The ABC presidents: conversations and correspondence with the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile 0275941108

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The ABC Presidents

The ABC Presidents Conversations and Correspondence with the Presidents of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile Robert J. Alexander

PRAEGER

Westport, Connecticut London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alexander, Robert Jackson. The ABC presidents : conversations and correspondence with the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile I Robert J. Alexander. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-275-94110-8 (alk. paper) 1. South America—Politics and government—20th century. 2. Argentina—Politics and government—1943- 3. Brazil—Politics and government—20th century. 4. Chile—Politics and government—20th century. 5. Presidents—South America— History—20th century. I. Title. F2237.A43 1992 980.03’3’0922—dc20 92-3676

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright © 1992 by Robert J. Alexander

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-3676 ISBN: 0-275-94110-8

First published in 1992 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

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(©of The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).

10 987654321

To Manoranjan and Kanak Dutta

Contents Preface

Argentina Juan Perón Pedro Eugenio Aramburu Arturo Frondizi Arturo Illia Raul Alfonsin

Brazil

Eurico Dutra Joäo Café Filho Juscelino Kubitschek Jänio Quadros Joäo Goulart José Sarney

Chile Arturo Alessandri Juan B. Bennett Marmaduque Grove Carlos Dävila

ix 1

6 13 24 81 90

91 102 103 108 143 154 161 167 174 176 178 182

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Alfredo Duhalde Gabriel Gonzàlez Videla Jorge Alessandri Eduardo Frei Salvador Allende

185 192 210 230 271

Further Reading

275

Index

279

Preface This is the second, in a series of volumes of conversations and correspondence with presidents, and other chief executives, of Latin America—defined as all of the Western Hemisphere south of the United States. The first volume dealt with a single person, the late President Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela. The present book deals with several presidents of the ABC countries of South America — that is, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile — and covers relationships that I have had with these men since the beginning of my personal contacts with Latin America, during 1946 and 1947. The period covered in which these people were presidents of their respective countries ranges from right after World War I to the 1980s. For the most part, the interviews and letters in this volume do not date from the time when the people involved were actually chief executives of their countries. Only in the cases of President Arturo Frondizi of Argentina and President Eduardo Frei of Chile did I speak or correspond with the incumbent president. I also talked and corresponded with them, as well as with the other people in the volume, either before or after they were president, or both. Hopefully the material in this volume will cast

some useful light on the political history of the ABC countries during much of the twentieth century. The men involved tell substantial amounts about their own careers; however, they also provide information, comments, and observations on many of their contemporaries, including other people who were included in this volume. A word is in order with regard to the nature of my conversations with the people dealt with here. Since I started interviewing people almost half a century ago, I have virtually never taken notes in front of those with whom I have talked, or used any kind of recording device. It has always seemed to me that people will feel freer to talk if they are not faced with such intervening impediments. My practice, therefore, has been to take notes on what has transpired as soon as I leave the presence of the person involved, and then as soon as I can get to a typewriter, I have written out in detail my notes of what the person has said. As a result of using this procedure, I did not record these conversations as if they were direct recordings or quotes. Rather, I wrote them up using the third person singular point of view, rather than the first person. Both the interviews and the correspondence have been conducted in Spanish (in the cases of Argentina and Chile) or Portuguese (in that of Brazil), except for my own two letters to Arturo Frondizi, I have made all the translations into English. Both interviews and correspondence are in the present tense, since they use what the presidents wrote or said at the time indicated in each letter or interview. As is true with all authors, I owe debts to others who made the appearance of this volume possible. Of course, my first obligation is to the people who are dealt with here, who both talked with me more or less extensively, and in some cases, also answered the questions I posed in my letters to them. Also, I appreciate the interest of Dr. James Sabin in this and other volumes in this series, as well as Kellie Cardone and Patricia Meyers, who edited the present book, and other people at the Greenwood Publishing

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Group who have seen this volume through to publication. I owe a constant debt to my wife Joan, who has permitted me to work on this volume in the evenings when I’m sure she must have thought that I could have found better things on which to spend my time. Finally, I want to thank particularly Eldon Parker, who has put the manuscript in camera-ready copy. He has been very hard working and diligent in this.

Argentina INTRODUCTION

Juan Perón was President of Argentina when I first went to that country in 1946. Although, as a mere Columbia University Ph.D. aspirant I didn’t think of trying to meet the Argentine president during that visit, I did attempt to get an interview with him on subsequent trips during the early 1950s. I recall that at that time I was warned by anti-Peronista friends to beware, because Perón was considered so persuasive that he would be able to convince me that black was white, and vice versa; however, when I actually met Perón, this did not prove to be the case. So long as Perón was president, I didn't succeed in getting to meet him. After he was overthrown and went into exile, I tried once again. However, it was not until five years after he was overthrown that I was finally able to meet him in Madrid. I was received by Perón relatively early one morning. Isabel Martinez, who was soon to be Perón 's third wife, was obviously in charge of the household, and was actively instructing the servants on their day's

2 duties. Perón himself was very cordial, but he disappointed me. Although he had indicated that he was acquainted with my first book about him, he gave little evidence of this fact in talking with me. He told me untruths, such as saying that the Socialist newspaper La Vanguardia came out regularly during his regime. He should have known that I knew that such was not the case--unless one includes the exile version published in Montevideo, Uruguay. The La Vanguardia issue, was however, only one of several items about which Perón told me something less than the truth. Perón had become vice president and minister of war only after becoming secretary of labor, not before, as he indicates. The majority of union leaders in 1943 were not Communists, as Perón alleged, but either Socialist or Syndicalist. Rodolfo Puiggros was head of a pro-Perón faction that broke away from the Communist Party, never a Trotskyite as Perón alleges; and it was widely rumored that he was a consultant of Perón, and he certainly claimed to me that he was. Perón’s claim that the opposition parties functioned "normally” during his regime was at best an exaggeration; many party leaders were exiled, living underground, or in jail. The 1952 conversation with Arturo Frondizi confirms this fact. Other prevarications included Perón ’s assertions about the Eva Perón Welfare Foudation—that it never received government money when in fact it got congressional appropriations more or less regularly-and that it existed on the basis of "voluntary" contributions. In fact, many such "contributions” from employers as well as from unions were considerably less than voluntary. Finally, it is not true that Evita Perón played no role in the labor movement during her husband’s administration; she had her office in the Ministry of Labor, met regularly with leading trade unionists there, and also traveled widely in the interior, meeting with trade union leaders there, as well as intervening in many labor disputes. When Perón was overthrown in September 1955, he was succeeded by the leader of the movement against

3 him, General Eduardo Lonardi. In less than two months, however, Lonardi was ousted by a further military coup, and the new president was General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, who held the post from November 1955 until June 1958. After Aramburu left the presidency, he led those military men (although from retirement) who sought to defend and maintain the elected government. In my conversation with him, Aramburu offers his explanation for why his efforts in that direction could not prevent the overthrow of his successor, Arturo Frondizi. My interview with General Aramburu was in one way one of the most satisfactory that I have ever had. Although we must have talked a couple of hours, virtually all of the conversation was carried by the general. I had to ask him very few questions, because in his kind of stream-of-consciousness dialogue he answered virtually all of the queries that I might have had. The general was murdered by Peronista guerillas only a few months after our conversation. Undoubtedly, the Argentine president with whom I have had the longest acquaintance has been Arturo Frondizi, who was Aramburu’s successor. I was first introduced to him during my first visit to Argentina in 1946, by a young Socialist journalist, José B. Treviño. Treviño suggested that I should speak with Frondizi as one of the most promising young leaders of the Radical Party opposition to President Juan Perón, and his position at that time is reflected in my first conversation with him. During the years of the first Perón presidency, I had occasion to talk with Arturo Frondizi on several occasions, and also had some correspondence with him. His particular significance during those years, in which he emerged as one of the principal leaders of the Radical Party (Unión Cívica Radical), was that he was virtually the only important f leader of the opposition to Perón who was willing to recognize that a major reason for Perón's popularity among the Argentine working class was that he had done a great

4 deal for them before and after he became president. Therefore, unlike most oppositionist leaders, Frondizi did not automatically oppose everything the Perón government did. He did oppose the political oppression of the regime, but not its social legislation and other measures that favored the working class. This limited opposition was the major reason Frondizi was more able than any other antiPeronista leader to rally support among the ex­ dictator’s followers after Perón was overthrown. Partly as a result of this, Arturo Frondizi was elected president in 1958. During his four years in the presidency, I had some conversations and correspondence with him. Perhaps most interesting is Frondizi's letter of December 22, 1958, written in reply to a letter from me with which I had enclosed a copy of an article that I had published in the New Leader magazine in New York. In that article, I had dealt with Frondizi’s first six months in office, arguing that during that period he had largely been paying off debts to the very divergent groups that had supported his election. These payoffs included those to his own Radicals through jobs and more or less full reestablishment of civil liberties; to the Peronista trade unionists in substantial wage increases ; to the far-right-wing nationalists, principally in the form of diplomatic posts; and to Catholic elements, in legislation allowing legal establishment of "private" universities, including Catholic ones. Although I did not necessarily regard this article as particularly complimentary, judging from President Frondizi’s letter, he apparently regarded it as reflecting the truth. President Frondizi was overthrown by a military coup in March 1962, as a consequence of congressional and provincial elections that brought important victories to the Peronistas, and he was imprisoned on Martín Garcia Island in the Rio de la Plata. After his overthrow, I wrote him a letter addressed to "Dr. Arturo Frondizi, Martín Garcia Island, Argentina, " expressing my regrets about what had happened. Although I didn’t really expect to get an answer to that note, I soon did, in the form of a letter from

5 Eduardo S. González, Frondizi's secretary, on the ex­ president ’s stationery, acknowledging receipt of my letter, which is included in this volume. A year-and-a-half after the overthrow of Frondizi, elections were won by Arturo Illia, the candidate of the Unión Cívica Radical del Pueblo, the faction of the Radical party that in 1958 had run Ricardo Balbin against Arturo Frondizi ’s Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente. Illia was finally overthrown by the armed forces in June 1966 for much the same reason as Frondizi had been more than four years earlier. The prospect was that the Peronistas would win congressional and provincial elections scheduled for March 1967, but this time, the military decided to overthrow the incumbent government before rather than after the election. In my conversation with him some years after his ouster, ex-president Illia discussed his tenure in the presidency and a variety of other things. General Juan Carlos Ongañía was the first of several military presidents. After a very short honeymoon with many elements of the civilian political establishment, including the Peronista trade union leaders and (apparently) Arturo Frondizi, Ongañía veered towards establishment of a corporativist-type regime, which alienated most organized civilian political forces. The death knell of the Ongañía regime, however, was the "Cordobazo, " a massive civilian insurrection centering on the city of Córdoba, in May 1969. A few months later, Ongañía was ousted by his fellow generals in favor of Brigadier General Roberto M. Levingston, who was summoned home from his post as military attaché in the Argentine Embassy in Washington, to assume the presidency; Levingston lasted less than a year. The last of the generals to be president in this period was Alejandro Lanusse, who began a process of negotiation of a return to elected government. Several stages in that process are reflected in conversation and correspondence with Arturo Frondizi. The Lanusse period ended with the return of the

6 Peronistas to power in mid-1973, first in the person of President Héctor Cámpora, who resigned after about three months, paving the way for the election once more of Juan Perón. By that time, however, Perón was mortally ill, and he died at the end of June 1974; he was succeeded by his vice president and wife, Isabel Perón, who proved to be totally incapable of doing the job. With the overthrow of President Isabel Perón in March 1976, there began perhaps the cruelest period of military dictatorship in twentieth-century Argentine history. It only ended after the unmitigated catastrophe of the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) War, when the Argentine armed forces proved unable to do their job, which resulted in their losing their control of national politics. As 3 result of the elections the military were forced to call in 1983, the Radical Party candidate Raúl Alfonsin defeated a candidate of the Peronistas. This was the first time that the party of the late dictator had ever been defeated in an election in which they had been able to participate on equal terms. There were great hopes when Raúl Alfonsin assumed the presidency, but for many reasons, these hopes were not full filled. The talk that appears in this volume, however, which President Alfonsin gave principally to his fellow countrymen attending the inauguration of Venezuelan President Jaime Lusinchi early in 1984, reflects the optimism of the first part of his presidency. *

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CONVERSATION WITH JUAN PERÓN AT HIS HOUSE IN MADRID, SPAIN, SEPTEMBER 1, 1960

The best people who worked with Perón in the Argentine labor movement were ex-anarchists who had come to Argentina after the Spanish Civil War, like Santin. They were idealists, and Perón liked to work with idealists better than other types, but in politics, he admits, one must work with all kinds. With idealists one can do things for the good of the country; with others, they are

7 concerned only in things that are good for their own interests. Perón had long been interested in social problems. His father had always instilled in him the need to emulate great men. In the army he had seen many young men of twenty years of age coming in as draftees without clothes, without shoes. He saw the army reject many who were undernourished. Perón talked at length with many of these young draftees, who hadn’t yet learned to lie, and who told him the truth about the backgrounds from which they came. Also, in army service, he traveled widely throughout the country and saw the miserable conditions of life and work that existed in many areas. Perón felt he was lucky to have been sent on a study mission to Europe between 1938 and 1940. He saw the great social movements that were in progress there in Italy, France, and Germany at that time. He did not get to Russia. Out of all these elements Perón developed his own social philosophy. He felt that humanity tends to be tom between two extremes: liberal democracy of the nineteenthcentury, and popular democracy, which will be the hallmark of the twenty-first-century. This—the twentieth—is the century of great social transformation. Perón saw the need for developing an intermediary philosophy between the liberal democracy and popular democracy: that is Justicialismo. The revolution of 1943 was caused mainly by the colonels reacting to the prospect of the election of Patrón Costas as president. The reaction in the army was against his extreme conservatism, not against his pro-British attitudes. Patrón Costas had an estancia in Salta where he had his own police, his own money, a veritable state within a state. The prospect of his coming to power was terrible. However, the 1943 revolution was not a social revolution in the beginning. General Arturo Rawson became president by a fluke after the military seized power. The colonels forced him to resign, by threatening to throw him out of the window of the Casa Rosada if he didn't do so. Rawson was able to proclaim himself president because of the hesitancy of General Ramírez. Ramirez was no good, a slow-witted, unintelligent character who drank entirely too much. Perón was vice president and minister of war, but he quit those posts to head the department of labor, which he intended to transform into a ministry of labor. He did so, with the establishment of the Secretaría del Trabajo. In that post, he talked incessantly with union leaders and with the masses. The union leaders were in the majority Communist at that time. In one year, Perón gave three thousand talks and speeches to small

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groups or large ones and he convinced the workers that he was on their side. Finally, when other officers realized the support that Perón had from the workers, they threw him out and Jailed him on Martín Garcia. It was then that there occured the general uprising of Perón's followers and his wife played an important part in this uprising. Cipriano Reyes was Just one of many trade unionists who participated in it. The result was that Perón was brought back from prison. Perón fulfilled his promises to the workers, which is why five years after his ouster he is more in command of Argentina than President Frondizi and all of the generals are. He believes he gave ten years of social justice, of peace and stability. The workers remember this very well. Perón's economic policies as president were successful. When he was overthrown, the Banco Central had $700 million in foreign currency and $850 million in gold. He had paid all foreign debts, had modest internal debt of 8 billion pesos. The budget was 18 billion pesos and was balanced. Agricultural production had increased under Perón from 6 million tons of wheat to 10 million. Argentina was a power in the world. It had one of the world’s most solid currencies, the black-market price of the dollar was 27 pesos. The successor governments have dissipated all of this prosperity. All the reserves of foreign exchange and gold are gone. They were spent on buying airplane carriers, and Perón is sure that much was robbed. The foreign debt is now $2.5 billion, the budget is over 100 billion pesos, and half of it is not covered by income. Wheat production is down to 5 million tons, of which Argentina consumes 3.5 million. The rest it cannot sell since the United States is giving wheat away. The peso has been up as high as 107 to the dollar. All of this could be restored quickly, however; Argentina is basically very rich. The government could restore the situation by consolidating the foreign debt on a long-term basis, could establish the price controls and exchange controls that Perón had in effect. There was no inflation during his period, because prices were controlled by the government. The situation in Argentina now is heading for chaos; if it doesn’t come to that by itself, the Peronistas will cause chaos. It is heading towards a civil war. Only the Peronistas are capable of managing chaos, as they showed during October 17, 1945. The Communists are growing rapidly now. They had 130,000 votes before his regime. In the last election under him, they received only 30,000. Now they have half a million votes, in a few years they’ll have a million, then 2 million. Only he could stop the

9 Communists; he is the only deterrent. He could stop the Communists in all of Latin America, but he doesn't know if he will be able to do so in six months time. He didn’t suppress the Communist Party. Perón didn't believe that the way to fight the Communists was by suppressing them. Puiggros was never one of his advisers; he was a Trotskyite. Castro is symptomatic of what is going on in Latin America today. Perón has no alliance with Castro. They are going on parallel lines at the moment, but he is too old a politician to fall into the trap of having an alliance with Castro. Perón backed Arturo Frondizi in the 1958 election for a very simple reason. If he had not backed Frondizi, Ricardo Balbin would have won, and Balbin was an idiot. That would have meant a return to office of the conservative elements, while Frondizi would have remained as a hope for the country. Perón knew that Frondizi would be a failure, and couldn’t carry out the program on which he was elected. So now, who is the only hope for Argentina? Frondizi is a scoundrel, a bandit. He hasn't the dignity required of a president of Argentina. He would do anything to remain in power. But he will not remain in power in spite of this for very much longer. Frondizi is very wrong if he thinks that some improvement in the economic situation will destroy the strength of the Peronistas. It is not true that after World War II Argentina had vast foreign exchange reserves that she was free to use. She had $3 billion in the United States, but for three years it was frozen and United States authorities argued that due to the changeover from the war industries to peace industries, the United States could not provide the things Argentina needed. When it was possible to supply them, prices had risen in the United States so that Argentina was robbed of $2 billion of the $3 billion reserves that she had had. As for the situation with regard to sterling balances, the British declared the inconvertibility of the pound so that the Argentines could not use their dollars to buy in Britain, or her pounds to buy elsewhere. Argentine credits in Britain were frozen, just as her dollar reserves were, so Perón scoured the world to buy war surplus. On one day, for example, Perón purchased 60,000 trucks. He bought much industrial machinery secondhand. Much of it was old, but it improved the economy of Argentina. The purchase of the railroads was also good business, not costing one centavo of Argentina's reserves. They were bought with the equivalent of one year's supply of wheat to Britain. Under Perón trade was conducted on the basis of bilateral barter. This practice has been abolished by the present government, with the result

10 that Argentina has a sizable trade defácií that did net exist during the Perón regime. The economic difficult iesof Argentina since 1955 are due to the fact that under Perón there existed, a perfectly working economic machine. Successor governments have taken this machine apart piece by piece, and so the economy is not functioning well as a result. All revolutions which are real revolutions. are a phenomenon of more than one generation. From 1900 to 1917 in Russia there was the period of the propagation of the revolution. The period of Stalinism was the consolidation of the revolution: the period of Khrushchev is the period of institutionalization of the revolution. Perón represents the period of propagation of the Argentine Revolution, which is still going on and will go on for a long time to come. Perón has studied the Italian Fascist experience well. He saw the weaknesses of its so-called corporate state. The corporaration conies from the Middle Ages, when they joined social and economic functions with political ones. The French Revolution of 1789 separated these functions, giving social and economic functions to unions and political ones to parties. Mussolini tried to reassociate these functions, setting up sindicatos that had economic and social functions but he was never willing or able to give them political functions. The party, which was in essence the militia, would not permit the transfer erf political functions to the sindicatos. Perón was not going to repeat the failures of Italian Fascism, so he allowed the parties to function normally. In fact, what he wanted was two great parties, such as existed in the United States or Britain, one the Peronista Pany on the left, with its big rival on the right. It is not true that he forbade coalitions of parties. The opposition parties did not coalesce in the 1950 election because they did not want to do so. Perón built the various confederations as centers of economic and social power. The CGT [General Confederation of Labor] was for the workers, the CGE [General Economic Confederation! for all economic forces, the CGP [General Professional Confederation] for professional people, and CGU [General University Confederation] for students. In the new provinces, the constitutions provided for equal representation of these groups with geographically elected members of the legislatures. Perhaps this reform would have come to the national government too. but he would not have imposed it. it would have come naturally if it had come In Perón's view, he never held anything against the United States. It was the United States that attacked him. as it had attacked Franco. Perón opposed the attacks on Franco, which he

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felt were wrong and unjust. The United States developed an economic blockade of Argentina under President Truman. When Eisenhower came in. he changed this policy, sent his brother Milton down, who was a very reasonable fellow. Thus, when the United States stopped being hostile towards Argentina, Perón stopped being hostile to the United States. He never had done anything concrete against the United States. For instance, he paid for the IT&T's business in Argentina with cash. Many new investors such as Squibbs and others came to Argentina from the United States during his regime. Perón never received any loans from the United States. The Eximbank made a loan to private businessmen in 1951. The loan for the steel plant had not been concluded when Perón fell. The steel plant was built by German interests, who gave better terms than the Westinghouse Co., which wanted to do the Job, and whose representatives in Argentina were good friends of his. Perón said that he would cut off his arm rather than incur a new foreign debt for Argentina. It was true that the Argentine army had great sympathy for the Germans in World War II. The Argentine army had been trained by the Germans since 1910, and Faupel had been in Argentina before the war. Perón had been well treated by the German army when he had been in Germany in 1938, but the Argentine Army did not do anything to help the Germans in the war. It was not true that there were submarine bases there or that Faupel came there during the war; he came afterwards and died there. The role of Evita Perón, his second wife, was mainly in the social welfare field. Although Perón had created a social security system covering illness and old age, there were always a number of people who were not covered, such as the vagrants and orphans. Thus, Eva Perón created the Eva Perón Social Welfare Foundation. It had old-age homes, orphanages, and schools with 60,000 children. It had a home for the families of the unemployed. It had a number of medical centers. The foundation was financed exclusively by popular contributions and received no money from the government. Eva Perón also was often approached by the unions for help in their welfare projects, but she played no other role with regard to the labor movement. Basically, Eva Perón died of overwork. Perón went to work at 6 a.m., but that was the time when she usually returned from work. Eva Perón was a very good organizer and orator, but she had leukemia, which is cancer of the blood. It is not true that he suppressed the freedom of the press. La Vanguardia was published regularly throughout his regime. So was the Communists' daily paper. There were six hundred

12 opposition periodicals during his regime. What he and his friends did do was to buy up a number of papers, which is certainly quite legitimate. Now, in contrast, there really is suppression of freedom of the press. All of his chain of papers has been confiscated and the Peronistas could not publish a paper there now, the government would not allow it. There has been a worldwide conspiracy of silence about the tyranny of the Frondizi regime. It maintains a concentration camp in the southern part of the country. The provisional government killed 2,000 people in the June 9,1956 revolt, and there are many political prisoners. The net effect of all this is to strengthen the Communist Party. Perón personally had no trouble with the Roman Catholic Church, but the church clashed with the Confederación General del Trabajo, because it wanted to establish a Catholic labor movenent. The church also clashed with the Peronista Party because the church wanted to establish a Christian Democratic Party, thus putting itself into politics. Perón was never excommunicated; this is a fable circulated around the world by the United Press, but it is untrue. An act of excommunication against the president of a republic must name him by name, but there is no such decreee of the Vatican in existence. The two priests who figured in this tale of his "excommunication,” Tato and his friend, were not expelled from Argentina, as has been alleged. They were implicated in a revolutionary attempt that failed and fled the country of their own free will. When they got to the Vatican, they said that they had been expelled and without an investigation the Vatican excommunicated "all those concerned with the expulsion" of the two. Now the Vatican, which is "infallible," cannot say that it made a mistake, so everyone there now denies any knowledge of whether or not Perón was excommunicated. He never expelled these two priests; in order to do so he would have had to sign a decree, and there is no such decree in existence. Perón believes in God, and that God is superior to all human beings. But this view does not apply to the church or to its priests, who are fallible human beings like everyone else. Religion and the church are not the same thing. Relations with the army were always good. In 1951 a handful of officers bought by the British, who resented the loss of business resulting from the Perón's industrialization program, revolted, but they were only a handful. Relations with the navy were not so good. It was always opposed to the army. The same situation exists in the United States. In 1955, Perón had deprived the fleet of all ammunition, but the British supplied it with munitions in the Islas Malvinas,

13 and it was these they used in their revolt. The tales of corruption in the Perón regime are all false. Miguel Miranda had a fortune of 300 million pesos when he entered the government and owned thirty factories. When he left the government, he had only one tenth of this sum, because he hadn't been able to attend to his business. Jorge Antonio gained a fortune legitimately, being a Mercedes Benz representative and having other businesses. If he and others got contracts from the government because they were friends of Perón’s, this was natural, since he couldn't be asked to give contracts to his enemies instead of his friends. When Edward Kaiser came to Argentina in 1953, he told Perón that he was in difficulties in the United States because of the change in the administration, which had brought the General Motors Co. into a preferred position. Charges that Perón himself got rich are absurd. If he had, where is all his wealth? Perón can legitimately attack military men in politics because from the moment he became a politician, he ceased being a military man. He has no further interest in being a general. Perón quit in 1955 because if he hadn’t done so, there would have been a civil war that would have undone all that he had accomplished. Perón wasn't governing for himself, but for the nation. If he had been governing for himself, perhaps he would have stayed on and shot all the rebel generals. He felt that if he was right, he would return and if he was not right he had no right to power anyway. ***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH GENERAL PEDRO EUGENIO ARAMBURU, IN HIS APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 7, 1968

General Aramburu had known Perón for a long time, long before 1943, when Aramburu had been recently promoted captain, and Perón was a major. At the general staff school, Perón was his professor of Military History, a very important course in military training, since it presents the student with technique and the philosophy of war, and a picture of how all elements of a society are affected by war. In this role, Perón had impressed Aramburu. Perón was very good at the subject, had a wide range of interests, was always talking and writing. At that time, he generally had a good reputation in the army. Aramburu took no part in the June 4, 1943 revolution. He was then Assistant Director of the general staff school (he is a

14 general staff officer). He was not called upon to act in this coup in one way or another; he went along with it, having very little alternative. x The next time the general saw Perón was after the San Juan earthquake. There was then a great campaign to raise funds to help the victims of the disaster, and Perón had used this opportunity to travel all over the country on behalf of this cause, accompanied by a group of actors and other civilians. He had been accused at the time of paying great attention to the actresses. By mistake, Aramburu, a general staff officer, had been to a meeting in the ministry of war troop commanders. All ranks were there, including noncommissioned officers. Perón spoke to the group, saying that he wanted to explain what he had been doing and to answer attacks that were being made upon him. He said that he had been with a group of actors, to be sure, but in the line of business, and he had not been paying court to any of the actresses. Aramburu came away from that meeting with a very bad impression. He felt that no senior officer should talk to a group of his subordinates in the way Perón had done. It was undignified and demeaning. From that time on, Aramburu was antiPeronista. Aramburu knows that it is widely believed that during Perón's presidency there was little or no serious opposition to him within the armed forces, but this was not the case. There was always considerable opposition, and it was galvanized into action on various occasions. In 1950 Aramburu, then a colonel, participated in the plotting that ultimately led to the revolution of 1951. But before this event occurred, he was assigned as military attaché in Brazil, and so he was in Rio when the revolution actually took place. Aramburu was promoted to general while he was in Rio. When he returned, he found that his former plot partners were for the most part in Jail. Inquiring around, he discovered General Lonardi, then on active service, who had been chosen as head of the revolt by the conspirators, had surrounded himself with extreme right-wing nationalists. From then on, Aramburu was cautious in his dealings with General Lonardi. By 1955 the political atmosphere was propitious again for a revolt, which was always difficult because although Perón was a dictator, he was a dictator with popular support. But Perón's quarrel with the Church had greatly weakened him. Aramburu thinks that this quarrel was Initiated by the Church, because of the immorality of Perón and his regime. Until then the Church had been a full accomplice of the Peronista regime. When open

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warfare was declared between Perón and the Church, Perón passed the divorce law, and the law legalizing prostitution. This struggle gave a chance to all of those who were against Perón to join the demonstations organized by the Church against the regime. Aramburu was also part of the plot that resulted in the June 1955 revolt. This was a well-worked-out plan, which called for the bombing of the Casa Rosada by the air force, after which civilians and military men out of uniform who would be awaiting near the Casa Rosada would storm it and kill Perón. For a while, the problem was that the main support for the movement came from the navy and air force, and Aramburu insisted on the necessity for support from the army, since if it was purely a navy movement, the army would automatically oppose it. Thus, in the process of seeking army support, the date of the movement was postponed several times. Finally, the general who was in charge decided to go ahead, and on the night of June 15, went to the ministry of the navy, where he made his headquarters. The planes were supposed to hit the Casa Rosada at eight in the morning, but there were clouds and the planes couldn't fly. Meanwhile, the intelligence services had gotten wind of what was afoot, and as a result Perón had left the Casa Rosada and fortified himself in the ministry of war. Hence, when the planes finally hit at one o'clock in the afternoon, it was too late, and the whole thing was a failure. After that attempt, there were the burnings of the churches, the Jockey Club, and the like. The situation became increasingly intolerable, but the bulk of the army commanders were unwilling to move against the Perón regime. Only a group of fifteen or twenty junior officers in the Artillery School of Córdoba and a similar group in the garrison in Entre Rios were still determined to move against the regime. Lonardi called in Aramburu and asked him if he thought that they could go ahead with the movement. Aramburu, who was cautious about Lonardi, told him the atmosphere in the army was not propitious for the movement; however, when those involved decided to go ahead anyway, Aramburu decided to join them. He was the only general on the active list who participated in the "Liberating Revolution." General Bengoa was supposed to go to Entre Rios to take command there, but he wouldn't go at the last minute, arguing that he was being watched. As a result, Aramburu went instead. Aramburu was being closely watched, with police shadowing him all the time. But finally he decided to go, leaving his wife and family and putting his life on the line. After much maneuvering, he succeeded in evading the police and arrived in the province of

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Santa Fé, where he was supposed to take the plane for Entre Rios. In order to be able to take off, he aroused the local garrison, persuaded them to control the airfield, and took off. Badly shot up, the plane looked like a sieve, but fortunately only one person, the man sitting next to Aramburu, was wounded (in the leg), and the motors were not touched. Later, Aramburu did not do anything to the poilice who had fired on him, because he felt they had only been doing their duty. The September uprising really only was successful in Córdoba, where Osorio Arana and Lonardi—but principally Osorio Arana— were successful in gaining control of the situation, and in Entre Rios, where Aramburu was able to gain control. On the basis of the revolt in these two places, the navy and part of the air force rose in revolt. However, if Perón had had the valor to take command of the army and go into the field to fight the rebels, the revolution would have failed. But Perón didn't have this fortitude and ran away instead. The Lonardi government was heterogeneous. As Aramburu had feared, Lonardi increasingly surrounded himself by Nationalists who were not opposed to the dictatorship, but only to Perón, who wanted to supplant him with another dictator. These were people like Mario Amadeo and others. The same group is important in the present government of General Ongañía. After the victory of the Liberating Revolution, Lonardi called in Aramburu and told him that he could have whatever post he wished and suggested either chief of the army general staff, or minister of transport. Aramburu told him that he did not want any civilian job, and so chose to be Chief of the Army General Staff. For some time thereafter, he devoted himself largely to his military duties. The situation worsened, however, with the Nationalists continuing to gain in influence. The military chiefs were increasingly unhappy with this situation, and finally they gathered for a meeting in the ministry of war. They amply debated the situation and decided to ask for the replacement of General Bengoa as minister of war since he had been sympathetic to the Nationalist group. After discussion, the chiefs agreed to suggest that the job be given instead to Aramburu. Then they turned their attention to the question of what would happen if Lonardi refused to replace Bengoa with Aramburu, and it was decided that they would have to replace Lonardi. When they discusssed who should be put in his place, they finally decided that it should be Aramburu. When a delegation met Lonardi, he refused to have Aramburu as minister of war, although he did not refuse to oust Bengoa. Lonardi suggested Osorio Arana in place of Aramburu. The

17 officers wanted then to turn to plan number two and oust Lonardi, but Aramburu succeeded in convincing them that Osorio Arana would be a guarantee for them because he had no sympathy for the nationalist point of view. Even with Osorio Arana in the ministry of war post, however, the situation did not improve, and so finally the military chiefs asked for Lonardi's resignation, and he was replaced with Aramburu. Perhaps if he had accepted Aramburu as minister of war, Lonardi would not have been overthrown and would have died in office. Already very sick with cancer, he died shortly after being ousted. His illness may have helped to explain both his valor in Córdoba, and the ease by which he was dominated by the Nationalists after coming to power. This situation reminds Aramburu of the old Roman story of a general who was mortally ill, was sent out to battle by one of the emperors, and was exceedingly valiant. Surprisingly, he recovered from his illness, and thereafter was no longer so brave. Aramburu agrees that his labor policy was a total failure and fortified the position of Perón. One aspect of this problem was that there was a difference between what Aramburu would have liked to do and what it was feasible to do. He would have liked to remove the military from the posts of intervenors in the CGT [Confederación General del Trabajo] and its unions, but if he had done so, he doesn't know how long he could have stayed in office. There was also a difficult problem with regard to the minister of labor. Aramburu was quite inexperienced; he had not prepared himself to be president of the republic but to be a military officer. He needed advice and so he called in trade unionists and politicians like Américo Ghioldi, who had extensive contacts with organized labor, and asked their advice on who should be minister of labor. Advisers suggested Raúl Migone. Aramburu recognizes that the choice was a bad one, that Migone may have known a great deal about labor law but knew nothing about the labor movement, and that he had no preparation for the Job of labor minister. Aramburu recognizes that Migone's idea of imposing an apolitical attitude on the labor movement was foolish. It would have been best to provide laws that would have permitted free unionization and the establishment of various central labor groups. If they had divided on the basis of political affiliations or ideologies, the workers would soon have realized that this was not to their advantage, that they had better keep a united central labor group and bury their political differences. Aramburu, however, really did not know any better himself at that time. De facto military governments are very hard ones to handle. The military are not prepared to run governments. They tend to be

18 very rigid, to try to settle everything by force, by orders. They do not realize that there are more subtle ways of getting things done, through negotiations and compromise. Aramburu had to wrestle with this problem throughout his administration. The harshness of the suppression of the June 1956 uprising, in which the government executed a number of the revolt's ringleaders, was due to a number of factors. Of course, Aramburu was out of Buenos Aires when it occured; he was in Rosario. He doesn't say this to avoid responsibility for what happened; he was ultimately responsible. If he wants the credit for the good things his government did, he must also take the blame for the difficult ones. One factor leading to the execution of ringleaders was the fact that the rebels had engaged in many vandalistic acts. For instance, at the time the revolt broke out, there was a police officer coming in on a train to Buenos Aires from La Plata. A group of rebels broke into the train, saw him and demanded that he say "Viva Perón!," and when he hesitated, they killed him. There were various other Incidents of a similar nature in which the rebels killed people needlessly. The second factor was that this revolt was based largely on the noncommissioned officers, which was exceedingly dangerous and undermined the whole structure of military discipline. Such a revolt might lead in any direction, towards a Communist or Castro-like regime, or to almost anything. Aramburu realizes in theory that there is a certain inconsistency in so thoroughly condemning breaches in discipline of this sort by noncommissoned officers, when the commissioned officers have frequently violated discipline by overthrowing governments and the like. Aramburu guesses, however, that part of the answer lies in Prussian tradition of the Argentine military, in which the enlisted men are completely subordinate to the officers and are supposed to obey the officers absolutely without question. Another part of the answer is the tremendous social dangers that such a revolt presents, as he has already noted. Another factor in the situation was that the government, right after the revolt was suppressed, had executed a number of enlisted men who participated in it, and didn't want it to appear that the generals and other high officers who were behind it were getting off lightly. Hence, one general, several colonels, and other officers were also executed. Aramburu doesn't think that that uprising was directed by or ordered by Perón. Rather, it was entirely the work of people who were here in Argentina. He also thinks that the constitutional assembly that met during his administration failed only in part. It achieved the major thing that it was intended to do, that is, make clear what

19 constitution was actually in effect. By decree, the government had suspended Perôn’s 1949 constitution and put into effect again that of 1853, but this left an unsatisfactory situation. It left open the possibility of reasonable debate as to which constitution really was in effect; that might have made it possible for Aramburu's successor to reinstate again the 1949 constitution if he found it more convenient for himself. But when the reestablishment of the 1853 constitution was decreed by the elected constitutional assembly, the issue was clearly settled. No one can now question which constitution is in effect in Argentina today. Aramburu thought it was fortunate that the constitutional assembly adjourned without doing much more than reestablishing the 1853 constitution. There were proposals to write all kinds of things into the constitution, such as the right to strike, the right to a minimum, professional, mobile wage. These things have no place in a constitution; they should be matters of ordinary legislation. He believes in the kind of constitution the United States has or in the constitution of 1853, which merely sets forth the general framework of the government, without introducing many details that make the document rigid. He thinks that the Mexlcan-style constitution is wrong, because it can quickly become out of date, cannot be molded to meet new realities, and must constantly be amended. There was great opposition within the military to turning the government over to Frondizi. Although Aramburu was by then in full control of the government, and there was no one who could tell him what to do, he nonetheless had great difficulty in convincing people like Admiral Isaac Rojas and his friends that the government should be turned over to Frondizi. Aramburu, however, had given his word to the people that he would honor the results of the election. But beyond that, he is by nature a believer in a duly constituted, elected, representive government. He thinks that this is only kind of government under which the country can really prosper. This conviction may be the result of his Basque ancestry, since Basques are naturally very conservative, or it may be Just a personal idiocyncracy. In any case, the conviction was a very good one. The government of Alvear was an exceedingly good one, and those of General Augustin Justo and Dr. Roberto Ortiz were also good governments. Aramburu was not surprised by Frondizi’s victory. In fact, he rather expected it. He felt that it was logical that Perôn would support Frondizi. During the Aramburu revolutionary regime, Frondizi had been very critical, and had been opposed to the government. On the other hand, Aramburu had tried to help

20 Balbín's candidacy as much as possible. It was therefore logical that Perón should back the candidate who was opposed to the government, rather than the one who was favored by it. Aramburu believes that this is why Perón did back Frondizi, not because of the kind of thing Perón told me, that he had done so so that when Balbin fell, as he inevitably would, Frondizi would remain as a hope of the Argentine people, rivaling Perón himself in that regard. Aramburu, however, did not know about the pact between Perón and Frondizi. If he had known about it, he would have had to look at the matter from a different angle, and he would not have turned over power to Frondizi. He thinks that Frondizi could not have been elected without Perón's support, because he had split the Radical Party and had only had the minority of that party in his own ranks, and so would not have won without Perón's backing. Aramburu remained quite proud of the fact that he turned the government over to the winner of the 1958 election. He fulfilled his word by doing so, and lived up to his own convictions. He continued to support Frondizi. This was not because he liked Frondizi, which he did not, but because he supported the democratic system. But Frondizi was veiy bad. He thought that he was a Machiavelli, but he was a poor Machiavelli, too obvious about his maneuvering. He did a number of bad things. For instance, Frondizi had preached a certain policy with regard to oil for most of his life, but when he got to power he applied a policy that was almost the exact opposite of what he had for so long advocated. Instead of going before the people of Argentina and saying frankly that since coming to power he had seen that the policy that he had so long advocated was not feasible and he was now putting into practice another, he did nothing of the sort, and instead tried to pretend that his policy in power was in fact the one which he had always supported. If he had admitted the change, he would have gotten the applause of the whole country, which would have appreciated his frankness and courage in admitting that he'd been wrong, but as it was, he was regarded as betraying his own ideas. Frondizi had a foolish socioeconomic policy. It started with a 60 percent wage increase, which greatly increased the rhythm of inflation, and went on to a massive importation of capital goods that resulted in upsetting the balance of payments and putting the country greatly in debt. The country is still suffering from this. Another example of the two-faced way in which Frondizi operated is the way in which he handled the question of the railroads. He asked some military men to take over the management of the railroads, and they did so, reorganizing their

21 administration, beginning to cut down on their tremendous overhead, getting them operating more efficiently. Then, when the railroad workers came to the president to complain about certain aspects of the policy, instead of accepting responsibility for what was essentially his policy, he blamed it on the military men, said they were forcing the policy on him and that there was nothing he could do about it, and so on. Another example of the way in which Frondizi operated was the famous interview with Che Guevara. Certainly, if he had thought it necessary to have a discussion with Guevara, he should have brought him openly to the Casa Rosada and discussed with him whatever it was that he had to talk about. He should certainly not have brought him in virtually as contraband and to have talked with him in secret as he did. Finally, in his radio and television speeches, Frondizi was very demagogic. He frequently lied about what was happening. Aramburu thinks that the president of the republic should never lie, that when he speaks to the nation he should tell the truth, and if such is the case that he cannot tell the truth, he should not speak. A major error of Frondizi was his behavior at the time of the March 1962 elections. Certainly, if Aramburu had been in the situation that Frondizi was after those elections, which gave the Peronistas control of four provinces, he would have recognized the results of the elections, saying that the people had spoken and that their will should be respected. Then if the military wanted to throw him out, let them do so, but he would go out waving the banner of the people's sovereignty. However, Frondizi did not do that at all. At that point, Frondizi tried to maneuver at all costs to stay in power. He called in Aramburu, at a time when the military were conferring about whether or not to throw out Frondizi. By that time, Aramburu was convinced that Frondizi was finished, that If he was not thrown out immediately, he would be in a month or a couple of months. From his own conversation with Frondizi, Aramburu came to the conclusion that Frondizi had lost all sense of the dignity of the presidential office, and that he could not last. He urged first, that Frondizi summon elections for a vice president, with the promise that when the vice president was elected, he would then resign. When Frondizi was unwilling to do this, Aramburu urged him simply to resign. However, Frondizi said that under no circumstances would he resign, and although Aramburu urged him to think it over for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, Frondizi reiterated flatly that he would not resign. As a result, they shook hands, said goodbye and that was the last that

22 Aramburu saw of Frondizi. He was overthrown soon afterwards. The inauguration of Guido was the result of a manuever. Of course, he was the legitimate successor of Frondizi, in his capacity of president of the senate. But Frondizi did not particularly want Guido to be sworn in. He had arranged to have the vice president, Alejandro Gomez, ousted, then had had Guido, a pobre diablo elected president of the senate, and had named another pobre diablo as president of the Supreme Court, the next in line after Guido. All of this had been done quite deliberately. Frondizi still did not want to give up, while the generals were deliberating what to do. They had decided to pass over Guido and the Supreme Court president, and to name General Poggi, who was not strong, as president. However, Supreme Court member Oyanarte, who was very influential in the court although not its president, arranged to have Guido sworn in as president before the military managed to put Poggi into the office, and as a result, the generals were presented with a fait accompli, before which they finally bowed. There was a group of military at this point who wanted Aramburu to become president once again. He absolutely refused, saying that he had turned the office over to his elected successor and he had no intention of participating in overthrowing the elected president and becoming a military dictator. The Azules and Colorados were military factions during and after the Frondizi regime. The Colorados were those who did not want power turned over to Frondizi, and they were the ones who wanted Aramburu to take over the presidency again at the time of Frondizi's fall. Frankly in favor of a military regime of undetermined duration, they tolerated Guido for a while, but had every intention to get rid of him as soon as possible. Guido at first governed with the Colorados, although he knew that they were not really his friends. When the Azules revolted, however, there was a kind of comedy of errors in which in the midst of the struggle, Guido shifted sides from the Colorado group to the Azul group. Aramburu very much wanted to see elections held in 1963. At that time, there was general skepticism and a widespread belief that the election could never be held. In thinking over how he could most contribute to elections being held, he decided that the best way was for him to proclaim his own candidacy, although he really had no serious hope that he could be elected. He had no organization at all, and in fact hoped at first that there would only be elections for president and vice president, Instead of for every elective office in the land. In a straight president and vice president race he might have been elected, but in the kind of general election that was held he did not have a chance, since he

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did not have the full slate of candidates that other parties had, candidates who in working for themselves also worked for the man at the head of the ticket. In spite of this, however, Aramburu came in a strong third, getting 1,500,000 votes. Dr. Illia won with 2,300,000 votes, and Alende of the Intransigentes finished in between. This finish was accomplished in spite of the fact that Aramburu had only about two months to organize a party, have it nominate him, and conduct a campaign. What the people obviously really voted for in that election was a national coalition government. Illia, who won, only received 22 percent of the total vote. There was no real a majority in the election, and after the votes were cast it was necessary to construct a majority. The easiest way would have been for Illia to have sought the support of Aramburu, because with Aramburu's 75 votes in the electoral college, Illia would have had enough to win. Illia chose not to do this, however, and instead sought the backing of the Socialists, the Conservatives, and others. The reason why Illia did not approach Aramburu was simple. Illia knew that in return for his 75 votes, Aramburu would demand agreement on a program of government. There would have had to be negotiation and compromise. For instance, Aramburu was against cancellation of the oil contracts, not because he cared much about the oil issue, but because he thought that such cancellation would hurt the world credit rating of Argentina. He might have beeen willing to compromise on this issue in return for something else, but there would have had to be negotiation. But Illia didn't want that kind of negotiation. Instead, he approached the Socialists, Conservatives among others. The Socialists, who had been lifelong advocates of proportional representation, on this occasion when they had it, failed to make use of it. They should have insisted on agreement on some programmatic issues before they agreed to throw their electoral college support to Illia, but they didn't. They agreed to give him their backing without any concessions on his part. Those in power made a major mistake when they ousted Illia. This government has no sense of direction; it is going no place. Although there are some elements such as Minister of Economy Krieger Vasena who were associated with him, they have not contributed to the government's sense of direction. Krieger Vasena, for instance, is following a purely financial policy rather than an economic policy. A financial policy should be just part of an economic policy, not a substitute for one, but it is confined largely to trying to slow down or stop the inflation. It

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has had moderate but limited success in this regard. In any case, Krieger Vasena had not seen the fact that however bad inflation may be it is a motor to keep tffe economy moving, and that if one is going to slow that motor down, one must replace it with some other motor. Aramburu believes that there are two other motors, investment and exports. However, investment, either by domestic investors or by foreign ones, is not really possible given such an unstable and transitory government as the current military regime, and nothing is being done to increase exports. As a result, there is a kind of recession in the country, along with the modest limitation of the inflation. Aramburu thinks that what is necessary is a government that would start the process of preparing for elections. If Ongañia is not willing to do this, then someone else who is should replace him. This process of preparation for elections is involved. For instance, Aramburu believes that measures should be taken from the top to channel Argentine politics into a two-party system, the traditional pattern of the country's political life that should be reestablished. This reform could be accomplished by a policy that would have requirements for recognition of parties sufficiently stiff so that they would lead to the establishment of only two legal parties, and would provide for a third party only if it represented a really massive movement of public opinion. Argentina’s problem is essentially a political one. Aramburu doesn't think the resolution of this problem has to await the death of Perón. That would mean, if true, that the present regime would have to stay in power the ten years it has talked about. Rather, he thinks that a government, which gave strong leadership, which gave the people the feeling that it was really governing, albeit in a democratic fashion, and knew where it was going, would be able to put and end to the influence of Perón, once and for all.

* * * ♦ * ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, BUENOS AIRES, NOVEMBER 8, 1946

The labor movement here has always been political, but in this politicalization of the labor movement the Radicals have taken no part. In the beginning, the labor movement was predominantly anarchists, with a Socialist opposition, and there was much rivalry between the two groups. Then, coincident with the decline of the anarchists came the rise of the Communists, and for many years the fight was mainly between the Socialists and

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Communists. The Radicals as such never participated in this fight. In fact, Frondizi and other Radical leaders felt that although the Unión Cívica Radical would support the unions, and the union members perhaps would back the UCR, there should be no political activity as such in the unions. There is a difference between the Socialists and Communists on the one hand and the Radicals on the other. The Socialists and Communists have a fixed doctrine, which is at the same time exclusive, and although there may be fights within those parties, they are always fights within certain limits, and furthermore, these two parties are specifically oriented towards the working class. The Radicals, on the other hand, are different. They arose about 1890 as a protest against a ruling oligarchy. At the same time, they were a protest of the immigrants and the sons of the immigrants against the exclusiveness of the natives. So the UCR grew up without any fixed doctrine and had always had within it various tendencies. When Radicalism came to power in the regime of Hipólito Irigoyen it lacked any fixed program. It for sure made democracy more real, made it easier for labor to organize and generally was a step in advance, but it had no real program. As a result, there was a division in the party's ranks, the more left-wing people centering about Irigoyen as president. Irigoyen came back in 1928, but by that time was very old and a bit weak, and became surrounded by men of bad faith, and all of this brought on the revolution of 1930. As a result of this revolution, the different Radicals reunited and Alvear reentered the party. But the fight within the party didn't cease, and the search for a program went on. With the coming to power of the 1943 revolutionaries, a large segment of the UCR membership and some of the minor leaders went over to Perón. The crisis within the Unión Cívica Radical continues. The left wingers, the Intransigentes, want a program that is oriented towards the working class and the small businessmen. The right wing, of which Ravignani and Santander are representatives, want a program more conservative in its approach. Although this dissension probably won’t cause a real split in the party, it causes many complications. Thus, the UCR made a mistake during the 1945 election of not talking about economic issues, on which Perón rode to power. The present government has used labor and now since it has come to power is backing down on its many magnificent promises. Further, it is trying to tie labor's hands legally. For instance, following the decree that required registration of labor unions, the government has now introduced a law which has passed the

26 Senate and is on the way to the Chamber of Deputies, outlawing all strikes in public services, be they private or public in ownership. This same law wopld make it a crime to conduct any strike that was not previously approved by the government. This law is very dangerous to the unions, but in spite of this fact, and in spite of the fact that union leaders who now sit in parliament know that it is very dangerous, they do not oppose Perón to the extent of resisting this measure, and it will probably pass. As to the opposition labor movement, it is now either Socialist or anarchist in orientation and control. In this regard, there has been quite a revival of the anarchist labor movement in recent months. Previously, the Communists had some strong unions but their members have entered the Peronista ranks. In connection with the meat packing strike, and the statute that the Chamber has just passed, Frondizi, who was the chief Radical spokesman in the matter, sought to obtain recognition of the fact that the workers on strike or rather the workers locked out were right, and the employers wrong. He also sought the election of committees in each plant of three workers and three employers, with workers delegates being elected by all workers in a plant. Peronistas opposed these two things, and wanted unions to choose workers' representatives. Frondizi believes, however, that the government had commitments to the British and American packinghouse owners and would also like to see Cipriano Reyes undermined so they voted down his suggestions. *****

CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN BUENOS AIRES, AUGUST 3, 1952

Frondizi does not think that the CGT is a labor organization any more; rather, it is merely another office of the government. It has no ideas or independence of its own. It manages the labor movement, but as an arm of the government. What happens to the CGT as such is of no great importance, although what happens to the labor movement is of considerable importance. The CGT will do anything that it is told to do. There are three or four groups around Perón. For one thing, there are several groups in the army, including those of Filomeno Velasco, former head of the federal police; Sosa Molina, chief of the general staff; and Franklin Lucero, minister of defense. The friends of Evita Perón are another group of importance. All of these groups are scrambling to influence Perón. The differences between the Unionists and Intransigentes in the Radical Party date back to the government of Irigoyen. They

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surfaced again in the election of 1946 when the question of a unification of the forces against Perón was under discussion. The Intransigentes were against any such united front, believing that many in the united front were in fact those who were responsible for the situation that gave rise to Perón, since they had steadfastly refused to do anything to improve the situation of the poorer classes of the country. The Unionists, or advocates of the united opposition front, won out, but the campaign was a disaster and did not deal with the problems in which the workers and middle class had a principal interest. In 1948 the Intransigentes gained control of the Radical party, and now have made even further progress, taking over the party organization in the Federal District, which until that time had been the stronghold of the Unionists. The position of the Intransigentes in international affairs is that they oppose the Rio de Janeiro Inter American Treaty, because they do not think that the countries of the hemisphere should put the direction of their international affairs in the hands of an international organization representing the dictatorships of the continent—since these dictatorships are in the majority among the countries of the hemisphere. They believe that the establishment of democracy cannot begin in Europe but must begin in this continent, insofar as the countries of this continent are concerned. They also feel that regional pacts such as the Rio Treaty are against the spirit of the United Nations. They all voted against the Rio Treaty except a few who abstained—all the Radicals did, that is. In domestic affairs, the Intransigentes feel that they must outline what the party is going to do if and when it comes to the government again. They feel that just to demand the reestablishment of democracy in this country is not enough, that the party must offer a plan that will appeal to the masses who have been misled for so long by Perón. For instance, they are for a balanced economy. They are for the industrialization of the economy, but realize that the capital for this industrialization must be purchased with foreign currencies, and that to obtain these foreign currencies, Argentina must maintain its chief sources of foreign exchange, which are its agricultural and grazing products, mainly wheat, com, and cattle. The Intransigentes are for the establishment of heavy industry in Argentina. In Salta, for instance, there is a new steel plant, based on the low-grade iron ore and charcoal. It is not strictly economic, but it is necessary no matter how unprofitable it is, in the face of the dangers that face the country, of being cut off by an economic crisis from the foreign sources of iron and steel

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products. The Intransigentes are for regional pacts in America, to plan joint economic development of the various countries. They are also in favor of preferential tariff concessions to neighboring countries, to bind their various economies together and provide larger markets for the goods that each country produces. The army of Argentina has been plotting since 1926. It had absolutely no popularity in the masses of the people until the coming to power of Perón. The army knows that he is the guarantee of the popularity that they now enjoy, so they continue to support him. The opposition to the Perón regime within the army came from the junior officers. The army is also afraid to oppose Perón, because of the force that he has among the workers. Frondizi thinks that things are going to become much worse here before they get any better. Political control has ben getting tighter and tighter, with less and less possibility for the opposition to function. For instance, there are new rumors that the Peronistas are going to pass a resolution demanding that all members of Congress dress in mourning for Evita Perón. In this case, the Radicals will refuse and probably be thrown completely out of the congress. There is a list of one thousand or more people who are not allowed to leave the country. Frondizi himself of course is on this list as are all of the important leaders of the Opposition. There thus exists an "iron curtain" that may not be quite as tight as that in Europe, but is growing tighter all of the time. The only thing that the Opposition, and in particular the Radicals, could do is to organize the cadres that will be able to take advantage of the situation when a crisis comes in the regime sufficiently grave for the Opposition to be able to move and work again towards the overthrow of the regime. For now, mass organization is virtually impossible. *

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CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 25, 1953

The question of the recent bombings is not clear in Frondizi’s mind. He thinks that there were certainly a number of honest oppositionists Involved in the bombings, although none of the political parties had anything to do with them. However, he thinks that there were also agents provocateurs of the government among those involved in the bombings. The bombings certainly played into the hands of the government. The people were aroused before the bombings by the tremendous scandals of

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administrative corruption and by the death of Juancito Duarte, as well as by the tremendous rise in the cost of living that was then occurring. However, all of this was forgotten as soon as the bombs exploded and all that people could talk about were the bombings. The corruption and rising prices had been turning even the Peronistas against the government, but this movement was also cut short by the bombings. The army put it up to Perón that he must do something about the corruption and the inflation, or else. At that moment, the Communist party, which had been following a policy of friendship for the government, turned against the regime, apparently feeling that the regime was about to fall. It expelled the leaders who had been most outstanding in the pro-Perón orientation; Juan Real, and Victorio Codovilla took full charge again. There was undoubtedly a severe crisis in the Peronista ranks at that time. Perón made a speech on the first of April in which he said that he was exceedingly tired with the struggle, that he was surrounded by thieves and opportunists, including his ministers, and that he was thinking of giving the whole thing up. There quickly followed the resignations of Duarte and others, followed in a couple days by Duarte's death, but all of this, too, was brought to a halt by the bombings. Incidentally, the attitude of the Communist party was determined by the attitude of Perón towards the United States. It has always been so, that when Perón seemed to becoming friendlier to the United States, they got more antagonistic to him. The change in the CGT made that organization more submissive to the government than it had been hitherto. Heretofore, the organization has been part of the apparatus of Evita Perón, which has operated outside of the government proper. It has been a dual organization to the government in some ways; however the people now in charge of the confederation will no doubt work much more closely with the ministries, and will be much more subservient to the government as such than was the CGT of former Secretary General José Espejo. Frondizi doesn't believe, incidentally, that the CGT threw down any challenge to Perón or demanded that he do something about corruption and high prices. There is no doubt that that Minister of Interior Angel Borlenghi has large ambitions. He is sending his wife around the country to talk to the unions in the style of Evita Perón. This situation could be very dangerous for him, of course, because Perón is no doubt aware of his ambitions and will be perfectly willing to do something to bring them to an end. There is no doubt that the new Comission of Control, which

30 has been operating recently, and which is controlled by the army, has been getting many of the more corrupt elements in the regime, particularly the group associated with Eva Perón. Bartolini, who was a brother-in-law of Evita, and Perón's other secretary, is now in jail. Of course, Perón is undoubtedly the biggest thief of them all, in connection with which, the letter of Juan Duarte before killing himself was interesting. It said that in all he had done Duarte had only been the servant of Perón, and that Perón had been his master and had told him what to do. This charge seemed to imply that whatever Juan Duarte had done, Juan Perón was at least as—and perhaps more—responsible. The Radicals have a program that they will put into execution if they come back to power. In broad lines, it consists of the following: in economic matters, they will support the industrialization of the country, but without sacrificing the nation's agriculture, which remains the chief source of foreign exchange which they are going to need in order to push forward their program. The economy of Argentina must remain for a long time firmly based on agriculture. In political terms, they will give complete freedom of the press and of speech and assembly. This will extend to allowing the paper La Prensa to appear again under its old ownership—but from the day it so appears the Radicals will be opposed to the paper's policies, since it is an essentialy conservative organ. It will also be necessary that groups in the population that have had no news vehicle before 1943 will have one. In terms of foreign economic policy, the Radicals will support a program of trading with the whole world. In foreign policy, they will be for Argentine participation in the organs of the United Nations, and of the Inter-American system, without sacrificing any of the nation's sovereignty. Of course, the possibility of the Radicals actually carrying out their own policy depends on how Perón is ousted and who takes over immediately afterwards. If it is a military regime, then the perspective will be quite different from that which would present itself if the Radicals went into the government right away. Frondizi has been accused of being anti-United States. This is not so. He is for the importing of foreign capital, for instance, but under certain very definite controls, with the Argentines saying in what fields the foreign capital should be invested. Frondizi is also very dubious about foreign capital in such fields as oil and public utilities. He is just finishing a book on the Latin American experience with petroleum. He also would favor the granting of govemment-to-govemment loans rather than the investment of private foreign capital through participation as shareholders in Argentine industry. Loans have a fixed time, cany

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a fixed interest, and when the loan is paid off, that is all. In the case of direct investments, on the contrary, the foreign participation in the industry goes on indefinitely, and the profits that they take out can be exceedingly large. Frondizi is a nationalist, although not in the blind sense. However, he resents such things as the present inability of Argentina to buy Persian oil—because the British won't let them. This is the kind of thing that arouses Argentine nationalist sentiment. The British have always been the principal investors here, but it is true that the ire of the anti-imperialists has always been most directed against the Americans. For instance, in the 1930s a convenio concerning petroleum signed between the government and the oil companies, although the Shell Company had really a bigger part in that agreement than Standard Oil, all of the propaganda was directed towards saying, "Now see what Standard Oil has gotten away with!" Frondizi believes that this bias against the Americans has been cultivated by the British, and realizes its injustice in many cases. The feeling against the United States is widespread in Latin America: and Frondizi thinks that it has been fed a good deal by the British, who do not like the U.S. conquest of what had been their markets and their sources of food and raw materials. The resentment is also the result of many mistakes that the United States has made in the past, such as armed intervention. It is also in part the result of the fact that the United States Government has not understood well enough the Latin American problem and has not helped these countries sufficiently in their desire to develop their economies and raise the standards of living of their peoples. Finally, this anti-United States feeling is in part a result of the fact that the Latin American governments have found it convenient to blame their own errors and misdeeds, or rather the result of these, on the Yankees rather than upon themselves. The government of Perón is essentially weak: and the current wave of repression shows this. Perón has not been able to develop an ideology that could bind together the various groups that supported him. He has no real party, because the Partido Peronista is really a combination of ex-Socialists, ex-Radicals, ex­ reactionaries, and army people who have not been molded into one solid group, but rather kept fighting among themselves. If something happens to Perón, this whole conglomeration will fall into its constituent parts. Perón was strong until 1949 and until then he was able to give a good deal more liberty of speech, press, and assembly than he now gives. At least the parties were able to publish their

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periodicals, even if with difficulty. They were able to have public meetings. Now, however, he cannot even stand to have criticism in public meetings. The weakness of the regime coincided with the growing economic crisis, which began in 1949. Frondizi would say that the United States has no right to discriminate against Perón in its economic aid program. The United States does not do so because he is a dictator, because it has given loans to various other dictators throughout the hemisphere. The only reason the United States has not helped Perón is because Perón has been opposed to the United States. Of course, Frondizi would not like to see Perón receive any other loans, but he thinks that only the members of the Opposition here have the moral right to object to such loans; the United States government does not. The present oppression is part of the move to eliminate once and for all the opposition. Perón wants to implement the corporative state that he has talked about frequently in his speeches. The Radical Party has been indirectly approached by Perón, with a view to making some kind of settlement that would give them particiapation in the government. The Radicals have rejected these overtures, however, because they are not interested in a few posts in the government, but rather in matters of principle, in liberty. The Intransigentes, or left wing (although they hate to use this term) of the Radical party are now in almost complete control of the party. However, the other faction continues active in the party. Frondizi does not think it bad to have two wings of the party in this way, very well pronounced. He thinks that it keeps both factions on their toes, and in the long run makes for a better party. Frondizi was arrested and jailed for two weeks in April. He was treated very well; he was kept in a local precinct and was able to have all of the visitors he wanted—something like a hundred a day came; his food was brought in from his home. However, others have been very badly treated. Santiago Nudelman, the Radical deputy, has been collecting information on the tortures that have been indulged in and the record is truly a barbarous one. *****

CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN BUENOS AIRES, JULY 15, 1954

Frondizi does not know the truth about the rumors

33 concerning Perón's health; however, he has the impression that there is nothing seriously wrong, and that there will be no operation. If Perón should die there would be no figure in the regime large enough to take his place. Certainly, Borlenghi could not do it. There would probably be an interregnum regime of the army. The Peronista party is a personal organization, and it could not continue after him, so Peronismo will die with Perón. The Peronista party is not really a political party in the sense of having a doctrine of its own. The economic policy of the administration has been disastrous. At a time when the country had a great deal of foreign exchange available, much of this exchange was wasted on useless things. For instance, instead of buying three thousand good new cars, the administration bought ten thousand old Jeeps and some old trucks that had been used in the war because thay were cheaper. The result of this policy is that the machinery used in Argentine industry is very old. Frondizi visited a factory recently, for instance, where workers were using machinery that had been imported in 1910. Also, the electric plants are very old and are very overloaded. There has not been imported any new agricultural machinery for many years. This is because the industrialization program of the government was established at the cost of the country’s agriculture. This was the policy of Miguel Miranda, himself an industrialist, who said at one point that an acre devoted to factories was much more valuable than an acre devoted to the growing of com, without taking into account that in order to industrialize, the country had to have the exports of com in order to pay for the imports of machinery and raw materials necessary. At one point, in fact, Miranda even went so far as to say that a reduction in country's agricultural production would be a good thing. Even now when the country's foreign exchange resources are scarce, the regime is wasting them on things that are useless, for show. For instance, the Argentine expedition to the Himalayas was a stupid affair. It cost the life of one of the participants, and it served no useful purpose. Three million dollars was spent on it in all, a sum that might much better have been spent on importing agricultural machinery. If the Radicals come to power, they will emphasize the increase of production. This is the key to the economic situation. The fact is that the man-hour productivity of the country has declined markedly in the last ten years. The Radicals would attempt to cut costs. They would tell the workers quite frankly that wage

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increases must depend on productivity increases. Although Perón has talked a little about this problem, he has in fact done nothing. Frondizi does not think that the Argentine workers, who do have a certain cultural development, would react badly to this position by a Radical government, if they were convinced that the government was doing all it could on their behalf. They would have a campaign to reequip the country's industry and agriculture, which would be done by cutting out unnecessary uses of foreign exchange and by bringing in instead new machinery of all kinds. There is still enough foreign exchange available to bring about these ends, if it is properly used. If Perón dies, the workers who now back him will go to other parties, although a few will probably remain with Peronismo. However, the Partido Peronista, and the whole Peronista movement, is a very personal thing, and in its present size is not going to continue after Perón. If the other parties do not prepare for the eventuality of Perón's death, by seriously getting ready to recruit these workers who are now Peronistas, the Communists will be the great beneficiaries of his death. This simple fact the conservatives in his own party cannot see. That is why they oppose the party’s making a special attempt to recruit the workers. But the difference between the situation in Argentina and the situation that occured in Guatemala was that here there is a party with a doctrine of its own, the Radical party, which can take the lead away from the Communists. This doctrine will bring the Radicals into clash with the Communists— indeed it is already doing so, since the last issue of the Communist weekly paper had a violent attack on the Radicals. The Radical party has just recently established a trade union secretariat, and is setting about the task seriously, of organizing the Radical workers and getting them ready for the moment when they can take over the leadership of the the now Peronista masses and the trade unions. The clash in the Radical party at the present time is not an organic split. It is still within the party. Frondizi's group got out of the Radical party headquarters, and set up shop in another. As president of the party, he has intervened in the party organizations in Santa Fé, Santiago del Estero, and San Juan, because of frauds in the election of the provincial officials of the party. This is an old procedure, and previous administrations of the party used it frequently against the Intransigentes. In two of the provinces, the Unionists' leadership resisted the intervention and has set up rival headquarters. The clash came over the idea of setting up a new Unión Democrática, and over the issue of participating in the elections of last April. Frondizi thinks that the situation in Guatemala, aside from

35 the moral issues involved, was a terrible error. It was just what the Russians want, and it allows the Communists to carry on a worldwide campaign against the United States and gives them ammunition. And the United States is continuing to be maladroit about it. For instance, in reporting a meeting in Chile to protest Guatemala—organized, no doubt, by the Communists—the U.S. Embassy in its news bulletin refered to Sandino the Nicaraguan guerilla leader of the 1920s as a "bandit" something that makes any politically conscious Argentine angry, because here they have a different conception of the role that Sandino played. Frondizi thinks that a visit to Latin America by Adlai Stevenson would be an excellent idea. It is very necessary for United States leaders to take a real interest in Latin American affairs, and it is important, too, for Latin Americans to have contact with North Americans who are not in the present administration and who are critical of the present administration. The attempt of the Peronistas to form a pro-Peronista Socialist Party has collapsed completely. Every such attempt fails. Several years ago, Perón tried to do the same thing with the Radical party. The interesting thing is that those who participate in such maneuvers lose the respect not only of the Opposition, but of the Peronistas as well. Frondizi does not understand how people who call themselves Socialists could participate in such a maneuver. The Communists have been able to exploit the current discontent to a certain degree. They have taken a lead in some unions in pressing for wage increases, often pushing for much more than the industry involved could possibly stand. This was true in the metallurgical union, where Communist influence was very marked. In this connection, Frondizi wants to point out again the need for some other party to take the lead in the labor field. This is the importance of the Radical party's new trade union activities. A great number of workers are still Radicals, and it is necessary to aid them in the struggle for influence within the labor movement. The Radicals opposed the oil contract proposed by Perón and the Odium interests. Their position was that Argentina has the experts and technicians, what she needs is the machinery and pipeline. They feel that with a judicious apportionment of the country's foreign exchange, they have enough to do this job themselves. The contract, furthermore, although it provided for expropriation of the company before the termination of its twentyfive year period, also provides that Argentina should pay not only the company's investments but its expected profits over the twenty-five year period. The Radicals did not believe that this was right. Frondizi doubts very much if this contract will ever be

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presented to Congress, because it Is very unpopular. The government has used as an argument in favor of this contract the alleged fact that the Argentines have not been able to purchase the necessary machinery in the United States, that there has been a boycott by the producers of this machinery. Frondizi thinks that this argument is vastly exaggerated, and thinks the fact is that the government has not made available the dollars to buy the machinery. Frondizi does think that if the dollars are available for immediate payment, a company in the United States is not going to refuse to sell its products. Even if it did, he knows that public opinion is very great, and that if this issue were made known in the press, that the resistance of the producing companies could be broken. There was a similar case in 1925, when the YPF [Yacimientos Petroleros Fiscales] was just getting started, of an attempted boycott, which was broken by a press campaign by the Argentines in the United States. It could be done again, if necessary. *****

LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, SEPTEMBER 12, 1955

I received your letter of July 18. The truth is that I should like to write you an extensive letter to put you abreast of the Argentine situation, but if I do that, I doubt that you will receive it. However, I let you know that in the midst of the crisis in which our country lives, we Radicals look at the horizon with optimism and faith. Nothing and no one can paralyze our action on behalf of the democratic ideals of the Argentine people. Under separate cover, I send you some notices, declarations, and resolutions with regard to the present situation. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI, IN BUENOS AIRES, MAY 17, 1956

The situation of the government here is still a bit unstable. There are some personal rivalries among the military men who dominate the government, and some of these military men, particularly the Catholics, are trying to use the government for their own purposes. The Peronista military men, meanwhile, are plotting, but Frondizi does not think that they will have much success. The economic and social problems of the country are the most pressing. Prices have been going up-bread, milk, transportation

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prices especially. Many workers. Peronistas, pro-Peronistas and some that were never Peronistas, are now saying that this rise was due to the fall of Perón. The government is following liberal economic policies, which mean that prices have risen faster than they might have if this had not been the case. The Intransigente Radicals are opposed to the rapid removal of controls. They are for a continued policy of industrialization. They believe in talking out loud about the economic and social problems that are of most concern to the workers, and they have opposed the devaluation of the peso in foreign exchange, which policy the government has followed. The Radicals are opposed to the persecution of the Peronistas. There are now about eight to nine hundred trade union and political prisoners in jail. About twenty-five of these are in Tierra del Fuego and there are more in Rio Gallegos. The Radicals are opposed to jailing people against whom no criminal charges have been lodged, because this is the policy that the governments of Argentina have had for twenty-five years, and it is time to put an end to it. Those Peronistas who were guilty of common crimes should be prosecuted in the common courts, charges should be leveled against them, and they should be given a fair trial. Those against whom there are no such charges should be turned loose. Insofar as the charge that Radicals are seeking to attract the support of the Peronistas is concerned, their attitude is that either one must kill off all of the Peronistas--which is manifestly impossible, and obviously wrong—or must try to win them over. This does not mean that the party has changed its policy or program, because they were talking the same language on economic and social matters before Perón and during Perón as they are talking now. However, this policy of the Radicals is not understood either here or abroad, and there are many who are accusing the Intransigente Radicals of being demagoues, or being filo-Peronistas or filo-Communists. This is absurd. The fact is that the Radicals consider that their program is the best guarantee against both the Peronistas and the Communists, that the only way to prevent these groups from getting power is to offer a program in the economic and social fields that will appeal to the masses, and that can be carried out if the Radicals come to power. The Intransigentes are opposed to allying their party with any other. The Unionistas, in contrast, are seeking the reformation of the Unión Democrática, with the Socialists, Conservatives, and Partido Democrático Progresista. These politicians seem to have learned nothing. Other parties say that they do not want a Unión Democrática, but logically they will have to form one, because aside from the Radicals, no other party would stand a chance of

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winning unless it was in a coalition. The Unionistas are still in the national Radical Party. There is one National Committee. There are separate provincial organizations in the capital, in Santa Fé, in Entre Rios. The Unionistas made an atempt to form a separate national committee several months ago, but they didn't have enough support to carry these plans into effect. Amadeo Sabattini is also still in the party, but he is following an independent policy, not as part of the Intransigentes. The Radicals do not have organized work in the unions. They have not felt that it would be a good policy to send old trade unionists into leadership of the unions, where they might do damage by coming in from the top. They thought it would be better to let the leadership of the free labor movement develop from below, and for the party to remain in contact with the workers of all parties. The workers of all kinds--Radicals, Socialists, Communists, Peronistas—come to consult Frondizi and the trade union committee of the party. The party keeps pushing issues that interest the workers. The Communists are a serious problem. They are working with tremendous energy among the workers, particularly among the Peronistas. They tell the Peronistas that they should all work together to bring Perón back. It is not that they really want Perón to come back, but because they think that this will attract the Peronistas, and they can be absorbed into the Communist apparatus. They are having considerable success. The Communists are somewhat confused by the fall of Stalin. They have removed his picture from their meetings; however, there is no evidence of any split in the party on the issue. If elections are held in the next year or year-and-a-half, the Intransigente Radicals, will come out ahead of the Conservatives, who are strong only in a few provinces. The Socialists are mainly strong in the city of Buenos Aires, and to a lesser extent in the Province of Buenos Aires, while the PDP [Partido Demócrata Progresista] is strong only in Santa Fé. It is anyone's guess when the elections will be held. When the Democrats win in the United States and the Intransigente Radicals win in Argentina, it will be possible to have real understanding between the two countries. Frondizi does not think that this will be too difficult. The present government leaders are democratic, of this there is no doubt. They mean well, but they do not understand many of the problems that they are called upon to face, and they are in many cases following mistaken policies, particularly in the economic field. The Peronistas' industrialists' organization, the Confederación

39 General Económica, has been dissolved, and the old Unión Industrial Argentina is being revived. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN BUENOS AIRES, MAT 30, 1956

With regard to the article in Palabra Radical concerning Serfino Romualdi of the AFL-CIO and the Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores [ORIT] and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions [ICFTU] .Frondizi wants to say first that he has no responsibility at all for Palabra Radical, which is issued by a Radical ex-deputy named Liziaga. Furthermore, Frondizi certainly would not have countenanced such an article because he does not believe in personal attacks. Even if I were to find something with his name attached to it that was a personal attack on someone else, I could be sure that it had not been written by him or by anyone over whom he has influence. More than that, his group has not taken any position on the ORIT and ICFTU, and is certainly not opposed to them. He knows Romualdi and the work that he did in the struggle against Perón. The Intransingentes have a committeee studying the problem of the relationships of the Argentine labor movement with the international trade union movement. Frondizi would appreciate very much receiving any material that could be sent to him about this problem. If Romualdi or anyone else wants to send a reply to the article mentioned, they could send it to him, either directly or through me, and he will guarantee that it is placed into the hands of the editor of the paper. He cannot guarantee that the letter will be printed, since it is not the official organ of the party, and he has no control over it. If it does not appear in Palabra Radical, it could be printed in some other paper. Ernesto Sanmartino has a personal group of his own, which sponsored the meeting that I recently attended. This group is more or less Unionista in its orientation, but is not in the main current of Unionismo. Unfortunately, the mass of the workers are still with the Peronistas. As yet, they do not want anything to do, either inside or outside of the sindicatos, with the democratic parties. He would like to be able to say that the Intransingentes had the great majority of the workers behind them, but since this is not the case, he cannot say so. This rejection of the democratic parties includes not only the Intransigentes, but the Unionistas and the

40 Socialists as well. *

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LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, OCTOBER 22, 1956

Your letter of October 4 expressing your interest in the present problems of Intransigencia Radical has reached me. In that regard, I want to tell you that the problem has not been presented in such definitive terms as those which you describe. In reality, so far there have arisen some discrepancies which could, for the moment, be considered as formal. These discrepancies concern the procedure for selection of the candidates for the President and Vice President of the Nation. As you know, that choice is in the competence of the National Convention; the problem arises in that some sectors of the Intransigencia demand that, on this occasion, it be the members who designate them by direct vote. We have not lost, however, the hope that the conflict doesn't mean a real division. In any case, my impression is that, come what may, the electoral result would not change if the party continues supporting the program of the Movimiento de Intransigencia y Renovación. I am sorry not to answer you more extensively, but a lack of time prevents me from doing so. I hope, in any case, that I have given you some explanation, although a limited one, of what you wished to know. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN HIS OFFICE IN BUENOS AIRES, APRIL 2, 1958

The Intransigentes won an overwhelming victory, much larger than they themselves had expected. They have every member of the Senate and more than two thirds of the Chamber of Deputies. They won because they presented a program that won the support of the people, not because of any other reason. They are now working out the details of the program that the government will carry out. However, in general lines it will follow the program that was enunciated during the election campaign. Insofar as the return of Perón is concerned,. Frondizi is surprised that Americans are so upset about this matter. The constitution and laws of the United States are not made for or against any one individual or small group of individuals. Similarly, here the Intransigentes are going to have a

41 constitutional government, and they are not going to make laws for or against anyone in particular. They are going to have a general amnesty law that will apply to all political and trade union offenders. This will be discussed and passed by Congress, will not be issued by him as President. The application of this law to individual cases will then be issued by him as President. The application of this law to individual cases will then be up to the courts. Insofar as the trade unions are concerned, their objective will be to get social peace and stability as quickly as posssible. They are, and always have been, in favor of a single, large, powerful Confederación General del Trabajo, and they continue in this line. They will not, of course, force the workers into one organization if they don't want to be in it, because that is for the workers themselves to decide, not for the government. He is tremendously busy, seeing all kinds of people, has to retire to the countryside to prepare documents during the rest of the week, and then is going to Uruguay and Brazil and to Chile before the inauguration on May 1.

