Ernani do Amaral Peixoto

Ernani do Amaral Peixoto brought a long political career to the Washington embassy. A naval officer who supported the 1930 revolution, he became a close associate and son-in-law of Getúlio Vargas, governed the state of Rio de Janeiro, and helped lead the Social Democratic Party. President Juscelino Kubitschek appointed him ambassador in 1956; he combined diplomatic work with interventions in the party coalition supporting the government. ¹

Brazil’s development program, coffee exports, and shortage of dollars dominated his embassy work. At a State Department meeting in March 1958, Peixoto and minister-counselor Henrique Rodrigues Valle presented an urgent request for a $50 million bridging loan. Peixoto argued that following advice from the International Monetary Fund was politically easier for Brazil than accepting instructions directly from Washington. American officials nevertheless insisted that assistance should address the underlying economic imbalance. ²

Peixoto also explored renewed commercial relations with the Soviet Union as a market for Brazilian coffee and helped advance Kubitschek’s Operation Pan-America, a proposal for regional development cooperation. He left Washington in 1959 and became minister of transport and public works, overseeing road, railway, and shipbuilding programs. His political and administrative papers, together with extensive oral history interviews, entered the CPDOC archive. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1989. ¹