Origins of Security Cooperation in Southern Cone Santos

The Origins of Security Cooperation in the Southern Cone

Jo do Resende-Sun tos

ABSTRACT

Argentine-Brazilian relations have undergone a remarkable transformation over the last two decades, from enduring rivalry to cooperation. Dating back to the late 1970s, security cooperation has been a byproduct of two different sets of factors, strategic and military organizational, that propelled the two countries independently but simultaneously toward peaceful settlement. The 1979-80 settlement of disputes over hydroelectric power and nuclear technology not only ended centuries of militarized competition but established the first institutional structures of what is today one of the world’s most durable security regimes.

nterstate relations in the Western Hemisphere have experienced pro- I found transformations over the last two decades. Despite meager results in the April 2001 Quebec Summit of the Americas, the move to erect a hemispherewide free trade zone indicates the underlying changes in the relationships between the United States and Latin Amer- ica and among other countries in the region. Unlike any other time in its troubled history, today the hemisphere is characterized by a dense, overlapping web of bilateral and multilateral cooperative arrangements encompassing economic, diplomatic, and security issues (Pion-Berlin 2000; Aravena 1999; Dominguez 1998; Hirst 1996a).

In no small measure, the institutionalization of cooperation in the hemisphere was anticipated and facilitated by dramatic changes in the Argentine-Brazilian relationship that began in the late 1970s. Argentine- Brazilian cooperation is the core component of the larger structure of regional economic and security cooperation today, and it will necessarily be one of the pillars of any future hemispherewide arrangement. It is therefore appropriate to inquire how the two South American giants came to redefine their relations. This article reexamines the origins of institutionalized security cooperation between Argentina and Brazil, specifically the principal factors that propelled them to seek a comprehensive settlement in the late 1970s, putting an end to their centuries- old geopolitical rivalry.

Over the past decade-and-a-half, Brazil and Argentina have erected one of the most successful cooperation regimes in the world, including a robust nuclear security regime based on proliferation restraint and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR). In the wider context of

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South American diplomatic history, these changes are matched only by those in postwar Western Europe-yet without the same kinds of economic and military safety nets furnished by the United States. Almost overnight, Argentine-Brazilian relations went from geopolitical rivalry and an escalating nuclear technology race to stable cooperation.

How this transformation came about has been treated in only a cursory, uncritical manner in the social science literature. To be sure, the transformation cannot be explained fully without considering the catalytic role of democratization and the economic crises of the 1980s. The cumulative political-historical process of redefining national security and other vital interests has been widened and strengthened by the dynamics of democratization and the inherent momentum of economic integration. The origins and sources of the transformation, however, are not to be found in either of those movements. Cooper- ation did not start with the return of democracy, nor did it begin in 1986, for economic cooperation was made possible (and conceivable) only after the two historical enemies had reconciled their political- strategic differences.

The shift from rivalry to cooperation, it may be argued, occurred in the late 1970s. It unfolded in two distinct but interconnected stages, and political factors were primary in both. The first and most important phase was consolidated in a series of agreements in 1979-80. The second phase is essentially the institutionalization of the first phase, and it was consolidated with the signing of two further historic agreements in 1985-86, erecting a nuclear security regime and economic integration. The mid-1980s agreements, significant as they were, did not begin cooperation de novo. While a new set of factors prompted both sides in the mid-1980s to erect more elaborate, deeper structures, institutionalized cooperation was built on the foundations established in 1979-80. Indeed, given its unprecedented pace and scope, the second phase was possible only because these longtime enemies had already resolved their rivalry and established the first nascent institutional pillars of cooperation in 1979-80.

The purpose of this article is to provide an account of the first, understudied yet crucial phase while recognizing the complexities and distinctive aspects of the second phase of cooperation. This study will show that a fortuitous convergence of strategic and military organizational interests led both sides respectively to resolve peacefully their outstanding disputes as well as to establish a durable framework of cooperation.

The importance of fine-tuning questions regarding the origins of security cooperation in the Southern Cone can be appreciated when we consider that within a span of months, relations between Brazil and Argentina went from the closing of borders and diplomatic rupture to

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the signing of a historic political settlement. What makes Brazilian- Argentine security cooperation more puzzling is that it emerged in the context of an enduring rivalry (Diehl 1998; Goertz and Diehl 1993; Vasquez 1993), a rivalry dating back to Iberian colonial rule, fueled by mutual hatred and militarized competition for continental mastery.

There may be nothing remarkable about episodes of cooperation among nations, especially if the agreements are instrumental or shallow in form. Indeed, the Brazil-Argentine relationship was not one of pure, unremitting rivalry, but one sprinkled with episodes of cooperation and mutual adjustment. Despite their standoff in the La Plata River Basin in the 1970s, for example, the two rivals tacitly fashioned common diplomatic initiatives against international controls on nuclear proliferation. Still, we would intuitively expect cooperation (of any kind) between enduring rivals to be more difficult to achieve, sustain, and institutionalize. The Argentine-Brazilian rapprochement is puzzling also because it occurred under conditions-such as military rule-that are usually assumed to militate against international peace and cooperation. It occurred during a time when military regimes engaged in state terror at home and aggressive nationalism in foreign policy. Cooperation emerged at a time when both regimes still adhered to the Doctrine of National Security and Development, prevalent among South American armed forces since the 1950s. By the 1970s, moreover, the doctrine had expanded to include a “diplomacy of national security” based on geopolitical competition, mercantilist practices, and Realpolitik thinking (Mares 1998, 2001; Kelly and Child 1988; Child 1985).

The principal goal of this study is to explain the sources, timing, and scope of the initial phase of security cooperation. It examines only the primary factors propelling each side to a negotiated settlement; therefore it does not pretend to be exhaustive or oblivious to other factors that may have contributed to the eventual consolidation in the mid-1980s.

Because the primary factors driving each side were different, fur- thermore, this study sacrifices theoretical parsimony for historical accu- racy. Although it is based on extensive archival research and primary sources, its ability to show direct causal links was made difficult by gaps in the empirical record, the secretive nature of the decisionmaking process, the intricate political dynamics of the story, and the subtle power plays within the military governments.

This study relies on an assortment of primary sources, including archival records, memoirs, and recently published interviews with key Brazilian decisionmakers. A number of key documents were discovered during field research that shed greater light on underlying motivations, especially on the Argentine side.’ But we must await the further release of documents and greater access to sensitive archives from the period of military rule for more exhaustive and conclusive evidence.


In the Argentine case, intuition as well as theory leads us to expect that nation to seek accommodation with Brazil. The real question about Argentina is why it sought a permanent rather than a temporary settlement. Given this assumption, this study dwells less on the Argentine case and more on that of Brazil, in which the causal connection was more indirect, subtle, and complex. Indeed, Brazil’s decision to seek accommodation with its historical rival is puzzling if we consider only external factors or the specifics of the La Plata Basin dispute.

EXPLAINING CONFLICT AND COOPERA~ON IN THE SOUTHERN CONE The October 1979 Tripartite Corpus-Itaipu Agreement, which resolved the dispute over hydroelectric projects in the Upper Paranii River, and the May 1980 Accord on Cooperation for the Development and Appli- cation for the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (AMRE 1980a), which established a framework for technical cooperation, put an end to the Argentine-Brazilian rivalry dating back to the “Line of Tordesillas.” The 1979-80 settlement transformed regional affairs and led to one of the most successful cooperation regimes outside the North Atlantic community. Brazilian-Argentine cooperation began suddenly and deepened gradually. What accounts for this sudden transition?

Works on regional cooperation, if they address Argentine-Brazilian relations at all, give the topic superficial attention or focus only on developments after the mid-1980s. Indeed, only a few works have been devoted to the Corpus-Itaipb dispute as a turning point (Sagre 1990; Pedone 1989; Soares de Lima 1986; Rosa 1983). In general, the presumption is strong in the literature that democratization, specifically consolidation demands involving military control problems, gave rise to both economic and security cooperation in the region (Cason 2000; Hur- re11 1998). An equally strong presumption is that economic cooperation, starting with the landmark 1986 Brazil-Argentina Pact of Integration and Cooperation, opened the way for (or spilled over into) security cooperation, though the origins of economic cooperation itself are left unex- plained (Pion-Berlin 2000).

Works that explicitly seek to explain the origins of regional cooperation give prominence to economic factors. The rapid growth of MER- COSUR into a trillion-dollar market, along with the dominance of economic issues in bilateral relations in the last decade, has given the economic dimension exaggerated significance. The steep economic crisis of the 1980s is often cited as a catchall explanation for changes in both domestic and foreign affairs in the region. The crisis presumably forced regional governments to scale back military competition in favor of greater economic interchange. For example, it is often argued that eco-

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nomic recession and contradictions in development strategy pressed the Brazilian regime to launch political liberalization, uberturu (opening), and, presumably, external cooperation (Kucinski 1982; Furtado 1981).

While the causal logic of why and how economic crisis necessarily leads to international cooperation is never specified, this explanation contradicts longstanding theoretical propositions, such as the diversion- ary war thesis, which links domestic crisis to external conflict behavior. Indeed, this is a common explanation for Argentina’s behavior in the Falklands-Malvinas War. Regardless of the merits of the economic crisis explanation, it remains the case that Argentine-Brazilian cooperation began before the regional economic crisis of the 1980s set in.

Alternatively, it is mistakenly argued that economic interests compelled both sides to seek cooperation in the 1970s as a means to resolve mounting domestic economic problems. A common account cites the policies of Argentine finance minister Jose Martinez de Hoz, who, it is argued, needed to expand trade in order to resuscitate the nation’s economy (Sagre 1990, 11r19). A familiar interpretation of Brazil’s foreign policy in the 1970s was its aggressive promotion of commercial interests, including market expansion in Latin America. A more theoretically ambitious explanation is advanced by Solingen, who argues that cooperation was the result of “liberalizing coalitions”-for which nuclear proliferation and security competition were obstacles to economic liberalization at home and detriments to private economic interests (Solingen 1994, 1996). Argentine documents do show that trade issues had consumed the bulk of bilateral diplomacy (at least for the Argentine side) since the late 1960s.

