Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco
Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco promised to hand the country back and built the machinery that made handing it back impossible. He was the army chief of staff, a veteran of the Brazilian division that fought in Italy in 1944, and a man with a reputation for legalism. When the generals removed Joao Goulart in March 1964, Castelo Branco was the figure the moderates wanted. He said the intervention was temporary. He expected to serve out Goulart's term and hold an election in 1965. Almost nothing he did pointed that way. Institutional Act Number One stripped elected officials of their mandates and voters of their political rights. The second act, in October 1965, dissolved every political party and replaced them with two, one for the government and one for a permitted opposition. The third abolished direct elections for governors. His own term was extended by decree. A new constitution in 1967 wrote the emergency powers into permanent law. His economics were as severe as his politics. Inflation was running near ninety per cent, and his finance ministers cut wages, tightened credit and reorganised the tax system. Real wages fell sharply. The strikes that followed were broken, and the labour movement was placed under government-appointed trustees. The stabilisation worked and became the foundation of the boom his successors took credit for. He believed he was restraining harder men, and to a degree he was: he resisted the demands to close Congress outright and to purge without limit. He also lost. The officers who wanted no return to civilian rule chose his successor over his objection. He died in a plane collision in July 1967, three months after leaving office, and the regime he called temporary lasted another eighteen years.
- Lived: 1897 CE – 1967 CE
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
