Brazil : The Fortunes of War (9780465080700)

by Lochery, Neill

  Alzira was a homebody by nature, and thus the perfect political hostess. She added her own distinctive personal touch to official receptions held at the presidential palaces and retreats. Her father’s friends and foes alike noted that she was cool, possessed a good legal mind (she was at the top of her class at law school), and was politically calculating. When Vargas held personal meetings, particularly one-on-ones, Alzira sat quietly at the table, watching the guest with both eyes. Her goal was to become aware of the general trends and direction of the conversation and to gauge its outcome and implications for her papai. At the end of each meeting she escorted the guest from the room, “polishing the rough parts” of their impressions of her father, and returned to him with a detailed report.1

  Unofficially, Alzira served as her father’s antenna, advisor, critic, social secretary, hostess, bodyguard, and nurse. She was also good with a revolver.2 Years of practice on the family ranch in Brazil’s southern province of Rio Grande do Sul meant that she wasn’t afraid to pick up a weapon and put it to good use. On the night of May 10, 1938, Alzira’s skills would be tested to the full.

  The evening started as usual for Alzira and her father. They were together, as they often were, at Brazil’s presidential office, the Guanabara Palace in Rio de Janeiro. The stifling heat of the hottest summer months—January and February—had long passed, but at 10 p.m. it was still pleasant enough for the upstairs windows of the palace to be left slightly ajar. President Vargas was working alone in his small office on the first floor. It was meant to be a quiet night for the president as he planned out Brazil’s economic and political future using different colored pencils for different subjects related to his many ambitious projects for the development of Brazil.3

  One of the main goals of Vargas’s strategy was to carefully position Brazil within the international system in order to maximize its economic and military gains. Brazil primarily derived these gains from trade: on the one hand, with the United States and Great Britain; and on the other hand, with Nazi Germany. Vargas wanted to use trade with these countries to help transform key sectors of the economy—to decrease Brazil’s reliance on imports and grow its ability to export its own goods and resources.

  Vargas was no visionary, but he believed hard work and political discipline would allow Brazil to transform itself. Moreover, if the European war that President Roosevelt had told him was inevitable did materialize, Vargas was ready to take full advantage of it to maximize Brazilian gains. In this, he perfectly mirrored the assessment of the British foreign office. Long admirers of Vargas, the office’s staff described him as “brave, a persuasive orator and a genius in the art of political maneuver,” an “astonishing little man” who “has guided Brazil’s policy with extreme prudence.”4 Vargas’s American biographer, John Dulles, put it another way: “He is a calm man in a land of hotheads,” Dulles wrote, “a disciplined person in a land of undisciplined people, a prudent person in the land of imprudent people, a temperate person in the land of squanderers, a silent person in the land of parrots.”5

  On this night, Vargas had chosen to sit back and reflect on Brazil’s progress while others in his administration celebrated it. The new Brazilian constitution, the Estado Novo, was six months old, and across the city cabinet ministers and local VIPs were marking the event by listening to Francisco Campos, the framer of the constitution, address the nation from the city’s old Senate building. The central theme of the address was the political peace and quiet the country could expect now that plans for presidential elections had been put on hold. Vargas had become an authoritarian leader with an agenda of unifying Brazil and strengthening the central government at the expense of the local regional governments that had dominated Brazil for decades. It was a huge gamble, but Vargas enjoyed the tacit support of the United States, which was keen to see a strong leader in Brazil who would take action against German and Italian interests in the country.

  After the broadcast, several of the key figures in the Estado Novo joined together and moved to Campos’s residence, where they sipped champagne and caught up on local and diplomatic gossip. President Vargas had been invited to attend the soiree, but as was usual, he chose to avoid this type of gathering, preferring instead the company of his family and closest friends. To Vargas, the hours following dinner were his most productive, giving him the opportunity to go through his paperwork, light up a large cigar, and ponder national and international news. It was also quite common for him to host an intimate poker game in his study. On the evening of May 10, exhausted from a full day of meetings, he retired early to his bedroom.6 “Goodnight—until tomorrow,” he muttered to Alzira before giving her a kiss on the cheek. The final task for Vargas before sleep was to make his daily entry into his diary. He wasn’t a great diarist—his entries were written in a flat factual style—but he took the task seriously, faithfully recording his basic thoughts of the day and details of whatever important meetings had taken place.

