Brazil-United States Military Relations
in the Early Post-World War II Era

Sonny B. Davis*

Palavras-chave: Relações Brasil-Estados Unidos, Acordos militares Brasil-Estados Unidos, Gerra da Korea e Brasil, Acordo Militar Brasil-Estados Unidos 1952.

Brazil-United States Military Relations
in the Early Post-World War II Era

Abstract. The close military relations between the Brazil and the United States underwent strains in the early post-war era.  Cold War divisions created national and international pressures that led to a less precise and often reactive relationship between the hemisphere giants.  When there was a convergence of goals, military relations reflected the previous smooth cooperation. When political and institutional divisiveness emerged in the officer corps over bilateral issues, Brazil refused to follow the U.S. lead.  To a large degree, the post-war foreign policy forced Brazil and its military establishment to develop the confidence and ability to end the traditional practice of acting as a surrogate for a more powerful patron.  The process began with U.S. assistance in creating the Escola Superior de Guerra and culminated in 1977 with the end of formal military relations with the United States.  In so doing, Brazil achieved part of the long-held desire for grandeza.

Creation of close military ties between Brazil and the United States during World War II was the culmination of a process begun much earlier.  Efforts of the Baron Rio Branco to realign Brazil in the diplomatic arena reached fruition under the regime of Getúlio Vargas in the military field.  As the national and international goals of each country began to mesh, Brazil-U.S. military relation

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s moved from wariness to warmth.^[1]  According to General Estevão Leitão de Carvalho, World War II forged a military bond in which there was a “brotherhood of arms between our two armies, on whose shoulders rests the main responsibility of the defense of peace on our continent”.^[2] Rather than a brotherhood, a relationship emerged in which a dependent Brazil sought its own grandeza through an association with a more powerful patron, the United States.

With the defeat of Germany and Japan, each country expected much from the patron-client relationship.  Brazilian leaders logically believed participation as the United States’ closest Latin American ally during the war would lead to modernization with American economic and military assistance.  A modernized Brazil would become a full partner and become preeminent in Latin America.  Grandeza would then flow from the relationship with its North American “brother.”  The United States, on the other hand, expected close ties to yield unquestioning Brazilian support of its world economic, political, and military policies.^[3] 

To a degree, each side attempted to fulfill the other’s expectations, but the complexities of the post-war world affected relations.  National and international pressures that grew out of Cold War divisions created a fluid and, more often than not, a reactive dynamic in Brazil-U.S. relations. U.S. commitment to anti-communist policies lumped Brazil with the rest of Latin America as a low threat area and, hence, a low aid priority region, which clashed with Brazilian desires for modernization aid.  Concomitantly, the rise of Brazilian nationalism and the realization that the United States would not provide the level of assistance desired led to opposition to the American connection.  Many Brazilian officers in the cold war era agreed with geopolitician General Golbery do Couto e Silva that despite failed expectations, a communist threat to the United States was an indirect menace to Brazil, which necessitated the maintenance of close military ties.  Others, however, challenged the relationship.^[4]

Ties remained relatively close, but the new nature of Brazil-United States military relations required constant adjustment to the brotherhood of arms.^[5]  Internal, international, and, especially in Brazil’s case, institutional goals colored the relationship.  When national and international goals coincided, cooperation was relatively smooth.  When divisiveness in Brazilian politics or, perhaps more importantly, in the Brazilian officers corps emerged over particular bilateral issues, Brazil refused to follow the U.S.  Underlying bilateral relations was the question of the quality and quantity of U.S. military assistance.  In some respects, however, the United States’ post-war foreign policy approach forced Brazil to abandon its inherited penchant of attaching itself as a dependent to a more powerful patron.  Brazil as a nation, and particularly the Brazilian military, gradually gained confidence and matured.  The first step in the process began with negotiations for U.S. aid in establishing the Escola Superior de Guerra and ripened with the issue of Korea and hemisphere defense.   By the second half of the 1970s Brazil no longer required or desired the tutelage of the United States or any country, and in 1977 ended the thirty-five year formal relationship.^[6]  In essence, Brazil achieved the first stage in its drive for greatness.

