El Tirano

Juan Domingo Perón (UK: /pɛˈrɒn/, US: /pɛˈroʊn, pəˈ-, peɪˈ-

/,[1][2][3] Spanish: [ˈxwan doˈmiŋɡo peˈɾon] ⓘ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was
an Argentine Army general and politician who served as President of Argentina from
1946 to his overthrow in 1955, and again from October 1973 to his death in July 1974.
He had previously served in several government positions, including Minister of
Labour and Vice President under presidents Pedro Pablo Ramírez and Edelmiro Farrell.
During his first presidential term (1946–1952), Perón was supported by his second
wife, Eva Duarte ("Evita"); they were immensely popular among the Argentine working
class. Perón's government invested heavily in public works, expanded social welfare,
and forced employers to improve working conditions. Trade unions grew rapidly with his
support and women's suffrage was granted with Eva's influence. On the other hand,
several dissidents were fired, exiled, or arrested, and much of the press was closely
controlled. Several high-profile fascist war criminals, such as Josef Mengele, Adolf
Eichmann, and Ante Pavelić, were given refuge in Argentina during this time.
Perón was re-elected by a fairly wide margin, though his second term (1952–1955) was
far more troubled. Eva, a major source of support, died a month after his inauguration in
1952. An economic crisis was ongoing, Perón's relationship with a teenage girl, Nelly
Rivas, was revealed, and his plans to legalise divorce and prostitution damaged his
standing with the Catholic Church. After he deported two Catholic priests and was
thought to be excommunicated, pro-Church elements of the Argentine Navy and Air
Force bombed Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, where supporters of Perón had
gathered, killing more than 300 civilians in June 1955. The event in turn prompted
violent reprisals against several churches. Within months, Perón lost his power in a
military coup.
During the following period of two military dictatorships, interrupted by two civilian
governments, the Peronist party was outlawed and Perón was exiled. Over the years he
lived in Paraguay, Venezuela, Panama, and Spain. When the Peronist Héctor José
Cámpora was elected President in 1973, Perón returned to Argentina amidst the Ezeiza
massacre and was soon after elected President for a third time (12 October 1973 – 1
July 1974). During this term, left- and right-wing Peronists were permanently divided
and violence between them erupted, with Perón increasingly siding with the right. His
minister José López Rega formed the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, believed to
have committed at least hundreds of extrajudicial killings and kidnappings. Perón's third
wife, María Estela Martínez, known as Isabel Perón, was elected as Vice President on
his ticket and succeeded him as President upon his death in 1974. Political violence
only intensified, and she was ousted in 1976, followed by a period of even deadlier
repression under the junta of Jorge Rafael Videla.
Although they are still controversial figures, Juan and Eva Perón are nonetheless
considered icons by the Peronists. The Peróns' followers praised their efforts to
eliminate poverty and to dignify labour, while their detractors considered
them demagogues and dictators. The Peróns gave their name to the political movement
known as Peronism, which in present-day Argentina is represented mainly by
the Justicialist Party.
Childhood and youth[edit]
Main article: Early life of Juan Perón

Patio inside the home in Roque Perez where Perón was born.
Juan Domingo Perón was born in Roque Perez, Buenos Aires Province, on 8 October
1895. He was the son of Juana Sosa Toledo and Mario Tomás Perón. The Perón
branch of his family was originally Spanish, but settled in Spanish Sardinia,[4] from which
his great-grandfather emigrated in the 1830s; in later life Perón would publicly express
his pride in his Sardinian roots.[5] He also had Spanish,[6] British, and French ancestry. [7]
Perón's great-grandfather became a successful shoe merchant in Buenos Aires, and his
grandfather was a prosperous physician; his death in 1889 left his widow nearly
destitute, however, and Perón's father moved to then-rural Roque Perez, where he
administered an estancia and met his future wife. The couple had their two sons out of
wedlock and married in 1901.[8]
His father moved to the Patagonia region that year, where he later purchased a sheep
ranch. Juan himself was sent away in 1904 to a boarding school in Buenos Aires
directed by his paternal grandmother, where he received a strict Catholic upbringing.
His father's undertaking ultimately failed, and he died in Buenos Aires in 1928. The
youth entered the National Military College in 1911 at age 16 and graduated in 1913. He
excelled less in his studies than in athletics, particularly boxing and fencing.[5]

Army career[edit]

Lt. Perón (left) and General José Uriburu (middle), with

whose right-wing coup in 1930 he collaborated. Perón backed the more moderate
General Agustín Justo, however.
Perón began his military career in an Infantry post in Paraná, Entre Ríos. He went on to
command the post, and in this capacity mediated a prolonged labour conflict in 1920
at La Forestal, then a leading firm in forestry in Argentina. He earned instructor's
credentials at the Superior War School, and in 1929 was appointed to the Army General
Staff Headquarters. Perón married his first wife, Aurelia Tizón (Potota, as Perón fondly
called her), on 5 January 1929.[8]
Perón was recruited by supporters of the director of the War Academy, General José
Félix Uriburu, to collaborate in the latter's plans for a military coup against
President Hipólito Yrigoyen of Argentina. Perón, who instead supported
General Agustín Justo, was banished to a remote post in northwestern Argentina after
Uriburu's successful coup in September 1930. He was promoted to the rank of Major
the following year and named to the faculty at the Superior War School, however, where
he taught military history and published a number of treatises on the subject. He served
as military attaché in the Argentine Embassy in Chile from 1936 to 1938, and returned
to his teaching post. His wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer that year, and died on
10 September at age 36; the couple had no children.[8]
The Argentine War Ministry assigned Perón to study mountain warfare in the Italian
Alps in 1939. He also attended the University of Turin for a semester and served as a
military observer in countries across Europe - holding positions as a military attaché in
Berlin and in Rome.[9] He studied Benito Mussolini's Italian Fascism, Nazi Germany, and
other European governments of the time, concluding in his summary, Apuntes de
historia militar (Notes about military history, first published in 1932, second edition:
1934[10]), that social democracy could be a viable alternative to liberal democracy (which
he viewed as a veiled plutocracy) or to totalitarian régimes (which he viewed as
oppressive).[8] He returned to Argentina in 1941, and served as an Army skiing-instructor
in Mendoza Province.[5]

Military government of 1943–1946[edit]

Main article: 1943 Argentine coup d'état
See also: Argentina during World War II
 Perón in 1940
President Edelmiro Farrell (left) and his benefactor, Vice President and Colonel Juan
Perón, in April 1945.
In 1943 a coup d'état was led by General Arturo Rawson against Ramón Castillo, who
had assumed the presidency a little less than a year earlier as the vice president
of Roberto María Ortiz following Ortiz's resignation due to illness; both Ortiz and Castillo
had been elected in the 1937 presidential election, which has been described as being
among the most fraudulent in Argentine history.[11][12] The military was opposed to
Governor Robustiano Patrón Costas, Castillo's hand-picked successor, who was the
principal landowner in Salta Province, as well as a main stockholder in its sugar
industry.
As a colonel, Perón took a significant part in the military coup by the GOU (United
Officers' Group, a secret society) against the conservative civilian government of
Castillo. At first an assistant to Secretary of War General Edelmiro Farrell, under the
administration of General Pedro Ramírez, he later became the head of the then-
insignificant Department of Labour. Perón's work in the Labour Department witnessed
the passage of a broad range of progressive social reforms designed to improve
working conditions,[13] and led to an alliance with the socialist and syndicalist movements
in the Argentine labour unions, which increased his power and influence in the military
government.[14]
After the coup, socialists from the CGT-Nº1 labour union, through mercantile labour
leader Ángel Borlenghi and railway union lawyer Juan Atilio Bramuglia, made contact
with Perón and fellow GOU Colonel Domingo Mercante. They established an alliance to
promote labour laws that had long been demanded by the workers' movement, to
strengthen the unions, and to transform the Department of Labour into a more
significant government office. Perón had the Department of Labour elevated to a
cabinet-level secretariat in November 1943.[15]
 Demonstration for Perón's release on 17 October 1945
Following the devastating January 1944 San Juan earthquake, which claimed over
10,000 lives and leveled the Andes range city, Perón became nationally prominent in
relief efforts. Junta leader Pedro Ramírez entrusted fundraising efforts to him, and
Perón marshaled celebrities from Argentina's large film industry and other public figures.
For months, a giant thermometer hung from the Buenos Aires Obelisk to track the
fundraising. The effort's success and relief for earthquake victims earned Perón
widespread public approval. At this time, he met a minor radio matinee star, Eva
Duarte.[5]

