SPEKTOR Matias - Oxford 2007

EQUIVOCAL ENGAGEMENT: KISSINGER, SILVEIRA AND THE
POLITICS OF U.S.-BRAZIL RELATIONS (1969–1983)
Matias Spektor
St Cross College, Oxford
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DPhil in
International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the
University of Oxford.
Michaelmas 2006
Word count (footnotes included): 95,300

ABSTRACT
This is an in-depth study of U.S.-Brazil engagement over fifteen years that roughly
coincide with superpower détente and the peak of Brazilian international activism
(1969-1983). Relying on multi-archival sources, the analysis offers a treatment of the
range of international, domestic, and foreign policy factors in both countries that
account for their approximation. The analysis focuses on statesmen on the two sides,
with an emphasis on their perceptions about the international system, their
political/bureaucratic skills, and their mutual strategic interactions. Results show a
process marked by bargaining where nothing was preordained. The research approach
is analytically-oriented international history: a rich narrative leads to carefully
contextualised concepts about the dynamics shaping engagement between a major
power and an activist peripheral state. More specifically, the thesis expands existing
knowledge about three core areas of the cold war: American policies of devolution to
key developing countries, Brazil’s nation-building and power strategies, and the
trajectory of Brazilian-American relations. As the declassification of primary sources
concerning this period evolves around the globe, it is my hope that the approach
developed here might contribute to future work in the field of comparative
engagement.
Table of Contents
Conventions 6
Dramatis Personae 7
Introduction
Equivocal Engagement 12
The Puzzle 15
The Narrative in a Nutshell 19
Related Literatures 24
Research Approach 33
Primary Sources 36
Caveats 39
Plan of the thesis 40
Chapter 1
Henry Kissinger’s experiment: Devolution and Brazil (1969-1971) 43
Intellectual Origins 43
Devolution and the Nixon Doctrine 47
Setting a Brazil Policy in Motion 57
Criteria for selection 76
Summary 79
Chapter 2
Rapprochement Begins (1971-1974) 82
Receiving Devolution 82
American intentions 94
Rapprochement in Practice 96
Limits to Rapprochement 102
The Scope of Rapprochement 109
Summary 115
Chapter 3
Azeredo da Silveira’s experiment: activism and ascent 117
The Man 118
Keys to Activism: Ideas, Domestic Politics, and Bureaucracies 120
Summary 145
Chapter 4
Building Engagement (1974-1975) 146
Cuba’s Pull 147
Empathy and Mistrust 148
Motivations 151
Trade Linkages 154
European Linkages 157
Trying New Tools 159
Speaking Portuguese 164
Domestic Difficulties 167
Opposite Readings 169
Brazil’s Vision 172
The Power of Silence 174
Summary 179
Chapter 5
Crisis and Revival (1975) 182
Changing Rationale 182
Geisel’s Break 185
Angola 188
Zionism Matters 197
Institutionalising Engagement 201
Summary 213
Chapter 6
Engagement Formalised (1976) 215
The Brazilian Problem 216
Kissinger’s Concessions 220
The Memorandum’s Formula 223
A relationship transformed? 225
The Limits of Engagement 232
Engagement under Threat 241
Summary 243
Chapter 7
Estrangement (1977-1983) 246
American Probing versus Brazilian Resistance 247
Reappraising Brazil 254
The American Strategic Turn 260
The Resilience of the Key-Country Orientation 265
Silveira goes to Washington 272
Reagan and the End of U.S.-Brazil Engagement 275
Summary 282
Conclusion 285
Equivocal Engagement 285
Key Components and Conceptual Implications 288
Engagement in U.S.-Brazil Relations Today 296
Bibliography 301
CONVENTIONS
Abbreviations. The following abbreviations are used in the text and in footnotes:
AAS: Azeredo da Silveira Collection, CPDOC/FGV (Rio de Janeiro)

AHMRE: Historical Archives of the Foreign Ministry (Brasília)
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency
CPDOC/FGV: Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação, Fundação Getúlio Vargas
CREST: Central Intelligence Agency Records Search Tool
DAS: Division of North America, Brazilian Foreign Ministry
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
HAK: Henry A. Kissinger
IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency
IG/ARA: Interdepartmental Group for Inter-American Affairs
IMF: International Monetary Fund
MRE: Ministry of Foreign Relations (Rio de Janeiro/Brasília)
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, D.C.)
NSC: National Security Council, White House
NSSM: National Security Study Memorandum
OAS: Organisation of American States
OAU: Organisation of African Unity
OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
UN: United Nations
UNCTAD: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
U.S./US: United States
USAID: United States Agency for International Development
WTO: World Trade Organisation
Transcriptions. The rule has been to try to preserve original spelling, italicisation and
punctuation. I made the necessary adaptations in upper-case primary documents and
whenever punctuation marks appeared in writing rather than symbols (as in ‘comma’
instead of ‘,’). I have also corrected obvious typographical errors, removed
diphthongs, and expanded contractions. When quoting in Portuguese, I modernised
spelling in accordance to the Brazilian Portuguese orthographic reform of 1971.
Translations. All translations from Portuguese into English are my own unless
otherwise specified.
References. Secondary sources appear fully referenced in footnotes the first time but
only in short-title form in subsequent instances. Primary sources appear fully
referenced at all times. For the sake of clarity, and at the cost of repetition, in passages
where I continuously quote from or refer to one particular document, I point towards
the piece in question in accompanying footnotes at the end of each quote or
paragraph, as many times as necessary. With the exception of dates, Brazilian primary
materials appear in their original Portuguese form; this will hopefully facilitate the
work of future researchers in retrieving specific documents from the archives. Finally,
I followed the Brazilian form when presenting secondary materials in Portuguese; that
is, upper-cases in titles apply only to the first letter of opening words and to proper
nouns.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Agostinho Neto, Antonio

Founder of the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)
First President of Angola (1975–1979)
Allende, Salvador
President of Chile, 1970–1973
Araujo Castro, João A. de

Foreign Minister of Brazil, 1961-1964
Brazilian Ambassador to the UN, 1969-1971
Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S., 1971-1975
Banzer, Hugo
President of Bolivia, 1971–1978 and 1997–2001
Barboza, Mario G.
Brazilian Foreign Minister, 1969–1974
Brzezinski, Zbigniew
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1977–1981
Bush, George H. W.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN, 1971–1973
Director of the CIA, 1976–1977
Vice-President of the United States, 1981–1989
Callaghan, James
British Foreign Secretary, 1974–1976
British Prime Minister, 1976–1979
Carter, Jimmy
President of the United States, 1977–1981
Carter, Rosalyn
First Lady of the United States, 1977–1981
Castelo Branco (Gen.)

President of Brazil, 1964–1967
Castro Ruz, Fidel

Cuban leader since 1959
Christopher, Warren
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, 1977–1981
Connally, John
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1971–1972
8
Crimmins, John Hugh

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, 1969–1973
U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, 1973–1978
Echeverría, Luís
President of Mexico, 1970–1976
Enders, Thomas
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1981–1983
Finch, Robert
U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 1969-1970
Figueiredo, João Baptista (Gen.)

Ford, Gerald R.
Vice-President of the United States, October 1973–August 1974.
President of the United States, August 1974–January 1977.
Geisel, Ernesto (Gen.)

President of Petrobrás, 1969-1974
President of Brazil, 1974-1979
Genscher, Hans-Dietrich
Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1974–1992
Gordon, Lincoln
Guerreiro, Ramiro S.
Deputy Foreign Minister, 1974–1979
Foreign Minister, 1979–1985
Haig, Alexander M.
Military Assistant to the Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs, 1969–1970
Deputy Assistant to the Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs, 1970–1973
White House Chief of Staff, 1973–1974
U.S. Secretary of State, 1981–1982
Heath, Edward
British Prime Minister, 1970–1974
Hoffman, Stanley
Professor, Harvard University
Humphrey, Hubert
Senator, 1971–1978
9
Kennedy, Edward
U.S. Senator
Kissinger, Henry A.
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, January 1969–November 1975
U.S. Secretary of State, September 1973–January 1977
Kubisch, Jack
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1973–1974
Liska, George
Professor, John Hopkins University
Medici, Emilio G. (Gen.)

Meyer, Charles A.
Mondale, Walter F.
Nachmanoff, Arnold
NSC staff member, 1969–1971
Nixon, Richard M.
President of the United States, 1969–1974.
Nye, Joseph
Deputy to the U.S. Undersecretary of State, 1977–1981
Osgood, Robert
Pastor, Robert
NSC staff member, 1977–1981
Pinheiro, João B.
Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S., 1976–1979
Pinochet, Augusto
President of Chile, 1973–1990
Reagan, Ronald
President of the United States, 1981–1989
Reza Pahlavi, Mohammad

Shah of Iran, 1941–1979
10
Rockefeller, Nelson
Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs, 1940–1944
Governor of New York, 1959–1973
Roett, Riordan
Rogers, William D.
Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, 1976–1977
Rogers, William P.
U.S. Secretary of State, 1969–1973
Rountree, William M.
Sayre, Robert M.
Schmidt, Helmut
German Chancellor, 1974–1982
Scowcroft, Brent
Military Assistant to the President, 1972–1973
Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1973–1975
U.S. National Security Advisor, 1975–1977
Silveira, Antônio F. A. da
Brazilian Foreign Minister, 1974–1979
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, 1979–1983
Simon, William E.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1974–1977
Simonsen, Mario H.
Brazilian Finance Minister, 1974–1979
Soares, Mário
Prime Minister of Portugal, 1976–1978 and 1983–1985
Todman, Terence
Vaky, Viron
Vance, Cyrus
Secretary of State of the United States, 1977–1980
11
Walters, Vernon A. (Lt. Gen.)

CIA operative in Iran, 1951–1953
Military Attaché to Brazil, 1961–1965
Military Attaché to Paris, 1967–1972
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, 1972–1976
Introduction
EQUIVOCAL ENGAGEMENT: KISSINGER, SILVEIRA, AND THE POLITICS OF U.S.-BRAZIL
RELATIONS (1969-1983)
‘Brazil is the key to the future’, confided Richard Nixon. It was the winter of 1971, and
the president was briefing the British prime minister on the prospects for the cold war in
Latin America. Nixon’s assertion was an honest revelation of his hopes, but it concealed
an important piece of information; for as he spoke, a team at the White House was
grappling with the full implications of the ‘key’ analogy, and a major Brazil-policy
review was under way.
This thesis provides an in-depth study of U.S.-Brazil engagement as it emerged,
evolved, and collapsed over fifteen years that roughly coincide with superpower détente
and the peak of Brazilian international activism (1969-1983). Relying on multi-archival
sources, the analysis offers a treatment of the range of international, domestic, and
foreign policy factors, both in the United States and in Brazil, that contributed to their
attempt to engage and that considers the policy’s limits.
Here ‘engagement’ means a conscious choice to elevate a bilateral relationship
to higher levels of governmental interaction. It is characterised by sustained
consultation, some degree of policy coordination, mutual commitment to overcoming
areas of disagreement, and the introduction of a new normative lexicon to embed the
relationship within a shared sense of purpose.1 In our case, however, the experiment
cannot be seen as an American attempt to turn Brazil into a typical client state, nor does
it reflect a Brazilian goal of pursuing a policy of alliance with the United States. The
1
On the difficulties of conceptualising ‘engagement’ see Evan Resnick, ‘Defining Engagement’, Journal
of International Affairs, 54/2 (2001): 551-567. For a recent definition and application different from the
one used here, see Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats: Domestic Constraints on the Balance of
Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 36.
13
expression ‘alignment’ does not capture the character or the range of motivations
underpinning the relationship.
Whenever alignment had occurred in the past, American motives had involved
either the expectation that Brazil would help on specific managerial tasks or that a
sympathetic ruling regime would remain in power. For the Brazilians, alignment had
served traditionally as a way of obtaining side payments (such as material assistance
and trade concessions), of securing support vis-à-vis other countries in the region and
against perceived domestic threats. By the early 1970s, however, the word ‘alignment’
in the Brazilian lexicon had gained negative overtones: often preceded by the qualifier
‘automatic’, it reflected the increasingly dominant perception among Brazilian elites
that past attempts at alliance with the United States had produced meagre if not outright
detrimental results.
By contrast to ‘alignment’, the process of engagement as characterised here
entailed a range of new motivations. On the American side, when plans to turn Brazil
into a partner for managing regional order failed, Washington nonetheless pursued a
policy of rapprochement: it willingly accommodated the demands coming from Brazil
even if the expected pay-back was vague, future-oriented, and essentially intangible. In
turn, the Brazilians hoped not just for concessions and support for the ruling regime, but
they eventually developed grander plans: to use the connection with Washington as a
tool to enhance Brazil’s own prestige internationally, to bind the United States to new
protocols and procedures, and to blunt American power on a range of specific
negotiations. This was a conscious attempt to make relations with the United States
instrumental for Brazil’s project of conservative nationalist modernisation by
constraining U.S. power while also leveraging U.S. influence in the global system for
Brazilian goals (some of which involved direct negotiations with Washington but others
14
of which attended wider concerns about enhancing Brazilian prestige abroad and being
accorded higher status in international society). Following distinct and largely
disconnected rationales, the two countries coalesced around the principle that their
relationship needed serious revamping, and that the context of détente provided an
opportune time for such an endeavour.
Two individuals fathered and guided the initiative. Henry A. Kissinger, the
American national security advisor and secretary of state who first proposed it, and
Antônio F.A. da Silveira, the Brazilian foreign minister who made it operational. That
they were the leaders in charge mattered for several reasons. Their vision and judgement
made an unlikely project viable. Their personal rapport shaped its aspirations, and their
bureaucratic skills helped set the boundaries for what engagement could accomplish in
practice. Together, they set out to overcome the veto of domestic actors and rally
support for the project. In the end, their voluntarism and identification with the policy
programme irrevocably sealed its fate, for the moment they left office the initiative
disappeared from the bilateral menu.
This is not to say that personal rapport caused engagement or that it was a
necessary condition for it to occur. Rather, the point developed in this thesis is that the
Kissinger-Silveira association made a questionable proposition more likely to find its
way into actual policy; and that, when crises struck, it facilitated solutions that
emphasised more rather than less engagement. As we will see, the room for manoeuvre
that these two figures enjoyed was distinctly narrow, both domestically and
internationally. Key factors in the rise and fall of American-Brazilian engagement
resulted from forces at the level of the international system, domestic and bureaucratic
politics, bilateral interaction and feedback. But these dynamics were filtered by leaders’
perceptions and shaped by their political and bureaucratic skills.

15
That is why the analysis presented here addresses the story of Brazilian-
American ties in this historical period from the standpoint of a personal relationship.
The research approach is analytically-oriented international history. It seeks to blend
storytelling with a conscious attempt to consider the various conceptual implications
that follow from the narrative.
This introductory chapter begins by identifying the puzzle that animates the
dissertation. It then condenses the story of U.S.-Brazil engagement from its emergence
to its decline seeking to give the reader an overview of the whole narrative.
Subsequently, an appraisal of existing literatures situates the thesis in the context of
previous work by both historians and political scientists. The following section then
details the research approach and the primary sources that make up the study, with
important caveats that specify what the work shall not attempt to achieve. The chapter
finally closes with a plan of the thesis.
The Puzzle
U.S.-Brazil engagement as it occurred in the 1970s involved a conscious attempt to
elevate the status and broaden the remit of the relationship. Each side had its own
rationale and its own set of interests for acting in such way, but their motives, different
as they were, coalesced around the principle that it was in their mutual advantage to do
certain things together in the field of diplomacy (from consultation to modest policy-
coordination); that their recurrent friction over concrete interest such as trade, nuclear
power and law of the sea ought to be transcended in the name of broader long-term
interests; that the range of topics for discussion should encompass more than purely
bilateral affairs; and that the protocol, language, and indeed the institutions binding the
16
two should reflect Brazil’s activism in the world. As highlighted above, convergence in
no way precluded conflict and negotiation.
Engagement was, and remains, an exception to the historical pattern of
Brazilian-American relations. Although there had been instances of close cooperation
before, and even occasions when leaders on both sides saw each other as key regional
allies, neither the notion nor the practice of engagement is to be found anywhere else in
their past, or in subsequent years. Previous attempts at approximation – as in the early
1900s, the 1940s, and in the aftermath of the 1964 Brazilian military coup – were
characterised by alignment. As flagged out before, however, alignment and engagement
is not one and the same thing. Alignment as it had happened historically involved no
sustained and dedicated effort to raise the profile of the relationship to higher levels of
interaction.2 In this sense, the events surrounding the Kissinger and Silveira tenures
need to be seen as an historical aberration. Let us situate them in their historical context.
On the American side of the equation, the traditional perception of Brazil had
been one of benign indifference. For all of Brazil’s material attributes and relative
weight in South America, a status quo and inward-looking country sitting in a non-core
area of the world could hardly command much attention. As a result, general
protestations of friendship had traditionally coexisted with low levels of commitment.
There had certainly been short-lived but significant historical moments when Brazil
seemed to matter. These exceptional occurrences reflected American considerations of
the regional balance of power (e.g. the view that Brazil could help curb the intermittent
2
Consider, for example, the American commitment to Brazil after the 1964 military coup: the number of
AID employees in the country more than doubled, the American mission employed 920 U.S. citizens and
almost 1,000 Brazilians. There were 510 Peace Corps volunteers. The AID programme, which had been
modest, grew to approximately $300 million per year. Yet, this support did not entail plans to revamp
diplomatic relations in any major way. By the same token, even if the incoming generals in Brazil
welcomed American support and took a prominent role in the U.S.-led intervention in the Dominican
Republic in 1965, they did not seek to transform Brazilian relations with Washington. On the contrary, as
we will see in Chapters 1 and 2, the generals remained clearly reluctant to get involved too closely with
the United States.
17
shoots of Argentine anti-Americanism), geo-strategic calculations (during the Second
World War), and power-ideological concerns (as when the Kennedy White House
feared a Brazilian nationalist, Left-ward turn). But the perception never developed in
Washington on a sustained basis that Brazil could actively help in promoting the U.S.-
led global order. It is no wonder, then, that when Henry Kissinger ordered a major
policy review for Brazil as he entered office in 1969, officials at the State Department
should have raised their eyebrows with scepticism, and even incredulity.
Turning to the Brazilian side, traditional policy to the U.S. had rested upon a
narrow policy menu: this was a contentious domestic debate over whether to align with
Washington (called indigenously automatic alignment) or pursue a policy of distancing
(variously called neutralism and independence). The former retained the upper hand for
the first half of the twentieth century (although it reappeared various times into the
1960s), and held that bandwaggoning with the hegemon was the most effective strategy
to secure Brazilian modernisation, development, and political power and prestige
internationally.3 Its straightforward contention was that benefits would follow from
adhering, promoting, and facilitating American designs, not from resisting them. In
opposition stood those who, since the 1940s, had argued that the costs of alignment far
exceeded the benefits accruing from it.4 Washington, it was claimed, lacked the interest
3
For its various historical instances, Bradford Burns, The Unwritten Alliance: Rio Branco and Brazilian-
American Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966); Clodoaldo Bueno, Política externa
da primeira república, 1902-1918 (São Paulo, Paz e Terra, 2003); Eugênio V. Garcia, Entre América e
Europa: a política externa brasileira na década de 1920 (Brasília: UnB, 2006); Joseph Smith, Unequal
Giants: Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Brazil, 1889-1930 (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1991); Gerson Moura, Autonomia na dependência: a política externa brasileira de 1935
a 1942 (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1980); Gerson Moura, Sucessos e ilusões: relações
internacionais do Brasil durante e após a Segunda Guerra Mundial (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio
Vargas, 1991); Ricardo Seitenfus, O Brasil vai à guerra: o processo do envolvimento brasileiro na
Segunda Guerra Mundial (Barueri: Editora Manole, 2003).
4
For historical instances, Stanley Hilton, O Brasil e a crise internacional (1930-1945) (Rio de Janeiro:
Espaço e Tempo, 1987); Frank MacCann, The Brazilian-American Alliance, 1937-1945 (1977); Leslie
Bethell and Ian Roxborough, eds., Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War,
1944-48 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Mônica Hirst, O pragmatismo impossível: a
política externa do segundo governo Vargas (1951-1954) (Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 1990); Paulo F.
Vizentini, Relações internacionais e desenvolvimento: o nacionalismo e a Política Externa Independente,
18
in recognising and committing to Brazilian aspirations in ways that would sustain a
beneficial relationship.
The recommendation followed that it was in Brazilian interest to avoid too close
an involvement with the Americans. And as the 1950s came to a close and nationalism
became the dominant ideology at home, the notion grew inside Brazil that hegemonic
power was in and of itself one (if not the major) obstacle on the way of internal
modernisation and external projection. It was this view that eventually prevailed. As a
result, the search for greater ‘autonomy’ was largely defined in terms of detachment
from the United States. In the range of policy options, proximity of any kind with the
hegemon progressively disappeared as a legitimate choice; instead, the dominant
orientation became resisting new commitments and avoiding entanglements.
Unsurprisingly then, when Kissinger first gestured his engagement proposals to the
Brazilians, their response was evasive.
Given such a context, the basic puzzle is why and how U.S.-Brazil engagement
could have ever been seen as a feasible proposition; and what range of conditions
shaped its trajectory over time. The problem can be usefully decomposed into smaller
parts:
Questions about origin. Why did Washington try to engage a far weaker polity,
and why do so in 1969? What did rapprochement involve and what was its conceptual
base? Who were the major forces opposing engagement on each side, and how did
leaders overcome them? How did American-Brazilian relations at the moment of
engagement compare to U.S. ties with other ‘key’ countries across the developing world
and in Latin America? Why was Brazil non-responsive at first but only a few years later
it sought to revive the proposal?
1951-1964 (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995); Alexandra de Mello e Silva, A política externa de JK: a Operação
Pan-Americana (Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 1992) and Antônio J. Barbosa, ‘O Parlamento e a Política Externa
Brasileira (1961-1967)’, unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Brasília, 2000.
19
Questions about process and implementation. What domestic and international
factors and hurdles fostered or inhibited engagement? How did engagement fit within
the broader picture of Western hemisphere politics and the global cold war? What areas
of policy did the new approach seek to tackle and which ones did it avoid? What were
its methods of delivery?
Questions about impact and outcomes. What was the record of engagement, and
what value did it add to the partners, if any? Did it have any unexpected effects, and did
it create any practical and conceptual problems that did not exist before? How did it
cope with changes in great-power politics, events in the Western hemisphere, and the
transformations occurring inside Brazil and the United States? And why did it begin to
falter so soon after inception?
The Narrative in a Nutshell
The narrative presented in the following chapters plays out from inception to end in a
relatively well-defined, short stretch of time. The story begins with the appointment of
Kissinger as national security advisor to the Nixon administration in 1969 and ends with
the closure of Silveira’s tenure not as Foreign Minister (1979), but as Brazilian
ambassador to Washington (1983). Within this we can usefully distinguish three core
periods: engagement’s embryonic set up (1969-74); the interval when it gained full
force and it displayed all its inherent tensions, requiring a great deal of management
(1974-77); and the eventual derailing that led to mutual estrangement (1977-83). There
are of course limits to such periodisations, not the least because relevant characteristics
of each category often reappear under a paler guise in the other two. But the division is
useful because it captures a complex storyline in a compact chain of events.

20
Setting up Rapprochement (1969-1974). Very early on, the Nixon administration
launched a major policy review for Brazil. The choice reflected a concern with the
perceived decline of U.S. influence in Latin America, and with the detrimental impact
that losing regional control may have upon the global balance of power. According to
American assessments, regional decline followed from the global strategic rivalry with
the Soviet Union only in part; crucial in the equation were social, economic, and
diplomatic changes in the hemisphere itself, with the rise of economic nationalism,
indigenous forms of foreign-policy activism, and a growing role in Latin America for
booming Europe and Japan. Within this, engaging Brazil – then seen as a rising but
largely benign centre of regional power – was thought to help reverse that trend. The
new orientation also had to do with novel ideas circulating in the White House about the
need to devolve power and responsibility to a group of regional influential states that,
roughly at the same time, was thought to include Iran in the Middle East and later on
Indonesia, Zaire, South Africa, and possibly Turkey.
But the White House’s approach to Brazil was riddled with problems. These
were partly conceptual: What ultimate objective should guide policy, what tools would
it take to achieve it, and at what cost? Since there had been no sustained policy before
(although Brazilian alignment between 1964 and 1967 had helped Washington focus its
attention on that country), and no one outside President Nixon’s entourage seemed to
think that one was particularly needed, answering these questions proved to be both
contentious and time-consuming. We see the proposition that rapprochement was worth
pursuing come to life without explanation and without ever translating clearly into a
distinctive discourse or clear representation of Brazil. With the State Department in
clear opposition, whatever movement towards a policy there was at this stage could
21
come only as a result of sequestering policy away from the bureaucracy and into the
White House.
Part of the problem hindering the emergence of a new policy, however, lay in
Brazil itself. The Brazilian reception of U.S. overtures reflected an internal split:
whereas President (General) Garrastazu Medici was keen to contribute to the ‘new
arrangement’ (provided it fitted his perception of what it should achieve), his leading
foreign ministry officials opposed it from the start. These key advisors feared that closer
ties would lead only to friction with the United States; keeping hegemonic power at
arms-length was safer. Furthermore, if American priorities for rapprochement focused
on containing Communism and the nationalist Left in South America, Brazilian
diplomats aimed at obtaining economic and diplomatic concessions from a powerful
partner, not at becoming entangled in regional politics. In the end, Brazil’s behaviour
reflected the divide between the president and the bureaucracy, and rather than flatly
rejecting Washington’s proposal, Brasília simply slowed it down, picking selectively
from the basket of incentives on offer and generally muddling through. The Brazilian
president shared information with Washington about a range of covert activities in
South America, while diplomats generally pressed for handouts and resisted American
pressure on specifics. The Americans, in turn, contributed with staunch rhetorical
support for Medici, resuming aid flows suspended by the Johnson administration,
recognising Brazil’s rising status, and stepping up weapon sales. Overall,
rapprochement remained vague and informal, managed through backchannels, and with
Nixon and Medici very much at the helm.
Managing Engagement (1974-1977). A change of government in Brasília in
1974 created the domestic conditions for a re-launch of the initiative, this time under a
new guise. Incoming Foreign Minister Silveira convinced newly-inaugurated President

22
(General) Ernesto Geisel that they should see American overtures for engagement as a
window of opportunity for Brazilian power, prestige, and status in international society.
When Silveira offered Kissinger a counter-proposal to widen and institutionalise
engagement, the now appointed U.S. Secretary of State was eager to explore the idea
further.
For three consecutive years the two embarked upon an ambitious programme of
engagement. Encompassing new protocols and agreements, numerous cables, extensive
travel, and often uneasy negotiations, the U.S.-Brazil relationship underwent serious
remodelling. The bilateral agenda expanded beyond its traditional confines, now
including revolutionary Cuba and independent Angola, revolutionary Portugal, nuclear
proliferation, emerging norms protecting human rights, and the situation in the Middle
East. Following foreign-ministry preferences, Brazil now resisted any discussion of
South American affairs, avoided any commitments to help fight Communism, while
emphasising instead its quest for economic modernisation and prestige and status in
international relations. To a large extent, Kissinger acquiesced with this reorientation,
showing that the policy did not follow directly from an American design, but from
interactions where the preferences (and indeed pressures) of the weaker side to a
relevant degree shaped the workings of the stronger.
But the convergence was undoubtedly uneasy. Silveira studied and revised his
moves with obsession, measuring each gesture and word for adequacy and precision,
while having always to obtain Geisel’s approval and sort out the various obstacles he
faced at home. This occurred in an environment of profound asymmetry of power and
salience: the United States mattered to Brazil far more than Brazil mattered to the
United States. Throughout this period developments on the Brazilian front were
tangential to the grand narrative of American foreign policy. Kissinger showed

23
surprising disposition to hear and accommodate, but only moved decisively when crises
struck. In this sense, the recurrence of mini-crises was crucial for the evolution of
American-Brazilian engagement. They pointed clearly to the limits to what the policy
could achieve, prompting Kissinger and Silveira to devise formalised arrangements to
sustain cooperation beyond their tenures. This is an example of how close interaction
between two states can in itself sometimes change the environment within which these
two states relate. It is therefore no wonder that on both sides the notion became firmly
rooted that continuing clashes of interests, values, and vision were there to stay, be it
due to mutual distrust, massive asymmetry of power, fluctuating U.S. commitment and
arrogance, or Brazilian hard-nosed nationalism.
Estrangement (1977-1983). As American public opinion and Congress grew
increasingly hostile to alliances with dictatorial regimes, the hopes began to dissipate
that a U.S.-Brazil partnership might someday endure. Jimmy Carter had spoken against
engagement with Brazil since the presidential campaign; now in office, his foreign
policy team reinterpreted the ‘key country’ orientation as a tool to affect changes in the
foreign policy and domestic composition of the target-states. Carter singled out Brazil to
test some of his ideas about non-proliferation and human-rights promotion: in
Washington engagement now meant something quite different than what Kissinger had
had in mind only a few years before. That Brazilian leaders saw this reorientation as a
threat is best reflected in the decision to turn the institutions of engagement into a shield
against American pressure, and in 1979 to appoint of Silveira as ambassador to
Washington. The remit of the relationship with Brazil narrowed down dramatically due
to bilateral friction but also as a result of the progressive deepening of the cold war at
the expense of détente. As President Reagan took over with his programme of
reasserting containment, the relationship became all the more deranged. And whatever
24
room there had been for a policy of devolution, it came to a close, sealing the
experiment’s end. With its demise, old patterns resurfaced once more: low-level
friction, American indifference, Brazilian suspicion, and a gap that kept apart for a
generation the two largest countries in the Western hemisphere.
Related Literatures
To date there is no systematic account of U.S.-Brazil relations in the 1970s based on
available archival sources. There are, however, important historical literatures that bear
upon the interpretation advanced here. The chapters that follow build on these, and seek
to further expand knowledge in three specific areas: devolution and the global cold war,
Brazil’s foreign-policy strategies since the mid-1960s, and the overall theme of
Brazilian-American relations.
Devolution and the Global Cold War
Recent times have seen a significant reassessment of the international history of the cold
war.5 The revival results partly from the opening of new archives around the world,
allowing scholars to tell more balanced stories from a global perspective. But to some
degree the revisionist drive may be attributed to our reassessment of past events under
5
John L. Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations,
Provocations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); John L. Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold
War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition:
American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994);
Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the
Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Odd Arne Westad, ed., The Fall of Détente:
Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997); Odd
Arne Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass,
2000); Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian
Military Interventionism, 1973-1996 (Boston: MIT Press, 1999); Richard K. Herrman and Richard Ned
Lebow, End of the Cold War: Interpretation, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New
York: Palgrave, 2004); Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the
Making of our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Nina Tannenwald and William C.
Wohlforth, eds, Ideas and the End of the Cold War, special issue of the Journal of Cold War Studies, vol.
7, n. 2 (Spring 2005). Also insightful is a comparison of the first and last editions of John L. Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold
War [1st ed. 1981] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
25
the light of current affairs: If the cold war produced a legitimate setting for global great-
power interventions, and to this day these remain an integral part of world politics, how
much of a turning point really were the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the
Soviet Union? Was the cold war primarily about the competing ideologies of two
superpowers or was it largely about the clash of a much wider set of ideas and visions of
world order? It is within this set of concerns that returning to the days of Henry
Kissinger can be a profitable experience.
As far as Kissinger goes, possibly no other twentieth-century diplomat has
received as much attention from academe, the press, human-rights activists, and
biographers. Recent works on his stewardship of U.S. foreign policy remain focused
primarily on policies towards the Soviet Union, China, Japan, Europe, and Vietnam,
with the story yet needing to be written about his policies in the Middle East, South East
Asia, and Latin America. In the case of the latter, the absence of general works on the
Nixon/Ford administrations, with the notable exception of the fall of Chile’s Salvador
Allende in 1973, contrasts starkly with the wealth of materials on the Kennedy/Johnson,
Carter and Reagan periods (more on the literature concerning Chile below). This is to
say that the non-core regions of the world still need to be brought on board our studies
of the 1970s. 6
6
For recent assessments of U.S.-Soviet Union relations under Kissinger see books in previous footnote
and Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan
[1st ed 1985] (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994). For a recent interpretation of the China
policy, see Evelyn Goh, Constructing the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From ‘Red
Menace’ to ‘Tacit Ally’ (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). For Europe, Geir Lundestad, The
United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). On Japan, Walter
LeFaber, The Clash: A History of US-Japan Relations (New York: Norton, 1997). For a recent
assessment of Kissinger’s overall performance, see Jussi M. Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect: Henry
Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). For an updated
comment on the specialised literature, Jussi M. Hanhimaki, “‘Dr. Kissinger’ or ‘Mr. Henry’?
Kissingerology, Thirty Years and Counting,” Diplomatic History 27 (5) (2003): 637-676. Kissinger’s
own accounts include Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979); Henry A.
Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982); Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1994); Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999);
Henry A. Kissinger, Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2003); Henry A. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in
26
An important but still largely unexplored aspect of Kissinger’s tenure with
regard to the periphery of the international system is the notion of devolution: the White
House’s attempt to decentralise power and influence to selected regional states. The
targets – or ‘key countries’ as they were called – were Brazil in Latin America, Iran in
the Middle East, and Indonesia in Asia, with Zaire, South Africa, Turkey, and Pakistan
enjoying intermittent access to the club. Although several works refer to U.S. relations
with these countries, none has been published that tells a story focused around the
notion of devolution and that are based on detailed archival research. This relative
silence surely stems from the fact that sensitive archives have been opened only recently
or not at all. But it might also follow from the ambiguous and uncertain character of the
devolutionary drive itself. As we will see, devolution as presented here was an attempt
at revitalising important relationships based on a fluctuating set of topical, ambiguous,
and relatively uncoordinated policy initiatives.
The picture that emerges of devolution in this work therefore differs slightly
from that either explicated or hinted at in the existing literature. Consider for instance
the statement that:
American post-Vietnam foreign policy was premised upon the belief that the
establishment of a new relationship with the United States’s Communist great-
power rivals would create the favourable political atmosphere so as to facilitate
the orderly devolution of American power to incipient regional powers. The
resulting stability along the periphery would, in turn, feed back into the central
balance and thereby sustain the momentum of détente through the preservation
and Extrication from the Vietnam War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003). The best biography
remains Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: a Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).
27
of mutual trust. In this way, each component…would serve as the
instrumentality for the achievement of the other.7
Indeed, at least initially devolution clearly needs to be seen as an American attempt to
turn large regional states into the guardians of order in their respective neighbourhoods
through a local ‘policeman’ policy.8 As it was conceived in Washington in the early
days of the Nixon administration, this was an attempt to solve some of the problems
embedded in rolling out containment around the globe. In this sense, the devolutionary
policies of the Nixon administration showed striking continuity with the Kennedy years:
in both cases decision-makers cared about minor developments in the Third World,
sought primacy and preponderance, and were bent on fighting the cold war globally. In
the 1970s the American leadership did this in spite of the rhetoric of retrenchment
typical of the Nixon administration and in spite of the sophistication of channels for
great-power concert that were characteristic of détente. In so doing the administration in
Washington sought to win the support of local elites in their target states, where the
global cold war had been internalised to the point of shaping much of the domestic
political scene along international ideological divides.
But as we look closely at devolution, it is unquestionable that the endeavour was
less of a well thought-out component of the grand architecture of détente than a set of
trial-and-error probes marked by doubts on the part of those pursuing it – an uncertain
process in which nothing was preordained. It is no surprise that the detailed case-work
presented in this thesis suggests strongly that our understanding of devolution will
change significantly in the coming years as future studies weigh the American
devolutionary policies to Iran, Indonesia, Brazil (and possibly Zaire, South Africa,
7
Robert Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability,
1969–1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 54.
8
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War…, in particular pp. 194-202, but also references throughout
the text, in particular those with regard to Iran and South Africa.
28
Turkey, and Pakistan) in comparative perspective. The implications that follow from
suspending the view that devolution was a neat policy to deal with seemingly similar
states are important, for we can now make sense of the many contradictions and
inconsistencies that are so clearly integral to this element of the American cold war
menu.
In so doing we can situate devolution in the context of the strategic interactions
between the United States and the various target-states, rather than focus exclusively on
American policy. For instance, we will see that Washington could not roll out its
policies as it had originally intended when it came to Brazil. For all the asymmetry of
power between the two partners, the project could not be imposed, and it only took off
when Brazilian officials found a suitable reason to do it and a language to legitimise it.
The two sides held very different ideas and visions of what their engagement should
entail. Where the United States ran devolution with one eye on curbing the South
American Left and nationalist movements, and the other on preserving American
influence on the ground, Brazil conditioned its acceptance to economic, technological,
political, and diplomatic concessions that made it move up an imaginary ladder of
power, status and prestige. It also conditioned the project to American formal
commitments that emphasised respect for Brazilian ‘autonomy’. If Brazil saw détente as
an oligarchic arrangement that militated against its political and economic
emancipation, then, to take off, engagement had to be adapted to accommodate Brazil’s
dominant concern with upwards mobility and reassurances in the face of a far more
powerful partner.
Brazil’s Strategy of Activism and Ascent

29
In the 1960s Brazil underwent an economic expansion of great proportions. In the two
following decades GDP per capita trebled, the volume of foreign trade doubled, and the
population grew from 70 to 110 million. For all the stark social inequality at home that
growth only exacerbated, this was the produce of a major attempt at state-led
modernisation. The transition was remarkable, from agricultural economy to heavy
industries, high-tech innovation, and massive public works. A commodity exporter only
two decades before, the country was now on the way to become one of the ten largest
economies in the world. Furthermore, material change came by the hand of nationalism,
in both its leftist and conservative forms. But how did these factors impact upon
Brazil’s activities abroad?
The answer is increased diplomatic activism in the world. By and large,
successive administrations since the 1950s sought to enlarge the scope of Brazilian
ambitions and interests outside its borders. Although the broadening fell short of
expectations, it was highly significant for a state that had been traditionally insulated
and inward-looking. Brazil’s foreign affairs in the 1980’s were immensely more
complex and sophisticated than they had been twenty years earlier. Somewhat
surprisingly, a peripheral country had moved up the ladder of international stratification
without recourse to military build-ups, warfare, or demonstrations of force.
This thesis situates Brazil’s relationship with the United States in the context of
its pathway to international power, influence and prestige. The purpose is to describe
and account for Brazil’s strategies to cope with American hegemony at the time that
Brazilian activism abroad reached a historical peak. In so doing it takes advantage of
and further expands the growing literature on foreign policy at this time and, in
particular, on the tenure in office of General Geisel and his Foreign Minister Silveira.9
9
The foreign policies of Geisel are perhaps the most studied of all the Brazilian military administrations.
Gino Costa, Brazil’s Foreign Policy towards her Neighbours during the Geisel Years, unpublished PhD
30
Parting ways with standard accounts, the current thesis shows that, from
Brasília’s perspective, improving working relations with Washington (rather than hiding
and trying to escape hegemonic pulls) was the key to its wider strategy of activism and
ascent. The attempt in no way resembled that of alignment. On the contrary, it was
premised on Brazil’s ability to both manipulate Washington to accrue a range of
positional goods (including prestige, status, political influence, leverage, concessions
and markets for its exports) and resist American pressures on a range of specific topics.
This understanding of what purposes engagement should serve was typically
represented by Foreign Minister Silveira. To him more than anyone else, the fact that
Brazil had chosen not to move up the ladder of international stratification by the force
of arms, meant that autonomy would be achieved only as far as third parties recognised
Brazil’s special status in the world. And none such recognition mattered as much as that
coming from the most powerful state of all. Engaging the United States, in his eyes, was
not a strategy to follow the hegemon; but one that created room for manoeuvre to avoid
following the hegemon while obtaining material and symbolic goods in the process.
thesis, University of London, 1986; Maria R. S. de Lima, The Political Economy of Brazilian Foreign
Policy: Nuclear Policy, Trade and Itaipu, unpublished PhD thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1986; Andrew
Hurrell, The Quest for Autonomy: The Evolution of Brazil’s Role in the International System, 1964–1985,
unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1986; Letícia Pinheiro, Foreign Policy Decision-Making
under the Geisel Government: the President, the Military and the Foreign Ministry, unpublished PhD
thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1994; Shiguenoli Miyamoto, Do discurso
triunfalista ao pragmatismo ecumênico (geopolítica e política externa no Brasil pós-64), unpublished
PhD thesis, Universidade de São Paulo, 1995; Luis F. Ligiero, Políticas semelhantes em momentos
diferentes: exame e comparação entre a política externa independente (1961-1964) e o pragmatismo
responsável (1974-1979), unpublished PhD thesis, Universidade de Brasília, 2000; L. F. Ferreira, A
política latino americana do Governo Geisel, unpublished thesis, PUC-Rio de Janeiro, 1993; Míriam
Saraiva, ‘A opção européia e o projeto Brasil Potência Emergente’, Contexto Internacional, 11/1-6
(1990); Antônio C. Lessa, Brasil, EUA e Europa Ocidental no contexto do nacional desenvolvimentismo:
estratégias de diversificação de parcerias, 1974-1979, unpublished thesis, Universidade de Brasília,
1994; Gelson Fonseca, A legitimidade e outras questões internacionais (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1998);
Sérgio F. Danese, Diplomacia presidencial (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1999); Maria Regina Soares de
Lima & Gerson Moura, ‘A trajetória do pragmatismo – uma análise da política externa brasileira’, Dados,
25/3 (1982): 349-363; Antônio C. Lessa, ‘A diplomacia universalista do Brasil: a construção do sistema
contemporâneo de relações bilaterais’, Revista Brasileira de Política Interancional, 41 (special number,
1998): 29-41; and Matias Spektor, ‘Origens e direção do Pragmatismo Ecumênico e Responsável (1974-
1979)’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 47/2 (2004): 191-222.
31
That in the end his ambitions were only partly fulfilled does not detract from the
fact that he tried to reorient Brazil’s sense of how best to deal with American
hegemony. In this sense, studying this particular period can help us reassess the lively
domestic debates behind Brazil’s strategies for ascent that were as inconclusive back
then as they are today.
The U.S.-Brazil Relationship: An emerging rivalry?
‘Why have the two largest countries in the Western hemisphere failed to sustain high-
level cooperation in the long run?’ Scholars have yet to confront this question
systematically, but whenever the problem is tackled directly the standard answer is the
thesis of the ‘emerging rivalry’.10 The argument is that as Brazil began to urbanise and
industrialise, relations deteriorated. The evidence for the proposition is that increasingly
since the 1950s, clashing interests have recurred in fields as varied as mineral exports
and the repatriation of U.S.-firm surpluses, economic policy and nationalism, nuclear
proliferation, international trade norms, North-South debates, external debt negotiations,
trade protection, intellectual property and regional integration.
There is a strong and a weaker version of the ‘emerging rivalry’ thesis.
According to the former, American policy-makers have seen Brazil as an economic
challenger or potential challenger, and have tried to either prevent or mould its
economic rise. The milder version has it that economic development in the periphery
carries with it an array of problems that lead inexorably to growing friction between
10
Luiz A. Moniz Bandeira has presented this thesis in A rivalidade emergente (1973) and its extended
revision, Relações Brasil-EUA no contexto da globalização, 2 vols, (São Paulo: Senac, 1999). He has
revived the argument in As relações perigosas: Brasil-Estados Unidos de Collor a Lula, 1990-2004 (Rio
de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2004). His vision has informed two important historical accounts:
Amado L. Cervo and Clodoaldo Bueno, História da política exterior do Brasil, revised edition (Brasília:
UnB, 2002); and Paulo F. Vizentini, A política externa do regime militar brasileiro (Porto Alegre:
UFRGS, 1998). Important traces of this approach are implicit in Mônica Hirst, The United States and
Brazil: a Long Road of Unmet Expectations (New York: Routledge, 2005), and Antônio C. Lessa, ‘A
vertente perturbadora da política externa durante o governo Geisel: um estudo das relações Brasil-EUA’,
Revista de Informação Legislativa, 35/137 (1998): 69-81.
32
developing polities and the established industrialised powers. Up to a point, the
argument is bound up with theories of dependency: the accent is on centre-periphery
dynamics and the uncertainty that associated development in the periphery generates for
the global economic system.11
To be sure, the ‘emerging rivalry’ thesis has not been the only account of the
relationship.12 But it has produced the only attempts to date to interpret it over a very
long span of time. Its tenets have influenced the ideas and beliefs of Brazilian policy-
makers, and reappear prominently in the syllabi of academic courses on Brazilian
foreign policy. Given the record of external domination in Latin America, perhaps it is
only natural that the ‘emerging rivalry’ should be embraced as a compelling paradigm.
Yet, as we look back, it is easy to become bewitched into believing that all
forces led quite inevitably to mutual estrangement and low-level friction. We can
quickly forget that there were powerful forces pushing hard in the opposite direction.
Their message, never dominant but surely influential, is now belittled. A re-examination
of the historical record can give us a more sober appreciation of the choices that were
made, and an indication of causes and consequences that stands to close inspection.
11
For two hugely influential statements focusing on or inspired by Brazil, Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo
Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979)
and Peter B. Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1995). For an attempt to link dependency theory to US-Latin America
relations explicitly, Mark J. Gasiorowski, ‘Dependency and Cliency in Latin America’, Journal of
Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, v. 28, n. 3 (Autumn, 1986): 47-65.
12
A sample of alternative perspectives would include Gerald K. Haines, The Americanization of Brazil: a
Study of U.S. Cold War Diplomacy in the Thirds World, 1945-1954 (Delaware: Scholarly Resources
Books, 1989); W. Michael Weis, Cold Warriors and Coups d’Etat, Brazilian-American Relations, 1945-
1964 (University of New Mexico Press, 1993); Elizabeth A. Cobbs, The Rich Neighbor Policy:
Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992); Jan K. Black, United States
Penetration of Brazil (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977); Philippe Parker, Brazil and
the Quiet Intervention, 1964 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979); Lincoln Gordon, ‘US-Brazilian
Reprise’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, vol. 32, n.2 (Summer, 1990): 165-178;
Lincoln Gordon, Brazil’s Second Chance: En Route toward the First World (Washington D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press, 2001); Ruth Leacock, Requiem for Revolution: The United States and Brazil,
1961-1969 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990); Tullo Vigevani, O contencioso Brasil x
Estados Unidos da informática (Uma análise sobre a formulação da política exterior) (São Paulo: Alfa-
Omega/Edusp, 1995); Mônica Hirst org, Brasil-Estados Unidos na transição democrática (São Paulo:
Paz e Terra, 1985); select essays in Paulo R. de Almeida and Rubens Barbosa, orgs., Brazil and the
United States in a changing world (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2005); and Andrew Hurrell, ‘The United States
and Brazil: Comparative Reflections’, in Hirst, The United States and Brazil, pp. 73-108.
33
Without seeking to provide an overall assessment of the merits of the ‘emerging
rivalry’ proposition, in this thesis I switch the mode of enquiry away from the structural
geo-economic forces framing the Brazilian response to U.S. power onto a different level
of analysis. It is the political tensions confronting decision-makers at both ends – rather
than the systemic economic constraints within which Brazil lived – that take centre
stage. I ask how external and domestic processes shaped the intentions of key figures in
the two countries and how the political struggle between them played out. The accent is
on leaders’ motivations and understandings, and their ability to conduct foreign policy
accordingly. These are important aspects shaping U.S.-Brazil relations that the existing
literature tends to obfuscate.
Research Approach
This study is concerned with advancing an analytically-oriented account of engagement
that rests on detailed historical work.13 Because no single ‘off the shelf’ model exists to
account for the particular class of events that American-Brazilian ties exemplify in this
period, the approach here is not one of illustrating or testing general theoretical
arguments. Rather, its emphasis is on historical, inductive work that leads to the
development of carefully contextualised concepts and arguments about ‘devolution’ (to
characterise Kissinger’s willingness to build closer relations with weaker but key
13
On the stimulating (and promising) revival of case-study research in international relations, Colin
Elman and Miriam F. Elman, eds., Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study
of International Relations (Boston: MIT Press, 2001); Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth,
‘From Old Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research’, International Security, 26/4 (Spring,
2002): 93-111; and Andrew Bennett and Alexander George, Case Studies and Theory Development
(Boston: MIT Press, 2005). Also, Henry E. Brady and David Collier, eds., Rethinking Social Inquiry:
Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); and James Mahoney and Dietrich
Rueschemeyer, eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003). On the marriage between history and theory in cold-war studies, William C.
Wohlforth, ‘A Certain idea of Science: How International Relations Theory Avoids Reviewing the Cold
War’, in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London:
Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 126-145.
34
polities), ‘activism and ascent’ (to depict Brazilian power strategies), and ‘engagement’
(to encapsulate the arrangement they eventually hammered out).
The underlying point is that the phenomena under study here are not unique, but
recur over time and across place, although with a great deal of variation. A cursory
glance at the record of the past fifty years exposes several cases where similar dynamics
were at play. Consider, for instance, recent developments in U.S. relations with
countries as varied as Australia, Indonesia, India, and China. Likewise, if we go back in
time, attempts at engagement can be found in Washington’s approaches to the Shah in
Teheran, the leadership in Islamabad, or diplomats in Ottawa. In this sense, the
dissertation seeks to ask questions and provide answers that might be useful to think
about other contexts within which engagement has taken place.
In order to understand the motivations behind American and Brazilian
behaviour, I have taken seriously some of the propositions advanced by neoclassical
realism14 and the relevant literature on middle powers.15 For hints on how to research
partnerships among states, I plundered the wider body of policy evaluation.16 I also
14
Gideon Rose, ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy’, World Politics, 51/1 (1998): 144-
172. To integrate external and domestic influences in the analysis of foreign policy, I benefited from
Fareed Zakaria, ‘Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay’, International Security, 17/1 (Summer
1992): 117-198. For a discussion of positional goods, Randall L. Schweller, ‘Realism and the Present
Great Power System: Growth and Positional Conflict over Scarce Resources’, in Ethan B. Kapstein and
Michael Masanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 28-68. On the motivations behind rapid shifts in state
behaviour, William C. Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions During the Cold War
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
15
Giovanni Botero, The Reason of State [1589] (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956); Martin Wight,
Power Politics (London: Penguin, 1979); Carsten Holbraad, Middle Powers in International Politics
(London: Macmillan, 1984); Iver Neumann, Regional Great Powers in International Politics (London: St
Martin’s Press, 1992); and Andrew Hurrell, ‘Some Reflections on the Role of Intermediate Powers in
International Relations’, in Paths to Power: Foreign Policy Strategies of Intermediate States, Working
Paper Series, Latin American Program, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, March 2000, 1-11.
16
In particular I benefited enormously from several conversations with Elliot Stern in the planning stages
of this thesis, and from his ‘Evaluating Partnerships’, in Andrew Liebenthal, org., Evaluation and
Development: the Partnership Dimension (London: Transaction, 2004), pp. 29-42.
35
drew on existing works on concept development and techniques of periodisation typical
of comparative-historical analysis.17
This thesis deploys some of the standard techniques for historical inference –
‘within case’ comparisons, cross-references, counterfactual thinking, and the assessment
of alternative explanations. ‘Within case’ comparisons in this study involve the
contrasting of the three consecutive periods specified above. These are before-after
comparisons that seek to tease out some of the causal factors at play in the story. Thus, I
analyse how successive policy makers interpreted the meaning of engagement, and
contrast their distinctive political and bureaucratic skills and contexts with those of their
predecessors and their successors. Where appropriate there are also cross-references to
other dyads of great-power/middle-power, in particular with reference to U.S. relations
with Iran at the same historical time. There is also some contrasting with Mexico, the
one Latin American country that could have feasibly been the recipient of U.S.
preferential attention instead of Brazil. Additionally, the study resorts to counterfactual
thinking across chapters – ‘what alternative scenarios could have realistically
developed?’18 Finally, whenever the account clashes with alternative explanations
established in the literature, the difference is tackled explicitly.
This is therefore not an exhaustive account, but a partial one that seeks to spark
off debate and open the door for further work. The thesis sits very much at the
beginning, not the end of our appraisal of U.S.-Brazil relations in the 1970s.
17
David Collier and Robert Adcock, ‘Democracy and Dichotomies: A Pragmatic Approach to Choices
about Concepts’, Annual Review of Political Science, 2 (1999): 537-65; and David Collier and James
Mahon, ‘Conceptual ‘Stretching’ Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis’, American
Political Science Review, 87/4 (December 1993): 845-855; and Evan S. Lieberman, ‘Causal Inference in
Historical Institutional Analysis: A Specification of Periodization Strategies’, Comparative Political
Studies, 34/9 (November 2001): 1011-1035.
18
Aaron Belkin and Philip Tetlock, eds., Counterfactual Thought Experiment in World Politics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) and Richard N. Lebow, ‘What’s so different about a
counterfactual?’, World Politics 52 (July 2000): 550-585.
36
Primary Sources
These are exciting times to study Brazilian-American relations in the 1970s. New
materials have flooded specialised libraries in both countries, and on the two sides there
have been heated legal battles over the handling and declassification of official
documents pertaining to this historical period.19 In the United States, I researched the
Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives in Washington DC, the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential
Library in Atlanta, all of which have moved relatively quickly in their declassification
process for material regarding Brazil. This said, there are important files which remain
closed that may contain relevant information on both Brazil and the wider U.S. move
towards devolution. I also made extensive use of the collection at the National Security
Archives, which have been at the forefront of research on the Nixon/Kissinger foreign
policy. The Foreign Relations of the United States series goes up to 1972 as of writing,
with new volumes on the Nixon/Ford administrations planned for release soon
(excepting Africa with material going up to 1976). In addition I filed a dozen Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the State Department and the CIA, only half of
which were granted.
In 2003 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released millions of pages of
declassified documents for the period 1945-1981. Over one million pages are available
for research in an electronic database accessible at the National Archives facility in
College Park, Maryland, called CIA Records Search Tool (Crest), which I used
extensively for information pertaining to Brazil. More recently, the U.S. National
19
For the Brazilian side, ‘Brasil insiste em pacto com vizinhos para abrir arquivos’, O Estado de São
Paulo, 12 February 2005. For the US side see Seymour Hersh, ‘Nixon´s Last Coverup’, New Yorker, 14
December 1992; Hack Hitt, Nixon’s Last Trump, Harper’s, August 1994; Stanley Kutler, ‘Liberation of
the Nixon Tapes’, Legal Times, 6 May 1996; Letter to the editors, William Burr, ‘The Kissinger Papers’,
Foreign Affairs, 46/9, 20 May 1999; Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘Sprucing Up Nixon’, New Yorker, 8 May 2006;
‘U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret’, New York Times, 21 February 2006; ‘CIA Withdraws
55,000 Pages from Open View’, The Guardian, 22 February 2006; Maarja Krusten, ‘Nara
Reclassification Issues’, electronic message circulated via H-DIPLO, 4 May 2006.
37
Archives also opened the State Department’s electronic databases for years 1973 and
1974, making hundreds of thousands of cables available online that do not necessarily
figure in presidential libraries. Because this occurred as I was completing the draft of
this dissertation (March 2006), I only researched the database with the purpose of
finding evidence that warranted a significant re-writing of parts of the story, leaving
aside many of the materials that would simply make the narrative more colourful; no
groundbreaking additional materials were found.
In Brazil the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brasília granted me access to its
‘ostensive’ and ‘confidential’ archival holdings (for years 1969-1977 only), but turned
down my first application for clearance to consult ‘secret’ and ‘ultra-secret’ files and
never replied to the second. For these I turned instead to the Azeredo da Silveira
collection at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro – a depository of his official
and personal documents that is now entirely open for research. Since this archive only
includes materials that reached Silveira’s office, it captures the picture of events
occurring at the top of the diplomatic hierarchy, with much of the nitty-gritty of daily
diplomatic practice, as well as the debates that might have taken place at lower ranks,
obscured. Also, because the decision has stalled within the Brazilian Executive branch
over the wider declassification of materials on the last authoritarian period (1964-85),
the evidentiary basis for the Brazilian side of the story is dominated by documents
produced by Itamaraty (as Brazilians regularly refer to their ministry of external affairs).
Future students of this period will surely profit greatly from searching the holdings that
exist but are still closed in the military ministries, possibly in the presidential palace, as
well as the various personal collections of leading figures of that time.
Balancing out the bias that follows from the dominance of foreign ministry
archives is a difficult operation. For instance, while press cuttings can be useful to
38
illustrate specific episodes, because all major media companies were heavily censored
until the late 1970s, they tell us less of the mood of Brazilian public opinion than of the
requirements of the governing regime.20 Within this, I found it particularly useful to
study a recent documentary-based history of the Geisel years that focuses largely on
domestic politics but whose sources and interpretations have rather important
consequences for our assessment of Brazilian foreign policy.21
For all the problems of access, the quality of Brazilian materials on this period is
outstanding.22 Not only did Silveira make copies for his personal files of thousands of
sensitive documents, but differently from the standard American practice, the Brazilian
documents have not been ‘redacted’; that is, documents remain untouched, with no
excisions or blacking out of sensitive passages. In Brasília I also made extensive use of
the newspaper collections at the Federal Senate, and counted on the good will and
generosity of people who facilitated their own reminiscences and copies of old
documents. Acknowledgments are duly indicated in footnotes across the text. It is worth
noting that as the story that follows moves into the 1980s primary sources on both sides
become scarcer and more uneven.
Biographies and memoirs relevant to this study are numerous but disappointing.
Kissinger’s own massive volumes devote only a few pages to Brazil.23 To be sure this is
20
On press censorship, Paolo Marconi, A censura política na imprensa brasileira, 1968-1978 (São Paulo:
Global, 1980).
21
Elio Gaspari, A ditadura envergonhada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002); A ditadura
escancarada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002); A ditadura derrotada (São Paulo: Companhia das
Letras, 2003); A ditadura encurralada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004). These books draw on
the private archive of Golbery do Couto e Silva, one of the leading architects of Brazil’s national security
doctrine since the 1950s, and President Geisel’s right hand all the way until the late 1970s. Contrary to
what many thought in the past, we now know that Couto e Silva’s role in Brazilian politics was largely
limited to the domestic scene. For all of his geopolitical writings, his influence was only tangential to the
crucial foreign-policy choices of his period. We can now begin to attend to other figures and factors that
were more prominent in the development of Brazil’s grand strategy during the cold war.
22
Pio Penna Filho, ‘A pesquisa histórica nos arquivos do Itamaraty’, Revista Brasileira de Política
Internacional, 42/2 (1999): 117-144. A partial description of the Silveira collection that is now dated
appears in Matias Spektor ‘A abertura do Acervo Azeredo da Silveira’, Revista Brasileira de Política
Internacional, 44/2 (2001): 193-197.
23
Kissinger, White House Years; Years of Upheaval; and Years of Renewal.
39
partly because Brazil was tangential to the grand narrative of U.S. foreign relations in
the 1970s; but it might also be an attempt to downplay certain events in Washington’s
relations with Latin America that now strike many as contentious, if not immoral (some
have said outright criminal).24 Perhaps more striking still is the absence of substantial
references to the United States in the memoirs of Brazilian policy-makers, with the
exception of two long oral-history interviews granted by Azeredo da Silveira and his
predecessor, Mario Gibson Barboza, to Fundação Getúlio Vargas.25
Caveats
The current work deals with the regional picture of U.S.-Latin America relations as
contextual background rather than as a crucial component of the story. Equally, Brazil’s
most important neighbour and at the time rival, Argentina, makes an appearance only
when it affected U.S.-Brazil relations directly.
The thesis also departs from the tendency in the literature to assess hemispheric
relations in this historical period through the prism of human-rights abuses and
violations. During preparation for this work there were countless occasions when
interlocutors assumed that a thesis on ‘Henry Kissinger and Brazil’ would break new
ground on the human-rights score. This is understandable given the recent
declassification of crucial materials, the publication of important books, and the
occurrence of significant controversies.26 Indeed, Kissinger’s ability to travel to Brazil
24
Such operation is common in the memoirs of statesmen generally, and it has been noticed before in
Kissinger’s own treatment of U.S. policies towards apartheid South Africa and Suharto’s Indonesia,
Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect.
25
For example, Pio Corrêa, O mundo em que vivi (São Paulo: Expressão e Cultura, 1995); Mário Gibson
Barboza, Na diplomacia, o traço todo da vida (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1992); and Saraiva Guerreiro,
Lembranças de um empregado do Itamaraty (São Paulo: Siciliano, 1992). For the interviews see Antônio
Francisco Azeredo da Silveira, Interview, 1979/1980/1982, Rio de Janeiro, CPDOC/FGV, 2000. 22 tapes
(20h 55’), hereafter Silveira Interview. According to its terms of concession the Gibson Barboza
interview to CPDOC/FGV can be consulted on site, but its contents cannot be quoted.
26
For the declassification of materials see the National Security Archive Web-site
(http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv). For recent books, Ariel Armony, Argentina, the United States, and the
40
has been restricted in recent years due to ongoing investigations about Operation
Condor – the network of South American security forces that tracked, tortured and
killed opponents.27 But since the perspective here emphasises the power-political and
diplomatic dynamics shaping American-Brazilian relations, the several passages that
refer to human rights are contextualised and presented as part and parcel of the broader
political story.28
Plan of the thesis
The thesis is structured as follows. Chapter 1 traces the origins of devolution and
narrates the process that in 1969 induced Nixon and Kissinger to revitalise relations
with ‘key countries’ across the periphery, including Brazil. The chapter also explains
why Washington picked Brazil over Mexico. It also begins to tell the story of how the
White House sought to set up a new policy in the face of opposition from the State
Department.
Chapter 2 narrates the inception of rapprochement. We see the White House
making an effort to entice the Brazilian leadership into closer proximity, as well as
Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977-1984 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for
International Studies, 1997); John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies brought
Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press, 2003); Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet Files: a
Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New York: The New York Press, 2004); Kathryn
Sikkink, Mixed Signals: US Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
2004); and Jonathan Haslam, The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende’s Chile (London:
Verso, 2005). For the latest controversy as of writing, Kenneth Maxwell, ‘The Case of the Missing Letter
in Foreign Affairs: Kissinger, Pinochet and Operation Condor’, working paper n. 04/05-3 (2004), David
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University.
27
In February 2002 a ceremony to grant Kissinger the Grã Ordem do Cruzeiro do Sul, the highest
national command, was cancelled because the hosting authorities could not guarantee the guest’s
immunity from judicial action. On 31 May 2001 a French judge summoned Kissinger to present himself
to court to discuss Condor-related crimes, leading the former secretary to flee Paris the same day. In July
2001 the Chilean Supreme Court granted an investigating judge permission to question Kissinger, and a
month later an Argentine magistrate filed a derogatory letter with the U.S. State Department with the
same purpose.
28
See Chapter 2 in particular. Note that, for all the materials now coming out on Latin America’s state-
led terrorism, human rights abuse, guerrilla war and covert action, we still miss research on Brazil. If
anything, a striking feature of the recent literature on the subject is the paucity with which Brazil appears
in a narrative that is dominated by the Chilean and Argentine security services, with Paraguay, Uruguay,
and Bolivia prominent, and Ecuador and Peru less so.
41
Brazil’s ambiguous response. The focus is on the scope of the new arrangement – the
selection of representatives to carry it out, their ability to retain legitimacy at home,
their techniques for developing some degree of mutual trust, and the early redrawing of
administrative boundaries at the White House and in the Brazilian Foreign Ministry
(also called Itamaraty) to cope with the new orientation.
Chapter 3 deals with the arrival of Silveira on the scene in 1974, situating him
within the conceptual debates and practical struggles taking place inside Itamaraty at the
time, and their connection to the wider picture of Brazilian politics under President
Geisel. The chapter then studies the motivations that compelled Geisel and Silveira to
offer Kissinger a counter-proposal for engagement, and their battles to overcome
domestic opposition to the endeavour.
Chapter 4 focuses on the Kissinger-Silveira rapport as they met for the first time.
The focus is on their willingness to expand the remit of the relationship, introduce new
bureaucratic arrangements to link Itamaraty to the State Department, and develop
mechanisms to facilitate consensus and prevent friction. At this juncture, crises begin to
loom large in the horizon over Brazil’s nuclear programme and its involvement in the
independence of Angola.
Chapter 5 recounts the mini-crises affecting the relationship, and shows the
progressive shift from engagement as a tool to fight the cold war towards engagement
as an instrument to navigate North-South relations. It also shows how Kissinger and
Silveira reacted to negative feedback, responding to these crises not with a retreat into
more detached positions, but with greater institutionalisation.
Chapter 6 tells the story of the formalisation of engagement under a
Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Kissinger and Silveira in February 1976.
The focus is on the priorities and visions of each side, the benefits they reaped and the
42
costs they paid, and the problems they faced to retain support for the Memorandum at
home.
Chapter 7 deals with the unravelling of engagement from the inauguration of
Jimmy Carter onwards. It shows the mutual attempt at rescuing the project, but one that
sought two opposing goals, for if Carter treated engagement as a tool to pressurise
Brazil, Geisel conceived it as the instrument to resist those very same pressures. The
chapter follows Silveira’s appointment to the embassy in Washington, the beginnings of
the Ronald Reagan administration, and the fate of Brazilian-American engagement in an
increasingly unwelcoming environment. It closes with the ensuing end of the practice,
rhetoric and spirit of bilateral engagement.
A brief conclusion summarises major findings and seeks interconnections with
developments in U.S.-Brazil relations today.

