Perón, Juan

(1895–1974)

   President of Argentina (1946–1955, 1973–1974). Born Juan Domingo Perón Sosa on 8 October 1895 in Lobos, a small town in the province of Buenos Aires. His family was rural middle class. In 1913 he graduated from the Colegio Militar de la Nación, the country’s military academy, with the rank of sublieutenant. In 1924 he graduated from officers’ school and held the rank of captain. He then received advanced training at the Escuela Superior de Guerra, where, from 1930 to 1936, he was a professor of military history. During those years, he wrote several books on military strategy. In 1938 his first wife, Aurelia Tizón, whom he married in 1925, died of cancer. From 1939 to 1941, as head of a military mission, he traveled in Europe and was reported to have become impressed with the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In 1941 Perón, now a colonel, returned to Argentina. He joined the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (GOU, Group of United Officers), composed of army officers with fascist sympathies. On 4 June 1943 the GOU deposed President Ramón Castillo. The new president, Arturo Rawson, was ousted a few days later in favor of General Pedro Ramírez, in whose government Perón became undersecretary of war and director of the National Department of Labor. The department-which Perón transformed into the Secretariat of Labor and Welfare-was the key to his rise to power. As Argentina became increasingly industrialized, the working classes became a potential political base. Perón captured that base, bestowing on his descamisados (“shirtless ones”) pay raises, bonuses, improved working conditions, and other benefits. He also took control of the labor movement. In February 1944 Ramírez resigned at the request of Perón. General Edelmiro Farrell, vice president under Ramírez and a close friend of Perón’s, became president. Perón was now vice president, minister of war, and secretary of labor and welfare.

   Farrell, though president, was a mere figurehead. Power resided in Perón, who faced opposition both at home and abroad. His opponents in the military feared his popularity with the workers. The country’s commercial and industrial elites resented his social reforms. And the Allied powers in World War II were troubled by Perón’s pro-Axis leanings. Although Argentina, under Ramírez, had recently severed diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan, the new regime was looked on with suspicion. Indeed, the Allies concluded that Ramírez was ousted out of fear that he might take the next step and declare war on the Axis. On 9 October 1945 Perón’s military rivals, resenting his popularity, forced Perón to resign and put him in jail. When word of his imprisonment got out, thousands of his descamisados demonstrated in his behalf in the Plaza de Mayo. The generals backed down, and, on 17 October, released him. Soon after, Perón married María Eva Duarte—Evita—a young movie actress and radio soapopera star who had helped organize the demonstrators.

   PERÓN’S FIRST AND SECOND TERMS AS PRESIDENT (1946-1952, 1952-1955):

   On 24 February 1946 Perón, buoyed by the display of popular support from the year before, won the presidential election, though by a narrow margin. The charismatic Perón, influenced by his second wife, Eva Perón (“Evita”), presided over a period of prosperity. Aided by an economic surplus from the export of foodstuffs during World War II, the couple gained a huge following among the masses, their popularity reaching the point of religious veneration. Perón, following the pattern of Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini, transformed Argentina into a corporate state, nationalizing industries and utilities and taking control of the Confederación General del Trabajo (General Labor Confederation), which coordinated trade unions throughout the country. Perón called his political philosophy justicialismo, which he described as a “middle way,” or a “third way”—an alternative to either capitalism or communism. His rule was also characterized by corruption and repression. In 1949 Perón cowed Congress into rewriting the constitution to allow presidents to serve consecutive terms. In November 1951, with the aid of the popular Evita, he won reelection by a wide margin. Repression intensified during his second term in office (1952–1955), when, Evita dead from cancer (1952) and the coffers depleted, the country descended into chaos. When Perón was deposed by the military in 1955, the economy was in ruins, and thousands had been imprisoned and tortured.

   PERÓN IN EXILE (1955-1972):

   Perón spent his first five years of exile, successively, in Paraguay, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. In 1960 he settled in Spain, which was under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. From his villa in Madrid he led his Peronist movement, which still had many loyal followers in Argentina. This following the military was bent on crushing, first under General Pedro Aramburu (1955–1958) and again—after two intervening civilian administrations that the military thought too soft on Peronism—under General Juan Carlos Onganнa (1966–1970). Peronism, however, proved resilient, largely because of Perón’s charismatic personality and his ideological ambiguity. Belonging neither to the right nor to the left, the movement included supporters across the political spectrum, accommodating both traditional anticommunist labor leaders and a younger generation inspired by the Cuban revolution and the exploits of Che Guevara. Perón himself was not above playing one group off against another.

   Staying in contact with his traditional support base, he also called for the creation of special formations—revolutionary Peronist guerrilla groups that, through force of arms, would strive to return him to power. Among the victims of these special formations were not only longtime enemies of Peronism (General Aramburu, for example, whose execution is commonly ascribed to the Montonero urban guerrillas) but also longtime Peronists—for example, the labor chief Augusto Vandor. The assassination of Vandor, carried out in 1969 by the Ejército Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Army), came in response to Vandor’s growing independence—his attempts to reach an agreement with the current military regime in the hope of establishing Peronism without Perón. Meanwhile, the governments that ruled Argentina after Perón ironically contributed to a clamoring for his return. None could right the country’s economy, and the Onganía regime, which for the time being eliminated any hope that change could be effected through the ballot box, persuaded many young people to follow a revolutionary course. As the economy worsened and guerrilla violence increased, many Argentines from all levels of society came to remember the Perón years with growing nostalgia and began to see the return of Perón as the country’s only hope.

   PERÓN’S THIRD TERM AS PRESIDENT (1973-1974):

   The Peronist party (Partido Justicialista, Justicialist Party) received legal recognition in January 1972, and Perón was allowed to return from exile. To ease the mind of the military, he at first ruled indirectly through President Héctor José Cámpora, who was elected in March 1973 under the banner of the Frente Justicialista de Liberación Nacional (FREJULI), a Peronist coalition. From Spain Perón had directed the Cámpora campaign, whose slogan was “Cámpora in government, Perón in power.” Before the end of the year, however, Perón forced Cámpora to resign and ran for president himself. With his third wife, Isabel Perón (“Isabelita”), as his vice-presidential running mate, he won by a landslide. No longer needing his special formations that helped return him to power, he distanced himself from the revolutionary elements within Peronism and moved the country sharply to the right, a trend that continued after his death on 1 July 1974. The new president, Isabelita, possessing little formal education or political experience, faced serious problems, including an economy near collapse and a rise in guerrilla violence. Her administration was characterized by incompetence, corruption, and repression. Still, the military was hesitant about removing her, waiting almost two years before staging a coup. Although she lacked the appeal of Evita, Isabelita was the symbol of Peronism, a movement not easily eclipsed. In 1978, at the World Cup soccer tournament in Buenos Aires, crowds called for its return by chanting, “We want the thieves back!” Today, Peronism lives on.