Widespread fifth column activities in Brazil and more pronounced Nazi tendencies on the part of the Vargas regime, resulting from German military triumphs in Europe, were reported in a Buenos Aires dispatch to the New York Times today by Russell B. Porter, who filed his story from the Argentine capital because of the strict censorship on fifth column news in Brazil.
Reporting that the fifth column has had “astonishing success in high places,” Porter revealed that it has “stretched tentacles into the Govermnent itself, the army and navy commands, military and civil aviation, business and finance, press, radio and movies, and everywhere an organization trained in handling European Quislings can find openings.”
Porter disclosed also that among methods being used by the fifth column was terror, administered by the Auslands Gestapo, in the form of beatings and threats against relatives in Germany to force anti-Nazi Brazilian Germans, including in some cases Jewish refugees, into fifth column activities.
The correspondent reported that Integraliatas (Brazilian Fascists) jailed in 1938 were returning to the Government and military jobs formerly held. “Although there are no killings, concentration camps, religious or racial persecutions or severe regimentation of the people,” Porter said, “there is no Congress and there is no control of the press, business and labor, which is becoming more strict all the time.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
