Eduardo Gomes

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Eduardo Gomes (1896-1981) was a Brazilian politician and military figure. He was born in Petrópolis.

He joined the army when he started his course at the Realengo Military School. He finished this course in 1918 and, on December of the same year, he was transferred to Curitiba. In 1921, he started his course on the Military Aviation School, in Rio de Janeiro. On the same year, the presidential campaign divided the oligarchies and part of the officers planned a stroke to stop the official candidate, Artur da Silva Bernardes, if he was elected. However, the imprisonment of the ex-president Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca and the locking of the Military Club were the start a rebellion, on July 5, 1922. The rebels gave up and only 28 resisted inside the Copacabana Fortress. Gomes proposed that the rebels should leave the fortress and face the government troops. They left, armed, and the moment is still known as the 18 of the Copacabana Fortress.

Gomes was arrested and, in 1923, he left the prison. At the end of 1924, Gomes joined the rebellion in the South of Brazil, leaded by Luís Carlos Prestes. But, in Santa Catarina, he was arrested and transferred to Rio de Janeiro. He has been transferred from one prison to another, until he was sent to the Trindade island.

When Washington Luís became president of Brazil, in 1926, all the prisoners from Trindade island were released. In June of the next year, Gomes was under possibility of another arrest, and he escaped to Campos, in Rio de Janeiro. Two years later, he presented to the authorities and was arrested for two years.

In 1930, Gomes was free and, again, was involved on revolutionary activities. This time, the idea was to prevent that the candidate to presidence, Júlio Prestes, to take his place. With the victory of the rebels, the displacement of president Washington Luís and his replacement by Getúlio Vargas, Gomes took a place at the Ministry of War, and completed his pilot instructions.

Gomes was also in the group that created the Military Air Post (CAM - Correio Aéreo Militar), in 1931.

In 1945, Gomes was candidate to president of Brazil, but he lost to Eurico Gaspar Dutra. In 1949, he tried again, but lost to Getúlio Vargas.

In 1954 he was the minister of aeronautics in the administration of João Café Filho. He was part of a coup d'etat in 1964 that overthrew João Goulart. On Feb 1965, still as minister, he signed a controversial decree that shut down Panair do Brasil, the country's flag carrier. He remained in the Aeronautics until the end of the government of Humberto Castelo Branco, when he left the public life. Gomes died on June 13, 1981.

The airport in Manaus is named after Gomes.