Week of Rioting

Fiery discontent ripped Brazil's violent politics wide open last week. After months of strikes, army and air force threats, ceaseless newspaper attacks and congressional roars for the impeachment of President Getulio Vargas, the proud old (71) Gaucho who had ruled Brazil for 18 of the past 24 years was toppled from office by the chiefs of the armed forces. Then, in a last, fateful act of Hitler-like defiance, he killed himself, leaving behind a bitter, eloquent testament heaping all blame for his failure--and Brazil's plight--on a wicked combination of his domestic ene mies and "international financial groups."

The news of Vargas' suicide and his defiant farewell (see below) broke over the capital almost as fast as the word of his decision to step down from office. After a moment of stunned incredulity, Rio was caught in a vortex of emotions. Excited groups formed and violence flared. Mobs ripped down anti-Vargas campaign posters, whirled off to attack offices of opposition newspapers, and finally hit out indiscriminately at shop windows and private cars.

Enter the Reds. The Communists, technically outlawed but in practice tolerated by the Vargas regime, went into action within minutes. With headlines in their newspaper screaming "Down with the Americans," they shrewdly turned the vague "international groups" phrase of Vargas' farewell note into a specific blast against the U.S. Red-manned sound-trucks egged crowds on to attack the Standard Oil Co. (NJ.) building and the glass-walled U.S. embassy. At the embassy police opened up with machine guns and tear gas, routing the mob and wounding a dozen rioters.

After that, powerful army units fanned through the city to squelch further outbreaks. But in Porto Alegre, capital of Vargas' home state of Rio Grande do Sul, mobs fired the U.S. consulate and offices of two U.S. firms. Six died and more than a hundred rioters were wounded as troops dispersed them with gunfire. In Sao Paulo, police guns halted attacks on two U.S. company offices, wounding 20.

Roused from bed at dawn to be told that Vargas had turned the government over to him, Vice President Joࣞ Cafe Filho* 55, was being photographed in his pajamas when he learned that the old man had put him in an even tighter spot by committing suicide. The new chief of state took over his job without any ceremony. While heavily armed troops held Rio like a city at war, he moved fast to avert any coups and to restore order.

Unholy Alliance. Some of the new government's most decisive measures were taken against the Communists. Ever mindful of the 600,000 votes they rolled up in the 1945 elections, Vargas had played sly footie with the Reds for years, though never permitting them to operate as a legal party. By week's end the new regime had arrested 100 Communist leaders, and Red-led violence in Rio appeared to be under control, even though two more had been killed and scores wounded in a mob assault on the Air Ministry. In Sao Paulo authorities announced that they would prosecute the Communist-controlled newspaper Noticias de Hoje for inciting attacks on U.S. company offices.

Already, as President Cafe Filho junked Vargas' policies tolerating Communist publications and agitators, Rio heard talk of a possible alliance of the Communists and Vargas' Labor Party for the October congressional elections. The Labor Party provided support for such stories by announcing that it would oppose Cafe Filho and by demanding that he free the arrested Reds.

Determined to get on with the elections despite last week's upheaval, President Cafe Filho set up a new government including representatives from all the parties. He picked Raul Fernandes, an old friend of the U.S., for his Foreign Minister, and a highly esteemed, deflation-minded Rio economics professor for the key Finance Ministry. The professor immediately announced that he would do all he could to encourage foreign investments and relax trade controls. It was a com pletely new government. The new president, a modest ex-journalist from the north, had bucked Vargas vigorously during his dictatorship, and now from his first cautious but firm steps appeared determined to embark on a new period of conservative moderation.

At week's end most of Brazil seemed to be getting back to normal. President Cafe Filho worked hard to ward off a threatened split among his military leaders, following a public attack by Vargas' War Minister Zenobio da Costa on his fellow generals for their disloyalty to the former President. That was by no means the President's only headache: labor leaders were still talking menacingly about a general strike. Brazil's new leaders feared fresh volcanic explosions, fired by the testament of Getulio Vargas as interpreted by the apostles of Communism.

* Filho is Portuguese for Jr.

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