Economic considerations, however, were negligible in the political settlement’s origins, as evidenced in several ways. First, the political weight of “liberalizing” economic coalitions in policymaking (especially security policy) during the military regimes is debatable, and certainly no greater than the nationalist forces in both public and private industries or in the national security establishment on both sides. Moreover, only the economic policies of Martinez de Hoz, and not those of Brazil, can be described as liberalizing-and his policies were strongly resisted within the armed forces.

Second, there is no evidence that economic considerations impelled moderate officers in Brazil to launch uberturu or seek cooperation. Abertzrru was launched at a time of economic prosperity, not crisis. The Brazilian economy certainly performed erratically between 1974 and 1979, oscillating widely-but at high annual growth rates-as a result of the world energy crisis. During the regime of Ernest0 Geisel (1974-791, the economy averaged a remarkable 6.6 percent annual growth rate (World Bank 1988-89). To be sure, economic interests certainly dominated Brazilian foreign policy in the 1970s (Selcher 1978; Schneider


1976), and both sides became interested in the prospects of commercial exchanges in nuclear technology and equipment, but this interest surfaced only after the 1979-80 settlement was drafted.

Economic interdependence between the two rivals was historically low, with most of their trade directed out of the region. In 1970 less than 10 percent of Argentina’s total trade was with Brazil, while less than 6 percent of Brazil’s trade went across the Parank River (AMRE 1974~). As diplomatic cables reveal, what little trade occurred provoked more dis- cord than the Corpus-Itaipu dispute (AMRE 1968,1974a). For Brazil, the importance of the Southern Cone was strategic, not economic (Costa Vaz 1999). The importance of relations with Argentina was not the commercial interests served but the domestic political-organizational objectives pursued.

COOPERATION AND RIVALRY The diplomatic history of South America largely revolves around the continent’s two principal axes of geopolitical competition, the inter- locked Brazil-Argentina and Chile-Argentina rivalries (Burr 1965). The genesis of Argentine-Brazilian rivalry dates to colonial times. From their first major war in 1825-28, but especially from World War 11 to the 1970s, Brazil and Argentina continually viewed each other as enemies. Argentina (and Spanish America for that matter) harbored fears of Luso- Brazilian expansionism and regional political hegemony.

Unlike the Argentine-Chilean axis, however, the Brazil-Argentina rivalry lacked intractable disputes over valuable territories. The La Plata River Basin had strategic value, but the dispute over it was about access and influence over mutually recognized shared waterways, not possession. For Argentina, both Brazil and Chile were military threats, but the stakes were much higher across the Andes. The most significant feature of the interlocking rivalries was Argentina’s encirclement; Argentina always had to accommodate one rival when confronting the other. Even though a Chile-Brazil encircling alliance never actually materialized, Argentina could never be certain of the possible reaction of one when facing the other.

The Corpus-Itaipb Dispute

The 1970s witnessed a sharp increase in the intensity and scope of rivalries across the region. The principal issues fueling the resurgence in militarized competition were territorial, as the world energy crisis made access and possession of natural resources and “open spaces” a critical issue in the Southern Cone, the South Atlantic, and Antarctica (Child 1985; Selcher 19811, as well as the La Plata Basin.


For Brazil and Argentina specifically, two clusters of issues caused relations to deteriorate. First and more alarming was their escalating nuclear technology race (Malheiros 1993; Gorman 1979; Guglialmelli 1975, 1976a, b). Their claridestine military nuclear programs were geared mainly toward acquiring military nuclear capacity and developing naval propulsion systems, rather than operational nuclear forces (D’Araujo and Castro 1995, 340-41). Each nation sought to develop the technological capability as an insurance policy against the other’s nuclear ambitions. Because both rejected the 1968 Nuclear Nonprolifer- ation Treaty (NPT), the international regime prohibiting the spread of military nuclear technology, and did not adhere to the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco banning nuclear weapons in Latin America, the lack of international controls increased the dangers of a full-blown nuclear arms race for these countries.

The race to be first to acquire nuclear weapons, which Argentina led, was abruptly altered in 1971, when Brazil purchased a Westing- house nuclear plant. In 1975, Brazil acquired full-cycle technology from West Germany, an agreement that not only gave it full fuel-cycle repro- cessing and uranium enrichment technology but also freed it from the U.S. nonproliferation policy and export controls. Brazil changed the nuclear balance, presenting Argentina with the specter of a nuclear- armed, hegemonic rival. By 1976, strategists on both sides had concluded that the two rivals were nuclear-capable (Guglialmelli 1976a).

The second and more heated set of issues involved resource exploration in the La Plata Basin, particularly Brazil’s 1966 agreement with Paraguay (not signed until 1973) to build the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, Itaipu. Itaipli was to be constructed just north of the Argentine border on the Paraguay-Brazil portion of the Parani River, which the two historical rivals shared as a natural border. Argentina vehemently protested the agreement, and months later signed its own treaty with Paraguay for a second binational hydroelectric project, Yacireta, near its first planned dam, Corpus. Itaipu was to be constructed only a few miles upstream from the Argentine border and its two proposed dams. Itaipu’s planned height (120 meters fall, 220 meters above sealevel) meant that Corpus could not be more than 100 meters tall. Corpus’s planned height of 120 meters above sealevel, in turn, was intended to make Itaipd invi- able by raising upstream water levels to flood its turbines.

To be sure, practical concerns motivated Buenos Aires in making these competing plans. The construction of Itaipli would impair its own planned hydroelectric projects. More serious was the potential economic harm to downstream navigation in the Argentine stretch of the Parank, which was crucial to internal trade and transport.

Argentina and Brazil had been on a collision course in the La Plata Basin since the early 1960s. All the Basin countries (Argentina, Brazil,

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Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay) had engaged in periodic but con- tentious negotiations for a multilateral convention to govern frontier resource exploration and infrastructure development on the shared Parani and Uruguay Rivers, but the irreconcilable positions of Brazil and Argentina had made agreement elusive. Argentina insisted on the principle of prior consultation for all development projects that had the potential of harming neighbors. Despite Brazil’s promise in the 1971 Asuncicin Declaration to consult others when any project might cause “reasonable harm,” the dispute worsened during the brief civilian inter- regnum (1973-76) in Buenos Aires. While Brazil pressed ahead with Itaipb’s construction, it continued to entertain multilateral and bilateral talks that were short on progress and full of acrimony. Argentina accused Brazil of “successive delays” (AMRE 1974b).

Aside from threatening to build its own dams, Argentina turned to a number of strategies to block Itaipu and, it hoped, thereby contain Brazil’s expansion. Given that it could not stop Brazil’s numerous joint projects, Argentina’s principal strategy was to insist on multilateral reg- ulation and consultation. It also internationalized the dispute in the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, and regional forums. Argentine maneuvers did not deter Brazil, however, which turned the dispute into a fait accompli when it began constructing I t a i p ~ in early 1974.

From a technical perspective, there was no shortage of solutions with respect to the compatibility of the two dams and the management of downstream water levels. Indeed, an investigative report in the Octo- ber 7, 1979, Jornal do Brad (1979d) noted that technical working groups from both sides had reached a rough agreement as early as 1974 on the configuration of the two dams, with Brazilian engineers agreeing to a height of 105 meters for Corpus. The real dispute in the Basin was not about technical coordination to resolve a common-pool problem. “Since the time of [their] independence,” noted the Argentine Foreign Ministry in 1964, “relations between Argentina and Brazil were the most difficult and unstable, constantly driven by an enduring and disguised [disirnuladal struggle for influence [gravitaci6nl over the rest of the members of the Latin American community” (AMRE 1964).

With its own power in rapid decline, for Argentina the Basin dispute was about staving off Brazilian hegemony. Itaipu was one of a series of joint development projects Brazil had with neighboring Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Ecuador, in addition to frontier projects such as the Transamazonian Highway and the colonization of the Amazon. Rapid economic growth and industrial expansion increased Brazil’s energy needs. Its military regime invested heavily in energy programs. These projects raised Argentine fears that the continent would soon be in Brazil’s orbit.


As Argentine strategists and diplomats acknowledged, by the early 1970s Brazil’s regional hegemony was indeed more reality than aspira- tion (Guglialmelli 1976a, 48). Brazil’s joint projects and commercial expansion invariably extended its regional dominance. To Argentina’s dismay, Brazil was also flexing its military muscle to extend its influence. Itaipfi, after all, was the product of blunt coercion (and not just generous economic payoffs), beginning with Brazil’s brief military occu- pation of Paraguayan territory in 1965-66 to extract Asuncibn’s compli- ance (Pedone 1989, 282). Brazil openly intervened in the 1970-71 Boli- vian crisis to support the pro-Brazilian Hugo Banzer. In similar fashion, it massed troops on the Uruguayan border in 1971 in preparation for a possible intervention in the event of an electoral victory by the leftist Frente Amplio (Bandeira 1993).

More alarming for the Argentines, the postwar power disparity with Brazil widened in the 1970s. Brazil outsized Argentina in population, territory, and economy, with an average annual economic growth rate reaching 10 percent by the mid-1970s. The combination of Brazil’s industrial growth and Argentina’s own economic implosion greatly skewed the balance of power. Argentine military and political leaders publicly expressed concern about Brazil’s “hegemonic ambitions” and feared that their country would soon be nothing more than an outlying province of Brazil (Viamonte 1974; Guglialmelli 1972; Sanguenetti 1972). Thus Argentina’s deteriorating position in the Basin was an important factor compelling Argentina to seek negotiated, durable settlement that would preserve it some latitude and influence in the region. By the late 1970s, Argentina had concluded that the only solution to the rapid growth of Brazilian power was a “permanent foundation” that would “guarantee balanced growth” (AMRE 1978a).

