Juan Domingo Perón

Juan Domingo Perón
Juan Domingo Perón after assuming the presidency in 1946.
President of the Argentine Nation
In office October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Preceded by	Raúl Lastiri
Succeeded by	María Estela Martínez de Perón
President of the Argentine Nation
In office June 4, 1946 – September 21, 1955
Preceded by	Edelmiro Julián Farrell (de facto)
Succeeded by	• Military Junta (September 21–23, 1955) • Eduardo Lonardi (de facto)
President of the Single Party of the Revolution President of the Peronist Party President of the Justicialist Party
In office November 21, 1946 – July 1, 1974
Preceded by	Party created
Succeeded by	María E. Martínez de Perón
Vice President of the Argentine Nation de facto
In office July 8, 1944 – October 10, 1945
President	Edelmiro Farrell (de facto)
Preceded by	Edelmiro Farrell (de facto)
Succeeded by	Juan Pistarini (de facto)
Secretary of Labor and Social Security of the Argentine Nation
In office December 1, 1943 – October 10, 1945
President	Pedro Pablo Ramírez (1943–1944 de facto) Edelmiro Farrell (1944–1945 de facto)
Preceded by	Secretariat created
Succeeded by	Domingo Mercante
Minister of War of the Argentine Nation
In office February 24, 1944 – October 8, 1945
President	Edelmiro Farrell (de facto)
Preceded by	Edelmiro Farrell
Succeeded by	Eduardo Ávalos
Personal details
Born	October 8, 1895 Lobos, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Died	July 1, 1974 (aged 78) Olivos, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Party	Labour Party (until 1946) Peronist Party (1946–1971) Justicialist Party (1971–1974)
Spouse(s)	Aurelia Tizón (1929–1938) María Eva Duarte (1945–1952) María Estela Martínez (1961–1974)
Parent(s)	Mario Tomás Perón Juana Salvadora Sosa
Relatives	Tomás Liberato Perón (paternal grandfather)
Alma mater	National Military College
Occupation	Politician and military officer
Signature
Nickname(s)	El General Juancito Pocho El Viejo Pseudonym: Descartes
Military service
Rank	Lieutenant general
Unit	Infantry

Juan Domingo Perón (Lobos, October 8, 1895 – Olivos, July 1, 1974) was a politician, military officer and writer, three times President of the Argentine Nation.

He was the founder of Peronism (also known as Justicialism), one of the most important popular movements in the history of Argentina. He was the only person to be elected President of his country three times and the first to be elected by male and female universal suffrage.

He took part in the Revolution of '43, which brought the so-called Infamous Decade to an end. After establishing an alliance with the socialist and revolutionary syndicalist trade union currents, he headed the Department of Labor, the Secretariat of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of War and the Vice Presidency of the Nation.

From the first two posts he took measures to favor the working classes and to enforce the labor laws: he promoted collective bargaining agreements, the Statute of the Rural Laborer, the labor courts and the extension of pensions to commercial employees. These measures won him the support of a large part of the labor movement and the repudiation of the business sectors, the high-income sectors and the ambassador of the United States, Spruille Braden, so that from 1945 onward a broad movement against him arose. In October of that year, a military palace coup forced him to resign and then ordered his arrest, which triggered, on October 17, 1945, a great workers' mobilization that demanded his release until it obtained it. That same year he married María Eva Duarte, who played an important political role during Perón's presidency.

He ran as a presidential candidate in the 1946 elections and emerged victorious. Some time later he merged the three parties that had backed his candidacy to create first the Single Party of the Revolution and then the Peronist Party.

After the Constitutional Reform of 1949, he was reelected in 1951 in the first elections held with the participation of women and men in Argentina. Besides continuing his policies aimed at favoring the most neglected sectors, his government was characterized by implementing a nationalist and industrialist line, above all with regard to the textile, steel, military, transport and foreign trade industries.

In international policy he upheld a third position toward the Soviet Union and the United States, in the context of the Cold War. In his last year of government he clashed with the Catholic Church, heightening the confrontation between Peronists and anti-Peronists, whereupon the Government hardened its persecution of terrorist and coup-plotting groups, of the opposition and of the opposition press. After a series of acts of violence by anti-Peronist civilian and military groups, and especially the bombing of Plaza de Mayo in mid-1955, Perón was overthrown in September of that same year.

The subsequent dictatorship banned Peronism from political life and repealed the constitutional reform, which included measures protecting the lowest social sectors and the legal equality of men and women.

After his overthrow Perón went into exile in Paraguay, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and finally in Spain, under the regime of Francisco Franco. A widower since 1952, during his exile he married María Estela Martínez, known as Isabel. In his absence, a movement known as the Peronist Resistance arose in Argentina, made up of various trade union, youth, student, neighborhood, religious, cultural and guerrilla groups, whose common goal was the return of Perón and the calling of free elections without proscriptions.

He tried to return to the country in 1964, but President Arturo Illía prevented it by asking the military dictatorship governing Brazil to detain him and send him back to Spain. He finally returned to the country in 1972, settling there permanently in 1973. With Perón still banned, Peronism won the elections in March 1973, opening the period known as the Third Peronism. Internal sectors of the movement clashed politically and through acts of violence: after the so-called Ezeiza massacre, Perón gave broad backing to the «orthodox» sectors of his party, some of which in turn created the parapolice command known as the Triple A, intended to persecute and murder militants classified as «leftist», Peronist and non-Peronist alike. A month and a half after taking office, President Cámpora resigned and new elections without proscriptions were called.

