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THE AFRO-ASIAN DIMENSION OF
BRAZILIAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1956-1968
By
WAYNE ALAN SELCHER
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
1970
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
3ii1 iII20llIhIBIII 1
3 1262 08666 460 3
To my wife, Susan
A nation such as ours, which has all the attributes to
become a power, has the essential obligation to study and explore all
the alternatives.
Adolpho Justo Bezerra de Menezes
Subdesenvolvimento e Politica Internacional
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Among those Brazilians who helped me in the preparation of
this study, my special appreciation must go to Candido Mendes de
Almeida and Jose'Garrido Torres, who gave freely of their experiences
and knowledge to orient and inform, as well as to Antonio Olinto,
Antonio Houaiss, and Jayme Azevedo Rodrigues, who graciously allowed
me to benefit by their experiences in the diplomatic service. Professors
Jos' Honorio Rodrigues, Cleantho de Paiva Leite, and Manuel Diegues
Junior granted generous use of the libraries of the IBRI and the CIAPCS,
and for this I express my thanks. I am also grateful for suggestions
and criticisms lent by Rudolph Rummel (University of Hawaii), Robert
Keohane (Brookings Institution), Steven Brams (New York University),
Roger Bastide (Sorbonne), and H. Jon Rosenbaum (Wellesley College).
My gratitude is extended as well to the members of my doctoral committee,
especially Dr. Ruth McQuown and Dr. Thomas Page who aided in
correcting the manuscript. Finally a special, unique vote of thanks is
due my wife who gave valuable assistance in collating statistics, typing,
and proofreading, also lending encouragement to bring the research and
writing to a successful conclusion. To the above I owe an intellectual
and personal debt, but all debits accruing from deficiencies and errors
in this undertaking must be attributed to my account alone.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES .. .. ....... ... vii
ABSTRACT . . . .. ix
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . ... 1
II. TRENDS IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF REPUBLICAN
BRAZIL . . . . .. 13
The Imperial Prelude . . 14
The Early Republic . 17
Extra-Continental Initiation . . . . 26
Great Power Apprenticeship and the Domestic
Debate over Foreign Policy . . . . 29
The Kubitschek fears . . . . . 39
Politica Externa Independente . . . . 42
The Conservative Reaction . . . . 57
The Diplomacy of Prosperity . . . . 60
Patterns of Growth and Nationalism . . . 64
Continuity and Change . . . . . 76
III. AFRO-ASIA IN BRAZILIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT AND
POLICY, 1956-1968 . 81
Public Opinion and Afro-Asia . . . . 83
The Cul:uralists . 87
Lusotropicology . . . 102
Economic Conflict and Cooperation . . 105
The N'eutralisL Viewpoint . . .. . 108
Interdependence with the West . . . 113
Africa in Military Thought . . . . 117
Afro-Asian Area Study Centers . . . . 120
Delusions of Grandeur or an Efficacious Policy? . 126
The Course of Bilateral Relations: Historical
Overview, 1956--1968 . 130
Chapter
IV. DIMENSIONS OF BRAZILIAN RELATIONS WITH
AFRO-ASIA . . .. . 155
Diplomatic and Consular Representation . . 158
Salience . . . . 169
Emigration and Communications . . . 179
Exports . . . .. 185
Dimensional Summary . . . . . 206
Three Case Studies . . . 210
Japan . . . . 21.2
Israel. . .. . . 220
India . . . . 224
V. DECOLONIZATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND BRAZILIAN
POLICY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA . . . 231
Brazilian Policy on Colonialism in the Postwar
Decade . . .. . 240
Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese Africa: The
Controversial Triangle . . 246
Tho Consensus on Portuguese Africa . . . 301
Human Rights, Nonintervention, and Trade in
Relations with South Africa: The Attraction of
Opposites? . . ... 304.
Rhodesia . . . .. 313
VI. ECONOMIC CONFLICT AND COOPERATION WITH
AFRO-ASIA . ........ .... 316
Brazil and UNCTAD . . . . . 318
Coffee . . . .......... . 332
Cocoa . . . 345
VII. CONCLUSIONS: AFRO-ASIA IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT
OF BRAZILIAN FOREIGN RELATIONS . . . 354
APPENDIX I, Persaonal Inte-views Used in the Preparation
of this Study . . . 370
APPENDIX II. Regional Distribution of Brazilian Diplomatic
and Consular Posts in 1956, 1962, and 1968 374
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . .. ... . . . 376
BIOGRAPHY . . .................. 402
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Total Personnel Employed by the Brazilian Ministry
of Foreign Relations, 1956-1968 . . . . 65
2. Selected Features of Foreign Ministry Budget
Allocations, 1956-1968 67
3. Total Number of Brazilian Diplomatic and Consular
Posts in Selected Years . .. 69
4. Distribution of Brazilian Diplomatic Personnel in
Embassies and Legations Abroad, by Region,
1956-1968 . . . .. ... . . .. 160
5. Distribution of Brazilian Consular Personnel in
Consulates and Consulates-General Abroad, by
Region, 1956-1968 . 165
6. Brazilian Diplomatic and Consular Personnel Allocated
to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, 1956-1968. 166
7. Conferrals of the Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul,
by Region, 1956-1967 . . . . . 171
8. Bilateral Agreements Concluded by Brazil Since
January 1, 1950, and in Effect on June l, 1968:
Distribution by Region 173
9. Foreign Tourists Entering Brazil, by Region of
Nationality, 1962-1966 . 176
10. National Origin of Asian and Middle Eastern Tourists
Entering Brazil, 1962-1966 178
11. Regional Distribution of International Telephone Traffic
to and from Brazil, January, 1966--June, 1968 . 181
12. Regional Distribution of International Telegraph Traffic
to and from Brazil, July, 1965--June, 1968. . 184
vii
Table
Page
13. Distribution of Brazilian Exports, by Region of
Destination, 1956-1967 . . . . 198
14. Destination of Brazilian Exports to Asia and the
Middle East, 1962-1967 . . . . 200
15. Distribution of Exports of Brazilian Manufactures,
by Region, 1967 . .. 203
16. Brazilian Transactions with Afro-Asia, on Selected
Measures, Expressed as Percentages of Brazil's
Global Transactions . . . . . 208
17. Selected Group Scores on Issues Before UNCTAD I . 323
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the
Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
THE AFRO--ASIAN DIMENSION OF BRAZILIAN
FOREIGN POLICY, 1956-1968
by
Wayne Alan Selcher
December, 1970
Chairman: Dr. 0. Ruth McQuown
Co-Chairman: Dr. Thomas Page
Major Department: Political Science
The central problem of the study is the determination of Brazil's
reactions to the emerging states of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
and its quantification in transaction flow terminology, with an analysis
and evaluation of these relations in comparison to Brazil's older,
strongly established ties to Western Europe, the United States, and
Latin America. This involves a chronological account of relations during
the period, an inquiry into the images which different sectors of national
opinion have held about Afro-Asia and Brazil's role there, and the
application of statistical measures of interaction between nations from
the Dimensionality of Nations Project to ascertain the relative importance
of Afro-Asia in the global range of Brazilian foreign policy through time
and to isolate three of the most salient states (Japan, Israel, and India)
for case studies. Economic relations with Afro-Asia are covered in trade
analysis and studies of interaction in UNCTAD and competition in coffee
I
and cocoa. Political conflicts with Afro-Asia are explored in policy
differences over anti-colonialism, Portuguese Africa, and South Africa.
Changing policy toward Afro-Asia is explained in terms of
changes in regime, conflicting images of the role of Brazil in the global
system, and cross-pressures arising from Brazil's cross-cutting and
only partially inclusive multiple memberships in five political, economic,
and cultural groups: Latin America, Western Hemisphere, Westerh
Community, Group of 77, and the Luso-Brazilian Community. Overlapping
conflicts and contradictory demands arising from these several member-
ships result in what may appear to be vacillation or incoherence when
judged from a single standard but which is explained by the fact that
Brazil is neither fully committed to any single membership nor highly
polarized by only highly congruent memberships. Brazilian political
and economic interests thus converge with and diverge from those upon
which the Afro-Asian bloc has struck a consensus in much more subtle
ways than the mere grouping of Brazil with Afro-Asia as a "developing, "
"Southern, or "Third World" state would suggest.
Within limits of priority imposed by the relatively low salience
which Afro--Asia has for Brazil, a summary of current Brazilian goals in
these developing regions out:;ide the Western Hemisphere can be drawn
up as follows.
1. Increase in trade relations, involving preferably the
exchange of manufactured products for raw materials to be used in
Brazil's new industries; otherwise the general expansion of all types
of sales to new markets.
2. Defense of national economic interests in competition in
primary commodities, notably coffee, cocoa, sugar, and cotton,
including persuasion for African states associated with the Common
Market to either yield or universalize their tariff preferences there.
3. Encouragement of solidarity among developing countries
to negotiate as a group with the developed states for the reversal of
unfavorable terms of trade and other economic concessions sought by
the Group of 77.
4. Preservation of Portuguese language and culture in Africa
to serve as a facilitator for a future Brazilian presence on that continent,
under the supposition that the Portuguese territories will eventually achieve
independence and that Brazil, while not meddling in Lisbon's internal affairs,
should do everything possible to make this emancipation relatively pain-
less and of a nature to ensure the continuation of Portuguese language
and culture rather than alienation from them on the part of the Africans.
5. Enhancement of national prestige as a leader among
developing states, a rising middle power with a worldwide diplomatic
network, utilizing the projected image of a pacific, multiracial, rapidly
industriaizing tropical civilization.
6. Exchange of technical knowledge in fields such as nuclear
power, tropical medicine, tropical agriculture and cattle raising, civil
aviation, and architecture.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The analysis of relations among developing nations is a field
which has only recently attracted interest, as evidenced by trends of
research in professional journals and dissertations. Students of inter-
national politics have traditionally dwelt on the centers of power, with
relatively little concern for areas other than Europe, the United States,
the Soviet Unior, and China and Japan in Asia. Lesser powers became
subjects of study rirnmarily when the lines of regional tension overlapped
those of major power tension, as in the contemporary Middle East.
Correspondingly these studies, written by authors from the metropolitan
areas enmeshed in the larger conflicts, emphasized the relationships
of the developing states to the major powers rather than their relation-
ships to each other. The focus on power led almost inexorably to an
allocation of research efforts which relegated developing or "non-Western"
states to peripheral status and attention. Even in the well-documented
area of inter-Armerican relations the dominant framework has been erected
by studies inspired by and concentrating on the foreign policy reactions
of Latin American nations to American political and economic intervention,
the World Wars, or Communist subversion rather than interrelationships
among the Latin states. While not denying the importance or relevancy
of such a great power-centered approach (especially to the great
powers), the contention is made here that this methodological bias
has retarded the development of a general theory of international
behavior by in effect restricting most analysis to the sample of a few
powerful states which may not be representative of the universe of
states.
Within the last decade the horizons of international politics,
like those of comparative politics, have expanded to include non-
Western states with a consequent enrichment and growth of the data
base, the size of which has been a limiting factor in formulating valid
generalizations about nation-state behavior through time. This initial
shedding of cultural and academic ethriocentrism was the result of at
least two converging currents of thought. The first was occasioned by
the independence of Afro-Asian states which championed a policy of
nonalignment and sought to forge a Third Force as a vehicle for their
interests vis-a-vis the developed states or the Western powers. Just
as the birth of these states stimulated a lively academic dialogue on
their place within comparative politics under the rubric of political
development, so the international relations specialists expounded
upon the determinants of a neutralist foreign policy, the viability of
the Third Force concept, and the effects which the introduction of
so many change-oriented new actors would work on the international
system. The number of the less-powerful states and the vote-
power they wield in the United Nations made them a force which both
the great powers and international relations analysts found hard to
ignore. 2
The second trend which brought the developing states of
Afro--Asia and Latin America within the purview of general international
relations theory was an intellectual one, the adaptation of the termi-
nology of systems analysis to the study of relations among nations by
such scholars as Kaplan, Deutsch, Boulding, Russett, and Rosecrance.
Conceptualization of the complex network of interactions of all states
as forming a patterned regularity which is the global system almost
inevitably set off inquiries about the existence of subsystems. Since
the global system was said to be Europe-centered, the set of subsystems
included those operating in a more restricted fashion in other political,
economic, or geographic regions. Impetus for this approach to
developing areas was added by attempts at regional integration in the
Central American Common Market, the Latin American Free Trade
As an example of the neutralist nation studies, see, inter alia,
Laurence W'. Martin, ed., Neutralism and Nonalignment: The New
States in World Affairs (New York: Praeger, 1962).
2A useful assessment of the small (weaker) powers, both
developed and developing, in international relations is Ainry Vandenbosch,
"Small States in International Politics and Organization, Journal of
Politics, XXVI (May, 1964), 293-312. A more theoretical treatment with
a model is found in Custavo Lagos, International Stratification and
Underdeveloned Countries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina,
1963).
Association, tha Organization of African Unity, the Arab League, and
others, not to mention the much more successful European Economic
Community against which their progress could be measured. The
subsystem problem became the identification of various types of
regional subsystems through empirical verification of transaction flows
and their intensities, in much the same way as Rummel's Dimensionality
of Nations Project was defining quantitatively the form and content of
the global system by identifying and measuring the. basic dimensions of
the foreign behavior of nations through computer analysis of statistical
data. With the research problem thus stated, the methodological path
was made clear for the meaningful integration of the relations among
developing states into the larger body of international relations theory,
in contrast to their former isolated treatment merely as sui generis sets
of relationships, archetypical of the course of the study of, inter-American
relations.
Since the introduction of terms like' "subordinate system, "
"subsystem, and "regional system, along with diverse criteria for
their identification, the analysis of relations among developing states
within the san:e regionn has been furthered and several subordinate systems
delineated in the Middle East, Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa,
Analogously, the concepts of political development have begun
to appear as a bridge to span the persistent chasm between Latin American
political studies and the field of comparative politics as it developed
during the 1960's.
Southern Asia, and Southeast Asia. 4 Curiously, little similar systemic
interest in the Western Hemisphere ihas been forthcoming to date,
perhaps because of the inertia of decades of more traditionally oriented
research. The next step in theory would seem to be in the direction of
examining interactions between regional systems, and literature of this
type is beginning to appear in both systemic and transaction flow
models. 5
It is within this interregional research that the present study
is set, as an investigation of the relations between Brazil, a member
of one regional system, and the states of Afro-Asia, representing other
regional systems. The central problem will be the determination of
4
The most significant subsystem essays on developing areas
include the following: Leonard Binder, "The Middle-East as a Subordinate
International System, World Politics, X (April, 1958), 408-429; Larry
W. Bowman, "The Subordinate State System of Southern Africa, Inter-
national StudiCs Quarterly, XI, No. 3 (September, 1968), 231-261;
Michael Bracher, "International Relations and Asian Studies: The
Subordinate State System of Southern Asia, World Politics, XV (January,
1963), 213-235; Thomas Hodgkin, "The New West Africa State System, "
University of Toronto Ouarterly, XXXI (October, 1961), 74-82; George
Modelski, internationall Relations and Area Studies: The Case of
Southeast Acia, International Relations, II (April, 1961), 143-155; and
I. William Zartmann's"Africa as a Subordinate State System in International
Relations, International Orqaniza4tion XXI (Summer, 1967), 545-564,
and International Relat'ouns in the New Africa (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1966).
