Humberto Castelo Branco

Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco (September 20, 1897 - July 18, 1967) commanded the April 1964 military coup that overthrew Brazilian President Joao Goulart and served as Brazil's first post-coup military president from 1964 to 1967. The intellectual leader of the "Sorbonne Group" of US-aligned Brazilian officers, he had formed a close personal friendship with US Military Attaché Vernon Walters while the Brazilian Expeditionary Force fought under US command in Italy during World War II, a relationship that gave Washington direct access to coup planning in the weeks before the military moved.

Military Career and U.S. Ties

Humberto Castelo Branco was born September 20, 1897 in Fortaleza, Ceará. He joined the military academy at age 21 in Rio Grande do Sul, completed a two-year course at the École Supérieure de Guerre in Paris in the late 1930s, and studied at Fort Leavenworth in the United States. He commanded Brazilian forces during World War II as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought under U.S. command in Italy from 1944 to 1945. He formed a close personal friendship with U.S. Military Attaché Vernon Walters during the Italian campaign that continued through the postwar decades. When Walters arrived at Rio's airport as military attaché in the early 1960s, he was met by fourteen old military friends, including Castelo Branco.¹

Castelo Branco was the intellectual center of the "Sorbonne Group," the faction of technically trained Brazilian officers who had helped found the Escola Superior de Guerra (ESG), established by Law 785/49 on August 20, 1949, and who had accepted the Pentagon's doctrine of internal warfare against communism. The ESG's staff had French training backgrounds (hence the "Sorbonne" name) and formulated the National Security Doctrine (Doutrina de Segurança Nacional), which identified internal subversion rather than external attack as the primary threat to the Brazilian state. Castelo Branco was appointed Army Chief of Staff on September 13, 1963. The Sorbonne Group branded all criticism of the United States as Communist-inspired. They rejected the traditional emphasis on maintaining a regional balance of power in favor of a permanent alliance with the United States.²

Planning and Executing the Coup

As Army Chief of Staff, Castelo Branco approached U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon on March 16, 1964, with a "white paper" rationale for a military uprising against President Joao Goulart. Gordon's response, according to Colby and Dennett's account, included assurances of U.S. recognition for any rebel government that could hold out for forty-eight hours.³

On March 20, 1964, Castelo Branco sent a letter to senior army officers opposing Goulart and calling for resistance. By March 26, Ambassador Gordon was cabling Washington that Castelo Branco was "perhaps Brazil's most energetic, courageous and responsible army general" and had "agreed to lead democratic resistance group in military." The same cable reported that democratic military leaders had distributed questionnaires throughout Brazil instructing officers how to put their units in readiness, with a second document designating Castelo Branco to signal the trigger for action against the regime.⁴

On March 28, 1964, Gordon sent a Top Secret cable to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, CIA Director John McCone, and General Maxwell Taylor, recommending "clandestine delivery of arms" via "unmarked submarine to be off-loaded at night in isolated shore spots in state of Sao Paulo" for Castelo Branco's forces, alongside petroleum deliveries and a naval task force "for maneuvers in south Atlantic" within steaming distance of Santos.⁵ Army Attaché Colonel Vernon Walters received requests for U.S. assistance from the conspirators but stated he had "no authority to discuss such matters," relaying all information to Gordon.⁶

General Andrew O'Meara, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, was among the recipients of Gordon's cables from his Panama Canal headquarters. Castelo Branco had given Walters a document describing the coup's rationale on March 17.

Castelo Branco coordinated the Fourth Army's march from Minas Gerais on the night of March 31, taking Rio within a few hours. The coup met no serious military resistance. The Congress, now surrounded by tanks, declared the presidency "vacated" on April 1 and named a constitutional successor. On April 1, Gordon cabled Washington that the coup was "95% over" and that Castelo Branco had stated he did not need U.S. assistance.⁷ Goulart departed Porto Alegre for exile in Uruguay on April 2, confirmed by CIA intelligence cable.⁸

On March 31, as the coup unfolded, Secretary of State Rusk authorized Operation Brother Sam: naval tankers bearing petroleum from Aruba (the first expected off Santos by April 13), an aircraft carrier with destroyers, and approximately 110 tons of ammunition and CS agent for airlift within 24 to 36 hours. The operation was cancelled when the coup succeeded without requiring U.S. logistical intervention.⁹ Congress elected Castelo Branco president on April 11, and he took the oath of office on April 15, 1964.¹⁰

Presidency (1964-1967)

Castelo Branco's government issued the First Institutional Act on April 9, 1964, empowering the president to cancel electoral mandates, suspend political rights for up to ten years, dismiss civil servants and military officers suspected of disloyalty, and suspend constitutional guarantees of expression and assembly. By mid-1964, the regime had suspended rights for 337 individuals, including three former presidents (Juscelino Kubitschek, Janio Quadros, and Joao Goulart) and numerous federal deputies and senators.¹¹