Perón ran together with his wife as candidates for President and Vice President respectively in September 1973 and won a sweeping victory, taking office in October of that same year.

Juan Domingo Perón died in mid-1974, leaving the Presidency in the hands of the Vice President, who was overthrown without having completed her term. Peronism continued to exist and has achieved several electoral victories.

Family background

Juan Domingo Perón was born at the end of the 19th century in the town of Lobos, Buenos Aires Province, as a «natural child», because his mother and father were not married at the time of his birth, which they did later.

Owing to the documentary shortcomings of the period and the high degree of racial mixing in Argentine society, the family and ethnic background of Juan Domingo Perón, as well as the exact date and place of his birth, have been subject to historical debate. In 2000, Hipólito Barreiro published his research on Perón's birth and childhood in a book titled Juancito Sosa: el indio que cambió la historia, while in 2010 and 2011 the lawyer and historian Ignacio Cloppet published his own research on the related genealogical records of Perón and Eva Duarte, tracing them in some cases back hundreds of years. The two investigations do not appear to be mutually exclusive, since Barreiro's focuses on facts not officially recorded and Cloppet's on the entries in the official records.

Father, mother and siblings

Record of the 1895 census taken on Sunday, May 10, 1895, corresponding to Cuartel 01 (urban area) of Lobos. In entries 9 to 11 of the folio appears the family of Juan Domingo, who would be born that year, five months later:
9. Sosa Juana, m [woman], 20 [years], s [single], no [can read and write];
10. Perón Mario, v [male], 27 [years], s [single], employee, yes [can read and write];
11. Perón Mario A, v [male], 3 [years], s [single].

Juan D. Perón's mother was Juana Salvadora Sosa (1874–1953), an Argentine born in the area of Lobos (Buenos Aires Province). She had her first child, Juan Domingo's older brother Mario Avelino, at the age of 17, while still unmarried. Juan Domingo Perón's father was Mario Tomás Perón (1867–1928), an Argentine born in Lobos (Buenos Aires Province) who worked as a court officer.

They had three children together without being married:

• Mario Avelino Perón (Lobos, November 30, 1891 – Sarandí, January 13, 1955).
• Juan Domingo Perón (Lobos, October 8, 1895 – Vicente López, July 1, 1974), the subject of this article.
• Alberto Perón (b. 1899), who died as a baby.

Juan Domingo was registered under that name on October 8, 1895, in the civil registry of Lobos by his father, and his birth certificate states that he had been born the previous day and was the «natural child of the declarant», without mentioning the mother's name. In 1898 he was baptized in the Catholic Church without the father's name being indicated, and was recorded under the name Juan Domingo Sosa. Juan Domingo's mother and father married in Buenos Aires on September 25, 1901.

Maternal line

Juan Domingo's maternal grandparents were Juan Ireneo Sosa Martínez and María de las Mercedes Toledo Gaona, both Argentines. His maternal grandfather was a bricklayer and had been born in Buenos Aires Province, while his maternal grandmother had been born in Azul (Buenos Aires Province).

Paternal line

Juan Domingo's paternal grandfather was Tomás Liberato Perón (1839–1889), an Argentine born in Buenos Aires who was a physician and served one term as a Mitrist provincial deputy, professor of Chemistry and Legal Medicine, member of the Council of Public Hygiene and councilor of the Faculty of Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. Juan Domingo's paternal grandmother was Dominga Dutey Bergouignan (1844–1930), a Uruguayan born in Paysandú.

The parents of his paternal grandfather were Tomás Mario Perón (1803–1856), a Genoese born in Sardinia who immigrated to Argentina in 1831, and Ana Hughes McKenzie (1815–1877), a Briton born in London. The parents of his paternal grandmother were Jean Dutey and Vicenta Bergouignan, both French Basques, natives of Baigorry.

Early years

Birth certificate of Juan Domingo Perón dated October 8, 1895, which records that he was born «yesterday».

Perón's baptismal certificate, made in 1898.

Juan Domingo Perón Birthplace Museum, located at what is now Presidente Perón 482 street (formerly Buenos Aires street 1380), in the city of Lobos.

The child Juan Domingo Perón in 1899, when he was 4 years old, with his older brother Mario Perón and his mother Juana Sosa.

The official position, established by Law No. 25,518 of 2001, holds that Juan Domingo was born on October 8, 1895, even though the birth certificate drawn up that day indicates that the birth had taken place the previous day. The official place of birth is Lobos, a small town in the north-central part of Buenos Aires Province, and in turn in the east-central part of the Argentine Republic, but which until shortly before his birth had been a military fort on the frontier line between the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and the territory of the Tehuelche, Ranquel and Mapuche peoples. Juan Domingo Perón's possible membership in the Tehuelche people through his maternal line is a matter of debate among historians.

Beyond the debates, he himself referred several times, in private and in public, to his ethnic background:

My grandmother used to tell me that when Lobos was barely a fort, they were already there... My immemorial grandmother was what we can well describe as a tough, strapping woman, who knew all the secrets of the countryside... When the old woman used to tell how she had been a captive of the Indians I would ask her: So, grandmother... do I have Indian blood? I liked the idea, you know? And I believe that, in fact, I do have some Indian blood. Look at me: high cheekbones, thick hair... In short, I have the Indian type. And I am proud of my Indian origin, because I believe that the best in the world is found among the humble.

— Juan Domingo Perón, 1967, interview in the magazine 7 Días

In 2000, the historian Hipólito Barreiro published his research on Perón's birth, according to which his entry in the civil registry may have been made two years after his birth and the exact place may have been the area of Roque Pérez, near Lobos and Saladillo. With similar results, the historians Oscar Domínguez Soler, Alberto Gómez Farías and Liliana Silva of the National University of La Matanza published their research in 2007 in the book Perón ¿cuándo y dónde nació?. To the contrary, and on the basis of his registry research of 2010 and 2011, the lawyer Ignacio Cloppet has maintained that his research on the legal records related to Perón's birth indicates that he was born on October 8, 1895, in the City of Lobos. But the two lines of research do not appear to be mutually exclusive, since the former refers to facts not officially recorded, and the latter to the entries in the official records.

Juan Domingo would be raised during his first five years in the rural areas of Lobos and Roque Pérez: "I am one of those who learned to ride a horse before learning to walk", he would tell his friend and biographer Enrique Pavón Pereyra. About his mother, Juana, he says:

My mother, born and raised in the countryside, rode horseback like any of us and took part in the hunts and rural chores with the confidence of things one has mastered. She was a criolla through and through. We saw in her the head of the household, but also the doctor, counselor and friend of everyone who had a need. That sort of matriarchy, exercised without formalism but quite effective, inspired respect but also affection

— Juan Domingo Perón

In 1900, when Juan Domingo was five years old, the Perón-Sosa family boarded the steamship Santa Cruz bound for the seacoast of Argentine Patagonia, to some ranches in the surroundings of Río Gallegos: Chaok-Aike, Kamesa- Aike and Coy-Aike, that is, at the beginnings of a hamlet located on old Tehuelche settlements.

In 1902 they moved farther north, first to the Chubut town of Cabo Raso, where their distant relatives surnamed Maupás had properties at La Masiega, and later, in February 1904, they moved to the town of Camarones, on account of Mario Tomás's appointment to serve on an interim basis as justice of the peace, on December 19, 1906. Shortly afterward they moved again, this time to their own estate, which they named La Porteña, located in the Sierra Cuadrada, 175 km from the city of Comodoro Rivadavia, and later they founded another one called El Mallín.

In 1904 the parents of Juan and Mario decided to send their sons to live in Buenos Aires so that they could begin formal schooling, leaving them in the care of their paternal grandmother, Dominga Dutey, and their father's two half-sisters, Vicenta and Baldomera Martirena, who were schoolteachers. The two boys were seeing the big city for the first time and would only see their parents during the summers. The children's paternal grandmother's house was in the very center of the city, at 580 San Martín street. He studied first at the school next door to his house, where his aunts were teachers, and then at various schools until completing his primary education, later pursuing polytechnic secondary studies at the International College of Olivos, directed by Professor Francisco Chelía.

Juan Domingo was called «Pocho» in his inner circle, a nickname that later spread and was the moniker by which he was referred to in various circles.

Marriages

Perón had three wives: on January 5, 1929, he married Aurelia Gabriela Tizón (March 18, 1902 – September 10, 1938), daughter of Cipriano Tizón and Tomasa Erostarbe, who died of uterine cancer. Her remains rest in the Olivos Cemetery, Buenos Aires Province, in the Tizón family vault.

On October 22, 1945, he married the actress Eva Duarte (1919–1952) in Junín, a few days after October 17.

According to witnesses of the time, it was precisely while he was in captivity that he is said to have thought of getting married. Once free, at an informal meeting, Eva Duarte introduced him to Friar Pedro Errecart, who surprised Perón with his skill at getting along with one of his dogs that nobody could approach, and with the frankness with which he told him: "if you do not marry in the Church you cannot be President".

The phrase was one more push for Perón, and Friar Errecart, who already enjoyed Eva Duarte's sympathy, soon won his trust. They had planned for the end of November an austere ceremony with no more than about twelve people, but the information leaked, and when they arrived in La Plata they found a crowd waiting for them, which made them abandon the idea until two weeks later.

Building that housed the Ordiales Notary Office in Junín, which was in charge of drawing up the civil marriage certificate between Eva Duarte and Juan Domingo Perón in 1945. Across the street was the Duarte family home. The old house is currently the seat of the Labor Court of Junín.

Finally, on December 10, 1945, they were able to carry out the wedding in a private ceremony that was recorded on folio 2397 of the Book of Marriages of the San Francisco Parish. Juan Domingo Perón was 50 years old and Eva Duarte 26. After the ceremony the guests shared a meal with them in an old house located a few blocks from the church.

The oldest residents of the neighborhood recall that the General's gratitude was so great that he even offered to build a new church on the grounds of Saavedra Park, but in the face of the priest's firm refusal, he allocated the funds to repair the parish church, whose renovation was completed in 1946.