Juan and Eva Perón

Following President Ramírez's January 1944 suspension of diplomatic relations with
the Axis Powers (against whom the new junta would declare war in March 1945), the
GOU junta unseated him in favor of General Edelmiro Farrell. For contributing to his
success, Perón was appointed Vice President and Secretary of War, while retaining his
Labour portfolio. As Minister of Labour, Perón established the INPS (the first
national social insurance system in Argentina), settled industrial disputes in favour of
labour unions (as long as their leaders pledged political allegiance to him), and
introduced a wide range of social welfare benefits for unionised workers. [16]
Employers were forced to improve working conditions and to provide severance pay
and accident compensation, the conditions under which workers could be dismissed
were restricted, a system of labour courts to handle the grievances of workers was
established, the working day was reduced in various industries, and paid
holidays/vacations were generalised to the entire workforce. Perón also passed a law
providing minimum wages, maximum hours and vacations for rural workers, froze rural
rents, presided over a large increase in rural wages, and helped lumber, wine, sugar
and migrant workers organize themselves. From 1943 to 1946, real wages grew by only
4%, but in 1945 Perón established two new institutions that would later increase wages:
the “aguinaldo” (a bonus that provided each worker with a lump sum at the end of the
year amounting to one-twelfth of the annual wage) and the National Institute of
Compensation, which implemented a minimum wage and collected data on living
standards, prices, and wages.[17] Leveraging his authority on behalf of
striking abattoir workers and the right to unionise, Perón became increasingly thought of
as presidential material.[18]
On 18 September 1945, he delivered an address billed as "from work to home and from
home to work". The speech, prefaced by an excoriation of the conservative opposition,
provoked an ovation by declaring that "we've passed social reforms to make the
Argentine people proud to live where they live, once again." This move fed growing
rivalries against Perón and on 9 October 1945, he was forced to resign by opponents
within the armed forces. Arrested four days later, he was released due to mass
demonstrations organised by the CGT and other supporters; 17 October was later
commemorated as Loyalty Day. His paramour, Eva Duarte, became hugely popular
after helping organize the demonstration; known as "Evita", she helped Perón gain
support with labour and women's groups. She and Perón were married on 22 October.[5]

First term (1946–1952)[edit]

Domestic policy[edit]
 Lt. General Perón in military uniform, drinking coffee (1950

or later) President Perón at his 1946 inaugural parade

First emblem of the Peronist Party, 1946–1955

Perón's candidacy on the Labour Party ticket, announced the day after the 17 October
1945 mobilization, became a lightning rod that rallied an unusually diverse opposition
against it. The majority of the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR), the Socialist Party,
the Communist Party and most of the conservative National Autonomist Party (in power
during most of the 1874–1916 era) had already been forged into a fractious alliance in
June by interests in the financial sector and the chamber of commerce, united solely by
the goal of keeping Perón from the Casa Rosada. Organizing a massive kick-off rally in
front of Congress on 8 December, the Democratic Union nominated José
Tamborini and Enrique Mosca, two prominent UCR congressmen. The alliance failed to
win over several prominent lawmakers, such as congressmen Ricardo
Balbín and Arturo Frondizi and former Córdoba governor Amadeo Sabattini, all of whom
opposed the Union's ties to conservative interests. In a bid to support their
campaign, US Ambassador Spruille Braden published a white paper, otherwise known
as the Blue Book[19] accusing Perón, President Farrell and others of Fascist ties. Fluent
in Spanish, Braden addressed Democratic Union rallies in person, but his move
backfired when Perón summarized the election as a choice between "Perón or Braden".
He also rallied further support by responding to the "Blue Book" with his own "Blue and
White Book", which was a play on the Argentine flag colors, and focused on the
antagonism of Yankee imperialism.[20] He persuaded the president to sign the
nationalization of the Central Bank and the extension of mandatory Christmas bonuses,
actions that contributed to his decisive victory.[21] Perón and his running mate, Hortensio
Quijano, leveraged popular support to victory over a Radical Civic Union-led opposition
alliance by about 11% in the 24 February 1946 presidential elections.

Ángel Borlenghi, an erstwhile socialist who, as Interior

Minister, oversaw new labour courts and the opposition's activities.
When Perón became president on 4 June 1946, his two stated goals were social justice
and economic independence. These two goals avoided Cold War entanglements from
choosing between capitalism and socialism, but he had no concrete means to achieve
those goals. Perón instructed his economic advisers to develop a five-year plan with the
goals of increasing workers' pay, achieving full employment, stimulating industrial
growth of over 40% while diversifying the sector (then dominated by food processing),
and greatly improving transportation, communication, energy and social infrastructure
(in the private, as well as public, sectors).[22]
Perón's planning prominently included political considerations. Numerous military allies
were fielded as candidates, notably Colonel Domingo Mercante who, when elected
Governor of the paramount Province of Buenos Aires, became renowned for his
housing program. Having brought him to power, the General Confederation of
Labour (CGT) was given overwhelming support by the new administration, which
introduced labour courts and filled its cabinet with labour union appointees, such
as Juan Atilio Bramuglia (Foreign Ministry) and Ángel Borlenghi (Interior Ministry, which,
in Argentina, oversees law enforcement). It also made room for amenable wealthy
industrialists (Central Bank President Miguel Miranda) and socialists such as José
Figuerola, a Spanish economist who had years earlier advised that nation's ill-fated
regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera. Intervention of their behalf by Perón's appointees
encouraged the CGT to call strikes in the face of employers reluctant to grant benefits
or honor new labour legislation. Strike activity (with 500,000 working days lost in 1945)
leapt to 2 million in 1946 and to over 3 million in 1947, helping wrest needed labour
reforms, though permanently aligning large employers against the Peronists. Labour
unions grew in ranks from around 500,000 to over 2 million by 1950, primarily in the
CGT, which has since been Argentina's paramount labour union.[22] As the country's
labour force numbered around 5 million people at the time, Argentina's labour force was
the most unionized in South America.[23]

President Perón (right) signs the nationalization of

British-owned railways watched by Ambassador Sir Reginald Leeper, March 1948.
During the first half of the 20th century, a widening gap had existed between the
classes; Perón hoped to close it through the increase of wages and employment,
making the nation more pluralistic and less reliant on foreign trade. Before taking office
in 1946, President Perón took dramatic steps which he believed would result in a more
economically independent Argentina, better insulated from events such as World War II.
He thought there would be another international war.[24] The reduced availability of
imports and the war's beneficial effects on both the quantity and price of Argentine
exports had combined to create a US$1.7 billion cumulative surplus during those
years.[25]
In his first two years in office, Perón nationalized the Central Bank and paid off its
billion-dollar debt to the Bank of England; nationalized the railways (mostly owned by
British and French companies), merchant marine, universities, public utilities, public
transport (then, mostly tramways); and, probably most significantly, created a single
purchaser for the nation's mostly export-oriented grains and oilseeds, the Institute for
the Promotion of Trade (IAPI). The IAPI wrested control of Argentina's famed grain
export sector from entrenched conglomerates such as Bunge y Born; but when
commodity prices fell after 1948, it began shortchanging growers.[5] IAPI profits were
used to fund welfare projects, while internal demand was encouraged by large wage
increases given to workers;[16] average real wages rose by about 35% from 1945 to
1949,[26] while during that same period, labour's share of national income rose from 40%
to 49%.[27] Access to health care was also made a universal right by the Workers' Bill of
Rights enacted on 24 February 1947 (subsequently incorporated into the 1949
Constitution as Article 14-b),[28] while social security was extended to virtually all
members of the Argentine working class.[29]
From 1946 to 1951, the number of Argentinians covered by social security more than
tripled, so that in 1951 more than 5 million people (70% of the economically active
population) were covered by social security. Health insurance also spread to new
industries, including banking and metalworking. Between 1945 and 1949, real wages
went up by 22%, fell between 1949 and 1952, and then increased again from 1953 to
1955, ending up at least 30% higher than in 1946. In proportional terms, wages rose
from 41% of national income in 1946–48 to 49% in 1952–55. The boost in the real
incomes of workers was encouraged by government policies such as the enforcement
of minimum wage laws, controls on the prices of food and other basic consumption
items, and extending housing credits to workers.[17]
Foreign policy and adversaries[edit]
Perón first articulated his foreign policy, the "Third Way", in 1949. This policy was
developed to avoid the binary Cold War divisions and keep other world powers, such as
the United States and the Soviet Union, as allies rather than enemies. He restored
diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, severed since the Bolshevik Revolution in
1917, and opened grain sales to the shortage-stricken Soviets.[30]
U.S. policy restricted Argentine growth during the Perón years; by placing embargoes
on Argentina, the United States hoped to discourage the nation in its pursuit of
becoming economically sovereign during a time when the world was divided into two
influence spheres. U.S. interests feared losing their stake, as they had large commercial
investments (over a billion dollars) vested in Argentina through the oil and meat packing
industries, besides being a mechanical goods provider to Argentina. His ability to
effectively deal with points of contention abroad was equally hampered by Perón's own
mistrust of potential rivals, which harmed foreign relations with Juan Atilio Bramuglia's
1949 dismissal.[14]
The rising influence of American diplomat George F. Kennan, a staunch anti-
communist and champion of containment, fed U.S. suspicions that Argentine goals for
economic sovereignty and neutrality were Perón's disguise for a resurgence of
communism in the Americas. The U.S. Congress took a dislike to Perón and his
government. In 1948 they excluded Argentine exports from the Marshall Plan, the
landmark Truman administration effort to combat communism and help rebuild war-torn
European nations by offering U.S. aid. This contributed to Argentine financial crises
after 1948 and, according to Perón biographer Joseph Page, "the Marshall Plan drove a
final nail into the coffin that bore Perón's ambitions to transform Argentina into an
industrial power". The policy deprived Argentina of potential agricultural markets in
Western Europe to the benefit of Canadian exporters, for instance.[5]
As relations with the U.S. deteriorated, Perón made efforts to mitigate the
misunderstandings, which were made easier after President Harry Truman replaced the
hostile Braden with Ambassador George Messersmith. Perón negotiated the release of
Argentine assets in the U.S. in exchange for preferential treatment for U.S. goods,
followed by Argentine ratification of the Act of Chapultepec, a centerpiece of Truman's
Latin America policy. He even proposed the enlistment of Argentine troops into
the Korean War in 1950 under UN auspices (a move retracted in the face of public
opposition).[31] Perón was opposed to borrowing from foreign credit markets, preferring to
float bonds domestically. He refused to enter the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (precursor to the World Trade Organization) or the International Monetary Fund.[22]

