The resignation of Jânio Quadros led directly to what is known as the Legality Campaign (Campanha da Legalidade), as different sections of Brazilian political and military leadership tried either to prevent or to assure João Goulart’s legal accession to the presidency. As mentioned, when Jânio resigned, Goulart was on a goodwill trip to China, and the minute he found out he got on a plane back to Brasília by way of Paris. However, the interim government of Paschoal Ranieri Mazzilli, which was dominated by a junta comprised of the Ministers of War, the Navy and the Air Force (respectively, Marshal Odylio Denys, Admiral Silvio Heck and Air Brigadier Gabriel Grün Moss, in case you were wondering exactly how German these guys’ names were), were determined to prevent exactly this from happening — to them, Goulart was the personification of the Red Menace, the man who more than anyone else represented the threat to Brazil’s security that they had spent their lives fighting. So, they informally communicated to Ranieri Mazzilli that Goulart could not be allowed to enter the country, and the President sent a statement to Congress to that effect. Soon after, in response to a question from a PTB delegation, Marshal Denys simply said that if Goulart set foot on Brazilian soil again, he would be arrested.
But that wasn’t the end of things, and this is where it might be worth going into Goulart’s background a little bit. So far, we’ve talked about how he was the darling of the trade unions for his unabashedly pro-union turn as Minister of Labour under Vargas, but we’ve somewhat neglected the reason why he was appointed to that position. Despite his left-wing positions, far from being a working-class demagogue, Goulart was very much a product of the sort of rural patronage network that had run the Old Republic and essentially continued to run Brazil up to this time. He was born into wealth as the son of an estancieiro (cattle rancher) on the banks of the Uruguay River — by coincidence, the closest town to where he grew up, São Borja, was also the home of Getúlio Vargas, and this fact no doubt shaped the young Goulart’s career path. In many ways, he followed the social mores of his class — he inherited the estância in 1943, made a huge fortune for himself through livestock and land trading, and entered politics basically as an afterthought after Vargas asked him to come join the PTB.
When he received the nomination for the vice-presidency in 1955, he very quickly married a local debutante whom he’d met when she was thirteen years old and he was 31 — Maria Thereza Fontella Goulart is, in fact, still alive, and during her husband’s time in federal politics, she became well-known in her own right as a fashion icon, frequently drawing comparisons to Jackie Kennedy. Now, AFAICT their marriage was quite happy, and she continues to stand up for her husband’s legacy, but there’s nonetheless something kind of sobering about that age gap that speaks to what an old-fashioned way of life Goulart came from and how unlikely a reformist hero he became.
Also worth bearing in mind, and somewhat related, is the fact that Goulart had six sisters, of whom the youngest married another up-and-comer in the world of gaúcho politics, Leonel Brizola. Brizola was far more of a genuine working-class leader than Goulart, being the son of a small farmer who died in a local rebellion when he was just one year old, and having to get by as a street kid before getting a scholarship to study engineering at the Federal University in Porto Alegre. He completed his degree, but never worked as an engineer, instead getting sucked into the world of PTB student politics and getting elected to the state legislature along with Goulart and a number of other young bucks recruited by Vargas in 1947. But where Goulart moved into federal politics relatively quickly, Brizola stayed in Porto Alegre, eventually winning the 1958 gubernatorial election. Brizola is going to become very important indeed in the 1980s, but for now, he matters because he was another of Vargas’ boys, he was married to Goulart’s sister, and when Jânio resigned, he was governor of Rio Grande do Sul. It was far from a coincidence that, when Goulart’s staff received word of the new junta in Brasília and their threats against him, they diverted their flight to Montevideo and prepared to enter Brazil through the south.
Brizola wasn’t the only power broker in Porto Alegre to support Goulart’s return. The city was also the base for the 3rd Federal Army, commanded by José Machado Lopes, a veteran of the WWII expeditionary force who was known as an unflinching legalist. These two men formed an unlikely alliance, Brizola rallying the workers and civil servants of Porto Alegre in defence of their legitimately elected president while Lopes sent out his men to secure every corner of his military zone against a potential coup. Meanwhile, the 2nd Federal Army, headquartered in São Paulo, whose commander was amenable to the junta, began to move south. It seemed like a civil war was brewing, and both sides were intractable. When Admiral Heck sent the Navy south to aid the 2nd Army in capturing Porto Alegre, Brizola responded by threatening to block the harbour by sinking merchant vessels at the entrance. Meanwhile in Rio, Governor Lacerda and the local military commanders were united behind the junta, but a large dissident faction in the military supported legality, and no less a figure than Marshal Lott made a statement to his colleagues appealing for it, for which he was arrested and thrown in prison for a month. Legalist demonstrations in Rio were only rivalled in size by those in Porto Alegre, and effectively prevented the former capital from becoming a secure coupist stronghold.
