Abstract
The chapter opens with a review of Brazil’s political and military history in the 1930s. It stresses the impact that the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia had on Brazilian military planning and its continuous concerns about Argentina, which had supported Paraguay and had concentrated troops on the Bolivian border. Military figures in Buenos Aires were openly calling for reabsorption of Bolivia, which had been part of the colonial viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Brazil lacked arms and turned to the United States for help. Regarding their fleet Roosevelt told Ambassador Aranha that he would facilitate acquisitions, but it had to be kept secret. Because Brazil lacked gold and international currencies, it turned to Germany for arms which it could pay for with natural or agricultural products. Washington protested vigorously to this closed arrangement that detached Brazilian-German trade from the wider international system. Vargas committed himself to arming and equipping the military and building a national steel factory in return for military backing for extending his presidency with dictatorial powers that would eliminate politics. Defense policy produced the dictatorship called the Estado Novo.
In 1938 the Brazilian government contracted to purchase $(US) 55,000,000 in arms from Germany which raised suspicions in Washington. American worries should have been balanced against President Vargas’s friendly relationship with Franklin Roosevelt and the Brazilian leader’s unsolicited offer after their cordial meeting in Rio de Janeiro in late 1936 to discuss full military and naval cooperation, including building a naval base in Brazil for American use in the event of a war of aggression against the United States. The rapidity of events in 1939 and 1940 caused panic in Washington as planners imagined German ability to seize French territories in West Africa and leap across the Atlantic to seize positions in Northeast Brazil. American intelligence saw the Brazilian military as highly problematic. Its analysists were also concerned about the large German, Italian, and Japanese colonies in Brazil and an active espionage capability. The fascistic Integralista movement added to American anxieties.
In 1939, the Roosevelt government was so preoccupied with Brazil that it sent its newly designated army chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, to Rio de Janeiro to assess the Brazilian army first hand and to begin negotiations. It was the first foreign trip in history for a chief of staff. The trip had been the idea of the Brazilian Ambassador Oswaldo Aranha and involved the return voyage of the Brazilian chief of staff. Marshall’s reception was overwhelmingly warm and positive. He stated that in case of attack the United States would defend Brazil. To be ready he wanted access to a port, where it could concentrate its ships, and bases in the northeast where it would set up deposits of munitions, arms, oil, and gas to facilitate operations. The Brazilian Chief of Staff General Góes Monteiro countered that in the event of war Brazil’s principal worry would be to defend the south against invasion from Argentina and against subversion among the numerous immigrant colonies.
It was difficult for the Americans to assess the size and quality of the Brazilian army. Brazil was a painfully underdeveloped country in which 60% of potential recruits were illiterate and nearly 50% were physically unqualified. At the time the American army was itself not impressive. Army appropriations were “grossly inadequate even to halt the normal deterioration of attrition and obsolescence, much less to develop and buy modern weapons to match those being acquired by America’s potential enemies.” The needs of the “absurdly small and ill-equipped” air force were especially cause for deep worry. Arriving in the United States, General Góes was fascinated by the country’s power and organization. Marshall pulled out all the stops to insure that the Brazilian general really saw the United States from coast to coast. Góes promised Marshall that his army would create new coast artillery and anti-aircraft units and would station an army division in the northeast, but he repeated again and again that everything would depend on arms from the United States.
American inability to provide arms and Brazilian suspicions of the supposed explanations complicated plans to establish bases in the northeast. Brazil tried desperately to maintain its neutrality while keeping the conversations going. Its officers kept emphasizing the need for arms. Germany did its best to give the impression that the war would end soon and so it would be to Brazil’s advantage to deal with them. In May 1940 the American got so concerned that they planned an invasion of Northeast Brazil, even though they lacked adequate shipping. It was the low point for the two future allies.
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Notes
- 1.
The uprising wiped away the political arrangements of what is called in Brazil the Old Republic and brought to power a group of political leaders with a different set of ideas about what was needed in the country. There has been a continuous debate among historians over the nature of the political-military events of October 1930. A useful starting point for the debate is Lúcia Lippi Oliveira (Coordenadora) et al., Elite intellectual e debate político nos anos 30: uma bibliografia comentada da Revolução de 1930 (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1980), pp. 35–51.
- 2.
See McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889–1937 (Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 191–371.
- 3.
General de Divisão Francisco Ramos de Andrade Neves (Chief of Staff), Rio de Janeiro, 3 de Agosto de 1934: Estado-Maior do Exército, Exame da Situação Militar do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa do Estado-Maior do Exército, 1934), 6–8. For a very explicit statement, see Estado-Maior do Exército, 2a Grande Região Militar, Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 1936, Memo #1 (Situação do Paiz), Correspondéncia Pessoal, Acervo Pessoal Gen. Pedro de Góes Monteiro, Caixa 1, Arquivo Histórico do Exército (Rio). It noted (in section “Neutrality and Cooperation”) that Brazil would not be able to maintain neutrality in the event of a world conflict, that it would have to associate itself with one of the sides, and that, because it lacked war materiels, its mobilization would provide soldiers that would have to be equipped by another power, “which could not be other than the United States of America.”
- 4.
For an analysis of the trade situation and Brazilian purchase of German arms, see Stanley E. Hilton’s close study of Brazil’s arms negotiations with Germany in his Brazil and the Great Powers, 1930–1939: The Politics of Trade Rivalry (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), 118–129, 186–190; and my The Brazilian-American Alliance, 1937–1945 (Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 149–175.
- 5.
G. Vargas to Oswaldo Aranha, n.p., Dec. 24, 1934, GV 1934.12.14/1, AGV, CPDOC; and O. Aranha to G. Vargas, Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, 1935, GV 1935.01.18/2, AGV, CPDOC.
- 6.
Oswaldo Aranha to G. Vargas, Washington, D.C., Mar. 6, 1935, GV 1935.03.06/1, AGV, CPDOC.
- 7.
A compromisso can be thought of as a pact. For fuller treatment, see McCann, “The Military and the Dictatorship: Getúlio, Góes, and Dutra,” in Jens R. Hentschke, Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 109–141.
- 8.
Vargas, Diário, Vol. 1, pp. 523–524.
- 9.
On Brazil’s strategic situation and the military’s concerns about arms, foreign trade, and international relations: McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889–1937 (Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 349–363.
- 10.
Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 227; typical of books that argue that Vargas was vacillating is Roberto Gambini, O Duplo Jogo de Getúlio Vargas (São Paulo: Edições Símbolo, 1977).
- 11.
Maj. Lawrence C. Mitchell (Military Attaché), Rio, March 13, 1939: “Interview with Minister of War, Army’s attitude toward Germany and the United States,” No. 2202, 2257 K-33, RG165, National Archives [NARA].
- 12.
The Friedrich Krupp Company and the Carl Zeiss Company were key elements of Germany’s war industries. The contract called for the delivery of 1,180 artillery pieces of various calibers. For a listing by type, see Ministério da Guerra, Relatório apresentado ao Presidente da República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil pelo General de Divisão Eurico Dutra, Ministro de Estado da Guerra em Maio de 1940 (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1941), pp. 5–7 [hereafter MG, Relatório…Dutra…1940]; Mauro Renault Leite and Luiz Gonzaga Novelli Jr., eds., Marechal Eurico Gaspar Dutra: O dever da verdade (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1983), p. 335. The negotiations took place over two years starting in 1936. The Krupp contract was signed on March 9, 1938.
- 13.
Sumner Welles to F. D. Roosevelt, Washington, DC, January 26, 1937, President’s Personal File 4473 (Vargas), FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY. Roosevelt and Vargas met in Rio de Janeiro in November 1936. In addition to saying that Brazil’s “vital interests” would be involved if the United States were attacked, he suggested the possibility of the United States “utilizing some other portion of Brazilian territory as a means of safeguarding the eastern approach to the Panama Canal.” For Welles biography, see Michael J. Devine, “Welles, Sumner”; http://www.anb.org/articles/06/06-00696.html; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
- 14.
Prior to World War I, Brazil had planned to contract a German mission to instruct the army and had sent 34 officers in three contingents to train with the Imperial German Army (1905–1912) for two-year periods. Members of this group founded the army journal A Defesa Nacional in 1913 and shaped the modern Brazilian army. A number of them were senior generals in the late 1930s. For a listing of names, see McCann, Soldiers of the Patria, p. 486. Some of the admiration of the reconstructed army of the Third Reich was actually nostalgia related to the pre-World War I experience.
- 15.
Sixty-five percent of US bauxite supply for the aluminum industry came from neighboring Dutch Guiana (Surinam); as in William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), p. 603.
- 16.
Memorandum, Washington, December 23, 1941: Notes of meeting at the White House with the President and the British Prime Minister presiding. http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/memorandum-10/.
- 17.
“Notes on Coast Artillery Defenses of the coast of Brazil,” January 16, 1939, 2006-164, War Department, Military Intelligence Division, RG165, NARA.
- 18.
