Goodbye to a Gaucho

Brazil's pent-up pressures had been building almost from the day in 1950 when Onetime Dictator Getulio Vargas swept to power in an astounding election comeback. Strangely enough, the strongman who had once bent 40 million Brazilians to his will turned out to be a donothing President. He worked hard but ineffectually, giving so much time and energy to political maneuvering that almost none was left for establishing the leadership that he, of all Brazilians, might have proclaimed.

Two years after Vargas had promised to roll back food prices, living costs had climbed 30%, and 250,000 Sao Paulo workers quit their factories in hunger-sparked strikes. Even in the midst of a record coffee boom, Vargas' erratic economic policies weakened the currency, drained the treasury, piled up nearly a $2 billion deficit in overseas trade, and almost pricepegged Brazil's No. 1 product out of the U.S. coffee market. Driving desperately to win back working-class support for the 1954 congressional elections. Vargas recently doubled Brazil's minimum wage, despite ominous growls by the army and warnings that the inflation-riddled economy could not stand it.

"Only When Dead." The shock that finally blew the lid off was last month's sensational attempt on the life of Rio's famed crusading Editor Carlos Lacerda (TIME Aug. 16 et seq.). The three gunmen who ambushed him only managed to shoot Lacerda in the foot; but they killed an air force major who accompanied him. In blazing editorials Lacerda charged that members of President Vargas' bodyguard had done the job at the order of Vargas' son Luthero. The air force demanded that Vargas must go. Vargas refused. But last week the army, final arbiter of Brazilian power, decided that Vargas must be asked to resign to restore public confidence in the government.

At 1:35 on Tuesday morning Vargas summoned his Cabinet; members of his household joined in a last, three-hour conference. Vargas agreed to step down. He accepted a theoretically face-saving solution: a leave of absence, with Vice President Cafe Filho taking over his office. Then, rising slowly from his chair, he bowed and said: "Goodnight, gentlemen."

"I Take the Sorrow." The President retired, but not to rest. Some time during the next three hours he penned a last note: "To the wrath of my enemies I leave the legacy of my death. I take the sorrow of not having been able to do for the humble all that I desired." Then, in the loneliness of defeat, he carried out his supreme decision. At the sound of the single shot, members of his family rushed into the unlocked room. On the bed lay Getulio Vargas, still holding a revolver in his stiffened hand while the patch of blood over his heart grew larger. His son Luthero, a physician, felt his pulse. With tears streaming down his cheeks, Luthero whispered: "Papa is dead."

In the old man's pocket they found another sheaf of papers--an extraordinary farewell letter. It proved to be a calculated and deadly thrust against his foes. "Once more," it began, "the forces and interests against the people are newly coordinated and raised against me." He blasted with equal fervor his political opponents and foreign enterprises in Brazil. Only at the end did Vargas speak of death, but then his words were the sort to move men: "I offer my life in the holocaust. I choose this means to be with you always. When they humiliate you, you will feel my soul suffering at your side. When hunger beats at.your door, you will feel inside you the energy to fight for yourselves and your children . . . Each drop of my blood will be an immortal call to your conscience . . .

"To hatred I respond with pardon. And to those who think they have defeated me I reply with victory. I was the slave of the people, and today I free myself for eternal life. But this people to which I was a slave will no longer be a slave to anyone. My sacrifice will remain forever in your soul, and my blood will be the price of your ransom.

"I fought against the looting of Brazil. I fought against the looting of the people. I have fought barebreasted. The hatred, infamy and calumny did not beat down my spirit. I gave you my life. Now I offer my death. Nothing remains. Serenely I take the first step on the road to eternity, and I leave life to enter history."

Eventful Era. The life that Getulio Vargas left behind filled an eventful Brazilian era. The stocky, inscrutable little man--he was just 5 ft. 2 in. tall--dominated Latin America's biggest country for a generation, and turned it from a scattered confederacy of bickering states into a republic with all the attributes of modern nationhood, including the most rabid sort of nationalism.

Lawyer son of a famous Indian fighter who lived to be 99, Vargas first rode out of Rio Grande do Sul in 1930 at the head of a gaucho army and seized the presidency. In power. Vargas rapidly won a name as the smartest politician in South

America. Playing off his rivals against each other and building up a loyal following among the underprivileged masses, he ruled for 15 uninterrupted years. With each new rebellion smashed he contrived to increase his powers. In 1937 he abolished Congress and established the Estado Novo, an "authoritative democracy" complete with fascist-type constitution, press censorship and well-populated political prisons.

Dictator or not, Vargas liked to call himself "the best friend of the U.S. in Latin America." When war came, he swung his country to the Allied side. The U.S. established a string of air bases across Brazil's strategic Atlantic bulge, and Vargas sent a division to General Mark Clark's command on the Italian front. Benignly accepting the title of "father of the poor," the strongman also gave Brazil the 48-hour week, the minimum wage, and social security.

Home on the Range. The winds of democracy that blew powerfully across Latin America at war's end finally drove Vargas into retirement. His decision to return to Rio Grande do Sul was hastened when army troops occupied key Rio buildings in a bloodless stroke. The fallen champion chose to exile himself to his southern ranch. There he stayed five years, waiting for the people to come to him again. They did. In the 1950 elections he rode triumphantly back to the presidency "on the arms of the people," as he wrote last week in his bitter farewell note.

The Swarming Sea. The night after Vargas wrote the last words of his testament, his body was laid out in state at the palace. A two-mile queue formed, and all night the humble shuffled past, weeping and bringing flowers. One old Negro woman called out: "Getulio, why did you do this? What will happen to us now?" In the morning the funeral procession wound peacefully through the city to the bayside Santos Dumont Airport. Pushed along on a carriage through the swarming sea of thousands, the coffin seemed almost to float by itself above the heads of the sobbing men and women.

At the airport the coffin was placed aboard a DC-3 (the family had spurned the offer of an air force plane) for the 875-mile flight to Vargas' home town of Sao Borja. There the old man was borne on Gauchos' shoulders to his last resting place in the municipal cemetery. In compliance with canonical law, the Roman Catholic Church denied Christian burial to its son, who had died a suicide, but throughout Brazil Masses were said for the repose of his soul.

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