Background
Humberto Castelo Branco was born on September 20, 1900 in Ceará.
politician president Soldier military leader
Humberto Castelo Branco was born on September 20, 1900 in Ceará.
He graduated from the Brazilian military academy and entered the army in January 1921.
He did not participate in any of the military insurrections of the 1920s, and by 1943 he had risen to lieutenant colonel. He went overseas as chief of operations of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force which fought with the Allied armies in the Italian campaign of World War II. During the postwar years Castelo Branco rose to general of the army by 1962 and to chief of the general staff of the army in the last months of the Goulart administration. Gen. Castelo Branco's support of those conspiring against the government of Joao Goulart, made known secretly to other high military commanders in late March 1964, was one of the decisive factors in bringing about its fall.
With the overthrow of Goulart on April 1, the three military ministers, who constituted a revolutionary junta, decided that they would, for the first time in 70 years, alter the normal constitutional succession to the presidency.
Support for a military candidate for the presidency did not come only from the armed forces but also from powerful state governors.
However, his modification of the constitution deprived a sizable number of citizens of their civil rights, including former president Juscelino Kubitschek and Goiás governor Mauro Borges.
The Castelo Branco government sought to come to grips with a number of the country's economic and social problems.
Economist Roberto Campos was given virtually dictatorial powers as minister of economy.
The part of the program which was most effectively applied was that dealing with the inflation.
Price rises were brought down from a rate of over 80 percent in 1964 to 25 percent in 1966, but at the cost of a considerable fall in the level of living of the workers and the bankruptcy of a sizable number of firms.
The Castelo Branco government's ardor for social and political reforms was not as great as its support of economic stabilization.
It did not press for passage of a law allowing illiterates to vote in municipal elections, which would have reduced the power of rural landlords; and the agrarian reform law passed under government pressure was exceedingly mild and did not, in fact, bring about agrarian reform.
When the October 1965 state elections went against the regime, the "hard-line" military men forced President Castelo Branco to modify the constitution once again.