“Special Study, Brazil,” March 29, 1939, Army War College, War Plans Division (WPD) 4115-7, WWII RS, NARA. In asking the War College to do this study, General Marshall was breaking a long-standing policy of not using the college for such studies. See Brig. Gen. G. C. Marshall (Deputy Chief of Staff) to Maj. Gen. John L. DeWitt (Commandant Army War College), February 6, 1939, 14281-22, WPD, RG165, NARA. The officers involved worked in secret under the leadership of Major Francis G. Bonham between February 17 and March 29, 1939 to produce the study on Brazil and another on Venezuela. The War College was then at Fort Humphreys in Washington D. C. Larry I. Brand, ed. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 194–195.
- 19.
Maj. Lawrence C. Mitchell (attaché), Rio, Sept 22, 1939, Report 2300: “Comments on Current Events, No. 4,” 2050-120, War Dept., General Staff, Military Intelligence Div., RG165, NARA. Dutra urged Brazilian officers to follow combatant operations to glean lessons and enlightenment.
- 20.
The US Navy mission had 16 officers, headed by a rear admiral; see http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50716F8355B11728DDDAE0894DA415B828EF1D3. The mission endured until 1977. From its origins into the 1930s, see Eugénio Vargas Garcia, “Anglo-American Rivalry in Brazil: the Case of the 1920s,” Working Paper CBS-14-00 (P), July 15, 2000, Center for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford, pp. 19–24.
- 21.
Col. E.R. W. McCabe (Asst. Chief of Staff G2), Memo for Asst. Chief of Staff WPD, January 25, 1939, WPD 4115, RG 165, NARA.
- 22.
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Recenseamento, 1940 (Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 1940), as in Ricardo A. Silva Seitenfus, “O Brasil e o III Reich (1933–1939),” pp. 275–276. https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/jbla.1988.25.issue-/jbla.1988.25.1.273/jbla.1988.25.1.273.pdf. There were then about 900,000 Germans in Brazil.
- 23.
McCann, “Vargas and the Destruction of the Brazilian Integralista and Nazi Parties,” The Americas, Vol. XXVI (July 1969), No. 1, pp. 15–34. German language even disappeared from head stones in cemeteries in southern towns, such as Canela, Rio Grande do Sul. I saw that firsthand during a visit to Canela.
- 24.
Eurico Dutra, Ministro de Guerra, Relatório dos Principais Actividades do Ministerio de Guerra durante o ano de 1939 (Rio de Janeiro; Imprensa Militar, 1940) dated July 1940, pp. 45–46. For a study of Nazi activities, see Ana Maria Dietrich, “Nazismo Tropical? O Partido Nazista no Brasil” (Tese de doutorado em História, Universidade de São Paulo, 2007). http://docshare01.docshare.tips/files/20852/208520682.pdf.
- 25.
For German spies, see Stanley E. Hilton, Hitler’s Secret War in South America, 1939–1945: German Military Espionage and Allied Counterespionage in Brazil (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981).
- 26.
Col. E.R. W. McCabe (Asst. Chief of Staff G2), Washington, January 27, 1939: “Attitude of Brazil toward the United States and Intrusion of the Axis States in Brazil.” 2006-164, RG165, NARA.
- 27.
McCabe Memo January 25, 1939. On Integralismo, see Stanley E. Hilton, “Ação Integralista Brasileira, Fascism in Brazil, 1932–1938,” Luso-Brazilian Review 9, No.2 (Dec. 1972), pp. 3–29; McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, pp. 372–375; Marcus Klein, Our Brazil Will Awake! The Acção Integralista Brasileira and the Failed Quest for Fascist Order in the 1930s, (Amsterdam: Cuadernos del CEDLA, 2004), pp. 71–74.
- 28.
Karl Ritter, Rio, June 29, 1938, # 993, mentioned the Integralista plan that had fallen into police hands, see O III Reich e o Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Laudes, 1968), pp. 97–101.
- 29.
Col. E. R. W. McCabe (Asst. Chief of Staff G2), Memo for Asst. Chief of Staff War Plans Division, January 25, 1939: “Defense Policy of Brazil,” G-2/2006-164, RG 165, NARA.
- 30.
Marshall arrived at Rio on May 25 and departed on June 6, reaching Annapolis, Md., on June 20. General Góes Monteiro returned with him for an extensive visit to the United States. They were entertained at the US Naval Academy, whose commander had been a member of the naval mission in Brazil. In May 1939, Marshall was deputy chief of staff, but President Roosevelt already had named him to succeed General Malin Craig (Oct. 2, 1935–Aug. 31, 1939), and he was to take over the chief’s post on September 1. There is a chronology of his career in Larry I. Bland, Editor, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Vol. 1 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. xxix–xxx.
