The reports were collected in the late 1970s, during the AI-5 period, and stored in the Estadão archive, with the promise that they would not be disclosed while the interviewees were alive.
The series of unpublished testimonies published by Estadão on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup collects accounts from important figures of the time who explain the climate of strong social and political division that led to the democratic breakdown. They are stories that help to understand the context of the actions that resulted on March 31 sixty years ago, the day in which the then president João Goulart was removed from power by a conspiracy involving civilians and military.
These statements were provided to journalists at Afternoon newspaper (product of State group) between 1977 and 1978, when the censorship of Institutional law nº 5 and which, now, reach public opinion to contribute to the understanding of the country’s scenario in the decades immediately preceding the coup of ’64 and in the following years until the beginning of the debate on the amnesty, which will only be applied in 1979.
Afonso Arinos, former senator and former minister:
The former leader of the main opposition party in Getúlio Vargas exposes the differences on support for Jânio Quadros, the American attempt to convince Brazil to support the Bay of Pigs invasion and tells how the electoral defeats have worsened the party’s propensity to favor of the military solution. Read the statement.
Pery Bevilacqua, general
Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, warned President João Goulart on March 31, 1964: get rid of the unionists and govern with the military. Later, in 1969, he was removed from the position of minister of the Superior Military Tribunal with Institutional Law nº 5. Read the statement.
Amaury Kruel, general
Former War Minister of João Goulart and commander of the 2nd Army, the general recounted in his testimony what he had asked the then president before deciding on the coup: “We must put an end to this mess.” Read the statement.
Aliomar Baleeiro, former president of the STF
Former president of the Supreme Court, he reveals the fear of Castelo Branco, the first president after the 1964 military coup, of leaving power to other soldiers who would overthrow the government, inaugurating a spiral of coups. Read the statement.
Alzira Vargas, daughter of Getúlio and head of the Civil Cabinet of her father’s Presidency
It recounts dramatic episodes of the political-military crisis that led to his father’s suicide and deals with the figure of João Goulart. Alzira Vargas also claims her father’s innocence in the attack that killed Major Rubens Vaz and repeats the version spread by Getulistas about the journalist Carlos Lacerda: that he faked the attack. Read the statement.
Source: Terra
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