March 28, 1964
Álvaro Camara de Pádua
During the afternoon, at an extraordinary meeting that stretched into the night, around a thousand Navy officers gathered in the Clube Naval auditorium to mark a "solid and vigorous reaction [...] to the attitude of the President of the Republic". Just over 24 hours earlier, João Goulart had replaced the Minister of the Navy, Sílvio Mota, and pardoned the sailors who had mutinied at the headquarters of the Metalworkers' Union, events that sparked the revolt among naval officers.
The product of the heated meeting was a manifesto, which claimed a shock to the foundations of the Navy as a military institution. They stated that "an act of indiscipline, carried out by a group of military personnel, was covered up by the constituted authority, destroying the principle of hierarchy, fundamental in any organization, especially military ones."
In the manifesto, the officers declared that, unlike what the “disruptive agents” claimed, the Navy was not divided into classes or castes, but rather worked to “fulfill its mission as a whole, with its personnel distributed across posts and ranks, [...] grounded in hierarchy”. Furthermore, they argued that the Navy was responsible for recruiting men from Brazil's underdeveloped regions and turning them into skilled technicians, “useful not only to it [the Navy] but to themselves and to the Country”.
They warned that the blow suffered by the Navy represented a threat to the country's institutions, and that it should serve as a warning to the nation to defend itself, as long as these institutions were still “standing” and citizens were worthy of freedom and of the homeland. In the end, the officers reaffirmed that they would remain united and willing to resist, by every means within the reach of force, any attempts at “communization of the country.” The message of insubordination toward the government of João Goulart could not have been more explicit.
Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a large group of people gathered in a hall. At the front, several people are seated, while behind them a large number of people are standing. Some are speaking, while others are listening. In the background, a large window and some decorative items can be seen.Clube Naval lança Manifesto à Nação.
Rio de Janeiro, 29 de março de 1964. Gilberto. Correio da Manhã/Arquivo Nacional