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LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, DECEMBER 22, 1958

I have received with great pleasure your letter and your article which appeared in the New Leader of last November 17. It proves, once more, your capacity to select and interpret facts with objectivity and clarity. This is perhaps the best service that you can give to the cause of my country, engaged in a hard but hopeful struggle for a future without privations or menaces. Excuse me for making two observations of detail: the concessions of the CADE electric was not prorogued by Congress but by the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires; the freeing of property of enemy firms did not include Mercedes-Benz, which was intervened for completely different reasons (furthermore, it was established in Argentina after the war). It will be pleasant to meet with you during my forthcoming visit to the United States. Accept, meanwhile, the expressions of my appreciation.

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42 CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN ARGENTINE CONSULATE IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 29, 1959

For an Argentine president away from home it is always pleasurable and heartwarming to meet with a group of fellow citizens. That is why he is very glad to shake hands and talk to our group today. The students and professional people who are here are of particular importance for Argentina. The government has a program for the economic development of the country, but for its success it is going to need a large number of well-trained people in the sciences and in other fields. It is particularly important, therefore, that these people make the most of the opportunities that have been presented to them, and then return home and help in the work of building up their own nation. He has met an exceedingly cordial reception wherever he has gone in the United States. He has found a wide degree of understanding of the problems that his nation faces and has found a very great amount of friendship towards Argentina in this country.

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CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN THE CASA ROSADA, BUENOS AIRES, SEPTEMBER 1, 1959

He is terribly sorry that he cannot spare me much time. On an exceedingly busy day, he has one meeting scheduled after another, so we cannot talk at any length; but, he did want to say hello. Frondizi believes that the program of economic reconstruction of his administration is making progress. There are numerous indications that this is so. He adopted this program, which seems to be in contrast to the one on which he ran for office, because of the needs of the country. He thinks that the policies that he is now carrying out is what the country requires.

***** LETTER FROM EDUARDO S. GONZÁLEZ, ON ARTURO FRONDIZI'S STATIONERY, MAY 21, 1962

Eduardo S. Gonzalez, in his role as Secretary of Doctor Arturo Frondizi, very cordially greets Señor Robert J. Alexander and thanks him profoundly for his letter of April 5, 1962, which Dr. Frondizi had the pleasure of reading.

43 At the same time, he takes the opportunity of bearing witness of his particular regard. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, FEBRUARY 21, 1964

I answer your letter of January 12. The previous one didn't come to me. Concerned as always with Argentine problems, you are interested in the general state of things, the policy of the government and its institutional stability, and the policy of the popular sectors which are not in the government. In general, I must tell you that Argentina has returned to living in constitutional legality. This legality, however, is weakened by an electoral process limited by grave proscriptions, which you will remember led to abstention of large popular groups. Insofar as the government [of President Ulia] is concerned, so far it has not clarified its internal lines. Within it, there is a serious debate between an ideological sector, supporting a party strategy elaborated in the decade of the forties, and a more reasonable sector that seeks to recognize the present necessities in economic, political, and social terms. That internal struggle is reflected, naturally, in the acts of the government. The partial triumph of the first sector determined the nullification of the petroleum contracts, without prejudice to the fact that many of them are today in full renegotiation. The triumph of the latter group has permitted, in spite of declamatory declarations, to maintain relations with the International Monetary Fund. Insofar as the Armed Forces are concerned, since they form part of the Argentine community, into which they are integrated and from which they proceed, they live and undergo the same contractions characteristics of the civil society. The objectivity of a process of development carried out during four years and the social forces liberated will inexorably be expressesd inside and outside the Armed Forces, without distinction. It is logical to suppose that the entrepreneurs who suffer the severe contrast brought by the economic crisis and the million workers unemployed for the same reason, must feel the impact of their situation in all social levels of the country and thus make sure that the march of the political process is carried out through formulas compatible with the economic growth initiated by development and with the structures which arose as a result of it.

44

Insofar as the popular sectors are concerned, between the UCRI [Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente] and Peronismo, they are in plain restructuring and one c^n foresee a very positive evolution. My present political work is associated with that restructuring and continues advocating the line of uniting the large national and popular sectors which you know. The Movimiento de Intransigencia Radical (MIR) which I have sponsored within UCRI, will be the instrument of this political strategy. I believe that with this I answer your question whether I continue considering myself a UCRIista. I thank you very much for your remembrance and your words of sympathy. Receive a cordial greeting. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN HIS APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 21, 1966

He is trying to help form a new movement of national integration. It is necessary to have a party that unites the workers and the middle class, because neither a purely workers party nor a purely middle-class one can run Argentina effectively. Such a new party would include his Movimiento Intransigente Democrático [MID] , most of the Peronistas, and smaller groups such as the Christian Democrats, the Progressive Democrats, and the UCRI. The MID is stronger than the UCRI. It had some 700,000 votes in the last election, compared with four hundred thousand for the UCRI. It has sixteen deputies, compared with about fifty Peronistas and UCRP [Unión Cívica Radical Del Pueblo] deputies. The UCRI has seven. All of the old UCRI state governors except those of Tucumán and Buenos Aires went with the MID, as did almost all of the ex-cabinet ministers and secretaries. In his government, he thinks that he accomplished three things: (1) he changed the basis of national thinking to emphasis on economic and social development; (2) he got economic development and particularly industrialization going again; and (3) planted the idea of national integration in the political field. In terms of ecomomic development, he succeeded in converting Argentina from a heavy importer of oil into an exporter in a very short time. Even if it were true that the contracts he signed with the oil companies were as expensive in dollars as the previous importation of oil—which was definitely not the case—his solution of the problem would still have been worthwhile, because it meant that the oil companies in getting out the oil employed Argentine labor and resources. The policy of the present government has the

45

worst of both possible worlds. It has converted Argentina once again into an importer of oil to the tune of $100 million a year. Furthermore, in settling with the oil companies, this government has paid the companies large amounts for not getting oil out of the ground--that is, compensation for the oil they might have produced—instead of paying them for the oil they actually got out of the ground. His economic development efforts produced results in other fields. He brought about the establishment of the auto and petrochemical industries. He was shaping the public service— notably the railroads—so they could function at least with some efficiency. Efficient public services are certainly fundamental to development in all other fields. The group of young intellectuals who had been around Frondizi before he came to power withdrew their support once he was in power because they wanted a kind of Cuban revolution without the violence of Fidel Castro. Even if one admits that Castro has resolved the major economic and social problems of Cuba—which is obviously not the case—the Cuban model is not one that can be transferred to Argentine, with its vast extension of territory and its very different kinds of problems, its already large middle class and well-developed industries. He thinks that Che Guevara is probably dead. He agrees that Che is not the kind of person to accept quietly being displaced from power, as obviously has been the case. The young intellectual group wanted completely autonomous Argentine economic development, without any outside help, particularly from the United States. Frondizi, on the other hand, thinks that foreign aid is essential to rapid development, although he is very much opposed to bringing aid in under conditions that convert Argentina into anyone’s satellite. Frondizi is a nationalist. For that very reason, he wanted the oil of Argentina to be put into use as quickly as possible, instead of having the country continuing to import oil. He thinks that the kinds of contracts he made were the best way to bring that about. He thinks that a party of national integration is possible. It will be based essentially on the lines that his administration followed. It will fundamentally be for industrialization. It will also try to reduce the government deficit. It will give the workers a fundamental role in society. Of course, there is now a pre-coup atmosphere in Argentina. Frondizi would not be surprised to see within a fairly short time a coup against the Illia government that would fundamentally alter the nature of the political problem here. It would result in a complete recasting of present political lines.

46

His relations with the Peronistas are friendly. There is no comando general of Peronismo now, as existed in previous periods. Decisions are now being taken by the trade union leaders here and not by Perón in Madrid. The military have changed from what they were four years ago when he was overthrown. They are not Peronistas, but they are much more conscious of the economic and social realities of the country than they were when he was president. They are now much less likely to install a reactionary dictatorship than they were then. The Socialist Party is finished here. It is split two or three ways. The Partido Socialista Argentino is too much for exclusive Argentine development without any foreign help. There are a few Peronistas who take this same view, but most of them do not. The Communists are veiy much divided. There is the CodovilaGhioldi group which is very pro-Russian. There is a pro-Chinese group without any very well-known leaders. There is a pro­ Trotskyite group of which his brother Silvio is a leader. The National Left, so to speak, is represented by Jorge Abelardo Ramos, whose book on the Argentine revolution is out in a new edition. Frondizi is convinced that Brazil will be a major power by the end of the century. The country has tremendous resources and population, and in spite of the present difficulties, it is expanding rapidly. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, AUGUST 9, 1966

I reply to yours of July 20 and am happy that you are well, once more in your home, with yours, and dedicated to your always important university task. Argentine events have followed the course foreseen and open a period in which we all here will have to work hard and together, putting aside factions and banners, with the perspective of achieving the national objectives which no one disputes: democratic toleration: economic development; national culture; social peace and sovereignty. Concerning events and my interpretation of them, I'm having sent to you a pamphlet published with my statements previous to the Argentine Revolution and articles which I published in the review Confirmado, under the pseudonym of Dorrego. I'm telling my secretary to send you weekly the articles that are coming out. *****

47 LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, NOVEMBER 21, 1967

I was very pleased to read your letter of the 10th of the present month. In truth, we must deplore the little information which you have there about our country and Latin America, particularly because each day hemispheric cooperation is more necessary and important. However, to deal with all of the subjects which your timely questions raise would require a long conversation. With this note I send you the text of my last speech on the Argentine situation. Completing the thought elaborated there, one can add that the way out does not depend on a personal or party attitude, but on the fulfillment of the objectives which unite all Argentines and which the Revolution has fixed as its own. The political parties were dispersed and lack representation, even before the governmental decree which dissolved them. There is in Argentine society the tendency to regroup around the problems of development, and another current disposed to maintain the old ways. That same phenomenon one can observe within Peronismo. The government intervened some sindicatos, but in reality it has limited itself to reiterating the need for fulfilling the law which regulates the funtioning of those entities. The CGT exists and the workers struggle for it also to have a rejuvenation and to be fully representative. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN HIS OFFICE IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 5, 1968

When I was here last time, in the middle of June 1966, the situation was very unstable, and Frondizi predicted at the time that there was a coup in the offing. The situation is quite different now. The military situation of President Ongañia is quite strong, there is no move here to get rid of him. At the same time, the parties are discredited, and have little popular appeal, so the opposition to the government is weak. At the beginning, right after the 1966 coup, Frondizi would estimate theat 80 percent of the people acquiesced in it or supported it at least passively. However, the opposition among the people has grown since then, not so much because this is a military government as because it hasn't done anything. There is a wide desire that the government do something to deal with the problems of the country, but it has done very litle. Frondizi thinks the current government might last for some

48 time. When it ends, he thinks that there will be two or three major currents of opinion, which will find expression through parties. One current of opinion will be content merely with a return to an elected regime. Another large current will want programs for the economic and social development of the country as well as democracy. A young man was in here recently who wanted to write a book about the subject of whether Frondizi was still alive, or whether he was just something of the past. Frondizi thinks that for better or worse Frondizi is still alive. He will never become president again, because he does not want to be president; however, there will be a broad political movement for development in which he will play a part. He thinks that the movement for change and development will draw from the Radicales Intransigentes, the Peronistas, from some of the Radicales del Pueblo, and from various groups. However, it will not be merely the merging of these groups, but will be a great national movement which will have a few links with the past political organizations. As yet there have not appeared any new leaders who might be at the head of such a movement. However, there are appearing new leaders in the labor movement, and there will appear new leaders in the military. There will also be new leaders in the cultural and economic fields. When the time comes there will be new political figures too, but the atmosphere of the moment is not propitious for that. The building we are in is the headquarters of the Centro de Estudios Nacionales, which is not the nucleus of a political party, but rather the nucleus of an organization of research and study. The center gives some courses, runs special lectures, has a library with books, clippings, and documents. Then there is also the library of living humans, who have much to tell, such as Frondizi himself. All kinds of people come here to see Frondizi and talk with him and use the resources of the center. This evening there was a young sociologist of the left, perhaps the far left. Yesterday, there was a large industrialist, tomorrow there might be a grazer or a bishop. All kinds of people come here. There is no longer danger from the extreme Left. It is very small and has little influence. The cult of Che Guevara has few followers in Argentina; there is more of a cult of Ché in Italy or in France than there is here. The euphoria of pro-Castro feeling reached its high point here in 1960 and has been declining ever since. The talk abroad about fascist trends in the present regime is mistaken. There may be a handful of people associated with the

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government who have fascist leanings, but certainly that is not characteristic of the regime. Nor is it true, as it is rumored abroad, that the influence of Opus Dei is very strong in the regime. Of course, Ongania and those around him say that they are very Catholic, but the fact is that 80 percent of the church, the priests and bishops, are against this government. They are opposed to its economic and social policies. It is not correct to say that the economic policy of this regime is the same as that of Frondizi. Quite the contrary. The government is trying to get price stabilization without the expansion of the economy and its development. *****

LETTER OF ROBERT J. ALEXANDER TO ARTURO FRONDIZI, JUNE 8, 1968

Leaving Buenos Aires, I saw your comments on the assassination Robert Kennedy. I much lament the terms in which you dealt with the matter. I sincerely think that this death is not an indication of any great conspiracy against progressive men. Perhaps it is a symptom of something, but it is not this kind of conspiracy. There is no doubt that the assasination of Robert Kennedy, and those of his brother and of Dr. Martin Luther King are reflections of a too deep ill in North American society, and to some degree in all the world. This evil is the cult of violence, a belief in the possibility of settling all problems by a riot, a murder, and similar means. This is seen also in the activities of a small but militant minority of our students, and among the extremist groups of the Negroes. There was always this element in our society; look at the gangsters, the Jesse Jameses of the past, the Ku Klux Klan. But until now these elements have been on the margin of society, criminal or semi-criminal elements, without any ideological or political tendency. Now it seems that crime has entered the political scenario. This is very bad, and can be very serious for all our society if there is no very strong reaction against it. But this is something else completely from conspiracy. I see no indication that there exists a group of men or organizations which with premeditation are dedicated to eliminating progressive people from our national public stage. The three tragic events before mentioned are isolated events, carried out by bad, sick people. But that these assassinations are the work of a great conspiracy, no.

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Excuse the annoyance of this letter. But I wished to present you my disagreement with your position. If we are to understand, and attempt to put an end to, this type of thing, we must do everything possible to clarify it, and not fall into the trap of the conspiracy theory of history. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, JUNE 24, 1968

I read with interest your letter in which you formulate objections to my declaration on the assassination of Robert Kennedy. I fully understand the desire of the North Americans to judge these explosions of terrorism as antisocial conduct of isolated individuals and a wave of violence which sweeps the whole world. It is more painful to admit the existence within the community of a cold conspiracy, calculated, organized by a group of interests which play their last card and which, knowing themselves repudiated by the immense majority of their fellow citizens, resort to crime to eliminate those fostering world peace and the equality and welfare of all North Americans. However, I consider that lucid spirits such as you have the obligation to go beyond the conformist explanation. Independent historians and sociologists have an important function to seek out the essence of phenomena, something which is not always possible for the public. From this examination arises the kind of conduct advisable for the community and arousing the collective reaction against those responsible for the crime, so that they know that society identifies them and is watching them. You refer in global terms to the phenomenon of violence, which is an unjustifiable evil in our epoch and which hinders the development of the contemporary tendency towards peace and coexistence. But lacking in your analysis is the consideration of an act of violence and this "poisoning the life of the North American people," as Senator Fulbright said. When the leaders of a nation find it justified to put down with bombs the Vietnamese people which is struggling for two thousand years for their selfdetermination, violence is raised to a norm of conduct of that nation and creates the spiritual conditions for its citizens also to believe they have the right to kill their ideological enemies. That is the wave of violence which influenced the assassins of the Kennedys and Luther King. Furthermore, we who maintain the hypothesis of conspiracy start from a circumstance which cannot escape any impartial observer: the "criminal madmen" invariably participate in attacks

51 against pacifist and progressive elements of the society. If they were sincere anarchists or fanatical madmen, they would have shot at the body of the tyrants, the reactionaries, fanatics like themselves. But we cannot fail to note the coincidence that the victims of these fanatics are always the advocates of nonviolence, of justice, of tolerance, of peace and that, on the contrary, never have made attacks on the fives of reactionary fanatics. Thus, it is more logical to think that the assassins are not fanatics or crazy people, but rather work for others, for the only ones who are interested in eliminating these progressive and pacific leaders, that is, the interests which are linked with war industry, the exploitation of the Negro, the intervention of the United States in the world to suppress the self-determination of the peoples. I think that one does a poor favor to the North American people when one prevents reflection on these facts and induces the acceptance of a hypothesis which only conforms to wounded national amour oropre. It would be more honorable and useful to reveal the truth so that responsibility is assumed for punishing and eliminating from society those morally guilty of the assassinations. History marches rapidly towards a world society which condemns violence in all its forms. There only remain small but powerful groups which resist that tendency and wish to maintain the flame of passion and hate between peoples. All of us lovers of peace have the duty to denounce them and combat them. I ask you to accept these reflections inspired by my profound affection for the North American people and for my admiration for the leaders who defy death and calumny to defend them and promote the highest levels of integration and welfare. ***** LETTER FROM ROBERT J. ALEXANDER TO ARTURO FRONDIZI, AUGUST 11, 1968

Many thanks for your letter on June 24, which was here when I returned from almost eleven weeks in Latin America. I continue to disagree very much with your position on the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. It seems to me that one should not make serious charges when there is no evidence to support them. This seems to me the case in this discussion. I lament as much or perhaps more than you the series of assassinations of good leaders of my country. I believe that all of the circumstances of the death of John Kennedy have not been clarified. So far, we don’t know the evidence of the

52 deaths of King and Robert Kennedy, because the judgments against the two people charged with their deaths have not been rendered. But until now I have not seen a single indication of any connection among the three assassinations. Even less have I seen any evidence of the existence of a "mafia," dedicated to killing all the liberal and pacific leaders of the United States. A charge of this type is too serious to make if there is no evidence and connections which are convincing. I reiterate that I don't believe that a politician as responsible and important as you should make charges if he doesn't have very strong evidence to prove them. If there is such evidence, I'd very much like to know it. I must add that I recognize that there is a wave of violence in the United States that is lamentable, hateful, and dangerous. There is a spirit among many people to take the law in their own hands. There are dangers for many politicians here, particularly those of high category. There is a type of massive violence in our cities which is something new. More, there is a crisis in our society that is very great, an alienation of important groups such as a large part of the Negroes, a significant part of the youth, a segment of the middle class. But all that is not to say that there is a great plot to massacre all the liberal and progressive politicians of the country. And I believe that one does not aid the struggle here to combat this crisis, or aid the struggle for a more pacific, more just, and more egalitarian world by making the tytpe of charge—without proof or evidence—which we are discussing. I have not had the intention of having a polemic with you about this. We are in the same struggle, we seek the same ends, and we must continue to understand one another. I should appreciate your impressions about the things which I have said here. *****

LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, AUGUST 28, 1968

I have received your letter of August 11 in reply to one from me. As you said, this change of impressions is not a polemic. I am sure that we continue to agree concerning all of the fundamental problems which interest our peoples. *****

53 CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI AT HIS OFFICE IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 14, 1971

The situation in Argentina at the present time is very bad. The economic and social situation is bad, and so the political one is too. The cost of living is rising very rapidly. The government has no development program, although one was promised under Ongañía. But Ongañía tried to hold back inflation by freezing wages, with bad results for the workers. Also, the Ongañía government purposely held meat prices down, with the result that consumption was very high, and with the present result that there has been a shortage of meat; there are two whole meatless weeks for the people of Argentina. Also this year the country is going to have to import wheat, since not enough is being produced to meet internal needs and fixed export requirements. Frondizi has been opposed to the government's economic policies since 1967. They have remained essentially the same since then, through the governments of Ongañía, Levingston, and Lanusse. What is needed in the case of both agriculture and grazing is a policy of extensive credits for the purpose of reequipping both of these fields, together with a certain period of price stability in agriculture and grazing, so that the rural people will have some idea of what to expect. There should also be regulations forbidding the killing of cows capable of having calves, until the herds have been built up again. The two major political groups at the present time are the Encuentro National del Pueblo Argentino and La Hora del Pueblo. The first is the Communists and their fellow travellers; the second consists mainly of the Radicales del Pueblo and the Peronistas, but also of some smaller groups like the Partido Socialista Argentino and the Progressive Democratic party. The Peronistas in La Hora del Pueblo are their major political group; there are others that are in the Encuentro, and still others that are not in either, and some that have an extremist position now. Frondizi and his followers are not in either of these major groupings. He is going to reform his own party, the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo (MID), now that the Political Parties Law has been announced. Its principal emphasis will be on problems of development. He has a very good group of technicians associated with him, who are drawing up an extensive program, dealing with all aspects of the economy. The Socialist parties are still divided. The Partido Socialista Democrático is outside of either of the major groupings. One faction of the Partido Socialista Argentino dissolved and joined the Peronistas; the Partido Socialista parties, or both of them

54 together—they are trying to form a federatiion—will not be able to meet the requisites of the proposed new Law of Political Parties. This requires that a party have 4 percent of the registered voters. He suspects that only the Peronistas, Radicales del Pueblo, the MID, and perhaps the Radicales Intransigentes, will be able to qualify. No Conservative or Socialist group will be able to do so. A nephew of Frondizi was recently killed by the police. The nephew had turned Peronista; however, he was virtually murdered, because he and the group that he was with were not doing anything subversive. Frondizi does not think that Perón will return to Argentina. For one thing, he might well be killed if he did. In any case, it is not politically convenient for him to do so, since if he did he would have to deal with a variety of small daily problems which he is not being called upon now to have anything to do with. Now, he is just dealing with whatever is brought to him in Spain. It is quite a different thing for someone to go all the way to Spain, or to go wherever he might be residing in Buenos Aires. Frondizi does not think that it is true that the students are really Peronistas. Rather, they are Leftists, but use the banner of Perón to cover their variety of Leftism. *

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CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI APARTMENT, BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 15, 1971

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What is needed in Argentina now is a series of government measures to get the economy going again. After these measures have had a bit of time, there should be elections; however, elections held without doing something pretty quickly about the economy won't resolve anything. The economy is stagnant, and all sectors of it are in crisis. One example of this crisis is the telephone system. One has to wait eight years to get a telephone. Frondizi can call to Rome and get through immediately, whereas to get through to a town forty miles from Buenos Aires he has to wait for four hours. The country needs one million phones. A group of domestic and foreign capitalists presented the government an offer to install the needed phones in a year, improve the service, and keep the same tariffs. Frondizi urged President Levingston to accept this offer, which would have been put into effect under the aegis of the government telephone company. However, nothing was done about it and the situation continues to worsen. Steel is another case. The country imports now between one million and one-and-a-half million tons of steel each year.

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However, the companies abroad which sell this steel to Argentina, whether they are in Italy, the United States, or somewhere else, are opposed to Argentina developing enough capacity to meet its needs, and the importers here are equally opposed, so nothing gets done. Oil is still another instance. This government—the military regime since 1966—has gone back to the system of concessions. However, Frondizi can assure me that the first time there is an elected Congress this system of concessions will be thrown out again. This is not a way to create confidence among the foreign investors—concessions, to service contracts, to concesssions, to something else, all in the matter of a bit more than a decade. There must be some stability of policy, so that imvestors can know what the rules of the game really are going to be. Nothing has been done about the railroads since Frondizi's administration, although he had taken the first steps towards reorganizing and reequipping them. The recent governments have made some progress with highways, but the minister of transport who was principally responsible for this resigned in disgust when funds that had been allocated to him for roads were substantially cut so as to use the money to pay salaries. Nothing has really been done about the economy because the government and the country's most powerful economic forces have deliberately not wanted to do anything about the matter. Only now are they beginning to get frightened about the crisis that has resulted from this attitude of being satisfied with the status quo. Frondizi doubts that the Lanusse government will do what is necessary. Anything may happen, however. He expects that there will be serious trouble before any elections are held, if any elections are held. The Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo has groups in all the provinces. It will certainly be able to establish a serious and major party. Frondizi was overthrown in 1962 for three reasons. First, his economic policies had damaged important interests, such as those companies that sold oil to Argentina. For instance, both Standard and Shell sent representatives to him at the time of the passage of the service contracts law, to ask him not to sign it. When he did, and it had become effective, they did not apply for contracts. They only did so later, when they saw that other companies were getting oil, and doing well. Then they were offered areas anywhere they wanted them in Argentina, and it was to be expected that companies like these, with the experience they had, would not choose areas in which they did not have a pretty good idea there was oil. However, the companies claimed that they did

56 not find any oil. All of this may have been pure coincidence, but Frondizi suspected that it was not. The second cause of hisx overthrow was the fact that he allowed the reorganization of the CGT. He had Congress pass the Professional Organizations Law, and then he turned the CGT back to elected representatives of the workers. The third cause of Frondizi's downfall was his foreign policy, particularly his policy toward Cuba. At the Punta del Este Conference he was asked by the Americans to back their position on the issue, when they needed one more vote, but he refused. The United States secured the vote of Haiti, but that was not the same thing as having the vote of Argentina. Also, Frondizi received Che Guevara because he wanted the United States to reach a modus vivendi with Cuba through the auspices of the other Latin American countries. A modus vivendi was ultimately reached, but with Russian intervention, which Frondizi had wanted to avoid. He had tried to convince the Americans of this, and the generals in Argentina; however, he failed. At the time of his overthrow, the United States Ambassador behaved very well, but a considerable time before this, the CIA and the local intelligence people had been working together, with results that were obvious. Frondizi believes that the 1962 elections were not the cause of his overthrow. They were the excuse, one more incident. He certainly had had trouble with the armed forces many times, and this would have been Just one other such instance of trouble that would have been overcome, had it not been for the three issues which he has discussed. Frondizi has no ambition to be president again. He has had the Job once, does not particularly want it again. But this does not mean that he is abandoning politics. He is not. He wants to have influence on what transpires, even if he is not again president. The split in the CGT at the top has virtually disappeared. The CGT Azopardo is virtually the only one. However, there does exist an important split in the CGT, between the national leadership and the leadership in several of the interior provinces, and the rank and file in those provinces as well. For instance, the CGT in Cordoba acts virtually independently of the national leadership. The national leadership is cooperating closely with the government, but the unions of the interior are much more militant, they do not want any pacts with the government. Frondizi is proud of the automobile industry, which is a product of his government. There are probably still too many companies in it. However, they are reduced from the original situation. At the present time. General Motors, Chrysler, Ford,

57 FIAT, Renault, and Peugeot are still here. *

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LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, SEPTEMBER 30, 1971

I have received your letter and proceed to answer the questions raised by you with the hope that this contributes to interpreting this conflictive situation through which we are living. Eva Peron

In strictly political terms, the return of the body of Eva Peron to her husband has significance in an emotional sense for the great majority of our people. The government cites this operation as proving the fullfilment of all of its promises. But as has to be the case, it leaves without resolution all and each of the economic and social problems which are the genuine source of the discontent and tensions which the Argentine community is experiencing. Objectives of the Government

These objectives, from Ongahia to Lanusse, have varied insofar as to forms but have maintained, and maintain, its essence, that is, the preservation of the "status quo" which determines our dependency as a nation through the exchange of raw materials and foodstuffs for heavy chemicals, petroleum, paper and cellulose, iron and steel, etc. To that end, was subordinated and is subordinated the development of basic industries to monetary problems and the fight against inflation which are consequence of underdevelopment. There prevails the economic-social policy which was imposed on March 13, 1967 by Krieger Vasena and which consists, in its essence, of reducing real wages and the income of entrepreneurs. With the first of these, strong social tensions are created and with the second accumulation and investment are impeded, and now they are attempting to preserve that situation under the cloak of the Grand Accord. Elections

This is one more trap, a diversionist game. Institutional normalization through the electoral process only makes sense and reality if there is under way the solution to the grave economic and social problems which are asphyxiating and threatening to

58 disintegrate the country. And these require the development of the economy as an irreplaceable source of national affirmation and social justice. In the present conditions of progressive impoverishment of the country, the replacement of decisions in the economic and social areas by the opening of a conditioned electoral process is a new device which is clearly seen through by the immense majority of the Argentines, particularly the Peronista rank and file. The Movimiento De Integración Y Desarrollo

We are reorganizing the MID for the National Movement. This means that we are not generating another party, but the compass within which must coincide social classes, sectors and parties. Church and representatives of the Armed Forces, uniting in a National Front for Development and Integration of the Nation, for the purpose of self-defining them as such. The clarity of the nature of the problems which afflict us and the maturity of the workers, entrepreneurs, professional people, and national popular masses, indicate that this is the road and that the alternative which remains for the majority is chaos and dictatorship. We are starting the work, and the results which have been obtained justify an optimistic perspective. Guerrillas

During recent months activity has decreased as a result of the violence and magnitude of the repressive apparatus. In any case, important sectors of the youth, the upper-middle class, continue believing in the guerrilla as the only way out in virtue of the frustration generalized by the absence of revolutionary politics. In practice, violence from below, which is the inorganic reply to violence from above, falls into the trap that the latter generates and contributes to the extension of the former. Those who lead or organize the guerrilla confuse revolution with provocation. And they have not overcome the infantile illness which generates extremism, diluting with individual violence the transforming capacity of the violence of the masses. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 8, 1972

AT

HIS

The situation here is very complex. For one thing, the economic situation is veiy bad and getting worse. The inflation is

59 very bad: there is unemployment, and the economy is generally in crisis. The government now is exercising no real control over what is going on. This is not because it adheres particularly to any free enterprise philosophy: rather to the contrary, there is a kind of exaggerated statism. For instance, an offer to build a steel plant made by an Italian firm on very good terms was turned down by the government on the grounds that the firm involved was owned by the Italian government. In another case, an offer by several foreign firms to set up a petrochemical enterprise was refused by the government, now is to be undertaken by the YPF and the military. There is not any real direction in what is happening. The political situation is also confused. The deal that the government was trying to make with Perón has broken down, or is on the point of breaking down. What the government wanted Perón to do was to tell his people to support Lanusse for election to the presidency. What they offered in return was some relatively minor concessions, and money, which Perón did not need and would not take, Frondizi has talked to Perón a great deal and thinks he knows Perón's attitude on the situation. Perón told him that in the first place, he saw no reason to support Lanusse, as far as he was concerned. In the second place, even if Perón were to tell his followers to vote for Lanusse, they would not do so, because Lanusse is so unpopular. Perón does not want to come back to Argentina. Frondizi found this out in discussions with him. He does not want to do so for both historical reasons and for quite practical political ones. He is concerned about his historical role in Argentina, and thinks that it would be damaged if he were to come back. That is because his followers are separating into several quarreling groups, and he would have to spend most of his time settling the quarrels among them, which could do him no good. Frondizi has found Perón to be in good shape physically, and in exceedingly excellent shape mentally. If Perón had been as good intellectually when he was president as he is today, the history of the country would have been very different. Perón has a much better grasp of reality now than he had when he was president. For instance, Perón told Frondizi that he knew that the Peronistas had the force on their own to win an election, but he also knew that they did not have the force to govern effectively by themselves, that they needed collaboration of others. Of course, Frondizi saw Perón's present wife, Isabel Martinez de Perón. He thinks that Evita was much prettier and more simpática than Isabel. The Peronistas are divided into several groups. First, there are

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those on the far Left, who, in turn, are composed of two elements. There are those who were Peronistas and who moved to the Left out of conviction: then there are those who were on the Left and became Peronistas for convenience; hoping to win adherents among the Peronistas. Then there is the "oficialista" group of Peronistas, led by Jorge Paladino, who was removed by Perón as his representative here, and these Peronistas are being paid by the government and cooperate closely with it. These groups include trade unionists and non-trade unionists. Then there are the more or less doctrinal ones who are closest to Perón, and who also consist of both trade union leaders, some of whom are also paid by the government, and non-trade unionists. Then there are the great mass of Peronistas workers, who remain loyal to Perón. Generally, there seem to be forming three main blocs. One consists of the Radicales del Pueblo and several small parties. Another consists of a front that will include the Peronistas, the MID of Frondizi, perhaps some of the more advanced Socialists, one of the two factions of the Christian Democrats, and the Conservatives of Vicente Solano Lima. There might also be a third force on the Left, consisting of the Communists and some other small groups. At the moment, there are only three parties registered as national parties under the new parties law. These are the Partido Justicialista of the Peronistas, the Radicales del Pueblo, and the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo of Frondizi. To be registered under the law as a provincial party, a group must have one one thousandth of the last electorate in the province, and to register as a national party one must have this number in at least five provinces. So far, only the three Frondizi mentioned have met this qualification, although there will undoubtedly be others which will meet it. The MID is in all the provinces. The Radicales Intransigentes remain in existence, but are a small party. They have had to change their name, because under the new law only one party can use a particular word in its name and the Radicales del Pueblo already had the word "Radical." So they are now Just the Partido Intransigente. The MID anticipated the law, and changed from Movimiento de Intransigencia y Desarrollo to Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo. The Socialists have qualified in a number of provinces but have not been able to do so in the province of Buenos Aires. They have now unified their ranks, which puts them in a somewhat stronger position than they were before. There are in Argentina all kinds of parties that can be found anywhere in the world. Thus, there is both a pro-Moscow and a pro-Peking Communist party. The Trotskyite urban guerrilla group has been an annoyance; however, it has no popular

61 sympathy. The Argentines do not like groups that commit murder, as they have done. In addition, there is wide realization that their actions are fruitless. One does not change a system by murdering people because of difference of opinion, because they are wealthy Industrialists, or for some other reason. The military men have sought the road to elections because the military regime has been dominated by a small group of men, perhaps twenty, and the rest of the military hierarchy is tired of being burdened with the hatred of the people as a result of the actions of these people. Frondizi challenges me during a period of forty-eight hours to find one military officer walking the streets dressed in military uniform. He will pay me a million pesos, old or new, if I find one. There is an official order out that they should not walk the streets in their uniforms, should only use them in their offices, or if riding out in cars. This is because there was danger of physical attack by civilians, and certain danger of being insulted on buses or on the street. This order shows that they really feel that they are hated by the people. They are anxious to get out of this situation. The MID consists basically of Intransigente Radicals who followed Frondizi, but has quite a few new people, particularly younger people, without a political past. There are a few from other parties, but most of the new people are ones who have no other previous affiliation. Frondizi again has a brain trust, and as before 1958, they are busy studying the problems of the country and drawing up programs to deal with these problems. David Blejer is still among these. This group works out of the Centro de Estudios Económicos-Sociales, and the purely party activities are carried out through the various party headquarters of MID. So far the government has not issued the new electoral law. It is not known yet, but Frondizi suspects that the law might provide that parties that have only provincial status and not national recognition will not be able to offer candidates for president, national senators, and national deputies. It also appears that the regime is contemplating changing the constitution "with a revolver," so to speak. The main change contemplated is election of the president by Congress, which will permit the military men to put a pistol in the back of the deputies, figuratively speaking, to make them vote for the right candidate.

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62 LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, JANUARY 10,1973

I happily answer the questions contained in your friendly letter of last December 17. The visit of General Perón to Argentina was very positive to demonstrate that to a large degree the passion and ill-will aroused by the mere mention of his name in anti-Peronista groups has been overcome. Perón lived several weeks in a suburb of Buenos Aires and there was no scandal, or attacks, or shocks between his partisans and his adversaries. He received the visit of many politicians opposed to his conduct in the past and attended meetings of leaders of all the parties. Peronismo is, however, very influenced by internal dissidence which Perón himself could not pacify. Nevertheless, they have recognized his authority to constitute the Frente Justicialista de Liberación, a group including, in addition to the party of Perón, the MID, the Partido Popular Cristiano, the Partido Conservador Popular, other provincial and capital groups. The ticket CámporaSolano Lima has been named and there are nominations of the Frente for governors and legislators including leaders of those parties. The general situation of the country is not very favorable for the realization of peaceful elections. There is great social tension provoked by the reactionary and anti-popular policies of the present government and of other military governments which preceeded it. It is possible that March will come and there will be elections, always if the authorities inspire confidence in the people that the polling will be free and that their results will be respected. Until now there are well founded doubts about the impartiality of the government. If the elections are clean, the struggle will be betwen the ticket of the Frente and that of the Unión Cívica Radical (BalbinGamond) since the other groups don't have sufficient votes. With honest elections, the Frente will have a majority and will take over the government. With this your questions are answered and I remain your close friend. ***** CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN HIS APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, JULY 4, 1973

Frondizi is worried about the economic situation in Argentina. I must know from the history of the United States, the most developed country in the world, that it developed through the

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process of saving and investment and had both domestic and foreign investment. This process is not happening in Argentina. The penultimate president of the Banco Central reported in 1971 that one billion dollars of native Argentine capital had fled abroad. This situation is continuing and has become worse. There is virtually no investment going on in Argentina. This is due to the policies being followed by the Cámpora government and particularly by the Minister of Finance José Gelbard. It is true that Gelbard was an industrialist, and that Frondizi has known him for a long time, in fact reestablished the legal status of Gelbard's Confederación General Económica, which had been dissolved by the Aramburu government for being a Peronista organization. However, all of this has not prevented Gelbard from following economic policies that are not to be distinguished from those of Krieger Vasena under the military government. For instance, the government has set politically determined maximum prices. The upshot is the kind of thing described to Frondizi the other day by a wholesaler friend, who said that he had to pay, let us say, 10 pesos to buy something but was forced by the government to sell it for 8 pesos. He added that if this continued he would have to discontinue his business. The price ceilings and other measures have particularly affected the rural areas. Before there was a kind of euphoria in the countryside, reflected in the rise of the price of land. This is suddenly stopped, and no one wants to buy land any more. Maximum prices have been set for meat. However, if a person goes to the store and asks for meat at the official price, one receives terrible stuff, one third fat and of poor quality. When a person then says that he wants the better kind, the butcher will tell that instead of costing the established 10 pesos a kilo, the item costs 18. Of course, this means that there is a flourishing black market, but that is only natural. The sellers have to defend their places of business or be shut down by the authorities. In the rural areas, the effect is going to be a decline in production. The other day, Frondizi talked to a landowner who had planned to plant between 2,000 and 3,000 hectares in wheat, but because of the price ceilings had decided not to do so. Now the government says that it is going to offer better prices, but in many cases this will be too late because the agriculturalists have made other plans already. The same situation holds for foreign investment. Although Perón is a strong believer in foreign investment, the Cámpora government is drawing up a bill that will make the conditions for foreign investment extremely hard, and will have the effect of discouraging any foreign firms from putting any money in

64 Argentina. There is also the problem of inflation. The figures of the government on the subjects are completely erroneous. For instance, when government lists the price of meat in its market basket, what is cited is the official price, but in fact the meat is unavailable at that price, The real price, the black market price, is much higher. In following such policies. Gelbard has a great advantage over Krieger Vasena. The latter had the support of no one except perhaps the military. In contrast, the people generally support Perón, so support Cámpora, so support Gelbard, and so are not complaining over the economic policies of the government. However, when the effects of these policies begin to be felt, there will begin to be complaints, there will come a real crisis, which might very well give rise to a social explosion. For the time being, however, they are still in the phase of the honeymoon of the new government. There have been various steps in this honeymoon. First was the victory in March, then the 25th of May, and the release of all of the political prisoners, then Perón's return, and finally, the speech that Perón gave on June 21, a very fine speech, which was broadcast by radio and television. This was an exceedingly good speech, showed that Perón had a real grasp of the problems of the country. In spite of being 77 years old, Perón remains very intelligent, and more important, he has a clear vision of what the country needs. The opposition has behaved very well in the face of the Peronista victory. The country as a whole has demonstrated a political maturity that it had not had before. There has been no carping criticism of of the government; the attitude has been one of waiting and seeing. This situation is illustrated by the man who has been in to see Frondizi just before me. The man is a very close friend of Lanusse and was in his government. He said that he had very much liked the speech of Perón on June 21, that he and his friends had found it very tranquilizing. However, he said that he was veiy much worried about the economic policies of the regime, and that he came to Frondizi to talk to him and have him either confirm or deny his own suspicions about this policy. The man's attitude, like that of virtually all the opposition, was one of wanting to cooperate and to give the government the benefit of the doubt. From his associations, of course, this man had nothing to do with Peronismo. There is no one at all who is thinking of the possible alternative of removing Cámpora and putting in his place the commander of the armed forces. Frondizi thinks the person who wants that alternative least is the commander of the armed forces himself. Frondizi had a conversation a few days ago with a high

65 officer in the army who told him that they were good for a lot things, but absolutely no good for governing the country. Frondizi's party, the MID, formed part of the Frente Justicialista. Of course, they are not Peronistas; however, for twenty years they have been advocating an alliance of classes and an alliance of parties, so they could hardly stay out of the Frente. Of course, they did not say that this was the culmination of what they had been seeking for twenty years; they acted as if the idea had originated in the Peronista camp. Perón supported the idea of the Frente very strongly even against the opposition of many of his supporters because he insisted over and over again that the Peronistas by themselves could not govern the country, and they would need allies. The Frente provided the kind of alignment that Frondizi and his friends had long been advocating. Aside from the Peronista Partido Justicialista and the MID, two of the three parties that were able to organize throughout the country—the other being the UCR del Pueblo—there were various other groups in the Frente. There was a faction of the Socialists led by Jorge Selser; there was a group of Irigoyenista Radicals, there were groups that were not parties, such as those of Sánchez Redondo and Mario Amadeo, who are extreme nationalists. There was one branch of the Christian Democrats, which are split in two. The MID elected sixteen members of the Chamber of Deputies and one senator. They could have had five senators, except that four of those involved chose instead to run for provincial governor, which was a mistake. They have one government, that of Santa Fé. In Congress, the MID people form a separate bloc. The other faction of the Christian Democrats, led by Sueldo, joined with the Radicals of Oscar Alende, to form the Alianza Revolucionaria. By themselves, they would have amounted to nothing, but they did amount to something, because they had the backing of the Communist party, which is well organized and was able to provide substantial organizational support. On the ticket of the Alianza were listed two people who were Communists, although they were unknowns—Frondizi does not even remember their names. During the campaign, the Alianza insisted that it had no Communists on its lists, but when the Anti-Communist Law was repealed, these two got up in the Chamber and announced that although they had been elected as members of the Alianza, and would continue to form part of its bloc in Congress, they were in fact Communists. The relationship between Perón and Cámpora is still good. The honeymoon stül persists, but it cannot go on forever. One cannot continue to cruise in the Caribbean for two years; the time

66 comes when the man must go back to work, and the wife to work or to her household duties. Thus, the situation between Perón and Cámpora will inevitably develop frictions. Certainly on major matters Cámpora confers frequently with Perón, but, no matter how loyal he is to Perón, as president he has to make frequent decisions, each of which is small, but which, when added together will sooner or later loom large. He is sure that Perón will not like many of these decisions, and that there will undoubtedly develop certain frictions between them. Frondizi has good relations with both Perón and Cámpora. He has spoken to both of them, and to Gelbard, about his worries about their economic policy. He feels that he shares some of the responsibility for the government, since the MID was part of the Frente; however, he has not so far been able to convince any of them of the need to change policy. In looking at the relations between the government and the terrorist groups, one must distinguish between those that are Peronista, and the one that is of Trotskyite origin, the ERP. The Peronista ones supported Cámpora, and when he took office, they removed their hands from the bombs, so to speak. However, the ERP [Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo] announced that both Perón and Cámpora would betray the people and that therefore they would continue their activities against the military and against the representatives of the big firms. Of course, this does nothing for the welfare and economic health of the country. The Cámpora government is in much better position than was Lanusse to suppress the ERP. If the ERP has not done anything more than it has—and yesterday it skyjacked a plane—it is because they have had to reorganize completely their operations. Before, the ERP worked very closely with the Peronista terrorist groups, and so those knew all of the secrets of the ERP—who they were, where the houses were where they had slept and eaten, where were their "people's prisons," where they kept their kidnap victims. This information has certainly been given to Cámpora and the police by the Peronista terrorists. So the ERP has had to totally reorganize its tactics and scheme of operations. Incidentally, the ERP has gone on television to announce that they were continuing their operations. A fantastic thing is going on at the Chamber of Deputies. Each afternoon, groups of families of common prisoners are besieging the chamber, asking for the freedom of the prisoners. The families carry many banners, some pleading loyalty to Perón, some saying that they too are the people, and one that Frondizi thinks was almost comic, that said "We want another chance." One could interpret that to mean that a man who had been in prison for twenty-five years for killing a friend, wanted out to have

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a chance to kill another. In the province of Buenos Aires, more than one thousand common prisoners have been released. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, SEPTEMBER 10, 1973

With great pleasure I hurry to answer the questions of your letter of August 25. It is logical that the rapid succession of Argentine political events still confuses the most attentive observer. However, in my judgment, the process has gained in authenticity. No one doubts that on March 11, the great popular majority voted for the Front candidate, General Perón, being arbitrarily proscribed by the previous regime. But the electoral triumph reveals, furthermore, a significant objective, both in form and content: (1) the rise of a new political expression which demonstrates the end of "partidocracia," which is the Frente Justicialista de Liberación, and (2) an authentic desire for profound change in traditional structures. The resignation of Doctor Cámpora, an attitude consequent with his movement and his administration, made possible that— with observance of the legal formalities—the Justicialist leader can be named to assume the government and power. This fact responds to a decision of General Perón which has as its purpose the achievement of unity and homogeneity of the Justicialista Movement, which, as a movement of masses, has within it various and contradictory factions. What has happened so far corroborates our claim, when we claim that the electoral event and the institutionalization does not by itself amount to the revolution. Today, the Argentine people, aware of this circumstance, transfer to General Perón the responsibility for change, without abandoning the field of battle. The MID will continue being part of the Frente in the assurance that it is an ideal instrument to carry out the plan of revolutionary transformation. Meanwhile, it will determine with clarity its position, whenever necessary, as recently our legislators in the National Congress did in analyzing the package of economic laws presented by the Executive Power and it will remain allied with the most profound and important sectors of the country, in the conviction of carrying out together with them the pacific revolution which the country demands. I hope that this brief commentary helps you to make up for lack of news on Argentine political events. *****

68 CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI IN HIS APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, AUGUST 7, 1974

President Isabel Perón is quite capable of handling the job of President. She has the dignity and authority necessary. Perón knew that it would be very unlikely that he would live to finish out his term, although he undoubtedly died more quickly than he had foreseen, and that is why he selected his wife as Vice President, feeling that she was someone who could do the job well. The problem is not one of personalities but of policies. The government's economic and social policies are mistaken. Last year they signed the Pacto Social, according to which wages and prices were to be frozen. However, wages have been altered twice, once with a 30 percent across-the-board increase, and a second time with an additional installment of the annual bonus. Although a few prices have been allowed to increase, the vast majority of them have remained frozen. As a result, there is a flourishing black market, and it is very difficult to get goods at the official prices. It is a very old lesson indeed, going back to the Roman Empire, coming through the French Revolution, that when one tries to freeze prices without cutting purchasing power, one ends up with a black market, and this is what has occurred here. At this point, there is no protest against this policy within the Partido Justicialista. There are violent attacks on José Gelbard, the Minister of Economy, but on a personal basis, that he is a Jew and so on, not on the basis of the policy that he has patronized and is executing. Only the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo of Frondizi has raised the question within the Frente Justicialista de Liberación Nacional. Frondizi has done so in a meeting of the Frente while Perón was still alive, pointing out that the black market would grow continuously under the circumstances. Perón's reply was that in June 1975 they were planning to change the policy. Politically, the problem is the splits within the Peronista movement. The allies of the Partido Justicialista fully support President Isabel Perón, the Opposition parties do too. However, there is an element in the Peronista movement, centering on the Juventud Peronista, which does not. The Montoneros, too, are associated with the Juventud. These elements do not come right out and say they are against the government, but their statements are increasingly hostile. Even befor the death of Perón, they had been moving toward a position of opposition to him. The Radicals support the government in most things. The Communists enthusiasticaly support the government, although in the first election last year they had their own candidate. They

69 now support the government in the hope of infiltrating the Peronista masses, as always. The government's agricultural policies are particularly damaging. They have reduced the price paid for a heifer from 1200 new pesos a year ago to 700 new pesos now. The upshot, of course, is that the farmers are doing very badly and not investing as they should if the economy is to expand and recover from its present difficult situation. The agrarian reform law that is being discussed but has not yet been sent to Congress is very bad, and is going to have the effect of still further reducing agricultural and grazing production. It is a very long law, providing for dealing with problems of not using land, using it poorly, and so on, but the heart of the law is that it permits the government to expropriate land, paying for it not in cash but in twenty-year bonds. Of course, such bonds would be virtually useless in twenty years. The MID is definitely opposed to this law. One thing that one must realize in talking about Argentine agriculture is that the old picture of its being completely dominated by large estancias is no longer true. There are now over 500,000 small and medium-sized landholdings, the definition of small or medium-sized depending of course on the kind of land, its location and use. In fruit-growing areas, 30 hectares is a large holding: in the grazing areas, 300 hectares is a relatively small holding. But this is the new characteristic of Argentine agriculture. The government's oil policy is basically good. A bill submitted to Congress, although it has some passages about expropriation and so on, basically provides for the international companies to have the kind of service contracts that were established when Frondizi was president. There are still two companies that are working under such contracts. Pending passage of this law, the situation is not good, there being provision in the Three-Year Plan for only 700 new wells to be sunk each year, and that is not enough to make the country self-sufficient in oil. The Partido Justicialista exists, but is not well-organized. They are now going to appoint party interventora in all of the provinces, to reorganize the party and get it more on the grass­ roots level. It is true that Perón kept full control of the Peronista movement in his own hands, and cut down all of those who might rival him within it. As a result, there is not now anyone who can really be regarded as the heir to Perón, except his wife. Of course, in the next three years, figures may appear, but there is no logical candidate for president now. Frondizi thinks that the resignation of Cámpora was planned

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all along by Perón, and he did it because if he had been the candidate in the first election, the military would not have allowed him to take office. The resignation of Cámpora had nothing to do with anything Cámpora did or didn't do. Frondizi also thinks that things are heading towards a political crisis over the government's present economic and social policies. There are certain to be an increasing number of strikes, and the situation will be more untenable, and they will have to change the policies. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, NOVEMBER 13, 1974

I thank you for your condolences on the death of my brother. With regard to the questions which you ask me in your letter, I must tell you that, I think certainly, violence is one of the keys to the Argentine process. It has reached a point of extreme gravity which makes it indispensable that the State retake the monopoly of coercion, which constitutes one of the bases of all organized society. If the government, as I am confident it will, obtains that objective, it could prevent complications which otherwise would come from the natural impulse of all societies to reestablish order. This constitutes an essential element if one is to know the nature of the politics of him who takes title to the power of the State, and whether social advance will be possible, and, at the same time, whether the order which is imposed can reasonably last. The other element of analysis which should not be left out is that repression is not sufficient and compatible with development of the national process. It is evident that the incidents of violence bear a causal relationship with the socioeconomic situation of the country; from which it follows that to eradicate them it is indispensable to attack the economic and social factors which engender the tension and the crisis. Thus, the efficacy of antisubversive action depends on repressive actions, but also on the aptitude of the government to provide solutions for the problems which affect Argentine society. If the government articulates a policy with these characteristics one can be assured of institutional stability. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, APRIL 23, 1976

This acknowledges receipt of your letter of the 9th of this month. In answer to the wishes expressed in it, I enclose two

71 works prepared by us on the present situation. In them is explained the support of MID. offered with the limitations presented by the formal suspension of political activity, to the present authorities; and also they will provide broader elements of judgment on what is happening in Argentina. I might add that the fall of the the previous government was inevitable in view of its errors, of its moving from its popular mandate and the aggravation of the structural crisis of Argentina, which from its inception it did not know how and was unable to deal with. The new government, at least, opens a perspective of change which the previous power situation did not offer, since it led to a polarization between two populist streams totally removed from Argentine reality. That is to say, it was a power arrangement characterized by lack of representativeness. The new situation may permit social forces to effectively influence the orientation of the State. Naturally, we are facing a process which has only just begun and which is very fluid; it will be necessary to wait a while to evaluate its definitive direction. For the moment there are doubts about economic policy, one does not see in it effective promotion of development--especially investments in basic sectors—which is the only way to overcome the crisis in an organic way. Peronismo continues to have influence in the popular sectors, in spite of the grave errors which were committed in its name during the previous government and of the commitments of its leadership. Its future possibilities depend on the capacity of selfcriticism of its leaders. "Official" Communism lacks all political significance and at the time pronounced itself against the change of government. Terrorism is suffering serious defeats as the result of the new authorities having reestablished the power of the State and of order; naturally the final success against subversion will depend in large part on the aptitude of the government to overcome definitively the crisis and promote development, since underdevelopment and social problems deriving from it are the source of complications and of an atmosphere propitious for the recruitment of terrorists. The essential thing, in my judgment, is that the government be conscious of the need for producing a fundamental change, structural. In the speeches of the president he begins to take that position. If this direction is deepened, it will be possible to see the future with optimism. I hope that these reflections can be useful for you. *****

72 CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO FRONDIZI APARTMENT IN BUENOS AIRES, JULY 16, 1976

AT

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Frondizi is personally feeling fine but the country is doing badly. Terrorism is very serious, the economic situation is very bad, and the measures being taken to cure the economic problem are not good. The MID broke with the Peronista government a couple months before its overthrow. It did so because the MID disagreed completely with the policies of the regime of Isabelita [Perón], which were leading to disaster. The MID is supporting the present regime, although it is critical of its economic policies. It is because they support the regime that they have accepted ambassadorships. A MID member is ambassador to Brazil, and a friend of the MID, although not a member, Dr. Musich, is ambassador to the United States. The MID did not volunteer to provide ambassadors; it was asked to do so. The MID's criticism of the government's economic policies are that the government is only dealing with the inflation problem, not at all with the reactivization of the economy after the inflation has been curbed. The MID thinks that both problems should be dealt with at the same time. For instance, they think that measures ought to be taken with regard to sectors where reactivization is now possible, that is, in oil, petrochemicals, and steel. The government's announced program for oil is good. They propose to have YPF sign contracts with foreign companies, but the MID thinks that this should be done immediately, not in a year's time, as the government is now proposing. The problem of terrorism is very grave. It is terrorism from both the Left and the Right. The Rightists murder all kinds of people, not just Leftists or Leftist terrorists. The government is making some progress in its fight against the terrorists, but it will take a lot of time. Frondizi has had armed guards for the last seven years, but doesn’t kmow just how useful they would be. The Chief of Police was killed recently while he was accompamied with a forty-man escort. The parties are in suspension. Their headquarters are open, and they can have committee meetings, but not large gatherings, and they cannot make public statements. If I were to be here next Monday, he would invite me to the MID headquarters, where the MID will have its regular national committee meeting. The same rules apply to the Communist party as to other parties. The military at the moment are united, but there exist hard­ line and soft-line currents. Whatever trends exist in the military

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in other countries where they are in power exist here. For the moment, the more reasonable group is in control. The seriousness of the present situation is that when the army fails, there is no one else to fall back on. When civilians are in power, there is always the army in reserve, but that is not so now. There is no near prospect of elections. They certainly cannot have elections until the terrorism problem has been resolved. No one is thinking in terms of elections now. Inflation has been substantially curbed. The problem of the government deficit is being dealt with, as well as the balance of payments problem. But inflation does continue, and social discontent is rising, and this will soon become a problem. Some unions are intervened, and others are not. La Fraternidad, for instance, is not intervened. The Unión Ferroviaria is, as are the Commercial Employees Confederation, and the metal workers, and others. The government is fomenting the expansion of agriculture. The prices of grains are good at the moment. Meat at the present time has no foreign market, and the herds are being decreased, to make possible the extension of grain cultivation. This is all right, but something should be done about the industrial recession, which is quite serious. Also, Frondizi thinks that steps should be taken to rationalize the government-owned industries that have deficits and provide much of the deficit of the government's budget. For instance, the railroads should be reorganized, and cut down; there are many branch lines that do not have very much traffic and are big money losers. They should be closed down. When he was president, Frondizi started this process, but it was not continued once he had been ousted. Frondizi is cautiously optimistic, but the situation will take three or four years to clear up. It will be a long and hard process. *****

LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, NOVEMBER 4, 1977

I received your friendly letter. Reading it, I find with satisfaction that you continue the live interest you have always had in our problems. It is true as you suggest that the subversive organizations of the Left are practically defeated on the military plane. From a more general point of view, the situation is not so clear, since the continuance of an economic policy which can do nothing but

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deepen the Argentine crisis puts the country before the serious risk of a new outbreak of violence. There continue to operates although on a much smaller scale than before, the repressive groups aside from, outside of, [government] control, which are generally presented as of the extreme Right. At the present time, there exists a tendency generally to obtaining monopoly of force by the State. In that, are the highest national authorities. I agree with your statement that, in the end, the root of our problems is to be found in the profound crisis of the economic structure, traditional in the country, which does not imply in any way to ignore the international aspects of the subversion which affects us. We for our part, follow with interest the evolution of the political process of your country. In spite of some difficulties in recent months on the level of mutual relations, both peoples have shared aspirations that we leaders must interpret and channel towards realization of higher objectives. Those must be based unquestionably on unlimited respect for the right of national selfdetermination, in the framework of the existence of human rights. With this I send the text of a declaration which, together with Rogelio Frigerio and other friends, we have made public during the visit here of Doctor Terence Todman. In it are condensed our thoughts about the present moment. I await your news and meanwhile greet you with the esteem of always.

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LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, NOVEMBER 6, 1978

I am glad to know that the first volume of my presidential speeches will be useful. I shall be happy to have the next ones sent to you. Insofar as your questions about the Argentine situation are concerned, I can only tell you that I see it with preoccupation. Of course. I'm referring to the immediate situation. You know my opinion about the possibilities of this country when an adequate policy is applied. Again, the center of the difficulty in my judgment, is in the economic-social level. The economic policy being applied has failed in its objective of containing inflation and, in using for that an inadequate instrument (basically the contraction of demand and investment), they have provoked a deep recession with the understandable consequence on the social level. With regard to the return to a constitutional and democratic

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government, you will know that that is one of the objectives fixed by the military government. However, for its fulfillment there is necessary a previous period of global reordering of the economic, social, and political situation. In my opinion, a hurried return would lead to reiterating the failures of the last governments since it would repeat the options of the past, the presentations of political alternatives which, in no case consult the needs or the aspirations of Argentine society. I understand that there must first be a fundamental change in the present situation for the results of elections to be representative of the national will and at the same time for the government resulting from them to be able to function to resolve our problems. My worry arises from the fact that I do not see under way that change and the risk of a call to elections in the midst of a process of deterioration which, in those conditions, will not result in a solution. In the parties one doesn't observe that renovation of which I speak. The situation of them, I repeat, will depend in large part on the changes in the economic-social situation and of the "climate" which derives from them for the renovation of the leadership nucleus. The principal unions continue intervened, which in my judgment is an error. From frank exposition of problems by the workers and entrepreneurs might spring solutions, and there might come the renovation of leadership ranks for a positive development towards democracy. However, some trade union activity has reappeared. Lamentably, the leaders have not achieved unity of criteria and still do not present in their correct terms the problems of the rank and file. They are faced with the contradiction of making themselves acceptable to the government and thus participating in trade union normalization or of echoing the protests of those they represent, who suffer a dramatic fall in the purchasing power of their wages. These are, summarily, the answers to your questions. In any case, I want to underscore two questions: the first is that Argentina has serious problems but, in spite of that, the image of the international press is not correct; most pressing now is the economic problem. The second question is the issue of a return to the electoral regime that must not be analyzed from the conventional point of view. It is not true that military governments are bad and civilian ones good; the problem is more complex and the electoral "exit" will not signify any solution if previously there is not put in process fundamental measures and there are not created conditions for renovation of the present leadership groups who, with or without elections, have faded one

76 after another. I don't know whether my answers will be satisfactory and clear, but in any case I am always at your orders. You know that it will be a pleasure for me to tell you in detail my point of view if you visit Argentina.

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LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, NOVEMBER 29, 1978

I have received your friendly letter in which you expand your questions about the Argentine situation. You have no reason to apologize for asking new questions, since I answer them and will answer them with great pleasure. The question of violations of human rights, which you ask, must be examined in a context which locates correctly the disintegrating role carried out when subversion was active. The State had lost the monopoly of coercion and one--among others— motive of the intervention of the Armed Forces was to return to it the possibility of fulfilling that essential function. In the struggle against subversion, which was a very difficult and complex war, it is natural that there have occurred repressive excesses which the authorities have recognized and concerning which they have shown their determination to control them and end them. That has taken place to a considerable degree and the problems which you mention in your letter have appreciably declined. So, as you relate—correctly, certainly—this act to the "rebirth of Argentine democracy," I think it necessary to say two words with regard to this. As I said in my previous letter, before March 24, 1976 there was a formal democracy and not a real one. There were elections, but the options presented to the people were not real, were not representative of collective interests and aspirations; consequently, for us, the problem is not a renaissance of electoralism but a more complete and profound process from which will arise a real, and not merely formal, democracy. To fulfill that objective, shared by the majority who do not consider elections an end in themselves, it is necessary to reestablish the full rule of law and order; and at the same time to get under way the solution of our economic and social problems. This last is of capital importance, since these crises are not only the source of political instability, but in maintaining an economic orientation which for many has weakened the productive apparatus of the country, there has been created a situation which falsifies political representativeness and weakens the social sectors and political currents interested in national development.

77 What worries me, from the point of view of the renaissance of democracy in the terms that I have described it, is that the present economic policy continues the errors of the past. It carries the risk that if there are elections, they will again be carried out on the basis of false options of the lack of representativeness of leading groups. Previous and fundamental, in my Judgment, is a change in economic and social orientation, which would reestablish the consensus and the original legitimacy of the military actions and would lead to a true democracy. The possibility of that change is one of the key questions for the Argentine future. With regard to your questions about the parties, I think that in part I have already answered it. The Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo sees things as I have expressed them in the previous paragraph and that position strengthens and expands it; it has wide support of social groups which want a solution to their problems and don’t raise elections to the state of an end in themselves. The answer of the MID is an alliance of classes and social sectors, including workers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, priests, and certainly military men; and forms part of the national movement as the political instrument which expresses the aspirations of that alliance. This proposition is strong in Argentina, particularly when workers and entrepreneurs see themselves equally menaced by the present economic-social policy which keeps inflation high, makes the real wage fall, and accentuates the recession. The question is that the ideologies of the past and electoralism should not impede clear understanding of that path; as it is also clear that there is no such understanding by a sector of the government, from the other extreme, which attempts an elitist solution which without doubt will be rejected by the country. In the face of those two false alternatives, in my judgment, the proposal of MID grows, even though it has not yet been adopted by the military authorities. Insofar as Peronismo is concerned, I must reiterate that its importance comes, in my judgment, from the fact that it includes in its ranks a great part of the working class which cannot be excluded from a national solution. I don't think that the rank and file of the labor movement is divided; I don’t see any other political force which represents them in place of Peronismo, and the question of the future of the political leadership of Peronismo is circumscribed by another —if it assumes the transforming role of becoming part of the national movement I mentioned or if it attempts to repeat the failed electoralist experience. Insofar as the UCR is concerned, about which you again

78 Inquire, one can say that in the rank and file, as in the case with the rank and file Peronistas, there is a growing understanding of the disutility of a purely formal democracy; but at the top one observes a strengthening of the old traditional forms, of electoralism. That is shown in a declaration distributed in recent days by the principal leaders of the party. Insofar as the future structure of the parties is concerned, that depends on the way the current debate is resolved, as I have discussed; it depends on whether they choose a repitition of the old political formulas or if they opt for a renovation which will overcome not only electoralism but elitism. And for a good solution for that conflict, I say again there is necessary a change in the present economic policy. Thinking it will be useful to complement what I have told you, I enclose a document that I published. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, JANUARY 19, 1981

I see that, in spite of the distance, you continue your interest in Argentine problems. The crisis of the Argentine economy has, lamentably, followed an increasingly worrisome path. The tendencies which are implicit in the economic program applied since April 1976 have been appearing with all crudity, and today everyone is aware of them. To the grave recession of industry and production in general, there has been added a crisis of the external sector which makes it possible to think of very serious difficulties after March. The sale of grain to the USSR, since you ask specifically about this, has not had a dynamizing effect on the agrarian economy, since it was strongly undermined by exchange rate problems, and high internal costs added to by very large taxes. Nor has it had political effect, since the only objective was to preserve the market of the large companies which sell our surpluses on an international scale. The return to constitutionalism is very much conditioned, as you can see without difficulty, by the large economic and social problems which the country is experiencing today. The possibility of applying a distributionist policy has been narrowed to the degree that the productive basis has been reduced. I don't want to hide the fact that I am very worried for the future of my country. As a studious person, you know that science can Just correct tendencies and predict—if not the events— at least the nature of the problems which we are going to confront. Argentine underdevelopment has reached its most

79 critical period. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, FEBRUARY 23, 1981

I think that your questions will be dealt with by reading the documents which MID has made public in this last year, and which I send you under separate cover. In them, special attention has been given to analyzing Argentine reality in all its manifestations. They describe the crisis and the solutions which would overcome it. The political conditions to apply a program of development presumes the coherent action of a great national movement, which expresses the alliance of classes whose interests converge objectively in the material construction of an independent Nation. To organize that national movement and give it programmatic coherence is the mission which MID has assumed. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, AUGUST 18, 1983

I understand your worries about Argentine events which you express in your letter of July 28. There have taken place, in fact, many significant events; but the fundamental thing is that during these months—since we corresponded the last time—the national crisis has clearly become more profound. In spite of the fact that the country seems going toward imminent elections, and we are sure that there will be established the institutions and democracy, we fear that the country will suffer social and political perturbations. Our worries are bom from the pronounced deterioration occurring in the principal elements of the community and of the economy. In the country, the recession and productive decline continue, in the midst of a stampeding inflation which approaches the rhythm which is now about 500 percent annually. The average real wages of workers don’t cover more than half of the cost of the family basket of elemental goods and services, and the entrepreneurs are completely inhibited from all production initiatives not only because of the reduction of the market, depressed by that abrupt reduction of wages, but also because the financial costs are absolutely impossible to cover, since the interest rate is about 30 percent a month, which is very much above any profit which might be obtained.

