Black, Jan Knippers. United States Penetration of Brazil. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977. 313 pages.
Jan Black was a Peace Corp volunteer in Chile when a coup in Brazil
toppled the government of Joao Goulart in April, 1964. Her Chilean friends
suggested that the coup was supported by the CIA, but Black thought they
were being paranoid. Twelve years later, much more information about the
CIA was available. Black, then a professor at the University of New Mexico,
began extensive research on U.S. covert and overt involvement in Brazil,
and put it in this book. As of 1999 Professor Black is at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, and her book
endures as the best we've seen on U.S. policy in Brazil during the 1960s.
Unlike its role in Chile from 1970 to 1973, the U.S. role in Brazil in
1964 was more subtle. The U.S. Air Force was ready with six C-135 transports
and 110 tons of small arms and ammunition, and a "fast" Carrier Task Group
was ordered to take positions off the Brazilian coast. They weren't needed
because the U.S. had been subverting labor groups, reform-minded populists,
and big media for many months, while pumping up the police and military.
The coup was almost bloodless since everyone knew it was unstoppable; the
military took over and Goulart fled to Uruguay. Most of the blood came
later -- by the time this book appeared, Brazil had a well-deserved
reputation for political repression and torture.
ISBN 0-8122-7720-1
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