Golpe Deferred

A placid, two-ton rhinoceros escaped briefly from a circus in Rio one evening last week, jamming traffic on busy Avenida Atlantica. Amid the tangle of stalled automobiles, the word darted around as erratically as a horsefly in a stable: "O Golpe! The coup!" In jittery Rio, something as commonplace as a traffic snarl could touch off rumors that the army was taking over, and the exclamation Golpe! really meant "This is it!"

Brazilians were inordinately coup-conscious last week because General Canrobert Pereira da Costa, the respected chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had made it painfully clear in a weekend speech that top military men were prepared to consider "intervention" if it seemed to them that the October presidential election threatened to bring on "revolution and chaos." But, paradoxically, the general's stern words may have lessened the immediate danger of a coup. The speech evoked an answering torrent of anticoup sentiments from the press, public, politicos and even some military leaders. That strong reaction would probably influence the generals to go along for the present with the unpredictable processes of democracy. All three of the major presidential candidates spoke out:

P: General Juarez Tavora (whom the army likes): "Legality above all personal interests or passions."

P: Ex-Governor Juscelino Kubitschek (whom the army dislikes): "Canrobert's speech is not in harmony with reality."

P: Ex-Governor Adhemar de Barros (whom the army distrusts): "We had our elections in 1945. We had them in 1950. We will have them in 1955."

The most reassuring anticoup voice came from the top. President Joao Cafe Filho, whose prestige would be needed to guarantee the success of a bloodless coup and avoid the risk of civil war, told an interviewer: "I will never be instrumental in establishing a dictatorial regime." At week's end, after a long conference with the President, General Canrobert decided that there was no reason why he should not enter the Central Army Hospital for a long-postponed medical checkup.

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