Known as Evita, Eva Perón collaborated in her husband's administration with a policy of social assistance and support for the political rights of women, who were granted the right to vote for the first time. On July 26, 1952, while Perón was serving his second term as President, Evita died after a long struggle with uterine cancer.

After Evita's death, Perón maintained an illegal love affair for two years with Nelly Rivas, a 15-year-old girl who studied at the UES (Union of Secondary Students). Later, the young woman was prosecuted by the courts and sent to an asylum for adolescents who had committed the crime of estupro.

On November 15, 1961, he married in Spain María Estela Martínez Cartas, known as Isabelita, who later accompanied him as vice-presidential candidate in the September 1973 elections and succeeded him in office upon his death, until March 24, 1976, when she was overthrown by a military coup.

Juan Perón had no children, so his closest descendants were his nephews and nieces, children of his brother Avelino Mario Perón and Eufemia Jáuregui: Dora Alicia, Eufemia Mercedes, María Juana (born in 1921), Mario Alberto, Olinda Argentina, Lía Vicenta, Amalia Josefa, Antonio Avelino and Tomás Perón.

Military career

On March 1, 1911, he entered the National Military College, thanks to the scholarship obtained for him by Antonio M. Silva, a close friend of his paternal grandfather, whom he had attended during his illness until his death. He graduated on December 18, 1913, as an infantry second lieutenant.

In 1914 he was assigned to the 12th Infantry Regiment stationed in Paraná, Entre Ríos, where he remained until 1919. In 1915 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.

In 1916 he publicly showed a political stance for the first time. That year, elections with universal and secret suffrage were held in Argentina for the first time, although only for men, won by Hipólito Yrigoyen of the Radical Civic Union, in what is considered the first democratic government. Perón voted in that election for the first time, choosing Yrigoyen and the UCR, in open confrontation with the conservative and oligarchic sectors organized in the National Autonomist Party of Roquist ideology, which had governed without alternation for the previous 36 years. During the Radical governments (1916–1930) Perón would gradually adopt a stance close to the legalist nationalist military officers (such as those exemplified by Enrique Mosconi or Manuel Savio), and at the same time critical of the Radical government, mainly because of the workers' massacre known as the Tragic Week of 1919 and what he considered its «ineffectiveness» in the face of the country's serious social problems.

Already holding the rank of lieutenant, Perón served in the 12th Infantry Regiment stationed in Paraná under the command of General Oliveira Cézar, which was sent in 1917 and 1919 by the Yrigoyen government to intervene militarily in the workers' strikes taking place in the logging camps that the English company La Forestal had in the north of Santa Fe Province. His position and that of other officers of the time was that under no circumstances should the Army repress the strikers.

Perón attached great importance to the promotion of sport. The photo shows him in 1921 as a lieutenant with Professor Ángel Arias after a fencing bout at the social festival of the Tres de Febrero club in Villa Urquiza.

He attached great importance to sport: he practiced boxing, athletics and fencing. In 1918 he became military and national fencing champion. He wrote several sports texts for military training. On December 31, 1919, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and in 1924 to that of captain. In 1926 he entered the Higher War School.

In those years he wrote several texts that were printed as study materials in the military academies, such as Higiene militar (1924), Moral militar (1925), Campaña del Alto Perú (1925), El frente oriental en la guerra mundial de 1914. Estudios estratégicos (1928), among other works. On January 12, 1929, he obtained his diploma as a General Staff officer and on February 26 he was assigned to the Army General Staff as aide to Colonel Francisco Fasola Castaño, deputy chief of the General Staff.

His time at the Non-Commissioned Officers' School would give him contact with the school's humble aspirants and cadets. During this period Perón trained the cadets in the strictest military discipline, but he also taught them everything from manners of coexistence to morals and ethics. During this stage Perón also stood out as a sportsman, being army and national épée champion between 1918 and 1928, receiving widespread recognition from superiors and subordinates for the work he carried out in the practice of sports.

In 1920 he was transferred to the «Sargento Cabral» Non-Commissioned Officers' School at Campo de Mayo, where he excelled as a troop instructor. Already then he was distinguished among his colleagues by his special interest in and treatment of his men, which soon made him a charismatic officer. In those years he published his first works in the form of graphic contributions to the translation from German of an exercise book for soldiers and some chapters of a manual intended for non-commissioned officer aspirants.

At the beginning of 1930 he was appointed substitute professor of Military History at the Higher War School, and became the full professor at the end of the year. That year saw the coup d'état of September 6, led by General José Félix Uriburu, which overthrew the constitutional President Hipólito Yrigoyen. The coup had the support of a broad spectrum that included anti-personalist Radicals, independent socialists, conservatives, employers' and student organizations, the Judiciary, as well as the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom.

After his wife's death, Perón tried to distract himself by helping his friend, Father Antonio D'Alessio, organize athletic competitions for the neighborhood children. Shortly afterward he set off on a journey to Patagonia. He traveled thousands of kilometers by car and returned at the beginning of 1939. The fruit of that journey and of long talks with the Mapuche chiefs Manuel Llauquín and Pedro Curruhuinca was his Toponimia patagónica de etimología araucana.