A SE’ITLEMENT IN THE LA PLATA BASIN After centuries of competition, the Argentine-Brazilian rivalry ended suddenly and peacefully with the signing of the October 1979 Corpus- Itaipu accords and the May 1980 nuclear energy agreements. The 197940 settlement resolved the Basin dispute and allowed both dams to operate near original capacity, but its true purpose was to serve far greater objectives. Brazil was its principal beneficiary, as Argentina essentially surrendered its claims in the Upper Paran5. Why did Argentina propose a settlement that essentially recognized what it feared all along-the consolidation of Brazilian hegemony in the Basin?

The critical phase in the transition from rivalry to cooperation was December 1976 to September 1979. This period corresponds to two cm- cia1 developments: the escalation of Argentina’s near-war crisis with Chile and the critical phase of Brazil’s political liberalization, or abertzim. That


Argentina, facing imminent war with Chile in the South Atlantic, would seek to accommodate Brazil is not puzzling theoretically or historically. What is puzzling is Brazil’s accession. Given its power and bargaining advantage, and with Itaipu a fait accompli, Brazil was not as compelled to accommodate its historical rival. Indeed, with Argentina cornered, a cruder strategy might have been to reject Argentina’s overtures and extract maximum advantage in the Upper Paran5.

The Argentine Initiative

The available evidence shows that the initiative to break the diplomatic impasse and seek a general settlement originated with Argentina. After years of denouncing Itaipu, Argentina suddenly reversed its position. In a personal letter delivered at a December 1976 regional conference, General Jorge Rafael Videla, head of the Argentine ruling junta, appealed to Brazilian president General Ernest0 Geisel to reopen talks on Corpus-Itaipu, adding that all other matters should be “settled in the spirit of friendship” (AMRE 1976). Videla’s letter was followed a few months later by another Argentine proposal to create a tripartite commission to resolve the technical compatibility of the two projects. At the same time, Videla established a special interministerial task force on Corpus (Lanus 1984, 309). Videla’s newly appointed ambassador to Brazil, Oscar Camilih, moreover, was considered a moderate and a Brazilian expert.

The primary, though not exclusive, reason for this sudden turn- around was strategic, owing partly to Argentina’s worsening relations with Chile. Despite 1902 border accords, Chile and Argentina continued to dispute possession of the strategically important Beagle Channel, as well as Antarctica and maritime territorial limits (Garrett 1985). The Beagle Channel dispute had been placed under British arbitration, and Argentine-Chilean relations collapsed when Chile was awarded the territories in April 1977 (a decision Argentina formally renounced in Janu- ary 1978). For nearly two years, from early 1977 to early 1979, Chile and Argentina prepared for war. Argentine war plans called for an attack in December 1978, and both sides mobilized their armed forces (Jordan 1993, 151).

As the continent braced for a transandean war, another militarized crisis was simmering in the South Atlantic as Argentina and Britain faced off over the disputed Malvinas-Falklands Islands. For Argentina, the two disputes were indivisible. Loss of the Beagle Channel, Argen- tine strategists feared, would mean loss of Argentina’s claims to the Malvinas, the South Atlantic seabed, and Antarctica. Argentina, moreover, suspected collusion between Chile and Britain, which historically shared warm ties.

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By early 1977, then, Argentina found itself encircled by its most powerful enemies. Accommodating Brazil was a strategic necessity, both because Argentina simply could not hope to confront both rivals simultaneously and because it could not be certain of Brazil’s reaction if war broke out over the Beagle Channel. Though the likelihood was low that Brazil would have played an overt role in a Beagle Channel war, historically close ties between Brazil and Chile-and Brazil’s own ambitions in the South Atlantic and Antarctica-were sufficient to cause doubt in Buenos Aires. At the same time, wooing Brazil served another purpose: confrontation with Britain over the Malvinas would require, at a minimum, Brazilian diplomatic support. Chile, moreover, had resumed its close affiliation with Brazil after the 1973 military coup (in which Brazil participated).

The real question is why Argentina sought a more durable and comprehensive settlement rather than a mere truce or holding pattern in the Upper Parana. It did so for several reasons. First, the crises in the South Atlantic dragged on from late 1976 into the early 1980s. N o suggestion is made that Argentine leaders were prescient or had the blueprint for a settlement from the start. The point is only that there was a temporal dimension to the crises to which they reacted and adjusted accordingly, and which helps explain the two-plus-year gap between the first Argen- tine initiative and the final settlement. What’s more, the idea of a comprehensive settlement had been circulating among leading Argentine strategists and military figures before the South Atlantic crises.

An additional factor was the growing power disparity between Argentina and Brazil. Argentine apprehension over the widening power gap is prominent in military and strategic writings in the 1970s. Leading strategists concluded that a “condominium” settlement with Brazil, giving shared regional leadership, was the only viable option to salvage the country’s declining position in the Basin. Yet another reason, though more tangential, involves renewed Argentine concerns over developments in Brazil-U.S. relations. Foreign Ministry documents reveal this to be a salient topic of discussion in the regime. The historically close “unwritten alliance” between the United States and Brazil had always been a source of angst for Argentina. Its fears were heightened by the 1976 Memorandum of Understanding, in which the United States desig- nated Brazil the regional leader in Latin America.

The break in US.-Brazilian relations during the first half of the Carter administration was celebrated within the Argentine Foreign Min- istry, but by mid-1978 the United States was moving to repair relations. In the wake of President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Brazil, Argentine leaders feared a new pact between Brazil and the United States. The Foreign Ministry’s North American department warned the leadership, “you will have to bear in mind that if Brazil obtains a new and enhanced military


agreement [with the United States], the Republic will fall behind unless it opts for a similar cooperation with another power” (AMRE 1978b).

The Strategy of Brazil’s Military Moderates

For its part, Brazil’s decision to accept a negotiated settlement in the Upper Paran5 was driven not by strategic pressures or economic and political troubles at home, but by a much broader strategy by moderate military officers aimed at correcting problems in military organization. Although Argentina’s deteriorating strategic situation actually enhanced Brazil’s bargaining position in the Upper Parani, the Argentine initiative provided moderates in the Brazilian military regime with an auspicious opportunity to pursue domestic and organizational objectives.

The moderates pursued a dual strategy of liberalization at home and detente abroad to limit the corrosive influence of extremist forces, specifically the internal security and intelligence apparatus lodged inside the military and the state. Because extremists were present in both the domestic and foreign policy bureaucracy, reducing external tensions became an essential part of the government’s broader strategy to eliminate their noxious influence and restore military professionalism.2

Stepan’s classic thesis regarding the intraorganizational sources of abertura (1988) is essentially correct (Oliveira 1994; Stumpf and Pereira 1979; G6es 1984, 1978). The political and organizational project of moderate officers, it should be added, also necessitated an external ahertura. To the extent that moderates had been committed since 1964 to returning power to civilians and had seen the military’s intervention as a temporary departure from its historical “moderating” role, abertura was an end in itself.

The moderates’ commitment, however, was only partly philosophi- cal. By 1974, professional concerns had assumed a much greater and more urgent role in their thinking and political strategy. Fears of weak- ening hierarchic control and discipline were pronounced after the so- called authoritarian turn of the 1967-74 period. During the successive hardline presidencies, military rule was more brutal; the size and power of the internal security apparatus were expanded. Political authority and military power within the regime consequently diverged, and parallel chains of command and power centers emerged. Confronted with runaway internal security agencies and eroding hierarchic control, moderates used abertura to subordinate the military to political authority and to restore professionalism.

After the mid-l970s, military organizational imperatives drove much of Brazil’s domestic and foreign policy. The use of foreign policy to achieve domestic political ends, of course, is not a novel idea (Putnam 1988), but it is an overlooked aspect of Brazilian foreign policy after


1974. Overlooked in particular is how developments inside the military conditioned policymaking. Beginning in 1974 under General Geisel and continuing under his hand-picked successor, General Jo50 Batista do Figueiredo (1979-85), moderate officers implemented their dual-track strategy.

The origins and nature of abertura have been widely discussed in the literature and reaffirmed by key decisionmakers (Contreiras 1998; D’Araujo and Castro 1997; Soares et al. 1995; Stepan 1983). The strategy’s intellectual architect was General Golbery do Couto e Silva, Geisel’s longtime confidant and head of the Civil Cabinet (Casa Civil), a position he retained under Figueiredo. Golbery was Brazil’s premier geopolitical theorist and strategist. He participated in the original planning of Itaipu. N o other person was better suited and positioned to grasp the requirements and ramifications of abertura at home and abroad. He frequently intervened in foreign policymaking during the Geisel administration, often going against positions adopted by the For- eign Ministry. He was a favorite target of Argentine denunciations of what that country’s leaders perceived to be Brazil’s hegemonic policies (Rehder 1770, 264).

Both Golbery and Geisel had occupied key posts in the first military government of General Huniberto Castello Branco (1964-671, Geisel as head of the Military Cabinet and Golbery the founding director of the principal internal security and intelligence agency, the ServiCo Nacional de Informacdes (SNI). Since the first military government, Geisel and Golbery had been part of the subtle but growing political power struggle between moderates (brandos) and hardliners (duros) in the officer corps. They had witnessed firsthand how the hardliners, led by the army minister, General Arthur Costa e Silva, imposed their will during the 1967 succession.

Because of their ties to the moderates and their unrelenting efforts to bloc the Costa e Silva candidacy, Geisel and Golbery earned deep antipathy from the military’s right wing. Hardliners despised Golbery, who enjoyed superminister status under Geisel; they opposed his appointment and objected to his great latitude in the government. While no one doubted Geisel’s superb credentials and capacity, his own selection for the presidency-made possible by the domineering role of his brother Orlando, army minister and former armed forces chief of staff-deepened the right wing’s resentment.