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In that conflictive situation, aggravated furthermore by the persistence of unresolved problems such as the sequel to the struggle against terrorism--in particular the absence of explanations of what happened to the "disappeared"—and the lack of clarification of unforeseen political decisions which led to the war of the Malvinas, comes the electoral contest. Peronistas, Radicals, and our party, the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo, which are the most important forces which have competed, meet that crisis in different ways. While the former—Radicals and Peronistas—prefer to insist on the formalities of democracy, the MID insists that there will be no possibility of establishing democracy in Argentina if the problems which face the community are not frankly faced, beginning with the severe fall in the acquisitive capacity of the population and the contraction of productive activities. And we affirm, in addition, that these solutions must be dealt with immediately, their application by the government being carried out together with social and political forces. To better illustrate the positions of the MID in this emergency, I send you a copy of our latest public document—which I signed recently together with our candidate for President, Rogelio Frigerio—as well as the pamphlet "What MID Is and What it Thinks," where our positions are summarized. I understand that they will all be useful materials for comprehension of Argentine problems and the position of MID. ***** LETTER FROM ARTURO FRONDIZI, JANUARY 16, 1989

I have received your letter of the 3rd of this month, so full of questions, logically reflecting your concern for the country, for which I thank you. You show evidence of your deferential sentiment. I shall ignore the fact that those require the capacity for futurology which I do not possess. Insofar as relations of the Armed forces with the civilians are concerned, there has been created a situation of tension, with the government, the result of bad management by the authorities. Things have ben stuck in an intransigent review which has aroused resentment among the men of arms. My belief is that neither the military wish to take power, nor do the civilians think they could provide solutions. What everyone does want is a just position for the Armed Forces in Argentine society, to which they are entitled as the armed branch of the nation, bom from its people.

81 I hope that in answering your last question, I have dealt with the previous one. Democracy in Argentina, as well as in all underdeveloped peoples, will only be consolidated when the state of underdevelopment is overcome; I speak of real democracy. For that, the only way is to define, with absolute precision, the fields in which the nation will exert pressure to bring installation of risk capital, national and foreign. An absolute requirement: that that capital be offered conditions of security and profit. The countries must be, each day, more jealous of their right to direct those investments, direct them in the branches and places from which they will be the motors of takeoff. America continues struggling for its political liberty. This is a stage which one can almost say has been fulfilled. The countries of the continent which don't enjoy it are seen by the entire world as usurpers. The struggle which must be begun, or be continued without hesitation, is that of overcoming economic conditions. Only when Latin America will be a people of developed countries, may we say that there will be guaranteed the enjoyment of its real democracy. * * ♦ * * *****

CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO ILLIA, IN HIS HOME IN MARTINEZ, ARGENTINA, JULY 5, 1973

Illia is a native of the Province of Buenos Aires, having been bom about 220 kilometers south of Martinez. He went to school and to the university there, graduating as a doctor. It was then that he moved to the Province of Córdoba, setting up his professional office in a small town of the northern part of the province. He moved there in 1929. At that time, Amadeo Sabattini was the dominant figure in the Radical Party in Córdoba, the leader of the Intransigencia Nacional of the Unión Cívica Radical. Illia soon became active in Radical politics in the province, as a friend and follower of Dr. Sabattini. The 1930s were not good for the Radicals. Irigoyen was overthrown in 1930. The first election thereafter was in the province of Buenos Aires, early in 1931; the Radicals won, so the results were cancelled by the government of General Uriburu. In 1932, the Radical ticket headed by ex-president Marcelo T. de Alvear was proscribed by the Uriburu government.

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By 1936, however, the Radicals were able to run candidates, and in that year they won the governorship of Córdoba for Sabattinl. He served for four,years after which another Radical was elected governor, and Illia was chosen vice governor. Since the governor after 1940 spent much of his time in Buenos Aires, Illia was left as acting governor quite frequently. Relations betwen the Radical governments of Córdoba and the national government were at best very cold. Although there were rumors from time to time that the national government was going to intervene in the province to remove the Radicals from power, this did not in fact come to pass. The Radicals stayed in power until sometime after the coup of June 4, 1943. The hostility of the national government was shown in refusing to grant all of the money that the provincial government wanted to float, and so on. However, enough of the resources the provincial government needed were available that they were able to be successful during the two Radical administrations. This was the period during which the industrialization of the province of Córdoba really got under way. The Military Aviation Industry was set up there, a considerable number of small manufacturing firms, including metallurgical plants, were established, many with the help and encouragement from the provincial government. Of course, the conversion of Córdoba into the second industrial center of the country, after Greater Buenos Aires, really dates from the early 1950s. That was when Kaiser, Fiat and a number of other firms were established there. Now the city is the locale of two of the five major auto plants in the country, the other three being in the Province of Buenos Aires, in the environs of the federal capital. Illia knew of the approach of the 1943 revolution some time before it took place, from certain colonels who were in on the plot. They told him that the movement was being prepared for two reasons. First, the military were tired of, and disgusted with, the "patriotic fraud" through which the Conservatives had governed since 1930. Second, they were unhappy about President Ramón Castillo's selection of Robustiano Patrón Costas as his successor, a choice that under the existing circumstances was virtually the equivalent of his election. These military men assured Illia that, in view of the motives for the coming coup, the Radical governments in Córdoba, and three other provinces, would not be touched, although the other provinces would be intervened. This proved to be true for the time being, but after a few months, the military made a clean sweeep of the provinces, and late in 1943 removed the governments of Córdoba and the other Radicalcontrolled provinces.

83 At the time of the 1946 election, the Intransigencia Radical of Córdoba was very much opposed to the Unión Democrática. They felt that the Radical party should go into the elections by itself, without any alliance with other parties, the Communists, Demócratas Progresistas, Socialists, Conservatives. This was because they believed in party government and felt that any administration should have a clear orientation given to it by a single party and that obviously this would not be possible with such an amalgam as that of the Unión Democrática. Also, they thought that the Radicals would do better in the election without such an alliance, since the association with the Conservatives and others would tend to discredit the Radicals. Illia thinks that the way things turned out proved that they were right. However, they finally believed in the unity of the Radical Party and so had no thought of splitting the party over this issue. Perón undoubtedly won the 1946 election fairly. The majority of the people supported him then. For the first year or so, he governed reasonably democratically, but thereafter his regime became increasingly dictatorial. It became increasingly difficult for the Radicals and other opposition groups. At this time, Illia continued to be active in the Radical party, and served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1948 to 1952. Of course, Córdoba played a particularly important role in the overthrow of Perón. The civilians were more active in it there than elsewhere. This was particularly true of the Radicals. Illia was one of those who was particularly active, and worked very close to General Eduardo Lonardi. The night before Lonardi left Córdoba to come to Buenos Aires to assume the presidency, he asked Illia to come to his house, to talk about a variety of things and to seek his advice. During the previous week, they had been too busy with the details of the movement against Perón to have much time for more detailed discussions. During that discussion, Illia advised Lonardi to beware of the CGT but to leave it alone. Illia told him that that was the bulwark of Perón's support, but that if the new government handled things intelligently it could be changed. He was surprised when Lonardi told him that the problem of the CGT had been resolved, that he had gotten a telegram from the Secretary General of the CGT pledging its support for the new regime. This was the first time that the CGT played a game that was to become its regular procedure—to appear to side with whatever government was in power, while in fact, following the instructions and leadership of Perón, awaiting the time when it would be possible for Perón to return to office. At the same time, virtually every government, from

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that time on, tended to court the CGT to gain its backing. Illia's own government was the only one in eighteen years that did not. Illia also advised Lonardi against naming the Junta Consultiva. Lonardi told him of his intention to name such a body, and asked him to be a member of it. However, Illia told him that he thought the idea a bad one, and he certainly would not, under any circumstances, agree to be a member of it. He told Lonardi that he thought that his government ought to be a transitory one, that it should make whatever changes it thought necessary before reestablishing a constitutional regime, but that Lonardi should adopt full responsibility of whatever it did. If he wanted advice, he should seek it, but he should not establish any pseudo-parliament that would appear to share respnsibility with him for what the government did. Lonardi listened, but did not take much of the advice that Illia offered him. Furthermore, he got carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment and uttered the famous phrase Ni vencedores ni vencidos ["neither victors nor vanquished"] soon after arriving in Buenos Aires. He soon ran into strong resistance to his policies from other military elements and was deposed a couple months after taking office. In retrospect Illia believes that they made a mistake in overthrowing Perón. The situation of Perón's regime was getting increasingly untenable, he was losing his support, and, within another year or two, his regime would have fallen of its own weight, stripped of whatever popular support it had originally had. Illia also thinks that the Radicals made an unpardonable mistake in splitting during the Aramburu period. They were the majority party at that point, without any shadow of a doubt, and if they had remained united could have won the election without any need for help from anyone. Hoever, the split in the party changed all of this, Frondizi and his group, Balbin and his group, and the Intransigencia Nacional of Córdoba had all worked together during the Perón years, within the Radical Party. The split among them was particularly unfortunate. As time went on, there emerged two obvious candidates for the UCR's nomination in the forthcoming election, Frondizi and Balbin, Although there was sympathy for both men in the Córdoba party, Illia thinks that there was more support probably for Frondizi than for Balbin, Frondizi was in any case president of the party and had a certain lead for the nomination. The Cordoba group, however, was very anxious to avoid a split in the party over the issue of the nomination. Therefore, they arranged a meeting of Frondizi, Balbin, their own group and certain others, at which they proposed that there be a change in the constitution of the party to provide for the naming of the

85 candidate through a referendum of the party members, rather than through a convention, which had been the procedure until then. They also suggested that all those involved agree to accept the decision of such a referendum. Both Frondizi and Balbin accepted this proposal, and the Córdoba group thought that it was all set, although no written document concerning it was signed, since it was presumably an agreement among friends that did not need to be put down on paper. Only a month or two later, however, came the regularly scheduled convention of the UCR; Frondizi as president of the party, took advantage of the fact that he had a majority there to have himself named the UCR candidate in the presidential election that everyone knew would be held, but the date of which had not yet been announced. The Córdoba group was taken by surprise since they had understood, as he has indicated, that the nomination would be determined by referendum and that therfore it was not the business of the convention to name a candidate, an action that in any case was very premature. Furthermore, at the convention, they protested against the seating of some delegates, Frondizistas, whose election they felt had been irregular. As a result, they came to the conclusion that Frondizi was determined to be the candidate at whatever cost, that he had betrayed an agreement, and that they of Córdoba could not suport him. As a result, when the split in the party occured, early in 1957, the Córdoba group went with the element headed by Balbin, which became the Unión Cívica Radical del Pueblo. During the Frondizi administration, the UCRP lost ground. Thus, in the 1962 election preceeding the overthrow of Frondizi, the UCRP was the third largest party, after the Peronista and the UCR Intransigente of Frondizi. However, Illia was elected governor of Córdoba, the only UCRP governor to be elected at that time. Of course, he never took office because the results of the election were cancelled. Illia was the unanimous choice of the UCRP leadership to be the party’s candidate in the 1963 election for president. Illia believes his selection was the result of his long career in the party, his having served in various public posts, and particularly because of his having been elected governor of Córdoba in 1962. He was chosen by general agreement among national and provincial leaders of the party without a national convention being held. The Peronistas accused Illia then, and still do, of taking advantage of the fact that the Peronistas were proscribed in that election and therefore he owed his election to that fact. Of course, there is a little bit of truth in this charge, in that the Peronistas

86 were proscribed. If one looks at the history of the Radical Party, however, since 1912 when the Saénz Peña Law went into effect, one can see that it was the party's policy to participate in any elections in which they were able. They did this during the Perón period in the face of great difficulties. So it was natural that the party should participate in the 1963 election, and it was not an attempt to take advantage of the proscription of the Peronistas. Furthermore, although it is true that Illia received a minority of the popular vote and, at first, in the electoral college vote, this was not the case at the end. Illia received the largest number of votes, both in popular and electoral college terms, and immediately after the popular election, he began to be approached by representatives of other candidates, offering to throw their electoral votes to him, but at a price in terms of jobs, policy, and the like. Illia said to them categorically that he was not going to make any deals, that if they wantd to throw their votes to him, he would be most pleased, but that he was not going to buy them in any way. To strengthen his stand, Illia immediately went to his home in the northern part of Córdoba and stayed there until the electoral votes had been cast. As it turned out, he received two thirds of the electoral vote. So, it might be said that he ended up with the support of two thirds of the voters. Illia has said that he did not curry the favor of the CGT. He realized that it was in any case loyal to Perón and that he could not hope to win it over by offering it favors. He just announced that he would enforce the law, and no more, that he would carry out the program on which he had been elected, and that if the CGT wanted to support this, that would be fine. After a few weeks there began to be trouble. Perón was decidedly against Illia's government, and the CGT began to cause trouble. They began their "program of action"; they called strikes; they spoke violently against the regime. However, Illia's government did not react at all, letting events take their course. Of course, this very much exasperated the CGT leaders, who had expected Illia to react strongly. By the last few months of the regime, they had virtually given up their campaign against him, and there was relative quiet. In 1966, however, there was one serious isue between the government and the CGT leaders--the move of the government to issue the regulations of the Law on Profesional Associations, which had never been put out although the law had been passed under Frondizi. Although these regulations did not change the letter or the spirit of the law, they did attempt to see to it that the workers had the right to vote freely for their union leaders, that private diversion of union funds would be made more difficult by public exposure of all union expenditures, and some other items. The CGT leaders were very much against these regulations, saying

87 that they were government attempts to interfere in the running of the unions, and so on. Illia thinks that this attitude of the CGT leaders contributed somewhat to his overthrow. In any case, it is certain that Vandor, Alonso and all of the other top union leaders were present at General Ongania’s inauguration and that sometime later the application of the regulation of the Law on Professional Associations was suspended. As for Illia's oil policies, Illia would say that he thinks that there has been a great deal of loose talk about petroleum. The issue is relatively simple: should the oil reserves of the country be exploited by the national company YPF, or should they be exploited by the international companies. Those critical of Illia’s policies say that the YPF does not have the financial resources or the technical know-how to do the job. Illia is convinced, on the other hand, that this is not the case and that conviction lay behind his oil policies. The most difficult part of the oil business is the finding of oil. In Argentina, oil is widely located throughout the republic; however, it is found in relatively small deposits and the wells on the average produce relatively small amounts per day. Nevertheless, the fact is that YPF had located the principal oil reserves of the country; it had done the most difficult part of the job, which would seem to indicate that it could do the easier tasks of getting the oil out of the ground, processing it, transporting it and selling it. At least that is what Illia thought. Furthermore, the financial and know-how arguments are not very good ones. After all, oil reserves are a form of wealth; it would have been possible for YPF to get the financial resources it needed by borrowing on the collateral of those oil reserves. And so far as technical know-how is concerned, that can be purchased in the market place. In any case, Illia did not look at the oil problem just in terms of an oil problem, but rather as part of a wider energy problem. His government developed its plans in the broader context of all kinds of energy—hydroelectric power, thermoelectric power, atomic energy, gas and coal. It sought to reduce the proportion of energy-then, and now about 70 percent-obtained from oil, increasing all of the others. As a result, Illia cancelled the contracts in 1963 that Frondizi had signed with the international oil companies, and the companies reacted very strongly, particularly Standard Oil (Esso). They carried out very strong propaganda here and abroad on the issue; they tried to discourage foreign investment here; and they sought to cut off international sources of credit. Illia would not

88

exaggerate the role they played, but probably their attitude contributed to his being overthrown, also. Illia's government has often been attacked as a "do-nothing" administration; however, the facts don't bear this out. For one thing, his administration set about seriously to plan the country's development. Illia set to work a team of about 400 people, mainly economists, to put together not only a sketch of how economic development had taken place in the country, but what the current state of each of the sectors was, together with projections for the period from 1965 to 1969, with indication also of how the projected development would be financed in each case. In summary form, this plan was published by the government and then was sent to all of the appropriate international agencies and to a large number of governments. It was not accompanied by any specific requests for aid, but the agencies and governments involved were Invited to offer whatever help to whatever sector they thought appropriate and within their competence. Before Illia was overthrown, the administration was beginning to receive these offers. Also, at the time, he was overthrown the planning group was working out a projected development plan for 1970 to 1980 to help the governments that were supposed to come after him. The state of the economy and of economic growth was very good during Illia's administration. In 1964, the growth rate of the gross domestic product was 10 percent, one of the highest in the world; in 1965 it was better than 9 percent, still very high; and in the first six months of 1966, it was running at better than 10 percent. Furthermore, the inflation rate was brought down from over 40 percent in 1962 to an annual rate of about 12 percent during the first six months of 1966. About $600 million in foreign debts were paid off; the country had a favorable commercial balance during that period. The rate of investment was high. None of these facts seem to reflect a "do-nothing" government. There was absolutely no justification for Illia's being overthrown. No single fact explains it. The CGT was strongly against him; the oil companies were strongly combatting him; there were problems within the armed forces. The usual explanation given is that the military were worried about the Peronistas winning the congressional and provincial elections scheduled for March 1967. However, if this was the cause for the military overthrowing him, it reflects the little political sense that the military has. The fact is that in the partial elections in 1965, the UCRP had very considerably increased its vote and had passed the Peronistas. The chances were almost certain that in the 1967 elections the UCRP would have done beter, and the Peronistas would have slipped some more.

89

In any case, the military grossly exaggerated the dangers that might have arisen if the Peronistas had done very well in those elections and had won a number of provinces, including Buenos Aires. There were four or five Peronista governors during his presidency, and Illia got along quite well with them; they behaved very constitutionally. In fact, one man who had been governor of his state under Perón and then under Illia, told him that he liked it much better during Illia's regime because, he said, "that" (pointing to the telephone) was really the governor under Perón, whereas under Illia, he himself was governor. Illia commented to him that this was no particular grace that he was extending but rather was what was provided for in the constitution. In any case, the military failed absolutely in their seven years in control following his overthrow. They came to realize this, and Illia thinks that now at least, they are more anxious than anyone else to "go back to the barracks," as they say in Argentina. Illia hopes that this conviction will be long-standing. The Peronistas claim that during the last eighteen years, since Perón went out, the country has stagnated, in contrast to the progress that it made during Perón's time. First of all, there was not all that much progress under Perón, it was very marginal, at best. In the second place, the Argentina of 1973 is a completely different country from the Argentina of 1955, rather in spite of the governments of the period than because of them. When Perón went out of office, there were 9,000 cars made in Argentina; in 1973, there are 300,000 a year; 20,000 additional kilometers of roads have been paved; the petrochemical industry, which did not exist then, has come into existence. The country's foreign trade has considerably increased, the number of university students has doubled, the number of hospitals has greatly increased. The country has progressed very markedly during this period. What Perón had done was to distribute income somewhat more equitably, although even this was marginal. Since he went out of office, it is probably true that income distribution has become more inequitable. Illia has been to the United States twice in recent years. He has generally lectured at various universities, including NYU, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and a few others. He thinks he would like the chance to go back again and lecture at other universities. He thinks that one learns a particularly large amount about a country by being in contact with the universities and their professors. Illia is also anxious to go to China. ***** *****

90 TALK OF RAÚL ALFONSIN AT THE TIME OF INAUGURATION OF VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT JAIME LUSINCHI, HILTON HOTEL, CARACAS, VENEZUELA, FEBRUARY 1, 1984

Since Raúl Alfonsin began to plan for coming to the inauguration of President Jaime Lusinchi, he has been thinking a lot about what he would say. Alfonsin believes that Argentina owes a lot to Venezuelan democracy, which has been so hospitable to the exiles from Argentina and other Latin American countries and even from outside of the hemisphere. The simplest thing that Alfonsin can say to his audience of expatriate Argentines is that they are wecome at home, and he urges them to return home. Their country needs their services. He has sent a bill to Congress to restore the citizenship of all those whose citizenship was cancelled by the previous military government. He has set up an inter -ministerial commission to facilitate the return of all of the exiles. Alfonsin wants to assure everyone that they will return to a country in which there exists the rule of law, respect for persons and property, an end of disappearances and all of the other abuses. People have often commented on the fact that the Argentines deserve better governments than they have had. The country has an educated, dynamic population. It is one of four countries in the world that are self-sufficient in energy and also exports food. The Argentine people deserve better than the governments that they have had. Alfonsin has ended a number of his recent speeches in Argentina by citing the preamble to the Argentine constitution. It sets forth why the country was established, and a better statement could not be made.

Brazil INTRODUCTION The Brazilian presidents dealt with in this section of the book include all of those men who held office during the "democratic interregnum" of 1946 to 1964, except Getúlio Vargas and the two people who served provisionally as president between the overthrow of J5ao Café Filho in November 1955 and the inauguration of Juscelino Kubitschek in January 1956. The text also includes José Sarney, the first civilian to be President (between 1985 and 1990) after the end of the twenty-one year military regime that succeeded the democratic interregnum. General Eurico Dutra’s previous career would not have indicated him to be the first chief executive of Brazil in a period of relative democracy. He was a professional military man who had helped Getúlio Vargas plot to establish his fascistic Estado Novo (New State) and had served as minister of war during most of the Vargas dictatorship. In the years before the outbreak of World War II, and for sometime thereafter, Dutra had been widely thought to be sympathetic with the Axis. When Getúlio Vargas was forced to call elections

92 in 1945, the parties that the dictator had organized-the Social Democratic and Brazilian Labor parties— named General Dutra as their presidential nominee. However, in October 1945 when it seemed to the military leaders that Vargas was planning to cancel the elections, Dutra joined with the candidate of the Opposition, Brigadier Eduardo G6mes, and Minister of War Pedro Aurelio G6es Monteiro to depose Vargas. Two months later, to the surprise of almost everyone, Dutra was elected president, largely due to the endorsement that he got at the last minute from Getulio Vargas. Dutra' s period in the presidency was marked particularly by the restoration of the institutions of constitutional—and more or less democratic — government. It was also marked, however, by the outlawing of the Communist Party and drastic governmental intervention in the internal affairs of the organized labor movement. In economic terms, Dutra's period was marked by the dissipation of foreign exchange reserves acquired during World War II,. but also by the beginning of an attempt to have the government plan the nation’s economic development. At the end of Dutra ’s term, when Getulio Vargas was elected as his successor, there was pressure inside and outside of the armed forces to prevent Vargas from taking office. However, President Dutra insisted that Vargas return to the presidency as the voters had mandated. When that occurred, Dutra retired to civilian life, as he says in my conversation with him. My encounter with General Dutra was a short one, as our conversation indicates. When our family spent almost a year in Brazil during 1965 and 1966, I was interested in meeting and talking with as many different political leaders as possible. I had heard that ex-President Dutra was quite averse to being interviewed, but I also obtained the address of his home in Rio de Janeiro, not very far from the apartment where we were living, and I decided to try to get an interview with him. When I arrived one morning, the general was

93 standing on his doorstep, talking with a man who was about to leave. I waited until he was finished, and then approached Dutra. I don't recall what I said to him, but he invited me to come in and sit down in his living room. I began interrogating him, getting a few interesting answers, particularly with regard to the Tenentes, the young officers who had revolted in the 1920s and who, as old men, were playing prominent roles in the administration of President Humberto Castelo Branco, who was in office at the time we talked. But then Dutra suddenly asked me what I was doing, and when I said I was interviewing him for my studies of Brazil, he replied, that he did not give interviews and elaborated somewhat on that theme. Joao Café Filho had been elected as vice president in 1950 with Getúlio Vargas. Café Filho was a strange candidate to be the running mate of Vargas, since most of his political life he had been his strong opponent. Café Filho had been exiled for several years during the Vargas Estado Novo dictatorship. Then, in the wake of the end of the New State, Café Filho had taken the lead in establishing the new Social Progressive Party (PSP) in the Northeastern states. That party nationally was led by Adhemar de Barros, a former official of the Estado Novo who in 1947 had been elected Governor of the State of Sao Paulo. In 1960, Adhemar de Barros was a potential candidate for president. Had he run, he might well have drawn votes from Getúlio Vargas, particularly in Sao Paulo. To buy him off, Vargas agreed to have a member of the PSP as his vice presidential candidate-and the choice fell to Joao Café Filho. It was widely rumored that Vargas also promised to support Adhemar de Barros for president the next time around, in 1955. Vargas did not serve out his full 1951-1956 term of office. When, as the culmination of a series of conflicts with the armed forces, the military leaders demanded that he take a "vacation" until the end of his term, Vargas committed suicide. Thereupon, in August 1954, Joao Café Filho became president. On three different occasions, I had a chance to

94 talk with Café Filho. One of these occurred while he was vice president when I met him in his office in the Ministry of Labor, where I was introduced by the American Labor Attaché, Irving Salert. The other two conversations occurred more than a decade later, when Café Filho was ex-president, and took place in the office of his "notary public" business in Rio de Janeiro. On the first of these two later occasions, after talking with me for a short while, Café Filho suggested that I give him written questions that he would answer on a return visit. For the notes on the third conversation, therefore, I include his replies to my questions as well as to follow up questions made orally to supplement his written answers. My most extensive contacts were with President Juscelino Kubitschek, who became president at the end of January 1956; these start with a talk which he gave at New York University a little more than a year after he had left the presidency. It was clear from what he said there that he was already running for reelection in the presidential race, which was then scheduled for October 1965. Of course, Kubitschek never got the chance to make that second run for the presidency. His immediate successor, Jánio Quadros, resigned after only seven months, when after a constitutional crisis, his vice president Joao ("Jango") Goulart, took over the presidency. Goulart, in turn, was overthrown by the military March 31/April 1, 1964. The consequence of this "revolution" of 1964 was the establishment of a twenty-one-year military dictatorship. One of the early acts of the first military government of Marshal Humberto Castelo Branco was to deprive Juscelino Kubitschek of his citizenship rights—to vote, to hold public office, to speak or publish anything about politics. Kubitschek went into exile, and when he returned home after the October 1965 congressional and state elections went against the dictatorship, he was subjected to remorseless interrogation while virtually being kept under house arrest. He was finally allowed to go abroad once again. Our family was in Brazil at the time of the

95 persecution of ex-President Kubitschek in late 1965, and it seemed to me that he was being gravely mistreated. Also, during our year in the country, I had become increasingly aware of the contribution that Kubitschek had made not only in the economic development of the country, but also to its democratization and its cultural growth. As a consequence, when he returned home I was anxious to have a chance to talk more or less extensively with Kubitschek, who was then residing in New York City. I was fortunate that he gave me an invitation to talk with him; the result is the second item dealing with Kubitschek. Most of the rest of my contacts with Juscelino Kubitschek were connected with the fact that I had decided that I wanted to write a biography of him. This is indicated in the first letter from him, and in several of the conversations that came after it. Upon the occasion of my first conversation with Kubitschek in his office in Rio de Janeiro, we did not complete what we had to talk about. Suddenly, Kubitschek said that he was going to Belo Horizonte, in his native state of Minas Gerais, and suggested that I join him in the Minas Gerais capital the next day. After some hesitation, I agreed, particularly after the president said that he would pay for the trip. I went back to my Rio hotel, and within an hour or so, a round trip ticket from Rio to Belo Horizonte arrived there. Until the last time that I talked with him, Kubitschek did not give up his hope that he might again be able to run for office, and that he might once again become president of Brazil. By 1975, however, when the generals had once again changed the rules of the game, banning anyone who had been cassado (deprived of civil rights) from ever running for public office, Kubitschek impressed me with having finally abandoned hope of returning to the presidency. Juscelino Kubitschek did remain a politician, however. As my conversation with him indicates, he was stil running for office, this time for membership in the Academia Brasileria de Letras (The Brazilian

96 Academy of Letters) . He impressed on me that he was sure of being able to achieve this honor. Nevertheless, a few months after my last visit with Kubitschek, I read a small item in the New York Times to the effect that Kubitschek had failed in his bid to join the Academy. I wrote him a letter, commiserating with him on his defeat. The last letter from him contained his answer, reflecting his almost perpetual optimism, his certainty that when the next chance presented itself, he would be elected to the academy. The fact was, however, that he was not to survive to see the opening up of a new vacancy in the academy; he was killed in a tragic automobile accident on the Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo highway only a few months after he had written to me. Kubitschek was succeeded as Brazilian president by Janio Quadros. Quadros was a "phenomenon” in postEstado Novo Brazilian politics. He had started his political career by being elected to the city council of Sao Paulo, on the Christian Democratic ticket. About a year later he was elected mayor of the city, and, before completing his term, he was elected governor of the state of Sao Paulo. Quadros made a fetish of cleaning up corruption and imposing efficiency on the civil servants. A broom was his electoral symbol, and the billetinhos de Janio became famous. These were notes to various city and state officials that he would dispatch after he had, without advance notice, visited and inspected their operations. His appeal to honesty was particularly attractive in a state that had been governed by Adhemar de Barros, who boasted, "I rob, but I do things." Quadros's major strength, however, was that he was a "new" figure in state, and later in national politics. He had no antecedents in the Vargas era of the 1930s and early 1940s, and so was not either clearly pro-Vargas or anti-Vargas--the great dividing line of Brazilian politics between the end of the Estado Novo and the military "revolution" of 1964. Thus, Quadros was able to draw support from both camps. Leaving the governorship in 1958, Quadros was

97 elected to the national Chamber of Deputies from the neighboring state of Mato Grosso. However, more importantly, he became a candidate for president of the republic. In the 1960 election as the nominee of the opposition, he triumphed over the government's unattractive candidate, Marshal Henrique Teixeira Lott, who had been Kubitschek’s minister of war. However, JSnio Quadros resigned the presidency seven months after his inauguration in January 1961. The reasons for his resignation are still debated in Brazil--whether it was a ploy to force Congress to give him extraordinary powers, or he was forced by the country’s military leaders, or he was provoked by the impossibility of getting his extensive program through Congress. I have never believed in any of these explanations . It seemed to me quite simply that he ran away from a job that was too big for him. He was essentially a provincial politician, with surprisingly few contacts with the national political establishment until he became president, and was a prisoner of his own campaign against the Establishment. My two conversations with Janio Quadros were arranged by an old friend of mine who had been a law school classmate of the ex-president, and who accompanied me on both occasions. In each case, we went to Quadros’s home in the suburbs of Sao Paulo relatively early in the morning. I was impressed by several things on both occasions, including the bust of Abraham Lincoln in Janio Quadros's office, and the fact that the first thing the ex-president did was to offer me an alcoholic drink. After these two conversations, I had no further contact with Quadros. Sometime later I did write an article (which was published) on Quadros's leaving the presidency and argued that his abandonment of the post was in fact a betrayal of his country, provoking as it did a major constitutional crisis. I sent him a copy of the article, inviting his comments but never received a reply. Quadros ’s successor was Joao ("Jango”) Goulart, his vice president. Goulart was also a post-Estado Novo politician, but unlike Quadros, was clearly

98 aligned with the Vargas side of the great political divide of the period. He had a fazenda near that of Getúlio Vargas in rural Fiio Grande do Sul, and during Vargas’s years of "exile” there after his overthrow by the military, the two men became close friends. When Vargas returned to active politics in 1950, he brought Goulart along with him. A couple years after returning to the presidency, he made Goulart the minister of labor, a key post, since Vargas’s major political base was in the organized labor movement. During the year that he was minister of labor, Goulart used the post to gain influence in the unions, removing labor leaders opposed to him, and bringing about the imposition of others more amenable to him. He certainly was not, however, responsible for introducing the legal minimum wage in Brzil as he claimed to me. Goulart did sponsor a substantial increase, but the minimum wage had first been established in Vargas's first presidency. Goulart was forced out of the ministry of labor by pressure of the military. When Vargas committed suicide, however, Goulart succeeded him as president of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, the party that had reelected Vargas to the presidency. It was in that capacity that he was chosen by Kubitschek (of the other party founded by Vargas, the Partido Social Democrático) as candidate for vice president in the election of 1955. In the election of 1960, Goulart ran again for the vice presidency. By that time, the election of president and vice president were separated as had not been the case before (in spite of what Joao Goulart had told me) . As a consequence, there were two vice presidential candidates who claimed to be the running mate of Jánio Quadros, and Goulart was elected vice president although his own running mate, Marshall Lott, was defeated. When Quadros resigned the presidency, the three military ministers—of war, navy and the air force— were strongly opposed to Goulart’s succeeding him. It was only when substantial parts of the armed forces, notably the head of the Army in the state of Rio Grande do Sul on the Argentine border, which is

99 the strongest unit in Brazil's army, insisted on Goulart 's taking office, that a "compromise’' was reached. Goulart was allowed to become president, but a constitutional amendment was passed that severely limited his powers and that introduced a prime minister as effective head of the government. Goulart spent the first fifteen months trying to end the limitations on presidential powers and finally suceeded when a referendum returned them to him. Although finally invested with the full powers of his office, Goulart was not able to deal adequately with the country's increasingly acute economic problems, and was equally unable to get Congress to enact reform legislation which he wanted. On March 31 /April 1, 1964 Joao Goulart was overthrown by a military insurrection backed by many civilian politicians and a substantial part of the middle class. After futilely trying to rally military support in various parts of the country, Goulart finally fled across the border into Uruguay, where he spent the rest of his life. It was in Uruguay eight years later that I met ex­ president Joao Goulart, on his hacienda, in the northern part of the country. My conversation with him was facilitated by an Uruguayan friend. One of the most interesting things that I remember from this discussion was Goulart 's response to my question as to whether he considered the suicide note Getulio Vargas had left authentic. Immediately upon Vargas’s death, the question had been raised whether Vargas had in fact written it, or whether someone else had composed it after Vargas’s demise. Goulart was emphatic in his assertion that the suicide note was infact genuine. To emphasize this assertion, he pointed out to me a copper plaque of a facsimile of it on a shelf in his living room. Goulart also expounded on a number of issues that arose during his period as president. One of the most important of these was his request of Congress for extraordinary powers, to enact legislation that Congress had been unwilling or unable to enact. This request was opposed by almost all elements of Brazilian politics of the time, from Left to Right.

100 Goulart commented on that alignment. He also referred to several incidents in the month before his overthrow. the March 13 meeting was a mass gathering held in front of the Ministry of War in Rio de Janeiro to rally his supporters. Among those on the platform was Communist Party leader Luiz Carlos Prestes. Goulart announced there the issuance of decree laws mentioned by him but also including an agrarian reform law. The metallurgical workers hall incident was an act of defiance and a breach of discipline by sailors and marines for which President Goulart pardoned the mutineers as soon as they surrendered. The incident and the speech of Goulart before noncommissioned officers that he mentioned were probably the final factors in making the military move to oust Goulart. Goulart also offered observations on the circumstances of his overthrow ; however, he did not mention that as the "price" for his support and that of the Sao Paulo garrison General Maury Kruel had demanded that Goulart break his alliance with the Communist Party. Finally, the ex-president offered comments on the situation in Brazil thereafter, and the circumstances in his native country at the time that we were talking. My last discussion was with José Sarney, the first civilian to become president after the end of the twenty-one-year military regime of 1964 to 1985. However, Sarney was in a sense an accidental president. As the end of the term of the last of the military presidents, Joao Baptista Figueiredo approached, the issue had arisen as to how the new president should be elected. The opposition to the military regime demanded that there be direct elections by the Brazilian people, but President Figueiredo refused that, and his decision was upheld by the failure of Congress to pass a constitutional amendment providing for popular election. At that point, the opposition to the military regime reached an agreement with elements among the civilian supporters of the regime who had also favored direct election of General Figueiredo"s successor. As a consequence, the principal leader of the opposition,

101 Tancredo Neves, was named as the candidate for president, with José Sarney, who had been president of the military government's party until the dispute over the direct elections, as candidate for vice president. The Tancredo Neves-José Sarney ticket won in the indirect elections. Shortly before they were supposed to be inaugurated, however, Tancredo Neves became seriously ill. He was too sick to be inaugurated, and so Sarney was installed as vice president and acting president. Shortly after that, Neves died, and José Sarney became president in his own right. Under President José Sarney, civilian government was reinstated after twenty-one years of military rule. Freedoms of press and public assembly and other civil liberties prevailed; Sarney sponsored legislation that Congress passed, ending the corporative-state-like control over unions and labor relations that had been established during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo dictatorship and had never been subsequently repealed. The president also sponsored the passsage of a land reform law but was unable to make it effective in the face of obstinate political and even armed resistance by landlords. The Sarney regime was not successful in dealing with the country's severe economic crisis, largely precipitated by the foreign debt crisis. Several efforts on his part to develop a program to control the galloping inflation failed. To a large degree as a consequence of his administration's economic policy, Sarney's regime was very widely discredited by the time it ended in 1990. I first met José Sarney in Sao Luiz de Maranhao in 1966, when he was governor of the State of Maranhao, and it is my conversation with him at that time that appears here. He had been elected in 1965, and was the leader in the state of the so-called bossa nova of the Uniao Democrática Nacional (UDN) . This was a relatively progressive element of a generally quite conservative party. When the Goulart regime was overthrown, Sarney declared his support of the move and, in the October 1965 election, was the government

102 candidate for governor of the state. From what I was able to observe in his state, I got the impression that he was a chief'' executive who had been particularly concerned with pushing forward the economic development of his Northeastern state, one of the most backward ones in the Brazilian federation. However, at that time I did not foresee him as a future president of the republic; nor, I suspect, did he.

***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH EURICO DUTRA IN HIS HOUSE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, OCTOBER 13, 1965

He was never a Tenentista. He always fought against the Tenentes, not with arms in his hands, but within the armed forces. He was against them because he was of the opinion that government should be run from the top down, it should not be in the hands of a group of lieutenants. It is certainly true that Getulio Vargas was basically interested in staying in power, and he did rule the country for fifteen consecutive years. However, it is also true that Vargas did many things for Brazil. Dutra does not think that Vargas had any preconceived program when he took office but that his accomplishments developed as he went along; however, one should not understimate the things that Vargas did. The Partido Social Democratica, of which Dutra was a leader has, it is true, always been interested in economic development. During Dutra's administration, they developed the Plan SALTE [Food, Housing, Transport, Electricity Plan]. Unfortunately, it was only passed by Congress right at the end of his administration, so that it was not possible to put it fully into execution. He doesn't give interviews, even to Brazilian press. Journalists approach him for interviews, but he almost always refuses. He retired from the presidency and became a private citizen, and he insists on remaining a private citizen. He will give me a couple of books about his administration, and if I read them and then have some questions to ask him, he will be glad to answer my questions, or to turn me over to someone who was closely associated with him while he was president, who can answer them. Beyond that, he will not be interviewed.

103 CONVERSATION WITH JOÁO CAFÉ FILHO IN MINISTRY OF LABOR, RIO DE JANEIRO, JUNE 10, 1953

The vice president in Brazil is President of the Senate, just as he is in the United States. He is sort of an exile; there is not a great deal to do. The Brazilian vice president is elected on the same ticket as the president and by direct election of the people. Café Filho was a political leader of the Journalists' Union in Rio Grande do Norte. However, the trade union movement is very weak in that state because the region is very poor and the economy is very weak, there is not much field for trade union activities therefore. There is a drought, of course, in the northeastern region. The rain has now started to fall, however, and the situation is improving a little bit. What is needed is a large system of irrigation. However, the government has only just begun such a program, and there is a great deal more to do before that region will be free of the terrible kind of drought which it has suffered this year. Café Filho was a member of Congress before becoming Vice President. He fought very hard there for the rights of the workers, and perhaps that was why he was selected as candidate for Vice President.

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CONVERSATION WITH JOÁO CAFÉ FILHO IN HIS OFFICE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, MAY 27, 1966

At the end of the Estado Novo period, Café Filho organized in Rio Grande do Norte and in the Northeast generally a party that was called the Partido Social Progresista. At the same time, Adhemar de Barros organized in Sao Paulo the Partido Republicano Progresista. For the purpose of fulfilling the legal requirements of having a nationally organized party as provided in the electoral statute of 1945, these groups joined forces under the name of Partido Republicano Progresista. After the 1945 election, however, there was a national convention of the party that changed the name to Partido Social Progresista. The nomination of Café Filho as the running mate of Vargas in 1950 was not exactly a deal to keep Adhemar de Barros out of the race. From Adhemar's point of view, he felt that his support of Vargas in 1950 should win the support of Vargas in 1955 for Adhemar's bid to succeed Vargas. Of course, Vargas died before the end of his term, and since there had been no formal agreement of any kind, the Vargas people did not support Adhemar in 1955.

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From Vargas's point of view, he wanted someone popular as his running mate. Café Filho at that time was very popular because of his activities in the Chamber of Deputies, and so Vargas invited him to be his running mate, and after some hesitation he accepted. Café Filho had always been anti-Vargas. During the period that he was vice president, relations between him and Vargas always remained somewhat formal. Café Filho never became a supporter of Vargas. Café Filho thinks that it is debatable whether Adhemar's popularity in Sao Paulo is due to the things that he has really accomplished there. His first election as governor in 1947 was due to the fact that the Communist party could not at that time run its own candidate, and at the last minute, the party instructed its supporters to back Adhemar. At that time, the Communist party was very powerful in Sao Paulo. Subsequently, however, it split and declined, and today it has little popular support. *

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CONVERSATION WITH JOÁO CAFÉ FILHO IN HIS OFFICE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, JUNE 8, 1966

The social question in Brazil began realty to become politically important after the revolution of 1930. Its political instrument, however, was not a party of the democratic Left, as would have beeen desirable. Rather, it was a ministry, an organization created after the revolution, an organ at the top of the executive, the Ministry of Labor, Industry, and Commerce (at the present time the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance). This ministry conformed originally to the ideas, studies, and organizational ability of an illustrious Liberal politician, Lindolfo Color, its first minister. His successors in this post, notably Agamemnon Magalháes, succeeded in consolidating the ministry. Getúlio Vargas, over time, was the great beneficiary of the ministry, to the degree that he guided the recognition of unions with political considerations, and guided the guarantees of the workers in various stages of labor legislation. The Executive Power thus gave the workers much more than a party of the democratic Left could have asked for. In 1935, the Alianza Nacional Libertadora [ANL] arose. It could have been a party of the democratic Left, but the Communists, who belonged to the ANL, and were the only politically organized force within it, ended by taking it over. The ANL was closed by Vargas in 1935, before the Communist attempt at insurrection in November of that year, in the Northeast and the

105 old Federal District. In 1945, the Communists elected a large delegation to the National Constituent Assembly, one of its senators from the old Federal District being Luiz Carlos Prestes, and there were various deputies from Sao Paulo, Pernambuco, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro. In this same election, there arose the Esquerda Democrática, which allied for electoral purposes with the UDN and which secured autonomy, calling itself Partido Socialista. But the Esquerda Democrática never gained major popular and political importance, in spite of the intellectual quality of some of its leaders like Joáo Mangabeira. The real party of the democratic Left, which appeared in the same 1945 election, could have been the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro [PTB], But the PTB never achieved its historic destiny because until 1950 there survived the personal legend of Getúlio Vargas and the administrative machinery that he had established during the Estado Novo in the Ministry of Labor. After the death of Vargas until the revolution of March 31, 1964, the Partido Trabalhista Brasililerio, putting aside its doctrinal mission, oscillated between electoral alliances with the conservative Partido Social Democrático—composed of politicians of the oligarchic old style—and the Communists. The latter, during the presidential period of Joáo Goulart, were able to involve the administration in a program of reforms, which obliged the Armed Forces to intervene. The lack of authenticity and the opportunism of the PTB leaders aroused opposition among some laborites such as Senator Alberto Pasqualini and Deputy Fernando Ferrari, who had a program for the PTB that was never realized, because both operated in Congress and never gained control of the executive, either in the PTB or the government, and both died before they had a chance to show the consistency of their ideas in practice. Café Filho fought against the preparation of the golpe de estado that took place on November 10, 1937, during his first term in the Chamber of Deputies. Persecuted, Café Filho had to go into exile in Argentina: when the Estado Novo was established, he was in Buenos Aires, from whence he returned in 1938. His position was always one of opposition to the dictatorship. Café Filho became president constitutionally on August 24, 1954; as Vice President, after the suicide of President Getúlio Vargas, he completed Vargas’s term, the duration of which was less than a year and a half. In view of the short time available. Café Filho preferred to continue certain projects already under way, not presenting them as his own, but seeking to fulfill them in a harmonic fashion. He governed during a period of transition and conformed rigorously to the legal limitations of a fully democratic regime.

106 In Congress, Café Filho confined himself initially, until September 18, 1946 to the work of the National Constituent Assembly, being member of the Constitutional Commission and a member of the subcommission charged with writing the chapter on the economic and social order. As a deputy, in the legislative period following the Constitutionally Assembly, he was a vigilant member of the opposition to the government of President Eurico Gaspar Dutra then in power. He came to know Getúlio Vargas very quickly during the Constituent Assembly, and observed rather than shared one of the most melancholy periods in the public life of the former dictator when, in ostracism, out of place in a house of the legislature, he experienced human ingratitude, when not disrespect for his condition as ex-chief of the nation. Getúlio Vargas was contradictory, flexible, and above all, paternalistic. His laborism was of a paternalistic kind. He loved power, without doubt—power for power's sake—but he was a man who was sensitive to social problems, in terms of aid to the workers and of equilibrium in the relations between capital and labor, so as to avoid grave conflicts such as occurred in other countries. Café Filho knew Vargas, was effectively living with him during the campaign of 1950 and during his last government. Vargas lost himself in many pronouncements and efforts that were demagogic, and, influenced by advisers and intimate friends, he suffered because he could not carry out all that he wished in the social field because of the difficult economic and financial situation of Brazil. Café Filho knew Vargas in the last phase of his public life. Only then could he observe him at close range. Vargas was already a man who had made his mark historically, and he was a man of advanced age. These were factors that must influence any judgment Café Filho might make of him. Café Filho doesn’t believe in the genuineness of Vargas's "suicide letter," but on the other hand, he has never sought to study thoroughly the authenticity of the letter. Café Filho is inclined to think that the so-called letter was not written, as it was made to appear, but rather that it was part of a speech that Vargas was preparing to give on some solemn occasion, perhaps on September 7, 1954. As president, Café Filho assured the workers all of their rights and guarantees, in accord with the labor legislation, paying attention to the just and legitimate demands presented by the unions. He did not restrict them in the exercise of any of their rights, nor did he permit the unions to be used for political purposes. On August 24, 1954, Café Filho chose as Minister of Labor, Senator Napoleáo Alencastro Guimaráes of the PTB, and friend of Getúlio Vargas, whose funeral oration he gave, in a ringing discourse, on the Senate floor. Guimaraes remained

107 Minister of Labor until the end of Café Filho's presidential period. There was no conspiracy to prevent Juscelino Kubitschek from taking office. The elections of 1955 for president and vice president of the republic and for some state governors were the freest possible, with the government allowing the people to exercise their freedom of choice, and with the Executive Power, headed by Café Filho, maintaining a position of absolute neutrality with regard to the candidates. This neutrality was recognized by all, including candidate Juscelino Kubitschek in a visit to Café Filho that he made in Catete Palace. The problem of counting the votes was handled by the judiciary and not the executive: that is, it was under the control of the Superior Electoral Tribunal. What existed to explain the military movement of November 1955 was a purely military question, which reached a crisis during the period during which Café Filho took a leave from the presidency, hospitalized for treatment of a heart condition and under medical orders for complete repose. This was the military situation. Insofar as the political situation was concerned, those who had been elected and their partisans feared the results of the scrutiny by the specialized court of the votes they had received, since it was claimed that there had been fraud in various states as well as active, intensive and confessed participation by the Communists in the 1955 presidential campaign. Kubitschek received a little more than 33 percent of the votes counted in 1955 and thus held only a small advantage over General Juárez Távora, which aroused doubts as to the legitimacy of his election, a doubt that only the Electoral Court, judging the objections that had been presented to it, could clear up. This did not occur because of the military coups of November. Café Filho does not believe that Brazil needs a period of dictatorship, long or short, to reach economic and political maturity. The political institutions can evolve, conforming to the Brazilian reality, without vices, distortions, and Irresponsibility compromising the democratic system, and at the same time, without resort to an authoritarian regime. It will be a matter of revising their institutions, as the government of Castelo Branco has undertaken in an inspired and patriotic fashion. This revision must be realistic and austere, competent, and responsible, on the basis of their experience and the needs of national progress. It must always be preoccupied with establishing the bases and instruments for a stable democracy, in accord with Brazilian peculiarities, possibilities, traditions and authentic aspirations. The foreign policy of the Café Filho government followed the traditional lines of the foreign policy of Brazil, represented by their

108 historical commitments and modem responsibilites in the world , particularly in the American continent. To carry out this policy. Café Filho invited to be foreign minister one of the outstanding figures of Brazilian diplomacy. Ambassador Raúl Femándes, whose experience, culture, and intellectual and political authority were recognized and respected in America and in Europe, and has been recently demonstrated during the last meetings of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Rio de Janeiro. The Alianza Nacional Libertadora (ANL) included many leftists and democrats of good faith; however, the Communist party dominated it from the beginning. It is true that Café Filho was arrested after the 1935 revolt of the Alianza but because he was an opponent of Vargas, not because he was in the ANL. Then, all opponents of Vargas were charged with being "Communists.” Café Filho thinks that the basic reason why no party of the democratic Left appeared in Brazil after 1945 was the fact that the ground was preempted by the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB), which was too much associated with Vargas to cary out this role. There were two causes of the golpes of November 1955. First, there was a sharp split in the armed forces, which had come out into the open at the time of the August 1954 crisis; so, in part these golpes were moves of one part of the armed forces against another part; second, there was real doubt about whether Kubitschek had indeed been elected, and his supporters were fearful of the results of the decisions then pending before the Supreme Electoral Tribune. In addition, the man who took over when Joáo Café Filho had to take a leave of absence from the presidency because of a heart attack, Carlos Luz, dismissed General Henrique Teixeira Lott as Minister of War without naming a retired officer to take his place. Instead, Luz named one of Lott's subordinates, with very bad psychological results, and this was what immediately provoked the ouster of Luz. Café Filho was not allowed to return to the presidency when he tried to because the group that had made the coup against Carlos Luz wanted to consolidate their position. The return of Café Filho would have meant that they could not do so. Thus he was banned from returning. * *

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TALK OF JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK TO MEETING AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, MARCH 5, 1962

During Juscelino Kubitschek's campaign in 1955 he used the

109 slogan "fifty years of progress in five," and sought to cany out that slogan while president. The base of Kubitschek's program was the building of Brasilia. He had been told by economists in Brazil and in the United States that his was a hair-brained scheme, but Brasilia has been successfully built in two years. Nevertheless Kubitschek himself is not sure how they succeeded. Brazil is divided fundamentally into three areas: The Northeast, is an area damned by extensive droughts and a backward social system; The Southeast is the center of industry and of export agriculture; The West consists largely of tropical jungle, extending to a great plain. Someone has stated that in fact the Southeast is the real center of the country, and the other two areas are in effect colonies of the Southeast. During his administration, Kubitschek tried to get things moving in the Northeast. He started a number of irrigation projects, which some of the economists told him were inadvisable but that are now providing irrigated areas that did not exist before. Kubitschek merged all of the various government agencies that had been working at cross purposes in the Northeast, which is now working out a coordinated program to deal with the area. Kubitschek's regime also built a network of roads in the area, which had been virtually without roads before. He had the pleasure of inaugurating near Recife the first steel plant in the area and got several other important industries established there. Kubitschek's administration also did all that it could to help the development of industry in the Southeast. For instance, the automobile industry, which had been virtually nonexistent before he came to power, was afforded the necessary protection, and it grew into a major industry and has given rise to a number of others. In addition, the steel industry doubled its production during Kubitschek's regime, and has thus been able to provide for the needs of the new auto industry and others that have come into existence during this period. However, the center of his policy was in the western part of the country. This is the great area of the future of Brazil, including over three million square miles, which has in effect been an archipelago, a series of islands largely out of contact with the rest of the world. In order to develop this part of the country, and to give impetus to the development of the country as a whole, Kubitschek felt that it was absolutely essential to transfer the capital there. This is not a hair-brained scheme and, in fact, had been provided for in the constitutions of 1891 and 1946; Kubitschek was only carrying out these constitutional directives. The new capital is looked upon by many visitors as a marvel of modem architecture but he does not look upon it in that sense. He looks upon it as the key to the development of Brazil's "desert,"

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the largest in the world, a desert composed of tropical forests not sand. Not only homes and offices of the government have been built, but also an artificial slake stocked with fish has been created. But this is not the important thing; the Important fact is that this city is the center of development of the whole interior of Brazil. From Brasilia roads have ben built in all directions, and the new capital is the center of the country's hub road system. Roads have connected the new capital with Sao Paulo and the East, and with Rio de Janeiro and the South. The biggest road is that to Belem, which goes through the heart of the jungle. It has completely opened up a whole new area. The town where Princess Isabel was bom had not had a house built in twenty years, but it has come to life again, and new buildings are being constructed at the rate of two per day. In opening up this Belem road, workers passed through areas populated by Indians who had no contact with the outside world. Workers passed through the area of the tribe that did not have one person who spoke Portuguese, and where there was not present even any Indian from a neighboring tribe who might have acted as interpreter. Of equal importance is the road being constructed to the Territory of Acre in the extreme Western part of the country. This is an area that has great riches of rubber and other products that were exploited to some degree during the Second World War. However, it has been exceedingly difficult to get into and out of that area, and the whole region will be opened by the road to Porto Velho. This will be the first stage in building a road from one coast to the other across the South American continent. It is already possible by the roads running north and south to get from Belem to Porto Alegre. The Belem road is important already in opening up the area through which it passes. New cities are now growing up along the road, and new economic activities are developing in this area. This progress is Kubitschek's answer to those who said that this road was a foolhardy enterprise. Brazil has always been plagued by its dependence upon its exports. It has been dependent in the past upon sugar, at which time the Northeast was the center of the country; later it was dependent largely on diamonds and certain minerals, and at that point, the Center was the important area, when the country depended so greatly on its rubber exports and Brazil was the only area in which raw rubber was to be found. But since World War I, the country has been principally dependent upon the South, where coffee has been the principal product. Kubitschek is convinced that one answer to this dependence is an attempt to stabilize world prices of the country's principal

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export products, such as coffee, cacao, and others, a step he has been advocating for a number of years. However, industrialization is another important response to this problem. At the present time, Brazilian exports total from $1.3 to $1.5 billion a year. If the country were to have to import all of the manufactured goods that it makes for itself, it would have to export $3 billion worth. If it were to have a standard of living per capita of half that of the United States, it would have to export $4 billion worth. There is no doubt that it has no chance of increasing its agricultural exports to this degree. Also at the present time, Brazil has a total population of some seventy million people. However, of these, only some thirty million are actually in the market. The great problem of the country is to bring these other forty million people into the market, and that was the goal towards which he was bending his efforts during his period in the presidency. Unfortunately, during much of the previous period, the United States has not understood Brazil's problem. Kubitschek wrote a letter to President Eisenhower in May 1958 in which he urged that there be a joint effort of the whole hemisphere to bring about the rapid economic development of the area. Unfortunately, this idea, which came to be called Operation Panamerica, has not received much response in Washington. If it had received an adequate response, the hemisphere might have already been well launched on such a program of development, and the problem presented by Castro would have been much less importance than it now is. The objectives that Kubitschek stated in Operation Panamerica are what has been incorporated in the program that is now being carried out and that has, for some reason which he does not understand, been rechristened Alliance for Progress. Essentially, the Alliance for Progress consists of two basic elements—the rapid economic development of the area and the stabilization of prices of the export products of Latin America. The development efforts that Kubitschek launched in the Northeast have already begun to bear fruit. As a result, the production of babassú nuts and other products of the area has gone up as much as 100 percent in the last three years or so. Brazil has suffered from inflation for more than a century, and this has worsened since 1940. Kubitschek has been accused of being in favor of inflation, but this is not the case. It has been said that the building of Brasilia has been inflationary, but this is also not true. Kubitschek does not look upon Brasilia as inflationary but rather as being something that was essential to eventually overcoming inflation. This is so because only by the development of the country can inflation really be overcome. An American economist, Albert Hirschman, has given an

112 explanation for the advantage of Brasilia to the national economy of Brazil. He has pointed out that sometimes a shock to the economy of a developing country may result in creating such disequilibrium that a variety of efforts are needed to bring it back into eqilibrium, and that these may bring about development. This is the case with Brasilia, which created such a disequilibrium, and the building of the roads and the development of a whole range of other activities has been necessary to bring about this equilibrium. Agrarian reform is something that has now become universally accepted, at least to the degree that the movement to abolish slavery had caught the popular imagination near the end of the nineteenth century. The government appointed a commission to draw up a suitable agrarian reform program. The commission rendered its report, a bill has been drawn up to put this into execution, and the government is about to present this bill to congress. The thing that has most pleased Kubitschek in his career has not been the plaudits that he received as president of the republic, which every president receives, but rather those that he has received since he has been out of the presidency. He has visited ninety Brazilian cities since then, and he has received a tumultuous reception in all of them. There exists in Brazil now a popular movement known as "J. K. for '65," with which of course he has nothing to do. Only God knows what he will be doing in 1965, but perhaps he will be in the presidential palace again. *****

CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK IN HIS NEW YORK CITY APARTMENT, NOVEMBER 28, 1966

Juscelino Kubitschek’s vision of economic development of Brazil was an overall one when he went into office. He decided to concentrate industrialization in the Center -South and to make it possible to open up the great deserted interior of the country. He did not feel that any country could really develop on the basis of agriculture, that agriculture is really dependent upon industry, and so he concentrated largely on industrialization. Only when industry has been developed would it be possible to have a really extensive program to develop agriculture, because when he became president the country did not have fertilizer, did not have tractors, jeeps, and other machinery. Brazil had to have these items first before a real effort could be made to develop agriculture. However, he was planning to have his second term called Quinquenlo Agricola [Five Years of Agriculture]. He felt that by

113 that time the country would have the fertilizer, jeeps, and other things that are required, would have them as a result of the industrialization efforts that he had made in the first period. He had a program for establishing "agrotowns," small towns in the developing rural areas. It is not possible any more to expect farmers to settle in the complete wilderness, so these towns would provide schools, some health care, technical assistance, credit, and the like for the farmers who would live in the towns and would have their land nearby to which they would go out to work each day. This plan was very well worked out, and it would have worked. It is a shame that he did not get a chance to carry it out. He had planned such agrotowns along the Belem-Brasilia, the Brasilia-Acre, and the Brasilia-Sur roads. When Kubitschek started in office he did not have any particular program for the Northeast, except the old one of building reservoirs as protection against droughts. In fact, his administration did build a very large number of such reservoirs. However, in 1958 there was a terrible drought, and he went up there to see it for himself. The situation was too horrible to be believed. There were long lines of people fleeing the drought areas, stretching along the roads far as the eye could see. These people were looking for food and for water, nothing else. He talked with many of them, asked them about their problems, and when he left he promised that a thing like this would never happen again. When he returned to Rio, he contacted Celso Furtado, who was then working with the CEPAL {Economic Commission For Latin America] in Santiago, and told him to work out a program for the development of the Northeast, based upon the industrialization of that area. Agriculture was no answer for the region, it was clear. The only way to get it out of its misery was through industrialization. As a result of this, there came the law creating SUDENE [Superintendency of Development of the Northeast]. The most important part of that law was its proviso that any industrialist who would be willing to invest in the Northeast would be able to use for the purpose 50 percent of what he would otherwise pay as income tax. As a result of this, there has been a new interest in industrialization of that area, particularly among businessmen of the South-Central area. As a consequence, too, the Northeast is now the most rapidly developing part of the country, and Kubitschek believes that within five years more it will no longer be the depressed area that it has been in the past. He talked at the time about making Recife the Sao Paulo of the Northeast, and although this may not quite occur, the area as a whole is now well on the way out of its problems, due principally to SUDENE. Kubitschek's program for opening up the West depended

114 largely on building roads through the area. He wanted roads from Belem, from the Acre area, to the South-Central area. But one could not build roads to nowhere. As a result, it was necessary to build the new capital, Brasilia. Kubitschek had in mind from the beginning the interrelationship between the new capital and the roads going to it. In the beginning, he found little opposition to Brasilia. He got the laws he needed for it from Congress without any problems, because no one really took it seriously. However, as it became clear that he really did intend to build the new capital, the opposition became terrible. There were all kinds of attacks made upon it, and all kinds of difficulties were created to its completion, commissions of inquiry and the like in Congress. It is claimed that Brasilia was very expensive. But this is not really true, it was built cheaply. The building of the Alvorada Palace, for instance, was done at one seventh the cost that now would be involved in such construction. The rest of it, too, was built relatively cheaply. Nor did Brasilia cause the inflation during his period; Kubitschek had several other projects that were more expensive than Brasilia. The rapidity of Brasilia's development was absolutely necessary. If he had not transferred the capital there, it would never have been transferred. Janio[Quadros] was against it. Jango [Joao Goulart] was against it, and it would never have been completed if he had not completed it. Only now is the talk dying down about possibly transferring the capital back to Rio. Last year a party was given in Paris celebrating the anniversary of Brasilia. The owner of Le Monde was there, and he told that he had visited Brasilia in 1958, and had been much impressed with what was going on, but that when he got back to Rio and Sao Paulo he was told that this would be the most important ruins of the twentieth century. It would have been, if it had not been completed during his term. A great deal has been said about supposed corruption in building Brasilia and generally in Kubitschek's administration. But the fact is that during the last two and a half years the present government has been searching diligently and has not come up with any corruption. This is just the propaganda of the people who don’t like him. He thinks the hatred of him by some of the military is explainable. It comes from a long division within the armed forces between those who were for Getulio Vargas and those who were against him. Vargas, although he was a dictator, was a liberal man, socially progressive as was shown by the labor and social legislation that he enacted. In any case, the anti-Vargas party, held it against anyone who was pro-Vargas. The fact was that

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Kubitschek and his administration were in a way a continuance of the Vargas group in power, and so this group of military men hated them. It was not because he did anything against them. In fact, there were two insurrections against him in the armed forces when he was president, and almost before they were over, Kubitschek had pardoned the men involved. In addition, of course, the present military men who made the coup, which was hatched in the Escola Superior de Guerra, announced when they seized power that they were going to stay in power for ten years. They realize that Kubitschek is very popular, and that he is therefore a menace to them, so they have deprived him of his civil rights for ten years and have banned him from politics. The worst of it is that Kubitschek cannot protect himself, because no newspaper can publish anything which he writes. He has now reached an agreement with Carlos Lacerda to form new political party, in conformity with the parties law that this regime has passed. To many it seems strange that he and Lacerda should get together, but Kubitschek thinks that if they don't have the courage to forget their past personal differences and work together for the redemocratization of the country, that they will be doing wrong. Kubitschek doesn't know whether Lacerda will have the patience necessary to build a party. Lacerda is an impetuous man, but, at the moment, he is the principal person who is putting up opposition to the present military dictatorship, and Kubitschek supports his efforts in this regard. Kubitschek does not know whether there is in fact a consensus among Brazilian politicians about what the country needs. He knows that since his administration, no politician has been "worth his salt" who has not talked about development. Kubitschek believes that the inflation during his administration was not so bad. It was caused in the process of development, but as the development itself went on, the very causes for the inflation were being overcome, because only when the country produces those things which it needs is it able to really overcome the inflation. The present regime also had inflation, much worse than his. He had 14 to 15 percent a year inflation: they currently have 40 to 50 percent inflation, and it is worse because they have stopped the process of development. As a result, social tensions are growing and the upshot will be disastrous. As for the foreign exchange problems Kubitschek had to deal with, he did not regard them as being serious. He was getting no help to speak of from the United States or anywhere else, and so he had to do all he could to get finance from abroad in some other way. As a result, he increased the debt from two billion dollars to three billion dollars. However, the only reason he didn't increase

116 it to fifteen or twenty was that he was unable to do so. Kubitschek does not think that the debt is that important. Two big United States companies Jiave profits in a year that are larger than three billion dollars. Jánio Quadros's claim that Juscelino left him with a terrible problem with the foreign debt and other things is merely due to his own incompetence. Quadros knew nothing about the conditions of Brazil and what the country needed. If he had been competent, he would have turned to solving the problems of the country instead of blaming them on someone else. The people did not accept Quadros's claims. If it had not been for the incompetence of Quadros and the outrageous things which Jango Goulart did, the country would not have been in the crisis which it is in now. No one since Kubitschek has had the sense of going ahead with the economic development that the country needs. Kubitschek developed the idea of Operation Panamerica as a result of his experience in dealing with the internal problems of the country. It came in the wake of U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon's trip to South America after which Kubitschek wrote President Eisenhower, saying that it was necessary to restudy the whole basis of Inter -American relations. Out of this, developed Operation Panamerica, which was incorporated ultimately in the Alliance for Progress. However, the Alliance is lacking in that it is not a really a program, such as Operation Panamerica was planned to be--an overall program to strengthen democracy through economic development. It was through such a program, with the common objective of democracy, with reliance upon private initiative in large part, that Kubitschek felt that America could be put in a position to deal with the Socialist countries. But the Alliance has Just become a large fund of which the United States is the treasurer, and to which must come all of the countries that want aid, but aid is not doled out in conformity with any overall program, but on a piece-by-piece basis. It is handled by technicians, who are not necessarily the best for the Job. It is not true that he was a prisoner of the military in the first part of his administration. This was a thesis developed by some of the newspapers, particularly Correio da Manha. However, by the end of 1956, at the time of the second uprising against him, he had imposed his own command on the armed forces and from then on he had no one who tried to impose anything on him. At one point, a magazine of Carlos Lacerda's had a violent attack on the army, with a cover picture of Marshal Denys, accusing him of being a homosexual. Twenty military men told him that they were going to close down the publication, and he ordered that they not

117 do so and told Minister of War Lott that he would be held responsible if they did. The Chief of Police, a general, closed the paper, and Kubitschek fired him the same day, replacing him with another general, who opened the periodical again and let the issue circulate. From then on there was nothing more like this. Kubitschek believes that the relations between the United States and Latin America are very bad now. He now admires the United States, and particularly its economic development, but believes that the United States does not know how to deal with Latin America. The State Department is blind in this regard. As a result, there is widespread hatred of the United States in Latin America. A United States singer who went to some music festival in Rio recently was not allowed to sing, solely because of dislike of the United States. Kubitschek himself has been telling college audiences in the forty U.S. states that he has visited of the necessity of becoming more aware of Latin America and of changing the United States stance towards Latin America. Kubitschek consciously allowed foreign investment to have as big a role as possible in his development program. Brazil lacked sufficient savings, and it was necessary to mobilize savings from abroad, but without being dependent on the companies that came. As a result, he was careful not to have foreign firms only from the United States but also got them from Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. He would do all of this again, and would continue the same policies today, because he believes Brazil lacks sufficient savings for its development needs. Kubitschek does not think that there is need for agrarian reform in Brazil. There is land enough for everyone. The country has only eighty million people now but it could hold two billion. The problem in the Northeast, for instance, is not agrarian reform; that would only give peasants small amounts of land that is not very good to start with. The solutions to the Northeast are industrialization, and the settling of peasants from there in the rich lands of the West, along the lines that he developed. He thinks the Partido Social Democratico is finished, and he doubts that it will be revived. It has had such a vocation for being in the government that it has come to be too closely associated with the present regime, and by so doing it has thoroughly discredited itself. The growth of the area around Brasilia has been tremendous. There are now some 600,000 people settled along the BelemBrasilia highway, and there are new towns shooting up all the time. In addition, there are now about a million people in the Brasilia area itself. This is certainly irreversible now. *****

118 LETTER FROM JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK, FEBRUARY 10, 1972

I was greatly pleased and surprised to receive today your letter of February 1. I remember our interview in New York that impressed me with your grasp of Latin American events. I consider very Important your current research on my administration and its philosophy. The Brazilian people have understood well my presidency and its purposes, and support me with affection and friendship. The present government is continuing the goals that I set in the economic conquest and development of the Center and West of Brazil. It is continuing a give emphasis to the industrialization of the poorer regions, such as the Northeast and Amazon. I will be very glad to collaborate enthusiastically with you in your project. I will examine the draft of your book as soon I receive it. I will await your arrival in Brazil to talk with you. I am acquainted with your reputation as one of the leading American economists and social scientists specializing in Latin America. I will profit very much from hearing your interpretation of my efforts as president in developing my country. Certain economic distortions now exist in Brazil which are impoverishing my people. These circumstances are making difficult the execution of development. But the indispensable development of my country will require some sacrifices for the population. I anticipate discussing many topics with you. I appreciate very much your interpretive remark on the "contributions to the economic development of your country, your example of the functioning of a political democracy and your optimism concerning the future of Brazil." *

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CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK IN HIS RIO DE JANEIRO OFICE , MAY 31, 1972

How Juscelino Kubitschek, a convinced democrat, could serve the Estado Novo dictatorship, as did he, is a very good question. He must answer it. He had been a member of Congress from 1934 to 1937. When Vargas set up the Estado Novo and suppressed Congress, Kubitschek retired from politics. He went back to his medical practice. However, in 1940, the Governor of Minas Gerais, who was a very good friend of his, asked him to be Mayor of Belo Horizonte. When Kubitschek objected that he could not do so because he did not agree with the Estado Novo, the governor told

119 him that Vargas was about to make a speech in Minas in which he would announce a return to an elected government, and that as governor, he needed Kubitschek in the mayoralty of Belo Horizonte to help prepare the way for the elections that would be held. Kubitschek still refused, however, and continued to do so, even when the governor suggested it again on several occasions. Nevertheless, one night Kubitschek was chairing a meeting of the Surgeon's Society, of which he was president, and word was brought to him that the governor, unbeknownst to him, had in fact named him mayor. Faced with that action of his friend, he decided to take the job and do what he could. During the next five years, Kubitschek continued to talk in favor of reestablishment of democracy. During the years after Vargas was first overthrown, Kubitschek had no contact with him. However, after Vargas had been reelected president, and Kubitschek had been elected Governor of Minas, Vargas summoned him to Vargas's fazenda in Rio Grande do Sul. In conversation, Vargas told Kubitschek that he would give Kubitschek what help he could. Kubitschek naturally thanked him, but said that he didn't quite understand it, since he had had some profound differences of opinion with Vargas. Vargas then told Kubitschek that he himself had changed, that he had become convinced of the value of democracy through his experience in the 1950 campaign, in which the most powerful interests had opposed him, but he had been elected by the workers, and his taking of office was being guaranteed by the closest adherence to the constitution. In being elected governor of Minas, Kubitschek defeated the most powerful state machine of the Unláo Democrática Nacional. Therefore, the UDN never forgave him, and were his strongest enemies. Joáo Café Filho's claim is false that the coups of November 1955 were for the purpose of not having an investigation of the vote in the election, which admittedly had given Kubitschek a very narrow victory. The UDNers were plotting to prevent Kubitschek from taking power, with certain UDNista leaders in the army. Eduardo Gomes, Minister of Air, and the Minister of the Navy went to Marshall Lott and suggested that they should prevent Kubitschek from taking office on the grounds that he had not received an absolute majority. But Lott turned them down, saying that there was nothing in the constitution that required an absolute majority. The plotting went on, however, and Café Filho himself was deeply involved in it. This is what provoked the coups of November 1955. It is true that Joáo Goulart and the Partido Trabalhista were given patronage in the social security institutes. But that was not

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the source of Jango's power; it was in the PTB controlled unions. Kubitschek's relations were formal and friendly during his administration, insofar as Goulart was concerned. The Ministry of Labor was always in the hands of the Partido Trabalhista, but Kubitschek always chose someone for this post among the more moderate members of the PTB. There is some indication that Vargas looked on Kubitschek as his political heir, rather than Goulart. Alzira Vargas, a good friend of Kubitschek, has told him of a meeting in the Catete Palace at which she, her husband, Amaral Peixoto, and several others were present, in which the succession to Vargas was being discussed, and in which Vargas intervened to say "Don't overlook the Moco [Young Man] from Minas," meaning Kubitschek. During his discussion with Vargas before taking office, Kubitschek discussed the question of the steel industry with Vargas. He said that he, as a Mineiro, didn't resent the fact that Volta Redonda had been established in the State of Rio, that he knew that it had been placed there on recommendation of experts, but it was true that Minas was digging holes in the ground to supply the mineral for Volta, and that all that Minas was left with was the holes. He added that Brazil needed more than one steel plant, and he thought that the next one should be set up in Minas. Vargas agreed to help him in any way he could to find someone interested in setting up there. So Kubitschek scouted around and found that the German Mannesman firm was interested in setting up a plant in Brazil, although they did not specifically have Minas Gerais in mind. He convinced Mannesman to locate in Belo Horizonte, and Vargas helped a good deal. But the Initiative for it came from Kubitschek, not Vargas. During his administration as president, Kubitschek also brought about the establishment of steel plants of COSIPA in Sao Paulo and USIMINAS in Minas Gerais. The upshot is that all of the steel plants Brazil now has were the result of his efforts, except Volta Redonda. Not a single one has been built besides these since he went out of office eleven years and more ago. Kubitschek does not think that Vargas would have supported Adhemar de Barros for president in 1955, if he had lived. Soon after the election of state governors in 1951, when Lucas Garcez was chosen as governor of Sao Paulo, backed by Adhemar, Vargas asked Kubitschek if he knew Garcez well. He replied that he knew him, liked him, and it would not be hard for him to become a good friend of Garcez. Vargas then said that he would like to have Kubitschek understand his problem, that he did not want to be forced in to a position of supporting Adhemar for president, that it was important to deprive him of his base in Sao Paulo, and asked help from Kubitschek to influence Garcez in this direction.