Chapter 1
HENRY KISSINGER’S EXPERIMENT: DEVOLUTION AND BRAZIL (1969-1971)
This chapter deals with the intellectual origins of devolution in the 1960s and its
translation by the White House into a new appreciation of Brazil. It begins by
presenting the conceptual debate around devolution and the political process whereby
such ideas found a policy outlet with the Nixon Doctrine in November 1969. This is
followed by the emergence in Washington of a protracted bureaucratic battle over
policy to Brazil. The chapter then closes by considering why the U.S. picked Brazil over
Mexico to be its key Latin American partner.
Intellectual Origins
The conceptual antecedents of devolution precede the arrival of Nixon and Kissinger at
the White House. Predictions that power in international relations would undergo major
de-concentration went back at least as far as the days of Kennedy.1 If such structural
transformations rendered American primacy increasingly difficult to sustain, what to
say of the spiralling disaster in Vietnam? If deep engagement on the ground seemed to
create more problems than solutions, and if a retreat to great-power concert was unlikely
to succeed, how to meet the task of managing order in the wider world? For some years
a group of influential thinkers had gestured at partial answers to these problems that
coupled a reduction in military exposure with the re-engagement of large regional
countries. Leading the pack were John Hopkins University professors George Liska and
1
For instance, Walt W. Rostow, The United States in the World Arena (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1960), Book V, Part II and Roger Masters, The Nation is Burdened (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967).
44
Robert Osgood, and Harvard’s Stanley Hoffman. Their writings in the mid- and late
1960s set the conceptual scene for devolution.
Their arguments opposed the dominant view among academics at the time that
international stability was, above all, a function of concert and competition among the
two superpowers.2 Such views, which informed much of the rationale behind détente,
saw very limited room for partnerships between the United States and lesser countries in
the periphery.3 According to its proponents, not only were contributions from weaker
states secondary to the global balance of power, but they were difficult to sustain in
practice because they came at too high a cost: as Hans Morgenthau had pointed out,
weak states were agile in securing great concessions from the U.S. while giving out too
little, and their inherent instability made them untrustworthy.4
What Liska, Osgood and Hoffman began to articulate in the second half of the
1960s was an alternative understanding. ‘Minimum order in the evolving international
environment cannot fully depend on either the reciprocally stalemated superpowers or
the controlling and ordering role of one of them. As a result, local or regional, and
locally or regionally managed, subsystems of minimum order become significant’.5
What was the message of Vietnam if not that superpower capabilities and
diplomatic influence in the wider world was not one and the same thing? That turning
the former into the latter required a great deal of political perspicacity? Following a line
of argument that Kissinger himself had espoused as an academic, they now made the
point that the growing inability of American power to dictate rules and exert control
2
Kenneth Waltz, ‘International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World Power’, Journal of
International Affairs, 21/2 (1967): 215-231.
3
Gaddis, Strategies of Containment and Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine.
4
Hans Morgenthau, ‘Alliances in Theory and Practice’, in Arnold Wolfers, ed., Alliance Policy in the
Cold War [first edition 1959] (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1976), p. 211. Also Charles Burton
Marshall, ‘Alliances with Fledging States’, in Wolfers, Alliance Policy, pp. 213-223.
5
George Liska, Alliances and the Third World (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1968), p. 43.
45
was a problem not of budgets and stockpiles, but of diplomacy.6 But differently from
what most commentators had suggested before, this was not simply a question of
diplomacy with the Soviets as it was one of diplomatic engagement on the ground.
The problem with such form of direct action was, of course, that it led precisely to the
type of problems the U.S. confronted in Vietnam. Since influence required
commitments, and America’s were too varied and too many, then perhaps reassertion
should best be pursued indirectly or, as they put it, ‘Acting through relatively,
ostensibly, or up to a point really independent local friendly powers’ [emphasis added].7
In this sense, acting through did not equal retreat from a policy of global presence, but
its very opposite: it was a testimony of the existence of an American ‘universal policy
and…imperial purpose’.8 This is expressed with full colours in Liska’s policy
recommendation: ‘A timely devolution of power and responsibility while retaining the
capacity to intervene against gross infractions of order… The United States should
progressively shift some of its responsibility to local middle powers as they develop the
resources and the will for a responsible role in regional order’.9 It is therefore in
academic writing that we see the notion of decentralising power to large regional states
gain the label of ‘devolution’.
6
Robert Osgood, Preface, in George Liska, Imperial America (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1967).
7
See Liska’s own Preface to his Imperial America.
8
Id. Ibid.
9
The rest of the quote reads: ‘[The] two critical activities are intervention wherever necessary in the short
run and the progressive devolution of [America’s] role as it reduces its primary
responsibility…[combining] a measure of serene detachment…with an irreducible degree of
involvement…Assertive local states can dislocate existing order while stimulating the evolution of a
system, and act as local agents for order after they achieve a measure of ascendancy…The most general
purpose of a systematic devolution of resources and responsibility in favor of lesser powers is to
harmonize the political perspectives of states that are at different levels of development and
engagement…The long-range goal of US policy is a global concert of powers. Its development is
contingent on intermediate achievements. One is the emergence of locally active European and Third
World states of middle- or great-power status…A concert of world powers can never constitute a wholly
harmonious directorate. But it could in due course coordinate a multiregional, global balance of power
and organization of security, while regional greater powers or organizations would provide the
underpinnings’. George Liska, ‘The Third World’, in Robert E. Osgood et all, eds., America and the
World: From the Truman Doctrine to Vietnam (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1970), p. 417-
423.
46
However, debates over devolution never fully clarified major themes. Was the
project an attempt to facilitate American control of the Third World or was it an
instrument to raise the profile of rising, independent peripheral states? Were the middle
powers expected to carry some of the burden of regional policing or were they expected
to provide some loose form of legitimisation for Washington’s contentious policies? If
middle-powers were reluctant to pay the costs of greater international activism, how
would Washington ever manage to manipulate the ‘imperial system’ into a
‘multiregional imperial order’?10
Even without answers to these important questions, much of the writing, and in
particular Osgood’s, remained focused on one narrow set of concerns: the ability of
these ‘relatively major middle powers’ to sustain responsibilities abroad.11 Even in
Liska there is a palpable sense of frustration:
[It is] increasingly the turn of the middle powers…to enact the continuing
tensions between performance and pretension, real impact and nominal
influence…The basic requisites for being a middle power have already emerged
as comprising the capacity and disposition to support with roughly
commensurate material resources an internationally useful role.12
By and large, the assumption here remained unchallenged that target states would
receive devolution willingly.13 The thought did not find its way to paper that recipient
states might be willing to take a greater share of world power and responsibility, but
only in their own terms and, above all, in ways that minimised American influence over
their own behaviour.
10
Liska, Imperial America, pp. 36 and 108. For the notion of ‘multiregional imperial order’ see p. 97.
11
For a pledge for caution against the ‘overstated’ argument of the diffusion of power see Robert E.
Osgood, Introduction, in Osgood, America and the World.
12
Liska, ‘The Third World’, p. 409.
13
‘Indirect access to the concert enhances the international status of the lesser country…moreover, an
alliance with a great power may equip a lesser state materially for a key role without disqualifying it
politically in the postulated order’, Liska, ‘The Third World’…, pp. 420 and 423.
47
The literature’s relative neglect of what to expect from these target-states
perhaps helps explain why the list of potential members (besides Japan and broadly-
defined Europe) always remained uncertain. Countries that appeared regularly include
Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa, Zaire, Turkey, Pakistan and Algeria.14
From Liska’s standpoint, however, the crucial question about devolution was not who
the recipients might be, but whether leaders in the United States would be prepared to
carry devolution forward. Recognising key countries to receive the goods of devolution,
he thought, required key individuals.
International politics of and for a world order in which part of the burden of
responsibility rests on alliances [with lesser states] is an art to be learned in time
as a matter of a nation’s foreign-policy tradition as much as it is initially an
emergency course decided upon as a matter of one or another statesman’s
judgement and will.15
Whether the art was ever learned is questionable. But in his statement Liska was
fundamentally correct. For it was a sense of emergency that convinced the two primary
American statesmen of his time – Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger – of the potential
for devolution as they stepped into office in the winter of 1969.
Devolution and the Nixon Doctrine
It is not clear that either the incoming president or his national security advisor were
directly aware of ‘devolution’ as advanced by Liska and his group. Indeed, the primary
sources that make up this study show that the word did not enter the lexicon of foreign
policy discourse and it did not figure in debates over policy within the administration.
But the themes characteristic of ‘devolution’ as originated in academic circles, vague
14
Liska, Imperial America, pp. 87-88; Liska, ‘The Third World’, p. 410.
15
Liska, Alliances and the Third World, pp. 60-61.
48
and ambiguous as they were, found their way into policy as the White House began to
consider revamping its approach to Brazil (and possibly other large regional states). The
passages that follow suggest that this process occurred at least in part due to ingrained
perceptions held by both Nixon and Kissinger before arriving to power about the role of
regional order in world politics. It was also helped by important factors at the level of
U.S. domestic politics that concurred to make the two chief U.S. diplomats of this
period frame their initial views on Brazil along devolutionary lines.
Two years before entering office, Nixon had written in the pages of Foreign
Affairs that the United States ought to engage the emerging economies of Asia.16 His
contention was that indiscriminate direct intervention in the periphery ought to be
exchanged for more selective strategies with a sharp regional focus. The vision was not
particularly novel, with Walt W. Rostow, Kissinger’s predecessor at the National
Security Council (NSC), arguing likewise around the same time.17 Kissinger too had
argued against treating Indochina as ‘a test case of a global confrontation’ by placing it
in ‘a more regional perspective’.18As the year 1969 approached, conditions became ripe
to turn these ideas into policy. Weeks before his inauguration, Nixon said in an
interview that:
We must never have another Vietnam. By which I mean that the United States
must never find itself in a position of furnishing most of the arms and most of
the money and most of the men to help another nation defend itself against
Communist aggression. We need a new type of collective security arrangement
in which the nations in a particular area of the world would assume primary
16
Richard Nixon, ‘Asia after Vietnam’, Foreign Affairs, 46 (September 1967): 111-25.
17
See Walt W. Rostow, ‘Regionalism and World Order’, 12 June 1967, Department of State Bulletin,
LVII (17 July 1967), pp. 66-69. ‘We are finding…in regionalism, a new relationship to the world
community somewhere between the overwhelming responsibility we assumed in the early postwar years –
as we moved in to fill vacuums of power and to deal with war devastation – and a return to isolationism.
From the beginning our objective was not to build an empire of satellites but to strengthen nations and
regions so that they could become partners’.
18
Kissinger, American Foreign Policy, pp. 225-26.
49
responsibility in coming to the aid of a neighboring nation rather than have the
United States called upon to give direct unilateral assistance every time such an
emergency arose.19
The president further specified his approach on 3 November 1969. Addressing the press
in a stopover at the pacific island of Guam, Nixon offered the thrust of what would later
become a set of guidelines governing military retrenchment from Indochina.20 The press
gave the statements disproportionate attention and, sensing the opportunity, the White
House then moved fast to label it the ‘Nixon Doctrine’. In practical terms, the Doctrine
provided a model for disengaging American forces from Asia, putting greater emphasis
on the self-reliance of South Vietnam.21 At this point the rhetoric of the administration
began to emphasise the desire to see a transition from U.S. deep engagement in the
periphery to a world where stability would no longer be sustained by direct American
intervention, but by an alternative, less costly design.22
Such operation had important domestic political motivations. Nixon wanted to
offer a vision of containment alternative to Kennedy’s ‘nation-building’ trademark. He
thus eschewed the triumphant mood of Kennedy’s Inaugural, when the Democrat had
committed the country ‘to pay any price, bear any burden…to assure the survival and
success of liberty’. The impact of Vietnam upon public opinion warranted such shift,
and the image of ‘military retrenchment without political disengagement’ provided the
key. Opposing the rhetoric of crusade that had led to Vietnam, the new administration
19
Washington Post, 8 December 1968, p. B3.
20
‘The United States will keep all of its treaty commitments; We shall provide a shield if a nuclear power
threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our
security; In cases involving other types of aggression we shall furnish military and economic assistance
when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly
threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense’. Richard M.
Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s, A Report to the Congress, 25 February 1971, pp. 13-14.
21
For critical assessments of the Nixon Doctrine see Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘The State of Nixon’s World
(I): Half Past Nixon’, Foreign Policy 3 (Summer 1971): 3-12.
22
Consider for instance Richard M. Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s, A Report to the Congress,
25 February 1971.
50
now resorted to the language of caution against the perils of overstretching. The sense
of ‘necessity’ rather than that of unlimited possibility set the tone of official discourse.
The resulting policy orientation now comprised an ‘active politico-military engagement’
with key countries across the Third World – a vision of international order that relied on
the inclusion of selected, weaker, but increasingly or potentially relevant, peripheral
states.23
To some considerable extent this was spin. Phrasing, naming and packaging are
crucial for any new administration, but particularly so for this one.24 Typical catch-
phrases characteristic of the Nixon White House eventually included ‘stable structures
of relationships’, ‘a transition from preponderance to partnership’, ‘negotiation from
strength’, ‘new modus vivendi’, ‘pentagonal world’, and ‘shuttle diplomacy’. Spin,
however, was more than rhetorical fancy; it mattered because it actually helped shape
some of the important new policies the administration set out to sponsor. It was
consistent with Kissinger’s hope for ‘conceptual coherence’ and ‘philosophical
deepening’ in foreign policy, where individual routine decisions would often be
designed with the conscious purpose of fitting into a ‘grand design’.25 As Stanley
Hoffmann put it, reflecting on the spirit of that period, ‘World order politics is
obviously ‘in’’.26
The various rhetorical devices helped the White House justify strategic
priorities, legitimise contentious choices, and capture public imagination. They fitted
well with Kissinger’s style and previous academic writing, coalescing around the
assumption that international order can be deliberately contrived.

23
Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine.
24
On the importance of packaging, Bruce Kuklick, Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to
Kissinger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
25
On the connections between Kissinger’s thinking and language see Hedley Bull, ‘Kissinger: the
Primacy of Geopolitics’, International Affairs 56/3 (1980): 484-487 and James Der Derian, ‘Great Men,
Monumental History, and Not-so-Grand Theory: A Meta-Review of Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy’,
Mershon International Studies Review 39 (1995): 173-180.
26
Stanley Hoffmann, Primacy or World Order (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), p. 199.
51
The themes of decentralisation encapsulated in the notion of ‘devolution’ in the
second half of the 1960s thus performed an important task. Because they emphasised
the managerial, almost architectural dimension of U.S. foreign policy, they could be
presented to the public as yet another tool for the ‘creation of order’.27 In this sense, the
metaphor of decentralisation was an addition to a policy repertoire that, in the eyes of
the new leadership, sorely lacked creativity. In its ambiguities, it allowed the
administration to try to escape difficult dilemmas confronting U.S. hegemony in the
Third World – How far to entangle the U.S. around the globe and where? Under which
conditions and at what cost?
But there is a deeper conceptual aspect to the notion of devolution, for its thrust
also had important roots in ideas about containment that Kissinger had cherished for
long. Fifteen years before entering the White House, he had written about the need for
strong local allies. The argument had been one about curbing the costs of fighting
Communism by redressing the pattern of U.S. hegemony: ‘Our immediate task must be
to shore up the indigenous will to resist [through] a political program to gain the
confidence of local populations and to remove the stigma of colonialism from us’.28
This was an orientation that linked quite explicitly American involvement in the Third
World with its ability to retain the upper hand in the global balance of power.
27
See for instance Kissinger’s Address before the 3rd ‘Pacem in Terris’ Conference, 8 October 1973, State
Department Bulletin, Vol LXIX, no. 1792. Or Nixon’s interview with Time Magazine, 3 January 1972, p.
15.
28
The whole quotation reads: ‘The strategic problem of the United States has two aspects: to create a
level of thermo-nuclear strength to deter the Soviet bloc from a major war, or from aggressions in areas
which cannot be defended by an indigenous effort; but to integrate this with a policy which does not
paralyze the will to resist in areas where local resources for defense do exist…Our immediate task must
be to shore up the indigenous will to resist [through] a political program to gain the confidence of local
populations and to remove the stigma of colonialism from us, together with a measure of economic
assistance and similar steps. But though a political program may be essential it will prove useless without
an increase in the capacities for local defense…We thus might say that these are two prerequisites of
effective local action by the United States: indigenous governments of sufficient stability so that the
Soviets can take over only by open aggression, and indigenous military forces capable of fighting a
delaying action…[creating] situations in which American local action is physically and psychologically
possible’. Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Military Policy and Defense of the ‘Grey Areas’’, Foreign Affairs, 33/418
(1954-1955): 416-28.
52
Prominence globally could of course be achieved by massive demonstrations of force
such as the bombing of Cambodia; but it could also benefit enormously from resorting
to some extent to the practice and rhetoric of benign hegemony, where the stronger state
arises in its weaker partners a sense of ownership. The image of ‘devolution’ fulfilled
precisely such task. In creating incentives for key countries across the periphery, the
intention was to bring them on board the U.S. side, thus feeding into the global balance
of power and influence among the major powers.29
In other words, if part of the move towards decentralisation followed from the
perception of weakness that followed Vietnam, part of it resulted from the
understanding that these difficulties presented the U.S., an established great power, with
an opportunity to expand its clout. If the pecking order of states continually changes,
then it was in the interest of the leading superpower to manipulate this reality
accordingly, exploiting rather than opposing it.
Any serious push towards decentralisation would therefore have to reconcile the
apparent American refusal to sustain major commitments in the Third World whilst
pushing U.S. officials into forging partnership with selected countries around U.S.-
sponsored ideas, values and loyalties. Detachment from developments on the ground
had to be replaced by another form of involvement, this time one that would sustain a
spirit of mutual affinity with the ‘key’ recipients whilst allowing the U.S. to retain
control. In this way, Nixon and Kissinger would remain as wedded to the minutiae of
micro-management as Kennedy had done before them, showing that hegemony without
intervention is always an unlikely proposition.30
29
Litwak, Détente and the Nixon Doctrine.
30
Consider this recent interpretation of Kissinger’s attachments to the Third World: ‘Contrary to his self-
cultivated image as the ultimate realist in international affairs…Kissinger remained much more
influenced by concepts of modernization and American mission that did [President Nixon]. Cynical he
could be, but when push came to shove Kissinger preferred the traditional means of aid, political and
53
‘Devolution’ as presented in the academic writings of the 1960s, and later
reflected upon in the initial treatment of large regional countries by the Nixon
administration, thus betrayed an interpretation of U.S. national security that was clearly
expansive: a superpower with global responsibilities ought to care for the potential
effects of developments in the periphery; if not directly all the time, then acting through
local supporters on occasion. Notions of decentralisation in the Kissinger period
therefore did not equal the relinquishing of hegemonic controls, but rather reflected an
attempt to adapt (and reassert) American power in the Third World with relatively new
instruments and a novel diplomatic lexicon. Ironically, as we will see, the logic of
decentralisation opened up new possibilities for rising states, for it created an
environment in which they could advance their own interests – an enterprise that
comprised, among other things, the taming of American power.
The ‘Key Country’ Orientation
Prior to the Nixon administration, the term ‘key country’ in referring to a regional target
for engagement had not been used widely in academic or policy circles. Even when the
category appeared in the official lexicon in 1969, it did so without following precise
criteria. What is clear is that potential recipients of devolution shared a few common
traits.
Their governing regimes were ideologically aligned with Washington (although
some found it difficult to partner up with the Nixon administration in the face of
opposition at home). They were also non-democratic regimes whose domestic
adversaries U.S. officials saw as too weak to muster the forces to produce any
significant change in the short term. All were keen on better working relations with the
economic pressure, and – in the final instance – intervention to keep Third World countries in line with
US Cold War strategies’, Westad, The Global Cold War, p. 196.
54
United States and hoped for Washington’s explicit recognition that their quest for
special treatment in international relations was legitimate. Uniting Washington and
these governing local elites was the fear that indigenous nationalism might take a leftist
or revolutionary turn. At least in the cases of Iran and Brazil, the expectation was that
the U.S. might acknowledge the governing regimes explicitly and in public. These states
had relevant military capabilities and strategies when compared to their neighbours, and
their economic performance was as impressive as their prospects for future growth (with
the exception of Zaire). Also, Brazil, Iran, South Africa and Pakistan showed interest in
dominating the nuclear fuel cycle.
The ‘key country’ orientation built on an existing body of practice. Consider that
Washington had found Brazil, Iran and South Africa to be particularly well suited for
collaboration since the Second World War, with all three receiving privileges
accordingly. In this sense, the policy was not so much a rupture with previous American
experience, as it was an attempt to revitalise old relationships. Clearly in the cases of
Brazil and Iran, the novelty now was in granting these countries a salience they had
lacked before. The policy expression of such recognition variously included the public
proclamation of ‘special relationships’, the establishment of commissions and working
groups, the exchange of high-level visits, summitry and closer personal ties between
heads of State, back-channels for communication, economic assistance and armed-force
modernisation, and the crafting of higher-status language and protocols. Devolution,
Washington’s intention to elevate key bilateral relationships to higher grounds both
materially and symbolically, was a diplomatic manoeuvre par excellence.
This was a realm of policy that Kissinger sought to control directly. Perhaps
with the exception of Iran, we see little or no presidential involvement in either planning
or implementation, with the State Department following the national security advisor
55
reluctantly (and, as we will see, sometimes with a good degree of protest). As with
many other areas at this time, the ‘key’ policies remained centralised in very few hands
and shrouded in secrecy. The approach did not figure prominently in policy debates nor
was it subject to public scrutiny (with the exception of arms sales that required
Congressional approval).
Its nature – with all its emphasis on building compact networks of high-level
officials linking Washington to the heads of state in the recipient capital cities – only
reinforced the concentration of responsibilities around Kissinger. So did Kissinger’s
diplomatic style, where empathy and personal rapport were crucial, as shown by the ties
he eventually developed with the Shah of Iran, Suharto of Indonesia or Silveira in
Brazil. Policy dependence on the White House was further increased because the
project, lacking roots in U.S. foreign-policy traditions, and resting on tenets both vague
and difficult to gauge by outsiders, did not gain the favour of the relevant bureaucracies,
Congress, or public opinion. From the very outset, then, Kissinger took over
responsibility for establishing and developing devolution.31
Resting disproportionately on one man, the ‘key country’ orientation at the
moment of inception resulted from his personal attributes: the policy would progress
only as far as he found it useful, only to the extent his time and stamina permitted, and
only as a function of his bureaucratic skills to win the inevitable domestic battles
associated with it. This is not to say that no other person could have carried devolution
forward. Indeed, there are counterfactual reasons that subsequent chapters will explore
31
This is consistent with the overall outlook of the Nixon administration. Under Kissinger’s watch the
NSC expanded its terms of reference, it trebled its size, and it controlled planning and operations,
interdepartmental groups, the drafting of policy papers, the intelligence and defence committees, and
covert operations. Devolution to the ‘key countries’ is an example of the impressive transformation of the
role of the national security advisor in the Kissinger years. See John Leacacos, ‘The Nixon NSC’,
Foreign Policy 5 (winter 1971-2): 3-27 and David Rothkopf, Running the World: the Inside Story of the
NSC and the Architects of American Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2005).
56
to believe that such orientation might have survived the Carter administration under the
watch of national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
As far as costs went, devolution as presented here was relatively inexpensive.
This was not a return to the Eisenhower-Dulles local network of formal security pacts.
Rather, the initial emphasis was on consulting and sharing information with the ‘key
countries’ in a personal and relatively informal environment, with some very limited
degree of policy coordination. That the target states were non-democratic was not seen
as particularly damaging. On the contrary, for both Nixon and Kissinger non-democratic
regimes could sometimes make good, if not the best, allies. Democracies, Kissinger had
written, were subject to the swings of public opinion, recruited inexperienced leaders,
made for parochial foreign policies, and held policy prey to short-term gains rather than
long-term strategic thinking.32 Others had also written extensively about the perils of
democracy for the conduct of foreign policy, especially in the face of rapid
modernisation and economic nationalism – two distinctive features of the target states in
question.33 It is thus plausible to suspect that it was not simply the anti-Communism of
the target states that made them good candidates for engagement, but also their capacity
to offer Washington some degree of reliability and predictability in the daily conduct of
bilateral relations. This was a card that recipients were only too keen to use. As the
Shah repeated often, his country was an ‘island of stability’, the ‘only strong, stable and
32
For Kissinger’s own writing on the topic, ‘Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy’, in American
Foreign Policy (New York: Norton, 1974). See also Henry A. Kissinger, The Necessity for Choice
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1960), p. 310-11 and 321. For a discussion of Kissinger’s attempt to ‘find
ways in which democratic states could behave with authoritarian purposefulness when their global
interests required it’, see John L. Gaddis, ‘Rescuing Choice from Circumstance: The Statecraft of Henry
Kissinger’, in Gordon A. Craig and Francis L. Loewenheim, eds., The Diplomats, 1939-1979 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 570-72 and 585-87.
33
Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950); Walter
Lippman, Essays in the Public Philosophy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955); Samuel Huntington, Political
Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
57
important nation between Japan and the European Community’.34 It would not be until
later into the 1970s that human-rights violations in recipient states, and in particular in
the case of Brazil, would begin to burden the whole devolutionary enterprise.
These features of the ‘key country’ orientation pointed towards a conception of
international relations that was clearly hierarchical, with its coordinating centre at the
core and its regional supporters in the periphery; but one in which the share of costs and
benefits between the former and the latter had to be negotiated. To be sure, Washington
selected the key targets because they were perceived to be strong and stable in their own
regional contexts. But, as the U.S.-Brazil case will show, in the end it was precisely that
strength that limited the range of benefits that Washington could in effect accrue from
devolution. For it was not possible to turn the recipient states into mere surrogates. At
least as it played out over time, this was not a model for hegemony through proxies.
Neither Kissinger nor Nixon could expect that relations with Brasília, Teheran and
Jakarta should converge at all points or even on most points. On the contrary, soon it
became clear that proximity would have to be bargained for rather than taken for
granted.35 There was little room for top-down imposition or deference on the part of the
weaker parties. And as it will become clear, the dominating partner often agreed to
exercise self-restraint, to bind itself to tacit procedures, and to resort extensively to
argumentative instruments that stressed ‘equality’ and ‘respect’.
Setting a Brazil Policy in Motion
In the winter of 1969, a few weeks before Inauguration Day, Kissinger received a
memorandum advocating a new Brazil policy. It is not clear whether he asked for the
34
Richard Helms to Kissinger, ‘The Shah of Iran’s Role as a Regional Leader’, the CIA, secret/sensitive
memorandum, 4 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, box 479. NARA.
35
This was true for Brazil as it was for Iran. See for instance Harold Saunders to Kissinger, ‘Briefing
Papers for the President’s Visit to Teheran’, 18 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC
Files, Box 479. NARA.
58
piece or whether it was volunteered. Either way, the document marked the beginning of
the debate within the new administration about engagement with Brazil.
The piece had come from the pen of U.S. General Vernon A. Walters. Walters
was a stereotypical figure of American espionage.36 His ties with Brazil went way back.
As a young officer in the Army during the Second World War he had negotiated the
participation of Brazilian troops in operations in Italy, and at the end of the war he had
taken the post of Defense Intelligence Agency officer at the U.S. embassy in Rio de
Janeiro (1945-48). Fluent in Portuguese, he had also been the interpreter for Brazilian-
American presidential summits ever since 1947. In 1962 he had returned to Brazil as the
American military attaché, where he was actively involved in the 1964 military coup
that took Marshall Castelo Branco – a war-time friend and confident – to the Brazilian
presidential seat. He was seen both in the United States and in Brazil as the chief
advocate of bilateral alignment in the aftermath of the coup.37
Now, as the Nixon administration prepared to enter the White House, Walters’
memo to Kissinger began by defending the record of the Brazilian military in power.
In 1964 a hostile government was replaced by a friendly and cooperative one
supported by the military but in which military ministers were a minority…the
groups which oppose the present government are largely hostile to the United
States …whether we like it or not it is probable that unless there is a radical
takeover the military in Brazil as in the other countries of South America will
36
A former assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, and CIA operative in Iran in the early 1950s, he
was soon to organise the first secret meetings between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese leader, Le
Duc Tho, in Paris. In 1972 Nixon appointed him vice-director of the CIA. A year later, in the Watergate
hearings, Walters confessed to have alienated the FBI in its investigations of the scandal. After a few
years out of government, the Reagan administration brought him back to public life in 1980 as an advisor
to Secretary of State Alexander Haig, when he took a number of missions to Central America.
37
In 1977 Walters moved to private life as a consultant to the Environmental Energy Systems – years
later the U.S. press publicised that Walters had illegally received up to US$ 300.000 to sell high-tech
military equipment to four countries, including Brazil. For his memoirs, Vernon A. Walters, Silent
Missions (New York: Doubleday, 1978), and The Mighty and the Meek: Dispatches from the Front Line
of Diplomacy (London: St Ermin's Press, 2001).
59
play a far larger part in the life of the nation than we would like to see them do.
This we cannot change in the near future. As the living standards rise and the
institutions become more stable the military will adjust to their role in Brazil as
they have in the more developed countries. They are in fact the only group in the
country with the strength and organization to combat the subversion that is being
attempted on a global scale. We cannot afford to make mistakes in this area. If
Brazil were to be lost it would not be another Cuba. It would be another China.38
The General was overstating his case; the chances of Brazil turning Left in 1969 being
nil, the intimation was a construct to defend the record of the military in power. But
why did the Brazilian military need a defendant in Washington at all?
The memo was in fact momentous. Only a month before Nixon’s inauguration
the regime in Brazil had moved towards greater political repression and a tightening of
authoritarian controls. A new extra-legal act had expanded the powers of the president,
who could now put Congress in recess, intervene in federal states and city councils,
suspend political rights, confiscate goods, and ignore the constitutional right to habeas
corpus. The decision had taken the Johnson administration by surprise.39 When the
State Department consulted the embassy in Brazil as to whether it would be helpful to
send Walters in a secret mission to convey the message to the military that the new act
was extreme and could potentially damage U.S.–Brazil relations, the embassy replied
that a visit by Walters would send all the wrong signals. Brazilians, it noted, would
38
Vernon Walters to Kissinger, ‘Brazil’, circa January 1969, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC
Files, HAK Office Files, HAK Administration and Staff Files, Transition, Box 1, NARA.
39
Secretary of State Rusk to US Embassy in Brazil, ‘Developments in Brazil’, secret telegrams,
Washington, 17 December 1968 and 19 December 1968, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, POL 1 BRAZ-
US, NARA.
60
interpret the gesture as support from the U.S. government and a green light to move
further ‘to the right, no matter what [Walters] might say after arrival’.40
The Johnson administration decided to send a mildly disapproving signal
instead. Not only was Walters’ mission not authorised, but the White House also put
relations with Brazil in the freezer. Johnson held up the release of $50 million from a
U.S. programme loan instalment and ordered that assistance programmes to Brazil be
put under review. The State Department and the NSC agreed that the best policy was to
leave the decision on how to proceed to the incoming administration.41 Relations were
cooling at fast pace, with the U.S. reducing AID personnel stationed in Brazil from
more than 400 in 1966 to 267 by fiscal year 1969 and cutting loans and financial
assistance from $240 to some $10 million in the same period.42 With his memo to
Kissinger, Walters now was in effect trying to restore the White House’s confidence in
the Brazilian regime, reviving the spirit of bilateral convergence that had begun in 1964.
Either as a result of Walters’ demarche or not, in March the new administration
released the $50 million tranche, negotiations on outstanding aid projects were resumed,
and the embassy in Rio was authorised to begin exploratory and ‘informal’ discussions
on economic and military assistance for financial year 1970.43 But more important,
Kissinger’s own curiosity about Brazil had been aroused: within days of entering the
White House he ordered a major policy review.
There are strong indications that Kissinger had shown some interest about Brazil
before taking up his national-security position. In the late 1950s, sitting at the board of
40
Embassy in Rio de Janeiro to Secretary of State, secret telegram 14524, 20 December 1968, RG 59,
Central Files 1967-69, POL 1 BRAZ-US, NARA.
41
Rostow to President Johnson, ‘Brazil’, confidential memorandum, the White House, 13 January 1969,
National Security File, Country File, Brazil, Vol. VIII, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.
42
Peter D. Bell, ‘Brazilian-American Relations’, in Riordan Roett, ed., Brazil in the Sixties (Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1972), pp. 77-104 and John W. Tuthill and Frank Carlucci, ‘Operation
Topsy’, Foreign Policy 8 (Autumn 1972): 62-85.
43
Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. to Kissinger, ‘[Brazil] Program Budgeting’, the White House, confidential
memorandum, 18 March 1970, The National Security Archive, p. 9. See also The New York Times, 19
January 1969.
61
Harvard’s Center for International Studies, he had tried to set up a Brazil institute.
Although he had had the support of Brazilian ambassador to Washington, Roberto
Campos, the Foreign Ministry opposed the initiative at a time when suspicion of foreign
scholars studying Brazil ran high. In the end no institute came to life, but Kissinger
managed to put on its feet a less ambitious research programme that lasted for a few
years.44 (As a young consultant to the Kennedy administration, he would visit Brasília
once). Also, as interviewees for this thesis never failed to point out, Kissinger’s liking
of Brazilian football was proverbial and may help explain his curiosity for the country
in the first place.
Now a decade after his Brazil-institute attempt at Harvard, and at the helm of the
NSC, Kissinger wanted to know whether selecting Brazil for rapprochement was
feasible and worth the administration’s while. His request for a policy review mirrored
the driving concern behind Walters’ memo. For there the General was hinting at
something beyond mere advocacy for his Brazilian friends-in-uniform. He was in fact
making a much broader point about the particular character of Brazil in world politics
and the benefits the U.S. could derive from greater proximity. The reasoning was
straightforward: ‘Brazil with its 90 million people has a population almost equivalent to
that of France and Italy combined… Alone of all the countries in South America she has
the potential to become a great power. She has the space, the geographic location and
the ressources [sic] and population to lead the area’.45
Indeed, Brazil stood out. A discussion of its material transformation in this
period follows in Chapter 3, but for the sake of illustration it is worth noting that
between 1961 and 1980, Brazilian domestic gross domestic product trebled and, from
44
As recalled by Georges Landau, then Kissinger’s student at Harvard, in conversation with author,
Brasília, 21 May 2006.
45
Vernon Walters to Kissinger, ‘Brazil’, circa January 1969, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC
Files, HAK Office Files, HAK Administration and Staff Files, Transition, Box 1, NARA.
62
1968 to 1973, the economy grew at 11% per year without significant inflation. As the
1970s progressed, to most commentators this was a rising state poised to achieve major
power status.46 ‘Like a sleeping giant Brazil is awakening to a period of industrial
expansion and development almost unparalleled...We might see Brazil becoming the
Japan of the Third World’.47 This image of the country was not necessarily new. Talk of
Brazil as a future power had recurred in Washington for decades. With the Walters
memo, the old appreciation of that country was dusted off and reintroduced into the
White House in the most consequential way.
National Security Study Memorandum 67
One of Kissinger’s administrative innovations at the NSC was the commissioning of
National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM). Their purpose was to review policy
critically, offering him and Nixon a range of policy options on intricate subjects or
themes of which they had no first-hand experience. At the time of Nixon’s resignation
in 1974, Kissinger’s team had prepared over 200 NSSMs.48
For the preparation of one such report on Brazil, Kissinger called an
Interdepartmental Group for Inter-American Affairs (IG/ARA). IG/ARA was staffed
mainly by State Department officials and external consultants: A team that worked for
46
Ronald Schnedier, ‘Brazilian Foreign Policy: a Case Study in Upward Mobility’, Inter-American
Economic Affairs, 27/4 (Spring 1974): 3-25; David M. Landry, ‘Brazil’s New Regional and Global
Roles’, World Affairs, 137 (Summer 1974): 23-37; Riordan Roett, ‘Brazil Ascendant: International
Relations and Geopolitics in the Late 20th Century’, Journal of International Affairs 9/2 (Fall 1975): 139-
154; William Perry, ‘Contemporary Brazilian Foreign Policy: the International Strategy of an Emerging
Power’, Foreign Policy Papers, 2/6 (California: Sage, 1976); Riordan Roett, ed., Brazil in the Seventies
(Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1976); Norman Gall, ‘The
Rise of Brazil’, Commentary, January 1977; Ronald Schneider, Brazil: Foreign Policy of a Future World
Power (Boulder: Westview, 1977); Jim Brooke, ‘Dateline Brazil: Southern Superpower’, Foreign Policy
(Fall 1981): 167-180; Wayne Selcher, ed., Brazil in the International System: the Rise of a Middle Power
(Boulder: Westview, 1981); Jordan Young, Brazil: Emerging World Power (Florida: Robert Krieger,
1982).
47
The Times, 18 October 1973.
48
In the early days of the administration most focused on issues rather than on individual countries, with
the exceptions of Japan (NSSM 5), Korea (NSSM 27), Cuba (NSSM 32), Israel (NSSM 40), and Brazil
(NSSM 67).
63
almost one year to produce what must be, to this day, one the most thorough official
analysis ever conducted in the U.S. about Brazil – 700 pages of single-spaced text
covering five sections and 15 annexes.49
Contrary to Walters’ intimations, NSSM 67 discredited Brazil as a potential
great power. It concluded that a policy of positive discrimination towards Brasília
would be unwarranted both on security and political grounds. Neither did American
contingency plans foresee access to Brazilian territory to justify special attention nor
would Brazil ever attempt to bloc U.S. security interests, requiring concessions. On the
contrary, voting patterns at the United Nations showed that throughout the 1960s Brazil
had aligned with the U.S. more times than most other hemispheric nations.50 The team
also surveyed 22 Latin American countries, only to find that Brazil was in fact
‘relatively unimportant’ in its own region. ‘The vast power differences between Brazil
and the U.S. are far greater than those separating Brazil from her neighbors’. With the
exception of ‘leadership in multilateral economic negotiations’, the study stated, ‘Brazil
does not enjoy a pre-eminent position over other Latin States’.51
Even if a nationalist wave should sweep over Brazil, ‘loss of Brazilian strategic
materials and primary products would not significantly affect the U.S. balance of
49
National Security Council, ‘Secret Study Memorandum: Brazil Program Analysis, NSSM – 67’, the
White House, March 1970, The National Security Archive.
50
On East-West issues support was as high as 95%, with 72% for disarmament/nuclear testing, and 71%
in legal, peaceful settlements. Agreement was much lower in economic, social and human rights (55%)
and UN administration and finances (29%) – but this followed the broader Latin American pattern and
was no reason for concern.
51
Officials in only 6 of the 22 countries surveyed described Brazil as ‘influential’ (Argentina, Chile,
Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay). Seven of those countries regarded Brazil as less
important than one or more other Latin states (Colombia, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Barbados,
Nicaragua and Panama). No country believed that Brazil could play more than a modest role in
international affairs even if it desired to do so. Although Brazil had the strongest military establishment in
Latin America next to Cuba, only Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay reported that military might was a
significant factor in assessing Brazil’s hemispheric position. Trade relations with Brazil were considered
important only to Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New
York considered Brazil’s role to be basically similar to that of other large Latin American nations.
64
payments or the U.S. prices of these commodities’.52 This was hardly a ‘vital’ or
‘irreplaceable’ neighbour; a 1966 National Policy Paper for Brazil had been wrong in
suggesting that ‘Brazil is the key nation of Latin America from the standpoint of the full
range of US interest’. A policy of selectivity, concluded NSSM 67, was simply
untenable.
This was a direct rebuke of the Walters memo. The argument went like this:
American diplomats had succumbed to this misplaced perception because ‘Brazil must
have seemed, as it does now, to be the future and inevitable leader among Latin
American states’. But, the document retorted, this was not a major regional power nor
did it have any significant clout in its neighbourhood.
This perceived increase in Brazil’s international standing [is] largely illusory,
sustained mainly by the country’s obvious size, the exceptional talent of
Brazilian diplomats and – perhaps most important – the appearance of U.S.
interest and support.53
In casting Brazil’s uniqueness as whimsical, the document was trying to pre-empt the
interest of the White House in forging a ‘special relationship’. Charging against what
they saw as appearances, veneer, and pretence, the authors of NSSM 67 were saying
that any recognition of Brazil as a rising power would be unwarranted, potentially
dangerous, and exceedingly costly.54 The bureaucratic battle over Brazil had begun.
The NSC Ascendant
52
Although Brazil was the 11th foreign supplier, the 12th largest market for U.S. exports world-wide, and
by 1970 U.S. firms owned 40% of foreign investment in that country, Brazil provided only 2% of
American imports.
53
National Security Council, ‘Secret Study Memorandum: Brazil Program Analysis, NSSM – 67’, the
White House, March 1970 [available in NSA catalog under Presidential Directives for National Security
00512], The National Security Archive, p. 8.
54
John H. Crimmins, ‘Brazil NSSM’, secret National Security Council Interdepartmental Group for Inter-
American Affairs, Decision Memorandum n. 69, 14 August 1970, The National Security Archive.
65
Kissinger’s team received NSSM 67 with dismay. This was a massive document that
had consumed enormous resources but provided nothing of what they expected. Its
comments and descriptions provided no real basis for operational and political
decisions. Worse still, the analysis focused narrowly on Brazilian-American relations,
without embedding the relationship in regional and global contexts.55 Perhaps more
important, its conclusions ran counter to the spirit of devolution.
Kissinger’s instinct was to bring the issue of Brazil into the NSC structure and
start again from scratch. But when he asked a member of his staff to review the existing
literature on Brazil’s foreign relations, his assistant found that materials were poor and
scarce.56 Kissinger then asked NSC Latin America expert Arnold Nachmanoff to
prepare a written critique of NSSM 67.
Nachmanoff’s first piece on Brazil, along with the ones that followed in
subsequent months, provided the rationale for the new policy. The highest American
interest, it stated, was to maintain ‘friendly and constructive’ relations with Brazil.
Because Brazilians were particularly sensitive to trade issues and to outsider criticism of
their poor record on democratic liberties and human-rights, conflict in those areas ought
to be avoided. This was particularly important, Nachmanoff argued, given the regional
impact of Salvador Allende’s arrival in power in Chile in September 1970.
The tendency of [NSSM 67] to give far greater emphasis to developmental
rather than political considerations appears out of proportion in view of recent
developments in Chile. It seems clear that a major element of our present
55
A summary of the critiques that reappear in the documentation around this time is in Charles A. Meyer
to Kissinger, ‘Methodological comments on NSSM 67’, secret, 6 October 1970, Nixon Presidential
Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National Security Council Meetings, box H-049. NARA.
56
The literature review focused solely on John Wills Tuthill, ‘Economic and Political Aspects of
Development in Brazil – and US Aid’, Journal of Inter-American Studies, 11 (April 1969): 186-208; Eric
N. Baklanoff, ed., New Perspectives of Brazil (1966); Helio Jaguribe, Economic an Political
Development: a Theoretical Approach and a Brazilian Case Study (1968); Frances M. Foland, ‘The
Prospects for Brazil’, The New Leader, 20 January, 1969. John Glancy to Kissinger, ‘Card File on Brazil’,
memorandum, 14 September 1970, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National
Security Council Meetings, box H-049. NARA.
66
strategy will involve seeking support and cooperation wherever feasible from
the Government in Brazil in our efforts to frustrate achievement of the Allende
Government’s objectives.57
Kissinger must have approved of this approach, for five days later conversations began
at the White House about the possibility of inviting the Brazilian president for a State
visit.
But if NSSM 67 was correct in stating that Brazil lacked the power resources
and the legitimacy in the region to act as an influential power, why insist on engaging?
What kinds of things could Brazil actually do? Precise answers here were elusive, or at
least did not find their way to paper. Although it was clear that the Brazilian regime
would be naturally inclined to oppose Allende’s government, it was not at all certain
that in its activities Brazil would help foster U.S. positions. Unless there were secret
communications between Washington and Brasília at this time that are yet to be
retrieved – and this hypothesis is a feasible one – then it is plausible to suggest that, in
launching a new approach to Brazil, American officials were to a significant extent in
the dark about the actual benefits of engaging. If this was the case, then it is ironic that
the decision to proceed with a policy of approximation should have emerged in the NSC
under the watch of Kissinger, a man who had made a stellar career on a reputation for
hard-nose realism.
Whatever brand of realism Kissinger espoused, this was a conception of the
balance of power where ‘psychological’ elements mattered enormously: even if Latin
America was a weak neighbourhood that posed no palpable threats to U.S. national
security, and even if Brazil was unable and unwilling to take on the burden of
containment, extending the language of partnership and devolution to this particular
57
Nachmanoff to Kissinger, ‘Senior Review Group Meeting on Brazil Program Analysis – NSSM 67’,
secret memorandum, 25 November 1970, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National
Security Council Meetings, box H-049. NARA.
67
country could improve U.S. standing in Latin America at low cost. Thus, although the
contours of the policy remained blurred, its overall direction was now clear: to foster
closer relations with the Brazilian regime, to subordinate areas of practical disagreement
to political imperatives, and to try to triangulate the policy with U.S. priorities
elsewhere in South America.
It was this that Kissinger was prepared to say when he walked into a NSC Senior
Review Group convened to discuss NSSM 67 on 1 December 1970. The U.S. would
now be ‘more responsive to Brazil in those areas which are of greatest concern to them
(trade, investment, and military equipment) and [we will] pay more attention to Brazil
in matters of style and consultation’.58 The operational determination that followed was
to concentrate responsibility for the new policy at the White House.
What we need to do here then is assure that the bureaucracy understands that we
want to be as cooperative and forthcoming as possible on these trade issues with
Brazil, and that if Commerce or Agriculture take very restrictive positions, the
State Department is expected to weigh in with the political considerations and if
necessary raise these issues to the White House for decision.59
Or,
No threat to Brazilian or American security justifies any US military assistance
to Brazil, given the present strength of Brazil’s armed forces… Military
assistance should be seen principally as political accommodation to an intense
Brazilian desire for military modernization.60
58
Nachmanoff to Kissinger, ‘Relations with Brazil’, the White House, confidential memorandum, 1
December 1970, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, White House Special Files, Confidential Files, box 5.
NARA.
59
Nachmanoff to Kissinger, ‘Relations with Brazil’, the White House, confidential memorandum, 1
NARA.
60
‘Talking points review group meeting Brazilian program analysis’, secret, circa late November 1970,
Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National Security Council Meetings, box H-049.
NARA.
68
Predicting harsh criticism from the bureaucracy and Congress, Kissinger argued that
‘we should not be in a position of telling sovereign nations what we think is appropriate
or inappropriate for them to buy’. In his critique of the report, he also offered an
appraisal that was reminiscent of the Walters memo,
[NSSM 67] underestimates the efforts of the military governments in power
since 1964 in stimulating social reform… The Brazilian regime has been subject
to intense criticism because of allegations (which are apparently true) that it
tortures political prisoners…Brazil’s political system is inefficient and
undemocratic but there is little we can do to stimulate constructive political
change.
Other proposals were more unusual, such as the creation of bilateral commissions on
trade and investment management at Cabinet level. At that time such commissions had
no pedigree in the repertoire of U.S. foreign-policy instruments to deal with developing
nations in general, and with a nation in the Western Hemisphere in particular. The
rationale behind the new initiative was that Brazilians needed to be ‘more’ consulted
‘on all kinds of matters’, ‘we should be able to work more frequently with them behind
the scenes to advance our mutual interests in the Hemisphere’. Therefore Brazilian
cabinet members should be invited to Washington once a year, U.S. officers should pay
more high-level visits to Brazil, and the Brazilian ambassador to Washington should be
given ‘some special attention’.
The style of our relations with Brazil is perhaps as important as the substance.
Brazil is the largest country in Latin America; it thinks of itself as a great power
and assumes that it should have a special relationship with the ‘other’ great
power in the Hemisphere. We should be able to play upon this without seriously
69
offending other Latins…We can also make them think of themselves as one of
our global allies.61
What is striking here is the acknowledgment that the material bases to justify a special
approach to Brazil were simply lacking, and that the putative benefits of engaging
Brazil remained to be defined in the future. Indeed, the documentation for this period
indicates that the tension between a policy for palpable gains and one that simply sought
to improve bilateral atmospherics was never fully resolved. It seems to be, however,
that given the low costs of rapprochement with Brazil, some progress on the
rapprochement front was desirable nonetheless, even if doubts remained firmly in place.
The result was that those pushing for rapprochement took the initiative with a touch of
irony: ‘It is possible as Clemenceau remarked over 50 years ago that ‘Brazil will always
be the land of the future’’.62
American uncertainty about the endeavour therefore did not prevent the new
policy from emerging. Under the aegis of devolution, vague as the enterprise was,
Kissinger thought that Brazil might be a useful source of support and legitimacy to
promote the U.S.-led order and project American influence. And at this juncture, the
region mattered.
Regional Hegemony Redressed
By 1971, contextual elements in Latin America added urgency to the new approach.
From elections in Chile, Uruguay, Peru and Bolivia to the passing of pro-Cuban
resolutions in the OAS, an upsurge of anti-American sentiment had set the alarm off in
61
Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘Relations with Brazil’, the White House, confidential memorandum, 1
NARA.
62
‘Talking points review group meeting Brazilian program analysis’, secret, circa late November 1970,
Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National Security Council Meetings, box H-049.
NARA.
70
Washington. ‘There is no question but that our relations with Latin America are at the
lowest point since the Administration took office’, wrote the State Department.63 The
United States Information Agency and Nachmanoff at the NSC agreed.64
For all the competing interests of the State Department and the NSC
bureaucracy, the two institutions agreed in their diagnosis: Latin America now elicited a
response because it could affect American standing in the global balance of power. The
fear was not so much one of Soviet geo-strategic expansion over an American sphere of
influence; but rather the ability of international Communism to exploit that backslide to
its own advantage. In Washington, this was not a novel concern. As a CIA document
had put it in the early 1960s: ‘The danger in Latin America results less from the
Communists’ ability to convert people to communism than from the ability of a few
dedicated Communists to exploit for their own purposes the widespread tendency
toward anti-US nationalism’.65
This type of reasoning resonated with Kissinger, who had argued in his own
academic work that if the global balance of power could be tilted by material
transformations, it could also be dramatically affected by intangibles. In such context,
retaining primacy and a favourable balance required instruments that fell short of
hegemonic imposition; rather, the necessary tools were those of more benign forms of
hegemony, where fomenting a sense of ownership among the weaker partners (and at
least the appearance of consultation with these partners) mattered enormously.
Nachmanoff translated these ideas thus:
63
Undersecretary of State to HAK, ‘Department of State Comments on the IG/ARA’s Supplementary
Response to NSSM 108’, secret memorandum, 29 October 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, NSSM, box H-178. NARA.
64
Frank Shakespeare to HAK, confidential, 2 July 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA; Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘SRG Meeting on Latin America (NSSM
108 and Military Presence Study), secret memorandum, the White House, 17 June 1971, Nixon
Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA.
65
National Intelligence Estimate, 80/90-64, Washington, 19 August 1964, CIA, job 79-R01012A, Secret,
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: South and Central America; Mexico, vol. XXXI
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004), pp. 69-70.
71
The loss of US influence in Latin America and an increase of Soviet influence in
what is perceived throughout the world as our backyard, will affect the global
balance of power in political and psychological terms, if not necessarily in
strategic terms…the pressures for intervention should there be two or three
Chiles or Cubas in our backyard would undoubtedly be high…The probability is
that points of conflict with Latin American nationalism will increase rather than
decrease…Our poor performance in effect gives the Latin Americans less and
less reason to see why a constructive relationship with us is in their interest, and
more reason to increasingly look to other sources and other solutions…This is
not to argue that the commercial and other interests which have weighed so
heavily in [our] decisions are not legitimate or important. The problem is that
they have been given disproportionate weight in the bureaucratic and political
decision-making process, while the Latin American foreign policy interests have
been pushed aside.66
The administration, Nachmanoff affirmed, had been slow and inefficient in reaching out
to the hemispheric states. It had done nothing for the Latin Americans in terms of
commodity policies or quotas for meat, sugar and textiles. The legislation on
generalised tariff preferences had yet to be submitted to Congress, while its prospects
on the Hill looked bleak. Aid had been ‘lethargic and directionless’. Congress had
sharply cut U.S. contributions to the Inter-American Development Bank’s lending
programme, while the Executive had been unresponsive to Latin requests for modern
military equipment. And both the Executive branch and Congress had been using their
leverage to secure better treatment for private American companies at the expense of
Latin American nationalists. Even the NSC Senior Review Group itself had postponed
66
Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘SRG Meeting on Latin America (NSSM 108 and Military Presence
Study), secret memorandum, the White House, 17 June 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA.
72
an in-house debate over Latin America on several occasions.67 Nachmanoff used this
self-criticism to push for devolution to Brazil. Starting old arguments afresh, he now
asked rhetorically:
What degree of influence should the US seek to retain [in the hemisphere], in
what countries, and in what functional areas?68
Nachmanoff was saying that a manifestation of general commitment to the hemisphere
as a whole would no longer do. Selectivity along the lines of the Nixon Doctrine ought
to be the way forward instead. He was charging against IG/ARA, which in a policy
paper on Latin America (NSSM 108) seemed to stick to the traditional State Department
position: that is, an approach to hemispheric affairs that was relatively low-key but
made no major differentiation among Latin American states. Arguing against
homogeneity, Nachmanoff wanted to consider:
(a) Whether in view of the environment we face, we should not consider
tolerating or perhaps encouraging a breakdown of the Hemispheric community
(e.g., OAS) to prevent Latin unification against the United States, (b) to what
extent should we try to use friendly Latin American countries as proxies, to help
develop blocs more consonant with our interests.69
67
Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘Latin America’, secret memorandum, the White House, 29 July 1971,
Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA
68
Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘SRG Meeting on Latin America (NSSM 108 and Military Presence
Study), secret memorandum, the White House, 17 June 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA.
69
‘A greater role for [Western Europe and Japan as sources of trade and investment in Latin America]
may be the most effective way in which Soviet influence can be pre-empted. However, we have
traditionally resisted the intrusion of extra-Hemispheric powers to prevent dilution of our political
influence and loss of our markets for trade and investment…We have…not encouraged the larger Latin
American countries to play a greater role vis-à-vis their neighbors for fear that expansionist ambitions
would destabilize or destroy the inter-American community. However, there is already evidence that
Brazil and Mexico, for example, see the US low profile as an opportunity for expanding their influence
with their neighbors…The question of whether we should encourage or work with some of the larger
Latin American countries for the same purpose is also avoided [in NSSM 108]. The Study discusses the
possibility of differential approaches (ARA did this reluctantly under pressure), but its conclusion is a
waffle’. Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘SRG Meeting on Latin America (NSSM 108 and Military
Presence Study), secret memorandum, the White House, 17 June 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials
Staff, NSC Institutional, NSSM, box H-178, NARA.
73
On 3 September 1971 State rejected the idea of selectivity as an inappropriate model for
regional governance based on proxy policies.70 Relying on one or two countries in the
region, the bureaucracy argued, was inadvisable both because the governing regimes in
these states were inherently unstable (with the attendant consequence that foreign-policy
changes could come quite suddenly) and because, being non-democratic, they were
simply not trustworthy. In taking this stance, State officials were building on the
dominant assumption in Washington circles – against the tenor of Kissinger’s thinking –
that authoritarian rulers make unpredictable and unreliable partners in international
relations. Criticising devolution to Brazil indirectly, ARA’s paper stated: ‘None of the
countries of Latin America is a great middle power on the present world scene’.71 And
it warned that Brazil faced severe limitations in its ability to take an active role in the
region, highlighting also that its ‘incipient rivalry’ with the U.S. pushed it into
increasing demonstrations of autonomy that rendered any hopes for bonding unlikely.
But more than that, it sought to stop the NSC’s approach by noting that ‘our relations
with Brazil must be tempered by the attitudes of key Congressmen and of the press
generally toward repressive aspects of Brazil’s government’.72
In October 1970, Senator Edward Kennedy had charged against the
administration’s intentions in what became one of the many and increasingly recurrent
Congressional attacks on White House policy to Brazil: ‘We stand silent while political
prisoners are tortured…I point this out…because Brazil is ruled by a government that
we fully support with money, arms, technical assistance, and the comfort of close
70
Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘SRG Meeting on Latin America (NSSM 108 and Military Presence Study)’,
secret memorandum, the White House, 11 August 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, Senior Review Group Meeting, box H-059. NARA.
71
NSC-IG/ARA, ‘US Policy toward the Nations of Latin America’, secret, 3 September 1971, Nixon
Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, NSSM, box H-177. NARA.
72
74
diplomatic relations’.73 A year later, when preparations for a U.S.-Brazil presidential
summit in Washington were well advanced, information about the extent of political
repression there circulated fast due to networks of academics, exiles, and Christian
groups.74
But IG/ARA’s alternative proposals to reverse the loss of influence in the
hemisphere were merely conventional. They listed a presidential policy speech stressing
generic support for Latin America and a visit to the region by the Secretary of State; the
reception of more Latin American heads of State and cabinet-level officials, as well as
the expansion of U.S. educational and cultural programmes across the hemisphere;
some ‘consultation’ with Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina; and
liaisons with Argentina, Peru and Bolivia to help limit the influence of Allende’s
Chile.75 Hardly an innovative take for a deteriorating regional situation. Yet a detail in
this policy paper made it rather significant: displaying the supporting signature of the
Undersecretary of State, it signalled bureaucratic cohesion behind these proposals to a
degree that hardly applies to other documents circulating at the same time.76
But Kissinger was determined to move forward with the policy of
differentiation. His approach was further reinforced by presidential trade envoy Robert
Finch, who had visited the region and had called upon Nixon to make ‘some hard
decisions to in several areas between a global approach or an approach which allows for
73
Reprinted in Edward Kennedy, ‘The Alianza in Trouble: Beginning Anew in Latin America’, Saturday
Review, 17 October, 1970, p. 19, quoted in Sikkink, Mixed Signals, p. 58.
74
Two of the earliest examples are Brady Tyson, ‘Brazil Twists Thumbscrews’, Washington Post, 5 April
1970, and Philip C. Schmitter, ‘The Persecution of Political and Social Scientists in Brazil’, PS: Political
Science and Politics (spring 1970). For an overview of the treatment of Brazilian human rights violations
in the U.S. during the first Nixon administration, Sikkink, Mixed Signals, pp. 51-65.
75
76
Undersecretary of State to HAK, ‘Department of State Comments on the IG/ARA’s Supplementary
Response to NSSM 108’, secret memorandum, 29 October 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, NSC
Institutional, NSSM, box H-178. NARA.
75
distinguishing among countries or areas in which we have special interest’, highlighting
Brazil.77
It is worth pointing out that whatever the disagreements between Kissinger’s
NSC and State were, this was dissent about policy options, not about the diagnosis of
why new policies were needed. When they looked at Latin America, these two
institutions, very much as their predecessors had done for more than a century, feared
not so much a direct security challenge as they did the indirect and often impalpable
possibility that instability and upheaval South of the border might impinge upon U.S.
hegemony in the wider world. This was a regional hegemon attempting to keep extra-
regional ideologies away from its immediate sphere of influence. Latin American
politics mattered for Washington as far as polarisation could pave the way for
expressions of anti-American sentiment that would kick the door wide open for these
countries to become part and parcel of the broader major-power competition for global
influence. Unable to impose a regional solution by the sheer use of force, the NSC and
the State Department now quibbled over which policy instruments to deploy. By 1971,
Kissinger was determined to push for one in particular, namely devolution to Brazil.
It remains for future comparative work to determine whether influencing the
emergence of a new Brazil policy were plans in Washington roughly at the same time to
revive U.S. relations with Iran. Like Brazil, Iran since the early 1960s had rapidly
become the wealthiest state in its region, and one that sought to expand its activities and
commitments abroad accordingly. If Brazil was adamant to defend the practice and
values of Right-wing nationalist governance in a region where social protest was on the
rise under symbols such as Chile’s Allende, then monarchical Iran was ready to refute
and resist the Arab nationalism embodied by Nasser in Egypt. In both cases the White
77
Robert Finch to President, ‘Mission to Latin America’, secret draft memorandum, Nixon Presidential
Materials Papers, NSC Institutional, NSSM, box H-178. NARA.
76
House pushed for greater proximity while the State Department remained cautious if not
suspicious.78 Due to Iran’s geographic and diplomatic position, American stakes there
were higher than in Brazil (Iran responded for 24.3% of all U.S. arms sales during the
Kissinger years).79 Yet the Shah, like the Brazilians, did not coordinate his actions with
the U.S. as much as Washington may have expected. From Teheran’s perspective, the
Iranian-American partnership was about preserving independence of action rather than
crystallising a policy of alignment. The Iranians were as doubtful as the Brazilians
about American ‘fidelity and staying power’.80
Before turning to the story of rapprochement, however, we must try to put
ourselves in the shoes of those making decisions in Washington and ask why they chose
Brazil.
Criteria for selection
Why select a country that was distant both geographically and psychologically? Why
try to partner up with a state with which there was no sustained record of bonding? Why
choose a target with which there were no major societal ties or interdependences? More
precisely, why pick Brazil over Mexico?
After all, there were good reasons for preferring the Mexicans. Mexico was a
relevant actor in the Caribbean and it had a relationship with Cuba – places that
mattered greatly to the United States but where Brazil had very little, if anything, to
78
For the Shah’s concern with Arab nationalism, State Department, secret Fact Sheet prepared for the
Visit of the Shah of Iran to the US in 1973, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits,
Box 920. NARA; Richard Helms to Kissinger, ‘The Shah of Iran’s Role as a Regional Leader’, the CIA,
secret/sensitive memorandum, 4 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, box 479.
NARA; Department of State, ‘Iran: Conditions in neighboring countries – effects on regional security’,
briefing paper, May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, Box 479. NARA.
79
Nayef H. Samhat, ‘Middle Powers and American Foreign Policy: Lessons from Irano-U.S. Relations,
1962-77’, Policy Studies Journal, 28/1 (2000): 11-26.
80
Department of State, ‘Future of US-Iranian Military Cooperation and Credits’, briefing paper, May
1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, Box 479. NARA; Kissinger to President, ‘Your
Talks with the Shah of Iran’, the White House, 18 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC
Files, Box 479. NARA.
77
add.81 But perhaps more important, in the early 1970s the difficult themes that would
later dominate U.S.-Mexican relations (and would require a great deal of partnership
work) were already there: immigration, border security, drug-trafficking, the use of
water, and environmental protection.
Furthermore, the basis for trust between Nixon and his Mexican colleagues –
presidents Díaz Ordaz and Luís Echeverría – were considerably higher than those that
applied for the Brazilian leadership, with whom personal rapport was far colder and
distant. The mix of interdependence and rapport that made Mexican leaders stand out in
Nixon’s eyes are summarised in a comment by presidential advisor Haldeman to his
boss on the imminent arrival of Echeverría
Oh, we’re getting some mileage out of the Mexican, he’s been quite
cooperative… he’s being politically cooperative, he’s moving around the
country where we want him to go. He’s meeting with our Spanish-American
appointees. He’s doing some stuff in L.A. and Texas and in Chicago, where
we’ve got Mexicans and it’ll do us some good. He said – he asked us if he could
be helpful in any way.82
Why, then, not select Mexico? In answering this questions, four reasons apply.
First, Mexico struck American observers as rather unstable. In the infamous
massacres of Tlatelolco (1968) and Corpus Christi (1971), over 130 youths died or
‘disappeared’, and hundreds were wounded in a public display of state repression.
Throughout 1971 riots and protests broke out, while the American embassy reported an
81
Kissinger to President, ‘President Nixon Trip to Mexico’, secret memorandum, the White House, circa
5 September 1969, National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Security Files, VIP Visits,
Box 947, National Security Archives.
82
Unfortunately Nixon’s reply was removed from the transcripts. Conversation n. 733-2, Cassette n.
2238, Oval Office, 14 June 1972, (10:00 – 10:04 am), Nixon Tapes, National Security Archives.
78
alleged conservative plot to ouster president Echeverría.83 The situation, American
diplomats warned, was deteriorating fast.84 As a State Department paper put it, Mexican
politics created a lose-lose situation for the United States: greater repression by the
Mexican government would push U.S. Congress and the press to call for an official
rebuke of the Mexican government in the harshest terms; but if the Mexican regime
were to appease the students instead, then the nationalistic policies likely to ensue
would probably damage U.S. economic interests.85 This made it difficult for any type of
engagement to surface. By comparison, Brazil looked stable. Like their Mexican
counterparts, the Brazilian security forces were carrying out a campaign of exile and
elimination to crush domestic opposition. Unlike the Mexicans, though, the Brazilian
regime had shown resolve to wipe out guerrilla activities in operations that were
assertive but comparatively low profile.86
In the second place, interdependence hindered rather than fostered the possibility
of devolution. For if Kissinger’s approach was conceived as the build-up of high-level
secret-channels and personalised exchanges of sensitive information, then publicity was
anathema to the spirit of devolution. And the problem was that, given the nature of
U.S.-Mexico relations, there was no room for quiet diplomacy. Too many agencies and
interest groups had a say on the Mexico policy. In this sense, ‘interdependence’ meant a
commonality of interests but, above all, the sharing of problems.87
83
U.S. Embassy in Mexico, secret telegram, 30 June 1971, Group Alleged to be Plotting Ouster of
Echeverría, National Archives, RG 59, 1970-73 POL 23-8 Mex, Box 2476, National Security Archives.
84
U.S. Embassy in Mexico to State Department, confidential airgram, 24 November 1969, ‘Political
Change in Mexico’, National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69, Pol 2 Mex, Box 2337, National Security
Archives.
85
Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, secret report, 18 June 1971, Mexico:
Government Repression of Students Causes Crisis, National Archives, RG 59, 1970-73
POL 23-8 Mex, National Security Archives.
86
U.S. Embassy in Mexico to State Department, confidential airgram, 2 January 1973, National Archives,
RG 59 1970-73 Pol 2 Mex, Box 2472, National Security Archives.
87
In the words of a U.S. embassy cable, there were ‘numerous special bonds as well as practical problems
arising out of geographic proximity, economic involvement, and cultural interaction’. Embassy in Mexico
City, confidential airgram, 17 February 1969, FY 1971 Country Analysis and Strategy Paper for Mexico,
National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69, Pol 1 Mex, Box 2344, National Security Archives.
79
The third reason why the U.S. may have chosen Brazil over Mexico was, as
pointed out above, economic performance. If a State Department paper had pointed out
that ‘By the end of this century, the population and per capita income in Latin America
should double and the larger countries of the region will be developed economies’, no
country represented that trend better than Brazil.88 But since U.S.-Brazil ties were not
glued by mutual dependence, should rapprochement fail, the costs of failure would be
negligible: the U.S. accounted for only 30% of Brazilian exports in 1971, whereas it
was recipient of 60% in the case of Mexico. As a State Department official put it, part
of the explanation why Kissinger went out of his way to launch an engagement
programme with Brazil is that the operation was so inexpensive.89
Last but not least, geography mattered. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the
bulk of U.S. security concerns in the hemisphere were in South America. What mattered
was nationalism and socialism in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. This
would change significantly in the late 1970s and 1980s, when American attention to the
hemisphere under Carter and Reagan shifted to Central America and the Gulf of
Mexico, focusing on El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Back in the late 1960s,
from a purely geopolitical standpoint, it was only natural that the Nixon Doctrine should
turn to the distant South.
Summary
Starting in 1969, the Nixon administration singled out Brazil to be the recipient of its
devolutionary policy in Latin America in the context of its global search for key
partners in the Third World. Brazil was a stable and fast-growing polity with which the
88
NSC Interdepartmental Group for Inter-American Affairs, ‘Review of US Policy toward Latin
America: Response to National Security Study Memorandum 173’, May 1973, Nixon Presidential
89
Albert Fishlow, interview with author, Oxford, 1 June 2005.
80
administration expected to better manipulate developments in the region. This chapter
has offered an overview of the intellectual origins of devolution and the political
processes that turned such ideas into a new appreciation of Brazil.
For the new administration the themes encapsulated in the notion of ‘devolution’
were appealing because they helped frame the beginnings of a new approach to large
developing states that satisfied a domestic audience wary of further entanglements in
distant lands, while they conveyed to the wider world a sense of benign hegemony
through partnerships with emerging centres of power in the postcolonial world order.
Devolutionary ideas remained peripheral to the dominant policy debates of the time and
imprecise in their contours, features that made them politically useful in a context where
questions without answer proliferated fast about how best to contain the Left and
nationalism in the Third World.
Engaging Brazil was not originally conceived as a tool to moderate or prevent
the accretion of its power, nor did it seek to facilitate interdependence between the two
countries. Neither was it a straightforward attempt at turning Brazil into a regional
policeman to fight the regional cold war. Rather, it set out to foster closer relations with
the Brazilian regime, to subordinate areas of practical disagreement to political
imperatives, and to try to triangulate the policy with U.S. political priorities elsewhere
in South America. The purpose was to restore American influence in the region by
conveying the sense of partnership with Brazil, although it was not at all certain that
Brazil could offer much help on that score, nor it was clear what the actual products of
partnership work might be.
In this the Nixon White House encountered the opposition of the State
Department regional experts who argued staunchly against a policy of selectivity.