Because of the connection built during the war, the Brazil-United States bilateral formula became the model for regional military ties.  The problem, however, was the debate in the United States over a collective versus the bilateral approach to hemisphere defense.  The 1942 Rio Conference provided the basis of for collective defense through the creation of the Inter-American Defense Board.  The concept was unpopular with most American and Brazilian military leaders who envisaged Latin American militaries standardized with U.S. arms, organization, and doctrine.  As the most important client of the United States, a dependent Brazilian military would be preeminent in the region, extending U.S., and therefore Brazilian, hegemony over the hemisphere’s Spanish-speaking nations.  The plan sought to prevent any other foreign connections so the region’s Americanized militaries could ensure domestic stability and “repress subversive influence” while protecting U.S. access to vital strategic resources.^[7] 

If the U.S. military establishment decried the collective defense scheme, the Brazilians were even more adamant.   Brazil preferred close bilateral cooperation even though it meant continued U.S. veto over bilateral defense plans.  Fear that collective defense would lead to a dispersion of U.S. military aid to more countries and, inevitably, less to Brazil fueled such concerns.^[8]  Brazilian apprehension was justified.  Within the corridors of power in the United States a battle raged between the Department of State and the military over foreign policy-making.  During the war, President Franklin Roosevelt accepted military supremacy in Latin American policy but his successor, Harry S. Truman, relied on the Department of State.^[9]  For military relations, the struggle among the different branches posed the most immediate danger from the Brazilian point of view.

With the surrender of Japan, the U.S. Navy proposed the dismantling of the Joint Brazil-United State Defense Commission in Washington and the Joint Brazil-United States Military Commission in Rio de Janeiro, the bodies that were the foundations of the brotherhood of arms.^[10]  Alarmed, the JBUSMC issued Recommendation No. 16, which called for the diminution of the JBUSDC responsibilities and an increase in those of the Rio commission.  The Brazilian government and the U.S. War Department approved the plan as a means of maintaining close bilateral ties, but an astute General Pedro Aurélio de Góes Monteiro, chief of the General Staff, opposed the idea.  Góes Monteiro understood that the end of the war meant wartime arrangements made in response to immediate needs would no longer apply.  Washington was where foreign policy, especially aid issues, would be decided.  If Brazil was to maintain special ties and received special treatment in military assistance, the JBUSDC needed to remain in place and have its power enhanced.  In the end, both commissions were kept but the JBUSMC became dominant while the JBUSDC slipped into relative obscurity as a reward posting for both senior Brazilian and U.S. officers who had served their institutions faithfully.^[11]

Confusion seemed to reign in early post-war U.S. policy, which left the Brazilian military wondering what role it would play in the new world order.  Brazil supported the United States in word and deed but needed to know if the special military relationship remained intact.  To clarify Brazil’s position in the U.S. scheme to pursue bilateralism within the context of multilateral machinery, the chief of the Brazilian Joint General Staff asked the U.S. delegation of the JBUSMC in 1947 to prepare a study to determine the role and mission of the Brazilian armed forces in air and coastal defense.  Instead, the commission members developed an entire strategic concept for the Brazilian military that kept its internal security and air and coastal defense roles but added the provision of expeditionary forces for hemisphere defense.^[12]

The JBUSMC plan caused a firestorm in Washington.  The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff reprimanded the U.S. delegation, reiterating that Brazil’s role was essentially a continuance of the World War II role of defending the Northeast.  The advent of nuclear weapons and changing world views in Washington seemed to relegate Brazil to minor importance, but the unauthorized study had unforseen results.  In June 1948, the U.S. Army established a plan in which the Brazilian Army would engage in intelligence and counterintelligence, and prepare forces for operations outside national borders.  U.S. Army planners believed that with U.S. assistance, Brazil could provide two divisions (approximately 50,000 men) for intervention in neighboring Spanish-speaking countries should the political situations there deteriorate.  In effect, the plan legitimized the building of close ties by offering Brazil the intermediary role it desired while providing modernization at the same time.^[13] 

Events in Brazil, however, overshadowed any proposed plans for the Brazilian military.  As the shape of a bifurcated world dominated by two powerful nations emerged, Brazil entered a period of political and social crisis.  In search of a national identity to match the new world, Brazilians understood the need to develop economically, politically, and socially if the pátria was to achieve grandeza.  The division of the world into two ideologically different camps reflected the divisions in Brazilian society as to how best to achieve the prized goal.  The military was not immune to those currents and divisions.  As a result, post-war military relations evolved as the Brazilian military was in the process of redefining its institutional, national and international roles. 

