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substantial increase in training and supply carried out by the Kennedy Administration in 1961-1962. These tasks include the overthrow of civilian governments “whenever, in the judgment of the military, the conduct of these leaders is injurious to the welfare of the nation”; this is a necessity in “the Latin American cultural environment,” the Kennedy liberals explained, sure to be carried out properly now that the judgment of the military is based upon “the understanding of, and orientation toward, U.S. objectives.” Proceeding along these lines, we can assure the proper outcome to the “revolutionary struggle for power among major groups which constitute the present class structure” in Latin America, and can guarantee “private U.S. investment” and trade, the “economic root” that is the strongest of the roots of “U.S. political interest in Latin America.” 8
    The vulgar Marxist rhetoric affected by the Kennedy-Johnson planners is common in internal documents, as in the business press.
    Returning to Brazil, plans for a military coup were initiated shortly after João Goulart became President in August 1961. The military were wary of his populist rhetoric and appeal, and angered by his efforts to raise minimum wages of civilian laborers. Concerns of the US business community were enhanced when the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill placing conditions on foreign investment and limiting remittance of profits on the grounds that they were “bleeding the Brazilian economy.” Though Goulart, a faithful member of the Brazilian elite, was anti-Communist, US labor leaders and Embassy officials were alarmed at his involvement with labor and peasant organizations and appointment of Brazilian Communists to staff positions; “an openly Communist course,” the CIA warned. The appropriate Cold War context had been spelled out by JFK, shortly before assuming office (see p. 102).
    By early 1962, Brazilian military commanders had notified Kennedy’s Ambassador, Lincoln Gordon, that they were organizing a coup. At JFK’s personal initiative, the US began to lend clandestine and overt support to right-wing political candidates. The President’s feeling, in agreement with Gordon and the US business community, was that “the military probably represented the key to the future,” Ruth Leacock concludes. Robert Kennedy was dispatched to Brazil in December 1962 to influence Goulart to “confront the communist problem,” as the US Embassy put it. RFK informed Goulart that the President was seriously concerned about the infiltration of “Communists and anti-American nationalist leftists” into the government, the military, the unions, and student groups, and about the “ill treatment [of] American and other foreign private investors.” If Goulart wanted US aid, Kennedy said, he must see to it that “personnel in key Brazilian positions” were pro-American, and impose economic measures that the US recommended.
    Relations remained tense, particularly over the austerity plan that the Kennedy Administration demanded as a condition for aid, and its admonitions about left-wing influence. In March 1963, the CIA again reported plans for a military coup; US corporate executives were, by then, privately urging a total US aid cutoff to expedite the coup plans. In August, US Defense Attaché Vernon Walters warned the Pentagon that Goulart was promoting “ultranationalist officers” in preference to “pro-democratic pro-US officers” (the two terms presumably being synonymous). Relations harshened further under the Johnson Administration. Senator Albert Gore informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then considering US aid, that he had heard that “all of the members of the Brazilian Congress who advocated the kind of reforms which we have made a prerequisite for Alliance for Progress aid are now in