Word: silva
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When he installed Humberto Castello Branco as Brazil's President after the 1964 revolution, War Minister Artur da Costa e Silva, 63, the bluff, hearty head of Brazil's military, said loudly and clearly that he had no desire to be President himself. That was two years ago, however, and General Costa e Silva has since decided that being President is not such a bad idea after all. In fact, he has all but tied up the job as successor to Castello Branco...
...there were complications. Castello Branco, who is honest and, for a general, fairly liberal, shares control of the Brazilian army with his hard-lining, hard-living war minister, General Artur Costa e Silva. The two men have never quarreled in public, but they have seldom agreed in private, and when Costa e Silva announced his candidacy for this year's presidential elections, eyebrows went up all over Brazil. At first there was speculation that Costa e Silva, who neither understands nor sympathizes with the government's attempts to stabilize the economy, might run as candidate for the opposition...
Temporary Compromise. That, of course, put Castello Branco in a fix. He had already declared himself out of the running, and so he began to look around for a presidential candidate who would continue the economic reforms that Costa e Silva resists. Now there was a new twist that only a Brazilian could properly savor: the President himself recruiting a candidate to run against his own government party. Not only that, but since Castello Branco has already decreed that the President is to be elected by Congress instead of by popular vote, and since Castello Branco controls Congress, he could...
Trust Your Commanders. When the military rose up against Leftist Joao Goulart last year, it was Costa e Silva who was responsible for putting Castello Branco in the presidential palace. Since then, he has been a buffer between the soft-lining President and the linha dura (hardline) officers, who want ironhanded "revolutionary government." Last month, after anti-government candidates won gubernatorial elections in the key states of Minas Gerais and Guanabara, Rio's powerful First Army was on the verge of revolt-until Costa e Silva stepped in. "You must trust your commanders," he told the officers. "They...
Some Brazilians fear that because Costa e Silva has the power, he may one day succumb to the temptation to set himself up as Brazil's dictator. He scoffs at the idea. "If I wanted to be come a dictator," he says, "I would have taken power right after the revolution. It was all right there in my hands. But I refused. I have no taste for it." Elective political power, though, may be something else. His fellow soldiers want him to run, and in Brazil today that makes him the overwhelming favorite. "To put it bluntly," says...