The Key to the Future

By early 1962, Brazilian military commanders had notified Kennedy's Ambassador, Lincoln Gordon, that they were organizing a coup. At JFK's personal initiative, the US began to lend clandestine and overt support to right-wing political candidates. The President's feeling, in agreement with Gordon and the US business community, was that "the military probably represented the key to the future," Ruth Leacock concludes. Robert Kennedy was dispatched to Brazil in December 1962 to influence Goulart to "confront the communist problem," as the US Embassy put it. RFK informed Goulart that the President was seriously concerned about the infiltration of "Communists and anti-American nationalist leftists" into the government, the military, the unions, and student groups, and about the "ill treatment [of] American and other foreign private investors." If Goulart wanted US aid, Kennedy said, he must see to it that "personnel in key Brazilian positions" were pro-American, and impose economic measures that the US recommended. Relations remained tense, particularly over the austerity plan that the Kennedy Administration demanded as a condition for aid, and its admonitions about left-wing influence.

Year 501