Perón, Juan

Introduction

born Oct. 8, 1895, Buenos Aires province, Argentina

died July 1, 1974, Buenos Aires

in full Juan Domingo Perón army colonel who became president of Argentina (1946–55, 1973–74), founder and leader of the Peronist movement.

Early life and career.

Perón in his career was in many ways typical of the upwardly mobile, lower-middle-class youth of Argentina. He entered military school at 16 and made somewhat better than average progress through the officer ranks. A strongly built six-foot-tall youth, Perón became the champion fencer of the army and a fine skier and boxer. He served in Italy during the late 1930s as a military attaché and observed the successes of the Fascists and Nazis. He had a bent for history and political philosophy and published in those fields.

In 1943 he joined a clique of military plotters that overthrew the ineffective civilian government of Argentina. The military regimes of the following three years came increasingly under the influence of Perón, who had shrewdly requested for himself only the minor post of secretary of labour and social welfare. By 1945 he had also become vice president and minister of war. Clearly, he was bidding for undisputed power, based on the support of the underprivileged labourers (the descamisados, or “shirtless ones”) and on his popularity and authority in the army.

Marriage to Eva Duarte.

In early October 1945, Perón was ousted from his positions by a coup of constitutionally minded civilians and officers. But his beautiful and dynamic mistress, Eva Duarte, and associates in the labour unions rallied the workers of greater Buenos Aires, and Perón was released from custody on Oct. 17, 1945. That night, from the balcony of the presidential palace, he addressed 300,000 people, and his address was broadcast to the nation on radio. He promised to lead the people to victory in the pending presidential election and to build with them a strong and just nation. A few days later he married Eva, or Evita, as she was popularly called, who would help him rule Argentina in the years ahead.

After a campaign marked by repression of the liberal opposition by the federal police and by strong-arm squads, Perón was elected president in February 1946 with 56 percent of the popular vote.

Perón set Argentina on a course of industrialization and state intervention in the economy, calculated to provide greater economic and social benefits for the working class. He also adopted a strong anti-United States and anti-British position, preaching the virtues of his so-called Third Position, between communism and capitalism.

If he did not structurally revolutionize Argentina, he did reshape the nation. Basing his government on a foggy doctrine he called Justicialismo, Perón showered needed benefits upon the country's industrial workers, in the form of wage increases and fringe benefits. He nationalized the railroads and other utilities and financed public works on a large scale. The funds for those costly innovations—and for the graft that early began to corrode his regime—came from the foreign exchange accumulated by Argentine exports during World War II and from the profits of the state agency that set the prices for agricultural products. Perón dictated the political life of the nation by his command of the armed forces. He severely restricted and in some areas eliminated constitutional liberties.

Dictator in exile.

Reelected by a somewhat larger margin in 1951, Perón modified some of his policies. But he was overthrown and fled to Paraguay on Sept. 19, 1955, after an army-navy revolt led by democratically inspired officers who reflected growing popular discontent with inflation, corruption, demagoguery, and oppression.

Perón finally settled in Madrid. There in 1961 he married for the third time (his first wife had died of cancer, as had Evita in 1952); his new wife was the former María Estela (called Isabel) Martínez, an Argentine dancer. In Spain, Perón worked to ensure, if not his return to Argentina, at least the eventual assumption of power by the millions of Peronist followers, whose memory of his regime improved with time and with the incapacity of the Argentine governments following Perón's decade of power.

In election after election the Peronists emerged as a large, indigestible mass in the Argentine body politic. Neither the civilian nor the military regimes that precariously ruled in Argentina after 1955 were able to solve the relatively rich nation's condition of “dynamic stagnation,” in part because they refused to give political office to the Peronists.

The military regime of General Alejandro Lanusse, which took power in March 1971, proclaimed its intention to restore constitutional democracy by the end of 1973 and allowed the reestablishment of political parties, including the Peronist party. Upon invitation from the military government, Perón returned to Argentina for a short time in November 1972. In the elections of March 1973, Peronist candidates captured the presidency and majorities in the legislature, and, in June, Perón was welcomed back to Argentina with wild excitement. In October, in a special election, he was elected president and, at his insistence, his wife—whom the Argentines disliked and resented—became vice president.

A legacy of turmoil.

While in exile Perón had wooed the left-wing Peronists and had supported the most belligerent labour unions. Once returned to power, however, he formed close links with the armed forces and other previously opposition right-wing groups. When he died in 1974, he left to his widow and successor as president an untenable situation. Isabel Perón failed to obtain the firm support of any power group, not even the labour unions. Terrorist activity and political violence increased. On March 24, 1976, the armed forces took power, removed Isabel Perón from office, and set up a military junta.