The meeting at the Automóvel Clube was a solemnity of sergeants of the Military Police and Armed Forces of Brazil, on March 30, 1964, in Rio de Janeiro, at which President João Goulart gave a speech.

The mild reaction to the Sailors' Revolt discredited the government among military officers, and the ongoing conspiracies were about to materialize into a coup d'état.

[1][2] On the 28th the leaders of the conspirators in Minas Gerais met for their final preparations,[3] while General Castelo Branco's group defined on the 29th that the overthrow of the president would be on April 2.

[9] However, Goulart felt supported by the military apparatus of General Assis Brasil [pt],[6] did not want to show weakness[11] and "believed that, whether he attended or not, his attitude would not change the course of events.

[15] The presence of the military police was relevant due to the fact that their corporation was the armed wing of the opposition governor Carlos Lacerda.

He spoke "tense, with dark circles under his eyes," with "a worried, tired, embarrassed physiognomy," speaking with indecision, lacking "the precision and seductive tone quite well known.

[24] While justifying his response to the Sailors' Revolt, he declared himself a defender of the cohesion of the Armed Forces,[21] responding to criticisms such as those enunciated by Castelo Branco.

He called the coup plotters true violators of discipline and hierarchy,[27] recalling that some of them, in 1961, had arrested sergeants and officers (such as Marshall Henrique Teixeira Lott) who defended legality.

[a][28] Defined discipline as being based on mutual respect[9] and, insisting that the sergeants obey the legal hierarchy, alluded to a bond with him, and not with the officers, in case they practiced "sectarianism" or opposed the "feelings of the Brazilian people".

[16] A good part of the authors consider the speech as a radicalization and even as a political suicide,[29] as Thomas Skidmore, for whom the tone was one of a "belligerent farewell prayer" in which he "refused to shirk responsibility for the attacks on military discipline.

[29] The Ultima Hora hit the stands the next day with optimistic assessments, although its founder Samuel Wainer wrote in his memoirs that he was opposed to the president's appearance.

[16] Luís Carlos Prestes, general secretary of the Communist Party, evaluated eighteen years later that the event was "an inversion of the entire hierarchy and facilitated the coup".

[34] The conspirators, in turn, liked the speech for pushing the other officers against the president, as was the opinion of Ernesto Geisel, who attended it together with Golbery do Couto e Silva and Castelo Branco.

[37] The sergeants' support did not materialize during the coup, and their hierarchical obedience in the Army was maintained, with the rapid collapse of the government's military situation.