Sea, for example, Steven J. Brams, "A Note on the Cosmo-
politanism of World Regions, Journal of Peace Research, V (1968),
88-95 and Krl ;;3iser, "The Interaction of Regional Subsystems, World
Politics:;, XXI, No. L (October, 1968), 04-107.
Brazil's reactions to the emerging states of Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East and its quantification in transaction flow terminology,
analyzing and evaluating those relations in comparison with Brazil's
older, strongly established ties to Western Europe, the United States,
and Latin America. Although bilateral relations with certain countries
will be singled out as especially significant, the primary unit of
interaction analysis (Chapter IV) will be the region.
A fundamental preoccupation in regional theory is resolving
the problem of operationally defining "region" as a means to classify
and group nations. As Russett has demonstrated, several criteria have
commonly been employed as differentiating variables: geographical
contiguity, social and cultural similarity, similar foreign political
behavior, institutional membership, and economic interdependence. 6
Because of possible ambiguities arising from this variety of usages and
in view of the difficulty of placing precise boundaries on any region,
however defined, the choice has been made in the present study to
define regions along geographical lines, following the practice of most
subsystem theorists.7 This is feasible because the usefulness here of
a geographic determination of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East lies
0Bruce M. Russett, International Regions and the International
System: A Study in Political Ecology (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967),
p. 11.
'Supra, n. 4.
7
not with the precision of boundary delineation or amenability to rigorous
intraregional systemic treatment, but rather in the ability of these
expressions to describe continents which have traditionally received
little attention in Brazilian diplomacy and which, when taken together,
make up nearly the totality of the world's developing nations outside
the Western Hemisphere. "Africa, unless otherwise stated, will denote
only sub-Saharan Africa, including the Republic of South Africa. The
"Middle East" will comprehend not only the Levant but also Turkey,
Iran, and the Maghreb. "Asia" is taken to refer to non-Communist Asia,
including the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand;
Brazil neither maintains relations nor has significant dealings with
Peking, Hanoi, Pyongyang, or Ulan Bator.
In addition to these three regions, four more are postulated:
Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the United States, and all other
Western Hemisphere countries. The United States, while not a region
in normal uses of the term, bulks so heavily in Brazilian foreign relations
that it deserves separate treatment. An aggregate of all Western
Hemispheric countries (an alternative grouping) would not adequately
reflect political, economic, or cultural reality for the purposes of this
study, even though a hemispheric political subsystem may be said to
exist, formally embodied in the Organization of American States. By
following a regional methodology, it will be possible to extract higher
level generalizations from the data than those afforded by a conventional
8
bilateral approach which has characterized the majority of prior studies
of Brazilian foreign policy; i. e., policy vis-a-vis the United States,
Cuba, the Soviet Union, etc. Then, within the global context of
Brazilian relations with the seven postulated regions, the course of
relations with Afro-Asia can be measured and charted through time to
establish the nature, strength, and duration of any trends. These
trends will then be explicated in terms of changes in regime, conflicting
images of the role of Brazil in the global system, and cross-pressures
arising from Brazil's multiple memberships in several political, economic,
and cultural clusters.
The question of the relevancy of such research can be legiti-
mately raised, as it departs from the norm set by most studies of the
foreign policy of Latin American nations, in both method and focus. Why
should time be taken up scrutinizing relations between Brazil and Afro-
Asia ? An initial motivation was the above-mnentioncd scarcity of
substantive studies on relations among developing nations of different
subsystems, perhaps sufficient reason in itself to demand at least one
more case study. Brazil is well suited for such an inquiry because
among all laNtin American states it is in an objectively advantageous
position to carry on significant political, economic, and cultural relations
with Afro-Asia and, to the author's knowledge, has in fact been in the
forefront among the South American nations in this undertaking. Brazil
stands as one of the significant powers among developing nations, as
9
ranked by size, population, resources, and potential, su the course of
its relations, both cooperative and confliciful, with othei developing
nations outside the Western Hemisphere is of special interest, additionally
so because of the stated importance placed on these relations by several
administrations and also because of its intermittent ambitions of leader--
ship and prestige among developing nations within and outside of Latin
America.
The period from 1956 to 19683 was chosen because, in addition
to corresponding roughly to the span between the end of the Vargas era
and the time field research was carried out, it was during these 12
years that almost all formerly colonized Afro-Asian nations received
their independence while simultaneously Brazil was gradually embarking.
upon a more active diplomatic style, redefining in many ways the
substance and range of its interests.' It was therefore during the period
under examination that the foundations of an Afro-Asian policy were
being set, exposing domestic disagreements, conflicting solidarities,
and shifting priorities which are likely to persist in future relations with
these regions.
Through this dimension of Brazilian foreign policy-some facets
of the country's self-identification as a future powei may be illuminated,
a matter mc-re important than bilateral relations with any single Afro-
Asian state. In a world where the gap between developed and developing
economies is widening, Brazil with its regional diversity maintains
features of both developing and developed economies, marked by a
rising national growth rate and the expansion of insular areas of indus-
trialization surrounded by an unrelenting sea of poverty. The extent to
which the foreign policy decision-makers perceive the nation either as
developed with some areas of backwardness or as underdeveloped with
a few developed zones will heavily condition Brazil's relations not only
with the developing states of Afro-Asia but also with the developed
members of the Western Community. As the question could be phrased,
should Brazil hope to benefit in the long run by retaining its position
among the "Proletariat of the Free World" or should it seek leadership
of a Third Force to demand concessions from the industrialized states?
What set of interests links it to the West? What set of interests favors
greater multilateral cooperation with the Afro-Asian bloc? To what
extent can relations with Afro-Asia be formulated separately from policy
toward Latin America, the United States, and Western Europe (particularly
Portiugal)? What levels of priorities are to be.assigned ? These are a
few of the more weighty normative considerations surrounding the Afro-
Asian dimension of Brazilian foreign policy, making it useful as a contri-
bution to the body of knowledge about how emerging and potentially great
powers elect to make their influence felt on a world scale, achieving
greater international recognition and broadening their range of diplomatic
activity.
To delve into sonime of these questions and to assess in loco the
state of Brazilian relations with Afro-Asia, field research was undertaken
I
11
in Brazil from January to November, 1968, under a Fulbright-HIays grant
from the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Written material pertaining to the topic was obtained in the greatest
part at the library of the Foreign Ministry, the Instituto Brasileiro de
Relac6es Internacionais, the Escola Superior de Guerra, the Centro
Latinoamericano de Pesquisas em Ciancias Sociais, and the Riblioteca
Nacional, with use also made of the facilities of the Fundacafo Getulio
Vargas and the Instituto Brasileiro de Bibliografia e Documentagao. To
supplement and interpret statistics, accounts, and other written data,
over thirty nonstandardized personal elite interviews were conducted
with officials or former officials, Brazilian and foreign, with firsthand
experience in the relations between Brazil and the countries of Afro-Asia
in both private and public spheres to ascertain what these officials
considered relevant in the total context of those relations and how they
interpreted the events which they had helped to create or in which they
were involved. Numerous important insights were gained in this way.
Because of petrso-al wishes of the interviewee, several of.these sources
have been k-ept anonymous.
The organization of the dissertation goes from the general to the
specific. Chapter II describes the patterns in Brazilian foreign policy,
emphasiz.,grj the years since 1956, in order to spell out the context in
which relations with Afro-Asia have been formulated and carried out. The
third chapter explorcs the images which different sectors of national
opinion have held about Afro-Asia and Brazil's role there and qlves a
chronological account of relations since 1.956. In the fourth chapter
statistical measures of interactions between nations are employed to
determine the relative importance of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
in the global range of Brazilian foreign policy and to isolate the most
salient states for case studies. Chapters V and VI cover policy on
international issues which are generally considered most important by
Afro-Asian states, decolonization, human rights, and economic develop-
ment, using as illustrative cases Portuguese Africa and South Africa in
the first two instances and the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development and competition with Africa in coffee and cocoa in the third.
The concluding chapter theorizes about Afro-Asia as a dimension of
Brazilian foreign policy and sets out the Foreign Ministry's goals in
those regions.
CHAPTER II
TRENDS IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF
REPUBLICAN. BRAZIL
In most treatments of the nations of Latin America, it has been
customary to designate Brazil as a separate quantity, not only because
of its Portuguese language and culture, but also because of its size,
regional diversity, and supposedly more stable and less violent political
process. 1 Brazilians themselves have long been aware of what they
consider important differences between themselves and Spanish America,
dating from the earliest days of Iberian colonization of South America
and the Treaty of Tordesillas by which Pope Alexander VI in .1-194
partitioned the New World between Spain and Portugal. Such a view
emphasizes the unique contributions Brazil can make to international
or inter-American relations, as the "third" or Luso-Brazilian America,
as contrasted with the English and Spanish-speaking portions of the
Americas. 2
For an argument attacking conceptions of Brazilian politics
as inherently more stable than the Latin American norm, see James
Busey's "Brazil's Reputation for Political Stability, Western Political
Quarterly, XVIII, No. 4 (December, 1965), 866-880.
2Nostor dos Santos Lima, A Terceira Am6rica (Rio de Janeiro:
Livraria Freitas Bastos, 1967).
This feeling of uniqueness or perhaps even isolation in the
South American context had great effect on the formulation of Brazilian
foreign policy during the latter days of the Empire and the first years of
the Republic, culminating in the establishment and mutual cultivation of
close ties between Rio de Janeiro and Washington. Seldom marred by
diplomatic frictions of importance, these harmonious relations came to
represent an anomaly in an inter-American system in which the major
feature has been Latin American antagonism toward or distrust of the
United States. Brazil, on the contrary, in the first 60 years of this
century generally adhered closely to American policy and often.acted as
advocate of the American position vis-a-vis the rest of Latin America.
An understanding of the origins and nature of this relationship and the
consequent outlook of the Brazilian elite and especially its effect on
Brazil's pre-1956 image of world politics is essential to later examina-
tion of Brazil's reaction to the emergence of new Afro-Asian nations after
1956.
The Imperial Prelude
Although the United States was the first nation to recognize
Brazil's independence from Portugal in 1822, the course of American-
Brazilian relations from that date to the proclamation of the Republic in
1889 was marked largely by mutual indifference as the United States
pursued a basically isolationist policy, while Brazil was principally
engaged in improving relations with Europe (especially France and
Great Britain) and in balance of power maneuvers in the Rio de la Plata
area. Great Britain was the diplomatic and commercial center of
Brazilian attention in the mid-nineteenth century, partly as a legacy of
the colonial period, for one of the oldest alliances in Europe was that
between Great Britain and Portugal. In 1833, Brazil maintained 10
diplomatic missions in Europe and 4 in the Western Hemisphere; in
1859, Europe counted a total of 13 Brazilian legations and 157 consular
officials, but the Americas were assigned only 7 missions and 37 consuls.3
Upper class cultural patterns and social values in the Empire were taken
from European courts, as Brazil attempted to present itself to the world
as a predominantly Caucasian nation despite large admixtures of Negro
and Indian blood.
Within South America, Brazil's action was confined mainly to
delimiting the border with Argentina by legal means, the creation of
Uruguay as a buffer state, and several interventions in the Cisplatine
region to protect Uruguayan independence or to ensure the protection of
Brazilian interests against Rosas and Argentine caudillismo and instability
in general. Brazil also resisted Argentine pretensions of annexing
Paraguay in 1849 and was successful in maintaining Paraguay intact as
another buffer state after the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), despite
Argentine pressure for partition.
3Jose Honorio Rodrigues, Interesse Nacional e Polhtica Externa
(Rio de Janeiro: Civilizacao Brasileira, 1966), p. 17.
Brazilian-American relations in the time of Dom Pedro II
revolved around commercial issues and were mutually satisfactory in
spite of certain frictions arising out of American complaints regarding
treatment of lier citizens or ships in Brazil, as well as American
insistence on free navigation of the Amazon. During the American Civil
War Brazil granted the South belligerency status and allowed both
Confederate and Union ships to enter territorial waters and national
ports. Several cases of conflict ensued between ships of the contending
factions, but the Union maintained diplomatic courtesies and offered
official apologies to the Emperor when a formal complaint was lodged.
Washington's confidence in the impartiality of the Emperor remained at
such a level that President Lincoln, when questioned by European
statesmen on the possibility of a mediator in the conflict, reportedly
replied that the natural choice would be Brazil. The visit of Dom Pedro II
to the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 and his famous remarks about Bell's
telephone further popularized the image of the congenial, enlightened
South American emperor.
An important problem in relations between Brazil and both
England and the United States (after the Civil War) was Brazil's refusal
to outlaw slavery until 1888. Newspaper articles in both Anglo-Saxon
Alutzio Napole o, Rio Branco e as Relacoes centre o Brasil e os
Estados Unidos (Rio de Janeiro: Minist4rio das Relay6oes Exteriores,
1947), p. 63.
countries kept the issue under discussion and a cause of tension. About
1880 the American Minister Hilliard.; a former slaveowner, was persuaded
by abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco to testify in an open letter to the economic
and social advantages of abolition. Brazilian protests of foreign inter-
ference led to his recall several months later.
By the end of the Empire, then, several principles had come to
determine the general outlines of Brazilian foreign policy. For external
support and a guarantee of independence, Brazil relied on the relation-
ship with Great Britain rather than the Monroe Doctrine and a much
weaker United States. For protection from encroachments on the part of
greater powers, Brazil advocated non-intervention and the peaceful
settlement of international disputes on the basis of juridical procedure,
while at the same time not hesitating to use force where its own vital
national interests were at stake. While negotiating border settlements,
consolidating frontier control, and expanding dominion over disputed
areas through the principle of effective occupation, Brazil sought to
safeguard its internal order and parliamentary regime against threats
emanating from the chaotic instability of the neighboring Spanish
American republics.
Th3 Efarly Republic
Nelson de Sousa Sanmpaio, of the University of Bahia, has
identified three stages of republican Brazil's participation in the
international arena.5 The period of territorial diplomacy (1889-1917)
served to fix the nation's boundaries with neighboring South American
countries while extra-hemispheric concerns were relegated to second
place, despite Brazil's attendance at the Second Hague Conference,
where its polyglot representative Rui Barbosa asserted the rights of
small states in international law. The following phase of extra-
continental initiation and limited participation in world events (1917-
1945) was marked by membership in the League of Nations and participa-
tion in the Second World War. Since 1945, Brazil has been undertaking
what some Brazilians consider a great power apprenticeship in which
an increasingly active foreign policy is used both as an instrument of
economic development and as a means of furthering national independence
and prestige, anticipating the day when Brazil will take on worldwide
interests. Even though continuing problems and changes of regime make
such periodization less than comprehensive, this outline is of use as a
general orientation and will be adopted in the following discussion.