81
Bypassing those voices, however, Henry Kissinger and his team moved forward. By
mid-1971, rapprochement with Brazil was on its way.

Chapter 2
RAPPROCHEMENT BEGINS (1971-1974)
This chapter begins by assessing the various elements that shaped the Brazilian
reception of devolution at the national and bureaucratic levels, highlighting a
fundamental split between the president and his top-ranking diplomats. It then contrasts
Brazilian and American intentions as the two sides prepared for the 1971 Nixon-Medici
summit, and their interaction during the presidential meeting and its aftermath. This is
the story of a decisive move towards greater proximity and partnership. Finally, the
chapter shifts to the nascent institutional setting of rapprochement.
Receiving Devolution
When the talk of devolution reached Brazil, this was a state whose foreign-policy was
undergoing significant change. The transformation followed from astounding economic
growth at home and changing perceptions in foreign-policy circles about opportunities
to broaden and multiply policies abroad. Such was the practical and conceptual context
within which Brazil began to respond to American overtures for rapprochement. Let us
look at each element in turn.
From Wealth to Activist Drive
In the years preceding rapprochement, Brazil’s economy began to experience what
commentators labelled milagre (miracle). Growth was sustained at impressive rates
from a relatively high starting base. Between 1955 and 1960, GDP increased on average
by 8.1% yearly; between 1961 and 1980, national income trebled. From 1968 to 1973
alone, the economy grew at 11% per year without significant inflation, an achievement
83
that at the time could only be compared to that of Japan. In the decade following 1963,
for instance, taxation capacity grew nine times, while in only three years the production
of durable goods such as fridges and TV sets doubled.1 A vast network of state
universities spread across the country, and for the first time there was a substantial
middle class in what was fast becoming an urban society. For the first time, a Brazilian
domestic mass market was created and, also for the first time, economic growth did not
come by the hand of greater income inequality. If strategies for import-substitution
industrialisation had any success in the Third World, Brazil was the exemplary case.2 At
the end of the decade, Brazil was the wealthiest and most powerful country in its region
in military, political, and diplomatic scores.
Greater wealth impacted upon Brazil’s foreign policy at least on three
fundamental levels: the capacities of the Brazilian state to carry out policies abroad, the
range of international activities in which diplomats could now partake, and conceptual
developments in policy circles supporting a drive towards greater activism. A brief
overview of each one is what follows below.
Progressive increases in relative economic power went hand-in-hand with the
strengthening of the Brazilian state apparatus and technocrats found at their disposal
1
Marcelo de Paiva Abreu, A ordem do progresso (Rio de Janeiro: Xcampus, 1990) and Werner Baer,
The Brazilian Economy, 4th edition, (Westport: Praeger, 1995). For data on taxation and durable goods
see Gaspari, A ditadura derrotada, pp. 263-4.
2
In the period between 1963 and 1979, of the overall share of exports, manufactured goods rose from 5%
in 1964 to 36% in 1971, whereas coffee plummeted from 55% to 13%. Exports also grew from US$1,5
billion to US$ 6,2 billion between 1967 and 1973, averaging 24% p.a. Imports grew faster at 27% p.a.
Another feature of this period was the diversification of external markets. The share of Brazilian exports
to the United States fell from 26.4% to 21.9% (1969-74). In the same period, exports to Europe fell from
46.2% to 37.4%, whereas those to Japan rose from 4.6% to 7.8%, and the ones directed to the third world
and the socialist countries went up from 21.5% to 30.3% (Africa’s account alone grew from 1.05% to
5.24%). Differently from fast-growing developing countries in Asia, however, the Brazilian industrial
strategy was geared towards the domestic market, and for all its economic growth Brazil remained a
negligible player in international trade with a participation oscillating between 0.9% and 1.75% For data
see Estatísticas históricas do Brasil – Série Estatíticas Retrospectivas, Séries Econômicas, Demográficas
e Sociais, 1550 a 1985 (Rio de Janeiro, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 1987); Hurrell, The
Quest for Autonomy, p. 145.
84
large and numerous state-owned companies capable of investing vast amounts abroad.3
Accordingly, the range of activities that diplomats could now pursue expanded
dramatically.
To measure change we could look at the posting of diplomats and the building
of new embassies; we could turn to the soaring investments of Brazilian state-owned
companies outside the border; or we could track instances when diplomats sought to
partake actively of decision-making processes abroad that previous generations had not
considered worth attending. Brazil began to exert influence on foreigners as it had not
done in decades, and became far more capable of doing to their neighbours what those
neighbours could not do to Brazil. Power projection, however, was not of a military
nature, but of a geo-economic one. This was the time when Brazil launched major
public works inside neighbouring countries, along with investments in energy
production, transportation, credit and finance.
Soaring domestic wealth also affected the conceptual foundations guiding
policy. Effects here were relatively mild but important. Brazil remained aloof from
military build-ups (contrary to what might have followed from new riches in a country
sharing it borders with ten neighbours). As previous generations had done, leaders used
their new-found capabilities to emphatically reassert their long-cherished principle that
activities lá fora (out there) ought to work as a spring-board to further economic
development at home – the accent remained on gaining access to inputs that could feed
into domestic, state-led modernisation. Their overarching goal, mirroring that of their
predecessors, was still to acquire technological, economic, and political emancipation
3
Ben Ross Schneider, Politics within the State: Elite Bureaucrats and Industrialization Policy in
Authoritarian Brazil (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1992). In the period between 1963 and
1979, state enterprises increased their share of the overall investment in the country from 3% to 22%,
Thomas J. Trebat, Brazil’s State-Owned Enterprises (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
85
from an international system that, in Brazilian eyes, was essentially impervious to
upcoming developing states. But the transformations under way were significant.
For one, policy makers sought to establish contacts with states in the Communist
bloc and began to support the loosening of Portuguese control over its African colonies.
In the 1960s Brazil also launched mildly revisionist initiatives that were far more
assertive than previous practice, although not radical at all when compared to that of
other large developing countries at that time (think of Egypt, India or Indonesia). The
drive was not revolutionary in any sense, but reformist instead; its orientation not
necessarily anti-American, but surely one geared towards greater de-alignment from
Washington. In this period diplomats co-founded UNCTAD and pushed for the notion
of collective economic security; Brazil refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty; it
began to support the decolonisation movement for the first time; it argued at the UN for
the transference of 1% of the global military expenses into the promotion of global
economic development; it kept observer status at the Non-Aligned Movement (although
it never joined, making its support conditional and fluctuating); it advocated for UN
Charter reform to increase Brazil’s say in key committees; it joined Third-World
pledges for a New International Economic Order; it abandoned its support to Israel and
South Africa; it extended its territorial waters from 3 to 200 miles against U.S. protest;
it fought against international norms for environmental protection; and it refused
population control measures advocated by the IMF, the World Bank and the UN
General Assembly.4
Several factors, however, curtailed the chances of an activist policy. The wide-
spread perception among Brazilian leaders remained that costs of foreign commitments
were too high and the country still too weak to bear them. Indeed, material factors
4
Clodoaldo Bueno, ‘A política multilateral brasileira’, in Amado L. Cervo, org., O desafio internacional
(Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 1994), pp. 59-117.
86
limited what diplomats could do. Heavy external indebtedness, state bankruptcy, and
enormous distributive inequality remained dominant themes throughout this period.
Consider, for instance, that during the Geisel administration, when activism abroad
soared, Brazil’s external debt went in tandem, quadruplicating from US$ 12 billion in
1973 to almost US$ 50 by 1979. Indeed, in several instances, the Foreign Ministry
(Itamaraty) let go of activist ideas because the funds to support them were not
forthcoming.
Therefore, even as the range of Brazilian foreign activities expanded, the
ideational balance between activism on the one hand and retraction and inwardness on
the other was never fully resolved. Take the case of President Medici: under his watch,
assertiveness went up.5 His trademark was the rhetoric of Brazil’s ascendance in an
imaginary ladder of status, which he encapsulated in the notion of Brasil Potência
(Brazil Power). But for all the innovation it brought to foreign policy, the label
concealed a project that was, in its core, inward-looking: an ideology of domestic
modernisation under the direction of a powerful, authoritarian state.6 Take equally the
case of Foreign Minister Gibson Barboza. His speeches carry the language of
‘broadening’; thus he would refer to the military coup of 1964, with its momentary
realignment with the United States, as a moment of ‘retraction’. In an address at the
graduation ceremony for the 1969 diplomatic-academy class, the word ‘expansion’
popped up explicitly. It was under his watch that Brazil began to develop new policies
to Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, and he sponsored the set-up of dedicated
trade-promotion activities across the globe. Yet, as this chapter will show, Barboza
consciously left important parts of the expansionist project underdeveloped.
5
Cintia Souto, A diplomacia do interesse nacional: a política externa do governo Medici (Porto Alegre:
UFRGS, 2003).
6
Andrew Hurrell, ‘Brazil as a Regional Great Power: a Study in Ambivalence’, in Iver Neumann, ed.,
Regional Great Powers in International Politics (London: St Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 16-49.
87
By the time Brazil received American ideas about devolution, a policy
community fearful of foreign entanglements was moving towards de-alignment from
the United States and greater activism internationally. It is no wonder, then, that
Washington’s overtures elicited an answer from Brasília that was essentially cautious.
The Domestic Split
President Medici was exultant to receive an invitation for a State visit to the United
States. Although the economy was doing well and he enjoyed high rates of approval,
there were sufficient domestic-political difficulties to justify a photo opportunity with
Nixon. At home, influence had been growing among a clique of hard-line military men
who were unwilling to let Medici choose his own successor. Abroad, activist groups had
begun to make noises about Brazil’s state-sponsored torture and terror. Also, although
free elections across South America were on the wane, Brazil still stood out as an
unusually closed regime, a factor that rendered the regional environment potentially
threatening for the ruling elite.7
In going to meet Nixon at a time when the Brazilian regime sponsored the most
violent crackdown on the opposition for a generation, Medici hoped for a gentle pat on
the shoulder.8 Unsurprisingly, he hoped for exceptional protocols. The Brazilian
president wished to be greeted by Nixon at the Andrews Air Force Base rather than on
the lawn at the White House (should this be impossible, he would then hope to arrive in
a helicopter); he also expected to address a join session of Congress, and to have Nixon
7
For this period, see Youssef Cohen, The Manipulation of Consent – The State and Working-Class
Consciousness in Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989) and the Gaspari trilogy quoted
above.
8
Secretary Rogers to Ambassador Rountree in Embassy in Brasília, ‘Medici Visit’, the Department of
State, secret telegram, 29 October 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box
911. NARA.
88
attend a return dinner at the Brazilian embassy.9 When the White House’s Chief of
Protocol turned down Brazil’s requests for special treatment, ambassador to
Washington, Araujo Castro, replied by saying that on such basis ‘Our President would
never, never, never consider coming here’. Kissinger in turn told Nixon that ‘it is now
essential to make some concessions on protocol’10.
This is to highlight that, when American gestures at rapprochement reached
Brazil, irrespective of the intentionality they might have had at the point of origination,
they were filtered in the first instance by the Brazilian president’s domestic
requirements. And these pointed decidedly to a notion of rapprochement that relied
heavily on the symbolic recognition of Brazil’s rising status and prestige.
Accordingly, Medici also expected to devoid the summit from all confrontation.
He had made it clear during preparations for the trip that the purpose of his visit was to
have ‘frank, intimate and cordial conversations’ in the ‘highest perspective’, avoiding
all topics of contention and relinquishing the negotiation of any specific agreements.11
The summit should be about creating a climate of friendly but vague and unspecific
mutual support, with some level of information sharing. The various and important
areas of bilateral friction – in particular trade and law of the sea, but also nuclear non-
9
Secretary Rogers to Ambassador Rountree in Embassy in Brasília, ‘Medici Visit’, the Department of
State, secret telegram, 29 October 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box
911. NARA.
10
For Araujo Castro, ‘Telephone conversation – Nachmanoff Return Call to Brazilian Ambassador
Araujo Castro, 2pm, 28 October 1971’, the White House, confidential memorandum for the record, 28
October 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 911. NARA. For
Kissinger, Kissinger to President, ‘Visit of President Medici of Brazil’, the White House, secret
memorandum, 3 November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 911.
NARA. In the end, however, Medici arrived at the White House in a standard motorcade rather than in a
helicopter. There was a luncheon offered by Vice-President Spiro Agnew rather than a return dinner,
although there was a brief call meeting with Nixon. And although Medici spent his first night in Camp
David, on that particular day Nixon was not there. Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘Visit of President
Medici of Brazil’, the White House, secret memorandum, 9 November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials
Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box 911. NARA. See also The National Security Council, Memorandum
of conversation – Nachmanoff and Brazilian Ambassador Araujo Castro, 10:30a.m., the White House, 10
November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box 911. NARA.
11
Rountree to Secretary of State, ‘Medici Visit’, US Embassy in Brasília, secret telegram, 4 November
1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box 911. NARA.
89
proliferation, UN reform, and voting patterns at the OAS – were not to be mentioned at
all. This was clearly not an attempt to smooth out the growing differences between
Washington and Brasília on a range of concrete issues; as we sift through the
documents, it is clear that Medici was determined not to go into details or engage in any
tit-for-tat with his American interlocutors.
Medici was, however, prepared to pledge ideological allegiance to the United
States in the context of the cold war and to give a first-hand account of Brazil’s own
war on Communism in South America. The agenda comprised Chile, Uruguay and
Bolivia, the various guerrilla movements in the region, and the prospects of Soviet,
Cuban, and Chinese infiltration there. To be sure, previous Brazilian presidents had
discussed these matters with American officials, but Medici went further. Now he was
making the point that Brazil’s activities, undercover and illegal as they often were, and
independent from U.S. control as they were, should elicit American rewards both
symbolic and material. In Medici’s eyes, the core of rapprochement was made of
ideological convergence with the U.S. against the Left, but one that was premised on
Brazil’s autonomous behaviour; its practical expression, American recognition and
support for the regime.
As we will see below, Medici’s understanding of rapprochement was
emphatically not about negotiating a division of containment labour, splitting spoils, or
trying to coordinate the activities of the two largest countries in the hemisphere. If the
initial concept of devolution, as it emerged in the United States, was about acting
through friendly local powers, then it faced a major problem when it came to dealing
with Brazil: the Brazilians not only did not see their state as Washington’s proxy, but
they were not even willing to negotiate the scope and direction of their own
containment policies. Coordination in the form of the Nixon Doctrine, to them, smacked
90
of old-time colonialism. Instead, Brasília would retain the autonomy to decide how and
when to embark upon its own containment activities, whether Washington found them
useful or not.
Yet, Medici’s domestic priorities were not the only filter shaping Brazil’s
response to devolution. The top-tier ranks in Itamaraty and, in particular, Ambassador
Araujo Castro and Foreign Minister Gibson Barboza, played major roles. Although the
Brazilian documents that could give us a clear-cut picture of the internal workings and
internecine battles of Itamaraty at this time are still closed for research, there are strong
indications that the top bureaucrats as a group also saw devolution with suspicion, but
preferred to respond to it in ways that differed from those of their president.
In the first place, American documents suggest that both Araujo Castro and
Barboza were unconvinced about the presidential summit. When the former gave his
American counterparts a list of motives as to why he thought a State visit might not be
advisable at that particular juncture, Kissinger thought there was more to the
ambassador’s overture that his words would reveal.12 As he put it in a memorandum to
Nixon, the ambassador perhaps was moving smoothly to thwart the visit:
It is not at all clear that the Ambassador is speaking for President Medici, and in
fact he may be playing a mischievous role because of his own reservations about
the visit.13
What those reservations might have been exactly he did not say. A few days later
Nachmanoff wrote that both Araujo Castro and Foreign Minister Barboza would like to
see the visit cancelled, pointing towards a deeper split between the Planalto Palace, the
12
Kissinger to President, ‘Visit of President Medici of Brazil’, the White House, secret memorandum, 3
November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 911. NARA.
13
Kissinger to President, ‘Visit of President Medici of Brazil’, the White House, secret memorandum, 3
November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 911. NARA.
91
seat of the Brazilian government, and Itamaraty.14 Indeed, as Barboza would recall in
his oral-history interview, when the invitation arrived, he advised Medici not to go. But
what were the sources of this disjuncture precisely?
The position dominant among top-tier career personnel at Itamaraty was
premised on a difficult balancing act. Their overall goal was to accommodate American
power, retaining and expanding, whenever possible, their room for manoeuvre, but also
securing the benefits that accrued from being in the White House’s favour. Unlike
Medici, their driving concern was not with the survival of the regime or with the
president’s clout over domestic politics, but with Brazil’s ability to stand its own ground
as the range of contentious issues with the Americans widened. Unlike Medici, in the
face of devolution they sought for ways of reaping whatever benefits may follow while
at the same time blunting the sharpness of U.S. hegemony.
To be sure, one such way of taming American power without alienating it could
be to establish a close personal rapport with key U.S. officials in the hope to give
Brasília more influence over Washington’s behaviour.15 Yet, as a succession of primary
sources in the following pages suggest, diplomats found such course way too
dangerous. They feared that in a context of extreme power asymmetry, a close rapport
between Planalto and the White House would do little to constrain American policies,
while it may well open the door for greater American pressures. Washington would,
after all, expect Brazil to show allegiance, especially if the administration went out of its
way to give that country special rewards. Additionally, diplomats may well have
suspected that even if imbued in the spirit of rapprochement, any White House occupant
would find it difficult to sustain an interest on Brazil over time. In sum, the problem
14
Arnold Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘Medici Visit’, the White House, confidential memorandum, 10
November 1971, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box 911. NARA.
15
For such strategies, Stephen Walt, Taming American Power: the Global Response to U.S. Primacy
(New York: Norton, 2005).
92
with personal rapport as a tool for accommodation, in the eyes of career diplomats, may
well have been that potential costs were too high for such uncertain returns.
However, since Medici had set out to talk the talk of rapprochement and play the
game of proximity with Nixon for domestic-political reasons, now it fell to the
diplomats to dilute the substance of conversations. The fact that the General was
unwilling to confront his hosts came in handy. Thus Itamaraty prepared a tentative
agenda for the summit where the two presidents would discuss topics that had no
bearing on the bilateral relationship at all, such as China, Vietnam, and U.S.-Soviet
relations. As we will see, when it came to airing these subjects, Medici limited himself
to asking his American interlocutors to share with him their plans, giving no opinion
whatsoever in return.
Itamaraty also sought to raise a series of topics where there was palpable
disagreement between Washington and Brasília but no major confrontation, such as UN
Security Council reform, American aid policy, and OAS reform. In areas of friction,
there was to be no dialogue, such as trade and law of the sea. For instance, Barboza told
his boss that during his stay in the U.S. he should avoid mentioning the word ‘sea’ at all
costs. So in a list of topics for discussion, Itamaraty only gestured at the existence of
important areas of disagreement. The piece suggested, albeit in a manner so understated
that American officials may have not even noticed, that (a) the expectation that bilateral
friction over hard-core interests might disappear as a result of U.S. recognition of
Brazil’s growing status would be unrealistic, and (b) when it came to defending the
West against international Communism, Brazil would always be aligned to the United
States; alignment, however, would be decided on a case-by-case basis, after weighing
thorough ‘national interest’ considerations.16
16
The paper lists: ‘State to State Relations. Necessity of a broad entente, into which the different aspects
of relations between the two countries could be inserted; Identity of political and ideological position as
93
This is what they intended to convey with the peppering of the expression ‘new
points of departure’ across the summit’s preparatory materials and in Medici’s speeches.
In effect they were beginning to develop the argument that a mutually beneficial
bilateral relationship could coexist with disagreement now that Brazil was on the rise.
Hence the choice of words: in the papers ‘identity’, ‘convergence’ and ‘complementary’
come first, but sit next to ‘conflict’, ‘diversity’ and a reference to ‘U.S. protectionism’.
Such state of affairs, the argument had it, was but the natural result of Brazil’s ‘coming
of age’. In portraying the picture that Brazil was ‘no longer an infant’, a ‘mature
member in the community of nations’, diplomats were seeking to reconcile closer ties
with the U.S. on the one hand and gain greater degrees of autonomy on the other.
Indeed, the image of maturity encapsulates an answer to such deep a Brazilian
diplomatic anxiety that, as far as the late 1990s, commentators could still hear Itamaraty
personnel claim that now, at last, Brazil veste calças compridas (wears long trousers).
So for all their differences, Planalto and Itamaraty ended up coalescing around
one major priority for the summit: accept Nixon’s overture for a closer rapport, but do
so with suspicion; gently turning down any suggestions of deep engagement. But
defining the purpose of the presidential summit around what they should seek to avoid
was hardly sufficient to give the Brazilians a road map as to how to conduct themselves
in Washington. How this problem played out in practice is what we turn to next, after
briefly summarising the U.S. position below.
regards the world situation; Convergent Policies notwithstanding eventual non-coincidence of some
specific positions; The broader area of complementary interests; Conflicting points arising from diverse
postures before world problems; U.S. Protectionism and Sectional Interests. Soluble coffee. Textiles,
Footwear; Brazil of today. Economic Development and Social Progress; Realism and pragmatism as new
points-of-departure for Brazil–U.S. Relations; U.S. investments in Brazil; Intensification of Brazil–U.S.
cooperation in all sectors: Political, Economic, Commercial, Cultural, Scientific and Technological; The
new points of departure’. Department of State to Kissinger, secret memorandum, Washington, 13
November 1971, Country Files-Latin America, box 128, Henry A. Kissinger Office files, Nixon
Presidential Materials, National Archives, in http://www.gwn.edu/~nsarchiv (downloaded on 3 March
2003).
94
American intentions
As the summit approached, Kissinger and his team were reluctant to embark upon too
close an involvement with Brazil as well; not the least because they suspected that an
internal split within Brazil may render the whole project uncertain. They were, however,
set on an understanding of rapprochement that was more than a minimalist project for
rhetorical support. What their intentions were precisely is not entirely clear in the
documents, and perhaps was blurred even in the minds of those making the decisions.
After all, the lack of precision points at the fundamental tension at the heart of the
notion of devolution: how to devolve power and influence to a raising state that could
not be controlled, one that was ambivalent about taking up new responsibilities and
would simply not project power abroad as expected from a typical regional hegemon.
Equally important, one in which the diplomats in charge of carrying out the project
opposed it in the first place.
Unsurprisingly, then, American manifestations of friendship during the
presidential summit were effusive but only proposed policy coordination timidly. They
did not seek to establish joint activities with the Brazilians or to draft common plans.
Instead, the White House put the emphasis on liaisons with Medici personally, while
hoping that the independent activities of Brazil and the U.S. would be mutually
reinforcing. Kissinger made the point to Nixon in a secret memo:
The purpose [of the visit] is to give recognition to Brazil’s aspirations for major
power status, showing that you consider Medici a valued ally with whom you
wish to consult prior to your trips to Peking and Moscow; to get his assessment
of hemispheric developments; and to establish a sense of special relationship

95
between our countries and a basis for ongoing communication and cooperation
[emphases added].17
The wording matters because it shows that, in reaching out to Brazil, the U.S. was not
responding to an obvious structural pressure arising from the international system
(although, as seen in Chapter 1, structural changes played an important role in the
emergence of devolutionary ideas). Rather, the U.S. was willingly volunteering support
for the regime. The approach was consciously impalpable and somewhat ethereal: it was
not really about establishing a ‘special relationship’ as much as it was about establishing
‘a sense’ of such relationship. Whatever recognition there was, this was not a reckoning
of Brazil’s capabilities, but a gesture marked by future-oriented overtones. Kissinger
instructed Nixon thus: ‘You may wish to [say that] you are confident that Brazil will
become an increasingly important force on the world scene [emphases added]’. This
was not about recognising Brazil’s status as a major power or a power-in-the-making,
but it was about gesturing at Brazil’s potential power aspirations.18
The general vagueness of the American position therefore followed, at least to
some extent, from uncertainties about Medici’s ability to push for rapprochement at
home. But even if he mustered the forces to shut down bureaucratic opposition, it was
not clear he would be willing to do so. There was more. By avoiding any deeper
treatment of rapprochement, the Americans were also staying clear of the intractable
practical problems haunting relations with Brazil, such as clashing interests on trade,
law of the sea, and nuclear power. Sticking to a thin conception of engagement, there
was no need to produce any responses to the old problems of the bilateral story, nor was
17
Kissinger to Nixon, secret memorandum, NSC, Washington, circa early December 1971, Country
Files-Latin America, box 128, Henry A. Kissinger Office files, Nixon Presidential Materials, National
Archives, in http://www.gwn.edu/~nsarchiv (downloaded on 3 March 2003).
18
Kissinger to Nixon, secret memorandum, NSC, Washington, circa early December 1971, Country
Files-Latin America, box 128, Henry A. Kissinger Office files, Nixon Presidential Materials, National
Archives, in http://www.gwn.edu/~nsarchiv (downloaded on 3 March 2003).
96
it necessary to develop any new conceptualisation of those problems. There was no need
to negotiate a clear division of labour, while the two sides would be free to combine
their individual resources whenever specific situations arose. In this sense, the hope for
proximity as expressed by the American side was not only a means to an end, but part
of the end itself.
Rapprochement in Practice
General Medici arrived at the White House on 7 December 1971 for a three-day visit
that set U.S.-Brazil rapprochement in motion. The one thing that emerges unequivocally
from the primary sources is that, at this point, the core of the Nixon-Medici arrangement
verged on secrecy and covertness. If the choice of participants to attend a meeting can
ever tell us something about what the actual purposes of that meeting are, we may begin
to contour the role secrecy played in the early days of American-Brazilian
rapprochement.
The first presidential encounter at the Oval Office was unusually intimate. The
U.S. team included Nixon, Kissinger, and General Walters. For Brazil, Medici was on
his own. This was odd, because in occasions like this – where the American president is
accompanied by his advisers and is willing to discuss a range of specific topics – his
Brazilian counterparts often bring support with them as well. This is all the more
peculiar when we learn that Medici did not speak English, nor did Nixon or Kissinger
speak any Portuguese. The conversation was translated by General Walters, who had
been brought from his position in Paris for the occasion. It was in the aftermath of this
meeting that President Nixon invited Walters to take the post of deputy director of the
CIA.19
19
Walters, The Mighty and the Meek, p. 37.
97
Was the decision to keep Itamaraty’s personnel outside the Oval Office a
response to the fear that they might be working surreptitiously to frustrate the summit?
What were the two presidents planning to discuss that would be better dealt with in the
absence of the Brazil’s senior diplomatic officials? Unfortunately, the critical document
that could unlock the mystery is still missing.20
They might have discussed military sales. The U.S. Foreign Military Sales Act
of 1968 had restricted sales, guarantees and credits to military dictatorships unless the
president thought it necessary to national security. But Kissinger convinced Congress to
increase the ceiling on sales and credits to arm purchases by Latin American countries,
and in 1973, the administration sold Medici’s regime 42 F-5B/E aircraft, and it
transferred 7 World War II vintage destroyers and 7 submarines.21 Contrary to what we
might have expected of a devolutionary policy, however, this was not an attempt to
build Brazil up militarily. Neither did the Nixon administration try to step up Brazilian
defences against a potential threat nor did the Brazilians seek the weaponry to project
power abroad. The motivations on both sides were eminently economic: Washington
sought to reverse its astounding deficits by selling weapons to eager buyers, while
Brasília sought to replace old equipment and get hold of modern technology to set up its
own defence industry for export (rather than for her own use).
20
The document comprises Walters’ handwritten notes on the presidential meeting. The memo was
classified as Eyes Only and no copies of it were ever made officially. See Nachmanoff to Kissinger,
secret memorandum on conversation with President Medici on the 8 December 1971, NSC, Washington,
7 December 1971, Department of State Subject Numeric Files 1970-73, National Archives, in
http://www.gwn.edu/~nsarchiv (downloaded on 3 March 2003). In a conversation with a U.S. envoy in
1972, Medici recalled that a third of his first meeting with Nixon was devoted to the issue of Bolivia, see
Secretary of Treasury Connally to Secretary of State and US Embassy in Brasília, ‘Memorandum of
conversation from meeting with President Medici in Brasília, June 8 1972’, US Embassy in Canberra,
secret telegram, 17 June 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 954.
NARA.
21
G. Kemp, ‘Some Relationships Between US Military Training in Latin America and Weapons
Acquisitions Patterns, 1959-1969’ (Cambridge: MIT Center for International Studies); and Stephen S.
Kaplan, ‘U.S. Arms Transfers to Latin America, 1945-1974: Rational Strategy, Bureaucratic Politics, and
Executive Parameters’, International Studies Quarterly, 19/4 (Dec. 1975): 399-431.
98
But we know that conversations focused on fighting the Left and nationalism in
Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay. For an understanding of what went on that day, we need to
look at the critical developments in these hemispheric countries at the time.
Uruguay
Only a few days before Medici arrived in Washington, the Uruguayans had gone to the
polls to elect municipal representatives, a Congress, and a new president. This was a
consequential contest because the two parties that had traditionally dominated the
political scene now faced an increasingly popular Frente Amplio (Broad Front) – a
coalition of the Uruguayan Communist Party, Left-wing activists, and Marxist
movements. Although the electoral laws were geared towards favouring the two
traditional contenders at the expense of newcomers, the prospects of the Frente were
relatively good. Polls showed its candidate may win 25% of the vote, while 25% of the
total voters remained undecided or refused to indicate any preferences. More important,
the Frente was faring very well in the contest for the mayoralty of Montevideo, the
country’s most visible seat after the presidency. Now we know that it eventually took
the Frente another three decades to make a president, but its prospects for victory in
1971 polarised Uruguayan politics dramatically. As the electoral campaign progressed,
state forces and paramilitary organisations of all political persuasions tore themselves
apart in an escalating cycle of violence.22
This created problems for Medici. He was presiding over the suppression of
Brazil’s own urban guerrillas, and the victory of a Left-leaning party in Uruguay would
only make things more difficult at home. Geopolitics mattered enormously here: since
its very inception as a nation-state, Uruguay sat between the two most powerful South
22
For this period see Nancy Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003).
99
American countries, Brazil and Argentina. These two understood Uruguayan politics as
a matter of national security. As the 1971 election approached, this was precisely what
worried the State Department most:
The major danger for US interests in the area may well be not the outcome of
the Uruguayan election, but rather the latent danger that continued
social/economic deterioration may have for the course of relations between these
two major Latin American powers.23
The White House worried too, but for different reasons. There, the outcome of the
Uruguayan election was rather important in itself. In a region where Leftist electoral
victories were believed to be psychologically detrimental for the global balance of
power, Nixon worried that yet another Latin American country besides Cuba, Chile and
Peru might signal sympathies for international socialism.
Three reasons suggest that the Nixon-Medici conversation at the White House
was perhaps too sensitive even for the closest of Medici’s diplomatic advisers. First,
during the Uruguayan presidential campaign, Frente leaders accused the Brazilian
secret services (linked to Medici personally) of conspiring against them time and again,
and indeed of perpetrating terrorist acts with some form of CIA support. Second,
Brazilian military men had contrived a menu of secret policy options which, should the
Frente be victorious, might include state-led terror and even plans for occupation,
although the latter were flatly rejected and opposed by Medici himself.24 Third, as we
will see below, key figures within Itamaraty were most reluctant to endorse an activist
anti-Left policy inside neighbouring countries, broadening the gap between the
president and the foreign-policy establishment. Supporting this reasoning is the fact that
23
‘The Uruguayan elections’, The Department of State, secret information memorandum, 26 November
1971, The National Security Archive.
24
A. J. Langguth, A face oculta do terror (Rio de Janeiro: Civlização Brasileira, 1978); and Gaspari, A
ditadura derrotada..., pp. 194 and 351.
100
only a weak after his meeting with Medici, Nixon confided in British Prime Minister
Edward Heath that:
Our position is supported by Brazil, which is after all the key to the future. The
Brazilians helped rig the Uruguayan election. Chile is another case – the left is
in trouble. There are forces at work which we are not discouraging.25
On the basis of currently available materials it is not possible to say that Nixon and
Medici set out to coordinate illegal activities in Uruguay under the umbrella of a Right-
wing alliance, although this remains an open question for future archival releases. The
data now available on the 1971 presidential meeting indicates that, as far as covert
operations in Uruguay went, what Medici and Nixon were doing was primarily sharing
information about their own disconnected activities rather than partnering up in policy
making.
Bolivia
In August 1971, Bolivian colonel Banzer ousted an administration had nationalised
American firms with student and labour support. Banzer sent many to prison and into
exile, often in Chile. He also moved fast in settling outstanding expropriation cases with
U.S. firms, in exchange of which he received early American recognition and $2m in
immediate assistance, followed up with an extra $20m and studies for further $25m. But
in early 1972, his regime faced a number of problems – mounting economic strains,
lack of cohesion among Bolivia’s major parties and the armed forces, and strong
opposition on the streets. He feared, above all, a plot to oust him from power (allegedly
planned by Bolivian exiles in Chile with the Allende administration’s backing). There
were real reasons for concern in La Paz. As a NSC study put it, ‘the Bolivian security
25
Kissinger to President’s File, top secret memorandum, NSC, Washington, 20 December 1971, VIP visit
boxes 910-954, Nixon National Security Council Materials, National Archives, in
http://www.gwn.edu/~nsarchiv (downloaded on 3 March 2003).
101
forces could probably suppress an isolated guerrilla operation… but would be hard
26
pressed to cope with a well-planned and executed guerrilla campaign’. The U.S.
military assistance programme to Banzer set out to satisfy security demands for the
contingency of such a guerrilla fight: a 4 to 5-year grant totalling about $7m in 1971;
trucks, armoured personnel carriers, C-54 aircraft, and possibly six A-37B jets, two C-
130 transports, and equipment for five mobile infantry battalions.27
Bolivia took up a third of the Nixon-Medici meeting in the Oval Office.28 As
Medici would write to his American colleague four months after their meeting:
Subversion and chaos in Bolivia would undoubtedly endanger [Brazil’s]
security… Political chaos, or the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist regime in
Bolivia, would entail – I would not hesitate to say – for South America as a
whole, consequences far more serious, dangerous and explosive than the Cuban
problem, due to the geo-strategic position of Bolivia.29
Indeed, the White House had intelligence suggesting that the Soviet presence in that
country had increased considerably and ‘the prospects for protecting U.S. interests and
perpetuating our influence in Bolivia are not good no matter what we do’.30
What we see here is the Brazilian president working to keep Washington
committed to supporting Banzer, urging Nixon to keep investments and aid afloat.31
26
Ashley Hewitt to HAK, ‘Situation and Outlook in Bolivia’, the National Security Council, secret
memorandum, 4 March 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Institutional, NSDM, box H-
232. NARA.
27
Ashley Hewitt to HAK, ‘Situation and Outlook in Bolivia’, the National Security Council, secret
memorandum, 4 March 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Institutional, NSDM, box H-
232. NARA.
28
conversation from meeting with President Medici in Brasília, June 8 1972’, US Embassy in Camberra,
NARA.
29
President Medici to President Nixon, Brasília, Unofficial Translation, 27 April 1972, Nixon
Presidential Materials Papers, Presidential Correspondence, Box 749, NSC Files. NARA.
30
Nachmanoff to HAK, ‘Bolivia’, secret memorandum, the White House, 17 June 1971, Nixon
Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, National Security Council Meetings, box H-055. NARA.
31
Medici was not alone. In 1973 Secretary of State Rogers protested at the White House’s refusal to
approve a state visit by Banzer due to problems of scheduling. William P. Rogers to President, ‘State
102
More specifically, Medici was asking for help in curbing Bolivian-exile activity
organised in Chile that might put the Banzer administration in jeopardy.32 In response,
Nixon wrote: ‘I assure you that we are keeping a careful watch on this situation’.33
Again, we do not yet know what that meant precisely or whether there was any
coordination with the Brazilian secret services on the ground.
Limits to Rapprochement
The Brazilian Problem
Rapprochement created a new problem for Brazilian leaders: how to debate with their
American peers about world politics and at the same time try to stand their own ground?
This was bound to be especially problematic for Medici, who was not particularly keen
on or knowledgeable about international relations.34 Indeed, the primary documents
show a man whose attitudes verge on the naïve. This may help explain – along with the
more ingrained resistance to engagement on the Brazilian side – why he would often
hide from having to volunteer his own views on key international problems.
From the summit of 1971 until the end of Medici’s tenure, the Nixon
administration made several overtures to learn about Brazilian views on a range of
topics, from détente to the Middle East, from Cuba to Argentina. From day one,
however, these openings met with Medici’s reticence and indifference. Although he was
keener to get rapprochement going than diplomats at Itamaraty, his reluctance to offer
Brazilian visions on specific issues was pervading.
Visit of President of Bolivia’, confidential memorandum, the State Department, 27 March 1973, Nixon
Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, Box 911. NARA.
32
President Medici to President Nixon, Brasília, Unofficial Translation, 27 April 1972, Nixon
Presidential Materials Papers, Presidential Correspondence, Box 749, NSC Files. NARA; and Gaspari, A
ditadura derrotada, p. 347-8.
33
President Nixon to President Medici, Washington D.C., 19 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials
Papers, NSC Files, Presidential Correspondence, Box 749. NARA.
34
Peter McDonough, ‘Mapping an authoritarian power structure: Brazilian elites during the Medici
regime’, Latin American Research Review, 16/1 (1981): 79-106; Daniel Drosdoff, Linha dura no Brasil –
O governo Medici 1969-1974 (São Paulo, 1986); and Gaspari, A ditadura escancarada.
103
When he met Kissinger for an open-agenda conversation, the Brazilian president
simply heard Kissinger’s views without volunteering any of his own in return. Hiding
was not a technique exclusive of Medici, though. When foreign minister Barboza was
given the opportunity to pose a question about the state of U.S.-Brazil relations, he
diverted the conversation by asking about the ‘future evolution of Taiwan’.35 When
ambassador Araujo Castro asked Kissinger how precisely a stronger Brazil fitted into
his ‘global foreign policy concept’, the national security advisor began his answer with
an ironic twist: the ambassador was a man interested in philosophy, he said, and the
ambassador had frequently chided him for the absence of a conceptual approach to U.S.
foreign policy, but some of Kissinger’s own domestic critics, he added, chided him with
being too dogmatic instead. At that point Medici, who may have not understood the gist
of Kissinger’s jocular comment, interjected by saying that ‘any disagreement between
the U.S. and Brazil should be considered a lover’s quarrel’, unveiling the real
dimensions of his worries about the possibility of clashing with his hosts.
But after agreeing with the president’s statement, Kissinger then answered
Araujo Castro’s question: the U.S. needed ‘the advice and cooperation of the largest and
most important nation in South America. In areas of mutual concern such as the
situations in Uruguay and Bolivia, close cooperation and parallel approaches can be
very helpful for our common objectives. [Kissinger] felt it was important for the U.S.
and Brazil to coordinate, so that Brazil does some things and we do others for the
common good’.36
35
Nachmanoff to Kissinger, ‘Conversation with President Medici on the 8 December 1971’, secret
memorandum, the White House, 10 December 1971, Department of State Subject Numeric Files 1970-73,
National Archives, The National Security Archives.
36
104
This is crucial because here Kissinger was in effect gesturing toward an
interpretation of rapprochement that was more expansive than Brazil’s. According to his
utterance, his hopes for the project exceeded the mere sharing of secret information. It
was conceived as a tool to inform American priorities in Latin America, to add value to
the foreign policies of both the U.S. and Brazil, to provide a base for some degree of
policy coordination, and to set the scene for a division of labour in the field of
containment. Worlds apart from the more restrictive hopes of both Medici and
Itamaraty, Kissinger’s comment was left at that.
Medici’s narrow take on rapprochement remained unchanged. When Nixon sent
Treasury Secretary Connally to Brasília as a back-channel for high-level consultations,
the Brazilian president was happy to share secret information about his dealings in
Bolivia and Uruguay. But when the envoy asked Medici his views concerning the
Middle East, the general said ‘he had no solutions but it would do whatever it
practically could to help’, retreating back into silence. When Connally insisted, Medici
said that ‘if he had the answers to the questions on the Middle East and on Chile and
Argentina he could become president of both the United States and the Soviet Union’.37
And he said no more.
In this, Medici was in line with Itamaraty’s own misgivings about engaging.
When he invited Foreign Minister Barboza to pose questions to Connally, the chanceler
asked whether the administration believed Japan could possibly rearm. It might be that
Barboza was honestly interested in the prospects of Japanese security strategy. But
considering that this was high-level consultation, and that the minister was a seasoned
bureaucrat, then perhaps his question should be seen less as a genuine interest in Japan
37
NARA.
105
and more as a conscious attempt to divert the discussion from any further
entanglements. Within this, the divergent views of Barboza and his boss in that very
same meeting indicate that the Foreign Minister was ready to go further in his retreat
from rapprochement. When Connelly asked Medici ‘what the US should do with respect
to Chile that it was not doing at present’, Barboza was fast to speak up, even if
uninvited: he warned the U.S. envoy that it was important that the Americans did ‘not
intervene directly in Chile because that would only strengthen Allende’s position’. He
said that Brazilian intelligence suggested that things were deteriorating for Allende, and
that ‘decay should be permitted to run its course’. However, at that point President
Medici retorted with a very different response. When it came to Chile, he said,
‘something should probably be done, but it was very important that it be done very
discreetly and very carefully’ – in other words, covertly.38 Indeed, we now know that
Medici’s ambassador to Chile did go out of his way to support the incoming Pinochet
regime.39 We also know, as subsequent chapters make clear, that those running
Itamaraty rather preferred to keep Pinochet at arms length.
When considering Brazil’s disinclination to volunteer its own views of world
problems, it is useful to think counterfactually. What is it that Brazil could have
possibly done, say, about the Middle East? The answer is undoubtedly ‘nothing’. But if
we relax the assumption that world politics is exclusively about doing things, then the
answer as to Brazil’s potential contributions is no longer unequivocal. The Brazilian
president might have used the opportunity, for instance, to press some of Itamaraty’s
strongly held views at the time about how best to manage Middle East politics on the
38
NARA. And General Haig to Arthur Burns (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System),
‘Secretary Connally’s Visit to South America’, the White House, secret memorandum, 22 June 1972,
Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, VIP Visits, box 954. NARA.
39
Gaspari, A ditadura derrotada, p. 355.
106
basis of pacifism, international legal practice, and non-intervention. He might also have
taken the cue to shape American views on the politics of South American countries
beyond Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile.
It is therefore no surprise that Medici should have turned down American
requests for support in Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 that initiated the U.S.
retreat from Indochina established an International Commission for Control and
Supervision (ICCS), whereby third parties would provide troops for a transition period.
Its initial configuration included Communist Hungary and Poland, and anti-Communist
Canada and Indonesia. Soon, however, Canada stepped down and Nixon asked Medici
for Brazilian troops to fill the gap. The Brazilians rejected the invitation (to the surprise
of U.S. officials stationed in Brasília), and Nixon turned, with good effect, to another
‘key’ country – Iran. (In making the ICCS operational, the United States therefore
mobilised, besides Canada, three targets for devolution: Brazil, Iran, and Indonesia).40
Undoubtedly, then, Medici was deceiving his audience when he claimed that
‘Brazil cannot be indifferent and apathetic in the face of new facts and circumstances’.41
If anything, Brazilian-American rapprochement, as it began, showed that Brazil could
indeed reap the benefits of being recognised as a rising-power without actually being
particularly enthusiastic or concerned about world politics. Brazil could remain as
detached from the wider world as it had always been at no significant cost to its
‘emerging’ profile. This perhaps suggests that the international status of a state and its
actual involvement in world politics do not always track one another too closely.
The curious element here is that, rather than seeing a major power dismiss the
views of an eager but far weaker partner, we see a great power hopeful for the views of
40
Presidente Medici a Presidente Nixon, Brasília, 24 de julho de 1973, Nixon Presidential Materials
Papers, NSC Files, Presidential Correspondence, Box 749. NAR; and US Embassy in Brasília to
Secretary of State, ‘Brazil’s Participation in ICCS Viet-nam’, secret telegram, 27 July 1973, Nixon
Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, Presidential Correspondence, box 749. NARA.
41
Folha de S. Paulo, 8 December 1971.
107
its weaker partner only to find that the weaker partner has no views to volunteer.
Whether the White House would have done anything at all with Brazil’s visions is a
different matter. What is important to retain is that an emerging country claiming
special rights in the world shied away when a major opportunity for participation at the
table presented itself. This type of behaviour is by no means exclusive of Brazil, of
course. As current U.S. relations with China, India, Russia and indeed Brazil seem to
indicate, the resistance of weaker partners to engage with a superpower in politics
beyond their borders might be a common if not characteristic feature of intermediate
and rising states.42
The American Problem
As it was the case for Brazil, part of the limitations to rapprochement on the American
side followed from bureaucratic politics. As shown before, the State Department
opposed the new arrangement from inception. This disposition did not change after the
Nixon-Medici encounter; as late as May 1973, State officials were still attacking the
administration’s approach. In a review conducted against the background of a looming
crisis with the Allende administration in Chile, State once again spoke against a policy
of selectivity.43 No wonder, when problems in Bolivia arose that warranted a liaison
with Brasília, Kissinger bypassed regular channels and sent a secret instead envoy from
his NSC staff, William J. Jorden.44
42
For an overview across would-be great powers, see special issue International Affairs, 82/1 (January
2006).
43
NSC Interdepartmental Group for Inter-American Affairs, ‘Review of US Policy toward Latin
America: Response to National Security Study Memorandum 173’, May 1973, Nixon Presidential
44
Unfortunately we still do not know what happened in Jorden’s meeting with Medici. Jorden worked for
the NSC under Lyndon Johnson and the first Nixon administration, when he became US ambassador to
Panama. William Jorden to HAK, ‘Presidential Reply to President Medici’s Letter’, the White House,
confidential memorandum, 19 May 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, Presidential
Correspondence, Box 749. NARA.
108
There are, however, indications that Kissinger found it difficult to impart the
spirit of rapprochement with Brazil even among his own staff. Discussing Latin
America in a session with them after they had drafted the council’s annual review, he
had to remind his aides that
We ought to say here [in Latin America] is a major revolution going on. And I
think we are going to look fatuous as hell when all we can say is we are not
domineering. The Carthaginians were not domineering after the second Punic
War. The Russians are spreading their influence all over the world. It is one
thing for a country that has been overweening not to be domineering, but not
being domineering is not an end in itself. We have to say what we are for...We
can’t just dismiss the meeting with Brazil in two lines.45
But American limits to rapprochement were found also at the level of White-House
strategic thinking. In toasting for Medici at a reception, Nixon had said ‘the giant is
awaken’. Indeed, Brazil had begun to expand its interests abroad like no other Latin
American country had ever done before (with the exception of revolutionary Cuba).
What the giant might want to do once awaken, however, was a mystery to Nixon and
Kissinger as much as it was for those sitting in Foggy Bottom.46
This made it difficult to muster the energies to devote any sustained attention to
Brazil in the face of other priorities and interests. If rapprochement required the
elevation of Brazil to higher levels of visibility within Washington, signals coming from
Brasília were insufficient to allow the administration to argue the case.
45
Comments by Kissinger on Annual Review, the White House, 5 January 1972, morning meeting, Nixon
Presidential Materials Papers, NSC Files, HAK Office Files, box 15. NARA.
46
Folha de S. Paulo, 9 December 1971.
109
The Scope of Rapprochement
Some of the common problems confronting incipient partnerships include questions of
representation (who represents each partner and how these representatives retain support
at home), problems of boundaries (whether and how new partnerships require the
adaptation of existing administrative arrangements), questions of hierarchy (how to
manage the effects of major power asymmetry between the partners), issues of trust
(how to facilitate sentiments of mutual reliance among partners), and the theme of the
partnership’s wider environment (situating the new partnership in the context of their
relations with third parties).47 These appeared prominently at the inception of Brazilian-
American rapprochement.
Who represents
As hinted at various points before, at the beginning of rapprochement, the White House
and Planalto set out to dominate the policy process. On the U.S. side, when NSC papers
forecast ‘direct president-to-president communication’, the intention seems to have been
to create a backchannel between the two heads of state bypassing existing bureaucratic
procedures. The implications of such move were historically significant: during several
decades, relations with Brazil had reflected the competing preferences of the
departments of State, Defense and the Treasury, with minimal White House
involvement. Also, policy implementation and delivery – and indeed a good degree of
planning – had traditionally been the remit of the American embassy in Brazil.48 The
administration’s plans now reshuffled responsibilities over the policy, making the White
House its new institutional home. On the Brazilian side, policy-making in the first years
47
Stern, ‘Evaluating Partnerships’.
48
Even during the military coup of 1964 the US ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon, remained at the
head of operations involving the CIA station and the networking of military attaché General Walters. The
same was not true of American practice in other occasions. In the months leading to the fall of Allende in
1973 Chile, for instance, US ambassador Korry was to some extent kept in the dark about CIA activities.
110
of rapprochement remained the reserve of Planalto and, only to a very limited extent,
the Foreign Minister. Policy was by and large dependent on the presiding General and
his entourage, without firm roots in the day-to-day activities of Brazilian diplomats.
There was no coordinating unit within the ministry to produce, collect, systematise and
circulate information about relations with the United States.49
Administrative Boundaries
It is a common feature of new partnerships that their existence will require that each
individual partner operates a set of administrative changes within itself to adapt to new
requirements because plans, budgets and policy choices now need to be conducted in
ways that are inclusive of the partner. In the first years of U.S.-Brazil engagement we
see nothing of the kind. The programmatic priorities of each country did not seem to
have changed in any detectable way, nor did State and Itamaraty institutionalised joint
planning.
On the U.S. side, all the adaptation there was focused narrowly on the role of the
Latin American experts at the NSC. There is no indication that the Brazil desk at the
State Department gained greater prominence or responsibilities, nor that those in charge
of the hemisphere in the Department became more deeply involved in shaping and
implementing policy. On the Brazilian side, the basic method for managing information
was basically a file with all U.S.-Brazil correspondence, newspaper cuttings, reports and
speeches.50 This said, for the first time a division within the ministry began to comment
in a systematic fashion the views originating at the Brazilian embassy in Washington.
Whenever ambassador Araujo Castro made a point, the head of the Americas division
49
Paulo Frassinetti Pinto to Secretário Geral Adjunto (substituto) para Assuntos da América,
memorandum, Brasília, 16 January 1973, DAS/5, DAA, 1973, 01. AHMRE; Relatório das atividades da
DAS em 1971, memorando, AAA/DAC/DAS, 1971, 01. AHMRE.
50
Paulo Frassinetti Pinto to Secretário Geral Adjunto (substituto) para Assuntos da América,
memorandum, Brasília, 16 January 1973, DAS/5, DAA, 1973, 01. AHMRE.
111
would provide a comment and, often, an alternative view. The collection of documents
makes a fascinating read, ranging from China’s accession to the United Nations to
Vietnam to Cuba to the effects of détente on the periphery.51 Furthermore, plans also
envisaged collecting data from Brazilian embassies around the world that could
illuminate how American policies were seen elsewhere.52 And yet, these adaptations do
not seem to have developed deeper, enduring roots, remaining attached personally to the
individual within Itamaraty who first proposed them.
The Hierarchy of Rapprochement
The enormous asymmetry of power between the two partners imposed severe
restrictions on rapprochement. At the American end, as pointed out before, the White
House had to reconcile devolution to Brazil with the traditional low priority of that
country in its strategic horizon and, more generally, with the tangential position of Latin
America within the range of American global interests. This helps explain why, when
the White House translated devolutionary ideas into a new Brazil approach, the outcome
was primarily rhetorical, symbolic, and future-oriented. These features made the
enterprise affordable for an administration that was deeply entangled in politics
throughout the periphery; but they also sufficed, in the eyes of decision-makers in
Washington, to keep the Brazilians satisfied. The unspoken assumption here being that
American power was so superior when it came to dealings with Brazil that well-crafted
manifestations of support and sympathy, along with minimal material commitments,
would work as a powerful magnet to attract Brazil and set collaboration with her leaders
51
See, respectively, Paulo Frassinetti Pinto a Secretário Geral Adjunto para Assuntos da América,
memorandum, Brasília, 26 June 1972, DAS/22, AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE; Paulo Frassinetti Pinto a
Secretário Geral Adjunto para Assuntos da América, memorandum, Brasília, 10 July 1972, DAS/23,
AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE; Paulo Frassinetti Pinto a Secretário Geral Adjunto para Assuntos da
América, memorandum, Brasília, 12 July 1972, DAS/27, AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE and Paulo
Frassinetti Pinto a Secretário Geral Adjunto para Assuntos da América, memorandum, Brasília, 12
December 1972, DAS/48, AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE; Paulo Frassinetti Pinto a Secretário Geral Adjunto
para Assuntos da América, memorandum, Brasília, 25 July 1972, DAS/29, AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE.
52
Paulo Frassinetti Pinto a Secretário Geral Adjunto para Assuntos da América, memorandum, Brasília,
26 June 1972, DAS/22, AAA/DAS, 1972. AHMRE.
112
in motion. For the Brazilians, unequal power translated into defensiveness. Hence their
tendency to shy away from too close an association with Washington and, at times,
plain hiding. Reconciling that with the desire to keep rapprochement alive was an
operation that required careful language. The mantra was: ‘Our position cannot be the
same [to that of the U.S.] in all international issues…let us make an effort to make our
policies convergent, without expecting coincidence in all cases’. In speeches the number
of references to the words ‘respect’ and ‘equality’ is simply striking.53
Developing Trust
For all the imbalances, though, the promise of rapprochement excited both Nixon and
Medici. As diplomatic practitioners never tire to restate, what goes on at high-level
diplomacy tends to depend largely on the congeniality of individual figures. By this
standard, Nixon and Medici were off for a good start. The telephonic conversation
below illustrates the case:
NIXON: [Speaking of President Medici] How do you like the man?
KISSINGER: I think he is really impressive.
NIXON: Does he feel good about his visit?
KISSINGER: Nelson [Rockefeller] told me, and he confirmed it, he was really
very impressed by his meeting with you. As far as I understand, he is really most
anxious to establish that special arrangement.

