O relato foi feito pelo embaixador Lincoln Gordon, uma vez que nenhum outro interlocutor brasileiro esteve presente, sequer como "note taker" (Goulart não queria testemunhas brasileiros, talvez por desconfiar do Itamaraty, ou por não desejar que nenhum outro brasileiro ouvisse o que ele iria dizer, sinceramente ou não, ao enviado especial, já num processo de desgaste inevitável de Goulart junto aos americanos).
O National Security Archive, projeto mantido pela George Washington University, mantém dezenas, centenas, milhares de documentos como estes, liberados pelas autoridades americanos, ou a pedido do NSA, usando o FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).
Aproveitem. Todos os links estão devidamente transcritos por inteiro.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brazil Marks
50th Anniversary of Military Coup
On 50th anniversary,
Archive posts new Kennedy Tape Transcripts on coup plotting against Brazilian
President Joao Goulart
Robert Kennedy characterized Goulart
as a "wily politician" who "figures he's got us by the
---."
Declassified White House records
chart genesis of regime change effort in Brazil
National Security Archive Electronic
Briefing Book No. 465
Posted
April 2, 2014
Edited
by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh
For
more information contact:
James G. Hershberg, 202/302-5718
Peter Kornbluh, 202/374-7281
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
James G. Hershberg, 202/302-5718
Peter Kornbluh, 202/374-7281
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 2, 2014 – Almost two years
before the April 1, 1964, military takeover in Brazil, President Kennedy and
his top aides began seriously discussing the option of overthrowing Joao
Goulart's government, according to Presidential tape transcripts posted by the
National Security Archive on the 50th anniversary of the coup d'tat.
"What kind of liaison do we have with the military?" Kennedy asked
top aides in July 1962. In March 1963, he instructed them: "We've got to
do something about Brazil."
The tape transcripts advance
the historical record on the U.S. role in deposing Goulart — a record which
remains incomplete half a century after he fled into exile in Uruguay on April
1, 1964. "The CIA's clandestine political destabilization operations
against Goulart between 1961 and 1964 are the black hole of this history,"
according to the Archive's Brazil Documentation Project director, Peter
Kornbluh, who called on the Obama administration to declassify the still secret
intelligence files on Brazil from both the Johnson and Kennedy administrations.
Revelations on the secret U.S.
role in Brazil emerged in the mid 1970s, when the Lyndon Johnson Presidential
library began declassifying Joint Chiefs of Staff records on "Operation
Brother Sam" — President Johnson's authorization for the U.S. military to
covertly and overtly supply arms, ammunition, gasoline and, if needed, combat
troops if the military's effort to overthrow Goulart met with strong
resistance. On the 40th anniversary of the coup, the National
Security Archive posted audio files of Johnson giving the green light for
military operations to secure the success of the coup once it
started.
"I think we ought to take
every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do,"
President Johnson instructed his aides regarding U.S. support for a coup as the
Brazilian military moved against Goulart on March 31, 1964.
But Johnson inherited his
anti-Goulart, pro-coup policy from his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Over the
last decade, declassified NSC records and recently transcribed White House
tapes have revealed the evolution of Kennedy's decision to create a coup
climate and, when conditions permitted, overthrow Goulart if he did not yield
to Washington's demand that he stop "playing" with what Kennedy
called "ultra-radical anti-Americans" in Brazil's government. During
White House meetings on July 30, 1962, and on March 8 and 0ctober 7, 1963,
Kennedy's secret Oval Office taping system recorded the attitude and arguments
of the highest U.S. officials as they strategized how to force Goulart to
either purge leftists in his government and alter his nationalist economic and
foreign policies or be forced out by a U.S.-backed putsch.