U.S. efforts to cope with the rise of the Cold War clearly affected relations and was one of the elements that stimulated the Brazilian military’s maturation.  The failure of the U.S. Congress to pass the Inter-American Cooperation Act in 1947 seemed to shelve the arms standardization idea under which Brazil thought it would be the major recipient.  Perhaps of more concern was the apparent U.S. rapprochement with Brazil’s rival Argentina.  The United States desired hemisphere unity but was especially concerned with key countries.  Argentine ties were important because of that country’s strategic position vis-a-vis the Straits of Magellan.  U.S. military planners believed that if the Panama Canal became inoperative in a war with the Soviet Union, cooperation from Argentina was paramount to keep the southern route open.  Brazil’s opposition to any Argentina-U.S. military arrangement was considered, but U.S. military leaders somewhat arrogantly thought the Brazilians could easily be convinced of the wisdom of such a deal.^[14]

U.S. military leaders were wrong.  U.S. advances to Argentina stunned the Brazilians and helped spur their move to a less emotional and more pragmatic military diplomacy.  Because of their wartime alliance and the uncritical support of U.S. initiatives at the 1948 Bogotá Conference, Brazilian military and political leaders did not expect such behavior from their closest friend.  General Salvador Cesar Obino, chief of the Armed Forces Joint Staff, articulated Brazilian opposition to American military aid to Argentina in 1946, hinting for the first time that Brazil might not follow the U.S. lead without provision of military assistance on a unilateral basis.^[15]  Two years later, the Brazilian delegates to the JBUSDC again expressed their concerns but were met with waffling or deflecting answers from their American colleagues that sought to explain U.S. overtures as courtesy or a continuation of bilateral talks begun before the end of the war.^[16] 

For the most part, the U.S. military response to Brazilian fears were structured by the failure of the U.S. Congress to provide a legal means of transferring arms to Brazil and the other Latin American nations.  In 1949 the Congress passed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act but it allocated no funds for Latin America; arms could be purchased from the United States with cash but none would be offered as part of an aid package.  The U.S. Congress did not balk, however, at funding the training of Brazilian officers at U.S. service schools or at bases in-country, and Brazil was placed in the most important Group I category of allies who should have the highest priority of training assistance.  Indeed, many officers who were to play leading roles in Brazil’s political future, such as Eduardo Gomes, Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, and Ernesto Geisel, attended U.S. service schools.  However, both Brazilian and U.S. authorities screened applicants for their political leanings.  Any Brazilian officer suspected of leftist sympathies was automatically excluded.^[17]

Training assistance was not enough to sustain a special military relationship.  In the early post-war period U.S. views were predicated on the mistaken belief that the Brazilian military establishment would contentedly accept the U.S. definition of its role in the relationship.  While many U.S. military leaders believed the failure to provide arms would weaken influence, few understood that a change was occurring in Brazil.  Military ties remained relatively special, but internal and international pressures required adjustments.  Military statecraft between the hemisphere “brothers” assumed more intricate and pragmatic forms.  The negotiations for U.S. military’s assistance in the establishment and operation of the influential Escola Superior de Guerra reflected the evolutionary process of changing relations and marked the true beginning of the Brazilian military’s rite of passage into independent adulthood.^[18]

General Salvador Cesar Obino first raise the issue of U.S. assistance in creating the ESG in 1946 discussions with General Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Obino wanted active-duty U.S. officers from each military branch to direct the creation of the school along the lines of the North American model and a three or four-star general to serve as the school’s commandant.  His vision was that the U.S. officers tasked with the job would do so under the aegis of the JBUSMC.  The arrangement would make them part of an already established bilateral military structure, thereby freeing Brazil of additional financial burdens for their services and avoiding the need to negotiate a separate agreement.^[19]

U. S. military leaders agreed with the concept, for it offered the chance to confirm the preeminence of its military in the region, as well as bolster the politically important officer corps.   Moreover, many believed U.S. influence on the school’s doctrine would have an ameliorating effect on the worst of the Brazilian military’s political tendencies.  The Brazilian Army especially could become a nation building institution rather than a nation disrupting one.^[20] 