54
NIXON: It will be done. This is the big thing I will hit tomorrow.
But in setting up the ‘special arrangement’, the two presidents were starting from a very
low base of mutual trust. On the Brazilian side, we speculated before that most senior
officials were suspicious of White House intentions and ability to deliver on its
53
For speeches see Folha de S. Paulo, 8 and 9 December 1971.
54
Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, the White House, 8 December 1971, 6:25pm, Nixon
Presidential Materials Staff, NSC Files, HAK Telcons, Chronological Files 12. NARA.
113
manifestations of congeniality. But the two sides at this juncture were ready to make the
effort to build up trust. Kissinger and the NSC team reflected U.S. eagerness when they
sought to accommodate to Brazilian requests for special treatment and when they
couched their language in terms that would please Brasília. Medici responded with his
candid sharing of sensitive information in person and in correspondence. The manifest
hope on the two sides was that pleasantries, rhetorical demonstrations of friendship and
the promise of greater president-to-president consultation would do. Of course, they
would not.
At times, the two sides seem to have had only a very limited understanding of
what was required to reverse the historical trend of distance and misunderstanding. For
instance, when they agreed to leave points of contention aside during the presidential
summit, intentions may have been to avoid confrontation over intractable matters; but
the end result was the structuring of rapprochement around the concealment of an
important aspect of the relationship rather than its resolution. In the medium term, this
would hardly conduce to greater congeniality, since greater interaction, on its own,
seldom improves mutual reliance. (Sometimes it has precisely the opposite effect). But
the introduction of more sophisticated systems to develop trust remained elusive. It
would take a change of leadership in Brasília and a few mini-crises for the two sides to
agree that something ought to be done about trust.
Rapprochement in its Wider Environment
In December 1971 the news that Nixon saw Brazil as the ‘key to the future’ spread
across the hemisphere like wildfire. The Venezuelan president went public to say that he
was ‘surprised’, while a member of his party called for a debate in parliament. An
editorial in the Peruvian newspaper Expreso spoke against Brazilian ‘hegemony’. An

114
Uruguayan politician reflected that Nixon’s gesture only showed that the United States
had learned nothing about Latin America, and the head of the worker’s union in
Montevideo thought that no one in the region needed leadership from the Brazilian
people. Referring to Brazil, a Chilean newspaper read: ‘Yesterday it served Portugal,
today the United States’.55 An Argentine newspaper expressing official views wrote:
‘The relation of forces in Latin America does not authorise such an anachronistic use of
the “key-country” model’.56
Predicting something like this may happen, Kissinger had forewarned his
Brazilian interlocutors that ‘as Brazil plays a stronger leadership role, it may find itself
in a position similar to that of the US – respected and admired, but not liked’.57 But the
issue went beyond a mere question of liking. The Argentines were adamant to raise the
stakes. Their embassy in Washington made it known that Buenos Aires hoped to receive
a personal letter from Nixon to President Lanusse stating that the United States would
not seek to embark upon a policy of differentiation in the hemisphere.58
For more than a century Brazilian diplomats had feared that their activities
abroad might push its neighbours, an in particular rival Argentina, into a concerted
offensive.59 Buenos Aires was now ready to exploit that fear. That in 1971 the
Brazilians were willing to go to Washington to receive special recognition by the White
House, even if that might have incensed its neighbours, is a testimony to the changing
perceptions in Brasília about its own place in South America. Although diplomats were
cautious to reassure everyone that Nixon’s manifestations would never lead to sub-
55
Clarin, 10 December 1971, El Mercurio, 12 December 1971, Puro Chile, 9 December 1971, and Folha
de S. Paulo, 13 December 1971
56
Clarin, 10 December 1971.
57
58
Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. to Kissinger, ‘Argentine sensitivities toward Brazil sharply increase’, the State
Department, confidential memorandum, 24 December 1971, The National Security Archive.
59
Amado L. Cervo, ‘Intervenção e neutralidade: doutrinas brasileiras para o Prata nos meados do século
XIX’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 26/101-4 (1983): 101-114.
115
hegemonic ambitions on the part of Brazil, what it is crucial to capture is the vast
distance between Brazil’s assertiveness in 1971 and its traditional defensive posture in
regional affairs.60
Summary
Presidents Nixon and Medici elevated the U.S.-Brazil relationship to a level of
proximity it had never experienced before. They expressed mutual commitment to
rapprochement, shared information, possibly coordinated intelligence and covert
activities, and introduced a new normative lexicon to highlight American approval of
Brazil’s rising status. Partnering, however, was as a tool for adding value to the existing
foreign policies of each country rather than as an instrument to implement a joint
agenda or overcome a range of intractable practical problems. The distinction between
partnership as ‘added value’ and partnership as ‘joint endeavour’ is crucial: the former
can occur with minimum institutionalisation and heavy reliance on personalities,
whereas the latter requires that plans and administrative boundaries be adapted, and that
the costs and spoils of the partnership be negotiated explicitly. If Nixon and Medici ever
felt a need to embed the new arrangement within a broader sense of purpose, they did so
only implicitly.
Overall, rapprochement’s goals remained blurred and its practical implications
unclear. This may be explained to some extent by the split over policy between the
White House and the State Department on the one hand, and between Planalto and
Itamaraty on the other. This is to say that for all the emphasis on friendly language and
the appearance of good will on both sides, suspicions deeply ingrained at the level of
foreign-policy bureaucracies in the two countries retarded the move towards bilateral
60
Matias Spektor, ‘O Brasil e a Argentina entre a cordialidade oficial e o projeto de integração (1967-
116
engagement that Kissinger had hoped for. In the equation also mattered that Medici
himself – the key Brazilian proponent for the policy of bonding with the United States –
was reluctant to go too far. It would take a change of government in Brasília to
accelerate and further develop the policy of engagement. It is to the man who operated
this transformation, his ideas about the purposes of U.S.-Brazil engagement, and the
manoeuvres he sponsored to realise them that we turn next.

Chapter 3
AZEREDO DA SILVEIRA’S EXPERIMENT: ACTIVISM AND ASCENT
Antônio Francisco Azeredo da Silveira’s tenure as Foreign Minister between 1974 and
1979 epitomises Brazil’s activist drive. His arrival in power was not its point of
origination, but under his watch its pace and scope reached a historic peak.
Foreign-policy enlargement in this period can be seen in the reestablishment of
contacts with states in the Communist bloc, the recognition of the People’s Republic of
China, cooperation with Marxist-inspired independent movements in Africa, a network
of agreements with Japan and Western Europe, the pace of exports of Brazilian capital
and technical expertise, the sponsorship of a regional treaty binding together the states
of the Amazon river basin, and assertive measures to tilt the regional balance of power
against rival Argentina. The number of embassies in Africa doubled, and relations were
established with thirteen countries in the Middle East, a region that Brazilian diplomats
had largely ignored in previous times.
For a country where foreign-policy change has been distinctively slow, the
transformation could have been hardly deeper. A Right-wing dictatorship typically pro-
Israel, pro-Portugal and pro-South Africa, now signalled significant change. For those
making the decisions in Brasília this was a conscious diplomatic offensive to gain new
markets, increase leverage at various negotiation tables, expand Brazilian influence in
its vicinity, and generally move up the ladder of international status and prestige.
The operation, however, was riddled with difficulties. The flurry of activities
had to be reconciled with Brazil’s past experience and deep-seated isolationist ideas, as
well as strategic and material shortcomings. Areas of policy that had been hitherto
118
tangential now became increasingly important and crises in distant lands, the stuff of the
Foreign Minister’s daily concerns. Diplomats had to form opinions on topics to them
unusual, new countries visited and courted, and potential partners offered palpable
incentives to get closer to Brazil.
The choice carried with it significant risks abroad and at home. For instance,
Brazil would have to alienate traditional allies and in turn win over reluctant target-
states that were suspicious if not overtly hostile to her. In turn, the administration would
also have to reassure those to the Right that supporting Marxist independence
movements was not a capitulation to international Socialism or an expression of the
1964 regime’s failure. To do this, the leadership sought to develop strategic concepts
and rhetorical devises to legitimise them.
The current chapter is divided into five sections. It begins by offering a brief
biographical sketch of Foreign Minister Silveira, the key ideologue and broker of the
activist programme. This is followed first by an account of the reasons behind activism,
and then by an analysis of three core components of the period in question: the ideas
supporting reform, the regime’s domestic-political requirements, and the bureaucratic
battles the president and his foreign minister fought to get the new policy orientation on
its feet.
The Man
As far as Silveira goes, the positive commentary of his aides contrasts with the
criticisms of his foes.1 The former depict him as brave, persistent, vivacious and
charming; the latter speak of a character who was eccentric, strident, combative, and
1
Contrast, for instance, Palestras Proferidas no Instituto Rio Branco em Homenagem ao Ex-Chanceler
Azeredo da Silveira, 15 May 2000, Brasília (available online at http://www.mre.gov.br/irbr) with Roberto
Campos, Lanterna na popa, Roberto Campos, ‘Prefácio’ in Bandeira, Relações Brasil-EUA; and Ovídio
de A. Melo, ‘O reconhecimento da Angola pelo Brasil em 1975’, Comunicação & Política, May/August,
(2000): 75-133.
119
abrasive. Both camps agree that he was tough and militant, long-winded, obsessed with
detail, and viscerally attached to intangibles such as the style, wit, and the character of
his interlocutors – elements that, as we will see, help account for his rapport with
Kissinger.
Since Silveira did not leave a diary or systematic notes, in studying him we are
forced to turn to the memos he prepared as part of his professional activities. The task
here is daunting because, an operator rather than a thinker, a great deal of what he
thought is tacit and vague rather than explicit and straightforward. To get his measure,
then, we are forced to suspend the search for clarity and consistency, turning instead to
the ambiguity and nuance that run through the official documents he left behind and the
various political and bureaucratic battles he fought.
A summarised biography goes like this. Silveira was born on 22 September
1917. His was a highly political household: his great grandfather was minister of
foreign affairs in the early 1870s; his grandfather, a senator, sat at the parliamentary
Diplomatic Commission; and his father, a member of parliament himself, went through
several spells in prison due to his opposition to the 1930 revolution. As a young
diplomat in the 1940s, Silveira joined Novos Turcos (Young Turks), an informal peer
group of low-ranking diplomats who were critical of official policy. His junior postings
abroad included stints in Cuba, Argentina, Spain, Italy, and France. In 1959 he became
chief of Itamaraty’s Administrative Department, the powerful division allocating posts,
approving budgets and managing finance. In 1964, when the coup ended civilian rule,
Silveira was an influential bureaucrat whose activities won him the suspicion and
dislike of some high-ranking military officers, but the protection of President (General)
Costa e Silva (1967-69).2 By the mid sixties he was a high-flyer in the world of
2
Silveira Interview, tape 2, side A.
120
Brazilian diplomacy, with ambassadorial appointments to Geneva (1966) and Buenos
Aires (1969). By 1972, when Medici picked General Ernesto Geisel to be his successor
and forwarded him copies of various secret cables coming from embassies abroad,
Silveira’s reports, often contentious and incisive, caught the eye of the future president.3
On 15 March 1974, at the age of 56, Silveira was elevated to cabinet rank as
Geisel’s chanceler (Foreign Minister). He was an unlikely candidate for the position.
Part of the military establishment had in the past tried to veto his appointment and
inside Itamaraty influential voices made it a point to express their dissent.4
Keys to Activism: Ideas, Domestic Politics, and Bureaucracies
Brazil’s pathway to power since the 1960s was far from obvious. For all the material
transformation underway, and for all rhetoric of greatness and the influence of
geopolitical thinking in military circles, there were no attempts at flexing military
muscles or bullying smaller neighbours into submission (although there were some
covert activities in neighbouring countries). Instead, foreign-policy values and doctrines
emphasised the ultimate goal of domestic economic modernisation.5 The equation was
premised on both gaining special access to export markets, foreign technology and
credits, and on being recognised by the major industrial powers as a benign, non-
disruptive rising power that deserved special diplomatic treatment. Brazilian diplomats
measured the expression of their influence in terms of the protocols and language third
parties used to refer to their country, the precedence and attention these third parties
3
Gaspari, A ditadura derrotada, pp. 217, 312-8.
4
Silveira Interview, tape 2, side A; tape 11, side B, and tape 2, sides A and B. Gaspari, A ditadura
derrotada, p. 307-8. With the end of the administration five years later, Silveira was appointed
ambassador first to the United States (1979–1983) and then to Portugal (1983–1985). He died from
cancer in 1990 at the age of 73.
5
Hurrell, ‘Brazil as a Regional Great Power’.
121
gave her in international fora, and the willingness of foreigners to accommodate
Brazilian trade and technology-transfer demands at the negotiation table.
From the 1960s onwards, Brazil’s policy trajectory experienced the sheer
broadening of commitments and activities abroad. In a relatively short period, a spasm
of initiatives multiplied the range of problems that Brazil attended in the world. Yet, the
move towards greater international exposure was not linear. Spates and outbursts of
action were interspersed with moments of cutbacks and withdrawal. Why the alternation
between activism and retraction? And, when activism took place, what accounts for its
scope and reach? Why did Silveira (1974-1979) manage to do more things across a
wider range of areas than, say, two of his predecessors who had distinctly hoped for
enlarging the remit of foreign policy too, namely Araujo Castro (1961-1964) and
Gibson Barboza (1969-1974)?
If anything, we would expect Silveira to have done less since he ran policy on
the crest of a receding wave: during his tenure, economic performance worsened quite
dramatically. In his five years in power, Brazil’s trade deficit jumped from US$ 4
billion to US$ 14 billion (against a hundred-year trend of successive surpluses). Growth
plummeted from 11% to 6.8% per year, while foreign debt soared from US$12.5 billion
to US$49 billion.6 How to account, then, for his ‘expansionist’ record?
The existing literature tends to point at pressures coming from the external
economic environment: the administration pursued activism more avidly than its
predecessors, the argument goes, because leaders saw a financial crisis looming large in
the horizon.7 According to this view, confronting an international system that was far
more adverse than that of previous times, the new leadership moved decisively
outwards. Since Brazil’s ability to find cheap credit abroad was no longer warranted,
6
Dionísio Carneiro, ‘Crise e Esperança: 1974 – 1980’, in Abreu, A ordem do progresso, pp. 295–322.
7
For instance, Vizentini, A política externa do regime militar brasileiro, p. 204 and Bandeira, Relações
Brasil-EUA, p. 125.
122
nor was it access to reliable oil supplies, now diplomats had to find new creditors and
new sources of energy. They also needed new export markets to keep the trade balance
afloat in the face of sky-rocketing expenses with oil imports. In this view, the energy
shock of 1973 lit the fuse of the activist powder-keg.
Without discarding the causal importance of the oil shock of 1973, the sub-
sections that follow attend to the political factors contributing to activism at this historic
juncture. The argument is developed in three parts.
First, activism occurred when leaders believed that détente widened the range of
things Brazilian diplomats could legitimately aspire to achieve. Brazil expanded when
leaders there believed cold-war tensions relaxed and it retreated when they saw concert
among the strong falter. The crucial factor here is less actual transformations in great-
power politics than the Brazilian perception of those transformations. Second, activism
picked up only when the leadership found it useful to advance their domestic-political
agenda against the influence of rival factions and the opposition. And it did so only as
far as the ‘expansionist’ leaders mustered the force to circumvent, overcome or silence
powerful voices that remained risk-averse and resistant to change within the Executive.
This is to suggest that Brazilian activism needs to be seen in its international context,
but it also has to be rooted firmly in domestic-political dynamics, bureaucratic politics,
and the beliefs and skills of individual historical figures.
Geisel and Silveira, the two leading foreign-policy figures, embodied the activist
ideas. Although they disagreed often, their cohesion was striking. Silveira met the
president on his own more times than any other member of cabinet (with the exception
of the minister in charge of internal security and justice). He also enjoyed uncommon
leeway to initiate policy, brief the press and go globetrotting. When the military
opposed the Foreign Minister on key issues, for instance, Geisel went out of his way to
123
bully the generals into line; and when dissent inside Itamaraty loomed large on the
horizon, the chanceler secured the presidential green light to reshuffle key posts. Also,
given the trajectory of domestic politics the possibility of re-establishing relations with
the Communist bloc no longer polarised public opinion significantly.
Although Geisel overruled Silveira’s activist ambitions on several occasions – a
factor that, as we will see, helps explain why a policy of engagement with the United
States proved to be so difficult to achieve in the end – he was committed to widening
quite dramatically the remit of foreign policy. He also found it useful to turn activism
into a tool to confront hardliner opposition in the ranks and gain greater control over the
pace of political liberalisation at home. Predicting that activism would encounter much
resistance in the barracks and within Itamaraty, he threw his weight behind Silveira’s
whenever obstacles became too serious.
Expansionist beliefs, domestic-political dynamics, and bureaucratic politics help
explain the historical instances that in the 1960s and 1970s prompted Brazil into an
activist foreign policy. Let us now look at how each one of these elements played out in
the hand of the key individuals in charge of policy.
Activist Ideas
Some of the activist ideas that became policy in the 1970s had been in circulation under
various guises for twenty years. Most of the time, however, they were couched in non-
expansionist terms: take expressions such as ‘universalisation’, ‘ecumenism’,
‘partnership diversification’, and even simply ‘innovation’. The images they elicit are
seldom presented as part of a grand strategy to broaden the range of Brazilian activities
abroad. It is rarer to see more straightforward wordings like alargamento
(‘enlargement’) and ‘multiplication of international contacts’. They all convey the

124
activist mood, but encapsulate a notion of widening that is often implicit and markedly
underspecified.8
No cohesive group can be immediately associated with the activist project. In
the late 1950s and early 1960s, they comprised some key figures inside Itamaraty and a
collection of politicians.9 These reformists were not advocating one shared agenda,
although their points of view may have converged around key notions to do with
asserting Brazilian views abroad. There were no manifestos or active working-groups
drafting policy alternatives. Inside Itamaraty, if there was such thing as a reformist
movement, then it encompassed individual voices whose arguments need to be fished
out of masses of official memoranda and personal correspondence.
Here Araujo Castro stood out. In 1958 he had written against the ‘small-power
psychology’ that, in his eyes, still pervaded foreign-policy thinking. He was making the
important point that the limits to Brazilian policies in the world did not necessarily
come from the international structure of power, although those constrained Brazil in
several important ways. Neither did they come from Brazil’s material weaknesses.
Rather, the problem stemmed from the country’s peculiar ‘international psychology’; a
collection of ‘semi-colonial ideas and attitudes’ towards the outside world that were
detrimental to the fulfilment of Brazil’s potential. It was a sort of ‘political and social
ruralism’ that hindered the translation of national power into foreign policy dynamism,
instead imposing stagnation. In his view, the core elements that kept Brazil ensconced
in the periphery were not simply the structures of international power, but the very
8
For expressions, see Hélio Jaguaribe, O nacionalismo e a realidade brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: ISEB,
1958); Janio Quadros, ‘Brazil’s New Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 40/1, October 1961; Santiago
Dantas, Política Externa Independente (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1962); Afonso Arinos de
Mello Franco, A Escalada (Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio, 1965); and José Honório Rodrigues, Interesse
nacional e política externa (1966). For alargamento, Celso Lafer, ‘Uma interpretação do sistema das
relações internacionais do Brasil’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 10/39-40, (1967): 81-100.
9
Politicians included Afonso Arinos, Augusto Frederico Schmidt, San Tiago Dantas and Renato Archer.
Career diplomats are less easy to pigeon-hole in this particular category, although the groups surrounding
Araujo Castro and Silveira may come under its label.
125
internalisation of that hierarchy in the minds of Brazilian diplomats. Such
subordination, he thought, led policy to both accept and unadvisedly reinforce Brazil’s
peripheral status within international order.10 Partly due to their roots in nationalist
thinking, activist ideas struck a responding chord in conservative sectors.
Araujo Castro and Silveira had talked to each other in expansionist terms at least
since the early 1960s. In their personal correspondence, they expressed dismay at what
they saw as Itamaraty’s ‘[refusal] to think about foreign policy and to take part in what
happens in the world’. Brazilian diplomats, Silveira once wrote his colleague, ought to
be ‘taught how to make foreign policy’.11 Araujo Castro had made similar points in
public: ‘Mediocre and petty solutions are not in the interest of Brazil. We ought to think
big and plan in grand scale, with audacity’.12 Theirs was a pledge against isolationism.
Like many others, they also emphasised that commitments abroad should seek to
facilitate and embolden growth at home rather than seek power-political influence for its
own sake. Yet, as the 1970s progressed, the notion became more prominent in their
writing that Brazil could actually add value to international relations and should seek to
do so in spite of costs. Araujo Castro began to lay out the argument thus:
A country with Brazil’s dimensions and responsibilities cannot live on the
margins of the world and of History…Brazil will grow in an irreversible
upwards direction, but it will not grow at all in isolation, estrangement and
egotism…Brazil will become bigger, stronger and more activist as far as it
begins to identify itself as part of the broader human community. Nationalism
must not be for us a movement towards isolation but, on the contrary, a major
10
Araujo Castro, speech at Escola Superior de Guerra, 1958 (no indication of date). Cross referred in
Cerimônia de Inauguração do Auditório Embaixador João Augusto de Araujo Castro, Brasília, 8
December 1998 (http://www2.mre.gov.br/irbr/irbr/sede/discauditorio.htm).
11
Silveira a Araujo Castro, Paris, 21 February 1963. AAS/Cor. Pasta LIV.
12
Conference by Araujo Castro at the Inter-American Defence College, Washington D.C., 11 December
1970, in Amado, Araujo Castro, p. 212.
126
and strong impulse for our presence and affirmation in the community of
nations…something that projects Brazil…not something that isolates her and
imprisons her in her own borders and ideas…Brazil is a country condemned to
greatness and involvement in the things of our world and our time.13
It would be obtuse, he implied, to insist on keeping a low, inward-looking profile when
domestic wealth grew and the international system – and in particular the United States
– seemed to be so flexible to experimentation. It was not necessarily that American
primacy was uncertain and its leaders willing to concede to pressure; rather, to him, the
leadership in Washington was actively engaged in exploration. Consider his personal
letter to Silveira soon after the announcement that the latter would be the next
chanceler. This was, the ambassador wrote, an exceptional opportunity to let go of:
The current Greta Garbo syndrome: ‘I want to be left alone…’. We need
‘diplomacy’ in a juncture that is essentially diplomatic. Everyone is negotiating
and the Americans negotiate with Greeks and Trojans. Kissinger negotiates with
everyone.14
Critiquing the Medici years, he added that Brazil’s self-imposed silence on key global
issues had left the country in isolation and it had undermined its prestige in the United
Nations. It was paramount, he concluded, to step up the scope and depth of activities in
the wider world; and Silveira, he praised, was the right man to operate the necessary
change. For what Brazil needed was no less than a thorough restauração diplomática
(‘diplomatic restoration’).15
13
Araujo Castro, speech delivered to interns from Escola Superior de Guerra, Washington, D.C., 22 June
1974.
14
Personal letter from Araujo Castro to Silveira, Washington, 27 de Fevereiro, 1974, AAS/Cor. Pasta
LIV.
15
Personal letter from Araujo Castro to Silveira, Washington, 27 de Fevereiro, 1974, AAS/Cor. Pasta
LIV.
127
The new foreign minister agreed with the diagnosis. He too fought against ideas
of retraction and inwardness, and found the lack of curiosity about world politics among
his colleagues disturbing.16 Like Araujo Castro, he believed Brazil could now shape an
external environment for itself qualitatively better than the one it had enjoyed before, if
only diplomats at home could get their act together. Wealth alone would not do to
underwrite Brazil’s ascent. If there was no major reshaping at the level of foreign
policy, then the glaring gap would only grow between the country’s size and economy
on the one hand, and its trifling influence abroad on the other. In his eyes, the first if not
the greatest hurdle on the way of Brazil’s upwards mobility was internal: the distinctly
national concepts supporting policy, the attitudes of the political class, and the skills and
capacity of the diplomatic corps. In other words, to him the key to unlock the nation’s
potential lay in the ideational and organisational powers underpinning diplomatic
activity.17
Where he departed from Araujo Castro, though, was on the direction of change.
His predecessor thought in terms of ‘restoration’, the revival of the spirit that had
imbued policy in the early 1960s. The new chanceler thought returning to those ideas
alone would not suffice, and thought and talked in terms of ‘reform’ instead. One
sought to reawaken the spirit of a recent past where he had been a leading light; the
other, now in power, preferred to contrive a spirit anew, bequeathing the future his own
mark. (The sense of competition between the two may help explain why, as time
progressed, Silveira concentrated policy to the United States in his Brasília cabinet
rather than resort too heavily on his ambassador to Washington. As we will see, when
16
Silveira Interview, tape 2, side A and tape 3, side B.
17
See Silveira Interview in general, and tape 3, side B in particular.
128
Araujo Castro died in 1975, his replacement, ambassador Pinheiro, could have not been
more antipodal to his high-profile predecessor).18
To a large extent, then, Silveira defined transformation in terms of
organisational reform inside Itamaraty. By the time Geisel invited him to join the
cabinet, he had been thinking about change for at least six years. Back in 1968, still
ambassador in Geneva, he had been offered Itamaraty’s General Secretariat, the
powerful number two position in the House. Before leaving Geneva, in the three months
leading to his new post, he set up an informal working group made of his junior
assistants under the self-appointed title of Brasil Ano 2000 (Brazil Year 2000).19
By and large, Brazil Ano 2000 focused on the bureaucratic mechanics of foreign
policy rather than on grand design. The group prepared a range of position papers on
bureaucratic governance and procedures. Ministerial planning and coordination, it
concluded, were ‘insufficient and inadequate’; the tone of reports from posts abroad was
administrative rather than political, giving decision-makers in Brasília little basis on
which to make choices. Working programmes and the division of labour within the
ministry were outmoded, and new systems were needed to award competence and speed
up promotions accordingly. In addition, it pointed out, the diplomatic academy’s ethos
retained a school-like character, with its poor academic programme and its obtuse
emphasis on memorisation. And because it gave out no studentships, the academy could
only select from too small a pool of privileged-background applicants.20
Silveira, however, did not manage to implement the project because his
appointment, once made, was vetoed by a powerful, hardliner group inside the regime.
After attempts by all sides to save face, Silveira in 1969 ended up at what would soon
18
Author’s interview with Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Rio de Janeiro, 15 March 2004. As a young diplomat
Mr. Lampreia was a close Silveira associate. He later took the role of foreign minister himself (1995-
2001).
19
Author’s interview with Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Rio de Janeiro, 9 December 2005.
20
Série Delbragen, AAS 1968.10.14.del.
129
become Brazil’s diplomatic hot-spot: Argentina. It was there that he began to engage
more directly with questions of grand strategy. Ties between the two largest South
American countries had not been this bad for generations, and it fell upon him to lead
the Brazilian response.
For the purpose of this chapter it suffices to say that it was in this context that he
began to write some of the policy ideas and strategic concepts that would later on
resurface during his tenure as chanceler five years later. These evolved around two
basic propositions: material conditions at home and changes in Brazil’s external
environment now warranted decisive policy change; and the bulk of the obstacles
curtailing Brazil’s ascent were not to be found in the international system, but in the
minds and practices of diplomats in Brasília. The greatest obstacle to Brazilian designs
was not so much the international structure of power, but self-imposed fears, mental
constraints, and inadequate procedures inherited from a distant past.21
Brazil’s international profile in the 1970s, Silveira pointed out in those papers,
was inconsistent with its improving material base at home and with current
transformations in the region. If diplomats had not managed to conquer a greater share
of prestige, influence, recognition and markets under such favourable conditions, it was
the principles guiding diplomacy that were at fault. The question was one of concepts
and vision, and the priority was to get rid of the weight of some of the essentially
defensive diplomatic doctrines of yore. Implicit in his writing is the notion that the
position of a country in world politics can remain stagnant for long stretches of time
after that country acquires new capabilities. To him, backed by economic weight as it
should be, the power and influence of the country abroad was a social attribute.
Translating greater wealth into influence abroad was therefore not an automatic
21
For interpretation and documents, Spektor, ‘O Brasil e a Argentina entre a cordialidade official e o
projeto de integração’.
130
procedure, but the workings of diplomatic manoeuvring and manipulation – or, as he
often put it, an act of creation.22
What we see here is a significant ideational shift from the views common in the
early 1960s. Back then, great-power concert had been seen as the single most
detrimental element undermining the quest for Brazilian emancipation. In that view, the
two superpowers, in their tacit alliance and with the support of the industrialised West,
sought to maintain their system of political and economic domination unchallenged by
the rising states of the South. Détente was, in that sense, neo-colonialism in disguise.23
In such setting, Brazilian power was clearly constrained both by the global structure of
power and the tightening of ‘American controls’ over the Western hemisphere. Brazil
therefore participated in the international system only formally, with no actual
substantial involvement.24
Now in 1974, Silveira portrayed the international system as a place of limited
but real opportunities rather than one of insurmountable constraints. If the accent thus
far had been on the notion that great-power concert in effect ‘froze up’ the international
system – with the attendant consequence of making it impenetrable to rising states such
as Brazil – Silveira’s understanding of the external environment now was more positive.
The Soviet Union, for instance, makes no relevant appearance in any of the key papers.
The assumption also gains force that the international system will cede to Brazil
provided its diplomats are willing and able to make a series of conscious moves
upwards. In one of his first memos to Geisel, he explained the rationale by drawing a
22
See Silveira Interview, in particular tapes 1 and 2.
23
For an early expression of such thinking, see Antonio Patriota, ‘Razão e significado da Conferência das
Nações Unidas sôbre Comércio e Desenvolvimento’, 27 July 1964, mimeo, quoted in Lafer, ‘Uma
interpretação...’, p. 92.
24
João Augusto de Araujo Castro, ‘O congelamento do poder mundial’, Revista Brasileira de Estudos
Politicos, n. 33 (January 1972). ‘The U.S. and the Soviet Union, on the basis of divide et impera, can
keep the North-South conflict subordinated to the East-West conflict, thus obstructing a basic redressing
of the international system’. Lafer, ‘Uma interpretação...’, p. 100.
131
distinction between what intermediate states like Brazil could achieve and the fate of far
weaker Third-World countries:
Those uncharacteristic states will possibly never transcend their condition of
objects of History. Some, however, have the conditions, due to their territorial
extension, their demographic importance and their historic vocation, to progress
towards higher grounds of autonomy and self-determination. Such countries will
be able to reach the condition of subjects and escape the fatality of being mere
passive spectators, manipulated in accordance to the conveniences of the Grand
Alliance [between the United States and the industrialised world]. The existing
cleavages among and within the countries of the alliance can be used by the key-
countries of the developing world, with great margin of autonomy, to conduct
foreign policies based on the national interest. Brazil is typical of the category of
countries that cannot be turned into satellites.25
In his view the distinctive mark of the current international system, from a rising state
perspective, was the flexibility that stemmed from the fact that the interests and goals of
those at the top of the U.S.-led world diverged. Now it was the emerging states like
Brazil that, in their dealings with the industrialised West, could play a dividing game,
with the attendant consequence of reinforcing their own room for manoeuvre on their
way up the ladder of international stratification. Their ‘margin of autonomy’ had
increased. From a Brazilian standpoint, then, if great-power concert in the early 1960s
had signalled with the tightening up of controls over what emerging states could aspire
to achieve, détente and its many contradictions ten years later opened up a window of
opportunity. As Silveira concluded in his position paper to Geisel:
25
Silveira, Política Externa Brasileira: Seus Parâmetros Internacionais, mimeo secreto, Rio de Janeiro, 16
January 1974. I wish to thank Luiz F. Lampreia for facilitating this document.
132
The fundamental interests of the alliance will impose certain limits to Brazilian
diplomacy: but the great mobility and fluidity inside the alliance will allow for a
foreign policy that is sovereign, authentic and imaginative.26
Accordingly, Geisel and Silveira began to plan for what the president eventually
announced to be a foreign-policy programme of Ecumenical and Responsible
Pragmatism. The phrasing was tailored to hinder the potential opposition (and perhaps
rally the support) of three constituencies – all domestic: the hardliners to the Right, the
opposition to the Left, and status quo voices within Itamaraty.
Labelling their enterprise pragmatic, the president and the chanceler were
resorting to a locution that couched contentious choices in terms of the ‘national
interest’. As a legitimating device, the term expressed the new leadership’s attempt to
present policy under the prism of a fundamental divide: those policy attitudes that were
conceived, to them narrowly and mistakenly, in terms of the immediate priorities of the
1964 ‘revolution’ (i.e. anti-Communism); and those that had roots in older, deeper and
more suitable concerns with the broader goal of national modernisation. By invoking
the principle of pragmatism, they sought to increase public acceptability for measures
that hardliners may have considered abhorrent. In sum, the new rhetorical device
signalled that the administration would seek to moderate the anti-Communist tenor that
foreign policy had acquired ten years before.
In turn, ecumenical meant that Brazilian commitments would expand across the
board irrespective of the creed or ideological allegiance of the target states. The
application of the term needs to be seen as a pre-emptive measure to prepare public
opinion for the policy U-turns towards Africa and the Middle East that Geisel and
Silveira had planned before inauguration. Finally, responsible meant that the
26
Silveira, Política Externa Brasileira: Seus Parâmetros Internacionais, mimeo secreto, Rio de Janeiro, 16
January 1974.
133
transformation would proceed only as far as it did not undermine the regime: progress
would occur in areas that Geisel considered safe, it would be protracted in those that
were uncertain, and it would not happen at all whenever it threatened to endanger the
regime’s survival – in other words, distant China might be recognised, but not Cuba,
with the enormous domestic repercussions that opening a channel in Havana would
entail. The term sought to reassure those sitting to the Right that each one of the new
activities abroad would only proceed as far as the chessboard at home allowed. But that
the decision to make a move would lie in presidential hands alone.
Together, ecumenism, responsibility and pragmatism made up a set of vocables
that described new, unexpected policies in a positive light. These favourable words were
now deployed to commend what the leadership predicted to be seen as questionable
behaviour. In so doing they hoped to put their ideological adversaries on the defensive
and hopefully gain public support. Armed with a new lexicon, Geisel hoped to gain the
upper hand in the barracks, while Silveira aspired to incite and persuade his colleagues
to embrace his activist views. This form of ideological argument was particularly
suitable for a foreign minister to whom Brazil’s standing abroad rested on diplomatic
reasoning, argumentation, and symbolic recognition as much, if not more, as it did on
its expanding material base. Consider for instance Silveira’s statement, presented and
reintroduced numberable times in his in-house speeches, that ‘The role of a foreign
ministry is to put its country ahead of its own time’.27 Conceptual innovation, it implies,
ought to be the guiding goal of policy; even if the internal circumstances of the state lag
slightly behind the pace and scope of diplomatic action.
For all the rhetorical crafting, however, the news of change found groups inside
the military establishment and the foreign-policy community shell-shocked. Geisel and
27
Silveira Interview, tape 3, side B.
134
Silveira set out to dominate policy accordingly: the former with the soldiers, the latter
with the diplomats. This is what we see next.
Abertura and Foreign Policy
On 19 March 1974, Geisel held his first cabinet meeting to announce that he would
loosen the tight authoritarian rules the regime had imposed ten years earlier. He
promised to initiate ‘slow, gradual and safe’ political liberalisation, an abertura
(‘opening’). Abertura was a piecemeal move away from authoritarian rule where the
governing regime tried to keep control of the pace and scope of change. In practice, it
was a system of sticks and carrots the president and his entourage used to deal with
hardliners to their Right and the regime’s opposition to their Left. It was conceived as a
top-down strategy imposed by a faction within the ruling military elite whose main
concern was not so much to restore civilian rule as it was to restore military hierarchy
and manage a military retreat from power short of a dramatic downfall. In this sense, a
useful parallel can be drawn with Gorbachev’s Perestroika in the Soviet Union, since
Geisel too spoke about a transition from authoritarian rule to a new (but unspecified)
situation, rather than about transition from authoritarianism towards democracy.28
Abertura comprised measures such as ending press censorship, curbing the
powerful (and now relatively autonomous) intelligence community, tightening military
hierarchy, suspending the practice of political detainment, calling for elections for
parliament and federal states, and passing an amnesty law for political exiles. But
28
Douglas Chalmers and Christopher Robinson, ‘Why Power Contenders Choose
LiberalizationStrategies’, International Studies Quarterly 26 (1982): 3-36; Guillermo A. O'Donnell,
Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from authoritarian rule: prospects for
democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Alfred Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); Thomas E. Skidmore, The politics of military rule in Brazil,
1964-85 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Maria H. M. Alves, State and Opposition in
Military Brazil (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1985); Kurt von Mettenheim, The Brazilian Voter:
Mass Politics in Democratic Transition, 1974-1986 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995);
Aspásia Camargo e Walder de Góes, O Drama da Sucessão e a Crise do Regime (Rio de Janeiro: Nova
Fronteira, 1984).
135
integral to the process was the president’s discretionary intervention in unions and in
parliament, the use of extra-constitutional powers, and the resort to torture and state-led
terror. For all the opening, the regime sought to protract as far as possible the
emergence of open contestation and democracy. The strategy worked well for those
pursuing it: in the end, a regime that had taken ten years to consolidate its grip on power
(1964–1973), took another fourteen to call for universal and competitive presidential
elections (1974–1989). There was no downfall, no purges, and those who violated
fundamental rights remained free.
The 1974 decision to open up followed a domestic rationale, with the
international system only playing a negligible causal role.29 This said, abertura
undoubtedly had a foreign-policy dimension to it, albeit one that stemmed from
domestic structures. As pointed out above, foreign policy became one of the instruments
at Geisel’s disposal both to punish and reward hardliner military factions and the
opposition; and a tool to win the favour of public opinion at a critical time. This
occurred in four major ways.
First, foreign policy was a high-profile arena for Geisel to display his own
authority over competing military factions. To him, carrying out contentious decisions
in spite of hardliner opposition reflected his own broader ability to steer the regime’s
overall direction. This is precisely what he had in mind when he first considered
recruiting Silveira as his foreign minister: as soon as he saw a campaign emerge from
the security community to veto the choice, he went ahead decisively.30 Reasserting
control was also in his mind when, before inauguration, he decided to change course on
policy to Africa, knowing that hardliners would set out to stop him. Or take the case of
29
Andrew Hurrell, ‘The International Dimensions of Democratization in Latin America: The Case of
Brazil’, in Laurence Whitehead, ed., The International Dimensions of Democratization (Oxford
University Press, 1996), pp. 146-174.
30
Gaspari, A Ditadura Derrotada, 217, 308, 312-3, 315-8.
136
the re-establishment of relations with China: when the president’s decision to proceed
met the opposition of the National Security Council – a military-dominated institution –,
he did not simply overrule it. Rather, he bullied members into acquiescence over the
telephone and had them have a formal meeting to consecrate the decision with a vote.
These moves need to be seen as part of Geisel’s broader quest for military deference to
presidential decisions.
Second, change in policies abroad was designed to signal the slow but certain
ending of the cold war at home. To be sure, Geisel was a cold warrior who supported
the policy of killings, torture, and ‘disappearances’ in the name of Western
civilisation.31 But if fervent anti-Communism had motivated the 1964 coup, ten years
later Geisel and his group thought it to a significant degree a façade to cover up the
most arbitrary measures on the part of hardliner groups inside the military and the
expanding security/intelligence community. Accordingly, abertura was to a large extent
about curbing the power of that community to prevent a societal backlash against the
regime. Within this, a foreign policy that reached out to countries in the Socialist camp
sent clear signals across the Brazilian political system that helped Geisel reinforce his
domestic liberalisation programme. It is no wonder that the fiercest fights among
military factions surfaced under the disguise of foreign policy debates. Take for instance
the resignation in 12 October 1977 of Minister of the Army Sílvio Frota. General Frota
epitomised the hardliner position: from the outset he had tried to constrain Geisel’s
room for manoeuvre and, when prospects looked dim, he engaged in active plotting
against the president. When Geisel fired him, Frota addressed the press in a statement
where he did not attack abertura directly nor did he target the president himself, but
31
See for instance Gaspari, A Ditadura Derrotada, pp. 387-90.
137
rather framed his ire in terms of a critique against the administration’s recognition of
Communist China.32
Third, Geisel used his trips abroad to give out information about his next steps at
home. Because abertura’s success rested to a large extent on the president’s ability to
surprise those at which it was directed, presidential silence, mystique, and ‘majestic
detachment’ played a crucial role in establishing Geisel as the ultimate manager of
liberalisation. If on the one hand he suspended official censorship in the major
newspapers and TV stations, on the other he announced that he would only address the
press when abroad.33 The international travels of the President thus became a major
source of public interest, putting foreign policy on the spotlight. This of course created
new problems for Itamaraty: after all, Brazilian diplomats had grown used to conducting
their business without too much public interference. For the first time the ministry had
to set up a dedicated office to deal with the press; and for the first time a chanceler had
to cope with criticism of newspapers that labelled some of his choices ‘dangerous’,
‘puerile’, and ‘irresponsible’.34
Fourth, Geisel used foreign policy as a shield against increasingly intrusive
international norms about human rights, democracy and even environmental protection;
in so doing, he undermined the hopes of those at home who set out to put the regime on
the defensive. As Chapter 7 will show, when Rosalyn Carter presented him with a list of
political prisoners her husband would like to see in liberty, the president had in hand a
list of recent abuses perpetrated in U.S. prisons. Although this was a defensive reaction
on the part of a crumbling regime, its nationalist pitch against ‘foreign intrusion’ rallied
32
For Frota’s resignation, Góes, O Brasil do General Geisel (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1978). For
the resignation speech, Veja, 19 October 1977, p. 22.
33
Camargo e Góes, O Drama da Sucessão.
34
See editorials in Jornal do Brasil, O Estado de S.Paulo, Folha de S.Paulo, 1 February 1979.
Incidentally, Silveira’s reaction to press criticism can be seen in his ‘Discurso por ocasião da solenidade
de transmissão do cargo de Ministro de Estado ao Embaixador Ramiro Saraiva Guerreiro’, Resenha de
Política Exterior do Brasil, Brasília, MRE, n. 20, 15 March 1979: 39-44.
138
a fair mount of domestic support. His resistance to American pressures put the
opposition in an odd situation: if they joined the First Lady’s condemnation of the
regime, they would be advancing their quest for democratisation; but because the
president had managed to rally popular support for his nationalist stance, exacerbating
the critique would only alienate public opinion to Geisel’s favour.
Brazilian activism under Geisel therefore needs to be seen in the context of a
delicate domestic political operation. Innovation in foreign policy was part and parcel of
the strengthening the president’s hand in the context of a regime that was on the wane.
This helps explain why Geisel made several choices that were utterly incongruous with
what could be expected from a conservative, anti-Communist, Right-wing military
clique – from recognising Communist China and the new independent republics of
Africa to refusing successive invitations for presidential visits to Washington.
In such volatile setting, it fell onto Silveira to carve for himself a place to
influence his boss and try to retain some control over policy. It also fell on to him to get
Itamaraty to embrace the new orientation and act accordingly.
Bureaucratic Politics
When it came to foreign policy Geisel relied heavily on his chanceler. In turn, because
Silveira’s ability to carry out policy now was an expression of the president’s executive
power and authority within the regime, the foreign minister could aspire to a position of
influence that Gibson Barboza had lacked. Relatively secure in that place, Silveira used
it to help translate Geisel’s general hope for change into actual policy measures and to
instil in the president a sense of urgency for widening the range of Brazilian
commitments in the wider world. As subsequent chapters show, Geisel was a most
reluctant target, and one that kept Silveira in leash.

139
The mechanics of the Geisel-Silveira relationship were neither spontaneous nor
particularly easy. Prior to their arrival in power they had had no contact, and their
mutual sentiments were of mutual respect rather than friendship. Early on in the life of
the administration the two followed some basic procedures that set the boundaries for
their association.
Part of the relationship was carried out through a vast collection of memos
entitled Informações ao Senhor Presidente da República (Information for the President
of the Republic). These were hard-edged and practical position papers written by
Silveira to the president in which the former sought to shape the scope of the latter’s
views. The Informações were educational in form and content, providing background
information and a range of policy options. Silveira knew that his boss was more
comfortable making decisions on the basis of written reports than tête-à-tête; and
chances were that a good position paper would get the presidential approval stamp
without substantial change.35
Yet, much of their rapport was personal. In their five years in power, they spent
with each other 230 hours of recorded private meetings (far surpassing the number of
presidential appointments with any other single member of cabinet, with the exception
of domestic security). Additionally, there were countless occasions when discussions
were unrecorded, Silveira being one of the few men who dared disturb Geisel outside
office hours and during weekends. (Silveira’s office in Itamaraty and his official
residence in Brasília were linked to a secret presidential telephone line that allowed the
two to talk without risking the wire-tapping that was so common at the time).36
35
Góes, O Brasil do General Geisel, p. 30.
36
For a table of presidential appointments see Armando Falcão, Geisel: do tenente ao presidente (Rio de
Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1995), p. 251. For details of the telephone lines see Silveira Interview, tape 1,
side B.
140
To be sure, Silveira had to compete for the president’s ear with influential voices
that had foreign-policy ideas of their own. In particular, whenever it came to economic,
oil and energy policy, Geisel gave priority to the ministers of finance and mining and
energy over the chanceler (not without Silveira’s resistance). For sensitive decisions,
Geisel also resorted to his closest political advisor and mentor, Golbery do Souto e
Silva. But by and large the daily conduct of policy abroad was left to the foreign
minister’s discretion.37
Yet access to Geisel was only part of the equation, for it was in Itamaraty that
directives had to be carried out and implemented on a daily basis. So although Silveira
spent a great deal of his time and stamina globetrotting and advising the president, he
also made a conscious effort at controlling developments inside his department.
Personal inclination, training, the belief that the ministry was limping, and that the
success of the new policies had important managerial components, made him focus on
the bureaucracy in detail – from establishing new guidelines governing cables coming
from the various embassies to the repositioning of diplomats and the training of the
younger generation.
Silveira launched a four-fold strategy to gain control within the House. First of
all, he reshuffled the area-specialists that held key posts at regional desks within the
ministry. By and large this was a substitution of diplomats who had performed the same
tasks for several years for individuals who had never had executive authority before.
Secondly, he turned his own cabinet into the ministry’s headquarters by
centralising many of the decisions that would have otherwise remained under the watch
of a technical general secretariat. To his cabinet Silveira bought a group of assistants
37
Silveira Interview, tape 6, side A; tape 14, side B; tape 15, side B.
141
who were unusually junior and, in his eyes, exceptionally bright – the Silveira Boys.38
He described their role thus: ‘I needed eyes and hands that worked for me, that could
engage in conceptual dialogue with me’.39
In the third place, rejuvenation went beyond his cabinet. The chanceler made it a
policy to post younger career personnel in as many key diplomatic posts as he could.
This followed from his own reservations about colleagues of his own generation: he was
utterly dismayed at the general frivolity of his professional environment, and the lack of
passion, intelligence and gravitas that he saw among many of his peers.40 As he often
put it, the young were more flexible, energetic, and willing to take greater risks.41 He
also must have known that getting the older generations to embrace change
wholeheartedly would be an unlikely proposition. In his five-year period in office he
renewed two thirds of all positions in Brasília and abroad. For the first time, 28 to 45
year-old diplomats reached the rank of in-house ministers, and 50 year-old personnel
were made ambassadors. (The move was uneasy, though, because President Geisel often
vetoed names he considered to be way too young for the most visible posts abroad). In
passing a generation to retirement and promoting a new one upwards, Silveira was
smoothing out the path to doctrinal change.
Fourth, Silveira hoped to rid Itamaraty from what he saw as too stale an
approach to policy. Plans were put in place to overcome ‘intellectual stagnation’ that
included new sets of principles governing the drafting of reports. These should now be
38
Membership to the group varied across time, but key names include Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Paulo
Roberto Bertel Rosa, José Nogueira Filho, Gilberto Velloso, Marcos César Naslausky, Alcides da Costa
Guimarães, Rene Agnauer, Celina Assunção, Jorge Carlos Ribeiro, Sérgio Durate, Guy Brandão and
Ronaldo Sardemberg.
39
40
Silveira Interview, tape 1, side B and tape 3, side B; tape 18, side A.
41
Silveira Interview, tape 3, side B. See also ‘Presidente influi nas promoções’, O Estado de S. Paulo, 11
May 1977.
142
based on ‘creativity, modernity and non-routine’.42 Cables should avoid the
‘encyclopedia-ism that, unfortunately, still is common currency in the activities of our
diplomatic legations’.43 Also, for the first time the requirement came into place that at
nodal points up the career ladder personnel would have to submit two major pieces of
analytic work resembling academic dissertations.
In pushing for his ideas, Silveira acted within at least three major constraints
arising from Itamaraty’s own distinctive (and unusual) bureaucratic structure. Let us
outline each one in turn. Whatever renovation Silveira planned for, it had to draw on in-
house personnel only. There was no lateral entry into the Itamaraty career ladder and,
with the exception of a handful of ambassadorial positions (normally Paris, Lisbon, and
Rome), appointments were reserved for career personnel exclusively. Whenever the
post of foreign minister was recruited outside the house, when incumbents came into
office they did so alone, for their staff and key advisors were insiders. Unlike most
foreign ministries, Itamaraty was governed by professional diplomats with little or no
interference either of professional politicians or the military. Reinforcing the hand of
insiders, power in the organisation relied heavily on the secretário geral, a career under-
secretary overseeing administration, budgets and postings, and also aspects of policy.
Secondly, there were no fast-track mechanisms for career progress that Silveira
could activate to set a generational change in motion. The pace of ascension up the
ranks followed years of service and political allegiances rather than merit or
competence. On the one hand, this contributed to an environment that resembled that of
the modern armed forces: not only senior personnel expected deference from junior
diplomats, but the importance all attached to questions of rank and protocol inside the
42
For an example of the in-house debates to reform procedures see Carbonar a Guerreiro, mmorandum,
10 de junho de 1974, maço memoranda, 01/1974, secretaria geral/gabinete, AHMRE.
43
Ministry of Foreign Relations to Embassy in Buenos Aires, secret message, Brasília, 20 December
1976, n. 1702, AHMRE, box 42.
143
house was striking to outsiders. The resulting outcome was that rank rather than
expertise defined who had a voice, with the actual implementation of policy following a
tight chain of command where younger generations had little discretion. In such
environment, quite understandably, the average practitioner tended to be risk-averse. On
the other hand, of course, this arrangement had several advantages. It gave Itamaraty a
degree of internal coherence that most foreign ministries around the globe lacked. Once
change was decided upon, then the bureaucracy as a whole tended to follow suite
without internal splits surfacing to outsider eyes. There tended to be no major gaps
between the decisions made at the top and their actual implementation at the bottom, a
valuable asset in areas of policy where outcomes relied largely on good timing. And, as
Silveira used to put it, whereas career personnel risked less, they also made less
irreparable mistakes.44
Finally, ideas outside the traditional diplomatic cannon were hard to come by.
This was partly because the group of senior ambassadors that rotated around key
positions was relatively small, had known each other for decades, and had a major
incentive not to clash frontally with their peers: since there was no lateral entry into the
career, they knew at all times that they were bound to impart orders on those who may
well someday impart orders on them. This was particularly acute in top-tier positions,
for Brazil must be one of the few countries where foreign ministers, if they are career
personnel, after completing their tenures in cabinet, can and often remain in the
diplomatic corps, working under the command of their former subordinates. The end-
result was that competition occurred in an environment of relative mutual protection:
policy documents often carried the joint signatures of various heads of department to
dilute individual responsibility, and important decisions often happened after some of
44
144
consensus emerged among those signing. The drawback was of course that in a
bureaucratic environment where overt confrontation was low, new ideas came about
only rarely and slowly.
It is therefore no wonder that Silveira spent a good deal of time presenting
change in ways that were palatable to his colleagues. The image he tried to evoke time
and again was that of change as mere adjustment within a long, continuous inherited
tradition; but one that needed fast adaptation. In his inaugural address he put it thus:
Brazil is not self-contained in the inventory of its current dimensions only, but
rather completes itself in the fertile expectation of surpassing what it is today…
That is why [Itamaraty] has done and it will continue to do systematic
adjustments in its ability to act… Itamaraty’s best tradition is to know how to
renew itself.45
Consider the following assertion, uttered two years later, when he was still trying to
overcome the resistance of those inside and outside Itamaraty who advocated for a
retraction from what they saw as excessive commitments abroad:
The perception that a country has of its own position in the world is, in itself, a
historic and cultural phenomenon. It is therefore not fair to expect over-time
coherence between the various historical visions that the country has of itself.46
Speaking before an audience of military men, the chanceler was even more
straightforward in his elocution.
Brazil, given objective factors, has a destiny of greatness, still relative in our
days, which it cannot escape, and that impose upon her the obligation to face her
role in the world in prospective terms that are fundamentally ambitious. I say
ambition in the sense of the vastness of our interests and the scope of our
45
Inauguration speech in Resenha de Política Exterior. Brasília, MRE, n. 1, March/April/May/June 1974:
9 e 19-20.
46
Silveira’s speech, Financial Times Seminar, Rio de Janeiro, 9 March 1976, AAS 1974.05.27.
145
activities, and not in any desire of hegemony or preponderance…Foreign
policy…seeks as one of its primary goals to secure for the country the largest
possible number of international options (which equals greater autonomy of
action).47
These statements matter because they signal the fact that foreign-policy change was
contested inside Brazil. Because this was a military regime, contentious decisions were
not assessed at the polls. But at every turn the politicians and decision-makers in charge
of the policy programme had to negotiate and legitimise their intentions and strategies at
home.
Summary
Conducting an activist foreign policy requires several things: an expanding material
base that supports the proliferation of commitments abroad, a project to guide the
endeavour, some degree of internal consensus about how to proceed, and an
organisational structure to sustain the new initiatives. In other words, activism does not
follow automatically from an improvement in national wealth and state capability, nor
does it stem automatically from external pressures; rather, it is an undertaking, a plan
that political leaders choose to pursue in spite of its attendant costs.
The arrival of Geisel and Silveira on the scene in 1974 marks the beginning of
such project in Brazil, although most of its elements had been in circulation for many
years. Following the chanceler’s thinking, the new administration held the belief that
the world Brazil inhabited was, to some extent, a world of its own making. Accordingly,
the new policy was defined in terms of transcending Brazil’s own past experience.
Such were Silveira’s contexts when, in April 1974, he travelled to the United
States to meet Henry Kissinger for the first time.
47
Silveira’s statement at Escola de Guerra Naval, Rio de Janeiro, 9 November 1976, AAS, 1974.05.27.
AAS.
Chapter 4
BUILDING ENGAGEMENT (1974-1975)
Starting in 1974, the U.S. and Brazil re-launched their plans for engagement. This time
the project took a far more ambitious guise, involving serious remodelling of the
relationship. Kissinger and Silveira sponsored a move towards approximation that
encompassed new protocols and agreements, numerous cables, extensive travel, and a
good deal of negotiation.
During this period, the scope of bilateral discussions between the Secretary of
State and the chanceler expanded markedly. The new arrangement also involved
transferring policy from the presidential palaces to the foreign ministries, measures for
trust-building and mechanisms to facilitate consensus and reduce bilateral friction. The
burden of the operation fell upon Kissinger and Silveira personally, both of whom relied
to a large extent on their mutual empathy to make the project take off. Together they
sought to win support from their bosses and advocated engagement in their respective
governments. Showing that the fate of devolutionary policies depends on the intentions
of the stronger partner as much as it does on the requirements of the weaker, we see
Silveira manipulate U.S. overtures and sponsor a revamping of the project that
reoriented its overall direction in significant ways.
Simultaneous with the move towards engagement, however, major difficulties
came to the fore to haunt it. These referred to fundamental divergences in national
interests and vision. Also crucial to the equation were salient characteristics inside each
country, namely their domestic political and bureaucratic dynamics. And there were
several managerial problems too. Very quickly a relationship that Kissinger and Silveira
hoped to reshape anew was once again characterized by the old feelings of frustration,
147
suspicion and indifference that they had set out to transform. It is a testimony to their
commitment to the project that they should have tried to respond to this predicament by
devising more permanent institutions to promote and sustain engagement.
The pages that follow develop those points by narrating events from Silveira’s
arrival in power in 1974 to his first major problem with Kissinger in June 1975.
Cuba’s Pull
Irrespective of whom their foreign ministers might have been in 1974, the United States
and Brazil were likely to turn to each other for support in the upcoming round of
hemispheric meetings. Pushing them into cooperation were thorny developments on the
Cuba front: a coalition of Latin American states was now ready to lift the trade
sanctions that had been introduced in the aftermath of the Missile Crisis twelve years
earlier. According to the CIA, there was little the United States could do to reverse the
outcome.1 The mood of both Nixon and Kissinger went from bad to worse.2
At this juncture Washington and Brasília were each other’s natural choice of
ally. At least in American eyes, there was hope that the Brazil connection might help
break up the incipient hemispheric cohesion around Cuba.3 The assumption was that
‘the US has been particularly important [to Brazil] because Brazil has no close friends
in Latin America’.4 With a minimum degree of coordination, Brazil and the US could
perhaps avoid a humiliating defeat. This is what Kissinger conveyed in his first letter to
1
CIA, The American Foreign Ministers Meeting: Issues and Outlook, confidential report, n. 1028/74, 13
February 1974. NARA (Crest).
2
Conversation between John Kubisch and Kissinger, 12 April 1974, 6:00pm, Nixon Presidential
Materials Staff, Chronological File, HAK Telcons, box 25. NARA; Conversation between President and
Kissinger, [no indication of day] April 1974, 8:28pm, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, Chronological
File, HAK Telcons, box 25. NARA.
3
4
CIA, Brazil’s Changing Foreign Policy, Secret Weekly Review Special Report, n. 636, 23 August 1974,
NARA (Crest).
148
Silveira.5 But the chanceler needed no prodding.6 Yet, even in an area where their
proximity appeared to be obvious, soon problems emerged that imposed narrow
constraints on what activities they could actually sponsor jointly.
Empathy and Mistrust
It was a question of trust. Silveira had received intelligence from Bogotá that the U.S.
may have been negotiating secretly with Castro to re-establish full diplomatic relations.7
Indeed, there were several indications that Washington and Havana were holding secret
talks, although the record available today shows these were timid and did not really gain
momentum until later on in the 1970s. The chanceler feared being caught by surprise,
and often complained about American ‘indecisiveness’ about the Castro regime.8 The
CIA was correct in pointing out that ‘Even the countries that are the staunchest
supporters of the sanctions [against Cuba] – especially Brazil and Chile – are concerned
that the US will abandon the present policy without consulting them’.9
Aware of Brazilian suspicions, Kissinger made the first move to begin to win
Silveira’s trust. He sent out a personal envoy to reinforce and confirm that there would
5
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, message received telegraphically by the American Embassy in
Brasília, 13 April 1974, AAS 1974.03.18.
6
Embaixada Brasileira em Washington para MRE, Telegrama confidencial urgentíssimo para urgente
conhecimento do Senhor Presidente da República, Washington, 18 April 1974, n. 1410, AAS 1974.04.02.
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 11 June 1974, n. 130,
AAS 1974.03.26. Embassy Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Cuba and the OAS’, confidential telegram, 15
August 1974, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R.
Ford Library; Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Cuban Sanctions’, confidential telegram, 24
August 1974, National security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R.
Ford Library; Embassy Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Cuban Sanctions’, confidential telegram, 5
September 1974, National security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald
R. Ford Library.
7
Embaixada em Bogotá para MRE, Telegrama confidencial urgentíssimo sobre a questão de Cuba,
Bogotá, 17 September 1974, n.640, AAS 1974.04.02.
8
Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Possible Brazilian Topics in Secretary/Foreign Minister
Meetings’, confidential telegram, 21 September 1974, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country
Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
9
149
be no progress on Cuba without first consulting with Brasília.10 Yet, as we will see, no
amount of soothing managed to convince the chanceler. Nor were his doubts the only
factor at play, for Kissinger himself was sceptical about Brazil’s reliability as well.
For one, Silveira had been inconsistent in his alignment on the Cuba front. He
had then said that if Washington were to pursue some form of progress with Havana,
then the Geisel administration would consider doing the same. But there was more to
Kissinger’s reluctance: as it had been the case in the Medici years, the Secretary was not
at all sure that he could rely on Itamaraty. Reports coming from the embassy in Brasília
later in the year showed that it was the presidential palace, not the foreign ministry, that
was the hub for policy toward Cuba. On this account, Silveira only played an
intervening role vis-à-vis the President’s military entourage.11
Suspicion on one side fed suspicion on the other, leading to uncertainty and
estrangement. And yet, very quickly Kissinger and Silveira learned to find refuge
against these intractable problems in their personal styles which, different as they might
have been, were indisputably compatible. Personal rapport caused Kissinger to want to
enlarge the scope of their agenda for conversations.12 For the first time, a U.S. Secretary
of State and a Brazilian Foreign Minister gave a joint televised press conference, and for
the first time a picture of the two appeared stamped on the front page of the New York
Times. First impressions also created positive expectations that had not been there
before. As Kissinger put it on paper:
10
MRE to Embaixada em Washington, telegrama secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 18 September 1974, n.
390, AAS 1974.04.02.
11
Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Brazil’s position on the Cuba issue in the OAS’, confidential
telegram, 16 September 1974, National security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America,
box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
12
As reported by Silveira in his interview, tape 5, side B.
150
Dear Antonio:
…I want to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting you and having our
very valuable conversations...In my view, the conference in Washington
came out very well, and I especially appreciated your cooperation
here…I consider our plans for further consultations to be very
important…It is my firm belief that we should stay in close contact on
the whole range of subjects of importance to us both. I appreciate more
than I can say the frankness with which you discussed various problems
with me, including the Cuban issue, and you may depend upon me to be
equally frank with you…I will be writing to you again from time to time
and look forward to continuing our close personal association and
cooperation which was so auspiciously begun last week. Warmest
regards, Henry13
The Secretary kept his word. A few weeks later he volunteered a summary account of
his own activities in the Middle East peace process.14 This was an attempt at creating an
environment of proximity more daring than the one he had tried out with the Medici
administration. Now contact occurred not from president to president, but from
Secretary of State to Foreign Minister personally.
The chanceler took Kissinger’s overture seriously, and replied with the first
proposal to institutionalise engagement: if the Americans really wanted closer contact,
then the two foreign ministers should aim to meet ‘twice a year for a general review of
subjects of common interests’. On top of personal encounters, he added, it would be
useful to establish a special joint commission between State and Itamaraty.
13
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 29 April 1974, AAS 1974.03.18.
14
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 6 June 1974, AAS 1974.03.18.
151
Kissinger’s response could have not been more positive. The first meeting for
the State-Itamaraty group was scheduled for October 1974, and the Secretary flagged
the possibility of visiting Brazil immediately afterwards. But for all his commitment, he
had a slightly different model of approximation in mind. Whereas Silveira hoped for
formal proceedings attaching the two foreign departments, Kissinger preferred to keep
relations with Brazil on a personal, more flexible basis that relied less on bureaucracies
than on personal commitment.15
The split reflected the divergent interest, power, and fears of the two parties.
From the start, it was clear that the relationship would only reach higher levels of
governmental interaction if they managed to find a suitable formula to make their two
visions converge. The politics of engagement had begun.
Motivations
As we saw, the Cuba issue was the trigger that early in 1974 prompted Kissinger and
Silveira to engage, while mutual empathy and personal rapport facilitated the process in
a context of deep-seated mistrust. But the fundamental motivations driving their
renewed impetus for engagement ran deeper.
On the American side it is possible to discern two major motives. First,
developments such OPEC’s policies in 1973 and India’s nuclear explosion in 1974
increased Washington’s awareness of the Third World as a force in world politics. This
was particularly the case for Kissinger, whose new organisational responsibilities as he
moved from the NSC to the State Department widened dramatically. Second, U.S.
perceptions of Brazilian foreign policy were changing. As 1974 progressed, it became
increasingly obvious to Washington that Brazil was seriously following an activist
15
152
route. The scope of the American-Brazilian agenda had grown beyond recognition.16
The fact was that Brazil had begun to venture into areas that no other Latin American
country had ever experienced, with the exception of revolutionary Cuba. This was no
reason for alarm in Washington, but it warranted cautious observation; after all, Brazil
was sending sympathetic signals to Marxist-inspired movements in Africa and trying to
master the nuclear cycle. As the CIA predicted, ‘A feeling that Brazil has ‘arrived’, will
lead it to differ with the US more often and on more issues’.17
This is not to say that in early 1974 Washington sought to revive rapprochement
with the view to control, contain or constrain Brazil. It is simply to suggest that a target-
state for devolution whose pledges for world influence had been largely rhetorical now
seemed to begin to move in ways that suggested deeper ambitions. It was only much
later that aspects of the bilateral relationship would lead some decision-makers in the
U.S. to see engagement as a tool for enveloping Brazil, in the hope that sustained
proximity might help to moderate its aspirations.
Costs mattered too. An arrangement that relied heavily on two personalities –
and could therefore adapt quickly to circumstance – provided an easy way out to the
difficult questions of whether and how to develop a partnership with the Brazilians from
scratch. As the then deputy assistant secretary for the hemisphere put it thirty years
later, if all the policy took was a good personal rapport between the Secretary and
Silveira, then this type of proximity was better than nothing.18
On the Brazilian side, as mentioned before, motivations related to activist plans.
If the Medici administration had embraced rapprochement with the U.S. because it
16
The expanding size of the bilateral agenda is clear in correspondence such as Embassy in Brasília to
Secretary of State, ‘Possible Brazilian Topics in Secretary/Foreign Minister Meetings’, confidential
telegram, 21 September 1974, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America,
17
CIA, Brazil’s Changing Foreign Policy, Secret Weekly Review Special Report, n. 636, 23 August
1974, NARA (Crest).
18
Author’s interview with Albert Fishlow, Oxford, 1 June 2005.
153
reinforced the domestic legitimacy of the regime, now President Geisel found a new
instrumentality: a significant improvement of the political relationship with the United
States would open the door for Brazilian activism elsewhere and it would make
confrontation with American preferences on a range of concrete issues legitimate
(internationally) and palatable (domestically). If Silveira managed to keep Kissinger
engaged, then his project of reaching out to newly independent Africa and the Middle
East, or indeed plans to master the nuclear fuel cycle, could gain a degree of acceptance
at home and abroad that mattered enormously in a context where alienating the
hegemon came at a high political cost.
In this sense, Kissinger was an important tool for leverage in the equation of
abertura. Not only did Silveira gain personal prestige when seen as being close to the
Secretary, but he could now signal to the conservative establishment at home that the
transformation of Brazil’s trajectory in the world, albeit contentious, had a green-light
from the major Western power. And because he could exploit the fact that his treatment
of Kissinger was far from subservient, he satisfied nationalist sentiment to the Right and
to the Left.19
Yet personal commitment and attachment seldom suffice to transform relations
between states. For all their power, these personalities did not transcend the very narrow
limits of a relationship that might have been special, but fundamentally unequal. For
instance, when Silveira first met President Gerald Ford at the Oval Office in advance for
the upcoming Itamaraty-State meeting, the chanceler reminded the American president
that ‘[Brazilians] are an enthusiastic, hopeful people. We live in a country where we can
dream. [Brazil] is not like Honduras’.20 This peculiar analogy is revealing of what
19
Secret speech before Escola Nacional de Informações, Brasília, 31 May 1974, AAS 1974.05.27.
20
The White House, ‘Meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil’, Antonio Francisco Azeredo da
Silveira, secret memorandum for the President’s file, 29 September 1974, National Security Adviser,
NSC Latin America Affairs Staff: Files, 1974-1977, box 12, Gerald R. Ford Library.
154
happens when a strong and a weak state acting in a hierarchical environment set out to
do things together in the world. That the foreign minister of a country with which the
United States had consciously decided to build a special relationship needed to make
that point, indicates that Silveira must have feared the President perhaps did think Brazil
was just as unimportant as tiny, weak Honduras. If indeed this fear crossed Silveira’s
mind, then he was probably right. For only seconds before walking into the presidential
office to greet him, the president and Secretary Kissinger had had the following
conversation:
KISSINGER: On Cuba, our policy is to give grudgingly in the OAS and
send a message to Castro to see what we could get bilaterally….
Yesterday Castro made a strong attack. We can’t let that pipsqueak drive
us. I would tell the Brazilian we will not be driven and we may even vote
against them in the OAS…Tell Silveira that we won’t be pushed and we
will require assurances from Castro before we move and we will
cooperate with them. The Brazilians are okay. They are sowing their oats
a little, but they are good friends. Tell them Brazil is a key country and
we will coordinate our policy with them.
PRESIDENT: I left the paper in the residence.
21
KISSINGER: Geisel is President; Silveira is the Foreign Minister.
Trade Linkages
Seeing foreign trade as a tool of statecraft, soon Geisel and Silveira began to judge
progress on engagement in terms of American trade concessions. Brasília expected to
resolve specific disputes over footwear, coffee, coal in the context of their improved
21
The White House, secret memorandum of conversation, 29 September 1974, National Security Adviser,
Memoranda of Conversation, 1973-77, box 6, Gerald R. Ford Library.
155
political relationship.22 Kissinger, reluctant at first, became increasingly
accommodating.23 The two sides agreed for the first time to have their delegation in
Geneva consult each other to coordinate positions in GATT negotiations, and that the
U.S. trade representative came up with a series of innovative proposals trying to reach
out to the Brazilians.24
Because Silveira saw U.S. trade policies through the lenses of Brazilian doctrine
he assumed that better relations would entail significant concessions. In the face of
limited progress, his suspicions about American intentions only grew. The Secretary’s
pledges for better trade relations, he wrote to Geisel, reflected only the ‘Kissingerian
concern with building a ‘hemispheric community’ that could give the U.S. an implicit
mandate to lead Latin America in the world’s greatest fora.’25 Again, however,
Kissinger was accommodating, as he tried (but failed) to get Treasury Secretary Simon
to subject trade policy to Brazil to the imperative of political engagement.26
In Brasília, the negotiation front was far from unified. Finance minister
Simonsen, the economy’s tsar, opposed Itamaraty’s bid for accessing Kissinger directly
on questions of trade. To Simonsen, there was not much U.S. authorities could do;
insisting on the matter, he argued, would only be detrimental to Brazil in the medium
22
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 21 April 1975, n.
141, AAS 1974.03.26.
23
MRE a embaixada em Washington, telegrama secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 20 June 1974, n. 1067,
AAS 1974.03.18.
24
The USTR would begin to coordinate closely with Kissinger’s office on Latin American issues, new
priorities for hemispheric trade were communicated to other departments, and Eberle devised an early
warning system among U.S. agencies to consult in case of American detrimental measures to Latin
American trade. The Inter-American Bureau of State won greater say in trade deliberations within the
administration, measures were taken to improve the flow of trade information from Washington to US
embassies in Latin America, and a new method was introduced for consulting with hemispheric countries
to ensure the innovations were satisfactory. Also, a new procedure was introduced to brief the
hemispheric press on trade developments. W.D. Eberle to Kissinger, 12 July 1974, Nixon Presidential
Materials Staff, NSC Institutional, NSDM, box H-248. NARA. See also Silveira a Geisel, Informação
secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 30 April 1974, n. 73, AAS 1974.03.26.
25
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 30 April 1974, n. 73,
AAS 1974.03.26.
26
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, message received telegraphically at the American Embassy, 25 June
1974, AAS 1974.03.18. For Silveira’s response, where he insists that bilateral trade be treated in political
terms, MRE a embaixada em Washington, telegrama secreto urgentíssimo, 26 June 1974, n. 1.114, AAS
1974.03.18.
156
term. The reasons were domestic-political: U.S. legislation was mandatory, private
American commercial interests had resorted to the courts to oblige the executive branch
to take action against Brazilian exports, the Treasury was being monitored closely by
Congress, and the law prevented an isolated, bilateral political settlement with Brazil.27
According to an assessment by the American embassy in Brasília, it was pressure from
the finance ministry to moderate the Brazilian tone that in the end prevented Silveira’s
from ‘beat[ing] the drums of indignation even more’.28 Other episodes confirm
Silveira’s dominant strategy of linking trade to improved political relations, Kissinger’s
attempts to accommodate, and little progress on both sides.29
Three elements here are striking. First, deeply-ingrained perceptions in Brazil
about the political dimension of trade led to a position that was tenacious but also
markedly rigid for a state seeking to establish closer relations with a far more powerful
polity. The key to understand this is to see what value the Brazilians attached to
toughness: to them, it was the natural expression of a strategy that sought to redress the
historical inequalities marking U.S.-Brazil relations. Devolution, in their eyes, should be
to some extent about introducing a sense of balance in a relationship that had seen little
of it.
Second, it is striking to see Itamaraty burdening the incipient relationship with
Kissinger with requests that the Secretary could simply not solve of his own accord.
These were demands for exceptional treatment on a case-by-case basis rather than
27
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, message received telegraphically by the American Embassy, 3
August 1974, AAS 1974.03.18.
28
29
For the issue of coal, see Silveira a Kissinger, telegrama secreto, Brasília, 27 December 1974, n. 2.173,
AAS 1974.03.18; Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 7 January 1975, AAS 1974.03.18; Kissinger to
Silveira, 7 February 1975, AAS 1974.03.18. For the issue of coffee exports, Silveira a Kissinger,
telegrama secreto, Brasília, 8 January 1975, s/n, AAS 1974.03.18; Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 27
January 1975, AAS 1974.03.18; Crimmins to Silveira, confidential, Brasília, 31 January 1975, AAS
1974.03.18.
157
proposals for an overall plan to revamp bilateral trade. The Brazilians launched an
offensive each time specific problems popped up rather than propose broader bilateral
trade agreements. The focus remained always on the state as the key negotiator, with
little attempt to empower Brazilian businessmen to play the game of American
congressional lobbies, media/public opinion campaigns, and pressure-groups in the
Beltway.
The third element of surprise is, of course, that Kissinger went out of his way to
advocate the Brazilian cause. Further studies that detail the trade relationship in this
period will clarify these puzzles, but they nonetheless point in the direction that the
Secretary of State did believe that trying to elevate relations with Brazil to higher levels
of proximity was worth his while.
Direct trade talks being an improbable key to unlock the potential for
engagement, by mid 1974 Silveira began to realise that there was room for renewed
pressures elsewhere.
European Linkages
It was hinted before that the Geisel administration embarked upon a frantic quest for
structured cabinet-level mechanism for regular and institutionalised consultations with
the Western industrial powers. At the time, it was highly unusual for industrial states to
celebrate such agreements with developing countries. In 1974, Silveira proposed
arrangements along these lines to Japan, Britain, Germany, France and Italy.
The original goal behind this policy had been to turn each agreement into the
express recognition by major industrial states that Brazil was a player on the rise. The
collection of agreements would build up a mutually reinforcing network to support
Brazil’s quest for greater status and sticking the notion in international society that the
158
country was worth attending. Silveira would later reason that ‘Only through that
triangulation would our voice be heard by the great powers’.30 To put it in Kissingerian
terms common at the time, this was a policy of linkage, where policies in one area were
designed to affect outcomes in another area and vice-versa.31
The rationality to these agreements was dictated by the quest for gaining greater
‘margins of manoeuvre’ in the face of the United States. Silveira put it like this: ‘We
had to change our policies in Africa and the Middle East, increase our penetration in
Asia, end misunderstandings in Latin America, and get closer to Europe because we had
to minimise the [relative] importance of the United States [on our foreign relations]’.32
But as 1974 progressed and the European linkage operation began to produce
dividends, both Geisel and Silveira found a new instrumentality for it. It was not simply
that relations with other centres of power reduced American clout over Brazil; it also
made it clearer in American eyes that Brazil was worth engaging. As Geisel put it when
he embarked upon the first visit by a Brazilian president to Europe in thirteen years,
‘Our policy needs to be with the Americans…but in order to turn that association more
fruitful, we need to deal with the others’.33 Let us see how the operation worked in
practice.
The Foreign Office in London initially turned down Brazilian proposals for a
consultation mechanism. But when the Quai d’Orsay in Paris agreed to set up a Grand
Commission for regular consultations with Itamaraty, the British door unlocked. Foreign
Secretary Callaghan asked Silveira to fly out to London to hammer out a last-minute
memorandum of understanding for regular consultations, and extended an invitation for
a State visit. Reacting to the British proposal, the French government offered a State-
30
Silveira Interview, tape 1, side B. For similar arguments, tape 7, side B.
31
For Kissinger’s notion of linkage, see his statement to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
reprinted in Department of State Bulletin, 14 October 1974, p. 508.
32
33
Heitor Ferreira, Diary, 28 January 1976, quoted in Gaspari, A Ditadura encurralada…, p. 285.
159
visit invitation too, with the proviso that President Geisel stop at the Élysée before
heading to London. And so it went. Soon invitations arrived from Tokyo and Bonn as
well.34
To Silveira this was the evidence-base he needed to convince Kissinger to
elevate the institutional status of engagement. As American ambassador to Brazil, John
Crimmins, put it, the agreements between Brazil, Europe and Japan now reduced the
costs of the U.S. doing something along similar lines. Implied in this line of reasoning
was the proposition that, although this was an authoritarian regime with a worrying
human-rights record and questionable nuclear ambitions, it was one that international
society appeared to sanction as a full-fledged, deserving member. As the ambassador
concluded, setting up a formal consultation instrument with Brazil now ceased to be a
sensitive political question, but one of mere ‘practical value’ and ‘feasibility’.35 Silveira
saw things under the same light. ‘The U.S. began to seek us because they feared they
would lose a partner’36, and ‘It was then that Kissinger began to understand’.37
Now it was a matter of coming up with an institutional model for engagement. It
was this that consumed much of the bilateral relationship from the end of 1974 onwards.
Trying New Tools
The State Department Policy Planning Team and Silveira’s cabinet at Itamaraty met for
the first time in November 1974.38 The terms of reference referred to an ‘ample
34
35
36
37
Silveira interview, tape 7, side B.
38
Membership included, on the U.S. side, Samuel W. Lewis, Policy Planning Assistant Secretary;
Charles R. Frank Jr., Economics and Energy; Thomas P. Thornton, specialist in Middle East and relations
with Socialist countries; Luigi R. Einaudi, specialist on Latin America; Richard J. Bloomfield,
Hemispheric Affairs; Klaus W. Ruser, former Policy Planning and staff member at U.S. embassy in
Brasília; and Robert W. Zimmerman, Brazilian Desk at State Department. On the Brazilian side,
160
exchange of points of view’ about international affairs loosely defined. Quite unusually
for an arrangement between two foreign ministries, the talks would not reflect
government positions, but only the ‘personal’ opinions imparted by Kissinger and
Silveira to their respective teams with the sole purpose of ‘airing the intellectual
treatment of such questions’.39 The language was vague on purpose – expecting
disagreement, neither side wished to pay the cost of clashing in a formalised setting.
Even agreeing on the goal of the meeting was difficult. Kissinger had preferred a
conceptual tour d’horizon with no reference to details and outstanding bilateral issues.
Silveira was keen to tackle the overall ‘nature’ of bilateral relations and use the meeting
to press for the argument that it was paramount that Washington make a commitment to
politicise its ties with Brazil, responding more quickly and favourably to Brasília’s
requests. As the meeting began, there was no agreement as to what it should seek to
achieve.
For two consecutive days the group met for the most intensive debate on key
themes in world politics that American-Brazilian ties had ever seen. They discussed
their foreign policies, U.S.-Soviet relations, the Middle East, China, nuclear
proliferation, international trade, the North-South dialogue, the international energy
crisis, and the role and purpose of the OAS.40 Even when they dealt with broad
international issues that had little bearing upon their bilateral relationship, the two sides
could not agree on a single topic in the agenda. The way they thought about
international problems was simply too different. On the Middle East, whenever the
Ambassador Luiz A. Souto Maior, head of Silveria’s Cabinet; Ambassador Geraldo H. Cavalcanti,
advisor for Political Affairs; Secretary Luiz Felipe P. Lampreia, advisor on Economic Affairs; Secretary
José Nogueira Filho, Hemispheric Affairs; Councilor Paulo M. Lima, OEA; and Secretary Paulo R.
Berthel Rosa, Economic Affairs.
39
Relatório confidencial da reunião entre representantes da Assessoria de Planejamento do Departamento
de Estado Americano e os assessores do Ministro de Estado das Relações Exteriores, Brasília, 21-22
November 1974, AAS 1974.04.16.
40
Relatório confidencial da reunião entre representantes da Assessoria de Planejamento do Departamento
de Estado Americano e os assessores do Ministro de Estado das Relações Exteriores, Brasília, 21-22
November 1974, AAS 1974.04.16.
161
Americans spoke about the survival of Israel and oil prices the Brazilians pointed out
that a just solution to the Palestinian problem was a precondition to order and oil-price
stability. On the issue of North-South relations, Washington focused on specific
concessions to poor nations, while Brasília insisted on fixing commodity markets. In
regard to South America, both sides kept silence. (And there are no indications that
Kissinger was discussing regional problems via a backchannel with the Brazilian
military). With the benefit of hindsight, counterfactual thinking proffers a rather
substantial list of things the duo could have set out to do together: from mitigating the
existing friction between Chile and Peru to shape a common understanding of what to
do in the case of sweeping independence movements in the Guyanas and Surinam. After
all, in these areas the views of Brasília and Washington were basically convergent.
The Brazilians took the opportunity to make the point once again that the basis
for a policy of ‘consistent alignment’ with Washington existed no more. It was time,
they repeated, that the two countries learn to live with disagreement. And it was
paramount that Kissinger knew what he was getting into.41 Brazilian insistence, as we
will see, paid off. Kissinger soon became the first U.S. official to adopt the Brazilian
line: the relationship was secure enough in its foundations to allow for divergence.
But the actual implementation of engagement was more difficult than expected.
For once, administrative boundaries remained completely unclear. Where should the
project be located institutionally within State and Itamaraty? And what adaptations
ought to be introduced in these institutions to make room for such unusual arrangement?
Consider the first meeting. For a gathering that sought to air the ‘personal’ opinions of
Kissinger and Silveira this was a pretty structured arrangement. It was not an informal
group of personal envoys, but a meeting between people with permanent positions in
41
Silveira a Kissinger, telegrama secreto, Brasília, 18 December 1974, AAS 1974.03.18.
162
their respective bureaucracies. The attendees represented official interests that had been
defined previous to the actual encounter – and there is no indication that conversations
here led to changes in their respective views.
The U.S. team, for instance, came from the Policy Planning division at the State
Department – these men had no operational responsibilities but as a group they were
close to the Secretary. The group was a mix of career personnel and invited experts
whose major task was to conceive alternative scenarios for the short, mid and long term.
Their work focused on the broad picture of U.S. grand strategy, with an emphasis on
future trends. Only Einaudi knew Latin America well. Policy Planning hardly worried
about Brazil on a regular basis and its activities were not necessarily connected with
those of ARA and, more specifically, the Brazil desk. Nor were there any clear
guidelines as to how to feed Policy Planning with ideas and concerns generated at lower
bureaucratic levels. Not to mention coordination between Policy Planning and the
Pentagon and Treasury – the other two Executive-branch departments with an interest in
Brazil.
Itamaraty simply lacked a centralized hub to deal with the United States at a
level senior enough to make sure the various parts of the ministry integrated into a
centre for strategic thinking. Most in the Brazilian team worked in Silveira’s cabinet
and met him on a regular basis but this hardly made it easier for the ministry to have a
coherent, integrated policy towards the United States that could stand on its own feet
when Silveira was not there. By the same token, relations between Itamaraty and other
departments in the Brazilian Executive with an interest in the U.S. was largely
disconnected – further confirming that engagement as understood by the two parties
was a delicate policy to be retained at the highest levels, not a spontaneous move
towards greater proximity between the two governments.

