Document of the Week — The American perspective on Leonel Brizola: from radical to conciliator  

Check out this week's featured document! The American perspective on Leonel Brizola: from radical to conciliatory  

Check out the full document in our collection: Memorandum from Robert Pastor to Zbigniew Brzezinski on potential financiers of Leonel Brizola

When we talk about Leonel Brizola and the military dictatorship, normally the first image that comes to mind is that of the governor of Rio Grande do Sul responsible for preventing the military coup against Goulart in 1961 and for expropriating North American energy and telephone companies, or that of the federal deputy for Guanabara who, between 1963 and 1964, was one of the political figures who best represented the radical nationalist left, preaching the need for basic reforms and making very harsh criticisms of North American imperialism. Not surprisingly, and especially because he had been involved in some attempts at guerrilla warfare in Brazil at the beginning of the dictatorship, the military had a real aversion to Brizola and the values he represented.

But Brizola who would return to Brazil after almost two decades exile, in 1979, would be quite different. Despite having maintained a progressive worldview, Brizola would be characterized by a much more accommodating and conciliatory stance towards the dictatorship, even having, during his first term as state governor of Rio de Janeiro (1983-1987), often maintaining a cordial relationship with the last military administration of the dictatorship, that of John Baptist Figueiredo.

This week's document presents a picture of this new Brizola from the American perspective. After leaving his exile in Uruguay, Brizola would travel to the United States and, from there, he had the opportunity to talk and maintain contact with important figures in the administration. Jimmy Carter, including the person in charge of Latin America next to the National Security Council North American, Robert Pastor. In a statement with Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pastor not only attaches a very interesting letter from Brizola, but also adds a memorandum of a conversation that Pastor had with the former governor of Rio Grande do Sul in New York in December 1977.

In this very interesting conversation, among other things, Brizola says he is an admirer of the United States, in particular the Carter government, which, with its agenda of human rights, would be “bringing new air to the world”, Brizola is said to have told Pastor. Brizola also showed support for the presidential candidacy that was being developed in Brazil by the former governor of Minas Gerais (and one of the main coup plotters of 1964), Magalhães Pinto. According to Brizola, the attitude of Magalhães Pinto, when facing the Geisel government and stressing the need for a presidency held by a civilian would be a “quixotic” act but extremely important for the redemocratization that was being fought for in the country.

It would still take a while for Brizola to return from exile, something that would only be possible with the Law of Amnesty 1979, but the characteristics of moderation that, in part, would characterize Brizolism after his return to Brazil were already present in 1977, as his contacts with members of the Carter government interestingly point out.

Prof. Dr. Felipe Loureiro,

Deputy coordinator of NACE CNV-Brazil,

Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo