Vietnam, Protest, and Counterculture 459of 79 million, so the left was in no position to have any political impact, let
alone take over the government and harm American interests. But the ruling
class and the military disliked Goulart for his commitment to help workers,
his opposition to Brazilian investment going abroad—he thought local capital
should stay in the country and create development there—and his Keynesian
economic views. He had cordial relations with Cuba and he had nationalized
a subsidiary of ITT, causing the U.S. to see him as an enemy. His ideology,
however, was liberal, not Communist. He wanted to reform Brazil’s economy
to be sure, but along Capitalist lines so that more workers would get more
wages and become bigger consumers. Over 70 percent of Brazilians sup-
ported Goulart’s programs and that, essentially, was the problem. Rather than
a dictator seizing power and controlling the population, Goulart was a dem-
ocratically-elected president whose ideas were genuinely popular among his
citizens. If a nation chose to have economic policies different than those the
U.S. wanted, then it became a threat, and often was called “Communist.” But
“democracy,” not “Communism,” was the threat in Brazil.
So the Brazilian elite, with U.S. encouragement, began making plans to get
rid of Goulart. U.S. agents and businessmen contributed to the efforts, with
FIGuRE 9-6 Brazilian President Joao Goulart during a
ticker tape parade in New York City, 1962