As president, Perón took an active interest in the

development of sports in Argentina, hosting international events and sponsoring
athletes such as the boxer, José María Gatica (left).
Believing that international sports created goodwill, however, Perón hosted the 1950
World Basketball Championship and the 1951 Pan American Games, both of which
Argentine athletes won resoundingly. He also sponsored numerous notable athletes,
including the five-time Formula 1 world champion, Juan Manuel Fangio, who, without
this funding, would have most likely never competed in Europe. Perón's bid to host
the 1956 Summer Olympics in Buenos Aires was defeated by the International Olympic
Committee by one vote.
Growth and limitations[edit]
Economic success was short-lived. Following a lumbering recovery during 1933 to
1945, from 1946 to 1953 Argentina gained benefits from Perón's five-year plan. The
GDP expanded by over a fourth during that brief boom, about as much as it had during
the previous decade. Using roughly half the US$1.7 billion in reserves inherited from
wartime surpluses for nationalizations, economic development agencies devoted most
of the other half to finance both public and private investments; the roughly 70% jump in
domestic fixed investment was accounted for mostly by industrial growth in the private
sector.[22] All this much-needed activity exposed an intrinsic weakness in the plan: it
subsidized growth which, in the short term, led to a wave of imports of the capital
goods that local industry could not supply. Whereas the end of World War II had
allowed Argentine exports to rise from US$700 million to US$1.6 billion, Perón's
changes led to skyrocketing imports (from US$300 million to US$1.6 billion), and erased
the surplus by 1948.[32]
Perón's bid for economic independence was further complicated by a number of
inherited external factors. Great Britain owed Argentina over 150 million pounds
Sterling (nearly US$650 million) from agricultural exports to that nation during the war.
This debt was mostly in the form of Argentine Central Bank reserves which, per the
1933 Roca-Runciman Treaty, were deposited in the Bank of England. The money was
useless to the Argentine government, because the treaty allowed Bank of England to
hold the funds in trust, something British planners could not compromise on as a result
of that country's debts accrued under the Lend-Lease Act.[22]
The nation's need for U.S. made capital goods increased, though ongoing limits on the
Central Bank's availability of hard currency hampered access to them. Argentina's
pound Sterling surpluses earned after 1946 (worth over US$200 million) were made
convertible to dollars by a treaty negotiated by Central Bank President Miguel Miranda;
but after a year, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee suspended the provision. Perón
accepted the transfer of over 24,000 km (15,000 mi) of British-owned railways (over half
the total in Argentina) in exchange for the debt in March 1948. Due to political disputes
between Perón and the U.S. government (as well as to pressure by the U.S. agricultural
lobby through the Agricultural Act of 1949), Argentine foreign exchange earnings via its
exports to the United States fell, turning a US$100 million surplus with the United States
into a US$300 million deficit. The combined pressure practically devoured Argentina's
liquid reserves and Miranda issued a temporary restriction on the outflow of dollars to
U.S. banks. The nationalization of the Port of Buenos Aires and domestic and foreign-
owned private cargo ships, as well as the purchase of others, nearly tripled the national
merchant marine to 1.2 million tons' displacement, reducing the need for over
US$100 million in shipping fees (then the largest source of Argentina's invisible
balance deficit) and leading to the inauguration of the Río Santiago Shipyards
at Ensenada (on line to the present day).[33][34]

Repairs at the Río Santiago Shipyards

Exports fell sharply, to around US$1.1 billion during the 1949–54 era (a severe 1952
drought trimmed this to US$700 million),[32] due in part to a deterioration in terms of
trade of about a third. The Central Bank was forced to devalue the peso at an
unprecedented rate: the peso lost about 70% of its value from early 1948 to early 1950,
leading to a decline in the imports fueling industrial growth and to recession. Short of
central bank reserves, Perón was forced to borrow US$125 million from the U.S.
Export-Import Bank to cover a number of private banks' debts to U.S. institutions,
without which their insolvency would have become a central bank liability. [35] Austerity
and better harvests in 1950 helped finance a recovery in 1951; but inflation, having
risen from 13% in 1948 to 31% in 1949, reached 50% in late 1951 before stabilizing,
and a second, sharper recession soon followed.[36] Workers' purchasing power, by 1952,
had declined 20% from its 1948 high and GDP, having leapt by a fourth during Perón's
first two years, saw zero growth from 1948 to 1952. (The U.S. economy, by contrast,
grew by about a fourth in the same interim).[22] After 1952, however, wages began rising
in real terms once more.[26]
The increasing frequency of strikes, increasingly directed against Perón as the economy
slid into stagflation in late 1954, was dealt with through the expulsion of organizers from
the CGT ranks. To consolidate his political grasp on the eve of colder economic winds,
Perón called for a broad constitutional reform in September. The elected convention
(whose opposition members soon resigned) approved the wholesale replacement of the
1853 Constitution of Argentina with a new magna carta in March, explicitly guaranteeing
social reforms; but also allowing the mass nationalization of natural resources and
public services, as well as the re-election of the president.[37]
Focus on infrastructure[edit]
Emphasizing an economic policy centerpiece dating from the 1920s, Perón made
record investments in Argentina's infrastructure. Investing over US$100 million to
modernize the railways (originally built on myriad incompatible gauges), he also
nationalized a number of small, regional air carriers, forging them into Aerolíneas
Argentinas in 1950. The airline, equipped with 36 new DC-3 and DC-4 aircraft, was
supplemented with a new international airport and a 22 km (14 mi) freeway into Buenos
Aires. This freeway was followed by one between Rosario and Santa Fe.[37]

Reservoir of the Valle Grande hydroelectric dam,

near San Rafael, Mendoza A hospital near Rosario, one

of hundreds built during the Perón years
Perón had mixed success in expanding the country's inadequate electric grid, which
grew by only one fourth during his tenure. Argentina's installed hydroelectric capacity,
however, leapt from 45 to 350 MW during his first term (to about a fifth of the total public
grid). He promoted the fossil fuel industry by ordering these resources nationalized,
inaugurating Río Turbio (Argentina's only active coal mine), having natural gas flared by
the state oil firm YPF captured, and establishing Gas del Estado. The 1949 completion
of a gas pipeline between Comodoro Rivadavia and Buenos Aires was another
significant accomplishment in this regard. The 1,700 km (1,060 mi) pipeline allowed
natural gas production to rise quickly from 300,000 m3 to 15 million m3 daily, making the
country self-sufficient in the critical energy staple; the pipeline was, at the time, the
longest in the world.[37]
Propelled by an 80% increase in output at the state-owed energy firm YPF, oil
production rose from 3.3 million m3 to over 4.8 million m3 during Perón's tenure;[38] but
since most manufacturing was powered by on-site generators and the number of motor
vehicles grew by a third,[39] the need for oil imports grew from 40% to half of the
consumption, costing the national balance sheet over US$300 million a year (over a fifth
of the import bill).[40]
Perón's government is remembered for its record social investments. He introduced a
Ministry of Health to the cabinet; its first head, the neurologist Ramón Carrillo, oversaw
the completion of over 4,200 health care facilities.[41] Related works included
construction of more than 1,000 kindergartens and over 8,000 schools, including
several hundred technological, nursing and teachers' schools, among an array of other
public investments.[42] The new Minister of Public Works, General Juan Pistarini,
oversaw the construction of 650,000 new, public sector homes, as well as of
the international airport, one of the largest in the world at the time.[43] The reactivation of
the dormant National Mortgage Bank spurred private-sector housing development:
averaging over 8 units per 1,000 inhabitants (150,000 a year), the pace was, at the
time, at par with that of the United States and one of the highest rates of residential
construction in the world.[22]

Production line at the state military industries facility,

1950; on line since 1927, Perón's budgets modernized and expanded the complex.
Perón modernized the Argentine Armed Forces, particularly its Air Force. Between 1947
and 1950, Argentina manufactured two advanced jet aircraft: Pulqui I (designed by the
Argentine engineers Cardehilac, Morchio and Ricciardi with the French engineer Émile
Dewoitine, condemned in France in absentia for collaborationism), and Pulqui II,
designed by German engineer Kurt Tank. In the test flights, the planes were flown by
Lieutenant Edmundo Osvaldo Weiss and Tank, reaching 1,000 km/h (620 mph) with the
Pulqui II. Argentina continued testing the Pulqui II until 1959; in the tests, two pilots lost
their lives.[44] The Pulqui project opened the door to two successful Argentinian planes:
the IA 58 Pucará and the IA 63 Pampa, manufactured at the Aircraft Factory of
Córdoba.[45]
Perón announced in 1951 that the Huemul Project would produce nuclear fusion before
any other country. The project was led by an Austrian, Ronald Richter, who had been
recommended by Kurt Tank. Tank expected to power his aircraft with Richter's
invention. Perón announced that energy produced by the fusion process would be
delivered in milk-bottle sized containers. Richter announced success in 1951, but no
proof was given. The next year, Perón appointed a scientific team to investigate
Richter's activities. Reports by José Antonio Balseiro and Mario Báncora revealed that
the project was a fraud. After that, the Huemul Project was transferred to the Centro
Atómico Bariloche (CAB) of the new National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and
to the physics institute of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, later named Instituto
Balseiro (IB).[14] According to a recently aired History Channel documentary[which?], the
secrecy, Nazi connections, declassified US intelligence documents, and military
infrastructure located around the remote facility all argue for the more likely objective of
atomic bomb development. The Argentine navy actually bombed multiple buildings in
1955 – an unusual method of decommissioning a legitimate research facility.
Eva Perón's influence and contribution[edit]

First Lady Eva Perón (left) tending to the needy in her

capacity as head of her foundation
Eva Perón was instrumental as a symbol of hope to the common labourer during the
first five-year plan. When she died in 1952, the year of the presidential elections, the
people felt they had lost an ally. Coming from humble origins, she was loathed by the
elite but adored by the poor for her work with the sick, elderly, and orphans. It was due
to her behind-the-scenes work that women's suffrage was granted in 1947 and a
feminist wing of the 3rd party in Argentina was formed. Simultaneous to Perón's five-
year plans, Eva supported a women's movement that concentrated on the rights of
women, the poor and the disabled.
Although her role in the politics of Perón's first term remains disputed, Eva introduced
social justice and equality into the national discourse. She stated, "It is not philanthropy,
nor is it charity... It is not even social welfare; to me, it is strict justice... I do nothing but
return to the poor what the rest of us owe them, because we had taken it away from
them unjustly."[5]

Partial view of the "Children's Republic" theme park.

