O indivíduo enquanto elemento-chave: a operação pan-americana de Kubitschek e o exercício da diplomacia presidencial

Abstract

The foreign policy of the Juscelino Kubitschek (JK) administration, when the President himself launched Operation Pan America (OPA), breaks the foreign policy logic of alignment when it comes to the bilateral relationship between Brazil and the United States in force since Barão de Rio Branco’s administration. The diplomatic process, usually carried out through the bureaucratic body of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started to be carried out directly by Kubitschek in this case, and therefore it is understood that the Operation is a model for the exercise of JK's presidential diplomacy. In this sense, this paper seeks to map the conditions that led to the president's decision to send a letter to Eisenhower initiating the Operation in 1958. Thereby, this research uses primary sources of information, from Juscelino's speeches to the Memoirs of Roberto Campos, the government's economic advisor, in order to verify the hypothesis of this work: if not by Kubitschek's individual characteristics – not only as a statesman , but as an individual –, Operation Pan America would not have happened.