Lott, Henrique Batista Duffles Teixeira (1894–1984)

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Lott, Henrique Batista Duffles Teixeira (1894–1984)

Henrique Batista Duffles Teixeira Lott (b. 16 November 1894; d. 19 May 1984), Brazilian minister of war (1954–1960), politician, and presidential candidate (1959). A native of Sítio, in Minas Gerais, Lott attended the military school of Realengo in Rio de Janeiro. Upon graduation he enlisted in the army in 1911 and was commissioned five years later.

A dedicated professional, Lott remained loyal to the government during the military upheavals of the 1920s and on through the Revolution of 1930, the São Paulo constitutional revolt of 1932, the Communist uprising of 1935, and the 1938 Fascist putsch.

Lott studied abroad at the Superior War College in Paris and at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. These courses further enhanced his well-deserved reputation as an instructor at the general staff school and other Brazilian military academies, where he became known for strong opinions and stern discipline. Posted to Italy with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) during World War II, he was denied command, thus widening the split with the so-called Sorbonne Group of military reformers. Promoted to general at the age of fifty, he commanded the Second Military Region in São Paulo.

The suicide of President Getúlio Vargas in 1954 brought Lott into politics with his appointment by acting president João Café Filho, who named him minister of war because of his reputation for being apolitical. Café Filho's resignation in November 1955, ostensibly for health reasons, brought in Carlos Luz, president of the chamber of deputies, as chief executive. Allied with the Sorbonne Group, he soon resigned when Lott pronounced in favor of Nereu Ramos, the senate's president.

This institutional crisis coincided with the disputed presidential election of Brazilian Labor Party candidate Juscelino Kubitschek. Lott favored Kubitschek's inauguration as the legitimate candidate, thus easing unrest and ensuring his own reappointment as war minister. He held this post until February 1960, although heretired, with the rank of marshal, in 1959 to run for president on the Labor Party ticket. Defeated by reformist Jânio Quadros, Lott never the less remained a powerful figure, opposing both the military interventions against Vice President João Goulart in 1961 and his ousting as acting president in April 1964. Lott's 1965 attempt to present himself as a candidate for the governorship of the state of Guanabara was vetoed by the revolutionary military regime.

See alsoKubitschek de Oliveira, Juscelino; Vargas, Getúlio Dornelles.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil (1980).

John W. F. Dulles, Unrest in Brazil: Political-Military Crises, 1955–1964 (1970).

Robert Ames Hayes, The Armed Nation: The Brazilian Corporate Mystique (1989).

Irving L. Horowitz, Revolution in Brazil (1964).

Alfred C. Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (1971).

Additional Bibliography

William, Wagner. O soldado absoluto: Uma biografia do marechal Henrique Lott. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2005.

                                         Lewis A. Tambs