One day last week Humberto Castello Branco wrote a short note and sent it to the president of Brazil's Senate: "Because of my inauguration tomorrow as President of the republic, I have the honor of presenting your excellency this declaration of the worldly goods which I possess." There were seven items: an apartment in Rio worth $5,000, four parcels of stock worth $9,000, "one Aero-Willys automobile, 1961 model" and "a perpetual tomb in the São João Batista cemetery in Rio de Janeiro." The note was the considered duty of an honest man, and it marked the first time in history that a President of Brazil had ever declared his assets—before, during or after his term of office.
Next day at 3 p.m., all across the huge land, church bells tolled, artillery boomed, factory whistles screamed and horns blared on thousands of buses, trucks and cars. Before the assembled state Governors, national Congressmen and generals in Brasília's Chamber of Deputies, former General Castello Branco solemnly took the oath of office as his country's 26th President. Said he: "I shall do everything possible to consolidate the ideals of the Brazilian nation when it rose—splendid in courage and decision—to restore democracy and free itself of the frauds and distortions that made it unrecognizable. Let each man carry his stone. Do your duty to your nation, and you will see that Brazil will follow your example."
It was more a soldier's command than a politician's plea. And even Ultima Hora, the country's strident leftist paper, sounded a note of optimism: "If his words were not empty, if the man who pronounced them is really aware of his responsibility before history, there is hope."
Taxes & Land. All week long, Castello Branco received a steady stream of bankers and businessmen, economists and social scientists—all those to whom the deposed João Goulart had often refused to listen. Out of the meetings came the broad outline of his program for Brazil. He intends, say his advisers, to encourage foreign investment, overhaul tax collection and increase revenues, limit inflationary bank credit, set up an independent central bank to control the currency presses. The government's wild spending will be cut and its mammoth bureaucracy trimmed to happier size.
Land reform is a primary objective —but not the kind of unthinking reform that destroys large, productive farms, while leaving peasants with little except a few hardscrabble acres. Castello Branco wants to reorganize the graft-ridden state and county land-tax system, put it under federal control, and devise an equitable tax rate in proportion to size and productive capacity. Small farmers will get easier credit and more technical help. Even the country's creaky judicial system will come in for attention; today it can take seven years for a court case to come to trial. "If the measures are coordinated," says one presidential adviser, "we can get quick results without the hardship which violent means might bring on."