Brazil Opposes State Dept. Official as New U.S. Envoy

The possibility that Richard Melton, a State Department official with a conservative reputation, may be named ambassador to Brazil is raising waves of resistance in Latin America’s largest country.

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry is making it clear that it would prefer someone other than Melton to succeed Ambassador Harry W. Shlaudeman, who recently finished his assignment in Brazil. A report in the national newspaper Gazeta Mercantil said the ministry is resisting Melton’s appointment because of his “turbulent professional background.”

The issue has been headline news this week in Brazilian newspapers, and it adds a note of friction to U.S.-Brazilian relations, which currently are troubled by trade disputes.

Unprecedented Step

“Melton Case Could Provoke a Crisis in Relations With Washington,” said a headline in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo. If the government accepts Melton, it will face “the onus of domestic criticism,” but to reject him would be an unprecedented step, the newspaper commented.

Ricardo Zarattini, a congressional aide who belongs to the Brazilian Communist Party, accused Melton this week of interrogating him in 1968 when he was being held by political police and Melton was a U.S. consular officer in the northeastern city of Recife. Melton, now in Washington, has said he recalls no such incident.

Last year, as ambassador to Nicaragua, Melton was expelled by the Sandinista government, which accused him of conspiring with oppositionists. Nicaraguan authorities said they had uncovered an alleged “Plan Melton” to destabilize the leftist government.

Consent Requested

Currently, Melton is deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America. Brazil’s civilian government has been critical of U.S. policy in Central America, insisting on the principle of nonintervention.

Stanley Zuckerman, public affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, did not deny Brazilian press reports that the United States had requested Brazil’s prior consent, or agrement , for Melton’s nomination. But Zuckerman said: “We don’t have any comment on the question of whether he is the ambassador-designate. That is never discussed pending agrement .”

He did say that Melton has denied ever having heard the name of congressional aide Zarattini, and that Melton does not recall any involvement in the interrogation of a Brazilian political prisoner.

In a letter to the Brazilian foreign minister, Zarattini said the police allowed Melton to interrogate him two weeks after Zarattini’s arrest in December, 1968, by the military government then in power.

According to the letter, Melton asked Zarattini why he was against the United States, and he replied: “I said I was against the exploitation of imperialist monopolies (multinationals) given cover by the government of the U.S.A.”

“I hope the Brazilian government does not abdicate its sovereignty and does not grant agrement to that pseudo-ambassador, a member of the intelligence service of the U.S.A.,” Zarrattini said in the letter.

Zarattini, a longtime member of the Communist Party, is administrative assistant to Congressman Moema San Thiago, a Social Democrat.