Indeed, the very first Oval
Office meeting that Kennedy secretly taped, on July 30, 1962, addressed the
situation in Brazil. "I think one of our important jobs is to strengthen
the spine of the military," U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon told the
President and his advisor, Richard Goodwin. "To make clear, discreetly,
that we are not necessarily hostile to any kind of military action whatsoever
if it's clear that the reason for the military action is…[Goulart's] giving the
country away to the...," "Communists," as the president finished
his sentence. During this pivotal meeting, the President and his men decided to
upgrade contacts with the Brazilian military by bringing in a new US military
attaché-Lt. Col. Vernon Walters who eventually became the key covert actor in
the preparations for the coup. "We may very well want them [the Brazilian
military] to take over at the end of the year," Goodwin suggested,
"if they can." (Document
1)
By the end of 1962, the
Kennedy administration had indeed determined that a coup would advance U.S.
interests if the Brazilian military could be mobilized to move. The Kennedy
White House was particularly upset about Goulart's independent foreign policy
positions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Goulart had assisted
Washington's efforts to avoid nuclear Armageddon by acting as a back channel
intermediary between Kennedy and Castro — a top secret initiative uncovered by
George Washington University historian James G. Hershberg — Goulart was deemed
insufficiently supportive of U.S. efforts to ostracize Cuba at the Organization
of American States. On December 13, Kennedy told former Brazilian President
Juscelino Kubitschek that the situation in Brazil "worried him more than
that in Cuba."
On December 11, 1962, the
Executive Committee (EXCOMM) of the National Security Council met to evaluate
three policy alternatives on Brazil: A. "do nothing and allow the present
drift to continue; B. collaborate with Brazilian elements hostile to Goulart
with a view to bringing about his overthrow; C. seek to change the political
and economic orientation of Goulart and his government." [link to document
2] Option C was deemed "the only feasible present approach" because
opponents of Goulart lacked the "capacity and will to overthrow" him
and Washington did not have "a near future U.S. capability to stimulate [a
coup] operation successfully." Fomenting a coup, however "must be
kept under active and continuous consideration," the NSC options paper
recommended.
Acting on these
recommendations, President Kennedy dispatched a special envoy — his brother
Robert — to issue a face-to-face de facto ultimatum to Goulart. Robert Kennedy
met with Goulart at the Palacio do Alvarada in Brazilia on December 17, 1962.
During the three-hour meeting, RFK advised Goulart that the U.S. had "the
gravest doubts" about positive future relations with Brazil, given the
"signs of Communist or extreme left-wing nationalists infiltration into
civilian government positions," and the opposition to "American
policies and interests as a regular rule." As Goulart issued a lengthy defense
of his policies, Kennedy passed a note to Ambassador Gordon stating: "We
seem to be getting no place." The attorney general would later say that he
came away from the meeting convinced that Goulart was "a Brazilian Jimmy
Hoffa."
Kennedy and his top aides met
once again on March 7, 1963, to decide how to handle the pending visit of the
Brazilian finance minister, Santiago Dantas. In preparation for the meeting,
Ambassador Gordon submitted a long memo to the president recommending that if
it proved impossible to convince Goulart to modify his leftist positions, the
U.S. work "to prepare the most promising possible environment for his
replacement by a more desirable regime." (Document
5) The tape of this meeting (partially transcribed here for the first time
by James Hershberg) focused on Goulart's continuing leftward drift. Robert Kennedy
urged the President to be more forceful toward Goulart: He wanted his brother
to make it plain "that this is something that's very serious with us,
we're not fooling around about it, we're giving him some time to make these
changes but we can't continue this forever." The Brazilian leader, he
continued, "struck me as the kind of wily politician who's not the
smartest man in the world ... he figures that he's got us by the---and that he
can play it both ways, that he can make the little changes, he can make the
arrangements with IT&T and then we give him some money and he doesn't have
to really go too far." He exhorted the president to "personally"
clarify to Goulart that he "can't have the communists and put them in
important positions and make speeches criticizing the United States and at the
same time get 225-[2]50 million dollars from the United States. He can't have
it both ways."
As the CIA continued to report
on various plots against Goulart in Brazil, the economic and political
situation deteriorated. When Kennedy convened his aides again on October 7, he
wondered aloud if the U.S. would need to overtly depose Goulart: "Do you
see a situation where we might be—find it desirable to intervene militarily
ourselves?" The tape of the October 7 meeting — a small part of which was
recently publicized by Brazilian journalist Elio Gaspari, but now transcribed
at far greater length here by Hershberg — contains a detailed discussion of
various scenarios in which Goulart would be forced to leave. Ambassador Gordon
urged the president to prepare contingency plans for providing ammunition or
fuel to pro-U.S. factions of the military if fighting broke out. "I would
not want us to close our minds to the possibility of some kind of discreet
intervention," Gordon told President Kennedy, "which would help see
the right side win."
