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members were negotiated. 296 Recent research has tended to argue for a certain, ifmeasured, decline in the relative influence of Itamaraty in foreign policymaking. 297By the same token, as there are no political appointees below the strategic level ofthe organisation, it is an institution that is relatively difficult for new governments topenetrate, and remains a professional diplomatic corps. 298The role of Secretary-General in Itamaraty was occupied for much of both the Lulaadministrations by Samuel Guimarães Neto. Guimarães was appointed within 10days of Lula’s accession to office in 2003, and proved a somewhat controversialchoice. His activities breached the traditional limits of the Secretary-General role, as,while in office he occasionally took to writing 299 on subjects in a manner deemed tobe ‘beyond the limits of diplomacy’. This led to his characterisation by theconservative Brazilian press as an ‘ideologue’ of the new lines of foreign policybeing promoted by PT. 300 In actual fact, Guimarães ‘is not a PT man’. 301 He maybetter be described as a career-diplomat ‘national-developmentist’ of the old‘independent foreign policy’ school, initiated during the Presidency of GetúlioVargas. Guimarães, in this way, serves as a link between Brazil’s foreign policyunder Lula, and earlier independent foreign policy postures from the middle of thetwentieth century onward.The expansion of Itamaraty was expedited by Lula, and was evident in the growthof Brazil’s complement of representation abroad. In 2002, just before Lula tookoffice, Brazil had 150 missions abroad. By the end of Lula’s tenure in 2010, thisnumber had grown to 230. Accordingly, the number of diplomatic personnelincreased from 1,000 prior to the Lula administration, to 1,400 by the end of2010. 302296 Hudson, Rex A. (ed.). 1997. “Brazil: A Country Study”. Washington: GPO for theLibrary of Congress. Accessed online at: http://countrystudies.us/brazil/ on 27 August,2011.297 Cason and Power, “Presidentialization”,135.298 Lilian Duarte, Brazilian Political Officer, Brazilian Mission in London, interview March2010.299Guimarães had made numerous public pronouncements in which he spelled out hisopposition to the FTAA, and to Brazil’s participation in the negotiations.300 Cason and Power, 2009: 98.301 Interview with Giancarlo Summa, former head of external communications, PT, July2010.302 Celso Amorim, “Brazilian Foreign Policy under President Lula (2003-2010): anoverview”, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 53 (special edition) (2010): 226.132