Wheeling & Dealing

Obviously playing East against West, President Janio Quadros dramatically announced last week that in the next U.N. General Assembly, Brazil will vote in favor of debating the admission of Red China. Characteristically, Janio held back his hole card--whether he actually favors Peking's admission to the U.N. But even his endorsement of debate on the stormy issue makes Brazil the first hemisphere country outside Castro's Cuba to buck U.S. policy on China. Coming from Latin America's biggest nation. Janio's move might well make it more difficult for the U.S. to hold the other republics in line.

Janio's China ploy came only five days after U.S. Ambassador John Moors Cabot had relayed President Kennedy's offer of stopgap credits--reportedly $100 million--to help tide Brazil over its economic crisis. The offer was made just as that crisis was forcing Janio to order all ministries to cut their budgets 30% within the next two weeks and to clamp down on goldbricking civil servants, many of whom, thanks to political influence, have been allowed to come to the office only once a month to pick up their paychecks. Despite his nation's urgent need, Janio not only failed to acknowledge Kennedy's aid offer publicly, but went on negotiating diplomatic ties with the satellite governments of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria and hinting that he planned to do the same with the Soviet Union.

Among veteran observers of the Quadros mind, both in Washington and Brasilia, Janio's actions produced more resigned shoulder shrugging than alarm. Janio's motives, the experts believe, are threefold: 1) a sincere desire to make Brazil more "independent" internationally, 2) the belief that to hold the allegiance of Brazil's left-wing voters he must make a show of "neutralism," 3) a profound suspicion that even in these days of "disinterested" foreign aid programs, the wheel that squeaks still gets the most grease. Almost certainly Janio hopes that at least an incidental result of his diplomatic flirtation with Communist nations will be whopping increases in Kennedy's proposed aid to Brazil.

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