Brazil: The Cabinet Maker

Brazil is a giant land of such confidence in its future that it is often neglectful of its present. At a time when its foreign debts were increasing, its reserves almost gone, and its 75 million people plagued by inflation, Brazil's President João Goulart turned to the game he likes best—politics. He confronted his problems by shuffling his Cabinet for the fourth time in 22 months.

First he kept everyone guessing. Every day, from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m., Goulart's futuristic presidential palace at Brasília was besieged by Congressmen, Senators, governors, labor leaders,...