Geisel and Golbery, aided by other key officers closely identified with Castello Branco (or Castellistas), conceived the broad outlines of their abertura strategy before assuming power (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 264; Stumpf and Pereira 1979, 16). Gradual political opening, including restoring press and civic freedoms, was intended to reduce domestic tensions, thereby making it easier both to expose the abuses


of extremist organs and to undercut their raison d’itre. Reducing tensions at home through political opening would arrest the role expansion of the repressive apparatus and lessen the need for the kinds of opaque activities it thrived on.

Geisel’s own term to describe the political opening, disten@o, or releasing of tensions, was appropriate because it truly reflected his intention to bring the repressive apparatus under control. With extremists ensconced in both domestic and foreign policymaking, it was necessary to release tensions on both fronts. Sustaining such tensions would not only entrench them more deeply but also would strengthen hardliners politically.

The two master strategists also planned the rough parameters of an external abertura strategy before taking office. The domestic front undoubtedly was the main battleground, but there is also ample evidence that foreign policy was deemed a crucial component in the overall strategy (Mathias 1995, 123-24). Geisel immediately reversed the aggressive Brad Potincia foreign policy of the previous right-wing administrations, adopting what he called pragmatismo responsavel, responsible pragma- tism (Geisel 1974; D’Araujo and Castro 1997; Soares de Lima and Moura 1983; Stumpf and Pereira 1979, 17). His foreign minister, AntGnio Azeredo da Silveira, a professional diplomat and former ambassador to Argentina, was a strong advocate of abertura (Soares et al. 1995,69). In the opinion of one of Geisel’s confidants, General Gustavo Moraes Rego, Silveira was chosen for his competence but also for his close relationship with Argen- tine diplomatic circles (Soares et al. 1995, 51).

Geisel and Golbery conceived their strategy as a long-term, gradual process that would span at least two administrations-making even greater the need for unchallenged presidential authority and military command, both to control the process as well as to hand-pick succes- sors. Yet neither domestic nor external abertura was based on any detailed, fixed blueprint or timetable (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 264). There is no evidence, moreover, that they saw external opening as entailing major concessions to Argentina or backing off from original objectives in the La Plata Basin. Geisel was emphatic that foreign policy had to be “realistic” but also made “with conviction and in the interests of Brazil” (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 35-36),

On both fronts, Geisel and Golbery proceeded flexibly and cautiously, so as not to provoke backlash from the hardliners. For any general-president, the assent and obedience of the military leadership was paramount, especially given the implications of the new strategy. Aber- tura, moreover, may have received unconditional backing from the small Castellista group but not from all moderates, many of whom objected to its pace and scope rather than the overall idea of removing the armed forces from direct rule. Aside from the need to retain moderate support,


the fear of provoking hardliner backlash was the major constraint on domestic and foreign policy under both moderate governments. Geisel always had to placate duros with each advance of abertura. Indeed, the pattern of political liberalization at home was neither linear nor constant but combined advances with inany deliberate tactical retreats and calcu- lated pauses. The same delicate balancing act applied externally. Con- troversial decisions, such as the recognition of Communist China and Marxist-Leninist Angola, had already drawn open criticism from hardliners, forcing the government to backtrack or give ground in other areas.

Consequently, change in the Upper Paran5 was slow. Brazilian policy in the Basin during 1974-79 was a mixture of gradual softening with episodes of intransigence. Indeed, one of the new government’s first acts after taking office was to begin construction of Itaiph and to appoirlt General Jose Costa Cavalcanti, former minister of interior and of mines and energy under the hardline government of General Emilio Garrastazu Miidici and deemed a hardliner by many, as president of Itaipu Binacional, the agency in charge of the project. Cavalcanti con- sistently favored an uncompromising approach and viewed the Argen- tine dams as menacing to 1taipii.j

Restoring Military Professionalism

By the early 1970s, moderates had concluded that the military’s “per- manence” in power was producing “costs” to the institution itself, a situation Geisel described as a “grave problem” (D’Araujo and Castro, 1997, 168, 402; Contreiras 1998; Oliveira 1994; Stepan 1988). In Latin America and elsewhere, direct rule invariably politicizes the military and degrades institutional discipline and coherence (Remmer 1989; Martins 1986; Finer 1962). By 1974, the “military as government,” as Stepan (1988) argues, realized that the growing dominance and autonomy of the internal security agencies were harmful to the “military as institution” (Oliveira 1994; Skidmore 1988; Stepan 1988; Goes 1984; Goes and Camargo 1984).

From the onset of military rule in 1964, unity, discipline, and hierarchy were cardinal principles in the institution, which devised numerous safeguards and informal practices to preempt, minimize, and contain the expected costs of direct rule. Yet as early as 1970, key military leaders, such as the respected Marshall Osvaldo Cordeiro de Farias and General Alfred0 do Souto Malan, publicly warned against institutional costs of direct rule. Moderate officers became alarmed over the erosion and decay (disgaste) affecting the institution (Contreiras 1998, 39; Math- ias 1995, 59). The “professionalism of the armed forces was damaged under military rule,” observed one air force chief, as a result of their involvement in internal repression (Contreiras 1998, 79, 82).


The unique features of military rule in Brazil magnified institutional costs. Military rule was institutional in form, not personal or factional as in Chile and Argentina, respectively. As a result, the Brazilian military was less able to shield itself against the internally corrosive effects of direct rule. The institution as a whole suffered the damaging side effects of runaway security organs, on top of the other costs and legitimacy crises that attend military rule (Martins 1986).

The repressive apparatus had multiplied in numbers and in power since 1964 such that by 1974 it had become a parallel power, or “state within a state,” in direct contention with the hierarchy for control over both the state and the military institution (Oliveira 1994, 107). While the small guerrilla problem had disappeared by 1970, the internal security apparatus remained entrenched. The peak agency in this sprawling, hydra-headed apparatus was the SNI, a cabinet-level ministry. Although after 1974 it was firmly under the control of softliners when Geisel appointed Figueiredo its director, it had already amassed such enor- mous power and influence that its own creator, Golbery, considered it too powerful. The SNI rivaled the Army Ministry as the second most important organ (in terms of both policy and succession politics) in the military as government and institution.

Much more dangerous, and more difficult to control, were the “information” agencies of the services, the army’s Centro de Infor- magdes do Exercito (CIEX, also CIE), the navy’s CENIMAR, and the air force’s CISA. CIEX was the most powerful and most feared of the three and, as illustrated by its June 1975 study circulated in the military, was also an open opponent of abertura (Baffa 1989, 49). Deeper in the shadows were the interservice Internal Security Detachment (Destaca- mento de Opera@es Internas, DO11 and the Internal Defense Operations Command (Comando Operacional or Centro de Opera@es de Defesa Interna, CODI), dominated by extremists and responsible for the more egregious acts of torture and state terror. Unlike the SNI, these other internal security agencies were subgroups not of the presidency but of the individual armed services or multiagency collaboration. The DOVCODI apparatus, for instance, was an interservice coordinating and operational agency that included participation from the federal police, military police, and state and municipal security agencies.*

The repressive apparatus penetrated the federal machinery as well as security and police forces in the lower tiers of government. Evidence pointed, moreover, to collaboration between the repressive agencies, paramilitary groups, and death squads. Although Brazil was spared the extreme level of state terror seen in Chile and Argentina, the acts of repression that did occur were considered by moderates “too violent” and damaging to the institution. General OctAvio Costa, a leading moderate who considered the creation of DOVCODI a “great mistake,”


regarded the “repression of the 1970s [as1 a grave error, with damaging consequences for the armed forces” because its perpetrators “over- stepped military authority” (Contreiras 1998, 83, 9697) .

The mission and role expansion of the internal security agencies accelerated under the successive hardline administrations of Costa e Silva and Medici during 1967-74 and became the institutional basis of hardliner power. The DOI/CODI system, for example, was set up during this period and remained outside the control of moderates after 1974. Hardliners in key posts either controlled or actively backed the principal repressive agencies, such as CIEX and the DOI/CODI, during the first half of the Geisel presidency. A hardliner, General Sylvio Frota, headed the Army Ministry, using his position to provide active support to the repressive agencies, often publicly defending their actions and accusing their critics of being communists. Heading CIEX until late 1977 was General AntBnio da Silva Campos, an ardent hardliner and Frota associate. With Siio Paulo as its main base of operations, the DOVCODI detachment received ample protection and backing from the Second Army, headed during most of the 1970s by two hardliners, Generals Humberto de Souza Mello and Eduardo d’Avila Mello. D’Avila, subsequently dismissed by Geisel, was a stubborn critic of ahertura.

The operational commander of the SHo Paulo DOI/CODI was Colonel Albert0 Ustra, whom a female congressional deputy later accused of personally torturing her. The Siio Paulo DOVCODI unit was responsible for two highly publicized murders of detainees, that of jour- nalist Vladimir Herzog in October 1975 and Manuel Fie1 Filho the following January. According to General Moraes Rego, the Second Army’s chief of staff at the time, General Gentil Marcondes and the head of its Second Section (Information), Colonel Jos6 de Barros Paes, were later in command positions in the First Army in Rio de Janeiro during the infamous Riocentro car bombing carried out by secret service agents (Soares et al. 1995, 86-87).

For Geisel and the moderates, the internal security apparatus had grown too large and too independent at the expense of hierarchic control. There was “an excessive concentration of power in the hands of radicals,” observed a close supporter of Geisel, Admiral Hernani Goulart Fortuna (Contreiras 1998, 101). Indeed, complained Geisel, they oper- ated outside the control and knowledge of the Planalto (presidency). “We found out about what happened in the CIEX only after it had already occurred,” he remarked (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 217). Not even the SNI, in the hands of moderates after 1974 and a powerful weapon in the war against extremists, was able to track all their activities. Geisel’s power and authority, not so much as president but as commander-in-chief, were threatened. While he believed that the 1964 “Revolution” had accomplished its goals, his overriding preoccupation


was restoring hierarchy, control, and discipline, and returning the military and the country to “normalcy” (D’Araujo and Castro 1997).