121 Ultimately, Garcez did break with Adhemar. To Kubitschek it is inconceivable that Vargas would have supported Adhemar, whose slogan was Roubo mas faiz [I rob, but do things]. He was a pure and simple crook. It is not true that he was opposed to the candidacy of General Lott. Lott was a very fine man, a real constitutionalist, and would have made a very good president. However, it is true that he did not make a very good candidate; he did not have the common touch with people. Kubitschek's first choice for his successor was Juracy Magalhaes whom he thought was a very good man, although of the Uniao Democratica Nacional. He thought, too, that it would be good for the country to have Magalhaes, of the UDN, as president, since the UDN had failed to elect their candidates against Dutra, Vargas, and Juscelino, and it would be good to have some rotation of the parties in office. So he tried at first to work out a grand alliance of the three parties—PSD, PTB, and UDN—to support Magalhaes, on the basis of a previously agreed to government program. He was making progress with this, when somehow or other Carlos Lacerda heard about it, went to Sao Paulo, made a speech there in which he said that he would not back any candidate supported by Kubitschek, and declared for Quadros. Janio was never considered by Kubitschek as a candidate he would support. Anyway, Lacerda's declaration ruined the chance for the kind of agreement Kubitschek was working for. Kubitschek studied very extensively the problem of economic development. He would take time out, cut himself off completely, and study certain problems of development with which he was faced. However, he is absolutely certain that the first need for a political leader to have a successful development program is intuition. He certainly had that, but on the basis of it he studied the problems very extensively, reading some things economists wrote about it, and other material related to specific problems he was facing. He is the one who put desenvolvimento into the Brazilian political dictionary. Before him, no one had talked about it. They had talked in terms of "progress," as in the national slogan, "Ordem e Progresso," but they had not used the word and the idea of "desenvolvimento." He was the first one to introduce that. It is true that Kubitschek got the idea for Brasilia during his campaign. He was in a small Goias town, and in a flight of oratory said that he would completely cany out the constitution from its first article to its last. At that point, someone in the audience asked, 'Then, are you going to build Brasilia?" Of course, this too was in the constitution. On the spot, Kubitschek

122 had to make a decision, he could not back down from the statement he had just made, and so he replied, 'Yes, I'm going to build Brasilia!" From then on, that was part of his program. In the beginning of the regime of Goulart, Kubitschek supported Jango. He supported the return to presidentialism, because a referendum on the issue was provided for in the constitutional amendment that had set up parliamentarianism, and the parliamentary system was not working. But Kubitschek became increasingly critical of Goulart, felt that he was driving the country towards chaos, and during the last year virtually broke with Goulart, only seeing him once. He did not go into exile voluntarily. He was forced to each time. He came back home on October 3, 1965, because before that his friends Negrao de Lima and Israel Pinheiro were running for governors of Guamabara snd Minas Gerais, and for him to have returned earlier would have looked as if he were trying to influence the election. However, he arrived early in the morning after the election, before anyone knew the results. He was picked up by the police then for interrogation, at 10 in the morning, was interrogated for the next twelve hours. The police were trying to wear him down, mentally and physically, but he told them that his conscience was clear, that they could kill him if they wanted to but that he would not confess to any wrong doing. They finally let him go, and soon afterwards gave him his passport and ticket and sent him abroad again. Kubitschek next came back when his sister died. Although he was allowed to go to the funeral, he could not go to the seventh day mass. Instead, he was put on a plane and sent abroad once again. Still he returned. At the time Costa e Silva made his coup in December 1968, Kubitschek was arrested again and was held for forty-five days. In August 1969, Kubitschek was told that a police investigation of his finances was being undertaken and he would have to produce evidence of his financial dealings during his whole lifetime; he was given eight days to prepare. As an individual, he did not keep these kinds of records, so it was a tremendous job. The police particularly wanted to know what Kubitschek had earned in his lecture tours in the United States, for each speech that he gave. He didn't have such records, and had to wire each of the schools and other places involved to find out what they had paid him. The military were trying to prove that Kubitschek had not paid his income tax on this money, but by the end of the eight days, he and his secretary had compiled a four-hundred page document covering virtually his whole life. When Costa e Silva was fatally ill, Kubitschek was arrested once again, and was held for a few days, but since Medici became

123 president, he has been left alone. Government has, however, passed a law making anyone who has been cassado [deprived of civil rights] ineligible to hold public office, although after their period of cassacao is over, he or she can vote and write and make speeches. The time he was held in Jail longest occurred when Kubitschek was giving a graduation speech at a high school. A colonel dressed in plain clothes came up to him after the speech and said that he had orders to arrest him. The students did not find out, so there was no fuss, which there would have been had they known. When he was let out this time, the general who talked with him told him, "This is a war. You are our strongest enemy, so we are not going to leave you alone." Kubitschek thinks that this statement sums up the situation very well. The military do not necessarily dislike him, but they know very well that if there were a free election, he would win overwhelmingly. He is indeed their strongest enemy. What the military undoubtedly would like would be for him to go into exile indefinitely, but he will not do that, because it would look as if he were afraid or had something to hide. He determined that he would come home at all costs, because he had nothing to hide. If they wanted to kill him, they could do, but he was not going to run away. Kubitschek was never enthusiastic about having Joao Goulart in the Frente Ampla. That was Carlos Lacerda's idea. However, it was to Kubitschek's advantage to have the alliance with Lacerda. The overture was not made by Kubitschek, but by Lacerda, who came to his home in Lisbon, where he was living at the time, and proposed the idea. This was fine, because Lacerda had been the most bitter opponent of Kubitschek, the one who had most spread the stories of corrruption and other supposed misdeeds in the Kubitschek administration, and for him to come to Kunitschek’s house in Lisbon and to propose there a political alliance, was proof enough that all of the charges he had been making for so long were not true. *****

CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK IN BELO HORIZONTE, JUNE 1, 1972

Kubitschek did not play any significant part in the activities of the Chamber of Deputies from 1934 to 1937. He was hesitant and bashful in those years, something he got over as he was more successful later. He supposes that that bashfulness went back to his humble upbringing. His family was a modest one, and he first

124 came to Belo Horizonte from Diamantina, a very provincial town, to be a telegraph operator. He worked all night and went to the university during the day. He finally got his degree, set up a practice that did quite well, saved a bit of money, and then went on a trip to Europe to finish off his studies. In those days, one went to Europe for that, not to the United States. Kubitschek then returned to Belo Horizonte, again went into practice, and did quite well. Then came the civil war of 1932. He was a captain in the medical corps of the troops fighting against Sao Paulo. He particularly was involved in the Battle of the Tunnel, which went on for two months, with the Paulista troops at one end of the tunnel, and the Mineiro troops at the other end. In that battle there were two men who later became presidents of Brazil—himself and Eurico Dutra, who was then a colonel. There were also four men who later became governors of states. The leading military group was made up mainly of politicians, and they continued to work together in politics after the war was over. That is how Kubitschek first became involved in politics. As he said yesterday, he retired from politics after the establishment of the Estado Novo, until 1940. But as mayor of Belo Horizonte, the capital and largest city of Minas, he soon began to achieve certain prominence not only in the state but in national politics, too. Thus, when the end of the Estado Novo came, he was one of the principal founders of the Partido Social Democrático of Minas Gerais, which was the most powerful PSD in the country. During his second period in the Chamber of Deputies, from 1946 to 1951, Kubitschek also was not very active as a legislator. He was secretary general of the PSD of Minas at the time and spent more time in Belo Horizonte than he did in Rio. He attended meetings of the various commissions of the chamber, but was rarely at a plenary session of it. When it came time to name a PSD candidate for governor, there was widespread demand from the rank and file of the party that he be its candidate. Kubitschek remembers a big meeting in front of the state party headquarters here in Belo Horizonte, in which the people kept chanting "Queremos Juscelino! Juscelino!" He won the nomination easily. Being governor of Minas, the second largest electoral unit in the country, after Sao Paulo, Kubitschek obviously was a presidenciavel [potential president]. The Uniáo Democrática Nacional was violently opposed to his candidacy, however, because they knew very well that he would win. They began to conspire for a golpe to establish a UDN dictatorship. He thinks that the crisis facing Getúlio Vargas at the time of his suicide was part of the conspiracy among UDN civilians and UDN military men. President Café Filho was pushed by the UDN to convert his

125 regime into such a dictatorship, but he demurred. However, he did tentatively propose, right after assuming office, that the congressional elections scheduled for October 1954 be postponed. Kubitschek was one of the strongest to protest against that, and it was in large part due to the opposition of the Minas government that the elections were not postponed. As he said yesterday, Cafe Filho was in on the plot to prevent Kubitschek's taking office. Kubitschek spent the time after the election in Minas and did not go to Rio. They were preparing here for the eventuality of the plot against his taking office succeeding. There was a Minas Gerais police force of relatively well-armed men, 30,000 strong. If the inauguration of Kubitschek had been denied, there is no doubt that Minas would have risen in revolt. Indeed, if the victorious PSD candidate in 1955 had been from a small state, he would almost certainly not have been allowed to take office. There was opposition to his candidacy within the PSD. In fact, the PSD in three states—Pernambuco, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul—did not support him, in the last case because the PSD there was feuding very much with the PTB, and particularly with Goulart, and they would not support Goulart for vice president. There is no doubt that the Carlos Lacerda was Kubitschek's most persistent enemy, and most vicious one. This is explainable in part by Lacerda's general role after the Estado Novo. Lacerda was a brilliant young journalist, who near the end of the Estado Novo began to criticize the dictatorship very strongly. He gained a good deal of fame in the process, and when the UDN was formed in 1945, he emerged as an important figure in it. Since Kubitschek was aligned with the other side—the PSD—Lacerda was quite naturally against him, then as Kubitschek rose more and more in importance in the PSD, Lacerda turned more and more to attacking him. The attacks during Kubitschek's administration were particularly ferocious. Lacerda had a magazine as well as the newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa in those days. In one issue, the magazine came out with a large picture of Kubitschek, with the legend stamped across his head Chefe d'um govemo de ladroes. (Chief of a government of thieves). Kubitschek's reaction to this was to sue Lacerda's magazine for libel; however, his chief legal adviser told him that although it was all right for ministers to sue for something like this, it was not good for the president to do so. He also said that the libel laws were so written as almost always to favor the journalist, and in all probability, the president would lose such a suit, which would leave him in the embarrassing position of suggesting that the charge made in Lacerda's paper

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was true. Kubitschek decided to do nothing. A few weeks later, the same magazine came out with a similarly large-sized picture of General Odylo Denis, with "homosexual" stamped on his forehead. As a result of this, a group of military men planned an attack on the office of the magazine to destroy it. Kubitschek got wind of this, called Lott, his Minister of War, told him that he would not stand for violence in this case, the military had every right to feel insulted, but that they should take recourse through legal measures. Lott succeeded in calling off the attack. Then, however, the police went to the magazine and confiscated all of the copies of that issue. At that point, Kubitschek called in the chief of police, a general, and ordered that the copies be returned to the magazine, that the police had no legal right to confiscate them. The general pleaded that he could not do that, because of feelings of solidarity with "his class." Kubitschek told him that he was not chief of police of "his class" but of Brazil, and as such owed allegiance to the president of the republic. The general again said he could not obey the order, so Kubitschek asked for his resignation on the spot. The general gave it to him right there, saying that he held no grudge against the president, that he understood the philosophical position from which Kubitschek was operating, but that for reasons he had stated, he could not carry out his order. (The two men remained friends subsequently). The chiefs resignation in hand, Kubitschek again called Lott, told him what had happened, and asked for his suggestions for a replacement. Lott gave him four names, and he chose one, a colonel. Kubitschek called that man, told him that he was going to be named chief of police, but that in that capacity the first thing he was going to have to do was to return the copies of Lacerda’s magazine. He agreed to take the job and carry out the order. That closed the incident. That was the only incident involving freedom of the press during Kubitschek’s administration. He insisted throughout his administration on the closest adherence to freedom of the press, something of which, of course, he was the greatest victim, because he was subjected to an unending series of scurrilous attacks. When Kubitschek was candidate for president, Lacerda drew up a several hundred page dossier of him, full of the most outrageous accusations about having millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts, of his having been a partner in companies that did business with the state of Minas while he was governor; of his having gotten graft in many other ways. All of the charges were false, and Lacerda knew they were false. But with an exceptional degree of cynicism, Lacerda sent copies of this dossier to every military garrison in Brazil. Kubitschek believes that that dossier

127 was the origin of much of the military antipathy against him. Kubitschek had one incident with General Lott during the first year. There had been established an organization, the Clube de Novembro, of which Lott accepted the honorary presidency; however, this was a group organized solely and exclusively by the Communists, although Lott didn't realize it, because it very much lauded him. Kubitschek decided that the group would have to be outlawed, in conformity with the outlawing of the Communist party. He told Lott this , and Lott didn’t like it, and a bit later sent Kubitschek a letter of resignation as Minister of War. Kubitschek called in a mutual friend, a civilian, told him what had happened, asked him to see Lott, explain the situation surrounding the Clube de Novembro and tell Lott that if he insisted, Kubitschek would accept his resignation, but would much prefer that he withdrew it. After this friend had talked for a long time with Lott, he did withdraw his resignation. Kubitschek thinks that his administration provided the greatest degree of freedom of any Brazilian administration, not only with freedom of the press, but also with freedom of labor relations, for the unions and employers to settle things between themselves. Kubitschek had points of contact with the Nacionalistas such as Sergio Magalháes. For instance, he accepted Petrobras. The campaign Petróleo e Nosso was in fact begun in Brazil by the Communists, but it had won very wide acceptance. It was clear that there was no turning back from Petrobras, so in his campaign and during his administration, Kubitschek supported Petrobras. Kubitschek, however, had important divergences from these Nacionalistas. He didn't interpret nationalism to be simple antiforeign. He felt that the best expression of nationalism was the rapid economic development of the country, which did the most to strengthen the nation. He was also convinced that at that time Brazil did not have the necessary savings to carry out a large development program, and it was necessary to tap the savings of those nations--the United States and Europe—which had had the time to accumulate the necessary savings. In fact, as president­ elect, Kubitschek made a trip to the United States and Europe exactly for the purpose of trying to attract investment from those areas and he is convinced that it was the investment from abroad, principally from the United States, Germany, France, and Japan, which saved his economic development program. Operation Panamerica originated out of Richard Nixon's trip around South America in May 1958. He was spit upon, stoned, and, in Venezuela, almost killed. Nixon himself told Kubitschek that at one point in Venezuela a man reached into his car window

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with a revolver to shoot him but was pulled away just in time. Kubitschek thought the incidents of this trip showed a gulf between the United States and Latin America that was not only disastrous but widening and that something had to be done about it. He wrote a letter to President Eisenhower, saying this, and saying that he thought that a whole new study of the meaning of Panamericanism had to be made, and a new basis had to be found for it. He added that he had a number of ideas about this, and if Eisenhower was interested, he would be glad to expand upon them. Eisenhower's reply was to send Roy Rubottom, the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, to see Kubitschek, with a letter. This letter of reply agreed with Kubitschek that the state of relations between the United States and Latin America were very bad, and proposed mainly that joint police and other action be taken against those elements that were disturbing Inter -American relations. Kubitschek told Rubottom that police measures were no answer to the problems facing the two areas, that the only way to rebuild Panamericanism was through a joint program of development, and that this would have to come from Latin America to the United States, rather than as something handed by the United States to Latin America, because of the suspicion that existed at that point about anything the United States did. Rubottom returned with his message and as a result, it was agreed that John Foster Dulles would come down to talk with Kubitschek. However, just before the date set for Dulles's visit, the Lebanon crisis broke, and so Eisenhower sent a message to Kubitschek asking that Dulles's visit be postponed, and asking if that would be acceptable. Kubitschek replied that he understood the gravity of the Lebanon crisis, but that he thought that a postponement of Dulles's trip would make a very bad impression not only in Brazil, but throughout Latin America and that he thought Dulles ought to come as scheduled. As a result, Dulles did come at the time originaly agreed upon. Kubitschek and Dulles met for three days and had very long discussions. Dulles started out by insisting once again on the priority of police measures; Kubitschek insisted on the priority of joint economic development. They discussed this issue at great length, and in the Joint statement that they issued at the end of their talks, Dulles accepted about 80 percent of Kubitschek's point of view, and Kubitschek accepted about 20 percent of Dulles's. One concrete thing that came out of this meeting was the decision to set up the Inter-American Development Bank. Kubitschek kept insisting with Dulles that Latin America was not looking either for charity or for a Marshall Plan, that he knew that the American voters would not accept a Marshall Plan for Latin

129 Ameica. He Insisted, however, Latin America did need financing for its development projects. Dulles then asked how this financing could be carried out, and Kubitschek suggested that this could be done either through existing institutions such as the World Bank and the Export-Import Bank or through a new special lending institution. They talked about this possibility for quite a while, and it ended up with Dulles agreeing to the etablishment of the Inter-American Development Bank. Kubitschek was out of office by the time President John F. Kennedy proposed the Alliance for Progress. However, he thinks that Kennedy made a strategic error in not picking up and continuing the Operation Panamerica, which had originated in Latin America. Instead, Kennedy chose to call together all of the Latin American ambassadors in Washington, and to anounce a totally new Alliance for Progress, under United States authorship. In mid-1961, after Kubitsckek had been out of office for for a few months, he visited the United States and saw Kennedy. At that point, Kennedy was worried about how the Alliance was going. Kubitschek was by then senator for Goias and Kennedy asked him if he would be willing to make a study of the Alliance and make suggestion for changing it. Kubitschek said that he would be glad to help in any way he could. So the United States proposed to the Organization of American States that Kubitschek and Lleras Camargo make such a study, and this idea was accepted. Lleras and he decided to each write a separate study, although they coincided in most things. Kubitschek again saw Kennedy only three or four months before the president was killed. At that point, Kennedy showed great preoccupation for what was happening in Brazil. He commented to Kubitschek that if things went on as they were, Brazil would have 50 percent or more inflation a year and that in any countiy in which that happened there would certainly be a revolution. Kubitschek agreed with Kennedy, because there is no question that the situation was terrible. Virtually, Brazil was not being governed by that time. Kubitschek found that Kennedy had a real concern for Latin America and sincerely wanted to help to do something about the situation. Kubitschek has met most of the leading men of his time, except Churchill, and he believes that of all of them, Kennedy was the greatest, the most human, the most concerned. He says this without knowing what my ideas on Kennedy are. During the period of Operation Panamerica, Kubitschek did a great deal to enlist the support of other Latin American presidents for it. He sent personal letters to all of them, and sent emissaries to see them. He found wide acceptance for his idea. One amusing incident was the reply of Lleras Camargo, who

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was then President of Colombia. Lleras wrote that this was the first time in fifty years that a president of Brazil had written to any other Latin American president, and the rest of the countries had begun to think that Brazil was part of Europe. Kubitschek had strong disagreements with the United States over his attitude towards the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The United States strongly backed the IMF, and he thinks that at that point the United States really wanted to keep Brazil underdeveloped. The IMF was demanding that Kubitschek put into effect a program that would limit inflation to 6 percent a year. Kubitschek absolutely refused saying that his objective would be to keep it at 20 percent a year or under, but that he put first priority in development and that rapid economic development made necessary sacrifices by the people of the country in the form of inflation. The IMF wouldn't listen, and as a result they effectively turned off all sources, public and private, of loans funds. This made all the more important direct investment by foreign firms here. Kubltschek's position was subsequently borne out. Even the IMF has publicly stated that an inflation of 20 percent is compatible with economic development. Also the United States, although not having inflation comparable to Brazil, is having inflation of 6, 7, and 8 percent. Some degree of inflation is almost inevitable. Kubitschek was a personal friend of Antonio Salazar, although he did not like his dictatorship. The government of Brazil has to maintain good relations with Portugal, which after all, is the mother, origin of Brazil, and Kubitschek tried to do so, He went there as president-elect. Then, after leaving the presidency, he went to Portugal again. At that point in the United Nations, Portugal was virtually isolated. During his government, the most he would have his representatives in the UN do was to abstain, he'd never have them vote against Portugal. But when Kubitschek was there, Portugal was virtually alone; the United States was against, and Brazil was uncertain. Kubitschek suggested to Salazar at the time that he should seek a way out of the African problems, as De Gaulle had found a way out of the Algerian one. As a possible way out, he suggested a "Commonwealth," consisting of Portugal, Brazil, and the African territories. Salazar seemed interested in the idea, and so Kubitschek made the suggestion public. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. As a matter of fact, Salazar contaminated the Portuguese, putting so much insistence on the necessity of Portugal keeping its African territories that he convinced most Portuguese, and the government since has not been able to change the policy.

131 Kubitschek invited Fidel Castro to Brazil, before Castro had proclaimed himself a Communist. He had Castro to lunch, but before and during and after lunch, Castro talked for about six hours straight, recounting the whole of his revolution. Kubitschek didn’t get a chance to say anything, but he found Castro to be a very intelligent man. Sometime after leaving the presidency, Kubitschek traveled around the world, and on the way back he stopped in India. He had been aked by Salazar to say something to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru about the Goa problem. When he arrived in India and had a talk with Nehru, he was assured by Nehru that India would not use force to absorb Goa, that elections there were scheduled, and that India would absorb Goa as a result of these elections. Nehru said he could tell Salazar that. However, before he had time to communicate with Salazar, in fact the day Kubitschek returned back to Brazil, the invasion of Goa was announced. Kubitschek sent Nehru a telegram saying that he lamented what had happened and most of all lamented that he could not trust Nehru's word. In this visit, too, he met Indira, Nehru's daughter, later Prime Minister of India, whom he found more charming and intelligent than her father. He was a good friend of Arturo Frondizi, for whom he had considerable respect. However, he had no contact with Romulo Betancourt. Kubitschek made no attempt during his administration to particularly strengthen Brazil's relations with black Africa and felt that the efforts in that direction by the next two governments were largely demagogic. However, he maintained friendly relations with those African countries with which Brazil already had relations. Kubitschek invited Ethiopia's Haile Selassie to Brazil, and in fact Haile Selassie was ousted from his throne while in Brazil. During this period, he visited Brasilia and commented to Kubitsckek that "this city is worth twenty years on the throne." Haile Selassie brought with him a check for ten thousand dollars to use on his trip, but once he was overthrown, no bankers would honor the check. Since the Brazilian government could not cash it, Kubitschek got in touch with a friend of his who was very rich indeed, who cashed it. Joao Goulart had succeeded during his government, particularly in the last few months of it, in creating the very widespread feeling that there would be a Communist revolution, with or without him. There was widespread fear. This fear and revulsion was particularly expressed by the women, who organized tremendous marches of protest in Sao Paulo, in Belo Horizonte, and in Rio. In Sao Paulo, half a million women marched; in Belo Horizonte there were several hundred thousand. Goulart,

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however, was completely unaware of the gravity of the situation. He was in the last period completely surrounded by Communists, most of them not high in the party hierarchy, but they were the ones who were advising him and telling him what the situation was. So Goulart had no understanding of the reaction against his government. The day the revolution started, Goulart called Kubitschek, who was here in Belo Horizonte. He asked for help and to know what to do. Kubitschek told him that he could still dominate the situation if he would issue two proclamations. One of these had to be to the armed forces, to assure them that the hierarchy of the armed forces would be immediately restored—it had been virtually destroyed when Goulart had sided with Navy enlisted men rebels against their officers. The second proclamation, said Kubitschek, would have to be addressed to the Brazilian people, and be an absolute and uneqivocal repudiation of Communists and Communism. Goulart replied that he could not do this, however, that this would appear to be a surrender, and the president of Brazil could not surrender. In reply, Kubitschek cited a rule that he had always followed in his career, that "he had no agreements with error," that Goulart had erred greatly, and he should admit it, something that Kubitschek said he himself had always tried to do when he came to the conclusion that he had made a mistake. Goulart still said he would not do this. Later in the day, Kubitschek met General Peri Bevilacqua, member of a high military court and a considerable force in the army. Goulart had also called him, and when Kubitschek and the general compared notes, it turned out that they had virtually told Goulart the same thing. The fact is that Goulart fell from his own incompetence in defending himself. On the other hand, Goulart was one more excuse for the UDN forces both in civilian politics and in the armed forces to go on with the conspiracy in which they had been engaged for years. Essentially, the 1964 revolution was carried out by the UDN, civilian and military, That is why they had to cassar Kubitschek. They knew very well that he would win in any free election. Castelo Branco had given assurance that he would not interfere with the election campaign that was already under way when the revolution occurred, but he was hard pressed by the hard liners, and finally gave in by depriving Kubitschek of his civil rights. Carlos Lacerda also played an important role in this. At the time the Frente Ampla agreement was reached at Kubitschek's home in Lisbon between himself and Lacerda, Castelo Branco is supposed to have commented to someone that he hoped Lacerda would show Kubitschek the letter that he had sent to Castelo

133 Branco insisting on the need to have Kubitschek cassado. Kubitschek returned home for the first time in October 1965. At that time, he was interrogated for thirty days from ten in the morning until ten at night. At the end of this period, he was in his apartment, talking with friends one evening, when José Maria Alkmin came to see him. Alkmin was then vice president. He told Kubitschek that Juracy Magalháes, who was then Minister of Justice, feared that the hard-line military men were going to jail him, by putting him in the Central Military Hospital, during which time he would be tried for "subversion" by a military court, consisting of captains and majors, which would more or less automatically sentence him to from five to ten years in jail. Alkim brought Magalhaes’s advice that he leave the country immediately, which Kubitschek reluctantly agreed to do upon Alkmin’s urging. Alkmin then went to the ministry and got Kubitschek's passport, duly processed for him to leave. Kubitschek feared that the military would block his leaving, but Alkmin was sure that they would not. Kubitschek went with several friends in a car to the Galeáo airport, but as they were driving up there, they were stopped by two officers, who told Kubitschek to get out of the car and into their Jeep. He did, was driven around back and put into a room where he was left alone for about an hour. The officers then came back, told him to follow them got into the same Jeep, and drove him right to the stairs of the airplane. He thought all kinds of things during that hour or so, but when he was delivered to the plane, it was clear to him who had sent these two officers. During all of his interogations, Kubitschek was never asked about corruption. Of course, the two slogans of the revolution against the politicians who had held office before it were "corruption" and "subversion." He certainly expected that they would work on the former as well as the latter, but they did not. Of course, the charge of "subversion" against him was absolutely absurd. He has never been a Communist, or ever had any sympathy for them. More than that, as a result of his program of development, Kubitschek had taken away all of their following, and during his administration, the Communists were reduced to virtually nothing. In spite of this, however, the IPM's [Military Investigating Boards] before which he had to appear were all concentrated on this alleged subversion. He was astounded to find out that virtually every one of his 1955 campaign meetings had been recorded, and these recordings were played back to him by the hour. Kubitschek was bored by this and sometimes dozed off. But at the end of a recording, the interrogating officer would ask him how he explained that on the same campaign platform and talking at the meeting in some interior section in the state of

134 Pernambuco was so-and-so, the local Communist leader. Of course, this ws absurd, he spoke at hundreds of local meetings, and did not know and sometimes did not even meet many if not most of the people who spoke. But this was the length to which they were going to try and prove that Kubitschek had been subversive. However, on another level, the military also tried to prove that Kubitschek had been corrupt. Every branch of every bank in Brazil had its records scoured by the military investigators to try to find deposits by him. Also, banks in the United States and Europe, including Switzerland, where the names of depositors can be made available to governments, were searched to find this kind of evidence. In addition, every company of every size in Brazil was investigated for the same purpose. The most thorough search conceivable was made. Of course, the investigators found nothing, but those who control the regime will not admit this, and will not say that Kubitschek was innocent of all the charges made against him so irresponsibly. Some in the regime are worried by this. One leading general told a mutual friend that the armed forces had a debt to pay the nation, that they owed it the assurance that the charges made against Kubitschek and others were not true. But that is only one man, and he does not think that the present group will ever admit this. There are three towns in Minas Gerais named after him. One is Presidente Juscelino, another Presidente Kubitschek, the third just J. K. He is aware of the joke to the effect that optimists thought that his campaign slogan J. e J, meant Janeiro a Julho. [January to July] pessimists thought it meant Janeiro a Junio [January to June]. Kubitschek is now chairman of the board of the Banco Denasa, formed as an investment bank by some of his Mineiro friends. There are two kinds of banks in Brazil, commercial banks and investment banks. The latter give loans mainly to industries and other similar enterprises, at a minimun of one year, and at different interest rates from those of commercial banks. His work in a way is like that which he had as president of the republic: he has to pass on various proposals for establishing industries. He is kind of a president of a republic on a miniature scale. For a while, it was doubtful that as a cassado he could have this post, but eleven of twelve lawyers who are the advisory body of the Banco Central upheld his right to do so. There has been a change in emphasis of the regime under President Medici. During the administration of Castelo Branco and Costa e Silva, they reapeated monotonously their attacks on

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supposed corruption and subversion. However, this aroused increasing opposition among the people, who no longer accepted it as a government program, if they ever had done so. By the time Medici became president, they knew that they would have to change the basis of the government. They asked themselves the question. What is it that made Juscelino Kubitschek so popular? They answered, "developmentalism." As a result, Medici talked no more about corruption and subversion and instead has been talking about development of the Trans-Amazon Highway and of other such things. As a result, this regime has a degree of acceptance by the people that the others did not. Since Medici has been in power, Kubitschek has no longer been persecuted. He can come and go as he wishes, and do more or less what he wants. Kubitschek thinks that the Trans-Amazon Highway is a good idea. Three roads have been built or are being built, north and south from the Amazon: Belem-Brasilia, Santarem-Cuiaba, Manaus to the Bolivian border. There is also the road from the coast to the area of the Bolivian border, going East and West. The Trans-Amazonica will run between the last road and the Amazon and will tie together a number of river vallies and the tributaries of the Amazon. It will do much to open up the interior. Kubitschek believes that Brazil is now about a century behind the development of the United States, at the point that the United States was between 1870 and 1900. Just before 1870, the first railroad was built that connected the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1960, similarly the first road network was completed in Brazil that connected Belem on the Amazon with Porto Alegre in the South. ***** CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK IN HIS OFFICE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, JUNE 3, 1973

Juscelino Kubitschek has completed a five-volume memoir of his administration. Although he tried not to put anything in it that would be offensive to the current regime, he doubts very much that they will allow its publication in this country, so he will publish it abroad. He has also written a one-volume book that he entitled "I Built Brasilia," which the New York University Press is interested in publishing, and he is going to send it to them. Kubitschek doubts very much that General Ernesto Geisel as President will make any significant changes in the present system. He is a good man personally, honest and hardworking, but he owes his being president to the system that now exists, and

136 Kubitschek does not see any likelihood that he will make any fundamental change in it. He very much doubts a "political opening," as they call it in Brazil, towards democracy in the near future. He can say this to me since I am not a journalist and this view is not going to appear in any periodical; it is a weakness of all illegitimate governments that they fear the slightest relaxation of their dictatorship, fear that that it will imperil their power. Sometimes Kubitschek thinks that it will be the year 2000 before Brazil sees redemocratization. The economic situation is good in terms of development. Also, the development drive of Brazil will not stop now; it is self­ generating and self-sustaining. It is due to the mass investment process that began in his administration. It is due in part, too, to the substantial flow into Brazil of foreign investment , which he supported during his administration, but which the extreme nationalists opposed then and continue to oppose now. During his regime, foreign investment was largely responsible for the automobile, ship-building, chemical and electrical industries. This was good for Brazil, because it hasn't sufficient savings. For instance, FIAT is setting up a $400 million plant in Minas Gerais, something that no Brazilian firm would have the resources to do. Furthermore, once a plant is set up here by a foreign firm, it is here, contributing to the national economy, and is not going to go away. He does not think that favoring foreign investment has gone too far under the military government. Such investments need to feel themselves free from the threat of expropriation. In any case, there are certain controls over the foreign investors. The law requires that a certain part of their capital be Brazilian and that management be Brazilianized. Of course, if there were political democracy, the more nationalist elements would push extensively for more controls over foreign investors. Brazil has begun some foreign investment of its own. Petrobras, for instance, has made some investments in oil in the Middle East. Other Brazilian firms have invested in neighboring countries, particularly Bolivia and Paraguay. It is true that Brazil's neighbors now fear and dislike Brazil. This is because of the economic progress and growing wealth of Brazil. It is particularly true of Argentina, which was until not too long ago more or less on a par with Brazil, but has now fallen considerably behind. The same is true of Mexico, which is in the same situation as Argentina. There is now some talk, he knows about Brazilian imperialism, but it is not real, the fear of it is just the result of the economic progress that Brazil has made in recent decades. The economic progress of Brazil in recent years has not filtered down very much. The minimum wage should rightfully be double

137 what it is today. The progress that the country has made has been to a considerable degree at the cost of sacrifices by the people. For instance, the program for expansion of industrial exports owes much of the success that it has had to the fact that Brazil still has very low wages. Next year his cassacao. or official proscription from public activities, will end on June 7. That of many of the other leading political figures of the pre-1964 period will also end; however, Kubitschek is absolutely sure that the military will not allow him and the others to return to political activity. He will not even be allowed freely to express his opinions in public. He does not expect to see this possible during his lifetime. It is true that Kubitschek had a very democratic regime. The collapse of democracy had its origins in the Escola de Guerra, which was converted into a permanent center of conspiracy. Opposition politicians, particularly Carlos Lacerda, entered into contact with the military there and conspired with them. For instance, Kubitschek's assumption of power was very difficult because of this continuous conspiring. Vargas had killed himself because of it. Kubitschek’s successors were unable to handle the situation and fell as a result. Kubitschek had his own difficulties in serving out his five years. Kubitschek's personal relations with Joao Goulart were always good, and they remain good. He does not have any political relations with him, or any political relations at all at this point. ***** CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK IN HIS OFFICE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, AUGUST 2, 1974

President Geisel is a good man personally, and would like to ameliorate the dictatorship. In fact, it is relaxed somewhat under him, but the Institutional Act #5 still remains in effect. This concentrates all power in the hands of the executive, and provides that no acts of the executive can come under the scrutiny of the courts. The act also creates a situation in which the president is a virtual god, and the fate of the citizens depends upon his good disposition and his benevolence. Thus, the situation has not altered fundamentally. There is one fundamental difference between Geisel and his three military predecessors. They were all spokesmen for the army, subject to the pressures from the hard-liners and the others. Geisel is fundamentally different; unlike the others, he really rules, he is powerful in his own right, and will not allow anyone to tell

138 him, for instance that someone is not suitable to be in his government. There have been several instances that illustrate this. Thus, Geisel's Minister of Justice was Kubitschek's Minister of Justice. None of Geisel's predecessors would have dared to return this man to that position. Also, in the case of another minister, the ServlQO Nacional de Intelligencia (SNI) reported to Geisel that the man could not serve in the cabinet because of his background. Geisel called in the SNI people and told them that their organization was for collecting intelligence, not for giving orders, and went on and appointed the man. Geisel has certain virtues. He is a veiy good administrator, he knows what he wants to do, and he is exceptionally honest. Also, he has a very strong personality. The thing that in recent months has hurt the business community most was the collapse and seizure of the Banco Halles. It was not so much that the bank was in financial difficulties that had caused the trouble, but the way in which the government dealt with the situation. Without warning, it swooped down on the bank with soldiers and occupied it. Then it announced that no one could withdraw his money from the bank and that no interest would be paid. This causd a run on all of the other private banks, since the depositors feared that the same thing might happen to them. People rushed to withdraw thenmoney and put it in the government-owned banks. This caused a real crisis, and the government finally realized the stupidity of what they had done. As a result, the Minister of Finance Mario Henrique Simonsen, went around to other banks and assured them that nothing was going to happen to them. But this didn't reassure the depositors, so the banks continued to be in trouble. As a result, the government finally had to come to their help financially, at a cost much higher than would have had to be borne if the government had handled the case of the Banco Halles more deliberately. Incidentally, it was the biggest bank in Rio de Janeiro. The previous Minister of Finance, Delfim Neto, was a dreamer. He dreamed big things, but he tended to act in conformity with his dreams instead of in conformity with realities. Thus, he gave a false picture of the inflationary situation. Last year he was saying that inflation was going at 12 to 13 percent when in fact it was nearer 40 percent. During the first months of this year it was 20 percent; therefore, it is to be expected that it will be 40 percent for this year. Of course, this puts tremendous pressure on the real wages of workers, so the government was forced to grant a substantial wage increase, with the result that this put on more inflationary pressure. The government's reply was to restrict credit

139 and curb the budget. The result is that many construction projects have been stopped, many public works projects have been suspended. Credit is exceedingly tight, and if one wanted to borrow $50 from a bank, one probably could not. There is no indication of how long this situation is going to continue. Mario Simonsen is a very good economist and a fine professor. He gave classes that were brilliant, but, as a minister, he is terrible. He appears on television and tells people that the inflation is bad and is going to continue to be bad for some time, and does not say anything to relieve the gloom, to inspire the people to get on with the job of building the country and overcoming the temporary crisis. This reminds Kubitschek of what he thinks are the bad aspects of Geisel, having already recited his good points. Geisel is a very reserved man; he is a Protestant in a country where 90 percent of the people are Catholics or say they are Catholics, and he is a Lutheran at that, with all that implies. He is a German, and he is a general. Worst of all, he hardly ever smiles, and he appears on television with a grave face to tell people how bad things are. In contrast, when Kubitschek was in office and there was a crisis, he would appear to tell people what was wrong but would then go on to say that this was a country with unlimited possibilities, that the crisis, whatever it was, was temporary, and that the people should look to the future not to their present difficulties. And they followed him in this optimism. Geisel means well, and wants to attenuate the dictatorship. However, even he is not strong enough to eliminate Institutional Act #5, or to restore habeas corpus, or to permit the free organization of parties. He could not get away with these measures. Kubitschek does not foresee an early end to the rule of the military. Kubitschek himself remains very popular with the masses. Wherever he travels around the country, people crowd around him to shake his hand and to wish him well. Furthermore, surveys have consistently showed that he is the most popular public figure in Brazil. Only once, after Medici had received the Brazilian champion world soccer team, he passed Kubitschek in popularity, but this was the only time, and Medici does not even appear any more among the list of most popular figures. The fact is that the prosperity of recent years is based largely on the enterprises that started during his administration. He was the one who gave a start to the real process of modernization and industrialization of Brazil. He is writing a four -volume autobiography, and is now writing about his period as Mayor of Belo Horizonte and that should be out in a few months if the censors do not stop it. The second

140 volume will deal with his governorship of Minas Gerais, the third with his presidential campaign and presidency, and the fourth with why he built Brasilia. 'Kubitschek has to publish this autobiography. For one thing, no other modem president of Brazil has published anything of the sort. For another, the military regime has gone out of its way not give him credit for what he did. His name cannot be mentioned in public. In spite of this, as he has said, he remains very popular. The military in Brazil and in Latin Ameica generally have a penchant for seizing power. Here they had normally taken power and then returned it to the civilians. This is what they had done in 1954 when President Vargas committed suicide. They did not want to have elections in 1955, but as governor of Minas Gerais Kubitschek had a 30,000 man state police force, and he was able to resist all of the pressure from the military, and to force them to allow elections. In those he won, against a military man. When he was president, he was so widely popular that he was able to gain supremacy over the military and there was no really serious incident during his term. But his successor who was elected with very wide popular support, resigned after six months. Janio Quadros's vice president, Joao Goulart, was a man of whom the military had very deep suspicions. He made these worse by aligning himself with the Communists, which aroused tremendous resistance and which culminated in a march of one million women crying for salvation from the Communist threat, as they said. The military then capitalized on this situation to take power, and put one of their own in the presidency. Kubitschek does not see any early end to this situation. Insofar as the neighbors of Brazil are concerned, they for long virtually ignored Brazil and it ignored them. The vast jungles between the heartland of Brazil and those countries tended to isolate the country. However, now the neighbors have suddenly become aware that Brazil is developing very rapidly, and they are beginning to develop the attitudes towards Brazil that Latin America generally had towards Great Britain in the last century and towards the United States in this century. There has been a general tendency to blame the United States for all of the assininities that the Latin Americans themselves committed. He never would engage in this kind of thing. He was willing to accept whatever help he could get from the United States, but he always felt, and said, that the responsibility for Brazil's development rested with the Brazilians, who were responsible for their own mistakes. Kubitschek can cite an incident that attests to how isolated Brazil had been from its neighbors. When he proposed Operation Panamerica and wrote President Lleras Camargo about it, Lleras

141 replied that this was the first time in fifty years that a President of Brazil had written a President of Colombia, and that the Colombians had kind of had the feeling that Brazil was in Europe. The people in Brazil are following Watergate and the impeachment proceedings with very great interest. Kubitschek personally does not want to see President Nixon removed from office. He has known Nixon personally and has liked him. Nixon came as the head of the United States delegation to his inauguration (since it was soon after Eisenhower had had an operation and he himself could not come). Kubitschek saw a good deal of Nixon then and met him later on various occasions. However, Kubitschek believes that the Watergate process will turn out to be positive overall. It will be a warning to future presidents not to abuse power and not to accept $200,000 gifts from large corporations. It is also good in that it shows the democratic constitutional system can work. However, he says again that he does not want Nixon to be removed from office. Furthermore, it seems to him that it will be very difficult to have two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict him. Kubitschek thinks that Nixon should appear personally before the Senate to defend himself. He himself would do so in similar circumstances, although he might also take a lawyer along with him to advise him. Kubitschek had a somewhat similar experience after the revolution. He was the first sent into exile. However, the military then began to level all kinds of charges against him and to malign him, so he decided that he had to return to defend himself. He boarded a plane without notifying the government in Brazil and arrived at nine o'clock in the morning. The government had heard of his flight, and when he arrived, there were a thousand soldiers at the airport. By two o'clock that afternoon, he was being interrogated by a group of colonels. This interrogation went on for a month, every day from two in the afternoon until two in the morning. Finally, the government came to the conclusion that they had no case against him, but they didn't know what to do with him. They finally decided that he would have to go abroad again. Kubitschek protested vigorously, told them that this was his country, that he had a right to stay here and that he intended to do so. However, at nine o'clock one night his enemies took him to the airport, put him on a plane, and he never knew where the plane was headed until it arrived in Miami. Kubitschek, however.had made his point. He had shown the military that he had nothing to be ashamed of, that he was not afraid of their charges. More important, he had also demonstrated to the people of Brazil that he was not afraid to come back, and he had nothing to hide.

142 ***** CONVERSATION WITH JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK AT HIS OFFICE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, JULY 31, 1975

Kubitschek thinks that the question of how he maintained political stability during his administration—in contrast to what occurred before and after—is a very important issue. It is being studied for the first time by Maria Victoria de Mesquita Benavides Soares of the University of Sao Paulo. There have been other studies of the economic development that occurred during his regime, but very few have been made of the politics of the period. The political stability of that time was due entirely to his own behavior. He kept in contact constantly with the political leaders. He also kept in constant touch with the people, spending half of his time on the ground, the other half in an airplane. But he met with the people, talked with them, had contacts, and won their support. He also had an economic program that aroused wide support. During his administration, Kubitschek made the word desenvolvimento part of the political dictionary of Brazil. President Geisel has now made the word distensao [relaxation] also a part of the political dictionary. Geisel sought an opening in the political situation. The first response was the election of November 1974, when the opposition MDB [Brazilian Democratic Movement] won from Amazonas to Rio Grande do Sul. It was not a victory of the MDB, however; it was a popular repudiation of the present political system. So far, Geisel's softening of the regime has been more in words and attitudes than in actions. But the change in itself is important, and distensao is gaining a momentum of its own. Of course, if one thing symbolizes the regime, it is Institutional Act #5, and the cancellation of it would be a real change. However, he does not foresee that being done very soon. Short of that, though, an important step would be the popular election of the next president. Kubitschek is also very skeptical of their permitting that, but the least that Geisel might do is to restore habeas corpus. The opposition to distensao is not in the government but in the military. What used to be called the hard line is now called the Sistema. The Sistema is against any softening of the dictatorship. It is hard to weigh how much force it has. Kubitschek is campaigning to get into the Academia Brasileira de Letras. The decision will be nade in November and there are thirty-nine members who will decide. He has lined up the four Mineiros, the four Paulistas, and three of the four Baianos. One

143 of the Baianos is very much against him. Kubitschek much admires Carlos Lacerda as a journalist. Lacerda is writing very good and critical articles in Journal do Brasil. He is courageous in his criticisms, although generally he is not writing on things that are popular with the masses. The constitution of the dictatorship is dangerous. The situation in various countries indicate that after long military dictatorships, the military do not stay in the Center, they go to the extreme Left. The case of Portugal is a case in point. Geisel has been compared to Castelo Branco. However, Geisel has had better control over the Sistema than Castelo Branco did, and is a stronger character. ♦

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LETTER FROM JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK, APRIL 7, 1976

I remember very warmly the occasion of my lunch with you, here in Rio. I hope that your reseach is successfully advancing. Unfortunately my candidacy for election to the Academy was unsuccessful. I lost the election by one vote. Factors beyond my control outside of the Academy prevented my occupation of the chair which so many thought I would surely receive. Circumstances have now changed considerably so that I believe that on the occasion of the next vacancy I will finally be admitted to the distinguished company of the academy. I was recently honored with the distinction of "Intellectual of the Year" which compensated for the disappointment of my defeat and has encouraged me to believe that I will be successful in soon entering the academy. Hope to see you on your next visit to Brazil, I am yours truly. « *

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CONVERSATION AT JANIO QUADROS'S HOUSE IN SANTO AMARO, JUNE 3, 1972

Theodore Roosevelt expressed the idea of "walking quietly and carry a big stick," and this was the United States policy in Latin America for many years. Then, when Quadros was still in secondary school another Roosevelt [Franklin D.J put forth the Good Neighbor Policy, which was a noble idea, and good as far as it went, but there were few in Latin America with whom Roosevelt could work, and it strengthened dictatorships. Then, when

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Quadras was vareador [city councilman]. President Harry Truman put forward the Point Four program, which was very good but did not go very far. Then President John Kennedy suggested the Alliance for Progress, but that was a program for aid to governments not to the peoples of Latin America. For instance, there was no help for organizations such as trade unions. The end result of the Alliance was to help a series of dictatorships in Latin America. Furthermore, the Alliance for Progress kept Cuba out, and this was wrong, since no real hemispheric program could start by excluding one member of the hemisphere family. President Lyndon Johnson buried the Alliance for Progress in any case, and President Richard Nixon has forgotten all about it. Quadras observed all of this. He was never pro-American, because he remembered the Mexican War, the War with Spain, and after that Nicaragua, Cuba, and so on. He is a great admirer of Lincoln and of some other figures in the history of the United States; he thinks that Lincoln was a great moral character. Although a sagacious politician, Lincoln, was absolutely honest, was highly intelligent and moral. Quadras had admired Lincoln since childhood but remained skeptical of the United States, at least insofar as its relations with Latin America are concerned. An example of the Latin American situation is Brazil. One should not think that he resigned from the presidency because he did not want to be president of Brazil. He resigned because he could not govern. He had won against all of the traditional Establishment of Brazilian politics. He had won against corruption, nepotism, deals. However, in Congress he had only eighty supporters, compared to 340 who were against him. He could not get what he wanted through Congress. The situation was dramatized the day before his resignation, when Congress had declared itself a Committee of the Whole for Investigation, a situation not provided for in the constitution. This Committee of the Whole existed for the purpose of investigating charges that he wanted to establish a dictatorship. It symbolized the kind of problem he had with Congress. The only alternatives Quadros had in the face of this situation were to resign or to carry out a coup against Congress, dissolving Congress and calling a referendum on a new constitution and then calling new general elections for Congress. One should not think that he had not considered this. He had. He could have done it easily enough. A few members of the military police would have been enough to have dissolved Congress. However, Quadros's whole training and background were against this action. He would have felt very uncomfortable, swearing allegiance to a constitution that he himself had in fact written, so he could not do it. Furthermore, Guanabara and Rio

145 Grande do Sul would not have accepted such a coup, and there would have certainly been bloodshed. Quadros could not have that on his conscience. Furthermore, his mandate from the people was not that clear. There had been a great deal of talk about the six million votes that he had received, but the fact was that he was not elected by a clear majority, but only by something over 40 percent. This was not a mandate for such action as this. Quadros felt his only alternative was to resign. He did not have the choice to form a new majority in the existing Congress. To do this, he would have had to pay a price in concesssions to the corrupt people who dominated the opposition in Congress, which was entirely unacceptable. He would be the first to admit that there were honorable exceptions, but most of the Congress leaders were corrupt. Also, the only way he could have stayed on and tried to win a congressional majority in the 1962 elections would have been likewise to have made deals that he was not willing to do. Thus he resigned. In the United States, corruption is not a big issue. Most public officials are honest, although there are exceptions whom everyone knows about, such as Tammany Hall and Chicago's Mayor Daley. Quadros does not think that there was ever a United States president who was corrupt, but in Brazil, this is not the case. Most of Quadros’s opponents in Congress were corrupt. Since their tenure in office was precarious, they all thought that they should take as much as possible before losing power. Quadros did not have two vice presidential candidates. He always had only one. Dr. Milton Campos. At first, the UDN nominated a man from the Northeast, a good man personally, Maciel, but one allied with all of the bad elements against whom Quadros was fighting . When the UDN named Maciel, Quadros resigned his candidacy not just as a gesture, he meant it; he would not run for president under conditions in which he could not even name his own vice presidential candidate. He did not think that this augured well for his being able really to be president, once elected. As a result, the UDN backed down, and Quadros had Milton Campos as his running mate, a very good man, honest, studious and an experienced politician. However, Fernando Ferrari, who had been fighting Joao Goulart in Rio Grande do Sul, proclaimed his candidacy, saying he was against Goulart, but really took votes from Campos. The situation was so bitter that Campos did not even campaign with Quadros in Rio Grande do Sul. Try as hard as they might, they could not get Ferrari to withdraw from the race. It is true there were Jan-Jan Committees, of people backing Janio [Quadros] and Jango [Joao Goulart]. However, these were formed at the instance of Goulart, not with the support of

146 Quadros. Once elected, Quadros thought a good deal about not taking office, knowing the impossible situation he faced. He went to Europe after the election to have an eye operation, and afterwards, to Spain and Portugal. While resting in Spain, he thought very seriously about not taking office. However, his wife dissuaded him from this course of action. Nevertheless, he had everthing against him from the moment he took office. Castilho Cabral wrote his book about Quadros when he was sick and disillusioned and his ambition thwarted. The book reflects this fact, and much that Castilho Cabral says should therefore not be taken too seriously. He is not correct in saying for instance, that Quadros did not know the national politicians. For the most part, these national politicians were the products of local machines in various parts of the states, people who had a solid base established through corruption and patronage in those areas. Quadros knew a number of them, but did not trust them. After all, he had been governor, Mayor of Sao Paulo, and a state legislator, and he was not a "babe in the woods"—no more than John Kennedy was when he became president. In fact, in many ways Quadros thinks that being governor of an important state is a better background than that of being senator, insofar as being president is concerned. Quadros met Kennedy once. On that occasion Kennedy joked with him, asking if it was true that he was the youngest Brazilian president, and when Quadros said that it was true, Kennedy said that he was a few months younger. This was in fact the case. Quadros was bom in January 1917, and Kennedy on May 29. He found Kennedy very simnatico. and very much concerned about Latin America. Quadros later met Robert Kennedy, who was then a senator, in a Catholic church in London. Church members had been constantly passing the collection plate during the service, and Quadros looked over to Kennedy to see how much he put in, and it was one dolllar, so Quadros put in a pound. After the service, he went up and introduced himself to Kennedy, who was exceedingly cordial, and asked him to have a drink. They did. Quadros believes that Edward Kennedy's possibilities to be president were ruined by his famous accident [Chappaquidick]. American women do not forget things like that, and in his visits to the United States since then, Quadros has found that women with whom he has talked about Kennedy, including ones who were strong Democrats, were against him, because of that incident. Quadros sympathizes with Kennedy in that situation, because all men have their affairs, and although Kennedy acted unwisely at the time of the accident, there is no reason to hold

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the affair aspect of it against him. President Kennedy sent Adolf Berle to see Quadros and Berle told him that the United States was going to invade Cuba, and that President Kennedy would much appreciate Brazil sending warship and some troops to participate. Quadros replied that that was impossible, that he as president had no right to send troops abroad without Congressional approval, which he could not get if he wanted to because he had only eighty members of congress, against 340 of the opposition. In addition, however, he said that he was opposed to the idea, because he believed in selfdetermination. Berle was very angry, dashed into the bathroom, then went out, almost without saying good bye. Then later, Kennedy sent the perfect ambassador to talk with Quadros, Adlai Stevenson, whom Quadros found charming, intelligent, the best person Kennedy could possibly have sent. Stevenson asked Quadros either to invite Kennedy to Brazil or to accept an invitation to go to the United States. This surprised Quadros, and when he asked why, Stevenson said that there was a good deal of unhappiness in the U.S. goverment that before his inauguration he had not come through Washington on his way back from Europe. Quadros thought that perhaps there was something in this argument and said that he would seriously consider going to the United States near the end of the year. But of course, he was not in fact president by that tme. The so-called billetinhos de Janio were a reality: they began when he was mayor. He found that the bureaucratic procedure was impossible. He would send a note to one of his subordinates, and it would take a week before he would get a reply. That was how he began sending informal notes in his own handwriting, and having them directly delivered. When he was mayor he had different kinds of paper for different notes. One color meant a reply was required within twenty-four hours, another that a reply was wanted immediately, another that it was wanted within a week, and so on. However, as Governor of Sao Paulo the billetinhos all went out on the same colored paper. Quadros continued the practice of the billetinhos in the presidency. These he felt were necessary to get around the absolutely impossible Brazilian bureaucracy. Quadros's problem as president was that he had the Congress against him. If Congress had been elected at the same time, he would certainly have carried in a majority with him. But this was not the system, he had the same Congress that had been there before he took office. He knew this before he took office and this was the reason why he considered seriously not being inaugurated. Quadros's objectives as president were largely in the field of

148 foreign relations. He wanted to make Brazil felt in the world. Brazil is a nation which destiny had chosen to have hegemony in South America, in terms of area, population, economics, and politics. He knew that it would be a world power by the end of the century. He understood all of this very well when he took office. He wanted to establish relations with the whole world. He set about to establish relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, which incidentally, the United States already had. Another objective was to stop inflation, which was running at the rate of 40 percent when he took office. To this end, it was necessary to end the government's deficit. Quadros does not believe in government deficits, and there is no more reason for goverment to have one. Quadros's being cassado was the work of Costa e Silva and this is a rather long stoiy. When Quadros was Governor of Sao Paulo, Costa e Silva was the major general in charge of the infantry in the Second Army based in Sao Paulo. He was having a very good time, partying with high society, gambling and so on. However, when there was an insurrection of the city firemen in Sao Paulo, Costa e Silva acted very decisively, went to the fire headquarters with a group of soldiers and ordered the immediate arrest of the mutineers. Later, Quadros went to congratulate Costa e Silva on his decisive action. Generally, during these years, his relations with Costa e Silva were friendly but formal. After Quadros became president, he was visited one day by four or five student leaders from University of Pernambuco. Working at something, Quadros didn't look up immediately when they came in, and so they sat down in chairs in front of his desk, pulled out cigarettes, and one boy began caressing the girl member of the delegation. This all annoyed Quadros, and when he had finished what he was working on, he looked up, and scolded them severely telling them that no one sat down in front of the president of the republic without his inviting them to do so, that no one smoked in his presence without his permission, and that their fondling of one another should be done in private, not in the president's office. Then, Quadros asked them what they wanted. They said that they were there to demand the immediate removal of the Rector of the University of Pernambuco, and added that if he were not removed, there would be a student strikle at the university. Quadros's reply was that he would study the issue, but that no one was going to come before him and present an ultimatum. At that point, he told them that their interview was over and they left. He had also warned them that if there was a strike, it had to be a peaceful one, that they had no right to destroy any property

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at the university, that this property did not belong to them, that since this was a Federal university, it didn't even belong to the people of Pernambuco, but rather to the people of Brazil. Of course, they went back home and immediately called the strike. It was accompanied by a good deal of violence and of destruction of university property. Quadras needed someone with a firm hand to control the situation. The commander of the army in that region had just resigned and had not yet been replaced. Quadras consulted Minister of War Denys, and told him that he had been struck with the way Costa e Silva had behaved in the firemen's crisis in Sao Paulo, and suggested that he should be named to the command of the Fourth Army. This post called for a full general, which meant an Immediate promotion for Costa e Silva. It was agreed, and Costa e Silva was transferred. Costa e Silva did a good job, suppressed the student strike very rapidly. However, Costa e Silva was furious at being transferred. He was not Interested in the promotion, but rather wanted to continue his soft life in Sao Paulo. He never forgave Quadras for depriving him of this. When the revolution came in 1964, Costa e Silva was the only full general then in Rio, so he took charge, moved into the Minister of War's ofice, and never left it, staying on the job. When the first list of people to be cassado was being prepared, it was typed up and passed to Costa e Silva for approval. The names were in alphabetical order, and Costa e Silva took his pen in hand, and at the appropriate place inserted the name of Janio Quadras. It stayed on the list, and he was one of the first to be so treated, several days before Castelo Branco became president. Long after he had quit the presidency, Quadras was visited by Castelo Branco, then Chief of Staff, who said that he had come to see Quadras to ask his opinion of the then curent regime, that of Goulart. Quadros's reply was that he thought that the hierarchy of the military was being undermined. Castelo Branco got up and said that he had heard all he needed to hear, and had no more questions to ask. Obviously, Castelo Branco did not regard Quadras as either corrupt or subversive, or he would never have consulted him in that way. Quadras had another indication that the military still continued to hold him in high regard before the overthrow of Goulart. When Quadras returned from a trip to Europe in 1963, General Cordeiro de Farias came aboard his ship in Bahia to tell him that the Goulart government would be overthrown in 1964. Quadras thinks that the present government of President Medici is doing quite well and that its economic policy is very good. It is doing what is needed, and if it would only take some steps towars redemocratizing the country, it would be a very good

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government. It is not right that Juscelino Kubitschek, Lacerda and he, Jánio Quadros, should be deprived of their civil rights. None of them has done anything to deserve this. It is true that Quadros never had a high opinion of the political parties in Brazil. In fact, they never have had real political parties. They have just been cliques representing interest groups or regional interests. They have not been parties such as those in the United States, that are broad groupings of the general citizenry, that represent truly different curents of opinion among the citizens. It is true that Quadros was first elected as vareador as a Christian Democrat. However, the Christian Democratic Party was no different from the rest, just a group of people fighting for their own interests. None of the parties was any good. Juscelino Kubitschek had a very interesting administration. Quadros's daughter lives in the United States, married to an American. They were students together at the University of Texas, at Austin, and now live in Houston, where Quadros goes to visit them frequently. He met President Johnson once when he was visiting his daughter in Austin. He did not have the impression that Johnson knew very much about Latin America. *****

CONVERSATION AT JÁNIO QUADROS'S HOUSE IN SANTO AMARO, JULY 1, 1973

Joao [Jango] Goulart would have better remained a cattle breeder, ridden his horses, and rounded up his cattle. That was what he really liked to do and he was pushed by various groups around him. Quadros was sure that the military would not let Goulart take office, at the time that he himself resigned the presidency. They told him this. Goulart was able to do so because General Machado Lopes raised the whole of the Third Army in revolt, in conjunction with Rio Grande do Sul's governor Leonel Brizóla. Machado Lopes must still be regretting the fact that he has this responsibility. It is probable that a number of the subordinate officers under Machado Lopes were Leftist-inclined, which perhaps influenced his decision. When Quadros was president, he set up fifty different investigating commissions, headed by colonels and lieutenant colonels. By the eighth month of his presidency, he began to get the reports of these commissions, and they were absolutely unbelievable in the corruption that they disclosed, particularly in

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the social security institutes. At that point, a delegation of the PTB, [Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro] including Senator Barros, Deputy Almino Alfonso and one other deputy, came to see Quadros on behalf of Vice President Joao Goulart. Quadros's military aide came in very worried to announce that these people were seeking to talk with him, and Quadros told the aide to let them in, that he had to listen to a delegation coming on behalf of the vice president. They brought a letter with them, from Goulart, protesting against the President's having involved him and members of his family in the reports of the investigating commissions. After Quadros had read the letter, the delegation asked him if there was any reply. He said that there was, but told Senator Barros that before he gave it, the senator should zip his fly which was wide open. The senator was naturally very much disconcerted. Quadros wrote the reply of the letter himself, saying that he would not receive it because it was not put forth in the correct kind of language. After having a photocopy made of it, Quadros handed the letter back to the delegation. But just at that moment, a black attendant came in and Quadros took back the letter, saying that members of Congress should not have to function as mail carriers, and gave it to the attendant to hand personally to Jango. However, Quadros kept a particularly close eye on the military in the Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo areas for a while, just in case Jango tried anything. But the fact was that Jango was a coward, among other things. When Quadros came into office, he put an army colonel in charge of the Deoartmento de Secas [Droughts]. The colonel was worried and asked him if he had full powers to take action against local politicians in the Northeast, and Quadros assured him that he did. So the colonel proceeded to take back millions of dollars worth of equipment that belonged to the department, but that had been appropriated by senators and deputies of the area for their private use. In one case, the colonel had to use a group from the army to make the seizure. It had been the custom of the local political bosses who contolled those states in exploit the industria das secas for their own advantage. There wasn't any danger in his use of military men to head the investigation committees. Brazilian soldiers of the rank of colonel and below are very hardworking, loyal, self-sacrificing people, earning relatively small salaries, and they are very patriotic. It is only when they become generals and begin to mix more with the general society, instead of having their lives virtually confined to the barracks, that they become more flexible and potentially dangerous. Quadros made a trip to the U.S.S.R. in 1960. He saw much of

152 the Soviet Union, most of the things he asked to see, including their largest atomic energy plant, but they would not let him see their space program. Nikita Khruschev himself told him nyet. nyet. Quadros had a long talk with Khruschev. He made the trip because he felt that anyone in a leading position in politics ought to see that country. He did not make the trip to counteract the Communists' and leftists' campaign against him as a reactionary candidate. The Communist activity against him in that campaign was quite rough. They made it impossible for him to go to Volta Redonda; they created a lot of problems for him in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife. However, Quadros did speak every place he wanted to except in Volta Redonda. The Communist party [PCB] was never really strong, however. It had small groups in various places, and in quite a few of the unions, and it manipulated PTB groups in some places. But the PTB was not really a "labor" party at all, in program or any other way. It was an instrument for getting Jobs. There was a threat of a dock strike in Santos soon after Quadros became president. He had as many supporters among the dock workers there as the PCB and the PTB together, including trade union leaders. His trade union leaders came to Brasilia to ask for a wage increase, on the threat of a general strike in the port. Quadros listened to them, but then told them that he would not give them a wage increase because he knew the basic wages they earned and the very large extra payments they received for working after certain hours, on weekends and holidays, and he knew that they were among the most costly dock workers in the world. He added that if they went on strike, he would order the arrest of all those sitting in front of him, his friends in the union. When they protested, he told them that there was need for setting an example with regard to this kind of thing, and that if the strike came to pass, they would be the example. There was no strike. There was a student strike in Recife. Quadros sent a representative there to try to get a settlement and told him to talk to the parents of the students on the strike. The representative did call a meeting of parents, and he told the parents if the strike continued, the students could lose a whole year's credit. The parents were very much taken aback by this, were worried, and realized that this was not Just a lark. The result of this conference was that most of the students who had seized buildings left them, returned to classes. The small nuclei of Communists and other leftists who did not leave the buildings were forced out by soldiers backed by tanks, and those students did lose the year's credit. There was need for reassertion of governmental authority in this situation.

