Roosevelt hoped his Brazilian friends would lend a hand with the Azores issue. Yet when he broached the subject with Vargas, he framed his request as one intended to aid the Portuguese, with whom he knew Brazil still had close ties. “Can you help us here and send troops to replace the Portuguese ones, who are more needed on the mainland?” Roosevelt asked Vargas.15
Vargas was taken by surprise by the directness of Roosevelt’s approach, and concerned about its implications. The United States was asking Brazil, a former colony of Portugal, to effectively occupy sovereign Portuguese land. After a few seconds of silence, Vargas replied slowly, almost mechanically, “I am willing to take this matter up with Salazar. However, we cannot send troops to the Portuguese islands [Azores] unless you furnish adequate equipment for them.”16 It was the Brazilian party line, and Vargas was sticking to it.
Vargas and Roosevelt spent the rest of their lunch hammering out the details of how the United States could send these much-needed spare parts and machinery to the Brazilian navy. Roosevelt promised to try to send as much of the military supplies as quickly as possible to Brazil. That marked the end of the serious talks, and Roosevelt and Vargas shared a private joke with Admiral Ingram, who then told the presidents that the air base was ready for inspection.
Their meal finished, the two heads of state set off in a jeep to see the Natal base. Only at the start of the lunch had news of the meeting been released, so as the two presidents toured the base, they surprised many servicemen, who had had no idea that the two leaders were even visiting the facility. Roosevelt sat in the front of the jeep, Vargas in the backseat with Admiral Ingram. Their tour was captured in one of the most iconic photographs of this period of US-Brazilian cooperation. Showing the three men in mid-laugh, the photograph gives the impression of two carefree political leaders taking a ride together. A photograph taken a few moments after the initial shot, however, reveals a very different picture. Both Vargas and Roosevelt look almost melancholic and tired, like two old men who have too much on their plates, yet whose days are numbered. In truth, this second photograph is more representative of the day’s events than the first, happier shot.
That evening, Roosevelt and Vargas dined with their staffs on the USS Humboldt. In contrast to the day’s lunch, the dinner was a less formal affair, the talk less stilted and certainly less committal. Roosevelt promised to make good on his promises to speed up the flow of arms to Brazil, but warned Vargas that—as the Brazilian president was surely tired of hearing—they were in short supply. Both men talked of the possibility of sending a Brazilian force overseas, but only in unspecific terms. Vargas had still not got around to fully studying and discussing Dutra’s memorandum for a large Brazilian force, yet Roosevelt’s comments and insinuations made it clear that the US armed forces were far from keen to have Brazilian forces in North Africa. Training and arming the Brazilian forces would simply take too long and would be too expensive, because the new troops would have to be heavily armed and equipped to participate in such an operation. But what alternative purpose Brazilian troops might serve in the war, besides potentially occupying the Azores, Vargas could not yet know.
Vargas left the meeting in an upbeat mood, in marked contrast to his brooding appearance in the jeep a few hours earlier. That same night, he flew back to Rio with Caffery. Aranha met with Vargas on his return, and later marveled to Caffery, “I have rarely seen him so pleased with everything.” Surely some of the joy the president felt was personal; Caffery had mentioned in the morning meeting with Roosevelt that Vargas’s son was ill, and during the dinner Roosevelt had offered to help get young Getúlinho whatever medical assistance the United States could provide. But the meeting had also marked an important victory for Brazil, and Vargas knew it.
On the evening of January 30, 1943, directly after he returned from Natal, Vargas gave a press conference at the Guanabara Palace in which he outlined how and when his secret meeting with President Roosevelt had been set up. Brazil was electrified by the news that the leader of the United States had decided to stop in Brazil—on his way back from one of the most important conferences of the war, no less—to show his support for the country and demonstrate its importance to the United States. At the time of the press conference, Roosevelt had not yet arrived back in Washington, so the international press relied on Vargas’s account for information about the meeting.
Vargas was still in extremely good spirits for a man whose son remained critically ill. He was particularly laudatory of Roosevelt, assuring Brazilians that the American president was “still demonstrating the firm decision to carry forward this crusade in which we are all pledged.”17 When questioned about Brazil’s military cooperation with the United States, Vargas gave an upbeat response: “As we are in the war our cooperation with the United States must be complete. Everything the United States judges necessary and useful as cooperation from Brazil we shall continue to give.”18 The answer, however, masked the reality of the situation: Vargas had yet to commit to Dutra’s memorandum on sending a Brazilian force overseas, and anyway the United States was reluctant to use such a force in North Africa.
