João Goulart

João Goulart
João Goulart
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João Belchior Marques Goulart (nicknamed Jango), (São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, March 1, 1918 - Mercedes, Argentina, December 6, 1976) was the 16th Vice-President from Brazil (1956-1961) and the 24th President (1961-1964).

Quotes

• "I won't trade one Brazilian worker for a hundred of these tidy little grandfins."

- Phrase said during a rally as president of Brazil

• "The image projected in Veja Magazine about my life in exile, presenting me as a rich landlord, oblivious to the problems of the homeland, does not reflect reality."

- In an interview with "Veja Magazine", in 1971, quoted in Revista Veja - Edição Especial de 30 anos

• "It is regrettable that still large parts of the population that have had access to higher education remain insensitive to the national reality."

- Parlamentares Gaúchos: João Goulart. Page: 238. 2014. ISBN 9788566054095

• "...I will only return to my country through the front door, democratically. My duty, my right is to remain quiet, one day History judges me”

- Parlamentares Gaúchos: João Goulart. Page: 163. 2014. ISBN 9788566054095

• "...the major objective of Brazilian society is the strengthening of peace. We believe that the ideological conflict between West and East cannot and should not be solved militarily, because if in a nuclear war we saved our lives, we would not be able to save, whether we won or were won, our reason for living".

-João Goulart: Uma Biografia. Jorge Ferreira. 2011. Page: 276. ISBN 978-85-200-1056-3

• "What threatens democracy is hunger, it is misery, it is the disease of those who have no resources to face it. These are the evils that can threaten democracy, but never the people in the public square in the use of their legitimate and democratic rights".

-João Goulart: Uma Biografia. Jorge Ferreira. 2011. Page: 411. ISBN 978-85-200-1056-3

• "the American will overthrow me by phone if he wants to."

-A Caixa Preta do Golpe de 64. Paulo de Mello Bastos. 2006. Page: 111. ISBN 8589853047

• "I could not commit the levity of allowing Brazil to be divided."

-About the possible territorial division that would follow a hypothetical intervention by the United States in 1964.

-A Caixa Preta do Golpe de 64. Paulo de Mello Bastos. 2006. Page: 283. ISBN 8589853047

• "...Fate itself reserved the Presidency for me after the events that are still in the memory of all of us. They were strange events to the will of the people, also strange to my will, because I wasn't even in Brazilian territory, which reserved to me the responsibility of directing the destiny of our homeland. But I assumed the position with humility, asking all the living forces of the country, the men of production and the men of work, those in the cities and in the countryside, to help me overcome the serious difficulties I would have to face..."

- João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart. FUNAG. 2010. p. 67. ISBN 978-85-7631-193-5. 

• "...Our motto, Brazilian workers, is progress with justice, and development with equality..."

- João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart. FUNAG. 2010. p. 82. ISBN 978-85-7631-193-5. 

• "Agrarian reform is not the whim of a government or the program of a party. It is the product of the pressing need of all the peoples of the world..."

- João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart. FUNAG. 2010. p. 85. ISBN 978-85-7631-193-5. 

• "It is, therefore, understandable that it deeply displeases the conscience of the Brazilian people any form of intervention in an American State, inspired by the allegation of incompatibility with its political regime, to impose on it the practice of the representative system by external coercive means, which take away its democratic character and validity."

- Excerpt from João Goulart's response to John F. Kennedy in the context of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart. FUNAG. 2010. p. 96. ISBN 978-85-7631-193-5. 

• "How long could we hold out? Where would we get the resources and fuel we needed? The handovers in Brazil were already guaranteed to receive the support of the United States. Only the civilians would be the big victims. And these are wonderful people, regardless of their political conviction. I would not have this right. Nor would I want to take on this enormous responsibility, which goes against my personal convictions."

-João Goulart. João Goulart: Uma Biografia. Jorge Ferreira. 2011. Page 526-527. ISBN 978-85-200-1056-3

About

• "The government recognizes the mistakes of the past and apologizes to a man who defended the nation and its people whom we could never have forgiven."

—Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 35th president of Brazil (2003-2010), on the political amnesty granted to Jango's family on November 15, 2008 by the Ministry of Justice.

• "The national memory is treated as garbage."

—João Vicente Goulart, son of the former president, in an interview with CartaCapital magazine number 357, about the paralysis of the investigations on his father's death.

• "It is my duty to state in a solemn declaration to History that I have never been insinuated with any movement or tendency to hurt the law or the institutions. I have always heard categorical statements from the President that he would be an uncompromising defender of legality and democratic institutions. [...] I could never defend a government committed to communism."

- General Ladário Telles. Parlamentares Gaúchos: João Goulart. Page: 117. 2014. ISBN 9788566054095

• "There goes my Buddha with his indecipherable thoughts."

-Maria Thereza Goulart. Parlamentares Gaúchos: João Goulart. Página: 132. 2014. ISBN 9788566054095

• "In what he says he will be representing me. You can trust him, as if I were myself."

-Getúlio Vargas. João Goulart: Uma Biografia. Jorge Ferreira. 2011. Page 103. ISBN 978-85-200-1056-3

"...President João Goulart was a much more of an organizing, staff man, of conceiving the planning of things and executing and coming up with a result that was not so, let's say, the fight in the open field."

-Waldir Pires. A Caixa Preta do Golpe de 64. Paulo de Mello Bastos. 2006. Page 195. ISBN 8589853047