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Rev. Bras. Polít. Int., 63(1): e004, 2020 Caterina achievements, and even promised ‘armed help from the Soviet people’ in Cuba’s struggle ‘for its freedom and independence’.

On the same day, Arinos publicly announced Gagarin’s visit. On July 29, the cosmonaut arrived in Brazil. His program, at first, foresaw two days in Rio de Janeiro, two in São Paulo, and a stop in Brasilia.

In Rio, the cosmonaut would be welcomed at the airport by the secretary general of Itamaraty, Ambassador Penna Marinho, and the ambassadors of Poland and Czechoslovakia. He immediately went to the residence of the businessman and federal deputy for the PSD, Drault Ernanny, where he would stay. His mansion, Casa das Pedras, had already become a meeting point for politicians, executives, intellectuals, and celebrities (Brazilian and foreign) (Ernanny 1988). It should be noted that Ernanny had no sympathy for Soviet socialism24. At the first dinner shortly after his arrival, the host toasted in honour of the Soviet, evoking love, science, and vows for peace among the peoples. The next day, Ernanny organized a meeting between Gagarin and Brazilian scientists. Also at the mansion, he would receive warm greetings from about two hundred guests and a feijoada was prepared to honour him. In the following days, his schedule would be hectic.

Gagarin gave a lecture/interview at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, attended by the president of the entity, Artur Moses, and Admiral Otacílio Cunha, president of the National Research Council (CNPq). Also in Rio, he was received at Guanabara Palace by Governor Carlos Lacerda. In a dialogue surrounded by photographers, the governor stated that the cosmonaut was, at that time, the ‘most prestigious and popular’ man in the world and would need to use these attributes to promote ‘peace and freedom’. Gagarin replied that this was exactly the purpose of the visit. Then, however, when Lacerda asked him to reassure the ‘peoples of America and Berlin of the constant (Soviet) threats’, the cosmonaut just smiled.

At the Students National Union (UNE) headquarters, he was photographed holding a Brazilian baby named Yuri Gagarin da Silva, in a meeting organized by the president of the entity, Gagarin in Brazil: reassessing the terms of the Cold War domestic political debate in 1961 8