The problem, from their point of view, was in Obino’s proposal.  The U.S. military wanted to use retired personnel and U.S. law required a military mission separate from the JBUSMC.  Besides a separate contract, U.S. military leaders proposed a high annual salary of $12,000 for each officer to be paid by Brazil and refused to allow the officers to do more than act as advisers to the school.  The United States also wanted the Brazilians to scale down their idea by proposing that the ESG combine the purposes of the U.S. Armed Forces Staff College, National War College, and Industrial College rather than creating an institution that mirrored the U.S. model.^[21]

Obino “was flabbergasted” at the U.S. position.  He could not understand the objections and expected the wartime manner of the relationship to continue.  He felt that using an American officer to head the school had precedents when an officer from the previous French patron headed the Escola de Estado Maior do Exèrcito (later called the Escoal de Comando e Estado Maior do Exèrcito) and the Escola de Aperfeiçoamento after the arrival of the French Military Mission in 1919 .  Equally shocked was Brigadier General Henrique Texeira Lott, Brazil’s military attaché and delegate to the Inter-American Defense Board.  Lott had been discussing the project with U.S. military chiefs and had been given no clue of the U.S. position..^[22]

Up to this point talks between Brazilian and U.S. military representatives regarding the school had been relatively informal.  Faced with an unyielding United States, the Brazilians turned to formal diplomatic channels.  On June 18, 1947, Ambassador Carlos Martins Pereira e Sousa presented the U.S. Secretary of State a formal request for U.S. assistance in establishing the ESG.^[23]  Six months had passed since the Eisenhower-Obino meeting.  After lengthy negotiations, the United States and Brazil reached an agreement in July 1948 that was a scaled down version of what each side wanted.  Brazilian financial obligations increased, though not to the degree U.S. military leaders had desired.  And, American anti-communist doctrine permeated the ESG curriculum with the attendant influence on national political life but within a clear Brazilian context.^[24]  The relative ease with which such matters had been dealt with during the war was now a thing of the past. 

The discussions and contract negotiations reflected a military relationship adjusting to the exigencies of a new world.  Henceforth negotiations for U.S. military assistance assumed a pattern that continued throughout the formalized military relationship.  The Brazilians always argued for more and better quality of military aid at minimum or no cost and the United States always sought to provide some, but not all, of the desired assistance without relinquishing dominance.  Though strained, relations remained relatively close but now resembled pragmatic business deals in which each side tried to gain an advantage over the other with the end result a quid pro quo arrangement.  Negotiations for a U.S. missile-tracking station on Fernando de Norohnha Island, a radio communications site in Maceió, and a Long Range Navigation station in the Northeast reflected the future approach to military diplomacy.^[25]  Negotiations for arms and equipment followed a predictable pattern, U.S. attempts to obtain Brazilian participation in Korea occurred in somewhat different contexts with different results. 

Financial and diplomatic demands of cold war leadership led the United States to a relationship that was often contrary to that forged with the shared dangers and goals of World War II.  Brazilian military leaders resented the seeming U. S. indifference toward Brazil as expressed in the “leveling” impacts of the Rio and Bogotá Treaties.  The United States, claimed the Brazilians, was treating their brothers-in-arms as stepchildren.^[26]  Many Senior U.S. Army officers felt much the same way, believing there was an obligation to maintain Brazilian pre-eminence despite the multilateral approach.  Other U.S. military and Department of State officials, including Secretary of State Dean Acheson, dismissed Brazilian criticisms.  Clearly lacking by U.S. officials was a comprehension of Brazilian military politics.  Nationalism split opinion in the officer corps over numerous issues, including close ties to the United States.  Articles in A Defesa Nacional offered clues of Brazilian dissatisfaction but few in United States recognized what they portended.^[27]   When hostilities erupted in Korea, the failure to take the Brazilian point of view into consideration became painfully apparent.

Brazilian participation in a shooting war was furthest from the minds of U.S. political and military leaders.  More important was the effect of the 1950 election of a now highly nationalistic Getúlio Vargas.  U.S. officials believed, however, that the Brazilian Army’s attachment to its North American “brother” would prevent Vargas from straying far from the U.S. lead in international affairs.^[28]  How poor the analysis of the Brazilian military’s position and of U.S. influence became clear when North Korea plunged south in June 1950.  The United States sought participation of the Latin American militaries under the Rio Treaty because the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought U.S. dominance of the region insured cooperation.^[29]

Key to obtaining Latin American participation was Brazil.  Indications from other Latin Americans fed the U.S. belief that a Brazilian commitment of troops for the Korean conflict would sway the other members of the Organization of American States.  By 1950 anti and pro-American sides argued over the degree to which Brazil should be tied to the United States.  Debates over U.S. involvement in the nation’s petroleum industry and participation in Korea reflected the splits in Brazilian society.  Particularly profound was the division in the Brazilian officer corps.  The Korea issue did not create the situation but it did define the future direction of national and foreign policies.^[30]

The power struggle within the officer corps centered on the Sorbonne group, headed by Castello Branco, that favored the United States tie and the nationalists, led by Newton Estillac Leal and Nelson Werneck Sodré, who wanted to de-emphasize the U.S. connection in favor of alliances with the underdeveloped world.  The extreme left-leaning radical nationalists blamed the United States for the Korean conflict and argued for the severance of U.S. ties.^[31]  The battle for control of military policy remained within the officer corps until August 1950, when an article in A Revista do Clube Militar entitled “Considerations about the War in Korea” by the anonymous Capitão X accused the United States of aggression in Korea.^[32] 

The article set off  a firestorm of accusation and counteraccusation in the Brazilian officer corps that was carried out in A Defesa Nacional and national newspapers.  To end the divisiveness, General Canobret Pereira da Costa, the Army minister, transferred the most vocal opponents of the U.S. connection to distant posts.^[33]  Victory by the pro-United States group did not end opposition nor assure that Brazilian troops would be dispatched to Korea.  It did, however, ensure that the U.S. request for Brazilian troops would be considered.   In December 1950 the pro-United States National Security Council met at Catete Palace to discuss the issue but no decision was reached.  The consensus was that Brazil should concentrate on prevention of social disorder and stockpiling primary goods and materials in case the conflagration expanded beyond Korea.  Newly elected President Vargas also refused to make a commitment.^[34]

While the provision of Brazilian troops had not been conclusively rejected, U.S. diplomatic and military officials decided to wait for the March 1951 meeting of the OAS to increase pressure on Brazil.  At the meeting, Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs João Neves da Fontura hinted that an army infantry division might be offered for use in Korea.  Later, in meetings with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General Charles Bolte, Neves da Fontura and his principle military adviser General Paulo de Figueiredo, again left the impression that the Brazilian government and military were amenable to the U.S. request in return for wide-spread economic and military assistance.  Bolte and Figueiredo then received the charge to work out the details.  Vargas also claimed a desire to continue non-specific military cooperation.  More specific were his proposals for U.S. economic assistance.  Neves da Fontura even suggested the dispatch of a Brazilian military mission to Korea as a

means of preparing public support.^[35]

U.S. officials believed Brazil was on the verge of offering troops for Korea.   Discussions proposed by Vargas seemed to indicate that Brazil would again follow the United States into an armed conflict.  Dean Acheson thought the Neves da Fontura’s suggestion for a Brazilian military mission represented a prelude to a larger commitment.  But where the Brazilians were specific on economic assistance issues, they were vague on military cooperation, a situation lost on the very focused North Americans.  After Neves da Fontura spoke publically against provision of Brazilian troops, the mission idea died.  Nevertheless, the Brazilians continued to hint that Brazil would participate.^[36] 

Many U.S. officials became disillusioned with Brazil, even though Góes Monteiro traveled to Washington ostensibly to discuss Brazilian participation in Korea.^[37]  In reality the trip was a last attempt to obtain assistance before Brazil made a final decision on the U.S. request.  His instructions from Vargas reiterated the consistent Brazilian position; Brazil’s priorities were international security and economic development.  Participation in Korea would be conditioned on the amount and speed of U.S. economic and military aid.  At the time, Brazil was unprepared to determine the issue.^[38]  In short, Brazil wanted quid pro quo: Brazilian troops in Korea for massive aid.  The catch was that the Brazilians wanted a promise of assistance before an agreement to send troops.  Vargas had made that mistake in 1942 and did not want to repeat it in 1951.  The United States wanted Brazilian commitment without prior specification of type and amount of aid.

U.S. Army officials took a page from the Brazilians, hinting to their Brazilian colleagues that provision of an infantry division to Korea would lead to Brazil being placed in the first category for U.S. military aid.  Brazil, however, would have to pay for the arms and equipment due to lack of legislation for free assistance.  Dean Acheson added that payment could even be deferred if that issue was all that stood in the way of an agreement, an option not available to other countries contributing forces.  And, the United States offered the largest share of military grant aid appropriated under the newly passed Mutual Security Act of 1951.^[39]

Despite the U.S. offers, Góes Monteiro made clear that any agreement depended on the outcome of Minister of Finance Horacio Lafer’s mission to obtain financing of develoment projects of the Joint Brazil-United States Economic Development Commission with the World Bank, the Export-Import Bank, and the U.S. Government.  Góes also made clear that discussions about Korea had to occur simultaneously with the question of hemisphere defense.  Since Lafer succeeded in obtaining agreements increasing Brazil’s loan limits and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to Góes’ demands, U.S. officials felt agreement was at hand.  As a result, General Charles Bolte provided Góes Monteiro two draft agreements dealing with Brazilian assistance in Korea and defense of the hemisphere.^[40]

The drafts included a number of provisions that became vital to the future independence of the Brazilian military and the nation’s economic development.  Under Article 5, the United States granted Brazil export licenses and technical assistance for the creation of indigenous arms and munitions industries, and promised to make purchases from those sources.  Even more important, from a distant perspective, Article 6 provided for the development of local aircraft and naval construction and repair facilities with U.S. export licenses and technical aid.^[41] 

U.S. promises were not enough to sway Vargas or segments of the Brazilian military.  Civilian and military opposition to participation in Korea threatened to divide society and the officer corps.  Moreover, the United States offered promises and not firm commitments.  Vargas did not approve the draft agreements negotiated by Góes Monteiro and no Brazilian troops went to Korea.  Disagreements in Brazilian military and political circles over cooperation with the United States in hemisphere defense cropped up as well, but the advantages outweighed the drawbacks.  Using as its basis the Bolte draft agreement on hemisphere defense, Brazil and the United States reached a new military accord in 1952. 

Debate among Brazil’s political and military elite over the 1952 Military Accord was as hot as the one over troops for Korea.  The major Brazilian political parties opposed the accord, for different reasons, and the nationalist military officers fought its ratification.  Minister of War Estillac Leal resigned in protest after the agreement was signed because it had been negotiated without his advice or approval.  Ratification of the accord also became a central issue in the 1952 elections for the leadership of the Clube Militar.  Victory by Generals Alcides Etchegoyen and Nelson de Melo ensured official military backing for the treaty but did not end the battles within the army or in congress for approval of the accord.  So bitter was the debate that Góes Monteiro suggested that Vargas withdraw the treaty from the ratification process.  Despite the rancor embroiling political and military life, the Brazilian congress ratified the accord but issued a declaration against the dispatch of troops to Korea.^[42] 

The events of the late 1940s and early 1950s represented the high watermark of Brazil-United States military relations.  With the exception of the preparedness of the United States to provide supplies to the military coup masters in 1964 and Brazil’s participation in the 1965 Dominican Republic intervention, military relations functioned in a perfunctory manner based upon each’s perceived interests until the end of the formal alliance.  Personal ties remained special as did certain aspects of institutional ties.  Over time, however, the Brazilian military’s ability to develop at an arms length from its North American “brother” grew.  Early-post war relations were critical to that evolution, for subsequent relations functioned in the context of what occurred during the late-1940s and in the early-1950s.  Later negotiations over issues ranging from training and equipment aid to U.S. desires for radio, navigation, and missile-tracking sites, and for troops for the Vietnam War showed the degree to which the early period contributed to Brazil’s military maturation. Much of the independence was made possible because of the specialness of the U.S. connection, particularly the development of local arms, munitions, and aircraft industries.  Still, it was the collective will and skill of military and political leaders that moved Brazil in 1977 to cancel the 1952 accord ostensibly because of the Jimmy Carter administration’s linkage of human rights with military assistance.^[43]  In reality, by 1977 the special ties conferred by the formal relationship had outlived its usefulness.  Brazil no longer needed nor wanted a military patron.  Military relations remain cordial in current era, but the process that began in the early post-war period reached climaxed with the 1977 break.[44]