In 1948 she established the Eva Perón Foundation, which was perhaps the greatest
contribution to her husband's social policy. Enjoying an annual budget of around
US$50 million (nearly 1% of GDP at the time),[46] the Foundation had 14,000 employees
and founded hundreds of new schools, clinics, old-age homes and holiday facilities; it
also distributed hundreds of thousands of household necessities, physicians' visits and
scholarships, among other benefits. Among the best-known of the Foundation's many
large construction projects are the Evita City development south of Buenos Aires
(25,000 homes) and the "Republic of the Children", a theme park based on tales from
the Brothers Grimm. Following Perón's 1955 ousting, twenty such construction projects
were abandoned incomplete and the foundation's US$290 million endowment was
liquidated.[47]

An August 1951 rally organized by the CGT for a Perón-

Evita ticket failed to overcome military objections to her, and the ailing first lady
withdrew.
The portion of the five-year plans which argued for full employment, public healthcare
and housing, labour benefits, and raises were a result of Eva's influence on the policy-
making of Perón in his first term, as historians note that at first he simply wanted to keep
imperialists out of Argentina and create effective businesses. The humanitarian relief
efforts embedded in the five-year plan were Eva's creation, which endeared the Peronist
movement to the working-class people from which Eva had come. Her strong ties to the
poor and her position as Perón's wife brought credibility to his promises during his first
presidential term and ushered in a new wave of supporters. The first lady's willingness
to replace the ailing Hortensio Quijano as Perón's running mate for the 1951
campaign was defeated by her own frail health and by military opposition. A 22 August
rally organized for her by the CGT on Buenos Aires' wide Nueve de Julio Avenue failed
to turn the tide. On 28 September, elements in the Argentine Army led by General
Benjamín Andrés Menéndez attempted a coup against Perón. Although unsuccessful,
the mutiny marked the end of the first lady's political hopes. She died the following
July.[5]

Opposition and repression[edit]

The first to vocally oppose Perón's rule were the Argentine intelligentsia and the middle-
class. University students and professors were seen as particularly troublesome. Perón
fired over 2000 university professors and faculty members from all major public
education institutions.[22] These included Nobel laureate Bernardo Houssay, a
physiologist, University of La Plata physicist Rafael Grinfeld, painter Emilio Pettoruti, art
scholars Pío Collivadino and Jorge Romero Brest, and noted author Jorge Luis
Borges who at the time was head of the National Library of Buenos Aires, was
appointed "poultry inspector" at the Buenos Aires Municipal Wholesale Market (a post
he refused).[48] Many left the country and migrated to Mexico, United States or Europe.
The theologian Herold B. Weiss recalls events in the universities:
As a young student in Buenos Aires in the early 1950s, I well remember the graffiti
found on many an empty wall all over town: "Build the Fatherland. Kill a Student" (Haga
patria, mate a un estudiante). Perón opposed the universities, which questioned his
methods and his goals. A well-remembered slogan was, Alpargatas sí, libros
no ("Shoes? Yes! Books? No!") ... Universities were "intervened". In some
a peronista mediocrity was appointed rector. Others were closed for years.[49]
The labour movement that had brought Perón to power was not exempt from the iron
fist. In the 1946 elections for the post of Secretary General of the CGT resulted in
telephone workers' union leader Luis Gay's victory over Perón's nominee, former retail
workers' leader Ángel Borlenghi – both central figures in Perón's famed 17 October
comeback. The president had Luis Gay expelled from the CGT three months later, and
replaced him with José Espejo, a little-known rank-and-filer who was close to the first
lady.

Union leader Cipriano Reyes, jailed for years for turning against
Perón
The meat-packers' union leader, Cipriano Reyes, turned against Perón when he
replaced the Labour Party with the Peronist Party in 1947. Organizing a strike in protest,
Reyes was arrested on the charge of plotting against the lives of the president and first
lady, though the allegations were never substantiated. Tortured in prison, Reyes was
denied parole five years later, and freed only after the regime's 1955
downfall.[50] Cipriano Reyes was one of hundreds of Perón's opponents held at Buenos
Aires' Ramos Mejía General Hospital, one of whose basements was converted into a
police detention center where torture became routine.[51]
The populist leader was intolerant of both left-wing and conservative opposition. Though
he used violence, Perón preferred to deprive the opposition of their access to media.
Interior Minister Borlenghi administered El Laborista, the leading official news daily.
Carlos Aloe, a personal friend of Evita's, oversaw an array of leisure magazines
published by Editorial Haynes, which the Peronist Party bought a majority stake in.
Through the Secretary of the Media, Raúl Apold, socialist dailies such as La
Vanguardia or Democracia, and conservative ones such as La Prensa or La
Razón, were simply closed or expropriated in favor of the CGT or ALEA, the regime's
new state media company.[21] Intimidation of the press increased: between 1943 and
1946, 110 publications were closed down; others such as La Nación and Roberto
Noble's Clarín became more cautious and self-censoring.[52] Perón appeared more
threatened by dissident artists than by opposition political figures (though UCR
leader Ricardo Balbín spent most of 1950 in jail). Numerous prominent cultural and
intellectual figures were imprisoned (publisher and critic Victoria Ocampo, for one) or
forced into exile, among them comedian Niní Marshall, film maker Luis Saslavsky,
pianist Osvaldo Pugliese and actress Libertad Lamarque, victim of a rivalry with Eva
Perón.[53]

Fascist influence[edit]
In 1938, Perón was sent on a diplomatic mission to Europe. During this time he became
enamoured of the Italian fascist model. Perón's admiration for Benito Mussolini is well
documented.[54] Likewise he took as a model of inspiration the government of Ioannis
Metaxas in Greece and Adolf Hitler in Germany, and his exact words in that respect
were as follows:
Italian Fascism made people's organizations participate more on the country's political
stage. Before Mussolini's rise to power, the state was separated from the workers, and
the former had no involvement in the latter. [...] Exactly the same process happened in
Germany, that is the state was organized [to serve] for a perfectly structured
community, for a perfectly structured population: a community where the state was the
tool of the people, whose representation was, in my opinion, effective.[55]

— Juan Perón
During his reign, Perón and his administrators often resorted to organized violence and
dictatorial rule. He often showed contempt for any opponents; and regularly
characterized them as traitors and agents of foreign powers;[citation needed] subverted freedom
of speech and sought to crush any vocal dissidents through such actions as
nationalizing the broadcasting system, centralizing the unions under his control and
monopolizing the supply of newspaper print. At times, Perón also resorted to tactics
such as illegally imprisoning opposition politicians and journalists, including Radical
Civic Union leader Ricardo Balbín; and shutting down opposition papers, such as La
Prensa.[54]
Carlos Fayt states that Peronism was just "an Argentine implementation of Italian
fascism".[56] Paul M. Hayes, meanwhile, reaches the conclusion that "the Peronist
movement produced a form of fascism that was distinctively Latin American". [56][57]
Alternate viewpoints, however, do exist: Felipe Pigna, a revisionist historian, believes
that no researcher who has deeply studied Perón should consider him a fascist. Pigna
argues that Perón was only a pragmatist who took useful elements from all modern
ideologies of the time; this included not only fascism but also the New Deal policies of
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[58] To Pigna, therefore, Perón was neither fascist
nor anti-fascist, simply realist; the active intervention of the working class in politics, as
he saw in those countries, was a "definitive phenomenon." [58]
Protection of Nazi war criminals[edit]
After World War II, Argentina became a haven for Nazi war criminals, with explicit
protection from Perón, who even shortly before his death commented on the Nuremberg
Trials:
In Nuremberg at that time something was taking place that I personally considered a
disgrace and an unfortunate lesson for the future of humanity. I became certain that the
Argentine people also considered the Nuremberg process a disgrace, unworthy of the
victors, who behaved as if they hadn't been victorious. Now we realize that they [the
Allies] deserved to lose the war.[59]
Author Uki Goñi alleges that Axis Power collaborators, including Pierre Daye, met with
Perón at Casa Rosada, the President's official executive mansion.[60] In this meeting, a
network would have[clarification needed] been created with support by the Argentine Immigration
Service and the Foreign Office.[speculation?] The Swiss Chief of Police Heinrich
Rothmund[61] and the Croatian priest Krunoslav Draganović also helped organize
the ratline.
An investigation of 22,000 documents by the DAIA in 1997 discovered that the network
was managed by Rodolfo Freude who had an office in the Casa Rosada and was close
to Eva Perón's brother, Juan Duarte. According to Ronald Newton, Ludwig Freude,
Rodolfo's father, was probably the local representative of the Office Three secret
service headed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, with probably more influence than the
German ambassador Edmund von Thermann. He had met Perón in the 1930s, and had
contacts with Generals Juan Pistarini, Domingo Martínez, and José Molina. Ludwig
Freude's house became the meeting place for Nazis and Argentine military officers
supporting the Axis. In 1943, he traveled with Perón to Europe to attempt an arms deal
with Germany.[62]