At the press conference, a journalist asked Vargas, “How long does Roosevelt think that the war will last?” Over the next several hours, with Roosevelt still en route back to Washington, Vargas found himself acting as the US president’s unofficial spokesman. This was surely due in part to the fact that the question of the war’s duration was becoming ever more important for Brazil. A protracted war in Europe would offer Brazil great potential for economic and military gains; but if the war ended soon, Brazil would not be able to reap the sorts of benefits that the Vargas regime deemed necessary for fully modernizing the economy. Apparently still riding his optimistic streak, he told the press conference, “The Allied nations are prepared for a long war.”19 And, Vargas added soon thereafter, he was too. “We must prepare for a long war. There is no doubt, however, that we are all entirely certain of victory.”20
The meeting received huge coverage in the Brazilian press. Jornal do Brasil devoted two front-page columns to it, calling Roosevelt’s presence in Natal “a sincere demonstration of applause for Brazil’s war effort.” International coverage of the meeting was widespread, too. The Associated Press wired the headline, “President Roosevelt and President Vargas in a joint statement have affirmed their intention to make the Atlantic safe for the shipping of all nations.” The headline on the front page of the New York Times on January 29, 1943, proclaimed simply, “Roosevelt stops off in Brazil.”21
On the same page as its announcement of Roosevelt’s visit to Natal, the New York Times carried a large photograph of a US aircrew standing in front of a US air force bomber with the caption, “Back from first American bombing of Germany.”22 As the caption suggested, the war—while far from over—was entering a new and potentially decisive phase. Vargas continued to work feverishly to maximize Brazilian returns from the conflict, but the clock was ticking, and Brazil would need to move quickly to secure the gains it had already made.
Vargas’s meeting with Roosevelt, and the deals that were to result from it, would be perhaps the pinnacle of Vargas’s political career and the period of the Estado Novo. Though it is simplistic to suggest that everything went downhill for Vargas from this point onward, he would never scale these dizzy heights again. And the first sign of his changing fortunes came in a devastating personal loss.
A few days after Vargas’s meeting with President Roosevelt, Getúlinho died. The loss of his handsome and talented son changed Vargas forever. His wife, Darci, withdrew from political society and concentrated only on her charity work. Vargas himself appeared to lose confidence and focus; he looked older and moved more slowly after Getúlinho’s death, and came to rely increasingly on Alzira and Aranha for political guidance. As the president’s political judgment deserted him, his moods became darker, and his isolation from the political elite grew more pronounced.
These
changes did not have an immediate or obvious impact on Vargas’s ability to govern, but the death of his son certainly clouded his political and personal judgment. For years after Getúlinho’s death, Vargas was in a state of very private mourning—yet he tried as hard as he could to cover up this fact as he worked to steer Brazil through the widening war.
Photo 1. This view shows the palm tree–lined avenue that leads to the presidential residence, the Guanabara Palace. The crucial decision as to whether to participate in World War II was made in the long majestic ballroom of the palace.
Photo 2. The façade of the Copacabana Palace Hotel is shown here as it looked during its inaugural year. The Copacabana Palace, the most famous of all the hotels in Rio de Janeiro, was where the rich and famous checked in to enjoy the sea views and fine dining and its famed wine collection.
Photo 3. President Getúlio Vargas laughs together with his daughter Alzira during the president’s road to recovery following an automobile accident in May 1942. The injuries the president sustained in the accident could not be regarded as life-threatening, though they removed him from political life for several months.
Photo 4. United States ambassador Jefferson Caffery (left) works together with Osvaldo Aranha (right). Caffery regarded his posting as the most important in South America and did not take kindly to anyone who tried to undermine his authority.
Photo 5. This personal postcard, written by Osvaldo Aranha, shows the vista over Botafogo Beach toward Rio de Janeiro.
Photo 6. Brazil was the major focus of US efforts in Latin America under the guise of the Good Neighbor Program during World War II. The young and energetic Nelson Rockefeller (left), meeting in Rio de Janeiro, is shown here with Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles (center) and General Góes Monteiro (right).
Photo 7. Following the success of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles arrived in Rio in February 1942 to start work on the major Hollywood picture It’s All True. Welles took long brisk morning walks along the wide promenade of Copacabana Beach.
Photo 8. Pictured here is the German community in Rio Grande do Sul holding a Nazi parade, complete with uniforms, flags, and military drills. Such events took place openly and were often watched by large crowds voicing their support.
Photo 9. This is a hotel registration card of the writer and Jewish refugee Stefan Zweig, who found himself in Rio during World War II.
Photo 10. Walt Disney’s visit to Rio during August and September 1941 was part of the Good Neighbor Program. Disney enjoyed sketching in the city’s botanical gardens and from the beach-facing terrace of his hotel suite. Disney (left) is pictured here meeting with Osvaldo Aranha at the Catete Palace.
Photo 11. President Roosevelt (seated front center) and President Vargas (seated rear) are pictured here visiting a Brazilian naval base in 1943, after a luncheon hosted by President Roosevelt in honor of his Brazilian counterpart aboard the USS Humboldt. Statesmanship had added years to the two leaders and had transformed their dark hair to gray and to white.
Photo 12. In June 1944, during the same month as the D-Day landings in Normandy, the first squadron of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira was ready to disembark for Italy. President Vargas (center), on board the USS General Mann, was accompanied by Osvaldo Aranha (on right) and Admiral Ingram (on left).
