Artur da Costa e Silva

Artur da Costa e Silva (October 3, 1899 – December 17, 1969) was a Brazilian Army Marshal and the second president of the Brazilian military dictatorship headed by the National Renewal Alliance that came to power after the 1964 coup d'état. He reached the rank of Marshal of the Brazilian Army, and held the post of Minister of War in the military government of President Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco.

During his term in office Institutional Act 5 was promulgated. This law gave the President powers to dismiss the National Congress, strip politicians of their offices of power, and institutionalize repressive methods of rule against left-wing parties and individuals. Costa e Silva's government started the most oppressive stage of the military regime against opposition, left-wing activists and suspected communists, which would be continued and expanded under his successor Emílio Garrastazu Médici.

Biography

Artur da Costa e Silva was born in Tarquarí in the state of Rio Grande do Sul on October 3, 1902, to Aleìxo Rocha da Silva and Almerinda da Costa. Following common practice in Brazil, his parents blended their two names to form a new surname for their nine children. Costa e Silva's parents were descended from Portuguese colonists who had settled in Brazil's southern farmlands. His father ran a general store owned by his wife's father. Second of the children, Costa e Silva's first teacher was his older sister.

By the age of ten, Costa e Silva's military career passed from child's games to reality at the Military School of Porto Alegre. He quickly rose to the top of his class and was graduated in 1917 as commander of the student body. His sub-commander, by an ironic twist of fate that would persist throughout their lives, was the awkward young Humberto Castelo Branco-later destined to become the 21st president of Brazil.

Costa e Silva ended his late teens at the Brazilian Military Academy at Realengo, graduating third in his class at the country's premier military school. At that time he noticed the ten-year-old daughter of one of his teachers and decided she would be his future wife. "She'll grow up," he explained to a friend.

In 1922, Costa e Silva joined a cadre of junior officers opposed to the controlling influence of wealthy landowners in the national government. A rebellion he helped to initiate was quashed immediately, and Costa e Silva found himself imprisoned on a freighter anchored in Guanabara Bay. With time on his hands to pine, he arranged to have a note smuggled to his former teacher, General Severo Barbosa, asking permission to marry his daughter. The suitor was disappointed with the General's reply-"You have some nerve!" His future father-in-law eventually relented and Costa e Silva was permitted to marry Iolanda Barbosa in 1925. Six months after the failed rebellion, Costa e Silva won his freedom. He served as an instructor in military schools during the rest of the decade.

In 1930, Getúlio Vargas launched a successful coup and created what was described as a mild, semi-fascist dictatorship in which the influence of landowners was greatly reduced. Costa e Silva rose through the ranks rapidly-first as an aide to a Vargas cabinet minister and later as one of a group of pro-democratic officers who succeeded in removing Vargas from power in 1945. Vargas would be reelected in 1950, only to be confronted four years later by another group of officers who were discontent with his corrupt and dictatorial government. This time Vargas shot himself rather than step down, and his party returned to leadership under Juscelino Kubitschek.

Kubitschek oversaw years of growth and prosperity, culminating in uncontrolled inflation and corruption. When his successor, JaÃnio Quadros, attempted to control spending, the state militia in Sao Paulo rebelled in protest over a pay freeze. Costa e Silva enhanced his prestige when he defied the rebels and halted their action. Quadros moved increasingly toward the political left, however, to the dismay of Brazil's military. He was eventually forced to flee the country under threat of another coup. Quadros's vice president, JoaÃo Goulart, took control of the country but failed to halt the slide into economic chaos. By 1963, corruption was rampant, the annual increase in the cost of living had risen to 81 percent, foreign investment had dropped in response to government nationalization of industries, and Brazilians took to the streets in huge protest marches.

This was too much for the army to bear. Generals deposed Goulart in 1964, to the delight of investors in the United States, and handed control of the military to Costa e Silva. Brazil's state governors asked him to assume the Presidency, but Costa e Silva deferred to Castelo Branco-preferring to let his protégé take the blame for imposing necessary austerity measures such as cutting government spending, increasing income taxes, and placing a cap on wages. As a result of these actions money again poured into the country, the gross national product soared, and inflation dropped to 41 percent.

Meanwhile, Costa e Silva established himself as a buffer between constitutionalists and right-wing, hard line revolutionaries in the military while positioning himself in the public consciousness as the humanist answer to the hardships of Castelo Branco's economic austerity program. He was elected to succeed Castelo Branco by Congress rather than by a popular vote, much to his predecessor's dismay. Castelo Branco and his cabinet, who had lobbied the military for a civilian successor, feared that Costa e Silva would undo much of what they had labored to accomplish. However, their fears proved groundless.

Spouting "social humanism," Costa e Silva was elected president on his 64th birthday, and quickly amused his followers by publicizing his love of bad television, card games, small bets on horses, flirting at dinner parties, short work days, and long naps. The dark glasses he wore to avoid eye irritation were a boon to political cartoonists, who portrayed him as a bumbling simpleton. He chuckled along with his detractors when they suggested a terrorist might destroy his government by hurling an alarm clock into his bedroom.

Laugh he might, for he had manipulated the military into loyal support with pay raises and hardware during his tenure as Castelo Branco's war minister, bought the loyalty of the masses with promises of social and economic relief, and ensured foreign support by pledging his allegiance to the United States business community.

In late August 1969, the Costa e Silva suffered a debilitating stroke. Witnesses reported that he took up a pen when he found he could not speak, and then hurled the pen across the room in tears when he found he also could no longer write. As he lay in his bedroom in the presidential mansion, three generals who had taken over his government issued decrees from a room directly below. Costa e Silva's vice president, who had the constitutional right to assume the presidency, disappeared from public view and was placed under virtual house arrest.

Costa e Silva died on December 17, 1969. Few mourned his passing. Under temporary leadership, Brazil's government veered to the right and its 23rd president, Emílio Garrastazu Médici was quickly installed as his successor. The economy grew at an unprecedented rate during the following five years, and by the end of the 1970's steps were initiated to restore civilian democracy and lift political repression.