Tradition and Variation in Brazilian Foreign Policy

Abstract

Mounting Anxieties, frustrations, and fears in Brazil effected a change of government by military force at the end of March of 1964. President Joáo Goulart fled to an Uruguayan exile. Congress, urged by the military, conferred supreme executive power on Marshal Humberto Castelo Branco. Many other sweeping changes followed. None was more complete than the about-face taken in foreign policy.Castelo Branco spoke out early and unequivocally in his regime in favor of a return to more traditional policies. The graduation exercise of the foreign service school, the Instituto Rio-Branco, on July 31, 1964, provided the propitious place and moment for him to outline the foreign policy goals of his government. He paid homage to the ideals consecrated by tradition: world peace, disarmament, selfdetermination, non-intervention, and anti-colonialism. Moving into the more pragmatic realm of national interests, the president emphasized that his government's foreign policy aimed to increase national power through social and economic development.