- 31.
Larry I. Bland, Editor, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Vol. 1, p. 716. Quote from interview Bland had with Marshall on December 7, 1956.
- 32.
The Standing Liaison Committee, formed in early 1938, had representatives from State, War, and Navy Departments. As deputy chief of staff from mid-1938, Marshall was an active participant. The SLC was the forerunner of the post-war National Security Council (1947).
- 33.
Major Lawrence C. Mitchell, Rio, March 2, 1938, Report 2057 “Law of 1938 for Organization of the Brazilian Ministry of War” 2006-86, War Department, General Staff, RG 165, NARA.
- 34.
On Marshall’s reception there is Caffery, Rio, May 26, 1939, 832.20111/29, #1317, RG 59, NARA. This lengthy dispatch included the full program of the tour, including arrival times and methods of travel. Attached to it are clippings, editorials, and front-page photos. There is a detailed 11 page program of Marshall’s visit in “Programa das homenagens do Brasil a missão militar chefiada por S.Exa. o General George C. Marshall, Chefe do Estado Maior do Exército Americano e sua ilustre comitiva” (Rio de Janeiro, 1939) HB203f, Arquivo Horta Barbosa, CPDOC. Góes Monteiro was the general’s family name. Many Americans referred to him incorrectly as “Monteiro.” Familiarly friends and even the press called him Góes for short. For his biography, see “Góes Monteiro,” Israel Beloch and Alzira Alves de Abreu, eds. Dicionário Histórico-Biografico Brasileiro, 1930–1983. Vol. 3 (Rio de Janeiro: Forense-Universitária, 1984.), pp. 2246–2259; for Dutra, see “Eurico Gaspar Dutra,” ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 1126–1154. Because of a spelling reform, some publications now spell his name Góis. I am using the spelling he used himself.
- 35.
General George C. Marshall to General Malin Craig, Rio de Janeiro, May 26, 1939, http://marshallfoundation.org/library/to-general-malin-craig-6/ and Marshall to Craig, Belo Horizonte, June 1, 1939. http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/1-577-to-general-malin-craig-june-1-1939/. The originals are in Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1917–, 210.482 Brazil [4-29-39], RG 407, NARA.
- 36.
Lourival Coutinho, O General Góes Depõe… (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Coelho Branco, 1956), pp. 357–360. Góes provided background on the invitation, noting that Dutra was not favorable to the idea. Marshall’s presentation and Góes’s response are from Estevão Leitão de Carvalho, A Serviço do Brasil na Segunda Guerra Mundial (Rio de Janeiro: Editora A Noite, 1952), pp. 58–59. Leitão was the commanding general in Rio Grande do Sul during Marshall’s visit. There is a detailed summary of the trip in General Paulo Q. Duarte, O Nordeste na II Guerra Mundial: Antecedentes e Ocupação (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1971), pp. 45–62.
- 37.
Major William Sackville (Military Attaché), Rio, March 4, 1936: “Brazil’s Authorized Army, 1936-7-8” 2006-105, RG 165, NARA.
- 38.
Major William Sackville, “Agitation within Army to prevent reduction of effectives,” Rio, Nov. 1, 1935, 1552, 2006-102, G-2 Regional, Brazil 6300-c, MID, G2, WD, RG 165, NARA. Sackville could not have been more wrong when he concluded his report saying, “There is not much probability of further agitation by officers.”
- 39.
McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, pp. 375–388.
- 40.
Major Emmanuel Kant Torres Homem to Lt. Col. José Agostinho dos Santos, n.d. Forte de São João (Niterói, RJ) included in Relatório, Segundo Periodo de Instrucção, 2 GAC, 1936, III–IV, Arquivo Histórico do Exército (Rio).
- 41.
MG, Relatório … Dutra … 1940, p. 132.
- 42.
George C. Marshall to General Malin Craig, Rio, May 26, 1939, and Belo Horizonte, June 1, 1939, in Larry I. Bland, Editor, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Vol. 1, pp. 716–717, 717–720. He outlined ideas for Góes’s tour of the United States.
- 43.
Comment in memo of Orme Wilson to Sumner Welles, Rio, Nov. 15, 1940, 832.20/261, RG59, NA. The military mission had been there since 1934, its four officers provided training and advice in coastal defense and other technical matters.
- 44.