Nazi exile network principal Rodolfo Freude (2nd from

left) and President Perón (2nd from right), who appointed Freude Director of
the Argentine Intelligence Secretariat
After the war, Ludwig Freude was investigated over his connection to possible looted
Nazi art, cash and precious metals on deposit at two Argentine banks, Banco
Germanico and Banco Tornquist. But on 6 September 1946, the Freude investigation
was terminated by presidential decree.[63]
Examples of Nazis and collaborators who relocated to Argentina include Emile
Dewoitine, who arrived in May 1946 and worked on the Pulqui jet; Erich Priebke, who
arrived in 1947; Josef Mengele in 1949; Adolf Eichmann in 1950; Austrian
representative of the Škoda arms manufacturer in Spain Reinhard Spitzy; Charles
Lescat, editor of Je Suis Partout in Vichy France; and SS functionary Ludwig Lienhardt;
Many members of the notorious Croatian Ustaše (including their leader, Ante Pavelić)
took refuge in Argentina, as did Milan Stojadinović, the former Serbian Prime Minister
of monarchist Yugoslavia.[64] In 1946 Stojadinović went to Rio de Janeiro, and then to
Buenos Aires, where he was reunited with his family. Stojadinović spent the rest of his
life as presidential advisor on economic and financial affairs to governments in
Argentina and founded the financial newspaper El Economista in 1951, which still
carries his name on its masthead.[65]
A Croatian priest, Krunoslav Draganović, organizer of the San Girolamo ratline, was
authorized by Perón to assist Nazi operatives to come to Argentina and evade
prosecution in Europe after World War II,[64] in particular the Ustaše. Ante
Pavelić became a security advisor of Perón. After Perón was overthrown in 1955,
Pavelić, fearing extradition to Yugoslavia, left for Francoist Spain in 1957.[66]

Ronald Richter (left) with Juan Perón (right).

As in the United States (Operation Paperclip), Argentina also welcomed displaced
German scientists such as Kurt Tank and Ronald Richter. Some of these refugees took
important roles in Perón's Argentina, such as French collaborationist Jacques de
Mahieu, who became an ideologue of the Peronist movement, before becoming mentor
to a Roman Catholic nationalist youth group in the 1960s. Belgian collaborationist Pierre
Daye became editor of a Peronist magazine. Rodolfo Freude, Ludwig's son, became
Perón's chief of presidential intelligence in his first term.[64]
Recently, Goñi's research, drawing on investigations in Argentine, Swiss, American,
British and Belgian government archives, as well as numerous interviews and other
sources, was detailed in The Real ODESSA: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón's
Argentina (2002), showing how escape routes known as ratlines were used by former
NSDAP members and like-minded people to escape trial and judgment.[67] Goñi places
particular emphasis on the part played by Perón's government in organizing the ratlines,
as well as documenting the aid of Swiss and Vatican authorities in their flight.[citation
needed]
The Argentine consulate in Barcelona gave false passports to fleeing Nazi war
criminals and collaborationists.[68]
Tomás Eloy Martínez, writer and professor of Latin American studies at Rutgers
University, wrote that Juan Perón allowed Nazis into the country in hopes of acquiring
advanced German technology developed during the war. Martínez also noted that Eva
Perón played no part in allowing Nazis into the country.[69] However, one of Eva's
bodyguards was in fact an ex-Nazi commando named Otto Skorzeny, who had met
Juan on occasion.[70]
Jewish and German communities of Argentina[edit]
Further information: History of the Jews in Argentina and German Argentine
The German Argentine community in Argentina is the third-largest immigrant group in
the country, after the ethnic Spanish and the Italians. The German Argentine community
predates Juan Perón's presidency, and began during the political unrest related to the
19th-century unification of Germany. Laurence Levine writes that Perón found 20th-
century German civilization too "rigid" and had a "distaste" for it.[71] Crassweller writes
that while Juan Perón preferred Argentine culture, with which he felt a spiritual affinity,
he was "pragmatic" in dealing with the diverse populace of Argentina. [21]
While Juan Perón's Argentina allowed many Nazi criminals to take refuge in the country
following World War II, the society also accepted more Jewish immigrants than any
other country in Latin America. Today Argentina has a population of more than 200,000
Jewish citizens, the largest in Latin America, the third-largest in the Americas, and the
sixth-largest in the world.[72][73][74][75] The Jewish Virtual Library writes that while he had
sympathized with the Axis powers, "Perón also expressed sympathy for Jewish rights
and in 1949 established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel, the first Latin
American government to do so. Since then, more than 45,000 Jews have emigrated to
Israel from Argentina."[76]

Juan Perón and José Ber Gelbard

Golda Meir talks with Evita Perón on Meir's visit to

Argentina, 1951.
Fraser and Navarro write that Juan Perón was a complicated man who over the years
stood for many different, often contradictory, things.[77] In the book Inside Argentina from
Perón to Menem author Laurence Levine, former president of the US-
Argentine Chamber of Commerce, writes, "although anti-Semitism existed in Argentina,
Perón's own views and his political associations were not anti-Semitic...."[71] Perón
appointed several Jewish Argentinians as government advisers, such as his economic
advisor, José Ber Gelbard.[71] He favoured the creation of institutions such as New Zion
(Nueva Sión), the Argentine-Jewish Institute of Culture and Information, led by Simón
Mirelman, and the Argentine-Israeli Chamber of Commerce. Also, he named Rabbi
Amran Blum as the first Jewish professor of philosophy in the National University of
Buenos Aires. Perón appointed Pablo Mangel, a Jew, as Argentina's first ambassador
to that Israel.[78] In 1946 Perón's government allowed Jewish army privates to celebrate
their holidays, which was intended to foster Jewish integration.[citation needed]
Argentina signed a generous commercial agreement with Israel that granted favourable
terms for Israeli acquisitions of Argentine commodities, and the Eva Perón Foundation
sent significant humanitarian aid. In 1951 during their visit to Buenos Aires, Chaim
Weizmann and Golda Meir expressed their gratitude for this aid.[citation needed]
U.S. Ambassador George S. Messersmith visited Argentina in 1947 during the first term
of Juan Perón. Messersmith noted, "There is not as much social discrimination against
Jews here as there is right in New York or in most places at home..." [21] According
to Raanan Rein, "Fewer anti-Semitic incidences took place in Argentina during Perón’s
rule than during any other period in the 20th century.”[79]

Second term (1952–1955)[edit]

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Perón and the ailing Evita during his second inaugural

parade, June 1952. Eva died the following month.
Facing only token UCR and Socialist Party opposition and despite being unable to field
his popular wife, Eva, as a running mate, Perón was re-elected in 1951 by a margin of
over 30%.[80] This election was the first to have extended suffrage to Argentine women
and the first in Argentina to be televised: Perón was inaugurated on Channel 7 public
television that October. He began his second term in June 1952 with serious economic
problems, however, compounded by a severe drought that helped lead to
a US$500 million trade deficit (depleting reserves).[8]
Perón called employers and unions to a Productivity Congress to regulate social conflict
through dialogue, but the conference failed without reaching an agreement. Divisions
among Peronists intensified, and the President's worsening mistrust led to the forced
resignation of numerous valuable allies, notably Buenos Aires
Province Governor Domingo Mercante.[5] Again on the defensive, Perón accelerated
generals' promotions and extended them pay hikes and other benefits. He also
accelerated landmark construction projects slated for the CGT or government agencies;
among these was the 41-story and 141 m (463 ft) high Alas Building (transferred to
the Air Force by a later regime).[81]
Opposition to Perón grew bolder following Eva Perón's death on 26 July 1952. On 15
April 1953, a terrorist group (never identified) detonated two bombs in a public rally
at Plaza de Mayo, killing 7 and injuring 95. Amid the chaos, Perón exhorted the crowd
to take reprisals; they made their way to their adversaries' gathering places,
the Socialist Party headquarters and the aristocratic Jockey Club (both housed in
magnificent turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts buildings), and burned them to the ground.

Designed and manufactured in Argentina,

the Justicialist was part of Perón's effort to develop a local auto industry.
A stalemate of sorts ensued between Perón and his opposition and, despite austerity
measures taken late in 1952 to remedy the country's unsustainable trade deficit, the
president remained generally popular. In March 1954, Perón called a vice-presidential
election to replace the late Hortensio Quijano, which his candidate won by a nearly two-
to-one margin. Given what he felt was as solid a mandate as ever and with inflation in
single digits and the economy on a more secure footing, Perón ventured into a new
policy: the creation of incentives designed to attract foreign investment.