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Quadros believes that Ernesto Gelsel, who is scheduled to be the next president, is a good man, in the tradition of Castelo Branco, and of Cordeiro de Farias. But he doubts that there will be much relaxation of the regime under him. Brazilian politics reflect in part Latin American politics, and the current situations in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, not to mention Colombia and Peru, are not conducive to relaxation of tensions there. Rather, Quadros thinks there will be a tendency to strengthen the regime. Quadros believes that the Argentine situation is particularly bad. There is dual leadership in the government, with Perón and Cámpora, which is an impossible situation. Also there has been virtual institutionalization of gangsterism on the part of the extremist groups. There is anarchy. Quadros thinks that Brazil was on the way to a similar situation under Goulart. Quadros made a trip to Afghanistan, Nepal, and Burma last December. Burma is a socialist country, but it is socialization of poverty; conditions there are terrible, nothing works. What was formerly the major tourist hotel is now an utter disaster and has been allowed to run down completely. Quadros was there before, some years ago, and so could make the comparison. The Burmese are very nationalistic, and got rid of the British, the Americans, and everyone else. But he had an amusing experience in that connection. When he arrived, he bought $500 in Burmese currency at the airport. Ten days later, however, when Quadros was leaving and it came time to pay his bill, they would not accept Burmese currency, only American or British; so he had to pay with a travelers check and reconvert the $300 worth of Burmese currency he still had at the airport. The man he had dealt with before had been replaced by someone else, however, and the new man was very suspicious with someone having that much Burmese currency, insisting Quadros must be some kind of smuggler. Quadros was going to go to China from Burma and had it all arranged. When it came time to go, however, they were going to take him in an old British Viscount plane that was going to make a twelve-hour nonstop flight to Peking, using the limits of its fuel supply, and Quadros refused to go. He has arranged to go this coming December, but through Hong Kong to Shanghai and then to Peking. When Quadros has visited his daughter in Houston, he has visited the American space installations there. Although there is considerable security in the place, and someone could not enter without a pass, the program experts are quite willing to show one everything, including what has gone wrong at certain times. This is in very marked contrast to the situation in the Soviet space program, which is kept highly secret. One knew the Americans'

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failures, and their successes therefore seem all the greater; but the Soviets keep their failures a secret, giving rise to the suspicion that there may be many of them. ***** *****

CONVERSATION WITH JOAO GOULART AT HIS ESTATE IN MALDONADO, URUGUAY, JUNE 5, 1972

Joao Goulart's entry into politics was an accident. When Getulio Vargas was overthrown in 1945, he returned to Sao Borja in Rio Grande do Sul. Goulart already knew Vargas well. Vargas had been a friend of Goulart's father; they were compadres. Goulart's father died when Goulart was quite young, leaving him with a fazenda that was right next to that of Vargas. During the years following Vargas's overthrow, when Vargas was living on his fazenda. Goulart got to know him very well, they saw a great deal of one another. As a result of this, in the election of 1945, Goulart ran for state deputy and was elected, by the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro [PTB]. In 1950, he was elected federal deputy, while he was serving as Secretary of Justice of Rio Grande do Sul. He has training as a lawyer. In 1951, there was a revolt in the PTB against Danton Coelho, then president of the party and Minister of Labor. There were many factions inthe PTB at the time and most of them wre against Coelho. Vargas called Goulart from Rio Grande do Sul to ask him to become president of the party. However, the demand then arose that Coelho leave the Ministry of Labor also, and so Vargas made Goulart Minister of Labor while still continuing as president of the party. Goulart thinks that the conspiracy of the Army began when he was Minister of Labor. He tried to give the workers real class consciousness and self-respect, and he tried also to enforce the labor laws. Brazil at that time had a very extensive body of labor law, but the trouble ws that it was not being enforced. Nevertheless Goulart tried to have it enforced—the eight-hour day, paid vacations, and so on. He was also responsible for introducing the minimum wage in Brazil; it was the result of his work as Minister of Labor. However, all of this activity upset powerful economic Interests, industrialists, merchants, landowners. Each of these groups had friends who were generals, and they began to agitate among them against Goulart. The opposition press, meanwhile, carried on a terrible campaign against him as a "Communist." As a result, the military finally demanded that Vargas remove him as minister, and

155 Vargas agreed to do so. The last time he saw Vargas as Mnister, Goulart told him that he would go quietly, but that it would not be long before the military would also throw out Vargas himself, which turned out to be true. Goulart is certain of the authenticity of Vargas's suicide letter. At 9 P.M. the evening before Vargas commited suicide, Goulart went to see him because he was on his way for a considerable stay in Rio Grande do Sul. As he was leaving, Vargas gave Goulart a letter to take along with him. Goulart took the letter, put it in his briefcase, and did not think anything more about it, forgetting to open it as he went on that night to Rio Grande do Sul. When he read the next morning about Vargas's suicide and about the letter he had left, Goulart remembered the letter that Vargas had given him, opened it, and it was the exact same letter. Vargas had told him that he had met that afternoon with his ministers and that the Minister of War, Zenobio, had told him that he did not have the power to prevent the military from ousting Vargas. Vargas had told Goulart, however, that he would not accept being overthrown again, that he would resist. His form of resistance was suicide and leaving behind that letter. Goulart has a copy of the letter in his living room here at his estancia. Furthermore, to Goulart the letter rang true, it was in Vargas's style. Because Goulart knew Vargas well, had worked close to him, and had helped him write some of his speeches, he can confirm that the letter sounds like Vargas. It is not that Goulart considered himself the political heir of Getúlio. But he had been very close to him, and among the many quarreling factions of the Partido Trabalhista, he was the only one who could maintain some semblance of unity in the party. Goulart thinks that Vargas will have a special place in Brazilian history. Although Vargas was of Conservative background—a conservative liberal—he understood the need for social change. He was the one who introduced labor legislation into Brazil, who transformed trade unionism from "a problem of the police" into a recognized social institution. Labor relations were made a government responsibility. Vargas also began the process of making Brazil economically independent. For the first time he established a mining code; he established Petrobas. Another contribution of Vargas was that he saw the danger of Communism in 1945 and had the PTB organized to combat it in its principal area of strength, the workers. He succeeded extensively in this policy. Joáo Café Filho was Vargas's running mate in 1950 as the result of a political arrangement. Vargas was from Rio Grande do Sul in the South and he thought that he ought to have a running mate who was from the Northeast, and Café Filho was

156 from Paraiba. Furthermore, as a deputy, which he was after 1945, Café Filho had acquired quite a good reputation of fighting for the workers as a member of the so-called Left. Goulart says "socalled" because Café Filho ws never really on the Left. In practice, he turned out to be reactionary as president. Goulart's arrangement with Juscelino Kubitschek in 1955 was different from the one between Vargas and Café Filho. It was a party agreement. Kubitschek was president of the Partido Social Democrático, and Goulart was president of the PTB. It was natural under the circumstances that Kubitschek should be their joint candidate for president and that Goulart should be the vice presidential nominee. The agreement between the two parties for this ticket included the promise that the PTB would have people from its ranks in the ministries of labor and agriculture, and would also be in charge of the social securtity institutes. The promise was kept. The Minister of Labor under Kubitschek was always someone from the Partido Trabalhists, named by the party. Kubitschek was basically conservative. He was a Mineiro, all Mineiros are conservative. He had no ideology. He tried to make an ideology out of desenvolvimentismo but Goulart does not think that it is an ideology, an idea perhaps, but not an ideology. Kubitschek supported Goulart when he was president, right up to the coup. However, after the coup, he made a major mistake, the biggest one of his career, of supporting Castelo Branco for president. Kubitschek had met Castelo Branco in the Rio apartment of Negráo de Lima, and there Castelo Branco had agreed to do nothing to interfere with Kubitschek’s presidential campaign. As a result, Kubitschek, who was then a senator, voted in this capacity for Castelo Branco. But it was Castelo Branco who cassadoed him. Goulart doubts very much that Kubitschek wanted Juracy Magalháes as presidenial candidate in the 1960 election; Juracy had always been a member of the Uniáo Democrática Nacional and was president of the UDN at that time. Kubitschek backed General Henrique Teixeira Lott because he owed a great debt to him. Without the coup of November 1955, Kubitschek would never have been able to take office. However, Goulart does not think that when he became President, Kubitschek was a "prisoner" of Lott because he was not the type to be prisoner of anyone. The law on the election of vice president was not changed for 1960. The vice president had always been elected independently of the president. Because of Kubitschek’s support for Lott, Goulart had to run again as vice president. He backed Lott, was his running mate, even though he knew that Lott would lose. Lott was a wonderful man, but a terrible candidate. Lott had no

157 personal charisma or appeal at all. Janio Quadros stimulated the campaign of Fernando Ferrari for vice president in the 1960 election, because he wanted Goulart to be vice president, knowing the hostility of the army against Goulart, and the unlikelihood that the army would get rid of Quadros to put in Goulart. Quadros also started the "Jan-Jan" campaign (that is, for people to vote for JSnio [Quadros] and Jango [Joao Goulart], in Sao Paulo because he knew that there was a substantial number of workers there. Goulart had nothing to do with that campaign; he says again that he loyally supported Lott. Goulart's relations with Quadros as his vice president were not good, Quadros started legal action against him for allegedly using money from the bank workers social security fund to improve his house, which was stupid. Quadros urged Goulart to accept invitations that he had from Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai and from Nikita Khruschev to go to China and Russia. Goulart is sure—although he could not prove it , of course—that Quadros resigned when he did because he knew that Goulart was in Peking and was sure therefore that neither the Congress nor the military would approve of the resignation. However, Congress accepted and applauded it. Of course, Goulart's trips to China and Russia were used as evidence that he was a "Communist." This is absurd. He was not and never has been a Communist. His visits no more made him a Communist than the recent visits of Richard Nixon to the same countries made him a Communist. Goulart was just curious to see the two countries and was anxious to accept the invitations therefore. Unlike Nixon, Goulart was freely invited by Mao and Chou, and he did not have to ask to be invited. Odylo Denys and Admiral Rademaker, Ministers of War and Navy, were both stupid military men, and they Jointly signed a nronuncloamento that Goulart could not be inaugurated. However, Rio Grande de Sul arose in revolt. Also, the commander of the Third Army in Rio Grande do Sul, who was a good friend of Goulart and in Rio at the time, supported Goulart’s inauguration, saying that he was the one elected by the people to succeed Janio Quadros and must be allowed to do so. The commander rushed back to Rio Grande do Sul and maintained his position on the issue there. As a result, parliamentarianism was imposed by the generals. Under the circumstances, Goulart took his oath of office under the new system, but in his inaugural address he said that he hoped that the Congress would quickly submit the issue to a vote of the people, and he immediately sent a bill to this effect to Congress. However, it cost him blood and tears to get this bill

158 finally passed more than a year later. Meanwhile parliamentarianism didn't work and when the plebiscite was finally held, the people voted with an 85 percent majority in favor of return to presidentialism. Goulart's first cabinet after the restoration of presidentialism was oustanding, including such people as San Thiago Dantas, Celso Furtado, and various others. It fell rather quickly, however, because of claims that its members were "Communists." For instance, San Thiago Dantas was attacked because he headed the Brazilian delegation to the Viña del Mar Conference at which Cuba was banned from the OAS. In a brilliant speech San Thiago Dantas reflected the Brazilian stand in opposition to this, in belief that the organization should never ban one of its members. Ché Guevara, who headed the Cuban delegation to this meeting, Jumped up at the end of the speech and rushed over to give Dantas a big abrazo and to congratulate him strongly for what he had said. Goulart sought the state of siege in October 1963 because he knew of the plot going forward in the armed forces and knew that Carlos Lacerda, José Magalháes Pinto, and, most particularly, Adhemar de Barros were playing a major part in this conspiracy. The state of siege was the only way that he would have been able to remove these three as governors of Guanabara, Minas Gerais, and Sao Paulo respectively, and he fully intended to do so once he got the powers of the state of siege. However, that was where the so-called Left made its biggest mistake. The Communist party, Governor Miguel Arraes of Pernambuco, Governor Brizóla of Rio Grande do Sul, all opposed this. Goulart remembers a long meeting with Arraes over the issue, in which Arraes told him that the move was anti­ democratic and that he, Arraes, was abeliever in democracy and alleged that Goulart was going to convert himself into a dictator through this. This was all absurd. Arraes had no reason to fear that Goulart would have removed him as Governor of Pernambuco. Goulart met Arraes again in 1972 in Paris, and Arraes admitted to him that he had made a bad mistake in opposing the state of siege. Brizóla has also admitted his error. The incident of the naval mutiny in the Metalurgical Workers Union hall was not of Goulart's doing. It was a grave mistake of the Ministry of Navy. As soon as he heard what was going on, Goulart called the Minister of Navy from Rio Grande do Sul, where he had gone to spend the Easter vacation, and told him to get the sailors out of the hall as quickly as possible, using force if necessary to do so, that the mutiny was insubordination and could not be allowed. Instead, the Minister parleyed with the mutinous sailors, and by the time Goulart got back to Rio, he was

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presented with a fait accompli by the Minister of the Navy. There was nothing he could do then. Goulart reiterates that he was in Rio Grande do Sul on his Easter vacation when the pardoning of the sailors was agreed upon, and he did not do it. He knew then, and knows now, that this was the kind of thing that the military hierarchy would not permit. The March 13 meeting had the purpose of enacting certain decrees, including the profit remittances, urban reform, and several others. It was basically an attempt to make the people conscious, and to rally them behind the kind of changes that he wanted to bring about. Perhaps it was more provocative than the incident in the Metallurgical Workers Union hall. Goulart's spech at the meeting of the sergeants at the Automobile Club was an act of defiance. He knew that the military plot was going to come to fruition at any time, that he was going to be overthrown. However, if he was going to be overthrown, he wanted to have it happen with him maintaining his dignity, not surrendering. It was in this spirit that he made this speech. It is true that he was really unaware of the state of affatrs at this time, that he was given false information by General Assis Brasil concerning the armed forces, to the effect that they were well under control. Goulart knew about the conspiracy, he knew that it was very extensive, and he had no illusions on the subject. Goulart could do nothing once the revolt began. It was true that the workers of Rio wanted to resist: they wanted arms. But this resistance would have meant certain bloodshed and the massacre of ten to fifteen thousand workers by the troops. There was nothing that the workers, inexperienced with arms and undisciplined, could have done to have stopped the army. Goulart felt that he could not have on his conscience, or go down in history, as one who had uselessly sacrificed the lives of ten to fifteen thousands helpless workers. It is true that during this period Goulart received calls from General Amaury Kruel, then in command of the Second Army in Sao Paulo. Kruel was supposedly his friend, but in these calls he demanded that Goulart form a completely new cabinet largely selected by generals. Goulart replied that a friend had no right to present such a demand., and he refused completely to concede. Goulart flew to Brasilia to see if some kind of resistance could be organized there, but it could not be. He then flew to Porto Alegre, then to Sao Borja, and finally to Uruguay. Brizola wanted to resist, but this was not possible. The army commander in Rio Grande do Sul was new at the post, and although willing to resist, did not yet have control of the military situation, and it would have been fruitless. Brizola's "groups of eleven" were a joke.

160 they were groups of eleven people hungry for government jobs, they were not a serious consideration in this situation. Goulart does not know if he could go back to Brazil. Partly, he has not tried to go back because he does not want to; partly, he has not because he cannot. Goulart does not know what would happen to him if he were to set foot in Brazil, but knows that no one now has the protection of the law, that there is no habeas corpus or anything else of the kind now; he is not going to try it. Goulart thinks that the so-called "Brazilian miracle" is a fraud. The fact is that the people are worse off and are getting increasingly so. Recent figures of the Institute Brasileiro de Geografla show that 85 percent of the people get an income of less than $150 (U.S.) a year. These are not his figures; these are the figures of the regime itself and they speak eloquently of the situation in Brazil today. The United States has had the wrong policy towards Latin America. The truth is that the United States ambassdors are not ambassadors of the people of the United States, or even of its government, but of the large United States private interests in these countries. He had an experience that illustrates this belief very well. One morning at 2 A.M. he received a telephone call from U.S. Ambassador Linclon Gordon, saying that he had to see Goulart with great urgency and he requested Goulart to receive him. Goulart, as president, was living in his private home, not in the presidential palace, but thinking that the call surely related to something of real urgency, agreed to see Gordon, at that hour. Gordon arrived with the president of the International Telephone and Telegraph Co. Gordon said that he had brought the gentleman to meet President Goulart and to discuss with him the issue of the expropriation of the ITT properties in Rio Grande do Sul. Goulart, naturally furious, took Gordon aside, said that out of courtesy he would shake hands with him, but that if the gentleman wanted an interview, he should have sought him at the presidential palace the following morning, and Goulart would have put him on his schedule where it was convenient. This was an absurd action on the part of Gordon, but underscored what Goulart believes about the role of the United States ambassadors in Latin America. Ambassador Gordon misbehaved very much at the time that Goulart was overthrown, too. He traveled from one city to the other, even before Goulart was overthrown making speeches personally attacking Goulart. Goulart wonders whether I consider that appropriate behavior for a United States ambassador. Goulart has nothing against the United States people, who are fine, but thinks that they are very badly represented in Latin

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America by the State Department, Pentagon, the CIA, [Central Intelligence Agency] and so on. During his administration, Goulart sought to maintain effective Brazilian independence. Thus at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the United States asked the Latin American countries to send ships to join the blockade of Cuba. Goulart was the only Latin American president to refuse to do so. The Argentine, Venezuelan, and other governments all did, but he did not. He thought that that was quarrel between the United States and Russia, and that there was no reason for Brazil to get involved in it. As president, Goulart fought for the relegalization of the Communist party. He always thought that it was better to fight against an enemy face to face, where one could see him, rather than behind one's back in the shadows where he could not be seen. In any case, the Communists never amounted to anything in Brazil: they were only a small group; when they could run for office they never won more than a handful of elected officials and were nothing to be afraid of. Vargas had effectively cut the Communists off when he formed the PTB. It was not true that the trade union leaders were pushed out of the leadership of the Partido Trabalhista in the mid-1950s. There were always quite a few of them in the leadership, and the workers always felt that the PTB was their party. The party always had the support of the great majority of the workers, The revolt in the PTB led by Senatoe Pasqualini never really amounted to very much. The only revolt that was of some importance was that led by Fernando Ferrari; however, even it was not a major factor. San Thiago Dantas also organized a group within the party, but it was not exactly a revolt. In any case, Dantas was essentially a conservative person. ***** *****

CONVERSATION WITH JOSÉ SARNEY IN MARANHÁO GOVERNOR'S PALACE IN SÁO LUIZ DE MARANHÁO, APRIL 16, 1966

The impression that I have that Maranhao is in decline is an accurate one. It is borne out by the statistics. At the recent SUDENE meeting here, they had a discussion of which was the poorest state, and they came to the conclusion that Maranhao ws even poorer than Piaui. Fifteen of the sixteen textile plants the state once had are closed, and the one that is operating is very unproductive, having machinery from the 1890s. The rice mills

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are closing, even the babassu oil mills are not doing very well. This decline has been due largely to the fact that for the past twenty years the state has been dominated by a political oligarchy headed by Victorino Freire. He came as interventor during the time of the Estado Novo, from Pernambuco, having no contact with, or knowledge of, the cultural traditions of the state, and he decimated the old political elite. Maranhao has a tradition of its intellectuals participating in politics, all of its grand poets and so on did so. But during this period, they were driven out of politics, and many of them moved out of the state. Those in charge were only interested in the state for what they could get out of it. If it had not been for the revolution, the state never could have rid itself of the oligarchy. The elections of last October were the first real elections that they have had here. Those before had been parodies of elections. For instance, the electoral court last year removed the names of 150,000 people from the voter's rolls, since these people either were dead or had never existed, but they had always "voted" for the government candidates. Also, there is an area where one man dominated three municipalities, although he did absolutely nothing for them, paved no streets, provided no water, and in one of these municipalities there had always been 117 voters. But last year, the electoral tribunals found that there were in fact 8,000 voters in that municipality. When Sarney took office, he found that his job was a create an administration apparatus that could function for the development of the state. He went to SUDENE and asked those Maranhenses who were working there to come back to the state and constitute a Technical Advisory Board for the Governor. They came, although at some cost to themselves. They are all young, active, hard workers, Sarney's direct advisors, and when he needs information for projects, they draw it up. COPEMA [The State Development Agency!, exists, but it has never existed much more than on paper. In 1961, when President Janio Quadros came to Maranhao for a meeting of the governors of the Northeast, the man who was then governor found out that for the first time the president was hostile and furthermore, that he wanted real action for the development of the state. Therefore, the governor hastened to set up COPEMA, but it has never drawn up a real development plan for the state; in fact it has done very little, it has not had a really qualified group of people working for it and has been top-heavy with bureaucracy. Sarney found that he needed another kind of group that could in a very short time draw up projects to present to SUDENE, Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico, and other organizations, and COPEMA would not serve for that purpose. Hence the Technical Group has been created.

163 The Technical Advisory Group has done exceedingly well so far. they have finished an Emergency Plan for the first year of the administration and are beginning work on a Four-Year Plan to succeed it. They have finished a Health Plan, that he has presented to the Ministry of Health for its approval; they have almost finished an Educational Reorganization Plan; they are working on a highway plan and an electrification plan. The first thing Maranhao needed was an infrastructure, because without it it would be impossible to attract new industries here. For instance, there is a lack of electricity, and there is only one medical post in the whole state maintained by the state. There is a very high rate of illiteracy as well. The electification problem can be met within the next two years or so. The installation at Boa Esperanza will be ready to provide electricity within twenty months; at first it will provide 120,00 kilowatts and afterwards 220,000. It will provide a surplus in the area from Caixias to Sao Luiz. Sarney has Electrobras approval for two small hydroelectric schemes near Carolini and one other town in the southeastern part of the state. His main job is to provide the transmission facilities from Boa Esperanza, which would give the state 60 percent coverage for electricity. They are at the same time trying to coordinate an industrialization program with this development of electricity. No industry will come in if there is not electricity, but with the prospects of adequate electricity within two years, he hopes to have industries in place that will be ready to use the electricity. The Technical Advisory Group is finishing work on a study of industrial possibilities now. Sarney thinks, in contrast to the general opinion held in the state, that the real richness of the state is in minerals. They have raw material for cement, and have certain salts that are known. In addition, an example of very good coal has just been brought in yesterday. There are many other minerals, and they are going to launch a public relations campaign in the South on the theme "Discover Maranhao" to try to interest firms and individuals in the South in looking for the resources he is sure are here. Sarney has a program for rural education. His objective is to build 1,000 schools in 120 days. These will be very simple oneroom schools, built in the style used in the interior of the state, that is, with wooden poles and mud sidings and babassu thatch for roofing. One third of the cost will be provided by the state, largely for things other than building itself; one third will be provided by the municipalities; and one third by the people, in the form of two hours of work a day by the fathers of every student who will attend the school. The teachers will be paid by the state, and in the beginning at least they will just be people who

164 themselves have a primary education, but programs will be developed to train teachers during their school vacations. They will not be good schools, but will be schools, which have been almost completely lacking in the rural areas of the state. Over one hundred of these schools have already been built. There is a great deal of enthusiasm for this program among the people of the interior of the state. The greatest number of demands for help that Sarney receives comes from people who want schools in their communities. They are also working on a popular housing program. This, too, will not be on an ambitious scale, but rather will attempt to build barro [adobe] houses of a solid and decent type. Some of these houses have been known to last as long as a hundred years, and if they are taken care of, they can provide much better housing than many of the people have now. Sarney sent a number of messages to the legislature. One of these was a proposal to set up the Corporacao de Habitacao, which passed the legislature. Another is to set up a new company to handle water and sewage for the state, and another is for electricity. In terms of water supplies, they are going to dig wells in the various communities—97 percent of the people of the state have no water or sewage facilities. Around these wells will be built sewage facilities, including bathhouses, and there will be a place where people can get water for their home use. These will all be simple but serviceable. The state is well supplied with underground water, so this program is feasible. Another great need of the city is a new port. Sao Luiz de Maranhao is virtually the only coastal city in Brazil that has no port. Sarney is negotiating with the Ministry of Viacao e Obras on this matter, and SUDENE has agreed to help with it at their meetings here recently. Sarney will not say whether or not he has a majority in the legislature. He does not want to see the lines there hardly drawn. The fact is that the measures he has proposed so far have gone through legislature, although with considerable difficulty. In general, Sarney is interested in selling the idea of self-help to the people of the state. So far, he has found a very good reception for this notion. Sarney has heard criticism that he has betrayed his former ideas when he supported the revolution. He has always been a member of Uniao Democratica Nacional, was a UDN deputy for ten years, and was national vice president of the party at the time of the revolution. Furthermore, he supported Janio Quadros when he was president, never had any relations--never even a conversation—with Joao Goulart, and never had any association

165 with the PTB. Thus, there has been no reason why he should not have supported the revolution. Sarney belonged to the so-called nossa nova of the UDN. During the period of Juscelino Kubitschek, that president launched a new spirit in Brazil of popular involvement in developmentalism. At that time, many of the younger members of the UDN who felt that the idea of development and reform should not be left to the other side and that the UDN, which was a democratic party, could complete with the PTB and PSD in the fields of reform and development, formed a group with this objective in mind. During the Goulart period, this group tended to fall apart, due to the radicalization of the country at that time, with some members going over to the extreme Left, and some retiring to concern only with municipal and state goverments. Some supported the revolution, as Sarney did. Sarney has also heard the charge that he has been demagogic in his campaign and has promised everything to everyone. However, he thinks that this is completely unjustified. He has made absolutely no promises of jobs to anyone, and no one has come to claim that he did since he has been inaugurated. Sarney made no promises that he could perform miracles: in fact he has told the people quite frankly that what was needed was hard work and a sense of direction and that with those tools, much could be accomplished. If that is is demagoguery, then he was a demagogue, but he does not think that he has been or is.

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Chile INTRODUCTION The people dealt with in this section include all of the men who were President of Chile between the end of World War II and the seizure of power by the military in September 1973, except for President Carlos Ibanez del Campo, with whom unfortunately I never had any any contact. In addition, this section also includes contacts with several people from before the Second World War. However, certain problems presented themselves concerning exactly who should be included in this volume. Two of those included never had the formal title of President--Juan Bennett and Marmaduque Grove. Another, Carlos Davila, was a provisional President; and a fourth, Alfredo Duhalde, held the title of Vice President, the equivalent of Acting President. The roles of Bennett and Grove arose during the perturbed political situation of Chile between September 1924, when Arturo Alessandri resigned from the presidency for the first time, and December 1932, when he returned to that office as duly elected Constitutional President. They were

168 members of short-lived government juntas. Duhalde, on the other hand, served as interim chief executive after the death of President Juan Antonio Rios early in 1946. Arturo Alessandri, the first person dealt with here, first came tó the presidency as a reform candidate in 1920, against strong opposition of powerfully entrenched social, economic, and political interests. For almost four years, President Alessandri was largely frustrated in his search for reform, and the country endured a severe economic and particularly fiscal crisis. A showdown occurred when young officers demonstrated in the Senate on the evening of September 4, 1924, during a debate on a bill that would pay salaries for the first time to members of Congress—at a time when payments of military salaries were several months in arrears. When the top military officers refused to discipline their subordinates, Alessandri dealt with a junta of the young officers, who presented the president with a long list of demands that included several of the pieces of social legislation that Alessandri had been pushing. He agreed to their demands upon the promise of the young officers to "return to the barracks" and dissolve their junta once these laws had been passed. Alessandri fulfilled his part of the agreement, and the legislation, which included increase in military pay and provision for more rapid promotions for officers was adjusted. However, the young military men, in fact, refused to return to the barracks and continued the junta in existence. At that point, President Alessandri took refuge in the U.S. Embassy and sent in his resignation . General Juan Bennett was a member of the three-man military junta that took over from Alessandri—two generals and an admiral. He explains in my conversation with him how he saw the circumstances of Alessandri ’s overthrow. The circumstances of my having a chance to talk with General Bennett were fortuitous. During my first visit to Chile late in 1946, when I was already somewhat acquainted with the circumstances of the

169 fall of President Alessandri, I was walking down a street in the center of Santiago and happened to look up at an office window that had the name of Juan Bennett on it as head of an agency, the nature of which I no longer recollect. It seemed unlikely that there would be two Juan Bennetts in Chile, and on the chance that this was the ex-general, I went to his office to inquire. Bennett seemed pleased to receive me, perhaps happy that after more than twenty years, someone would remember his name, and he told me what I have recorded here. My encounter with Arturo Alessandri, "Don Arturo" as he was by then widely known, also had certain human interest. I had a chance to see him after having met his son Jorge, then head of the paper company, whom I had interviewed in connection with my doctoral dissertation research on labor relations in Chile. Don Jorge arranged for me to have an interview with Don Arturo. However, when I met Arturo Alessandri in his apartment on Calle Phillips, on the Plaza Central of Santiago, he was particularly uncommunicative in spite of what seemed to me an impeccable introduction. Finally, he virtually exploded, asking me what I wanted and why I was asking him questions. Taken aback, I brought out a letter of introduction that the Economics Department of Columbia University had provided me, explaining why I was going to Chile. Of course, it was written in English. Upon reading it, Alessandri*s attitude changed markedly; he was willing to answer questions then, and--since he was about to leave on a summer vacation—he invited me to come back when he returned. Then, and since, I have had the feeling that the attitude of the "The Lion of Tarapaca” (his favorite nickname) changed because he was flattered by my assumption that he understood English. In January 1925, General Bennett and his colleagues were overthrown by another uprising of young officers, headed by Carlos Ibctnez and Marmaduque Grove. These two men headed the regime until the return of President Alessandri, whom they had invited to come back and carry out the reforms

170 that he had long advocated. The interim role of Grove is one reason for including him in these pages. The other is his leadership df the coup of June 4, 1932, which established the so-called Socialist Republic of Chile. At the time, Grove — who had opposed the dictatorship of his colleague Colonel Ibanez and had gone into exile and had only returned home when Ibanez was ousted late in 1931---was head of the Chilean air force, which he had founded. In this coup. Grove was allied with leaders of several small Socialist parties that had arisen after Ibanez’s overthrow, and with elements who had been active in the Ibanez regime, headed by Carlos Davila, former Chilean Ambassador to the United States. During the first phase of the Socialist Republic, Grove was its effective head, although I do not know whether he had the formal title of President. After a couple of weeks, Grove was ousted; he was succeeded by Carlos Davila, who took the title of Provisional President. The Socialist Republic lasted only about one hundred days. Less than three months after it was overthrown, Arturo Alessandri was once more elected president. This time he was a president of the Right. At the end of his term—in which he firmly reestablished civilian control of the military and helped bring the country out of the Great Depression-he was succeeded by a government of the Popular Front, headed by the first of three Radical Party presidents, Pedro Aguirre Cerda. When Aguirre Cerda died in November 1941, he was succeeded by the second Radical president, Juan Antonio Rios. In turn, Rios became fatally ill early in 194 6, and the powers of the presidency were taken over by Alfredo Duhalde as Vice President, a position Duhalde continued to hold when Rios died. Alfredo Duhalde resigned as Vice President in order to become a candidate for the presidency. However, the victor in the 1946 presidential campaign was another Radical, Gabriel Gonzalez Videla. During the first five months of Gonzalez’s administration, he governed with the unlikely coalition of his own Radical Party, the Communists to

171 his Left, and the Liberal Party (of Arturo Alessandri) to his Right. However, in April 1947, President González Videla demanded the resignation of the three Communist ministers, and when they refused to withdraw, González Videla dismissed them. That was almost a declaration of war upon the Communists. In my conversations with him, González Videla explained his reasoning in picking what became a lifelong feud with the Stalinists. The end of González Videla’s administration was also the end of the series of Radical Party presidents. González Videla was succeeded by the one-time dictator Carlos Ibáñez. Ibáñez, in turn, was followed by Jorge Alessandri, a son of Don Arturo, as the candidate of a Center-Right coalition. Jorge Alessandri made something of a fetish of not being a ’’politician” However, his long career was liberally spotted with political activity. He was a deputy in the 1920’s, went into political exile with his father afterwards, was Minister of Finance under González Videla, was elected president in 1958 and was again a candidate for president in 1970. During the Pinochet dictatorship, he served for a time as a member of an appointed Council of State, but resigned in protest against Pinochet 's succeesful efforts to perpetuate himself in power when Alessandri thought the time had come to return to an elected government. However, Jorge Alessandri spoke most of being an engineer and businessman. He served for many years as a manager of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, which had a virtual monopoly on the manufacture of paper and paper products in the republic. In that post, he developed a reputation as a "good employer, ” dealing with the unions of the company’s workers in such a way as largely to avoid strikes, although they had been fairly frequent occurrences before he took over. It was in that connection that I first talked with Jorge Alessandri. Many years later, I sought him out in connection with writing a biography of his father. Hence, much of my conversation and correspondence with him in the late 1960s and early 1970s revolved around his father, although our exchanges were by no means

172 confined to that. In spite of Jorge Alessandri*s at least partial turn against the Pindchet dictatorship, after Alessandri died that regime placed a brass plaque on the wall facing the Plaza Central of the apartment building in which he had lived much of his life, commemorating him as a political leader and businessman. Interestingly enough, there was no such plaque placed to honor Arturo Alessandri, who had lived about as long as his son in the same building. Undoubtedly this oversight was due to the fact that the Pinochet regime tended to see the beginning of the decline and crisis of Chile not in the administration of Salvador Allende in the 1970s, but rather in the first administration of Artro Alessandri in the early 1920s. Jorge Alessandri 's successor as president was Eduardo Frei, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party. I had some acquaintance with him for almost a quarter of a century before he became president. I first met him at the founding conference of the Inter-American Association for Democracy and Freedom in Havana, Cuba, in May 1950. That meeting established an organization that was an important link between democratic Latin America leaders of widely different ideological orientations and liberal North American politicians and scholars. The conversations and correspondence with Eduardo Frei cover the period in which he was emerging as a major political leader, his presidency, his role as the most prestigious leader of the opposition to the government of his successor, Salvador Allende, and then his emergence as the most important leader of the opposition to the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, which was his role at the time of his death. Perhaps of the most interest is the evolution of President Frei 's thinking and action after the overthrow of the Allende regime. In his first letter after that event, Frei concentrated largely on condemning the fallen government. However, in my subsequent conversations with him, his very strong criticisms were against the Pinochet dictatorship.

173 The material in this Chilean section is of particular interest because of the comments of the several presidents on others of the group. Since I was talking to Jorge Alessandri, Gabriel González Videla, and Eduardo Frei on several occasions in connection with my biography of Arturo Alessandri, those men devoted special attention to him. However, there are also various other comments among these men about each other. Finally, I had contacts with Salvador Allende during the earlier phases of his career. When I first met him during my first visit to Chile, 19461947, he was a major leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, which was strongly opposed to the Communists, who at that point were members of the González Videla government. Subsequently, I talked to him after his first candidacy for president in 1952, when he strongly defended the removal of a commitment to Marxism from this party’s declaration of principles. The possible significance of these exchanges is the indication that at least in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Salvador Allende was certainly no convinced Marxist-Leninist, and it is my conviction that he never was. However, my personal contacts with him did not extend beyond the early 1950s. The fault for this was mine during the period before he became president, when I did not sufficiently seek him out. Once he was in La Moneda, the presidential mansion, on three occasions I sought to obtain a meeting with him, without result. At the time, I thought that this was probably due to the fact that he knew that I was a close friend of the Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt, with whom Allende, although a friend of a quarter century, had broken politically in 1960, because of Allende’s enthusiastic support for Fidel Castro and his regime. This may or may not have been the case. What is certain is that I did not see Salvador Allende after 1953.

174 CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO ALESSANDRI IN HIS APARTMENT IN SANTIAGO, JANUARY 31, 1947 \

When Arturo Alessandri was nominated for the presidency for the first time, in 1920, he made an acceptance speech in which he outlined what he proposed to do in his administration, particularly in the way of social legislation. Included were the project for a labor code, compulsory primary education, direct income tax, stabilization of currency, bettering of the legal status of women. At the time he was first elected president, the trade unions were virtually unorganized, so that there was not a great deal of labor support for his candidacy.

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CONVERSATION WITH ARTURO ALESSANDRI AT HIS APARTMENT IN SANTIAGO, CHILE, APRIL 3, 1947

Why Arturo Alessandri pushed for a complete code of labor legislation in a country that at the time had practically no industry is all explained in his books. However, Alessandri will say that as a result of World War I the Treaty of Versailles contained within it the outlines of the International Labor Organization [ILO], and this entity in its first two meetings in Geneva and Washington drew up a scheme for a code of labor relations. Because he felt Chile was part of the world and because he was moved by the events of the time, Alessandri wanted to apply these principles which the ILO had expounded by drawing up a labor code here. The purpose of the labor code was to harmonize relations between capital and labor. In order to do this, it was necessary to have clearly stated in the code the duties and rights of the two parties and to have established methods for the government to act as a sort of arbitrator between them. Previous to this Codigo del Trabajo. the condition of the laboring man in Chile had been little better than the conditions of beasts— in fact, many rural landlords treated their blooded stock better than they treated their workers. To know why the military men, who carried out the program that Alessandri had been advocating got rid of Alessandri, one must understand the circumstances. Alessandri introduced into the parliament in the first year of his administration the project for a labor code and for four years was fighting for that. In March 1924, he won a parliamentary election, and it appeared that the road was open finally for the passing of the legislation that he required. He said in his message to parliament in June 1924 that

175 they had better get to passing a few of the bills he advocated, or they would be faced with a revolution. But this parliament was made up more of self-seekers than public servants and spent its time dividing the spoils of office and trying to increase them. As a result, the military coup occurred in September 1924. It was a matter of the military men wanting something for themselves, a raise in salary. Since they could not engineer a revolution with those slogans, they stole the program that Alessandri had been advocating for years in his annual messages to Congress. Faced with the military men’s attitude, Alessandri said that he'd be glad to cooperate with them in putting through these measures, if they’d promise to go back to their barracks afterwards. This they promised to do. But once the laws required had been passed on September 8, 1924, the army did not go back to its barracks. Instead of that, it next demanded that Alessandri dissolve parliament. This Alessandri refused to do. Although he thought the Constitution of 1833 all wrong, in its parliamentary system, still it did not permit the president to dissolve Congress, and because Alessandri was a constitutionalist, he refused to dissolve parliament. He thereupon told the military men that they'd betrayed and misled him, and he submitted his resignation. The military men asked that he not resign, but he insisted, and therupon sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy. He did this not because he was afraid—he was afraid of nothing—but merely as a demonstration of the fact that he did not consider himself president any longer. The result was the assumption of power by the Junta del Gobiemo, which, having enacted legally the program of social reform, had no other reason to be, and after four and a half months it too was overthrown, and new leaders begged Alessandri to come back from his exile once more. Within this return, Alessandri carried out the rest of his program—the revision of the constitution of 1833 by implanting a presidential system of government patterened on that of the United States: the complete separation of Church and State: the passing of the law on private white-collar workers and a number of other things. When Alessandri is asked why, since he was the leader of the Left for many years, he never belonged to a party of the Left but rather to the Liberal Party, which is on the Right, he has to answer that it is false to say that the Liberal Party is a party of the Right. Only those crazy individuals in Chilean public life who do not know the truth and history, or won’t see it, claim that the Liberal Party is a party of the Right and reactionary. All of the progressive measures in Chilean statutes are the work of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party has a long list of exceedingly distinguished presidents, and the Conservatives have only had

176 two presidents in the history of the country-the first two. All the progress of the country has been due to these Liberal statesmen. And as to the Radicals, they have only had three presidents—the last three-whose administrations have been a public misfortune. Alessandri has long been interested in social problems. It is nearly fifty years since he earned his title as a lawyer, in 1892, and as far back as that his thesis for the law degree had concerned the necessity for the government to build houses for the working class. At the time, Alessandri was denounced as a Communist, an anarchist, and all kinds of nasty things by the Conservatives, but he held to his beliefs. He has always believed in social welfare, and he continues to believe in it. Only the Communists and the Anarchists can say that Alessandri was anything but a supporter of the popular cause. ***** *****

CONVERSATION WITH JUAN B. BENNETT, IN HIS OFFICE, IN SANTIAGO, MARCH 11, 1947

The revolution of 1924 was an unexpected affair even among those who brought it about. It originated in the beginning in a protest upon the part of the younger officers when Congress decided to vote itself a raise in pay at a time when the army officers were being paid very low salaries, and in the bargain had not received any pay for three months. A group of these officers filled the gallery in the Congress when this measure was being discussed and made a demonstration there. The government wanted to punish the offenders, but all of the officers—even the top-ranking ones, among whom Bennett was one--announced their solidarity with the offenders and said that if anyone was punished, they should all be punished. At that point, President Arturo Alessandri called in the young military leaders and asked them what it was that they wanted. It was only then that the social aims of the whole movement began to develop. In order not to appear anti-patriotic and to be interested in their own welfare alone, the officers presented to Alessandri a list of things that they wanted accomplished, and at the top of this list was the passage of the fundamental laws of what is now the Codigo del Trabaio. Most of the officers had had no interest to speak of in political matters, and though as youths they may have had a bit more leftist ideas, they certainly had no ideas of creating a "militarist party" with leftist views, or anything of the sort. The social program presented was a cover for their demand for better pay. There were some exceptions to this general

177 statement, principal among them being Captain Alejandro Lasso (later head of the Cental de Leche), who was a firebrand and the heart of the movement and who definitely had leftist ideas even then. The leaders of the movement in September 1924 were the young officers, among whom Marmaduque Grove and Carlos Ibanez played a big part, and were in the Junta Militar that was formed to lead the movement. However, being young, they wanted someone to front for them in the government, so when Alessandri offered the military participation in the government, they pushed General Altamirano, General Bennett and Admiral Nef into the first three posts in the Cabinet, with Altamirano as Interior Minister. Then when Alessandri resigned, or retired, these three formed the Junta de Gobiemo that ruled from September 1924 until January 1925. The first move of the Altamariano regime was to push through the labor laws demanded by the Junta Militar. by calling into conference the leaders of both the houses of Congress and giving them to understand that if these laws were not passed immediately, the parliament would be dissolved. To prevent this dissolution, the next day the chambers passed the laws demanded with indecent haste. It was a shameful affair. Only one person, Pedro Ugalde, protested against this method of doing things, but nothing happened to him as a result of his position. Congress was dissolved soon after. None of the officers, young or old, trusted Alessandri. He is a man of two faces, and no one trusted him, not even the young officers. When he says that he was responsible for the passage of the Codigo del Trabaio. that is false. He had proposed such a law in his administration, yes, but he had never pushed the matter to any kind of showdown. The people who really put it on the statute books were the Junta Militar. who forced its passage. Thus, after a day or so, the military leaders decided that it would be better for Alessandri to leave the country for a while, which he did. The attitude of the labor movement towards this revolution was one of passivity. The movement of September 1924 was completely unexpected, and it caught the labor leaders, and the rest of the country, completely unaware. The labor leaders did not immediately react one way or the other. However, when the first act of the regime was to pass the long-awaited labor laws, the workers were quite impressed. Generally, during its first few months of power, the Junta had the backing of unions. The Communist party at that time hardly existed and had comparatively litle force. It did not react at all either for or against the revolution. The IWW [Industrial Workers Of The World] was

178 the same. The real working-class party at the time was the Partido Democratico, which was closely allied to Alessandri and so was opposed to the revolution. There developed a divergence on this score between the purely political side of the labor movement and the unions—the latter backing the regime. Within the Junta de Gobierno there was a difference of opinion. General Altamirano and Admiral Neff had close alliance of friendship with the right-wing politicians and so gravitated in that direction. Bennnett, on the other hand, felt that if one was going to lead the revolution, one must be a revolutionary, and so he pushed for more radical measures and for the Junta not to get entwined with the reactionaries. Decisions of the Junta were taken by unanimity in spite of this difference of opinion, but a wide gulf developed between the Junta Militar—which although it was officially dissolved was not really abolished—and the Junta de Gobiemo. The Junta de Gobiemo had been put in power to avoid an appearance of insubordination on the part of the younger officers in September 1924, but their ideas did not coincide in the least with those of the younger officers. In January 1925, therefore, the Junta de Gobiemo was overthrown, an all civilian Junta was organized and Alessandri was called back. The whole revolution had occurred without being consciously planned. The leaders started a series of actions, the results of which they themselves did not foresee. Bennett thinks that the Masons did not have too much influence in this revolution, in contrast to the 1932 revolt. Further, the working-class reaction was practically nil. Taken by surprise, the workers were impressed with passage of labor laws, but there were no demonstrations for or against the revolution. The railroad workers at one point threatened a national walkout but never went through with it. With the overthrow of the Junta de Gobiemo in January 1925, the three members of it were retired, or rather, resigned. Emilio Bello Codesido, who headed the 1925 Junta asked Bennett to retract his resignation, but he explained that this was impossible and he thus retired from the army. ***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH MARMADUQUE GROVE IN THE CHILEAN SENATE, IN SANTIAGO, DECEMBER 25, 1946

Marmaduque Grove, whose grandfather was an Irishman got his advanced ideas originally from his father, one of the early leaders of the Partido Radical in the town in which the Radical Party was bom, Copiapo. His father always told Grove and his five

179 brothers and four sisters to mind the interests of the workers, that the working-class came before others. In the revolution of 1924, Grove played a big part. That revolution developed originally as a reactionary movement upon the part of a number of high officers of the army. The reactionaries, the aristocracy, who controlled the Congress had consistently thwarted the advanced social program of President Alessandri, elected in 1920. At the same time, those same reactionaries were at work in the army, working upon the fact that the army was very poorly paid—a major received 700 pesos a month. The reactionaries finally convinced this group of high officers to overthrow Alessandri, who took refuge in the U.S. Embassy and then fled abroad. The junta then set up consisted of three senior officers. However, once the movement started, it did not stop where the originators of it had thought that it would. The younger leaders of the army, of whom Grove was the leader, forced the Junta to carry out, at least in certain measure, a social program—the most outstanding element of which was the first Labor Code, which was proclaimed by this three-man Junta. However, the Junta after a few weeks became more and more the tool of the reactionaries, and finally in the first week of January 1925, the junta was overthrown by a further revolution, of which Grove was the leader. This revolution set up a civilian junta, which was to serve until the return of Alessandri—who came back to the country in March. During the following months a new constitution was written and proclaimed, and a number of other reforms were passed. However, Alessandri quarrelled with the military men over his successsor, and he finally resigned for a second time. In the elections that were held a few months later. Emiliano Figueroa was elected President. Figueroa was a middle-of-the-road sort of person, a Liberal, but without much force or strength of character. He had Carlos Ibanez for Minister of War, and Ibànez wanted to be president. At this time, Grove was organizing the Chilean Air Force. Finally, an impasse was reached, and Figueroa resigned, and in the ensuing election, Ibanez was elected president. During the first part of the Ibànez regime, Grove remained a friend of his. Grove went to Great Britain as Military Attaché and stayed there until 1929. He tried to point out to Ibanez what was going on. Ibanez was unaware of the dictatorial part of his regime and much impressed with his own success in getting roads built, bridges constructed, and so on. However, like all dictators, he disliked criticism, and when Grove insisted that he pay attention to what was going on behind his back, Ibànez fired Grove, on the pretense that he was involved in a plot against Ibànez. Grove remained six months in London after being fired, then

180 went to France, and later still, in 1930, to Buenos Aires. From Buenos Aires he arranged a bit of a revolt in Concepción, and flew across the Andes to head it, only to find that those elements in the garrison there who'd said they were with Grove, turned out not to be so. Grove and others were arrested and sent to the Isla de Pascua. From there, they escaped a few months later, and went to Tahiti, from which they went back to France. Grove stayed there until the overthrow of Ibáñez, and got back in Chile only in January 1932. He was immediately made head of the air force, once more, which Job he kept until the June 4, 1932 revolt. During this six months, Grove came into contact with a group of more or less Socialist individuals. The key to this liaison was Eugenio Matte Hurtado. Matte at that time was chief of all Chilean Masons, and Grove himself was a Mason, and their friendship developed through this connection. Matte, meanwhile, had been in contact with elements such as Manuel Hidalgo, Oscar Schnake, Oscar Cifuentes, and others, who had formed the Nueva Acción Politica. This NAP formed one section of the June 4 Revolution. Another part was the military group headed by Grove himself. This included all the air force and the best elements in the army. The third group was that led by Carlos Dâvila, which had connections with the fallen dictator, Ibáñez. The Socialist Republic during its twelve days of existence naturally could not actually accomplish much, but it laid down a line of future conduct. For instance, it established a Banco del Estado. It gave all the women in the country title to their sewing machines. It proposed to nationalize copper, salitre, and coal. It proposed to stabilize the peso. However, the Revolution was betrayed by Carlos Dâvila and his friends who worked from within it to overthrow the regime. Dâvila, at that time was aided, and paid, by the Americans in Chile. The regime of Dâvila, which lasted one hundred days, and of which Juan B. Rossetti was a part, had a program of aid to the small agriculturalists, aid to the nitrate industry, and floating of loans in the United States. It, too, called itself the Socialist Republic. In the election of 1932, there was spontaneous movement in favor of Grove's candidacy. He was at the time a prisoner in the Isla de Pascua, put there by Dâvila. However, people all over the country put up his candidacy, and he got 80,000 votes, the second highest in the election. At noon on election day. Grove was running ahead in Santiago and other cities, and in the afternoon all of the forces of the Right voted for Arturo Alessandri, who was the Center candidate, to avoid the election of Grove. Some months afterwards, the Socialist Party was formed, upon the basis of the groups that had backed Grove's candidacy the year before. The groups that formed the SP were the Nueva

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Acción Política of Matte, Partido Socialista Marxista, Orden Socialista, Acción Revolucionaria Socialista, and Partido Socialista Unificado, in addition to some independents. The party grew rapidly and had electoral successes. Matte was elected to the Senate. But there was much persecution by the government, and Grove was sentenced to ninety-six days in jail at one time in 1935. Grove ran for the Senate-upon the death of Matte-while still in jail, getting out only the night before his victory. He has been in the Senate ever since, being reelected in 1941. By 1938, the Socialist Party was the first party in the country. It only began to decline after taking office under Pedro Aguirre Cerda from 1938 to 1939. Even in 1941, it had 80,000 votes, however. The splits in the Socialist Party have come about solely for personal reasons. Almost since the beginning of the SP the other leaders of it—Hidalgo, Schnake and others—were jealous of the preeminent position that Grove had, and were busy trying to deflate his reputation. Finally, this campaign reached its peak in the split in the party in 1944. Since then, the Socialistas Auténticos, which he has headed, have tried to reunite the Socialists many times, particularly after the Socialist cabinet took power in February 1946. At that time. Grove proposed that they reunite the two parties and fight for a president who would institute a program of real social reform. If the Partido Socialista de Chile had accepted this proposition, reunited the two groups, and pushed the campaign of Duhalde, he would have been elected, and there would be a real reform campaign in progrerss at the present time. However, they were in La Moneda and were not interested in unity at that time. The Auténticos are forming a new Movimiento Laborista Socialista, amalgamating a number of other small groups to form a big Socialist movement. This movement will push several things. First, it will back agrarian reform, and the kind of agrarian reform that it wants is that based upon cooperative agriculture— not collective farming, but to have the farmers own their own land but use a great deal of cooperation in utilizing it, something along the lines of what has been done in Scandanavia. The other big issue the Socialists are going to push is the organization of free trade unions. There are only about 40 percent of all the workers organized in the two CTCh's [Confederation of Workers of Chile] now, so the Grovistas are going out to organize the other 60 percent. And they propose to organize them independently of the two CTCh's and in unions that are not "legal" in the sense of being recognized by the government. This group will naturally have more affinity to the CTCh of Bernardo Ibáñez and would work with the Ibáñez group if his CTCh would accept them, but unfortunately this cannot be the case. The

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Partido Socialista Auténtico has several times approached the Ibáñez group and asked that they be given positions in the directorate of the CTCh and said that in return for that they would back this CTCh without reservation, but Ibáñez turned them down. Thus, the Movimiento Laborista Socialista is going to set out to organize its own unions. The Communists are a great menace to Chile. However, Chile is not Communist, the people here do not want a Communist regime, and the Communists do not have much success. González Videla will have to realize this sooner or later, and perhaps is realizing it now. The Communists are in the government but they are causing it all kinds of trouble, and they will continue to do so. Grove hopes that the new Movimiento Laborista Socialista will be a movement that will be able to scotch the Communists. The United States should help the Socialists in Chile. For instance, they should subrosa give them money to found a daily newspaper. In any case, the PSA and its associates are very friendly to the United States. They hope that when they have their movement in Chile well organized, it can expand and develop relations with Socialist and labor groups throughout the Americas, including the United States.

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CONVERSATION WITH CARLOS DÂVILA IN NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 24, 1948

Arturo Alessandri was deep in the 1932 revolution that established the "Socialist Republic," although then and later he denied it. The only reason Alessandri did not take part in the governments that succeeded the revolution was that the revolutionaries would not have him. Carlos Dâvila had been an Ibáñista since 1924. He had in fact engineered the revolution of 1924 from the editorial offices of La Nación, over which he presided at the time. The plotting was done in his offices. He backed Carlos Ibáñez afterwards, although he warned him that, first, the revolution was not made to make Ibáñez president; and second, that Just because everyone from Conservative to Communist was eating out of his hand was no indication that the revolution had been achieved. Dâvila insisted that thoroughgoing social and political reforms must be carried out. Finally, Ibáñez tired of his talk and suggested that Dâvila go as Ambassador to Great Britain, a post that he turned down. Some time later, Ibáñez offered Dâvila the Washington Embassy

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and put it on a take it or else basis, so Dâvila went. Dâvila thinks that Ibânez is now too conservative to be useful. In 1932 it was Marmaduque Grove who broke with Dâvila, not vice versa. In his cabinet after he came to power, Dâvila had both Juan Antonio Rios and Juan Bautista Rossetti. The difference between the two is striking. Rios was busy as Minister of Interior building up his political machine, which Dâvila didn’t oppose particularly, since he had no great interest in a political future himself. In this endeavor, Rios was very successful. But when it came time to discuss financial matters in the cabinet, Rios always begged off and went home, since he didn't understand them and didn't want to learn to. Rossetti, on the other hand, asked advice on what he should read in order to understand the matters under discussion and in a few weeks came in better prepared and better able to discuss the matter than the Minister of Finance himself. Rossetti is in fact the most able politician in Chilean public life. He is personally honest, but politically unscrupulous. He is exceedingly intelligent. Dâvila thought that Rossetti would never be able to be part of a party that was not his own personal party. The Radical Socialist Party was such an organization. Once Rossetti chided Dâvila and told him, "The trouble with you is that you're too independent and can never join a political party. Some day. I'm going to join one." Dâvila never believed it, however, and certainly did not believe he would stick to the Socialist Party once he entered it. Marmaduque Grove is an able enough politician, but does not have any ideological background at all and does not know what he really does want. Salvador Allende is a smart politician, veiy intelligent, but not so much so as Rossetti. It is to Bernardo Ibânez's credit that he does not like politics and is a bad politician. *

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CONVERSATION WITH CARLOS DÂVILA IN NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 15, 1949

Those who bank on Chile as the last bulwark of democracy in Latin America are due for a very rude awakening. The present regime in Chile is certainly not any paragon of democracy. Dâvila is willing to wager that half to two thirds of the population is opposed to the current regime, and it is a government without a program. Anyone who is associated with the Gonzâlez Videla regime, who has "collaborated" with it, will be doomed politically in the days to come. To be sure, the government has the support

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of two thirds of the political parties of the country and so won the recent elections for Congress. But there is a growing tendency on the part of the people to be disgusted with all of the parties. As a result of this disgust with all parties, people are beginning to turn in increasing numbers to Carlos Ibáñez. It is Ibáñez who has made the Agraiio-Laboiistas one of the country's major forces. The party itself is made up of a heterogenous group of people, some reactionary landlords, others Christian Socialists, others nondescript, but the thing that holds them together and gives them force is Carlos Ibáñez. If Ibáñez comes to power, it is not clear just what the result will be. To govern, he would have to be somewhat dictatorial, but Dávila does not think that he would be in the mold of Perón particularly. He might, however, be a transition figure in the development of some Peronista kind of regime. Nevertheless, there is one other man who might come to power who would maintain democracy and give it some content, and that is Eduardo Cruz Coke. They are working closely together, but Davila does not think that Ibáñez is a big enough man to put Cruz Coke in office and let him rule. Cruz Coke has split with the Conservative Party and has his own group, which consists of about one third of the former Conservative ranks. He has most of the Conservative Youth with him and has a few other importants figures in the party, such as Horacio Walker and some others. It was a good thing for him to split with the Conservatives, because he did not really belong in that group anyway. He is working in a friendly fashion with Falange, but so far there has been no move to amalgamate the groups. Dávila thinks that the Socialists are making a sad spectacle of themselves. He thinks that the Bernardo Ibáñez group is playing very poor politics. Certainly, on principled grounds they are wrong, because González Videla does not stand for anything they believe in. They argue that they must stay with the government or they will be annihilated by the Communists, and if that were true, then there might be some basis to argue in favor of their present policy on the grounds of expediency. But even that is false. They are being destroyed by their staying in the government. If they had gotten out and maintained the unity of the Socialist ranks, they might be in a position to have an influential part to play in the whole general picture. However, now they will have nothing left politically, once the González Videla regime is finished. Of course, there is another smaller Socialist group, headed by Eugenio González, who is Senator from Santiago, which is anti­ government. However, they are very small, and for instance, González was elected only on the Carlos Ibáñez landslide this last

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time. They have not been able to get much labor support. The masses for the most part are with the Communists. The Communists have not been really been weakened by González Videla’s campaign against them, but rather are profiting from it and capitalizing upon it. They will emerge stronger than ever after it is all over. Dávila told some of their leaders, Pablo Neruda and others.when they were playing "lovey dovey" with President González Videla that he was a man who could not be trusted and that they should not back him so wholeheartedly. They paid no heed, however and they find themselves in an uncomfortable position as a result.

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CONVERSATION WITH CARLOS DÁVILA IN NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 27, 1954

Carlos Dávila had not expected to have such a job as he now has—Secretary General of the Organization of American States. He had his life all planned out. He was going to write and travel and had bought a house in the vicinity of New York from which to do it all. Dávila was asked by Carlos Ibáñez when he was elected again to go back to Chile to edit La Nación, the government newspaper, and Dávila did so as a favor to the general. He thinks that the situation in Chile appears, worse than it really is. Only a few hundred thousand people are involved in the unrest that has received so much publicity. Millions of Chileans are not influenced by it, Dávila does not think that Abdón Parra, the principal Ibanista who flirted with the political parties, is a menace to democracy. Dávila himself was becoming a presidential candidate, because those who had stayed in Chile during the years in which he was abroad had so discredited themselves that he had begun to rise in the esteem of the people, simply because he had done nothing. This is one of the principal reasons for Dávila taking the Pan American Union job.

***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH ALFREDO DUHALDE AT HIS HOME IN SANTIAGO, APRIL 3, 1947

When President Juan Antonio Rios came back from the United States in 1944, he was actively president for a month-anda-half to two months. Alfredo Duhalde had been Vice President

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(Acting President) while Rios had been in the United States. During the period that Rios was actively functioning again as president, Duhalde was on his fundo (farm) and only happened to come to Santiago on personal business in January. Hearing that he was in town, Rios called Duhalde and appointed him Vice President again, thinking that this would last a month or so. Before having given up the active presidency, Rios and his cabinet had decided that it was time to end the illegal strikes that were then plaguing the country. Rios had submitted to the cabinet a report that stressed the necessity of taking firm measures to stop the strikes. When Duhalde came to power, he had to carry out this project, with the support of the various elements in the cabinet. For instance, Eduardo Frei, the Falange Nacional representative in the cabinet, accepted the idea, making only some small comments on it—amounting to changing commas and periods, nothing more. Enrique Arriagada, the Minister of Justice, and a Socialista Autentico, accepted the idea. Rosende,president of the Radical Party, accepted the idea, signing a statement that he, speaking for the party, would back a policy of firmness in the face of the strikes, and specifically, that he would back the lifting of legal recognition from some of the more recalcitrant unions. At the same time, there was in session in Valdivia a congress of the Radical Party, the country's most powerful. For several years, the Communists had been boring from within the Radical Party, hoping that they themselves would be able to become the most powerful party. The Radical Party was the great obstacle, being a party with tradition and money. At the Valdiva conference, the comunizantes were very active. There were a number of Communist leaders who sat in the park outside the Radical congress—including Carlos Contreras Labarca, with whom the comunizantes in the congress were continually meeting about the strategy and position to be followed in the Radical congress. At this time occurred the strike of nitrate centers in the North. The government decided to carry out the policy that it had agreed upon, to try to stop the illegal strike. Duhalde called the leaders of the unions involved into conference and told them that he had to take stem measures in the face of the strike, giving the workers twenty-four hours more, which he gave,and they did not go back to work after that period. Duhalde conferred with Arriagada who was the one who would have to officially sign the decree lifting the legal recognition for these unions. Arriagada agreed. He talked to Frei, who hedged a little bit, but agreed that the thing should be done. The other members of the cabinet also agreed. The decree was thereupon issued, dissolving these two unions. There were protests, and plans for the Plaza Bulnes meeting

187 were pushed forward. The Communists immediately published leaflets urging that fifty or sixty thousand people should turn out to the Plaza Bulnes to the famous meeting. Duhalde, in face of this, figured that it would be better to have a large force of police on hand to having a small one. He figured that a small group—a hundred men, for instance—would merely incite the crowd and would not be able to do anything about it, but that if there were five hundred police there, they would perhaps prevent trouble. They were placed where they were, on the Moneda side of the Bulnes statute, because the permit of the Intendente under which the meeting was held, had specified that the meeting should be on the other side of the statue. The police were put on the La Moneda side, which was presumably on the edge of the crowd. Nevertheless the crowd surged around on the La Moneda side of the statue, crowding in the police, pushing them, and, in self­ protection the police fired. Meanwhile, there was a cabinet crisis. The Radicals had been pushing him to form a new cabinet with the entrance into it of the Communists. He, on the other hand, was seeking a cabinet of the Left with Socialist participation. Duhalde was at the time living in the Hotel Carrera, and he called Juan Bautista Rossetti to a conference there, and proposed to him that the Socialists enter the government because he felt that the situation was critical, that he did not want to bring the Communists into the government, but that he needed a popular party in his support, and so offered posts to the Socialists. Rossetti was convinced, and after securing some guarantees from Duhalde, said he would consult with the Socialist Party on the matter. While Duhalde and Rossetti were talking in the Carrera, the Plaza Bulnes incident took place. Duhalde heard the noise and went out on the balcony—he was in a room on the ninth floor, facing the plaza. He saw from the balcony that there was a disturbance, but Rossetti, who was nervous anyway, wanted to get on with the business and was sure that there was nothing serious happening. After hearing shooting, however, Duhalde went out on the balcony again and saw people lying on the ground and understood that something serious had happened. Rossetti left then, to confer with his confrères about the business just discussed. Duhalde meanwhile sought information about the battle in Plaza Bulnes, learned that twelve persons had been killed and sixty wounded. Duhalde left the hotel, walked towards the Moneda, entered the office of the Ministry of the Interior, but the acting minister, Joaquin Fernández, Minister of Foreign Affairs, wasn't there. Duhalde meanwhile, by himself, had been thinking over what in the world he could do, faced with this undoubtedly explosive situation arising from the Plaza Bulnes

188 affair. He decided to call on the military leaders for help. Having twice been Minister of Defense himself, Duhalde had a number of very good friends among the military and knew that he could count on them. From the office ofthe Ministry of Interior, he therefore called Fernández who said he would come to the Moneda immediately. Duhalde called in the prospective Minister of Interior and informed him of his decision and the Minister accepted the post. The other ministers came in by ones and twos, and many of them resigned. Eduardo Frei quit, after saying that he wanted twenty-four hours to confer with his party—a period that Duhalde would not give him, allowing him only an hour to decide. With Frei out, Duhalde replaced him with a military leader. When Arriagada resigned, with a long and heavily worded resignation, he too was replaced. Meanwhile, negotiations with the Socialists continued to the point of discussing how many posts the Socialists could get. The Socialists demanded four, and Duhalde accepted tentatively, saying he had to go to confer with the president, and would see them the following Monday, three days, the day the second general strike was scheduled to start. Duhalde conferred with President Rios, making several requests of him. First, he won his support for a refusal of the Radicals’ request that the Communists enter the government. Second, he won Rios's backing for a refusal to form a Left government committed to the twelve-point program that the Communists had drawn up. Rios gave Duhalde complete confidence, saying that he had been designated Vice President and that he had faith in Duhalde. Thus reinforced, Duhalde returned to Santiago. The Radicals, meanwhile, had been playing him a double game. Rosende came back from Valdivia, newly reelected president of the party, and with two or three other delegates waited on Duhalde. Rosende said that the situation of the Plaza Bulnes was lamentable, and that the blame for it lay upon the original lifting of the legal recognition from the Mapocho and Humberstone unions. At this charge, Duhalde stopped Rosende cold, by reminding him that he had signed a statement favoring this policy. But the Radicals continued to blow hot and cold, remaining in the cabinet but demanding things that Duhalde could not fulfill. Duhalde decided to draw them out. He left for Viña del Mar, figuring that the Radical leaders would probably figure that a stupid Duhalde did not realize the real importance of events and had gone off at a crucial moment. The strategem worked, and the Radicals held a long meeting, decided to force the issue, and ordered the resignation of their ministers from the government.

189 Pedro Alfonso called Duhalde to tell him the news, saying that he would personally continue on if Duhalde wanted it, but that he thought he would be more valuable outside the government than in it. Duhalde told him no, that all he would like Alfonso to do was to have the resignations in La Moneda at midnight. Duhalde then called his contact man with the Socialists, told him that he accepted the Socialist demands, and ordered him to have the ministers there in La Moneda at midnight. He himself then turned back to Santiago by car, getting there a few minutes after midnight. After having called Fernando Muller and one or two other Radicals who had been loyal to him and having won their agreement to participate in the government, Duhalde swore in the Socialist ministers. He sent an airplane to get the other ministers who were in Concepción and other points in the South, to swear them in the following day, Sunday. The Socialists immediately began to circulate notices in the country, against the second general strike. The government meanwhile took energetic measures, ordering troops to be in readiness to take over the public services, to ride with the street cars. These energetic measures broke the strike in three days except in the coal fields and the nitrate fields. Against the coal fields, the government sent two regiments of the army and the crews of certain warships, to Lota and Coronel. The Communists meanwhile told their people in the coal fields that the sailors would not act because there were revolutionary committees on the ships. This, of course, was an outright lie and the sailors did land and set up machine guns in the streets, ready for action. After three hours consultation, the Communist leaders decided to send their men back to work. Duhalde thinks that this action was unfortunate because had they resisted, he had been ready to arrest the principal Communist leaders and using constitutional powers, ship them to the farthest points of Chilean territory, thereby surely breaking the hold of the Communists in the coal mining areas. Duhalde wishes they had resisted. When the campaign for the presidency began, Duhalde was candidate to succeed Juan Antonio Rios. Having accepted a very moderate Socialist program, and also having support of others in other parties, Duhalde felt he had a good chance to win the election. However, the big stumbling block was El Leon. ['The Lion"] Arturo Alessandri. All forces were being applied to get him to withdraw his candidacy, but "old man" Alessandri was very obstinate. Duhalde meanwhile had started his campaign tour from the South, had had tremendous success, and had come as far as Temuco. There he was called by one of his managers in Santiago, who assured him that the pressure on Alessandri was increasing, and he would probably retire but in favor of Fernando

190 Alessandri, and that in that case, Femando would after a short time retire from the fray, and the Liberal Party would endorse Duhalde. It would be necessary for a short time, however, for Fernando to figure as a candidate and for many of the Duhaldeites to back him during that short hiatus. These events did occurr, but when Fernando Alessandri was designated, he would not retire. Because the principal Duhalde backers had been committed to Alessandri, Duhalde had nothing to do but retire from the contest. Duhalde believes that the real menace to the country now is not the Communists but the president, Gabriel González Videla, who is very a weak man who has never been successful in anything but the Radical party assemblies and who acts emotionally without thinking what he is doing. Duhalde feels that the Communists could be destroyed very quickly by a little firmness against them, even arresting a number of them and shipping them off. Duhalde also thinks that as such the Communists are no particular menace. He believes that they should be driven from the cabinet now, because if they are allowed to continue much longer, many of the people who were anti­ Communists would conclude that the Communists were no longer a menace, and that it would be okay to cooperate with them. Duhalde feels that there is an anti-Communist fervor at this time and this should be taken advantage of. Duhalde thinks that the treaty with Argentina is a scandal; it will make Chile completely dependent on Argentina. The treaty has been pushed through by the Communists because it is convenient for Russia; by González Videla because it will help the government out for a little while; by Eduardo Alessandri because he is interested in a sulphur manufacturing concern, and his support in negotiating the treaty is traded for a larger order for this firm—an order from Argentina, that is. Duhalde feels that if the treaty is not accepted, the present government cannot continue more than ninety days. He feels that if the Liberals left the government, and González Videla is forced to deal high­ handedly, the army and carabineros will not permit this and there will be a military coup, that will set up a "strong" government, though a civilian one. Duhalde thinks that the unionization of farm workers is no solution to the social problem in the countryside. As things stand, this is just a method for the Communists to keep things in effervescence, and its only result will be to decrease production and make the economic situation of the country just that much worse. He believes that the way to attack this problem is not by a law permitting unionization, but rather by a law that would demand fundamental necessities for the workers—decent houses.

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a decent minimum wage, and similar things. This is a much surer way to help the social condition of the people of the countryside, even in the face of a Congress that is opposed to the idea. The executive could introduce such a measure, the Liberals and Conservatives would undoubtedly amend it beyond recognition, but the president could veto these changes, and it would then have the law that he wanted passed—that is to say, his project, minus the changes made by Congress. The situation of the workers in the South is different from that of the agricultural workers near Santiago. There is more mechanization of agriculture in that part of the country, and there are fewer workers, so the workers can be paid better and given better conditions. Duhalde himself has twenty workers on two fundos—he grows wheat and raises cattle. These workers live in wood houses that have five rooms, and have a wooden floor, a chimney, and a stove, and furniture. They have, in addition, a storehouse where the workers can keep the products that they have grown on their own plots of ground. They earn wages of about 15 to 20 pesos a day. Duhalde does not believe too much in the kind of industrialization that is in progress. The Compañía de Acero del Pacifico, for instance, he thinks will be a white elephant, because it will produce steel at prices much above those abroad and will furthermore, not have a market. Duhalde thinks that it would be better to import from the United States machinery sufficient to produce the most nitrates and copper possible, to mechanize agriculture and thus produce wealth that could be invested in the industries of Chile. Chile can now sell all the copper and nitrates that it can produce at a good price, a situation that will not exist a few years hence, and Chile should take the utmost, advantage of this fact. Among the most notable Communist fellow travellers in the Radical party are Fernando Meira, Senators Gustavo Jirón, Isauro Torres, Rudecindo Ortega. Torres is a venomous little man who is with whoever pays him best; he was an Ibañista in earlier days and is a communizante now. Jirón is a bit screwy. Other comunizantes are Minister of Education Rios Valdivia, and Minister of Commerce Luis Bossay. Cuevas is anti-Communist, but lacks strength of character. Rosende is a centrist, also anti­ Communist, of good will but not much else. Juan Pradeñas Muñoz is not the man he once was. He is in decline, has suffered a paralysis attack, and never really recovered from it. González Videla is a man who does not have anything in his favor. He failed as a lawyer and has been successful only in the asambleas of the Radical party where the things that count most are promises, not deeds. He is a man who never looks ahead, and

192 a man who always is rushed. He never profoundly thinks about problems that face him, but is always reaching patchwork decisions, agreeing with each person in turn who suggests any way of solving a problem. He has promised ambassadorships to two people at the same time, for instance. In the case of negotiations over the telephone company, for instance, he told the South American manager of International Telephone and Telegraph from Buenos Aires that the moves that he was taking against the company were just to please the Communists. He then rushed to Contreras Labarca, the Communist leader, and asked if he was satisfied with what had been done. González Videla is a man who has no notion of what it is to be a president, to be the man in command, the man who gives the orders instead of receiving them. Chile is a very difficult country to govern democratically, it needs about two years of very strong government. He thinks a military regime, with civilians fronting for it, is just what the country needs. He thinks that certain moral standards have ben completely forgotten and two or three years of strong rule are needed again to remind the people of these rules. The current regime is not only a danger for Chile, but for all America, and in particular for the United States. If the Communists really get control here, it will be exceedingly dangerous for the United States. One of the reasons why the present regime has come to power is that the U.S. Ambassador, Claude Bowers, was not aware of the danger in a regime such as is now in control. If the United States had had a different man here, Duhalde could have gone to him and talked frankly; this was impossible in the case of Bowers. Further, if the United States were wise, it would help financially the parties here that could fight the Communists, particularly the Socialists. The Socialists are a popular party, but they lack the financial means to do what the Communists are doing. The Socialists are the strongest support for the fight against Russian imperialism. ***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA IN HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, JULY 5, 1968

Gabriel González had not really expected to have the trouble from the Communists that he had in his government. His election campaign was launched when there still was a cordial relationship between the Western countries, particularly the United States, and the Soviet Union, who had fought together to

193 defeat the Nazis. Also, the Communists during the campaign talked in terms of a National Front and of collaboration of various parts of the nation. Once he was in the presidency, however, conditions changed. Stalin, who had until then collaborated with the West, broke with the United States, and the struggle between the two powers began. The effect was felt immediately with the Communists in Chile, who are really just agents of the Soviet Union. They began to demand of González Videla that he break with the United States, that he nationalize the copper mines, and so on. González Videla tried to argue with the Communists and to convince them that the policy of Stalin was of no value to Chile. He pointed out to them that his country needed economic aid for its development, that it needed markets for its products, particularly copper, and that it could get neither aid nor markets unless it was on friendly terms with the United States. But they would not be convinced, and continued to pressure him. In the beginning, the pressure was gentle. But then it began to get a good deal rougher, and the Communists began to threaten him. In the meanwhile, they were gathering both large quantities of foodstuffs and considerable amounts of dynamite, which they told him would be used in a revolutionary general strike against the government if he did not follow the policies that they were suggesting. However, González Videla had a good deal of experience that he had gathered as ambassador to France throughout World War n, which stood him in good stead at this point. He had noticed there how the Nazis, once they had taken Paris, carried on propaganda among the French, seeking to convince them that their defeat had been due to the fact that French democracy— along with all of the other democracies—was putrid, was in decline, and no longer had the will to defend itself. The Germans kept pointing out that the humblest form of animal life had the sense of self-preservation but, as they argued, democracy did not have this, and the young and virile Nazi philosophy was therefore about to destroy French democracy. González Videla was therefore forewarned and prepared. When the showdown came, and they launched a revolutionary general strike in Lota and Coronel, the coal mining towns, he replied to force with force. He had seen how the Nazis behaved in occupied Paris, how they had stuka bombers with sirens fly down upon Paris, while elite troops of the German Army with huge tanks made a tremendous show of force in the city. González Videla did much the same in Lota and Coronel. He moved in elements of the fleet, which fired their guns off shore, of course into the air, while the air force flew overhead, and the heaviest

194 tanks of the Chilean army moved in with all of théir noise into those towns. Within a single day, he arrested two thousand of the Communist leaders. He sent them to Pisagua, a port in the northern part of the country, which the Communists called a concentration camp, which it actually, however, was not. It was a port, somewhat run down and of secondary importance, but a port with running water, electricity and other evidences of civilization, and there González Videla put the principal Communist leaders, and army units to see that they did not leave the place. He kept them there for about a year. Admittedly, the government which he first formed was a peculiar one. It included members of his own Radical Party, as well as right-wing Liberals, and the Communists. The Communists, after all, had helped very much in his election, in a species of Popular Front, so he had in all loyalty to include them in the government. However, he also had to assure the United States and the people of Chile that his was not going to be a Communist government. So he invited the Liberals of the Right to participate in the government, too. They were a guarantee for him in case of emergency, and in the meantime gave assurance that his regime was not controlled by the Communists. The municipal elections of April 1947 were undoubtedly of great importance. As a result of them, the Liberals decided to withdraw from the government. Arturo Alessandri favored withdrawal, as did many of the other leaders of the party, although there were some who were for continuing in office. In any case, they withdrew, and this made it necessary to organize an entirely new cabinet. As a result, González established a national government with various parties represented but without the Communists. Of course, the Communists claimed that he was a traitor. However, the fact was that they were the traitors. After all, he was the one who brought them into the government and gave them a chance to show what they could do. They betrayed him, not the other way around. González Videla thinks that the greatest accomplishment of his government was the industrialization of the country. One of the major things he did, for instance, was to establish the Huachipato steel plant, against a great deal of opposition from those who pointed out, quite correctly, that steel produced at Huachipato was going to cost twice the price at which they could import steel from the United States. When he was still Ambasador to Brazil, but already a candidate, González Videla was very much worried by this. He was a very good friend of President Getúlio Vargas, and he went to

195 see him, knowing that Vargas had undertaken the establishment of the Volta Redonda steel plant there. Vargas told him that he had not been impressed with those arguments. He said that it might be true that they could import steel at half the price from the United States at which they could produce it in Brazil, but what good would that do them if they did not have the dollars with which to buy it fron the United States? This seemed a very convincing argument, and so when González Videla came back to Chile to be president, he undertook to push through the establishment of Huachipato. For this, he had the fullest cooperation with the United States, which gave loans for this purpose through the Export-Import Bank. Incidentally, during his crisis with the Communists, when they had a strike in the coal mines, the Communists were able to shut down the national railway system for three days. But González Videla, through the United States Ambassador, was able to bring this problem to the attention of President Hany Truman, who diverted two shiploads of coal that were on their way to Korea to Chile, and they arrived just in time for González Videla to get the railroads running again. Another project that González Videla undertook was the establishment of a copper refinery, near Coquimbo. There was great opposition to this from the copper companies under United States ownership. However, he was able to go through with this project, too, because he was helped by the Export-Import Bank. A third aspect of his industrialization program had to deal with oil. The Chileans had discovered oil in Magallanes, and they wanted to develop it themselves, but they needed to have refineries. However, the United States and other foreign oil companies wanted Chile to give them control of the development of the country's oil industry. This González Videla refused to do, and as a result, there was a complete boycott of the American companies that built oil refineries . When González Videla went to the United States on a state visit, he brought this question to the attention of President Truman, and told him situations like this gave the United States the appearance of being imperialistic. He said that he understood the position of the oil companies, which wanted to make the best use of their capital, but said that from the point of view of Chile, it was better that they develop their oil industry. Truman said that he was surprised that something like this should happen and that González Videla need not worry about it, that he would take care of it. He added, laughing, that González Videla could not think that United States president did not have trouble with the big companies too. Soon after González’s return to Chile, the country did receive the equipment needed to build two oil refineries, one in Magallanes,

196 and another further North. A fourth move that González Videla made towards industrialization was the establishment of the national electricity grid, which was exceedingly important to permit the expansion of the nation's industries. He launched a number of sizable hydroelectric projects, as well as some thermoelectric ones, and the result was that the country had a national electricity grid, covering most of the country. A fifth thing that González Videla did was to establish the Universidad Técnica del Estado. Until then, Chile's educational system had been exceedingly out of date. It was a humanistic system, copied after that of France at the turn of the century, that provided lots of lawyers, doctors and so on, but that was completely out of the terms of reality of a country that was trying to industrialize. The Universidad Técnica del Estado was established, again over a good deal of opposition from those who wanted to see education maintained in the pattern that it had until then. This university not only prepared technicians on all levels, but also produced people of a higher level who had the title of engineer, which is a highly valued degree in Chile. González Videla also launched near La Serena, his home town, a pilot agrarian reform project involving some eight thousand acres. He expropriated the land and settled colonists on it, dividing the land and selling it to the colonists. These were foreigners from Italy and Germany. He paid for the land involved in cash, so that the landlords came to him and asked him to buy their land. González Videla thinks that lack of cash to landlords is the mistake the United States has made with regard to agrarian reform. This has been launched under the previous administration, under the impetus of John Kennedy, as everyone knows; he thinks that if the United States wanted agrarian reform in Chile and other Latin American countries, it should have made a sizable loan available, to be used just for buying out the landlords, so that they would be paid in cash. Under the present land reform law, this is not the case. First of all, the payment that is being made is very small. Second, it is on paper, for practical purposes. The landlords are given bonds, which by the time that they mature will be virtually worthless. As a result, the present government has aroused the enmity of the whole Right, which it need not to have done, and in addition, it finds itself short of the funds necessary to carry out the agrarian reform. González Videla had passed a law for rural unionization because he wanted to help rural workers, who were living under conditions that were absolutely deplorable and with a dependence

197 on the landlords that was not of this epoch. He thought that something needed to be done to allow the rural workers to organize, present their grievances, and be treated as citizens. There were perhaps some of the provisions of this law that were a bit difficult. For instance, there had to be at least twenty workers in a sindicato. The purpose of this provision was to eliminate from it the workers on the very small landholdings, the owners of which could not really afford to have unions, and to deal with them in collective bargaining. There was also a prohibition in the law against the right to strike. González Videla does not think that agriculture is like industry, where a strike can occur, and when work is renewed it is as if nothing had happened. In agriculture, certain steps have to be taken at certain times, such as ploughing and harvesting , and if they are not done then, they cannot be done during that crop cycle, which can cause untold damage to the economy of the country. As a result, Gonzalez Videla felt that the agricultural workers should not have the same right to strike that industrial workers have. González Videla was worried about the fact that there was too much centalization of the government in Santiago. Therefore, he launched a program that gave more resources and more incentives to the municipalities to do things for themselves. His showplace for this was his hometown La Serena, where he had a very elaborate program of city planning that completely transformed the city. A branch of the Universidad Técnica del Estado was there, and it was very much included in the plan. Incidentally, during the time of his troubles with the Communists, González Videla did not have any trouble within the Radical party. Quite to the contrary, it supported him completely in getting rid of the Communists in the government, and in his subsequent moves to put the Communists outside the law. He thinks that this move was completely justified. They tried to organize a revolutionary general strike against his government, and no democratic regime could continue to exist if it left completely free those who not only would overthrow one's government, but would execute one if they came to power. He knew this, and this is why he moved strongly against them. He felt that force had to be met with force, that it had no other answer. He thinks in this connection that the United States is correct to have outlawed the Communist party. One can just think of what serious difficulties the United States would have if it had a Communist party of the importance it had in Chile when he was first president. It is true that the Communist party is legal again, and that it has come back somewhat, but it is by no means the power and the influence that it was during the first months of his government.

