The alliance for the development of Rio Grande do Norte: between North American dollars and the Goulart government collaboration (1962-1964)

Abstract

The article discusses how Aluízio Alves’s government program (1961-1965) was implemented in the State of Rio Grande do Norte with the collaboration of the United States of America and national government agencies, aiming to combat the afflictions of underdevelopment and consolidate the political hegemony of this administrator. As a strategy, Alves sought to establish the image of a conservative, reformist, and anti-communist politician, which garnered him substantial financial backing. This process involved the convergence of interests of a conservative alliance, aiming to control political power in Brazil’s Northeast region in the period preceding the civil-military coup of 1964. From this perspective, the local political culture and power relations that kept the processes of remembering and forgetting collective memory under tension are highlighted. The remembrance of these events is expected to help identify shadow zones, silences, and unspoken aspects that make invisible the Potiguar protagonism of the first half of the 1960s.