  All was quiet in the palace, which despite its central location in Rio was set back off the road with woodland to the side and rear. Vargas liked to work in the little upstairs study, where his papers were carefully arranged on his desk, and where there was little in the way of outside noise or distraction.7 It was for this reason that he liked to spend as much time as possible in the Guanabara Palace rather than in the official presidential office, the Catete Palace, which had served as Brazil’s presidential palace since 1894. Although relatively modest in size, the Guanabara Palace’s rooms contained some of the finest art in the city, and the large, secluded, and well-designed gardens provided the perfect place for Vargas to walk and mull over important arguments. Many of the most significant decisions in Brazilian history, such as the resolution to participate in World War I (Brazil ultimately joined in opposition to the Central Powers), had been made in the long majestic ballroom of the palace, which also served as the cabinet room. President Vargas regarded the Catete Palace as his office and the Guanabara Palace as his residence. He preferred to use the Catete Palace in the morning and the Guanabara Palace in the evening.

  On the evening of May 10, there was little activity outside the gates of the Guanabara Palace, and only a handful of guards, secretaries, and domestic staff were inside the palace. It was a typically placid night. Vargas was preparing to retire when, suddenly, a noise broke the silence.

  Alzira cried out, “What was that?” Her first instinct was that one of the guards’ guns had gone off by mistake.8 After a few moments there was a second noise, this time accompanied by the sound of a ricochet and falling plaster. Alzira realized that the palace was under attack, but she wasn’t sure by whom. “Where’s Daddy?” she screamed at Vargas’s private secretary. Before long, the president was in the room with Alzira, dressed in his pajamas and waving around a revolver. No sooner had he appeared than the power was cut, plunging both the palace and its gardens into darkness.

  The attackers had achieved complete surprise. The shots grew in frequency and accuracy as those inside the palace scrambled around searching for weapons.9 Alzira calculated that the attackers were at the front gates of the palace, but had not yet entered the grounds. She spoke quickly and nervously to her father. “Daddy,” she implored, “we have to get you out of here and get help.” Vargas replied, “I’m going nowhere, but see if the phones are working and call everyone and tell them that the president of the republic is a prisoner in the palace.”10

  Alzira tried the phone in the president’s study. Much to her surprise, it was still functioning. She yelled at her father, “The phones are not cut. Whom should I call?” Vargas replied, “Everybody we know.”11

  Alzira made a mental list of names. As she made her first call, the shooting grew more frequent. “At least sit down and don’t act as a target by walking in front of the window,” she instructed her father.12 As bullets continued to fly into the palace, Alzira reached the chief of police and the chief of staff of the army. Both promised to he
lp, but first they had to gather their forces.

  It soon became clear to Alzira and her father that the attack at the Guanabara Palace was not an isolated incident. The conspirators had surrounded the homes of the top figures in the Vargas regime.13 They had attacked the residences of the chief of police and the army chief of staff, along with two senior generals. Other groups of rebels had seized two radio stations and had gained control of the naval ministry.14

  Miraculously, the palace’s phone line remained open, and Alzira continued to call for help. When she got through to her brother, Lutero, she yelled at him to “get help and come soon or we’ll all be dead.”15 The attackers, she could tell, were preparing for the final assault on the palace. Alzira heard the sounds of pistol fire coming from inside the palace: the president and his staff were returning fire in the general direction of the main gate.16

  A presidential car screeched up to the palace’s entrance; it was carrying the president’s younger brother, Benjamin, who was quickly dispatched to get reinforcements. As his car sped out of the palace grounds, the attackers fired on it, but it got away and headed at speed in the direction of downtown.

