Jânio resigned to avoid being forced to resign.

The versions that circulated at the time are no longer credible. "Jânio resigned to return in the arms of the people." "He was drunk or hungover." "He wanted to shut down the National Congress."

“I was defeated by the reaction and so I leave the government,” he wrote in his resignation letter on the morning of August 25, 1961. “Terrible forces have risen against me and intrigue and defame me, even under the guise of collaboration.” “If I remained,” he continued, “I would not maintain the confidence and tranquility, now broken and indispensable to the exercise of my authority. I even believe that I would not maintain public peace.”

The day before, on August 24, 1961, the governor of the state of Guanabara, Carlos Lacerda, stated with the powerful rhetoric of someone who was the greatest orator in the country that he had been invited by Jânio to participate in a coup d'état. The fury of the speech stemmed from an episode that had occurred the previous day. Through the first lady, Dona Eloá, Lacerda had Jânio invite him to the Palácio da Alvorada (Presidential Palace). “Come to dinner. I will have the enormous pleasure of hosting you at the palace,” the president promised.

The message Lacerda wanted to convey was that Jânio should change his foreign policy, which was opening up to China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union and which culminated in the awarding of the Order of the Southern Cross to Che Guevara in July. The American government, fearing a repeat of the communist coup of two years earlier in Cuba, was pressuring the Brazilian military. Knowing Lacerda's objective beforehand, Jânio decided to teach him a lesson.

Upon arriving at the Alvorada Palace, Lacerda was greeted by the butler. “The president is watching a film in the palace cinema. He asked not to be interrupted. You can leave your suitcase with me.” Lacerda had no choice but to wait. Some time later, Jânio appeared and greeted him effusively. He regretted, however, not being able to offer him dinner: the cook had already left. “But we have some sandwiches,” Jânio said to an incredulous governor, who began to smell something burning.

While Lacerda was eating, Jânio went into a room, from where he called Minister Pedroso Horta. He asked him to call the Alvorada Palace and summon Lacerda. The phone rang, and the butler told the governor it was the minister. “My dear governor,” said Pedroso Horta, following Jânio's instructions, “I ask that you come to my residence.” “I cannot,” said Lacerda, “I am a guest of the president; I cannot do him this disservice.” “Then ask him to release you,” suggested the minister.

No sooner said than done. Lacerda asked the president for permission, which was granted, and off went the governor to the unscheduled appointment. The details of the meeting are unknown, but it is most likely that Pedroso Horta engaged in small talk with the intention of keeping Lacerda away from the Alvorada Palace for as long as possible. They parted amicably at dawn.

Back at the palace, where he was supposed to spend the night after finally having a one-on-one conversation with the president, Lacerda was surprised by the butler. “The president has already retired,” he said, while handing the suitcase back to the governor. “He asked you to find a hotel.”

More enraged than usual, Lacerda rushed to the Hotel Nacional, from where he made numerous phone calls to high-ranking officials, complained of the humiliation, and cursed Jânio to the last generation. And he vowed revenge. The revenge was the denunciation of a coup, that same night, on TV.

Jânio knew that Lacerda was speaking not only on his own behalf, but on behalf of... establishment He was a military man. He also knew he couldn't pull the same trick on the military leaders that he pulled on his rival. But he sent a message by using Soldier's Day to decorate the Minister of War, Marshal Odílio Denis, and then disappearing.

With Jango away on a trip to China, the Speaker of the House, Ranieri Mazzilli, assumed power. And he arrived with a bang. Instead of waiting for the return of the one who should have been the de facto president, Mazzilli, aligned with the military leadership, dismissed all civilian ministers and appointed General Ernesto Geisel to head the Military House. Three days after the resignation, Jânio left with his family for exile in England, as was the tradition for presidents stripped of power in the Old Republic. Yet another sign that he did not resign; he was overthrown.

The following day, August 29th, a commission, including the integralist congressman Plínio Salgado, was formed in Congress to discuss the impeachment of Jango, who, by then, was in Paris, "hustling the fence," and at risk of being arrested if he returned to Brazil. A military crisis ensued. Troops from the II Army were deployed to quell a rebellion by the III Army, based in Rio Grande do Sul. Governor Leonel Brizola distributed weapons to the population to resist the coup and created the Legality Radio Network.

The pace of events is frenetic. On the first day of September, Marshal Odílio Denis, decorated by Jânio a few days earlier, publicly states that the military vetoes Jango's inauguration, confirming the ongoing military coup. The final word on the country's fate comes from the barracks, not from the National Congress, which acts as a transmission belt for the coup plotters.

“Find a solution, figure it out yourselves,” the uniformed leadership tells parliamentarians, reaffirming the breakdown of the democratic regime. Also trampling on the rule of law, in just three days the National Congress overthrows the presidential system and replaces it with a parliamentary system, in which Jango would be the Queen of England.

He agreed anyway. He thought that a crooked tree would eventually straighten. He was wrong. He never left the military's focus. While president without power—he was in charge through the prime minister, Tancredo Neves, who resigned a year later—he was left in peace, but when a plebiscite restored the presidential system in 1963, and he gained strength, the countdown began for the military coup that would overthrow him on April 1, 1964.

It was three years in the making. No one pulls off a coup overnight.