Throughout Marshall was careful with costs noting that Pan American had offered a free flight to the north. General George C. Marshall to General Malin Craig, Rio de Janeiro, May 26, 1939, http://marshallfoundation.org/library/to-general-malin-craig-6/. Ridgway and Chaney had distinguished careers. Marshall assigned Ridgway to the War Plans Division in September 1939; in 1942 he took command of the 82nd Airborne Division, had distinguished roles in the Sicily and Normandy invasions, commanded the Eighth Army in Korea, and in 1952 succeeded Eisenhower as NATO commander. In 1942 Chaney was the first commander of US Army forces in Britain, being succeeded in that post by Eisenhower. One wonders how long the impressions they formed of Brazil in 1938 continued to influence their thinking.
- 45.
Matthew B. Ridgway to G. C. Marshall, USS Nashville, June 17, 1939, Memo: “Brazil in Hemisphere Defense,” WPD 4224-11, World War II Records Section, RG 165, NARA.
- 46.
Góes Monteiro to Getúlio Vargas, Washington, July 7, 1939 and July 10, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC. Curiously in the mid-1930s, Argentine war plans assumed that Brazil and the United States were allied against that republic; see Capt. Vernon A. Walters, Rio, Jan. 27, 1944, “The Plano Maximo,” G-2 Regional Files 5995, RG 165, NARA. This document was the Argentine plan for war with Brazil. Góes’s planned trip to Europe was not just to Germany, first he was to go to England, France, and Italy. In fact the American invitation had been received after the other four, but Vargas had decided it should be acted on first. In the end Góes never made the trip to Europe. On trip plans and Vargas’s interest, see Jefferson Caffery (Ambassador to Brazil), Rio, May 8, 1939, 832.20111/8, RG59, NARA.
- 47.
Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General (New York: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964), pp. 332–333.
- 48.
For Góes Monteiro and Dutra’s role in establishing the Estado Novo dictatorship see McCann, “The Military and the Dictatorship: Getúlio, Góes, and Dutra,” in Jens R. Hentschke, Ed. Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 109–141.
- 49.
Estado-Maior do Exército, Relatório dos Trabalhos do Estado-Maior … 1937 … pelo GD Pedro Aurélio de Góes Monteiro (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa do Estado-Maior do Exército, 1938), 4–5, 8–9. “We inherited … a quasi-Army only nominal, devoid of what is essential and, therefore, worthless on the battlefield” p. 5.
- 50.
G. C. Marshall to Jefferson Caffery, Washington, July 24, 1939, #2-018, Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, General Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.
- 51.
Góes at West Point was from G. C. Marshall to Lt. Col. Harold R. Bull, Washington DC, July 15, 1939 #2012, Larry I. Brand, Sharon Ritenour Stevens, and Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr. Eds., George Catlett Marshall Papers. Vol. 2, “We Cannot Delay,” July 1, 1939–December 6, 1941 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 13. Col. Bull had just ended his tour as secretary of the general staff. See Getty Images for photo at White House. Brazilian Ambassador Carlos Martins also was with Góes at the White House. There is a one minute video of Marshall and Góes at the air force display at Langley Field on June 22, 1939 http://marshallfoundation.org/library/video/langley-field-virginia-air-show/.
- 52.
G.C. Marshall to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, Washington DC, July 24, 1939, #2-018 http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to-jefferson-caffery/.
- 53.
Marshall to Gen. Malin Craig, on USS Nashville “Off Recife,” June 10, 1939 [Handwritten Aerogramma via Panair] 2257 K32, RG165, NARA.
- 54.
Under Secretary Sumner Welles to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, Washington, May 8, 1940, 810.20 Defense/58 ½, United States Foreign Relations 1940, Vol. 5, pp. 40–42; Hélio Silva, 1939: Véspera de Guerra (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 1972), pp. 194–195. The Brazilian coastline would be equal to the distance from San Diego in California to the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
- 55.
Estado-Maior do Exército, 2a Grande Região Militar, Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 1936, Memo no. 1 (Situação do Paiz), (Sec. 4) Correspondência Pessoal, Acervo Pessoal Gen. Pedro de Góes Monteiro, Caixa 1, Arquivo Histórico do Exército (Rio).
- 56.
Jefferson Caffery to Marshall, Rio, August 10, 1939, Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office, General (Brazil-American Military Mission), George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.
- 57.
Lourival Coutinho, O General Góes Depõe… (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Editora Coelho Branco, 1956), p. 40. This book was based on a series of interviews with the general.
- 58.
G.C. Marshall to Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, Washington DC, July 24, 1939, #2-018 http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to-jefferson-caffery/. Miller was from New Hampshire and graduated from West Point in the fabled class of 1915 ranking ninth.
- 59.