The military organizational and political problems created by the internal security apparatus thus were numerous and multifaceted. The first set of problems stemmed from the agencies’ autonomy and independence. They undercut the hierarchy’s monopoly over the means of coercion and information. Not only did the agencies operate outside the chain of command, but they engaged in their own independent state terror and policymaking. They challenged both the high command and the structure of political authority. Golbery argued that their activities often “put in check the hierarchy of the military” (Baffa 1989, 17). Their proliferation and bureaucratic sprawl, moreover, made top-down control and policy implementation difficult. Thus, although moderates headed the Army Ministry and SNI during most of the Geisel and Figueiredo years, lower echelons inside them often acted independently of the policy direc- tion and wishes of the leadership. The intelligence organs “had to be controlled by the presidency,” argued Geisel, because “their particularistic activities escaped the control of the presidency” (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 227-28). A senior admiral, Armando Amorim Ferreira Vidigal, added that the military intelligence services “practically became parallel powers, which brought them, on certain occasions, into collision with the principles of hierarchy and military ethics” (Contreiras 1998, 100).

The agencies’ functional expansion and presence in the state apparatus allowed them to “colonize” key domestic and foreign policy arenas, giving them the ability to interfere directly in policymaking and implementation. Since their creation in the late 1960s, bureaus of the Divis6es de SeguranGa e InformaG6es (Divisions of Security and Infor- mation, DSI) and Assessorias de Seguranp e InformaG6es (Departments of Security and Information, ASI) were established in all ministries and state-run enterprises. An AS1 unit was present even in the national tourism agency. The DSI and AS1 bureaus monitored all activities and decisions they deemed to have national security implications. The security apparatus was embedded in the nuclear, informatics, and defense bureaucracies.

Brazil’s nuclear energy program was under the military’s control, with overall supervision and planning by the powerful, military-dominated National Security Council (CSN), the highest organ of national security decisionmaking. The nuclear research agency, the military-controlled National Commission on Nuclear Energy (CNEN), also coordinated the parallel military nuclear program (Soares de Lima 1986, 118). A hardliner, Colonel Francisco Araripe, headed the military’s nuclear program into the early 1980s.

In the Foreign Ministry, however, the formal presence of the internal security establishment appears to have been minimal. Unlike its Argen-

KESENDE-SANTOS: SECURI7Y COOPERATION 107

tine counterpart, Itamarati retained its professionalism and civilian direc- tion, enjoying a measure of autonomy in foreign policymaking unrelated to national security matters. Yet Itamarati did not have a free hand in negotiations with Argentina (Hirst 1996b). Key policy areas involved in relations with Argentina-national security and defense, the nuclear program, and major infrastructural projects like Itaipfi-were not under its control but under the national security bureaucracy, primarily the CNS and the military ministries. During the Geisel years, a CNS staff member and army officer, Flavio Moutinho de Carvalho, worked as liaison with the Foreign Ministry. Walder De G6es (1978, 38) describes the relationship between Itamarati and the CNS as one of “total integration,” though one diplomat does not share this assessment (Maciel 1994). In general, major foreign policymaking involved two overlapping spheres of negotiations, between Itamarati and the Planalto (especially the CNS) and between the Planalto and the officer corps (G6es 1978).

As the power and mission of the internal security apparatus expanded, so did its political influence within the military and the state. As it became a parallel, shadow power in the regime and the military institution (Oliveira 1994, 34; Martins 1986, 811, the various agencies became power centers for individual ministers and therefore deeply political in terms of factional and interservice rivalries, promotions as well as presidential succession (Alves 1985, 128-31). More troubling for the institution, they began to interfere directly in the core procedures of the military establishment; namely, promotions and command assign- ments (Goes 1984, 370-71). The internal security organs, along with their hardline sponsors, were jeopardizing the cardinal principle of military organization: hierarchy. “They became autonomous, and this in certain ways affected the chain of command,” Geisel noted. “What mat- tered above all,” he declared, “was hierarchy and the spirit of discipline” (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 402; Mathias 1995, 58).

The repressive apparatus actively sought to derail abertura. Not only did the military right wing vocally oppose the government’s domestic and foreign policies, it launched a deliberate campaign to destabilize the moderate governments. There is no concrete evidence of a coordinated, systematic plan or high-level machination. Instead, the campaign apparently was carried out sporadically by renegade units and individual persons who may or may not have had sanction from the middle and upper ranks. The aim of the campaign, moreover, may have been not so much to topple the government as to force it to retreat on policy and to win support for a more hardline approach. Brazil was nonetheless shaken by a series of bombings, kidnappings, and political killings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, nearly all of which were against suspected leftist targets and attributed to the internal security apparatus and associated paramilitary groups.


Destabilization by the right wing was particularly serious during the early Figueiredo government. In the first eight months of 1980, for example, an estimated 25 such incidents took place (Lagoa 1983, 109). One of the most serious occurred in downtown Rio de Janeiro in April 1981 when a car bomb, presumably targeted at a large concert for progressive causes, exploded prematurely, killing the two DOKODI perpetrators.

Hardline opposition, it should be noted, stemmed mainly from the underlying power struggle over presidential successions as well as hos- tility toward abertura generally, rather than the Corpus-Itaipu dispute per se. Nevertheless, hardliners were critical of the government’s foreign policy orientation, and a significant nationalist current ran through the armed forces (though perhaps weaker and less disruptive than its Argentine counterpart). Hardliners considered Foreign Minister Silveira a leftist; Army Minister Frota criticized him (Soares et al. 1995, 51; Rehder 1990, 67). One hardliner, General Jo50 Paulo Moreira Burnier, former head of CISA, observed that Geisel’s “attitudes more and more led us to believe that General Geisel was really under the influence of General Golbery, who himself was a socialist.” In reference to the 1980 accords, Burnier added that Geisel’s “nuclear policy [was] premature and poorly planned, bringing us to a failure whose consequences we are still suffering today” (quoted in Soares et al. 1995, 214-15).

The corrosive influence of the internal security apparatus was com- pounded by the way it aggravated factionalism in the officer corps (Skidmore 1988; Stumpf and Pereira 1979; Goes 1978). The moderates’ commitment to withdraw the military from government not only created certain ambiguities and contradictions of military rule in Brazil from the start, but also gave rise to a fundamental cleavage in the institution (Linz 1973; Oliveira 1994). Factional cleavage was embodied functionally, with hardliners dominating the security-intelligence organs and other state agencies, so that the political and mission expansion of these organs necessarily meant growth in the power of hardliners. Both factions were heterogeneous, and represented a small but active fraction of the officer corps; the majority of officers were ideologically and politically neutral or undefined. The Brazilian regime and the military institution itself were far more cohesive and stable than their Argentine counterparts. Power struggles between the two factions resembled chess matches, as General Moraes Rego observed, rather than violent contests (Soares et al. 1995, 54-55). Factionalism emerged, nevertheless, during the first military government in 1964 and deepened thereafter, culminating in the failed coup attempt of October 1977 (for details, see G6es 1978, chap. 3) .

Predictably, opening on both fronts aggravated internal divisions within the military, since its progress came at the expense of hardliners. Abertura required (and facilitated) breaking the power of the internal security system. Geisel and the architects of abertura understood that its


most difficult terrain would be inside the military. Opposition from hardliners determined the limits of opening domestically and externally.

Intramilitary opposition did not diminish after 1974, but in many ways it was magnified by the looming power struggle over the 1979 succession, often referred to as the segunda guerra (second war) between the faction^.^ Each presidential succession was a moment of crisis for the regime (Oliveira 1994, 44), but viewed more broadly, opposition to abertura and the heated politics of succession represented a much bigger clash. By 1974, two dominant (parallel) structures of power, with contradictory interests, had emerged inside the state and military (Oliveira 1994; G6es 1984). The contest was not so much over ahertura as it was for control over both the state machinery and the military institution. Needless to say, whichever faction controlled the reins of power determined the character of both military rule and domestic and foreign policy. The moderates’ political project thus represented a fatal threat to the position and interests of the hardliners and the internal security apparatus.

The loci of military opposition to Geisel and abertura were the internal security apparatus; the Second Army, based in S2o Paulo; and the powerful Army Ministry, headed by the strident and unpredictable Frota.” Until his unprecedented dismissal in October 1977, Frota was the hardliners’ vocal leader and the self-anointed presidential successor. Thrust to center stage by the importance of his position rather than his own personal qualities, Frota became the focal point of efforts by hardliners both in the military and Congress to retake power. The principal coordinator of his presidential campaign was the redoubtable General Jayme Portella, the extremist Cusa Militar (Military Cabinet) chief under Costa e Silva and a leading figure among anti-Geisel forces inside and outside the military.

Though Frota’s political ambitions and open campaigning troubled Geisel, the principal source of friction between them was Frota’s actions inside the military and government. Frota not only acted independently and without consulting Geisel, he refused to carry out the reforms and promotions the president wanted. He also publicly criticized the administration’s policies, going as far as accusing the government of turning communist. Frota even criticized the austere “April Package” of 1977 (the illiberal set of electoral and constitutional changes restricting the democratic opposition) and openly called for the adoption of more dra- conian measures.

While Frota and his coterie carefully avoided the president himself, Geisel’s key advisers and mouthpieces of ahertura, such as Golbery and Foreign Minister Silveira, became targets of criticism (Rehder 1990, 67, 75). Frota demanded that Golbery’s activities be restricted. He actively supported and defended the extremist agencies, giving free rein to asso-


ciates involved in torture, such as his CIEX director Adyr Fiuza de Castro. He appointed hardline allies to key army posts in Rio de Janeiro and Silo Paulo, in addition to the Planalto military command. What was more egregious, he defied Geisel’s orders to open an investigation into the murder and torture of detainees in DOI/CODI.