Perón held no post in Uriburu's dictatorial government, but he took a marginal part in the preparation of the coup as a member of an autonomous group, of «legalist nationalist» tendency, led by Lieutenant Colonels Bartolomé Descalzo and José María Sarobe, which criticized the «conservative oligarchic» group surrounding Uriburu. This group sought to give the movement broad popular support and to avoid the installation of a military dictatorship, which is what finally happened. Perón was part of a column that peacefully cleared the Casa Rosada, where civilian groups were looting and causing destruction.

After the coup, the military group of Lieutenant Colonels Descalzo and Sarobe, in which Perón took part, was dismantled by the military dictatorship, which sent its members abroad or to distant posts in the interior of the country. Perón himself would be assigned to the Boundaries Commission, having to move to the northern border.

The Uriburu dictatorship (1930–1932) organized elections in which it banned Hipólito Yrigoyen and restricted the room for action of Yrigoyenist Radicalism, thus facilitating the electoral victory of a coalition of anti-Yrigoyenist Radicals, conservatives and socialists, called the Concordancia, which would govern through successive fraudulent elections until 1943. That period is known in Argentine history as the Infamous Decade.

On December 31, 1931, Perón was promoted to the rank of major. In 1932 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Minister of War and published the book Apuntes de historia militar, which was awarded a medal and diploma of honor in Brazil the following year. He produced new publications such as Apuntes de historia militar. Guerra ruso-japonesa de 1904-1905 (1933) and Toponimia araucana (1935).

On January 26, 1936, he was appointed military attaché at the Argentine embassy in Chile, a post to which a few months later he added that of air attaché. He returned to Argentina at the beginning of 1938 and was assigned to the Army General Staff.

At the beginning of 1939 he was sent to Italy to take training courses in various disciplines, such as economics, mountaineering, skiing and high-mountain operations. He also visited Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania and the Soviet Union. He returned to Argentina two years later, on January 8, 1941. He gave a series of lectures on the state of the war situation in Europe ―in the context of the Second World War (1939–1945)―, after which he was promoted to the rank of colonel at the end of the year and the following year appointed commander of a mountain unit in Mendoza Province, where he published an article and instructions on mountain commands.

On January 8, 1941, Perón was assigned to a unit in Mendoza Province, as noted, to keep him away from the conspiratorial centers of Buenos Aires, which had been very active since the beginning of the war and had accelerated their activities when the terminal nature of President Roberto M. Ortiz's illness became known. In Mendoza, Perón was promoted to colonel. Later, on May 18, 1942, the transfers of Perón and Mercante to the Federal Capital were ordered.

In 1942 and 1943 the two principal leaders of Argentina during the Infamous Decade died: former President Marcelo T. de Alvear (leading figure of the main popular opposition party, the Radical Civic Union) and former President Agustín P. Justo (leading figure of the Armed Forces and of the parties that made up the ruling Concordancia). The sudden absence of leaders, in both the political and the military sphere, would have great influence on the military and political events that would unfold the following year, in which Perón would play an increasingly important role.

On May 31, 1946, President Edelmiro Farrell reinstated him in the Army and promoted him to brigadier general. On May 1, 1950, the National Congress passed Law 13896 by which it promoted Perón ―even though he had expressed his opposition― to major general with effect from December 31, 1949; the law was promulgated by default.

On October 6, 1950, he attained the rank of army general (later renamed «lieutenant general»). On November 10, 1955, Decree-Law No. 2034/55 ―dated October 31― was published in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic, making official the sentence of the Military Court of Honor for Disqualification for most serious misconduct, by which he was stripped of his military rank, decorations and the right to wear the uniform. This situation remained until the publication of Law 20,530 ―passed by Congress on August 29, 1973, and promulgated on September 10― which declared the total nullity of the laws, decree-laws, regulations, decrees and other provisions from September 21, 1955, onward that had deprived the former president of his property, military status and rank, right to wear the uniform, distinctions and decorations.

Decorations and insignia

Coat of Arms of Juan Domingo Perón with the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.

During his military career he received numerous decorations and insignia:

• «General Staff Officer», Higher War School
• «Mountain Troops Insignia» (Condor of the Andes).
• «Military Pilot Insignia»

Dictatorship known as the Revolution of '43

Main article: Revolution of '43

On June 4, 1943, a coup d'état overthrew the government of conservative President Ramón Castillo. Castillo's government was the last of a series of governments known in Argentine history as the Infamous Decade, imposed by the dictatorship of General José Félix Uriburu (1930–1931) and sustained by electoral fraud. In 1943 General Arturo Rawson took office, but three days later he was in turn removed by General Pedro Pablo Ramírez.

Several historians link Perón to the GOU, the acronym of a military lodge that might stand for Grupo Obra de Unificación or Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (United Officers' Group), or to the ATE (Asociación de Tenientes del Ejército, Army Lieutenants' Association), made up of mid- and low-ranking Army officers. This group or these groups are credited with having had great influence on the coup and the military government. However, several important historians, such as Rogelio García Lupo and Robert Potash, have maintained that the GOU never existed as such or that, if it had existed, it had little power. The historian Roberto Ferrero maintains that the Farrell-Perón duo sought to form a «popular nationalist» pole that would lead toward a democratic way out of the regime, confronting the non-democratic «elitist nationalist» sector that had supported Ramírez as President.

