The United States government worked with the possibility of the then President of the Republic João Batista Figueiredo (1918-1999) resigning.
The prediction, made in May 1981 by the intelligence sector of the US Department of Defense, is contained in a document that remained confidential for decades.
In this and other reports and secret communiqués from the same period to which BBC News Brasil had access, there are criticisms of General Figueiredo and his administration in the conduct of Brazilian politics.
The documents were sent by US diplomats in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília to the State Department in Washington.
Prepared within the government in the United States, they are intelligence reports, analysis and communications from the diplomatic services in Brazil, the Department of Defense and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).
They even cite “omission in the face of the wave of terrorism” perpetrated by the military in the 1970s and 1980s.
“It will undermine President Figueiredo’s authority and seriously weaken his overall political position,” says a June 12, 1981 report written by the US Embassy in Brasilia, entitled “Brazil: Terrorism Will Bring Problems for Figueiredo.”
An example of these acts was a failed bomb attack on the night of April 30, 1981 at the Riocentro Convention Center in Rio de Janeiro.
At the place, a show of Brazilian popular music was being held in celebration of Labor Day with the participation of thousands of people.
The bomb exploded inside a car, in the lap of Sergeant Guilherme Pereira do Rosário, who died instantly. Captain Wilson Dias Machado, who was at Rosário’s side, was seriously injured.
Both are part of DOI-CODI, an organ of the dictatorship linked to repression.
The gates of Riocentro were locked, and the purpose of the explosions was to provoke panic, which could lead to many deaths. There were bombs in other parts of the exhibition center, which did not explode.
Surrounded by secrets and conflicting information, the army’s official investigation came to nothing.
The National Information Service (SNI), the Brazilian federal government’s intelligence agency, blamed the opposition, with the aim of resuming the violent repression of leftist parties.
But the arguments did not hold up, and the involvement of soldiers who were against the process of political opening that was underway was discovered.
Figueiredo tried to cover up the attack. Under pressure, the military even said that no one would be punished.
The National Truth Commission, in 2014, showed in its report that the attack was organized by the Brazilian government.
“If Figueiredo tolerates more violence and accepts an ongoing cover-up of military involvement, suspicions will grow that he does not have the authority to act or that he tolerates the actions,” reveals one of the communiqués sent to Washington.
Possibility of waiver
That year, the US State Department worked with the hypothesis that Figueiredo would resign to avoid increasing political problems, in addition to trying to preserve the opening process, which had been questioned by the military.
Another situation suggested by the Americans would be that the blame for the attacks would be placed on a group of neo-Nazis who would be captured by the government, a fact that would receive wide coverage in the press, in the analysis of the Brazilian military.
But the United States had another position. “It was mentioned, privately, that if there is no satisfactory solution, the president could resign to preserve the administration of the government and the ‘openness’, which seems to be very unlikely,” reads a document received by the Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA, in English), in May 1981.
In Brazil, there were also comments about a possible departure of Figueiredo from office.
According to Bernardo Braga Pasqualette, biographer of the former president and author of “Forget Me – the biography of a presidency”, General Ernesto Geisel, due to the consequences arising from the attack in Riocentro, defended the resignation.
“In September 1981, after the Riocentro case and Figueiredo’s first heart attack, Geisel began to defend his resignation in a discreet and reserved manner, using the president’s delicate health as an argument. Behind the scenes, however, there was already talk of a Figueiredo’s alleged unwillingness to govern Brazil,” wrote Pasqualette.
The biographer told BBC News Brazil that he was unaware of the US State Department documents cited in this report.
Geisel had already dealt with his defense of Figueiredo’s resignation in an interview with professors Celso Castro and Maria Celina D’Araujo, from the Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary History of Brazil at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), published in the book “Ernesto Geisel” in 1997.
“After the heart attack [Figueiredo] became another man. At that time, I advocated that he should resign. A man with a heart attack, even if he is going to cure that heart attack, is going to have an operation like he was, he is not the same person. So I thought he should have resigned. But not! On the contrary, he decided to continue. The reality is that after the heart attack he became another man, he lost interest in many things in the government”, said Geisel in 1997.
About blaming alleged neo-Nazi groups for the Riocentro attack, US diplomacy was clear in saying that this could be a credible way for the Figueiredo government to divert attention from the military involved in the crime.
“There may be a possibility that comes to light, with the recent capture of several members of neo-Nazi groups, with media coverage of the case and speculation of neo-Nazi activity in the country. The government could implicate them in terrorist actions with the bombs — not associating military groups with the orchestration of the bomb attacks against the left, although perhaps the left may have actions and opportunities that would lead the government to publicly accuse them of such acts. solution for the government that could use it and be accepted by the population.”
At the same time, the US Embassy highlighted in a document on June 12, 1981 the problem of the then president’s lack of credibility in dealing with national issues.
For the United States, if Figueiredo did not find those responsible for the terrorist attacks, “his political position and credibility among the main politicians and interest groups, as well as with the general public, would suffer irreparable damage”.
“[Haveria] doubts about its ability to carry out the liberalization process would proliferate, despite its assurances and positive steps it has already taken.”
.
