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Such sobering facts require sobering words, and Arthur da Costa e Silva lost no time in applying them after he took office in the still unfinished and boldly modern capital of Brasilia last month. A lifetime professional soldier who headed Brazil's armed forces until he resigned to run for President, Costa is a pragmatic man whose army background has stiffened his spine and his resolve—and made him less dreamy than some of his predecessors. In a meeting with his Cabinet the day after his inauguration, he said: "Brazilian society is profoundly split. This cleavage is growing and deepening so much that all of us must work urgently to remedy it. I have the impression that while we all live in the same national space, we do not live in the same social time. Misery dominates large segments of the Brazilian population. If, as St. Francis of Assisi said, virtue cannot grow in misery, it is worth asking how democracy can flourish in poverty."
Democracy is not flourishing in Brazil, but it is lucky even to be alive. Brazil's military men believe that they saved it in the nick of time in 1964 when they toppled leftist President Joao Goulart, who seemed to be moving toward a Communist-type dictatorship, and installed Army General Humberto Castello Branco as President. Elected to succeed Castello Branco by a Congress subservient to the military and controlled by the government's ARENA Party, Costa e Silva has promised to humanize the revolution launched by his austere and humorless predecessor—but he has also made it clear that he intends to carry through on the many basic reforms that Castello began. So moved was he by the task facing him that at his first Cabinet meeting he broke into tears. "I hope to God," he said softly, "to live up to expectations and not to disappoint my country or my people."
Arbiter & Guardian. The army that created Costa and put him in office looks upon itself as the repository of order and stability in Brazil. Brazilians have never either hated or particularly loved the country's 200,000-man military, but have simply accepted it on its own terms as the arbiter of national politics and the guardian of the constitution. Unlike the bloody revolutions of most of the Spanish-American nations, Brazil's gentle wrench from Portugal in 1822 did not create a pantheon of army heroes or a military history that put its people in debt to soldiers. Today, Brazil's military organization is run by a bright, intellectual class of officers who are strongly influenced by the tenets of Comtian and Spencerian Positivism.* In a land that is being torn by a struggle between tradition and modernization, the army—frequently accused of being right wing—is actually a major vehicle for reform.