The Alas Building under construction

Drawn to an economy with the highest standard of living in Latin America and a new
steel mill in San Nicolás de los Arroyos, automakers FIAT and Kaiser Motors responded
to the initiative by breaking ground on new facilities in the city of Córdoba, as did the
freight truck division of Daimler-Benz, the first such investments since General Motors'
Argentine assembly line opened in 1926. Perón also signed an important exploration
contract with Standard Oil of California, in May 1955, consolidating his new policy of
substituting the two largest sources of that era's chronic trade deficits (imported
petroleum and motor vehicles) with local production brought in through foreign
investment. Arturo Frondizi, who had been the centrist Radical Civic Union's 1951 vice-
presidential nominee, publicly condemned what he considered to be an anti-patriotic
decision; as president three years later, however, he himself signed exploration
contracts with foreign oil companies.
As 1954 drew to a close, Perón unveiled reforms far more controversial to the normally
conservative Argentine public, the legalization of divorce and of prostitution. The Roman
Catholic Church's Argentine leaders, whose support of Perón's government had been
steadily waning since the advent of the Eva Perón Foundation, were now open
antagonists of the man they called "the tyrant." Though much of Argentina's media had,
since 1950, been either controlled or monitored by the administration, lurid pieces on his
ongoing relationship with an underage girl named Nélida Rivas (known as
Nelly),[82] something Perón never denied, filled the gossip pages.[83] Pressed by reporters
on whether his supposed new paramour was, as the magazines claimed, thirteen years
of age, the fifty-nine-year-old Perón responded that he was "not superstitious."[84]
Before long, however, the president's humor on the subject ran out and, following the
expulsion of two Catholic priests he believed to be behind his recent image problems, a
15 June 1955 declaration of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation[85] (not of Pope Pius
XII himself, who alone had authority to excommunicate a head of state)[86] was
interpreted as declaring Perón excommunicated.[87] The following day, Perón called for a
rally of support on the Plaza de Mayo, a time-honored custom among Argentine
presidents during a challenge. However, as he spoke before a crowd of thousands,
Navy fighter jets flew overhead and dropped bombs into the crowded square below
before seeking refuge in Uruguay.

Scene in the Plaza de Mayo following a failed coup

attempt against Perón, 16 June 1955. He was deposed three months later.
The incident, part of a coup attempt against Perón, killed 364 people and was, from a
historical perspective, the only air assault ever on Argentine soil, as well as a portent of
the mayhem that Argentine society would suffer in the 1970s.[83] It moreover touched off
a wave of reprisals on the part of Peronists. Reminiscent of the incidents in 1953,
Peronist crowds ransacked eleven Buenos Aires churches, including the Metropolitan
Cathedral. On 16 September 1955, a nationalist Catholic group from both the Army and
Navy, led by General Eduardo Lonardi, General Pedro E. Aramburu, and Admiral Isaac
Rojas, led a revolt from Córdoba. They took power in a coup three days later, which
they named Revolución Libertadora (the "Liberating Revolution"). Perón barely escaped
with his life, leaving Nelly Rivas behind,[88] and fleeing on the
gunboat ARP Paraguay provided by Paraguayan leader Alfredo Stroessner, up
the Paraná River.
At that point Argentina was more politically polarized than it had been since 1880. The
landowning elites and other conservatives pointed to an exchange rate that had
rocketed from 4 to 30 pesos per dollar and consumer prices that had risen nearly
fivefold.[8][36] Employers and moderates generally agreed, qualifying that with the fact the
economy had grown by over 40% (the best showing since the 1920s).[89] The
underprivileged and humanitarians looked back upon the era as one in which real
wages grew by over a third and better working conditions arrived alongside benefits like
pensions, health care, paid vacations and the construction of record numbers of needed
schools, hospitals, works of infrastructure and housing.[14]

Exile (1955–1973)[edit]
The new military regime went to great lengths to destroy both Juan and Eva Perón's
reputation, putting up public exhibits of what they maintained was the Peróns'
scandalously sumptuous taste for antiques, jewelry, roadsters, yachts and other
luxuries. In addition, they highlighted the association between Peronism and Nazism
and accused Perón of having committed genocide.[90] They also accused other Peronist
leaders of corruption; but, ultimately, though many were prosecuted, none was
convicted.[citation needed] The junta's first leader, Eduardo Lonardi, appointed a Civilian
Advisory Board. However, its preference for a gradual approach to de-Perónization
helped lead to Lonardi's ousting, though most of the board's recommendations
withstood the new president's scrutiny.
Lonardi's replacement, Lieutenant-General Pedro Aramburu, outlawed the mere
mention of Juan or Eva Perón's names under Decree Law 4161/56. Throughout
Argentina, Peronism and the very display of Peronist mementos was banned. Partly in
response to these and other excesses, Peronists and moderates in the army organized
a counter-coup against Aramburu, in June 1956. Possessing an efficient intelligence
network, however, Aramburu foiled the plan, having the plot's leader, General Juan
José Valle, and 26 others executed. Aramburu turned to similarly drastic means in trying
to rid the country of the spectre of the Peróns, themselves. Eva Perón's corpse was
removed from its display at CGT headquarters and ordered hidden under another name
in a modest grave in Milan, Italy. Perón himself, for the time residing in Caracas,
Venezuela at the kindness of ill-fated President Marcos Pérez Jiménez, suffered a
number of attempted kidnappings and assassinations ordered by Aramburu.[91]
Continuing to exert considerable direct influence over Argentine politics despite the
ongoing ban of the Justicialist Party as Argentina geared for the 1958 elections, Perón
instructed his supporters to cast their ballots for the moderate Arturo Frondizi, a splinter
candidate within the Peronists' largest opposition party, the Radical Civic Union (UCR).
Frondizi went on to defeat the better-known (but, more anti-Peronist) UCR
leader, Ricardo Balbín. Perón backed a "Popular Union" (UP) in 1962, and when its
candidate for governor of Buenos Aires Province (Andrés Framini) was elected, Frondizi
was forced to resign by the military. Unable to secure a new alliance, Perón advised his
followers to cast blank ballots in the 1963 elections, demonstrating direct control over
one fifth of the electorate.[22]
Perón's stay in Venezuela had been cut short by the 1958 ousting of General Pérez
Jiménez. In Panama, he met the nightclub singer María Estela Martínez (known as
"Isabel"). Eventually settling in Madrid, Spain under the protection of Francisco Franco,
he married Isabel in 1961 and was admitted back into the Catholic Church in
1963.[92][93] Following a failed December 1964 attempt to return to Buenos Aires, he sent
his wife to Argentina in 1965, to meet political dissidents and advance Perón's policy of
confrontation and electoral boycotts. She organized a meeting in the house of Bernardo
Alberte, Perón's delegate and sponsor of various left-wing Peronist movements such as
the CGT de los Argentinos (CGTA), an offshoot of the umbrella CGT union. During
Isabel's visit, adviser Raúl Lastiri introduced her to his father-in-law, José López Rega.
A policeman with an interest in the occult, he won Isabel's trust through their common
dislike of Jorge Antonio, a prominent Argentine industrialist and the Peronist
movement's main financial backer during their perilous 1960s.[94] Accompanying her to
Spain, López Rega worked for Perón's security before becoming the couple's personal
secretary. A return of the Popular Union (UP) in 1965 and their victories
in congressional elections that year helped lead to the overthrow of the moderate
President Arturo Illia, and to the return of dictatorship.[22]
Perón became increasingly unable to control the CGT, itself. Though he had the support
of its Secretary General, José Alonso, others in the union favored distancing the CGT
from the exiled leader. Chief among them was Steel and Metalworkers Union
head Augusto Vandor. Vandor challenged Perón from 1965 to 1968 by defying Perón's
call for an electoral boycott (leading the UP to victories in the 1965 elections), and with
mottos such as "Peronism without Perón" and "to save Perón, one has to be against
Perón." Dictator Juan Carlos Onganía's continued repression of labour demands,
however, helped lead to Vandor's rapprochement with Perón – a development cut short
by Vandor's as-yet unsolved 1969 murder. Labour agitation increased; the CGTA, in
particular, organized opposition to the dictatorship between 1968 and 1972, and it would
have an important role in the May–June 1969 Cordobazo insurrection.[21]
Perón began courting the far left during Onganía's dictatorship. In his book La Hora de
los Pueblos (1968), Perón enunciated the main principles of his purported
new Tricontinental political vision:
Mao is at the head of Asia, Nasser of Africa, De Gaulle of the old Europe and Castro of
Latin America.[95]

— Juan Perón, La Hora de los Pueblos

He supported the more militant unions and maintained close links with the Montoneros,
a far-left Catholic Peronist group. On 1 June 1970, the Montoneros kidnapped and
assassinated former anti-Peronist President Pedro Aramburu in retaliation for the June
1956 mass execution of a Peronist uprising against the junta. In 1971, he sent two
letters to the film director Octavio Getino, one congratulating him for his work
with Fernando Solanas and Gerardo Vallejo, in the Grupo Cine Liberación, and another
concerning two film documentaries, La Revolución Justicialista and Actualización
política y doctrinaria.[96]
He also cultivated ties with ultraconservatives and the extreme right. He supported the
leader of the conservative wing of the UCR, his erstwhile prisoner Ricardo Balbín,
against competition from within the UCR itself. Members of the right-wing Tacuara
Nationalist Movement, considered the first Argentine guerrilla group, also turned
towards him. Founded in the early 1960s, the Tacuaras were a fascist, anti-Semitic and
conformist group founded on the model of Primo de Rivera's Falange, and at first
strongly opposed Peronism. However, they split after the 1959 Cuban Revolution into
three groups: the one most opposed to the Peronist alliance, led by Catholic priest Julio
Meinvielle, retained the original hard-line stance; the New Argentina Movement (MNA),
headed by Dardo Cabo, was founded on 9 June 1961, to commemorate General Valle's
Peronist uprising on the same date in 1956, and became the precursor to all modern
Catholic nationalist groups in Argentina; and the Revolutionary Nationalist Tacuara
Movement (MNRT), formed by Joe Baxter and José Luis Nell, who joined Peronism
believing in its capacity for revolution, and without forsaking nationalism, broke from the
Church and abandoned anti-Semitism. Baxter's MNRT became progressively Marxist,
and many of the Montoneros and of the ERP's leaders came from this group.[21]
Following Onganía's replacement in June 1970, General Roberto M.
Levingston proposed the replacement of Argentina's myriad political parties with "four or
five" (vetted by the Revolución Argentina regime). This attempt to govern indefinitely
against the will of the different political parties united Peronists and their opposition in a
joint declaration of 11 November 1970, billed as la Hora del Pueblo (The Hour of the
People), which called for free and immediate democratic elections to put an end to the
political crisis. The declaration was signed by the Radical Civic Union (UCRP),
the Justicialist Party (Peronist Party), the Argentine Socialist Party (PSA),
the Democratic Progressive Party (PCP) and the Partido Bloquista (PB).[22]
The opposition's call for elections led to Levingston's replacement by General Alejandro
Lanusse, in March 1971. Faced with strong opposition and social conflicts, General
Lanusse declared his intention to restore constitutional democracy by 1973, though
without Peronist participation. Lanusse proposed the Gran Acuerdo Nacional (Great
National Agreement) in July 1971, which was to find an honorable exit for the military
junta without allowing Peronism to participate in the election. The proposal was rejected
by Perón, who formed the FRECILINA alliance (Frente Cívico de Liberación Nacional,
Civic Front of National Liberation), headed by his new delegate Héctor José
Cámpora (a member of the Peronist Left). The alliance gathered his Justicialist
Party and the Integration and Development Movement (MID), headed by Arturo
Frondizi. FRECILINA pressed for free and unrestricted elections, which ultimately took
place in March 1973.
 •

