BRAZIL: The November Front

A menacing sense of political crisis was in the air as Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek huddled with his Cabinet in a six-hour closed-door session one night last week. The urgent problem: what to do about the sudden emergence of a dubious, rabble-rousing political movement called the November Front, which had won the tacit support of one of the most powerful men in Brazil, War Minister Henrique Teixeira Lott.

As leader of the November 1955 "preventive revolution" to assure the inauguration of President-elect Kubitschek, General Lott stood out as a stout defender of law and democracy. But after playing his role as guardian of the constitution, he lingered on in the councils of the government. Kubitschek's opponents charged that the President was Lett's puppet.

Even admirers of Lott were distressed about his endorsement of the newly founded November Front, with its obscure aims and oddly mixed membership, including career army officers, opportunistic politicos, labor leaders, left-leaners and outright Communists. The front's avowed purpose is to block any attempt by opponents of the Kubitschek administration to overthrow the government. But Kubitschek & Co., far from rejoicing in the front's support, regard it with a wary eye.

A fortnight ago, at a huge rally in front of Rio's War Ministry, the November Front hailed Lott as "the general of the people" and presented him with a $5,000 gold-hilted sword. The rally brought on a storm of opposition charges against General Lott as a man of dangerous ambition. Last week President Kubitschek acted to cope with both the November Front and the outcries against it. First he issued an order forbidding military officers to mix into politics. As an example, the government placed a top November Front leader, Lieut. Colonel Nemo Canabarro, under barracks arrest for 20 days. Then the President called his emergency Cabinet meeting. Next day it seemed clear that the session had backed him up. He signed a decree suspending for six months all activities of both the November Front and a trouble-stirring right-of-center organization called the Lantern Club. On top of that, he ordered short-term house arrest as a token rebuke to a pair of politicking army generals.

"Who will arrest General Lott?" an influential Rio newspaper asked sarcastically. Nobody, indeed, ordered house arrest for General Lott. But to show that he got the point of the President's measures, Lott called off a scheduled visit to São Paulo, where the November Front had planned to hold another rally hailing "the general of the people."