Saturday, April 28, 2007
To break resistances was a mark of the life of Marshall Casimiro Montenegro. In 1930, militant of the Tenentismo (Brazilian rebel movement), Montenegro took a air fighter in the Campos dos Afonsos airbase, in Rio de Janeiro, and flied to Minas Gerais where it bombed headquarters in Belo Horizonte and Juiz de Fora still loyals to president Washington Luiz.
But to build in Brazil an institution inspired in the MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology, of the United States) would go to cost the Montenegro innumerable other battles. The difficulties were perfectly understandable: at a time where we still imported bycicles and sanitary vases, Montenegro defended that Brazil should be converted into a world-wide aeronautical power - prophecy that he would live to see materialized in the Embraer, a company been born of a rib of the Aeronautical Institute of Technology - ITA1 founded by him.
Between the creation of ITA, in 1945, and the military coup of 1964, the Montenegro life transform itself in a succetion of battles and alliances with brigadier generals, marshals, ministers, entrepreneurs, bankers and even with presidents of the Republic.
The military held power from 1964 until March 1985 not by design but because of political struggles within the new regime. Just as the regime changes of 1889, 1930, and 1945 unleashed competing political forces and caused splits in the military, so too did the regime change of 1964. Because no civilian politician was acceptable to all the revolutionary factions, the army chief of staff, Marshall Humberto Castelo Branco (president, 1964-67), became president with the intention of overseeing a reform of the political-economic system.
Exactly the stubbornness of that Montenegro had determined to construct its dream to any cost only allowed that ITA arrived at XXI century as one of the most respected world-wide centers of technological knowledge production. The divergence of opinion regarding the paper of ITA, however, would produce what decades of conspiracies had not obtained: to bury the relation between Montenegro and one of his best friends Eduardo Gomes. For Montenegro, the Institute would have to be a granary of brains for the society, as a whole. Eduardo Gomes disagreed and defended that the ITA if converted into a center technician of support and maintenance of the Brazilian Air Force - FAB. Eduardo Gomes was stronger, with good relations with the situation government, but Montenegro gained. The ITA was successful. Marshall Montenegro died in 2000, in Petrópolis (Rio de Janeiro) - the city of Alberto Santos Dumont, and although not to have died in combat nor to have been minister, he had a burial with military honors. Its coffin - buried to the side of Eduardo Gomes one - was lead by six ITA students - three military and three civilians. It would have been its last message: civilians and military, side by side.
The author Fernando Morais gets better every time one more of his books hits the shelves. Not only does he put a face to a name (as he did many times before as with Olga and Assis Chatobriand) but in the process he is a masterful storyteller bringing light and truth to otherwise "officialized" history.
1Established as the first Institute of the Aerospace Technical Center (CTA), ITA is considered to be the berth to the modern Brazilian aerospace industry. Located in São José dos Campos, in the State of São Paulo, the CTA campus composes four institutes and spreads over a large area including teaching and R&D laboratories as well as a complete residential facilities for students, professors, researchers, and other professionals.
But to build in Brazil an institution inspired in the MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology, of the United States) would go to cost the Montenegro innumerable other battles. The difficulties were perfectly understandable: at a time where we still imported bycicles and sanitary vases, Montenegro defended that Brazil should be converted into a world-wide aeronautical power - prophecy that he would live to see materialized in the Embraer, a company been born of a rib of the Aeronautical Institute of Technology - ITA1 founded by him.
Between the creation of ITA, in 1945, and the military coup of 1964, the Montenegro life transform itself in a succetion of battles and alliances with brigadier generals, marshals, ministers, entrepreneurs, bankers and even with presidents of the Republic.
The military held power from 1964 until March 1985 not by design but because of political struggles within the new regime. Just as the regime changes of 1889, 1930, and 1945 unleashed competing political forces and caused splits in the military, so too did the regime change of 1964. Because no civilian politician was acceptable to all the revolutionary factions, the army chief of staff, Marshall Humberto Castelo Branco (president, 1964-67), became president with the intention of overseeing a reform of the political-economic system.
Exactly the stubbornness of that Montenegro had determined to construct its dream to any cost only allowed that ITA arrived at XXI century as one of the most respected world-wide centers of technological knowledge production. The divergence of opinion regarding the paper of ITA, however, would produce what decades of conspiracies had not obtained: to bury the relation between Montenegro and one of his best friends Eduardo Gomes. For Montenegro, the Institute would have to be a granary of brains for the society, as a whole. Eduardo Gomes disagreed and defended that the ITA if converted into a center technician of support and maintenance of the Brazilian Air Force - FAB. Eduardo Gomes was stronger, with good relations with the situation government, but Montenegro gained. The ITA was successful. Marshall Montenegro died in 2000, in Petrópolis (Rio de Janeiro) - the city of Alberto Santos Dumont, and although not to have died in combat nor to have been minister, he had a burial with military honors. Its coffin - buried to the side of Eduardo Gomes one - was lead by six ITA students - three military and three civilians. It would have been its last message: civilians and military, side by side.
The author Fernando Morais gets better every time one more of his books hits the shelves. Not only does he put a face to a name (as he did many times before as with Olga and Assis Chatobriand) but in the process he is a masterful storyteller bringing light and truth to otherwise "officialized" history.
1Established as the first Institute of the Aerospace Technical Center (CTA), ITA is considered to be the berth to the modern Brazilian aerospace industry. Located in São José dos Campos, in the State of São Paulo, the CTA campus composes four institutes and spreads over a large area including teaching and R&D laboratories as well as a complete residential facilities for students, professors, researchers, and other professionals.
