So apt, actually, as to make the whole of contemporary political specter to fear his bid at preeminence: in the words of a contemporary journalist, "Brizola was willing to pay any price to retain the ball" (ser o dono da bola). Brizola's posturing and rhetoric seemed to justify the classification developed by Goulart's Foreign Minister and leader of the moderate left, San Tiago Dantas: Brizola was a paragon of a "negative left" which, in its uncompromising, ideological defense of social reform, forsook any compromise with democratic institutions. Dantas' aversion to Brizola was reciprocated: Dantas and Goulart's War Minister General Amaury Kruel and Commerce Minister Antônio Balbino formed an "anti-reformist tripod" of "traitors to the national interests". Dantas, who negotiated the 1963 U.S.-Brazil financial agreement, had been received in Washington "more like a head of state than a minister of finance", and expected to be greeted at his homecoming "with appreciation if not fanfare"; a hope Brizola quickly dashed with "venomous attacks". Notwithstanding his alleged radicalism, Brizola was not an ideologue or doctrinaire. Generally, he stood for an extreme Left Nationalism; land reform, extension of the franchise for illiterates and NCOs; and for tight controls over foreign investment that caused the American ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon, to dislike Brizola and compare his propaganda techniques with those of Joseph Goebbels; a mood mirrored by most of contemporary American media. Many contemporary American intellectuals also disliked Brizola; John dos Passos said Brizola tried to "starve" Rio de Janeiro by retaining rice consignments from Rio Grande do Sul during his governorship. In late 1963, after the failure of a conservative plan of economic adjustment (Plano Trienal) devised by the Ministry of Planning Celso Furtado, Brizola involved himself in a bid for power by toppling Goulart's economically conservative Minister of Finance Carvalho Pinto to take the post himself. Brizola wanted to foster his radical agenda, saying, "if we want to make a revolution, we must have the key to the safe". Brizola's bid for the Ministry failed; the post was given to an unpolitical Banco do Brasil CEO. This helped radicalize contemporaneous Brazilian political life; the country's most politically conservative newspaper O Globo said it was as though "the task of putting down the fire fell to the chief arsonist". During late 1963 and early 1964, a division between Brizola and his brother-in-law opened; Brizola became convinced that Goulart intended to stage a coup