ABSTRACT
From FY1962 to FY1969 (July 1, 1961 to June 30, 1969), Brazil received $1.833 billion in U.S. economic aid. (see Table 5.1) This represented 29.2 percent of all the money sent to Latin America during this period. In every year between FY1961 and FY1968 Brazil was the highest recipient of U.S. aid.1 Other than being the largest country in the region and having some of the worst poverty, it was a priority in the early 1960s because the United States hoped to force Presidents Jânio Quadros and João Goulart toward economic and political positions acceptable to the United States. When the United States became frustrated at the lack of Brazilian cooperation, it used aid to undermine the national government. After a U.S.-backed military coup d’état in 1964, Washington found it prudent to use financial aid to help the leaders it had supported as an alternative to Goulart. The U.S. government only stopped presenting massive aid packages in the late 1960s as the Brazilian military became spectacularly repressive.