Under Gordon's supervision,
over the next few weeks the U.S. embassy in Brazil prepared a set of
contingency plans with what a transmission memorandum, dated November 22, 1963,
described as "a heavy emphasis on armed intervention." Assassinated
in Dallas on that very day, President Kennedy would never have the opportunity
to evaluate, let alone implement, these options.
But in mid-March 1964, when
Goulart's efforts to bolster his political powers in Brazil alienated his top
generals, the Johnson administration moved quickly to support and exploit their
discontent-and be in the position to assure their success. "The shape of
the problem," National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy told a meeting of
high-level officials three days before the coup, "is such that we should
not be worrying that the [Brazilian] military will react; we should be worrying
that the military will not react."
"We don't want to watch
Brazil dribble down the drain," the CIA, White House and State Department
officials determined, according to the Top Secret meeting summary, "while
we stand around waiting for the [next] election."
THE DOCUMENTS
Document
1: White House, Transcript of Meeting between President Kennedy,
Ambassador Lincoln Gordon and Richard Goodwin, July 30, 1962. (Published in The
Presidential Recordings of John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises, Volume One
(W.W. Norton), edited by Timothy Naftali, October 2001.)
The very first Oval Office
meeting ever secretly taped by President Kennedy took place on July 30, 1962
and addressed the situation in Brazil and what to do about its populist
president, Joao Goulart. The recording — it was transcribed and published in book
The Presidential Recordings of John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises, Volume One
— captures a discussion between the President, top Latin America aide Richard
Goodwin and U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon about beginning to set the
stage for a future military coup in Brazil. The President and his men make a
pivotal decision to appoint a new U.S. military attaché to become a liaison
with the Brazilian military, and Lt. Col. Vernon Walters is identified. Walters
later becomes the key covert player in the U.S. support for the coup. "We
may very well want them [the Brazilian military] to take over at the end of the
year," Goodwin suggests, "if they can."
Document
2: NSC, Memorandum, "U.S. Short-Term policy Toward
Brazil," Secret, December 11, 1962
In preparation for a meeting
of the Executive Committee (EXCOMM) of the National Security Council, the NSC
drafted an options paper with three policy alternatives on Brazil: A. "do
nothing and allow the present drift to continue; B. collaborate with Brazilian
elements hostile to Goulart with a view to bringing about his overthrow; C.
seek to change the political and economic orientation of Goulart and his
government." Option C was deemed "the only feasible present
approach" because opponents of Goulart lacked the "capacity and will
to overthrow" him and Washington did not have "a near future U.S.
capability to stimulate [a coup] operation successfully." Fomenting a
coup, however "must be kept under active and continuous
consideration," the NSC options paper recommended. If Goulart continued to
move leftward, "the United States should be ready to shift rapidly and
effectively to…collaboration with friendly democratic elements, including the
great majority of military officer corps, to unseat President Goulart."
Document
3: NSC, "Minutes of the National Security Council Executive
Committee Meeting, Meeting No. 35," Secret, December 11, 1962
The minutes of the EXCOMM
meeting record that President Kennedy accepted the recommendation that U.S.
policy "seek to change the political and economic orientation of Goulart
and his government."
Document
4: U.S. Embassy, Rio de Janeiro, Airgram A-710, "Minutes of Conversation
between Brazilian President Joao Goulart and Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy, Brasilia, 17 December 1962," December 19, 1962
In line with JFK's decision at
the Excom meeting on December 11 to have "representative sent
specially" to talk to Goulart, the president's brother made a
hastily-prepared journey to "confront" the Brazilian leader over the
issues that had increasingly concerned and irritated Washington-from his
chaotic management of Brazil's economy and expropriation of U.S. corporations
such as IT&T, to his lukewarm support during the Cuban missile crisis and
flirtation with the Soviet bloc to, most alarming, his allegedly excessive
toleration of far left and even communist elements in the government, military,
society, and even his inner circle. Accompanied by US ambassador Lincoln
Gordon, RFK met for more than three hours with Goulart in the new inland
capital of Brasília at the modernistic lakeside presidential residence, the
Palácio do Alvorada. A 17-page memorandum of conversation, drafted by Amb.
