From one of the great open-hearth furnaces poured a molten white streamsteel. The rolling mill clanked out the first structural shapes. A white-clad band struck up the national anthem. The Volta Redonda steel plant (not far from Rio de Janeiro), the most impressive industrial sight in Latin America, was officially in operation. Brazil's dream of industrial self-sufficiency was being realized.
Up at the neat little company hotel, President Eurico Caspar Dutra, Cabinet ministers and newsmen toasted the man who had made the dream come true, Engineer Macedo Soares. Said Engineer Scares: until Volta...