163
Coordination in the field was also problematic. The American ambassador to
Brasília and the Brazilian ambassador to Washington were simply cut off from the
scheme. We know that Silveira found Ambassador John Crimmins both a nuisance and
obstructive. Crimmins ‘treated [Brazil] with presumption…he spoke too much…he was
like a bull that I received at my office and had to grasp by the yoke…the military
detested him’.42 Also, Silveira did not wish to share the spotlight with Araujo Castro,
who had been a prominent and influential foreign minister himself, and an ambassador
who had a personal rapport of his own with Kissinger.
All in all the first structured meeting undermined Silveira’s confidence in the
prospects for engagement. To him, the U.S. could simply not understand Brazilian
aspirations nor deal with them in an appropriate manner. The gap between the two
states was too wide to be abridged. He reported to Geisel that ‘It is essential that we
keep bilateral dialogue open but we should not expect in the near future that it will be
possible to see a close and, on the part of the United States, special mutual
relationship’.43
But neither the Secretary or the Foreign Minister were ready to abandon their
policy of approximation quite yet. Only days after the Brasília meeting Kissinger
reported to Silveira on President Ford’s visits to Japan, Korea, and the Soviet Union,
and Kissinger’s own shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. The chanceler reciprocated
the gesture with a brief account of his visit to Senegal.44 Silveira’s trip there mattered in
several ways, for it opened yet another window to move towards engagement.
42
Silveira Interview, tape 9, side A. See also Relatório confidencial da reunião entre representantes da
Assessoria de Planejamento do Departamento de Estado Americano e os assessores do Ministro de Estado
das Relações Exteriores, Brasília, 21-22 Nvember 1974, AAS 1974.04.16.
43
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 21 January 1975, n.
32, AAS 1974.03.26.
44
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 29 November 1974, AAS 1974.03.18. CPDOC/FGV; Kissinger to
Silveira, confidential, 28 February 1975, AAS 1974.03.18. CPDOC/FGV. Silveira a Kissinger, Genebra,
30 November 1974, telegrama secreto urgente, 1 December 1974, série chanceler n. 11, AAS 1974.03.18.
164
Speaking Portuguese
With the unravelling of the Portuguese empire, Brazil sought to project its own
diplomatic influence in Africa. Once the holder of about 8 percent of the African
continent, Lisbon now saw its possessions dissolve fast. Once a supporter of Portugal,
Brazil was now beginning to change tracks. Policy began to shift in the early 1960s
when Brazilian diplomats offered to mediate the relations between the newly
independent countries of Africa and the Western powers. Itamaraty set up an Africa
Division and opened its first embassies in that continent.
But Brazil still hesitated to support full-fledged sovereign states in lieu of the
Portuguese ‘overseas provinces’. In 1962, the Brazilian foreign minister raised the idea
with his Portuguese colleague that a way forward might be to set up a Portuguese-
Brazilian Commonwealth. The Brazilians were convinced that if referenda were to be
carried out in the colonies, public opinion there would vote massively in favour of such
body. Colonies would be encouraged to have representatives in the Commonwealth’s
secretariat and influence its decisions in exchange for suspending, at least temporarily,
their aspirations for sovereignty. Other influential diplomats in Brazil asked Lisbon to
come up with a calendar for progressive de-colonisation.45
In the early 1970s Brazil’s position still moved slowly. In 1971, Foreign
Minister Barboza visited nine African states signalling Brasília’s wishes to build up a
new policy to that continent, but none of his stops included any of the Portuguese
possessions; and two years later he arranged a presidential visit to Portugal. Medici and
his group thought it wise to remain ‘neutral’ as long as possible, making the twin
decision to cancel joint naval exercises with Portugal in the proximities of Cape Verde
45
Franco Nogujeira, Diálogos interditos – a política externa portuguesa e a guerra da África, vol I
(Lisbon: 1979), pp. 91-92, p. 99. In Amado Cervo and José Calvet de Magalhães, Depois das Caravelas:
As Relações entre Portugal e Brasil (Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 2000), p. 300.
165
(to avoid incensing the Africans) and suspend Petrobrás investments in Angola (to
avoid incensing the Portuguese).
Upon reaching office in March1974, Silveira’s first move was to outline a new
policy of support for independence.46 But the dramatic events taking place within
Portugal prompted him to speed up the process. In 25 April 1974, the Revolution of the
Carnations toppled the regime in Lisbon and within one year Guinea-Bissau, Cape
Verde and Mozambique gained independence, soon to be followed by the remaining
territories in Africa and East Timor in Asia.47 As we will see in the next chapter, as the
Revolution progressed in Portugal, Itamaraty established a network of contacts with
various anti-colonial factions in Africa, assuring its leaders that Brazil would be at the
forefront of diplomatic recognition when they declared independence. Before doing this,
Itamaraty consulted the U.S., West Germany, France, and Britain.48
Brazil’s new Africa policy did not tarnish relations with Portugal. On the
contrary, when Mário Soares became Prime Minister in December 1976, he made it a
point to make his first official visit abroad to Brazil, and the new Portuguese president
spoke of ‘indestructible ties of friendship’ uniting Portugal and Brazil.49 It was the
proximity of the Geisel administration with the new Portuguese regime that interested
Kissinger.
The Secretary feared that domestic instability in Portugal loomed large. With the
end of the salazarista regime (and the lifting of press censorship, paramilitary forces
and the secret police), the Communist Party and a plethora of Marxist-Leninist groups
had gained control of key positions in the government and the press, and the
conservative clique that had tried a counter-revolution failed. In 1975 alone nearly a
46
47
Kenneth Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995).
48
49
Resenha de Política Exterior do Brasil, Ministério das Relações Exteriores, n. 11, out-dez., 1975, p. 25.
166
million people fled the former colonies to Portugal, social protest in Lisbon saw some
30 deaths, and strikes became a common feature of the new political landscape. The
Portuguese government nationalized banking, transport, heavy industries, and the
media, while farm workers expropriated private land to install communal farming. A
fractious and unstable coalition of the Left came to dominate the scene, and Kissinger
feared that this may represent a broader trend of Communist-inspired popular
movements at the heart of Europe: after all, Southern Europe seemed to be poised for
change. This was the time when the Right-wing military junta in Athens collapsed and
the Italian Communist Party showed strength in parliamentary elections (June 1975).
Five months later, Franco’s death pushed Spain into a whole new political arrangement
where Socialists were prominent too.
But as the American ambassador to Lisbon put it, Portugal was too much of a
puzzle for any easy reading. Back in 1974 the Secretary had ordered him to harden the
U.S. message to key figures in the Portuguese political scene. The ambassador,
however, replied by saying that the Communist were not much of a threat and that it
was U.S. interest to side with moderate socialists instead than cling on to the remaining
figures of the previous regime – a recommendation that cost him his post.50
Silveira agreed with the U.S. ambassador’s assessment: there was no major
threat of a Communist takeover and the socialists were keen on slow change. To impart
this point to Kissinger, Silveira used as an example the fact that the new Portuguese
regime was bent on revising foreign policy only softly. He urged Kissinger to consider
that Lisbon had invited him, Silveira, the representative of state that Portuguese public
50
141, AAS 1974.03.26.
167
opinion identified immediately with a Right-wing dictatorial regime, for a visit. This,
Silveira implied, only confirmed the validity of American-Brazilian engagement.51
Again, we do not know how much Silveira’s views influenced those of the
Secretary of State. We do know, however, that during the State/Itamaraty meeting in
Brasília the American side was keen, as U.S. officials were in several other occasions
around this time, to hear Brazil’s appreciation of Portuguese politics. What we see
emerging is a new and unusual interpretation of the purposes of engagement: for here
Brazil’s role was not so much to help the U.S. fight the cold war in South America, but
help it nuance its position on key international issues (more on this below).
Domestic Difficulties
Never before had Itamaraty had to cope with volunteering views to the United States at
the highest levels on a sustained basis. To keep up the pace of his dialogue with
Kissinger, Silveira needed inputs that previous foreign ministers could do without. Not
only did he need updated analyses about the general shape of the world, he had to make
up his own mind about the best interpretations and translate them into prescriptions.
Prescriptions, in turn, had to be couched in a language that Kissinger could both
understand and relate to. In other words, in order to sustain the new arrangement
Itamaraty had to acquire new capabilities. In late 1974 such capabilities simply did not
exist.
In the United States, the conditions for engagement were fragile too. For one,
Washington found it difficult to obtain data about Brazil to guide policy. In February
1975, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) set up a Study Group on Brazil but could not find
suitable consultants to answer the many questions that the State Department and
51
Silveira a Kissinger, telegrama secreto, Brasília, 18 December 1974, número ilegível, AAS 1974.03.18.
168
Ambassador Crimmins wanted to see tackled. The solution was to invite General
Vernon Walters, now Deputy Director at the CIA, for a round of conversations.52
Walters, an architect of proximity with Brazil since the early 1960s, remained the main
source of insight about that country as far as 1975, showing that that institutionalising
the policy was far from easy.
Kissinger faced other domestic problems regarding his Brazil policy as well.
There was the issue of his own standing in the new administration. Increasingly he had
become a liability for President Ford, who was about to embark upon an election year.
In the 1976 Republican primaries, Ronald Reagan repeated that ‘Henry Kissinger’s
recent stewardship has coincided precisely with the loss of US military supremacy’.
Jimmy Carter in turn claimed the Secretary was ‘obsessed with power blocs, with
spheres of influence…Our policies are Kissinger’s ideas and his goals, which are often
derived in secret’. For the first time Kissinger’s authority was no longer secure, as many
suspected the White House may be ready to appoint a new secretary of state.
Progressively, détente became a bad word from which even Ford sought distance.53
Here Brazil had little importance. But since much of the opposition focused attention on
attacking Kissinger’s foreign policy, his initiatives as a whole came under threat. As we
will see, during the 1976 presidential campaign Carter would attack the Brazil policy
explicitly and on more than one occasion.
Furthermore, by now it was clear that Congress had expanded its clout over the
decision-making process to new levels. This added new burdens to the policy of
devolution to Brazil. If in early 1973 Nixon had overruled Congress to sale weapons to
the Medici regime under the more stringent conditions of the new Foreign Military
Sales Act, now things looked less positive – the 1974 Linowitz Report sponsored by the
52
Secretary to the Deputy Director to General Vernon Walters, the CIA, memorandum, 25 February
1975. NARA (Crest).
53
Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect, 449-54.
169
Council for Foreign Relations led Congress to quickly impose a cap on military sales to
Latin America and established country reports on human rights.54 But Kissinger kept
advocating for exceptions for Brazil.55 His supporting signals to Brasília were clear.56
But for all the Secretary’s commitment, the State Department remained hostile
to the Brazil policy, and often Silveira found it difficult to follow-up on decisions taken
in personal meetings with his colleague. This was particularly the case with regular
activities that needed daily coordination, such as the election of a new Secretary General
for the OAS. Down in Brasília, the Foreign Minister fumed.57
Opposite Readings
In the face of such contextual difficulties, Kissinger and Silveira derived opposite
conclusions on how to proceed. The former sought to advance, while the latter preferred
to retreat.
54
In financial year 1973/4, Brazilian military purchases of 28 American jets (F-5E-Tigre II) amounted to
60% of total US hemispheric sales (30 years later these aircrafts still made up the core of the Air Force’s
capabilities. ‘Novo F-5BR é caça que vai defender o espaço aéreo’, O Estado de S. Paulo, 2 January
2005).
55
‘Reports of human rights violations in Brazil have drawn considerable attention in the US Congress and
elsewhere. The extent of such violations and responsibility for them are difficult to determine with
precision, but there continue to be reports from a variety of sources indicating that mistreatment of
prisoners, including torture, still occurs. President Geisel seems firmly committed to cautious political
liberalisation, however…While provision of the proposed security assistance cannot be expected to
contribute to an improvement in the Brazilian human rights situation, neither can it be construed as
enhancing the capability of the GOB [Government of Brazil] to carry out repressive internal measures.
Nor should it be construed as US approval of such measures. On the other hand, we believe the
withholding of such assistance as a means of censure would provoke a reaction in Brazil which could
undercut Geisel and would seriously damage our bilateral relationship without having any positive effect
on the protection of human rights’. Deputy Secretary of State Robert S. Ingersoll to the President,
‘Presidential Determination: Sidewinder Missile Sales to Brazil’, confidential memorandum, the Deputy
Secretary of State, 16 April 1975, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs Staff: Files,
1974-77, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Library. And HAK to President, ‘Presidential Determination for Sale of
the Sidewinder Missile to Brazil’, confidential memorandum, 20 May 1975, National Security Adviser,
NSC Latin American Affairs Staff: Files, 1974-77, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Library.
56
Kissinger to President, ‘Waiver of Suspension of Foreign Military Sales, Credits and Guaranties to
Brazil’, confidential memorandum, 6 May 1975, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs
Staff: Files, 1974-77, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Library; The White House, ‘Sales, Credits or Guaranties to
the Government of Brazil under the Foreign Military Sales Act’, Presidential Determination n. 75-19, 9
May 1975, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs Staff: Files, 1974-77, box 1, Gerald
R. Ford Library. See also Silveira interview, tape 6, side B.
57
MRE a Embaixada em Washington, secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 9 June 1975, s/n, AAS 1974. 08.15.
170
After postponing his trip to Brasília yet another time, in April 1975 Kissinger
tried to make amends by offering the creation of a ‘trade consultative group’ for regular
consultations.58 What supported Kissinger’s concession? Again, the costs of instituting
such group were negligible when compared to the benefits that accrued from keeping
the spirit of engagement alive. In previous weeks American diplomats had hoped they
could benefit from Brazil’s growing activism.59 Silveira saw things under a very
different light. Since 1974, Kissinger had given the green light for preparations for his
trip to Brasília and three times he postponed it. The chanceler thought that the
preparatory missions for those meetings had all been dismal because the American
envoys (Luigi Einaudi, Samuel Lewis, and William Rogers respectively) had been non-
committal and reluctant to ‘tackle specific issues’, with nil progress on the trade front.
In international organisations the record of American-Brazilian informal cooperation
had not impressed the foreign minister either. To make things worse, Kissinger’s
influence in Washington was now clearly waning.60 In his eyes, this was hardly
engagement.
The very fears that had prevented the Medici administration from accepting the
rapprochement package at face value now seemed to come back to haunt its successor.
For all of Kissinger’s willingness and skills, it seemed as if there were forces at play
barring the United States from actually demonstrating a commitment to Brazil beyond
the register of protocol and diplomatic language. Silveira expressed his disgruntlement
58
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 21 April 1975, AAS 1974.03.18.
59
For American-Brazilian cooperation in Geneva, US Mission in Geneva to Secretary of State, ‘High-
Level approach to Peru and Brazil’, secret telegram, 2 April 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential
Country Files for Europe and Canada, box 13, Gerald R. Ford Library; for cooperation in energy matters,
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 15 April 1975, AAS 1974.03.18. See also Silveira a Kissinger, secreto
urgentíssimo, Brasília, 14 April 1975, n. 556, AAS 1974.03.18.
60
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Senhor Presidente da República, confidencial, Brasília, 18 March
1975, n. 89, AAS 1974.03.26. Embaixada em La Paz a MRE, secreto exclusivo, La Paz, 4 March 1975, n.
177, AAS 1974.04.23.
171
in a report to Geisel where he began to pave the way for a strategic shift, where
engagement was a tool to moderate and blunt American power.61
The U.S. continues to treat Brazil with certain paternalism – distrustful, it is true
– in an attitude that resembles condescendence…It is necessary [that they]
accept that we depart from the scenarios imagined for us…To the extent that
Brazil assumes a mature policy…divergences of interests with the U.S. multiply.
Many such divergences occur in themes that are negotiable and it is possible to
predict and hope that, with diligent effort, the two sides will find satisfactory
solutions. Others, however, occur in areas that are more fundamental and it
would be illusory to underestimate their significance. The two counties must be
prepared to coexist with such divergences and search cooperative formulas that
reduce their impact.62
Turning away from his earlier emphasis on the need to establish a bilateral commission
at the level of Itamaraty and the State Department, the chanceler now asked Geisel for
another chance to push for engagement, this time on a strictly personal basis. The plan
was for low profile cooperation, and the mode was wait-and-see.
Perhaps it would be better, for now, to keep the practice of informal
understanding at high level, parallel to the institutional [understandings].
Likewise, it would be inopportune to stimulate the practice of understandings
previous to meetings in international organisations at the level of delegations. In
the short term, policy understandings between the two governments should be as
centralised as possible in the two foreign ministries and at the highest levels to
61
141, AAS 1974.03.26.
62
141, AAS 1974.03.26.
172
avoid that bilateral problems appear or worsen, and to permit relations between
the two countries to develop as constructively as possible.63
The new mood in Brasília was best encapsulated in handwritten note sent to Silveira by
Geisel’s Private Secretary, ‘The Pres[ident] Rep[ublic] found the paper on relations with
the U.S. excellent. The conclusion is melancholic, which is not our fault’.64
Brazil’s Vision
The formula Silveira found to operate the transition from his previous vision of
engagement to one that lowered expectations whilst keeping Washington involved was
peculiar, but not new. This was the argument that Brazil’s best possible contribution to
world politics was the tenor and nuance of its ‘understandings’ of international
problems. As we saw, Brazilian diplomats had traditionally felt at greater ease with
framing and phrasing than with doing, a recurrent feature of the national foreign policy
culture that the activist drive never fully overcame. Now, Silveira thought it useful to
bring it onto centre stage in his dealings with Kissinger.
He thus set out to develop the argument that Brazil’s ‘vision of the world’ was
of intrinsic interest to the Americans. This was a model of association different from
that of Medici’s but also different from the expectation characteristic of the first months
of Geisel’s tenure that the American-Brazilian link could produce real policy and trade
solutions. Now Silveira was moving towards the looser notion that engagement was
about ‘conceptual dialogue’. The purpose was to discuss global problems at the highest
levels, a process out of which the U.S. would derive benefits enough to grant Brazil
special status and bind itself into protocols that emphasised ‘respect’ and ‘equality’.
Silveira put it in a letter to Kissinger thus:
63
141, AAS 1974.03.26.
64
Heitor Aquino a Silveira, nota confidencial, 28 April 1975, AAS 1974.04.14.
173
Increasingly I consider important that our consultations seek to contribute not
only to the relations between our countries, but also to what Brazil might add,
through this dialogue, to the treatment of some global problems…[Brazil does
not fit] in the role of conciliator but in that of interpreter of some legitimate
sentiments of the vast developing world…which are frequently misunderstood
because they present themselves, many times, shrouded in emotionalism or in an
irrational fashion.65
The letter shows the long distance between Silveira’s understanding of engagement in
April 1975 and the one he had embraced only a year before. Now the ambitions had
shifted: Brazil would not seek to introduce major new ideas to overcome intractable
problems in the bilateral relationship (mostly trade), but rather try to nuance U.S.
preconceptions about the world. There were no hints at policy coordination or any other
moves that might be costly for the State Department – not even the restatement that the
U.S. had special ties with Brazil. The core mechanism for this new understanding would
be ‘dialogue’, with Brazil acting as an interpreter of the wider developing world.
Brasília’s accent would fall on inequality and justice within global economic
governance, but again its contribution would be ‘intellectual’ rather than practical. It
followed that the pillar of engagement ought to be the personal confidences exchanged
between the chanceler and the Secretary of State, as opposed to structured meetings
between Itamaraty and State.
Kissinger liked the idea. When they met a month later, Silveira must have been
pleased that for the first time his interlocutor began to adopt his own formula to justify
disagreement – Kissinger spoke of a ‘desire to consult at least on major problems
despite mutual inability to agree on all issues’. Kissinger followed this by saying that he
65
Silveira a Kissinger, secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 23 April 1975, n. 603, AAS 1974.03.18.
174
had just issued instructions that State policy in the Western Hemisphere should be
consulted with Brazil. This, however, was precisely what Silveira feared. Consultations
on themes that impinged upon Brazilian interests too directly were unwelcome because
they would indeed damage the relationship with Washington. So his immediate
response was to say that consultations should go beyond the hemisphere, to avoid ‘too
many small accidents occurring along the road of good relations’. They agreed that
something ought to be done to revitalise the spirit of engagement, but never clarified
what.66
The Foreign Minister had a deeper reason to act as he did. The less commitment
with the U.S. at this point the better; for during his meeting with Kissinger he was
hiding the news about what many in his generation saw as Brazil’s greatest diplomatic
secret of all times.
The Power of Silence
Out of the large set of issues that made U.S.-Brazil relations difficult in the 1970s, one
topic stood out as particularly intractable: nuclear power. It was here that the Kissinger-
Silveira relationship faced its severest test.
Like other developing and Latin American countries since the mid-1950s, Brazil
sought to acquire nuclear technology.67 Efforts to this effect had been stymied by the
United States since 1954, when Washington had interdicted three German centrifuges in
the Port of Antwerp.68 Yet, in 1973 Brasília signed a contract with Westinghouse to
build a nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro, where local operators would run the plant but
66
Secretary of State to Embassy in Brasília, ‘Highlights of Secretary’s Luncheon for Silveira’, secret
telegram, 17 May 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2,
Gerald R. Ford Library.
67
Etel Solingen, ‘Macropolitical Consensus and Lateral Autonomy in Industrial Policy: The Nuclear
Sector in Brazil and Argentina’, International Organization 47/2 (1993): 263-98.
68
Norman Gall, ‘Atoms for Brazil, Danger for All’, Foreign Policy 23 (1976): 155-201.
175
have no access to the uranium-enriching technology. Later that year the first problems
began to arise between the Brazilian government and the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission when the latter decided to suspend all supplies to Brazil until further
notice, whilst upgrading the status of Arab buyers.69
This prompted the Brazilians to seek out alternative nuclear partners. Silveira
negotiated an agreement with the French and went as far as travelling to Paris to sign it,
although the French called it off at the last minute due to American pressure.70 It was
thus in record time and strict secrecy that the chanceler worked out an agreement with
West Germany that would grant Brazil the entire nuclear-fuel cycle. At the time this
was the most ambitious nuclear deal of all times, including uranium exploration and
mining, enrichment, fuel fabrication, spent fuel reprocessing, and the construction of
some 8 nuclear power plants. When Silveira and German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich
Genscher announced the agreement in June 1975 surprise struck all, not the least
Kissinger himself.
The driving motivation behind Brazilian nuclear ambitions was the need to meet
growing domestic energy demands and partake of the lucrative nuclear export market.
But there were justified concerns about the prospects for a Brazilian nuclear weapon.
After all, this was an authoritarian military regime with growing international-power
aspirations which had refused to sign the NPT. Indeed, Brazilian officials had affirmed
that they retained the right to conduct peaceful nuclear explosions if needed. An
important detail in the equation was that neighbouring rival Argentina was developing
an ambitious nuclear programme of its own and there were grounds for concern that the
historical competition for influence between the two most powerful South American
countries might now go nuclear.
69
Silveira interview, tape 14, side A.
70
Silveira interview, tape 14, side B.
176
The Brazil-Germany agreement had other problems too. It rested on unproven
technology (the jet nozzle method). Only a small number of officials at the presidential
palace, the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Energy and Mining had been involved
in programme design and negotiations, with the local scientific community banned from
negotiations and sidelined. Also, from the standpoint of the established nuclear powers,
it was unclear that Kraftwerk Union (the provider) would be able to keep close financial
and managerial control over Nucleobrás (the receiver).
Opposition to the programme inside Brazil was so intense that, even though only
a year before President Geisel had put the entire parliament in forced recess, Brazilian
congressmen in 1978 installed a Senate Inquiry Committee to assess the agreement and
challenge the administration. Public-opinion constraints and the agreement’s poor
implementation record in the end pushed the Brazilian military into setting up a parallel,
completely secret nuclear programme. This time it was the Navy (using the
ultracentrifuge method) and the Air Force (resorting to the laser-development
technique) that would move towards the acquisition of the fuel cycle.71 Such ambitions
remained untarnished but underfinanced all the way up to the 1990s, when the decision
was finally made to end the programme and join the NPT.
When confronted with the fait accompli of the new Brasília-Bonn agreement,
the U.S. response was to put pressure on the German government to increase and
tighten controls. Pressure was relatively mild at the beginning, not gaining impetus until
the arrival of Jimmy Carter to power in 1977, but sufficient to drive Germany to
acquiesce to bilateral consultations with Washington.72 Silveira was livid: bilateral
71
Michael Barletta, The Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, Center for International Security and Arms
Control Working Paper, Stanford University, 1997.
72
Embassy in Bonn to Secretary of State, ‘FRG-Brazil Nuclear Deal’, confidential telegram, 1 July 1975,
National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, box 6, Gerald R. Ford
Library. Secretary of State to Embassy in Brasília, ‘Brazil-FRG Nuclear Accord – Press Statement’, 18
177
understanding between the U.S. and Germany that bypassed Brazil was a major threat,
for it cast a shadow over the actual agreement with Germany and thwarted Brazil’s
autonomy in the world. In his view, U.S. concerns were largely commercial. The
problem for the United States, the chanceler’s argument went, was that its suppliers
might lose their position as the chief sources of nuclear power reactors in the
developing world, losing with it their virtual monopoly in the supply of enriched
uranium. In an attempt to pre-empt negative effects in Washington of the Brazil-
German agreement, he had advocated a visit to the U.S. by the Brazilian minister of
Mining and Energy to ‘convince the Americans that we are not betting everything on
one single partner and that there are possibilities of several [trade] initiative with
them’.73
It is no wonder that Silveira went to the press to denounce U.S. attempts to
negotiate safeguards with Germany ‘secretly and deviously’ at the expense of Brazilian
interests. Crimmins simply could not believe Silveira’s acrimony. The Geisel
administration had:
Considerable difficulty in believing that our laws have to be applied in the way
they are. There exists the standard idea that if we really wanted to, we could
avoid these actions, particularly in the case of Brazil, and that therefore when we
do take measures, it is a selfish, deliberate act with hidden motives. The factor of
distrust in our real purposes and actions is always present.74
June 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R.
Ford Library.
73
Silveira a Ministro de Estado de Minas e Energia, Shigeaki Ueki, confidencial, Brasília, 18 March
1975, AAS 1975.09.25.
74
Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Silveira Letter to Secretary on Shrimp’, confidential
telegram, 7 May 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3,
Gerald R. Ford Library; Embassy Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Brazil/FRG Nuclear Accord’,
confidential telegram, 10 May 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin
America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
178
For all the public fuss over Brazil’s nuclear agreement with Germany, however,
Kissinger and Silveira made all efforts to preserve their relationship intact. We see no
rebukes but meet instead with silence on both sides. Almost as if by not confronting this
major problem the two were hoping it would disappear. In an early May meeting in
Washington, they managed to stay clear of the nuclear issue altogether. Whereas we do
not know what they actually talked about, what is clear is that after the meeting
Kissinger sent reassuring signals to his colleague.
Dear Antonio:
Ambassador Crimmins told me about his talk with you…I was heartened by
your statement that the public discussion of this matter must not be allowed to
affect the present cordial and constructive relationship between our two
countries. Though we are concerned about the agreement, from the proliferation
point of view, I fully share with you this basic point.
We did not invite, and in fact regret, the public debate. We would have
much preferred that the matter remain in diplomatic channels. The short
statements which Foreign Minister [of Germany] Genscher and I made on June
16 were designed to lay to rest some of the misunderstandings which have
affected the press treatment of the agreement, and to calm the public temper. I
hope we have done so.
We understand and support Brazil’s desire to expand its use of nuclear
energy as a tool for development. Count on our cooperation and assistance in
your endeavor where Brazil considers it useful, to the limit permitted by our
overall nuclear policy. And let us continue to exchange views on our common
179
aim of avoiding the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the hemisphere. As
always, I look forward to having your thoughts.75
It is not clear what Silveira made of this letter. He could have interpreted ‘understand
and support’ in several ways. What is certain, however, is that he saw it as a green light.
The chanceler’s toughness had paid off once again (more on this in Chapter 5).
To Silveira it must therefore have looked as if silence might just work well, at
least for a while. The rationalisation was as follows: since the Brazil-FRG agreement
was to be interpreted as a strictly bilateral arrangement between Brasília and Bonn, by
ignoring U.S. pressure in public or in conversation with high-ranking officials in
Washington, Brazil was in effect avoiding a dangerous precedent. As he put it: ‘Not to
give out the idea that we are trying to explain something that we considered to be
perfectly legitimate’.76
Summary
Starting in 1974 the United States and Brazil worked towards an ambitious and
unprecedented form of engagement. Never before had this duo set out to coordinate
their respective foreign policies so closely, and never before had their leading diplomats
looked at each other so attentively in trying to get an improbable partnership on sturdy
feet.
On the American side, the motivations behind the renewed impetus for
engagement included increased concerns about the potentially disruptive powers of the
Third World and the perception that, as Brazil embarked on an activist policy
programme, it was useful to invest in forging closer ties with her. On the Brazilian side,
engagement was now seen as a tool to facilitate and legitimise the Geisel/Silveira
foreign-policy experiment.
75
76
MRE a Embaixada em Washington, secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 9 June 1975, s/n, AAS 1974. 08.15.
180
Personal affinity between Kissinger and Silveira did not cause the move towards
engagement, but it certainly made it far more likely to succeed. These men’s
simultaneous presence on the scene made all the difference because their unusually
frank and intimate relation lowered the costs of sustaining some form of joint
endeavour: they embodied the engagement plans in their respective governments and
bureaucracies, and whenever problems emerged that were intractable, personal rapport
came to the rescue either by facilitating dialogue or by sealing tensions with
reciprocated silence.
From the beginning, the obstacles to engagement were enormous. The two sides
could not agree on general themes of world politics or on the specifics of their
relationship. Kissinger found it difficult to sustain his attention to Brazil in a context
where his political position was weakening and congressional sensitivities grew about
policies that rewarded authoritarian regimes. In turn, Silveira felt he needed to be tough
on specifics even if the prospects of progress were dim, and express ‘autonomy’ from
American hegemony in ways that struck U.S. officials as rigid and militant. In such a
context, the incipient managerial systems in place were unable to bridge the gap and
foster systematic approximation.
In the course of some fifteen months, the two sides therefore changed their own
original views about engagement due to new perceptions about global trends and as a
result of increased bilateral interaction. Kissinger increasingly saw the project as a tool
to establish preferential relations with Brazil in an environment of flexible commitments
with the view to sponsor a few key initiatives related to the developing world rather
than with fighting the cold war per se. In Silveira’s eyes, engagement was a formula to
confirm autonomy from the United States whilst retaining its symbolic and practical
181
support. Unsurprisingly, then, where the Secretary emphasised personal rapport and
informality, the chanceler hoped for a formal agreement.
Coming from very different ends as they did, the two could nonetheless present
their project in unison: after all, the portrait went, theirs was a world where intermediate
states gained greater weight and could help inform the views of the strong; in turn, the
strong could resort to weaker partners to gain entry into areas of world politics they had
little knowledge of. In this sense, engagement promised to add value to American global
primacy and to Brazilian plans for autonomous activism.
This was the fragile, implicit consensus that Kissinger and Silveira had reached
in a year of relatively intense personal contact when crisis struck.

