The American "Amigo": Nelson Rockefeller and Brazil

Heir to one of the world’s largest fortunes, member of the U.S. American Republican party’s liberal wing, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller served as Governor to the state of New York for four consecutive terms, as Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford after Richard Nixon’s resignation, all while remaining eternally desirous of the Yankee Republic’s foremost position. Yet what remains in this flavorful profile is his biography’s least-known facet: as propulsor of capitalism in Brazil. Rockefeller got closer to the country during his time as chair of the U.S. office for Inter-American Affairs, a government organ which strove to distance the Vargas Administration from Nazism and Fascism and to guarantee that Brazil would remain under the aegis of the U.S. American influence. With tenacity, “good intentions,” and having been imbued with the ideologies of his nation and class, the politician manifested genuine interest in Brazil, and involved himself in the most varied of activities, from rubber cultivation to São Paulo’s urban planning, always attempting to import efficiency and the American Way of Life as an antidote preventing the expansion of communism.THE AMERICAN “AMIGO” is another book by Antonio Pedro Tota, author of O Imperialismo Sedutor (The Seduction of Brazil) and O Amigo Americano. Read more