Gordon, recorded the Attorney General presenting his list of complaints: the
"many signs of Communist or extreme left-wing nationalists
infiltration" into civilian government, military, trade union, and student
group leaderships, and Goulart's personal failure to take a public stand
against the "violently anti-American" statements emanating from
"influential Brazilians" both in and out of his government, or to
embrace Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. Turning to economic issues, he said
his brother was "very deeply worried at the deterioration" in recent
months, from rampant inflation to the disappearance of reserves, and called on
Goulart to get his "economic and financial house in order."
Surmounting these obstacles to progress, RFK stressed, could mark a
"turning point in relations between Brazil and the U.S. and in the whole
future of Latin America and of the free world." When Goulart defended his
policies, Kennedy scribbled a note to Ambassador Gordon: "We seem to be
getting no place." JFK's emissary voiced his fear "that President
Goulart had not fully understood the nature of President Kennedy's concern
about the present situation and prospects."
Document
5: Department of State, Memorandum to Mr. McGeorge Bundy, "Political
Considerations Affecting U.S. Assistance to Brazil," Secret, March 7, 1963
In preparation for another key
Oval office meeting on Brazil, the Department of State transmitted two briefing
papers, including a memo to the president from Amb. Gordon titled
"Brazilian Political Developments and U.S. Assistance." The latter
briefing paper (attached to the first document) was intended to assist the
President in deciding how to handle the visit of Brazilian Finance Minister San
Tiago Dantas to Washington. Gordon cited continuing problems with Goulart's
"equivocal, with neutralist overtones" foreign policy, and the
"communist and other extreme nationalist, far left wing, and anti-American
infiltration in important civilian and military posts with the
government."
Document
6: Excerpts from John F. Kennedy's conversation regarding Brazil
with U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon on Friday March 8, 1963 (Meeting
77.1, President's Office Files, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston)
On March 8, 1963, a few days
before Dantas' arrived, JFK reviewed the state of US-Brazilian relations with
his top advisors, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, his ambassador to
Brazil, Lincoln Gordon, and his brother Robert. Unofficially transcribed
here by James G. Hershberg (with assistance from Marc Selverstone and David
Coleman) this is apparently the first time that it has been published since the
tape recording was released more than a decade ago by the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library in Boston. As the comments by Rusk, Gordon, and RFK
make clear, deep dissatisfaction with Goulart persisted. "Brazil is a
country that we can't possibly turn away from," Secretary of State Rusk
told the president. "Whatever happens there is going to be of decisive importance
to the hemisphere." Rusk frankly acknowledged that the situation wasn't
yet so bad as to justify Goulart's overthrow to "all the non-communists or
non-totalitarian Brazilians," nor to justify a "clear break"
between Washington and Rio that would be understood throughout the hemisphere.
Instead, the strategy for the time being was to continue cooperation with
Goulart's government while raising pressure on him to improve his behavior,
particularly his tolerance of far-leftist, anti-United States, and even communist
associates-to, in JFK's words, "string out" aid in order to "put
the screws" on him. The president's brother, in particular, clearly did
not feel that Goulart had followed through since their meeting a few months
earlier on his vows to put a lid on anti-U.S. expressions or make personnel
changes to remove some of the most egregiously leftist figures in his
administration. Goulart, stated RFK, "struck me as the kind of wily
politician who's not the smartest man in the world but very sensitive to this
[domestic political] area, that he figures that he's got us by the---and that
he can play it both ways, that he can make the little changes…and then we give
him some money and he doesn't have to really go too far."