The new leader, General Eduardo Lonardi, waves in a 1955 newsmagazine cover. His gradualist
approach to "de-Perónization" led to his prompt ousting.

First meeting of the Junta's Civilian Advisory Board, 1955. Despite great pressure to the
contrary, the board recommended that most of Perón's social reforms be kept in place.

Student unrest in Rosario, 1969 (the Rosariazo). Unable to return on his volition, Perón began
rallying besieged leftist students (the very people he had repressed in office).

•
 UCR leader Ricardo Balbín, Conservative Horacio Thedy and Perón's delegate, Daniel Paladino
(middle three) find rare common cause after General Levingston's 1970 power grab. Their joint
Hour of the People statement helped lead to elections in 1973 (and to Perón's return).

Relationship with Che Guevara[edit]

Che Guevara and Perón were sympathetic to each other. Pacho O'Donnell states
that Che Guevara, as Cuban minister, attempted to arrange for the return of Perón to
Argentina in the 1960s and sent financial support for that end. However, Perón
disapproved of Guevara's advocacy of guerrilla warfare as antiquated.[97] In Madrid,
Perón and Guevara met twice.[98] These meetings, as the meetings Perón held with
other leftists in Madrid (such as Salvador Allende), were arranged with great secrecy to
avoid complaints or expulsion from Francoist Spain.[98] According to Enrique Pavón
Pereyra, who was present at the second meeting between Guevara and Perón
in Madrid, Perón would have discouraged and warned Guevara of his guerrilla plans in
Bolivia: "you will not survive in Bolivia. Suspend that plan. Search for alternatives. [...]
Do not commit suicide."[97]
Enrique Pavón Pereyra was only present for the first part of the meeting; he then
served mate so that Perón and Guevara could drink together and left the meeting room
to provide them with some privacy. Pavón Pereyra speculated about the conversation
that followed in his absence: according to him, Perón would likely have explained to
Guevara that he could not compromise support for his planned operations, but that
"when" Guevara "moved activities" to Argentina he would provide Peronist
support.[98] After the encounter, Perón commented to a friend in a letter about meeting
Guevara, calling him "an immature utopian – but one of us – I am happy for it to be so
because he is giving the yankees a real headache."[97]

Third term (1973–1974)[edit]

General elections were held on 11 March 1973. Perón was banned from running, but a
stand-in, Dr. Héctor Cámpora, a left-wing Peronist and his personal representative, won
the election and took office on 25 May. On 20 June 1973, Perón returned from Spain to
end his 18-year exile. According to Página 12 newspaper, Licio Gelli, master
of Propaganda Due, had provided an Alitalia plane to return Perón to his native
country.[99] Gelli was part of a committee supporting Perón, along with Carlos Saúl
Menem (future President of Argentina, 1989–1999).[99] The former Italian Premier Giulio
Andreotti recalled an encounter between Perón, his wife, Isabel, and Gelli, saying that
Perón knelt before Licio Gelli to salute him.[99]
On the day of Perón's return, a crowd of left-wing Peronists (estimated at 3.5 million
according to police) gathered at the Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires to welcome him.
Perón was accompanied by Cámpora, whose first measures were to grant amnesty to
all political prisoners and re-establish relations with Cuba, helping Fidel Castro break
the United States embargo against Cuba. This, along with his social policies, had
earned him the opposition of right-wing Peronists, including the trade-unionist
bureaucracy.
Camouflaged snipers opened fire on the crowd at the airport. The left-wing Peronist
Youth Organization and the Montoneros had been trapped. At least 13 people were
killed and 365 injured in this episode, which became known as the Ezeiza massacre.[100]
Cámpora and Vice President Vicente Solano Lima resigned in July 1973, paving the
way for new elections, this time with Perón's participation as the Justicialist
Party nominee. Argentina faced mounting political instability, and Perón was viewed by
many as the country's only hope for prosperity and safety. UCR leader Ricardo
Balbín and Perón contemplated a Peronist-Radical joint government, but opposition in
both parties made this impossible. Besides opposition among Peronists, Ricardo Balbín
had to consider opposition within the UCR itself, led by Raúl Alfonsín, a leader among
the UCR's center-left. Perón received 62% of the vote, returning him to the presidency.
He began his third term on 12 October 1973, with Isabel, his wife, as Vice President.
On Perón's advice, Cámpora had appointed José Ber Gelbard as policy adviser to the
critical Economy Ministry. Inheriting an economy that had doubled in output since 1955
with little indebtedness and only modest new foreign investment, inflation had become a
fixture in daily life and was worsening: consumer prices rose by 80% in the year to May
1973 (triple the long-term average, up to then). Making this a policy priority, Ber Gelbard
crafted a "social pact" in hopes of finding a happy median between the needs of
management and labour. Providing a framework for negotiating price controls,
guidelines for collective bargaining and a package of subsidies and credits, the pact
was promptly signed by the CGT (then the largest labour union in South America) and
management (represented by Julio Broner and the CGE). The measure was largely
successful, initially: inflation slowed to 12% and real wages rose by over 20% during the
first year. GDP growth accelerated from 3% in 1972 to over 6% in 1974. The plan also
envisaged the paydown of Argentina's growing public external debt, then around
US$8 billion, within four years.
The improving economic situation encouraged Perón to pursue interventionist social
and economic policies similar to those he had carried out in the Forties: nationalizing
banks and various industries, subsidizing native businesses and consumers, regulating
and taxing the agricultural sector, reviving the IAPI, placing restrictions on foreign
investment,[16] and funding a number of social welfare programs.[101] In addition, new
rights for workers were introduced.[102]
The 1973 oil shock, however, forced Ber Gelbard to rethink the Central Bank's projected
reserves and, accordingly, undid planned reductions in stubborn budget deficits, then
around US$2 billion a year (4% of GDP). Increasingly frequent collective
bargaining agreements in excess of Social Pact wage guidelines and a resurgence in
inflation led to growing strain on the viability of the plan by mid-1974, however.[22]
Perón's third term was also marked by an escalating conflict between the Peronist left-
and right-wing factions. This turmoil was fueled primarily by calls for repression against
the left on the part of leading CGT figures, a growing segment of the armed forces
(particularly the navy) and right-wing radicals within his own party, notably Perón's most
fascist adviser, José López Rega. López Rega, appointed Minister of Social Welfare,
was in practice given power far beyond his purview, soon controlling up to 30 percent of
the federal budget.[22] Diverting increasing funds, he formed the Triple A, a death squad
that soon began targeting not only the violent left; but moderate opposition, as
well.[94] The Montoneros became marginalized in the Peronist movement and were
mocked by Perón himself after the Ezeiza massacre. In his speech to the governors on
2 August 1973, Perón openly criticized radical Argentine youth for a lack of political
maturity.
The rift between Perón and the far left became irreconcilable following 25 September
1973, murder of José Ignacio Rucci, the moderately conservative Secretary General of
CGT.[94] Rucci was killed in a commando ambush in front of his residence. His murder
was long attributed to the Montoneros (whose record of violence was well-established
by then), but it is arguably Argentina's most prominent unsolved mystery. [103]
Another guerrilla group, the Guevarist ERP, also opposed the Peronist right-wing. They
started engaging in armed struggle, assaulting an important Army barracks in Azul,
Buenos Aires Province on 19 January, and creating a foco (insurrection) in Tucumán, a
historically underdeveloped province in Argentina's largely rural northwest.[94] In May
1973 the ERP claimed to have extorted $1 million in goods from the Ford Motor
Company, after murdering one executive and wounding another.[104] Five months after
the payment, the guerrillas killed another Ford executive and his three bodyguards.
Only after Ford threatened to close down their operation in Argentina altogether, did
Perón agree to have his army protect the plant.[104]
Perón's failing health complicated matters. He suffered from an enlarged
prostate and heart disease, and by at least one account, he may have been senile by
the time he was sworn in for his third term. His wife frequently had to take over as
Acting President over the course of the next year.[105]
Perón maintained a full schedule of policy meetings with both government officials and
chief base of support, the CGT. He also presided over the inaugural of the Atucha I
Nuclear Power Plant (Latin America's first) in April; the reactor, begun while he was in
exile, was the fruition of work started in the 1950s by the National Atomic Energy
Commission, his landmark bureau. His diminishing support from the far left (which
believed Perón had come under the control of the right-wing entorno (entourage) led by
López Rega, UOM head Lorenzo Miguel, and Perón's own wife) turned to open enmity
following rallies on the Plaza de Mayo on 1 May and 12 June in which the president
condemned their demands and increasingly violent activities.[5]
Perón was reunited with another friend from the 1950s – Paraguayan dictator Alfredo
Stroessner – on 16 June to sign the bilateral treaty that broke ground
on Yacyretá Hydroelectric Dam (the world's second-largest). Perón returned to Buenos
Aires with clear signs of pneumonia and, on 28 June, he suffered a series of heart
attacks. Isabel was on a trade mission to Europe, but returned urgently and was
secretly sworn in on an interim basis on 29 June. Following a promising day at the
official presidential residence of Quinta de Olivos in the Buenos Aires suburb of Olivos,
Juan Perón suffered a final attack on Monday, 1 July 1974 and died at 13:15. He was
78 years old.[5]
Perón's corpse was first transported by hearse to Buenos Aires Metropolitan
Cathedral for a funeral mass the next day. Afterwards the body, dressed in full military
uniform, was taken to the Palace of the National Congress, where it lay in state over the
next 46 hours, during which more than 130,000 people filed past the coffin. Finally, at
09:30 on a rainy Thursday, 4 July the funeral procession commenced. Perón's
Argentine flag-covered casket was placed on a limber towed by a small army truck
(escorted by cavalry and a large motorcade of motorcycles and a few armored vehicles)
through the capital's streets back to Olivos.[106] At least one million people turned out for
Perón's funeral, some of whom threw flowers at the casket and chanted, "¡Perón!
¡Perón! ¡Perón!" as it passed by. Along the 16-kilometer (10-mile) route from the Palace
to Olivos, hundreds of armed soldiers lining it were assigned to restrain the crowd. As
many as 2,000 foreign journalists covered the ceremony. The funeral cortege reached
its final destination two and a half hours later. There, the coffin was greeted by a 21-gun
salute. Many international heads of state offered condolences to Argentina following the
demise of President Perón.[107] Three days of official mourning were declared
thereafter.[106] Perón had recommended that his wife, Isabel, rely on Balbín for support,
and at the president's burial Balbín uttered an historic phrase: "The old adversary bids
farewell to a friend."[5]
Isabel Perón succeeded her husband to the presidency, but proved incapable of
managing the country's political and economic problems, including the left-wing
insurgency and the reactions of the extreme right.[105] Ignoring her late husband's advice,
Isabel gave Balbín no role in her new government, instead granting broad powers to
López Rega, who started a "dirty war" against political opponents.
Isabel Perón's term ended abruptly on 24 March 1976, during a United States
backed military coup d'état. A military junta, headed by General Jorge Videla, took
control of the country, establishing the self-styled National Reorganization Process. The
junta ramped up the "dirty war", combining widespread persecution of political
dissidents with state terrorism. The death toll rose to thousands (at least 9,000, with
human rights organizations claiming it was closer to 30,000). Many of these were
"the disappeared" (desaparecidos), people kidnapped and executed without trial or
record.

