public safety adviser in Brazil, Theodore D. Brown. “The thing that arouses me and arouses American public opinion a good deal,” said Pell, “is this use of physical torture. Why is it the Brazilians … use torture as a police method when it will alienate their friends and allies around the world?” Brown first replied that he was “not personally aware” of torture, and then tacitly acknowledged the problem: “Why certain people do things, that is a difficult question for me to answer, sir…. Why do some people beat their wives?” Senator Church then got into a row with Ambassador Rountree over President Nixon’s policy of dealing with all governments. “We not only deal with them,” said Church, “we extend lavish amounts of money…. Can we simply say it matters not what the state of freedom is in any country?” Church went on to succinctly lay out the moral dilemmas Americans faced in the human rights era. “When I go to American colleges and talk to young people,” he told the ambassador, “they ask why have we spent two billion dollars in Brazil when the government there is dictatorial in character, run by military men, any number of Brazilians are said to be mistreated in the jails, where there are recurrent reports of human torture.”151
The congressional hearings process had long served as an opportunity for legislators to question the executive branch on policy matters, but the Church hearings went much further in highlighting the level of skepticism about the moral value of foreign aid. Church and Pell not only doubted that the large aid allotment to Brazil did anything for the United States, but they were unimpressed with the administration’s claims of private diplomacy, and argued instead for strong public condemnation. The hearings were also a different kind of conversation because the senators had been receiving information from nongovernmental sources. Because activists and NGOs had done so much research and writing on Brazil, the senators did not have to rely on the State Department.152
Congress did not cut direct aid in 1971, but these hearings set an important precedent for the threat of cutoffs based on human rights concerns. Congress soon terminated USAID funds for Brazilian police training, and the OPS pulled out of Brazil. (Congress would phase out the entire program in 1974.) These hearings also increased the congressional momentum against such regimes in Latin America. In 1971–1972, Senator John Tunney (D-CA), Congressman Donald Fraser, and Congressman Ronald Dellums (D-CA) proposed Brazilian aid cuts until the IACHR could prove that torture had been eradicated. These proposals received no more than about one-third support in each house, but they demonstrated a growing liberal challenge to Nixonian realpolitik.153 Meanwhile, the State Department was hardly unified. Ambassador Rountree, who was clearly troubled by the overwhelming evidence of torture, supported diplomatic intercession. Unfortunately for him, when he commented to Washington on the “essentiality of making [U.S. disapproval] clear on appropriate occasion and in appropriate manner,” his superior wrote in the memo’s margin, “i.e. never, and by saying nothing.”154
The mounting congressional opposition did not prevent the administration from rolling out the red carpet when President Médici visited Washington in December 1971. With both governments seeking to halt the leftward drift in the hemisphere, Secretary Rogers advised Nixon that the visit would provide an opportunity to influence Brazil’s leadership, as “the Brazilians’ objectives parallel our own.” Rogers even put a positive spin on the junta’s domestic achievements. Although many “thinking Brazilians” were “impatient with the slow pace of return to democratic procedures,” the wider public was “enthusiastic about Brazil’s progress.” Terrorism had been reduced, Brazil’s economy had grown, and the regime had permitted some direct congressional and municipal elections.155 State Department FSOs in Brazil concurred. In the words of a U.S. embassy report, “large segments of Brazilian opinion [are] willing to accommodate themselves to authoritarian government, tainted with chronic, if occasional, abuses of individual rights, so long as it is accompanied by prosperity and a sense of accomplishment.”156
At their first meeting, Médici implored Nixon not to neglect South America, where the danger from homegrown, Cuba-backed insurgencies was so dire that it “could blow up at any time.” Nixon agreed that regional insurgencies were a problem, and he assured Médici that the United States would maintain a strong front against Cuba. But otherwise he was cautious, asking many questions but promising little. Twice he pointed out that Congress controlled foreign aid, and he frankly noted that many American legislators wanted to limit ties in the belief that Brazil was “not democratic enough.” Médici denied that Brazil was a military dictatorship (he cited as proof the nation’s relatively small army), and he emphasized that the position of Brazil and its neighbors was so tenuous that they needed U.S. military support.157 Considering that Nixon twice brought up the lack of democracy, we might be tempted to believe that he had misgivings about supporting an undemocratic government. But it is more likely that he simply wanted to clarify that Congress had to be taken seriously and that he did not have a free hand to aid allies as he wished. He may also have been preoccupied by his more important upcoming meetings in Beijing and Moscow. Either way, with respect to Brazil he was essentially caught between three of his central policy positions. He sought to aid anticommunist allies and avoid involvement in their internal affairs, all while decreasing America’s overseas commitments.
At their second meeting, it became clear that the price for Nixon’s support was Brazil taking a leading role in policing the Americas. The two leaders found common cause in curbing the activities of Fidel Castro, the region’s guerrillas, and Salvador Allende in Chile. Médici strongly agreed with Nixon’s statement that the two countries must work to “prevent new Allendes and Castros,” and he made it clear that Brazil intended to play a key role in preventing left-wing incursions. Nixon then made vague promises of U.S. back-channel funding if the Brazilians moved to undermine or overthrow Allende. Each side saw these meetings as a great success—the Brazilian foreign minister even told American officials that the visit “far exceeded our fondest expectations.”158 Nixon was pleased with the Brazilian leadership from the standpoint of hemispheric security, and he and Secretary Rogers were privately effusive in their praise of Médici. “He’s quite a fellow, isn’t he,” said Nixon. “I wish he were running the whole continent.” Rogers agreed: “God, I’m glad he’s on our side.” The Brazilians did go on to interfere in their neighbors’ political affairs, and Médici became far more active than Nixon in fighting communism in South America.159
But not everyone was happy with the Médici visit or the state of U.S.-Brazil relations. The Committee Against Repression in Brazil erected a large sign outside the White House that read, “Stop U.S. Dollar Complicity with Brazilian Torturists.” A Brazilian student briefly disrupted Médici’s speech at the Organization of American States by yelling, “Long live free Brazil—stop the tortures!” The New York Times suggested that Nixon’s public inclusion of Brazil among America’s closest allies “will be taken in Latin America as bestowing Washington’s blessings on the less attractive aspects of the junta’s record.”160 Even some Brazilian military leaders had misgivings, including one general who lamented that the Americans wanted Brazil to “do the dirty work” in the region.161
Although the Nixon administration did not alter its position, the Brazilian case showed that a focused antitorture campaign could raise public awareness of suffering, essentially turning a Brazilian domestic issue into an international concern. Activists’ testimony and images reached the news media and Congress, and this rise in awareness forced the executive branch to reexamine bilateral relations. Antitorture activism on behalf of Brazilian political prisoners contributed to a much broader international movement against torture, including Amnesty International’s groundbreaking global campaign in 1973.162 These activities would lay the foundations for a strong international reaction to one of the era’s major turning points: the Chilean military’s September 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende. As for Brazil, incidences of torture and disappearances would decrease under the government of General Ernesto Geisel (1974–1979), in part because of international criticism and in part because most of the armed resistance had been subjugated. Many exiles would return following a 1979 amnesty, though the Brazilian military government would remain in power until 1985.
