Brazil: Toward Profound Change

The army is the people in uniform.

—General Benjamin Constant (1838-91), Co-Founder of the Republic of Brazil

In Latin America's biggest nation last week, the people in uniform performed a political revolution to match the military uprising that toppled Leftist President Joao ("Jango") Goulart. It was a revolt against Communism and confusion, against demagoguery, corruption, ruinous economic drift and national hopelessness. In a grim and solemn mood, the military announced that it was assuming unprecedented powers and taking over much of the responsibility of government for the remainder of Goulart's term.

Barely two days after Goulart fled to exile in Uruguay, an army colonel strode into the Congress in Brasilia with a message from the war ministry in Rio. His superiors, he informed congressional leaders, demanded a thoroughgoing purge, suspending the political rights and immunities of Congressmen suspected of being Communists, leftists or subversives. When Congress balked, the three military chiefs of staff simply decreed it. In an "Institutional Act," they set the hard ground rules under which the country will be administered until free elections are held in 1965 and a popularly elected President is inaugurated. Effective until Jan. 31, 1966, the decree:

>Empowers the government to cancel anyone's political rights for ten years, dismiss Congressmen, state deputies, city councilmen; fire any federal, state or municipal employee found guilty of acts against democracy, national security, and "the probity of public administration." In other words, out with the Communists and crooks.

>Enables the President to declare a state of siege without going through Congress.

> Gives the President sole power to present budget bills, and specifically forbids the inflation-minded Congress from voting more money than the President requests.

— Forces Congress to vote within 30 days on any constitutional amendment submitted by the President, and reduces the margin for congressional approval from two-thirds to an absolute majority. —

Imposes another 30-day limit for congressional action on other presidential bills; if no action is taken within 30 days, the bills will be considered approved.

The military then ordered Congress to elect a new President within two days to replace Acting President Paschoal Ranieri Mazzilli. Congress quickly complied. By an overwhelming majority, a joint session of the Senate and the

Chamber of Deputies elected General Humberto Castello Branco, 63, an officer as highly respected for his intellectual ability as his soldiering, to become the new President. For two months the country's three military chiefs of staff will share the same powers as the President under the Institutional Act; after that President Castello Branco holds power alone.