Word: dutra
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...lives with his son and daughter-in-law. He makes his own first cup of coffee as soon as he gets up, then goes through some lively calisthenics. Then, in the early morning silence, he leafs through the newspapers, studies state documents. About 5, his barber enters.* At 6, Dutra breakfasts alone on fruit, coffee and rolls. Half an hour later he is ready to receive his staff at his long, bare table under the heavy chandeliers of the ground-floor Salão dos Ministérios. At noon he lunches with his family. When affairs of state permit...
...Tight Spitter. Brazil's President lacks the easygoing gaiety of most of his countrymen. His short figure and outsize head have made sobersided Eurico Caspar Dutra a target for Rio cartoonists, who love to picture him as a sleepy owl. But even his harshest critics concede him a rocklike integrity, boundless courage, and an immobile sort of dignity...
...Dutra does not smoke and seldom drinks. He is completely without side. On Sundays and on personal outings, he rides in a private car with a civilian license plate. When he was Minister of War, he ordered the police to take away a detective posted for protection at his door. "That man," he said, "is attracting unfavorable attention to my house." One of his first official acts as President was to abolish the presidential bodyguard...
Calvin Coolidge, a kindred soul, might have called Dutra a "tight spitter." Brazil's President speaks, almost grudgingly, out of the corner of his mouth; he has no small talk. Officers of his staff once maneuvered him into a car with a colonel who was his runner-up for the title of the army's most taciturn officer, and asked the chauffeur to keep track of the conversation. Not a word passed between them on the drive from Rio's Catete Palace to Santos Dumont airport. As the car drove through the airport gate, the colonel muttered...
Forewarned about Dutra's habits, the Bolivian ambassador arrived at the airport at 5:30-to find that the President had been waiting there half an hour...