Perón held no post in Rawson's government, nor initially in Ramírez's. On October 27, 1943, he took office as head of the National Department of Labor, at that time a small State agency of little political importance.

Perón's beginnings in the new government: the alliance with the unions

1945 front page of the newspaper of the Unión Ferroviaria, the country's main union since the 1920s. In late 1943, Colonel Perón established an alliance with a broad group of unions of various tendencies, which organized itself as a laborist-nationalist current and had a notable influence on the course of the self-styled Revolution of '43.

Perón served as private secretary to General Edelmiro Farrell, who had been in charge of the Ministry of War since June 4, 1943. A few days after the coup, the CGT No. 2, led by the socialist sector of Francisco Pérez Leirós and Ángel Borlenghi and by the communists, met with the dictatorship's Minister of the Interior to offer union support by means of a march to the Casa Rosada. The government rejected the offer and shortly afterward dissolved the CGT No. 2, imprisoning several of its leaders.

In August 1943 the labor movement attempted a new rapprochement with the military dictatorship, this time on the initiative of the powerful Unión Ferroviaria union of the CGT No. 1, upon learning that one of its leaders was the brother of Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Mercante. Those talks prospered, and little by little other union leaders joined them and, at Mercante's request, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. Until then the unions had played a minor role in the country's political life and were led by four currents: socialism, revolutionary syndicalism, communism and anarchism. The two main unions were the Unión Ferroviaria, led by José Domenech, and the Confederation of Commerce Employees, led by Ángel Borlenghi.

In the first meetings, marked by mistrust, the trade unionists proposed to Mercante and Perón an alliance that would be installed in the small National Department of Labor, in order to push from there for the enactment and, above all, the effective application of the labor laws long demanded by the labor movement, as well as the strengthening of the unions and of the Department of Labor itself. Perón's growing power and influence came from his alliance with a sector of Argentine trade unionism, mainly with the socialist and revolutionary syndicalist union currents.

In 1944 he created the National Health Directorate, under the Ministry of the Interior, which came to administer the Federal Aid Fund intended to compensate for imbalances among jurisdictions in health matters, and through its Regional Delegations it exercised influence over public health in the provinces and governorates of the country. By means of resolution 30 655/44, which promoted free medical care in factories under the company's responsibility, policies were supported so that the unions would develop social insurance as a complement to State action, and hospital services were created under the control of the unions of the sugar industry, the railway workers and glass workers, among others.

On the basis of that alliance and seconded by Mercante, Perón maneuvered within the government to be appointed head of the National Department of Labor, which had little influence at the time, something that happened on October 27, 1943. Perón appointed the union leaders to the main posts of the department, and from there they set the union plan in motion, initially adopting a policy of pressure on companies to resolve labor disputes through collective labor agreements. The dizzying activity of the Department of Labor and the growing support for its work on the part of union leaders of all currents (socialists, revolutionary syndicalists, communists and anarchists), in turn incorporating other socialists such as José Domenech (railway), David Diskin (commerce employees), Alcides Montiel (brewery) and Lucio Bonilla (textile); revolutionary syndicalists coming from the Unión Sindical Argentina, such as Luis Gay (telephone) and Modesto Orozo (telephone); even some communists such as René Stordeur (printing) and Aurelio Hernández (health) and even Trotskyists such as Ángel Perelman (metalworking).

Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare

In November 1943, Perón set up his office as Secretary of Labor in the headquarters of the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires (today's Legislative Palace).

On November 27, 1943, a decree, drafted by José Figuerola and Juan Atilio Bramuglia, created the National Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare; the same decree named Perón Secretary of Labor.

The new agency incorporated into its organizational chart the functions of the Department of Labor and other offices, such as the National Retirement and Pension Fund, the National Directorate of Public Health and Social Assistance, the National Board to Combat Unemployment and the Rent Chamber, among others. It reported directly to the President, so that it had all the powers of a ministry; its function was to centralize all of the State's social action and to oversee compliance with labor laws, for which it had regional delegations throughout the country. The conciliation and arbitration services and powers were also transferred to the Secretariat, as were the functions of labor police, the industrial hygiene services, those for the inspection of mutual aid associations and those related to maritime, river and port labor.

As a reflection of the administrative elevation of the new Secretariat, Perón moved the offices of the old Department, which were in a small building at the corner of Perú and Victoria (today Hipólito Yrigoyen), to the headquarters of the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires.

In late 1943, the socialist trade unionist José Domenech, general secretary of the powerful Unión Ferroviaria, proposed to Perón that he personally take part in workers' assemblies. The first union assembly he attended was on December 9, 1943, in the city of Rosario, where Domenech introduced him as «the First Worker of Argentina». Domenech's introduction would have historic consequences, since that title would be one of the arguments for accepting Perón's membership in the new Labor Party two years later, and it would also appear as one of the most prominent verses of the Peronist March.

