Brazil: That Man in Rio

Over the past 15 years, the loudest, most persistent and least predictable voice in Brazil has been that of Carlos Lacerda, 51, the handsome, mercurial politician now serving as governor of Guanabara state, which includes Rio. Brazilians know him as the man whose hounding attacks helped drive Dictator Getulio Vargas to suicide in 1954. Lacerda—who started as a Communist, then swung to the right—was the severest critic of Presidents Cafe Filho and Juscelino Kubitschek, played a major role in pushing the erratic Janio Quadros into resigning, and was a key civilian leader in the 1964 revolution that toppled Leftist...