Brazil’s Former President Medici Dies

Gen. Emilio Garrastazu Medici, whose term as military president of Brazil was marked by stern repression and spectacular economic growth, died Wednesday. He was 79.

Medici, who led the government from 1969 to 1974, had been ill for several months. The Air Force Hospital, announcing his death, said he died of kidney, lung, heart and brain failure.

Medici controlled Latin America’s largest country at a time when most of South America was under strict right-wing military rule. In Brazil, real and suspected political foes were hounded, the press was censored and political prisoners were tortured.

The Medici period also saw remarkable economic growth that has been called the “Brazilian miracle.” Critics said later that borrowing and uncontrolled spending for huge development schemes such as the Trans-Amazon Highway, now largely abandoned, laid the groundwork for the current foreign debt of more than $100 billion, highest in the Third World.

Medici was born Dec. 4, 1905, to Spanish-Basque and Italian parents in the ranching country of southern Brazil, near Argentina and Uruguay. He entered military school at 13 and followed a lifelong army career, becoming a general in 1961.

Active in 1964 Coup

He was active in the 1964 military coup that overthrew the democratically selected leftist president, Joao Goulart. When President Artur da Costa e Silva died of a stroke in 1969, a military junta chose Medici as head of state.

Medici frequently used dictatorial powers to silence opponents by summarily firing them from civil service and elective posts. His regime sent thousands of Brazilians into exile.

Medici turned over the presidency in 1974 to another general, Ernesto Geisel, going along with a system in which the armed forces remained in control of Brazil. The military relinquished power to civilians in March of this year.

Medici is survived by his widow, Scylla Nogueira Medici, whom he married in 1931, two sons and several grandchildren.