliver fuel and ammunition for the opposition, the naval task force would also ultimately have an intimidating effect.
=== IPES project === A classic Marxist analysis of the coup is Dreifuss's 1964: A Conquista do Estado (1981). The book focuses on the entrepreneurs linked to international capital who emerged in the 1950s and, during Goulart's government, concluded that in order to materialize their interests it would be necessary to "conquer the State". They had a state project — "to restrict the organization of the working classes; to consolidate economic growth in a model of late capitalism, dependent, with a high degree of industrial concentration integrated to the banking system and to promote the development of multinational and associated interests in the formation of a techno-entrepreneurial regime". To accomplish this, IPES and IBAD worked to destabilize the president. Their activities are well documented. After the coup, Ipesians such as Delfim Neto, Roberto Campos and Otávio Gouveia de Bulhões reached strategic positions in the state apparatus and conducted their economic reforms, while Golbery do Couto e Silva, also an Ipesian, created the National Information Service. This interpretation is criticized for diminishing the importance of the military in the coup and ignoring its statist tradition, which was later implanted in the dictatorship, contradicting the economic liberalism of IPES and thus the success of its project. Against this, it is argued, the state's role in the economy was recognized as part of the project. Attention has also been drawn to the failure of many of IPES' efforts, which Dreifuss acknowledged, but this failure may have been precisely the reason for the coup. Military writings treat the coup as the work of a military conspiracy supported by economic groups and not the other way around, as appears in the political-sociological literature. For Carlos Fico, the book does not distinguish between destabilization and conspiracy against the Goulart government. Destabilization, like IPES propaganda, had a more civil character and would not necessarily lead to the overthrow of the government, and could, for example, only change the game in elections. The conspiracy of the "IPES/IBAD complex" and the Superior School of War (ESG), the "Sorbonne", included generals Castelo Branco, Golbery do Couto e Silva, Antônio Carlos Muricy and Osvaldo Cordeiro de Farias, known as the "modernizers". Their movement wasn't the only one; Dreifuss also identified "right-wing extremists" and "traditionalists". The former, also known as the hard-liners, were especially linked to São Paulo businessmen and included Air Force brigadier João Paulo Moreira Burnier. The latter represented the less dynamic elites, party groups, governors and officers without ESG training, such as Artur da Costa e Silva, Olímpio Mourão Filho, Amaury Kruel and Joaquim Justino Alves Bastos. They did not have the state project of the "modernizers" and were opposed to the government for more reactive reasons. The "traditionalists" had more military commands and therefore initiated the coup, but power passed to the "modernizers" due to their stronger social base.
Changes in military thinking
The ESG developed the National Security Doctrine (DSN), considered the "doctrinal and ideological content for conquest and maintenance of power from 1964". Centered on security and development, "it aimed to subject all national activities to a security policy, destined to reject communism and transform Brazil into a capitalist power". Influenced by, but not imported from, the United States, it conceived an alliance with strong states, total war in which national defense would involve the entire population, and a fight against an internal enemy. The ESG wanted to build competent civilian and military elites to lead society through the demands of total war. However, although the ESG was an important think tank and a point of contact between civilians and the military, in the early 1960s its theoretical body was not systematically disseminated among the officer corps. The most widespread theoretical innovation was the French-influenced Revolutionary War Doctrine, which was distinct from the DSN, although the latter assimilated its concepts. It allowed a dramatic reading of the situation and the conclusion that liberal democracy, civil rights and even the Geneva Conventions would be incapable of overcoming it. According to the American political scientist Alfred Stepan, author of The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (1971), another development was the perceived decadence and ineffectiveness of the political system. Coupled with the officers' feeling that they were empowered by the DSN, this allowed them to retain power in their hands after the coup, breaking their pattern of a moderating power, which would overthrow civil governments and install new ones. This idea of a moderating pattern is similar to that defended by Robert W. Dean, adviser to the section of the U.S. embassy in Brasília, back in 1964. Stepan's theses, especially the moderating power, are well known and have already been criticized by other authors.