The Petrobrás nationalization that Goulart had decreed was reversed. American oil companies, led by Standard Oil of New Jersey's Esso, were restored to control over Brazil's marketing and distribution of oil products. The SNI (Serviço Nacional de Informações) intelligence agency was established in 1964 as a civilian agency of the executive branch, placed under retired General Golbery do Couto e Silva, who held ministerial rank and sat in the president's cabinet. Golbery had previously headed IPES (Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Sociais), the privately funded think tank and intelligence-gathering operation that had worked to undermine Goulart before the coup. The SNI accumulated intelligence through an elaborate system of informants and telephone taps, with the SNI chief holding independent financial control and authority.¹²

Roberto Campos, former Brazilian ambassador to the United States and a friend of Rockefeller interests, was appointed Minister of Planning on May 14, 1964, with Octavio Gouveia de Bulhões serving as Finance Minister. Campos's economic program reversed Goulart's restrictions on foreign investment, gave American and European firms preferential treatment over domestic companies, froze wages, ended government subsidies for wheat and oil, and brought labor unions under federal supervision. Inflation fell from 87.8 percent in 1964 to 28.8 percent by 1967. The program opened the Amazon to U.S. corporate exploitation, beginning with the restoration of Hanna Mining's iron-ore concession in Minas Gerais.

Hanna Mining Company had acquired controlling interest in Brazil's St. John D'el Rey Mining Company beginning in 1956, gaining access to what was described as one of the world's richest high-grade hematite deposits in Minas Gerais. President Goulart had issued an expropriation decree challenging Hanna's claim, and the case had reached the Federal Court of Appeals before the coup. On December 24, 1964, Castelo Branco issued a presidential decree endorsing private development of Brazil's iron ore reserves and supporting Hanna's plans, including construction of loading facilities at Sepetiba Bay and a railway cutoff to the government-owned Central do Brasil railroad. John J. McCloy, board chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, made strategic visits to Brazilian officials at critical moments in Hanna's legal struggle over the concession. On June 15, 1966, the reconstituted Federal Court of Appeals ruled in Hanna's favor.¹³

U.S. aid followed immediately after recognition. The Agency for International Development provided a $50 million contingency loan in June 1964. A $150 million AID program loan was authorized in December 1964 after Brazil submitted formal self-help commitments to CIAP. By December 1965, Secretary of State Rusk was requesting President Johnson's approval for a further $150 million AID program loan for 1966, which Johnson approved December 11, 1965, with the agreement signed February 10, 1966. The 1965 package also included a $53.6 million Treasury exchange agreement and a $125 million IMF standby agreement. Gordon's August 1964 assessment (FRUS Document 215) proposed annual capital inflows of $600-700 million from combined U.S. and international sources to sustain Brazil's development program. Between 1960 and 1966, Brazil received approximately $2.5 billion in total foreign assistance, and by 1970 had become the largest recipient of World Bank funds.¹⁴

Brazil broke off relations with Cuba in July 1964 and joined the Johnson administration's OAS condemnation of Cuba in 1965. Castelo Branco supported the U.S. Marine intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, contributing troops to the Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF), established by OAS resolution on May 23, 1965. The IAPF was commanded by Brazilian General Hugo Panasco Alvim, with U.S. General Bruce Palmer as deputy commander. The force comprised approximately 1,748 troops from Brazil, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras, operating alongside approximately 12,400 U.S. military personnel.¹⁵

Second Institutional Act

The Second Institutional Act, signed on October 27, 1965, came in response to the military government's poor showing in that year's gubernatorial elections, in which opposition candidates won two state contests. The act banned all existing political parties, provided for indirect election of the president, restricted the time Congress could consider legislation before it automatically became law, stipulated that persons accused of crimes against national security would be subject to military justice, and expanded the Supreme Court to secure favorable rulings, including the restoration of Hanna Mining's concessions.¹⁶

Ambassador Gordon reported on the act in a cable to Washington dated November 3, 1965, describing his private conversation with Castelo Branco about it. According to Gordon's account, Castelo Branco explained that Congress and some Supreme Court justices had misunderstood his commitment to constitutional normality as willingness to reverse the revolution, and determined by mid-October that corrective action was necessary. Gordon expressed concern about "arbitrary powers assumed through the act" and the risks of sliding toward military dictatorship rather than maintaining the armed forces' traditional moderating role.¹⁷

Death

Castelo Branco was killed on July 18, 1967, four months after leaving the presidency, when his Piper PA-23 Aztec aircraft collided mid-air with a Brazilian Air Force Lockheed T-33 jet trainer near Fortaleza. The circumstances of the crash were never definitively explained; military records attributed it to an accidental mid-air collision, though the episode was widely regarded as suspicious.¹⁸