The New Freedom

For the past six months Brazil has seethed with rumors that President Getulio Vargas, eager to present a democratic fac,ade at the brave new world conferences (Mexico City, San Francisco), would hold free elections and remove his heavy hand from the country's press. Last week Vargas published his Cabinet Ministers' recommendations for a revised constitution and elections. He also ungagged the press.

Brazilian editors were slap-happy with newfound freedom. Newspapers, with the exception of Brazil-Portugal*, sharply rapped the dictatorial Vargas regime for its truck with fascism, its curtailment of the vote and free speech. They speculated wildly about the still unscheduled elections. Names of hitherto unmentionable oppositionists, like ex-Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha and deposed Air Chief Eduardo Gomes, were headlined. Brazilians bought early editions by the handful, read them goggle-eyed. Gasped one: "I can't stand it! There's too much oxygen!" Said Diario Carioca: "The youngest of us never even knew of such freedom except by hearsay or reading foreign news. It was like waking suddenly from a long dream, like waking and opening our eyes to the light."

Non-Smoking Opponent. Certain to be President Vargas' chief opponent in the forthcoming elections was Brigadier General Eduardo Gomes. Ascetic Bachelor Gomes, an oldtime Army man, neither smokes nor drinks. As a survivor of the bloody, gallant, but unsuccessful 1922 revolt, he is a legendary figure in Brazil. He helped to put Vargas in power in the successful revolution of 1930. Later, Vargas appointed him commander of Brazil's Second Air Zone. Impeccably honest and inherently democratic, Air Chief Gomes later criticized the Vargas regime, was subsequently relieved of his field command, assigned to a Rio desk job. His candidacy is supported by most of Brazil's political "outs," the majority of the newspapers, 90% of the intelligentsia.

Candidate Gomes may well be supported by the followers of another Brazilian revolutionary hero, Communist Luis Carlos Prestes, who is now doing time in a Rio prison, charged with sedition and engineering a murder from his prison cell. Brazil's unorganized leftists (together with world liberals) have long agitated for Prestes' release on the ground that he is unjustly accused. Leftist backing is contingent on Gomes' 1) plumping for Soviet recognition, 2) guaranteeing amnesty for Prestes and other political prisoners.

At week's end, Brazilians were still waiting for wary President Vargas to fix the day of elections, publish an electoral code and his new liberal constitution. Vargas had not announced his own candidacy. But chances were good that he would soon decree elections, try to win in a rush before the opposition could get started.

* Edited by President Vargas' brother Viriato, who once editorialized: "Democracy was born, matured, ripened, and died. The stench from its body pollutes the air."

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