Literature in history traces the US efforts to bring Latin American countries to the Allies' side in the context of the WWII. After a time of hesitation and negotiation with the US and Germany, the Brazilian government aligned itself with the US. Virtually unknown is involvement of scientists in these diplomatic arrangements. Recently unearthed material has shown that Arthur Compton's 1941 trip to a scientific conference on cosmic rays in Brazil was connected with the efforts led by the Office for Inter-American Affairs under Nelson Rockefeller. For Brazilian physicists, who had excelled in this area of research under the leadership of Gleb Wataghin in the late 1930s, science was a strong motivation for the visit, however, also for Brazilians it was not devoid of political connotation and professional interests.
history of science in Brazil; Nelson Rockefeller; Arthur Compton