1932

Drafted to the “Força Pública” (Military Police) – In 1932, Juscelino joined the medical corps of the Força Pública de Minas Gerais, today’s military police, together with various other physicians and professors of medicine in Minas Gerais. JK followed an invitation of Gustavo Capanema, who was Secretary of the Interior at the time and as such chief-commander of the police force. This was the first step towards a radical change in the life of the young Juscelino Kubitscheck de Oliveira. When the “Revolução Constitucionalista” (the Constitutionalist Revolution) broke out on July 9, 1932, Juscelino was immediately convoked to the medical corps which served at the “front.”

During the four-month revolution Juscelino exercised his duties as physician with excellence. He worked in the city of Passa Quatro, located in an area called Túnel da Mantiqueira—the border region between São Paulo state and Minas Gerais state, where the conflict between the citizens of the two states was most ardent. At the front, he befriended persons who would, in the near future, exercise highly important political positions. Among these friends was Eurico Gaspar Dutra, colonel at the time, who would become secretary of defence and, later on, President of the republic. JK also got to know Benedito Valadares who had been nominated head of the police in the region of Túnel da Mantiqueira. Later on, Getúlio Vargas would appoint Benedito Valadares as “Interventor” (the federally appointed governor) of Minas Gerais.