Chapter 5
CRISIS AND REVIVAL (1975)
In the second half of 1975 two mini-crises afflicted American-Brazilian engagement in
ways that brought its weaknesses to the fore. They referred to Brazil’s diplomatic
involvement in the independence of Angola and its vote at the United Nations on
Zionism. These events soured a relationship that, for all its problems, was becoming
increasingly close and confronted its leaders with the inadequacy of the policy
instruments at their disposal. There was a pervading sense at both ends that the
experiment was hitting a low from which it may not recover. It was this fear that
prompted the two sides to make the leap towards institutionalisation.
Changing Rationale
The North-South divide typical of the post-colonial order gained dramatic momentum
when a cartel of developing oil-producers in 1973 managed for the first time to unsettle
the foundations of the global economic order. This new situation impacted upon the
United States and Brazil strongly enough to transform the environment in which they
partnered up.
For the United States, the guiding priority was, in Kissinger’s recollection, ‘to
bring about a reduction of oil prices by breaking the power of OPEC… it became part
of our strategy to split off the non-oil-producing developing countries from their OPEC
brethren’.1 This opened up opportunities for peripheral countries such as Brazil to air
their views on the state of global economic management. The world was changing and
with it the reasoning informing devolutionary ideas. No longer geared towards fighting
1
For the two quotes, Kissinger, Years of Renewal, pp. 668 and 697.
183
Communism only, the model of structured liaisons with key developing states now
aimed to a large extent at diluting and taming the new-found powers of the oil-exporting
countries from the South.
The energy crisis transformed Brazil’s external environment as well. The first
impact was clearly negative: it helped bring the economic boom characteristic of the
late 1960s to a halt. But the second was positive: now Brazil appeared to be
increasingly relevant for the swift management of global economic order. Although not
a member of OPEC or a significant oil producer, Brazil was counted as a country that
mattered in the general trend towards including developing countries at key negotiation
tables. When Kissinger set up a network of bilateral commissions on science,
technology, and trade with the view to ‘appear forthcoming [to developing countries] so
that we are not outside of the process’, he picked up oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Iran and
Venezuela, but also Brazil.2 When the U.S. government sought to form an International
Institute for Industrialisation, Brazil was in the list of participants.3 And at economic
conferences Brazil was invited to sit with developing countries, some of which mattered
far more in the context of the energy crisis – Venezuela, Mexico, Argelia, Zaire, Egypt,
Nigeria, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iraq, Yugoslavia.
Transformations at the level of the global economic system therefore created an
environment where Kissinger and Silveira found it useful to get closer to each other. In
partaking of some form of consultation with the view to air the major themes of the
contentious North-South agenda, neither was pushing for a more solidarist
understanding of international society.4 Both were fixated on maintaining supply lines
2
Quote from Kissinger letter to President Ford, in Years of Renewal, pp. 734/5.
3
Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n.
14, AAS 1974.06.13.
4
For a solidarist view see Hedley Bull, ‘Justice in International Relations: The 1983 Hagey Lectures’, in
Kai Alderson and Andrew Hurrell, eds., Hedley Bull on International Society (Basingstoke:
Palgrave/Macmillan, 2000), 206-245.
184
from the Middle East at acceptable levels whilst exerting their respective country’s
special rights at the various negotiation tables. Without ever abandoning their own
realist credentials, they coalesced around the language of justice.
The State Department found the various proposals Silveira sent Kissinger on the
issue of commodities ‘clearly creative’ and were willing to support some.5 The
Secretary himself embraced the notion that Silveira had advanced for several months
that oil-market regulation should be linked to broader debates about commodities in
general.6 He also relied on the Brazilian chanceler to defend American positions in
multilateral fora.7
The Secretary’s quest for Brazilian support was not fanciful; there are
indications that Kissinger took Brazil relatively serious in this regard. When Silveira
proffered a set of comments on a U.S. proposal, the Secretary replied in some detail to
each point and asked for further inputs; he also sent an emissary to Brasília for detailed
consultations. The nature of Silveira’s analysis were highly critical of U.S. policy: plans
drawn in Washington were still too vague to attract developing-country support, the
remit of the North-South conference Kissinger proposed was bound to clash with that of
existing organisations where developing countries were well represented, and the
disproportionate attention the conference plans devoted to oil may well alienate weaker
states. Although there are no indications that Kissinger changed his positions as a result
of Silveira’s inputs, in is nonetheless significant that he should have cared to sustain the
exchange.8
5
Department of State, ‘Bilateral Talks During OAS GA’, confidential OAS Bilateral Book, National
Security Council, May 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America:
1974-77, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Library.
6
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 28 May 1975, AAS 1974.04.23. and AAS 1974.03.18.
7
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 28 May 1975, AAS 1974.04.23. and AAS 1974.03.18.
8
Silveira a Kissinger, secreto urgentíssimo, Brasília, 4 June 1975, n. 829, AAS 1974.03.18.; Kissinger to
Silveira, Washington, 12 June 1975, AAS 1974.03.18.
185
The emerging rationale behind engagement fitted well with Brazil’s strategic
problem: the need to reconcile its distrust and lack of enthusiasm for acting in
partnership with the United States with its desire for recognition and a greater say in the
world. In contributing ‘Southern’ views to Washington, Brazilian diplomats were
engaging in an intellectually lively but politically safe enterprise; while in seeking to
bridge the distance between the North and its fellow developing countries, it acted not
as a proxy, but as autonomous, and prestigious, polity. Kissinger rationalised Brazilian
behaviour like this: ‘Brazil used its Third World ties not to weaken the United States but
to achieve great-power status for itself…it used its Third World links to insist on a
common policy with the United States’.9 But whatever hopes the chanceler held about
finding a place for his country at the major economic tables, they were soon to meet a
sobering blow.
Geisel’s Break
When Silveira presented Geisel with plans to play an activist role in the preparatory
sessions for the upcoming world conference on energy, the president overruled him.
The president’s argument was straightforward: since Brazil depended heavily on oil
imports, any ‘militant position’ to bridge the divide between North and South was way
too risky, for Arab states might find Brazil’s move too hostile and decide to retaliate.
Brazil, the president said, was too weak to get entangled into such delicate situation.
Discretion rather than assertion, he concluded, was the key to navigate the oil crisis.
Geisel’s decision was unmovable. He had a precedent in the similar fears of French
9
Years of Upheaval, p. 741.
186
President Georges Pompidou, when the latter refused to partake of a coalition of oil
consumers in the moulds proposed by Kissinger.10
Nothing expresses more clearly the fundamental fracture at the heart of Brazil’s
middle-power project in the mid-1970s than this division between the president and his
minister. On the one hand, a cautious general in charge of presiding over the waning of
Brazil’s economic boom and managing an intricate political transition. On the other, a
hyperactive diplomat who rejected the proposition that only after mustering the
resources of the nation could a state set out to widen its ambitions abroad. Where the
former equalled international entanglements with risks and costs that introspection
could help eliminate, the latter saw foreign commitments as a powerful tool to enhance
wealth at home and expand the country’s influence beyond the border.
There were, however, no doubts about who dictated the rules, and it fell to
Silveira to devise a way to extricate himself from the tacit commitments he had already
made to Kissinger. But if intermediate states often find it difficult to gain access to the
small circle of powers that govern the international system, they face problems when it
comes to retreat after having made a prior commitment to participate. Because an
admission of impotence will surely damage the state’s standing in other fields,
backtracks often need to be pursued indirectly and by subtle means.
It was possibly with this in mind that, as he met Kissinger’s emissary, Silveira
put across a set of arguments that, irrespective of their intrinsic validity, brought
Brazilian cooperation with the United States on the oil question to a halt. The script
went like this. How could Brazil cooperate with the United States if the Secretary of
State and other members of the Executive branch held disparate views about the North-
10
For Geisel’s decision see Silveira a Geisel, Informação confidencial para o Sr. Presidente da República,
Brasília, 9 July 1975, n. 196, AAS 1974.03.26. For a summary of the French position see Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval, 897 and 903.
187
South divide?11 Also, because the oil question resulted from the Yom Kippur war and
not from real imbalances of oil supply and demand, he argued, the surest way to a
solution was that the United States suspend its support for Israel and extend a hand to
the Arabs instead. In the third place, the chanceler said, Brazil was above all concerned
with coffee negotiations, not with oil. And because coffee consumers proposals had
been ‘entirely disruptive’, not to mention the tiring ‘game’ played by irresponsible small
producers from Central America, Brazil was now seriously considering unilateral
measures such as underselling, regardless of consequences for the export earnings of
third parties. Silveira also said that all the United States could expect from Brazil during
the conference was that it be ‘frank in private and moderate in public [and] support a
moderate consensus’. More could not be done, he insisted, because Brazilian ‘influence
was limited’.12
Finally, to signal a fundamental divide between the Brazilian and the American
positions, he returned to the theme of Kissinger’s hegemonic presumption. The problem
was, he said, that Washington was narrowly defining membership to the group of states
that comprised the West, alienating those which, like Brazil, felt part and parcel of it.
He wrote in strong terms against the ‘Presumption, slightly paternalistic, that seems to
exist in the position of the developed countries. You refer to the determination of the
U.S. to ‘resolve’ the problem of developing-country commodities’.13 At home, he
criticized the fact that ‘Recently, Secretary of State Kissinger has repeated, for instance,
the expression ‘industrialised democracies’, which seems to delineate the contours of
11
Robinson to Secretary of State, ‘GOB Reaction to Producer/Consumer Dialogue Plan’, confidential
memorandum, 10 July 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America,
box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library and Robinson to Secretary of State, ‘Discussion wit Foreign Minister
Silveira on Producer/Consumer Dialogue’, confidential telegram, 12 July 1975, National Security
Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
12
Robinson to Secretary of State, ‘Under Secretary Robinson’s Consultations in Brazil’, confidential
telegram, 14 July 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3,
Gerald R. Ford Library.
13
Esboço de carta de Silveira a Kissinger, Brasília, 21 July 1975, AAS 1974.03.18.
188
what he considered to be the Western alliance’.14 The strategy fulfilled its intended goal.
Kissinger’s response was cold, distant, and did not mention the issue of oil once.15
Yet, as Silveira might have feared, retreat also meant letting go of a window of
opportunity. Brazil had willingly abandoned the battlefield when, starting in September
1975, the Secretary launched a diplomatic offensive to put the United States at the
forefront of North-South initiatives. In only six months Kissinger advanced specific
proposals to frame world debates on trade, finance, and technology; and to create an
International Institute for Industrialisation, an International Institute for Energy, and an
International Bank of Resources. The new bodies would be autonomous from the
United Nations and run by boards-of-trustees defined according to state donations
where Brazil had no say. 16
Now Silveira began to make new overtures for a structured bilateral commission
to institutionalise American-Brazilian engagement. But Kissinger turned them down
explicitly. When the chanceler insisted, the Secretary retorted that things between their
two countries would ‘eventually evolve’ that way, but not just now. What he waited for
exactly is not clear. It would take two mini-crises to prompt him to make the leap.17
Angola
Pressed by revolution at home and mounting pressures abroad, in early 1975 Portugal
set out to devolve power to Angola’s three major liberation movements. In a rush,
Lisbon declared it would bring down its flag for the last time in Luanda on 11
14
‘Recentemente, o Secretário de Estado Kissinger vem repetindo, por exemplo, a expressão ‘países
democráticos industrializados’, que parece explicitar os contornos do que ele considera ser a aliança
ocidental’. Conferência secreta do Ministro Silveira na Escola Nacional de Informações, Brasília, 12
September 1975, AAS 1974.05.27.
15
Kissinger to Silveira, Washington, 27 July 1975, AAS 1974.03.18.
16
Informação confidencial para o Sr. Ministro de Estado sobre iniciativas institucionais norte-americanas
na área econômica, circa 1976, AAS 1974.04.16.
17
See Robinson to Secretary of State, ‘Discussion wit Foreign Minister Silveira on Producer/Consumer
Dialogue’, confidential telegram, 12 July 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for
Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library and Robinson to Secretary of State, ‘Under Secretary
Robinson’s Consultations in Brazil’, confidential telegram, 14 July 1975, National Security Adviser,
Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
189
November 1975, irrespective of the arrangement to follow. It fell to the three warring
movements – the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA – to find a formula to coexist.18 Because
of ethnic and ideological divisions they failed to reach common ground. As civil war
came to dominate the Angolan scene, foreign involvement soared in the months leading
to the independence ceremony and consulates from around the globe closed doors.
It was in this context that the Geisel administration made the decision to be the
first sovereign entity to establish itself formally in Angolan territory before the
declaration of independence. The plan also included the establishment of contacts and
cooperation projects with the upcoming leadership. Here there was a Right-wing
dictatorial regime in Brasília renowned for its anti-Communism and its diplomatic
support for Portugal, now recognising a liberation movement across the Atlantic where
the winning faction, the MPLA, made no secret of its Marxist inspiration.
The operation in mid-1975 of installing the seed of what would later on become
the first embassy ever to set foot in Angola was riddled with difficulties of which Brazil
had little previous experience. First of all, the recent record was poor. When a Brazilian
emissary tried to establish friendly relations with the independence movement in
Mozambique in September 1974, his overtures met silence, as happened on five other
occasions. And when Mozambique celebrated its own independence ceremony it issued
no invitation to Brazil.19 The independence leaders probably had not forgotten that in
18
The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) was Luanda-based, Portuguese-speaking
and represented the Mbundus tribe. The Marxist inclinations of Agostinho Neto, its leader, won it the
support of the USSR, Cuba, East Germany and Yugoslavia. The Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola
(FNLA) had its concentration in the Northwestern border with Zaire. Dominated by the French-speaking
Bakongo tribe, it had close relations with Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko. Its leader, Holden
Roberto, had been a CIA retainer since the 1960s. It was him who received support from the United
States, China, Romania, India and Algeria. Finally, the União Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola (UNITA) was made of the Southern Ovimbundu tribe. It received support from South Africa,
China, Romania, the United States, North Korea and, eventually, the FNLA. Jonas Savimbi, its leader,
continued to fight until he was killed in 2002.
19
Guerreiro a Silveira, Brasília, 18 June 1975, SG/101, Maço Memoranda Gabinete, caixa 135, 1975,
AHMRE. For a summary of the Brazilian measures taken to elicit responsiveness on the part of
Mozambique see Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, 22 April 1976,
n. 159, AAS 1974.03.26.
190
the Brazilian 1964 coup the new regime had burst into their offices in Rio de Janeiro to
lock them up and extradite them to Portugal. Whereas Itamaraty wanted to be at the
forefront of new African state recognition, as the CIA would put, ‘because of Brazil’s
historical involvement in the African slave trade and its [traditional] tacit support of
Portuguese foreign policy, it is only slightly less resented than the Portuguese
themselves’.20
Secondly, Brazil had to act and be seen to act as an impartial foreign observer in
the most intricate context. By the end of 1975, however, the former colony had become
stage for CIA agents, Cuban and South African troops, funds from the U.S., China and
the Soviet Union, and the mercenaries, advisors, and secret services of East Germany,
Great Britain, France, Romania, India, Israel, Algeria, Zaire, Uganda, North Vietnam
and North Korea. In this context, Brazilian diplomats had to establish contact with the
three contending independence movements in order to gain acceptance for their ‘special
representation’, and conduct business until 11 November as if they had no favourites in
the Angolan internal rift. There are strong indications, however, that from the outset the
Itamaraty leadership clearly preferred MPLA to any of the other factions – this was the
faction of the Portuguese-speaking urban middle classes based in Luanda, the seat of
national power, under the leadership of Agostinho Neto, a man who had the respect of
Silveira and his Africa team.21 The new Brazilian posture would of course create
problems for Silveira in his relations with Kissinger: after all, the chanceler represented
a country that had been singled out for devolution in the hope that it may help the
20
CIA, ‘Brazil: Gambling in Angola’, Latin American Trends, secret, 19 November 1975, p. 4. NARA,
CIA Records Search Tool (Crest).
21
For my ‘strong indications’ claim see Depoimento do Embaixador Ovídio de Andrade Melo ao ser
homenageado na Comissão Permanente de Relações Exteriores e Defesa Nacional da Câmara dos
Deputados, no dia 15 de agosto de 2002, por ocasião do Seminário sobre Política Externa do Brasil para o
Século XXI, realizado nos dias 13, 14 e 15 de agosto de 2002 (available for downlad at
http://www.mre.gov.br/daop/Angola%20-%20Depoimento.htm); Ovídio de A. Melo, ‘O reconhecimento
da Angola pelo Brasil em 1975’; and Silveira a Kissinger, 22 April 1976, AAS 1974.06.13.
191
United States fight Communism in South America, not encourage its expansion in
Africa.
In the third place, the Brazilian representative had to run a diplomatic
representation in a city devastated by war and evacuated by every single other foreign
representation. Not only it was difficult to find food and water, but one morning in
August there were no less than 3,000 white Angolans outside the representation asking
for visas to embark to Brazil.22 Just before independence Brazil granted some 5,000
entry visas a month.
Events in the run up to the declaration of independence threatened the Geisel
administration in Brasília with its first international crisis. It was an example of how
costly an activist foreign policy could actually be for a country that was simply
unaccustomed to entangle itself abroad, and do so without strong domestic support. The
existing accounts of those making decisions highlight the sense of risk and uncertainty
that dominated both Itamaraty and Planalto. Even the group of diplomats who were
decisively committed to an activist, forward policy were reticent and the chanceler
himself was surely uncertain and possibly very fearful. A fiasco in Africa would set
foreign-policy reform in general off course, undermine abertura, and may well make his
position untenable in the administration.23
When domestic pressure increased as Independence Day approached, Silveira,
who embodied the expansionist drive, went quiet. When the Angolan authorities made
trade overtures and put in requests for humanitarian assistance, there was no Brazilian
response. And although Geisel had promised to sign a presidential decree opening an
22
Zappa a Silveira, secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Luanda, 5 August 1975, no number, AAS 1974.08.19.
23
Silveira a Zappa, telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Brasília, 5 August 1975, no number, AAS
1974.08.19; Silveira a Zappa, telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Brasília, 5 August 1975, no
number, AAS 1974.08.19.
192
embassy in Luanda in the early hours of 11 November 1975, in the aftermath of
independence the presidential signature was delayed one month.24
If delivering a new Africa policy was a major challenge in itself, preventing the
new policy from affecting relations with the United States was one of equally large
proportions. Since 1974 Silveira had been liaising with Kissinger on Brazilian moves in
Angola.25 The argument was not new: Brazil could effectively bridge the gap between
the various independent movements in that country on the one hand and the West on the
other because of its understanding of both ‘mentalities’. It is not clear what Kissinger
made of this at that point. But he did not look to Brazil in any significant way when
American policy to Angola began to turn.
From the standpoint of Washington, two major factors gave the Angolan
independence a meaning in the picture of the global cold war that it had lacked before.
First, the fall of Saigon under Communist forces in April 1975 was bound to make
leaders in Washington confront developments in former colonies in the Third World
with trepidation. In mid July President Ford approved a covert-action plan that
transferred some US$ 30 million plus an arms package for the FNLA via Zaire. The
CIA began to recruit mercenaries from various countries and indeed it tried to gain
permission from the Brazilian secret services to do so in Brazil, but to no avail.26 (There
are no indications that either Kissinger or Silveira were aware of the CIA attempt to
recruit in Brazil at the time, but it is a question that future historical work will have to
24
Melo, ‘O reconhecimento...’.
25
26
John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: a CIA Story (London: Andre Deutsch, 1978), 184.
193
clarify). Along with U.S. funds, the FNLA had received Chinese and North Korean
monies, as well as Zairean para-commandos.27
Consistent with American preferences, in mid October the South Africans
launched Operation Zulu, whereby troops would cooperate with UNITA to approach
Luanda from the South. This, however, set the course of the Angolan independence
onto a whole new direction. For now Fidel Castro made up his mind about stepping up
his support for the MPLA. In November, Havana airlifted thousands of troops and
additional military aid in what became known as Operation Carlota. Without consulting
Moscow first, Cuba had raised the stakes dramatically. When Agostinho Neto declared
Angola a sovereign state on 11 November, there were some 12,000 Cuban operatives
active in the country. The Ford administration, once bent on keeping a relatively small
secret programme in place, would now need more than mercenaries to make an impact
on the ground.28
The Cuban presence in Angola then became the second factor pushing the
United States into the conflict, and Kissinger decided to go public. A day after the
declaration of independence, the Secretary told the press that the United States would
not recognise the existence of Angola until Cubans acting there returned home. This
created enormous problems for Silveira. It was not simply that Brazilian policy had
been unadvisedly consistent with that of Communist Cuba to the horror of the military.
But the chanceler now looked like a fool: for all his alleged rapport with Kissinger, he
had been in the dark about the Cuban operations. Silveira’s disappointment was mixed
with the sentiment that better coordination may have lead to different outcomes. He told
Ambassador Crimmins ‘I whish Henry had made that statement four months ago’. In his
report to Kissinger, Crimmins suspected that, had the spirit of Brazilian-American
27
Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (University of
North Carolina Press, 2001); Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy.
28
Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect, chapter 18.
194
engagement worked in the months leading to the Angolan episode, ‘the course of Brazil
policy…might have been different’. We now know that in his appraisal he was
correct.29
Why did Kissinger not seek to liaise with Silveira before going public? Why not
try to convince a recipient of U.S. devolution to let go of its ambitions to be the first
state to set up shop in Luanda on the eve of the declaration of independence?
One possible answer is that neither Kissinger nor anybody else in Washington
found the Brazilian presence in Angola particularly relevant in the grand scheme of
things. Such an interpretation, however, is unsatisfactory. In the run up to the
independence festivities, the Secretary of State had placed great emphasis not only on
the military side of the Angolan equation, but also on its diplomatic implications. The
issue of recognition of the new country mattered in important ways. Consider for
instance Kissinger’s late September attempt to convince the Chinese to increase their
involvement in Angola just before the 11 November.
I will be precise. Roberto [of FNLA] and Savimbi [of UNITA] have to be
stronger. I get daily reports of Soviet military shipments to Luanda. It is
mathematically certain that Neto [of MPLA] will prevail unless Roberto and
Savimbi are strengthened – or else when the Portuguese leave Neto will take
over. So unless Roberto and Savimbi are strengthened, then there will be no
agreement between the three liberation movements and the African
governments…I understand that Chinese arms are held up somewhere. It is
important that Roberto and Savimbi control the large part of Angola before
29
For Crimmins, Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State, ‘Cuban Clandestine Military Support for
MPLA in Angola’, secret telegram, 17 November 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country
Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library; for evidence that Brazil would have acted
otherwise, Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 13
November 1975, n. 307, AAS 1974.03.26.
195
independence. Otherwise Neto will declare independence and go to the UN. Our
people think this is a soluble problem if we act quickly [emphasis added].30
So Brasília’s policy in Luanda was in effect working at cross purposes with American
interests. What the Brazilians were hoping to do was precisely to hear Neto declare
independence, recognise it, and mobilise support for swift third-party recognition.
Minor as it may have been from the standpoint of Angola’s future, Brazil was the only
state with an open representation in Luanda before independence, promising early
recognition, political support, and trade and technical expertise to the future
government. Why, then, did Kissinger not even signal his dissatisfaction?
Part of the answer has to do with Kissinger’s inhibition to bring up the issue not
just with the Brazilians, but with any interlocutor at all. Not only this had the potential
to become another Bay of Pigs type of disaster; it was one that, if overt, would disclose
the real extent of U.S.-Chinese cooperation in undermining the expansion of Soviet
influence in the Third World. This would be disastrous to détente as much as it would
be a major blow to Beijing. Not until November did the Secretary bring up the issue
with the Soviets (and even then Moscow, for its own reasons, refused to respond).
Kissinger’s reluctance to speak about Angola had another motivation too. In the context
of post-Watergate foreign policy, revelations about the real extent of the American
involvement in Angola were likely to elicit the staunchest congressional backlash.
Indeed, Congress eventually turned down White House’s requests for aid and imposed a
suspension of all transfers to Angola-related operations unless they were appropriated in
the budget.
Kissinger’s silence cost Silveira dearly, for the chanceler came under a barrage
of domestic criticism.31 He now began to hold Kissinger responsible for not informing
30
Memcon: Kissinger, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, et al., September 28, 1975, box 332, Lord Files, PPS, RG 59,
National Archives. Quoted in Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect, p. 417.
196
him of the Cuban presence in Angola at an earlier stage. Crimmins reported the
following lines:
We have had…indications that Silveira appears to consider the Secretary’s series
of statements about Soviet and Cuban involvement to have been directed at
Brazil specifically. This frame of mind is absurdly egocentric, of course, but the
indications are pretty strong.32
There was not much the chanceler could do but to try to come up with a way of
repackaging the Brazilian activities in Angola in ways that mitigated domestic
opposition and that eased strains with Kissinger.
It was here that he began to argue that Brazil’s Africa policy was in effect in the
interest of the United States. By having a partner in Angola, and indeed in other newly
independent states in Africa, the U.S. would actually gain because Brazil was a
moderating influence. Its policies ‘reduce[d] the excessive dependence of those states
on Communist support and, in consequence, exert[ed] a moderating influence in the
evolution of the African continent’. 33
It was this message that he agreed with Geisel to convey to Kissinger on the eve
of the February 1976 Secretary’s visit to Brasília. And it was the form in which this
message was eventually delivered that will give us insight into some of the fundamental
problems at the heart of the Brazilian-American attempt to engage. But before that, we
must turn to the other mini-crisis that burst the bilateral scene.
31
CIA, ‘Brazil: Gambling in Angola’, Latin American Trends, secret, 19 November 1975, p. 4. NARA
(Crest). For Silveira’s defense, Conferência secreta do Ministro Silveira na Escola Nacional de
Informações, Brasília, 12 September 1975, AAS 1974.05.27.
32
Embassy in Brasília to Assistant Secretary Rogers, ‘Secretary’s Bilateral With Foreign Minister
Silveira’, confidential telegram, 15 December 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files
for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
33
Silveira a Kissinger, telegrama secreto, Brasília, 18 December 1974, number illegible, AAS
1974.03.18. and Embassy in Brasília to Assistant Secretary Rogers, ‘Secretary’s Bilateral With Foreign
Minister Silveira’, confidential telegram, 15 December 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential
Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
197
Zionism Matters
On 17 October 1975, the UN General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural
Committee met to discuss a draft resolution equating Zionism with ‘a form of racism
and racial discrimination’. If approved, the piece would then have to pass a vote at the
General Assembly plenary a week later.
There was no doubt that the United States would flatly reject the proposition.
The U.S. representative called it an ‘obscene act’ and a ‘supreme act of deceit’. In
Brazil, Silveira’s own choice was for an abstention, but one that Geisel did not accept.
The Brazilian ambassador to the UN had informed from New York that the vast
majority of Latin American countries would approve the resolution, and the president
saw it fit to follow the regional majority. All in all, however, on the eve of the vote this
was a minor theme both in Washington and Brasília. And certainly a tangential one for
Kissinger, who was in China, and for Silveira, who was in London.
But the vote came as a blow. The text condemning Zionism won the vote 70 to
29, with 27 abstentions. The shock in the U.S. delegation matched the rhetoric of its
ambassador: ‘The fascists in Chile and some like-minded military regimes are lining up
with the anti-Semites’.34 In Brasília, Geisel realised he had been poorly informed: only a
handful of Latin American states had cast their votes as predicted (Mexico, Chile,
Guyana, Cuba and Brazil). His immediate response was to say that Brazil would abstain
in the plenary, as his chanceler had originally proposed.35 And yet, an unexpected twist
rendered that choice impossible.
Eager to rebuke hemispheric opposition fast, the State Department, without
consulting Secretary Kissinger, issued formal protests to the four Latin American
dissenters (Cuba received no protest note for it had no formal relations with the United
34
For quotes, see New York Times, 18 and 19 October 1975.
35
Wálder de Góes, O Brasil, p. 30.
198
States). In Latin American eyes, everything about this note was offensive. It asked the
recipients to change their votes, a most unusual diplomatic procedure; and it reached the
four capitals in Latin America at the same time it reached the American press.
Crimmins told Silveira that, had Kissinger been present in Washington, Brasília would
have never gotten such note.36
Few gestures could have hurt Brazilian sentiment more badly than a non-
negotiated, widely advertised request from Washington that couched an expectation of
that order in formalistic language. Seen from Brasília, this was hegemonic presumption
at its purest, and one that needed the strongest rebuking least it opened a dangerous
precedent for the future. Although in Itamaraty it was clear that the American
accusatory and recriminatory tone was a move for the TV cameras and the Jewish lobby
in an electoral year, Geisel was adamant to raise the stakes.37
Had Silveira been in Brasília, he might have been able to argue otherwise.38 But
when a formula for bilateral engagement rests primarily on the shoulders of individuals,
their absence from the scene is bound to suspend existing predispositions for
partnership work. Geisel thus made the decision to stick with a condemning vote for the
plenary as well.
What may have otherwise been a minor incident in the life of Brazilian-
American engagement, now gained relevance because it offered Silveira a unique
opportunity to win Kissinger’s attention once again. Although he had preferred not to
antagonise Washington directly with the Zionist vote, once the damage was done the
chanceler set out to exploit the dividends of this mini-crisis.
36
See Silveira Interview, tape 6, side B; and Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da
República, Brasília, 13 November 1975, n. 307, AAS 1974.03.26.
37
Castro a Silveira, telegrama secreto urgente, Brasília, 27 October 1975, série chanceler 23 e 26, AAS
1974.06.13.
38
199
His tactics were two-fold. Whenever he met Kissinger, he would recall the vote
episode as evidence that the failures of engagement lay on the lap of the State
Department. Although he did not go beyond this point, he was in effect enticing
Kissinger to make a bold personal commitment to elevate relations with Brazil at the
expense of the bureaucracy, bypassing the maze of decisions and revisions that, in his
view, had helped render engagement so ineffectual.
In addition, Silveira was making a broader point about the costs associated with
an American devolutionary policy towards Brazil. The signals he gestured at were
rather precise: Brasília did not expect major material contributions in exchange for its
active support of the U.S.-led order. But it would be simply impossible for any Brazilian
leader to sustain a policy of engagement with Washington unless the Americans were
careful about showing ‘respect’ and ‘equality’. Brazil’s ability to accept American
devolution rested on the premise that such devolution was not perceived to be an
expectation of Brazilian deference. Only if the U.S. relinquished all hopes that Brazil
acted as a proxy would leaders in Brasília be able to show flexibility and engage. In
other words, to satisfy Brazil’s partnership requirements Kissinger would have to pay a
high symbolic price. Many years later, reflecting upon the Zionist episode, Silveira said
that it ‘Allowed us to put relations with Kissinger where they should be. Had there been
no firm adaptation, he would want to impose other things’.39
Silveira’s contentions worked. Kissinger had now made up his mind to visit
Brasília with the view to sign some form of agreement to consult regularly along the
lines of the several proposals the chanceler had advanced during the past two years for a
permanent bilateral commission.
39
200
But Silveira’s manipulation was not the only factor prompting Kissinger to take
engagement to a higher level. Since August 1975 the Bureau of Intelligence and
Research at the State Department had been reporting on the weakening of Geisel’s
position among the military.40 Ambassador Crimmins had reported for months that
within such context Silveira had become one of the major targets of domestic opposition
to the General’s rule. Because hardliners were constrained in their room for manoeuvre
to attack the president directly, they found foreign policy the easiest flank to press. After
news about Cuban troops in Angola and the Zionist vote, ammunition had come at
Silveira heavily. Even Crimmins, whose relation with Silveira was proverbially
difficult, urged his bosses in Washington that Kissinger come to Brasília to his
colleague’s rescue: ‘A visit by the Secretary [to Brasília] would be a boost for Silveira,
and he certainly could use one’.41 Public-opinion pressure on Silveira, the CIA added,
would only push the Foreign Minister further into activating the anti-American mode.
Silveira’s highly nationalistic posture, which often spills over into anti-US
positions, has won him credit with the generals and enabled him to get away
with actions that otherwise would rankle him.42
But the assessment was partial. As shown before, striking a balance between proximity
and autonomy from the United States was important for the regime in the context of
abertura. But the motivations behind their increasingly nationalist, militant, and tough
positions in all things involving the United States ran deeper.
40
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, ‘Brazil: Hope for Political Liberalization
Dampened’, report n. 74, secret, 13 August 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files
for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford Library and Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department
of State, ‘Brazil: Military Conservatives in Ascendancy’, secret report, n. 108, 5 September, 1975,
National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford Library.
41
Embassy in Brasília to Assistant Secretary Rogers, ‘Latin American Trip’, confidential telegram, 14
November 1975, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald
R. Ford Library.
42
CIA, Brazil: Foreign Policy Angers Military, Latin American Trends, secret, 17 December, 1975, p. 5.
NARA (Crest).
201
To an extent it was disappointment at what they saw as Kissinger’s inability to
deliver on his promises for engagement and sustain his commitment to Brazil. But it
was also about the fundamental values the president and his foreign minister held
dearest. They believed with fervour in the intrinsic value of foreign-policy autonomy.
To both of them, nationalism was one, if not the most effective tool to enrich the nation,
strengthen the state at home, project its influence abroad, resist hegemonic pressures
from the U.S., and defend the governing regime.
Although neither sought to alienate the United States, and their brand of
nationalism did not equal anti-Americanism, any signal that might be interpreted at
home as capitulation before Washington would set off the alarm in their minds. In this,
Geisel and Silviera faced a fundamental problem: how to reach a good working
arrangement with the hegemon, what they called relação madura (mature relationship),
if such arrangement was premised on American manifestations of equality?
It was in this context that Kissinger decided to reach out to Brazil once more and
Silveira once again began the preparations to receive the Secretary in Brasília. Battered
by a series of intractable problems and two mini-crises, the two were keen to proceed.
Agreeing on a new vision for engagement is what they had to achieve first.
Institutionalising Engagement
The American Problem
Kissinger began to consider institutionalising engagement with Brazil in September
1975, before the Angola and the Zionist episodes. He reassured Silveira that, this time,
he would overcome resistance inside the State Department. Back home, the Foreign
Minister gave an assessment to Geisel in a language that was cautious, careful and
calculating, but one that could hardly conceal his excitement.

202
Brazil, Silveira argued, ought to take the overture as an opportunity both to
elevate the profile of the bilateral relationship and to limit and constrain U.S. positions
in a range of negotiations. The new scheme would be most suitable if it were presided
over by the Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister personally. Also, because Brazil
had learned the hard way that American intentions and its actual policies was not one
and the same thing, any such mechanism should first pass a probationary period of one
year. After the test, subject to mutual approval, it could then be renewed indefinitely.43
These recommendations fulfilled two of Silveira’s goals at once. First and
foremost, it secured his own prominence in the process of recovering engagement.
Secondly, imposing a test of resilience on the United States, the chanceler was in effect
pushing the State Department in general and Kissinger in particular to deliver as much
as possible in the 12 months leading to the election and inauguration of a new White
House. (Or it may be that, suspecting a Democrat victory would entail the suspension of
engagement, Silveira sought to prevent too high an expectation on the part of his boss
and public opinion).
But the foreign minister’s exultant mood was brief. For when he wrote to
Kissinger to further specify their September conversation, he received no answer. It
must have been unnerving to hear no response for two consecutive months, especially
during the events leading up to Angola’s independence and the Zionist Vote. By
November, when a telegram from the State Department finally reached Silveira’s office,
it was to say that, yet once again, the Secretary’s visit scheduled for November would
have to be postponed to January of the following year. In December, a new letter
reached the Foreign Minister, stating this time that January was no good, but a
provisional date could be found for late February. He must have been disgruntled and
43
Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto, Nova York, 27 September 1975, série chanceler 35, AAS
1974.03.26. and Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 1
October 1975, n. 284, AAS 1974.03.26.
203
embittered as he flew out to Paris on the second week of December to discuss the
energy crisis and meet Kissinger in person once more.44
How to account for Kissinger’s silence? The point has been made before that
Brazil never commanded more than a minimal share of Kissinger’s attention even as the
idea of revamping the relationship gained momentum in the context of the Nixon
Doctrine. It was Kissinger’s voluntarism and personal interest first in rapprochement
and then in deeper engagement that sustained the flow of information, relatively strong
personal ties, and the rituals of consultation with his colleagues in Brasília. The Brazil
policy existed only as far as Kissinger was able and willing to bring it to life. The
systematic postponement of a visit to Brazil was but the clear reflection that, in his
schedule, other problems came first.
Add to this the fact that the bureaucracy, if opposed to a particular aspect of the
engagement project, could in effect paralyse it. We have seen before that Ambassador
Crimmins was highly suspicious of the suitability of a devolutionary policy to Brazil.
He had been, after all, the chairman of NSSM-67, the 1971 study that had advocated
against singling out Brazil in the context of the Nixon Doctrine. American interests in
Brazil, now the ambassador retorted, should be confined to dissipating friction over
trade.45 The remaining problems, he intimated, stemmed from Silveira’s caprice: ‘I
believe that…the Secretary should not succumb to Silveira’s pressure for an
acknowledged ‘special relationship’’.46 The ambassador’s contention embodied the
44
45
46
Crimmins to Assistant Secretary Rogers, ‘Possible visit by Secretary to Brazil’, confidential telegram, 7
January 1976, 7 January 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America,
204
bureaucratic problem afflicting engagement with Brazil: that Brazil qualified as a key
partner was a questionable proposition.
The issue would not go away. But in September 1975, as Kissinger decided to
move forward, the Brazilian strategy of policy diversification began to bear its first
fruits, vindicating the Secretary’s choice.
Brazilian Linkages
A year into his tenure, Silveira’s attempts at signing a consultative mechanism with
Britain worked. Smooth and uncontroversial, the UK-Brazil relation could rest on a
decentralised network of contacts between mid-level echelons in Itamaraty and the
Foreign Office, including the set up task-forces, study groups, and ready access to the
appropriate Government departments.47 But more important, contextual change in
British foreign relations now made Foreign Secretary James Callaghan develop a new,
more positive appreciation of Brazil.
Callaghan hoped Silveira might help in toning down some of Guatemala’s
rhetoric on the issue of Britain’s neighbouring possession, Belize. The future Prime
Minister also hoped Brazil could help dilute the anti-British positions of Argentina and
Chile on the thorny issue of Antarctica, going as far as to suggest that London would be
delighted to help Brazil open shop there too. Additionally, there are indications that the
Foreign Secretary saw it fit to consult with Brazil on two overriding British concerns:
negotiations with Buenos Aires over the Malvinas/Falkland islands and the return to
London of a British doctor who had been tortured by the Pinochet regime and might be
willing to speak up before the British press, forcing Downing Street to harden relations
47
See the text of Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Federative Republic of
Brazil and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Concerning
Consultations on Matters of Common Interest, London, 21 October 1975. Also, Silveira a Geisel,
Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 12 June 1975, n. 180, AAS 1974.03.26.
205
with Santiago.48 In turn Silveira saw the British connection with renewed interest as
well. London could work as a transmission belt to reach the Organization of African
Unity, not to mention that it also supported a suspension of U.S. direct involvement in
Angola.49
Although the initial promise of the UK-Brazil rapprochement would soon begin
to wane, Silveira reaped two important positional goods.50 First, a visiting British
official spoke publicly of his surprise to find in Brazil a pluralistic society where dissent
with government policies in the press was ‘comparable if not superior’ to the Western
democracies.51 Second, as we saw before, now London issued an invitation for a State
Visit to Geisel that had the effect of encouraging Paris and Tokyo to do the same.
Thus it was with a British card under his sleeve that on 16 December 1975
Silveira arrived in Paris for a meeting with Kissinger.52 In recent months, given Angola
and the Zionist vote, the secretary and the foreign minister had not argued or tried to
48
Silveira para conhecimento do Presidente da República, telegramas secretos, Londres, 23 October
1975, série chanceler 14 e 15, AAS 1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto exclusivo
urgentíssimo, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n. 14, AAS 1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel,
telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n. 15, AAS
1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n. 16, AAS
1974.06.13.
49
Unable to address that forum directly, Silveira hoped to convey a few important messages: that Brazil
was going to stay its course in Angola, that it wanted to cooperate with Mozambique, and that it opposed
plans aired at the Organisation to partition Angola between the major tribal factions. Silveira para
conhecimento do Presidente da República, telegramas secretos, Londres, 23 October 1975, série
chanceler 14 e 15, AAS 1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Paris, 16
December 1975, série chanceler n. 14, AAS 1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto exclusivo
urgentíssimo, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n. 15, AAS 1974.06.13. Silveira a Geisel,
telegrama secreto, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler n. 16, AAS 1974.06.13.
50
When in January 1976 the Foreign Office’s Undersecretary of State for Latin America visited Brasília
to discuss Malvinas/Falkland and Belize, he met silence. When he offered cooperation for a Brazilian
entry into Antartica, Silveira declined. They discussed Angola but could not agree. MRE a Embaixada em
Londres, telegrama secreto urgente, Brasília, 14 January 1976, n. 53, AAS 1974.08.27.
51
British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan to Minister Silveira, London, 6 January 1976, AAS
1974.08.27. De Ted Rowlands para Silveira, Nota pessoal, Londres, 21 January 1976, no number, AAS
1974.08.27. Embaixada Britânica em Brasília para MRE, Nota pessoal secreta, Brasília, 23 January 1976,
n. 017/1 AAS 1974.08.27. Roberto Campos a Silveira, secreto exclusivo, Londres, 30 January 1976, n.
158, AAS 1974.08.27.
52
On the US side, the delegation also included Assistant Treasury Secretary Parski and Assistant
Secretary for Economic Affairs State Department, Charles Robinson. On the Brazilian side there were
ambassador to France Delifm Netto, Ambassadors Paulo Cabral de Mello and Fernão Bracher and
Counselor Luiz F. Lampreia.
206
improve things, and had kept a sepulchral silence instead. To Silveira’s surprise, the
meeting was remarkable.
Kissinger expressed unhappiness about the way the American embassy in
Brasília had been handling the relationship and railed against State resistance to
prioritise Brazil. The Secretary complained about communication problems inside the
State Department even when it came to his correspondence with Silveira (in Kissinger’s
words, the one foreign minister who had received more private letters from Kissinger
than any other). On Angola, he acknowledged that it was a US mistake not to have
discussed the issue of Cuban troops with Brazil at an earlier stage – Silveira had, he
said, acted in good faith.
Kissinger then took what had been Silveira’s line for months: under current
circumstances, Brazil was the only state to keep an open door for the West in Luanda.
He went further: to him, the reason why Brazil mattered so much to the U.S. was that it
had sufficient influence to be able to penetrate certain regions of the world where
Washington simply had no diplomatic entry of its own. 53
There were no doubts, the Secretary said, that Brazil was the key hemispheric
country and he would therefore make it a point to fly out to Brasília to sign a
memorandum of understanding formalising engagement. Although State had insisted
that any arrangement be informal and at ministerial level rather than in the form of a
commission presided by the Secretary and the Minister, he had made up his mind. Only
through a formal mechanism, he reassured Silveira, would he be able to make sure that
the United States had a special relationship with Brazil. Many years later, Kissinger
wrote that the memorandum would ‘oblige us to take into account Brazil’s interests in
international forums and in other key aspects of our overall foreign policy. It also had
53
Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto-exclusivo, Paris, 16 December 1975, no number, AAS 1974.06.13.
207
the potential to become the beginning of a new hemispheric partnership’.54 Back then,
he insisted, the tool would be didactic for the US government as a whole. Would
Silveira agree to have the two sides meet at least twice a year?55
The chanceler could have hardly expected for anything better. After months of
silence, Kissinger was now volunteering out of his own accord that which Silveira had
expected to receive without asking for: a firm American commitment to lock in
institutionally the recognition of Brazil’s rising status in the world.
In his report to Geisel, the foreign minister attributed progress to Brazilian
resilience and diplomatic agility. This was, he argued, the triumph of his strategic
design: a policy of widening Brazilian contacts that forced upon the major powers the
recognition that this was an increasingly important actor in world diplomacy. Enduring
the drama of Angola’s independence and standing up to the State Department on
occasion of the Zionist vote had not been in vain. As he wrote to his boss, ‘[Kissinger’s]
visit will have results that ten months ago would have been unattainable’.56
Kissinger’s Commitment
Reflecting the continuing fracture of American policy to Brazil, Kissinger never
informed his ambassador to Brasília of the contents of the Paris meeting with Silveira.
Nor did Crimmins receive any information of the Secretary’s decision to fly out to
Brasília in late February. Five weeks before the actual trip Crimmins was still in the
54
Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 743.
55
Silveira a Geisel, telegrama secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Paris, 16 December 1975, série chanceler
n. 14, AAS 1974.06.13.
56
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 13 February
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
208
dark, and when he found out about it, it was not from a Washington telegram, but from
an Itamaraty confidential source.57
The ambassador stuck to his previous position that ‘the Secretary should not
succumb to Silveira’s pressure for an acknowledged ‘special relationship’’, and was
willing to raise the stakes. He reported to Washington that Silveira represented an
obstacle for better U.S.-Brazil trade relations. To him, the Secretary should prioritise a
liaison with Brazilian finance minister Simonsen, who had raised the possibility of
countervailing-duty agreement. It was better, he wrote, to keep the relationship at the
level of sub-groups on economic and trade issues where the finance minister would
probably have a strong representation.58
Crimmins was not alone in trying to slow Kissinger down. Both the White
House and the State Department argued for caution regarding engagement with Brazil.
The Western Hemisphere bureau at State had argued for one meeting a year with the
Brazilians rather than two. Kissinger overruled that, only to meet similar opposition
from the NSC.59 But the Secretary prevailed. By early 1976, Kissinger recalled in his
memoirs, ‘Brazil, ever practical, was cautiously exploring to see just how much its
margin of maneuver might have increased…[Events] enabled [it] to reassert a formal
claim to a special relationship with the United States’.60 The Secretary was adamant to
respond positively. The actual form of his response, however, remained unsaid.
57
Crimmins to Assistant Secretary Rogers, ‘Possible visit by Secretary to Brazil’, confidential telegram, 7
January 1976, 7 January 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America,
58
Crimmins to Rogers and Fishlow, ‘Finance Minister Simonsen’s Proposal to negotiate Bilateral
Solution to Export Subsidy – Countervailing Duty problem – Embassy’s comments’, confidential
telegram, 2 February 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box
3, Gerald R. Ford Library.
59
Stephen Low to Scowcroft, ‘US-Brazilian Memorandum of Understanding on Consultations’,
confidential memorandum, 2 February 1976, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs
Staff: Files, 1974-77, box 1, Gerald R. Ford Library.
60
209
The Brazilian position
In Brazil, Silveira wanted the agreement to establish ‘high level consultations, between
autonomous parts dealing under equal conditions’.61 The accent here was on the
recognition of Brazil’s growing importance in the world and, consequently, of its
special rights. Here it is important to highlight a distinction that often goes unnoticed in
the specialised literature on Brazilian foreign policy. The problem for Itamaraty was not
so much one of liberty – since the 1960s its diplomats had in effect been able to act as
they saw fit, be it in their dealings with the Communist world or in their activities in
neighbouring South American states. If anything, as we saw, the ideological obstacles to
the enlargement of Brazilian foreign agenda came from within not from without.
Accordingly, in trying to secure U.S. recognition, Silveira’s purpose was not so much to
receive a blessing to Brazilian ambitions to do more abroad. Rather, it was about seeing
Brazilian behaviour as a legitimate enterprise that needed no explaining or justification:
the choice of an autonomous polity which, as a full-fledged member of the small group
of states that mattered, could do as it wanted without the great-powers expecting to be
asked for permission.
This is what Silveira had in mind when he said that Washington ought to accept
once and for all that the Western community was ‘open and dynamic and insusceptible
to be interpreted unilaterally; granting Brazil the right to feel part of it and act in it as an
61
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
210
equal’.62 Hence his contention that one of the purposes of engagement was to help the
U.S. ‘assimilate the versatility of Brazilian foreign policy’.63 The choice of verb here is
important: according to the Foreign Minister this was not a matter of the US ‘accepting’
Brazilian behaviour, but of ‘assimilating’ it. The stress is on the American need to
absorb, embrace and integrate Brazil’s rising profile into its grand strategy. In other
words, Silveira’s target was not U.S. intransigence, but the hegemonic presumption that
reserved Brazil a lesser place in the world.
Coincidence in freedom is more efficient than automatic alignment. The
expectation of alignment hurts common sense and sensitivity. It assumes a
hierarchy of values in the interests of those who are considered subordinate and
it hurts their self-love. Paternalism and condescendence, when not intervention,
well-intentioned or not, provoke the need for contestation or affirmations of
independence.64
Thus the difference was crucial in Silveira’s eyes between U.S. leadership, which Brazil
was content to accept, and what he called comando hegemônico (hegemonic command),
that he despised. Whereas the former could exist in a context of equality between
autonomous entities, the later introduced an element of subordination which Brasília
found threatening. Silveira’s obsession was to avoid that ‘the interests of one party may
be considered subordinate to those of the other’.65
In this sense, the Brazilian priority in the run up to Kissinger’s visit was to turn
the bilateral memorandum of understanding into a formal tool to restate and confirm the
American recognition of Brazil’s autonomy. In Brazilian eyes, the memorandum

62
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 13 Feburary
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
63
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
64
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
65
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
211
therefore had two roles to fulfil: to be a shield against American pressures and a
springboard for American concessions. The first part of the proposition required a
formula the prevented U.S. interference in businesses that Brazil considered too delicate
and a model that gave Brazil ample space to turn down American requests. The second
part required a concept of burden-sharing where the U.S. took up the bulk of the costs
inherent to engagement.
Brazilian preferences had immediate impact on the Geisel/Silveira conception of
the upcoming visit. South America, for once, should be kept off memorandum limits.
Silveira’s elliptical contention was that ‘[The memorandum] finds few opportunities to
be put in practice in the context of the inter-American system’.66 To bring the region in
would be to accept that the memorandum was an expression of American hopes that
Brazil might act as a regional proxy or as a target for devolution in the spirit of the
Nixon Doctrine. South America was an area where U.S. interests were manifold and
complex, prone to disagreement with Brazil, and one where Brazil had historically
conducted a policy of caution that at times passed for non-policy. This was the policy of
a mammoth state surrounded by ten contiguous neighbours – none of which questioned
their territorial boundaries with Brazil, but all of which still had some form of territorial
disputes among themselves. Any interference by great powers in the South American
environment represented a major threat for Brazil, a regional power that had grown
accustomed to peace and the benign indifference of the strong.
Additionally, Geisel and Silveira hoped to tailor a memorandum whereby the
U.S. made special economic and trade commitments not because Brazil would give
concessions in return, but because it was an inherent American interest to see Brazil
66
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
212
modernise fast and someday take up greater (but unspecified) responsibilities in the
world. The U.S. should therefore:
[Abandon] any concern with quid pro quo in the measures to be taken, because
what we are searching is, precisely, to reduce differences [between the U.S. and
Brazil]. The ‘compensation’ will occur in historical terms, and it will be reached
by the capacity of Brazil to operate effective in the future, in the Western
community…[Because] in the past the balance of political relations between the
two countries was detrimental to Brazil, it is natural that in a phase of re-
equilibrium more reassurances of independence and equality are necessary.
That, the U.S.A. need to understand, does not represent, necessarily, as they
often assume, an ‘anti-American’ attitude.67
It followed from such conception that any signals from Washington that it was difficult
or impossible to deploy special concessions would reflect the inexistence of
engagement. The memorandum, the argument went, would be valid only as far as there
were palpable demonstrations of support for Brazil’s modernising drive. As Silveira put
it, engagement ‘makes no sense on a merely intentional plain…The disposition of the
American Executive to find resources to implement its policy to Brazil will be the
primary test’.68
Here Brazil’s position was either extremely naïve or extremely shrew. Either no
one at Itamaraty knew that a state, even a superpower, would simply not embark upon
an agreement of this nature if it had to invest in it unilaterally whilst the other side made
only the vaguest commitments for future cooperation; or the imposition of such
demanding criteria needs to be seen as a machination by Geisel and Silveira to conceal
67
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
68
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 13 Feburuary
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
213
the fact that, in the end, they thought Brazil was better off without too serious a
commitment to engagement.
We therefore see that there was a wide gap in understanding separating the two
sides. Each one of them embraced different criteria to attest the validity and relevance
of engagement. To the fundamental question ‘How do we know there is a special
relationship between the United States and Brazil when we see one?’, answers were not
in unison.
But as he prepared to receive Kissinger in the early weeks of February, Silveira
saw no reasons for concern. On the contrary, signals coming from Washington were all
encouraging. When Republican Senator Jacob Javits on a brief trip to Brazil in January
backed down in the face of Silveira’s response to a note on the country’s poor human
rights record, the Foreign Minister saw it as a reassurance that Kissinger would not
bring the issue up in any significant way.69 Also, his attempts at emptying the Kissinger
visit of all specifics besides the signing of the memorandum had gone unchallenged. He
had been adamant to avoid a working meeting where room might open up for trouble;
instead, he simply expected ‘a political gesture of large scope’.70 This is what he got.
Summary
As a result of the Angola and Zionism crises, the United States offered Brazil that
which Brazil had hoped to receive without asking: a formal engagement agreement to
normalise the relationship, make it more predictable, and lock-in future administrations.
Kissinger did so because costs were low and because it was now clear in his
mind that the devolutionary policy to Brazil could be particularly useful to advance
American positions in the increasingly terse relations between the industrialised world
69
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 7 January 1976,
n. 9, AAS 1974.03.26.
70
1976, n. 61, AAS 1974.03.26.
214
and the emerging South. There are indications that contributing to help Kissinger make
up his own mind there was Brazil’s linkage strategy, whereby Silveira set out to use the
record of his activities in Africa and Europe to sensitise the secretary of state. In
pushing for formalisation, however, there was very little Silveira could give out, given
the very narrow domestic constraints within which he set out to engage a major power.
The new arrangement was premised on an unstable combination. In the U.S.
bureaucratic opposition to Kissinger’s view was unflinching: to many, if not most, it
was unclear that Brazil deserved special status. In Brazil, leaders understood that the
agreement should entail American unilateral trade concessions in exchange for the
promise of future cooperation. That the Secretary of State was committed to move
forward nonetheless is what we see next.

Chapter 6
ENGAGEMENT FORMALISED (1976)
Kissinger had not set foot in Brazil in almost fourteen years. Back in 1962, a young
professor at Harvard with a book on nuclear politics on the best-seller’s list, he had been
invited by Araujo Castro ‘to spice things up a little at Itamaraty’ and to deliver a
conference at Escola Superior de Guerra.1
Now as secretary of state he was greeted with enthusiasm. Reports in the
Brazilian press were systematically positive about the Memorandum the secretary and
the foreign minister were about to sign. The Veja weekly’s headline said ‘What is good
for Brazil may also be good for the United States…the best partner not always is the
one that only says yes’.2 It was an ironic reference to a statement issued in the aftermath
of the 1964 coup, when the incoming foreign minister had said ‘What is good for the
United States is good for Brazil’. In the aftermath of Kissigner’s trip, a U.S. intelligence
appraisal noted that ‘The special US-Brazilian relationship that evolved after the 1964
revolution no longer exists’.3
This chapter deals first with the politics behind the Memorandum of
Understanding the two sides signed in February 1976, the new structures it introduced,
and the balance of costs and benefits that it imposed on each side. It then turns to the
new dynamics the Memorandum introduced and its treatment in the U.S. presidential
campaign later that year.
1
Veja, 11 February 1976.
2
Veja, 25 February, 1976.
3
Defense Intelligence Agency, ‘Brazil’s view of changes in US relationship’, secret, 16 April 1976,
National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford Library.
216
The Brazilian Problem
In Brasília the Secretary was accommodating to his hosts’ request, offered a substantial
package of concessions and posed no demands in return.4 He and Silveira agreed that
meetings should be relaxed, without a fixed agenda. In their first meeting, they talked
about the upcoming presidential elections in the United States, agreed to meet again
under the memorandum’s umbrella later that year, and set up working-groups on law of
the sea, bilateral trade, and non-traditional sources of energy.
It fell to Silveira to bring up Angola. Here he restated the principles of Brazilian
policy and chided his colleague once again for leaving him in the dark about Cuban
troops until so late the previous year. ‘The United States and Brazil cannot be half-
allies. The United State cannot hide certain information from Brazil. We did not know
you were intervening in Angola. We would have taken this into consideration. You said
nothing to me’.5 Why did the Foreign Minister bring the issue up once again? And why
the recriminatory tone in a meeting that was supposed to be candid and without
surprise? For answers we need to briefly return to the preparations for the meeting.
Crimmins had told the chanceler that Kissinger would probably like to discuss
Angola in one of their private meetings. Silveira’s preparatory position paper
exemplified what he thought the Memorandum ought to achieve.
The U.S. and Brazil, it read, shared a basic strategic objective: to help bring to
an end the Cuban presence in Angola. Because force and covert action were ineffective
tools for that end, it was paramount to manipulate the Angolan scene politically to
4
The Secretary’s Party included Assistant Secretary William Rogers, Harold Saunders (Director, Bureau
of Intelligence and Research, State Department), Luigi Einaudi (Policy Planning Staff), Stephen Low
(NSC), the secret services, secretaries, and the press.
5
Quoted in Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 742.
217
render the Cuban presence first unnecessary in the eyes of the MPLA, and then a
burden. Such strategy, Silveira recommended, could be pursued in four steps.
First, the U.S. should lead an international initiative to suspend foreign support
to the warring factions and the recruitment of mercenaries. Second, a multilateral
statement would pledge observance of Angola’s territorial status quo, with Washington
signalling clearly to Pretoria that it meant it. Third, the U.S. and Brazil should lead a
diplomatic campaign to rally political and diplomatic support for Angola, thus enticing
the MPLA to turn to the West rather than toward Moscow. Finally, pressure on the
MPLA to discard Cuban troops should not be pursued directly least it alienate its most
moderate figures, but in a low-key manner and through the Organisation of African
Unity.6
If this paper reflects Silveira’s broader vision of what American-Brazilian
engagement should achieve, then we can begin to contour what it is he had in mind. As
we see, here he did not plan to do much together. The Brazilian contribution is
conceived in terms not so much of doing, but in framing problems and adding value to
potential solutions. As Silveira saw it, Brazil’s specific contribution was in interpreting,
commenting and suggesting tactics and strategies to the Secretary of State with some
minimum degree of coordination.
But illustrating the fundamental problem of the Brazilian conception, when it
came to present these proposals to Kissinger, Silveira pulled back. Although the
Secretary showed his concern twice about the Cuban presence in Angola, the chanceler
simply asked his guest whether the U.S. had plans of recognising the new government
in Luanda any time soon. Kissinger retorted with a yes, but with the proviso that his
6
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 13 February 1976,
n. 63, AAS 1974.03.26.
218
government would only do so after an ‘expressive number’ of African countries did so
as well. And this is as far as the conversation on Angola went.7
Why did Silveira keep silent when Kissinger appeared to be open to debate?
Why not put forward the proposals he had prepared only a week earlier? On the basis of
currently available documents, it is still early to reach an answer. But the clues to this
problem may lie in the proposition that Silveira’s position cannot be equalled with that
of his boss, President Geisel. Upon reading his Foreign Minister’s policy
recommendations, the President may have well decided otherwise. It was him, after all,
who was the strongest voice for restraint when it came to refrain Silveira’s enthusiasm
for activism in general and engagement with the United States in particular.
For Silveira, the principle in which name engagement ought to rest was the
general convergence of values and interests between the two states, and the American
willingness to recognise Brazilian foreign-policy autonomy in the wider world. This
was a career diplomat whose vision reflected a concern with the power and influence of
the state abroad, where the most precious goods diplomacy could ever achieve were
essentially intangible.
But Geisel saw things from a different angle. His vision of power rested on the
material capacities of the state and the resilience of the regime he had helped put in
place twelve years before. It is therefore no cause for surprise that, as Kissinger began
his first meeting with Geisel by speaking of Brazil’s growing importance in the world,
the president came back at him quite rigidly. Such intimations, the president retorted,
might reflect the Secretary’s personal feelings, but they were an inaccurate
representation of the beliefs of the wider American government and public. These,
Geisel said, remained wedded to a ‘distorted vision’ of Brazil whereby the country was
7
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 27 February 1976,
n. 79, AAS 1974.03.26.
219
a military dictatorship that did not ‘deserve’ the type of support implied by the
memorandum of understanding the two governments were about to sign. Geisel was
referring to the growing critique in U.S. circles about the abuses by the Brazilian
dictatorship. His instinct was to defend the regime; his greater concern not Brazil’s
relative standing in international society, but calmness abroad and at home so that he
may manage the transition away from authoritarianism.
Kissinger, who improvised by saying that electoral politics favoured such
distortions, reassured the president that the U.S. had enough problems at home to worry
about the domestic trajectory of others. He then suggested that criticism in the U.S.
would diminish significantly if the president visited Washington at his earliest
convenience. Securing Geisel’s acceptance for a visit was perhaps the only palpable
outcome, besides the actual signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Kissinger
expected from the visit. Mrs. Nixon had invited the General informally when she
attended his inauguration in March 1974. Subsequently, President Ford had extended a
formal invitation in 1975. Because that was the period of highest tension around the
Germany-Brazil nuclear agreement, Geisel had said he would return with an answer the
following year: ‘Don’t call me; I’ll call you’.8 Now both the White House and the State
Department insisted on a visit too (State argued that Brazil had been particularly
cooperative on the North-South agenda).9
But now, as he invited his host in person, Kissinger could not get him to accept.
The president turned the proposal down with a rhetorical question: how could he
possibly justify a visit as long as the U.S. government did not find a way to circumvent
8
9
Stephen Low to Scowcroft, ‘Proposed dates for State Visit by Brazilian President’, confidential
memorandum, 21 January 1976, National Security Adviser, NSC Latin American Affairs Staff: Files,
1974-77, box 15, Gerald R. Ford Library.
220
the detrimental effects upon Brazil of the new American Trade Act? Primary sources
suggest that Kissinger was not prepared for this. Only three weeks earlier Silveira had
told Crimmins that Geisel may well accept an invitation this time, specially if it
followed his State visit to Britain and if it included a weekend at Camp David.10 As we
will see, to Silveira’s dismay and to American surprise, later in 1976 Geisel turned
down yet another invitation. Why would a Latin American president, anti-Communist
and eager to build better relations with the United States, refuse a visit after four
consecutive invitations and the pledges of his own Foreign Minister? Why not travel to
Washington when other high-level visits had been scheduled for London, Paris, Bonn
and Tokyo?
Geisel’s calculations were domestic, but not for the reasons he gave to
Kissinger. Because proximity with Washington had no consistent support in either end
of the Brazilian political spectrum, travelling there could damage the president’s ability
to control his abertura programme. In this sense, Geisel in 1976 had less space for
manoeuvre than Medici in 1971. The latter had no abertura to carry out and presided
over a society that was tightly closed under the regime’s grip.
Kissinger’s Concessions
Kissinger was determined to make as many concessions to Brazil as he could. He did
not link them to specific requests, and they are best seen as an attempt by the secretary
to restore the spirit of engagement that the mini-crises of 1975 had helped dissipate. So
when he met the Brazilian economy and planning ministers, who had prepared lists of
commodities they hoped could get preferential access to the American market and a
draft bilateral agreement to normalise subsidies and countervailing duties, Kissinger
10
Crimmins to Secretary of State, ‘Possible trip by President Geisel to US’, confidential telegram, 30
January 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 3, Gerald R.
Ford Library.
221
committed himself to rally support in Washington.11 He also promised the Brazilians to
press Robert MacNamara, President of the World Bank, to ease restrictions to loans for
hydroelectric-power ad iron-ore development in Brazil.12
Meeting Geisel once again at the national stadium during a football match, the
secretary went further (General Geisel had asked the Brazilian football team to train
there especially for his guest). This time Kissinger told Geisel and Silveira that he had
just issued new orders for support, without reservations, of the text of the Tripartite
Agreement on Safeguards between West Germany, Brazil and the IAEA. Astonishment
now overwhelmed the Brazilian side. For days prior to the visit, Brazilian and German
diplomats in Vienna had worked frantically in negotiations leading to an agreement that
ought to have a clear majority at the IAEA governing body or else be returned to the
negotiation table. Only two days before Kissinger’s utterance at the stadium, the
Brazilian ambassador to Bonn had cabled Silveira saying that he was convinced that it
was ‘essential to obtain some U.S. definition, that is clear, in our favour’. And only two
days before that, Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs and close Kissinger
associate, Joseph Sisco, had been openly unfavourable to the project of the trilateral
agreement.13
Indeed, with hindsight Kissinger’s was both a major and a controversial
decision. Only a year later the Carter administration would mobilise the new secretary
of state, the national security advisor, the vice-president, the first lady, and the president
himself to suspend and renegotiate the trilateral agreement. Had Kissinger cleared his
11
Reunião do Secretário de Estado Kissinger no Palácio do Planalto com o Ministro Reis Velloso e Mário
Henrique Simonsen, Brasília, 20 Februrary 1976, AAS 1975.02.03.
12
Notas da reunião de trabalho com o Secretário de Estado Henry Kissinger em 20 February 1976,
secreto, AAS 1974.03.26.
13
1976, n. 79, AAS 1974.03.26.; Embaixada Brasileira em Washington para MRE, secreto urgentíssimo, 18
February 1976, n.731, AAS 1975.09.25.; Embaixada em Viena para MRE, secreto urgentíssimo, 18
February 1976, n. 84, AAS 1975.09.25.; Embaixada em Bonn para MRE, secreto urgentíssimo, 18
February 1976, n. 157, AAS 1975.09.25.
222
decision with the relevant agencies at home before making the overture at the Brasília
stadium? What documents available at this point show is that the debate was still
unresolved within the administration when Kissinger signalled with green light.
The administration had been delaying a decision because they were awaiting
developments in a U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement that could provide a good working
model to deal with Brazil. So unprepared was Washington to support the existing
tripartite agreement that only days prior to the visit, National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft thought the secretary’s trip to Brazil was the ideal setting for re-launching
negotiations with the view to ‘close some of the loop-holes we perceive in the Brazil-
FRG deal…This…would be a definite plus in gaining the requisite Congressional
approval for a new [nuclear] agreement with Brazil – and without strong proliferation
restraints such approval would be very uncertain’.14 On the back of an inter-agency
study, Scowcroft recommended to Ford that low-key exploratory talks begin with Brazil
without commitment on either side to proceed further. The purpose was to determine
the Brazilian response to the types of restraints and safeguards the U.S. had in mind.15
‘State feels that the Brazilian nuclear issue is sufficiently sensitive in Congress that it is
advisable to have your explicit sanction for a contact with Brazil on this subject’. 16
But Kissinger did not seek to link support for the tripartite agreement in Vienna
to the beginning of such talks, nor did he condition it to any Brazilian concessions.
Based on currently available documents, we see Kissinger giving out support for the
Vienna green-light without domestic consensus and support, and for free.
14
Brent Scowcroft to President Ford, Nuclear Negotiations with Brazil, secret, White House, 14 February
1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford
Library.
15
Department of State to Scowcroft, Decision paper concerning next steps to be taken in our nuclear
negoations with Brazil, confidential, 7 February 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country
16
Brent Scowcroft to President Ford, Nuclear Negotiations with Brazil, secret, White House, 14 February
1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford
Library.
223
The Memorandum’s Formula
We saw before that the secretary and the foreign minister held disconnected conceptions
of the memorandum and its purposes. Its final form reflected their split and their
impossibility to bring the gap to a closure. The document was presented as a ‘political
framework for consultations’. It established biannual meetings between the secretary of
state and the chanceler, to be held alternately in Brazil and in the United States. It also
gave the two chief diplomats the responsibility for establishing working groups on
specific issues (ranging from economic matters to cultural relations). It further specified
that each country ought to decide independently how best to carry through decisions
taken at memorandum level.17
Simple and vague as it was, the document allowed for maximum room of
manoeuvre for both sides. It gave no specifications for the periodicity of meetings or
topics to cover, nor did it make consultations mandatory. There were no provisions for
managing disagreement nor were there any elements to help foster greater mutual
interdependence at societal level. Additionally, the memorandum further concentrated
managerial tasks in the hands of the two diplomatic bureaucracies – if individual
agencies or departments on each side wanted to establish formal ties, they would first
have to gain the express consent of State and Itamaraty.
The memorandum’s express purpose was to maintain a fluid bilateral dialogue
and a spirit of proximity; it orientation, to establish a sense of mutual obligation that had
never been present in previous practice. This was to be reflected in new special
protocols and ceremonies, the stature of individuals participating in them, the methods
of bilateral communication, and the language used by its leading diplomats to refer to
17
Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Consultations on Matters of Mutual Interest between the
Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Government of the United States of America,
Brasília, 21 February 1976, AAS 1974. 04.16.
224
the ‘special relationship’. It was not so much about formal contracts and commitments
to act together in the world as it was about creating and supporting an environment
where dialogue occurred at high level and regularly. In this sense, the instrument
introduced a degree of innovation into a relationship that had lost momentum.
As it is commonly the case with diplomatic agreements, the memorandum’s
greatest source of success was also its weakness. Its simplicity, vagueness and
flexibility were testimony to the impossibility of the two sides to actually commit
themselves to consulting and coordinating behaviour. The formula made it palatable for
two states that could simply not swallow much else. But because its goals were difficult
to define with precision, assessing its usefulness depended heavily on the interpretation
of the individuals carrying it out, putting the burden of proof on the understandings of
two men and their ability to forge a personal rapport.
The premise upon which the memorandum rested therefore was the
compatibility between the secretary and the chanceler. When Kissinger justified the
Memorandum to Ford, he wrote that ‘[The Brazilians] take a world view…The interest
of Brazil in world affairs…is the interest of serious men, not dilettantes, for they think
that they have a world role to play’. He was, however, not referring to Brazilian
diplomats generally. He was speaking of Silveira, who ‘insisted on being heard because,
alone among the nations of Latin America, Brazil was conducting a global policy’.18
The same logic applied on the other side. In the justification for the memorandum that
he prepared for his boss, Silveira’s accent was on the existence of a man in Washington
with whom it was possible to do business: ‘Kissinger showed to be absolutely
conscious, in my view, of the profound consequences that may follow, for the
relationship between our two countries, of the correct working of the mechanism to be
18
The report to Ford is not available in the archives consulted for this work, but the extract appears in
Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 740/1.
225
established in the memorandum of understanding, as well as of the motivations that
inspired us to sign it’.19
With its concentration on personalities, the memorandum established narrow
limits to its own effectiveness. If the secretary of state and the foreign minister shared
the same vision about a given problem, then the piece would be an appropriate
framework to deal with it. If visions varied, then the problem would be left lingering
about until a crisis brought it back to the negotiating table. Because crises between the
United States and Brazil often were of minor international consequence, this was a
tolerable situation for diplomats on both sides.
A relationship transformed?
The months following Kissinger’s visit were vindication for Silveira. In April and May
he joined Geisel in State visits to France and Britain – two events that confirmed the
appropriateness of his overall strategy. In Paris Giscard d’Estaing called the France-
Brazil relationship ‘une affaire de coeur’ and congratulated himself on the creation of a
Brazil-France grand commission. In London the Foreign Office proposed regular
meetings with Itamaraty at planning level. As British diplomats were fast to point out,
Brazil was the only non-industrialised, non-Commonwealth state in the world to receive
such treatment. The purpose, they said, was to discuss ‘Western Europe, the future of
détente, Soviet and Chinese goals in the Third World, and the New International
Economic Order’.20 The Brazilian press reported that ‘The French and the English
intend to induce Brazil to accept a new status in the Western world’. And upon Geisel’s
19
Notas da reunião de trabalho com o Secretário de Estado Henry Kissinger no Palácio Itamaraty,
Brasília, 19 February 1976, AAS 1975.02.03.
20
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 12 August 1976,
n. 285, AAS 1974.03.26.
226
arrival in Tokyo later that year, the leading Japanese newspaper Asahi Shinbum read:
‘Brazil on the way to becoming a great power in the twenty first century’.21
From a foreign policy perspective, the Paris and London visits were important:
the hosting powers wanted to hear Brazil talk about Africa, a recognition that Brazilian
influence, if not actual power, was clearly on the rise. French foreign minister Jean
Sauvagnargues told Silveira that Paris was now trying to recognise Angola but still
waiting an answer from Agostinho Neto. He also shared with the Brazilian his views on
the independence of Djbouti, the evolution of politics in the Lebanon, and the North-
South dialogue. They often disagreed, but the tone of the conversation was candid.22
In turn, James Callaghan, who had moved into 10 Downing St. only a few weeks
before, took the opportunity to criticise Kissinger’s Africa policy once more. He
confided that London had decided to recognise Angola, but was still awaiting an answer
from Luanda. Could Brazil be of any assistance there? Silveira recommended that the
Foreign Office bypass Angolan foreign minister Eduardo Santos and instead try to reach
Neto via his direct advisor, Paulo Jorge.23 Callaghan also asked Geisel for an estimate
of Chile, to which the General gave the icy reply that he did simply not know enough to
comment, although he stressed that Chile’s economic recovery with free business was
commendable. The Chilean transition, Geisel said, could not be done without ‘great
difficulties’. In agreeing with the Foreign Office on a final communiqué for the press,
Silveira succeeded in his insistence that no mention be made to Brazil’s human-rights
situation.24
21
Both quotes in Exame, 28 April 1976.
22
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 26 May 1976, n.
184, AAS 1974.03.26.
23
185, AAS 1974.03.26.
24
186, AAS 1974.03.26.
227
For Brazil this was a strategy of minimum coordination with third countries and
no commitments. It was about offering general comments of little practical consequence
in exchange for symbolic recognition from the industrialised world that Brazil mattered.
Trade figures seemed to confirm the validity of this behaviour too. For the first time
since the United States had overtaken Britain as the major source of trade and
investment in Latin America early in the twentieth century, Europe had become Brazil’s
trading partner number one. Whereas in 1969 the U.S. was responsible for 46,6% of
foreign investment in Brazil, in 1974 it was 33%. Brazilian exports to France trebled
and French investments grew 760%, while both exports to and investment from Britain
almost trebled in the same period.25
For Geisel this was most useful as well. Unlike Silveira, he saw the trips under
the light of the regime’s domestic needs. In Paris he gave the first interview to the
Brazilian press in 25 months. He went as far as joining a group of French reporters to
answer spontaneous questions – a move considered unthinkable back home. When
asked about the systematic violation of human rights and civil liberties, the general
simply smiled and kept silence. In London, Geisel had his first ever press conference
before the Brazilian television.
Using the Memorandum
But if the overall strategy seemed to be doing well, the U.S. component of it, even after
the signing of the memorandum, showed signs of paralysis and decay. Although the
crucial test of partnerships often comes at a time of crisis, engagement between the
United States and Brazil was so fragile that it would simply take routine to highlight its
25
Exame, 28 April 1976.
228
inherent limitations. Not a week had lapsed after the Kissinger visit when a new chapter
in the drama of Portuguese retraction from the world landed on Silveira’s lap.
When one of East Timor’s political parties declared independence in November
1975, it only took neighbouring Indonesia a few weeks to invade and occupy what it
now considered to be one of its provinces. This Jakarta did with the knowledge and
approval of both Kissinger and President Ford.26 Now the East Timorese independence
movement communicated to Silveira secretly that it was putting in a petition before the
United Nations for the deployment of a multilateral force with the view to end
Indonesian occupation at once. The East Timorese leadership was willing, the message
informed, to suggest Brazil be in charge of the UN operation. After all, Brazilians also
spoke Portuguese and had shown a firm commitment to supporting nation-states
emerging out of Lisbon’s colonial grip.
Silveira wanted to act: Brazil should support the East Timorese cause, he wrote
to Geisel, and a useful way to begin would be to embark upon intensive consultation
with other ‘interested states’.27 It is plausible to suspect that the chanceler might have
thought it appropriate to start with Kissinger himself. After all, this was a crisis in a
distant land where any potential Brazilian activities were bound to affect in one way or
another those of the United States. If Silveira had learned anything from the Angola
episode, was that consulting Washington before proceeding to take up commitments
faraway was advisable, to say the least. And yet, the issue never popped up in their
correspondence or private meetings, showing that if the memorandum set out to
facilitate fluid dialogue and a spirit of proximity, there were important areas that it was
26
For recently declassified evidence see the East Timor project in The National Security Archive
(downloaded 20 February 2006, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/).
27
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 4 March 1976, n.
94, AAS 1974.03.26.
229
simply unable to reach. Why was there no discussion about East Timor between the
Secretary and the Foreign Minister?
Crucial data about East Timor remains classified in the United States and in
Jakarta, and it is reasonable to suspect that some may be in classified Itamaraty files.
But two alternative interpretations come easily to mind. It may be that Geisel overruled
yet another one of Silveira’s attempts to project Brazilian influence abroad. Or it may be
that Silveira learned somehow that the United States was fully supportive of the
Indonesian stance, and thought it wise, possibly due to the Angola analogy, to suspend
his expansionist intentions and just keep silent. Furthermore, at this time Indonesia was
the recipient of U.S. devolution very much alike Brazil. As pointed out before, in a
presidential visit to that country Ford and Kissinger had used a language similar to the
one they used to refer to Brazil. Similarities were such that at this time Kissinger was
negotiating a U.S.-Indonesia Joint Consultative Commission that resembled the
February memorandum with Brazil.
But the point that needs making here is that Silveira and Kissinger did not
discuss the matter. At a moment in time when U.S.-Brazil consultations made perfect
sense even if it was an opportunity for Washington to warn Brasília about the
potentially negative effects of paying heed to the demands of the East Timorese
movement, they simply did not happen.
Kissinger was keener to make direct use of the memorandum. In the first week
of June, the foreign minister of Guyana told the secretary of Brazilian plans to attack his
country. Although rumours were untrue, they had appeared in reports coming from both
the Brazilian and the Venezuelan press. These stated that Cuban troops returning from
Angola were setting up shop in the small Caribbean country with the view to further
strengthen the undergoing transformation of its regime into full-fledged Communism.