Between the .urn of the century and World War ,f. Brazil was
sufficiently prosperous, adventurous, and domestically peaceful to
secure its international position and improve its iminrg .abroad. The
statesman who would take these prime conditions to lend to Brazilian
Nelson de Sousa Sampaio, "The Foreign Policy of Brazil, "
in Foreign Policies in a World of Change, ed. by cJoseph E. Black and
Kenneth W. Thompson (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 626.
foreign relations a form and content they would retain for decades was
Josd Maria da Silva Paranhos Junior,.the Baron of Rio Branco, who in
his capacity as foreign minister under four presidents (1902-1912) was
able to give to Brazilian foreign policy a continuity and direction
seldom achieved in Latin America. Because of his accomplishments
and organizing powers, Rio Branco has become the "patron saint" of
Brazilian diplomacy, receiving almost obligatory references in present-
day foreign policy statements, which sometimes are described as-
emanating from immutable principles he established, which have
maintained their validity as standards of conduct despite the passage
of time.
The Baron of Rio Branco was born in 1845 as the son of the
Viscount of Rio Branco, the noted diplomat, senator, prime minister,
and foreign minister of Dom Pedro II. After 25 years' experience
in various diplomatic posts in Europe and the United States, he
came into national recognition through his successful handling of
border dispute arbitration cases in the Missoes and Amapa regions,
winning for Brazil the entirety of the territory in contention. Named
Minister of Foreign Relations by President Rodrigues Alves in July,
1902, Rio Branco set about modernizing and streamlining Itamaraty (the
Ministry of Foreign Relations), adding a library, map room, new
furnishings, and recruiting such talented figures as Joaquim Nabuco
and Euclides da Cunha. The staff of the office was enlarged; Rio Branco
found it with only 27 officials whereas in 1859 it had employed
38. 6
With the political advantage of having been absent from Brazil
for nearly throo decades and thus not having made many enemies, Rio
Branco accepted the office of foreign minister from each succeeding
president only on the condition that strictly internal, partisan matters
be kept out of foreign policy. Within Brazil, Rio Branco is best
remembered for the approximately 342, 000 square miles which he added
to the national territory while bilaterally negotiating boundary limits
with all the surrounding republics, basing all his claims solely on
actual and effective possession of the land, in lieu of whatever legal
instruments already existed. 7 The Spanish-speaking countries of South
America, remembering the distant Treaty of Tordesillas which gave
almost all of the continent to Spain, smoldered under the resentment that
somehow they had been cheated by creeping Brazilian imperialism.
From the proclamation of the Republic, ministers in both
Washington and Rio de Janeiro worked toward a common understanding
or at least a tacit partnership, departing from the past record of mutual
Carlos Miguel Delgado de Carvalho, Hist6ria DiplomAtica do
Brasil (So Paulo: Companhia Editira Nacional, 1959), p. 248.
E. Bradford Burns, The Unwritten Alliance: Rio Branco and
Brazilian-American Relations (New York: Columbia University Press,
1966), p. 49. This chapter's outline of the Rio Branco period relies
principally on this valuable study.
21
indifference. During the 1893 naval mutiny in Rio's harbor, the decisive
American stand against possible pro-monarchy intervention by European
powers with naval vessels in the Bay of Guanabara was sufficient to
assure the victory of the government forces and defeat a return to
monarchy. Since this application of the Monroe Doctrine actually con-
tributed to the preservation of Brazilian sovereignty, it is not surprising
that the federal government in 1894 dedicated a monument in Rio to James
Monroe and confiscated copies of Eduardo Prado's A Ilusa'o Americana,
unfavorable to the United States. Brazil was one of the few Latin
American countries well disposed toward the United States' role in the
Spanish-American War, and the Brazilian Naval Club of Rio sent a
communication to the United States Navy, congratulating it for the sea
victories. The earlier results of President Cleveland's arbitration in
the Missoes question also advanced the favorable opinion of his country
in Brazil.
Despite his own ties to aristocratic Europe, Rio Branco fully
appreciated the growing strength of the United States as well as Brazil's
advantages in fostering more amicable relations, from both political and
commercial points of view. With tacit or explicit American backing
Brazil could hope to be much stronger and more effective in border disputes
and entrance onto the world scene. Favorable commercial arrangements
0Lawrence F. Hill,. Diplomatic Relations Between the United
States and Brazil (Durham: Duke University Publications, 1932), p. 284.
22
with the greatest market for coffee exports would be facilitated and the
drive for Brazilian supremacy in South America would practically be
guaranteed success. To this end the Baron, also aware of the ongoing
rivalry with Argentina, used all occasions to stress the common interests
and affinities of the Colossus of the North and that of the south. As
the two "outcasts" of the Western Hemisphere, the United States and
Brazil therefore concluded a type of informal alliance, with the United
States encouraging Brazilian aspirations for leadership within Latin
America in order to afford itself a strong ally for American policy there.
The most dramatic step in this entente was the 1905 elevation
to embassy status of the Brazilian legation in Washington, at a time
when the rank of ambassador was reserved for great powers in their
mutual relations and no other South American country maintained an
embassy in the United States. In choosing Joaquim Nabuco for the first
Ambassador to Washington and consequently the tactician of his new
approach, Rio Branco picked an able representative who became very
popular for his speaking ability and genuine admiration for the United
States, the Monroe Doctrine, and Pan-Americanism. In speaking of a
Brazil-United States alliance through the Monroe Doctrine to counteract
what he regarded as the colonially based European-African-Asian group,
Nabuco affirmed, "To me the Monroe Doctrine means.that we detach
outselves politically from Europe as completely, as definitely as the
moon from the earth. The tenor of this statement and the symbolic
transfer of the talented Nabuco from London to Washington signaled a
fundamental and lasting shift in the axis of Brazilian foreign policy
attention, a change in which the Brazilian government received enthu-
siastic cooperation from Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu Root.
Both Nabuco and Rio Branco strongly supported the Monroe
Doctrine because they believed that a large, stable, developing, and
distant Brazil need not fear United States intervention in spite of the
Roosevelt Corollary. In a letter to Graga Aranha, Nabuco wrote, "The
Monroe Doctrine lays down a definite foreign policy for the United
States which is now beginning to take shape, and it lays down a
similar policy for us. Under such conditions, our diplomacy should
receive its principal impetus from Washington. Such a policy would
be better than the largest army or navy. l
Both states benefited from this partnership. Rio Branco
attempted to explain American interventions to Spanish America as
altruistic, with basically pure motives, and explicitly invoked the
Doctrine on several occasions to strengthen his hand against European
powers, notably in the Panther case of 1905 and the Acre controversy
Ronald Hilton, Toacuim Nabuco e a Civilizacago Anglo-
americana (Rio de Janeiro: Institute Brasil-Estados Unidos, 1949),
p. 36.
Carolina Nabuco, The Life of Toaquim Nabuco, translated
and edited by Ronald Hilton (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1950), p. 307.
with Bolivia in which an Anglo-American company was involved. After
the United States' role in Panamanian independence, Rio Branco stated
that he "heartily" approved of Roosevelt's action, sought to gather
diplomatic recognition in Latin America, and offered early recognition
on the part of Brazil. When Colombia requested aid, he advised a
realistic acceptance of the situation. 11
Inspired by such mutual gains and the possibilities the Monroe
Doctrine held for Brazil in its expanding international activities, Rio
Branco planned to have the Brazilian delegation to the Fourth Inter-
national Conference of American States at Buenos Aires (1910) press for
adoption of the following remarkable resolution:
The long stretch of time since the declaration of the
Monroe Doctrine enables us to recognize in it a permanent
factor for international peace on the American continent.
For that reason Latin America, celebrating the first efforts .
to gain her independence, sends to her great northern sister
the expression of her gratitude for that noble and dis-
interested initiative which has been of such great benefit
to the world. 12
Because of the more characteristic opposition of much less enthusiastic
Spanish American countries who had not felt so strongly the potentially
salutary effects of the Doctrine, this proposal was never presented to
the Conference but remains chiefly as an indicator of Rio Branco's degree
1Burns, The Unwritten Alliance, pp. 86-90.
12Frederic W. Ganzert, "The Baron do Rio Branco, Joaquim
Nabuco, and the Growth of Brazilian--American Friendship, 1900-1910, "
Hispanic American Historical Review, XXII (August, 1942), .433-434.
of cornmitment to the continuation of United States tutelage in Latin
America, especially in light of growing American economic and military
strength.
Although Rio Branco achieved some measure of success within
the Western Hemisphere as a result of this new alignment of forces,
Brazil's experiences at the Second Hague Conference warned of future
difficulties inherent in the relationship, which allowed the United
States to give Brazil special privileges and consideration within the
inter-American system or the American sphere of influence, but which
also required it as a superior power to be primarily concerned with its
own interests vis-a-vis Europe. The United States sided with the
established Euiopean powers on most issues and ignored Latin America,
despite Root's many speeches on. behalf of the equality of nations. The
subordinate status granted Brazil in the organization of the International
Court of Justice came as a rude shock to Itamaraty, accustomed to
different treatment in the limited field of inter-American politics. The
cross purposes pursued at the Hague Conference were in accord with
objective differences in the wealth, power, and rank of the two countries,
which could not be eliminated merely by the subsequent official state-
ments in which Etihu Root and Rio Branco glossed over the disagreements.
Sec-etary of State Root left office in 1909, and Nabuco died in
Washington the following year. Rio Branco died in 1912, but the major
trends he initiated continued for decades. The demise of these three
prime movers, however, determined that the alliance and Brazilian
support for the Monroe Doctrine would continue in form but without
fervor. Despite the efforts of Edwin Morgan, United States Ambassador
to Brazil from 1912 to 1933, relations becarhe routine although cordial,
lacking the innovations and eagerness which had characterized the first
decade of the century, in part because of internal preoccupations of
both nations.
Extra-Continental Initiation
World War I worked various effects on Brazil. While German
submarines destroyed some Brazilian shipping, the increased European
demand for foodstuffs during the later war years and the postwar period
brought a measure of good fortune. Brazil declared its neutrality on
August 4, 1914, the same day as did the United States. With German
torpedoing of Brazilian ships, relations with Germany were broken on
April 11, 1917, but Brazil still remained neutral both out of relative
weakness and domestic division of loyalties among the many immigrant
groups. On June 1, 1917, the Brazilian Congress authorized seizure of
German ships in national ports and on October 26 of the same year war
was declared with the sinking of another ship, making Brazil the only
South American nation to go to war with the Central Powers. Actual
participation at that late date, however, was limited to the sending of
patrol ships to the South Atlantic and medical missions to France and
England but gave Brazil a new feeling of involvement on a world scale.
Besides being represented at the Versailles Peace Conference,
Brazil became an active member of the league of Nations and, within
its well-developed legal tradition, furnished several distinguished
jurists to the Permanent Court of International Justice. During its seven
years in the League, Brazil succeeded in being re-elected as a non-
permanent mmniber of the Council, an advantage both for itself and the
other nations of Latin America which found themselves severely handi-
capped in dealing with the established creditor powers of Europe.
Several times the Brazilian delegate served as President of the Council,
where Brazil was determined to speak for the Western Hemisphere in the
absence of the United States.
This relatively euphoric state of affairs was shaken in 1926
when in alliance Brazil, Spain, and Poland announced that they would
vote to admit Germany as a permanent Council member only if they were
allowed permanent membership as well. Since the affirmative votes of
Brazil and Spain as non-permanent Council members were necessary for
German admission, a crisis developed. Despite some benefits which
might have accrued to Latin America as a whole out of the Brazilian
demand, the Spanish American sLates pragmatically supported instead
the creation of three non-permanent Council seats for Latin America
instead of two.
Itamaraty and the nationalistic President Bernardes remained
inflexible to a compromise solution suggested by a special committee
and clung to their impossible pretensions. Brazil vetoed German
membership, but faced with widespread criticism and knowing that
Germany would likely be admitted in spite of Brazilian opposition it
left the League on June 10, 1926. Just as after the unhappy Hague
experience, Brazil retreated to the more comfortable, familiar area of
Western Hemisphere diplomacy in which it felt more efficacious. This
withdrawal increased Brazilian isolation from European and Asiatic
political affairs, convincing many sectors of public opinion of the
futility of extra-hemispheric interests. Brazilian diplomats in addition
were removed from the further experience to be gained in international
organization, continuing their preference for idealistic schemes set in
high-sounding legal phraseology. 13
Brazil's principal activities in the juridical and mediating
fields in the interwar period were the cases of the.Chaco War and the
Mara I{n dispute. In the complex secret diplomacy of the former, Brazil
tacitly supported Bolivia's demand for a port on the Paraguay River but
attempted to keep the war from spreading. The Mara on crisis of 1941
was an unprovoked large-scale Peruvian attack on Ecuador in the
disputed Amazon border region. With very weak defenses Ecuador could
not resist the occupation of a large part of her territory, while Peru
remained belligerent and refused any line of settlement other than the
13Brazilian Institute of International Relations, Brazil and the
United Nations, .Rio de Janeiro, 1957, p. 9. (Mimeographed.)
territory effectively occupied. -After American entry into World War II,
Washington requested Brazil, in the person of her Foreign Minister,
Oswaldo Aranha, to assume responsibility for the negotiations. At the
Rio meeting of American foreign ministers in January, 1942, Ecuador
and Peru were brought together for any solution possible, to preserve
wartime hemispheric unity. 'Since the United States withdrew all
support for Ecuador and Peru held the de facto superiority, Aranha; in
a pitiful show of justice, demanded that Ecuador accept the Peruvian
imposition or receive no more Brazilian or United States aid. Ecuador
was literally forced into legitimizing her territorial losses by Brazil
acting at the behest of the United States.
The initial vacillation of Getilio Vargas in choosing sides in
World War II and his early news censorship in favor of the Axis powers
are well-known. After a period of neutrality, in March, 1941, Brazil
gave permission to the United States to build naval air bases in Bele'm,
Recife, and Natal for use in hemispheric defense, specifically vis-a-vis
North Africa and the South Atlantic. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor,
relations with the Axis powers were severed and, with the sinking of
more Brazilian ships, that country declared war on August 22, 1942,
sending an expeditionary force of over 25, 000 to Italy.
Great Power Apprenticeship and the Domestic
Debate over Foreign Policy
Only after Brazilian participation in World War II did the national
political parties begin to conceive of Brazil as an inseparable part of the
world and show greater concern for international problems outside the
hemisphere, thus bringing into Congress and the public view some of
the foreign policy issues previously reserved exclusively to the
14
Ministry of Foreign Relations. In the decade immediately following
World War II, under the presidencies of Dutra and Vargas, the topic of
foreign policy played a minor role in domestic politics, but after 1955
greater challenges to the traditional foreign policy were posed by
industrialization and the rise of nationalism. Under Vargas' direction,
Brazilian nationalism, after a late start, had become imbued with
economic and welfare overtones and evolved from a purely intellectual
phenomenon to a government-supported creed with foreign capital as
its principal target. Its most concrete accomplishment was the 1953
establishment of Petrobras as the state monopoly for exploration and
development of petroleum deposits. From 1956 to 1964, nationalism
gained converts and influence in policy-formation, being taken over
by activists of the political left who condemned foreign economic
control'(especially that of the United States) as imperialistic and
proclaimed that greater attention should be given to economic develop-
ment, regulation of foreign investment, government intervention in the
economy, and diversification of trade on a world scale.
