Castelo Branco, Humberto de Alencar (1900–1967)

Brazilian politician and president 1964–67. His government succeeded in stabilizing the economy, reorganizing the financial system, and renegotiating foreign debt, but failed to alter traditional patterns of authority and prevent the emergence of hardline factions amongst the military, which established the ‘tutelary regime’ that survived until 1985. He was succeeded in office by his war minister Artur da Costa e Silva in 1967.

In the course of his army career Castelo Branco fought in Italy as commander-in-chief of the Brazilian army, and was responsible for coordinating the anti-Goulart military conspiracy of 1964. Linked to other veteran officers in the Escola Superior da Guerra, founded in the 1940s in Rio de Janeiro, his foreign policy was anticommunist, and he believed that short-term arbitrary technocratic measures should be taken to create the conditions for democracy.

He was educated at the Porto Alegre Military Academy in Rio Grande do Sul and at France's Ecole Supérieure de Guerre, and attended the General Command course at Fort Leavenworth, USA.