Secretary of Labor, Minister of War and Vice President

In February 1944 the Farrell-Perón duo removed Ramírez from the presidency, and Perón was appointed to the strategic post of Minister of War on February 24, 1944, and the following day Farrell to the Presidency of the Nation, first on an interim basis and definitively from March 9.

As Secretary of Labor, Perón carried out notable work, securing the approval of the labor laws that had historically been demanded by the Argentine labor movement (the extension of severance pay, which had existed since 1934 for commerce employees; pensions for commerce employees; the Statute of the Rural Laborer; the creation of labor courts; the aguinaldo (annual bonus); giving greater effectiveness to the already existing labor police to guarantee its application, and promoting for the first time collective bargaining, which became widespread as the basic regulation of the relationship between capital and labor. He also repealed the decree-law on trade union associations enacted by Ramírez in the first weeks of the revolution, which was criticized by the entire labor movement.

Hand in hand with this activity, Perón, Mercante and the initial group of trade unionists who brought about the alliance (mainly the socialists Borlenghi and Bramuglia) began to organize a new union current that would take on a laborist-nationalist identity

During 1944 Farrell decisively promoted the labor reforms proposed by the Secretariat of Labor. That year the government called on unions and employers to negotiate collective agreements, a process without precedent in the country. That year 123 collective agreements were signed covering more than 1.4 million workers and employees, and the following year (1945) another 347 agreements would be signed covering 2.2 million workers.

The Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare began to make the historic program of Argentine trade unionism a reality: Decree 33.302/43 was enacted, extending to all workers the severance pay that commerce employees already had; the Journalist's Statute was enacted; the Polyclinic Hospital for railway workers was created; private employment agencies were prohibited and technical schools aimed at workers were created. On July 8, 1944, Perón was appointed Vice President of the Nation, while keeping the posts of Minister of War and Secretary of Labor.

On November 18, 1944, the promulgation of the Statute of the Rural Laborer (Decree-Law No. 28.194), enacted the previous month, was announced, modernizing the semi-feudal situation in which rural workers still found themselves and alarming the large estancieros (latifundistas) who controlled Argentine exports. On November 30 the labor courts were established, resisted by the employers' sector and conservative groups. These regulations established for the first time, for the entire territory of the republic, humane working conditions for non-transient rural wage earners, among them: minimum wages, Sunday rest, paid vacations, job stability, and hygiene and housing conditions. This decree was ratified by Law 12.921 and regulated by Decree 34.147 of 1949. In this way the bargaining power of the rural unions was strengthened; it established the Statute of the Tambero-Mediero (dairy sharecropper), publicly supported and committed itself to maintaining the mandatory reduction of lease prices and the suspension of evictions, and transferred the National Agrarian Council to the sphere of the STyP, from where some expropriations were carried out. Perón would maintain: "Land must not be an asset for rent, but an asset for work".

On December 4 the pension system for commerce employees was approved, which was followed by the union demonstration in support of Perón, the first in his support and at which he spoke at a public event, organized by the socialist Ángel Borlenghi, general secretary of the union, bringing together an enormous crowd estimated at 200,000 people.

At the same time the unionization of workers was increasing: whereas in 1941 there were 356 unions with 441,412 members, by 1945 that number had risen to 969 unions with 528,523 members, mostly "new" workers, ethnically distinct from the immigrants of previous decades, coming from the mass migration that was taking place from the interior of the country and from neighboring countries to the cities, especially to Greater Buenos Aires. They began to be called disparagingly "morochos", "grasas", "negros", "negras" and "cabecitas negras" by the middle and upper classes, and also by some of the "old" industrial workers, descendants of European immigration.

The Secretariat of Labor, with the support of an increasingly important sector of trade unionism, was massively reshaping the culture that underpinned labor relations, characterized until then by the predominance of the paternalism characteristic of the estancia. A representative of the employers' sector opposed to the "Peronist" labor reforms maintained at the time that the most serious thing about them was that the workers had «begun to look their employers in the eye».

In this context of cultural transformation regarding the place of workers in society, the working class was constantly expanding due to the country's accelerated industrialization. This great socio-economic transformation was the basis of the laborist nationalism that took shape between the second half of 1944 and the first half of 1945 and that would adopt the name Peronism. He played a central role in the enactment of Decree-Law 1740/45, establishing the vacation regime for industrial workers, and in the creation of the National Labor Courts. Decree No. 33.302 of December 20, 1945, created the "National Institute of Remuneration", granted a wage increase and instituted, for the first time, the supplementary annual salary or aguinaldo. Perón represented the line of greatest openness toward social problems. Through the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, created on Perón's initiative, he brought about fundamental changes aimed at establishing a stronger relationship with the labor movement; a series of reforms in labor legislation were enacted, such as the Statute of the Laborer, which established a minimum wage and sought to improve the food, housing and working conditions of rural workers. The establishment of social insurance and pensions benefited 2 million people. The creation of Labor Courts, whose rulings were, in general terms, favorable to workers' demands.*The setting of wage improvements and the establishment of the aguinaldo for all workers. The recognition of professional associations, whereby trade unionism obtained a substantial improvement of its position in the legal sphere. It also granted new rights such as severance pay, paid vacations, leave, prevention of workplace accidents, technical training, etc. Likewise, between 1936 and 1940 the unions had signed only 46 collective labor agreements, and in 1944 and 1945 alone they signed more than 700. On October 2, 1945, the Law of Professional Associations was issued. The unions were declared entities of public good. Workers thus obtained recognition of their rights, were given legal support and had the State as their backing.

