Truce at Last

After three weeks without a government, Brazil's fractious politicians finally got together on a Prime Minister and a Cabinet to join President Joao ("Jango") Goulart at the helm of Latin America's biggest nation. They did so not because they had resolved their difficulties or agreed on the best man, but because they realized that Brazil had just about reached the edge of safety, and could not stand a further prolongation of the bitter, partisan bickering. The new government that took office in the outback capital of Brasilia represented an expedient truce between warring factions.

Goulart's conservative opposition had already rejected his first choice for a Prime Minister, and Goulart himself had fallen out with his second. His third choice was hardly reassuring, Francisco de Paula Brochado da Rocha, 51, comes from Goulart's home state of Rio Grande do Sul and is an aide and confidant to Leonel Brizola, the state's rabble-rousing, far-left governor. Brochado da Rocha himself was a key man in the expropriation last February of Rio Grande's $7,000,000 U.S.-owned International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. subsidiary. Still, sensing the public unrest, the conservatives were willing to take Brochado da Rocha and did not object even when he called for a plebiscite to return Brazil to a strong presidential system.

By a vote of 215 to 58, Congress swiftly approved his nomination. But when it came to agreeing on a Cabinet, more squabbles broke out. For four days the argument continued. It was ended only by word that Brochado da Rocha was threatening to resign and by far-left threats of a nationwide general strike if labor's choices were not approved.

At last Brochado da Rocha found 13 "nonpolitical" ministers acceptable to everyone. The two strongest members of a lackluster Cabinet: Foreign Minister Afonso Arinos, who held the same post under Janio Quadros, and Walther Moreira Salle, Brazil's leading banker, who holds over as Finance Minister.

President Kennedy, who was scheduled to visit Brazil at the end of the month, with Wife Jackie, found diplomatic reasons to postpone his trip until November. Perhaps by then, if the plebiscite comes off, Brazil will be back to a workable presidential system, and more at peace.

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