BRAZIL: Miracle of Bernadete

A young, upcountry schoolteacher arrived in Rio de Janeiro last week, and within a matter of hours became the heroine of Brazil's worldly, pleasure-loving capital. She was Bernadete Gomez, 25, and she had come to devote the last few months of her life to a national campaign against cancer, the disease that is slowly killing her.

The urgency and dedication of her appeal took the city by storm. Newspapers named her the "Fiancée of Death" and called her story the "Second Song of Bernadete." President Café Filho made a personal visit to promise the government's "moral and material support."...

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