Rough Stuff in Rio

Brazil's dictatorship began tightening the screws. Fortnight ago Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha was to have been honored by the Society of the Friends of America. Police arrived before the ceremony, padlocked the Society's clubrooms. Since then Aranha had been absent from his desk at the Foreign Ministry. Brazilians guessed that he had submitted his resignation.

Joao Alberto Lins de Barros, another friend of the U.S., had just resigned as Economic Coordinator. Joao Alberto was one of the leaders of the liberal revolution that put President Getulio Vargas in the presidency in 1930. Aranha was another. Only one of the revolutionary heroes of 1930 was left in a high Government post: Air Chief Eduardo Gomes. Power in the Brazilian Government now belonged to the soldiers who had imposed the fascist "New State" in 1937.

Press Suppressed. The dictatorship also attacked the press. The Department of Press & Propaganda closed five pro-U.S. national magazines with democratic inclinations: Diretrizes, a political journal; Illustracao Brasileira, a liberal monthly; Renovacao, a student publication; Nossa Senhora Menina, whose editor was Don Carlos Duarte, liberal Catholic Bishop of Maura; Mundo Medico, a professional journal that had plumped for social welfare.

The daily press was subjected to a more stringent "thought control" campaign --i.e. more meticulous censorship.

Alberto Pasqualini, who had established freedom of the press in the State of Rio Grande do Sul last January, was fired as that state's Secretary of the Interior.

Police and Schools. Candido Mota Filho, one of the nation's best known reactionaries, was imposed as a professor on the Sao Paulo Law School. (The students walked out.)

Nelson de Melo, democratically-inclined Chief of the Federal Police, was fired. His job was handed to Coriolano de Goes. As Police Chief of Sao Paulo, De Goes had machine-gunned a crowd of Sao Paulo students who plumped for representative government last November. Three were killed, 20 wounded. When Correio da Manha, Rio de Janeiro daily, sneaked some criticism of the Goes appointment into its editorial columns, it was promptly slapped by the Government with a whopping fine.

To Brazilians the meaning was plain. Agitation was growing for a national election. Brazil has not had one for ten years. Last winter Vargas promised an election when the war was over. Last April he promised it again. Now the war seemed drawing to its end. President Vargas wanted to be sure that, on election day, everything would be under control.

Argentines, cuffed regularly by the U.S. State Department for their undemocratic behavior, read the news from Rio and smiled.

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