14Jose Hon6rio Rodrigues, "The Foundations of Brazil's
Foreign Policy, International Affairs, XXXVIII, No. 2 (July, 1962), 337.
E. Bradford Burns, Nationalism in Brazil (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1.968), pp. 89-92.
Rational, intellectually oriented "developmental nationalism"
was fostered with the official creation in mid-1955 of the Superior
Institute of Brazilian Studies (ISEB), a group of former Vargas advisers
and nationalists of a wide spectrum of political views, functioning as
a graduate-level research council to study problems of development
and modernization. Short courses, lectures, and a year-long graduate
seminar for military and government officials set an intellectual
standard for future theorizing about nationalism and for the first time,
departing from the usual academic legal-historical idealistic approach,
attempted to apply social science to the definition and solution of
Brazilian problems by Brazilians. 16 Publications and studies of ISEB
stimulated a swelling flow of naitionalistic writings as well as severe
criticism from the conservative press for its increasing emphasis on
Marxist terminology, national planning, and socialism. ISEB's policy
recommendations for wide reforms were most strongly opposed when
they threatened the domestic status quo. Although abolished as
subversive by the revolutionary government in 1964, ISEB in its nine
years of life provided the foundation for a high degree of consensus
on foreign policy aims among large sectors of the attentive public,
centering on aspirations for modernization, independence in
Frank Bonilla, "A National Ideology for Development:
Brazil, in Expectant Peoples, ad. by Kalman H. Silvert (New York:
Random House, 1963), pp. 232-264.
32
international politics, a broadening of relations, and future great-power
status. 17
This tomada de consciPncia, greater popular interest in foreign
policy, the establishment of Petrobra's, and the demands of industrializa-
tion and an expanded internal market during the Kubitschek years moved
Brazilian foreign policy into a transitional phase and marked the decline
of the traditional style which Itamaraty had been following since the
death of Rio Branco, an approach which has been characterized by one
critic as inaction stemming from uncertainty: "All actions have con-
sequences; these are unforeseeable, so we should not act; that is the
general principle which governed our Ministry [of Foreign Relations]
from 1913 to 1956. This traditional, affective style was invoked as
late as 1956 by President Kubitschek when he stated in his annual
message to Congress that Brazil's foreign policy was expressed
principally through the United Nations and the Organization of American
States and reflected primarily Brazil's position, as an "American country,
member of the Western Christian Community, defender of the juridical
equality of states and the peaceful solution of disputes, supporter of
17razil: Modernization, Independence, and Great-Power
Status, in Arthur P. Whitaker and David C. Jordan. Nationalism in
Contemporary Latin America (New York: The Free Press, 1966), pp.
76-93.
J18ose Hon6rio Rodrigues, "Uma polftica externa, propria
e independent, Politica Externa Independente, No. 1 (May, 1965),
24.
friendly co-existence, and of all active forms of cooperation. "19
Foreign policy had been framed in terms of values supposedly worth
pursuing for their own sake, broad, permanent "principled objectives"
faithfully sought because of a belief in their unconditional validity:
obedience to international law, peace, justice, dignity, equality,
adherence to treaties, and continuous consultation with the United
States on policy questions. 20 All of these guidelines were alleged to
have been distilled from the traditions of the Empire and the practices
of Rio Branco, rooted in the Latin-Christian origins of the Brazilian
people, and sanctified by at least a century of experience. 21
Despite differences in policy recommendations, the critics of
the old orientation agree on at least three serious flaws in the former
conduct of Brazilian diplomacy and question whether the routine appli-
cation of immutable principles derived from a different era can adequately
represent the realities and enlarge the range of options of a rapidly
19
9Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, Mensagem ao Congresso
National (Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional, 1956),
p. 131. Developmental overtones are much more prevalent in foreign
policy comments toward the end of the Kubitschek administration. See,
for example, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, Mensagem ao Cngresso
National (Rio de Janeiro: Departa-pento de Imprensd Nacional, 1959),
pp. 54-55.
20The term "principled objectives" is from George Modelski,
A Theory of Foreign Policy (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962),
p. 96.
21For an anti-revisionist statement of the traditional position
by a diplomat with long experience, see A. Camilo de Oliveira, "Linhas
mestras da political exterior do Brasil, Digesto Ecnomico, No. 143
(September-October, 1958), 113-130.
34
changing nation in the present international situation. First, the older
diplomatic caste and cultural elite are accused of being unconditional
admirers and imitators of Europe and the United States, without a
critical sense or historical perspective, striving to be as different as
possible from the typical Brazilian. In its cosmopolitanism and search
for a foreign model, this group became so attracted to its European
self-image and so dependent on foreign patterns that it fell into a state
of alienation and failed utterly to represent Brazilian interest, con-
centrating instead on projecting a flattering but false image of Brazil,
"for the English to see, as the Brazilian expression for pretentiousness
so appropriately phrases it. 22 This cultural sentimentality for things
European or American led almost directly to support for colonialism or
a decided lack of fervor in anti-colonialist statements.' 23
Second, Brazilian diplomacy has suffered from a strong legal-
hist6rical bias rather unrelated to the current demands of international
relations and stemming from the fact that in Brazil academic social
studies have been comprised largely of law and history, with very little
evidence of the modern disciplines of political science and international
relations. Apparently, little is being done to remedy this deficiency at
22J. 0. de Meira Penna, Polftica Externa: Sequranca e
Desenvolvimento (Rio de Janeiro: Agir, 1967), pp. 167-172.
I23nfra, Chapter V.
the Rio Branco Institute where -diplonts receive their training. 24
Historian Jose'Honorio notes that from 1889 to 1964, of 62 full and
interim Ministers of Foreign Relations, 48 had earned law degrees; to
this fact he attributes much of the juridical stagnation, unimaginative
conformity, and lack of initiative evident from the days of Rio Branco
to Kubitschek. 25 The type of abstract, legalistic encyclopedism
fostered by this education tended to produce professionals who could
recite the provisions of the Treaty of Westphalia but were unable to
frame a concrete program of Brazilian interests in a given situation.
Finally, the critics decried what they felt was an automatic
pro-Amaricanism exhibited by Itamaraty, disregarding important conflicts
between American and Brazilian interests and resulting from a mis-
interpretation of the original intentions of Rio Branco. On occasion,
according to a former foreign mnnitster, representatives to international
conferences and organizations were merely given instructions to vote
in agreement with the United States delegation. 26 Defenders of the
necessity to support American positions unequivocally argued that the
24An excellent and unique study of the Brazilian diplomatic
corps is H. Jon Rosenbaum, "A Critique of the Brazilian Foreign
Service, The Tournal of Developing Areas, II, No. 3 (April, 1968),
377-392.
25Rodrigues, Interesse Nacional e Pol(tica Externa, pp. 58-59.
Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, Planalto (Rio do Janeiro:
Jose Olympio, 1968), p. 53.
alliance with the United States has no alternative because national
security ultimately rests on American deterrent power. For them the
primary dimension of international conflict is East versus West; since
the United States is the only Western nation capable of containing
Communism, other nations of Western culture (including Brazil) must
often sacrifice their narrow national interest for the common good and
support American policy. Since all developing nations are forced'to
depend economically on developed nations to a great extent and given
the fact that the United States is Brazil's best trade partner and source
of aid, the alliance represents the best of all possible dependencies
and an infinitely better arrangement than a doubtful search for new
economic ties and an ephemeral solidarity with Third World nations,
especially in view of Brazilian treaty commitments to Washington
through the inter-American system and the geographical imperative of
its proximity to the United States.
Nationalists countered that international politics is by defini-
tion the clashing of national interests of separate states, in which each
tries to maximize its gains and minimize its losses. 27 The primary
conflict is not between two opposing civilizations or Christianity versus
27
One of the most logically constructed and informed defenses
of a nationalist or neutralist.foreign policy was written by the founder
of ISEB and published by the Institute: Hilio Jaguaribe, 0 Nacionalismo
na Atualidade Brasileira (Rio de faneiro: Instituto Superior de Estudos
Brasileiros, 1958), Part Two.
atheism, but rather between the developed and the underdeveloped
nations. In its personal struggle with the Soviet Union, the United
States has been admirably successful in converting the defense of the
American way of life into the ideology of the "Free World, thus
identifying the safeguarding of its interests and values with the
preservation of Christianity and Western Civilization. Although Brazil
forms part of this entity, its policy options are neither described nor
exhausted solely by classifying it as Western and Christian, nor by
fatalistically assigning it a permanent position within Washington's
sphere of influence. Since the common interests of Brazil and the
United States are only partially overlapping, not completely congruent,
discretion and autonomy rather than unconditional adherence are
imperative, lest Brazil be transformed into a mere instrument of
American defense policy to the detriment of its own economic interests
as a much less developed, industrializing producer of raw materials,
in need of wider markets and higher, more stable prices.
Pointing to the examples of Yugoslavia, India, and the UAR,
the nationalists warned that faithful allies are all too often taken for
granted while a strategically important nation following a neutralist
foreignpolicy may have a much greater opportunity for favorable
negotiation and achieving international prestige through arbitration.
This type of appeal was particularly successful against the recent back--
ground of scant American concern with Latin American development during
the Eisenhower "banker mentality" years, followed by the marked
upswing in attention subsequent to the disaster of Vice-Presidenit
Nixon's 1958 trip and the 1959 advent of Fidel Castro, or the decided
contrast of Washington's flat refusal of Latin American requests for a
"Latin Marshall Plan" in the 1950's as compared with large sums of
aid granted Yugoslavia in the same period.
The essential change which these professors, journalists,
and diplomats were urging was for the nation to leave the former static
policy of narrow horizons and real or imagined subordination to American
interests and begin a diplomatic offensive in which its international
conduct would be determined.by internal events (i. e., development)
rather than imposed by outside interests or pressures. Brazil's time
had come to forge its own destiny, to move from being a pal's grande to
being a grande pais, from being a comparsa to becoming a protagonista
on the international scene, as a continental nation beginning to think
in intercontinental terms. After 195,6 an increasing amount of space
was dedicated in newspapers, magazines, and books to polemics on
foreign policy, which reached their highest intensity from 1960 to 1964,
and whose most optimistic aspirations are symbolized by.the volume
O Brasil entire as Cinco Malores Potncias no Fim deste Seculo
28See also Adolpho fusto Bezerra de Menezes, Subdesenvolvimento
e Politica Internacional (Rio de Janeiro: Edicoes GRD, 1963).
29Pimentel Gomes, 0 Brasil entire as Cinco Maiores Potencias
no Fim d8sto Seculo (Rio de Janeiro: Leitura Edit8ra, 1964).
Brazilians had begun to take seriously the potentialities of future
greatness often ascribed to their nation by foreign observers. 30
The Kubitschek Years
In a speech to students at Rio's Catholic University in 1958,
President Juscelino Kubitschek exemplified the new mood, speaking for
Brazil and of Latin America, when he cautioned, "We wish to align
ourselves with the West, but we do not want to constitute its prole-
tariat. Nevertheless, he was careful to cooperate fully with
American hemispheric policy, avoid'teferences to foreign imperialism,
and justify the features of a more dynamic orientation as logical,
creative extensions of the time-tested traditional lines of conduct to
adapt them to new circumstances. Although Kubitschek did take some
of the first steps toward making foreign policy serve internal growth,
it was only under the aegis of Quadros that the full thrust of the theses
of the developmental nationalists made itself felt. Kubitschek's
programs were more characteristically inid-range, with an innocuous
culturally based, good-will approach which always stopped before
causing the clashes that would inevitably occur as Brazil defended its
30It should be noted that Gomes' predictions are based on
similar observations of a former American Ambassador to Brazil. See:
Adolf A. Borle, Jr. Tides of Crisis (New York: Reynal and Company
1957), pp. 39-42.
3_ evist. Brasileira de Polftica Internacional II, No. 5
(March, 1950), 139.
interests against those of developed states. Rather than engineer a
complete readjustment of foreign relations, he insisted that only slight
modifications were indicated.
The idealization of the Pan American Operation (PAO) was one
of the most imaginative and timely foreign policy initiatives of Kubhitschek.
Two weeks after Vice-Presidcent Nixon received hostile receptions at the
hands of mobs in Caracas and Lima during his 1958 tour of Latin America,
the Brazilian president sent to Eisenhower an expression of continental
solidarity, observing that misunderstandings in American-Latin relations
had become evident, necessitating action to recompose the continental
united front. Shortly thereafter, Kubitschek proposed the PAO as a
completely multilateral developmental effort with the objectives of
reaffirming the principles of continental solidarity, defining under-
development as a problem of common interest and collective responsi-
bility in the Americas, stabilizing the prices of primary products,
increasing available foreign financial and technical assistance, and
reaffirming the role of private enterprise in development. The PAO
was designed and strongly advocated as an adjunct of Western defense
straLegy, to ~'iVi 'ri and stabilize Latin America economically, lessen
the probability of internal subversion, and thus make possible an increase
32
in Latin contributions to global alliance defense. 32
32Brazilian government aide-memoir reproduced in Revista
Brasileira d. Polftica Internacional, I, No. 4 (December, 1958), 119-123.
This plan was well received among the Spanish American
presidents and by both Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, appealing as
it did to pragmatic reason and defense requirements rather than to
impulses of American generosity. After inter-governmental discussions
at high level, a Committee of Twenty-One was nominated by the Council
of the Organization of American States to devise means for implementing -
the project. Although Kubitschek's PAO stagnated in committee, under
the pressure of circumstances and the change in American leadership the
kernel of his idea went on to become the Alliance for Progress, under
American sponsorship and more unilateral than originally envisioned.
Nevertheless, those Brazilians interested in foreign affairs received
vicarious satisfaction from the knowledge that this Alliance had first
been framed and presented by Brazil. Through this diplomacy, Brazil
moved into a more prestigious political position in the Americas,
restarted the hemispheric dialogue with Washington, brought about a
long-sought economic reorientation of the previously legally oriented
spirit of Pan-Americanism, and helped Latin American leaders to think
in continental terms.
