Along the slim crescent of Rio's Copacabana Beach, rockets burst in the deep night sky. At midnight, booming cannon proclaimed the inauguration day of Brazil's new President. Later, under a sweltering sun. stocky, Go-year-old Eurico Caspar Dutra marched into handsome, marble Palacio Tiradentes, solemnly took the oath of office.
To the sweating, tail-coated foreign envoys (including U.S. Special Ambassador Fiorello H. LaGuardia), flower-hatted society women in the balconies, and thou sands of holidaying cariocas in the streets, Old Soldier Dutra spoke briefly, and vaguely. He promised a democratic regime, a new constitution,...