Emílio Garrastazu Médici
✓ Source-basedstableBrazilian politician (1905-1985), president of Brazil (1969-1974)
Brazil's 28th president presided over what came to be called the "Years of Lead" - the apex of the military dictatorship, when economic growth ran alongside systematic torture, assassination, and the silencing of all dissent.
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Photos 2
Awards 11
In their orbit 1
Connected to Emílio 6
Felipe VI of SpainAlso won Grand Collar of the Military Order of the Tower and Sword
Hassan II of MoroccoAlso won Military Order of the Tower and Sword
Fernando Collor de MelloAlso won Order of Aeronautical Merit
José SarneyAlso won Order of Rio Branco
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and GothaAlso won Order of the Southern Cross
Rafael TrujilloAlso won Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern CrossAbout this person
Emílio Garrastazu Médici, a military leader, took power in 1969 and ruled Brazil until 1974. His presidency delivered what was marketed as an "Economic Miracle" - GDP growth averaging over 11% per year, the Trans-Amazonian Highway, the Rio-Niterói Bridge, and a treaty with Paraguay to build what remains the world's most productive hydroelectric plant at Itaipu. The boom was real but narrow: external debt tripled from $3.9 billion to over $12.5 billion, income inequality widened, and the growth rested on foreign capital and state projects funded through international credit. While infrastructure rose, the dictatorship reached its cruelest form. Repression intensified, censorship tightened, and violent suppression became systematic - torture and assassination standard tools against anyone who challenged the regime. Two Brazilian universities that had given him honorary doctorates in the 1970s revoked them decades later, in 2015 and 2024, a late reckoning with what his rule had cost.
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