The effect of development on foreign policy was also apparent
in the pursuit of new export markets, most notably with the commercial
mission which visited the Soviet Union in late 1959 and led to the
completion in that year of an agreement regulating trade, disrupted
since the breaking of relations between Rio de Janeiro and Moscow in
1947. Itamaraty was reorganized to function more efficiently along
commercial lines, collecting data, studying the world economic and
political situation, and anticipating the creation of new diplomatic
missions in Afro-Asia. These activities stemmed from a growing con-
viction that, in the words of Foreign Minister LIfer,
It is our duty not to remain prisoners of a limited circle
which we ourselves have drawn and which impedes us from
expanding our exports and gathering the aid which would
be most useful to Brazil's development. 'Without forgetting
a single problem of a cultural or political nature, this
Ministry will place itself increasingly at the service of
the conquest of new markets for Brazilian exports. 33
Poli'tica Externa Independente
The issue of nationalism played an important role in the
presidential elections of 1960, turning.on the questions of agrarian
reform, foreign capital, and an "independent" foreign policy. Campaigning
on an administrative-reform platform vague enough to draw support from
all sectors of the electorate, JAnio Quadros was elected to the presidency
with 48 percent of the total vote to his chief opponent Marechal Lott's
32 percent. This was the greatest absolute number of votes ever gained
by a presidential candidate in Brazil and the election of the first opposi-
tion candidate since the end of the First Republic. Interest in his foreign
policy plans was immediately voiced, as he had been portrayed by the
33
Brasil, Ministerio das Relagoes Exteriores, Gestao do
Ministro Lafer na Pasta das Relacoes Exteriores (Rio de Janeiro:
Departamento de Imprensa Nacional, 1961), p. 83.
opposition as too lenient toward American capital, in spite of his
advocacy of a "national interest" policy of independence and broad
relations to end the country's former obscurity. During the campaign
he had visited Cuba at the invitation of the Cuban ambassador to Brazil,
but Lott declined a similar invitation. Several weeks after his election
he undertook a world tour of nearly three months' duration, including in
his itinerary the USSR, the UAR, Yugoslavia, India, and Japan, and
interviewing neutralist leaders such as Nasser, Tito, Nehru, and
Bourguiba. Conspicuously absent was a visit to Washington, although
he had been invited by both Eisenhower and Kennedy. This trip con-
trasted sharply with the route taken by Kubitschek when president-elect:
the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium,
Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
During his seven-month term, Quadros, with the close
collaboration of his foreign minister Afonso Arinos and presidential
advisors (many of the "ISEB generation"), shaped a new activist "inter-
national point of view" for Brazil, to gain full advantage of the position
the nation had achieved by virtue of its size, population, and level of
industrialization, as well as to ease a critical balance of payments
and foreign debt problem. In his message to Congress, Quadros made
clear the outlines which his administration would follow, including
1. Fidelity to the inter-American system.
2. Respect for the traditional position of Brazil in the Free
World.
3. Collaboration with the United States for social and
democratic progress in the Americas.
4. Anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and support for self-
determination of peoples.
5. Recognition of and the attribution of the proper
importance to interests and aspirations common to
Brazil and Afro-Asia, such as economic development,
defense of raw material prices, industrialization,
and desires for peace.
6. Establishment and broadening of relations with the
nations of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern
Europe.
7. Foreign policy positions fully geared to meet the needs
of internal growth.
Reaffirming his dedication to the Western ideological conviction
of Brazil and continuing cooperation.with Washington, Quadros maintained
on the other hand that Brazil's only defense treaty obligations committed
it to a continental security pact (Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, 1947) which
had implications in the eventuality of aggression against any member of
the GAS, but did not require it to align itself automatically to one side
or another within the global context of the Cold War, nor even to con-
sider itself a part of that conflict.
Not being members of any bloc, not even of the
Neutralist bloc, we preserve our absolute freedom to
make our own decisions in specific cases and in the
light of peaceful suggestions at one with our nature and
history. A group of nations, notably of Asia, is also
careful to remain on the sidelines in any clash of
interests which are invariably those of the great powers
Janio Quadros, Mensagem ao Congresso Nacional (Rio de
Janeiro: Departamento de Impre-nsa Nacional, 1961), pp. 91-101.
and not necessarily those of our country, let alone of
world peace. 35
With this philosophy and its mixed economic and population character-
istics, Brazil would be an autonomous force to lessen world tensions
and mediate superpower disputes.
On another occasion Quadros affirmed, "No less important
today than the traditional bonds tying us to Europe are the interests,
aspirations, and points of contact between Brazil and the peoples of
Africa and Asia. "36 To the conservative elites, this often-reiterated
identification of Brazil as being a "sister nation" with Afro-Asian states
of completely foreign culture and traditions rang of heresy, or at best
a woefully misplaced emphasis resulting from malicious ideological
bias. The "Americanists" feared that this sudden elevation of Afro-Asia
and the Eastern Bloc in diplomatic attention would relegate the relations
with Washington to second place and ally Brazil in the United Nations
with the groups that many of them saw as opponents and detractors of
the West with which they identified completely. Some of the conserva-
tive groups already viewed nationalism as nearly synonymous with
Communism; such plans for disengagement from the Cold War and a
break from the tranquil diplomacy of the past led them to decry the
imminent "neutralization" and "Africanization" of Brazil, and further
35Janio Quadros, "Brazil's New Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs,
XL (October, 1961), 26.
36Quadros, Mensargem ao Conqresso Nacional, p. 96.
condemn nationalism. Supporters of Quadros' ideas countered with the
example of Canada and Great Britain, much more closely tied to the
United States than Brazil, yet willing to follow what they judge to be
their own interests in Cuba, Vietnam, and China. As time went by, the
clash between these two schools of thought became increasingly acute,
aggravated by the deterioration of the domestic political and economic
situation.
To implement Quadros' principles, diplomatic and trade
relations were opened with the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe (Bulgaria,
Hungary, Albania, and Rumania), Ghana, Guinea and several other
previously "taboo" or neutralist nations, while trade missions from
Eastern Europe, Afro-Asia, North Korea, and Communist China were
received and similar missions sent. These ambitious designs engendered
some frustrations in two of Brazil's closest partners. West Germany,
an important customer, protested so vigorously a planned trade agree-
ment with East Germany that the effort was almost abandoned. Washington
was apprehensive not only of Vice-President Gculart's trade mission to
Peking and Brazilian willingness to discuss Communist Chinese member-
ship in the United Nations, bitt also found objectionable Brasilia's
persistent defense-of "non-intervention and self-determination" for Cuba
and its resistance to American-sponsored collective action against
Castro's regime in its attempts to foment insurrections in Latin America.
Quadros' foreign minister has argued that this position, maintained until
the revolution of 1964, resulted from a natural outgrowth of long-
established Brazilian mediation between the United States and Latin
America, coupled with the long-accepted precepts of non-intervention
and self-determination consecrated by OAS treaties. 37
Unsuccessful in its first efforts to re-integrate Cuba into the
Western Hemisphere system in the face of what. it interpreted as the
intransigence of both parties, Brazil under Quadros found itself
pressured by a United States desirous of both isolating the Castro
government through the OAS and recouping prestige lost in the failure
of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Even then Brazil reasoned that an isolation
strategy would most likely be counterproductive and force Havana further
under the influence of Moscow. Quadros also argued against the
breaking of relations on the basis of the right and necessity of all
states to maintain communication with each other, especially in time
of crisis cr disagreement. The best way, then, to protect the hemisphere
from Communist subversion would be through social and economic reform
rather than police action.
In a March visit, Adolf Berle,. Jr., of the State Department
expressed concern over this policy and spoke of American investments
in Brazil. In April, Secretary of the Treasury Dillon discussed Brazilian
foreign relations in the light of financial ties with the United States,
37Arinos, pp. 75-103.
__
but Quadros indignantly refused to regard his policy as negotiable in
such a manner. American Ambassador Cabot criticized the Cuban
policy on several occasions, stressing Brazil's treaty commitments
with the West. Quadros, sensitive to all apparent impugnation of his
actions, expressed his displeasure at these remarks. The State Depart-
ment assured all parties that the subsequent replacement of Cabot by
Lincoln Gordon was a routine change, but Cabot's denunciations reached
a peak just before he left Brazil in mid-August. Clearly the United
States was disturbed by the new international behavior of its previously
habitually compliant ally, which after 50 years it had begun to take
for granted.
Important segments of the population and press, led most
vocally by journalist-politician Carlos Lacerda, saw in Quadros' attitude
a softness toward Communism and criticized stridently the whole new
foreign policy orientation. When the impetuous Quadros decorated
Ernesto "Che"' Guevara with the high Order of the Southern Cross as he
was returning to Cuba from denouncing the United States at the Punta
del Este Conference where sanctions on Cuba were discussed, the
denunciations yweru, magnified many times. 39 The Grg Cruz da Ordem
Castilho Cabral, Tempos de fanio e Outros Tempos (Rio de
Janeiro: Civiliza9ao Brasileira, 1962), pp. 303--304.
39Arinos contends that the award served principally as a
pretext to communicate to the government of Cuba, at the request of the
Vatican, a Brazilian letter requesting an end to persecution of the
Catholic Church. See Arinos, pp. 102-103.
49
National do Cruzeiro do Sul was awarded to "manifest our appreciation"
for Gueva-a's "desire to broaden economic and cultural relations with
the Brazilian people. "40 This act not only demonstrated Quadros'
opposition to "archaic" sanctions, but sources at the Presidential
Palace cited it as additional proof that, despite American aid granted
Brazil at Punta del Este through the Alliance for Progress, the independent
foreign policy remained non-negotiable. Soon after the Guevara
incident, Quadros invited Khrushchev to visit Brazil.
In assessing the focal-point role of the Cuban problem in the
growing campaign of public and military opposition to Quadros and to
certain aspects of his independent foreign policy, Arinos writes:
The transition was very brusque, from Juscelino to Janio;
from Lafer to me. There was no preparation, not even
sufficient explanation. The Cuban question, disastrously
dealt with by the inexperienced Kennedy government in the
United States, dominated the national panorama, provoking
a chain of reactions which ran from the religious devotee
and the fearful with good faith to the self-seeking without
it (self-seeking for political or economic motives), all
uniting together in a sort of torrent of panic which shortly
placed the new government under the greatest and most
42
unfounded suspicions.
Quadros considered himself the embodiment of the popular will
as expressed at the polls; any opposition, compromise, or attempt to
40Manchete (September 2, 1961), p. 12.
41 Jos Leal da Silva, "Por que'renuncio Jinio Quadros, "
Bohemia Libre Puertorriqueifa, Aio 53, No. 50 (September 17, 1961), 66.
42n p. 76.
Arinos, p. 76.
deny him support was a dilution of the desires of the electorate. This
was especially the case with his foreign policy, since he had pledged
this course in the campaign. His lack of tact, preemptory approach,
fitful personality, and the absence of real efforts to reconcile estranged
groups contributed heavily to his downfall. His enigmatic resignation
on August 25, 1961, precipitated in large part by military opposition to
the Cuban policy and particularly the Guevara award, was apparently
intended to elicit a popular reaction returning him to office with greater
powers and prestige.
His successor Joa'o Goulart pursued basically the same inde-
pendent policy lines until his overthrow by the military on March 31,
1964. Goulart, however, was beset by severe domestic political and
economic difficulties such as rampant inflation, suspension of American
aid, declining support, and military as well as public distrust of extreme
leftist and populist infiltration in the government, becoming clearer as
the fateful crisis progressed through 1963 and early 1964. For these
reasons and personal choice, foreign relations was not the great point
of attention that it had become in the administration of his predecessor.
Friction with Washington reached new heights. Failure to
establish responsible, austere fiscal policies resulted in the withdrawal
of American credit and assistance. Brazil continued to oppose all
sanctions against Cuba and maintained relations with Havana until the
1964 coup; this obstinate stance became a test case or point of honor
in the minds of many nationalists determined to remove every last
vestige of subservience to American guidance. In 1962 a profit remit-
tance law was enacted, limiting to 10 percent of its registered invested
capital the amount of profits a foreign company could return to its home-
land yearly. In the last three months of his regime Goulart threatened
a unilateral moratorium on all of Brazil's foreign debts.
Although Latin America was not neglected, the diplomatic
initiatives in Afro-Asia and Eastern Europe were expanded and official
visits exchanged. The most significant arena of diplomacy for Itamaraty,
however, swung to the United Nations, where Brazil often strove to
enlist the support of other developing countries or to act as their spokes-
man in the solution of common problems. In the opening speech of the
general debate of the eighteenth session of the General Assembly
(September 19, 1963), Foreign Minister Araujo Castro set forth the three
fundamental themes of Brazilian foreign policy--the so-called 3D's:
Development, Disarmament, and Decolonization. 43 This triad of
objectives mada possible ample cooperation between Brazil and Afro-
Asia, since they were the general objectives of almost all the neutralist
and former colonial states and formed the core issues of the North-South
international conflict between the developed and developing nations.
43
Joao Augusto de Araujo Castro, Desarmamento, Desenvolvi-
mento. Descolonizaajo (Rio de Janeiro: Minist4rio das Relago'es
Exteriores, 1963), p. 4.
Public statements defined this more aggressive posture of
Itamaraty, in the words of one foreign minister, as "an internal self-
awareness of the Brazilian community, relating to its own identity, its
interests, and its purposes, as a conscious national grouping which
will not relinquish the command of its own destiny. "44 No longer
would Brazil be content merely to increase exports to all possible
markets; nothing less than a complete revision of the conditions and
structure of international commerce was indicated, to eliminate
unfavorable terms of trade for producers of raw materials and make
commerce a positive force contributing to development. In addition to
the efforts of each developing nation should be added the efforts of the
whole international community to facilitate industrialization and the
mobilization of capital. No less than a form of economic collective
security was being advocated to stave off the economic disasters
facing the Third World.
Disarmament, besides being connected with the customary,
ostensible purpose of reducing tensions and decreasing the probability
of nuclear war, was advanced by Brazil in its mediating capacity as a
neutral member of the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Commission as a
means to divert huge arms expenses to the work of economic development.
In combating colonialism, Brazil emphasized that it was opposed as well
44
Revilsta Brosileira de Politica Internacional, VI, No. 2
(June, 1963), 273.
to all forms of neocolonialism--political, economic, or police (military)
--and urged UN action to defeat these more subtle forms of subjugation
to foreign interests which may stand in the way of the autonomous growth
and true independence of its weaker members.
Under Goulart, Brazil also defended the necessity of strength-
ening the United Nations, to reflect more precisely the desires of
mankind and allow implementation of the worthy but unrealized ideals
propounded in its Charter. 45 Such provisions as would have enabled
the specialized agencies to serve as dynamic, successful promoters of
development, disarmament, and decolonization were blocked by the
fact that the Charter represented a victorious great power interpretation
of the results of World War II. The 3D questions had been hindered
from solution by an "invisible veto" of the great powers working to
defeat passage and execution of resolutions prejudicial to their interest.
Laying the blame completely on the supremacy of large, established,
developed states in the world organization, Brazil charged that, "The
effective implementation of the Charter has collided with the effective
Directorate exercised by the Great Powers, and warned of the possible
future immobilisne of the UN resulting from this obstructionism. 46
Of course Brazil did not originate the "3D" issues; what is
significant about this position is that it represents a general summation
45
Castro, pp. 27-33.
46
bid p. 28.
and acceptance of the Third World image of international relations by a
nation which scarcely six years earlier had officially subscribed almost
wholly to the image of international conflict on an East-West Cold War
axis. Why did Itamaraty decide to frame its policy in terms of these
slogans and use the United Nations as the principal forum in which to
accomplish its goals ? A statement by the chief Ambassador to the UN
specialized agencies at Geneva is very instructive in this regard.' In
a speech to the National Economic Council, .a presidential advisory
body, Josue de Castro pointed out that in a case such as policies of the
European Economic Community which were contrary to Brazil's interests,
Brazil could hope to accomplish little bilaterally, standing alone against
much stronger forces. However,
If our position should be in defense of our universal
interests, then it will be easy to make ourselves heard.