Góes Monteiro to Marshall, Rio, August 8, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC. For the Góes-Marshall letters and lists of the arms requested, see WPD 4224-7 to 13, WWII Records Section, NARA.
- 60.
G.C. Marshall to P. de Góes Monteiro, Washington DC, October 5, 1939, #2-061 http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to-general-pedro-góes-monteiro/ Marshall was replying to a letter from Góes dated September 8, 1939, WPD4224, RG165, NARA. He thought that the orders for materiel from Germany were “virtually cancelled and arrested” by the outbreak of war. He wanted to know if the United States could “supply us with identical materiel with extreme urgency.”
- 61.
Lourival Coutinho, O General Góes Depõe… (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Editora Coelho Branco, 1956), 365; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General (New York: Viking, 1963), p. 342.
- 62.
Jefferson Caffery to Sumner Welles, Rio de Janeiro, May 24, 1940, 810.20 Defense/58 ½, telegram, United States Foreign Relations 1940, Vol. 5, pp. 42–43. Caffery reported that Aranha told him that morning that Brazil was ready to “cooperate 100% with the United States in plans for military and naval defense or to repel aggression, and even to cooperate with the United States in war.”
- 63.
Ricardo Antônio Silva Seitenfus, O Brasil de Getúlio Vargas e a Formação dos Blocos, 1930–1942: O processo do envolvimento brasileiro na II Guerra Mundial (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1985), p. 348 ff.
- 64.
While having been invited to German maneuvers has been emphasized in a number of books, he was also to observe British maneuvers. The Itamaraty, Brazil’s foreign ministry, laid out the order of visits as Italy, England, Germany, and France. See Oswaldo Aranha to Getúlio Vargas, Rio, August 18, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC. Frank D. McCann, The Brazilian-American Alliance, 1937–1945 (Princeton University Press, 1973), 146, note 46. For the persistent myth circulating in Brazil that Góes Monteiro went to Germany, see, for example, Luis Alberto Moniz Bandeira, Presença dos Estados Unidos no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 1973), p. 263. The myth has so penetrated Brazilian historiography that it is even found in cultural studies such as Ruy Castro’s biography of Carmen Miranda; see Carmen: Uma Biografia (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005), p. 243. On the cancelled trip to Europe, see Hélio Silva, 1939, Véspera de Guerra (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 1972), pp. 158–160.
- 65.
Caffery, Rio, May 25, 1939, Telegram 174 (4 pm), 832.20111/18, RG 59, NARA and Caffery, Rio, June 6, 1939, Telegram 184, RG 59, NARA.
- 66.
Oswaldo Aranha to G. Vargas, Rio, August 18, 1939, Arquivo Oswaldo Aranha, CPDOC. Having access to documents on both sides does not always clarify matters.
- 67.
Eurico Dutra to G. Vargas, Rio, May 5, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC. Surprisingly Dutra thought that a war in Europe would attract Russia into an anti-German alliance, and he feared that would cause the spread of communism in Brazil. He said that any alliance or commercial arrangement with Russia could have “the most serious consequences for Brazil.” In 1935 Brazil had suffered a communist revolt in its army that had been supported by agents and money from Moscow. Though quickly suppressed, it deeply disturbed the Brazilian officer corps for years thereafter. McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889–1937, pp. 375–388.
- 68.
Eurico Dutra to G. Vargas, Rio, May 5, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC.
- 69.
Vargas to Dutra, Rio, May 9, 1939, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC.
- 70.
Eurico Dutra to Góes Monteiro, Rio de Janeiro, May 11, 1939, Aviso Secreto No. 9, Arquivo Marechal Dutra as in Mauro Renault Leite and Luiz Gonzaga Novelli Jr., eds., Marechal Eurico Gaspar Dutra: O dever da verdade (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1983), pp. 400–401.
- 71.
The Neutrality Act of 1939 repealed the arms embargo and permitted “cash and carry” exports of arms and munitions to belligerents. The final vote in the House of Representatives was on Nov 2.
- 72.
Lt. Col. Lehman W. Miller, Memo for American Ambassador, Rio, Sept. 24, 1940 “Sending of Brazilian Army Officers to the US for Instructional Purposes” 2257-K-18/181; see also Eurico Dutra to Maj. Edwin L. Sibert (Military Attaché), Rio, January 8, 1941, 2257-K-18/247, WD, GS, MID, RG 165, NARA.
- 73.
BG Sherman Miles (Chief G2) to Military Attaché (Brazil), Washington, Jan 16, 1940, Telegram 217, 2257-K-18; and Maj. Edwin L. Sibert to Asst. Chief of Staff, G2, Rio, Jan. 3, 1941, No. 2565: “Brazilian Officers to US Service Schools,” 2257-k-18/232, WD, GS, MID, RG 165, NARA.