  Outside the palace, the rebel leaders were having problems of their own. Most of the volunteers they had counted on to join them that night had not shown up at the collection point in downtown Rio. It later transpired that most of the men who did not show up to fight had stayed home, believing that, as one of the plotters later testified, “The coup had already failed before it was born.”17 The forty-five men who did make good on their promise gathered at the headquarters of the coup at 550 Niemeyer Avenue, where some nine of them were judged too old for combat and sent home.18 The remainder had little combat experience or firearms training, and the last-minute rifle training they received did little to inspire confidence. To make matters worse, the rebels donned navy uniforms, but due to a lack of boots continued to wear their own civilian shoes and socks. A white neckerchief emblazoned in green letters with the motto Avante (Forward) topped off the uniform.

  When they arrived outside the palace gates, the rebels’ uniforms immediately gave them away. 19 They exchanged fire with the palace guards, but the element of surprise—and a traitor in the guards’ ranks—allowed the rebels to initially overpower the defenders, killing one of them and locking up the rest.20 Many of the rebels then hid out in the palace gardens. Instead of following their motto, avante, however, they were content to let off the occasional shot and adopt a wait-and-see attitude.21 Most of the rebels were, in truth, terrified by the evening’s events and hoping to slip away to their homes in the city when the time was right. To make matters worse, the untrained assailants found themselves woefully under­equipped. The two trucks that brought them to the palace swiftly departed after dropping them off. In their rush to flee the scene, the drivers drove off without unloading the rebels’ heavy machine guns and homemade bombs, so the men were faced with the prospect of mounting an assault on the palace with only light weapons and a single light machine gun. Most of the rebels, moreover, appeared none too keen to use their lone machine gun, so it was left to their leader on the ground, Lieutenant Severo Fournier, to personally take charge of it. Fournier told his rebels, “Shoot at the upstairs study where Vargas is no doubt holed up. Don’t hold anything back.” He fired a quick burst from the machine gun, as much to inspire his own men as to shake up the people inside the palace.

  Just as Alzira Vargas was frantically calling for help and reinforcements, Fournier dispatched a man to do the same on behalf of the assailants, and to check on the coup’s progress in Rio and in the rest of the country. “Find out who controls the radio and the police and check where the force is to kidnap the president,” Fournier instructed his messenger. For good measure, he added, “Return only when you have the reinforcements and guns.” In his heart Fournier knew that he would never see the messenger again: the man simply slipped away and returned home.22

  The assault on the palace devolved into a standoff, as both sides awaited news and the arrival of reinforcements. Inside the palace, Alzira was getting desperate. She suspected that the rebels wanted to kill her father, and she couldn’t reach most of the senior figures in the Estado Novo, who were having their own troubles and intrigues.23 It seemed increasingly likely that the promised reinforcements would not arrive in time.

  Suddenly, Alzira had an idea. “Papai,” she said, “why don’t we check the tunnel that links the palace with the grounds of Fluminense Soccer Club.” The secret tunnel ran directly under the palace gardens and came out at the stadium, where Alzira hoped that the expected reinforcements might be waiting; perhaps they had even entered the tunnel and were making their way to the palace.

  Vargas approved the plan, but they soon discovered that the door to the tunnel was locked. The president ordered a search for the key, and tried to calm everyone down. “Let’s sit tight and wait,” the president instructed before returning to his study. “Alzira, tell the chief of police to get his men to try to enter the tunnel from the soccer stadium end.”

  Vargas paced his study with his revolver in his hand, becoming increasingly agitated. His life was in danger, a rescue force had yet to arrive, and he had a packed morning of official engagements and meetings to attend; he wanted to get to sleep.24 As happens in most coups, reliable information was also proving difficult to come by, and it was even harder to know who was personally involved in the plot. With the power cut to the palace, neither Alzira nor her father heard the broadcast by the rebels from a radio station that they had successfully seized, providing news of the uprising.25 Still, Vargas knew which political group was behind the coup.

  Vargas was perhaps most astute at gauging the strength of his political enemies, and there were many. On the left of the political spectrum were the communists, on the right, the fascist Green Shirts—the Integralistas—who were members of the Ação Integralista Brasileira. He also had a great deal of opposition from within the ranks of his own administration. Ministers and local governors all needed to be watched carefully, and Vargas often had to bring his full political skills to bear to dampen down mutinies, personality clashes, and ideological disputes that might otherwise tear his government apart. Now trapped in his office, with his administration and life in peril, Vargas was cool enough to understand just who was behind the attack. “The Integralistas will pay for this,” he informed his daughter in a monotone.

  Given the events of the past few months, it hadn’t been difficult for the president to come to this conclusion. Ever since the Estado Novo had banned all political parties some six months earlier, Vargas’s former fascist allies had been craving retribution. This Vargas could have anticipated—yet he didn’t understand how successful the rebels had been in securing support among Brazil’s armed forces, especially the navy. Sympathizers in the military had been essential in helping to organize and outfit the rebels now surrounding the Guanabara Palace and threating to topple the young Estado Novo.

  Alzira paid little attention to her father; she was more concerned with organizing his potential escape through the tunnel to the soccer stadium. With the key still not found, the people trapped inside the palace considered trying to break down the door, but this would have been no easy task; it was made of thick wood with strong, old-fashioned hinges. The group briefly considered shooting the lock off, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. None of the guns inside the palace were of a high enough caliber, and the sound of the shooting might have alerted the rebels outside of the existence of the tunnel. For the time being, the standoff continued.

  The lack of information on the situation in the rest of Rio continued to be a major source of concern to Alzira. There were rumors inside the palace that the rebels had taken over key radio stations across the country and were broadcasting anti-Estado Novo messages. Word also reached Alzira that there had been a traitor in the presidential guard, and that at least one of the loyal guards had been killed. This news heigh
tened tensions inside the palace.

  Suddenly, a sustained outbreak of shooting erupted from the direction of the front gates. This time, however, the gunfire had not been directed at the palace. Finally, reinforcements had arrived—though not of the sort that Alzira and her father had been expecting.

  Eurico Gaspar Dutra, the minister of war, had been lucky. At the last minute, the rebels assigned to detain him and move him to a safe location in the center of Rio had lost their nerve, failing to surround his downtown home and sparing him the fate that had befallen other leaders of the Estado Novo. Following an urgent call from the palace to his home at 1 a.m., Dutra had left on foot to rally reinforcements, passing a bar inside of which were a dozen leaderless rebels sitting around drinking. Finally arriving at Leme Fort, Dutra had found some twelve soldiers, and he brought them to the palace in a single truck.26 The men were greeted at the gates by a burst of gunfire from the rebels camped outside. During the initial exchange of fire, two of Dutra’s men were wounded and a bullet nicked the minister’s ear. Instead of engaging the rebels in a prolonged firefight, Dutra appeared to lose his nerve and sought instructions as to what to do from Alzira.27 When no advice was forthcoming, Dutra sped off in a motorcycle sidecar in order to fetch more reinforcements.

  Although not quite the salvation Vargas and Alzira had been hoping for, Dutra’s intervention had a salutary effect. The presence of his small contingent of soldiers caused most of the rebels to abandon their positions at the front gate and flee into the woods surrounding the palace. Dutra himself, meanwhile, arrived at police headquarters to find other members of the Estado Novo trying to organize a group of special police to go to the palace. It was proving difficult, as most of the force had been given the night off by their commanders in order to celebrate the six-month anniversary of the Estado Novo. Finally, at Dutra’s urging, the head of the special police dispatched a single truckload of special police dressed in civilian attire to join the fight at the palace.