Some Unpleasant Business

Brazil's President-elect Artur da Costa e Silva is having a high old time. On a good will tour of the world, he has already visited Portugal, Belgium, Germany and France, where he went to the Lido but did not see De Gaulle. Last week he flew to Italy and was received by Pope Paul VI and Premier Aldo Moro, then winged on for Bangkok, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and finally New York and Washington, where he will stay in Blair House as the President's guest late this month. He will not return home, in fact, until about six weeks before his inauguration on March 15--just in time to put together his Cabinet. For his own sake, that is just as well. So long as Costa e Silva is abroad, Brazilians tend not to associate him with some rather unpleasant business that is going on in his absence.

In the two months remaining to him, Brazil's lame-duck President Humberto Castello Branco is restlessly pursuing his aim of completing the drastic remodeling of Brazil that he began after the army rebellion that overthrew Leftist President Joao Goulart in April of 1964. During his drive to transform his country into a disciplined and modern society, Castello Branco has increasingly avoided Congress and simply started decreeing laws in what a top U.S. diplomat calls "an orgy of Calvinistic legislation." Calvinistic it may be, but it is a badly needed antidote for the orgy of inflationist and frequently pro-Communist legislation that Brazil's past governments have so often championed.

Certainty in Congress. Castello Branco has drawn up a new constitution that will give the President wide powers of decree (TIME, Dec. 16), announced a new press bill that provides stiff fines and up to four years in prison for magazine and newspaper editors who print anything "prejudicial to national security." He is drafting a new law that will give the President sweeping powers to deal with "security" cases. Last week he decreed a new business tax that slaps a 5% levy on shareholder profits. Since the government's ARENA party holds a 304-seat majority in Congress (compared with 168 for the opposition), the plucky little President is certain to get his way.

Though both are military men, Castello Branco was cool to Costa e Silva's bid for the presidency, for which he had decided not to run. As the ARENA party's picked candidate, Costa e Silva pledged during his campaign to maintain and develop Castello Branco's revolutionary policies, but promised that he would try to "humanize" them. Brazil could stand some humanizing right now. Though Castello Branco has accomplished many things--cut the budget, slowed inflation, attracted new foreign investment--Brazilians are discouraged by years of harsh austerity and repression.

Even so, Costa e Silva has little choice but to continue in Castello Branco's footsteps. Though out of office, Castello Branco will continue to command strong support within the Brazilian army. Just as he helped to overthrow Goulart, he could cause much trouble for Costa e Silva should the new government waver on the austere path he has set for Brazil.

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