Brazil: General Confirms Import of Russian Missile Materials

The Risk Report
Volume 2 Number 4 (July-August 1996)

Retired Brazilian Air Force General Ivan Folta has been quoted by the Brazilian press as confirming that in the early 1990s, the Brazilian Air Force secretly imported from Russia several tons of "carbon-carbon," a specialized material used to manufacture rocket nozzles and nose cones, and also some components for a rocket guidance system. The secrecy was necessary, the general said, to avoid the prohibitions of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an agreement among developed countries to slow the spread of ballistic missiles.