Document
7: CIA, Current Intelligence Memorandum, "Plotting Against
Goulart," Secret, March 8, 1963
For more than two years before
the April 1, 1964 coup, the CIA transmitted intelligence reports on various
coup plots. The plot, described in this memo as "the best-developed
plan," is being considered by former minister of war, Marshal Odylio
Denys. In a clear articulation of U.S. concerns about the need for a successful
coup, the CIA warned that "a premature coup effort by the Brazilian
military would be likely to bring a strong reaction from Goulart and the
cashiering of those officers who are most friendly to the United States."
Document
8: State Department, Latin American Policy Committee, "Approved
Short-Term Policy in Brazil," Secret, October 3, 1963
In early October, the State
Department's Latin America Policy Committee approved a "short term"
draft policy statement on Brazil for consideration by President Kennedy and the
National Security Council. Compared to the review in March, the situation has
deteriorated drastically, according to Washington's point of view, in large
measure due to Goulart's "agitation," unstable leadership, and
increasing reliance on leftist forces. In its reading of the current and
prospective situation, defining American aims, and recommending possible lines
of action for the United States, the statement explicitly considered, albeit
somewhat ambiguously, the U.S. attitude toward a possible coup to topple
Goulart. "Barring clear indications of serious likelihood of a political takeover
by elements subservient to and supported by a foreign government, it would be
against U.S. policy to intervene directly or indirectly in support of any move
to overthrow the Goulart regime. In the event of a threatened
foreign-government-affiliated political takeover, consideration of courses of
action would be directed more broadly but directly to the threatened takeover,
rather than against Goulart (though some action against the latter might
result)." Kennedy and his top aides met four days later to consider policy
options and strategies--among them U.S. military intervention in Brazil.
Document
9: Excerpts from John F. Kennedy's conversation regarding Brazil
with U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon on Monday, October 7, 1963 (tape
114/A50, President's Office Files, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library,
Boston)
"Do you see a situation
where we might be-find it desirable to intervene militarily ourselves?"
John F. Kennedy's question to his ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon,
reflected the growing concerns that a coup attempt against Goulart might need
U.S. support to succeed, especially if it triggered an outbreak of fighting or
even civil war. This tape, parts of which were recently publicized by Brazilian
journalist Elio Gaspari, has been significantly transcribed by James G.
Hershberg (with assistance from Marc Selverstone) and published here for the
first time. It captured JFK, Gordon, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and
other top officials concluding that the prospect of an impending move to
terminate Goulart's stay in office (long before his term was supposed to come
to an end more than two years later) required an acceleration of serious U.S.
military contingency planning as well as intense efforts to ascertain the
balance between military forces hostile and friendly to the current government.
In his lengthy analysis of the situation, Gordon — who put the odds at 50-50
that Goulart would be gone, one way or another, by early 1964 — outlined
alternative scenarios for future developments, ranging from Goulart's peaceful
early departure ("a very good thing for both Brazil and Brazilian-American
relations"), perhaps eased out by military pressure, to a possible sharp
Goulart move to the left, which could trigger a violent struggle to determine
who would rule the country. Should a military coup seize power, Gordon clearly
did not want U.S. squeamishness about constitutional or democratic niceties to
preclude supporting Goulart's successors: "Do we suspend diplomatic
relations, economic relations, aid, do we withdraw aid missions, and all this
kind of thing — or do we somehow find a way of doing what we ought to do, which
is to welcome this?" And should the outcome of the attempt to oust Goulart
lead to a battle between military factions, Gordon urged study of military
measures (such as providing fuel or ammunition, if requested) that Washington
could take to assure a favorable outcome: "I would not want us to close
our minds to the possibility of some kind of discreet intervention in such a
case, which would help see the right side win." On the tape, McNamara
suggests, and JFK approves, accelerated work on contingency planning ("can
we get it really pushed ahead?"). Even as U.S. officials in Brazil
intensified their encouragement of anti-communist military figures, Kennedy
cautioned that they should not burn their bridges with Goulart, which might
give him an excuse to rally nationalist support behind an anti-Washington
swerve to the left: Washington needed to continue "applying the screws on
the [economic] aid" to Brazil, but "with some sensitivity."
