Background
Juscelino Kubitschek was born in Diamantina, a small historical mining town in Minas Gerais on 12 September 1902.
Doctor government official politician president
Juscelino Kubitschek was born in Diamantina, a small historical mining town in Minas Gerais on 12 September 1902.
In 1922 he entered medical school, graduating in 1927. His first job was in the surgery clinic of the Santa Casa de Misericordia in Belo Horizonte, and he then went to study in Europe.
Returning to Brazil shortly after the October 1930 revolution, he entered politics in 1933 and served as federal congressman from 1935 to 1937. When President Getúlio Vargas closed Congress in 1937 and instituted the Estado Novo dictatorship, Kubitschek returned to the practice of medicine.
In 1940 Kubitschek was appointed mayor of Belo Horizonte.
One of the organizers of the Partido Social Democrático (PSD) political party when the Vargas dictatorship ended in 1945, Kubitschek was elected to the federal Chamber of Deputies. In 1950 he won the governorship of the state of Minas Gerais.
In the wake of Vargas’ suicide in 1954, Kubitschek was put forward as the natural candidate of the pro-Vargas forces for the 1950 presidential elections. His running mate was Joño Belchior Marques Goulart.
Elections were held on October 3, 1955, amidst a great deal of tension, for it appeared that some elements of the military allied with Carlos Lacerda would block the elections or annul the election results if Kubitschek won. When the final count favored Kubitschek, the major military leaders pledged their loyalty, assuring the inauguration of Kubitschek and Goulart on January 31, 1956.
Kubitschek turned power over to his elected successor, Jánio Quadrat in January 1961. A few months later a Senate vacancy occurred in the state of Goyaz, and Kubitschek won that seat, in a special election on June 4, 1961. When Quadras resigned in August 1961, Kubitschek opposed the amendment that established a parliamentary system. As conditions deteriorated under Goulart, Kubitschek was constantly urged to take a stand against Goulart but he refused.
After the military revolt of March 31, 1964, toppled Goulart, Kubitschek was deprived of his political rights and went into voluntary exile in June. He returned to Brazil in October 1965, but was harassed by the military and went into exile again in November 1965.
In October 1966 Carlos Lacerda, by then an active opponent of the military government, attempted to organize a new political party, the Frente Ampia, led by Kubitschek, Goulart, and himself. However, the government ordered the Frente Ampia to disband. From that date on, Kubitschek abandoned politics and dedicated himself to business activities. When he died in an automobile accident, he was still the most popular politician in Brazil.
He dramatically modernized the Minas Gerais state capital with sweeping boulevards and a complex that contained an ultramodern Catholic Chuch designed by Oscar Nienieyer with paintings and frescoes by Candido Portinari.
As governor from 1951 to 1955 his major objective was to transform the state from an agricultural producer to a sophisticated and highly industrialized section of the country. Kubitschek was an extremely popular governor.
As a President Kubitschek set up a target program that focused on development of energy, an expanded road-building program, and expansion of heavy industry. It was crowned with the construction of a new twenty-first-century capital Brasilia, in the center of the country. President Kubitschek formally transferred the seat of government to Brasilia.
Kubitschek opened Brazil to foreign industrialists who poured capital and equipment into the country. As a result, he provoked criticism that Brazilian industry was being “denationalized”since multinationals established many of the nation’s new basic industries.
All of these development plans were costly and were financed in part by inflationary loans by government banks. When in 1959 the International Monetary Fund demanded curtailment of development as the price for new loans, President Kubitschek broke off negotiations which raised his standing with the nationalists. For the years 1957 to 1960 the gross national product (GNP) growth rate for Brazil was 7.8 percent, and the country built the infrastructure needed for the intensification of development during the 1970s.
On November 25, 1958, Brazil recognized the USSR. Nonetheless, President Dwight Eisenhower paid a special visit to Brazil in February 1960. Kubitschek suggested to him a new hemisphere-wide approach to the problems of Latin America called Operation Pan America, but the U.S. government largely ignored it.