- 74.
Getúlio Vargas, A Nova Política do Brasil, Vol. VII (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editora, 1940), pp. 317–320. Speech was on May 13, 1940. The speech was reported to Washington in Randolph Harrison, Rio, May 16, 1940, Dispatch 3014, 832.00/1289, RG 59, NA. Getúlio’s imagery of “Ulysses” avoiding the lure of sirens may have been a reference to the 29 foreign naval vessels that had visited Brazil in the previous 17 months. See Duarte, O Nordeste na II Guerra Mundial, p. 67.
- 75.
Robert C. Burdett to George C. Marshall, Salvador da Bahia, May 17, 1940, 832.00/1289 ½, RG59, NARA. He met with Góes in Rio on May 13. The chargé d’affaires was in charge of an embassy when the ambassador was absent.
- 76.
On May 23, 1940, Roosevelt told a group of businessmen that the defeat of Britain and France would remove the protective buffer of the British fleet and the French army. “And so … we have to think in terms of [protecting] the Americas more and more and infinitely faster.” The Belgian army surrendered on May 28, and the British evacuation from Dunkirk began. Stetson Conn & Byron Fairchild, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1960), p. 34.
- 77.
Harry P. Ball, Of Responsible Command: A History of the U.S. Army War College (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Alumni Association of the United States Army War College, 1983), pp. 212–219.
- 78.
Of course, such “planning” is based on assumptions about enemy capabilities that are only as good as the intelligence available and the quality of the familiarity of the planners with the terrain they will be operating in. The documents do not show adequate familiarity with the terrain or awareness of the difficulty of movement in a country without roads. “Course at the Army War College, 1939–1940. War Plans. Formulation of War Plans Period.” Report of Staff Group No. 3. Subject: War Plan Purple. Date of Conference – 20 May 1940, AWC WPDC4081. Copy in US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa. Lt. Colonel L. W. Miller participated in this exercise.
- 79.
For “Pot of Gold,” see Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, pp. 273–274. Conn and Fairchild took pains to show American and British concerns about German interest in establishing a base at Dakar in French West Africa and what this could mean for Brazilian security. See p. 120. The origin of the British report of a possible German expeditionary force is not clear. The 6,000 German troops came from “Foreign Policy and Armed Forces,” http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/csppp/ch04.htm, p. 95.
- 80.
Getúlio Vargas, Diário, 1937–1942, Vol. II (São Paulo: Siciliano & Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1995), p. 317 (4 June 1940). Others have said this meeting was on June 5. I am following the date of the Vargas diary entry. The existence of the Vargas diary was a closely guarded family secret until its publication in 1995.
- 81.
Mauro Renault Leite and Luiz Gonzaga Novelli Jr., eds., Marechal Eurico Gaspar Dutra: O dever da Verdade, p. 401. The editors said that the meeting was on June 5, but they did not cite a particular document.
- 82.
Hélio Silva, 1939, Véspera de Guerra, (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 1972), p. 201. Lehman Miller, an engineer officer, West Point class of 1915, had been in Brazil with the small US Military Mission (1934–38), went to Rio as military attaché, then was made chief of military mission and promoted to brigadier general.
- 83.
Cyro Freitas Valle, Berlin, June 17, 1940, #193, Arquivo Histórico de Ministério das Relações Exteriores (MRE), Palácio de Itamaraty, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter AHMRE). The foreign ministry encouraged the Americans to be more active in strengthening trade; see MRE to Embaixada/ Washington, Rio, August 5, 1940, #155, Expidido 3801, AHMRE.
- 84.
The New York Times, June 12, 1940; Cyro de Freitas Valle, Berlin, June 12, 1940, #183; June 15, 1940, #189; July 2, 1940, #233, Arquivo Histórico de Ministério das Relações Exteriores (Itamaraty Palace, Rio de Janeiro). AHMRE.
- 85.
Lourival Coutinho, O General Góes Depõe… (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Coelho Branco, 1956), pp. 365–367.
- 86.
http://www.history.com/speeches/franklin-d-roosevelts-stab-in-the-back-speech FDR also attacked the isolationists who were endangering the country’s security. The speech was at the University of Virginia, where his son was graduating from law school.
- 87.
For the text, see Getúlio Vargas, A Nova Política do Brasil, Vol. VII (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editora, 1940), pp. 331–335. There is an English translation of some dubious sections of the speech in Caffery, Rio, June 11, 1940, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, V, pp. 616–617.
