Document of the Week — Breaking the Civil Illusion: Institutional Act No. 1 and the Consolidation of Military Power Post-1964

See here the featured document of the week! The breaking of the civil illusion: Institutional Act No. 1 and the consolidation of military power after 1964.

Check out the full document in our collection: Air Telegram from John Keppel to the State Department on Implementation of the Institution Act

For many civilians who supported the 1964 coup, there was the prospect that military intervention could be surgical, returning power to the political class in a short time. Days after the fall of Goulart, however, on April 9, 1964, the military would decree the so-called Institutional Act, which would later become AI-1 when new acts were imposed throughout the dictatorship. With AI-1, the myth that, at that time, the military would only come to remove João Goulart from power, quickly returning to the barracks, would begin to be dismantled.

One of the authoritarian powers conferred by AI-1 to the general-president White Castle – and, before him, to Military Board led by Costa e Silva, who governed the country de facto in the initial days after the coup – was to revoke the mandates of parliamentarians and suspend the political rights of Brazilian citizens for 10 years (this power was valid for two months, ending in June 1964; it would then be renewed with the other Institutional Acts, such as the AI-2 and the AI-5).

Losing political rights meant, among other things, the prohibition of voting or being voted for any elective office, the ban on political-party activities, and the impediment of participating in demonstrations or political movements. Some of the country's main leaders at the time, including João Goulart, Juscelino Kubitschek, Janio Quadros It is Leonel Brizola, had their rights suspended due to AI-1.

Despite the arbitrariness that the suspension of political rights meant, pointing to the authoritarian nature of the regime that was being installed, that the military had no obligation to justify why they were suspending the rights of anyone. And, in fact, the decrees suspending political rights normally came only with the names of those affected, without any explanation.

In this week's NACE document, we have an unprecedented and extremely important primary source. It is a report from the US Embassy in Rio from November 1964 analyzing the probable reasons that culminated in the suspension of political rights of the 378 Brazilians who suffered this arbitrary action in the first months of the dictatorship. According to the Yankees' calculation, more than 80% of those affected lost their rights for being considered “communists” and/or for having “materially collaborated with the 'subversive left'”. Only a minority (8.7%) would have suffered this punishment due to suspicions of corruption.

The document is also very rich due to the fact that it lists the 378 people affected by article 10 of the Institutional Act, including, next to each name, the probable reason why these people had their political rights suspended for ten years.

Prof. Dr. Felipe Loureiro,

Deputy coordinator of NACE CNV-Brazil,

Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo