Guedes writes that he lacked the stupidity of other generals and therefore appreciated from the start of Goulart’s presidency (1961–64) that Brazil was about to fall victim to enslaving communism, a prospect favored by the “terrible progressive wing” of the clergy (p. 125) and by those who invaded properties all over Brazil, frequently massacring landlords. Readers who mistakenly believe, as does Guedes, that the mas sacring of landlords was frequent, will enjoy his account of the struggle against what the physicians of Minas Gerais called “red and bloody atheism” (p. 131).
On March 30, 1964, Guedes, a brigadier general in Belo Horizonte, told his seven army officers that Minas was in revolt against Goulart. He forgot to advise his superior, General Mourão Filho, who was also conspiring, but this is not surprising. The story of Guedes is one of contempt for peers and superiors. After the revolution succeeded, Guedes was determined to make it clear that he had been its hero and that the role of others “was one of omissions or a lack of courage, not to use a stronger expression” (p. 301).
“The powerful hand of God” (p. 24), helpful in Guedes’s campaign against communism, seems soon to have deserted him. Although he claims to have been instrumental in placing Castello Branco in the presidency, he found that the new president did not know how to honor the “unmerited gift” (p. 274). When Guedes took steps to remove the “demagogic” (p. 258) head of the University of Minas Gerais without even consulting the education minister, Gastello reacted. Guedes, transferred against his will to São Paulo, spoke frequently to the press, sometimes belittling War Minister Costa e Silva’s revolutionary role and sometimes criticizing the government. He found his new commander, Amauri Kruel, authoritarian and vain.
Learning that he was not to be promoted in November 1966, Guedes told War Minister Ademar de Queiroz that he wanted to know what the opponents of his promotion, the “Filatesi” (p. 292), were doing on March 31, 1964. In 1967, at the installation of War Minister Lira Tavares, Guedes told his fellow officers: “If I had been the same as you on March 31, 1964, all of us would have lost our posts” (p. 297). Someone might have explained to Guedes that late in March 1964, after the navy mutiny, officers throughout Brazil were eager to act as he did. Their restraint, due to understandings that the movement should be coordinated, did not call for censure. Nor did it mean that the officers attending Lira Tavares’s installation owed their posts to Guedes.
With less conceit, Guedes might have fared better, and he might have written a book less damaging to himself.