198 ***** CONVERSATION WITH GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA AT HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, JUNE 29, 1971

This is the day that control of the Banco Francés e Italiano para America Latina, of which González Videla is President is to be transferred to the government. Therefore, he is very busy. He is not receiving anyone, but has made an exception in my case. Chile is not going to be a Cuba. They are not going to set up a Communist dictatorship here. The democratic system remains intact, and a reaction has begun. The first evidence of this will be seen in the by-election for deputy in Valparaiso, that will take place in a few weeks. Even in the university, which is the most radical institution in the country, the non-Marxist forces won the rectorship. There will be congressional elections in a bit less than two years, and these will firmly establish the fact that Chile will not become a Communist dictatorship. There certainly will be elections then; there may be some coercion and so on, but the elections will be held. However, although other elements will come to power in the next government, the country will never go back to the Right. There wiil be socialism here, as there is Sweden or Norway, and what is being done now will not be undone, insofar as the economy is concerned. The army remains intact in Chile. In this, the country is not like Cuba. The army does not intervene in politics, it obeys the president, but the moment he should try to overthrow the democratic system, he could not count on the armed forces. Things are bad in the economy. They are taking over all foreign enterprises, the monopolies, and the banks. There will be no turning back from this in the future. González Videla entered politics under Carlos Ibáñez, in the famous Congreso Termal, but he was chosen by his own party, the Partido Radical. In Congress he was, in effect, the leader of the opposition to the Ibáñez government. There were armed attacks on his house shortly before Ibáñez was overthrown; he fought back because he had arms, and a group of Congressmen came and protected him. He and others then took refuge in the Congress building until Ibáñez fell. There has always been a certain amount of violence in Chilean politics, as this incident illustrates. But nothing like the assassinations that have been taking place recently. Incidentally, the government is giving him protection, has police at his home and here at the bank, afraid that something might happen to him, because of his long opposition to the Communists. He is calm, he

199 is staying in Chile and intends to remain in Chile. The Radicals did not support Arturo Alessandri in the 1931 election because they had a candidate of their own party, Juan Estebán Montero, who was victorious. Alessandri then had only the support of the Partido Demócrata. He was a veiy good personal friend of Alessandri and was the man principally responsible for his getting the support of the Radicals in the 1932 election, and therefore for his victory. He remained a friend of Alessandri until Don Arturo's death. The Radicals withdrew from Alessandri's government because of an error of the Right. It insisted on the candidacy of Gustavo Ross to succeed Alessandri, and although Alessandri did not favor Ross, he did not act forcefully enough to stop this candidacy, and this made it untenable for the Radicals to remain in the government although they would have liked to. The Right in Alessandri's regime was implacable. For instance, there was a bye-election for the Senate because of the death of a Radical senator. The Radicals named Gonzalez Videla, then a deputy, for the position, and although Alessandri recognized González Videla's right to the post, the Rightists in the government rigged the election and stole it from Gonzalez Videla, which made it necessary for González Videla to quarrel publicly with Alessandri, in spite of their close personal friendship. Alessandri was very important in the election of Juan Antonio Rios. He supported him because he did not want Carlos Ibáñez, the ex-dictator, to win. He and Ibáñez were very strong enemies, since Ibáñez had exiled Alessandri. Alessandri generally did not hold grudges, but in this case he was an enemy of Ibáñez until his death. At the time of González Videla's own election, in 1946, there was no kind of deal with Arturo Alessandri or with the Liberals generally to get their support for his election by Congress. There was no trade of that support for positions in González Videla's cabinet. González Videla issued a general invitation to those parties that had opposed him to enter the cabinet, inviting the Conservatives as well as the Liberals, knowing that with the Communists in his cabinet he was going to have trouble and feeling the need for getting the confidence of the general public. However, the Conservartives refused to join his government. During his presidency, González Videla always had contact with Alessandri, until the latter's death. However, there was no special contact at the time that the Liberals left his government in April 1947, thus provoking a cabinet crisis. Alessandri just felt at that time, after municipal elections in which the Liberal party had done poorly, that it was time for the Liberals to retire and for there to be a reorganization of the government. That is just what

200 happened. González Videla was a member of the Milicia Republicana during Arturo Alessandri's 1930s administration. The purpose of the organization was to provide a counterweight to the army, which had been intervening in politics since 1924. It was not a partisan political organization. When it had accomplished its purpose, it was dissolved. González Videla agrees that the dissolution was rather sudden, and that the step was taken on the request of Arturo Alessandri. *****

CONVERSATION WITH GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA AT HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, JUNE 2, 1972

The situation in Chile is very serious. However, he does not think that it is hopeless. The economic situation is very bad. All of the industries that have been taken over by the government have had a fall in production and are running at deficits. This is due to a fall in labor discipline, to absenteeism, and to the removal of trained managers, who have often been replaced by manual workers or by civil servants who do not know anything about running the businesses which have been put in their charge. An example of the crisis is the bank of which González Videla was formerly president, the Banco Francés e Italiano, now called the Banco de Concepción. It had business connections in France and generally in Europe and did most of its business in connection with financing foreign trade. Since its nationalization, foreign trade business has been taken away from it. Also there have been put in charge people who do not know anything about banking, which is a fairly complicated and delicate business. In addition, the first thing the government did when it took over was to grant a large wage Increase to the employees, and to extend their vacation periods, to please the workers. The result of this is that the bank, which used to be quite profitable is now running at a large deficit. Under private ownership, owners of businesses are conscious of costs. They have to be, because they are in competition with other businesses. However, in nationalized enterprises there is no concern with costs. In any case, cost accounting and control is a sophisticated process that requires specialized knowledge, and in the nationalized concerns they have generally gotten rid of those who had this knowledge. The Frei government left about $450 million in foreign reserves, but there is not a dollar of that left. The United States, with a

201 tolerance for those who abuse it daily that González Videla cannot understand, is allowing a refinancing of the foreign debt due this year. As a result, the government had to pay only $100 million this year. However, they did not even have that, and to pay what they owed, they got new loans from the United States private banks, which he also does not understand. Virtually the only source of foreign exchange that the country has is copper. However , there are very serious problems in the copper mines. Virtually all of the technicians have left, and workers are managing the mines. The workers revolted against their supervisors and there is now virtually no labor discipline. As a result of all this, production is now going down. In addition, unfortunately, the country is faced with relatively low prices for copper. Agriculture is a mess. The agrarian reform of this government has completely disorganized it. As a result of this situation, the government this year is going to have to import four hundred million dollars worth of food. González Videla thinks that all of this is happening because the Salvador Allende government is trying to do something which is imposible. They are trying to establish a Communist economic system while maintaining a democracy. They have allowed freedom of the press, the continuance of the Congress, the courts, strikes; however, the Communist economic system can only be imposed with a Communist party dictatorship. If they could drive the workers to work with a whip, as they have done in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries, if they did not have to have public opinion, it would not matter to them how bad the economic situation got. But under the political conditions which exist in Chile now, they find themselves in very great difficulties. There is very serious inflation. This is due to the fact that the Banco Central has issued tremendous amounts of money. This has created very great inflationary pressure. How bad it is is shown by the fact that although the official rate of exchange is 42 pesos to the dollar, the black market rate today is 180 to the dollar. The problem the country faces is to last until the elections of March 1973. González Videla thinks that they will be able to survive until elections all right unless there are serious riots or something else of the sort. Then, unless there is an unforeseen split in the opposition, the government will take a tremendous beating. Faced with that, Allende will then have two choices: either to resign; or, if he wants to stay in power, call the opposition into the government. He is already negotiating with the Christian Democratic Party. González Videla thinks that the democratic tradition of Chile

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is strong enough to resist the pressures facing it between now and March 1973. If so, then the president will have two choices he mentions. He thinks that Allende wants to last out his six years, and that he will choose the second alternative. Another element in the situation is the fact that Allende brought a general into his last ministry, General Palacios. However, as minister, General Palacios had to sign a decreto de insistencia to override a decision of the Controller of the Republic, which made the army leadership very upset. As a result, the military have forbidden any officer of the army, navy or air force to take a post in the government. Thus, the military have taken a very independent position, saying to Allende in effect that if he continues to obey the Constitution, they will support him, but that he is on his own, they will not share responsibility with him. Furthermore, they have made it clear that they will not support any attempted coup by the president. Within the government, the Communist party is now the cautious element. He thinks that they learned a good deal from their experience in his government, when they acted the way the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] is behaving today. Furthermore, they now have a great deal more experience, both in Chile and abroad than they had had then. Two thirds of the people of Chile are against Marxism. Allende only won because of the division that existed at the time among this two thirds. Now the two thirds are united again. The Influence of women in this unity is very great. They are the ones who are insisting on putting up a united front against the government. He thinks this united front will be maintained. González Videla withdrew from the Partido Radical, which is still in the government. At the last party convention, it adopted a Statement of Principles that was virtually Marxist. This Statement repudiated the middle class of Chile and the middle­ class tradition of the Radical party and said that the Partido Radical was a proletarian party. However, although he sympathizes with the Partido Izquierda Radical, which quit at the same time, he has not Joined that party. There are two Radical parties in the opposition, the PIR and the Democracia Radical. He thinks that it is important that someone be outside of both of them who at the appropriate moment can help in uniting them. The bye-election in Coquimbo next month for deputy is very important. The government has, on the basis of the statistics, a 20,000 majority; but that was from last year's municipal elections, when the PIR split in the Radical Party had not yet taken place. He thinks that at least 80 percent of the Radicals who voted for the government in that election will vote for the opposition candidate of the PIR in the bye-election. Also, in general, the

203 government has lost a great deal of support since the municipal elections. There is a great deal of generalized discontent, even among the workers, as has been shown in the recent elections in the Central Unica de Trabajadores. Therefore, González Videla thinks that the opposition has a good chance to win the election, and he is going up there next week to campaign for the PIR candidate. He got to know Arturo Alessandri in 1931, after the fall of Carlos Ibáñez. González Videla was at the time president of the Radical Party. It backed a Radical Party candidate, Juan Estebán Montero, in the 1931 election, and since the Partido Radical was then decisive, Montero won. However, in the 1932 election, González Videla worked hard to get his party to support Arturo Alessandri, which it finally did, largely as a result of his urging. González Videla is now president of the Compañía Americana de Seguros de Vida. However, he presumes that this is a temporary situation, because the government is now talking about nationalizing all of the insurance companies as well as other things that they have taken over. ***** CONVERSATION WITH GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA IN HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, JUNE 28, 1972

It is true that he began his political career in the so-called Congreso Termal, hand picked by Carlos Ibáñez; but he was very young at the time, still in his twenties, and was unknown to Ibáñez. He was on the list proposed to Ibáñez by the Radical Party. Ibáñez removed from the list anyone who he thought would offer the least opposition to his regime, but since he did not know González Videla he did not remove him. As deputy, however, González Videla became the leader of the opposition to the Ibáñez dictatorship. His house was raided several times as a result, and he was subjected to extensive surveillance by the police. He resigned as deputy as soon as Ibáñez was overthrown. Proof of what he says is the fact that those elected in the Congreso Termal who had no mass base were never elected again. It was this record of opposition to Ibáñez that explained the fact that Alessandri never held it against him that he got his political start in the Congreso Termal. González Videla was elected president of the Radical Party in 1931, right after the fall of Ibáñez, largely due to the fight that he had led against the Ibáñez dictatorship. Chile of the nineteenth century was ruled by a veritable caste of Basques. They were of course the ones who gave Arturo

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Alessandri a start. Early, however, in his career in the Chamber of Deputies, Alessandri earned a distinguished record because of his oratorical powers. In addition, however, Alessandri had the ability to see the changes that were underway in the countiy, and to sense the reforms that were needed in the light of these changes. As a result, he fought for these reforms, and he became the virtual idol of the people, particularly of the middle class. Arturo Alessandri was always more of a Radical than he was a Liberal. He broke with the Liberal Party on a number of occasions, and was frequently outside of it. In the second administration, Alessandri tried to keep the Radicals in the government. However, the Right, which in Chile at least never learns anything, was absolutely against this. It named Gustavo Ross Santa Maria, who was very reactionary and had a tendency towards being a dictator, as its candidate for president. Ross was very much against the Radicals and was, in the last analysis, responsible for the fact that Alessandri was not able to keep the Radicals in his administration. Alessandri and González Videla were very good friends. However, during the 1938 presidential campaign, this friendship broke for a while. González Videla was very much against the candidacy of Ross. He thinks that it was his campaigning as much as anything else that elected Pedro Aguirre Cerda over Ross. Alessandri's backing of Ross was a great mistake. It was the three Radical Party presidents of the republic who carried on the reform program that Arturo Alessandri had begun. The incident in Congress on May 21, 1938 arose because Alessandri refused to grant the Radical Party leaders an interview to protest intervention by the government in the presidential election campaign which was already under way. If he had remembered at the time that he would have to go before the Joint Session of Congress at the opening of its ordinary session to deliver his annual speech, perhaps he would not have refused this interview, but he did. Because of this, the opposition decided on the very unorthodox procedure of having González Videla get up and ask for the floor in the joint session, to protest the interventions by the government in the election. When he was refused the floor, as they had expected he would be, most of the opposition had agreed that they would walk out of the session, which they did. What they had not expected however, was that the Nacista members of the Chamber of Deputies would begin shooting at that point, which they did, with the result that pandemonium broke loose. As for the Seguro Obrero incident, one thing that can be said is that it virtually ended the Partido Nacista. Only a few of the leadership survived. However, González Videla is sure that Arturo

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Alessandri did not order the murders that took place there. He imagines that when the Nacistas began shooting from the Seguro Obrero into La Moneda, Alessandri probably said something like "Liquidate the situation" to the commander of the Carabineros, who was a man with dog-like loyalty to Alessandri. González Videla thinks that if he had been in a similar situation, he probably would have said something of the sort. But he is sure that in saying this Alessandri did not mean to physically liquidate everyone there, particularly after they surrendered. This is what the Carabineros did, and even brought Nacista prisoners whom they had captured elsewhere to the Seguro Obrero and shot them there. Of course, the Nacistas had murdered several carabineros, too. But Alessandri was too sentimental a man to have ordered the kind of murders that took place there. Alessandri supported Juan Antonio Rios for president in 1942. This support was certainly decisive in Rios's election, against Carlos Ibáñez. The incident was another case in which Alessandri split away from the main Liberal Party, which supported Ibáñez. Alessandri was President of the Senate during part of the presidency of González Videla and worked closely with Gonzalez Videla during that period.

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CONVERSATION WITH GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA AT HIS HOME IN SANTIAGO, AUGUST 13, 1974

González Videla has known Salvador Allende very well, over various decades. Indeed, during González Videla's administration, Allende was one of his strongest supporters against the Communists. He was then a violent anti-Communist. González Videla thinks it was opportunism that changed Allende. The Communists surrounded him. They have a way of picking out people they think will be powerful, building them up, and getting in a position to exploit them. González Videla himself experienced this during Pedro Aguirre Cerda's regime and afterwards. At that time, Communists chose him, and during his 1946 presidential campaign, they made themselves indispensable. They were willing to do anything for the campaign, and never asked money to do it with, always having their own funds, which they undoubtedly had received from the Soviet Union; whereas González Videla's Radical supporters were always in need of funds. However, once he was in office, which was just at the time that the Soviet Union was changing its foreign policy to one of complete hostility towards the United States, the Communists

206 demanded that González Videla break with the United States and align Chile with the Soviet Union. It was when he refused to do this that they began to give him trouble. The Communists treated Allende the same way they had treated González Videla. It was the Communist Party that really was Allende's main support. He didn't even have a majority within his own party for the nomination in 1970; it was Communist influence that secured it for him. Once he was in power, Allende could not count on his own party, being as turbulent as it was, and it was only the Communists upon whom he felt he could rely. González Videla thinks that the Allende regime was essentially the story of the Communists' drive to establish a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship in Chile. He knows that the Communists appeared to be the more moderate element in the regime, but this was just tactics; they were certainly pushing Allende ever faster. González Videla believes that Allende was fully a part of whatever was being planned. Otherwise, he would not have done what he did when a shipment of arms was held up by the customs officials, arms from Cuba. Allende rushed to say that these huge boxes were not arms at all, but were gifts of pictures that had been sent to him. In fact, they were arms enough for 5,000 men. If Allende had not been part of everything that was going on, he would certainly not have done that. In fact, González Videla feels that if the coup had not taken place when it did, there would have been a Communist dictatorship established very quickly, and we would not be sitting here talking about it. There were plans afoot to decapitate the army--he believes in the veracity of the so-called Plan Z, outlining these plans, which he thinks is pretty well verified. They had lists of people that they were going to kill. One has to have lived in Chile to understand what it was that provoked the coup. The inflation was absolutely out of control, at 600 percent a year; there were shortages of everthing; there was complete disorder; large parts of the population were on strike. That kind of situation just could not last. The military were very hesitant to intervene. They are a highly professional group. They only moved, finally, when they felt that it was absolutely necessary. He for one is certainly glad that they did. The economic situation is still very bad. However, the economic team of the government, headed by Raúl Sáez, is certainly a capable and honest one, and González Videla thinks that basically their policies are sound. They are not attempting to return to classical liberalism, but they are trying to end the virtual state monopoly of the economy. However, they and Augusto Pinochet have made it quite clear that the mines and other basic

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elements of the economy are going to be kept in the hands of the state, although foreign firms will be compensated. They are returning the manufacturing plants that were seized by the government to their former owners. The government is maintaining the agrarian reform. However, they are returning to the landowners those parts of their estates that were taken illegally by the Allende government, and in the case of some holdings that were occupied and then taken over illegally. The government says it is not trying to undo things, but to see that nothing more of this type occurs. Also, as a practical matter, it would often be quite difficult to oust all of these people. This is frankly a military dictatorship. He thinks that he prefers this to the civil-military kind that exists in Brazil, where a Congress is kept, but cannot do anything, and there is a rather hypocritical pretense that there is democracy. Most of the civilian advisers of the government are very good people, as he has noted. There are a few from Patria y Libertad, and such people as Jaime Guzmán, who write a good deal, but do not have anything to do with the actual decision making. González Videla knows that the Christian Democrats are very unhappy about the regime. He is one who believes that they thought that once Allende was ousted, the government would fall into their laps. If elections had been held immediately as the Christian Democrats wanted, however, the Communists would somehow have come out on top again. González Videla is sure that Allende committed suicide. It fits in with his character, as González Videla understands it. Allende was an exceedingly proud man, and in the face of his complete failure, and the absolute failure of anyone to come to his aid once the coup had begun, González Videla is sure that Allende felt that his only way out was suicide. No one came to Allende's aid because the coup was an exceedingly well-planned military operation. The military knew exactly what they were doing; they had not only planned for action in the center of the city, but also in the cordones around the city. Those were besieged as the presidential palace was, and so no one could come from them to the center of the city. Each of the cordones had its own tasks to do in the case of circumstances such as those of September 11, after which each was supposed to help the government itself. But the military did the job so well that there was no possibility of their marching on the center. Within six hours, the action was all over except for the snipers, who continued for two or three days. They were all finally extirpated. González Videla is certain that the great majority of the people supported the coup. People still support the junta, even though

208 conditions are very difficult, because they know that it is doing its best. For a convinced democrat such as he is and has always been, it is very hard for him to accept a military dictatorship. But he does, because it was the only thing that saved Chile from a Marxist-Leninist takeover, and because it is the only kind of regime that at this moment can carry out the kind of drastic economic measures that are necessary to get the economy functioning again. He thinks that it will be between five and ten years, certainly five, before the economy will be well-enough reestablished and other changes made, to make it possible to go back to a constitutional regime. When that time comes, González Videla does not think that there will be any place in such a regime for the Communists. To try for a third time to allow the Communists to participate in the democratic process, after the experience of his administration, and the recent experience of the Allende period, would be suicidal. He thinks that the rules of the democratic game don't require participation of those who seek to destroy democracy entirely. Their methods of work, and the resources that they can command, make it inevitable that if they were allowed again to participate in the democratic process they would be able—through infiltration of other parties and deals with other parties—to cause again something like what occurred during his regime and that of Allende. Gonzalez Videla doubts that there will be the kind of guerrilla attacks that have occurred in Argentina, Uruguay, and some other countries. First of all, the army is very well prepared for any kind of fighting ; they have an intelligence system that is very good and well informed, and would be able to infiltrate any guerrilla group that got started in Chile. Finally, any guerrilla effort here would not have the kind of support that he understands the guerrillas have in Argentina. He also doubts that there will be war with Peru, although this is possible and to a large degree it depends upon the United States. The Russians have armed the Peruvians with a large number of tanks, which have given them the advantage in armament, at least for the time being. What Chile will be able to do to counter that armament will depend upon whether the United States is willing to sell arms to Chile under the circumstances. Senator Edward Kennedy has opposed that sale in Congress, but González Videla understands that people with more sense won out and a measure has been passed that provided for $70 million in arms aid to Chile. This will provide the Chileans with enough equipment to stop the Peruvians if they try anything. Without it, the Peruvians might well be able to get to Iquique.

209 González Videla certainly thinks that it is not to the interest of the United States to allow a war started by the Peruvians as it would have to be. With the backing that the Russians are giving Peru, this would be very inconvenient for the United States. He is sure that the Russians would love to see the Peruvians attack Chile, particularly because of their dislike of the current regime in Chile. The overthrow of Allende was a major blow against the Communists, and so against the Soviet Union which had relied very much on the ability of the party here to be able to seize power. The defeat was therefore very grave for Russia, and they would like to push out those who brought it about. Furthermore, a "little war" in South America would be embarrassing to the United States, and in spite of all of the talk about detente, the Soviet Union would still like to embarrass the United States. Some improvement is already visible in the economic situation. Inflation, although still bad, is considerably less than before. In agriculture, there is reported to be a very considerable increase in area planted. Gonzalez Videla thinks that there tended to be considerable sympathy for Richard Nixon in all of his [post-Watergate] difficulties. To some degree at least, Nixon has seemed to be a victim of political maneuvering by the Democrats and also by the Republicans who thought that if they could get him out of the presidency that would improve their chances in the coming congressional elections. Also, the burglary at Watergate has seemed to be a quite minor thing, and certainly not something important enough to force out of office a president of the United States. There has not been much understanding of the gravity of the abuses of power and corruption of Nixon, and if they are as great as I have indicated to González Videla that they were, he certainly thinks that forcing Nixon to resign has been justified. González Videla has been busy for the last year -and-a-half writing his memoirs, which he hopes will soon be ready. He agrees that it is important for the ex-presidents to write their memoirs, but particularly for him, because of the problems that he had with the Communists and the knowledge that he acquired of how they operate. It is not true that he supported Allende publicly in the 1970 election. He did not vote for him either. He resigned from the Radical party when it decided to go into the Unidad Popular, because he could never be a part of an alliance with the Communists. González Videla does not understand how "stupid" Senator Kennedy can say things that he said about Chile; Kennedy represented Allende as a democrat who was overthrown by a group of fascists for no reason. He obviously does not know

210 anything about the realities of the Chilean situation. * * x ♦ * * ***** CONVERSATION WITH JORGE ALESSANDRI IN SANTIAGO HEADQUARTERS OF COMPAÑIA MANUFACTURERA DE PAPELES Y CARTONES, DECEMBER 10, 1946

In the period before the first administration of Arturo Alessandri, the balance in industrial relations was on the side of the employers, who could do pretty much as they pleased, and labor conditions were pretty terrible and a sort of industrial feudalism existed. The Labor Code, which was put into effect by Arturo Alessandri was an attempt to establish an equilibrium in labor relations with the state as the balance wheel and arbiter. But during the last eight years the balance has swung way over in favor of the workers, and now the workers can do just what they want and the employers can do nothing about it. In human terms, the situation is undoubtedly better now than before 1920, but in terms of making the economic system function it is worse. During all the past eight years—since the election of Aguirre Cerda, who was a man with good ideals, but lack of political sense—the labor laws have actually been practically abolished. They are still on the books, but the procedures specified in the laws have not been enforced. Employers have to live up to the law all right, but the workers can call illegal strikes whenever they wish, can ask for illegal wage increases, break contracts with impunity, and though the government could jail union leaders for these actions, it not only does not do so, but on the contrary, forces the employers to deal with the union even though it has broken the law. And the government usually awards the union something as a result of its law breaking. Examples of illegal strikes are the long one in Sewell, which was more an inter -union fight of the Socialists and Communists than anything else. The Socialist leadership was willing to settle but the Communists, for reasons of their prestige, were unwilling to do so. As to this company, the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, it was established many years ago, and under its first manager (who died some ten years ago) labor relations were excellent. The workers still have his picture hanging in their homes. A little while before the manager died, however, trouble began between labor and the subdirector, and when the subdirector succeeded to control of the company, there was a terrible flare-up of labor trouble. This lasted for about two years,then, eight years ago, Alessandri became director and

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straightened things out. Since coming into control of the company, Alessandri has had only one strike, three years ago when the union had a Communist administration—although its administration is usually Socialist—and put up extreme demands to impress its following, then wanted to arbitrate these demands. Alessandri refused to arbitrate, since the demands were absolutely impossible, but finally agreed on arbitration, when the union leaders came down in their proposals. Generally, though, relations with the workers have been excellent. There are regular meetings twice a week with a committee of five workers, leaders of the union. Actually, these meetings occur more frequently than this, almost every day either in Puente Alto or in the company's headquarters in Santiago, and these five workers are actually paid by the company to carry on agitation in favor of the workers, since they do little actual work in the plant. This committee discusses not only wages and hours, but anything else that they want to bring up concerning the management of the plant. In the plant, there are managers of various sections of the plant and local union committees that iron out small matters. The really urgent matters Alessandri handles himself, and there is no personnel manager. A great deal of tact and diplomacy is needed, and peace is kept in the factory largely due to this tact and diplomacy. Alessandri tries to get the least bad possible settlement with the workers directly because the government decision is invariably worse than anything he would get from the workers, and he would have the government running his business otherwise. As to politics—there was a traditional fight in Chile between Radicals and Conservatives. Arturo Alessandri was elected by the left-wing, but not the Communists, in 1932. During his regime, the Conservatives tied up with the army. The army is traditionally an enemy of Arturo Alessandri and he has always fought for civilian control of the government. In the election of 1938, there were three candidates, Aguirre Cerda; one of Alessandri's ministers, Gustavo Ross; and an extreme Rightist. When Aguirre Cerda won, the Conservatives thought to use the army to prevent his victory, but Arturo Alessandri quashed that idea. Aguirre Cerda was well-intentioned but knew nothing of politics and his regime was sterile. When he died, the Left was discredited, so it put up a Right-wing Radical Juan Antonio Rios, for president. The Conservatives put up Carlos Ibanez, and although Arturo Alessandri did not like Rios, he preferred him to the return of the military dictatorship with Ibanez. During the Rios regime, the Liberals—Arturo Alessandri's party—were in and out of the government. When Rios died, the Conservatives felt that their time had come (they had not had a president in almost one

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hundred years) and they broke up the Lib eral-Conservative Alliance that had controlled Congress during the previous two years. There were three main Candidates—Eduardo Cruz Coke of the Conservative Party; Fernando Alessandri of the Liberals and anti-Communist Radicals; and González Videla of the pro Communist Radicals and the Communist Party. The Socialist party stayed out of the fight officially, but most of the Socialists supported González Videla. When the issue was thrown into the lap of Congress because no candidate had received a 51 percent majority, the Conservatives wanted to block González Videla's election, which would have meant a popular revolution. In the face of this threatened revolution, Arturo Alessandri negotiated with González Videla, and it was agreed that the Liberals would support the election of González, and that he would include them in the Cabinet and modify his policies somewhat. In actual practice, the Liberals have not been able to modify much. ***** CONVERSATION WITH JORGE ALESSANDRI IN OFFICES OF PAPER COMPANY IN SANTIAGO, JULY 5, 1968

It is not true that he was the only son of Arturo Alessandri who was not a politician. For one thing, he had been a deputy on two occasions, as an Independent. Also, his brother Fernando was a senator for twenty years and his brother Eduardo was a deputy. But his oldest brother, Arturo, who was head of the Law School of the University of Chile and an honorary member of the Law School of the Sorbonne , was never in politics. Also, he has two brothers who are doctors and they never participated in politics at all. There are many of them; and it just appears that they have all been politicians. Jorge Alessandri never intended to be a politician and he does not like politics. In Chile, politics is very dirty. He thinks that the way politics is here is completely out of tune with an industrial society of the type that Chile has become. It is particularly out of step with a situation in which the state intervenes in the economy to the degree that it does. For instance, Congress has entirely too much power here. It can initiate legislation equally with the president. It has the power on the legislative level, as it should have, but it also has power on the executive level, with the Congress interfering frequently in executive matters. In fact, the Congress has more power than the president. It can independently increase taxes or lower taxes, as it sees fit. It can add to legislation proposed by the

213 executive, or deduct from such legislation. This is completely incompatible with the modem industrial society, as is the whole idea of division of power, which has been handed down through the French Revolution from the ideas of Montesquieu. Jorge Alessandri thinks that the system needs to be completely overhauled. There is no question in his mind that the powers of the Congress should be reduced and that those of the executive should be increased. It is true that the present president has urged such changes. But when Alessandri proposed them during his own presidency, Eduardo Frei was the first one to oppose them, saying that Alessandri wanted such changes so as to cover up his own incompetence. Frei said that he had full confidence in Congress, that he had been a member of Congress for a long time, and that if he got to be president, he would be able to manage Congress with ease. He has found out differently in the presidency. Frei in any case is nothing more than a vulgar politician. He is a demagogue, who never has had a real idea of his own. He was a leader of a party, surrounded by a group of young technicians who wrote his speeches, but he had no capacity of his own. He was a third-rate lawyer; he was a university professor who only had taught three years because he could not get any students to stick with him. He was a person who never fully dedicated himself to any walk of life and is completely incompetent and a demagogue. One of the major accomplishments of Jorge Alessandri's government was its housing program. Until he came to the presidency, each social security fund [caja] had built houses on its own, and in a very individualistic way, with the members of the fund being able to hire their own architects, buy their own land, make their own houses at any cost they wished. Under his administration, the funds of all of the cajas were combined and were turned over to the Corporación de Vivienda, which began to build public housing in the way that it should be built. They constructucted apartments, which were of standard size and design, thus saving large amounts of money, and making it possible for the same money to build many more apartments. During his administration, 100,000 houses were built, and these were real houses, with decent accomodations for those who got them. The Frei government has made a disaster of its housing program. Except for one project that they carried out on the model that he had established, their programs have been horrible. They talk a lot about self-construction, but the fact is that the houses that they provide the people by this method are miserable, little better than the slums from which the people have come

214 originally. This is a fraud so far as a housing program is concerned; it is pure political propaganda. Most of the things that this government has done have been political propaganda. This applies to their juntas de vecinos. their communitarian projects, and all of the rest. They do not contribute anything to the nation but rather make political propaganda for the government that is now in office. This is true of the agrarian reform program as well. Alessandri put on the books an agrarian reform law. It was the right kind, the only kind. It provided for taking lands that were not being used, or were being badly used, and paying for them, and putting workers on them in their own landholdings. What this government has done is something quite different. It has taken land at a miserable price, which will be paid in paper, not in cash, and has converted these lands from ones in which there was a private proprietor into lands in which the government is the proprietor. This, like everything else this government has done, is purely political propaganda. This land reform program endangers the whole system of private enterprise in Chile. What it means for practical purposes is that anyone who owns property can be despoiled of it at any time it suits the government. The rulers of the United States have never understood the situation in Chile and other Latin American countries. In the United States, whatever the differences between the parties, there is a broad basis of agreement between them, and among the citizenry in general. There is belief for instance in the evils of the Communist system. There is a belief in the virtues of the system of private enterprise. But in Chile there is no such general basis of agreement. Here there is a large segment of public opinion that does not believe in private enterprise, that is attracted by the model of the Soviet Union, and that believes in government domination of the economy. This fact is due purely and simply to political propaganda over a long period of years. This is the position that has been taken for thirty years by Eduardo Frei and his party. They have been essentially Marxian, although they do not come out and say so but talk about communitarianism. They are vague about just what this means for one simple reason- they realize that they need the financial help of the United States, and they will not get it if they come out and make clear what they really think. This is much misunderstood in the United States. When he went there, he was always faced with the picture of the "conservative" government of Alessandri. But this reflected a complete misunderstanding there of what the true Chilean

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situation was. There was a confusion of what conservatism means in Chile and what it means in the United States. Here, purely and simply, what in the United States is called conservatism is more belief in private enterprise. There is nothing conservative about this, as his housing program has demonstrated. He and others believe in a role for public enterprise, but they also believe in the right to private enterptise, which no longer really exists here, with the right of the government to expropriate anything at any time that it suits their fancy. This misunderstanding is having very bad results here. Those in the business community who were by conviction and interest friendly to the United States have been exceedingly disheartened by the friendly attitude that the United States has had towards the present government, and the condemnations in the United States of all those here who were for private enterprise as being "conservative." The result of this is that there exists a great feeling of discontent in this group against the United States, which is now resulting in a general feeling of hostility towards the United States by all elements of the Chilean people. Alessandri thinks that there are severe limitations that should be put on the unionization of the rural workers. By and large he does not think that the unionization of the city workers has been such an unmitigated success that it should be transferred to the countiyside. He thinks that there might be reason for the rural workers to have their own organizations, and to present their grievances, but he certainly does not think that they should have the right to strike or that in general they should have the same power as the urban workers do. What this means basically is the transference of politics to the rural areas. That is the meaning of the rural unionization law that has been passed by the present government. It is another measure that has as its only real objective the gathering of political benefits by the present administration. When he took over the management of the Cia. Papelera, the union there was one of the reddest in Chile. However, over a period of twenty years that he was manager of the company, he followed a policy of dealing personally and closely with the workers, getting their confidence, and dealing with them honestly, giving as much as the company could afford to give, and the result was that he never had any trouble in a major way with the union. Unfortunately, when he left the management to become president of the republic, the people who succeeded him did not pay as much attention to the labor situation as he had done. For one thing, the company grew rapidly, setting up several new large plants, and as a result, the interest of the general manager was

216 diverted from the activities at the Puente Alto plant with unfortunate results. When Alessandri returned to the company three-and-a-half years ago. this time not as General Manager but as President of the Board, he had talks again with the workers and found that there was brewing a wide degree of discontent, which he continually kept bringing to the attention of the manager. However, due to inertia and other problems, the General Manager did not do anything about the situation. The upshot was the sudden outbreak of a strike almost two months ago. When this happened, the workers turned to him, although he really did not have the right to intervene, and the company finally was able to reach an agreement. Where the workers had been asking for as much as an 80 percent increase, he finally got them to settle for 28 percent. The paper industry has become something of an export industry since I first saw it twenty years ago. The company built two new plants to produce pulp, and cellulose, and for a while it exported this to Argentina. When they built the cellulose plant,they only had a demand here for about 40,000 tons, but this was not enough to have an efficient operation, so they built one for 80,000 tons. They were able for a while to export to Argentina and to other South American countries. On this basis, they trebled the size of the plant. Although demand here has risen sharply, due to the greater use of paper, they still have to export a good deal. The prices, meanwhile, have fallen, because there has been a great expansion of the industry in various parts of the world, so what they export they do virtually at a loss. This situation, however, has not prevented the Frei government from undertaking the establishment of two other cellulose plants, which they are doing in conjunction with foreign investors. They are doing it on the basis of studies by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization and Economic Commission for Latin America, (which cause more trouble than anything else to Latin America's economy) that show that there is a market for 250,000 tons of cellulose in South America. The only trouble is that they are not aware of the fact that different kinds of wood make different kinds of cellulose, and there is nowhere near the market of 250,000 tons of the kind of cellulose that is made from the kind of wood that is exploited in Chile. Another case of the political demagoguery of the present government is what they have done in the sugar field. In 1963 and 1964, the price of sugar was over 12 ♦ a pound. Alessandri warned that this was a temporary situation and that the international price would come down sharply. In spite of this, however, the Frei government decided to go in for a big program of

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growing beet sugar, and they established the Industria Nacional Azucarera S.A. (INASA) to process it, with disastrous results. The price of sugar in Chile keeps going up, in spite of the fact that the international price has fallen to below 2i a pound, because beet sugar is very expensive. The Viña del Mar refinery, which uses imported cane sugar, is making fabulous profits, but there are moves to have it help pay the deficits of INASA. It would have been much better to have expanded the productive capacity of the Viña del Mar refinery, but the Christian Democratic politicians wanted to say that they had sugar refineries in their districts, so the plants for beet sugar were built, with no regard to the welfare of the Chilean people. It would have been much better to have continued to import sugar, which would sell at a low price internally. The funds thus saved could have been used to expand the production of wheat that has to be imported in large quantities. It was the workers of Alessandri's paper company who came to him and asked him to be candidate for president. He had not the slightest dream that he would ever be president, and had no desire to be so. He had been deputy and Minister of Finance, but he had no liking for politics, and still does not. He is now retired from politics. It is his intention to stay that way, but one never knows what will happen. He did not intend to run the first time, and there is no question that he is still widely popular. In his election, the areas that usually went for the Conservative and Liberal parties went for the most part for Frei. The areas that usually went for the Left, went for Alessandri, particularly the most working class areas. He still has wide support exactly in those same areas. The reasons for this support are quite simple. People knew that he was a serious president, who did not make politics from the presidency. He was austere in his personal life, as he had always been, and he insisted that his ministers and heads of departments be the same. The leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties came to him after his election and wanted to conduct themselves in the ways which had been traditional, wasting the government’s money on political appointments of their followers, but he would not permit this. All of this is known to the people, and explains his continuing popularity. One of the worst things about the current government, its wasting of the public treasury. No government in the history of Chile has had the resources at its disposal that this one has had. The price of copper is twice what it was during his administration; they have had more resources in the form of taxes and foreign loans than any other government ever had; and they have completely wasted this money, have spent it on juntas de vecinos

218 and other nonsense, which have as their only purpose the building of political capital for the party in power.

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CONVERSATION WITH JORGE ALESSANDRI APARTMENT IN SANTIAGO, JULY 1, 1971

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When Jorge Alessandri was growing up, he was the quietest of all his brothers and sisters. It is certainly not true, as his sister Marta says, that he objected when he was spanked and she was not. He was always calm, he did not get involved with such things as that, and certainly would not have made such a protest. However, once he was grown up, he was the first one to talk back to his father, perhaps as a reaction to his previous passivity. During his father's first term as president, he began to speak up to him and say when he disagreed with his father, or thought that he was doing something wrong. At first, the other family members were scandalized, but when they saw that nothing occurred to him other than some furious talk from his father, they also began to speak up to Don Arturo. Later, Don Arturo was to say that although he was a great proponent of the presidential system of government in Chile, in his household there was the parliamentary system, and his voice counted for nothing. Arturo Alessandri was brought up in an exceedingly strict and Catholic family. When Jorge Alessandri and his brothers and sisters would go to visit their grandparents, they would have to sit up straight on a chair, not cross their legs, and not take part in the conversation. His grandfather was so strict that when a daughter's marriage failed, she was banned completely from the house and was not even allowed to come to her mother's funeral. In Don Arturo's own household, the children sat at the table quietly. They were not allowed to speak unless they were spoken to, Jorge Alessandri remembers this very well. They were supposed to eat their meals and not engage in the conversation. The first Alesandri was brought here by O'Higgins, to establish the Instituto de Arte. He became a businessman later. Jorge was with his father during his first exile from 1924 to 1925. They went first to Paris, where they spent most of their time. France had just then devalued the franc, and many of the legal people there did not realize the effect that this had had on a lot of other countries. They consulted Don Arturo, and he wrote a number of studies on it for various people, thus earning a bit of money. Then they went to Italy, where they saw Mussolini twice. The first time they saw him in Mussolini's own office, and Don Arturo

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told Mussolini that he was a supporter of a democratic form of government and did not believe in dictatorships. The second time they saw Mussolini was at a dinner given by the king. This was a very formal affair, and there was not much chance for the kind of talk that they had had before with Mussolini. Jorge Alessandri was there both times. Ricardo Donoso is certainly wrong when he says that Arturo Alessandri was favorably impressed with Mussolini and with Fascism. Quite the contrary, he was very badly impressed with them, and thought that they were very bad. The only times that Jorge Alessandri has been out of Chile, except when he went to the United States while he was president, were when he was thrown out and had to leave against his will, in 1924, in 1925, and in 1928. He returned in 1930 because he was sick, but was again thrown out. Then he finally returned with his father after the overthrow of Ibanez. Jorge Alessandri thinks that Ricardo Donoso was brought to hate his father for a very justified reason. His father created two posts, the Director and Subdirector of the National Archives. Because of previous service, the post of Director should have gone to Ricardo Donoso, but Arturo Alessandri gave it to a personal friend of his, since he was very loyal to his friends. During Arturo Alessandri's second administration, several of the ministers, including Gustavo Ross Santamaria, would often come to Don Jorge in this room, and present him some problem which they were afraid to bring to his father, because they feared that the president would give them a tongue lashing. Don Jorge would take such matters up with his father before the ministers did, and often could avoid impetuous response by his father to their problems. Even Gustavo Ross, who was often thought of as a very independent, was afraid of outbursts by Don Arturo. Eduardo Frei is the man responsible for the situation the country is in at the present time. He thought that he could bring about Communism without Communists, establish a "communitarian" society, the like of which has never existed and never will exist. He spread the idea of destroying the existing society to build a new one. He encouraged the rebelliousness of the youth. Frei inevitably failed in what he was trying to do, and the country is faced with the present situation. Alessandri thinks that the present regime is going to end in a dictatorship of some kind, either military or Communist. He is skeptical whether the military will step in to prevent a Communist dictatorship: however, the economic situation is leading to a showdown before very long. As a result of having to give 40 percent to 50 percent wage increases without being able to increase prices, virtually every firm in the country is losing money.

220 Perhaps the government wants this, so as to give thè government an excuse to take over firms, he does not really know. If so, this confirms his argument that they are moving towards a Communist dictatorship. It is true that the Chilean Communists are exceedingly faithful to Moscow, and follow every change in Soviet policy; however, they do so out of faith. They do not do so out of having been bought, as is true with some other politicians. Every party government needs to get as many places and Jobs as possible for the party faithful. Once upon a time they were satisfied with just government jobs, with no recognition of seniority or anything else of the sort. Then governments began to create autonomous agencies and corporations, for the purpose of getting stll other jobs for their people. The current government is going all the way, taking over the whole economy so as to have all of the jobs in it to give to the party members. Alessandri's predecessor as president, General Carlos Ibanez, had considerable trouble with the armed forces. Don Jorge's successor was almost overthrown by the military; there was a real mutiny in the barracks. In contrast, while he was president, Jorge Alessandri did not meddle at all with the armed forces, and he did not allow anyone else to do so, with the result that during his six years in office, he never had a murmur of trouble from the military. Ever since 1939, when the Popular Front came to power, he has seen that Chile has inevitably been heading for disaster, something of the kind that is happening now. This feeling was not because he was a Rightist, because he does not have a shadow of a Rightist about him, but he saw clearly that the Labor Code, which had been enacted by his father, was designed for a completely liberal economy. It provided for free bargaining between unions and employers, but then everything else was also free in the economy. Starting in the 1930s, however, there began to grow a series of government controls, first over imports and exports, then over investment, prices, and a variety of other things, while the workers and employers were left free to bargain. Sooner or later, this system would not work. Alessandri saw this clearly because he had had the experience necessary to understand what was going on. He spent most of his earlier life as a government functionary of one kind or another until 1939, when he was removed by the Popular Front government. At that point, he became the head, the technical head, of a large private enterprise. In addition, of course, he knew a great deal about the politics of the country, because of having grown up in his father’s household. Thus, he was able to see things from the point of view of the private enterprises, the public administrator, and the politician, where

221 most others saw the situation only from the point of view of the businessman, the government, or the politicians. Salvador Allende now has a large presidential guard and takes elaborate precautions in coming to work. Eduardo Frei also had a large guard of carabineros and others. In contrast, he, Jorge Alessandri, walked through the streets at will by himself, walked to work every day, and gave strict orders that there were to be no protections provided for him. There is now a carabinero guard provided for him by this government; however, he is not afraid, nothing is going to happen to him. He remembers that while he was president, there were sometimes student demonstrations outside of his apartment house. On one occasion, he came out while a protest was going on and walked along the sidewalk on the way to La Moneda, alongside the students marching and demonstating in the street. ***** CONVERSATION WITH JORGE ALESSANDRI IN THE OFFICE OF LA PAPELERA SANTIAGO, JULY 4, 1972

Jorge Alessandri's father got his political start from Fernando Lascano, who was a very good friend of Arturo Alessandri's father, who chose Arturo Alessandri instead of his older brother José Pedro to be candidate for deputy from Curicó. Arturo Alessandri remained a friend of Lascano even though they had very different political ideas. With the senatorial election in 1915, Arturo Alessandri took off on his own, so to speak, without Lascano's sponsorship. In 1920, Lascano opposed Alessandri’s presidential candidacy and went with the part of the Liberal partly which split away to be against Alessandri. In the Chamber of Deputies, Arturo Alessandri was from the beginning a very combative figure. He was outstanding because of his oratory. But he had no presidential ambitions at that time, because no politician who was very combative and therefore had many enemies, had ben elected president, except José Manuel Balmaceda. They had all been rather quiet men. In the senatorial campaign of 1915, Arturo Alessandri ran against Arturo del Rio, a Balmacedista Liberal, who had been the dominant figure in Tarapacá since it had been taken over from Peru. He had complete control there, and corruption was immense. But there was also a large congregation of Radicals there, although no one had dared to run against del Rio for fear of being killed. In 1915 the Radicals there looked for someone from outside who would have the courage to run against del Rio, and

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decided that Arturo Alessandri was the man. ' It was this campaign that sparked Arturo Alessandri's presidential ambitions. When Jorge Alessandri and his brothers and sisters were children, their father was very busy with politics and his profession. They saw him generally at lunch and dinner. He did not play with them at all that Don Jorge can remember. But he was very concerned with the way they were doing in school and used to interrogate them extensively about it. He always set very high standards for them. Their mother was concerned exclusively with bringing up her family. In this, she was like a traditional Chilean woman of the beginning of the century. She hated politics, and she suffered veiy much from the turbulent kind of political career that her husband had. She was calm retiring, and Jorge does not remember any quarrels between his mother and his father. This was spite of the fact that she suffered a good deal from Don Arturo's marital infidelities. Particularly in her later years, she did not lack friends who made it a point to tell her about these, although in fact they meant nothing. She died young, largely because of her suffering from politics and other things. It was true that he had many disagreements with his father. These were not over political philosophy, but over the methods and procedures that Don Arturo used. As an engineer and public employee, Don Jorge was in a position to know the feelings and attitudes of people who were not politicians. He often told his father of things that were making people unhappy. He was the only one who would ever do so. He objected to his father's making political appointments, passing over career peolple with much better qualifications in favor of political people who had no capacity except to get votes. He spoke to his father often about this, but his father's reply was that in politics one had to make certain sacrifices of principle sometimes. In his own presidential administration, Don Jorge was careful to avoid that kind of political patronage, and it got him into trouble with the parties that supported him. The opposition press got wind of these disagreements and tried to exploit them to bring dissension in his administration. However, in fact they did him a great favor, because his attitude was very popular with the government employees and the general public. He left the presidency respected by everyone. Don Jorge objected to his father's tendency to act impetuously. Don Arturo would do things without thinking, and then be sorry for them later. In his own administration, although he had a temper the same as his father did, he tried to think through the consequences of things he did before he did them. His father loved power and popularity. Don Arturo had

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considerable popularity as a deputy. But in the senatorial campaign and thereafter, he became an idol of a large part of the population. He remained this for a numbers of years, and he revelled in it. He also loved to have frequent contact with the press. He was very good to his friends in the press and was very rude to his enemies among the group. He got together with his press friends frequently and was on an informal relantionship with them. In his own administration, Don Jorge did not maintain close contact with the press; he had certain reserve with regard to them. When he was the Minister of Finance of González Videla, and journalists approached him for news, he told them that when he had something to tell them, he would call them in. They did not like his attitude at all, but the fact was that most of the matters with which Don Jorge was dealing were too complicated for the journalists of that day, who were not as good as the current ones. He did not want to have to spend hours clearing up mistakes because they had not understood what it was that he had really said. Not sufficient tribute has been paid to his father because, although loving popularity the way that he did he had been willing to adopt measures during his second administration that he knew would be unpopular. Since the constitutional regime had been broken during his first administration, he felt that it was his obligation to see to it that it was restored during his second administration. There were particular problems with the military, who had been rebellious for a period of eight years. One way of handling this was to get passed special Extraordinary Powers, which permitted him on certain occasions to censor the press. He used these powers sometimes, and he knew very well that his use of them was unpopular. One instance related to the Topaze case. That humor magazine was going to carry a cartoon of Arturo Alessandri as El Leon, with Carlos Ibáñez as the lion tamer, whip in hand. Arturo Alessandri got wind of this, and sent an order to bum the edition. He than went to Viña del Mar. Don Jorge and others finally dissuaded him from this, convinced him that it was not a good idea, but by that time, since he was in Viña del Mar, he could not get the countermanding order to the officials in Santiago on time. This was an example of what Alessandri mentioned earlier, of his father moving on impulse without thinking through the implications of what he did. In contrast to his father, Don Jorge has never wanted political power or popularity. He ran for deputy in 1925 when a group in the government put up his name at a time when many many independents were running. He got elected and served for a short

224 while, until Ibáñez set up the dictatorship and exiled him. At other times, also, he only served as minister and president because he was insistently asked. He has always of course been interested in public issues, and much of the time directly concerned with them. He was president for a long while of the Confederación de Comercio y Producción, and in that capacity was always following measures in Congress and the administration that were of importance to that organization. He often appeared before Senate and Chamber committees dealing with such matters, but he did so without publicity. He thinks people can be more effective if they do not seek publicity, because once someone achieves notoriety, he or she becomes involved in tangential political issues that are irrelevant to the main concerns. Arturo Alessandri was in exile the first time for a very short time. Don Jorge was with him. The recent French devaluation of the franc had given rise to a number of complicated legal problems. Some friends of Don Arturo's made arrangements for him to act as consultant to lawyers who were dealing with these problems, of course for a fee. He was well qualified to do this, as ex-President of a country in which devaluation had been a chronic problem. After his second resignation, Arturo Alessandri went back to his law practice. He had several cases that paid pretty well. There was no exchange control then, so he could get funds out of the country. He also received financial help from friends. However, one could live well on Chilean pesos in France then. When they first went to France, one peso would buy five francs. For all of this, however, the Alessandris lived very modestly when in exile. They had an apartment a block from Place Victor Hugo, typical of the old apartments of that time. They had a living room, dining room, three bedrooms and two baths, very modest for their needs at the time. In his second exile, Don Arturo spent a lot of time with intellectuals, and particularly with historians. There was a debate then going on about the value of the French parliamentary system, and so a professor of the law school in Paris got Arturo Alessandri to write a treatise on the presidential system he had established here. It was published in Paris in French, and Don Jorge does not know whether it has been published in Spanish. Arturo Alessandri was converted to the presidential system after becoming president. He came to the conclusion quite quickly that it was Impossible to govern effectively with the parliamentary system and came out publicly against it, saying that no one had more right than he to criticize the parliamentary system, since there was no one who had abused it as much as he had when he

225 was in Congress. In this, he was like Balmaceda, who contributed very much to reducing the very strong presidency that had previously existed, and then as Minister of Interior under Santa Maria and during his own presidential period, turned around and did all he could to strengthen the presidency. Don Jorge went into exile with his father the first time. In the second period, he stayed in Chile for a while. Then when Ibáñez came to power, he was exiled for two and a half years to France. He came back when he got sick, but in spite of his illness he was exiled again by Ibáñez, with his brothers this time. They were in Argentina when Ibáñez fell. Arturo Alessandri read very widely. As a youth, he read all kinds of things, virtually any kind of text that one could mention. In his middle years, he did not have so much time to read although he still read quite a bit. After he was out of the presidency for the second time, he again read voraciously, kept up on everthing published in Chile. He particularly liked to read history, but he also read novels.poetry, and other kinds of books. During his second administration, in the 1930s, Arturo Alessandri tried to keep the Radicals in his government. They left over the issue of Miguel Cruchaga, a Conservative, staying as foreign minister. President Alessandri insisted on keeping him to preserve his own right to choose his ministers, and because he was very good man for the job. However, he continued to negotiate to get the Radicals back in his government. This was made impossible by friends of Gustavo Ross who got him to strongly oppose it. Arturo Alessandri had not been for Ross as presidential candidate in 1938, because he thought that Ross would lose. His nominee was Emilio Bello Codesido, who had been his Minister of War from the beginning of his second administration and had been a key figure in getting the armed forces under control. He was a Liberal, of about the same age as the president. In the 1942 presidential election, Arturo Alessandri supported Juan Antonio Rios, although he had to split the Liberal Party to do it, since the Right had endorsed General Ibáñez. Don Arturo's support for Rios was decisive in the election. Arturo Alessandri wanted to run again in 1946 because he loved power, it was as simple as that. He had kept very close contact with his political friends, unlike Don Jorge, who did not do so after leaving the presidency. Don Arturo had been relatively retired, although senate president, and had not thought about running again. However, the Conservatives thought that they had a chance to win and they had put forth the name of Eduardo Cruz Coke. He was a very oustanding doctor, a close friend of Hernán Alessandri, the doctor brother, and had been made

226 politically by Arturo Alessandri when he had been Minister of Health in Don Arturo's second administration. Liberals were very perturbed by this candidacy, since they wanted the presidency for a Liberal. Some of them who had no chance of getting the nomination themselves, came to Arturo Alessandri and urged him to be the Liberal nominee in the convention of the Right which was going to be held. Don Jorge was very much against this, and advised his father not to do it, although his brother Eduardo was all for it. However, those who were trying to convince his father got to him when Don Jorge was out one day, and when he got back, he was faced with the fait accompli that his father had agreed to run. In the Right Convention, the Conservatives violently attacked Arturo Alessandri. Also Cruz Coke was very anxious to be the candidate. So the convention split up, the Conservatives named Cruz Coke, and the Liberals, Arturo Alessandri. But the Radicals were also split, and Vice President Alfredo Duhalde, in order to stop González Videla, came up with the idea of Fernando Alessandri running with his, Duhalde's, support, in place of Arturo Alessandri. Don Jorge thought that that was a crazy idea, but that was what transpired. When no candidate got a majority, Arturo Alessandri supported Gabriel González Videla in the congressional vote. They had been good friends: González Videla had been the man mainly responsible for Don Arturo's election the second time, since he had been the one who brought the Radicals around to support his candidacy in 1932. In any case, the Conservatives had said terrible things about the Alessandris during the 1946 campaign, and Don Arturo had always felt warmly towards the Radicals. When González Videla came to solicit his support, he gave it. This is the way the tradition started that when the presidential election is thrown into Congress, it will vote for the candidate who got the largest number of popular votes, although the Constitution provides that it can vote for either the first or second most voted nominee. Arturo Alessandri was formally a Catholic because he had been brought up in a very Catholic family, but he did not go to mass, and was not a practicing Catholic. He did not receive the sacrament of extreme unction because he died in the street. He was out walking, felt a terrible pain, went in to a store to ask for a drink of water, when someone returned to bring it to him, he was found slumped on the floor, dead. Arturo Alessandri could never be classified as a conservative. He advocated very substantial reforms, particularly in the relationship between workers and their employers. He felt that workers should be represented by unions, which he created.

2TI When he advocated this, he was regarded as a Communist fellow traveller, by conservative elements in the community, although later this idea became adopted by everyone. His father believed that no one could hold back progressive changes and should not try to. Don Jorge believed the same thing. For instance, it was his administration that passed the agrarian reform law. However, it was a law that was designed to see to it that in the process of tranferring some land to those who did not have it, the productivity of agriculture would not be hurt, but rather helped. Then the Christian Democratic government came along and passed a law that very much hastened the process. The Allende government has hurried it very much more than that, and has also been characterized by widespread illegal seizure of land, outside the law. The result has been an economic disaster in agriculture. Productivity has fallen drastically: the government figures on the subject are pure lies. There has been no 5 percent increase in output last year; that is a bald-faced lie, proven by the fact that the govmment has completely used up the country's foreign exchange reserves importing food. This is a very different situation from that during his administration. At that time, too, there was a foreign exchange crisis, but it was due to the tremendously large Imports of machinery that took place during that period. This was the result of very extensive investments of both the private and public sectors, which laid the groundwork that permitted the Frei government to have an expanding economy during its first two years in office. Alessandri does not think that the difference between the socalled Left and Right in the country is that one group wants to have a more just society and the other does not. Everyone wants that now. However, those of the so-called Right are conscious of the possible effects of social change on the economy and know that social change will be meaningless unless the economy grows. The Left does not recognize this fact. Arturo Alessandri had several duels, aside from the famous one with Guillermo Rivera. That was not unusual then, although almost always the duel was settled before it was fought. The opponents seldom shot at one another. Don Arturo placed much emphasis on his Italian ancestry. Don Jorge thinks that it was justified. Don Arturo was a very energetic, nervous, colorful man, which is not at all characteristic of Chileans, and the Italian ancestry contributed to those qualities. The current events have brought absolute economic chaos to the country. He does not know where the whole thing will end.

228 However, he foresaw this from the time that the Popular Front government won in 1938. Except for the two-and-a-half years that he was Minister of Finance for González Videla and the six years of his own administration, the country since 1939 has been fed with nothing but demagoguery, which could not help but result in something like the current situation. It is terrible. He is not an anti-Communist. He is the only Chilean president who has not denounced the Communists. *

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LETTER FROM JORGE ALESSANDRI, NOVEMBER 15, 1972

In answer to your friendly letter of the 6th of the present month, I think it is useful to inform you that Señor Aldunate Phillips, in his book El Ruido de Sables, alludes to a number of matters gathered by him in strange sources and that, consequently, do not always conform to reality. It is true that, after the insurgency of the military officers who were meeting in their Club—and neither the Minister of War nor his aides could find out what occurred there, since no one was admitted to those quarters— my father called three people— and I don't know whether they are those mentioned by Sénor Aldunate-to make them see the inconvenience of their attitude and to bring to their attention that they must end it immediately. He told them, furthermore, that to put an end to such disgraceful event they would ennoble it by asking for the promulgation of the social laws that Congress had pigeonholed, on the understanding that with these passed, everyone would return to his barracks and the incident would be ended. On the following day, my father received a numerous commission of officers and in that meeting it was agreed that they would proceed in the way my father had suggested. However since, once the laws involved were passed, the officers did not fulfill their promise to return to the barracks, he presented his resignation. Immediately, he was the object of all kinds of political and social pressures to accept a proposal of the officers, to understand, to undertake for a few months a trip abroad, which he opposed, believing that to do so would demonstrate the shame of Chile throughout the world; and to remove all doubt about his resolution, he went that same night with his family to the American Embassy, from which he left for Argentina on the following day. I was witness to all these events, and it was my job to inform my father of what was going on, since the Minister of War did not consider it convenient to do so himself. I went with him on his

229 trip. Hoping that the information which I have given you will be useful in wrtting the biography of my father which you are preparing, I salute you attentively. *****

LETTER FROM JORGE ALESSANDRI, MARCH 1, 1973

On returning from my vacation, I received your letter of the 6th of last month, in which you asked for information on the relations of my father with the Government of González Videla. With regard to my father, you can be sure that everything which Ricardo Donoso says is false, because he is a man who has sick hatred of him, because of a slight— in my judgement unjust— which he suffered during his Administration. The relations between my father and González Videla were optimal during all of his period. It was he who determined that the Liberal Party would vote in Congress for the election of González Videla. The latter, for his part, as President of the Radical Party at the time, had been the maximum leader of the presidential campaign that gave rise to the second presidency of my father. There was an interregum in the relations between the two, as a consequence of a stupidity commited by the Conservative Party— against the wishes of my father, at the time President for the second time--to prevent the naming of Gabriel González to a senatorial vacancy in his native province, which he logically wished for very much. If things had not been as I describe them, I would not have been Minister of Gonález Videla, and I was Minister of Finance, with unlimited authority, during almost half of his period. My father, as I did, considered wrong the Law for the Defense of Democracy, as we privately told González Videla. During a large part of the Government of Gabriel González my father was President of the Senate, from which post he gave decided support to his Administration. The political relations between my father and me were completely independent, since in terms of patronage and public finance my ideas differed fundamentally from the criterion of the politicians in these matters. Furthermore, my father was not a specialist in finance and economic problems, which have always particularly interested me.

230 CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN HAVANA, CUBA, MAY 14, 1950

The Falange Nacional is in the government at the present time because it believes that any responsible party that has opposed a regime and then wins a chance to enter the government and influence policy in the direction that it has indicated it favored therby shows that it is a responsible party. The Falange opposed the previous cabinet because it considered it a government of the Right, and the Falange and other groups finally convinced González Videla of that fact. The Falangistas are not sure that there is a great deal that they can do in the present regime, but they could not admit that the situation was hopeless, because the only exit from that situation is a revolution, which they certainly do not want. As for the other cabinet that González dismissed just before the entry of the Falange in the government, its members were discredited politically, though not morally. They were all honorable men and did a good job according to their lights, but they were a conservative regime. The present situation is a very bad one in Chile, and the Communists are still very strong. They will indeed remain strong until there is something effective done about the economic situation, the excessive inflation, and the other ills that face the nation. The union situation is also bad. The labor movement is of course split, and at the time of the split the Socialists broke away by themselves. The Falange finally broke with the Communists, finding it hard to work with them—impossible in fact. They are trying to organize a Social Christian trade union group that can work with the Socialists in the labor field. The Socialists themselves are split, of course, but the great majority of them are in the Partido Socialista Popular, which has some of the most brilliant leaders of the Socialist group. The Falange is working with them, and Frei thinks that before too long the Socialists will again be united around the PSP. The PSP has three senators—Carlos Alberto Martinez, Eugenio González, and Salvador Allende. Martinez organized a Unification Committee, to try to bring the two Socialist parties together, but when this effort failed, he returned to the PSP. There was a split in the Conservative party, with the Eduardo Cruz Coke element breaking with the reactionary group and adopting a Social Christian platform. The Falange hopes to form a united front with the Cruz Coke wing, although organizational unity with that group is something for the fairly distant future. *****

231 TALK GIVEN BY EDUARDO FREI AT COMMITTEE FOR CULTURAL FREEDOM IN SANTIAGO, AUGUST 7, 1956

What are the main points of the economic situation of Latin America and Chile? What is the national income per capita of Latin America? It is about $260 (U.S.), which compares with $2,000 in the United States, and $600 in Western Europe. India and China have a per capita of about $100. What is the increase of the national income in Latin America per year? In 1950, Latin America's total of national income was about $39 billion; in 1956 it was about $58 billion. This amounts to $254 to $277 per capita. Argentina has a per capita income of $554; Brazil $225; Colombia $249 per capita; Mexico, $220; Venezuela, $721; Cuba, $366; and Chile, $269. At the same time, the United States has a population of about 160,000,000, while Latin America's total population is about 178,000,0000. Latin America has 8 percent of the world's populatiom and 16 percent of the land surface of the globe. The increase of population in Latin America is the highest in the world, 2.3 percent per year. The rest of the world has an increase of 1 percent; that is, the rest of the world, including Asia, has half the population increase of Latin America. It is urbanizing more rapidly than any other part of the world, but more than half the population is still engaged in agriculture. Forty percent of Latin American population is less than 15 years of age. Like the population increase, production per capita has also increased very rapidly. Increase per capita has been 3.4 percent per year. This is much more rapid than the U.S. increase, the rise has been most rapid in industry, where it has been 6.1 percent; in construction, 5.8 percent. Mexico has had a large agricultural production increase, but the rest of Latin America has had a lesser one. Mexican agricultural production is approaching U.S. agricultural production. Development of per capita income in Latin America has not been equal throughout the area. In Argentina, this increase has been 1.7 percent; in Brazil, 3.4 percent; Mexico, 2.4 percent; Chile, 2 percent. The increases in agriculture have been 4.4 percent throughout the area, 6.5 percent in industry, 5.8 percent in construction. In Argentina, the increase has been smallest in agriculture. In Mexico, there has been an 8 percent increase per year in agricultural production; in Chile a 1.1 percent agricultural increase; in Colombia, 7.1 percent agricultural rise, and a 9.1 percent industrial increase. In Venezuela, industry has increased 13.8 percent per year, and agriculture, 3.8 percent. These figures are distressing for Chile, because they indicate that it is lagging behind. Chile, for instance, has the lowest

232 electrification development in Latin America. The economies of Latin America depend upon exports. They represent one fifth of total production in the area. Most of the countries are exporters of primary products, and one or two such products render up to 80 percent of all exports of the individual country. In contrast, the U.S. has 96 percent of its income from the internal economy, and exports only represent 4 percent. Of course, in many cases the margin of profit depends on these exports, and if exports fall, the U.S. economy may have a crisis. Hence, the U.S. tries to export capital. In Latin America, exports represent 20 percent of total production. This reflects the importance of the health of the export trade to the whole economy of the countries. In Latin America this depends on one, two or three products. Furthermore, 45 percent of government income in the area comes from foreign trade. In Brazil, one product provides 61 percent of total foreign exchange; two products provide 71 percent, three provide 84 percent. In Colombia, 84 percent of foreign exchange comes from coffee; in Venezuela, 94 percent comes from petroleum; in Cuba, 78 percent from sugar. In Chile, 66 percent of foreign exchange comes from copper, 78 percent comes from copper and nitrates. Argentina has the most solid situation. Only 18 percent of the foreign exchange comes from the largest export product, 33 percent comes from the first two, 44 percent from the first three products. In Mexico, 26 percent of foreign exchange comes from cotton, 58 percent from the five major export products. Peru is also pretty well off—13 percent of the first product; 25 percent from the first two; 35 percent for the first three; 42 percent from the first four; 48 percent from the first five; 52 percent from the first six, 56 percent from the first seven; 60 percent from the first eight. The consequence of all of this is a great deal of economic fluctuation. Raw materials vary between 27 percent to 32 percent in a year in price. This has a tremendous repercussion on the economy. Manufactures, in contrast, fluctuate no more than 4 percent a year. The economies of Latin America are thus essentially vulnerable, because 20 percent of the national income of these countries depends on international trade. The economies are also dependent, because in most cases they sell one product to one customer. These fluctuations are reflected in inflation or unemployment, diminishing of production. To meet this problem, Frei suggested in the Economic and Social Council in 1950 the establishment of a compensation fund to meet this variation of prices. Within Latin America there are occurring important changes

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in relative power. The large tropical countries are growing most rapidly throughout the area. Chile. Argentina, and Uruguay are increasing less rapidly. This is explained by the fact that these tropical countries have achieved a better equilibrium between agriculture and industry. This equilibrium is developing most rapidly in Chile. The population increase is tremendous in the tropical countries. The Increase in other countries is less rapid. Chile's increase is one half or that of Peru, one third that of Colombia, less than one tenth of Brazil. What are the perspectives for Latin America? The region has created a machine to create desires, but not a sufficient machine to meet them. Chile is the country where the machine to create desires is greatest—the desire for radios, schools, and the like. But, perhaps of all the important countries, it has the slowest working machine to meet these growing desires. What is the biggest problem facing Latin America? It is the problem fo foreign investment in Latin America to increase the productivity of these countries. Savings and capitalization in Latin america are largely from internal sources, and foreign investment is very small. The annual average investment of private foreign capital is $340 million. The average loans of international banks are $79 million. This is a total of $421 million per year total. In contrast, public investment in these countries is $2,220 million; and total investments is $4,400 million. Only 9.5 percent of investment comes from abroad. The main lesson from this is that the main force for development must come from inside the area, not from outside. This is a consoling thought politically. It also presents the problem of private investment versus state development. There is really no contradiction between these, however, because they must use both. Basic development must be by private investment, but the State must give the lead. Private enterprise as a slogan is stupid. The role of the state in economic development must be varied. For one thing, it must be a channel for getting public funds from abroad. This is important because until World War I the State was the largest investor. After World War II, in spite of the Eximbank and the International Bank, the State has less resources than when only private foreign investment was operating in Latin America. In the Nineteenth Century, the State sold bonds in Europe to private investors, and these bonds were less expensive than direct private investment of today. Public foreign investment is new, private foreign investment now means usually reinvestment of profits. Thus, 55 percent of U.S. private investments in recent years have really been reinvestment.

