Mário de Pimentel Brandão

Mário de Pimentel Brandão trained in law and entered Itamaraty in 1912. After service with President Hermes da Fonseca, he held posts in Paraguay, Belgium, France, and Turkey. He became secretary of the Foreign Ministry in 1934 and foreign minister in the later 1930s. He favored closer relations with the United States, supported Vargas’s 1937 Estado Novo coup, and signed agreements with Bolivia for a railway connection and petroleum development. ¹

Brandão exchanged posts with Oswaldo Aranha in 1938, becoming ambassador in Washington while Aranha took charge of Itamaraty. In June he met Sumner Welles to discuss delayed foreign exchange payments for American imports, Brazil’s trade arrangements with Germany, suspended debt service, and the treatment of American oil interests. The discussion also covered Chaco mediation, military training, cultural exchanges, and refugees from Germany. ^{1, 2}

His Washington assignment ended after a dispute with journalist Drew Pearson. Subsequent appointments took him to wartime Belgium, Spain, and the Soviet Union, where he represented Brazil after relations were established in 1945 and until the 1947 rupture. He later served in West Germany and again as Itamaraty’s secretary-general. His final work included the Brazil–Germany commission supporting industrial investment. He died in 1956. ¹