Decisive Phase

Brazil's Communists last week nominated a presidential candidate who is not (he says) a Communist. Obscure, 52-year-old Yeddo Fiuza, mayor of Petropolis, was as surprised as everyone else when Communist Leader Luis Carlos Prestes put the finger on him.

The Communist slate for the Dec. 2 national elections already included a banker, lawyers, and professional men. A notable candidate for the Chamber of Deputies was small, shy artist Candido Portinari, famed portrayer of undernourished coffee workers and slick society matrons. Said Portinari, explaining his conversion to politics: "We must all take our posts in this decisive phase of history, whose march no force can detain, because it is more powerful than the atomic bomb." Rio political analysts thought Communist Candidate Fiuza might nose out ex-War Minister General Eurico Caspar Dutra for second place. But most Brazilians were betting on General Eduardo Gomes to win the Presidency. Whoever won would have a man-size job bringing order out of the economic chaos and fraud turning up in the wake of the departed Getulio Vargas.

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