230
Fearful of such developments, they concluded, the Brazilian military was willing to act.
Indeed, there was plenty of cause for concern in Brazil about Guyana. Its declaration of
independence ten years earlier had occurred after a series of British interventions that
sought to stop the advance of Communism; and more recently the Guyanese
government had declared itself to be socialist and confirmed the existence of training
military camps in the countryside.
The Brazilian secret services confirmed that Cuban planes en route to Angola
regularly used Guyanese airports, that Guyanese military personnel attended training
courses in Cuba, and that Cuban military men ran military installations in Georgetown.
Part of the Guyanese rush to embrace Communism fully and benefit from Cuban and
Chinese support, the Brazilian secret services argued, had to do with the fact that by
1982 that country would have to renegotiate a boundary treaty with neighbouring
28
Venezuela, and wished to do so from a position of strength. All these elements
sufficed to make Brazilian diplomats worry.
When Silveira told Kissinger that Brazil had no offensive plans whatsoever, the
secretary retorted by saying that the U.S. could not afford to endure Cuban presence in
Guyana. If such presence was confirmed, then Washington would not hesitate to
intervene, ‘with or without Brazil…We would prefer to do it with Brazil, but we are
prepared to act alone’. Silveira stepped back by saying that he hoped things would calm
down in coming months, but that both countries should prepare for any eventualities.
It was with a view on Brazil’s preparedness, Silveira said, that it was time for
the U.S. to grant Brazil easier access to weapons. Washington had cancelled the
delivery of rifles, pushing Brazil to make the purchase in the Arab world instead.
Kissinger claimed he did not know about the specific episode but would look into it in
28
Informação n. 246/16/AC/76 de CIE – AC/SNI com difusão para CH/SNI, Serviço Nacional de
Informações, Brasília, 15 June 1976, AAS 1974.03.25.
231
detail. Documentary evidence suggests that the Kissinger-Silveira conversations on
Guyana never went any further.29 Silveira did, however, organise a visit for the
Guyanese foreign minister to Brasília in July, when the two set up a bilateral
commission and working groups on economic and cultural cooperation.30
In some areas of policy, the record of engagement post-memorandum was
equally poor. When the president of Brazil’s National Council for Research visited the
U.S. to sign a plethora of agreements, interlocutors in various agencies were non-
committal. They said they knew how keen the State Department was on making
scientific cooperation happen, but the interest in and resources to roll out plans along
those lines were simply not there.31
The one area where progress was most impressive was trade. Here Kissinger’s
commitment to engagement paid off. For one, the Ford administration found an ‘escape
clause’ solution to the conflict over Brazilian footwear exports to the United States and
he ordered an increase in the quota for Brazilian textiles. But more important, Treasury
Secretary Simon finally visited Brazil and signed a series of understandings on
subsidies and countervailing duties that pacified the Brazilian authorities for the first
time in years.32 There are no doubts that the U.S. willingness to find solutions here
29
Silveira a Geisel, secreto exclusivo urgente, Santiago, 8 June 1976, série chanceler n. 50, AAS
1974.06.13.
30
Divisão das Américas, nota sobre a Guiana, Brasília, 14 September 1976, AAS 1974.04.16.
31
Mauro Azeredo para Assessor Especial do Ministro de Estado, urgente, n. 30, Brasília, 22 March 1976,
Memorandos Gabinete, caixa 190, 1976, AHMRE.
32
Silveira a Mário H. Simonsen, Ministro de Estado da Fazenda, Brasília, 4 March 1976, AAS
1974.04.23.; Veja, 12 May 1976, p. 84-5; Michael B. Smith to Barbara A. Steinbock, ‘Brazil – Subsidies
on Cotton Yarns’, Office of the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations, 3 March 1976, David R.
Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 22, Gerald R. Ford Library; Secretary of State to US Delegation MTN
Geneva, ‘MTN Aspects of US Brazilian Consultation’, message, 23 March 1976, David R. Macdonald
Papers, 1973-78, box 23, Gerald R. Ford Library; ‘US Countervailing Duty Investigation’, circa March
1976, David R. Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 22, Gerald R. Ford Library; David R. Macdonald to
Secretary of Treasury Simon, ‘Footwear and your trip to Brazil’, 15 April 1976, David R. Macdonald
Papers, 1973-78, box 23, Gerald R. Ford Library; David R. Macdonald to Secretary of Treasury Simon,
‘Brazilian Footwear – Reexamination of Countervailing Duty Rates’, 23 April 1976, David R. Macdonald
Papers, 1973-78, box 23, Gerald R. Ford Library; Commissioner of Customs to David R. Macdonald,
‘Suggestion for Bilateral Mutual Customs Assistance Agreement with Brazil’, 4 May 1976, David R.
Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 23, Gerald R. Ford Library; Embassy in Brasília to Secretary of State,
232
followed directly from Kissinger’s visit. The instructions for the American read as
follows:
Since the mid-60’s Brazil has been embarked on a process of economic
development that promises to propel it into the ranks of the major industrialized
nations before the end of the century. Brazil has accomplished this without
special preferential trade arrangements with any developed country…Secretary
Kissinger’s recent visit…is indicative of the…perception of the political
implications resulting from Brazilian economic development…Our intentions
are seriously jeopardized, however, by the accelerating drift of events in the
trade sphere, a drift which threatens an estrangement if not an outright
confrontation between the two countries. [The] primary objective of this meeting
[is] defusing the current delicate situation. It is politically essential that the
meeting show some forward movement.33
One of the elements that contributed to a relatively swift trade relationship in the
aftermath of the Kissinger visit was the narrow focus of the Brazilian demands. The
U.S. negotiator reported to Secretary Simon that ‘the Brazilians…seek a short-term
solution on footwear and are willing for us to continue as we have in the past with other
products’.34
The Limits of Engagement
It did not take long for Kissinger to remind Silveira that after all the trade
accommodation of recent months it was pay-back time. The setting was the upcoming
‘Secretary Simon Visit to Brazil’, telegram, 12 May 1976, David R. Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 23,
Gerald R. Ford Library; Kissinger to Silveira, 8 May 1976, AAS 1974.04.23.; Silveira a Kissinger,
Brasília, 27 May 1976, AAS 1974.04.23.
33
The State Department, ‘Scope Paper on US-Brazil Trade Consultative Sub-Group’, 10-11 March 1976,
David R. Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 22, Gerald R. Ford Library.
34
David R. Macdonald to Secretary of Treasury Simon, ‘Bilateral Consultations with Brazilian Trade
Delegation’, memorandum, 19 March 1976, David R. Macdonald Papers, 1973-78, box 23, Gerald R.
Ford Library.
233
OAS meeting in Santiago, Chile, in June 1976. At the gathering the hemispheric nations
were going to discuss an Inter-American Human Rights Commission report on the
human-rights situation of the host country. The Pinochet regime had stumbled into
power three years before in a bloody coup against a popular leader whose ascent to
power had captured the imagination of many around the globe. The drama of Allende’s
suicide matched that of Pinochet’s ruthless initial measures for controlling opposition at
home and imposing order in the barracks. Since the coup, over one and a half thousand
people had disappeared and later executed. Thousands more had been detained without
charge, tortured, imprisoned and sent into exile.
We now know that the United States’ initial response to the Chilean military was
such that it was understood in Santiago as a green light to eradicate ‘terrorists’ from the
Left. Soon there was a split between top-ranking U.S. officials who refused to protest
human rights violations (notably Kissinger and Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller) and
mid-level personnel at the State Department who sought to put some pressure on
Pinochet. All in all, not until the Carter administration would the Chilean regime – and
indeed other Latin American governments – begin to realise more clearly that continued
repression at home would come at the cost of eliciting minor but sure American
pressure and opposition.
But by June 1976 pressure stemming from the U.S. Congress had begun to limit
Kissinger’s ability to keep clear of the human rights question in his dealing with Latin
America. His resistance to taking up a more activist stance to curb human rights
violations had backfired in the form of new, more encompassing, and increasingly
intrusive legislation in a context where the Democrat opposition began to turn human
rights into a campaign topic for the presidential race that year.
234
This put Kissinger in a difficult position. On the one hand he had to appear to be
tough and militant to satisfy the requirements of change at home. On the other, there is
cause to believe he feared that the new stance, so different as it was from his own
previous position, may lead to overt Latin American criticism of U.S. policy and further
expose the troubling features and inconsistencies of the American human-rights record
in the region. Turning to Silveira for support, he phrased his intentions in terms of
retribution.
Our efforts to strengthen our consultative ties and to eliminate irritants in our
relations seem to have been particularly productive in the last three months…We
have begun to bring down to manageable proportions the vexing trade problems
which occupied our thoughts…All this is, Antonio, an initial but very important
indication that our commitment to examine problems regularly and frankly can
yield positive and concrete results…Antonio, this will be my fourth trip as
Secretary of State to Latin America and my second this year. I will be going to
the General Assembly [of the OAS] in a further effort to strengthen the
foundations of US relations in the hemisphere. I hope for harmony. You fully
understand the importance of creating a positive climate. And you appreciate
that, given the current situation in the US, discord would only hurt our common
goals.35
In this Kissinger hoped that Silveira might play a moderating role among the Latin
Americans and might also work as a transmission chain, conveying the Secretary’s
message that U.S. pressure would remain at the level of rhetoric but that it was
important for American domestic reasons to show that there was progress in the region
on the human rights front (see below for documents).
35
Kissinger to Silveira, confidential, Santiago, 4 June 1976, AAS 1974.06.13.
235
Kissinger’s fears that there might be a Latin American backlash were justified.
When he signalled to various hemispheric countries that he was going to harden the
rhetoric in the OAS plenary, he awoke suspicion among his interlocutors as he had
never done before. Indeed, for a Secretary who had gone at lengths to reassure the Latin
American Right that their activities were in line with U.S. cold-war requirements, this
was a crucial transformation. In his speech on 8 June 1976 he said:
No government can ignore terrorism and survive, but it is equally true that a
government that tramples on the rights of its citizens denies the purpose of its
existence…There are standards below which no government can fall without
offending fundamental values – such as genocide, officially tolerated torture,
mass imprisonment or murder, or comprehensive denials of basic right to racial,
religious, political or ethnic group. Any government engaging in such practices
must face adverse international judgement.36
Pinochet was profoundly embittered. In a private conversation with Silveira in Santiago,
he confided that American ‘incomprehension’ had been a major blow to him, since what
he was doing in Chile was precisely to advance the interests of the West against
international Communism. Here Silveira played a moderating role in assuring the
general that he should read Kissinger’s words as a response to the electoral campaign in
the United States, and not as a reflection of the Secretary’s view or of the Ford
Administration’s personal stance. In criticising Chile publicly, Silveira said, Kissinger
had acted against his own will.37
But Silveira was unwilling and unable to do much else. To be sure, relations
between Brasília and Santiago were cordial, with two regimes working within the
framework of national security doctrines; trade after Pinochet’s arrival on the scene had
36
U.S. Department of State, ‘Sixth General Assembly of the Organization of American States’, Santiago,
June 1976 (Washington, Department of State).
37
Silveira a Geisel, secreto urgente, Santiago, 5 June 1976, série chanceler n. 19, AAS 1974.06.13.
236
doubled, Brazil becoming the first buyer of Chilean copper and Chile ordering 6
Brazilian aircrafts. But Chile was a brutal regime even by Brazilian standards, and one
that sought to pursue activities abroad that were out of kilter with the overall direction
of Geisel’s abertura.
Furthermore, to become involved in mediating or placating regional
developments on the question of human rights was anathema to Brazil’s strategy to deal
with the issue. Brazil’s response to the growing intrusiveness of international human-
rights norms had been to resist pressure resorting to notions of sovereignty and non-
intervention. Brazil’s negotiating position was to try to erase all comments about human
rights from regional documents, since they were seen in Brasília as a matter of national
jurisdiction only. When Pinochet tried to defend his record in power, Silveira found the
move naïve. It would be more effective to bar any American attempts to bring up the
issue of human rights in the first place.38
Thus, when Kissinger saw Silveira in Santiago for what he hoped could be
concerted action, he met silence. Giving the chanceler advance warning that the U.S.
rhetoric would harden, the Secretary asked his colleague for appraisal of potential
implications, only to hear that Brazil was a ‘unique case’ that should not be put in the
same bag with any others. When the Secretary asked for details on the Argentine
human-rights situation, the chanceler simply said that the domestic process there was
too messy for its government to be trustworthy, and left it at that. Finally, when the
Secretary inquired about Bolivia, the Panama Canal and Guyana, Silveira was aloof and
non-committal.39
Upon returning to the United States, Kissinger turned to the Brazilian
ambassador with the view to convey a message to Buenos Aires. The message he
38
Silveira a Geisel, secreto urgente, Santiago, 5 June 1976, série chanceler n. 17, AAS 1974.06.13.
39
1974.06.13.
237
wanted to see reach the Argentine regime was that the United States wished the
governing Junta were able to avoid the ‘excesses that would only work to give
ammunition to those elements, especially in the [U.S.] Congress and media, who, under
the banner of the defence of human rights, could make it greatly difficult for the
Executive to support the consolidation of the regime which, in a global strategic plain,
deserves all the support from the United States’.40 But Kissinger’s hope was premised
on a fundamental misreading of the geopolitical situation in South America. At a time
when Brazil and Argentina were confronting each other overtly for influence in the
region, the last thing the chanceler would do was to bring the United States into the
equation, be it to chide the Argentines or to reassure them that their strategic position
was supported by Washington.
Other elements concurred to flatten the spirit of engagement. Upon Araujo
Castro’s death in December 1975, his replacement, Ambassador Pinheiro, found several
problems. For one, he did not have the extensive network of contacts in Washington
that had allowed his predecessor to manoeuvre a difficult environment. His reclusive
personal style was in direct opposition to that of Araujo Castro (One of Pinheiro’s first
managerial measures was to abolish his predecessor’s proverbial 6 o’clock wrap-up
meeting between all the members of staff to go over the events of the day).
But Pinheiro also began to suffer from the concentration of authority in
Silveira’s cabinet. In one telegram he complains that the Foreign Minister was leaving
him in the dark about his arrangements with Kissinger. Whenever Pinheiro learned
about the meetings between the Secretary and the chanceler, he learned them through
State Department sources.41 The ambassador had another pressing problem: financial
allocations for the embassy were so precarious that he was paying for official dinners
40
Embaixada em Washington a MRE, secreto exclusivo urgente, Washington, 16 August 1976, no
number, AAS 1974.04.16.
41
Particular de Pinheiro a Silveira, secreto exclusivo, Washington, 22 June 1976, AAS 1974.04.23.
238
out of his own pocket. The reports are indeed surprising, for the figures show that the
budgets for the embassy and the ambassador’s residency could barely sustain the most
basic maintenance costs.42 Another managerial problem referred to who participated in
the meetings planned for in the memorandum of understanding.
In October 1976, when Silveira had flown to Washington for the first round of
consultations, the Brazilian side was made up of Itamaraty personnel exclusively, while
the American team was drawn from several agencies. The two sides could not agree on
trade or energy, and there are indications that part of the problem was that this was not
the best instance to treat these questions.43
In the first six months of 1976, President Ford invited Geisel to visit the United
States not less than 5 consecutive times. The Foreign Minister thought the General
should accept.44 It was, he wrote, an enormous recognition of Brazil’s prestige given
the fact that protocol indicated that it was now time for Brazil to invite the United States
President in reciprocation for the Medici visit of 1971. Silveira also saw an opportunity
for the future: a visit at this stage would contribute to locking in the next administration
should the Democrat be victorious. As we will see, the minister’s pledge was prescient:
without such high-level visit, he said, ‘any crisis in the bilateral relationship would
entail long efforts at re-composition’.45 But he argued to no avail.
42
Pinheiro a Dario Moreira de Castro Alves, secreto, Washington, 12 July 1976, no number, 1974.04.23.
43
On the US side, besides Kissinger, there were Harry W. Shlaudeman (Assistant Secretary for Inter-
American Affairs), Julius Katz (Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs), Samuel W. Lewis (Assistant
Secretary for International Development), Frederick Irving (Assistant Secretary for Oceans, International
Environment and Scientific Affairs), John Crimmins (US ambassador to Brazil), Richard Darman (Trade
Department Assistant Secretary for Policy), Robert Vastine (Treasury Assistant Secretary for
International Affairs), Nelson Sievering (ERDA Assistant Administrator), David L. Hume (Agriculture
Department Administrator for the Foreign Agricultural Service), Clayton Yeutter (Deputy Special
Representative for Trade Negotiations). On the Brazilian side, representatives included, besides Silveira,
João B. Pinheiro (Brazilian ambassador to the US), Luis Augusto P. Souto Maior, João Hermes P. de
Araujo, Minister Geraldo Egydio Hollanda Cavalcanti, Minister Guy de Castro Brandão, Councilor José
Nogueira Filho, Jornaldo L. Barbosa and Rubens Ricupero.
44
1974.06.13.
45
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta-exclusiva para o Senhor Presidente da República, Brasília, 4
August 1976, n. 275, AAS 1974.03.26.
239
During the October 1976 meeting with Silveira, Kissinger encapsulated the
paralysis of the relationship with characteristic irony:
Let me welcome my good friend Antônio Silveira here to Washington. He and I
have worked together for many years in an atmosphere that is founded on his
acceptance of his superiority (laughter) and my grudging recognition (laughter)
that he is usually right. When Brazilians say that God is a Brazilian, most
foreigners think they’re joking (laughter). But having dealt with the Brazilian
Foreign Office, I know they mean it (laughter). And they only hide it behind the
ease of their manners, with the consciousness that since it is true, what else do
they have to prove to foreigners? (laughter). Earlier this year, when I visited
Brazil I said that the Untied States and Brazil have a special relationship.
Nothing has unified Latin America more than this remark (laughter). I hastened
to explain in every other country that I have visited since then that, of course, we
have a special relationship with every country in Latin America – suited to its
conditions, its historical relationship with us. And this is true of Brazil, with
which we have a special, special relationship (laughter). Brazil, by virtue of its
size, of its history, of its traditional friendship with the US, can conduct a
foreign policy free of complexes. Brazil is conveniently divided into two parts –
one part which is super-developed, ad one part which is slightly under-
developed – and, therefore, Brazil can conduct a foreign policy as it chooses
(laughter) – either joining the industrial nations or leading the Third World,
whatever is most useful at the moment (laughter)…I must say that Antonio
focused my attention on the problems of Southern Africa months before it
became a formal American policy to help the parties there find a peaceful path to
change…In the [North-South] dialogue in Paris, in the meetings at UNCTAD, in

240
the pivotal dialogue between the developed and the developing nations, the
views of Brazil have always had a particular attribute of being at the same time
understanding of our point of view and understanding of the point of view of the
developing countries. And if the special knowledge of our circumstances and of
our point of view is occasionally used to thwart our designs, we attribute this to
the skill of Brazilian diplomacy (laughter)…Brazil, as I can surely testify,
conducts its own independent policy, which no doubt I will hear about again
tomorrow at great length during our Commission meetings (laughter). But
Brazil’s role has been crucial precisely because in our world we can derive
moral strength from a sense of diversity, precisely because it is important when
nations of different perspectives can form a moral unity.46
Upon return to Brazil, addressing a military audience, Silveira was equally clear about
his own assessment on the current state of engagement:
With no other country in the world are our relations so close as they are with the
United States…Paradoxically, however, it is our relations with the U.S. that are
sources of some of the most constant concerns of our Government. The issue is
that…ideological coincidence does not suffice to solve specific bilateral
problems or even to take good friends and allies to assess international problems
in the same fashion. The disparities of political and economic power between the
U.S. and Brazil are sources of constant reciprocal incomprehension, aggravated
by the sentiment, somewhat immature, of moral superiority that is still very
present in the American behaviour.47
46
Toast by the Hon. Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State, at a dinner hosted by the Secretary in honor
of His Excellency Antonio Azeredo da Silveira, Washington, 4 October 1976, AAS 1974.06.13.
47
Exposição secreta do Ministro Silveira à Escola de Comando e Estado–Maior da Aeronáutica, Rio de
Janeiro, 25 October 1976, AAS 1974.05.27.
241
Engagement under Threat
Seen from Brasília, the U.S. presidential race of 1976 was a major threat to engagement.
The Democrats had sent all the signals that, if elected, their attitude towards Brazil
would be very different from that of Nixon and Ford. In a Playboy interview, candidate
Jimmy Carter referred to the Brazilian regime as a ‘military dictatorship’ (a detail that
the Brazilian edition of that magazine omitted).48 When he met the Brazilian
ambassador to the UN, the Democrat candidate reinforced the point by saying that in his
view the U.S. should not single out any one country for ‘special relations’. In so doing,
he said, the two countries gave the impression of an ‘identity’ between the two states
that did not correspond to reality.49
In an October television debate, Carter advocated ‘that we stop the sale by
Germany and France of reprocessing plants to Pakistan and Brazil…If we continue
under Mr. Ford’s policy by 1985 or 90 we’ll have 20 nations that have the capability of
exploding atomic weapons. This has got to be stopped. That is one of the major
challenges and major undertakings that I will assume as the next president’.50 He had
made similar points months before, in a speech at the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations.51 In December, the Linowitz Report on Latin America chided Kissinger’s
policy of engagement overtly: ‘Brazil, where significant human rights violations are still
reported despite efforts by some political leaders to stop them was singled out by the
Secretary of State in 1976 for special distinction as an ally to be consulted every years at
the ministerial level’.52
48
Miami Herald, 3-8-1977, quoted in Tim Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights, and the Brazilian Military
Regime: Revisiting the Diplomatic Crisis of 1977’, mimeo (2006).
49
Embaixada na ONU a MRE, telegrama confidencial, Nova Iorque, 13 May 1976, AAS 1974.23.
50
Silveira a Geisel, secreto urgente, Paris, 7 October 1976, série chaceler 1, AAS 1974.03.26.
51
See speech in The Presidential Campaign 1976, vol. 1, part I (Washington: US Government Printing
Office, 1978).
52
Lembrete sobre o segundo relatório Linowitz, 14 January 1977, n.10, AAS 1974.04.23.
242
These elements were part of a broader trend in American politics. The election
of the 94th legislature (1975-76) reflected the popular mood in the face of Watergate and
Richard Nixon’s resignation, with some of the most outspoken critics of policies to
Vietnam and Chile winning important seats.53 The new Congress had denied security
assistance to countries that violated human rights of their citizens (amending the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961), an it mandated that the State Department report
annually on the human rights record of recipients of American military aid (later
expanded to all countries in the world).
A target for positive discrimination under the Nixon Doctrine, Brazil now found
itself at the receiving end of a U-turn in U.S. policy, where human rights and nuclear
non-proliferation promised to achieve the status of flagship White House programmes.
This was the context in Brasília when Silveira and Geisel began to prepare for
the inauguration of the Carter administration. Their apprehensions may have been
substantially more intense had they known that even before the inauguration,
conversations had begun between Washington and Bonn to try to make major
adaptations to the FRG-Brazil nuclear agreement.54 These resulted from renewed
German fears that the Carter team would indeed step up pressure on the nuclear front.
The American ambassador to Germany had heard high-ranking officials in the
German chancellery say ‘there were many in the FRG who now recognized what a
foolish decision it had been to enter into the agreement as it stands’. Germany, these
officials had intimated, had made a mistake in including enrichment and reprocessing
provisions in an agreement that should have been limited to providing nuclear
53
Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton: Princeton
54
Currently available documents suggest that Silveira was not aware of these demarches. See for instance
Silveira, Pró–Memória, secreto exclusivo, Brasília, 18 March 1977, no number, AAS 1974.04.23. and
Geraldo Holanda Cavalcanti, Pró-Memória, secreto-exclusivo, Brasília, 12 April 1977, no number, AAS
1974.04.23.
243
equipment to Brazil. A German official ‘recognized the difficult problem of backing out
of an international agreement…but he wondered whether the Brazilians could not be
brought around to some arrangement without impinging on the sanctity of the
accord…He wondered if perhaps the United States might be able to deal with the
reprocessing problem vis-à-vis Brazil. [He] went on to say that he hoped that if it came
to the point of turning matters around, the United States would be willing to help in
dealing with the Brazilians’. The German then proposed a U.S.-West Germany
preliminary (and secret) conversation before a change of administration in Washington.
The German Chancellor, the U.S. ambassador reported, was ‘anxious to avoid this
becoming a public football and would like to have a quiet consultation as soon as
possible’.55
A few days later a German foreign ministry official told the American
ambassador that ‘something had to be done to meet the concerns expressed by
President-elect Carter [about the agreement with Brazil]. One possibility, which was
being explored, was a multilateralization of the reprocessing ad enrichment aspects’.56
American-Brazilian engagement, at the point it became formalised, began to meet its
end.
Summary
The memorandum of understanding of 1976 formalised the American secretary of state
and the Brazilian foreign minister as the focal points for engagement, reduced
transaction costs by establishing regularity for consultations, and it open the door for
55
Embassy in Bonn to Secretary of State, ‘Chancellery official’s thoughts on handling FRG/Brazil
nuclear deal’, confidential telegram, 17 December 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country
Files for Europe and Canada, box 7, Gerald R. Ford Library.
56
Embassy in Bonn to Secretary of State, ‘Foreign Ministry Assistant Secretary Lautenschlager on
FRG/Brazil Issue’, confidential telegram, 23 December 1976, National Security Adviser, Presidential
Country Files for Europe and Canada, box 7, Gerald R. Ford Library.
244
linking disparate issues under a same framework. It did not, however, transform
national understandings of the purpose of engagement nor did it erase the deep-seated
difficulties that marked the endeavour. Reflecting those difficulties, its terms were
conveniently loose, allowing each side to define its commitments on the strict basis of
interest. Neither side seems to have felt entrapped, although there is evidence that the
arrangement introduced a sense of mutual obligation that had never been present in
previous practice.
Because Brazil paid disproportionate attention to the Memorandum, it reaped the
larger portion of benefits. From nuclear power to trade to symbolic recognition, the new
instrument allowed Brazil to accrue material and positional goods that it had found
difficult to obtain without it.
Both Kissinger and Silveira faced problems in trying to keep the Memorandum
alive. The former could not make the project develop roots in his bureaucracy nor could
he find the support at home to make it legitimate. The latter never overcame his boss’
resistance. In the end, the Memorandum’s lack of vivacity sealed engagement’s fate.
In his memoirs Kissinger was correct to say that ‘the arrangement did no have
the long-term impact we had envisioned’. But he was overstating his case when he
suggested that ‘problems would have surely have been overcome had Ford won the
presidential election’.57 Another Republican term, even one with Kissinger at the helm
of foreign policy, would have also had to deal with the fact that, on top of their clashing
interests and structural inequality, diplomats in Brazil and the United States simply
could not make their national visions converge. Personalities might have been crucial to
get an unlikely partnership on its feet but did not suffice to make it stand.
57
245
It took a serious deterioration of American-Brazilian ties to prompt decision
makers on the two sides to renew their appreciation of the Memorandum of
Understanding and give engagement one more chance. This is what follows next.
Chapter 7
ESTRANGEMENT (1977-1983)
This is the story of American-Brazilian estrangement from the beginnings of the Jimmy
Carter administration in 1977 to the end of Silveira’s tenure as Brazilian ambassador to
Washington in 1983. During these years nuclear power and human rights led to
increased acrimony in a relationship that had little prior experience of overt conflict.
Once the relationship hit a historical low, the two sides tried to rescue it with only
limited success. The overall outcome was the progressive end of engagement: high-level
governmental interaction decreased, the practice of consultation waned, policy
coordination disappeared off the menu, and whatever sense of purpose there had been,
now there was no more.
The period coincides with important transformations in the international political
system and in the broader foreign policies of the two countries. Détente, after
reaffirmation in the first half of Carter’s tenure, lost the upper hand against the revival
of the cold war, a trend President Reagan did much to reinforce. The notion that
selected polities in the Third World grew ever more powerful and autonomous gave
way to an emphasis on competitive superpower interventions from Afghanistan to
Nicaragua. Such shift rendered the ‘key-country’ orientation untenable and also affected
the White House’s appreciation of Brazil negatively. In turn, Brazilian leaders saw
events abroad as fundamental threats to the relatively benign external environment to
which it had grown used. Furthermore, while severe economic crisis curtailed their
ability to pursue an activist policy abroad, the progress of abertura made for an
increasingly divided polity at home. These factors made the leadership increasingly
247
risk-averse, and brought back introversion and distancing as the dominant strategies to
deal with the United States. The world in which engagement had been conceived had
vanished. In the new environment there was no chance for its survival.1
American Probing versus Brazilian Resistance
Seeking to reverse the public mood post-Vietnam and post-Watergate, President Carter
launched intensive diplomatic campaigns for non-proliferation and human rights.2 The
revisionist drive, for all its inconsistencies, was unusually strong. For those at the
receiving end, be they Soviets or Brazilians, the un-negotiated push was both baffling
and offensive.
Upon arrival, the new administration had not thought-through a policy to Brazil.
But the White House was fast to turn the Memorandum of Understanding into a tool to
pressurise Brazil to fall into line. This was hardly engagement Kissinger-style, but it
was engagement nonetheless: the difference was, of course, that proximity now had the
goal of arresting Brazilian capacity to obtain weapons-grade nuclear materials and
speeding up the collapse of the dictatorial regime. The Brazilian response involved
increased attention to the Memorandum: once an instrument to elicit American
concessions and avoid entanglements, it now became a shield to resist Washington’s
offensive.
And yet, for all the drama characteristic of American-Brazilian relations in the
Carter years, U.S. pressures were both mild and uneven. The cause lay inside the Carter
1
Note that access to primary sources concerning this period are uneven and become scarcer as we
progress into the early 1980s.
2
For overall assessments of the Carter administration, besides personal memoirs by Carter, Brzezinski
and Vance quoted below, see Douglas Brinkley, ‘The Rising Stock of Jimmy Carter: The ‘Hands-On’
Legacy of our Thirty-Ninth President’, Diplomatic History, 20, 4 (1996): 505-529; David Skidmore,
Reversing Course: Carter’s Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and the Failure of Reform (Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1996); Olav Njolstad, Peacekeeper and Troublemaker: The Containment
Policy of Jimmy Carter, 1977-1978 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 1995), and Westad,
The Fall of Détente, pp. 3-34.
248
administration: the president never secured his own agenda firmly and disagreement
was deep across bureaucratic lines. Hesitancy and fraction in the American position
made Brazil’s resistance easier to bear and carry through.
Nuclear Power
Brazil had been a target for Carter’s nuclear priorities since the presidential campaign.
Days after the inauguration, Vice-President Walter Mondale flew to Bonn to inform
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt that Washington was ‘unalterably opposed’ to the FRG-
Brazil agreement, and expected Germany to suspend the transference of technology
component in the contract.3 The move was premised on the assumption that resistance
within Germany to the agreement with Brazil was both large and growing, opening the
way for negotiation.4
The Brazilians were kept in the dark about the Washington-Bonn connection.
When they learned about it, it happened through an off-the-record comment to the press
by U.S. Deputy to the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and
Technology, Joseph Nye. The Brazilians now knew that, under the incoming
administration, the memorandum was to become a potential threat against what it had
set out to protect.5 Their reaction was to mount the hardest resistance campaign they
could organise. Optimistic, Silveira urged Geisel to keep in mind that all care should be
taken to help Carter save face in case American public opinion saw Brazil’s resilience
as an indication of American weakness.6
3
Robert G. Wesson, The United States and Brazil: Limits of Influence (New York: Praeger Publishers,
1981), quoted in Timothy Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights, and the Brazilian Military Regime: Revisiting
the Diplomatic Crisis of 1977’, mimeo, 2006.
4
Brzezinski to President, 29 April 1977, the White House, box CO-13, folder CO22, The Carter Library.
5
Silveira a Pinheiro, secreto, 21 January 1977, no number, AAS 1974.04.23; Pinheiro a MRE, secreto
exclusivo, Washington, 27 January 1977, n.274, AAS 1975.09.25; Pinheiro a Silveira, secreto-exclusivo,
Washington, 28 January 1977, n. 304, AAS 1974.08.15.
6
Silveira to Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, secreto-exclusivo, Brasília, 31
January 1977, n. 24,AAS 1974.03.26.
249
Only two days later the Americans proposed a ‘quiet channel’ for conversations
over nuclear proliferation. But after securing Brazilian acceptance, the State Department
circulated a press release according to which the Brazilians had acknowledged the
possibility of renegotiating the nuclear deal with the Germans. If mutual trust had been
low, it now vanished.7 Because his priority was to avoid confrontation, Silveira opted to
reject any American overtures to discuss the specifics of the agreement with Germany
while urging Geisel to move forward fast with its implementation.8
It is no wonder that in their first meeting the two sides should have talked past
each other. The mission, which was planned to last two full days, ended after only one.
When the Americans offered to produce uranium for the Brazilian facilities or do it
under international supervision, Silveira turned the offers down. Safeguards in the FRG-
Brazil agreement were sufficiently comprehensive to dispel any fears of a nuclear
device.9 Innocuous as it was, however, the meeting mattered because the chanceler told
his interlocutors that all future conversations on nuclear power should occur within the
framework of the Memorandum of Understanding. By reviving the Memorandum
Silveira was trying to blunt the sharpness of American pressures. He could now invoke
notions of ‘equality’ and ‘respect’ to keep his interlocutors at bay; as much as he could
remind them that the dialogue was voluntary, that if push came to shove Brazil would
feel free to walk away.10
7
Silviera a Pinheiro, secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Brasília, 3 February 1977, no number, AAS
1974.08.15.; and Pinheiro a Silveira, secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Washington, 4 February 1977, n.
398, AAS 1974.08.15.
8
Silveira a Pinheiro, secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Brasília, 14 February 1977, n.231, AAS 1974.08.15;
Análise tática das consultas com os norte-americanos, secreto-exclusivo, 25 February 1977, AAS
1974.08.15. See also Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, secreto-exclusivo,
Brasília, 2 March 1977, n. 48, AAS 1974.03.26.
9
Under Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Joseph Nye, and Silveira met in Brasília on 1 March
1977. Resumo da troca de ponto de vista entre o Ministro Antonio Azeredo da Silveira e o Sr. Warren
Christopher, Brasília, 1 March 1977, no number, and II Parte (Reunião Plenária), AAS 1974.03.26.
10
Crimmins a Silveira, Brasília, 3 March 1977, s/n, AAS 1975.09.25; Silveira a Crimmins, Brasília, 3
March 1977, no number, AAS 1975.09.25; Vance to Silveira, Washington, 7 March 1977, AAS
1975.09.25.
250
Meanwhile, in Washington the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
prepared a Brazil policy-paper including the following demands: Brazil’s full adherence
to the Treaty of Tlatelolco for the proscription of nuclear weapons in Latin America
(which it had signed and ratified, but which it would only ‘recognise’ after all other
parties signed it too; an easy escape, since Cuba, France, and the Soviets had declared
they would not sign); a tacit deferral of the acquisition of a reprocessing facility by
mutual agreement with Germany to delay shipments; placing the enrichment facility
under multilateral control; and a tripartite programme between the U.S., Brazil, and
Germany for cooperative research in fuel cycle technologies. The piece concluded that
‘It would be difficult to conceive of a worse setback to our worldwide non-proliferation
policy than a failure to obtain any non-proliferation gain in Brazil’.11
At the NSC, Brzezinski liked the orientation. ‘Since we are likely to lose on the
current hard line strategy’, he wrote, the new plans would introduce an element of good
faith into the negotiations. Furthermore, ‘the Brazilians would be offered alternatives
that would require them to put up or shut up on the question of its intentions about
getting the bomb (which they can now evade by citing the ‘independence’ argument)’.12
The Brazilians, however, did not see any element of good faith, nor did they let go of
the ‘independence’ argument. And in the face of stalemate, the administration did not
raise the stakes. On the contrary, it retreated. At a press conference President Carter
said:
I don’t know what is going to happen in Brazil…My understanding is that the
Brazilians are quite determined to go through with their reprocessing capability,
11
Paul C. Warnke to Deputy Secretary of State, ‘The FRG-Brazil Deal’, the US Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, secret memorandum, 25 March 1977, The National Security Archive, Washington,
D.C.
12
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, ‘Warnke Proposal for New Approach to FRG-Brazil Deal’, the
White House, secret memorandum, circa 4 April 1977, The National Security Archive.
251
but we did object to it. We do object to it. We are not going to try to impose our
will on other countries.
Silveira and Geisel were vindicated.13 The American strategy had failed, and Brazil
could proceed with its programme undisturbed. Yet, the American-Brazilian
relationship was deteriorating fast and its tenor becoming increasingly hostile. Three
days after Christopher left Brasília, human rights gave it what many saw as a coup de
grace.
Human Rights and the End of U.S.-Brazil Military Cooperation
Changes in U.S. legislation mandated that human-rights reports be written about
recipients of American military sales and assistance. The first report ever written on
Brazil, along with versions for 82 other countries, was finalised in December 1976, still
in the Ford administration and under Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Four months
later, now under Carter’s watch, it reached Capitol Hill, where the U.S. Senate would
decide on a date for release to the public.14
The 29-paragraph Brazil report was factual and relatively mild. It was certainly
milder than recent investigations carried out by Amnesty International, the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights, and the International Committee of Jurists. It
mentioned negative aspects of Brazil’s decade-long dictatorship but it cited
improvements and it praised Geisel’s abertura. Its authors went as far as to say that
Brazil’s poor human-rights record pre-dated the 1964 regime, so the government could
not be blamed entirely, and then concluded that the country was ‘partly free’.15 Former
13
Lembrete, 6 May 1977, n. 118, AAS 1974.04.23.
14
For an important assessment of Carter’s human rights policies in Latin America, but one that does not
deal with Brazil, Sikkink, Mixed Signals, pp. 121-148.
15
United States Congress, Human Rights Practices in Countries Receiving U.S. Security Assistance,
Report submitted to the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, by the
Department of State. 95th Congress, 1st Session, 25 April (Washington: GPO, 1977).
252
Vice-President and now Senator Hubert Humphrey, chair of the Congressional
committee, was correct when he declared that ‘the report on Brazil is not that bad’.16
The Brazilian regime, however, were incensed. In their eyes, an American
assessment of Brazil’s domestic situation posed a threat to the fabric of international
norms that had for generations preserved Brazil’s sovereignty in a world dominated by
the powerful. In a gesture that sought to raise the stakes, Itamaraty returned the report to
the American embassy, denouncing the material as ‘unfit for our archives’ since it had
‘tendentious and unacceptable comments and conclusions’.17 Peculiar as this may
sound, it was actually a shrewd move: whenever the press and those in opposition inside
Brazil asked for copies of the report, officials were in a position to reply that they had
no copy in their possession, thus delaying domestic press coverage until the report
became publicly available in Washington.
Furthermore, President Geisel and his military advisors decided to denounce
unilaterally the American-Brazilian Military Agreement that had bound the two
countries together in military affairs since 1952.18 In this they were no innovators; other
Latin American recipients of U.S. military assistance and sales who felt equally
offended (and threatened) did the same, namely authoritarian Chile, Uruguay, and
Argentina.19 From a material standpoint, the U.S.-Brazil military agreement signed in
the aftermath of the Second World War was negligible anyway. There were no direct
transfers of weapons, but only $50 million in credits for arms purchases (2.5% of the
Brazilian defence budget) and $100,000 for training. In financial year 1977, the credit
had not been used at all, and the decision had been taken already not to use any of the
16
Washington Post. 13 March 1977, quoted in Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights…’, p. 10.
17
Miami Herald 20 March 1977; Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights…’, p. 8.
18
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 6 March 1977, n. 49, AAS
1974.03.26.
19
Noon Notes for Dr. Brzezinski, top-secret sensitive, The Situation Room, 12 March 1977 (Crest); Notas
secretas de Silveira sobre a conversa entre a senhora Rosalynn Carter e o Ministro Silveira, Brasília, 6
June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23.
253
weapon-purchases credit in 1978. In 1976, the American Defense Intelligence Agency
had reported that Brazil was moving fast towards arms self-sufficiency.20 Indeed, Brazil
was now supplying 75% of its own military needs and in the past decade it had become
one of the ten largest exporters of military materials.21 Geisel’s decision worked well for
him. By the time he denounced the agreement, even the opposition party came to his
side.22 Only the Church praised the report.23
In symbolic terms, the end of the 1952 military agreement marked a significant
shift in the life of the American-Brazilian relations. After all, for over a quarter of a
century the Brazilian military establishment had derived its strategic concepts, its
operational doctrines, and some of its weapons from the United States. Between 1970
and 1975, for instance, some 8.500 Brazilian military had been trained there. When the
agreement was denounced, there were 3.200 Brazilian trainees in the U.S. or in the
‘School of the Americas’ in Panama Canal Zone.24
The Americans were concerned with the downward spiral and made overtures to
increase bilateral dialogue.25 Silveira’s answer was cautious but rigid. Referring to the
negotiations to come, he used the words ‘sovereign’, ‘fair’ and ‘mutual respect’.
Reflecting upon the deteriorating relationship, he stated that the problem was not of
Brazil’s making. And the Brazilian response to U.S. positions, he signalled, had been
20
Aide Memoire, confidencial, 26 August 1976, AAS 1974.04.16. and Defense Intelligence Agency,
‘Brazil’s view of changes in US relationship’, secret intelligence appraisal, 16 April 1976, National
Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Latin America, box 2, Gerald R. Ford Library.
21
Patrice M. Franko, ‘Review Essay: The Puzzle of Brazilian Arms Production’, Journal of
Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 40, 4 (Winter, 1998): 137-143.
22
Ulysses Guimarães, Jornal de Brasília, 6 March 1977. In Congress only one MDB representative
manifested support for the release of the report by reading it verbatim in the Senate and thus recording it
formally in the Congress’ Annals, quoted in Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights…’, pp. 13, 14, 16.
23
Scott Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985 (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1986) and Kenneth P. Serbin, Secret Dialogues: Church-State Relations, Torture, and
Social Justice in Authoritarian Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
24
Clóvis Brigagão, ‘Cancelamento do Acrodo de Assistencia Militar Brasil-Estados Unidos’, Revista
Brasileira de Política Internacional, 81-84 (1978).
25
Vance to Silveira, 14 March 1977, AAS 1974.04.23.
254
conducted with care not to stimulate any anti-American feelings among the local public
opinion.26
Some ten weeks later, Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and Silveira met in
Washington for what was a demonstration of how far the two sides had drifted in their
interpretations of the Memorandum. Both praised it, but for different reasons. The
Secretary thought of an instrument not to devolve power and influence in the moulds of
the Nixon Doctrine, but to affect changes in the policies and internal fabric of the target-
state. To the chanceler it was a defensive shield against those very pressures. Thus,
invoking the spirit of frankness characteristic of engagement, the chanceler told Vance
that the best thing the U.S. could do in South America was moderate criticism of
human-rights abuse in Uruguay and Paraguay. Vance stated that there were good signals
that the tension between Brazil and the U.S. that had marked previous months on the
nuclear front was dissipating at last, and the two sides would soon be ready to find a
solution (implying that the nuclear issue was a ‘problem’). They left their respective
overtures at that, but when the press came into the room, they said they had agreed that
the Memorandum of Understanding was ‘fully in force’.27 The Memorandum serving
Brazilian goals best, the White House considered it wise to try to develop a new policy
to go with it.
Reappraising Brazil
As of March 1977, the new administration still had no coherent Latin American policy.
When top officials met to discuss one, they decided to have none. At the White House
Situation Room, officials favoured a hands-off approach to the hemisphere. National
Security Advisor Brzezinski overruled anything like Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress or
26
Silveira to Vance, circa 14 March 1977, AAS 1974.04.23.
27
‘Em pleno vigor’, Silveira a Geisel, secreto, Washington, 31 May 1977, n. 45, AAS 1977.01.27.
255
Kissinger’s New Dialogue. Even recognition of Latin American ‘adulthood’, he
pointed out, would be patronising and should therefore be avoided. Deputy Secretary of
State Christopher agreed the ‘best overall policy may be a non-policy’, and Assistant
Secretary for Hemispheric Affairs, Terence Todman, argued for dropping the rhetoric of
a ‘special relationship’ with the hemispheric countries at once. Treasury Under
Secretary, Anthony Solomon, agreed, but advocated for special policies at least for
Mexico and Brazil. This was an odd attitude. In October 1976, before the presidential
election, Vance had written to Carter that he could predict problems in U.S. relations
with Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, the largest and most powerful countries in
the region. They were ‘striking out on their own in a way inconceivable a few years
ago’.28
Now in March 1977, the decision was to promote ‘warm relations with civilian
and democratic governments, normal relations with nonrepressive military regimes, and
cool but correct relations with repressive governments’. But the criteria to decide where
to fit each country remained unclear, as it was unsaid what the gradation between
‘warm’, ‘normal’, and ‘cool’ would entail in practice. In the wrap-up session, they
decided to be ‘increasingly sensitive to Brazil’; but again, there was no reasoned
argument as to why or how.29
When it came to rolling out policy, ‘sensitive’ meant different things to different
people. The State Department was reluctant to take measures that might provoke the
Brazilian leadership further. To Brzezinski, however, time was ripe for provocation
because ‘politics in Brazil is in an extremely interesting state of flux’. When three
leading senators of the Brazilian opposition party asked for an audience with Vice-
28
Vance to Carter, ‘Overview of Foreign Policy Issues and Positions’ (October 1976), quoted in Cyrus
Vance, Hard Choices (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 451/2.
29
Policy Review Committee Meeting, ‘Latin America’, the White House, secret minute, 24 March 1977,
The National Security Archive.
256
President Mondale, State argued against it but the national security advisor supported it.
‘We don’t want to let the ‘seeds’ of future democratic forces feel as if we don’t care’.
Mondale chose to follow State’s advice.30 But Carter decided to have the First Lady
stop over in Brazil during her tour of the hemisphere with a strong human-rights
message.
During Rosalyn Carter’s stay in Brasília on 6 June 1977 protest against the
regime was peaking and Geisel saw it fit to shut down the University of Brasília for
three days.31 For all the security arrangements, a group of students handed the American
party a letter denouncing the military regime that eventually leaked to the press and
made the headlines the following day. Geisel’s spokesman said it was the work of
‘Brazilians who don’t love Brazil’. A newspaper notorious for its official leanings hired
two ‘specialised linguists’ to prove the hypothesis that the letter had in fact been
translated from English to Portuguese, suggesting the letter might in effect be the work
of the CIA. Similar letters were handed to the first lady by the Feminist Movement for
Amnesty and by family members of 129 political prisoners.32
Two days into her visit, Mrs. Carter also travelled to the coastal city of Recife to
visit personal friends. There she agreed to meet with two American missionaries who
had been detained by the local police. In their meeting at the American consulate, which
was covered on the evening news broadcasts of all three major television networks in
the U.S., they told Mrs. Carter that they had been ‘treated like animals’ by Brazilian
authorities.33 This was a cautious move: the White House was indeed criticising human-
right abuses in Brazilian prisons, but did it indirectly by focusing on American rather
30
Brzezinski to Vice President, ‘Proposed Meeting with Three Members of the Brazilian Opposition
Party’, the White House, no indication of date, box CO-13, folder CO22, Carter Library; and State to
Brzezinski, confidential, Washington, 2 July 1977, box CO-13, folder CO22, Carter Library.
31
New York Times, 7 June 1977.
32
For spokesman quote see Estado de São Paulo, 7 June 1977, and for CIA hypothesis see Correio
Braziliense, 10 and 11 June 1977, quoted in Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights…’.
33
257
than Brazilian prisoners. Shocked by what he saw as interference in domestic affairs,
Silveira labelled media coverage of recent events ‘incorrect, unjust, and exaggerated’.
Additionally, during her stay the first lady broke protocol by inviting top MDB leaders
and prominent opposition journalists to a private dinner.34
In meeting President Geisel, Mrs. Carter’s message was straightforward. Her
husband placed Brazil along other increasingly influential developing states such as
Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela, resorting to a language similar to that of
Kissinger’s ‘key countries’. But he would push on both the human rights and nuclear
fronts. Silveira’s interjections were to the effect that Brazil was keen on ‘returning’ to
the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding, to which she agreed by saying
that the memorandum was alive and Secretary Vance look forward to meeting Silveira
soon.35
In Washington, the first lady’s trip to Brazil was seen as vindication. Reflecting
upon it a few months later, NSC Latin Americanist, Robert Pastor, pointed out that the
Brazil stop had been the best of the Latin American tour. The U.S. had managed to
reach out and encourage the opposition, students, the press, the church, and
businessmen. It was the perception that a few words by the American president and his
entourage would do to make Brazilian society more ebullient in its quest for political
freedom that informed much of the White House’s hope in 1977 to have Carter stop
over in Brazil himself. By resorting to the language of engagement, the argument went,
it was possible to help promote change in the target state.36 In Brazil the administration
was surely offended by what it saw as interference in its own jurisdiction. But pervading
34
35
Notas secretas de Silveira sobre a conversa entre a senhora Rosalynn Carter e o Ministro Silveira,
Brasília, 6 June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23; Notas sobre a audiência concedida por sua Excelência o
Presidente Ernesto Geisel à Sra. Carter, Brasília, 7 June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23; Notas resumidas sobre
discussão informal entre o Presidente Geisel e a Senhora James Carter, durante o Jantar no Palácio da
Alvorada, 7 June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23.
36
Pastor to Jody Powell and Jerry Schecter, 18 October 1977, box CO-13, folder CO22, Carter Library.
258
the documentation is a sense that neither Geisel nor Silveira thought the American
administration would be able to sustain its human-rights and non-proliferation policies
over time. Instead, the two seem to have been sure that Carter’s idealism verged on the
naïve, and that it would soon clash with the realities of world politics. So for all their
anger, they were not necessarily afraid.37
It is only natural that the two sides should have chosen to further revitalise the
Memorandum.38 Slowly but surely they found the instrument to be a refuge against
overt conflict and a cover under which they could pursue their respective agendas.
Consider Vance’s point that ‘It is important to maintain open channels, so that we can
explore in a timely manner problems, differences and opportunities for cooperation, and
work at maintaining a sound and constructive bilateral relationship’.39 In his answer,
Silveira spoke of the use of these channels to ‘undo misunderstandings’.40 Evoking the
spirit of engagement, Silveira once again asked Vance to moderate his criticism of
human-rights abuse in Paraguay and Uruguay. In turn, Vance said in the same spirit that
he hoped Silveira could convince Paraguay to accept a visit by a human-rights
inspection group.41 To dismiss the exchange as evidence of engagement’s death would
be a mistake; what we see here is that, while it lost its capacity to propose a positive
agenda, the memorandum had become a tool to keep and manage conflict within safe
bounds.
37
Notas secretas de Silveira sobre a conversa entre a senhora Rosalynn Carter e o Ministro Silveira,
Brasília, 6 de junho de 1977, AAS 1974.04.23 CPDOC/FGV; Notas sobre a audiência concedida por sua
Excelência o Presidente Ernesto Geisel à Sra. Carter, Brasília, 7 June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23; Notas
resumidas sobre discussão informal entre o Presidente Geisel e a Senhora James Carter, durante o Jantar
no Palácio da Alvorada, 7 June 1977, AAS 1974.04.23.
38
Silveira a Geisel, secreto urgente, Granada, 15 June 1977, n. 37, AAS 1977.01.27.
39
Vance to Silveira, Washington, 21 June 1977, AAS 1977.01.07.
40
Silveira to Vance, Brasília, 22 June 1977, AAS 1977.01.27.
41 Vance to Silveira, Washington, 20 July 1977, AAS 1977.01.27.; Silveira a Vance, secreto, Brasília, 22 July
1977, AAS 1977.01.27.; Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, secreto, Brasília, 29
July 1977, 173, AAS 1974.03.26; and Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República,
confidencial, Brasília, 3 August 1977, n. 189, AAS 1974.03.26.
259
Maintaining support at home
Disagreement with the United States put Silveira in a difficult position at home. The
embodiment of proximity with Washington during the Kissinger years, he now was at
the forefront of the diplomatic resistance against American pressures. The problem was,
of course, that he ought to resist whilst keeping the U.S. engaged, for alienating it would
only make things worse not only for the bilateral relation itself, but also for the wider
picture of Brazilian foreign relations.
Here we see two devices to justify his posture and rally domestic support among
key constituencies. First, the chanceler revived an old argument: growing unease with
the U.S. was a direct result of Brazil’s ‘emergence’, and that it would dissipate after a
period of adaptation, whereby the hegemon would begin to ‘assimilate’ the new realities
of Brazilian power and influence. In saying so, he was attaching a positive connotation
to decisions that could otherwise be read as the intransigence of an insecure dictatorial
regime. But he was saying more, since the corollary of his argument was that Brazilians
should understand the American reticence and act with ‘serenity’. ‘Serenity’, ‘sobriety’
and ‘maturity’, he made it a point to stress in several speeches, ‘do not mean
weakness’.42
Second, the argument had it that, in resisting the internationalisation of human-
right norms and pressures on the nuclear front, the Brazilians were opposing neo-
colonial intervention. Brazil could not surrender sovereignty because, being relatively
weak and traditionally dependent on the major powers, it was still trying to reassert it.
Now the arguments of American pressure as a response to Brazilian ascent and as a
resilient hegemonic project came together into one. It went like this: the purpose of
American pressures on Brazil was to
42
Speech before Escola Nacional de Informações, Brasília, 24 June 1977, AAS 1974.05.27.
260
Re-conquer to the United States the regional power-position that [Brazil]
achieved in the last decade as a result of Brazil’s own growth and American
disengagement. The new leadership in Washington, by the same token, does not
approve of the expansion of the perimeter of Brazilian diplomatic interests…The
attitude of the Carter administration to seek to contain Brazil’s diplomatic
expansion through political pressures is based on a completely mistaken
assumption: that the regional and international prestige of Brazil are the result,
not the cause, of the special political ties that Brazil began to forge. [According
to such view] it would therefore be sufficient to subtract support from us…for us
to go back in time, emptying the whole content of the Brazilian projection.43
It is not clear from the existing primary sources whether Geisel and Silveira fully
believed that American policies were designed to contain Brazil and keep it a third-rate
country or whether this line of reasoning was primarily targeted at the domestic
audience. It may be the case that, in their minds, the two elements simply coexisted.
The American Strategic Turn
Washington was adamant to push once more. Carter had written to Geisel personally to
say that ‘What impresses me most of all in considering our positions [on nuclear
matters] is the small distance which separates us, and yet how difficult it has been to
find a way to bridge the gap’.44 He also consulted Geisel as to whether it would be
appropriate to send an envoy to discuss these matters at Planalto. Based on their
previous experience with the Carter administration and upholding the belief that the
White House would soon be forced to relinquish its moralist agenda, the Brazilians
were determined to resist. Geisel wrote back to say that the American President’s
43
Speech before Estado–Maior das Forças Armadas, Brasília, 20 September 1977, AAS 1974.05.27.
44
Carter to Geisel, Washington, 27 October 1977, AAS 1976.00.00.
261
impression was misplaced: the distance between the two positions on nuclear issues was
wide, not small.45
It was in a spirit of confrontation that the two sides met in Brasília in late
November 1977.46 Progress was nil from the outset: Geisel turned down an American
request to moderate Venezuela’s position in OPEC, and refused to discuss human
rights.47 But the core purpose of the meeting was to deal with Brazil’s nuclear
programme. And there Washington thought it had a major bargaining chip.
Before stopping in Brasília, the American delegation had been to Buenos Aires
to discuss the Argentine nuclear programme. There, Secretary Vance had managed to
get the Argentines’ agreement to consider the possibility of putting a moratorium or
deferring commercial reprocessing in exchange for American provision of nuclear fuel.
But as conversations with the Argentines progressed, Buenos Aires said that a
precondition for their commitment was that there was what they called ‘a regional
equilibrium’. In other words, they would suspend their own enrichment programme
only if Brazil did the same.
This, officials at the State Department believed, opened a major window to
convince Brazil to change course. If Washington could manipulate the long-lasting
rivalry between the two South American countries by granting special treatment to
Argentina, then this would be a major incentive for Brazil to follow suit. The position
paper informing Vance’s conversations with Silveira laid out the rationale
straightforwardly.
45
Geisel a Carter, Brasília, 31 October 1977, AAS 1976.00.00.
46
Accompanying the Secretary were Assistant Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs Terence
Todman, Latin America National Security Council Specialist, Robert Pastor, two State Department
specialists on nuclear policy (Gerard Smith and Joseph Nye), the Assistant Secretary of State for
Economic and Business Affairs, Julius Katz, and Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian
Affairs, Patricia Derian.
47
Lembrete, Audiência concedida pelo Presidente Geisel ao Secretario de Estado dos EUA, Cyrus Vance,
Brasília, 22 November 1977, n.322, AAS 1974.04.23.
262
[The understandings with Argentina] should significantly increase our leverage
in Brasília. It remains unlikely that Geisel will back away from his firm position
on this visit; he is aware of the FRG’s rejection of our proposals and the latest
intelligence indicates he plans to stonewalls us…The Buenos Aires visit should
make it much more difficult for him to flatly reject us. Nevertheless, it remains
premature for the U.S. to push for any Brazilian movement at this time. Our
objective should be to focus Geisel’s attention on several important factors,
allow him time to absorb their implications, and after the visit continue to pursue
the possibility of the French helping us to persuade the Germans to ask the
Brazilians to study our proposals seriously. The most important factor is not yet
known in Brasília: Argentina’s explicit willingness to defer reprocessing if
Brazil will do the same. This should be the centerpiece of our presentation. To
underscore its importance, it should be conveyed in the context of the US
assessment that Argentina can and will otherwise proceed rapidly to a sizeable,
autonomous, and unsafeguarded reprocessing capability, putting them way
ahead of Brazil (the last point need not be explicit)…Brazil will also be
extremely uncomfortable with the implications of the US/Argentine
communiqué, which suggests strong U.S. support for Argentina’s domestic
power program and export potential, supported by a US/Argentine
rapprochement on non-proliferation policy. We need not press these points
beyond ensuring that they are aware of the communiqué; it should do its own
work in unsettling Geisel’s complacency with the German deal…We should
stress our willingness to cooperate with the Brazilians to meet their energy
needs, including nuclear…and we should actively seek Brazilian ideas on what
we can do for them…We should avoid talking about modification of the