- 88.
Getúlio Vargas, Diário, 1937–1942, Vol. II, p. 319–320 [June 11 and June 12, 1940]. He labeled the Germanophile charge as irrational or absurd. For the various interpretations and concerns, see McCann, The Brazilian-American Alliance, 1937–1945, pp. 185–190.
- 89.
Getúlio Vargas, Diário, 1937–1942, Vol. II, p. 320, and note 29 [June 13].
- 90.
Gerson Moura, “Brazilian Foreign Relations, 1939–1950: The Changing Nature of Brazil-United States Relations during and after the Second World War” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University College London, 1982), pp. 55–57. He saw the US commitment to support construction of a steel mill and strengthening the armed forces as the price for Brazil ending its neutrality (p. 56). Moura based his study on British, American, and Brazilian archives. His interpretations were often influenced by British perspectives. He summarized his dissertation research in his Sucessos e Ilusões: Relações Internacionais do Brasil Durante e Após a Segunda Guerra Mundial (Rio de Janeiro: Editora da Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1991). Unhappily it does not include the ample documentation of the dissertation.
- 91.
Getúlio Vargas, Diário, 1937–1942, Vol. II, p. 321 [June 17 and June 20, 1940]; Kurt M. Prüfer, Rio, June 21, 1940, 235/157133, telegram as in Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. IX, p. 659. According to Prüfer the meeting was on June 21, but Vargas’s diary has it on June 20. Some historians have accepted the June 11 speech as an indication that Vargas was, at worse, playing both sides. Others have him seeking to unlock the Brazilian-American negotiations on military and economic cooperation; Ricardo A. Silva Seitenfus, O Brasil de Getúlio Vargas e a Formaçâo dos Blocos, 1930–1942 (São Paulo, 1985), pp. 324–330; Amado Luiz Cervo & Clodoaldo Bueno, A Política Externa Brasileira, 1822–1985 (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1986), pp. 72–73; and Gerson Moura cited in note 90.
- 92.
Edgard Carone, A Terceira República (1937–1945) (São Paulo: Difel/Difusão, 1976), p. 55. Carone did not clarify exactly to whose expectation he referred.
- 93.
Kurt M. Prüfer, Rio, July 2, 1940, 235/157134, telegram as in Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. X, pp. 100–101.
- 94.
Emil Wiehl (Director, Economy Policy) to Prüfer, Berlin, June 19, 1940, 8719/E609576-77, telegram as in Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, Vol. IX, pp. 630–631.
- 95.
Vargas statement in Nación (Buenos Aires) June, 1940, as quoted in Demócrito Cavalcanti de Arruda, “Nossa Partcipação na Primeira e Segunda Guerras Mundiais” in Depoimento de Oficiais da Reserva sobre a F.E.B (Porto Alegre: Cobraci Publicações, 1949), p. 36.
- 96.
Paulo Germano Hasslocher to Getúlio Vargas, Washington, June 14, 1940, Arquivo Getúlio Vargas, CPDOC. Hasslocher was from Rio Grande do Sul and had been a close associate since Vargas’s governorship (1927–1930). In Washington he was commercial consul since 1931. For biography, see “Paulo Germano Hasslocher,” in Israel Beloch & Alzira Alves de Abreu, Eds, Dicionário Histórico-Biográfico Brasileiro, 1930–1983 (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Forense-Universitária, 1984), Vol. 2, p. 1582.
- 97.
Public Resolution 83, 76th Congress, 3rd Session, Joint Resolution 367. Signed by FDR on June 15, 1940.
- 98.
Randolph Harrison Jr. (Second Secretary), Rio, June 24, 1940, 3186, 832.20/209, RG 59, NARA. McCann, The Brazilian-American Alliance, pp. 189–190.
- 99.
General Estevão Leitão de Carvalho, A Serviço do Brasil na Segunda Guerra Mundial (Rio de Janeiro: Editora A Noite, 1952), p. 25. The general was then regional commander in Porto Alegre. Later on he would be chief of the Brazilian delegation in the Mixed Brazilian-American Defense Commission in Washington.
- 100.
Eurico Dutra, Ministro de Guerra, Relatório dos Principais Actividades do Ministerio de Guerra durante o ano de 1939 (Rio de Janeiro; Imprensa Militar, 1940) dated July 1940, p. 31.
Of course the reference to the south of the continent meant Argentina, which the Brazilians continued to regard as their likely opponent.
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McCann, F.D. (2018). Pre-war Fears and Explorations. In: Brazil and the United States during World War II and Its Aftermath. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92910-1_2
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