Current Intelligence Weekly Summary

Approved for Release: 2026/03/06 C03176167
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CURRENT INTELLIGENCE WEEKLY SUIMIRY
SPECIAL ARTICLES
BRAZIL'S SIX MONTHS UNDER GOULART
Joao Goulart, who is
scheduled to visit Washington
on 3 April, has retained most
of the authority theoretically
transferred to a prime minister
by the constitutional amendment
passed last September when he
succeeded to the presidency af-
ter Quadros resigned. Tancredo
Neves, who became prime minis-
ter after the Brazilian con-
gress adopted a parliamentary
system of government to con-
ciliate military opposition to
Goulart's leftist tendencies,
has not exercised the power
conferred on this office.
At the same time, however,
Goulart appears to have had no
clear idea of what to attempt
as president, beyond taking of-
fice and maintaining as much
political patronage as possi-
ble. In his many years as
political protegé of former
dictator Getulio Vargas and as
vice president under Kubitschek
and Quadros, he had never really
concerned himself with questions
of national policy. In Goulart's
first months in the presidency,
the Chamber of Deputies passed
a profits-remittance bill in ef-
fect excluding new foreign in-
vestment from the country, and
the Senate initiated action to
emasculate SUDENE, the organiza-
tion established for the eco-
nomic development of the poten-
tially explosive northeast.
Goulart, possibly because of
his uncertain political posi-
tion, took no action. In De-
cember he gave his active sup-
port to the pro-Communist slate
which won the national labor
confederation elections.
A steady rise in public
criticism of the leftist tend-
encies of his presidency appar-
ently caused Goulart to change
his tack later in the month and
throw his influence against a
threatened general strike in
Sao Paulo. Public opinion also
caused swift passage of SUDENE's
master plan and first-year ap-
propriations, despite the sen-
ators' opposition to the organ-
ization.
Goulart's efforts early
this year to reassure the more
conservative elements of the
country appear to have had con-
siderable success. In mid-
January he met with represent-
atives of the Commercial Asso-
ciation of Rio de Janeiro and
listened to a presentation of
their concern over Communist
infiltration throughout the
country. Subsequently, although
Goulart had apparently only lis-
tened, the association president
reported favorably on the meet-
ing, calling Goulart "a man of
the center."
Goulart also engaged in ap-
parently effective conciliation
talks with opposition governors
in the states of Sao Paulo,
Parana, and Rio Grande do Norte.
On 21 February he received what
was generally interpreted in
Brazil as a display of growing
military support for his admin-
istration when only about five
of 81 general officers failed
to appear at the celebration
of an armed forces holiday. In
recent weeks numerous influen-
tial Brazilians of pro-American
and anti-Communist stamp have
expressed the conviction that
Goulart is resolved to pursue
a domestic policy along moderate,
progressive lines and an in-
creasingly pro-American foreign
policy. Goulart recently told
a high-ranking Brazilian Foreign
Ministry official that it was
easy and even popular to be anti-
American when he had no respon-
sibilities, but that as President
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Approved for Release: 2026/03/06 C03176167 __