(6 of 10)
Costa is also a man of vigor and passion. A hardy, 200-pounder who keeps fit doing knee bends and arm exercises, he once gave a bear-hug abraco to an old army chum and cracked two of the officer's ribs. He is just as good at cracking knuckles. When, as commander of the military, he finally accepted the dinner invitation of a particularly insistent congressional deputy, he arrived at an opulent apartment on Copacabana beach, watched silently after dinner while his host showed off a gallery of possessions: 50 suits, 25 pairs of shoes, bulky silverware, art treasures. "Wait till you see my wife's wardrobe," said the deputy. "No thank you," replied Costa, "I have seen enough." Within the next few days, he canceled the deputy's mandate and suspended his political rights "for ostentatious and conclusive evidence of corruption."
One Huge Lottery. In Costa's hands now is the fate of Brazil at a time when the country stands at a critical point in its growth and development. It can either slip back almost effortlessly into its old "land of tomorrow" ways or, if Costa carries the torch, finally begin to live up to its prophesies and take its place as a power and mover in Latin America.
Costa's biggest problem is the economy. On top of last year's 41% rise, the cost of living has shot up another 7.3% in the first two months of this year, making Brazil little more than one huge, hectic lottery. Just before leaving office, Castello Branco devalued the currency and issued a new cruzeiro worth 1,000 of the old ones. Even so, people still deal in hundreds of cruzeiros for the most simple needs. To beat Brazil's inflation, whose inexorable rise is caused by overloaded budgets and overworked money presses, many Brazilians rush to put their money into material possessions that hold their value, particularly real estate—thus, of course, driving prices up even further.
Costa says that he will continue Castello Branco's tight-money program—but not at the expense of development. In the Northeast, the government's regional development agency, called SUDENE, is luring new industry with special tax incentives and is helping build a $37 million potassium-fertilizer factory, a $44 million caustic-soda plant and an $11 million tire plant. Brazil is building the new $25 million, 15-story Panorama Palace Hotel on a Rio hill side overlooking Copacabana Beach; it will be Latin America's largest and lushest hotel. The massive 4,000,000-kw. Urubupunga Project going up on the Parana River in south-central Brazil, one of the largest hydroelectric complexes in the world, is part of a program to push Brazil's hydroelectric capacity from the current' 8,150,000 kw. to twelve million kw. by 1970, compared with the U.S.'s present 45 million kw.