In the words of one Castellistu, “normalization” would require a “complicated process of neutralization of the nest of the radicals” (Con- treiras 1998, 68). Geisel, as befit his imperial temperament and autocratic management style, concentrated in his own hands far greater powers over political and military affairs than previous military presi- dents had; he placed promotion and assignment authority in the Planalto rather than in the Army Ministry. Geisel slowly replaced hardliners in the high command (although their presence remained strong in the middle ranks). After taking power, he used his authority as president and military commander-in-chief to cleanse the high command of extremists through reassignments, changes in promotion regulations, and outright dismissals, To promote Castellistus and moderates to key positions, he instituted new regulations that shortened the duration of service in the high command.

Geisel also summarily removed commanders, the most serious case being the January 1976 dismissal of Second Army chief D’Avila, whom Geisel immediately replaced with a close ally and defender of abertura, General Dilermando Gomes Monteiro. D’Avila’s dismissal came after a second detainee in the command’s DOVCODI was murdered, despite Geisel’s repeated orders to D’Avila and Frota to put an end to arbitrary abuses.

Another step was to appoint trusted officers and allies to key command posts and positions of authority. In particular, Geisel promoted hand-picked confidants to the Superior Tribunal Militar (STM), the highest military-judicial organ responsible for reviewing and interpreting national security legislation and military justice. The STM, composed of numerous Geisel appointees and outspoken critics of torture and the security agencies, played a significant role in the battle against extremists. The objective, said Geisel, was to prevent key agencies in the institution and state from “becoming a platform of projection for radicals who intended to create problems for the political project of my government” (quoted in Contreiras 1998, 130).

Geisel also assigned allies to the principal army groups, making it impossible for hardliners to launch a coup. Where hardliners held command, as in the Second Army in S P o Paulo until 1976, he appointed trusted brigade commanders in the respective army group. By 1976, moreover, Castellisas had adopted a more concerted campaign to dismantle the internal security apparatus, although with far less success. The DOIKODI system was not fully disbanded until after 1982 (Baffa 1989, 15).


Predictably, hardliners resisted and used their principal bases of power, the Army Ministry and security apparatus, to counterattack. On the whole, violent opposition to abertura remained sporadic and unco- ordinated, though active into the early 1980s in sometimes extreme forms, such as the April 1981 car bombing. The clash between moderates and hardliners reached a turning point in what many observers regard as an abortive coup attempt by Army Minister Frota in late 1977.’

Succession politics and Frota’s own open campaign to be nominated presidential successor played a part in his October 1977 dismissal. Geisel, however, defended his decision on the basis of military hierarchy and unity and what he regarded as Frota’s open disobedience and disloyalty. Although Frota’s boorish and clumsy conduct attracted few admirers among moderates and professionals, he nonetheless voiced hardliner concerns and criticisms of the government’s policies. In his so- called manifesto, released publicly and sent to all military commands on the day of his dismissal, he denounced Geisel’s domestic and foreign policies, for which he blamed “faulty advice” originating from a “small coterie ensconced in the government.” He decried “the constant attacks to destroy the national security structure” and “to remove the armed forces from the decisionmaking processes of the nation” (Silva and Ribas Carneiro 1983, 99).

Reaffirming his authority, Geisel used the Frota episode to purge extremists from the Army Ministry, to which he appointed as chief another trusted ally and consummate professional soldier, General Fer- nando Belfort Bethlem. After Frota’s dismissal, Bethlem and other military chiefs publicly declared their unconditional obedience to presidential authority and support for abertura. The newly appointed armed forces chief of staff, General Tacito The6philo Gaspar, openly declared support for the government’s foreign policy (Rehder 1990, 171).

Abertura at Home and Abroad

The military organizational imperatives driving reconciliation with Argentina did not diminish after the abortive coup attempt but instead intensified from 1978 into the early 1980s. The pressures on the moderate governments to reach an agreement in the Upper Paran5 continued to grow and remained high into the first years of the Figueiredo government. Indeed, presidential succession and negotiations in the Upper Paran2 were peaking at the same time, along with the strategic and political-organizational circumstances that pushed the two sides toward settlement, though for Brazil the path to settlement was not a straight line.

Presidential succession imposed its own limitations on foreign policy. The residual strength and presence of hardliners, even if some-


what diluted, meant that the Castellistas still had to proceed cautiously on both fronts. Extremists stepped up the destabilization offensive in the wake of Figueiredo’s nomination. Figueiredo’s selection, while a victory for the moderates, did not receive unanimous assent in the military. Many of the radicals tied to the repressive agencies, who had been Frota’s most ardent supporters, remained in place. Various agencies and freelancers attached to them carried out assorted bombings, reprisals, and provocations.

Right-wing destabilization efforts surged between 1979 and 1981, some with the complicity of SNI, CIE, CENIMAR, and CISA, according to General Moraes Rego (Soares et al. 1995, 88). The SNI during the Figueiredo government, it soon became evident, was not under the full control of its leadership. The army’s CIE also appears to have escaped the control of the hierarchy. General Octavio Costa, Army Ministry staff officer and Geisel aide, observed, “the more the process of liberalization expanded, the more noticeable the reactions of the more hardline sec- tors and the information system in particular” (Soares et al. 1995, 116).

In the army high command, moderates actually lost ground from late 1977 to mid-1980, when only 3 of the 13 members were considered moderates (Kucinski 1982, 72). Hardliners commanded all 4 army groups in 1980. Despite the removal of Frota and others, moreover, neither Geisel nor Figueiredo could carry out a full-scale demobilization of the internal security apparatus. To retain the support (or acquiescence) of the high command and moderates, Geisel agreed not to dismantle the security organs. Soon after dismissing Frota, he dispatched a special brief to all members of the high command informing them of that decision (Kucinski 1982, 71; Goes 1978, 76). On another front, by 1979 social mobilization in the form of popular protests and labor strikes resurfaced. The effect was to make it appear as if the government had lost control of abertura and to give hardliners more political potency. Abertura became an even more delicate balancing act.

Argentina’s overture therefore was propitious, for the Brazilian government’s military organizational objectives simply could not be accomplished by reducing tensions only at home. While moderates could not move too far or too fast in the Upper Parani, conflict abroad would derail political liberalization and undermine the organizational project. This tight link made a strategy of external diversion-giving the military new functions or stirring tensions abroad-inconceivable, because it would only increase the domestic political power and institutional pre- rogative of extremist groups and individuals. The potential for instabil- ity abroad arising from unpredictable sources created further incentives for moderates to reach a settlement, despite Brazil’s bargaining advantage in the Basin. Specifically, Argentina’s historic unpredictability, emo- tionalism, and penchant for impulsive behavior-as Brazilians saw


it-had always been a source of concern. The opportunity to bind Argentina to a formal agreement would guard against that unpredictability in the Upper Parank In sum, the risks of no agreement and unilateralism in the Upper Parana far outweighed any costs associated with a political settlement.

THE ROAD TO DETENTE Negotiations during the year and a half following Videla’s December 1976 letter proved difficult. Policy reversals and inconsistencies, more serious on the Argentine side, largely accounted for the lack of progress. Argentina’s policy vacillated greatly from the time of Videla’s letter to late 1978. Reversals and inconsistencies in Argentine foreign policy, while not new, were directly linked to deep divisions and the fractured nature of decisionmaking in the Processo de Reorganizacibn Nacional, the military junta. The result was an anarchical foreign policymaking process Uordan 1993; Perina and Russell 1988; Pion-Berlin 1985; Tulchin 1984).

The other major reason for Argentine policy inconsistencies was intramilitary opposition, particularly from the hardline nationalist faction. Videla’s government also faced military organizational constraints on foreign policy, such that preliminary agreements and policy measures adopted in the course of negotiations were frequently rescinded or blocked. The hardline nationalists, led by the strident Admiral Isaac Rojas and Navy Minister Emilio Eduardo Massera, vehemently opposed settlement in the Basin. The strains of fragmentation erupted in the 1981 and 1982 coups (Pion-Berlin 1985). Also badly split was the Foreign Ministry, run by the military (navy) rather than civilian professionals as in Brazil. It is interesting that Brazilian leaders were judicious in their appraisal of Argentina’s frequent reversals and inconsistencies, blaming specific factions or individuals in and out of the foreign ministry rather than Videla personally.

Relations reached new lows during the first half of 1977, as Argentina reintroduced the demand for prior consultation and intimated that previous bilateral treaties on the Basin would have to be renegoti- ated. The most serious point in the Corpus-ItaipO dispute arose just as tensions with Chile were mounting. In July, Argentina closed the transandean Cuevas-Caracoles tunnel to Brazilian commercial trucks headed for Chile, triggering the so-called truck wars. While the closing was directly linked to the Chilean crisis, Brazil responded by closing its border to Argentine goods and vehicles, and broke off talks.

With each rupture in negotiations, however, both sides initiated secret diplomatic and military contacts. Videla and Geisel turned to secret military-to-military talks to jump-start negotiations, for example, dispatching military aides to Foz de Iguaqu to diffuse the July border


crisis (Bandeira 1993, 260). Days later, both foreign ministries announced the resumption of talks. From mid-1977 to late 1978, negotiations were shadowed by secret contacts and shuttle diplomacy. In September 1978, during the last months of Geisel’s administration, Brazil and Argentina reached a tentative agreement during a United Nations foreign ministers’ meeting in New York. Secret negotiations followed in Rio de Janeiro that resulted in the Rio Document, which heavily favored Brazil (making no mention of prior consultation and allowing the “flexible” operation of Itaipd, for instance).

Despite this apparent breakthrough, negotiations broke down a month later when Brazil suddenly announced that the Itaipd Dam would be outfitted with 2 additional turbines instead of the original 18.8 Argentina renounced the Rio accords even as it prepared for war in the Beagle Channel, and reintroduced its original demands for Corpus’s configuration and prior consultation.

