Running Early

Brazil's presidential election is still 14 months away but, as in the U.S., candidates are running and interest is high. In Rio de Janeiro last week, Field Marshal Henrique Baptista Duffles Teixeira Lott. 64, the Minister of War and standard bearer for President Juscelino Kubitschek's Social Democrats, hopped on the stump and drew howls from the opposition. Though the old soldier had just arrested a colonel for getting into politics, he himself appeared in uniform and armpit-deep in medals. The opposition wailed again when Kubitschek handed the powerful Ministries of Public Works and Justice-Interior to two pro-Lott politicos. One openly promised to "integrate" his ministry in the campaign.

Moscow Coup. But the man who held the brightest spotlight was nowhere near Rio last week. He was 7,000 miles away in the person of Janio Quadros, 42, the homespun, popular ex-governor of Sao Paulo state and front-running candidate of the conservative National Democratic Union (U.D.N.). Topping off a round-the-world junket, Quadros followed Richard Nixon into Moscow, got himself a full 45 minutes with the jovial Nikita Khrushchev, came out to urge "the most rapid possible" resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia. Cockily, Janio added: "The Soviet Union gets its coffee from Africa and, judging from the taste, would greatly benefit by Brazilian trade."

Quadros' ploy neatly bracketed the position of his rival Lott, who is also backed by the Communists and came out against Brazilian-Soviet relations to forestall charges of making pacts with the Reds. Quadros fears no such label, can afford a play for increased trade. The idea was an immediate hit at home.

Something for All. Such coups have kept Quadros on the front pages ever since he left for Japan last March. Brazil's newspapers sent their top men to catch Quadros in Japan, Turkey, Israel, Europe. Quadros missed not a beat on the toast-quaffing circuit, had something at every stop to tickle Brazil's minority groups. Said a Rio politician: "Janio won Brazil's Japanese vote in Tokyo, its Italian vote in Rome, the Jewish vote in Tel Aviv." Everywhere, Janio outlined his platform: the same kind of honest government that brought a boom when he was governor (TIME, March 3, 1958).

Quadros will sail home in September for a hero's welcome at the U.D.N. convention, then change to sloppy clothes and two-day beard and set out to improve his great following among Brazilian workers. Said he: "Marshal Lott is a distinguished patriot, but to become President it is also necessary to be popular." A recent poll in Brazil's 20 state capitals showed 72% for Quadros, 18% for Lott.

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