Elio Gaspari

08/14/2014 - 15h15

Elio Gaspari was recently recognized by the 9th international congress of the Associacao Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (ABRAJI) in Sao Paulo for his journalism, his four magnificent updated volumes on the history of the Brazilian military regime, and for his "arquivo de ditadura," an online collection of recordings, diaries, and documents, on which he based his work.

A fifth volume is promised covering the final years of the dictatorship through 1984. ABRAJI produced a marvellous video "em homenagem" for the occasion. Founded in 2002 ABRAJI demonstrates how vital Brazilian investigative journalists are to the accountability of Brazilian democracy.

I first met Elio Gaspari in 1966 at a cocktail party given by Christian and Pauline Adams at their apartment overlooking Flamengo Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Christian Adams was a young British diplomat who had recently graduated at Oxford University.

He was a delightful friend and interested in all things Brazilian. He later died far too soon while serving as the British Ambassador in Thailand. Elio was then 22 and working for the social columnist Ibrahim Sued. I was 25.

He asked me what I was doing in Rio. I was researching the history of Brazil in the late 18th century I said. What did I think of the responses Tomas Antonio Gonzaga's gave to his interrogators after his imprisonment as a Minas conspirator in 1789 he asked. I had not read the "Autos da Devassa."

Elio's question shocked me. I went to Minas Gerais. Five years later, after research in archives in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom, and after carefully reading the "Autos da Devassa" I was better prepared to answer Elio's query.

Elio has always been a historian manqué. We nominated him to be a Visiting Professor at Columbia University. A political scientist on the selection committee complained that he was ineligible because he had not graduated from University.

I explained why. Elio, who was reading history, was expelled from the National Faculty of Philosophy (FNF/RJ) by the director Eremildo Luiz Vianna. Eremildo has been (as a fictional personality of course) a prominent character in Elio's columns ever since. This is not a compliment. Elio has a Neapolitan memory for injustices.