It is not a dichotomizing, isolating action we should have
in mind, neither for the great powers nor much less for a
dependent power such as Brazil. In that perspective,
Brazil established a tripod which, coincidentally, is also
a trouvaille, having three words beginning with the letter
"d": development, decolonization, and disarmament.
These are the interests of Brazil, which makes them
coincide with those of the majority of humanity, which
is valid. That trilogy constitutes the territory on which
are designed perspectives for aggressive action.
By universalizing these broad goals through the multilateral
semiparliamentary procedure of the United Nations and with the
47
Josue de Castro, "Contribuigao da ONU e seus organismos
a economic brasileira, Revista do Conselho Nacional de Economia, XII,
No. 4 (November-December, 1963), .570.
55
cooperation of Afro-Asians, Brazil planned to mobilize the developing
states and present disarmament, development, and decolonization as
of utmost importance to the international community and the only
alternatives to death, hunger, and slavery. In the belief that sufficient
consensus for agreement on these issues existed among the new nations
and in Latin America and with the further conviction that enough pressure
could be exerted on the developed states to extract concessions, the
Ministry of Foreign Relations began to prepare itself for a role of
leadership in restructuring the framework of international politics and
economics. The possibility of effective reforms accomplished through
the Organization of American States was discounted because of American
preponderance in that body and the hemisphere, making the OAS an
unfit body in which to resolve problems in which American interests
were really threatened. Thus in two important cases, the Haitian-
Dominican dispute (1963) and the Panama-United States conflict (1964),
Brazil defended the thesis that any hemispheric problem could be taken
directly to the UN without passing through the OAS.
According to Keohane, several prerequisites reinforce and aid
the exercise of leadership in the General Assembly. These include a
drive to upset the international status quo, a broad interpretation of
national interests, a high evaluation of the importance of the United
Nations for the state's foreign policy, desire for prestige and publicity,
and a foreign policy independent of the great powers. 48 These char-
acteristics were precisely those of Brazil under Goulart, which thus
found itself in an objectively excellent position to use the General
Assembly to achieve its purposes. That Brazil in fact gave high
priority to United Nations diplomacy is shown by the fact that, within
the group of 100 states continuously represented in the UN from 1961-
1966, it ranked seventeenth in total number of diplomats sent abroad
in 1963-1964, but ranked seventh in mean UN delegation size from
the sixteenth to the twentieth sessions (1961-1966). 4 If we make the
assumption that relative allocation and absolute number of diplomats
sent to a post represent an accurate measure of a nation's interest and
activity in that post, we can conclude that Brazil exhibited a higher
interest and activity in the United Nations during these sessions than
would be normal or expected when compared with other states' alloca-
tions on the basis of rank orders. 50
48Robert Owen Keohane, "Political Influence in the General
Assembly, International Conciliation, No. 557 (March, 1966), 17.
49Robert Owen Keohane, "Who Cares About the General
Assembly?" International Organization, XXIII, No. 1 (Winter, 1969),
143.
50By "predicting that the nth state on the diplomatic rank list
[of total diplomats sent abroad] should have as large a UN delegation
as the nth state on the UN delegation list, and so on for all other
states, Keohane finds a nearly normal distribution of difference scores
in which 80 percent of the delegation sizes can be predicted within
-6, and over half to within a margin of 2. 4. Within this configuration,
The Conservative Reaction
These imaginative and grandiose plans, partially illustrated
by Brazilian leadership in preparations for the First United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development, were frustrated in the early
stages by the strong reaction of the revolutionary government of Castello
Branco to what the military considered the Jacobin excesses of the
independent foreign policy of Quadros and Goulart. Immediate moves
were taken after the March 31, 1964, coup to return to old alignments
and allies. A purge of the Foreign Ministry led to the dismissal of
three top diplomats for "subversion" and one for "corruption, while
many proponents of "independence" were demoted to lesser posts.
Relations with Cuba were broken, Castroite subversion condemned,
and Guevara's award retroactively rescinded as part of an all-out effort
to repair the strained relations with Washington. Obsessed by anti-
Communism and a drive for national securiLy, spokesmen of the
Brazil represents a deviant case, with a delegation 10. 6 larger than
predicted and a rank order 10 positions higher than expected. Of the
eleven "oversize" delegations, Brazil ranks. fifth in magnitude of size
difference from the predicted value. This finding is more relevant in
comparative perspective with the distribution of difference scores of
the various continents of the developing areas:
Difference from Expected Delegation Size (Number of States)
Continent Positive Negative Zero
Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding S. Africa) 20 2 1
Latin America (excluding Cuba) 8 10 1
Asia (non-Arab only) 6 9 0
Arab states 0 10 1
Only seven other Latin American states had delegations larger
than predicted, none of them as much as +6. Ibid., pp. 145-147.
58
Castello Branco government applauded the United States in glowing
terms, as did Foreign Minister and ex-Ambassador to Washington
Juracy Magalhaes in his first speech as head of Itamaraty, referring to
that nation as "the leader of the Free World and the principal guardian
of the fundamental values of our civilization. "
Returning to the East-West image of world politics, Castello
Branco emphasized the need for "interdependence" rather than "inde-
pendence" within the Western democratic system, while at the same
time making distinctions between interests of the West as a whole and
those of a specific Western power.52- According to the policy of the
revolution, the principle of sovereignty was to be based on a common
political-social system and not political or geographical frontiers
(now considered obsolete). 53 The supreme faux pas and most criticized
remark of the post-revolutionary period was made by a newly named
Ambassador to Washington in a speech to the American Chamber of
Commerce in Sao Paulo: "What is good for the United States is good
for Brazil. Nationalists fastened upon this phrase as a synopsis of
51
Brasil, Ministerio das Relagoes Exteriores, A Politica
Exterior da Revolucao Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: Sepao de Publicapges
do MRE, 1966), n. p.
52This attitude provoked cartoons changing Dom Pedro I's
famous Grito de Ipiranga cry for independence or death to "Inter-
dependencia ou Morte!" Correto da Manha, May 25, 1955, p. 6.
53 May 23, 1965, p. 1.
Correio da Manha, May 23, 1965, p. 1.
what they considered the entreguista policy of Castello Branco toward
the United States. 54
After sending a contingent of troops to the Dominican Republic
to take part in 1965 OAS peacekeeping operations, with a Brazilian
general as head of the multilateral force, Brazil strongly supported
Washington's idea of a permanent Inter-American Peace Force for
collective security operations. Juracy Magalhaes made an attempt to
drum up additional support in South America, but met with such fierce
opposition in all countries but military-ruled Argentina that the Foreign
Ministry decided instead to try to institutionalize the Inter-American
Defense Board as a Consultative Defense Committee to advise the
Executive Council on defense questions. 55
Plans of being a bridge between Africa and the West or a
leader in the Third World were heard no more. Latin America was again
regarded as the proper and natural ambit for diplomatic action, and at
first few warm references were made to Afro-Asia above normal diplo-
matic courtesies. Neutralism, in the view of Castello Branco,
necessarily implied passivity, indetermination, immature emotionalism,
extortion, and a flight from reality, as well as positions which tended
5Confidential interview with a former cabinet member,
October 22, 1968.
55
O Giobo, November 4, 1966; p. 9.
to be anti-Western. 56 Full backing was again given Portugal in its
struggles in the UN over Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea. Although
economic cooperation and trade with Afro-Asia were deemed mutually
desirable, perhaps more indicative of political attitudes was Itamaraty's
announced intention to assist the United States in strengthening the OAS
to serve as a regional counterweight to offset "domination of the UN by
the Afro-Asian countries. "157
The Diplomacy of Prosperity
After the March, 1967, inauguration of President Marechal
Arthur da Costa e Silva, another gradual change in orientation could be
detected as Itamaraty came under the direction of Jose de Magalha'es
Pinto, who as Governor of Minas Gerais had defended the ideals of
Quadros' independence policy. 58 In his first major foreign policy
address, proclaiming that "Development is the new name of peace, "
Costa e Silva introduced the slogan ''diplomacy of prosperity. "
We shall therefore give priority to the problems of
development. The diplomatic action of my government
visualizes a: all levels, bilateral and multilateral, the
56Brasil, Ministerio das Relagces Exteriores, Departamento
Cultural e de Informagoes, Textos e Declaracges S6bre Polftica Externa
(de abril de 1964 a abril de 1965) (Rio de Janeiro: Servigo Grafico do
IBGE, 1965), p. 10.
57Corrcio da Manha, May 23, 1965, p. 1.
58Mario Victor, Cinco Anos que.Abalaram o Brasil (de T^nio
Ouadros ac Marechal Castelo Branco) (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaga'o
Brasileira, 1965), p. 270 and p. 296.
expansion of foreign markets, just and stable prices for
our products, the attraction of capital and technical aid
and, of particular importance, the necessary cooperation
for the nation's rapid nuclearization for peaceful purposes.
By virtue of geographic conditions, coherent with cultural
traditions, and faithful to its Christian formation, Brazil
is integrated into the Western world and adopts democratic
models of development. We are, however, attentive to the
new perspectives of cooperation and commerce resulting
from the dynamics of the international situation itself,
which has evolved from a rigidity of positions characteristic
of the "Cold War" to a situation of relaxation of tensions.
Faced with the slackening of the East-West controversy,
it makes no sense to speak of neutralism nor of automatic
coincidences and opposition. The only thing that can
guide us is the national interest, permanent foundation of
a sovereign foreign policy. 59
That the new administration accepted frameworks other than
the older stereotyped Democracy versus Communism image was further
exemplified by Magalhaes Pinto's statements to the Press Club a year
later, when he affirmed a belief that the splits in the Communist bloc
demonstrate the low importance of. ideology in the scientific-
technological revolution of today. The watershed among nations has
become the degree of development, as shown in the Second UNCTAD
Conference when the Soviet Union and the United States often joined
votes to resist proposals of the developing states. For Brazil, the
Foreign Minister concluded, the greatest threat is not the danger of
Brasil, Ministerio das Relag6es Exteriores, Secretaria Geral
Adjunta para o Planejamento Poli'tico, Documentos de Pollftica Externa
(de 15 de marco a 15 de outubro de 1967) (Rio de Janeiro: Servipo
Gr6fico da Fundagao IBGE, 1967), p. 12.
Communism but rather how to accommodate a probable population of
200 million within 30 years. 60
As part of its more nationalistic stance, the new administration
immediately de-emphasized the viability and necessity of'the Inter-
American Peace Force, taking a cautious, typically Spanish American
view of the matter in reiterating the values of non-intervention and
sovereignty. Great stress was placed on possibilities of full use of
nuclear power for peaceful development, including the right to fabricate
nuclear explosives for non-military purposes, culminating in Brazilian
refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Projects for a tripling of export value and product diversifica-
tion led to intensified exchange of trade missions, not only with
traditional partners but also with Eastern Europe and Afro-Asia. New
offices were created to foment increased exports to new markets, most
notably the Export Promotion Center of the Bank of Brazil, and the
Associate Secretariat-General for Commercial Promotion of Itamaraty.
The Commission of Commerce with Eastern-Europe, also in the Foreign
Ministry, was reorganized. Manufactures and semi-manufactures are
regarded as the most promising products, given their higher and more
stable prices on the world market, so various tax reduction and finance
incentives have been adopted to encourage entrepreneurs to export their
0ornal ido Comm5rcio. March 26, 1968, p. 1.
latent capacity and eventually produce a larger share cf their output
expressly for sale abroad. This strategy has proven especially
favorable since Brazil has just advanced beyond the import-substitution
phase of its industrialization but does not yet have a large domestic
market. In conjunction with this more customary procedure, Brazil has
continued pressing for reorganization of international commerce to
benefit developing states, through both UNCTAD and GATT.
The Foreign Minister also indicated a security motivation for
this heightened effort to mobilize the nation for a "diplomacy of pros-
perity. Speaking to the Superior War College, a high-level course on
national problems for civilian officials and military officers, he under-
lined the positive correlation between low levels of national income
and political violence as well as the high cost and inadequacy of purely
military solutions to guerrilla warfare problems.
In other words, the distribution of national wealth should,
whenever possible, rise to a higher income level, to avoid
impasse and social rigidity surmountable only by violence.
Only the tranquility coming from possession of a roof over
one's head, employment stability, just wages, and equality
of opportunity can produce the climate of security in which
the rules of democratic order become viable. In the last
analysis, the only secure societies are those whose individual
citizens feel secure. This is the reason for the emphasis that
I have been giving in the Ministry of Foreign Relations to the
problems of development, in obedience to firm directives
drawn from the beginning by the President of the Republic.
(Italics from the original.)
61Brasil, Ministerio das Rela9o'es Exteriores, Secretaria Geral
Adjunta para o Planejamento Politico, Documentos de Polftica Externa
(de 15 de margo a 15 de outubro de 1967), pp. 81-82.
Patterns of Growth and Nationalism
In the 1956 to 1968 period, certain regularities or patterns
stand out in what was otherwise a time of rapid and sometimes seemingly
contradictory transformations in foreign policy, ranging from the slow-
paced legalism of the early Kubitschek administration to hopes for
Third World leadership with Quadros and Goulart, the return to anti-
Communism and solidarity with the West under Castello Branco, and
finally the "diplomacy of prosperity. Perhaps a knowledge of these
recent patterns as well as historical trends will allow a more accurate
gauging of the probable future directions of Brazilian diplomacy.
The first tendency noticeable was an increase in the size,
complexity, and range of activity of the Foreign Ministry, as measured
through time by number of personnel, budget allocations, and number
of diplomatic and consular posts abroad.
The broadening of relations and activity from 1961 to 1964 is
largely responsible for a rapid increase in total personnel during those
years, as indicated by Table 1, page 65. This period stands in marked
contrast to the very slow growth from 1956 to 1959 and even into 1960,
as well as the abrupt cutback occasioned in 1965 by the conservative
military government. With the Costa e Silva regime, the figures again
show a sharp rise, accompanying a more aggressive, vigorous posture
and the opening of several new embassies and legations in Afro-Asia,
along with staff increases in other posts and the creation of new
TABLE 1
Total Personnel Employed by the Brazilian Ministry of
Foreign Relations, 1956-1968
Home
Year Office
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
Diplomatic Career
Posts Consulates
International
Organiza-
tions
633
624
605
61.5
572
804
827
918
1076
973
1026
1227
1319
Sources: Compiled from the following mimeographed series
lists of the Foreign Ministry: Lista do Pessoal (1956-1961), Lista de
Enderecos (1962-1968), and Lista do Pessoal no Exterior (1962-1968).
Figures for each year are taken as close to mid-year as possible, given
the intermittent publication of the Listas. Honorary consuls, vice-
consuls,, and special consuls are not included in the statistics on
consulates.