Document
10: State Department, Memorandum, "Embassy Contingency
Plan," Top Secret, November 22, 1963
Dated on the day of President
Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, this cover memo describes a new contingency
plan from the U.S. Embassy in Brazil that places "heavy emphasis on U.S.
armed intervention." The actual plan has not been declassified.
Document
11: NSC, Memcon, "Brazil," Top Secret, March 28, 1964
As the military prepared to
move against Goulart, top CIA, NSC and State Department officials met to
discuss how to support them. They evaluated a proposal, transmitted by
Ambassador Gordon the previous day, calling for covert delivery of armaments
and gasoline, as well as the positioning of a naval task force off the coast of
Brazil. At this point, U.S. officials were not sure if or when the coup would
take place, but made clear their interest in its success. "The shape of
the problem," according to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy,
"is such that we should not be worrying that the military will react; we
should be worrying that the military will not react."
Document
12: U.S. Embassy, Brazil, Memo from Ambassador Gordon, Top Secret,
March 29, 1964
Gordon transmitted a message
for top national security officials justifying his requests for pre-positioning
armaments that could be used by "para-military units" and calling for
a "contingency commitment to overt military intervention" in Brazil.
If the U.S. failed to act, Gordon warned, there was a "real danger of the
defeat of democratic resistance and communization of Brazil."
Document
13: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Cable, [Military attaché Vernon Walters
Report on Coup Preparations], Secret, March 30, 1964
U.S. Army attaché Vernon
Walters meets with the leading coup plotters and reports on their plans.
"It had been decided to take action this week on a signal to be issued
later." Walters reported that he "expects to be aware beforehand of
go signal and will report in consequence."
Document
14 (mp3): White House Audio Tape, President Lyndon B. Johnson
discussing the impending coup in Brazil with Undersecretary of State George
Ball, March 31, 1964.
Document
15: White House, Memorandum, "Brazil," Secret, April 1,
1964
As of 3:30 on April 1st,
Ambassador Gordon reports that the coup is "95% over." U.S.
contingency planning for overt and covert supplies to the military were not
necessary. General Castello Branco "has told us he doesn't need our help.
There was however no information about where Goulart had fled to after the army
moved in on the palace.
Document
16: Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Cable, "Departure
of Goulart from Porto Alegre for Montevideo," Secret, April 2, 1964
CIA intelligence sources
report that deposed president Joao Goulart has fled to Montevideo.
================
Transcrição
complete de um documento revelador:
In line with JFK's decision at the Excom meeting on December 11 to have "representative sent specially" to talk to Goulart, the president's brother made a hastily-prepared journey to "confront" the Brazilian leader over the issues that had increasingly concerned and irritated Washington-from his chaotic management of Brazil's economy and expropriation of U.S. corporations such as IT&T, to his lukewarm support during the Cuban missile crisis and flirtation with the Soviet bloc to, most alarming, his allegedly excessive toleration of far left and even communist elements in the government, military, society, and even his inner circle. Accompanied by US ambassador Lincoln Gordon, RFK met for more than three hours with Goulart in the new inland capital of Brasília at the modernistic lakeside presidential residence, the Palácio do Alvorada. A 17-page memorandum of conversation, drafted by Amb. Gordon, recorded the Attorney General presenting his list of complaints: the "many signs of Communist or extreme left-wing nationalists infiltration" into civilian government, military, trade union, and student group leaderships, and Goulart's personal failure to take a public stand against the "violently anti-American" statements emanating from "influential Brazilians" both in and out of his government, or to embrace Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. Turning to economic issues, he said his brother was "very deeply worried at the deterioration" in recent months, from rampant inflation to the disappearance of reserves, and called on Goulart to get his "economic and financial house in order." Surmounting these obstacles to progress, RFK stressed, could mark a "turning point in relations between Brazil and the U.S. and in the whole future of Latin America and of the free world." When Goulart defended his policies, Kennedy scribbled a note to Ambassador Gordon: "We seem to be getting no place." JFK's emissary voiced his fear "that President Goulart had not fully understood the nature of President Kennedy's concern about the present situation and prospects."
Ver
cable neste link: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB465/docs/Document%204%20Airgram%20from%20Rio%20de%20Janeiro%20December%2019%201962.pdf