Although negotiations were stalled, both sides were pressed in late 1978 to reach an agreement; Argentina by the threat of war with Chile and Brazil by a succession crisis. Videla initiated another round of shuttle diplomacy, sending Admiral Horacio Colombo to Brazil with a new set of proposals. Videla summoned a high-level cabinet meeting in Feb- ruary 1979 and personally intervened in the negotiating process, according toJornal do Brad (1979b). The critical initiative to break the impasse occurred shortly thereafter when Argentina announced it would accept a 105-meter limit for Corpus-provided that Brazil agreed to only 18 turbines for Itaipd (Lanus 1984, 310). Foreign Minister Carlos Pastor told Jornal do B r a d on February 1, “there should not be any doubt that these negotiations will proceed successfully. The agreement we will make with Brazil and Paraguay regarding the dams is only the initial step in a series of common endeavors that we will confront” (1979a). According to 0 Estado de SGo Paulo (19791, Pastor, together with high-ranking advisers from the Casa Rosada, met privately with the Brazilian ambassador to finalize an agreement as soon as Figueiredo took office in March.

Figueiredo accelerated the Corpus-Itaipu negotiations; he, too, personally intervened in the process. As the departing head of SNI, Figueiredo understood well the shadowy activities of extremists and the underlying political prerequisites of internal and external abertura. Sev- eral months before taking office he told the Jornal do Brasil(1979c) and foreign correspondents that disagreements over the specific configura- tions of the Paran5 dams were trivial given the more important issues facing Brazil and Argentina. He informed his foreign minister-designate, Ramiro Saraiva Guerrero, that the top priority in foreign policy was res- olution of the Corpus-Itaipd dispute (Guerrero 1992, 92); according to the Jornal do B r a d (1979~1, he instructed his first cabinet meeting that efforts must be devoted to reducing existing tensions with Argentina.


Figueiredo and Guerrero planned a unified Brazilian position in the Upper Parana. With presidential backing, Guerrero’s first move was to reestablish the primacy of Itamarati diplomats and freeze out those from Mines and Energy. In response to Argentina’s new offer, Guerrero won approval from Figueiredo and key cabinet members to drop the proposal for additional turbines. In late September 1979, another foreign ministers’ meeting in New York penned the key outlines of an accord. The final 1979-80 settlement was broad in scope and varied in content, going beyond the particulars of the Corpus-ItaipQ dispute.

A Global Settlement

The Corpus-Itaipu treaty was signed in October 1979 during an elaborate ceremony in Asuncibn, Paraguay, followed by the separate signing of the bilateral nuclear energy accords in May. Accompanying those agreements were other accords involving frontier sanitation, bilateral trade, and cultural-scientific exchange. A separate accord was reached on another unresolved dispute over shared use of the Uruguay River. In addition, Brazil and Argentina signed a Memorandum of Understanding calling for high-level consultation on all bilateral and international matters (AMRE 1980b). In tacit reference to the Nonproliferation Treaty, the memorandum called for policy coordination on international issues “directly concerning developing countries as well as, in particular, issues of interest to Latin America and in the spirit of regional cooperation” (AMRE 1980b).

More significant in terms of future cooperation, Brazil and Argentina agreed to establish “a flexible and agile mechanism” at the ministerial level to manage relations. After the signing, Videla told the Jornal da Repziblica (1979) that the settlement’s importance went “beyond the reconciliation of legitimate interests, and advance[dl objectives that are more important and of profound significance in the Basin and South America.” Although the agreements resolved concrete issues (or mas- saged them with diplomatic language), their more salient feature was that they were frameworks in which to establish mechanisms and issue areas for follow-on bilateral accords. A significant feature of the 1979-80 political settlement, moreover, is how it linked security, economic, and political issues. The settlement gave rise to the singular characteristic of succeeding Argentine-Brazilian cooperation: the coupling of security and economic issues.

The 1979 Corpus-ItaipQ agreement resolved the immediate issues pertaining to the basic configuration of the two dams, downstream water levels, and notification procedures covering various aspects of Itaipu’s operation. As the most important institutional feature of the Upper Paran5 settlement, Brazil and Argentina agreed to resuscitate the


dormant Argentine-Brazilian Special Coordination Commission (CEBAC) as the principal forum for all bilateral negotiations. The major victory for Brazilian diplomacy was to insist on the language of “flexible operation” for ItaipO, which not only meant that it could subsequently add additional turbines without consulting Argentina but which it interpreted as carte blanche. On the other hand, the treaty stipulated that alterations of the projects “be preceded by negotiations among the three parties,” which Argentines interpreted as victory for its position. Few in Argentina were satisfied with the agreement, however. Hardline nationalists openly denounced it.

The May 1980 nuclear accord was unexpected but emerged as an integral part of the overall political settlement in the Basin. The accord was unrelated to the Corpus-Itaiph dispute and appears to have arisen in parallel secret talks just before the signing of the Corpus-Itaiph agreement in October, with full negotiation begun in December. The nuclear accord was not an arms control agreement; it called for technical-scientific collaboration in nuclear research over ten years for the full nuclear combustion cycle, as well as commercial sales of materials and equipment. An important feature was the tentative references to research and operations safeguards, including “physical protection of nuclear materials.” In effect, both sides took the first tentative steps toward a rudimentary mutual inspection and verification regime.

The 1980 agreement did not put an end to the nuclear technology race, but the accord became the first major step toward a comprehensive nuclear regime based on proliferation restraint and mutual safeguards-a regime methodically put together over the next decade.

The available evidence indicates that the initiative for a nuclear accord-like the initiative for the general settlement-originated with Argentina. This suggests that Argentina was pursuing a more comprehensive, long-term calculus to address strategic problems and imbal- ances. Specifically, Argentina was pursuing a “condominium” settlement, one that could not only guarantee against a nuclear-armed, hegemonic Brazil (by neutralizing its program) but also preserve for Argentina some influence in the region. Soon after Brazil acquired full- cycle nuclear technologies, Argentine military strategists began calling for a broad settlement. In late 1975 and again in 1976, the influential military strategist and editor of the military journal Estrutkgia, General Juan Guglialmelli, recommended a “global” settlement with Brazil, one that would deal with nuclear energy policy and should also incorporate Chile (Guglialmelli 1976b, 1975).

The earliest official statement on nuclear cooperation was prepared in 1978 by the Foreign Ministry’s policy planning staff. The document urged


close monitoring of Brazil’s nuclear program for the purpose of adopting policies and measures necessary to neutralize or eliminate any real or potential threat to our country. At the same time, to study the possibilities of establishing cooperation rules or accords that could favor Argentina’s nuclear program. (AMRE 1978aI9

An annual planning document from the Foreign Ministry’s Latin Ameri- can bureau urged a strategy of “strengthening the dialogue” with Brazil to create “a climate in bilateral relations that allows [us] to assume common responsibilities in all questions regarding development and security in Latin America.” Argentina’s goal should be to “secure a permanent basis for a political-economic understanding” (AMRE 1978a).

In late 1979, Ambassador Camili6n cabled a detailed report to Buenos Aires on Brazil’s extensive uranium reserves and argued that its nuclear program was far more advanced than previously thought (AMRE 1979). He warned that Brazil’s recent advances “facilitate its access to nuclear equipment and technologies.” Explicit proposals for a convention dealing with nuclear policy surfaced in the Videla government immediately before the signing of the Itaipii agreement. Videla observed that Argentina was willing to “offer its experience in the research and application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” (quoted in Folha de S2o Paul0 1979). Argentina, moreover, favored a limited, mutual confidence-building accord involving a mutual inspection. In the first major step toward a nuclear security regime, Article VII of the 1980 accord mentioned “safeguard procedures for materials and equipment” and stated that when “suitable,” both sides would adopt “corresponding International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards” (AMRE 1980a). Brazil’s main interest in a nuclear accord was access to Argentine technical knowhow, in exchange for sales of Brazilian nuclear equipment. Figueiredo admitted, “Argentine technology is several steps ahead of our own. Brazil, for its part, is well positioned to provide some heavy equipment” (Malheiros 1993, 129).

Since the 1979-80 accords, Argentine-Brazilian cooperation has been marked by several distinctive features. The first is the coupling of security and economic matters. Second, though unsurprising, is that cooperation in the economic area has outpaced that in security affairs. (International relations theory tells us that cooperation is much harder to achieve in security matters.) Another feature is the top-down nature of the process, in which cooperation has been pushed and defended by the executive, usually through presidential summits (Cason 2000).

The first major steps to institutionalize the security and economic cooperation begun in 1979-80 were the 1985 Joint Declaration on Nuclear Policy, followed in 1986 by the Argentine-Brazilian Integration and Cooperation Pact, the economic integration agreement giving rise to MERCOSUK. Under the 1985 Joint Declaration, Brazil and Argentina


renounced nuclear research for military applications (although their clandestine military nuclear programs, especially Brazil’s, continued into the early 1990s, as did Argentina’s intermediate-range missile program). The Joint Declaration established a preliminary inspection regime; a robust security regime, involving bilateral, full-scope inspection, did not fully materialize until after 1990.

Institutionalized cooperation between Argentina and Brazil, with MERCOSUR and a robust nuclear security regime as its core compo- nents, both widened and deepened in the latter half of the 1990s. In 1990 the nuclear security regime was expanded to include the participation of IAEA and the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (OPANAL), the implementing organ of the Tlatelolco Treaty, though both countries still failed to sign the NPT.

Again coupling security and economic cooperation, two major steps were taken in 1791. One was the creation of MERCOSUR; the other, the establishment of the Argentina-Brazil Agency for the Accountability and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), the binational technical organ responsible for mutual inspection, facilities operation, and accounting of nuclear materials. Months later, an agreement was reached with the IAEA for comprehensive inspection and safeguards. It was at this time that the first steps were taken to enlarge the bilateral security regime to include Chile, with a tripartite agreement renouncing chemical and bio- logical weapons. The following year, all three countries signed the Tlatelolco Treaty.

In 1995 Argentina, under pressure from the United States (and the prospects for associate membership in NATO), signed the NPT. In July 1978 Brazil ratified the NPT. By the turn of the new century, the three regional powers had developed numerous security cooperation measures and institutionalized practices, including intermilitary ties, joint exercises, relocation of military bases, and limited arms control. In 1998 the MERCOSUR members declared the area a zone of peace.

