Word: lacerda
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...fiery crusade against Communism, corruption and President Getulio Vargas, Rio Journalist Carlos Lacerda has gained tens of thousands of loyal friends, scores of vengeful enemies. The 40-year-old editor of Tribune da Imprensa (circ. 50,000) has been beaten by thugs for criticizing the army, arrested for exposing police graft, jailed four times for political reasons, attacked in his home after accusing a high officer of corruption. Recently a pistol-toting hothead tried but failed to provoke the editor to a duel...
...Lacerda's office, his telephone rings all day with tips and offers to help to carry on his crusades. That is just the way Lacerda wants it. Explains one publishing friend: "Carlos has all the elements of the true hero. And he will probably end up the way heroes do-either he will win or he'll get shot...
...Great Honor. In 1945 Lacerda, a bitter antiCommunist, took out after the Reds' "poor but honest candidate" for the presidency, punctured his chances of rolling up a big vote by pointing out that he owned 30 Rio apartment houses. When he launched an attack on strong-arm generals in the new government-which had replaced the dictatorship-five thugs beat him up on the street. Later he was cornered by hoodlums in the elevator of his apartment, escaped in the scuffle with only a cheekbone cracked. As his popularity spread, his voice became familiar over a Rio radio station...
...Lacerda then persuaded 3,400 contributors to buy $50 shares to launch his own paper, Tribuna da Imprensa. When Dictator Vargas came back as President, after five years out of power, Lacerda gave him no peace. He exposed Communist infiltration in the foreign office, forced the government to start to clean house. A fierce opponent of Brazil's national security law, making it an offense to attack "agents of public order," Lacerda violated the law by printing Page One stories accusing police of graft. He was carted off to jail, said boldly: "I feel it is a great honor...
Voice of the Government. Lacerda's fiery editorials run as long as 1,200 words ("I don't have time to be brief"), and he doggedly strikes at corruption or any attempt to muzzle the press. Recently he began attacking the government, which has formally decreed press freedom, for underhandedly backing a paper, Ultima Hora (TIME, Aug. 17). Lacerda exposed the paper's link with the government, campaigned against it in his paper and on radio and TV until Ultima Bora's editor was forced to resign. (Another result of the battle: circulation of Lacerda...