Blame August

August in Brazil, by tradition and local superstition, is a miserable month. It was August when President Getulio Vargas shot himself in 1954, and when President Janio Quadros put out to sea in a fit of pea-green pique in 1961. Blaming Brazil's ills on the calendar is like blaming winter on the woolly bear; but last week, as Brazilians watched their potentially prosperous country sink deeper into economic and political con fusion, it must have been August's fault. It could hardly be President Joao Goulart's; he hadn't done anything.

Noisy Mute. In July Brazilians were told that the cost of living had spiraled upward a dizzying 70% in a year. It now takes 850 cruzeiros to buy a dollar (up from 500 a year ago). Eight major unions threatened strikes unless they got raises ranging from 40% to 90%, and dairies vowed to turn off the milk if they were not allowed a 50% price increase. Most troublesome of all, the army wanted more money.

Brazil's 100,000-man army likes to think of itself as the "great mute," strong in power, silent in politics. Unlike many Latin American armed forces, it has yet to foist a military dictatorship on the country. In a century and a half, it has overthrown a Portuguese king, two Brazilian emperors, a president, a dictator, and even a would-be military strongman. But every coup, the brass likes to boast, was a direct translation of the popular will. True to tradition, the army today is an all-too-faithful reflection of the nation--divided, discontented and quarrelsome.

Rattled Noncoms. Last month the austere ballroom of Rio de Janeiro's Military Club shook with saber-rattling debate as officers protested the chaos and inflation around them and issued a two-week ultimatum for a 100% pay increase. Unless they got higher pay, shouted one officer, "it will not be the fall of the Bastille, but of Brasilia." Such talk annoyed the noncommissioned officers, a more left-wing bunch, who tend to consider Goulart something of a kindred spirit. From Rio's Sergeants' Club came accusations that the generals wanted to overthrow the President. A pair of oratorical army sergeants were put in jail for tirades against the officers. When a marine sergeant was arrested for similar talk, 100 of his comrades, protesting his arrest, had to be marched off to the stockade.

The government's response was characteristic Goulart. For talking against the government, the army marshal who is president of the officers' club was arrested, along with other outspoken officers. But then everybody got a raise. Congress shouted through an average 80% pay increase for all federal employees, including the armed forces. President Goulart, who had solemnly promised President Kennedy a period of austerity in return for a $398.5 million dollar loan commitment, signed the big pay raise. Before the month is out, printing presses will have to roll off about 50 billion new cruzeiros to add to the 54 billion already printed this year. That's August in Brazil.

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