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The state has a second role: it must fight to substitute internal production for imports. It does this through the tariff and Fomento [Development Fpnd]. The State must determine what is necessary to develop and must protect it. The State must plan diversification of the economy to diminish the vulnerability of the economy, and increase agricultural development. It must manage credit and banking. It has a great role in technology, as is true in the U.S. in agricultural technology. It must have a big role in the university and research. The state and private interests must cooperate. In Chile, there could be no economic development without a public works program. This includes railroad construction, irrigation, ports, agricultural mechanization. There are many problems facing economic development. These include inefficient government organization, lack of government plans. There is the problem of getting international government loans. The most urgent problems are liberty and the mounting demands of a growing population. There is excessive protection of small markets, backward agriculture, insufficient credit. One answer to these problems is the formation of regional economic groups. Another answer is agrarian reform. A third is the reorganization of the credit role of the government. Chile represents an exaggeration of the main economic problems of Latin America. It has instability: it is falling behind. Now it is economically behind Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, and Columbia. This is a change from the situation a few years ago when Chile was the second power of Latin America. It is serious food for thought for the Chileans. *****

CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA ON FEBRUARY 15, 1959

In spite of his defeat in last year's presidential election, Eduardo Frei thinks that the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC) is in good shape and is the largest party of the opposition. There are two oppositions, the FRAP [Popular Action Front] and the Partido Demócrata Cristiano. The Partido Radical is rapidly edging up to the government and may soon Join the cabinet. It is a party that is always interested most in governmental posts. Frei thinks that the most serious problem politically in Chile is the progress that the Communists are making in the countryside. They got a big vote there in the last election. The PDC is also concentrating its guns on the peasantry and gaining support

235 among them. They were there first. The party is making some headway in this field. Jorge Alessandri is providing a typical government of the Right, and he is disappointing. Frei had hoped that he would be more liberal in his attitude, in the light of his background and his interests as an industrialist. He is governing with only Conservatives and Liberals in his government. All of the opposition parties supported the repeal of the Law for the Defense of Democracy last year. They felt that it had not been effective in stopping the Communists and that it was being frequently used to attack other parties that were not Communists, and that it generally was a very bad law. The election law of Chile has been changed. Each party will have to stand on its own now, and there will be no coalitions as hitherto. While those highest on any party's list will be the ones elected, election will not be won on the basis of the physical position on the list but on the number of votes received. This law, which is based on the old Belgian electoral law, was passed just before the presidential election. It did Frei some damage, because the change was presented by the Right as a move of the Left, and it lost him some votes because he supported it. The little parties will tend to disappear now, and politics will be much clearer in Chile. In fact, there are really only three groups in Chilean politics--the Left, Right, and Center. The Liberals and Conservatives always work together, the Left has a degree of unity, and the rest are the Center. ***** CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI AT NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY, NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, APRIL 22 AND 23, 1963

Eduardo Frei thinks that the perspective of the Christian Democrats is now good, insofar as the 1964 Chilean presidential election is concerned. They will get the support of the Partido Democrático Nacional (PDN), a party that has been in the FRAP and was formed by a merger of the old Partido Democrático and the Partido Agrario Laborista. The exit of the PDN from the FRAP has almost been arranged. There are elements in the Radical Party that also want an alliance with the Christian Democrats. For instance, Gabriel González Videla has come out publicly for such an arrangement. He still carries weight within the Radical Party although his prestige in the country at large is not too great, Frei thinks. If the Communists double-cross the Socialists and back the Radicals, as is not impossible, a large number of Socialists will vote for the Christian Democratic candidate.

236 The Christian Democratic Party has broken through. There have been a number of people who have not wanted to "throw away their vote." However, after the showing that the party made in the municipal elections of a couple weks ago, such people will have the impression that the Christian Democrats can win, and they will lose their reticence. The agrarian reform law that was passed last year is not very good. The recipients of the land must pay an exorbitant price for it. Furthermore, the landlords must be compensated in cash for their land. However, one cannot expect the landlords to preside over the agrarian reform, the expropriation of their land, as this law intends. So far, only 2,000 hectares of land have been distributed under the law. Only a revolutionary government, that seeks to change the fundamental srtucture of the country can make a real agrarian reform. In Chile, the landlords are the same people who are in industry, which is why Alessandri, who is a spokesman for the industrialists, has not made a decent agrarian reform. The Communists are the only real party of the Left in Chile; without them, the Left would be nothing. The Communists are morally stronger than the Socialist, for instance. The Socialists tend to be corrupted, whereas the Communists work very diligently and selflessly for their party. In his travels around the country, Frei has found that local leaders of the Christian Democratic Party have respect for their Communist opponents, but tend to despise their Socialist rivals. Frei supports President John Kennedy's current policy with regard to Cuba. It is the only possible policy. Castro's popularity is declining, and he will ruin himself. An invasion would revive him and would be disastrous elsewhere in Latin America. The Playa Giron invasion raised Castro’s stock tremendously. There has been a change in the role of the church in recent decades in Chile. For one thing, there was separation of state and church, and the church has abandoned any support for a particular political party. The church has recently divided its landholdings, which is worth much more than a pastoral letter. Formerly, it was often said that the church was the country's biggest landlord, which was not correct, although it was a substantial landlord. This claim can no longer be made at all. Furthermore, the priests are working in the callampas [slums] of Santiago and other cities, are standing in line for their water supply along with women from the slum, and they are poor. Priests have also demonstrated with the people in protests against police violence. The church is with the people now, in contrast to the situation thirty years ago. Thus, the atmosphere is more receptive, politically speaking, to the Christian Democrats.

237 However, the church does not endorse the party, and the Christian Democrats do not want it to do so. The Christian Democratic Party has gone through a process of change. It started among University youth, mainly of the upper class, although all of the early members were not of this social level. After a few years, it spread to the middle class. Now, it has its largest support among the people. It has support among the workers and among the peasants. It is now strongest in the working-class wards of the cities. The Chilean parties have not generally taken a position on birth control, except for the Communists. The Communists are against birth control. They pose as the defenders of children. Their opposition to birth control meets a response from the people, and there is general resistance to birth control among both men and women of the poor. The Communists picture birth control as a maneuver of the United States against Latin America, since much of the advocacy for birth control comes from the United States. *****

CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN LA MONEDA PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, SANTIAGO, JUNE 28, 1966

The overthrow of Argentine President Arturo Illia, which occurred early today, presents grave problems for Chile. It is a disgrace for all of Latin America, for the hemisphere, although he understands that the United States took a strong position against any golpe there. But for Chile, there are five thousand kilometers of common frontier and Frei fears that a military government in Argentina may well become aggresive. With Illia it was possible to work out whatever differences there were. Frei also fears the contagious possibilities of this golpe in some other Latin American countries, although there is, of course, no such problem in Chile. On the contrary, the Chilean military men have reacted very strongly in condemnation of the Argentine coup. On the Pacific Coast, if there are no golpes. the prospects are very good. Presidents Raul Leoni, Carlos Lleras Restrepo, and Fernando Belaunde are people with whom one can work cordially. Frei hopes that he will be able to cooperate with them both economically and politically; it is true that they belong to the same "club," politically. The government's program in Chile is going all right. He is in general satisfied with the progress that has been made. Of course. Congress held up for a long time the ratification of the agreements with the copper companies and is now holding up the agrarian

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reform and other measures. However, it is merely a matter of slow passage of these bills, they will be passed in due time. He expects that the agrarian reform will, be passed by the Chamber of Deputies within the next two weeks and by the Senate by September. In the discussion in Congress, the original agrarian reform bill submitted by the Executive has been improved, he thinks. It is not a matter Just of the deputies making certain changes, but of the government, after long consultation with all interested parties and with the deputies, accepting certain modifications, which he thinks on balance, improve the legislation. There was a compromise made on cutting the period of the assentimientos campesinos—before the peasants definitively get the land as their property—from 3 to 6 years to 2 to 4 years, depending upon the case. Other changes of small things were also accepted by the executive. He expects that as a result, the law will be considerably better than the bill originally proposed. Frei also thinks that the copper agreements were a good solution to a difficult problem. Chile will not begin to enjoy the benefits of the increased production promised in the contracts before 1969. However, meanwhile, there will be heavy new investment—$420 million, of which $100 million will be made by the Chilean government, the rest by the companies. In terms of the general economic situation, Frei is satisfied. There has been an increase in industrial production during the last year of 10 percent, largely due to the increased purchasing power of the people. In the countryside, this has been about 300 percent, due to new collective bargaining agreements, and although less notable in the cities, the increase there in collective agreements has also been substantial. Of course, rural wages were very very low to begin with. The net effect of all this is that factories that were producing at well below capacity are now producing near capacity, and new ones are being established. The workers are buying sewing machines, radios, even television sets, and refrigerators. Promoción Popular has been about the best thing that the government has done, and it has been very successful. The people have been helped to build their own houses. They have cooperated in building community centers, getting running water for their communities, getting their streets paved. In Concepción, the local populace helped to build a canal to drain off water just before the winter season, and as a result, for the first time in thirty years there were no floods in that part of Concepción. As can be imagined, Promoción Popular is very popular. They need to give a legal basis to Promoción Popular, to the juntas vecinales [neighborhood boards] and other organs of the

239 whole movement. For instance, as things now stand, the organs of Promoción Popular cannot own property, and if there is any property in its operations, it has to be put in the name of the individuals, who are not always reliable. Also, with legal status. Promoción Popular organs will be able to start cooperatives and other such organizations, which they have a hard time doing now. Legal status, under the laws pending before Congress, will also result in more stability for the juntas. It will give them the legal right to appear before public authorities and will force the authorities to listen to them. It will also provide for a regular elective process for choosing their leaders. The legislation for Promoción Popular is violently opposed by both Right and Left. The Right does not like it because it will really incorporate the people on the lowest social levels into the government of the country. The Left does not like it because they fear that it will undermine the kind of demagoguery among the slum dwellers that has become standard with them. However, in the end the Left will not be able to oppose it because the whole Promoción Popular is exceedingly popular, the most popular part of the government’s program.

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SPEECH OF EDUARDO FREI TO CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEETING IN TEATRO CAUPOLICÁN, SANTIAGO, JUNE 24, 1971

In this hall, Eduardo Frei has the difficult task of coming to commemorate one who was more than a friend, Edmundo Pérez Zujovic. He wants to recall the meaning of Pérez Zujovic's ideas. Frei knew Pérez Zujovic for forty years. He was one of the first to join what was then the Falange Nacional, a movement of rebellion against injustice that dreamed of building a new society on a Christian and humanist basis, but without church participation. This society was to be one with liberty. In the beginning, they were very poor. Bernardo Leighton, Radomiro Tómic, Pérez Zujovic, and others had to travel as best they could to enter into contact with people of similar ideas. They suffered very considerable and real persecution, with attacks from both Left and Right. This was time of the rise of Nazism in Chile, and they received harsh treatment from the Nacistas, but they were full of faith and life. They held innumerable meetings, engaged in innumerable conversations to convince people to join their movement. Edmundo Pérez Zujovic was one of these, and he was always valiant. He was one of those who started with the movement and finished his life with it. He saw its rise, and its

240 eventual triumph. Frei as president made Pérez Zujovic Minister of Public Works first, and there he did an outstanding job. He built the NorthSouth road, began plans for the metro—which is now on the way to becoming a reality—and he transformed Antofagasta and Arica, and did much more. He also was able to mobilize thousands of people in communitarian projects in which people contributed their labor, such as building schools, local roads, and other projects with a minimum of cost. Then Pérez Zujovic became Minister of Interior, and ultimately Vice President. This was a difficult moment; there was afoot a plot against the government. There was a large demonstration of high school students, but Pérez Zujovic handled this with a maximum of tact and discretion, and no tragedy resulted. But then a thousand miles away, tragedy occurred with the shooting of some miners. It was nothing that Pérez Zujovic could have helped. Frei remembers that he was in Valparaiso at the time, and Pérez Zujovic called him from Santiago, telling him that something terrible had happened, and he ws going to the ministry at that moment to see just what the dimensions of the tragedy were, and how it had occurred. That was the first that he had known about it, or that Frei had known about it. However, from that moment, Pérez Zujovic was a marked man. He was systematically attacked as an assassin. This was because he did not hide, as some might have done, but bravely assummed responsibility. In spite of the calumny against him, there was no one who ever made a formal charge against him for having violated the law or the constitution in this incident. After September 4, of last year, the Leftist papers accused Pérez Zujovich of plotting against the assumption of power by the winner. But the fact was that he was the first to say that the decision of Congress had to be respected. It is those who have continued to revile him who are the real ones responsible for the murder of Pérez Zujovich; by spreading their calumnies and hate, they have inspired people perhaps of unstable emotions to undertake the deed against him. Frei was abroad when the murder took place. He was planning to travel a bit around the world. However, he decided to come back before he had originally planned, because of his faith in Chile. The extremists of the Right were responsible for the deaths of Mery and General René Schneider. On October 22, the government was menaced, and there were parties and dally papers that called for sedition. Before this, he had called Schneider and had instructed him in what he was to do, and Schneider had fulfilled his job, and followed explicitly the orders of the President

241 and Minister of Defense. Hate has also brought the deaths of other Christian Democratic leaders. It has brought the deaths of carabineros. The first demand which the Christian Democrats make of the government is that it reestablish peace and concord, the only basis of democracy. Hate corrupts the citizenry. The President has said that the papers must end their campaigns of infamy and hate. If not, others will be victims. The government must also disarm all illegal armed groups. The government must take these steps. If it does so, it will have the support of the great majority of the citizens, and certainly of the Christian Democratic Party. However, he warns that the government cannot use one of these illegally armed groups to try to suppress others; this way only leads to disaster. Pérez Zujovich started in the task of building a New Chile, a more valid struggle now than it ever was before. Frei has more faith in the principles of the Christian Democratic Party than when he was young and Just beginning to fight for them. The whole world is undergoing change. This crisis includes the Church and the capitalist countries, including the very rich ones. So when the Christian Democratic Party says that it is for change, this is not Just an electoral slogan. Latin America is particularly shaken by change. This is because at the time of independence, they left the old structures intact and only now is the task of altering them being really undertaken. Frei would say that it is the essence of democracy to have an open society, and that it is under the Constitution that men can seek change. The Christian Democrats are for this; they have a philosophy and a program. They are an option for Chile. It is perfectly all right to combat the Christian Democratic Party in the world of ideas, but it is not all right to try to divide it, to revile and suppress it; to do this is totalitarian. Hate and destruction of the people is the road to a monolithic and totalitarian society. The Christian Democrats do not believe in capitalism as a formula, but they also do not believe in Marxism-Leninism as a philosophy. They struggle for the process of change, which they began when they were in office. They began it in an agrarian reform, in tax reform, in community work, and in recapturing the riches of the country for the nation. As Chile was different in 1933 to 1935, or in 1964, it is also different today. The Partido Demócrata Cristiano has new projects for the future. It has basic principles, and the first of these is liberty. In the beginning, they were fighting for the liberty against the Nazis, and later they carried out the Revolution in Liberty. They believe in freedom of information, so that the people can

242 really know what is going on. They also believe in respect for one's neighbor, to live without pressure, and the freedom of the workers and peasants to organize on their own behalf. The second principle of the Christian Democrats is justice. This involves economic development, because without it the economy is without resources. This involves democratic planning, saving and investment, discipline, and modem science and technology for Chile. It also requires that the economy not be run by a political committee, but by a hierarchy of people of intelligence and skill. Social development is also part of justice. Justice cannot be based on centralism. He does not think that when countries that have totalitarianism for many years are finally turning away from it, that Chile can at this same time itself slip into totalitarianism. The country needs new social structures. The Christian Democrats must study carefully the question of Just what these structures should be. The party must work intelligently and find ways out for the country. People want a free dialogue. They do not want only slogans that are playing with the destiny of the country. The rulers must remember that if the copper industry declines, it is a Chilean industry that is doing so, which cannot be changed by mere monetary measures or by slogans. Frei's message to Pérez Zujovich is not that the Partido Demócrata Cristiano is finished, but that it continues. The party must be united and resolute. It must be an open party for all Chileans who believe in the party's philosophy and program. The reason for the party is to serve Chile. Never has the Partido Demócrata Cristiano made opposition in such a way as to make the government fall, because the failure of a government is the failure of Chile. The Partido Demócrata Cristiano will never mislead the people. This is the message of the Partido Demócrata Cristiano. It is an important message. European leaders of Christian Democracy told him during his recent trip there that they hope much from the party here, because Chile is a young country, and there is hope here. This is true. Never has the country depended so much on the party as it does now. Frei calls upon Chileans who are for liberty and social change to join the ranks of the party and to work with it for these things. ***** CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI AT HIS HOME IN SANTIAGO, JULY 1, 1971

Eduardo Frei knew Arturo Alessandri quite well. Alessandri had been well disposed towards the Falangistas when they began,

243 loking upon them as young people who wanted to do something to improve Chilean society. He encouraged them and was certainly on friendly terms with them. Alessandri was a man who became excited easily. He was not a very cultured man, in the sense of having universal culture, which was clearly evident in Alessandri's three-volume memoirs, which Frei thinks mirror the man well. For instance, in his memoirs, Alessandri said that he thought that in Rome the most beautiful thing there was the Victor Emanuel Monument, a judgment that Frei believes mirrored his cultural level; he had little universal culture or appreciation for art, music, and so on. Alessandri knew Chile exceedingly well, however. He was a very good lawyer in the Chilean context; he knew Chilean law or the place of Chilean law in the country. Alessandri was an exceedingly capable politician in the Chilean milieu. He knew everyone, and he knew the country exceedingly well. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of the people with whom he was called upon to deal. He was a very powerful orator and he was a very decent human being. Frei has a positive view of the role that Arturo Alessandri played in Chilean history. He is by no means an unconditional admirer of the man, but Frei thinks that in all, Alessandri played a very good role. Frei has a positive view of both Alessandri's administrations. The country had had about the most chaotic situation in all its history. It had a series of unstable governments, after a century of stability, with the military interfering constantly in the government and politics. Alessandri's great accomplishment during this second period was the reestablishment of stability and the reestablishment of the constitutional order. He succeeded in putting the military back into their traditional role of not participating in politics, partly because most of them wanted to reassume that role but also largely because Alessandri knew how to handle them with both tact and authority. Alessandri set democratic institutions back in place in 1933, and his work has lasted until 1971. If these institutions can survive the current situation, it can be said that Alessandri's work lasted even beyond this period of thirty­ eight years. Frei thinks, with all due honesty, that the Christian Democrats gave the country the best government that it has ever had. If one takes into account the efforts for economic development, the progress in education, in housing, in health, in agrarian reform, and a variety of other fields, it is clear that this was the case. The logic of the situation, therefore, was that the Christian Democrats would have won a second period in office. There was on the scene, however, a phenomenon known as

244 Jorge Alessandri. From the moment he left office,, some of his friends began the campaign to have him reelected for another term. He undoubtedly had considerable popularity. The Right in national politics, which by all rights was dead, and would never have a chance to come back to power, saw in Jorge Alessandri's name the one last opportunity to do so. That this hope was based on tangible evidence was shown by the results of last year's election, which Don Jorge nearly won. So the Right, instead of supporting another candidate of some other political forces, as they otherwise logically would have done, threw all on the possibility of the reelection of Jorge Alessandri. What happened in the Christian Democratic Party, meanwhile? It named a candidate who thought that the way to win was to be to the Left of Salvador Allende. As a result of this, many industrialists, merchants, and other middle-class people who thought that Alessandri was not really a good alternative, and might have voted for the Christian Democrats with a different candidate, also backed Alessandri as the least of the evils available, because of the extremism of Radomiro Tomic. The upshot of this was that whereas Allende, with the support of only the Socialists and Communists in 1964 got 40 percent of the vote; last year, with the support of the Socialists, Communists, and Radicals, he won only 36 percent of the vote, but he was victorious. This is the only case Frei knew of in which a candidate of the Marxists reduced his vote and was at the same time the winner. Right now Frei thinks that the country is heading almost fatally for a Communist dictatorship along Cuban or Czech lines. The chances of preventing this are small; he would say they are virtually nonexistent—and it will be impossible to stop it. The fact is that the country is headed towards the worst economic crisis in Chile's history. In a speech he has expressed his belief that there are several economic time bombs that the government has created and that sooner or later are certain to explode. On the one hand, there is the fact that the government have virtually doubled the currency in circulation since coming to office, with an emission policy that borders on being crazy. In the second place, they have increased wages by what Frei estimate is an average of 45 percent; the government says 40 percent, but with fringe benefits it is certainly 45 percent—that is a conservative estimate. These two things have generated a tremendous amount of purchasing power that will inevitably result in the worst inflation of the country has ever seen. Much of this purchasing power has already come onto the market, but it has not yet had the inflationary effects one might have predicted because there was a very heavy accumulation of inventories, due

245 to the recession of the last months of 1970, beginning about a month before the election and continuing until the early months of this year. However, this accumulation of inventory has now been exhausted, and shortages are beginning to appear. Frei would not be surprised if within a very few months they will have to resort to rationing of virtually everything. In addition, another time bomb is what they are doing with the country's foreign exchange reserves. Frei left the presidency with a $380 million in foreign reserves, which he is sure by now is down to $140 million, and by September or thereabouts will have virtually been exhausted. In addition, the government increased its internal debt by more than 100 percent in eight months. The government owed about seven billion escudos when Frei left office, which was the accumulation of the debts of the last forty years. Yesterday the press announced that this debt was now fifteen billion escudos, and there has been no increase in revenues to offset this, another inflationary menace. Finally, the government has completely disorganized large segments of the economy, most particularly the copper industry. The policy of the Frei government had been to move by steps towards full governmental control of the copper industry, in some cases getting 51 percent immediately, and in the case of Anaconda taking 49 percent in the beginning with the government purchasing the other 51 percent in January 1972, in accordance with agreements reached with the companies. Frei's government maintained good relations with the companies, which invested very heavily in expanding the industry during Frei's period in office, again in accordance with agreements between the government and the companies. The companies gave the Chilean government very expert and necessary technical help, but in the last few months, 260 key technicians and managerial personnel have left the country, and others are leaving. The mines are being run by political committees and production is beginning to fall, and it will fall catastrophically in the near future. In addition, valuable machinery is being destroyed, and the whole structure of the industry is being ruined. Frei thinks that the stories from the new government that there was sabotage in El Teniente mine by the management is nonsense. What interest would the management have in sabotaging the mine? Another aspect of the mining situation is that there has been a catastrophic increase in costs of production. The result is that whereas there was perhaps twenty-five cents difference a year ago between costs of production and the selling price of the copper, the difference now is down to four cents a pound, a difference

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that, of course, is damaging to the whole economy of Chile since the mining industry represents wages and salaries of Chile. As a result of all of these things, Frei is sure that within a very few months there is going to be a tremendous economic crisis. This economic crisis will be blamed on the Christian Democrats, the momios. [reactionaries] the imperialists, and on everyone except the government—this campaign has started already. But it will be used as the excuse not only to ration, but also to establish an all-out Communist dictatorship. The Christian Democrats are doing what they can to confront this situation. They are pointing out the government's errors, and they are trying to unite the opposition to do battle to save democracy in Chile. Frei thinks that the bye-election for deputy in Valparaiso is a very important event in this struggle, important mainly because it gives the opposition a chance to really to try to do something. The opposition has been very dispirited, and as is characteristic of middle-class people, it has also been very much afraid. Frei is not sure that the candidate whom the opposition is supporting is the best possible. He was chosen when Frei was in Europe, and he had nothing to do with the choosing. However, Dr. Marin has his positive qualities as a candidate: he is from the area; he is very well-known as head of a white-collar workers clinic that he has headed for many years, and is personally simpatico. although he does not have much political experience. Also, he has the advantage of not being too clearly identified as a Christian Democrat, which makes it possible for other forces of the opposition to support him. Frei thinks that the race will be a very close one, the government and opposition seem evenly balanced there. The government is moving in many ways towards establishing a dictatorship. For instance, there are Cubans and Czechs working on reorganization of the political police. Of course, the government does not have popular sanction to do this Frei estimates that public opinion at this moment is about equally divided between the government and the opposition. But Communists have never needed a majority to establish a dictatorship, and they certainly do not care whether they have a majority. If one were to ask the military chiefs whether, in the abstract, they would permit the establishment of dictatorship, they would undoubtedly answer that they would not. However, Frei fears that when they are ready to act it will be too late. In any case, he is doubtful whether they could control their troops, whether the lower officers and the enlisted men would obey their orders. Frei is planning to visit the United States in October and

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November for a month. He has been asked by a small American college to accept an honorary doctorate and they have agreed to pay his way there and back, on very nice terms. In addition, he has been asked to give three lectures by the Council on Foreign Relations, which he has agreed to do. He is also going to the University of Chicago and has been invited to go to Harvard as well, which he would like to do and probably will do. He would certainly accept an honorary degree from Rutgers if it were offered at that time—he does not remember that it was offered to him when he was president. When I ask him about the presidential guard of Allende, he thinks that I must be kidding him. Of course it exists, it consists of the MIRistas [Members of Movimiento de Izquerda Revolucionria] who until a short while ago were robbing banks and supermarkets. They are under no one's control but Allende's.

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TALK GIVEN BY EDUARDO FREI TO INTER AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM IN NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 22, 1971

It is true that the Unidad Popular has begun an extensive campaign of attacks on Frei personally. However, from a political point of view he can thank them for it. It has served to raise his prestige. However, it would be dangerous if it were in fact a campaign in preparation for something more serious, an attempt to suppress the Christian Democrats. The Christian Democrats have won a number of elections recently, not only the congressional by-election in Valparaiso, but elections in a number of firms, in which workers representatives are being chosen for boards of directors of government-owned firms. The Christian Democrats have also won control of the Federation of Secondary School Students, which is very important as an indication of the way the thinking of young people is turning. It is quite true that the government has begun to decline, in an electoral sense—but Frei would emphasize in an electoral sense. The struggle for democracy in Latin America has in recent decades been going through a new phase. During the earlier decades, the struggle for democracy was confined to a fight for freedom of speech, press, assembly, for the very small element of the population that was allowed to participate in politics. However, as the result of social and economic changes in Latin America in the past three or four decades—changes such as the development of industrialization, with the consequent growth of

248 an urban proletariat and the middle classes, the spread of education, the growth of modem means of transportation and communications, and the resulting migration of vast numbers of people to the cities, where they form the shanty towns that now have a population estimated at 30 million in the area—the nature of the democratic struggle has changed. As a result, the struggle for democracy must now involve the struggle for the rights of the proletariat, the rural workers, the middle classes. It must also involve a steady rise in their standards of living. If democracy cannot present the masses of the people with a program that can attack these objectives, it will be repudiated by the people in favor of one or another kind of dictatorship. Democracy is besieged, of course, by advocates of dictatorship from both sides. There are those who support the traditional type of military dictatorship that defends the status quo. There are also those who attack democracy from the Left, urging another kind of dictatorship, an ideological one. He thinks that it is very dangerous for democracy for political leaders to be slaves of ideology. He believes very much in the importance of ideas, knows that they inspire men to action and that they prevent politics from deteriorating to mere opportunism. But those who are slaves of ideology try to mold the societies of the Latin American countries to become the preconceived notion of what they should be like. He thinks for democracy to advance it is necessary for there to develop intermediary organizations between the people and the state, which must not be allowed to become omnipotent. Thus, trade unions, organizations of the peasants and of the middle class, as well as political parties, which bring together for political purposes those of similar ideas and interests, are essential for the development of democracy. He thinks that in the longer run, the people of Latin America are wise. They will reject, and are rejecting, both the oldfashioned type of military dictatorship and the extreme ideologues, and the struggle for democracy will be triumphant.

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CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN CHILEAN SENATE IN SANTIAGO, JULY 10, 1973

The situation in Chile now is terrible. The economy of the country is going through an unequalled crisis. Up until now, the Allende administration has been living on what it inherited, but this is now giving out. In 1970, when the U.S. dollar was worth

249 20 percent more, the country exported some $1.2 billion and imported $400 million in foodstuffs. They had the best petrochemical plant in Latin America; it was recognized, as such by the Grupo Andino and others. It exported $50 million to Colombia, but this year the country has had to import $50 million of its products from Colombia, since the Chilean plant is running at only one-half capacity, four months after having been seized by the government. Of course, the country's inflation does not even have to be mentioned, it is so disastrous. The country imports five thousand cars a year. In view of the shortage of cars and the rapid increase in their prices, these imports provide a sizeable amount of income for government people. This underscores the fact that there is a great deal of corruption in the Allende administration. However, it is Frei's impression that the Communists are not personally corrupt, whatever they get goes to the party treasury. The Socialists are individually very corrupt, however. Aside from these economic problems, there is now the very serious situation of distribution of arms to the government supporters. Some five thousand submachine guns have reportedly been distributed during the last few days. So far, there has been no government interference with this. Yesterday, the military gave their first indication that they were going to try to find the hidden arms, but Frei fears this comes too late. The situation is such that the democratic opposition is left unarmed and virtually helpless in the face of the arming of the government’s supporters. The relations between the Partido Demócrata Cristiano and the Partido Nacional are difficult. Of course, they are united in defense of the democratic constitutional regime and of their own right to exist. However, they start out from very different ideological bases. This fact is constantly presenting problems. The attempted coup d'etat of June 29 has precipitated much that is happening today. It was an exceedingly stupid act. The Patria y Libertad group were the ones responsible for the coup attempt. Fascists in Chile as elsewhere have always been stupid, and this coup underscores that fact. In addition, the Fascists of Patria y Libertad are cowards, unlike the situations in Germany, Italy, Spain. They have all sought refuge in foreign embassies. Frei never figured that the opposition would do much better than it did in the March election. He said over and over again during the campaign that he thought that the opposition would do very well if it got as much as 60 percent of the total vote, and that it was not likely that it would receive that high a percentage. It was another stupidity of the Right to predict that the opposition would receive two thirds of the vote. He argued strongly against

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this position during the campaign. There are various reasons for Unidad Popular's relatively good showing in the March congressional election. For one thing, the inflation and the shortages had not reached their desperate situation, and had not yet affected the popular sectors. It is probably true to some degree that the government sees to it that its own followers are fed well. In addition, the government has without doubt built up a substantial hard core of support. To start with, the workers in the industries that the government has seized have been greatly augmented, and most of these additional workers are doing nothing. The government has added two hundred thousand additional government employees, who certainly know that if steps are taken to clear up the economic situation, they will not keep their jobs. All of the seized firms have increased the number of their workers. For instance, in El Teniente, the number of workers has risen from seven thousand to thirteen thousand. These six thousand additional workers are not stupid; they know that they will be out if an attempt is made to straighten out the economic situation. The reconstruction of the Chilean economy will be a monumental job, calling for tremendous sacrifice. Perhaps this effort will sacrifice the party that undertakes it, but Frei thinks that it is the responsibility of parties to face up to the situations that they encounter and do their best to deal with them. All efforts to reach agreement with the government on setting limits concerning how far the government will go in the Allende administration, have so far failed to succeed. He does not think in this connection that the attitude or goodwill of the president has much to do with this situation. The decisions are now taken by the political bureaus of the parties, particularly the Socialist and Communist parties, not by the president of the republic. Everyone knows, for instance, that in the latest cabinet reorganization, Allende wanted to form a military cabinet but the Socialist and Communist parties would not permit it, so no such cabinet was formed. There are certainly elements of Unidad Popular who are concerned about the current situation, and think that things may have gone too far. This is because they are afraid of the armed forces and of what they might do The unity of the Christian Democratic Party is greater than ever before. It is true that there are two tendencies within the party, but one of these elements has the support of 97 percent of the party membership and the other 3 percent. The one that is called the Frei tendency is the one with 97 percent. Also the differences between the two tendencies are not particularly great. Perhaps only Bernardo Leighton feels that absolutely anything

251 possible must be done to avoid a confrontation. Radomiro Tomic does not take this position. The great mass of the party, however, particularly the rank and file, are in a very difficult position. That means that they feel that the time might come when they will have to decide that the constitutional framework has disintegrated. That would admittedly be a terrible tragedy, which is why they have not yet done so. However, at the moment the electric, gas, and water industries have been seized by armed elements of the government supporters. He does not know how far such things can be allowed to go on. ***** LETTER FROM EDUARDO FREI, OCTOBER 3, 1973

You are really right in lamenting the fall of Chilean democracy. I believe that this is a tragedy for us and a blow for all America. The Important thing is to know the true causes that motivated the events. Why has this old democracy been broken? I think that the causes are very clear: in Chile they wanted to apply a scheme that would lead the country to a totalitarian regime. This many people did not wish to see in the United States, even when proofs were evident and overwhelming. A government that was a minority in Parliament, in the municipalities, in the neighborhood juntas, in peasant and student organizations, and that began to be such in the large industrial unions, wished to impose itself by force. It trampled on the laws and the constitution. The fact was denounced by the President of the Supreme Court, the National Congress, and the Controller of the Republic. They did not fullfill any of their promises and they violated all of the constitutional guarantees that they had promised to respect when Christian Democracy gave them its decisive votes in Congress. They brought arms in incredible quantities, as has been proven, capable of equipping a real parrallel army--automatic arms, mortars, anti-tank and other heavy arms. What country could tolerate something like this? In the last elections there were committed all kinds of frauds, in the face of which the Watergate case seems like child's play. They destroyed the economy of the country; the inflation was recognized by them to be 323 percent, according to university circles over 600 percent; they introduced the black market and corruption; formed industrial cordons that permitted them to

252 control the life of the people and they discriminated even in the distribution of food, rationed because of their total economic failure. This is what produced the fall of the democratic regime in Chile. Eveiything else is false words. Naturally it is very difficult to know where we are going. This is a regime that is until now purely military. No party has any influence, contrary to what is said by some United States periodicals, which attribute to Christian Democracy some influence in the operation of the government. I have the conviction that the Chilean armed forces did not wish to come to this. But finally this breakdown was the inevitable consequence of such an unreasonable policy as that carried on by the government of Unidad Popular. It was something that the whole country saw coming. Not because it was wanted, but because it was not possible to continue living in the chaos to which we had come. You know that I have lived forty years fighting for Chilean democracy and will understand that for me all of this has been terribly painful. But more painful still is to have to read and observe how people, especially in the universities of the United States, judge the facts without the least information and without the most minimun objectivity. Will democracy in Chile be reconstructed in the future? I hope so. However, it would be absolutely precipitous to pass judgment with respect to the future . Today I am a man without any public function of any kind, and without any influence over what is occuring. However, I hope that the old libertarian and democratic spirit of the Chileans will bring rebirth of this democracy in the future. Your eternal friend greets you with much regard. ***** CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, CHILE, AUGUST 11, 1974

The Allende government fell for a variety of reasons, which were both political and economic. Politically, the Unidad Popular government came to power as a minority regime and remained a minority regime. Under these circumstances, the logical thing would have been to seek some kind of agreement with at least part of the opposition. However, instead of doing this. Allende and his government sought to impose a Marxist-Leninist regime here. They violated the Constitution, by refusing to promulgate constitutional changes passed by Congress; when Allende

253 appealed to the Constitutional Tribunal, which had a majority favorable to him, and it said that he should promulgate changes, he still refused to do so. The courts denounced the fact that Allende did not enforce the legal decisions, both with regard to property and to individual rights. The Controleria denounced as Illegal a number of decrees, including decretos de insistencia. Congress finally declared that Allende was ruling unconstitutionally. Among his other abuses of power, for instance, Allende refused to pay the peasant confederations the money collected from the employers for them, in spite of the provisions of the Rural Sindicalization Law. All Christian Democratic efforts to reach agreement with Allende failed. Early in 1972, for instance, when a Radical was Minister of Justice, that minister was commissioned by Allende to negotiate with the Christian Democrats, and in fact reached an agreement with them, and Allende subsequently backed out of this agreement, under pressures from within his own party. There were three things that particularly upset the military. First was the importation of arms on a large scale, and the arming of a sizable number of civilians, by the Unidad Popular. The second element was the presence of a large number of foreigners belonging to extremist groups of various countries who were given jobs in the Allende government. Third was the fact that Unidad Popular tried politically to infiltrate the military: a mutiny in Talcahuano, a mutiny on a cruiser, the conspiracy in the Air Force were all part of this. These things finally convinced the military that they were being menaced as an institution by the Allende government. Finally, the tanouazo the abortive military coup on June 29, 1973, showed the military that the Allende government no longer could mobilize the people who were behind it as effectively as had been the case formerly. There are three possible theses with regard to the role that Allende himself played during his regime. One was that he was the leader of the effort to impose a Marxist dictatorship. The second was that things escaped his control. Third, that he was riding with the wave, not taking a firm position for or against what was happening, and finally was swamped by the wave. Frei inclines to the last thesis, but he would not give a definitive judgment on the matter. Frei knew Allende veiy well. They were together eighteen years in the Senate. However, the story that they were compadres is not true, although they were friends. The fact was that Allende was a very ignorant man: he never read a book. He always counted on his native intelligence, which was great, upon his being simpatico. which he was; and on his ability to maneuver, which was considerable. Frei would never say all of this in public, because he

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was a friend of Allende, and because Allende is now dead, but the fact is that Allende was always exceedingly active, in meetings, conferences, and in leading a gay social life, and having various amorous adventures; and all of this activity did not leave him much time to sit down and think. The economic situation under Allende was absolutely disastrous. Although Raúl Sáez has recently said that inflation was running at 550 percent under Allende, Frei thinks that it must be nearer 1500 percent. Frei always uses the example of a chicken, which officially was worth 45 escudos: but if he wanted to eat one in his house, he had to pay 800 escudos. The devaluation of the escudo went from a black market price of 18 to the dollar in 1970 to 3,000 to the dollar in 1973. Frei recently met with a group of German Social Democratic deputies who came to see him. He asked them what would happen in Germany if inflation were at 1500 percent, and they replied that the government would fall. So Frei said to them that their government had fallen twice according to their testimony, in a situation such as that that existed here. Frei is afraid that by August 1973 no constitutional solution was possible. The only alternatives by that time were a MarxistLenininst dictatorship or a military dictatorship. He thinks that at that particular moment, at least 75 percent of the people would have preferred a military dictatorship, if choosing between the two. Some say that Frei favored the coup, but that is wrong. This is like the case of a doctor who diagnoses a cancer, and says that it must be removed, and having someone in the family say that the doctor was in favor of cancer; that is foolish. The current situation is as if the doctor had operated badly, had left a tube in where the cancer had been, that is, had removed the cancer but had left the the patient still in a very bad state. It is not correct that Frei made no protest against the closing of Congress by the junta. He did issue a statement on the subject; however, his statement proved to be futile. As for the Leftist claim that he and the Christian Democratic Party thought that a coup would put power in their laps, he can only reply that he may be stupid, but he is not an imbecile. It was impossible for an intelligent man to think that the military, having made a coup, would turn the presidency over to the President of the Senate, as the constitution provided. He was then President of the Senate. The present situation is terrible. The regime is becoming more and more rigid. It continues to violate the rights of man every day. Perhaps the situation is not as bad as at the beginning, but it is very bad still. The social cost of the economic program of the government is

255 being borne by the poor. There is real starvation, not just as a literary figure of speech. Economist friends of Frei's estimate that there has been a 30 percent cut in real wage, compared to 1970. A 30 percent cut in income can be borne by high-income people, by having one car instead of two, or one television set instead of two, but among the poor in Chile, a cut like this means a cut in the amount of food they can eat. As a result, there is naturally widespread discontent. There is great hatred, which is understandable. Frei cannot speak from firsthand knowledge about the attitudes of the military who are running the country, since he has nothing to do with them. However, he hears from some of his friends who do have such contacts and even work with them that some among the military are aware of the gravity of the situation, and the long-term damage that it is doing. The point of view of the military is that the country is in a state of war. The military is convinced that the Communist Party and the MIR are working very hard, and that if the military let up on their repression, the result will be murders and convulsion. Thus, they intensify their repression, which intensifies the resistance to it, which brings more repression, and so on. Frei would not say that most of the influential civilian advisers of the regime are fascist. Some are ex-Christian Denocrats who from their own point of view are honestly working on behalf of their country. The same can be said of Raúl Sáez, who has been out of the Christian Democratic Party since 1968, and whom Frei has not seen since that time. The present Minister of Finance is one of the Christian Democrats who resigned from the party in order to work with the government. A friend of Frei's asked a member of the junta if they were not worried by what has recently happened in Portugal, where, after decades of repression, the Communist Party emerged very strong and with representation in the post-revolutionary government. The reply of the junta member was that he was worried by this, and therefore was all the more determined to extirpate the Communist party. It is a fact that the Communist party and the MIR are working hard and that they have good organization. Of course, the Communist party has considerable experience with working underground, and he is sure that they will emerge from the present situation stronger than before. The Socialist Party, he thinks, is largely destroyed. The Christian Democrats are very critical of the government. They recently had a very sharp public exchange with the then Minister of Labor, General Oscar Bonilla. There is some dissidence within the Christian Democratic

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ranks. It centers on several Individuals, notably Bernardo Leighton and Renán Fuentealba. Tómic is not particularly aligned with them. There are two basic disagreements on the part of Leighton and Fuentealba: first, whether there should be an alliance with the Communist Party and the MIR, which is opposed by 95 percent of the party membership, but supported by Leighton; and second, whether the party should make a frontal attack and provoke a confrontation with the government. Such an action would be futile at this point, since the public would not follow the party members. The Communists, incidentally, have a policy of not provoking such a confrontation themselves. Frei thinks that it would be foolish for the party to launch a frontal attack; it is important that the party continue to try to influence the government to open up the situation a bit, and to keep the party structure alive. It is possible to keep the party largely intact. There is persecution of the PDC members, particularly in the labor movement, and in the student sectors. It is particularly felt in the smaller towns, where a large number of Christian Democrats have beeen Jailed. Most of them have ultimately been released, but their jailing certainly makes them feel the unfriendliness of the regime towards the party. Meanwhile, the PDC is seeking to train party leaders for them to be ready when things open up again and the party resumes its normal political activities. The Partido Izquierda Radical (PIR) has a position about like that of the Christian Democrats. The Partido Democracia Radical, on the other hand, tends to be strongly with the government, although there is a minority that dissents from this policy. The Partido Nacional is split; the politicians, as opposed to the economic interests represented in the party, are critical of the regime. The church is very critical of the regime. He does not know if he would say that it is more critical than the Christian Democratic Party. Parish priests, particularly in working-class neighborhoods, are furious with the regime. The Cardinal has to calm them down continually. In contrast to the charges that some government people make that the Cardinal is egging on the resistance of the clergy to the regime, the Cardinal in fact has to counsel the priests constantly not to do anything rash. Frei thinks that the United States constitutional system has behaved well in the Watergate affair. He does not understand how a person coming to the United States presidency could try to use it to get rich, as Richard Nixon apparently did. He does not understand Nixon's failure to pay his income tax. He asks what more can an American aspire to than to be president of the United States? In addition, a United States ex-president has a

257 substantial pension, which Chilean ex-presidents do not have. However, Frei thinks that it would be counterproductive in world public opinion for Nixon to be prosecuted. To sum up the situation in Chile, he thinks that things will get considerably worse before they get any better. He has heard from reliable sources that Minister of Interior Carlos Briones and Senator Alberto Jerez were with Allende at the time that he listened to Carlos Altamirano's speech of September 9. They recommended that Allende do what Frei had done when he went to the Christian Democratic party organization to appeal against Jacques Chonchol and others who were in control of the Christian Democratic Party at that particular moment. They suggested that Allende go to the Socialist Party, demand the destitution of Altamirano, and that he then call a referendum on the issues between him and Congress. All agreed to that, and Allende told Briones to prepare a speech calling the referendum that he would deliver by television on Monday, September 10. When Briones did not have the speech prepared, they postponed its delivery to a later date, but by then it was too late. However, even if this story is true, he suspects that it was too late to have saved the situation by then, in any case. *****

CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN HIS OFFICE IN SANTIAGO, AUGUST 26, 1974

The Christian Democrats have not proposed any alternative economic policy to the one the government is following. For one thing, they have not been asked; for another, they have nothing to do with the government, and certainly would not make suggestions unasked. Essentially, the Christian Democrats agree with the cutting of the government budget, and many of the other measures, which were the only way to deal with the disastrous economic situation that the Allende regime had created; but they disagree very much with the way in which this policy has been carried out. Frei has no doubt that the economic policy as it is now being carried out puts the greatest burden on the poor. Government figures indicate at least a 30 percent decline in the real wage this year. Frei agrees that because of the absolutely disastrous situation that the Unidad Popular left, some sacrifice was called for by all, but the weight of the sacrifice should not have been put on the workers. Frei is convinced that a cut in the real wage by merely 15 percent would not have intensified the pressure on inflation. Even if it would have done so, the fight against

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inflation would have therefore gone somewhat slower, it would have been worthwhile, in preventing the utter deterioration of the level of living of the great masses of the population. A 30 percent decrease in the real wage means that people do not have enough to eat. Frei has made a survey of eighteen key food items, as a kind of market basket. The average monthly wage in 1969 would have bought over twenty of these, but in 1974 the wage will buy only six such market baskets. There is almost no doubt that the middle class has suffered too. They have probably suffered proportionally more, but they still have plenty to eat. They now may buy only one suit of clothes per year, or perhaps not even one this year, but they do not have to cut down on their food supply. Frei’s son Eduardo, an engineer, made about the equivalent of U.S. $18,000 during the first two years after he graduated from the university in 1969; and with one-and-a-half year's salary could buy a house and a car. Now, with the current income of someone just graduating from the engineering school, it would take twelve year's salary to buy a house, because a beginning engineer is now making only the equivalent of about U.S. $7,000 in two years. Almost everyone is being hurt by the current situation. The only ones who are gaining are the exporters and importers. Frei talked recently with the owner of the plant in Santiago that produces Arrow shirts, which are now selling for $10, whereas they are selling for $8 in the United States. Frei asked the man why he sold his product in Chile for more than it was sold for in the United States, and the man explained that with the change in the exchange rate of the escudo made by this government he now has to pay eighteen times more for raw materials than he did a year ago, in addition to which, the price of the raw material in the United States has risen by 100 percent. As a result, he has had to raise his prices very drastically, and, even so, he is on the verge of bankruptcy. Frei believes basically that the market is the best organizer of the economy. But the market principle cannot be applied blindly in a country like Chile, as the present government is tiying to do. For instance, there are only two producers of most heavy consumer appliances and they are negotiating a merger. He asks how the market and competition can operate under these circumstances. He also thinks that the prices of all key consumer goods should have been kept under control for the benefit of the low-income groups. Another deplorable aspect is the social implication of government policy. He wil give one example: in the province of Colchagua, a typical rural province, there are eighteen municipalities, of which fifteen had Christian Democratic mayors,

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mainly elected by the peasants, before September 11 last. All mayors were removed, and in almost all cases, large landowners have been named as mayors by the government. Only mayors on a local level have power over the police, and as a result, the large landowners have more power than they have had for thirty or forty years in that province. The situation can be repeated throughout much of Chile. Frei does not think that a change in economic policy is just a matter of changing the group which is making economic policy. It is a matter of making changes too on the question of human rights, and of giving some indication that the government will move back towards a democratic, constitutional regime. Without these things, a mere change in the group making economic policy is not meaningful. With these other changes in government policy, there are various groups of economists who could work with the government, not Just the Christian Democratic group. In fact, however, the repression goes on, and no moves are made to go back to a constitutional regime. Frei agrees that the government has not made up its mind what it wants to do in the longer run, whether it wants corporativism, democracy, or something else. Frei does not know most of the military men who are now in power. However, he does know that Colonel Pedro Ewing is one of the worst of them, a veritable fascist. He does not know General Gustavo Leigh at all. Frei agrees that there are three general points of view in the Christian Democratic Party, but he honestly believes that the position that he represents has the support of 95 percent of the party members. A survey has been taken of 110 youth leaders, and of these 109 supported Frei's position. The questions on this survey included whether or not people wanted an alliance with the Socialists and Communists and whether they wanted an open confrontation with junta. There was almost unanimous opposition to both of these things. Frei is not quite clear as what Renán Fuentealba's objections to party policy really are. He had lunch with him a few days ago and tried to find out. Frei asked Fuentealba if he wanted an alliance with the Left, and Fuentealba said that he wanted it ultimately but not now. Frei asked Fuentealba if he favored open confrontation with the Junta, and Fuentealba replied, absolutely not. Frei is more opposed to the position of José Musalem than to that of Renán Fuentealba. Musalem wants greater openness towards the government than the party now has, more willingness to cooperate with it. Frei is absolutely opposed to that idea. As for Fuentealba, Frei thinks that what he really wants is

260 membership in the National Committee of the Party. He has, in effect, told Frei this. However, this kind of petty matter does not interest Frei. The party is able to keep its structure intact. The leaders meet from time to time. Everyone knows what the position of the National Committee of the party is, and the National Committee knows that it is correctly interpreting the position of the great majority of the party. The local organizations are intact, although it is difficult to keep them going since there is considerable persecution by the government. The local leaders have to be very discreet. Frei thinks that the long-term effect of the emergence of many Christian Democrats in leadership positions in the unions in the wake of the coup of last year will depend upon how they function. If they are effective in fighting for their members, they will greatly strengthen their position. If they fail to do so, the long-term effect will be disastrous. Frei thinks that the historical argument of Fuentealba—that the party did not do enough to reach agreement with Allende— comes very strangely from Fuentealba. He was the first PDC leader, stil as President of the Party, to say that the Allende government was unconstitutional. During the election campaign of last year, Fuentealba said things against Allende and the regime much more extreme than those of any other major PDC leader. Frei thinks the Christian Democrat's loss in 1970 was one aspect of a kind of collective madness or hysteria that came over the country. The Right, for their part, thought that with Jorge Alessandri as their candidate, they could win, and then proceed to undo all of the things that the Christian Democratic regime had done. As a result, the Right had a kind of uncompromising attitude that it had not had before. On the other hand, the PDC had a candidate Radomiro Tomic who is not really a political leader as much as a prophet, a dreamer of dramas, of great cataclysms. He wanted communitarianism immediately; he sought to be further to the Left than Allende, somrthing that was absolutely impossible. Tomic's position reflected a situation within the Christian Democratic Party, where there was a widespread feeling of the need for hurry: There was a feeling that the agrarian reform should be completed in three years, for instance, instead of in seven or eight, which would have made the change possible without upsetting production. Finally, Frei would draw a parrallel with the situation in the United States universities in the period from 1968 to 1970. There were those elements that tried to pull the universities apart, but they were restrained to a large degree by people such as me who

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fought against their efforts. In contrast, here in Chile, the wild men came to power. As to the labor situation during Frei's administration as a contributing element in their loss of the 1970 election, Frei agrees that the kind of change in the labor code that Willy Thayer proposed and that would have tended to weaken the grip of the Communists on the labor movement would have been very good. However, the fact was that the party opposed Thayer's draft of an amended labor code, and therefore the government could not put it into practice. *

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CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 23, 1974

Frei had a conversation with Salvador Allende, with whom he had always been on good personal terms, about a week after Allende had won the September 1970 popular election, in which Frei told Allende that Allende's inauguration would open a new era of turbulence in Chilean political life, and that his administration would end in bloodshed. Allende said that this would not be true because he would never act unconstitutionally. Frei then told him, however, that he was not talking about Allende's personal intentions, which were undoubtedly of the best, but of the circumstances surrounding his taking office. Frei pointed out to Allende that Allende had close relations with the MIR and would be unable and unwilling to control its violent actions. He added that there was no distinct line between the MIR and the Socialist Party, with there being overlapping membership, with the result that Allende's own party would be strongly opposed to his taking any steps to curb the violence of the MIR Finally, Frei told Allende that he would be a prisoner of the Communist party, since he would have to depend very much on its strong organization and political experience. Of course, Frei did not convince Allende of his views. Frei has thought a great deal about what Allende's role really was during his three years in power. There are three alternatives. Allende may have been really dedicated to the maintenance of a democratic and constitutional regime and have not been able to control the wild elements within his own camp. Or, he may in fact have been the leader in the unconstitutional actions that the government took and have planned himself to establish a MarxistLeninist dictatorship. Or, Allende may have counted on his own political capacity to maneuver and to ride out whatever crises might appear, something which in the last crisis he was unable to

262 do.

Frei is inclined towards the third of these possible explanations. However, he has certain doubts because of things that occurred, particularly near the end. For one thing, about two weeks before Allende was overthrown, he met at the Cardinal's house with Patricio Aylwin, president of the Christian Democratic party. The Cardinal had brought them together, to see if some compromise might be reached. On this occasion, however, Allende refused to talk about anything of substance and confined himself to small talk and making jokes, saying that he had come there for a social occasion, and not to talk politics. Another incident that raises Frei's doubts was an incident in the same period, which is told about by Joan Garcez, a Spanish adviser of Allende, in a book he has recently published. Garcez recounts that he approached Allende, telling him that he had two alternatives: either to make a deal with the army and really bring it into partnership in the government, or to make a deal with the Christian Democrats. Garcez recounts that Allende rejected out of hand any thought of making a deal with the Christian Democrats, saying that he would not do that under any circumstances. Frei is inclined to think that in the closing weeks of his regime, Allende threw himself definitely on the side of the extremists within his own camp. On the other hand, there is the pretty well authenticated report that Allende was furious at the speech by Carlos Altamirano two days before the coup, and as a result, Instructed Carlos Briones, his Minister of the Interior, to write a speech that Allende would deliver, announcing that he was going to call a referendum on the principal isues at stake between himself and the opposition. The coup came before Allende was able to give this speech, this story has it. Frei thinks that Allende thought that in the last resort he could count on the loyalty of the carabineros, as well as on that of two or three regiments. Sometime after Allende’s death, the waiter of La Moneda came to see Frei and told him about what had happened. The waiter had been there when Frei was president and continued when Allende was president, and he was with Allende when he was alone in La Moneda on September 11, after everyone else had left, and brought him in something to drink at the end. He was the last man to see Allende alive. The waiter said that at ten o' clock that morning, when Allende heard that the carabineros had Joined the movement against him, he seemed absolutely crushed, and to lose spirit completely. Frei thinks that there is no question about the fact that Altamirano's speech two days before the coup was decisive. He thinks that it was that speech that convinced the leaders of the carabineros to go along with the coup and sealed the fate of the

263 Allende regime. The military had had their doubts about the Allende regime for three years. However, they were very hesitant to move against it. They feared that if they did, this would provoke a civil war. However, they finally decided to move because they felt that their own institution was being menaced by the Allende regime, that the Allende forces were trying to infiltrate the military and to conspire in it, and this they would not allow to happen. It was only then that they finally moved. However, it is noteworthy that in that whole period the military leaders were suspicious of all civilian politicians, not just those of Unidad Popular (UP). Frei was ex-president, had known many of the military leaders more or less well, and during the last few months was President of the Senate. However, in spite of these things, he was never visited by any of the military leaders; they did not talk with him at all about what was going on. They blamed the situation on all of the politicians, not just those of the UP. To some degree, they were right. Certainly, the crisis that culminated on September 11 was not something that had started just in the Allende administration. There was a crisis in national politics, and in national life, that antedated the coming to power of the Allende regime. There was a disintegration of the minimum common consensus that is necessary in order for a democratic regime to function; there was a polarization and a politicalization of all aspects of society. Everything became a matter of power, in the trade union movement, in the universities, in virtually all aspects of life. Under these circumstances, a crisis was almost inevitable. In a way, the Communists have more responsibility than anyone else for the final crisis of the Allende regime. This is because they were much more intelligent, and saw the situation much better than their partners in the Unidad Popular. They foresaw quite clearly the possibility of a military coup and wished to prevent it. However, they did not act decisively in this situation because they faced the unenviable situation, from their point of view, of having a Left to their Left. They had always been traditionally regarded as the Left, but during that period this position was being increasingly brought into question. The Communists were finding that among their own student followers there was an increasing drift to the Left of the Communist party's own position, and even worse, that this was also taking place among the workers whom they had hitherto controlled. As a result, they followed a zigzag kind of policy, one day issuing statements against extremism, and the next day making extremist statements themselves. At one point, they approached Frei with

264 the suggestion that they would be willing to cooperate in a move to crush the extremists, but they never went through with this. The upshot was that they did not act decisively, as they might have done, to head off the final crisis of the Allende regime. Frei thinks that the reason that Chile has received so much attention in recent years in spite of being such a small and otherwise unimportant country, is the fact that there were working out in Chile issues that are being played out on a much larger scale throughout the world. For instance, the international Communist movement watched very closely the events in Chile, and different parties took different positions. The Italians in particular were very critical of the extremisms of the Allende government and advised caution, whereas the Soviet party supported a much more extreme position. In any case, other world Communists saw working out in Chile a set of circumstances that was relevant to their own situations. One cannot talk of a real economic boycott of the Allende regime, which had more offers and agreements for foreign aid than any other regime in Chile's history, from the Soviet Union, the other Communist states, from Western Europe, from elsewhere in Latin America. However, in the case of Soviet aid, it was only $50 million, and much of it was not delivered, and much that was, was not serviceable. But one cannot argue that Chile was blockaded by the rest of the world. Frei thinks that the participation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Chilean events was very bad; however, he also thinks that it was largely irrelevant. It may be that the CIA helped finance newspapers during the Allende regime and that it made contributions to the truckers strike and other movements, but it is hard to argue that in the face of a government that had billions of dollars at its command during the three years it was in power, the $8 million appropriated by the CIA was sufficient to bring it down. Furthermore, the CIA money was to a large degree misspent from its own point of view. It was a complete misunderstanding of the situation on their part to think that they could bribe Chilean politicians into doing what they wanted to do. Furthermore, in all of the discussion of the CIA's financing of the opposition, there is no talk about the outside financing that the Unidad Popular parties and government received. There is no question that the Socialists got substantial contributions from outside, the arms were brought in from the outside by the UP, that the Communist Party not only had very large revenue from business enterprises and property owned in Chile but also contributions from the outside in this period. The contributions of the CIA were undoubtedly tiny in comparison. Frei suspects that much of the discussion of the CIA's role is

265 for the purpose of internal political maneuvers in the United States. For instance, two ex-deputies from Chile were in Washington recently and talked with one of the leading Democrats who is talking about the CIA. The deputies explained to him just what Frei has said about the significance of the CIA activities, indicating that they were of very little importance on balance in the situation there, and the Democrat said that he recognized this, that he knew that the CIA had had little or nothing to do with the fall of the Allende government but that that was not the point. The point was that the Democrats wanted to get Henry Kissinger and that this was a very good argument to use against him, with all of its exaggerations. The two ex-deputies were very disillusioned, but Frei tried to tell them that one politician did not represent the whole American people. Frei has admiration for the Communists. He has admiration for the solidarity that they are demonstrating on an international scale. They know how to come to the defense of their own people. The same thing is true of the Fascists, who he thinks are now a real menace in various parts of the world. They have solidarity among themselves. It is only the democrats who do not have such solidarity. For instance, he talked with Fanfani and Rumor of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, told them of the real situation, and they said that they recognized it, but could not come out with any strong statement of solidarity with the Chilean Christian Democrats because it might harm them internally in Italy, where the Chilean issue is a very "hot" one indeed. Frei thinks that there is need for solidarity among the world's democrats. He thinks that the crisis of democracy is not confined to Chile or to Latin America, but involves North America and Europe as well. He believes that it is necessary to study very deeply the causes of the crisis and to try to discover what they are and what can be done about them. One of the kinds of cooperation he would welcome, for instance, would be for a small group of Latin Americans and North Americans, to get together to spend several days exploring and trying to discover the deeper reasons for the present crisis. It is not just a political crisis, but something much deeper than that. There are small ways in which there could be cooperation among democrats. For instance, two or three books have been published in Spanish about the Chilean situation, which try to explain it in terms other than those of guiltless democratic Socialist regime being overthrown by fascist conspirators. It is impossible to get such books translated and published in the United States, although all kinds of books that do describe the situation in those terms have been published. Frei does not understand why this should be so, but there is need for getting

266 such things put out in English there. The situation in Chile is terrible. The economic situation of the great majority of the people is tragic; the oppressiveness of the regime is getting worse, not better. For the first time, there are sizable numbers of Christian Democrats being jailed by the regime, for a wide variety of reasons. The position of the Christian Democrats is one of full opposition to the regime, but not of confrontation with it. They want to try to preserve the party for the inevitable period that will come later. Frei thinks that if it were possible to have a congress of the party now, that 90 to 95 percent of the delegates who would be elected to such a congress would support this position of the party, which is that being followed by the party’s national committee. Frei thinks that the government's decision not to allow Bernardo Leighton to come back to his country is a grave error on its part. It has been strongly protested by Patricio Aylwin, the president of the PDC. It would be perfectly easy for Frei, while here in the United States, to come out with ringing statements against the regime in Chile. However, in that case, he would not be allowed to go back to Chile. He has been told by other leaders of the party and by many rank and filers that if it is important that he be able to go back and help with the maintenance of the party in existence. For this reason, he is not going to make any such statements. It is interesting that this is the same position which is being taken by the Communist party. Although those Chilean Communists who are outside of the country are saying terrible things about the regime, the Communists who are inside Chile are doing their best to maintain their party structure in existence, and to avoid outright confrontations with the regime. This policy makes sense, it seems to Frei. The Chilean military were not ready to take over ruling a country. They did not have the kind of training and experience that the Peruvian or Brazilian military, for instance, had had. They themselves admit this, which may partially explain the heavyhanded way in which they have behaved, creating an advantage for fascist advisers of the military. Frei would not predict how long the military will stay in power. It might be a year, it might be fifteen years. However, he thinks that sooner or later the country will go back to a constitutional and democratic regime, although just what the nature of that regime will be, it is difficult to see.

267 CONVERSATION WITH EDUARDO FREI IN HIS HOME IN SANTIAGO, JULY 26, 1975

Frei has been told that his house is bugged; therefore, he will put on the radio, since he has been told that it interferes with the recording. There is only one word for the situation in Chile now—that is "horrible" Instead of becoming less rigid, the military dictatorship is becoming tighter. People are being arrested, tortured, and are disappearing. There is no protection under the law. For instance, in the case of the MIRistas whom the government says were killed by their own group, he knows that some were in prison and have had cases pending against them. Of others, there are eye witness reports of their being arrested. The government's reports are a way of explaining murders by the police. The Christian Democrats are now being persecuted more than the Communists. Innumerable Christian Democrats are being picked up, interrogated and maltreated. This fact is not realized abroad. Liberals in the United States, for instance, don't understand the position of the Christian Democrats here. The party is absolutely united. They had an internal plebiscite and 98 percent of them backed the position of the party of not joing in a united front with the Communists. They don't want to do so because they know that the Communists have not changed, that they want to destroy the Christian Democratic Party, and also because to join with the Communists would be to strengthen the military regime. Fear of Communist return to power would rally behind the regime many who are now opposed to it. However, some of those abroad, particularly Gabriel Valdes and Bernardo Leighton, are urging such an alliance. Regardless of this, they are still good-standing members of the party. Radomiro Tomic has hewed more to the line of the party here. The Caracas meeting of some exiled Christian Democrats with people of other parties, and the proclamations they made there took the party here completely by surprise. There was no previous consultation. Many in the regime hate the Christian Democrats worse than they hate the Communist Party. The Communist Party was hurt in the first phase of the military regime. Their first level of leaders was picked up, a few were killed, and many were exiled. But the Communists were well prepared for going underground, and so they had a second and third level of leadership prepared. This new leadership has functioned very well, in many cases it involved people who were completely unknown, particularly in the student movement. Some of those in the trade union field were known. A few of these were picked up two or three months ago. The Communists are

268 exceedingly well financed. The Christian Democrats know this because they know in some provinces who the Communists activists are, and they know that they live well and have the use of cars. Also, families of Communist political prisoners live better than those of non-Communlsts. For Instance, in the case of those in the Madeco Co., they know that the Communist families spend more money in the cooperative than do most families. The same is true in a number of other places. Frei estimates that the Communist party must spend betwen $2 to $3 million a month in Chile. The Communists also have the great advantage of having a radio station, Radio Moscow, at their disposal. It broadcasts four times a day, and Frei estimates that two million people here are listening to it at least occasionally. It has a great deal of news about what is taking place here. The Communists are making whatever arrangements they can with the government. It tolerates them so long as they remain inconspicuous. However, they are also seeking an arrangement with the Christian Democrats. In the trade unions it is principally the Christian Democrats who are out front fighting. Almost no Communist leaders are obvious in the struggle. However, the Communists' organization is still Intact, and the Christian Democrats have the impression that, as was widely true during the time of the Law for the Defence of Democracy, Communists who are arrested are identifying Christian Democrats, in an attempt to remove them from positions of importance. The Christian Democratic position here is well understood in the German party, and in some parts of the Italian party. It is understood, also in the Latin American parties, which are offering a lot of cooperation. Patricio Aylwin, head of the Christian Democratic party here, has just recently been elected Vice President of the Latin American Christian Democratic organization. Also, the Christian Democratic Youth of Latin America have just elected a Chilean youth as the organization’s president. The Socialist Party has been the hardest hit by persecution, after the MIR. It is Frei's impression that the Socialists have virtually no underground organization. The Radicals are split into two groups. Those of Julio Duran are supporting the regime, and they are very small. Those of Luis Bossay are much more extensive, and the Christian Democrats work with them closely. The Partido Nacional (PN) virtually does not exist. When the PN was formed with the merger of the Liberals and Conservatives, its leadership was seized by Sergio Onofre and Jaime Guzman,

269 both ex-nacistas. They are now all out for the government. However, the old-line politicians like Francisco Bulnes are against the regime, but are respecting the "suspension" of the political parties. They are making no attempt to keep their party organization alive. The economic situation is absolutely disastrous. The GNP is down 10 percent at least in recent months: in some sectors, it is down much more. Textiles and cement are entirely closed down; steel is running at 50 percent capacity, although at the end of Frei's regime they were having to expand capacity to one million tons because there was not enough production to meet demand. Agriculture is a disaster, partly because the government imposed free enterprise on agriculture and so offer no price support. Partly, also, it is due to the fact that prices of fertilizers and other Imports are so high that no one can afford them. At the same time, the agrarian reform is being undone, the peasants are losing their land grants, and the latifunda is being reestablished. Wheat production was 13 million quintales in 1970, 11 million in 1973, and 8 million now. It is hard to see who is gaining from this situation. Frei doubts if there is anyone who gains when there is a 10 percent fall in the GNP. The working class is down to nothing but food, and not much of that. A family of six eating only beans, a basic Chilean food, would use up most of their income. They would need 90,000 escudos a month for beans, with the minimum wage being 150,000. The middle class is being pauperized. The industrialists are still threatened with the bankruptcy of their firms, although they still live pretty well. A rich person here has perhaps $300,000 with an income of $2,000 or $2,500 a month. To compare this with his situation, with his retirement income as a lawyer and Congress member —as ex-president he receives no retirement pay—he gets about $240 a month. Frei is sure that many workers struggle with starvation, feeling that the "rich" are so at their expense, a feeling that might lead to something in the future. Meanwhile, the concentration of wealth is growing, with speculators being the big gainers. Concentration of wealth is approaching the worst situation of the times of Arturo Alessandrl and Gustavo Ross. Frei cannot say what it is that the military men think they are doing. He cannot talk about something with which he has no contacts. The military have broken off all contacts with the Christian Democratic leaders. A couple of months ago, Frei published in Ercilla a highly critical article on the economic situation. General Gustavo Leigh replied with insults, calling him a politician, selfish, anti-patriotic, and a coward. However, Leigh does not answer any of the basic

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criticisms that Frei has made. The foreign policy of the regime is absurd. They are isolating Chile from most of the rest of the world. In the Church, three bishops are pro-government, and four others are inclined that way. The rest of the thirty, led by the Cardinal have a worse view of the regime than the one he has given me. Among the priests, those over fifty are divided 70 percent against, and 30 percent for, the regime. Among priests under fifty, they are almost unanimously against, and they regard the Cardinal as a compromiser and as too timid. It is the parish priests who see the full impact of what the government is doing. Frei has had some correspondence with Carlos Lleras Restrepo about the possibility of a conference with Ricardo Balbín, Rómulo Betancourt, Rafael Caldera, José Figueres, Lleras himself, and other democratic leaders. There is real need for a united front among them. Frei knows about the rumors that he stood in the way of a Unidad Popular-Christian Democratic agreement during the time of Allende, but these rumors are false. For one thing, Frei was not in the party leadership hierarchy at that time. For another, he can say very categorically that he supported the PDC's National Committee's moves to negotiate, insisting only on one thing, that Allende get rid of his Far Left, the only way that an arrangement would have been possible. It was always Allende who blocked the success of negotiations, not Frei. Frei still has not made up his mind about the role that Allende played during the Unidad Popular regime. He thinks that on balance, that events just escaped Allende's control, that he thought that his political genius could carry him through. He was a strange man. Frei believes that the United States political panorama is disturbing. President Gerald Ford's strength is that he has all the virtues of a typical North American; he is open, good-hearted, friendly, and honest. But Frei thinks that Ford is not overly intelligent. It is a great danger for the world, that the United States does not have a clear-sighted leadership with ideas and initiatives. They are sorely needed. It looks as if the United States is engaging not only in military Détente, but ideological Détente, which is a great mistake. The Communists have not changed. Because of the weakness of the United States leadership, the Communist parties are winning victory after victory. These have come in Vietnam, Portugal, some in Italy, and will perhaps come in Turkey. Soon it will be Spain, where the Communist leader Santiago Carillo has taken positions that, if Frei were to take them, would get him classified as a "momio" [reactionary]. Frei also has reservations about Senator Edward Kennedy.