TOWARD A LONG PEACE?

Peaceful settlement between Brazil and Argentina in the La Plata River Basin was a byproduct of a fortuitous combination of strategic and military organizational factors. Argentina’s decision was primarily a product of strategic necessity. In a rare show of adept diplomacy during a crisis, Argentina achieved a more durable entendimiento with Brazil. Despite its trademark unpredictability and what the Brazilians saw as erratic emo- tionalism, Argentina acted rationally and with some measure of success. lo

To its credit, Argentina turned necessity into virtue as it sought to protect its long-term position in the Basin and to neutralize Brazil in the South Atlantic disputes. For Brazil, cooperation in the Basin was part of


a two-track political strategy by the moderate military governments to demobilize extremist forces in the state and military. To some extent, Brazil’s decision to embrace a political settlement is less puzzling, considering that the accords basically entailed Argentine surrender in the Basin. That the major concessions were made by Argentina and not Brazil certainly made the agreements more palatable to the Brazilian armed forces and, thus, politically feasible for the moderates. Yet Brazil had equally compelling reasons for a settlement, especially given the political and organizational risks without one.

The more intriguing question is whether there would have been a settlement in the absence of such fortuitous circumstances, or if only one side had compelling reasons to pursue one. It is impossible to determine how and when either side would have responded, or to imagine the shape of such a settlement. For both sides, moreover, the same strategic and organizational factors lingered into the early 1980s, if in muted form. The South Atlantic crises persisted for Argentina; consolidation problems became paramount for both sides, giving them important reasons to sustain and deepen the 1979-80 settlement. Addi- tional factors emerged by the mid-1980s to propel cooperation forward, including Argentina’s military defeat in the 1982 Falklands-Malvinas War and the profound economic crisis of that decade.

There are four salient aspects of the 1979-80 settlement that created a solid foundation for the institutionalized cooperation that followed. First, the settlement was global, in that it covered economic and security issues. Second, it established the first institutionalized procedures and structures of bilateral cooperation, especially in nuclear security. It established the first important mutual confidence-building measures and reciprocity procedures of what eventually became a full-blown security regime in the Southern Cone. Institutionalized security cooperation evolved and deepened gradually, spurred by myriad other factors but built on the 1979-80 foundations.

Third, the accords were framework agreements, designed to allow follow-on agreements on a host of bilateral issues. Although neither side in 1979-80 could have envisioned the kind of institutionalized cooperation of only half a decade later, they deliberately fashioned a comprehensive framework to foster more lasting cooperative relations. Fourth, the settlement introduced the single most distinctive aspect of Brazil-Argentine cooperation: the coupling of economic and security issues. Every major initiative undertaken to institutionalize cooperation in the subsequent years followed the 1979-80 pattern. Though by the early 1990s institutionalized cooperation was skewed toward commercial relations, each major step to deepen it combined security and economic aspects.

What does the Brazilian-Argentine case tell us about the origins of cooperation? It shows that the remarkable structure of Brazil-Argentine


cooperation today has a more remote and fortuitous beginning than commonly realized. To be sure, those fortuitous aspects limit the case’s generalizability, but the strategic and military organizational dynamics driving foreign policy behavior may be found in many other parts of the world and the region.

The case also illustrates the importance of military organizational factors in propelling external cooperation. In contrast to so-called third- image explanations of international cooperation, which give primacy to sources in the international system, such as the malign strategic factors driving Argentine policy, this study also advances a particular kind of second-image explanation. It locates the sources of foreign policy behavior at the military organizational level. Military control problems, along with other institutional dynamics and constraints affecting external behavior, are also to be found in autocratic governments rather than only in democracies, as the democratic peace literature implies.

Pertinent to the larger literature on cooperation, moreover, this study shows that cooperation, and not merely strategic accommodation, is possible between military-authoritarian regimes. It is possible because such regimes also face certain internal dynamics and limitations that often necessitate pacific external behavior. In the case of Brazil, external cooperation became one of the key instruments through which the military government attempted to solve its own “military control problem.” These military organizational imperatives undoubtedly are not uni- versal, but they may be sufficiently pervasive to warrant a more careful, comprehensive inquiry into how much they accounted for patterns of conflict and cooperation in the region.

The military’s historically pervasive presence in Latin American politics, its institutional and political legacies, and its expansive definition of its mission in domestic and foreign affairs, resulted in a tight link between its role expansion and its political power (Stepan 1973). This expansion, however, was accompanied by certain costs to the military organization. The dynamic was pronounced in the region’s most professional military establishments, forcing them to choose between professionalism and political ambitions, and thus likely fostered the pursuit of accommodation and settlement. These organizational dynamics may help to account for the region’s “long peace” and the transformations of the past two decades.

Institutionalized cooperation may have reached a point of durabil- ity and momentum that makes reversal unlikely. This is not to say that Southern Cone economic and security cooperation does not face serious challenges. MERCOSUR has been plagued by heated disagreements, some inherent to such commercial arrangements, others created by Brazil’s disproportionate size and unilateralism. This, combined with Argentina’s own prolonged economic recession and pro-U.S. orientation, have somewhat strained the bilateral relationship. The likelihood


of Argentine and Chilean defection from MERCOSUR is real, as illustrated at the Quebec City Summit of 2002 by the two countries’ tepid support for Brazil’s South American free trade bloc initiative.

With the possibility of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and growing acrimony in bilateral relations, the future of MERCOSUR appears in doubt for the first time. Unlike its European Union counterpart, moreover, as Diamint (1999) points out, MERCOSUR is built on weak institutional, administrative, and political supports. Whether and how MERCOSUR’s dismantling or atrophy may harm security cooperation has yet to be studied.

Security cooperation, moreover, has fallen short of the parallel institutionalization and integration of the economic realm. It is uneven in the region, both across the Parank and with regard to the incorporation of Chile and Chile-Argentine bilateral security relations. The three regional powers have different perspectives and objectives in terms of regional security cooperation and national security policy (Pion-Berlin 2000).

Despite the many challenges facing the region, and Argentine-Brazil- ian relations in particular, a reversal to the militarized competition of the 1970s is unlikely in the Southern Cone. More likely is that the existing structures of security and economic cooperation will simply stagnate, as the countries (except Brazil) gravitate more and more toward U.S.-led hemispherewide arrangements. Such arrangements-namely the FTAA- neither cover nor promote cooperation in security matters but only support shallow commercial exchange on preferential terms. The question that will therefore confront the hemisphere is what structures of security cooperation and mutual confidence will emerge to sustain and deepen the historic transformation in regional affairs over the last two decades.

Archival research was made possible by the generous support of the African-American Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh. Writ- ing was completed with the support and encouragement of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania. Many thanks to Deborah Yashar, Jorge Dominguez, and members of the weekly seminar at the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, for their comments on an earlier draft; to Barry Ames, Juliana Martinez, and Luiz Pedone for their assistance during field research; to Wendy Hunter for her generous time and research sug- gestions; to David Mares and Pablo Dreyfus for thoughtful comments on a panel version of the paper; and to anonymous reviewers of earlier versions for their constructive comments. Special thanks also to Hon. Luiz MacGarrell, FSO, Carmen Rebagliati, Claudio Lafont, and the staff of the Archivo Historico, Min- isterio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Buenos Aires; and the staff at the Bib- lioteca do Congresso, Camara dos Deputados, Brasilia, for their research assistance and generosity.


1. The documents are drawn from the Archivo Historico del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Caja Brasil, hereafter cited as AMRE. Unless otherwise noted, all documents cited are drawn from AMRE and its Caja Brasil collection.

2. Note that professionalism here is defined differently and narrowly, mainly in terms of hierarchic control and discipline, rather than in terms of the political or partisan role and orientation of the military and its officers. Unlike its more common usage in the literature, as defined by Huntington (19571, this definition does not connote a politically sterile military subordinate to civilians. It is used largely because this is how Brazilian officers, moderates in particular, implicitly defined it.

3. Geisel, it should be noted, did not consider Cavalcanti “very radical” (D’Araujo and Castro 1997, 221). Cavalcanti, Figueiredo’s former classmate and supporter of his candidacy, is sometimes identified with the Castellistus rather than with the hardline faction.

4. For an insider account of the DOI/CODI and an apologia for its activities, see Col. Brilhante Ustra (1987). Ustra was commander of the Siio Paulo DOI/CODI, the largest in the nationwide network.

5. The first “war” was over the presidential successor to Castello Branco. On the 1979 succession see also Stumpf and Pereira 1979; Rehder 1990.

6. Geisel’s choice for the Army Ministry died before assuming office and was succeeded by Frota, then chief of staff. While Geisel maintained that Frota’s appointment was based on routine promotions and tradition, Frota’s presence was consistent with the inclusionary pattern of governing since 1964. Frota, moreover, was nominated by Orlando Geisel. Finally, Frota was not originally identified as a hardliner or a major figure in the corps. As commander of the First Army, he had denounced torture and investigated alleged abuses in the command’s security services. For many observers, Frota was “seduced” by hardliners and came to believe in his own importance. See Rehder 1990, 72.

7. For details on the Frota episode and the maneuvering to appoint Figueiredo, see Rehder (1990). On the coup attempt see G6es (1978, 77-85). Although the Third Army (based in Rio Grande do Sul) was also in the hands of a hardliner, the only military unit to attempt a revolt was the famous Fourth Army Division in Minas Gerais, but the attempt was immediately put down (Kucinski 1982, 71).

8. The role of hardliners in the turbine controversy is unclear. The proposal originated with the Mines and Energy Ministry and Itaipfi Binacional and was apparently approved by Geisel.

9. Note, however, that as early as June 1977, Brazilian journalists were reporting that the two sides were engaged in talks on a nuclear accord (Goes 1978, 158-59).

10. Thanks to Jorge I. Dominguez for pointing this out.

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Documents

Origins of Security Cooperation in Southern Cone Santos