Photo 13. US film producer and actor Orson Welles (right) was befriended by Osvaldo Aranha (left) during his time shooting a film in Brazil. Here they are seen together on August 22, 1942, the day Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.
Photo 14. The Força Expedicionária Brasileira (FEB) went through basic training with US military instructors in 1943. The FEB would embark for Europe toward the later part of 1944 and would see action in Italy in some of the most bitter and intense battles of the entire war.
Photo 15. The Força Expedicionária Brasileira was to take part in several key battles, including Monte Castello, the outcome of which was crucial to securing a German surrender in Italy. In April 1945, a Brazilian commander, General Masarenham de Morais, received the first unconditional surrender of a German division in Italy.
Photo 16. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the route of the funeral procession for President Getúlio Vargas in Rio.
13 The Dinner Party
The war was drawing Americans and Brazilians together—and not just the heads of state. On January 30, 1943, while President Vargas was holding a press conference following his return from his meeting with President Roosevelt in Natal, Osvaldo Aranha dined at the private residence of Jefferson Caffery along with Admiral Ingram and General Walsh and several other US military officers.1 It was a dinner that proved to have important implications for the future of US-Brazilian relations.
Caffery’s residence was very much in keeping with the ambassador’s style: grand, imposing, furnished with taste, and completed with a large, secluded outdoor swimming pool. This was the US ambassador’s only residence, unlike the British ambassador who had a summer retreat near President Vargas in Petrópolis—yet perhaps because he had only one residence to show off, Caffery immensely enjoyed hosting guests. On this evening, as Aranha and the American officers enjoyed a predinner drink, Caffery made small talk by discussing the increased cost of living in Rio. Money was very much on the ambassador’s mind; in his annual reports to Washington, Caffery argued that the expense of putting on dinners and other official social functions expected of a US ambassador was far higher than the State Department’s allowance for such purposes.
Caffery’s complaints reflected an important problem in wartime Brazil: inflation. The ambassador reported that the cost of living index in January 1943 was forty-two points above that for 1939.2 Living costs in Rio had increased even more sharply than in the rest of Brazil, and in 1943 they were 83 percent higher than in 1939.3 In response to this increase, the Brazilian government raised the minimum wage in the capital city by 25 percent.4 One of the most substantial increases was in the cost of food, which had gone up by 40 percent since 1939, and sharp rises were forecast for the rest of 1943.5 While increases in food prices were not unique to Brazil, they did make it harder for Cariocas to maintain their standard of living. Caffery attributed this particular problem to a host of factors: “The curtailment of coastwise shipping because of the shortage of vessels and the submarine menace; a reduction in rail and motor transportation for the lack of equipment and fuel; a shortage of farm labor due to the increase in the Brazilian armed forces and higher wages in industry and the production of strategic war material; and drought affecting agricultural production.”6
Another issue about which Caffery often complained was the huge increase in the cost of housing in wartime Brazil. The local newspaper Diário Carioca attributed the problem—in Rio, at least—to a new phenomenon in the capital: foreign refugees. The paper observed:
The increase in rentals has been most accentuated in the Copacabana district. As a result of the war a multitude of refugees, the majority of them being persons of substance, invaded our most beautiful beach district, taking apartments by storm. They did not discuss price. They paid what was asked of them, making deals behind the scenes because of the law that prohibits an increase in rentals. . . . Landlords today will accept only cash as a deposit and instead of two or three months, they exact an advance deposit of rental for four months, which is never returned.7
The presence of such refugees in the capital, and the effect they had on Rio’s economy, contributed to an already xenophobic atmosphere in Brazil. First were the concerns that immigrants were subverting the country’s politics; now, it was Brazil’s finances that were threatened.
As Caffery reflected on these issues over drinks at his residence, Aranha weighed in. The foreign minister suggested that the ambassador was correct that the increases in price were related to the war, but that by far the most serious issue was the lack of fuel for transportation. This shortage was essentially asphyxiating the country’s economy,
and its crippling effects would be felt for years. For all its wartime advances, the Brazilian economy continued to fall prey to high levels of inflation for the duration of the war and beyond.
When his guests sat down for dinner, Caffery received news that President Roosevelt had arrived safely back in Washington. It happened to be the president’s birthday, so the party toasted to his health. Following the clinking of glasses, the conversation shifted away from the small talk and onto the subject of Roosevelt’s meeting with Vargas on January 28. Aranha flattered his hosts by avowing that he had never seen Vargas as pleased by the outcome of a meeting as he was when he had returned to Rio.8 Both Caffery and Ingram returned the compliment, suggesting that Roosevelt also regarded the meeting as having been friendly and productive, reflecting the two leaders’ similar visions for the war effort.9 This delicate social minuet, however, concealed pressing diplomatic objectives for both Aranha and the Americans.
Brazil : The Fortunes of War (9780465080700) Page 24