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Frei is not sure that he is very intelligent, or that he really has a grasp of the world situation. He admires Hubert Humphrey very much and thinks it was a great shame that Humphrey was not elected. ***** ***** CONVERSATION WITH SALVADOR ALLENDE, IN THE SENATE, SANTIAGO, CHILE, JANUARY 15, 1947

As to the negotiations for unity of the Socialist and Communist parties that were started in the early 1940s, these were proposed by the Communists, and once they had started, the Communists proposed that there be a unification at the base— that is to say, the establishment of joint Socialist-Communist committees on the level of local groups, sections, and regional organizations. Allende, who was the leader of the Socialist delegation in these conferences and was Secretary General of the party, issued a public letter to the Communists in which he refused this procedure and proposed that there be direct negotiations at the level of the Central Committees of the two parties. Once this was achieved there could be talk about unification at the base. The Communists refused this proposition, and negotiations went no further. The idea of unity is crazy, but these negotiations served the purpose of clearing the air of a lot of misconceptions. The trouble with the Socialist Party is that its members and leaders do not have any homogeneous philosophy. For this reason, with every change in the tactics of the party, one or more factions have flown off in every which direction. Allende is for the adoption of a firm doctrinary position by the Socialist party. He believes that in a country such as this, which is small and can never be completely industrialized in the manner of the major industrial countries, a country that is dependent, and will be for some time, on the world market for certain products, and upon international capital, it is silly to talk of proletarian revolution in the Russian manner. The Socialists should be in favor of using the government for an improvement of the conditions of the working class, trying to get more independence for the country economically, and generally bettering the position of the people, but a full-blown proletarian revolution in Chile is out of the question. As to the division of Marmaduque Grove from the Socialist Party, Grove was surrounded by a group of individuals who desired to stay in the Government or in its periphery. These

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people pushed Grove, who is a very personable individual, but does not know a great deal about either politics or social philosophy and does not have any firm position in politics. They pushed the personalist angle of Grove, who had always been the leader of the party. They made him Secretary General of the party and the failure of the Socialists in the early governments of Aguirre Cerda and Juan Antonio Rios was largely due to ineffective leadership of Grove and those people. The Socialist Party should have had an aggressive policy while in government, should have fought actively for the things for which it stood, but the party was always afraid of its own position as a government party, and never criticized anything that went on in the government. For this reason, all of the discredit for things that were not done went to the S.P. But, of course, many good things were accomplished by the Aguirre Cerda government particularly. Still, the Socialists did not fight enough—for instance, Rios promised before election that he would break with the Axis a few weeks after being elected, but he did not do it until two years afterward. The Socialists should have pressed this matter. As a result of all of this, there grew up in the party a group that was much opposed to staying in the government, but a larger group was opposed to the ineffective leadership of the Grovlstas. Thus, in the 1943 convention Grove was displaced by a majority of only four votes, by Allende. Grove did not accept this, and his half of the convention withdrew. After a few months, unity was reestablished, with Grove once more as president of the party and Allende as vice president. But a few weeks before the next Congress of the party. Grove withdrew definitively. This time he withdrew because he feared that Allende was going to impose upon the party a series of candidates for deputy and senator who were Allende's own partisans, or at least partisans of his point of view. This was a mistaken idea, but it caused the split. Since then there have been but few negotiations for reunification of the party. Actually most of the rank and filers of the Grovista group have returned to the Socialist Party of Chile, while the Grovists have been atomized and have practically passed out of existence. Allende was opposed to the readmission of these ex-Grovistas, believing that once a man left the party he should stay out. Allende opposed the Socialists entering the Duhalde government, because he felt that it was an adventurist undertaking that could bring the party no good. And so it proved to be.

273 CONVERSATION WITH SALVADOR ALLENDE IN HAVANA CUBA MAT 13. 1950

The recent change in the government of González Videla had two points of significance about it. First of all, the old cabinet was divided in its own ranks, particularly on economic matters. When the economic liberal Jorge Alessandri, the Minister of Finance, tried to stabilize wages without stabilizing prices, there resulted a virtual general strike and the cabinet fell. In the second place, with the approaching end of the term of González Videla, the possible Radical candidates for the presidency thought that the old coalition of right-wing Conservatives, Liberals, and Radicals would not be a winning one. They urged González Videla to change, and move once again to the Left. He did so, and the present government is one a bit to the left of center, with the Cruz Coke Conservatives, the Falange, the Radicals, and the Democrats in its ranks. The Partido Socialista Popular, of which Allende is a member is not in the present government, and is maintaining an independent position. Allende does not think that the possibilities of unifying the two Socialist parties are very good, because of the presence of Juan Bautista Rossetti in the Partido Socialista de Chile. During the previous administration, Rossetti did some very bad things, wrecking unions, breaking strikes, and generally acting in a very anti-Socialist manner. It will be difficult to bring about any unity so long as he is in the party. The Communists at the present time are working very closely with Carlos Ibáñez, who is making quite a political comeback. ***** CONVERSATION WITH SALVADOR ALLENDE IN SANTIAGO, CHILE, JULY 2, 1953

The presidential campaign of 1952 was a good one. he thinks that the Socialist Party got its message over to the people in a way that will be remembered for some time. However, the vote was disappointing naturally. They had hoped to get more votes than they received. The alliance of the Partido Socialista de Chile, to which he now belongs, with the Communist party was forced by circumstances. The parties could not in any case go along with General Carlos Ibáñez, the ex-dictator, who may well bring back dictatorship now, or, at best, will end up with a government of the Right. To back him would have been to have sacrificed all principles. They could not support the Right either. They could

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not go along with the González Videla candidate, and when the Communists offered their support for an independent candidacy, the party had no alternative but to accept. However, the party remains a Socialist party, not a Communist one. ***** SPEECH BY SALVADOR ALLENDE IN THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE PARTIDO SOCIALISTA DE CHILE, IN SANTIAGO, JULY 5, 1953

Allende thinks that the statement on the membership card of the Socialist Party that it stands for Marxism "as adapted to the times in which we are living," should be kept with that modifying phrase. Karl Marx wrote one hundred years ago, and could not possibly have foreseen things that have occurred subsequently. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the modifying phrase in the party's declaration of faith, and not remove it, as the organization committee of the congress has proposed. Insofar as the issue of deputies and senators being members of the party's Cental Committee is concerned—which it has been proposed to ban—he opposes the idea of banning such membership. More often than not, the outstanding leaders of the party are elected to Congress, and he does not think that they should be banned from membership in the Cental Committee. This would create two kinds of party members, one of which would be eligible for the highest posts in the party, the other of which would not be so eligible. Other parties permit their parliamentarians to be members of the highest bodies in their parties. This is particularly the case with the Communist Party and the Partido Socialista Popular. *****

Further Reading The people dealt with in this volume have, to a greater or lesser degree, been the subject of study by others—and by themselves. Those readers who may be interested in following the careers of one or another of the presidents discussed in this text more closely may find it worth while to peruse some of the volumes that are listed below. The book that has at least some material on all of the subjects discussed here is the Biographical Dictionary of Latin America and Caribbean Politics, edited by Robert J. Alexander and published by Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1988. ARGENTINA. Juan Perón is probably the twentieth-century Latin American political leader who has been written about more than any other—except for Fidel Castro. The best biography of Perón in English is that by Joseph Page: Perón: A Biography, published by Random House in 1983. The reader might also find George Blanksten's Perón's Argentina (University of

276 Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953) interesting; along with two biographies of Perón by Robert J. Alexander: The Perón'' Era (Columbia University Press, New York, 1951) and Juan Domingo Perón;-----A History (Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1979). The only book in English that deals at some length with Arturo Frondizi is An_ Introduction—to Argentina, by Robert J. Alexander (Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, New York, 1969) . Finally, The. Political Economy of Argentina,_ 194 6-1983 by Guido di Telia and Rudiger Dornbusch (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1989) deals in some detail with the economic aspects of the administrations of Presidents Perón, Aramburu, Frondizi and Illia. BRAZIL

The best overall survey of Brazilian politics, during the period in which the men dealt with in the present volume were in power, is Thomas Skidmore’s Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964, published by Oxford University Press, New York, 1967. Also of value is Jordan Young’s Brazil, 1954-1964: End of a Civilian Cycle (Facts-on-File, New York, 1972) President Eurico Dutra’s presidency has been dealt with in the two following works: José Teixeira de Oliveira’s O Governo Dutra (Editorial Civilizagao Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, 1956) and José Caso ’s Dutra: O Presidente_ q_ a_ Restauracao Democrática (Instituto Progreso Editorial S. A., Sao Paulo, 1949) . The principal source on the life of President Joáo Café Filho is his autobiography, Do Sindicato ao Catete, published in two volumes by Livraria José Olympio Editora, in Rio de Janeiro, 1966. President Juscelino Kubitschek wrote extensively about himself. His autobiography, A Experiencia da Humilidade, was published in three volumes by Bloch Editores, in Rio de Janeiro, 1974. The only biography of him in English is Juscelino Kubitschek and__ the Development of Brazil, by Robert J. Alexander, published by Ohio University Center for

277 International Studies, Athens, Ohio, 1991. Also of interest are Maria Victoria de Mesquita’s O Governo Kubitschek :_____ Desenvolvimiento Económico e Estabilidade Política (Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, 1979) and Celso Lafer’s Cornell University Ph.D. dissertation (1970), Ihe_ Planning Process and the Political—System in Brazil:___Study of Kubitschek’s Target Plan. 1956-1961. Mario Victor’s 5_ Anos__que_ Abalaram o Brazil (Editorial CivilizaQáo Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, 1965) deals extensively with the presidencies of Jánio Quadros and Joao Goulart, leading up to the military coup of April 1, 1964. Also of interest for this period is Kenneth Erickson' s The Brazilian Corporative__ State__ and__ Working__ CLans__ Politics (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977), dealing particularly with the administration of Joao Goulart.

CHILE Most of the Chilean presidents dealt with in the present volume are treated moré or less extensively in the Directorio Politico de Chile by Lia Cortes and Jorge Fuentes (Editorial Orbe, Santiago, 1967). Two biographies of Arturo Alessandri are of particular interest. These are Ricardo Donoso’s Alessandri: Agitador y Demoledor, published in two volumes by the Fondo de Cultura Economica in Mexico City, in 1952 and 1954, which is extremely hostile to its subject; and Robert J. Alexander ’s Arturo Alessandri : A Biography, put out by University Microfilms International in 1977, which is basically sympathetic to Alessandri. Raúl Aldunate Phillips ' Ruido de Sables (Escuela Litogràfica, Santiago, 1970) deals with the events that brought General Juan Bennett into the collegiate presidency in September 1924.Carlos Charlin ’s Del Avion Rojo a la República_ Socialista (Empresa Nacional Quimantú, Santiago, 1972) is a biography of Marmaduque Grove, dealing particularly with his earlier career. Information on him, as well as Salvador Allende is also to be found in

278 Alejandro Chelen Rojas, Trayectoria del 'Socialismo (Editorial Austral, Buenos Aires, n.d.) For information on President Eduardo Frei and his administration, the reader is referred to Robert J. Alexander's The Tragedy of Chile, and Paul Sigmund's The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964-1976 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977). Other volumes of value that focus on Allende are Chile and Allende, published by Facts-on-File, New York, 1974, and Nathaniel Davis’ The last Two Years of Salvador Allende, published by Cornell University Press in 1985. A very sympathetic view of Allende is presented in Edward Boorstein*s Allende's Chile, An Inside View (International Publishers, New York, 1977). José Martinez Fernández' Allende: Su Vida, su pensamiento (Ediciones Palabra Escuta, Santiago, 1988) sketches both Allende's life and his ideas.

Index Academia Brasileira de Letras, see Brazilian Academy of Letters Acción Revolucionaria Socialista, 181 Affonso, Almino, 151 AFL-CIO, 39 Agrarian reform (Chile), 196, 201, 214, 227, 236, 248 Aguirre Cerda, Pedro, 170, 181, 204, 205, 210, 211, 274 Aldunate Phillips, Raúl, 228 Alende, Oscar, 23, 65 Alessandri Palma, Arturo abuse of parliamentary system by, 224 and Milicia Republicana, 200 and Seguro Obrero incident, 204-205 arousal of presidential ambitions of, 222 as a reader, 225 as candidate of the Center in 1932 election, 180 as friend of Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, 204, 226 as President of the Senate, 205, 229, as presidential candidate in 1946, 189-190, 225226

280 assessment of by Eduardo Frei, 243 association of with June 1932 revolution, 182 attitude of Right in his 1930s presidency, 199 attitude towards his son Jorge, 218 author's biography of, 171, 173 author’s conversation with, January 31, 1947, 174 author’s conversation with, April 3, 1947, 174-176 authorship by of Labor Code, 174, 176, 177, 210 becomes idol of the people, 204, 223 censorship of Topaze by, 223 Chilean Army as traditional enemy of, 211 circumstances of author’s first meeting with, 169 claim by González Videla that there was no deal with in 1946 election, 199 close alliance of with Partido Democrático, 169 comments about by Jorge Alessandri, Gabriel González Videla and Eduardo Frei, 173 concentration of wealth under, 269 contacts of with Benito Mussolini, 219 conversion of to belief in presidential system, 224 death of, 226 defense of Liberal Party by, 175-176 duels of, 227 early association of with Fernando Lascano, 221 early interest of in social problems, 176 explanation by of reasons for his overthrow in 1924,175 explanation by of reasons for proposing Labor Code, 174 explanation of 1924 overthrow of, by Juan Bennett, 177 failure of Pinochet regime to honor him, 172 first administration of, 172 first exile of, 218-219, 224 first resignation of 168, 169, 177 frustration of in first presidency, 168 given start by Basque politicians, 203-204 impetuous actions of, 222, 223 lack of trust of military in, 177 legislative proposals of when he first became President, 174 love by of power and popularity, 222-223

281 marital infidelities of, 222 more a Radical than a Liberal, according to Gabriel González Videla, 204 negotiations of with González Videla in 1946 election, 199, 212, 226 never held against González Videla that was in Congreso Termal, 203 not a practicing Catholic, 227 oratorical powers of, 204, 221 placed emphasis on Italian ancestry, 227 presidential candidacy of in 1931, 199 program of after restoration to presidency in 1925, 175 recall of to power in 1925, 175, 178, 179 reestablishment of constitutional regime by, 223 rejects Radical Party protest on conduct of 1938 election, 204 relationship of with President González Videla, 199, 204, 229 role of in election of President Juan Antonio Rios, 199, 205 211, 225 second election of as President, 170, 211, 226 second exile of, 224 second resignation of, 179 senatorial candidacy of in 1915, 223 strict Catholic upbringing of, 218 strictness of with his children, 220 supports Gabriel González Videla after popular election in 1946, 226 was not a conservative, 226-227 Alessandri Rodríguez, Arturo, 212 Alessandri, Eduardo, 190, 212, 226 Alessandri, Fernando, 190, 212, 226 Alessandri, Hernán, 225 Alessandri, Jorge accompanies father on his first exile, 220-221, 224, 225 accompanies father to interviews with Mussolini, 218 arranges meeting of author with Arturo Alessandri, 169 as candidate for deputy, 223 as Minister of Finance, 223, 229, 273

282 as only Chilean president who has not denounced Communists, 228 as President of Confederación de Comercio y Producción, 224 assessment by of Eduardo Frei, 213 attacks Frei government, 213, 216-217, 218 author’s conversation with, December 10, 1946, 212-214 author's conversation with, July 5, 1968, 212-218 author's conversation with, July 1, 1971, 218-226 authors conversation with, July, 1972, 221-228 brass plaque in honor of, 172 childhood reminiscences of, 218, 222 claims Congress has too much power, 212-213 contacts of with student demonstrators, 221 defines Right and Left in Chilean politics, 227 denies being a Rightist, 220 denies his administration was "conservative, " 214215 description by of Compañía Papelera, 210-211, 216 disagreements of with his father, 222 early career of, 171, 223-224 election of as President, 171 exile of by Carlos Ibáñez, 225 explains reasons for Ricardo Donoso's dislike of his father, 219 foreign stays of, 219 handling by of relations with union, 211 letter to author from, November 15, 1972, 228-229 letter to author from, March 1, 1973, 229 on agrarian reform, 214, 227 on attraction of Soviet Union for many in Chile, 214 on Chilean Labor Code, 210 on Chilean presidents’ difficulties with the military, 220 on economic chaos under Allende, 227-228 on failure of United States rulers to understand Latin America, 214-215 on his father’s early career, 221-222 on his father's first resignation, 228 on his role as intermediary with father, 219 on housing program of his administration, 213

283 opposition of to government control of economy, 220-221 opposition of to his father’s 1946 presidential candidacy, 226 opposition to rural unionization, 215 presidential candidacy of, 217 refusal of to make patronage appointments as President, 222 resignation of from Council of State, 171 return of to Compañía Papelera, 216 role of in 1970 election, 244, 260 says not true he is only son of Arturo Alessandri not a politician, 212 sketches career of his father, 171-172, 173 takes over control of Compañía Papelera, 210-211 thinks his father doesn’t get enough credit for reestablishing constitutional regime, 223 Alessandri, José Pedro, 221 Alessandri, Marta, 218 Alfonsín, Raúl, 6, 90 Alfonso, Pedro, 189 Aliança Nacional Libertadora, 104 Alianza Revolucionaria, 65 Alkmin, Jose Maria, 133 Allende, Salvador administration of, 172 as member of Partido Socialista de Chile, 274 as member of Partido Socialista Popular, 230, 273 as Secretary General of Socialista Party, 273, 274 as senator, 230, 253 as violent anti-Communist, 173, 205 assessment of by Carlos Davila, 183 assessment of by Eduardo Frei, 253-254 assessment of by Gabriel González Videla, 205-206 author’s contacts with, 173 author's conversation with, January 15, 1947, 271272 author’s conversation with, July 2, 1953, 273 conversation with Eduardo Frei, 261 corruption in regime of, 249 death of, 207, 254 desire of to form military cabinet, 250 distribution of arms in administration of, 249,

284 251, 253 efforts of to establish Communist economic system while maintaining 'democracy, 201 explanation by of Marmaduque Grove split with Socialist Party, 272 favors Marxism "as adapted to the times in which we are living, " 274 in 1970 election, 244 June 29, 1973 coup attempt against, 249, 253 negotiations of with Christian Democrats, 201, 250, 262, 270 not a Marxist-Leninist in early career, 173 on alliance of Communist Party and Partido Socialista de Chile, 273-274 on lack of homogeneity in Socialist Party of Chile, 271 on negotiations for unification of Socialist and Communist parties, 271 opposition of to Socialists entering Duhalde government, 272 personal guard of as President, 221, 247 political philosophy of in 1946, 271 reaction of to Carlos Altamirano speech, 257, 262 reasons for fall of, 252-253 refusal of, as President, to receive author, 173 regime of seeks to establish Communist dictatorship according to González Videla, 206 Alliance for Progress, 111, 116, 129, 144 Altamirano, Carlos, 257, 262-263 Altamirano, Luis, 177, 178 Alvear, Marcelo de, 19, 25, 81 Amadeo, Mario, 16, 65 Amaral Peixoto, Ernani, 120 Antonio, Jorge, 13 Aramburu, Pedro Eugenio author's conversation with, 13-24 candidacy of in 1963 election, 22-23 condemnation by of overthrow of President Illia, 23 discussion by of his labor policies, 17 explanation by of how he became president, 16-17 long acquaintanceship of with Juan Perón, 13-14 on conflicts in military after Frondizi overthrow,

285 22 constitutional convention, 18-19 economic policies of Ongañia government, 23-24 Frondizi as President, 20-21 Frondizi’s electoral victory, 19-20 Frondizi ’s overthrow, 21-22 June 1956 revolt, 18 military opposition to turning government over to Arturo Frondizi, 19 on nature of "Argentina's problem,” 24 on role in June 1955 revolt against Perón, 15 participation of in 1951 plot against Perón, 14 presidency of, 3 relations of with President Lonardi, 16-17 role of in liberating revolution revolution," 1516 Arraes, Miguel 158 Arriagada, Enrique, 186, 188 Aylwin, Patricio, 262, 266, 268 on on on on on on on

Balbin, Ricardo, 9, 20, 62, 84, 272 Balmaceda, José Manuel, 221, 225 Banco Central (Argentina), 8, 63 Banco Central (Brazil), 134 Banco Central (Chile), 201 Banco de Concepcion, 200 Banco del Estado, 180 Banco Demasa, 134 Banco Francés e Italiano, 198, 200 Banco Halles, 138 Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Económico, 162 Barros, Adhemar de, 93, 103, 104, 120-121, 158 Barros, Senator, 151 Bartolini, 30 Belaunde, Fernando, 237 Bello Codesido, Emilio, 178, 225 Bengoa, Leon, 15, 16 Bennett, Juan, 167, 168, 169, 176-178 Berle, Adolf, 147 Betancourt, Rómulo, 131, 173, 270 Bevilacqua, Peri, 132 "Billetinhos de Janio, " 96, 147 Blejer, David, 61

286 Bonilla, Oscar, 255 Borlenghi, Angel, 30, 33 Bossay, Luis 191, 268 Bowers, Claude, 192 Brazilian Academy of Letters, 95-96, 142-143 Brazilian Democratic Movement, 142 Brazilian Labor Party as one of three major parties, 121, 165 close association of with Getúlio Vargas, 105, 108 delegation of protest to President Quadros, 151 dissidence within, 105, 152, 154, 161 elects Joao Goulart a deputy, 154 Joáo Goulart as president of, 154 organized by Getúlio Vargas, 92, 155, 161 patronage controlled by during Kubitschek administration, 120 Briones, Carlos, 257, 262 Brizóla, Leonel, 150 Bulnes, Francisco, 269

Cabral, Castilho, 146 CADE Eléctrico Co., 41 Café Filho, Joao as part of conspiracy to keep Kubitschek from becoming President, 107, 125 author’s conversation with, June 10, 1953, 105 author’s conversation with, May 27, 1966, 103-104 author's conversation with, June 8, 1966, 104-108 becomes President, 93, 105 assessment of Getúlio Vargas by, 106 circumstances of author’s conversations with, 9394 conditions surrounding nomination of for vice president, 93, 103-104, 155-156 denies that there was conspiracy to keep Kubitsckek from presidency, 107 early career of, 93, 103, 105 explanation by of military moves against him, 107, 108 foreign policy of, 110 labor policies of as president, 106-107 neutrality of in 1955 election, 107 on drought conditions in Northeast, 103 on nature of Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, 105

287 on split in Brazilian armed forces, 107, 108 opposition of to Getúlio Vargas, 104, 105 opposition of to November 1937 coup, 105 opposition of to dictatorship, 93, 104, 105 refuses to establish dictatorship, 127 Caldera, Rafael, 270 Campora, Héctor, 6, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70 Campos, Milton, 145 Castillo, Ramón, 82 Castro, Fidel, 9. 18, 45, 48, 111, 131, 173 Central Intelligence Agency, 56, 161, 264, 265 Central Unica de Trabajadores, 203 Centro de Estudios Económicos-Sociales, see Centro de Estudios Nacionales Centro de Estudios Nacionales, 48, 61 CGE, see General Economic Confederation CGP, see General Profesional Confederation CGP, see General Confederation of Labor CGU, see General University Confederation Chonchol, Jacques, 257 Chou En-lai, 157 Christian Democratic Party (Argentina), 66 Christian Democratic Party (Brazil), 150 Christian Democratic Party (Chile) abandonment of by Raúl Saez, 255 agreements with it violated by Allende administration, 253 as opposition to Allende regime, 246 changes in, 237 criticism by of military regime, 255, 257, 266 did not expect military to turn power over to them after September 1973 coup, 254 desire of Communists to destroy Christian Democratic Party, 267 dissidence within, 255-256, 257, 259-260 effect of military regime on, 260 efforts of to negotiate with Allende regime, 201, 253, 262, 270 electoral gains by, 236, 247 emergence of leadership of in labor movement, 260, 268 enacts an agrarian reform law, 227, 238 errors of in 1970 election, 244, 261

288 hated worse than Communists by military regime, 267 lack of contact of with the military, 255, 263 lack of influence of in military regime, 255 leaders of want national sugar industry, 216-217 murder of some of its leaders, 241 persecution of by military regime, 256, 260 philosophy of, 241-242 proposes no alternative economic policy to military regime, 257 prospects of in 1964 election, 235 relations of with international Christian Democratic movement, 268 relations of with Roman Catholic Church, 237 removal of its mayors by military regime, 258-259 Right's desire to undo its accomplishments, 260 role of in 1970 campaign, 260 unhappines of with military regime, 207 Christian Democratic Party (Italy), 265 Christian Democratic Youth of Latin America, 268 Chrysler Corporation, 56 Churchill, Winston, 129 Cifuentes, Oscar, 180 Clube de Novembro, 127 Codigo del Trabajo, see Labor Code Codovilla, Victorio, 29 Coelho, Danton, 154 Color, Lindolfo, 104 Communist Party (Argentina) attitude of towards Perón, 29 controls labor movement, according to Perón, 7 exploits discontent against Perón, 35 fixed doctrine of, 25 functioning of under Videla regime, 68 growth of, according to Perón, 8-9 participation of in Alianza Revolucionaria, 65 participation of in Unión Democrática, 83 political insignificance of, 71 pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese elements of, 60 rise of in labor movement, 24-25 splits in ranks of, 4 6, 60 Communist Party (Brazil) alignment of Joao Goulart with, 140

289 as headed by Luiz Carlos Prestes, 100 attacks of on Jánio Quadros, 152 attempted insurrection of, 104 break with by Goulart demanded by General Kruel, 100 decline of popular support for after 1947, 104 elects large delegation to Constituent Assembly in 1945, 104 influence of among students, 152 launches Petróleo e Nosso campaign, 127 outlawing of, 92 participation of in 1955 election, 107 relegalization of fought for by President Goulart, 161 strength of reduced under Kubitschek, 133 surrounds Goulart in last part of his regime, 132 takes over Alianca Nacional Libertadora, 104 Communist Party (Chile) admiration of by Eduardo Frei, 265 agitation of at Radical Party Congress, 186 arrangements of with military regime, 268 as moderate elements in Allende regime, 202 as only real party of Left in Chile, 236 as opponent of Socialist Party, 192 attacks Arturo Alessandri as enemy of popular cause, 176 break of with Falange Nacional, 230 break of with Gabriel González Videla, 193-194, 197 calls strike in coal fields, 189 collaboration of with Carlos Ibáñez, 273 continued activity of after September 1973 coup, 255, 256, 267-268 courting of González Videla by, 205 dependence of Allende on, 261 desire of to destroy Christian Democratic Party, 267 did not support Arturo Alessandri in 1932 election, 211 efforts of military regime to extirpate it, 255, 267-268 entry of into Duhalde government favored by Radical Party, 187, 188

290 entry of into his government rejected by Duhalde 188 faithfulness of to Moscow, 220 fear of its return to power a rallying point for military regime, 267 fears of González Videla about, 199 financial resources of, 265, 268 growth of, 234 identification by to police of Christian Democratic opponents of military regime, 268 in 1946 campaign, 193, 205 influence of in labor movement, 261 menace of, according to Marmaduque Grove, 182 negotiation of for unity with Socialist Party, 271 not seen by Duhalde as "any particular menace," 190 opposition of González Videla to Radical Party alliance with, 209 opposition to alliance with in Christian Democratic Party, 259, 267 organization by of Plaza Bulnes meeting, 187 parliamentarians in the leadership of, 274 position of on birth control, 237 pressure by on González Videla to break with United States, 193, 205 received money from Soviet Union, 205 relations of with Gabriel González Videla, 184 responsibility of for fall of Allende, 263-264 rivalry of with Socialists in trade unions, 210 role of in Allende administration, 250, 263-264 role of in 1970 election, 244 seeks to avoid outright confrontation with military regime, 266 should have no role in reestablished democracy, according to González Videla, 208 weakness of in 1924, 177 Communist Party (Portugal), 255 Compañía Americana de Seguros de Vida, 203 Compañía de Acero del Pacifico, 191, 194-195 Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, 171, 210, 215-216 Compañía Papelera, see Compañía Manufacturera de

291 Papeles y Cartones Confederación de Comercio y Producción, 224 Confederación General Del Trabajo, see General Confederation of Labor Confederation of Workers of Chile, 181, 182 Confirmado, 46 Conservative Party (Chile) as one of traditional Chilean parties, 211 attacks of on Arturo Alessandri, 176, 226 blocks election of Gabriel González Videla as senator, 199, 229 collaboration of with Liberals, 212, 235 followers of voted for Eduardo Frei in 1964, 217 had only two Chilean presidents, 175-176 invited to join Gonzalez Videla cabinet, 199 merger of with Liberals to form Partido Nacional, 268 named Carlos Ibáñez as presidential candidate in 1942, 211, named Eduardo Cruz Coke as presidential candidate in 1946, 212, 226 opposition of to rural labor legislation, 191 split in led by Eduardo Cruz Coke, 184, 230, 273 Conservatives (Argentina), 23, 37, 54, 60, 62, 82 Conservative Youth (Chile), 184 Contreras Labarca, Carlos, 186, 192 Cordeiro de Farias, Osvaldo, 149, 153 "Cordobazo," 5 Corporacáo de Habitagáo of Maranhao, 164 Correio da Manha, 116 COSIPA steel plant, 120 Costa, Zenobio da, 155 Costa e Silva, Arthur, 122, 123, 134, 148-149 Council on Foreign Relations, 247 Cruchaga, Miguel, 225 Cruz Coke, Eduardo, 184, 212 225, 230, 273 CTCH, see Confederation of Workers of Chile Cuevas, Francisco, 191 Daley, Richard, 145 Dantas, Santhiago (or San Thiago), 158, 161 Dávila, Carlos, 167, 170, 180, 182-185 De Gaulle, Charles, 130

292 Delfim Neto, Antonio, 138 del Rio, Arturo, 221 Democracia Radical, 202, 256 Democratic Party of USA, 38, 265 Denys, Odylo, 116, 126, 157 Donoso, Ricardo, 219, 229 Dorrego, psedonym for Arturo Frondizi, 46 Duarte, Juan, 29, 30 Duhalde, Alfredo as candidate for President, 170,189-190, 272 as Minister of Defense, 188 as Vice President, 167, 170, 185-189 author's conversation with, April 3, 1947, 185192 favors entry of Socialists in his government, 187 moves to lift legal recognition of certain unions, 186-187 negotiations of with Socialists to enter his government, 187, 188, 189 observes Plaza Bulnes incident, 187-188 on Communists, 190 on Gabriel González Videla, 190-191 on industrialization, 191 on treaty with Argentina, 190 on unionization of rural workers, 190-191 on United States' attitude to González Videla administration, 192 opposition of Salvador Allende to Socialists’ entry into his government, 272 preparations of for Plaza Bulnes meeting, 186-189 suggests Fernando Alessandri as 1946 presidential candidate, 220 support of by President Rios, 188 Dulles, John Foster, 128, 129 Durán Julio, 268 Dutra, Eurico, 91, 92, 93, 102, 124 Economic Commission for Latin America, 113, 216 Eisenhower, Dwight, 11, 128, 141 Eisenhower, Milton, 11 Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo, 66 Encuentro Nacional del Pueblo, 53

Er.cilla, 269

293 ERP, see Ejercitó Revolucionario del Pueblo Escola de Guerra, see Escola Superior de Guerra Escola Superior de Guerra, 115, 137 Espejo, José, 29 Esquerda Democrática, 105 Estado Novo, 91, 93, 105, 118, Eva Perón Welfare Foundation, 2, 11 Ewing, Pedro, 259 Export-Import Bank, 129, 195 Falange, see Falange Nacional Falange Nacional, 184, 186, 230, 239, 242, 273 Fanfani, Amitore, 265 Faupel, General von, 11 Federation of Secondary School Students, 247 Fernandes, Raúl, 108 Fernández, Joaquín, 187, 188 Ferrari, Fernando, 105, 145, 157, 161 FIAT, 57, 136 Figueiredo, Joao Baptista, 100 Ford Motor Co., 56 Figueres, José, 270 Figueroa, Emiliano, 179 Food and Agricultural Organization, 216 Ford, Gerald, 270 Franco, Francisco, 11 FRAP, see Popular Action Front Frei, Eduardo accepts idea of stopping illegal strikes, 186 admiration of Communists by, 265 appeal of to Christian Democratic rank and file, 257 as leader of Christian Democratic Party, 172 as President of the Senate, 254, 263 assessment by of Arturo Alessandri, 243 assessment by of his administration, 243 assessment by of Salvador Allende, 253-254 assessment of by Jorge Alessandri, 213 author's conversation with, May 14, 1950, 230 author's conversation with, February 15, 1959, 234- 235 author's conversation with, April 22-23, 1963, 235- 237

294 author’s conversation with, June 28, 1966, 237239 author’s conversation' with, July 1, 1971, 242-247 author’s conversation with, July 10, 1973, 248251 author’s conversation with, August 11, 1974, 252257 author's conversation with, August 26, 1974, 257261 author's conversation with, October 23, 1974, 263-269 author’s conversation with, July 26, 1975, 266271 author’s correspondence and conversations with, 172 believes United States scholars don't understand September 1973 coup, 251 comments of on Arturo Alessandri, 173 criticism by of military regime’s foreign policy, 270 denies Christian Democrats thought military would turn power over to them, 254 denies favoring September 1973 military coup, 254 denies there was economic boycott of Chile under Allende, 264 doubts of about United States foreign policy, 270 explanation by of overthrow of Allende regime, 252-254 foreign reserves left by his government, 200, 245 hope of for reestablishment of democracy, 252 importance of his not going into exile, 266 letter to author from, October 3, 1973, 251-252 observations of on Jorge Alessandri government, 235 observations of on Latin American economic development, 231-234 on attitude of Catholic Church to military regime, 256, 270 on attitude of various parties to military regime, 256, 268 on career of Edmundo Pérez Jujovic, 239-242 on changing role of Catholic Church, 236-237

295 on Chilean economic situation in 1966, 238 on Christian Democratic Party relations with the Communists, 236, 259, 267 on civilian advisers of military dictatorship, 255 on disintegration of Chilean political consensus, 263 on dissidence within Christian Democratic Party, 256, 260, 267 on economic policy of military regime, 255, 257258, 269 on economic situation in Allende regime, 248249, 254 on economic situation of Chile in 1975, 259 on effect of military regime on, 259 on his conversation with Allende in September 1970, 261 on his government's agrarian reform, 238 on his government's copper mining program, 238 on importance of Chile for international Communist movement, 264 on June 29, 1973, coup attempt, 249, 253 on Kennedy government's policies towards Cuba, 236 on labor policy of his government, 261 on lack of Christian Democratic international solidarity, 265 on March 1973 election, 250 on military after September 1973 coup, 255 on murders and "disappearances” by military regime, 267 on negotiations with Allende administration, 250, 253, 262, 270 on overthrow of President Arturo Illia, 237 on persecution of Christian Democrats by military regime, 267 on philosophy of Christian Democratic Party, 241242 on political and economic situation of Chile in 1950, 230 on Promoción Popular, 238-239 on prospects for Christian Democratic Party in 1964 election, 235

296 on recent gains by Christian Democrats, 247 on relations between Christian Democrats and Partido Nacional, 249 on relations of Allende with Carlos Altamirano, 257 on relations with Presidents Leoni, Lleras Camargo and Belaunde, 237 on role of Allende in Allende regime, 253-254, 261-262, 270 on role of Central Intelligence Agency in Chile, 264-265 on role of Communists under military regime, 267268 on struggle for democracy in Latin America, 247248 on trend of Allende regime towards dictatorship, 246, 252-253 on unpreparedness of Chilean military to rule, 266 on Watergate, 256-259 on worlwide crisis of democracy, 265 opposition of to collaboration with the Communists, 270 opposition of to Pinochet dictatorship, 172 persecution of by military regime, 266 personal attacks on by Unidad Popular, 247 protest of against closing of Congress, 254 resignation of from Duhalde government, 188 speech of on June 24, 1971, 239-242 support by of Christian Democratic Party negotiations with Allende, 270 talk by on August 7, 1956, 231-234 talk by on October 22, 1971, 247-248 visit of to United States, 246-247 Freire, Victorino, 162 French Revolution, 68 Frente Ampla, 123, 132 Frente Justicialista, see Frente Justicialista de Liberacion Frente Justicialista de Liberacion, 62, 65, 67 Frondizi, Arturo apparent original support by of President Ongania, 5

297 as candidate for Radical Party nomination in 1958, 84, 85 as chief Radical Party spokesman on meatpackers' strike, 26 assessment by of accomplishments of his government, 44-45, 55 assessment by of political situation in 1971, 5354 assessment by of strength of various parties, 44 author’s conversation with, November 8, 1946, 2426 author's conversation with, August 5, 1952, 26-28 author's conversation with June 25, 1953, 28-32 author’s conversation with, July 15,1954, 32-36 author’s conversation with, May 17, 1956, 36-39 author's conversation with, May 30, 1956, 39-40 author's conversation with, April 2, 1958, 40-41 author’s conversation with, January 29, 1959, 42 author's conversation with, September 1, 1959, 42 author’s conversation with, June 21, 1966, 44-46 author's conversation with, June 5, 1968, 47-49 author’s conversation with,June 14, 1971, 53-54 author's conversation with, June 15, 1971, 54-57 author's conversation with,June 8, 1972, 58-61 author's conversation with, July 4, 1973, 62-67 author's conversation with, August 7, 1974, 68-70 author’s conversation with, July 16, 1976, 72-73 author’s correspondence with after overthrow of, 4 author's first encounter with, 3 behaviour of before overthrow, 21-22 broke word in pushing own nomination in Radical convention, 85 comments of on Ongañía government, 47, 48-49 confirms Perón 's suppression of opposition, 2 criticizes Isabel Perón government oil policy, 69 establishment by of Movimiento de Intransigencia Radical, 44 explains initial support by of Videla military regime, 70, 71 his answer to author’s letter after his overthrow (via Eduardo S. González), 42-43

298 his government's oil contracts, 87 hopes of for Argentine political regroupment, 48 jailing of by Perón regime, 32 leadership by of Movimiento Intransigente Democrático, 44 letter of author to, June 8, 1968, 49-50 letter of author to, August 11, 1968, 51-52 letter of to author, September 12, 1955, 36 letter of to author, October 22, 1956, 40 letter of to author, December 22, 1958, 41 letter of to author, February 21, 1964, 43-44 letter of to author, August 9, 1966, 47 letter of to author, November 21, 1967, 47 letter of to author, June 24, 1968, 50-51 letter of to author, August 28, 1968, 52-53 letter of to author, September 30, 1971, 57-58 letter of to author, January 10, 1973, 62 letter of to author, September 10, 1973, 67 letter of to author, November 13, 1974, 70 letter of to author, April 23, 1976, 70-71 letter of to author, November 4, 1977, 73-74 letter of to author, November 6, 1978, 74-76 letter of to author, November 29, 1978, 76-78 letter of to author, January 19, 1981, 79 letter of to author, February 23, 1981, 79 letter of to author, August 18, 1983, 79-80 letter of to author, January 16, 1989, 80-81 military opposition to Aramburu's turning government over to him, 19 observations of on coup against Illia government, 46 on Adlai Stevenson, 35 on Argentine oil problem, 31 on Argentine situation in 1956, 37-39 on Argentine situation in 1972, 58-61 on Argentine situation in late 1978, 74-76 on Argentine situation situation in 1981, 78-79 on assassinations of Kennedys and Martin Luther King, 50-51 on campaign to free common prisoners, 66-67 on Ché Guevara, 45 on condition of CGT in 1971, 56 on conversations with Perón, 59

299 corruption in Perón regime, 30 crisis in Radical Party, in 1946, 25 economic policy of Perón government, 33 essential weakness of Perón regime, 31 electoral victory of, 40 factions in Radical Party, 27, 34 Fidel Castro, 45 forthcoming elections, 57-58 future labor policies of his government, 41 groups around Perón, 26-27 guerrilla activities, 58 his administration's economic program, 42 his attitude towards the United States, 30-31 human rights violations under President Videla, 76 on Isabel Perón government oil policy, 69 on nature of Argentine military regime, 61 on need for economic development program, 54-55, 73 on need for friendly Argentine-U.S. relations, 35, 38, 74 on objectives of 1966-1973 military governments, 57 on Pacto Social of 1973, 68 on Perón administration labor law, 25-26 on Perón’s health, 32-33 on Perón’s oil policy, 35-36 on Perón’s return to Argentina in 1972, 62 on plotting in Argentine Army, 28 on policies of Cámpora government, 63-64 on possible consequences of Perón’s death, 33 on prospect of return to democracy, 76-77 on Radical Party role in organized labor, 24-25 on reasons for his overthrow, 55-56 on recent bombing episodes, 28-29 on reception on visit to U.S., 42 on return of Evita's body to Perón, 57 on return of Perón to the presidency, 69-70 on role of military in Alfonsin government, 80 on situation in Guatemala in 1954, 34-35 on status of political parties in 1978, 77-78 opposes economic policies of José Gelbard in Frente Justicialista, 63, 66, 68 on on on on on on on on on on on on on on

300 overthrow of, 4, 5, 21 predictions of about situation in 1952, 28 reforms Movimiento desintegración y Desarrollo, 53 succeeds President Aramburu, 3, 4 supports Isabel Perón government antisubversive activities, 70 Fuentealba, Renán, 256, 260 Fulbright, William, 50 Furtado, Celso, 113, 158

Gamond, Sr., 62 Gandhi, Indira, 131 Garcéz, Joan, 262 Garcéz, Lucas, 120-121 Geisel, Ernesto, 135, 137, 138, 142, 143, 153 Gelbard, José, 63, 66, 68 56, General Confederation of Labor, 10, 29, 41, 47, 84, 87 83, General Economic Confederation, 10, 38, 39, 63 General Motors Corporation, 13, 56 General Professional Confederation, 10 General University Confederation, 10 Ghioldi, Américo, 17 Góes Monteiro, Pedro Aurelio, 92 Gómes, Eduardo, 94, 122 Gómez, Alejandro, 22 González, Eduardo S., 4, 42 González, Eugenio, 184, 230 González Videla, Gabriel as Ambassador to Brazil, 194 as Ambassador to France, 193 as leader of opposition to Ibáñez dictatorship, 198, 203 as member of Milicia Republicana, 200 as memoirist, 209 as President of Banco Francés e Italiano, 198, 203 as President of Compañía Americana de Seguros de Vida, 203 as President of Radical Party, 203, 229 as seen by Alfredo Duhalde, 190, 191-192 assessment by of political situation in 1971, 198

301 assessment by of Salvador Allende, 201-202, 205206 author ’s conversation with, July 5, 1968, 192-197 author ’s conversation with, June 29, 1971, 198200 author 's conversation with, June 2, 1972, 200-203 author 's conversation with, June 28, 1972, 203205 author’s conversation with, August 13, 1974, 205210 believes Allende committed suicide, 207 believes Communist dictatorship would have come if Allende had not been overthrown, 206 cabinet changes of, 230, 273 claims that he made no deal with Arturo Alessandri in 1946 election, 199 comments of on Arturo Alessandri, 173 comments on by Carlos Dâvila, 183, 185 denies that he supported Allende in 1970, 209 doubts will be any guerrilla activity in Chile, 208 doubts will be war with Peru, 208 early career of, 203 election of as President in 1946, 170 election of as senator stolen during Arturo Alessandri regime, 199 end of his administration, 171 establishment by of Universidad Ténica del Estado, 196 explanation by of reasons for September 1973 coup, 206 first acquaintanceship of with Arturo Alessandri in 1932 election, 203 gets Radical Party to support Arturo Alessandri in 1932 election, 199, 203, 226, 229 gives incentives to municipalities, 197 inability of Socialists to back his candidate in 1952, 274 names Jorge Alessandri Minister of Economy, 229, 273 not held against him by Arturo Alessandri that was in Congreso Termal, 203 on agrarian reform, 196

302 on balance of forces within Allende regime, 202 on Communists in 1946 campaign, 193, 205 on economic situation 'in August 1974, 206-207, 208 on his industrialization program, 194-196 on peculiar nature of his first cabinet, 194, 199 on program of Pinochet government, 206-207 on role of of military in Allende regime, 202 on rural unionization, 196-197 on September 1973 coup, 207-208 relations of, as President, with Arturo Alessandri, 199-200, 205, 229 showdown of with Communists, 192-194 supports military dictatorship, 207, 208 thinks should be no room for Communists in restored democratic regime, 208 troubles of with Communists in his cabinet, 192, 193, 199, 205-206 urges Radical Party alliance with Christian Democrats, 235 Good Neighbor Policy, 143 Gordon, Lincoln, 160-161 Goulart, Joao assessment by of Getulio Vargas, 155 assessment by of Juscelino Kubitschek, 156 author's conversation with, June 5, 1972, 154-161 circumstances of his becoming president, 98-99 creation by of fear of Communist revolution, 131 discussion by of circumstances of his overthrow, 100 early career of, 98, 154 fight of against parliamentary system, 99 military’s suspicion of, 140 objections of to Quadros’ investigating commisions, 151 observations on by Janio Quadros, 150 on "Brazilian miracle,” 160 on his Automobile Club speech, 159 on his first cabinet after restoration of presidentialism, 158 on his problems in succeeding to the presidency, 157 on incident of naval mutiny, 158-159

303 on March 13, 1964 meeting, 159 on 1960 election, 156-157 on possibility of his return to Brazil, 160 on resignation of Quadros, 157 on United States’ Latin America policy, 160 on Vargas’ suicide letter, 155 opposition of to Brasilia, 114 opposition to by Fernando Ferrari, 145 outrageous behavior of according to Kubitschek, 116 overthrow of, 94, 99, 131, 149, 152, 159-160 patronage received by in Kubitschek administration, 119-120 presidential period of, 99 relations of with Getulio Vargas, 154, 155 relations of with Juscelino Kubitschek, 137 role of as political heir of Vargas, 120 role of in Frente Ampla, 123 Grove, Marmaduque as head of Chilean Air Force, 179, 180 as head of Partido Socialist Autentico, 181, 182 as Junta head , 167, 169 as founder of the Chilean Air Force, 179 assessment of by Carlos Davila, 183 attitude of towards United States, 182 author’s conversation with, December 25, 1946, 178-182 break of with Carlos Davila, 180 break of with Carlos Ib&nez, 179 contacts of with Socialist leaders, 1931-1932, 180 election of to Senate, 181 exile of during Ibanez dictatorship, 170 explanation by of splits in Socialist Party, 181 family background of, 178-179 leadership by of revolt against Carlos Ibanez, 180 leadership of in overthrowing Juan Bennett, 169, 179 on activities of Partido Socialista Autentico, 181-182 on June 4, 1932 revolution, 178, 180 on situation of labor movement in 1946, 181-182

304 presidential candidacy of in 1932, 180 role of in formation of Socialist Party, 180-181 role of in Junta Milit'ar of 1924, 111, 179 split of with Socialist Party, 183, 272 Guevara, Ernesto (Ché), 21, 45, 48, 56 Guido, José Maria, 22 Guimaraes, Napoleáo Alencastro, 106 Guzmán, Jaime, 207, 268 Haile Selassie, 131 Hidalgo, Manuel, 180, 181 Hirschman, Albert, 111 Huachipato, see Compañía del Acero del Pacifico Humphrey, Hubert, 271

Ibáñez, Bernardo, 181, 182, 183, 184 Ibáñez del Campo, Carlos as leader of January 1925, coup 169 as Minister of War, 179 as predecessor of Jorge Alessandri, 220 asks Carlos Dávila to edit La Nación, 185 collaboration of Communists with, 273 connection of Carlos Dávila with, 180 electoral landslide of, 184 establishes dictatorship, 179, 224 fear that he may bring back dictatorship, 211, 273 not covered in this volume, 167 opposition of Arturo Alessandri to, 199, 205, 211 overthrow of, 198, 203, 225 pictured in a cartoon, 223 reelection of as President, 171 ICFTU, see International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Illia, Arturo as unanimous choice as People’s Radical Party nominee in 1963, 85 author's conversation with, July 5, 1973, 81-89 defense by of his petroleum policy, 87-88 early career of, 81-82 election of as president, 5, 23 knowledge by of plotting for 1943 Revolution, 82 on economic progress of Argentina after Perón 's

305 first regime, 88 on failures of military governments, 89 on reasons for his overthrow, 88-89 opinion of that overthrow of Perón a mistake, 84 overthrow of, 5, 23, 88, opposition of to Unión Democrática, 83 reference to by Arturo Frondizi, 43 rejection by of idea his was "do nothing” government, 88 relations of with President Lonardi, 83-84 wins presidency in electoral college, 86 International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, 39 ILO, see International Labor Organization International Labor Organization, 174 International Monetary Fund, 130 International Telephone and Telegraph Co., 11, 160, 192 Intransigencia Nacional of Radical Party (Cordoba), 81, 83 Intransigente Radical Party, 5, 23, 40, 43, 44, 53, 60, 65 Intransigentes, see Intransigents in Radical Party Intransigents in Radical Party, 26, 27, 32, 36, 37, 40 Irigoyen, Hipólito, 25, 26 IT & T, see International Telephone and Telegraph Co.

James, Jesse, 49 Jan-Jan Committees, 145-146, 157 Jeréz, Alberto, 257 Jirón, Gustavo, 191 Johnson, Lyndon, 144, 150 Jornal do Brasil. 143 Junta Consultiva (Argentina), 84 Junta de Gobierno (Chile, 1924-1925), 177, 178, 179 Junta Militar of 1924 (Chile), 177 Justo, Augustin P., 19 Juventud Peronista, 68 Kaiser, Edward, 13 Kaiser Company, 82

306 Kennedy, Edward, 14 6-147, 208, 209-210, 270-271 Kennedy, John F., 129, 144, 146, 196, 236 Kennedy, Robert, 49, 50, 51, 146 Khrushchev, Nikita, 152, 157 King, Martin Luther, 49, 50, 51 Kissinger, Henry, 265 Kreiger, Vasena, Adalberto, 23, 57, 64 Kruel, Amaury, 100, 159 Kubitschek, Juscelino as President of Banco Denasa, 134, as strongest enemy of military regime, 123 assessment by of Brasilia, 110-110, 114 assessment by of Medici government policies, 134135 assessment by of Goulart regime, 131-132, 140 assessment by of John F. Kennedy, 129 assessment by of regime of President Geisel, 137138, 139 assessment of by Joao Goulart, 156 author’s conversation with, November 28, 1966, 112-117 author’s conversation with, May 31, 1972, 118-123 author's conversation with, June 1, 1972, 123-135 author’s conversation with, June 3, 1973, 135-137 author's conversation with, August 2, 1974, 137141 author's conversation with, July 31, 1975, 142143 author's extensive contacts with, 94 becomes "presidenciavel, " 124 candidacy of for Brazilian Academy of Letters, 95-96 circumstances of author’s conversations with, 9495 claim of Café Filho that there was no conspiracy to keep him from presidency, 107 comments of on Brazil’s economic progress, 136137 comments of on his popularity, 112, 135, 139 contacts of with Getulio Vargas after Vargas’ overthrow, 119, 120 contributions of during presidency, 95 deal of with Joao Goulart in 1955 election, 156

307 defense of press freedom by as President, 116117, 125-126 deprivation of civil rights of, 95, 132, 134, 137 development of West by, 109-110, 114 disagreements of with Internatioonal Monetary Fund, 130 doubts Vargas would have supported Adhemar de Barros for president in 1955, 120-121 early career of, 118-119, 123-124 explanation by of why he served Estado Novo, 118119 gets a little over 33 percent of vote in 1955 election, 107 inauguration of, 91 industrialization policy of, 109, 111, 112 "interesting" administration of, according to Jânio Quadros, 150 knowledge of joke about duration of his regime, 134 launched new spirit of development in Brazil, 165 letter to author from, February 10, 1972, 118 on agrarian reform, 112, 117 on being forced into exile in 1965, 94, 122, 123, 133 on Brasilia, 109-110, 114 on Brazilian dependence on exports, 110-111 on Brazil's relations with the rest of Latin America, 136, 140 on decision to build Brasilia, 121-122 on democratic nature of his regime, 137 on division within Brazilian Army, 114-115 on election of 1960, 119 on foreign exchange problems of his administration, 115-116 on his memoirs, 135, 139-140 on his version of nationalism, 127 on inflation during his administration, 115 on Latin American relations with the United States, 117 on military revolts against him, 115 on movement for his reelection, 112 on Operation Panamerica, 116, 127-129 on Mannesmann steel plant in Minas Gerais, 120

308 on opposition to his candidacy inside Social Democratic Party, 125 on patronage given Goulart and PTB in his administration, 119-120 on plans of for new party, 115, 123 on plot to keep him from presidency, 119, 125, 137, 140 on political stability of his administration, 142 on reasons for fall of Goulart, 131-132 on reasons for November 1955 coup, 119 on relations with Goulart administration, 122, 156 on relations with military in his administration, 116-117 on role in Alliance for Progress, 129 on use of foreign investment for Brazilian development, 117, 127 on Watergate, 141 persecution of by military regime, 94-95, 122123, 132-134, 141 personal relations of with Joao Goulart, 137 plans of for second term, 112-113 policy of towards Northeast, 109, 113-114 relations of with Antonio Salazar, 130-131 relations of with various foreign personalities during presidency, 131 talk by at New York University, March 15, 1962, 108-112 towns named after him, 134 use by of campaign slogan "fifty years progress in five, " 109 vote of for Castelo Branco, 156-157 Ku Klux Klan, 49

Labor Code (Chile), 174, 176, 177, 179, 220 Lacerda, Carlos as most persistent enemy of Kubitschek, 123, 125, 126, 137 conspiring of with military, 137 declares for candidacy of Janio Quadros, 121 effort of to organize new party, 115, 123 insistence of that Kubitschek be deprived of his civil rights, 132-133

309 journalistic ability of admired by Kubitschek, 143 magazine of, attacks Marshal Denys, 116, 126 opposition of to Goulart’s state of seige request, 158 La Hora del Pueblo, 53 La Nación, 182, 185 Lanusse, Alejandro, 5, 53, 55, 57, 64, 66 La Vanguardia , 2, 11 Lascano, Fernando, 221 Lasso, Alejandro, 177 Latin American Christian Democratic Organization, 268 Law for the Defense of Democracy, 229, 235, 268 Leigh, Gustavo, 259, 269 Leighton, Bernardo, 239, 256, 266, 267 Le Monde, 114 Leoni, Rául, 239 Levingston, Roberto M., 5, 53 Liberal Party as led by Arturo Alessandri, 171 collaboration of with Conservatives, 235 defense of by Arturo Alessandri, 175-176 in 1947 election, 189, 190 invited to join González Videla government, 199 led by Emiliano Figueroa, 179 merger of with Conservatives to form Partido Nacional, 268 participation of in González Videla government, 194, 212, 273 possibility of its leaving González Videla government, 190 refusal of to back law on rural labor, 191 role of in 1946 election, 226, 229 split from of Arturo Alessandri in 1942 election, 205, 225 supporters of voted for Frei in 1964 election, 217 Lincoln, Abraham, 97, 144 Lleras Camargo, Alberto, 129, 130, 140, 237 Lleras Restrepo, Carlos, 237, 270 Lonardi, Eduardo, 2, 14, 15, 16, 17, 83, 84

310 Lott, Marshall Henrique Teixeira, 98, 108, '117, 119 121, 126, 127, 156 Lucero, Franklin, 26 \ Lusinchi, Jaime, 6, 90 Luz, Carlos, 108 Machado Lópes, José, 150 Machiavelli, Nicolo, 20 Maciel, Leandro, 145 Madeco Co., 268 Magalhaes, Agamemnon, 104 Magalhaes, Sergio, 127 Magalhaes, Pinto, Jose, 158 Malvinas (Falkland Islands) War, 6, 80 Mangabeira, Joao, 105 Mannesmann steel plant, 120 Mao Tse-tung, 157 Marin, Dr., 246 Martin Garcia Island, 4, 8 Martinez, Carlos Alberto, 230 Marx, Karl, 274 Masons (Chile), 178, 180 Matte Hurtado, Eugenio, 180, 181 Medici, Ernesto Guiztazú de, 135, 139, 149 Meira, Fernando, 191 Mercedes Benz Co., 13, 41 MID, see Movimiento Intransigente Democrático and Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo Migone, Raúl, 17 Milicia Republicana, 200 Military Investigation Boards, 133 Military Junta, see Junta Militar of 1924 Ministry of Viacáo e Obras, 164 Miranda, Miguel, 12 Montero, Juan Esteban, 199, 203 Montoneros, 68 Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo as part of Frente Justicialista de Liberación, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68 breaks with Isabel Perón government, 72 collaboration of with Videla military government 71, 72 expansion of, 55, 60

311 nature of, 58 opposes agrarian reform bill, 69 position of in 1981, 79 position of in 1983 election, 80 reformed by Arturo Frondizi, 53 status of in late 1978, 77 success of in 1973 election, 65 Movimiento de Intrasigencia Radical, 44 Movimiento de Intransigencia y Renovación, see Intransigents in Radical Party Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, 202, 247, 255, 256, 261 Movimiento Intransigente Democrático, 44 Movimiento Laborista Socialista, 181, 182 Muller, Fernando, 189 Musalem, José, 259 Musich, Dr., 72 Mussolini, Benito, 218-219

National Left, 46 Nef, Francisco, 177, 178 Negráo de Lima, Francisco, 122, 156 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 131 Neruda, Pablo, 185 Neves, Tancredo, 101 New Leader, 4, 41 New State, see Estado Novo New York Times, 96 Nixon, Richard, 116, 127, 141, 144, 157, 209, 256 Nudelman, Santiago, 32 Nueva Acción Política, 180, 181

Ongañia, Juan Carlos, 5, 24, 49, 52, 53, 57, 87 Onofre, Sergio, 268 Operation Panamerica, 111, 116, 129, 146 Opus Dei, 49 Orden Socialista, 181 Organization of American States, 185 Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores, 39 ORIT, see Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores Ortiz, Roberto, 19

312 Osorio Arana, Sr., 16 Oyanarte, Justice, 22

Pacto Social, 68 Palabra Radical, 38, 39 Palacios, General, 202 Paladino, Jorge, 60 Pan American Union, 185 Parra, Abdón, 185 Partido Agrario Laborista, 184, 235 Partido Conservador Popular, see Conservatives (Argentina) Partido de Izquierda Radical, 202, 256 Partido Demócrata, see Partido Democrático (Chile) Partido Demócrata Cristiano, see Christian Democratic Party (Chile) Partido Democrático (Chile), 178, 273 Partido Democrático Nacional, 235 Partido Democrático Progresista, see Progressive Democratic Party Partido Intransigente, see Intransigente Radical Party Partido Justicialista, see Peronista Party Partido Nacional, 249, 256, 268-269 Partido Nacista, 204, 205, 239, 269 Partido Peronista, see Peronista Party Partido Popular Cristiano, 62 Partido Republicano Progresista, 103 Partido Social Democrático, see Social Democratic Party Partido Socialista (Brazil), 105 Partido Socialista Argentino, see Socialist Party (Argentina) Partido Socialista Auténtico, 182, 186 Partido Socialista de Chile, 181, 271, 272, 273, 274 Partido Socialista Democrático, see Socialist Party (Argentina) Partido Socialista Marxista, 181 Partido Socialista Popular, 273, 274 Partido Socialista Unificado, 181 Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, see Brazilian Labor Party Pasqualini, Alberto, 105, 161

313 Patria y Libertad, 207, 249 Patrón Costas, Robustiano, 7, 82 PDC, see Christian Democratic Party (Chile) People’s Radical Party, 5, 44, 53, 62, 65, 68, 75, 77-78, 79, 85, 88 Pérez Jujovic, Edmundo, 239, 240, 241, 242 Perón, Eva, see Perón, Evita Perón, Evita, 2, 11, 29, 57 Perón, Isabel Martínez de, 1, 6, 59, 68, Perón, Juan accused by Frondizi of responsibility for corruption, 30 administration’s labor law in 1946, 25-26 approaches by to Radical Party, 32 as model for Carlos Ibáñez, 184 as Professor of Military History, 13 as rival of Hector Cámpora in government in 1973, 153 attitude of towards the United States, 10-11 author’s conversation with, 6-13 author’s relations with, 1 coming to power of, 28 comments of on Franco Spain, 10 death of, 6 definitive return of to Argentina, 64 denial by of corruption in his regime, 12-13 denial by that he was excommunicated, 12 denounced by Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo, 66 denunciation by of economic policies of postPerón governments, 9-10 description by of his economic policies, 8 description by of role of Evita Perón, 11 explanation by of role of military in his regime, 12 explanation by of why he left the presidency, 13 explanation of for Argentine Army’s sympathy for Germany, 11 groups around him in 1952, 26 has general support by people in 1973, 64 his administration’s economic policy, 33 his explanation for his rise to power, 7-8 his first presidency, 3

314 his view of Justicialismo, 7 honestly won 1946 election, according to Arturo Illia, 83 interference of in affairs of provinces, 88 June 21, 1973 speech of, 64 long interest of in social problems, 6-7 manipulation of followers in Lonardi period, 83 oil deal of with Odium interests, 35-36 on Italian Fascism, 10 on nature of revolutions, 10 on tyranny of Frondizi regime, 12 overthrow of, 2, 16, 83 planned Cámpora's resignation, according to Frondizi, 69-70 plot against in 1950-1951, 14 popularity of, 3 position of strengthened by Aramburu labor policies, 17 prevarications of, 1-2 reasons for his supporting Frondizi in 1958 election, 9, 19-20 redistribution of income under, 89 reelection of in 1973, 5 relationship of with anarchists, 6 relationship of with Héctor Cámpora, 65-66 results of his possible death, according to Frondizi, 34 return of Evita 's body to, 57 return of to Argentina in 1972, 62 return of to the presidency, 67 revolt against in June 1955, 14 role of confederations under his role, 10 support by of Frente Justicialista, 65 visit of to San Juan after earthquake, 13-14 Peronismo, see Peronista Party Peronista Party ability of Illia to get along with its provincial governors, 88 acceptance by of José Gelbard's economic policies, 68 claim of that Illia took advantage of its proscription, 85-86 continuing influence of, 71, 77

315 defeat of by Radicals in 1983, 6 divisions within, 59, 60 friendly relations of with Arturo Frondizi, 46 lack of efficient organization in, 69 nationwide organization of, 65 participation of in Frente Justicialista de Liberación, 62, 65 participation of in La Hora del Pueblo, 53 personalist nature of, 32, 34 position of in 1983 election, 80 restructuring of, 46 Peronistas, see Peronista Party Peugot Corporation, 57 Pinochet, Augusto, 171, 172, 206 PIR, see Partido de Izquierda Radical Plan SALTE, 102 Playa Girón, 236 PN, see Partido Nacional Poggi, General, 22 Popular Action Front, 235, Popular Front, 170, 220 Pradeñas Muñoz, Juan, 191 Prestes, Luiz Carlos, 100, 105 Professional Organization Law, 56 Progressive Democratic Party, 37, 53, 83 Promoción Popular, 238-239 PSP, see Social Progressive Party PTB, see Brazilian Labor Party Puiggrós, Rodolfo, 2, 9 Punta del Este Conference, 56 Quadros, Jánio as Governor of Sao Paulo, 148 as successor of Juscelino Kubitschek, 96 attacks of on Kubitschek accumulation of foreign debt, 116 author’s conversation with, June 3, 1972, 143-150 author's conversation with July 1, 1973, 150-154 circumstances of author’s conversation with, 97 comments of on his presidency, 147-148 comments of on trip to China and Burma, 153 early career of, 96-97 incompetence of alleged by Kubitschek, 116

316 investigating commissions of, 151-152 Joao Goulart as legitimate successor of, 157 opposition of to Brasilia, 114 relations of with Communist Party, 152, 153 relations of with the military, 149 removal of civil rights of, 148, 149 resignation of, 97, 98, 144-145, 150 stimulation by of vice presidential candidacy of Fernando Ferrari, 157 supported by José Sarney for president, 164 trip to USSR, 151-152 vice presidential running mates of, 98, 145, 157

Rademacker, Augusto, 157 Radical Party (Argentina) approaches to by Perón, 32 defection of many party leaders and members to Perón, 25 difficulties of in first Perón regime, 83 emergence of Arturo Frondizi as leader of, 3 factional struggles in during Perón regime, 25-27 factional struggles within after fall of Perón, 37-38 historical role of, 86 opposition of to Perón oil policy, 35 opposition of to persecution of Peronistas, 37 origins of, 25 position of on foreign policy in 1953, 30 prospective economic policy of if comes to power, 33 role of in 1930's, 81-82 role of in organized labor, 24, 34, 38 splits in, 20, 83, 84-85 Radical Party (Chile) adoption by of Marxist statement of principls, 202 alliance of with Christian Democrats urged by González Videla, 235 and Arturo Alessandri, 204 and candidacy of Juan Esteban Montero, 199,203 anti-Communist faction of supports Fernando Alessandri in 1946 election, 212 as country’s most powerful party, 186

317 assemblies of, 190, 191 association of Marmaduque Grove's father with, 178 Communist fellow travellers in, 191 constant shortage of funds by, 205 deputies and senators of leave Congress session, 204 disparaging of by Arturo Alessandri, 176 double game of in negotiations with Alfredo Duhalde, 187, 188 end of its period in power, 171 in González Videla government, 194, 197 jockeying within over 1952 election, 273 leader of negotiated with Christian Democrats for Allende, 253 opposition of to Arturo del Rio, 221 proposes list of deputies to dictator Carlos Ibáñez, 203 situation of under military regime, 268 supports Arturo Alessandri in 1932 election, 199, 203, 229 three Chilean presidents from, 170, 175, 204 traditional rivalry of with Conservatives, 211 urges entry of Communists in Duhalde government, 187 withdrawal of from Arturo Alessandri government, 199, 204, Radical Socialist Party, 183 Radio Moscow, 268 Ramirez, Pedro, 7 Ramos, Jorge Abelardo, 46 Ravignani, Sr., 25 Rawson, Arturo, 7 Real, Juan, 29 Renault Co., 57 Revolution of 1924 (Chile), 176-178, 178, 228-229 Reyes, Cipriano, 8, 26 Rios, Juan Antonio becomes President, 170 confers with Alfredo Duhalde, 188 death of, 170, 189, 211 decides to end illegal strikes, 186 in cabinet of Carlos Dávila, 183

318 participation of Socialists in government of, 271 role of Arturo Alessandri in election of, 199, 205, 211, 225 visit of to United States, 185 Rios Valdivia, Sr., 191 Rivera, Guillermo, 227 Rojas, Isaac, 19 Roman Catholic Church (Argentina), 12, 14, 49 Roman Catholic Church (Chile), 236-237, 256 Romualdi, Serafino, 39 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 143 Roosevelt, Theodore, 143 Rosende, Sr., 186, 188, 191 Ross Santamaria, Gustavo, 199, 204, 211, 219, 269 Rossetti, Juan Bautista, 180, 183, 187, Rubottom, Richard Roy, 128 Rumor, Mariano, 265 Rural Sindicalization Law, 253

Sabattini, Amadeo, 37, 81 Sáenz Peña Law, 86 Sáez, Rául, 206, 254, 255 Salazar, Antonio, 131 Salert, Irving, 94 Sandino, Augusto, 35 Sanmartino, Ernesto, 39 Santin, I., 6 Sarney, José, 91, 100, 101, 102, 161-164, 165 Schnake, Oscar, 180 Schneider, René, 240 Seguro Obrero incident, 204-205 Servico Nacional de Inteligencia, 138 Shell Oil Co., 31 Simonsen, Mario Henrique, 138, 139 Soares, Maria Victoria de Mesguita Benavides, 142 Social Democratic Party (Brazil), 92, 102, 105, 117, 121, 124, 125, 156, 165 Social Democratic Party (Germany), 254 Social Progressive Party, 93, 103 Socialist Party (Argentina), 24, 25, 35, 37, 38, 46, 53, 60, 65, 83 Socialist Party (Chile) comments on by Alfredo Duhalde, 192

319 corruption in alleged, by Eduardo Frei, 236, 249 early success of, 181 formation of, 180 in 1970 election, 244 lack of homogeneity in, 271 negotiations of to enter Duhalde government, 187, 188, 189 opposes second general strike, 189 opposition of to alliance with Christian Democratic Party, 259 parliamentarians in the leadership of, 274 rejects unity with Partido Socialista Auténtico, 181 relations of with MIR, 261 rivalry of with Communists in trade unions, 210, 211 role of in Gonzalez Videla administration, 184 role of Juan Bautista Rossetti in, 183, 273 role of political bureau of in Allende administration, 250-251 severe persecution of by military regime, 268 some leaders of work with Falange Nacional, 230 splits in, 181, 230 subsidization of from outside of Chile, 182 Socialist Republic of Chile, 170, 180, 182 Solano Lima, Vicente, 60, 62 Sosa Molina, Humberto, 26 Squibbs Co., 11 Stalin, Joseph, 38, 193 Standard Oil Co., 31 Stevenson, Adlai, 35, 147 SUDENE, see Superintendency of Development of the Northeast Sueldo, Horacio, 65 Superintendency of Development of the Northeast, 113, 162, 164 Tato, Padre, 12 Távora, Juárez, 107 Technical Advisory group of Maranhao, 162, 163 Tenentes, 93, 102 Thayer, Willy, 261 Todman, Terence, 74

320 Tómic, Radimiro, 239, 260, 267 Torres, Isauro, 191 Treviño, José B., 3 Tribuna da Imprensa, 125 Truman, Harry, 10, 144, 195

UDN, see Uniao Democrática Nacional Ugalde, Pedro, 177 Unidad Popular, 209, 247, 250, 253, 257, 263, 264, 270 Unión Cívica Radical, see Radical Party Unión Cívica Radical del Pueblo, see People 's Radical Party Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente, see Intransigente Radical Party Union Democrática, 34, 37, 83 Uniao Democrática Nacional, 101, 119, 121, 124-125, 132, 156, 165 Unión Industrial Argentina, 39 Unionists in Radical Party, 26, 27, 37, 39 Universidad Técnica del Estado, 196, 197 University of Sao Paulo, 142 UP, see Unidad Popular Uriburu, José Evaristo, 81 USIMINAS Steel plant, 120

Valdés, Gabriel, 267 Vandor, Augusto, 87 Vargas, Alzira, 120 Vargas, Getúlio alignment of Joao Goulart with, 97-98 assessment of by Eurico Dutra, 102 assessment of by Joáo Café Filho, 106 assessment of by Joao Goulart, 155-156 assessment of by Juscelino Kubitschek, 114-115 commits suicide, 93, 103, 105, 106, 155 contacts of with Juscelino Kubitschek, 119 deal of with Adhemar de Barros, 93 doubts of Kubitschek that he would have supported Adhemar de Barros in 1955 election, 120-121 fear that he might cancel 1945 election, 92 forced to call elections, 91 friendship of with Napoleáo Alencastro Guimaraes,

321 106 legalization of unions by, 104 not covered in this book, 91 on Kubitschek as his political heir, 120 opposition to by Joao Café Filho, 104 overthrow of, 92 reelection of in 1950, 92 relations of with Gabriel González Videla, 194195 relations of with Joao Goulart, 154, 155 return of to active politics, 98 split in Army between supporters and opponents of, 114-115 surviving legend of, 105 too close association of with PTB alleged by Café Filho, 108 Velasco, Filomeno, 26

Walker, Horacio, 184 Watergate, 251, 256-257 Westinghouse Co., 11 Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, 72, 86 YPF, see Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Zenobio, see Costa, Zenobio da

About the Author

ROBERT J. ALEXANDER is Emeritus Professor, Rutgers University. Over his long career he has published 30 books to date and more than 700 articles. Among these works are biographies of Alessandri, Kubitschek, and Peron.