Totals
1469
1470
1501
1563
1580
1818
1848
2165
2537
2322
2463
2773
2955
departments. Clearly the tendency is toward expansion of personnel;
although progressing at various rates in different years, this resulted
in a 1968 total strength over twice that of 1956. 62 If we are correct in
assuming that additional staff was hired to meet an additional workload,
we have a rough measure of the growth of Itamaraty's activity. 63
To compare the importance attributed to or emphasis placed
upon foreign relations at different times, budget figures were compiled
for 1956 through 1968 and are presented in Table 2, page 67. Both the
percentage of executive expenditures and the absolute sums assigned
to Itamaraty yearly have shown a gradual increase, even though this
rising level has behaved in an erratic manner from year to year. The
most rapid increases occurred in 1960 and from 1966 through 1968, at
The number of career diplomats rose much more slowly and
linearly, from 435 in 1956 to 473 in 1962 and 582 in 1968.
Ironically, considering the great public exposure given to
the supposed advances of the 1961 to 1964 independent foreign policy
in making Brazil known to the world, compared to 1960, Brazil in 1962
was represented abroad in more diplomatic posts but by only four more
individuals, while at the same time there was actually a staff decline
of four in the principal consulates. Almost allof the early staff
increases of 1961-1964 were in the Foreign Ministry itself. Only in
1963 and 1964 did the number of personnel stationed or employed abroad
rise appreciably. Did this in part represent the honored practice of
empreguismo (hiring of political supporters) or a real need for additional
personnel? One can only speculate. One factor which decidedly led
to an increase in embassy staff abroad from 1963 to 1965 was the
existence in those three years of "Expansion and Commercial Adver-
tising Services" in from 15 to 22 embassies, mostly in Western Europe
and the Western Hemisphere, with the exceptions of Beirut, Tokyo,
Moscow, and Warsaw.
TABLE 2
Selected Features of Foreign Ministry Budget
Allocations; 1956-1968
Diplomatic and
Foreign Ministry Dollar Value of Consular Missions
as Percent of Total Foreign Ministry as Percent of Total
Fiscal Allocations of Allocation Foreign Ministry
year Executive Branch (in millions) Allocations
1956 0.63 6.03 13.6
1957 0.56 8.47 12.6
1958 0.48 5. 11 12.7
1959 0.47 4.56 12.8
1960 1.19 12.04 12.3
1961 0.58 9. 10 11.0
1962 0.88 12.80 17.5
1963 0.62 10.89 18.4
1964 0.51 7. 69 17.1
1965 0.49 9.47 14.3
1966 2.04 42.76 30.4
1967 1.48 37, 11 31.5
1968 1.24 42.04 27.3
Source: Compiled from budget figures given yearly in 1955 to
1967 editions of: Brasil, Dirio Oficial. (Rio de Janeiro: Departamento
de Imprensa Nacional.) Dollar conversion rates were based on the yearly
averages of daily free market exchange rates given in: Banco do Brasil,
Relatorio. Distrito Federal, 1955-1967. The exchange rate for 1968 was
that in effect on June 1, 1968.
The Brazilian fiscal year is coterminous with the calendar
year.
Executive expenditures average 98 percent to 99 percent of
total federal expenditures.
c
Does not include amounts earmarked as contributions to inter-
national organizations or for participation in international conferences.
which times the greatest allocation of funds to the Foreign Ministry
relative to other ministries is noted.
Attributing levels of relative or absolute budget expenditures
to specific governments is somewhat hazardous, since the 1961, 1964,
and 1957 budgets were prepared by outgoing administrations. In
addition, the only figures available are those for allotments rather than
actual expenditures and year-end budget reductions are common in all
ministries. Two important observations can be made, however. In
terms of dollar value, total federal budget expenditures allocated grew
435 percent from 1956 to 1968, while allocations for the Foreign
Ministry in the same period grow 700 percent, or 1. 6 times as rapidly
as overall federal spending, indicating a greater degree of relative
attention paid to this ministry and consequently, we may assume, to
foreign policy. Second, the percentage of Itamaraty's budget set
aside for use in embassies and consulates abroad, very low and stable
from 1956 to 1961, has now more than doubled since that time. Large
increases are again evident from 1966 through 1968, denoting a greater
growth rate in activity carried on abroad as opposed to within the Home
Office (Secretaria de Estado).
Concomitant with increases in personnel and budget came the
opening of new embassies, legations, and consulates to make possible
the program of increased relations with the rest of the world. Clearly,
as indicated by Table 3, page 69, the greatest expansion in diplomatic
TABLE 3
Total Number of Brazilian Diplomatic and
Consular Posts in Selected Years
Cumulative
Embassies
and Consulates- Other
Year Embassies Legations Legations General Consulatesb
1956 41 12 3 24 141
1962 63 4 12 30 157
1968 65 4 19 37 146
Sources: The following diplomatic lists of the Foreign Ministry:
Lista do Pessoal (July, 1956), Lista do Pessoal no Exterior (April, 1962),
and Lista do Pessoal no Exterior (August, 1963).
aA cumulative embassy or legation is one installed in a country
with which formal relations have been initiated, but to which no permanent
diplomatic personnel have been assigned. Rather, this post is made
subordinate to a permanently staffed Brazilian mission in a neighboring
capital.
Includes consulates, special consulates, honorary consulates,
and honorary vice-consulates.
missions and consulates occurred during the first half of the twelve-
year period, most of them being installed between 1960 and 1962.
Almost all of the several additions during 1962-1968 took place between
June, 1966, and June, 1968. To be more precise, the opening of new
representations, far from being a uniform, gradual process, was carried
out largely in two roughly year-long spurts or peaks, 1961 and mid-1967
to mid-1968, accompanied in both cases by public pronouncements of
the undertaking of a dynamic new style of diplomacy. 64
See Appendix II for a more complete regional breakdown of
these posts. Even greater increases of diplomatic representation
abroad, in old and new posts, were originally projected for 1968 but
the plans suffered from a lack of funds, especially those required to
employ more third secretaries. Itamaraty received authorization for
about one hundred more third secretaries than in fact covered by the
funds later received. The personnel regulations authorize the following
number of career diplomats (Decree Number 2, September 21, 1961):
Third Secretaries 190
Second Secretaries 175
First Secretaries 165
Ministers, Second-Class 96
Ministers, First-Class 60
686
Comparing the authorized figure of 686 with the actual 1968 total of 582,
it can be seen that the foreign service has not yet reached the full
strength prescribed in 1961. See Brasil, Ministerio das Relaqoes
Exteriores, Departamento de Administrcaqo, Divisao de Organizacao,
Servigo Exterior Beasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Se;ao de Multiplicag do
MRE, n.d.), p. 38. Regarding the level of Brazil's diplomatic activity,
it should be noted that in 1963-1964 Brazil ranked twentieth among 119
nations in number of diplomats sent abroad (300), surpassed among
non-Communist developing nations only by the UAR (550), India (467),
Turkey (392), Indonesia (348), and Argentina (301). In the same
biennium, in number of diplomats received it ranked eleventh with 431,
exceeded only by the UAR (559) and India (530) among developing nations
for which data were available. It shared memberships in intergovernmental
The second miwjor tendency from 1956 to 1968, related to this
increase in diplomatic activity, was the economic development orienta-
tion which has pervaded and dominated policy formulation under all
regimes, as described earlier in this chapter. Even the Castello Branco
government, composed of and backed by strong conservative and anti-
Communist elements, made clear immediately upon assuming power that
Brazil would continue to diversify its trade without ideological distinc-
tions. In actual practice commerce with Eastern Europe and Communist
China was continued and in some cases intensified. It can be expected
that additional trade, aid, and capital may be sought in Eastern Europe
in the future, judging from events during 1968. In September of that
year the Bank of Commerce of Czechoslovakia made available, through
the Brazilian National Bank of Economic Development, over seven
million dollars in credit to be used t6 purchase Czech industrial equip-
ment. At the same time, the Industrial Bituminous Ore Company was
conducting field studies with the Soviet firm Neftechimpromoexport for
equipment financing and technical assistance to exploit large deposits
of bituminous shale in the state of Sao Paulo and to build a huge
organizations with 108 nations, a total surpassed by only four states.
Additionally, in 1963-1964 Brazil held a seat on the UN Security Council,
being the only non-permanent member elected to that post more than
three times in the first two decades of the history of the world organiza-
tion. See Chadwick F. Alger and Steven J. Brams, "Patterns of Repre-
sentation in National Capitals and Intergovernmental Organizations, "
World Politics, XIX, No. 4 (July, 1967), 646-663.
65O.Globo October 12, 1968, p. 7.
industrial complex to produce cement, fertilizers, sulphur, etc. all
under terms specified by an earlier Brazilian-Soviet treaty. 66 Exchanges
of this type find a mutual interest, and Brazilian missions to Eastern
Europe and participation in trade fairs there are becoming more common.
Nor can Communist China be left out of consideration, for it appeared
in late 1968 that the Foreign Ministry was engaged in efforts to
reactivate the lagging trade with that nation, carried on via Hong Kong. 67
A final trend, apparently gaining adherents in most areas of the
politically attentive public, is the demand for an "independent" foreign
policy which is based on Brazilian national interests in each specific
case rather than submissive alignment with or systematic deference to
American wishes. This idea is expressed in many ways, with different
connotations, but usually can be summarized as the desire for "uma
political externa pr6pria"-a flexible foreign policy suited to and tailored
for Brazil alone, appropriate to its internal dynamics and able to take
maximum advantage from rapidly changing international conditions.
The roots of this feeling can be traced to a rising spirit of nationalism
and national pride which manifests itself externally through self-assertion
and claims to an international status befitting an industrializing, resource-
endowed nation covering nearly half a continent and comprising ninety
66 Tornal, October 11, 1968, p. 7.
670 Jornal, September 12, 1968, p. 3.
million individuals, ranking fourth in the world in contiguous territorial
extension and eighth in population.
This widespread attitude in favor of greater Brazilian autonomy
and prestige in world politics was verified by the first comprehensive
national public opinion survey conducted in Brazil, sponsored by the
Institute for International Social Research in late 1960 and early 1961.
Although both the sample public and the interviewed legislators
exhibited very high admiration for the United States and regarded
Brazilian-American relations at that time as at least moderately satis-
factory, strong sentiment favoring cooperation with all countries or all
those which wished advantageous relations with Brazil was present
among the urban sample and the legislators. A majority cf legislators
and those of the urban sample holding opinions opposed following the
orientation of the United States, while 63 percent of the Congressmen
felt that Brazil should be "as neutral as possible" in the Cold War. 68
Observing that large percentages of the legislators (42 percent) and the
urban public (36 percent) favored siding with neither the United States
nor the Soviet Union, while slightly smaller percentages favored siding
with the United States (39 percent and 30 percent, respectively), the
study concludes, "Considering the fact that Brazil is a traditional ally
68loyd A. Free, Scme International Implications of the
Political Psychology of Biazilians (Princeton: Institute for International
Social Research, 1961) pp. 1-16.
of the US, the Brazilians, both Congressmen and general public, exhibit
only weak 'alliance-mindedness' when it comes to functional relation-
ships with America in the cold war context. "69
Unfortunately, later samples to increase the value of this
pioneering survey were not forthcoming and valid comparison or gen-
eralization is made difficult by the near-absence of scientifically
sound political opinion polls and the high proportion of the uninformed
public which registers "no opinion. However, in 1967, a prominent,
analytical magazine conducted an in-depth, extensive series of
interviews with 246 federal senators and deputies (out of a total of
409 deputies and 66 senators in the National Congress). Of those
questioned 149 were of the government-sponsored ARENA party and 97
from the opposition MDB. When asked, "What international policy
would you adopt for Brazil?" the Congressmen responded as follows:
58. 5% Independence in relation to any blocs
13. 41% Strengthening of a bloc without ties to the United
States or Russia
3. 7% Strengthening of such a bloc plus independence
2. 8% Neutrality
4. 9% Neutrality and Independence
5. 7% Unconditional support of American foreign policy
0. 4% Support of the United States plus independence
7. 7% Other answers
2. 9%-- No answer
Clearly an impressive percentage (83. 3 percent) favored an "independent"
or "neutral" position, while over an eighth supported in addition the
Ibid. pp. 18-19. Negligible opinion favored siding with
the Soviet Union.
formation of a "Third Force, over twice as many as advocated
70
unquestioning obedience to the leadership of Washington. To the
question "Do you see as correct the present American policy toward
underdeveloped countries, especially those of Latin America ?" 64. 6
percent answered "No" and only 19. 1 percent "Yes. ,71
Among the military there appears to be evidence of similar
nationalistic convictions, especially among segments of the linha dura
(hard-line) group and the "young Turk" colonel and lieutenant ranks,
some of whom are partial to a temporary military-rule, "Nasserist"
solution to Brazil's problems and rapid expansion of the country's
economic and political power. Generally referred to as the radicalss, "
the linha dura was active in the 1964 revolution and is staunchly anti-
Communist, but some of its members are reluctant as well to have
Brazil be dominated by any-other nation and consider themselves the
real revolutionary elements working for social and economic change
and defense of national interests, in conjunction with enlightened
intellectuals. This group traces its ideals to the nationalistic tenente
movements and revolts of the 1920's, hut its extent of influence within
the seriously divided body of military opinion is difficult to ascertain.72
Carlos Castello Branco, "Como pensa o Congresso (e como
votaria se pudesse), Realidadet, II, No. 21 (December, 1967), 41.
71 Ibid.
72For an introduction to the thought of this group see the first
two numbers (1968) of the civilian-military journal, Nacfo Armada. See
This ascendant desire for freedom of action is not likely to be
translated into a form of neutralism as professed by various Afro-Asian
states in the first years of independence. 'the term was used by
ideologues to describe the 1961--1964 foreign policy, but government
spokesmen judiciously refused to label the policy as neutralist,
preferring instead to call it "independent, compromised only by
Brazil's interests as opposed to a doctrinaire philosophy seeking a
theoretical, symmetric mid-point in the Cold War. Foreign Minister
San Tiago Dantas defined this independence as "that position which
does not bow to the interests of one bloc or another, which does not
wish to see its international conduct predetermined by an alliance or
predecided by certain political affinities systematically considered
irremediable. ",73
In evaluating the employment of the word neutralism in politics
of the 1961 to 1964 period, it is important to keep in mind that neutralism
very prominently came to symbolize nationalism and independence in
certain developing nations precisely at a time when Brazil, after many
also Mauricio Caminha de Lacerda, "A linha dos duros, Tornal do
Commerrcio, May 19, 1968, Suplemento Dominical, p. 1. The group's
highest-placed and most visible leader, General Alfonso Albuquerque
Lima, was rumored to be among the possible successors of Costa e
Silva in the presidency.