No one really wanted a civil war, of course, and in the end cooler heads did prevail. Goulart’s initial plan had been to resign, triggering an early presidential election which he could then run in, but this was a flawed plan as it would require the junta to agree to call the election. The eventual solution was slightly different. On the 2nd of September, Goulart was visited in Montevideo by the veteran PSD politician Tancredo Neves, fresh off losing the Minas Gerais gubernatorial election to a UDN candidate who ended up supporting the junta, who had an intriguing proposition. Goulart would come to Brasília, take office as President and return Brazil to legal rule, but with a new feature. Instead of ruling with the total control of the executive branch and near-dictatorial powers of previous Brazilian presidents, Goulart would share power with a Prime Minister elected by Congress. This compromise, so Neves believed, would easily secure the backing of the congressional leadership (who would, after all, stand to gain a huge amount of power from it), and in the process satisfy the military leadership that the kind of sweeping social reforms they feared a Goulart presidency would usher in would not, in fact, come to pass.
Goulart reluctantly agreed, and on the 7th he finally arrived in Brasília and swore the oath of office. Thus began the brief and farcical phase in Brazilian history known as the Parliamentary Republic. Its first Prime Minister was, of course, none other than Tancredo Neves, who formed a national unity cabinet with ministers from all three major parties — the PSD got Education, Agriculture, and Industry, the UDN got Public Works and Mines and Energy, the PTB got Foreign Affairs and Health, while Labour and Finance went to independents and the military departments were held (as before) by military commanders.
What’s worth remembering about the Parliamentary Republic is that no one actually believed in it. Well, no one that mattered anyway. Goulart wanted the full powers of the presidency so that he could carry out the reforms he actually wanted to carry out, Lacerda denounced the compromise altogether and announced his continued total opposition to Goulart’s presidency, and even Neves didn’t actually believe in parliamentary government as such, merely seeing his role as a way to expedite the resolution of the Legality Campaign and turn Brazil back into a functional democracy. This half-heartedness became more and more apparent as time went on, but for now Goulart tried to act in good faith, supporting Neves’ government and attempting to reassure the markets (and the United States) that he wasn’t about to turn Brazil into a dictatorship of the proletariat. He even went to Washington to address Congress and seek development aid for the Northeast, which was having a very bad time of it at this point (more on that in the next part).
In private, however, Goulart was doing all he could to undermine the parliamentary system. The compromise that created it also called for a plebiscite to be held alongside the next presidential election, asking the electorate whether to retain the parliamentary system or return to presidential government. Pretty much everyone was convinced that presidentialism would win, because again, most of Goulart’s opponents still believed in a strong executive power, they just didn’t think it should be held by Goulart. So instead of trying to fight to get his powers back immediately, Goulart opted for a strategy of trying to get the plebiscite moved up so that he’d be able to get his powers back before leaving office. The chance would come before long.
Brazilian parliamentarism as instituted in 1961 was a fair bit different from the Westminster system, in that cabinet ministers were not allowed to sit in Congress, and in fact, had to resign their ministerial positions to stand for election to Congress. This was what Tancredo Neves did in June 1962, along with several other ministers — perhaps indicating how sincere their commitment to parliamentary government really was. His replacement as Prime Minister turned out to be quite difficult, as Goulart’s preferred choice, Foreign Minister San Tiago Dantas (PTB), had made himself an enemy of the right by declaring Brazil “neutral” on the Cuban question, and got rejected by Congress immediately. Instead, Congress proposed Senate President Auro de Moura Andrade, a known conservative from a wealthy paulista ranching family, whose nomination sparked a 24-hour general strike in state enterprises. In Rio, the Army went out in support of the strikers and against Lacerda, and similar scenes occurred elsewhere around the country. Capitalising on this clear show of support for his programme, Goulart arranged to have a total nonentity from the Rio Grande do Sul PSD appointed to the premiership, with the sole task of organising a constitutional plebiscite to be held in early 1963.
But before all that were the 1962 general elections, which were quite a big deal as they saw two-thirds of the Senate renewed alongside the entire Chamber of Deputies, which had now been expanded to 409 seats. Also, Acre had been given statehood, which meant that its delegation increased from two to seven deputies and that it now elected three senators. Other than that, the electoral system was unchanged, but the actual results were probably the most dramatic of any legislative election during the Fourth Republic. The PTB made huge strides, passing the UDN to become Brazil’s second-largest party. The UDN themselves did also make gains, but no more than the overall seat increase would allow, while the PSD basically stood still in raw seat numbers despite the expansion of the Chamber. The PDC also made gains, though it’s unclear why, while most of the other minor parties (including the PL, whose existence did not get a boost from the existence of a parliamentary system that now seemed to be in peril) lost seats.
Although the right were still a majority of Congress, the results gave Goulart the mandate he needed to appoint a Prime Minister from the PTB ranks and go ahead with the plebiscite to restore presidentialism, which was now set for the 6th of January 1963. To nobody’s surprise, the plebiscite was a slam dunk, returning 80% support for abolishing the parliamentary system. When the new Congress convened, Goulart simply announced that he would not nominate another Prime Minister and returned to leading a presidential government.
The challenges he faced were enormous, and his fate would not be happy.
