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Current Intelligence Weekly Summary

Central Intelligence Agency · 1962-03-23 · 42 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is the Central Intelligence Agency's Current Intelligence Weekly Summary of 23 March 1962, a secret digest from the Office of Current Intelligence covering world events. It reviews Soviet foreign policy on Berlin, the Berlin air corridors, disarmament and a nuclear test ban. It also covers Algeria, Argentina's elections, the Congo, Laos, South Vietnam, Guatemala, food rationing in Cuba and Middle East tensions. Special articles assess Brazil under Goulart and Turkey's economic prospects. It contains no UFO material.

  • p. 14 …Frondizi condoned the military takeover of the prov- inces when the pro-Peronistas won, since this…
Approved for Release: 2026/03/06 C03176167
/saeREr/
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE WEEKLY SUMMARY
/Q
The problem of foreign
utilities is highlighted by
the repeated suggestion of
Parana Governor Braga--a po-
litical moderate--to American
officials that one of the great-
est steps the US Government
could take to promote better
relations would be to facilitate
the sale of US privately owned
public utilities to local au-
thorities. Pernambuco Governor
Sampaio and Rio Grande do Norte
Governor Alves-—members of the
generally conservative National
Democratic Union-—are reported
preparing to take early action
against foreign-owned utilities
in their states.
Governors also show their
autonomy by negotiating inde-
pendently for economic aid from
foreign countries. Brizola, for
example, has been negotiating
with the East Germans for as-
sistance with the telephone
system of his state; Alves has
negotiated with Polish repre-
sentatives for industrial equip-
ment; and Governor Aurelio do
Carmo of Para visited Czech-
oslovakia in 1961 and appears
to have secured a credit of at
least $5,000,000.
The Land Reform Issue
The land reform problem
is becoming an increasingly
acute political issue, It has
already resulted in small-scale
violence and may cause serious
outbreaks, in view of reported
arms distribution to peasant
groups both in the northeast
and in Rio Grande do Sul. The
diversity of agricultural con-
ditions in Brazil seems likely
t.o.de‘]ay enactment of any effec-
tive national agrarian reform
»-\_
while stimulating action by in-
dividual states. Sao Paulo al-
ready has full-scale legislation
on the problem, and in several
other states some distribution
of state lands and colonization
is programed.
In a more demagogic ap-
proach to land reform, Brizola
has encouraged landless farmers
to seize two tracts of 1and--
one belonging to private
Uruguayans and one largely
state-owned. Brizola and Gou-
lart both own vast tracts of
land. In his political ex-
ploitation of the land question,
Brizola has encouraged the or-
ganization of peasant leagues
on the model of those formed
in the Brazilian northeast
over the past two years by pro-
Castro Francisco Juliao.
While peasant leagues now
exist in most Brazilian states,
most of them are in the key
northeastern state of Pernam—
buco, where they have a total
membership of about 20,000.
The most active league in the
northeast, however, and the
one reported most likely to
resort to violence is in Sape,
in the state of Paraiba. It
has a membership of 5,000 and
apparently forms a nucleus of
opposition to the local govern-
ment dominated by the National
Democratic Union.
Orthodox Communists have
expressed some disapproval of
Juliao because he advocates
more violence than the party
wants at this time when it is
seeking legality. The expul-
sion in late 1961 from the
Communist party of high—level
popular members who advocate
/sEem:'r/
Q _|§‘(‘TAT. l\Q’T‘T(_".1Q P23 Mar 62 Appr0ved?0r Release: 2026/53706 003176167 age 4 °f 8

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 42 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.