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PREFACE AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have to start with a confession: I lost my heart to Brazil at the age of nearly twenty-five, in 1965, when I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to spend six months in Brazil, theoretically linked to the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro but in reality free to work as an independent journalist. The scholarship was awarded by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the Itamaraty, and was handled on behalf of the Brazilian Embassy in London by the British Council. At the time, I was a staff reporter for The Guardian, which generously gave me a leave of absence.

The period was exciting for a young journalist interested in politics. The military government that had overthrown President Goulart had not quite congealed into the brutal regime it became later, and there was still active civilian opposition and a relatively free press. Over the following decade I made further visits, collecting material for three books. Then, in the early 1980s, my own career took a different turn. I left journalism and immersed myself in the affairs of the Commonwealth of Nations, undertaking a series of different activities.

It was only in 2005, when I was due to retire from the last of these, the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit at London University, that I was free to return to a Brazilian topic. The extraordinary and controversial life of Lula, the president of Brazil since the beginning of 2003, beckoned as a subject for a life-and-times biography.

What follows, therefore, is an attempt to provide a readable account of the current Brazilian president, set against the recent history of his country. The questions asked here relate not only to the unprecedented arrival in the presidency of an industrial worker who grew up poor, with many disadvantages, but also to the democratization of Brazil after the military was forced out; a new kind of leftist party built on a renewed union movement; the difficulties of progressive politics in an era of globalization and the free movement of capital; corrupt aspects of the Brazilian political system; and the ambition of Lula and many others that Brazil should become a major world power in the twenty-first century.

This aims to be an accessible political biography, eschewing psychological profiling or minutiae about what the president likes for breakfast. It assumes that many English-speaking readers will start with only a vague knowledge of modern Brazil or its politics. Translations from Portuguese are mine. I have depended heavily on books, articles, and those I have interviewed, particularly for the period in which my own knowledge of Brazil was secondhand and remote. Mistakes are all my own.

Nonetheless, in seeking to provide a balanced view of the Lula presidency up to the point of his reelection in October 2006, I hope that his own vital personality shines through, as well as my own affection and concern for his country.

I owe many people my thanks for their help, starting with my wife, Juliet, who has been enormously patient as I have researched this book, and Naomi Schneider, my editor at the University of California Press. The Leverhulme Trust generously funded my research in Brazil, under its scheme for Emeritus Fellows. I would also like to thank Dr. Sue Cunningham, who kindly read a draft, and was one of those who encouraged me to persevere when I was having difficulty in persuading publishers.

I would also like to remember with affection those who helped me in Brazil when I first arrived in 1965, most of whom are no longer with us: Jane Braga, who was with Reuters; Henry Hogg, who was a local correspondent for the Daily Express (and recorded the view then of the Duke of Edinburgh that “the Express is a bloody awful newspaper”); Michael Field of the Daily Telegraph; Roman Skowronski, son of the Polish Ambassador to Brazil in 1939; Dora Basilio, artist; and Carlos Widmann, then with Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Others I should like to thank by name include:

In northeast Brazil: Edson Barreto, who drove me around and helped with interviews; Eraldo Ferreira, secretary-general of the Garanhuns executive of the PT; Gilberto Ferreira in Caetés; Beti of Radio Sete Colinas, Garanhuns, and Aldo of Radio Marana, Garanhuns; Luciano Godoy and Vali Vicente, guides to the site of Lula's birthplace; Alamir Cardoso, president of the Partido Comunista do Brasil, Pernambuco; and Moacir Paulino Silveira, José Inácio Barbosa, and Augusto dos Santos Semente, all members of the Pernambuco state committee of the PCdoB.

In São Paulo: Maria Laura Canineu, invaluable research assistant; Denise Paraná, author of the comprehensive biography Lula, o filho do Brasil; “Gijo”—Juno Rodrigues Silva, São Bernardo restaurateur and former union activist; Denise Brito, journalist, invaluable for picture research; Epaminondas Neto Filho, journalist; Marco Moretto, director for Paranapiacaba in Santo André; André Skowronski; Flamarion Maues, editorial coordinator, Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo; Ana Stuart, coordinator for international relations, PT; Ana Luiza Leao, advocate; Heather Sutton, Sou de Paz; and Expedito Soares Batista of the Sindicato dos Metalurgicos, ABCD.

In Brasilia: Renato Janine Ribeiro, CAPES; Marco Aurélio de Garcia, special adviser on external affairs to the presidency, and subsequently president, PT; Senator Aloizio Mercadante; Senator Marco Maciel, former vice president; José Graziano da Silva; Oswaldo Bargas; Deputy Vicentinho (Vicente Paulo da Silva); Celsius Lodder; Denise Neddermayor; Hamilton Pereira, president, Fundaçao Perseu Abramo; Dr. Peter Collecott; United Kingdom ambassador; Winston Moore, ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago; Professor João Paulo Peixoto; David Cordingley, Brazil director, British Council; Minister Paulo Roberto de Almeida, Nucleo de Assuntos Estrategicos; Bernardo Kucinski, journalist; Kennedy Alencar, journalist; and Vicente y Pla Trevas, deputy minister of federative affairs.

In Rio de Janeiro: Nelson Franco Jobim, journalist; Carlos Magno, journalist; Minister Gilberto Gil, minister of culture; João Moreira Salles, filmmaker; Silvia Skowronski; and Tom Phillips, journalist.

In the United Kingdom: Sue Branford, journalist; Sue Cunningham, economic commentator on Brazil; Fernando de Mello Barreto, then Brazilian consul-general, now ambassador to Australia; Graça Fish; Edna Crepaldi, chief executive of Brazilian Contemporary Arts; Carlos Feres, who assisted me in researching foreign policy; Jan Rocha; Fiona Macauley; Professor Leslie Bethell, director, Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies; Professor Andrew Williams, St. Andrews University; and Ian Cooke.