Perón hosts the head of the opposition UCR, Ricardo Balbín, at his home in preparations for the
1973 campaign.
 •

José López Rega, Perón's personal secretary, proved a detrimental influence over the aging
leader, leveraging this for corruption and revenge.

Perón greets supporters during a 12 June 1974 rally, his last.

Juan and Isabel Perón with Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu during their state visit to Argentina on
6 March 1974.
 •

Perón's funeral cortège along the Avenida de Mayo.

Perón's stand-in, Héctor Cámpora, votes in the 1973 elections. Perón nominated Cámpora to
placate the Left, but their support for Perón waned after the leader made them guilty by
association for the growing wave of violence.

Relationship with Allende and Pinochet[edit]

Perón greeting Augusto Pinochet at Morón Airbase on 14 May

1974.
Salvador Allende had actively rejected Perón's attempts of establishing cooperation
between Chile and Argentina during the 1940s and 1950s.[108] Allende received the
election of Héctor Cámpora, who had previously lived in exile in Chile, as good news.
Allende sent Aniceto Rodríguez to Buenos Aires to work on an alliance between
the Socialist Party of Chile and the Justicialism. Later Allende attended the presidential
inauguration of Campora. All of this was greeted favorably by Perón, who came to refer
to Allende as "compañero". However, Perón also pointed to Allende as a cautionary
example for the most radical of his followers. In September just a few days before
the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat he addressed Tendencia Revolucionaria:
If you want to do as Allende, then look how it goes for Allende. One has to be calm.[108]

— Juan Perón
Perón condemned the coup as a "fatality for the continent" stating that the coup
leader Augusto Pinochet represented interests "well known" to him. He praised Allende
for his "valiant attitude" of committing suicide. He took note of the role of the United
States in instigating the coup by recalling his familiarity with coup-making processes.[108]
On 14 May 1974 Perón received Augusto Pinochet at the Morón Airbase. Pinochet was
heading to meet Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay so the encounter at Argentina was
technically a stopover. Pinochet and Perón are both reported to have felt uncomfortable
during the meeting. Perón expressed his wishes to settle the Beagle conflict and
Pinochet his concerns about Chilean exiles in Argentina near the frontier with Chile.
Perón would have conceded on moving these exiles from the frontiers to eastern
Argentina, but he warned "Perón takes his time, but accomplishes" (Perón tarda, pero
cumple). Perón justified his meeting with Pinochet stating that it was important to keep
good relations with Chile under all circumstances and with whoever might be in
government.[108]

Mausoleum and legacy[edit]

See also: Hands of Perón

Perón Street in midtown Buenos Aires, one of numerous

streets and avenues named in his honor when democracy returned to Argentina in
1983. It refers to him as General and not President.
Perón was buried in La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. On 10 June 1987, his
tomb was desecrated, and his hands and some personal effects, including his sword,
were stolen.[109][failed verification] Perón's hands were cut off with a chainsaw. A ransom letter
asking for US$8 million was sent to some Peronist members of Congress. This
profanation was a ritualistic act to condemn Perón's spirit to eternal unrest, according to
journalists David Cox and Damian Nabot in their book Second Death, who connected it
to Licio Gelli and military officers involved during Argentina's Dirty War.[110] The bizarre
incident remains unresolved.[111]
On 17 October 2006, his body was moved to a mausoleum at his former summer
residence, rebuilt as a museum, in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Vicente. A few
people were injured in incidents as Peronist trade unions fought over access to the
ceremony, although police were able to contain the violence enough for the procession
to complete its route to the mausoleum. The relocation of Perón's body offered his self-
proclaimed illegitimate daughter, Martha Holgado, the opportunity to obtain a DNA
sample from his corpse. She had attempted to have this DNA analysis performed for 15
years, and the test in November 2006 ultimately proved she was not his
daughter.[112][113] Holgado died of liver cancer on 7 June 2007. Before her death, she
vowed to continue the legal battle to prove she was Perón's biological child.
Argentina joined the Non-Aligned Movement under Perón in 1973 and remained a
member until the term of Carlos Menem in 1991.[114]

See also[edit]
• Argentina portal

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Further reading[edit]
• Gabriele Casula (2004). "Dove naciò Perón? un enigma sardo nella storia
dell'Argentina". catalog listing official page
• Guareschi, Roberto (5 November 2005). "Not quite the Evita of Argentine
legend". New Straits Times, p. 21.
• Hugo Gambini (1999). Historia del peronismo, Editorial Planeta. F2849 .G325
1999
• Nudelman, Santiago Archived 15 March 2015 at the Wayback
Machine (Buenos Aires, 1960; Chiefly draft resolutions and declarations
presented by Nudelman as a member of the Cámara de Diputados of the
Argentine Republic during the Perón administration)
• Martínez, Tomás Eloy. La Novela de Perón. Vintage Books, 1997.[ISBN missing]
• Page, Joseph. Perón: a biography (Random House, 1983)[ISBN missing]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Juan Perón (category)

• Perón y el peronismo: un ensayo bibliográfico by Mariano Ben Plotkin. (in

Spanish)
• Webpage of author Uki Goñi with extensive documentation on Perón's
involvement in harboring Nazi fugitives
• Biography of Juan Peron Archived 18 November 2012 at the Wayback
Machine a brief biography on About.com
• Casahistoria pages on Perón Les Fearns site, also links to Eva Perón pages
• "The Twenty Truths of the Peronist Movement (1940s): The Justicialist
movement's core tenets". Archived from the original on 10 April 2004.
Retrieved 13 November 2008.
 • Juan Domingo Perón Argentine Presidential Messages Well indexed dating
from 1946 onwards. The actual documents are shown as photocopied
images. Note: Downloading can be slow. University of Texas.
• Newspaper clippings about Juan Perón in the 20th Century Press Archives of
the ZBW

Political offices

Secretary of Labour and Social Succeeded by

New office Security
1943–1945 Domingo Mercante

Preceded by Minister of War Succeeded by

Pedro Pablo Ramírez 1944–1945 Eduardo Ávalos

Vice President of Argentina Succeeded by

1944–1945 Juan Pistarini
Preceded by
Edelmiro Farrell President of Argentina Succeeded by
First and Second Terms
1946–1955 Eduardo Lonardi

Preceded by President of Argentina Succeeded by

Third Term
Raúl Lastiri 1973–1974 Isabel Perón

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