João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart (March 1, 1918—December 6, 1976) was the last left-wing president of Brazil (1961–March 31, 1964) until the October 6, 2002 election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Goulart was elected to the Rio Grande do Sul state legislature in 1946 and later became minister of justice and the interior. In 1953 he was appointed by President Getúlio Vargas as minister of labor, industry, and commerce. In 1956 he was appointed the running mate of President Juscelino Kubitschek, and became Vice President in 1956. When Jânio Quadros ran for President in 1960 Goulart was once again chosen as a running mate, and was successfully elected Vice President a second time. Quadros resigned in 1961 and Goulart assumed the presidency.
In 1964 his government was overthrown by a major military coup that installed successive right-wing hardliners as heads of state, and suspended many liberties and rights of the Brazilian people. Their rule was marked by widespread disappearance, torture and/or exile of many writers, singers, painters, filmmakers and other artists. The military claimed that Goulart was responsible for high inflation and that his plans to redistribute wealth to resolve the country's economic crisis were part a Communist attempt on the part of Goulart to establish himself as dictator. One U.S. ambassador referred to the coup as a "democratic rebellion."
In recent years it has been revealed that the CIA and US President Lyndon Johnson actively supported the coup, fearing that Goulart would install a Communist government in the most populous country in Latin America. [1] [2] The U.S. ambassador at the time described Brazil as "the China of the 1960s."
| Preceded by: Janio Quadros |
President of Brazil | Succeeded by: Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco |