Médici, Emílio Garrastazú

(1905–1985)

   Army general and president of Brazil from October 1969 to March 1974. He was the third of five military presidents following the 1964 coup that toppled the left-leaning president João Goulart. The military ruled until 1985.

   He was born in the town of Bagé, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He graduated from a preparatory military academy in Porto Alegre and then began his military career, in 1927, as a cadet at the Escola Militar do Realengo, the national military academy in Rio de Janeiro. In the 1950s, he served as an intelligence officer on the staff of Artur da Costa e Silva, who commanded Rio Grande do Sul’s Third Army and with whom he formed a close friendship. In 1964, at the time of the coup, he was head of the military academy at Agulhas Negras. Although he did not take part in the coup, he was a hard-liner and approved of the results. From 1964 to 1966, he served as military attaché to the Brazilian embassy in Washington, D.C. After returning to Brazil, he was named head of the Serviço Nacional de Informações (SNI, National Intelligence Service) and then, in 1969, commander of the Third Army. In mid-October 1969 he was selected by the military high command to be president. He was inaugurated on 30 October, succeeding Costa e Silva, who had been incapacitated by a stroke.

   Médici’s rule—under the banner “security and development”-marked the height of the “dirty war.” Death squads held almost unlimited power, and thousands of the government’s perceived enemies were arrested and tortured. Rural and urban guerrilla groups, which had emerged in the late 1960s, were all but eliminated. An estimated 170 people were either summarily shot or tortured to death. On the other side, the Médici years were known for the “Brazilian miracle,” a period of rapid economic growth, and for ambitious development projects such as the Trans-Amazonia Highway. Critics argued, however, that the “miracle” and the projects were achieved at the expense of the environment and the quality of life.

   Médici was succeeded on 15 March 1974 by General Ernesto Geisel, a moderate who began a process of political liberalization that eventually led to the return of civilian rule. Médici died in Rio de Janeiro on 9 October 1985.