BRAZIL: Democracy's Lott

The last time Henrique Baptista Duffles Teixeira Lott, 64, saw the U.S., he was an obscure brigadier general, attached to the Brazilian embassy in Washington. This week, ten years later, he returns as the tough, seasoned boss of the Brazilian armed forces, and democracy's strong right arm in Brazil. As he goes off for three weeks of sightseeing, mostly military, from Cape Canaveral to West Point to Fort Ord in California, the U.S. will get acquainted with the man who will play a key role—either as candidate or moderator—in Brazil's presidential election next year.

Often invited to visit the U.S. earlier, Lott replied that "conditions did not permit." He referred to a group of troublesome Brazilian militarists who have obeyed him only grudgingly ever since 1955, when he called out troops loyal to him in a "preventive coup," forestalling a plot by some other officers and ensuring the inauguration of President Juscelino Kubitschek. For the past four years Lott has disciplined the hotheads gently (usually with house arrest), built a fiercely loyal cadre of junior officers by promoting them up from the ranks.

The blue-eyed grandson of English and Dutch immigrants, Lott would like to be President. He has a following of leftist nationalists who admire his pronouncements favoring land reform and the socialistic state oil monopoly. He himself is the sort of nationalist who opposes diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R., wins conservative admiration as a stabilizing force, warmly admires the U.S. He is hoping to get the support of Kubitschek's Social Democrats.

But Lott runs a poor second in voter polls to Jánio Quadros, the shaggy reformer from São Paulo who recently accepted the nomination of the conservative National Democratic Union (TIME, March 9). If Lott stays out of the race, he will have the demanding job of keeping army tempers cool during the fiery heat of a Brazilian campaign. He frankly believes that "besides defense, the army has a great responsibility for national unity and social order."