73
Rcvista Birasileira de Politica Internacional, VII, No. 27
(September, 1964), 432-433.
years of unusually close association with the United States, was
beginning to reappraise the effects of this partnership on its future
economic development and political autonomy. In a sense, both Brazil
and Afro-Asia were opening to the world at the same time and, influ-
enced by the political philosophies of the time and common economic
conditions, rapidly perceived that world politics resembles more of a
multi-sided than a two-sided contest, in which many different values
are at stake and each nation is forced to protect those which it deems
important. In Brazil's case, the previously overwhelming influence of
the United States and especially the American image of international
relations was rejected in part as new international contacts were
established. The extreme closeness of Brazil to the American position
in world affairs until 1961 perhaps made the exploratory efforts seem
to Washington much more of a desertion of the camp than they actually
were in the long run, when interpreted in the light of the proposition
that a nation gathering enough power and influence to enter international
relations in its cvwn right will attempt, in degrees that vary with each
case, to free itself from the hegemony of the senior partner of the
alliance.
QiadIrcs may have hoped for too much too soon. Although he
could have taken advantage of his popularity and the propitious moment
to build gradually but firmly from the foundations set in the last years
of the Kubitschek government, Quadros, with his taste for the flamboyant
and the dramatic, set out publicly at breakneck speed to alter the
international outlook of Brazil under executive direction, despite the
strong resistance to change exhibited by many diplomats in Itamaraty
itself. Seizing on the Cuban issue at a point when Washington's Latin
American policy was obsessed by fears of Castro-Communism and
opposing Portuguese colonialism in Africa, he managed to touch two
domestically explosive subjects and lose the support of important
conservative elites who had worked for his election, in addition to
antagonizing many military and foreign service officers. His personal
eccentricities and resignation succeeded in discrediting what may
otherwise have been lauded in his foreign policy program. The ensuing
spiraling chaos, demagoguery, and threatening instability of the Goulart
years further cast doubts by association on his brand of independent
foreign policy. As the pendulum swung to one extreme in 1963 and
early 1964, so with the revolution of March 31 it swung heavily in the
opposite direction, as if in compensation. Under Castello Branco and
Juracy MagalhIes, few diplomats spoke up to defend the recent stands
so heavily denounced under the energetic return to the old ways.
Like many other developing nations, Brazil is hampered from
attaining a more powerful, effective foreign policy by various internal
weaknesses. The most serious of these is a low level of industrializa-
tion which engenders economic dependence upon foreign markets and
limits the capabilities and instrumentalities at the disposal of the
79
foreign policy decision-makers. Changes in regime have made clear
the fact that domestic ideological and political pressures can exert
crucial influence on the foreign policy of a given administration. Quadros'
case demonstrates how idiosyncracies of a single personality can mold
foreign policy, while his overthrow and that of Goulart are illustrations
of the tacit veto used by the military commands to impose parameters
upon foreign policy options. Severe disagreement over ends and means
still marks general discussion of Brazil's role in world affairs, complicated
by the central question ori the attitude to be taken toward the traditional
ally to the north, given the United State's clear predominance in the
Western Hemisphere. Administratively, imperfect interministerial
coordination and occasional broad latitude granted to individual diplomats
have also contributed to preventing the course of foreign policy planning
and execution from being completely coherent, calculated, or linear. 74
Examined superficially, Brazil's recent foreign policy has seemed
to vary from legalistic hesitancy to ideological impulsiveness and to
fluctuate indecisively from pro-Western to neutralist to pro-Western,
74
The problem of rationalization and coordination of the
activities of all ministries whose operations impinge on foreign affairs
was a key concern of Magalh'es Pinto, wishing to impart a uniform,
coherent orientation to Brazilian positions in functional organizations
and bilateral negotiations, under the central direction of the Foreign
Ministry. Similarly, wide areas of discretion previously accorded
delegates to international organizations constituted a problem attacked
by Itaniaraty in the 196.1-1964 period, along with extensive internal
reorganizations aimed at greater efficiency and bureaucratic rationaliza-
tion.
making generalization or a definitive assessment rather risky. The
foregoing continuities of nationalism, diplomatic expansion, trade
diversification, and preoccupation with industrialization which were
common to all governments of the last decade lend credence to the
conclusion, however, that the 1961 to 1964 experimentation in foreign
policy, despite what may be regarded by some as its excesses, hit a
responsive chord in many sectors of the populace and elite groups and
was not merely an exploratory, unproductive aberration, completely
rejected by more level-headed leaders after 1964. Although eclipsed
by the post-revolutionary government, some of the premises of the
Quadros-Goulart years have been generally accepted and were quietly
resurrected by Costa e Silva and Magalhaes Pinto under the guise of
technical and diplomatic questions. Quadros and Goulart, in pushing
the same fundamental points of view, had clothed their programs as
ideological cIrsades, thus startling the conservative groups into
forceful reaction. The same concepts, stripped of ostentation and the
emotional connotations of such expressions as "Third World" or
"neutrality" and applied cautiously and gradually by a government with
the confidence of the military And internal economic and political
support, are likely to be those which will orient Brazil in the future.
The days of passive acceptance of a role dictated by economic relation-
ships with developed countries have passed.
CHAPTER III
AFRO-ASIA IN BRAZILIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
AND POLICY, 1956-1968
Writing in 1955, Ambassador Adolpho Bezerra de Monezes,
surveying the state of Brazilian knowledge about "Darkest Africa, "
concluded that with the rare exceptions of coffee and cocoa planters
or scholars, "Africa, for us, is more remote than the lunar craters. "
Popular ideas about the neighboring continent were reduced to stereo-
types engendered by safari films produced in the metropolitan areas to
which Brazilian attention was directed, while notions about Asia were
extremely sketchy and vague. Almost no diplomatic or commercial
intercourse was carried on with Afro-Asia;' between 1945 and 1955, no
Brazilian head of state, vice-president, minister or influential senator
or deputy visited this region although Brazil received official visits
from t[he President of Lebanon, the Vice-President of India, and the
First Lady of Nationalist China. In the same period, the only Afro-
Asian dignitary awarded a Brazilian honorary decoration was Farouk of
Egypt, not exactly a popular figure in the Th.rd World as it emerged after 1956.2
Adolpho Justo Beozrra de Menezes, 0 Brasil c o Mundo Asio-
africano (Rio de Janeiro: Irm os Pongetti, 1956), p. 50.
2Ibid. pp. 354-355.
82
Brazil had clearly done nothing to make itself known in Afro-
Asia, much less to elaborate a coherent policy concerning its interests
in that area, yet only five years after the publication of Ambassador
Bezerra de Menezes' book Drazil and the Afro-Asian World, the first to
give attention to the topic, Afro-Asia was rather suddenly a point of
great contention and controversy as a symbol of Quadros' independent
policy and a new front of diplomatic activity. A flurry of discussion
about Afro-Asia ensued among diplomats, businessmen, and professors,
stimulated by world-wide interest in the end of colonialism and the
sudden independence of many new nations. In spite of the relatively
high degree of attention accorded Afro-Asia from 1961 to 1964 by various
elite groups, interest in the area has been quite low in the populace
as a whole, deriving both from the low salience of foreign affairs in
the popular mind and the fact that most Brazilians attentive to events
abroad concentrate on the United States and Europe, tending as well
to acquire from those sources any information or interpretations they
may have about Afro-Asia. Before 1960, the dearth of Portuguese-
language studies on the area was especially a problem, except for pro-
colonialist material from Lisbon. Thus we have the paradox, confirmed
by initial contacts in 1961 and 1962, that Brazilians and Afro-Asians
view each other primarily through European and American eyes or news
dispatches, thus forming of the other party much the same impressions
that a European or an American would have.
Public Ooinion and Afro-Asia
Very few public opinion polls are available to give an accurate
indication of the degree of Brazilian knowledge about or opinions of
Afro-Asia, but several of the more reliable can be cited as illustrative
of opinion in urban areas. One of the most prominent of African
problems in recent years has been the conflict between Nigeria and
Biafra, which was given wide coverage and comment in Brazilian news-
papers and news magazines. On September 7 through 9, 1968, 16
months after the outbreak of the civil war, a public opinion survey was
taken in Rio de Janeiro by the lornal do Brasil and Marplan. To the
question, "Do you know of the existence of a war between Nigeria and
the province of Biafra?" 70 percent of the total sample answered "No, "
although among the upper-income group only 35 percent were unaware
of the war. Among the 30 percent cognizant of the conflict,' 51 percent
had no opinion about which side (if either) was correct in its stand. 3
The same sample was asked, "Do you accept or not the existence of the
Third World; that is, a world formed by neutral and united countries at
the same level of economic development?" Of the total sample, 53
percent affirmed belief in the existence ofa Third World, 30 percent did
not, and 17 percent had no opinion. Among the men, 60 percent replied
affirmatively and 29 percent negatively, showing majority acceptance
normal do Brasil, September 15, 1968, p. 32. Sample size =
of the thesis, although only 39 percent of the males were aware of the
Nigerian--Biafran war, which probably represented one of the concrete
-4
facts about the Third World most likely to be known at that time.
At the time of the 1968 visit of Indira Gandhi to Brazil, in
which the position of India as an independent, neutral power was
emphasized, the same organizations conducted another poll in Rio do
Janeiro in which the following question was asked: "As you know,
Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, visited Brazil. In your opinion,
India has played on the international scene, a role which is .. ?"
To this question, 30 percent of the sample chose the alternative answer
"Independent, 24 percent "Favorable to the United States, 7 percent
"Favorable to the USSR, and 39 percent "No Opinion. Among the
upper-income group, 43 percent answered in favor of independence,
35 percent had no opinion, and 22 percent ascribed to India a role
favorable to either of the two superpowers. 5
In 1963, a sample of 116 social science, law, geography,
and history students at the University of Recife was selected to measure
student acquaintance with newly independent African countries and
ascertain their opinions on possibilities of Brazilian cooperation with
4Ibid.
5Jornat do Brasil, September 29, 1968, p. 36. The options were
listed, sample size = 305.
Africa. 6 Sixty-one percent of the group 'Vwa classified as holding a
"quite precarious" knowledge about Africa, having categorized either
Laos or Angola as independent African nations, while only 9 percent
were classed as well informed. Only Algeria, the Congo, Nigeria,
and Ghana were widely recognized, while 23 percent named Angola as
independent. The study concludes that among the students, "There is
very limited knowledge .. about Africa in general and the new
countries of Africa in particular, despite the fact that their curriculum
and majors should have given them greater exposure to foreign affairs
than students of other disciplines. 7
African conceptions of Brazil proved to be equally vague and
erroneous. During a visit to Brazil, Joseph Medupe Johnson, Nigerian
Labor Minister, declared that Brazil was almost completely unknown in
Nigeria before the institution of Quadros' open door to Africa policy.
Raymundo Souza Dantas, the first Ambassador to Ghana, in describing
the state of mutual knowledge between Brazil and Africa, confirmed,
9
"The ignorance is almost absolute. Another early emissary found
6
Rene Riboiro, "Opinioes de uma 'elite' estudantil s8bre o
didlogo Nova Africa-Brasil" (paper presented at the Colloquium on
Relations Between the Countries of Latin America and Africa, September
24-30, 1963, sponsored by UNESCO and the Institute Brasileiro da
Educagao, Ciencia, e Cultura, Rio de Janeiro), pp. 1-13.
7Ibid. p. 8. O Globo, July 18, 1961, p. 3.
Payinundo Souza lantas, Africa Dificil (Rio de Janeiro:
EditOra Leitura, 1965), p. 31.
"ignorance or contempt" about 3Brazil on ihe part of West Africans, but
noted a disposition to learn. On a later occasion the African Division
of Itamaraty reported that "Brazil, although considered favorably, is
almost totally unknown in the African countries. "11
It was against this type of adverse, nearly virgin background
that Brazil began expanding relations wiLh Afro-Asia and the domestic
discussion was carried on among concerned sectors of the elites as
part of the over-all polemical, theoretical, and analytical debate con-
cerning various components of the new foreign policy orientation. The
role of Afro-Asia in foreign policy was seldom considered in isolation
or as a problem which could be judged solely on its intrinsic merits.
The central international issue at stake, almost always raised by both
advocates and opponents of increased contacts, was the effects it
would work on Brazil's relationships with the Communist bloc, the
industrialized nations, or traditional allies (especially the United
States and Portugal).
By virtue. of its size, geographical location, historical ante-
cedents, economic potential, and population characteristics, a case
can be made that Brazil has the prerequisites to play a larger role in
Confidential interview with the author, March 15, 1968.
111linisterio das Relag-es Exteriores, Divisao da Africa,
"Intercambio comrrcial Brasil -Africa Subsairica, Revista da
Confederajao Nacional do Comrc.i.o, No. 44/45 (January-February,
1965), 52.
Africa than any other Latin American nation. Of all the regions of the
developing world outside the Western Hemisphere, Africa has stirred
greatest interest and debate in Brazilian discussion of foreign relations,
both in the popular press and among intellectuals. Many statements
made concerning the Third World were in large measure extrapolations
from the literature about Africa, applying these generalities to the
Middle East and Asia as well and assuming a general uniformity of
problems and perspectives. Rather little published material appeared
on the Middle East and Asia specifically, as they are farther from
Brazil both geographically and in terms of actual experience.
Several principal themes emerge from Brazilian writings on
relations with Afro-Asia, each emphasizing a different facet of the
topic but not failing to overlap the rest to some degree as arguments
were marshalled on one side or another. For purposes of exposition
and commentary, six contending approaches to the problem may be
isolated and identified: cultural, Luso-Brazilian, economic, nationalist-
neutralist, the "Western World"-oriented, and the military. These
will each be discussed in turn.
The Culturalists
It was in the study of Afro-Brazilian culture that anthropologists
and ethnologists first documented the extensive influence exerted on
Brazil by the vast numbers of slaves brought from West Africa, the
Congo,. and Angola until the traffic was prohibited in the late 1850's. 12
In the fields of religion, arts, music, folklore, language, literature,
and family life, the Negro in Brazil and especially in the Northeast
and Minas Gerais has imparted to the general culture much which
serves to distinguish it sharply from the traditions of the rest of South
America and also from those oi Portugal. 13 Yoruba and Ewe peoples
brought to Bahia introduced their system of deities and rites, which
are still worshipped and practiced in the cults of candamble, umbanda,
and macumba apparently gaining in popularity throughout Brazil, inter-
weaving with the reverence of Catholic saints to the point of popular
confusion. Yemanja, Ogun, Shang8, Nana Buku, Oya and others
blend with the Christian figures of Santa Barbara, Santo Antonio, and
the Virgin Mary. In music, the famous samba, the maracatu, and the
baiao are of African origin, as are such instruments as the cuica and
reco-reco, particularly in evidence at Carnival time, and the berimbau,
whose twanging notes signal the start of the capoeira fight-dance
imported from Angola.
12
1For a guide to the rich bibliography on the subject see
Manuel Die'gues Jurnir, "The Negro in Brazil: A Bibliographic Essay,"
African Forum, II, No. 4 (Spring, 1967), 97-109.
13
A summary of these contributions was published by Itamaraty
for distribution at the 1966 Negro Arts Festival in Dakar. See: Brazil,
Ministry of Foreign Relations, The African Contribution to Brazil (Rio
de Taneiro: Edigraf, 1966), pp. 1-109.
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