ABSTRACT
The article is an analytical/interpretive proposal on the motivations of the actors responsible for the Institutional Act 5 (December 1968), which meant a radicalization of the military dictatorship established in 1964 in Brazil. Based on secondary and primary sources, in this case largely unpublished US diplomatic documents, the text intends to revisit the problem of the origins of the AI-5 aiming to construct an analysis dedicated to understand and explain the phenomenon. The main conclusion is that the new authoritarian act intended not only to intensify repression targeting the left-wing forces but, above all, to contain dissidents among the original supporters of the dictatorship.
Keywords:
AI-5; 1968; dictatorship; right-wing