It was April 1964, and a new military government had seized power in a coup d’état and removed Furtado from his government post, labeling him a communist. The invitation the journalist delivered was from Yale’s economics department, proposing that Furtado come spend the first year of his exile in New Haven as a visiting professor and scholar at the Economic Growth Center (EGC). Faced with the prospect of arrest for any public activity in Brazil over the next ten years and knowing that many of his former employees had already been detained, Furtado accepted Yale’s offer.
Early life and career in Brazil