263
FRG/Brazil Agreement, and stress that we are suggesting a new tripartite
agreement which seeks energy development in the context of ‘regional
equilibrium’ and security (emphasis in the original).48
Two elements, however, rendered the American position innocuous. First of all, the
negotiating tactic was premised on a flawed assumption. As Geisel was fast to retort,
the mere existence of diplomatic problems between Brazil and Argentina did not mean
Brazil saw her neighbour as a threat. Since the 1950s, the President observed, Argentina
had been in a position to produce an atomic bomb, a statement that the President of the
Argentine Commission for Nuclear Energy had reconfirmed only days before in
November 1977. For almost 20 years the Brazilians had lived with that knowledge, and
not sought any drastic countermeasures. This was, Geisel said, the result of Brazil’s
perception that no Argentina government would go out of its way to invest in building
an atomic device. Furthermore, since reprocessing technology would sooner or later be
available widely, the U.S. should focus on strengthening international regimes (by
which they meant the U.S. should take nuclear disarmament seriously) rather than on
country-by-country agreements that tried, in vain, to arrest the circulation of knowledge.
The president closed his response by saying that Brazil could not possibly consider a
moratorium or delay of its own reprocessing because they were pressed for time: with
population growth at 2.7% a year and a soaring demand for energy, if Brazil did not
solve its energy situation it would push its own people into poverty. The country might
become, the president speculated, ‘another India’.49
48
Cyrus Vance’s visit to Brazil, ‘Brazil scope paper: Implications of the Argentine Visit’, confidential,
November 1977, AAS 1977.01.27.
49
The presidential analogy, which tried to highlight the dire economic consequences of Brazil’s
suspension of its nuclear energy programme, was an unfortunate one; after all, India had tested its own
nuclear device in 1974. Lembrete, Audiência concedida pelo Presidente Geisel ao Secretario de Estado
dos EUA, Cyrus Vance, Brasília, 22 November 1977, n.322, AAS 1974.04.23.
264
The second problem with the American position was rather pedestrian, but
crucial. After meeting Geisel, Vance left the presidential palace to return to Itamaraty
for a round of talks with Silveira. On his way out, however, he unadvisedly left a copy
of his instructions and talking-points on a chair. Whereas there is no record of how
Vance might have reacted upon realisation of his slip, this minor episode did have an
important impact upon Brazil’s negotiating position. From that moment onwards,
whenever Silveira met Vance in person he chided the Secretary for attempting to play
Argentina and Brazil against each other. Also, Silveira did indeed believe that if he were
ever to disclose the evidence to the press, the Secretary’s position would be severely
undermined. But more important, Silveira began to develop the argument that it was in
Brazil’s interest to close rank with Argentina in resisting U.S. pressures, and perhaps
consider a major nuclear agreement with Buenos Aires.50
In December, Vance and Nye met Silveira once again, to no avail. When the
Americans told the chanceler they would be fully satisfied if Brazil delayed the building
of reprocessing capabilities for some years, Silveira flatly rejected the proposal. When
Vance brought up human rights, his interlocutor retorted that he hoped not to see the
topic emerge ever again.51 In Brasília, the conclusion was that now the door was open
for a major improvement of the relationship with the United States. Toughness had paid
off, and there were indications that Washington was keen on not seeing Brasília walk
out.52 Soon the proposal arrived to Geisel for a visit by President Carter to Brazil in
March 1978. Atmospherics improved further when Ambassador Crimmins was
exchanged for Ambassador Robert Syre, an appointment that Kissinger, now writing to
50
Silveira Interview, tape 10, side B. Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da
República, Brasília, 18 July 1978, n. 169, AAS, 1976. See also Legação em Buenos Aires ao MRE,
telegrama confidencial, n. 165, 22 February 1978, AHMRE, caixa 159.
51
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, secreto-exclusivo, Brasília, 20
December 1977, n. 306, AAS 1974.03.26.
52
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, secreto-exclusivo, Brasília, 3 January
1978, n.4, AAS 1974.03.26.
265
Silveira as a friend, considered to be ‘a positive development’.53 That Brzezinski
referred regularly to Brazil regularly as a ‘major power’ helped too.54
The Resilience of the Key-Country Orientation
Between December 1977 and March 1978, President Carter visited seven large
developing, regionally prominent countries (Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Venezuela, Brazil, and Nigeria), plus France and Poland. The choice of destination here
is important, for the president was signalling with the possibility that themes such as the
North-South dialogue, the impressive industrialisation of selected countries in the Third
World, the challenge of non-Western nationalism, and the growing influence of
developing states mattered to him. By visiting key countries, Carter was trying to make
up lost opportunities.
Since Eisenhower in 1960, this was the first time an American president stepped
in Brazil. (Since then all other American presidents went to Brazil – and all Brazilian
presidents after Geisel visited the United States in return). Preparations for Carter’s visit
were difficult, with a great deal of negotiations leading to a presidential dialogue which
was pre-fabricated in its details. Both sides saw it as a major success for their respective
positions. Carter found a way to exert pressure on the human-rights front that none of
his assistants had achieved in previous months, while Geisel managed to keep that
pressure within relatively narrow confines. Let us see how.
Preparing the Presidential Trip
53
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 30 January 1978, n.33, AAS
1974.03.26.
54
Pinheiro a Silveira, Washington, 20 September 1977, n. 3364, AAS 1976.00.00; Roteiro para
Conversações Presidenciais entre o Sr. Presidente Ernesto Geisel e o Sr. Presidente James Carter, secreto,
14 November 1977, AAS 1976.00.00.
266
In the preparatory material for the trip, the administration characterised Brazil as
increasingly relevant to world affairs, although the proposition remained unexplained. If
there was an element of innovation, it was the notion that Brazil, if successfully lured
and transformed, could be an important stakeholder in world order. Part of the rationale
stemmed from the advocacy of an academic. Professor Riordan Roett, Director of the
Latin American Studies program at John Hopkins University, had in early 1977 chided
the administration for exacerbating ‘an already delicate situation between our two
countries, unfortunately’. His contention had triggered a set of position papers in the
Brzezinski NSC, out of which an overall approach to dealing with Brazil would emerge
on the eve of Carter’s trip.55
Along with it, an anonymous document written by an outsider circulated the
White House during preparations for the trip, arguing for encouraging Brazil to ‘adopt a
stance of a responsible member of the Western community and to recognise that Brazil
has arrived as an international power…No Brazilian was sure that this administration
would maintain the Memorandum of Understanding, and even our embassy was in
profound doubt for a while. The memorandum is a frail reed but it is better than
nothing’. The piece suggested that Washington might want to extent Brazil an invitation
to join OECD and NATO as well as downplay the problems on the human-rights front
(after all, the country was neither Chile nor Argentina).56
A NSC counter-proposal scrapped the NATO option because Brazil benefited
from ‘dangling on the boarder between the developing and the developed worlds’; and
insisting on the importance of sticking to the condemnation of human-rights abuse
55
Riordan Roett to Walter F. Mondale, 8 February 1977; Hornblow to Clift, ‘US Policy toward Brazil’,
the National Security Council, 11 March 1977, n. 1245; Suggested Reply to Professor Roett, the State
Department, no indication of date. All documents are in White House Country Files, box CO13, folder
CO22, Carter Library.
56
Unsigned memorandum on ‘Presidential Visit and Encouragement o Brazil to become a Responsible
Western Power’, no date, 3 pages, White House Country Files (WHCF), box CO13, Folder CO22, Carter
Library.
267
there, it stated that no U.S. president would be able to make domestic constituencies
differentiate the generals in Brasília from their dictatorial neighbouring. But it proposed
an increase in Brazil’s representation in the IMF and the international banks.57 There are
no indications that any of these proposals were taken any further, but they created an
environment where Brazil gained some direct presidential attention. On announcing his
trip, Carter said that relations ‘have been a bit shaken, but I think it is time to straighten
things out’, although he never said how.58
In Brazil the prospects of the visit made for a tense few months. Showing that
the Brazilians saw the visit with caution and some fear, in a rather unusual move
Silveira also sent secret cables to Caracas and Lagos, the two other places where Carter
was passing, to suggest to the foreign secretaries there that they exchange information.
He wanted to know how much resistance the Venezuelans and Nigerians would pose to
American pressure, as well as hear what tactics Carter would use to press them on Law
of the Sea, non-proliferation, economic management, human rights, and developments
in Africa.59
The Visit
During his stay in Brasília on 29 and 30 March 1978 Carter signalled with peace and
proposed the re-launching of engagement.60 Geisel, however, now saw commitments
with Washington as too dangerous and unstable an entanglement. When Carter invited
him to visit the United States, he turned the proposal down. When the U.S. president
suggested that the Memorandum of Understanding should include a working-group on
57
Pastor to Brzezinski, ‘Your Requests for comments on the Brazil Memo’, the White House, 4
November 1977.
58
Correa da Costa a Silveira, secreto, New York, 6 October 1977, AAS 1976.00.00.
59
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 26 April 1978, n. 92, AAS
1974.03.26.
60
Documento secreto exclusivo sobre primeira reunião do Presidente Ernesto Geisel com o Presidente
Jimmy Carter, Brasília, 29 March 1978, AAS 1974.04.23.
268
American investments in Brazilian agriculture, Geisel replied by saying that, indeed, the
right of Brazilians to food should come before ‘other rights’.
But Carter was not ready to give up. He confided to Geisel that he was ‘anxious’
to restore military relations with Brazil in the aftermath of the denouncement of the
1952 agreement, and showed readiness to do it ‘discreetly’. Geisel nodded approvingly,
but pointed out that such restoration could only occur if there were assurances that
Brazil would not be submitted to the scrutiny of the American Congress, since ‘national
pride and sovereignty’ could not tolerate that a report might maculate the country’s
image. Carter agreed and recognised that existing legislation had been ‘ill-advised’,
promising his host that upon returning to Washington he would meet influential
senators to discuss the matter and that he thought there would not be any problems in
the future.61
Yet, when Carter tried to commit Brazil to recognise the applicability of the
Tlatelolco Treaty, Geisel said that he did not think it possible. And when the U.S.
president offered thorium technology for Brazilian nuclear plants, Geisel diverted the
conversation by insisting that in their future correspondence the two presidents focus
more on the Middle East, Africa, and U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations. Although there was a
third presidential meeting scheduled for later that day, Geisel said that results thus far
had been so positive that another round was unnecessary.62
Parallel discussions between Vance and Silveira replicated the same pattern.63
The chanceler insisted once more that Brazilian cooperation with Marxist governments
61
Documento secreto exclusivo sobre segunda reunião do Presidente Ernesto Geisel com o Presidente
Jimmy Carter, secreto exclusivo, Brasília, 29 March 1978, AAS 1976.00.00.
62
Documento secreto exclusivo sobre a terceira reunião do Presidente Ernesto Geisel com o Presidente
Jimmy Carter, secreto exclusivo, Brasília, 30 March 1978, AAS 1976.00.00.
63
The Secretary’s party included Under Secretary Todman, Policy Planning Director, Anthony Lake,
embassy charge d’affaires, Richard Johnson, and counselor Klaus Ruser. The Foreign Minister’s included
ambassador Pinheiro, ambassador João Hermes Pereira de Araujo, counselor José Nogueira Filho,
counselor Ronaldo M. Sardemberg, and counselor Sebastião do Rego Barros, and secretary Carlos
Augusto Santos Neves.
269
in Africa kept the door open for the West there. Rather than pushing newly independent
‘countries against the world’, the U.S. should help ‘universalise’ what it meant to be
Western.64 Vance steered the conversation towards the Horn of Africa, Rhodesia,
Namibia, Ethiopia and Somalia. He was hoping Brasília could exert some pressure on
the Organisation of African Unity to get them more engaged in finding peaceful
solutions to regional problems. But Silveira turned the proposal down. Instead, he
suggested, the U.S. pick an African country to take the lead.65 When the Secretary of
State mentioned Gabon and Nigeria as potential candidates, Silveira retorted with the
peculiar proposition that the obvious choice was Angola itself. According to the Foreign
Minister, if Washington were to single out Agostinho Neto for special support, he could
become a regional leader of the first order. On the spot Vance changed the topic to the
Middle East, where the two sides failed to reach common ground too.66
Carter’s team had left their bolder move for the end of the visit. When the
American president addressed a joint session of the Brazilian Congress, he spoke in
general but explicit terms about human rights and freedom of speech.67 In a press
conference before departing, the president was cautious but incisive: human rights were
no longer ‘taboo’ in U.S.-Brazil talks.68 He then embarked on a private visit to Rio de
Janeiro, where he met the leading opposition figures in the country, namely activist
Cardinals Eugenio Salles of Rio de Janeiro and Paulo Evaristo Arns of São Paulo, the
president of the Brazilian Bar Association, Raymundo Faoro, and the publisher of
leading newspaper Estado de São Paulo. On his way to the airport Carter invited Arns
to ride with him in the presidential limousine, a symbolic gesture that had all the more
64
Relatório secreto exclusivo sobre reunião com o secretário de Estado Cyrus Vance, 29 March 1978, no
number, AAS 1974.04.23.
65
number, AAS 1974.04.23.
66
number, AAS 1974.04.23.
67
Department of State Bulletin 78, no. 2014, May 1978.
68
Los Angeles Times, 31 March 1978, quoted in Power, ‘Carter, Human Rights…’, p. 27.
270
repercussion when it surfaced that only six months earlier the cardinal had sent the
president a list naming 23 Brazilians who had ‘disappeared’ in the hands of local
security forces.69
Visit’s Aftermath
For all the lack of agreement, both sides considered the visit a success. Geisel was
reported to have welcomed the ‘peace making’ effort and the ‘new attitude’. Indeed,
Carter’s statements had been reassuring. Consider ‘We have no authority over either
West Germany of Brazil, nor do we want any’. Or ‘There are some differences of
opinion between ourselves and Brazil which have been very highly publicized.
But…the major factors which bind us in harmony with Brazil far transcend, are much
more important than the differences which have been published’.70 The Brazilian had
not interpreted the trip as a sign of American weakness, but rather at a cautious
softening of the Carter administration’s stance whilst retaining some elements that
sought not to punish Brazil, but to maintain the presidential reputation for a ‘moral’
foreign policy among the American public. Geisel reportedly told his advisers that
Carter was ‘wiser than I thought’.71
The two sides had reached a comfortable equilibrium in spite the fact they
simply could not see things the same way. Disagreements over nuclear power persisted,
but the tone had been moderated and the Brazilians were no longer fearful.72 Vance and
Silveira remained unable to agree on Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, human
rights, or the law of the sea, and trade negotiations had gone nowhere. But even if
69
New York Times, 31 March 1978.
70
Quotes in New York Times, 31 March 1978.
71
Memorandum for Dr. Brzezinski, top-secret sensitive, The Situation Room, 10 May 1978 (Crest).
72
Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 4 July 1978, n. 165, AAS
1974.03.26; Silveira a Geisel, Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 10 August 1978, n.
213, AAS 1974.03.26.
271
mutual suspicions remained firmly in place, the atmosphere was better than it had been
in preceding months.73
But the equilibrium, to survive, required that there were no mutual
entanglements. So when rumours appeared that Argentina might launch an attack on
Chile in late 1978, the Brazilians told the Americans that it would be useful if Carter
went public in his condemnation of any such action. But when Washington asked
Brasília to express its own concerns to both Santiago and Buenos Aires, Silveira refused
taking any active position in a disagreement between ‘two friends’. Brazil would keep a
position of ‘diplomatic and military non-involvement’, and thought it best if a mediator
could be found outside the region.74 In November, when Ambassador Sayre suggested
that a U.S. general from the Joint Chiefs of Staff visit Brazil to share U.S. views on the
global balance of power and in particular Africa with the Brazilian military, he was
rebuffed in the strongest terms: a visit that sought to triangulate U.S.-Brazil relations in
other parts of the world would be utterly inappropriate.75
Two other elements help account for the fact that the relationship stopped
deteriorating. First, General João Baptista Figueiredo was scheduled to become the new
Brazilian president in March 1979. This was reassuring for Washington. Brzezinski had
written to Carter that, with the new president, relations were bound to ‘improve
73
Silveira a Geisel, secreto, Washington, 22 June 1978, n.11, AAS 1974.06.13.; Silveira a Geisel,
Informação secreta, Brasília, 11 July 1978, n. 182, AAS 1974.03.26.; Silveira a Geisel, Informação
secreta, Brasília, 19 July 1978, n. 194, AAS 1974.03.26.; Carter to Geisel, secret, Washington, 15 August
1978, AAS 1974.03.26.; Geisel a Carter, Brasília, 22 August 1978, AAS 1974.03.26.; Silveira a Geisel,
Informação para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 12 September 1978, n. 241, AAS 1974.03.26.;
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta, Brasília, 8 November 1978, n. 295, AAS 1974.03.26. Ernesto
Geisel para Jimmy Carter, Brasília, 30 May 1978, AAS 1976.00.00 and Carter to Geisel, Washington, 19
June 1978, AAS 1976.00.00. Sardenberg a Silveira, Informação secreta para o Sr. Ministro de Estado,
Brasília, 8 September 1978, AAS 1974.04.23.
74
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta-exclusiva para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 27 October
1978, n. 284, AAS 1974.03.26.; Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República,
Brasília, 8 November 1978, n. 295, AAS 1974.03.26. In the end, a sector of the Argentine Navy
mobilised troops to launch an attack but a Papal mediator managed to secure a suspension of plans. We
now know that Argentine frustration in that episode played a significant role in Buenos Aires’ 1982
decision to target the Malvinas/Falkland islands instead.
75
Silveira a Geisel, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 8 November 1978, n.
295, AAS 1974.03.26.
272
significantly’. According to the National Security Advisor, Figueiredo had confirmed in
private that the U.S. should not expect any changes on the Brazilian side under the
remainder of the Geisel administration, but that after March 1979 things would
improve.76 Indeed, Figueiredo soon announced a general amnesty both for victims of
state abuse and its perpetrators, and by the end of 1979 some 5000 exiles returned
home. The human rights report by the U.S. Congress for year 1980 noted that federal
authorities in Brazil no longer used torture systematically, and that disappearances,
abductions, secret arrests, and clandestine detentions had come to an end. When U.S.
Vice President Mondale stopped in Brasília after Figueiredo’s inauguration, human
rights did not figure in their talks at all.77
Second, the international environment had changed in important ways for the
United States. If Carter had been able to push the non-proliferation and human-rights
agenda back in 1977, as 1979 approached the administration was less comfortable in its
position. The superpower management characteristic of détente was melting fast, and
the cold war intensified. American-Soviet relations became increasingly fractious, and
the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan elicited a package of U.S. sanctions and steep
increase in military spending. With traditional containment on the rise in American
grand strategy, the world that had allowed for the very notion of engagement with
Brazil was dying. As we move towards the end of the Carter administration what we see
is the progressive disappearance of engagement from the American policy menu. For
different reasons, the same was happening in Brazil.
Silveira goes to Washington
In his last weeks in cabinet, Silveira prepared notes on foreign policy for future
President Figueiredo. We do not know whether he hoped they would prompt the new
76
Brzezinski to President, secret-sensitive, the White House, 25 September 1978 (Crest).
77
Estado de São Paulo, 23 and 24 March 1979.
273
president to keep him as foreign minister for yet another term, but the fact is that
Figueiredo asked Silveira to be his ambassador to Washington. Silveira’s farewell notes
as Foreign Minister are illuminating, for they reflect his insistence on the model of
engagement that he had developed with Kissinger since 1974.
We must insist that our bilateral relations reflect the increased importance of
Brazil, nothing preventing them from becoming, in a more or less near future, of
a similar level to those that the U.S. maintains with the countries of Western
Europe, the only ones it recognises as its allies, in terms of equality…Brazilian
interests in Latin America, and specially in South America…and in Africa…are
now taken into consideration by the government of the United States. We must
not expect, however, that Brazilian policies in those areas reflect American
options only…Brazil must prepare herself to exert [note Silveira’s own
handwritten insertion: conceptual] leadership in this context. What we must seek
to do is that the United States follows our policies. In the Third World, we are in
better conditions to understand problems and point out mistakes. More than
listen, we need to be heard.78
There is an added paragraph that Silveira crossed out entirely. It reads like this:
It is indispensable, on the Brazilian side, to overcome the mental or
psychological dependency that we inherited from our colonial past…Brazil
should not try to re-establish [with the U.S.] obsolete ‘special relations’, a
chimerical goal that makes no sense in our current historical period, nor should
it, on the other hand, seek to counter the U.S., be it in the inter-American or the
global level.79
78
Esboço de notas encaminhadas ao Presidente-eleito João Figueiredo por Ministro Silveira, no date,
AAS 1978.08.30.
79
Esboço de notas encaminhadas ao Presidente-eleito João Figueiredo por Ministro Silveira, no date,
AAS 1978.08.30.
274
Silveira was therefore sticking to his traditional line, with all its power and
inconsistencies, when on 24 July 1979 he presented his ambassadorial credentials to
President Carter. It was at this point in time that he gave the series of secret interviews
to Fundação Getulio Vargas that appears throughout this thesis. His disappointment
with the fate of engagement is perceptible. He was frustrated that his experiment had
failed, and often referred cryptically to being subject of American black-mail at the
embassy, although he never specified the comment further. Whenever he met U.S. top-
ranking officials he insisted that Washington should open an embassy in Luanda.80 And
although he occasionally met Brzezinski and World Bank president Robert MacNamara,
his influence was clearly on the wane.81 His own relations with this once subordinate
and now boss, chanceler Saraiva Guerreiro, went from cordial to overtly hostile fairly
quickly.82
Brazil’s economic decay played a role too. Domestic economic frailty soon
became the standard justification to refuse any support of U.S. demands, be it a
statement favouring access to prisoners during the Iran hostage crisis or an initiative to
share information on regional affairs.83 When confronted by interlocutors in
Washington, Silveira now replied that ‘I don’t think that Brazil should exert a power
that it doesn’t have’. 84
But there was an added, deeper aspect to the Brazilian position. In this period
Itamaraty was operating a major reassessment of its policies towards South America.
The acrimony with Argentina had come to an end by express decision of President
80
Silveira a MRE, secreto-exclusivo, Washington, 18 August 1979, n. 2109, AAS 1979.03.19.
81
Silveira a MRE, secreto-exclusivo, Washington, 28 September 1979, n. 2557, AAS 1979.03.19.;
Silveira a MRE, secreto, Washington, 25 October 1979, n. 2850, AAS 1979.03.19.
82
MRE a Silveira, secreto, Brasília, 5 December 1979, n. 1851, AAS 1979.09.11.; Silveira a MRE,
secreto, Washington, 21 May 1980, n.1816, AAS 1979.08.02.
83
Silveira to Guerreiro, secreto urgentíssimo, Washington, 30 November 1979, n. 3277, AAS 1979.09.11.
CPDOC/FGV and Guerreiro to Silveira, secreto-exclusivo, Brasília, 30 Novembro 1979, n. 1840, AAS
1979.09.11. Lampreia a MRE, secreto, Washington, 29 July 1980, n.2676, AAS 1979.08.02.
84
Q&A Session with ambassador Silveira at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 27 November
1979.
275
Figueiredo, and for the first time grand strategy began to focus on building a network of
regional groupings inclusive of Buenos Aires. Later on this would become a far more
ambitious project to build a South American alliance centred around Brazil and
Argentina where one of the conscious purposes was to constrain U.S. power in the
region. Back then, however, the Brazilians gave plenty of assurances to Washington that
whatever cooperation occurred at the Southern Cone of South America this was not
hedging against the hegemon. During a joint policy planning meeting in March 1980 the
Brazilians put it thus:
Brazil does not intend to adhere to regional groupings. Due to its dimensions
and specific weight, Brazil’s participation in such blocks would not be a factor
of regional equilibrium…relations with Argentina are developing in an
environment of great cordiality…there are perspectives of intensification of such
relationship in various fields, although there are no plans for a ‘special
relationship’ between Brazil and Argentina, which would not correspond to the
current demands of the regional reality.85
It is true that at that point in time it was not clear in the mind of decision-makers in
Brasília how far cooperation with Argentina would eventually go. But it is equally true
that Brazilian diplomats had begun to sponsor a major strategic shift towards its
Southern neighbour that, in its motivations, precluded the possibility of a preferential
relationship between Brazil and the United States.
Reagan and the End of U.S.-Brazil Engagement
Reagan’s arrival in power marks the move towards American assertion in the Third
World that had begun to occur in the latter part of the Carter administration. Essential in
85
Silveira a MRE, secreto, Washington, 25 March 1980, n.1110, AAS 1979.03.19; Sardemberg a MRE,
secreto, Washington, 25 March 1980, n.1111, AAS 1979.03.19. and Sardemberg a MRE, secreto,
Washington, 25 March 1980, n.1099 AAS 1979.03.19.
276
the American equation was the decision to increase the pace and range of containment,
while tackling also the emergence of radical nationalist movements across the
periphery.86 Affecting change in the Third World was not to be achieved through direct
involvement or through key-countries, although proxy wars were on the scene. But a
characteristic tool in this period was the channelling of American support for guerrilla
fighters and counter-revolutionaries, non-state actors that could fight the cold war
without necessitating direct U.S. presence on the ground. Out of the equation was the
concern with the North-South agenda and its ramifications. As far as strategic concepts
went, the era of devolution to and engagement with regional powers was over.
In the early days of the first Reagan administration, Brazilian predictions were
gloomy. They expected difficulties on the North-South agenda and on Africa (but also
on the Middle East and Easter Europe, where Brazilian trade was beginning to pick up
momentum). In the Americas, the Brazilians predicted that the new administration
would push for hegemonic reassertion ‘compress[ing] certain spaces…opened up by
Brazil’.87 The hemisphere was closing under an hegemonic grip once again. As the
commander of the Brazilian School of Naval War put it a few years later, Reagan would
seek to ‘facilitate the exercise of U.S. hegemony…not necessarily stop Soviet
expansionism’.88
The gloom, however, did not cause fear. Predictions in Brazil foresaw that South
America would remain largely tangential to U.S. grand strategy. Furthermore, they
argued, after the turbulent Carter years the bilateral relationship was now governed by a
set of principles and mechanisms that allowed Brazil to escape pressures. In this they
86
For an overview of the Reagan policies in the Third World, James M. Scott, Deciding to Intervene: the
Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996) and Westad, The
Global Cold War, chapter 9.
87 MRE a Silveira, secreto, Brasília, 12 November 1980, ns.1860, 1862, and 1863, AAS 1979.08.02.
88
Geraldo Cavagnari, ‘Atlântico Sul: introdução ao debate’, 35th Pugwash Conference on Science and
World Affairs, Campinas, Brazil, 3-8 July, 1985. Quoted in Kramer, ‘Diálogo de surdos…’, p. 10.
277
were right. Where Brazilian predictions in the early 1980s were wrong, though, was in
the unwarranted hope that Reagan might want to bring back Henry Kissinger as a major
advisor on foreign affairs.89
Bilateral Coolness
The Reagan administration did not seek to turn Brazil into a regional policeman or a
partner in managing order in the hemisphere. But it used the services of Vernon
Walters, the early proponent of rapprochement, to ask for Brazilian support against the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua, an operation that also included El Salvador, Guatemala and,
in South America, Argentina.90 President Figueiredo turned the overtures down.91 Brazil
also rejected a Pentagon plan for a South Atlantic Treaty Organisation bringing together
Brazil, Argentina and South Africa.
In conversations with U.S. officials, Brasília continued to try an approximation
between Washington and Luanda. In Brazilian eyes there was an opportunity for the
establishment of communications between the U.S. and Angola because the White
House was keen on pushing once more for the end of Cuban troop presence in that
country. In the second half of 1981 Guerreiro discussed Angola with Secretary of State,
Alexander Haig, U.S. Vice President, George H. W. Bush, German Foreign Minister
Genscher, and the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. The chanceler also
visited Luanda himself, and sent out two missions for consultations. He then sought to
broker a meeting between the Angolan foreign minister and U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State for Africa, Chester Crocker, in Brasília, to no avail.92
89 MRE a Silveira, secreto, Brasília, 12 November 1980, ns.1860, 1862, and 1863, AAS 1979.08.02.
90
Veja, 25 February 1981, pp. 28-9; Veja, 4 March 981, p. 26. Armony, Argentina, the United States.
91
MRE a Silveira, secreto, Brasília, 28 August 1981, n. 1295, AAS 1979.03.19; MRE a Silveira, Brasília,
14 October 1981, n.1548, AAS 1979.03.19.See also Paulo Kramer, ‘Diálogo de surdos: as relações
Brasil-Estados Unidos’, Política e Estratégia, 3 (1), jan-mar, 1985.
92
MRE a Silveira, secreto exclusivo, Brasília, 5 November 1981, n.1660, AAS 1979.09.11.
278
For all the coolness marking the relationship, Washington and Brasília did make
progress regarding military ties. In 1980 the post of Brazilian military attaché to
Washington which had been suspended during the March 1977 crisis was restored. A
year later the two countries announced joint programme of seminars and bilateral visits
with the view to exchange military doctrine views.93 In 1984 they signed a
memorandum for military high-tech transfers.94 In October 1981, Vice President Bush
was instrumental in suspending a multimillion-dollar fine that Westinghouse was
considering to impose on Brazil for purchasing enriched uranium elsewhere.95 Bush
also played a role in having the U.S. government accept new Brazilian export subsidies
in violation of the 1978 agreement to scrap them out. Silveira believed, wrongly, that
Bush’s interest in Brazil represented ‘a watershed in our relations and makes me think
of the possibility of a return to a more fluid and constructive dialogue, as it happened
during the last Republican administration’.96
In 1982, Reagan and Figueiredo saw each other for quick, protocol visits but
discussed Argentina in the aftermath of her campaign in the Malvinas/Falkland
islands.97 What is striking here is the resilience of Brazil’s insistence to define its
contribution to international order in terms of ‘ideas and perspectives’ rather than actual
involvement.98 By late 1982, Washington had come to grips with the limits to what was
possible to do with Brazil were extremely limited. Although key documents to tell this
part of the story are still closed for research, there are indications that key figures in the
93
Estado de São Paulo, 19 April 1981.
94
For memo see Gazeta Mercantil, 7 February 1984.
95
Washington Post, ‘Bush, in Brazil, Announces Nuclear Cooperation Effort’, A24, 17 October 1981.
96
Silveira a MRE, secreto urgentíssimo, Washington, 22 October 1981, n. 3685, AAS 1979.03.19.
97
Figueiredo a Reagan, unofficial translation, Brasília, 4 May 1982, AAS 1982.01.21. REF Esposito
thesis.
98
See for instance Silveira a MRE, secreto, Washington, 19 April 1982, n.1285, AAS 1982.01.21.
Silveira a MRE , secreto, Washington, 26 April 1982, n. 1377, AAS 1982.10.23. Silveira a MRE ,
secreto, Washington, 26 April 1982, n. 1376, AAS 1982.01.21. Silveira a MRE , secreto, Washington, 27
April 1982, n.1400, AAS 1982.01.21. Silveira a MRE, secreto, Washington, 27 April 1982, n. 1401, AAS
1982.01.21. Silveira a MRE, secreto, Washington, 28 April 1982, n. 1421, AAS 1982.01.21.
279
administration had ran out of patience. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs, Thomas Enders, told Silveira that he would no longer ask Brazil for assistance
in Latin America, that he would not again bring up the issue of the Falklands, nor deal
with trade and economic matters. Perhaps they should limit their discussion to trying to
set up military-industry joint ventures, the ‘most viable [area for cooperation] in the
present circumstances’.99 As an article in Foreign Affairs put it, this was ‘the case of the
missing relationship’.100
The Death of Engagement
It is inconceivable to imagine Secretary Haig in 1983 suggesting that Brazil could be a
significant ally in the new cold war. But Brazil was not altogether irrelevant. The State
Department proposed the set up of a series of bilateral ad hoc working groups on
economics, nuclear power, science and technology, space cooperation, and military
industry cooperation.
The attempt at proximity here was fundamentally different than it had been
during the Nixon, Ford and even the Carter administrations. For now Washington was
consciously moving away from high-level, government-controlled consultation. The
emphasis was on flexible task-specific groups that brought on board quite seriously the
private sector for the first time in the history of American-Brazilian relations.
Unsurprisingly, when the proposals came, they made no reference to the Memorandum
of Understanding signed seven years before.
The proposals reflected the ideological fabric of the Reagan era. Top-ranking
diplomats in Brasília, not to mention Silveira, were incensed. Their generation’s was a
conception of the world where the state was the arbiter filtering pressures originating in
99
Silveira a MRE, secreto urgentíssimo, Washington, 1 November 1982, n. 3475, AAS 1982.10.23.
100
Fishlow, ‘The United States and Brazil’.
280
the external environment.101 Without the state’s control and mediation, what would
secure the interests of weak states like Brazil? In their eyes, close contact with the
United States was more dangerous than it had ever been. ‘The disparity of relative
power between the two countries…makes the relationship essentially unbalanced,
risking to turn any form of inter-dependence, even if by accident, into dependence’.
Interdependence with the United States would only make the relationship, already
‘failing and frustrating’, worse. If the two societies were to interact without the state’s
mediation, then the way would be paved for an ‘incalculable array of emotional
reactions’.102 Chanceler Guerreiro put it thus:
The American strategy seems to be one that creates ties in various sensitive
areas in ways that, if the exercise succeeds, such intimacy would end up
influencing Brazilian foreign policy in the direction of alignment with the
United States.103
The American strategy, he added, involved reducing ‘the pace of direct contacts with
Itamaraty’. Soon, he feared, the U.S. ambassador to Brasília would seek to establish
links with Brazilian societal groups, simply turning to Itamaraty to stamp decisions
taken elsewhere. This was an American plan to:
Confront the Brazilian government with such volume of proposals and
initiatives…so that it is very difficult for us to process them in an ordered
fashion and in accordance with our own priorities; exploit the possibilities of
dividing the Brazilian negotiating front…[But] Brazil’s most important
bargaining chip is to…stimulate the use of diplomatic channels as a way to
101 Silveira a MRE, secreto exclusivo urgentíssimo, Washington, 15 February 1983, n. 499, AAS 1979.03.19.;
Silveira a MRE, secreto exclusivo, Washington, 18 February 1983, n.534 AAS 1979.03.19.; Silveira a MRE,
secreto exclusivo, Washington, 18 February 1983, n.533 AAS 1979.03.19.
102
Silveira a MRE, secreto exclusivo, Washington, 17 February 1983, n. 524, AAS 1979.03.19.
103
Guerreiro a Figueiredo, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 21 February
1983, n. 55, AAS 1979.03.19.
281
maintain the indispensable coordination and the discipline necessary to the good
management of relations with the United States…Avoid that the exaggerated
intensity of contacts lead to distortions in the execution of [our] foreign policy
by associating it excessively to American goals.104
In language that was reluctant but signalled a clear policy choice, Guerreiro concluded:
‘There is no great evil, on our part, to leave the Memorandum of Understanding of 1976
a bit to the side. Its function, in essence, has been fulfilled’.105
Without a model to adopt in lieu of engagement, the Brazilian choice was one
that emphasised greater distancing from the United States. The problem was, of course,
that in the 1980s the U.S. became all the more important to Brazil. The management of
foreign debt – perhaps Brazil’s greatest foreign-policy challenge in the 1980s –
depended heavily on the U.S. Treasury, Washington-based agencies, or U.S.-dominated
private committees. Between 1980 and 1987, the American share of Brazilian exports
increased from 17.4% to 29.2%. Between 1985 and 1987, the U.S. accounted for 40%
of Brazil’s trade surplus. That Brazilians saw this as dependency was only reinforced by
the fact that their exports to the American market were now dominated by manufactured
goods (72% in 1985 as against 29% in 1972), where difficult negotiations over
protectionism were bound to be toughest and most frustrating. Soon conflict surfaced
over Brazil’s informatics policies too. And even if Reagan’s military attention in the
hemisphere was largely confined to Central America (from Nicaragua to Grenada to
Panama), it was clear that U.S. clout in the region now was tighter than it had been in
previous administrations.106
104
Guerreiro a Figueiredo, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 21 February
1983, n. 55, AAS 1979.03.19.
105
Guerreiro a Figueiredo, Informação secreta para o Sr. Presidente da República, Brasília, 21 Fevereiro
1983, n. 55, AAS 1979.03.19.
106
Andrew Hurrell, ‘Latin America in the New World Order: A Regional Bloc of the Americas?’,
International Affairs, 68/1 (1992): 121-139.
282
In this sense, the end of the story of American-Brazilian engagement coincides
with the beginning of a new narrative dominated by low-level but persistent tension,
and by the absence of a diplomatic framework to sustain and manage a productive
relationship.
Summary
U.S. foreign policy under Carter sought to reverse the public mood post-Vietnam and
post-Watergate. Among other measures, the administration brought human rights and
non-proliferation to the fore. In terms of the Brazil policy, Washington hoped to arrest
Brazilian capacity to obtain weapons-grade nuclear materials and at the same time
influence the regime to make faster progress in ending dictatorship and state-sponsored
abuse. The initial expectation was that Brazil, still seen as a relevant polity in the Third
World, might be lured into becoming a stakeholder in the (vague and underdetermined)
world order that Carter wished to see emerge.
But the Brazilians felt alienated by both the substance and form of Carter’s
foreign policy, transforming the institutions of engagement into a shield to resist and
escape American pressures. Whatever rationale there had been in Brasília to support a
closer relationship with the U.S., friction had brought it to an end.
The causes of mutual estrangement ran deeper than the negotiation styles,
clashing interests and cognitive dissonance between decision-makers in Washington and
Brasília. The last two years of the Carter administration saw a reawakening of
traditional cold-war concerns that were incongruous with devolution to emerging
countries. The trend was only exacerbated under the watch of President Reagan.
Brazil’s relevance in American calculations declined back to where it had been before
Kissinger’s appearance on the scene in 1969. In Latin America, Reagan’s security

283
priorities shifted from South America to Central America and the Caribbean, where
Brazil had less of a say and little clout. And soon the accent fell on open markets, de-
regulation, and the leadership of the private sector in sustaining relationships between
the U.S. and parts of the developing world – principles that were anathema to Brazil’s
experience.
Changes occurred at the Brazilian end too. A mounting economic and financial
crisis curtailed the expansionist project significantly. The progress of abertura made for
a domestic scene more intricate and less subject to governmental control, putting the
leadership on the defensive and eliciting a foreign policy distinctly rigid. The end of the
Geisel administration and the beginning of General Figueiredo’s tenure also
transformed Brazilian grand strategy towards Argentina: partly as a response to
American reassertion, the old neighbouring rival now became a potential ally. These
elements contributed to generating an attitude towards the United States that was at
odds with the principles governing engagement and the hopes that Silveira had once
embodied.
Yet, it was Silveira whom the new administration appointed as ambassador to
Washington. Once the proponent of engagement as a tool outward projection, he now
tried to defend a Memorandum of Understanding that had become protective armour.
He did not foresee, nor did his colleagues in Brasília, the fundamental changes under
way in Western society.
The revival of neo-liberalism in American grand strategy in the 1980s unsettled
the international scene in which some developing countries had lived since the
aftermath of the Second World War. In the mindset of Silveira’s generation in Brazil,
deregulation, privatization, and societal interdependence were not only unknown, but
they were also dangerous to the state and to national autonomy. They were, after all, yet
284
another facet of the American neo-colonial experiment in disguise. In this sense,
Reagan’s brand of liberalism made crumble the environment in which Silveira and
Kissinger had hoped to manipulate the relationship out of its traditional predicament.
In sum, up to a point the breakdown of American-Brazilian engagement was a
reflection of political mistakes on the two sides, mutual misunderstanding, and the
inherent flaws of an equivocal project. But it was also the result of the end of the world
of détente and the birth of a new one in its place.

CONCLUSION
This thesis has explored the politics of engagement between the United States and
Brazil in the era of détente. The narrative chapters considered the range of international,
domestic and foreign policy factors shaping the process. This conclusion has three
goals. It first offers a summary account of the story. It then identifies key components
and it considers conceptual implications. Finally it draws out interconnections between
the past and the prospects for American-Brazilian engagement today.
Equivocal Engagement
U.S.-Brazil engagement as it emerged in the 1970s represented a conscious attempt to
increase governmental interaction between the two partners. Bargaining rather than any
grand design guided a project that was in essence motivated by national political
ambitions and subject to goals that evolved through the course of bilateral interaction.
Crucial in the equation was the asymmetry of salience between the two sides: if the
United States was a central element in Brazil’s grand strategy, Brazil only appeared
tangentially in the grand narrative of American foreign relations in this period.
That the two sides eventually defined interest in terms of engagement speaks of
how their leaders read key features of the period of détente, and how they sought to
adjust to changing economic and political realities. In particular, actors on both sides
were impressed by the emergence of post-colonial states in world politics, the
perception of mounting difficulties in the maintenance of American primacy across the
Third World, and the foreign-policy dimensions of Brazil’s nation- and state-building
process. In this sense, in the story of U.S.-Brazil engagement global political and
economic shifts were more important than cold-war competition.

286
In the United States the idea emerged that special relations with key regional
powers in the periphery would facilitate the task of maintaining the global balance of
power in America’s favour. In this picture, Brazil was just one of several other targets
of renewed American interest. The approach was based on a hierarchical conception of
international relations where a major power acts through local proxies and thereby seeks
to keep the cost of intervention on the ground low. But coexisting with this was the
notion – never clearly spelled out but increasingly important as the 1970s progressed –
that a model of special relations with influential states in the periphery was useful in a
way that went beyond containment. Talking the talk of devolution was perceived as an
expression of benign hegemony: here was a major power that did not want to intrude in
all matters at all times, and one that would negotiate and share its views with selected
peripheral states if that gave them a sense of ownership that could in turn feed into the
U.S.-sponsored world order. In the specific case of Latin America, where Soviet
intervention was not particularly pressing but where indigenous developments
threatened American hegemony, devolution to Brazil was conceived as a tool to help
reverse the trend. When it became obvious that Brazil was not a good proxy, the
realisation did not prevent Kissinger from pursuing and indeed stepping up engagement
even as the Brazilian leadership became more demanding in its conditions for
rapprochement.
In Brazil, the tone was set by the idea of achieving greater power and influence
in the world while also reasserting autonomy. It was not just that the ruling generals
could now extract more positional goods and greater political support for their
authoritarian project. More important, the leadership soon saw a major opening: without
having to coordinate their own regional cold war with Washington, they could try to
elicit concessions and seek to leverage American power for their own international
287
objectives. They could also bind the U.S. to a set of minimal rules and procedures that
stressed ‘equality’ and ‘respect’. In exchange for rather little Brazil hoped that it could
achieve a lot – and without getting entrapped in a hegemonic embrace. Supporting
Brazil’s diplomatic calculations was the fact that engagement with the U.S. allowed the
generals to keep control at home without alienating nationalist public opinion and
constituencies. In this sense, for the Brazilians engagement was a tool to build up a
nationalist polity that was in essence conservative rather than revolutionary.
In practice engagement resulted in a significant broadening of the traditional
remit of the relationship. Reflecting the difficulties in building close ties between these
two states, its terms were conveniently loose, allowing each side to define its
commitments on the strict basis of perceived interest. Because much of the conceptual-
base behind engagement remained blurred and unexplained, we do not see the
development of discourses or representations of the other country that might have tied
up acting leaders to one single set of policies. (This said, there is evidence that the
arrangement introduced a sense of perceived mutual obligation that did not exist
before). Bilateral contacts remained low when compared with those existing between
the U.S. and other key allies – and it is clear that in Washington it was very difficult to
sustain dedication to Brazil over time. Furthermore, coexisting with the policy
programme were profound doubts and recurrent suspicions of each other’s motives and
ability to deliver. Because Brazil paid disproportionate attention to the endeavour, it
reaped the larger portion of benefits. It is striking to see the unconditional and
unreciprocated concessions it managed to achieve with Nixon/Ford, and the degree to
which Carter eventually accommodated Brazilian preferences.
Engagement never found strong supporting constituencies inside the United
States or Brazil, nor did it venture successfully into in the few areas where progress
288
might have been expected, namely the North-South debate and the management of
regional order in South America. Its institutional mechanisms were not up to the task on
important occasions, though on key themes they provided an environment in which
partners could find some refuge against overt conflict – not necessarily by solving
problems, but sometimes by putting them quietly to one side. Heavy reliance on
individuals helped keep it afloat in moments of crisis, but it also made the relationship
dependent on personal idiosyncrasies and perceptions. When the personalities
supporting it left the scene, and the world of détente began to decline, engagement met
its end. The image of a ‘special relationship’ between the U.S. and Brazil vanished,
giving way to low-level but persistent friction instead.
Key Components and Conceptual Implications
Ideas and Ideational Change
There can be no doubt that the structural political changes characteristic of détente set
the framework within which American-Brazilian engagement occurred. As the U.S.
found it increasingly difficult to translate power into influence in Latin America, leaders
there began to pay attention to Brazil due to its geography, resources, state capacity,
economic growth, industrial development, anti-Communism, and growing foreign-
policy activism. In turn, as the Brazilian economy expanded and foreign-policy
ambitions broadened, Brazilian leaders perceived the United States to have become
increasingly relevant for the acquisition of a range of positional goods and at the same
time to be a recurring source of friction; the U.S. also became increasingly important in
the eyes of the Brazilian governing regime, which embraced nationalism of an
authoritarian and conservative type.

289
Yet, none of these elements rendered engagement an obvious or necessary
choice. On the contrary, the project was subject to lively debate inside each country and
never ceased to be a controversial proposition. To occur in the first place, engagement
required important ideational shifts among key players in support for the new policy.
The idea had to emerge and then be nurtured that greater governmental interaction was
both desirable and feasible. In Washington, this involved recognising that even if Brazil
was not a typical regional power willing to pull its weight among its neighbours, it was
worth paying attention to. In Brasília, it involved learning to see the U.S. as
instrumental rather than detrimental to Brazilian national development and the goal of
international ascent. Therefore engagement was a choice based on contextual (and
contested) ideas about the direction of change in the international system. The thesis has
shown, however, that these ideas never developed firm roots beyond the individuals
most committed to them. They did not translate into a coherent set of representations
about the other country that could be sold in the ideational marketplace with the
necessary purchase to survive their proponents. Such emphasis on ideas is not to
underplay material incentives. It is simply to make the point that material incentives
originating from the wider international system, on their own, do not suffice to account
for what happened: they had to be filtered by leaders and their domestic requirements.
Domestic Politics
The rationale behind engagement had important domestic sources. In the United States,
the impact of Vietnam upon public opinion made the Nixon administration all the
keener to offer a vision of the cold war distinct from the expansive mood of the
Kennedy years. The image of caution against the perils of overstretch, as well as the
sense of necessity rather than of possibility, set the tone of official discourse. The notion
290
of devolution to key regional countries fitted well with those requirements: its
imprecision made it malleable to a set of different situations where the priority was to
couch American foreign policy activities in a language of retreat rather than of
expansion.
In Brazil, the Medici administration first accepted the American overtures with
the intention of legitimising the tightening of political control at home. When he visited
the White House, Medici was less interested in discussing world politics than in the
photo opportunity with Nixon. When Geisel arrived on the scene, the Brazilians pushed
quite strongly for their new conception of engagement. This time they had found a
rationale that linked proximity to the U.S. with gaining major concessions and
protecting Brazilian autonomy against American pressures. But at the heart of the
equation was a domestic calculation too: for Geisel, the connection with Washington
eventually became an important tool both to keep hardliners at bay and to resist
pressures from the opposition as he moved forward with his programme of domestic
political liberalisation.
Key Individuals
This thesis has shown that crucial to the life of U.S.-Brazil engagement in this period
were key leaders on both sides who embraced their own particular ideas as to what
engagement might involve. Although classic writers from Thucydides onwards have
accorded individuals a relevant place in shaping world affairs, contemporary writing in
the academic study of International Relations often downplays the impact of
personalities on the behaviour of states and their interactions.1 In our case individuals
1
Besides the important contributions of cognitive psychology and international history, exceptions
include Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959);
Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976); Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); and
291
were not the only force at play, and their room of manoeuvre in the face of other factors
was narrow. But they mattered in two major ways.
First, the intention of the two countries to engage can be linked to Kissinger and
Silveira directly. Absent Kissinger, it is hard to imagine the devolutionary ideas of the
late 1960s turning Brazil into a target-state so early on and in such a way. Similarly,
Brazil’s decision to further expand on the American initial overtures tracks closely with
Silveira’s tenure as Foreign Minister. Since they were relatively successful at
overcoming resistance within their own bureaucracies, the two kept the intention to
engage alive even when the prospects for proximity looked dire. This said, their ability
to shape national intentions in the face of bureaucratic competition was limited.
Kissinger faced opposition in the State Department and in Congress. Silveira had to
convince Geisel, but also other members of cabinet and some of his colleagues inside
Itamaraty. In the end the propositions sustaining engagement never gained an
independent life of their own.
Second, the strategic calculations of Kissinger and Silveira relied heavily on
personal rapport. That is to say, their decision to move forward with the project was
influenced to a significant extent by the fact that they knew that, even in moments of
crisis, they could rely on one another. Mutual empathy, superficial as it was, mattered
enormously. In meeting Silveira for the first time, Kissinger reinforced his own
inclination towards a policy of rapprochement with Brazil. Without the chanceler there,
it is plausible to suspect that the inherent difficulties of sustaining rapprochement inside
Washington and the lack of response from Brasília might have sealed the initiative’s
end in Nixon’s first administration already. Rapport mattered on the Brazilian side as
well: the point has been made throughout the chapters that Silveira did succeed to a
Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information
and Advice (Boulder: Westview, 1980).
292
degree in influencing Kissinger’s calculations on important occasions. In explaining
how it was that a peripheral state like Brazil could obtain more than it gave, we need to
take into account that the person of the Foreign Minister was, himself, a power-
resource. In international relations individuals can too be sometimes part of a state’s
capabilities.2
In sum, Kissinger and Silveira embodied the ideas sustaining engagement,
fought the associated battles, and lent it their influence. Their simultaneous presence on
the scene altered how the U.S. and Brazil behaved towards one another. Divergent as
their views of the world and experiences of international relations may have been, their
dominating personalities were an indisputable source of mutual attraction. This in turn
allowed them to develop an unusually frank and intimate rapport that lowered quite
significantly the costs of sustaining a joint endeavour. In the end, the identification of
engagement with individuals carried the seeds of its own destruction: the arrangement
enjoyed little bureaucratic ownership, commitment and consensus among those who had
to sustain policy over time. Yet, as argued throughout the thesis, these individuals did
not necessarily cause engagement. Nor was their personal rapport all there was to the
bilateral relationship.
That two persons came to be so relevant in the life of the relationship is
explained by a mix of political skill and chance. Neither of them were charismatic
leaders but, especially at the beginning of their tenures, the two excelled at manipulating
the domestic political scene in which they had to act. They concentrated an unusual
degree of power within their own national contexts, having disproportionate influence
over the goals and strategies of their respective governments. In addition, both were the
foreign secretaries of presidents who wanted to see foreign policy transformed and
2
Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Let us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back
In’, International Security, 25/4 (Spring 2001): 107-146.
293
therefore welcomed experiments. In this context chance was significant: they entered
office when the foreign policies of their countries were undergoing significant change;
and as history never ceases to show, it is in moments of fluidity that statesmen exert
disproportionate influence in the foreign affairs of their respective states.
Engagement in the Policy Repertoire
The thesis has traced the evolving understandings of engagement in each country as the
strategy became part of their policy repertoire.
In the United States, there were different rationales that in practice mixed up but
never fully merged. First, the policy was conceived as part of a broad attempt to fight
the cold war through regional proxies. Then the accent shifted to revitalising relations
with target-states by facilitating increased government interaction at high level
(although not by promoting greater societal and economic interdependence). At this
point the policy never implied an attempt to control, mould or restrain Brazil, even if the
perception gained roots that the two partners might drift apart due to the proliferation of
clashing interests on a range of issues. At a later stage, engagement came to be seen in
Washington also as a tool to lure Brazilian leaders into becoming stakeholders in the
U.S-led order. And the final twist occurred under the watch of President Carter, when
the policy was taken to be an instrument to facilitate and speed up change inside Brazil
and to restrain her nuclear ambitions. These different understandings of what the policy
should achieve often coexisted uneasily. Even in the late 1970s, as the relationship hit a
historic low, the argument could still be heard in Washington that relations with Brazil
ought to be nurtured even if the nature of her regime, her interests, and her ambitions
were pulling her away from the United States. The disparity between these various
294
visions goes a long way to explain why the whole endeavour remained essentially
equivocal.
On the Brazilian side, the contours of policy changed over time as well. From
the minimalist understandings of the Medici administration to the more developed ideas
of Geisel’s we have seen policy becoming a tool to cope with American power that
differed from either the clear alignment or the clear distancing of previous times. It was
an attempt to secure power and prestige that derived from being close to the U.S. but
also from obtaining greater security against hegemonic entrapment. The principle was
that fluid bilateral relations ought to be conditional upon to the provision by
Washington of positional goods and reassurances of self-restraint, recognition of Brazil
special status, and manifestations of ‘respect’ and ‘equality’. For the Brazilians
engagement was also about controlling politics at home: developing relations with the
United States that were palatable to nationalist sentiment was seen as contributing to
Geisel’s framework for slow and negotiated transition away from authoritarian rule,
since it could draw the support of both conservatives on the Right and reformers on the
Left.
Acting in oligarchic environments
The visions of engagement summarised above open up a picture of an international
system that is far from purely anarchical. Instead, the politics of engagement as
presented in this narrative speak of a world that functions as an oligarchy.3
3
For a sample of the literature on hierarchy in the international system see Ian Clark, The Hierarchy of
States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim,
‘Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State’, International Organization 49
(4) Autumn 1995: 689-721, David Strange, ‘ Anomaly and Commonplace in European Political
Expansion: Realist and Institutional Accounts’, International Organization 45 (2) Spring 1991: 143-62,
Randall Schweller, ‘Realism and the Present Great Power System: Growth and Positional Conflict over
Scarce Resources’, in Ethan B. Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and
State Strategies after the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
295
Here the most powerful state can, and often does, voluntarily transfer influence
and responsibilities to weaker polities and, in so doing, it seeks to order the realm of
international politics. This can occur either through the decentralisation of tasks or the
incorporation of weaker polities into the dominant order – the prerequisites being
authority in the hands of the primary state and either managerial capacity or distinctive
intangible goods (e.g. values and understandings) in the hands of its various recipients.
In a similar vein, this picture highlights the degree to which the weaker state defines its
own position in the system in terms of an imaginary ladder of international
stratification. Upward mobility is possible provided the state crafts strategies that make
others recognise it as an increasingly influential polity that deserves special rights
within the society of states.
We have grown accustomed to think of Kissinger as the embodiment of great-
power politics. But an important side to the narrative of détente that has yet to receive
sufficient attention is the extent to which the logic of global balanced power intersects
with that of hierarchy in important sections and regions of the international system. The
Kissinger that emerges from this story certainly sees U.S. policies in the periphery
through the prism of great-power competition, but achieving and sustaining primacy is a
task that demands far more than containment. He was concerned with the actual and
potentially disruptive developments of the postcolonial world, seeking a suitable
formula to cope with it that did not rest too heavily on coercion and bullying, and that
was not too burdensome to the United States. In his mind, gaining the support of large
developing states mattered as a way of legitimating American hegemony. This meant
giving concessions, negotiating the national interests of far weaker polities, and talking
the talk of ‘equality’ and ‘respect’. Engagement was, in his eyes, a way of granting key
peripheral states an open channel to Washington, and this in turn reinforced the
296
American position in the world. Hence the attention to a country like Brazil which, for
all its territorial mass and booming economy, could neither project power abroad nor
affect the global balance of power in any major way.
In turn, the Silveira portrayed in this thesis is as obsessed with national
autonomy and sovereignty, inward-oriented growth, and trade concessions as his
predecessors. Like them, he believed that the national interest lay in seeking to enter the
small club of major states that are most influential in the world. Like his colleagues, at
no point did Silveira’s positions imply a belief that Brazil ought to win membership to
the club by agreeing to perform certain managerial tasks. Rather, this was a vision in
which Brazil, very much like the member of an aristocracy, deserved special status for
what it was. The test of its relevance was not about doing, but about being. What is
distinctive of Silveira, however, is his belief that overcoming the existing barriers
against new-comers could be best achieved with the active help from the most powerful
member of all. But it was help that was to be elicited without Brazil’s alignment.
Finally, we have seen how the notion of engagement with the United States, provided it
excluded the possibility of too close an involvement with Washington, offered the
military regime an important tool to exert domestic authoritarian controls.
Engagement in U.S.-Brazil Relations Today
In the three decades that have elapsed since the historical period analysed in this thesis,
the structure of the international system, the character of international society, and the
foreign policies of both the U.S. and Brazil have undergone much change. But some of
the problems confronting American-Brazilian relations are strikingly analogous.
In June 2003 presidents George W. Bush and Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva
committed their countries to a ‘closer and stronger relationship’ by way of biannual

297
consultations at cabinet level. As the 2000s began, independent task forces in both
countries argued for closer cooperation. The British weekly The Economist reported that
many in Washington hoped Brazil could act as ‘a bulwark against instability’ in the
region. In 2005 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of the country as ‘a great
[partner] for the future’ whose ‘growing global role’ could ‘[show] the way forward for
all of Latin America’.4 But very much like in the past, the gap between official
manifestations and the reality of American-Brazilian relations is enormous, for the
relationship remains both distant and ridden with difficulties.5
The recent talk of partnership needs to be placed in the context of ideational
change both in the U.S. and in Brazil. In the United States, the background against
which these developments have taken place is the timid but noticeable revival of
devolutionary ideas. The notion that devolution is feasible and desirable in a unipolar
world has surfaced as part of broader arguments about the expanded range of foreign-
policy possibilities that the United States now has due to its enormous and unrivalled
power. Consider, for example, the claim that is possible to act ‘through negotiation
between the core and its surrounding periphery…Order emerges through the
withholding of power as well as its application…[leading] to a more cohesive and
durable regional formation than will a stronger and domineering one’.6 Or that where
there is ‘one superpower, no significant major powers, and many minor powers…the
appropriate replacement for a global sheriff is community policing, with the major
regional powers assuming primary responsibility for order in their own regions. There is
4
For references, see respectively Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report: A Letter
to the President and a Memorandum on US Policy Toward Brazil (2001) and Centro Brasileiro de
Relações Internacionais, Força Tarefa Independente: Relatório sobre os Estados Unidos da América
(2002); The Economist, 30 April 2005, p. 52; Secretary Rice, remarks in Brasília, 26-27 April 2005
(accessed on 29 April 2005, http://www.state.gov). See also Peter Hakim, ‘Reluctant Partner’, Foreign
Affairs 83/1 (Jan-Feb 2004).
5
Hurrell, ‘The United States and Brazil: Comparative Reflections’.
6
Charles A. Kupchan, ‘After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a
Stable Multipolarity’, International Security, 23/2 (Autumn, 1998), p. 47.
298
no reason why Americans should take responsibility for maintaining order if it can be
done locally’.7 Equally, some have urged the U.S. to attend to ‘leading states that are
not members of OECD such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South
Africa’ with the view to ‘sit down and consult…to some extent’.8 Vague notions of
devolution have even appeared among those for whom unbalanced power creates
several intractable problems: ‘The less responsibility we give them, the more freedom
smaller powers have to make American goals difficult to achieve’.9 Such ideas,
however, have not yet translated into a novel appreciation of Brazil. Knowledge of, and
interest in, that country – be it in American policy circles or academe – remain minimal,
and the idea never takes root that there are important gains to be made in sponsoring
sustained proximity with Brasília.
In Brazil, the environment of the early 2000s has also echoed with the voices
from the historical period this thesis has sought to uncover. The upsurge in foreign-
policy activism typical of recent years has for instance involved explicit praise for
Geisel and Silveira by President Lula and his team. In practice, Brazilian activism today
can be seen in the decision to widen the range of international commitments. The move
includes active involvement in the UN Security Council and the dispute-settlement
mechanisms of the WTO, sponsoring a coalition of developing countries in trade
negotiations (and in particular expanding trade ties with South Africa, China and India),
the establishment of a South American Community, brokering deals among
neighbouring countries, exporting Brazilian social and education programmes to other
7
Samuel Huntington, ‘The Lonely Superpower’, Foreign Affairs, Mar/April, 1999, 78/2.
8
For first quote see Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and
Failing States’, International Security, 29/2, p. 107. For second quote see Richard N. Haas, interview with
the Council on Foreign Relations, 24 May 2005. See also Hass, ‘The World on his Desk’, The Economist,
6 November 2004.
9
Fareed Zakaria, ‘The Arrogant Empire’, Newsweek, 23 June 2004.
299
developing states, more than doubling the number of embassies in Africa, and recruiting
higher numbers for the diplomatic academy.
And yet, Brazil remains very much an ambivalent power for both material and
conceptual reasons. In spite of the economic and financial recovery of the 1990s,
growth has been slow and the sheer enormity of Brazil’s intractable social problems
corrodes the image of a country on the rise. Successive foreign ministers, for instance,
have cut back initiatives for lack of funding. Powerful voices have also argued against
activism abroad in the face of the pressing problems at home. Diplomats have
consistently sought to avoid too many entanglements in their vicinity – a region where
social protest, indigenous conflict, and citizen insecurity correlate highly with political
volatility – due to the perception that costs (financial and political) are too high to bear.
Furthermore, the notion of ‘autonomy’, with its emphasis on domestic development
rather than the production of international order, is as pervasive now as it was thirty
years ago. And in spite of Brazil’s ambitions to be granted special status, the argument
that she has something distinctive to contribute to international society is never spelled
out with any clarity. Therefore, even if there is now a minimal setting for the revival of
American-Brazilian engagement, it remains weak. The forces pushing in the opposite
direction are powerfully rooted in the historical image of mutual frustration that has
been so pervasive on both sides – one which the failure of engagement in the 1970s
only helped reinforce.
Yet, the foreign policies of the two countries are currently facing difficulties that
might create conditions for taking engagement seriously once again. For the United
States, the existence of unbalanced power has not eliminated conflict nor has it made
primacy any easier to sustain. It seems clear that legitimacy-building (through
consultation, accommodation and the involvement of far weaker polities) is as

300
important a tool of hegemony as the ability to impose and coerce. For Brazil, activism
has only thrown into sharper relief just how difficult it is to obtain prestige and
influence without a clear power base and a coherent project, while globalisation has
imposed several challenges upon the strategic concept of autonomy. A serious
programme for engagement today would surely not solve these problems. But since the
experience of engagement during détente set out to provide partial answers to similar
issues, it might be profitable to turn back to that period with an inquisitive eye.
To be sure, Kissinger and Silveira failed in their endeavour. But although
engagement did not fulfil their hopes, it bequeathed an important legacy: the possibility
of conceiving a different bilateral landscape. The period under study in this thesis is
testimony to the fact that international relations are not preordained for all time. Ideas
and skills permitting, existing visions and perceptions can sometimes be adjusted as
much as they can be exchanged for better ones. Properly understood, the unsuccessful
experiment of that past can perhaps illuminate our present. Ignored or misconstrued, we
would miss the opportunity to stand back from our inherited conventions and to ask
hard questions about the future. This is not to say that free will is all there is in foreign
policy. On the contrary, as we have seen, it is often the more structural constraints that
leave the most enduring marks on history books. But by turning to the vibrant debates
and struggles of another period, maybe we can remind ourselves that our current
predicament, rooted as it may be, needs not be destiny.

301
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EQUIVOCAL ENGAGEMENT: KISSINGER, SILVEIRA AND THE

POLITICS OF U.S.-BRAZIL RELATIONS (1969–1983)

Word count (footnotes included): 95,300

AAS: Azeredo da Silveira Collection, CPDOC/FGV (Rio de Janeiro)

Agostinho Neto, Antonio

Araujo Castro, João A. de

Castelo Branco (Gen.)

Castro Ruz, Fidel

Crimmins, John Hugh

Figueiredo, João Baptista (Gen.)

Geisel, Ernesto (Gen.)

Medici, Emilio G. (Gen.)

Reza Pahlavi, Mohammad

Walters, Vernon A. (Lt. Gen.)

EQUIVOCAL ENGAGEMENT: KISSINGER, SILVEIRA, AND THE POLITICS OF U.S.-BRAZIL

review was under way.

This thesis provides an in-depth study of U.S.-Brazil engagement as it emerged,

and the peak of Brazilian international activism (1969-1983). Relying on multi-archival

attempt to engage and that considers the policy’s limits.

Here ‘engagement’ means a conscious choice to elevate a bilateral relationship

to higher levels of governmental interaction. It is characterised by sustained

consultation, some degree of policy coordination, mutual commitment to overcoming

underpinning the relationship.

served traditionally as a way of obtaining side payments (such as material assistance

‘automatic’, it reflected the increasingly dominant perception among Brazilian elites

By contrast to ‘alignment’, the process of engagement as characterised here

policy of rapprochement: it willingly accommodated the demands coming from Brazil

protocols and procedures, and to blunt American power on a range of specific

instrumental for Brazil’s project of conservative nationalist modernisation by

accorded higher status in international society). Following distinct and largely

opportune time for such an endeavour.

disappeared from the bilateral menu.

Kissinger-Silveira association made a questionable proposition more likely to find its

internationally. Key factors in the rise and fall of American-Brazilian engagement

perceptions and shaped by their political and bureaucratic skills.

The research approach is analytically-oriented international history. It seeks to blend

storytelling with a conscious attempt to consider the various conceptual implications

that follow from the narrative.

Subsequently, an appraisal of existing literatures situates the thesis in the context of

finally closes with a plan of the thesis.

U.S.-Brazil engagement as it occurred in the 1970s involved a conscious attempt to

no way precluded conflict and negotiation.

Engagement was, and remains, an exception to the historical pattern of

Brazilian-American relations. Although there had been instances of close cooperation

their past, or in subsequent years. Previous attempts at approximation – as in the early

characterised by alignment. As flagged out before, however, alignment and engagement

protestations of friendship had traditionally coexisted with low levels of commitment.

seemed to matter. These exceptional occurrences reflected American considerations of

shoots of Argentine anti-Americanism), geo-strategic calculations (during the Second

Washington (called indigenously automatic alignment) or pursue a policy of distancing

to secure Brazilian modernisation, development, and political power and prestige

in recognising and committing to Brazilian aspirations in ways that would sustain a

hegemon progressively disappeared as a legitimate choice; instead, the dominant

orientation became resisting new commitments and avoiding entanglements.

Brazilians, their response was evasive.

leaders overcome them? How did American-Brazilian relations at the moment of

it sought to revive the proposal?

Questions about process and implementation. What domestic and international

its methods of delivery?

falter so soon after inception?

The Narrative in a Nutshell

useful because it captures a complex storyline in a compact chain of events.