Dictator Under Cover

Just back from six months in Latin America, Latin-wise Correspondent Roland Hall Sharp last week began a series of uncensored articles in the Christian Science Monitor. First victim was big Brazil, which most people in the U.S. think of as a great & good friend of democracy. Correspondent Sharp found much to admire, much to praise. But he blasted the dictatorial methods of President Getulio Vargas. Sore point: the rigid censorship ("so urbane and clever that it lulls many correspondents into voluntary compliance with its blackout of the free press"). Wrote Mr. Sharp:

"More than on previous trips, this correspondent heard an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the long stifling of democratic rights. The Brazilian people reasonably expect to find an atmosphere more congenial to the democratic way of living now that Brazil has cast its lot with the democracies and is sending troops to Europe.

"Instead, the clamps are screwed down on the press and on every slightest expression of opposition to governmental policies. The Brazilian people feel this reversal, and they don't like it. ... They want President Vargas to give tangible proof that he intends to bring Brazil's internal administration more in line with his foreign policy of opposition to Hitlerism and all its works. . . .

"[Vargas] has promised to restore representative government after the war. To many Brazilians, these promises do not outweigh what they see as an unnecessary blackout of democratic rights inside Brazil, in the name of a war to free the world from democracy's would-be destroyers."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.