[11] In the same year he tried to volunteer for the Royal Air Force to fight against Germany during WWII, but it was not possible because Brazil had not yet entered the war at that time.
[20][21] In this period, already during World War II, he participated in the creation of the Aeronautics Club, a place where officers would hold political discussions, leisure, and culture.
[26] In the 1940s he was part of a committee that sought to inspire Getúlio Vargas to run for president in 1950 and to establish Petrobras,[27] a company whose creation he had been defending for some years as a member of the nationalist side of the Armed Forces.
[43] In May of the same year he was one of the union leaders that addressed a letter to the Ministry of Aeronautics in defense of airline safety, after thirteen accidents occurred in a 20-day period.
[48] In the same year he was the pilot responsible for bringing the then Vice-president João Goulart to Brazil within the context of the Legality Campaign, which led him to take on a risky, low-altitude style of flying during the journey due to rumors that members of the Brazilian Air Force would shoot him down in accordance with Operation Mosquito [pt].
[27] In November of the same year he represented the pilot class in an inquiry into the crash of a VASP airplane, which collided with a tourist plane, resulting in 26 deaths.
[56] On the 25th, despite having union immunity, he was illegally[57][58][59] fired from Varig, something that worried then president João Goulart, who tried to intercede on behalf of Paulo de Mello,[60][61][c] and the fact that he was not reinstated,[68] started a general strike with road workers, airline workers, oil tankers, among others, which became known as the "Mello Bastos strike",[50][49][27][69] an act that the newspaper "Novos Rumos" considered unprecedented within the union movement in Brazil until then[70] and which was reported internationally, such as in the Colombian newspaper "El Tiempo"[71] and in the Costa Rican La Nación.
[72][d] In a note, Varig reported that the dismissal would have occurred due to the captain's "serious fault", which would justify the end of the contract[74] and later declared that only the Judiciary could decide on the case.
[88][h] He was finally rehired by Varig, after the president's appeal, on June 7, but had his salary suspended[i] and the right to fly until the decision of the Labor Court [pt].
[90][91][92] His reinstatement was considered by the Unity and Action Pact [pt], according to the Diário Carioca, to represent "the guarantee of the rights of all union leadership in the country.
[52] In June, during the events of the strike, Paulo de Mello was one of the signers of the manifesto delivered to João Goulart in which they defended, among other demands, the "firm disposition of the workers to fight alongside the president of the Republic, if necessary, in the case of a break with the International Monetary Fund".
[98] In September he was one of the articulators after the sergeants' revolt [pt][99] and in October he was one of the union leaders who sought to defend João Goulart's mandate after the call for a state of siege.
[104] In February an indictment was filed under the National Security Law that involved his name alongside other leaders for having launched a manifesto preceding the October 15, 1962 general strike.
[107] In the events of March 31, 1964, Paulo de Mello Bastos managed to escape from prison when troops invaded the building where he was meeting with a group of union members.
[108] In the course of the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, he had his political rights suspended by AI-1 [pt][49][109][110][111] until the Amnesty Law in August 28, 1979;[112] lost his aviator's license;[113] although he held a union leadership position at the time, he was fired from Varig;[114] fired from Brazilian Air Force on September 24, 1964;[115] and came to seek political asylum at the Uruguayan Embassy [pt] on April 12, 1964.
[119] In Uruguay he tried to get a job at PLUNA, but was barred due to pressure from the Brazilian government against political exiles[120][j] and in the country also worked in the wine trade.
[122][k] In 1965 he was one of the 83 people who had to return the Santos-Dumont Merit Medal by order of President Castelo Branco[125] and in the same year was the target of an investigation that pointed him out as a member of a "counter-revolution" articulated by Leonel Brizola.