1945

1945 was one of the most momentous years in the history of Argentina.

It began with the obvious intention of Farrell and Perón to prepare the ground for declaring war on Germany and Japan; Perón's role in this decision must be noted. On January 26, 1944, the Argentine Government had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan (Italy was occupied by the Allies): «A state of war is declared between the Argentine Republic and the Empire of Japan», and only in article 3 was war declared on Germany. On March 20, the British chargé d'affaires Alfred Noble met with Perón to stress the need to take that step. But there was opposition within the Army, and public opinion was divided over whether or not to declare war; nevertheless, it took measures aimed at improving its image: a complete halt to trade with the Axis countries, the closure of pro-Nazi publications, the intervention of German companies, and the arrest of a significant number of Nazi spies or suspected spies.

Already in October of the previous year Argentina had requested a meeting of the Pan American Union to consider a common course of action. Subsequently, Perón's alliance with the unions gradually displaced the right-wing nationalist sector that had been installed in the Government since the 1943 coup: Minister of Foreign Affairs Orlando L. Peluffo, the federal intervenor of Corrientes David Uriburu, and above all General Juan Sanguinetti, removed from the crucial post of intervenor of Buenos Aires Province, which, after a brief interregnum, was taken over by Juan Atilio Bramuglia, the socialist lawyer of the Unión Ferroviaria and a member of the union sector that initiated the labor movement's rapprochement with Perón.

In February Perón made a secret trip to the United States to agree on the declaration of war, the end of the blockade, the recognition of the Argentine government and its adherence to the Inter-American Conference of Chapultepec scheduled for February 21. Shortly afterward the right-wing nationalist Rómulo Etcheverry Boneo resigned from the Ministry of Education and was replaced by Antonio J. Benítez, a man of the Farrell-Perón group.

On March 27, at the same time as most Latin American countries, Argentina declared war on Germany and Japan, and a week later it signed the Act of Chapultepec, thereby becoming eligible to take part in the San Francisco Conference that founded the United Nations on June 26, 1945, joining the group of 51 founding countries.

At the same time the government began a turn toward holding elections. On January 4 the Minister of the Interior, Admiral Tessaire, announced the legalization of the Communist Party. The pro-Nazi newspapers Cabildo and El Pampero were banned, and the university intervenors were ordered removed in order to return to the reformist system of university autonomy, while the dismissed professors were reinstated.

Anti-Peronism and Peronism

Spruille Braden, the new United States ambassador to Argentina, arrived in Buenos Aires on May 19, 1945. He was the main organizer of anti-Peronism.

The main feature of the year 1945 in Argentina would be the radicalization of the political situation between Peronism and anti-Peronism, driven to a large extent by the United States through its ambassador, Spruille Braden. From then on the Argentine population would be divided into two head-on opposing camps: the supporters of Perón, who were the majority in the working class, and the non-Peronists, who were the majority in the middle class (above all the porteño middle class) and the upper class.

On May 19 Spruille Braden arrived in Buenos Aires, the new U.S. ambassador who would hold the post until November of the same year. Braden was one of the owners of the mining company Braden Copper Company of Chile, a supporter of the hard-line imperialist policy of the «Big Stick»; he held an openly anti-union position and opposed the industrialization of Argentina. Previously he had played a significant role in the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, protecting the interests of Standard Oil and in Cuba (1942), working to get it to break off relations with Spain. Later he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs and began working as a paid lobbyist for the United Fruit Company, promoting the coup d'état against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.

According to the British ambassador, Braden had «the fixed idea that he had been chosen by Providence to overthrow the Farrell-Perón regime». From the very beginning, Braden began publicly organizing and coordinating the opposition, exacerbating the internal conflict. The Radical historian Félix Luna says that the appearance of anti-Peronism preceded the appearance of Peronism. The Stock Exchange and the Argentine Chamber of Commerce launched the Manifesto of Commerce and Industry together with 321 employers' organizations, criticizing the labor policy of the Secretary of Labor, since it was creating «a climate of suspicion, of provocation and of rebellion, which stimulates resentment, and a permanent spirit of hostility and grievance».

The union movement, in which open support for Perón did not yet predominate, reacted quickly in defense of the labor policy, and on July 12 the CGT organized a massive rally under the slogan «Against the capitalist reaction». According to the Radical historian Félix Luna, that was the first time that workers began to identify themselves as «Peronists».

Anti-Peronism adopted the banner of democracy and harshly criticized what it called the antidemocratic attitudes of Peronism; Peronism, for its part, took up the banner of social justice and harshly criticized its adversaries' contempt for the workers. The student movement expressed its opposition with the slogan «no to the dictatorship of the espadrilles» («no a la dictadura de las alpargatas») and the union movement replied with «espadrilles yes, books no» («alpargatas sí, libros no»). The workers' demonstrations supporting the labor laws that Perón was promoting answered "espadrilles yes, books no".

On September 19, 1945, the opposition appeared united in an enormous demonstration of more than 200 000 people, called the March of the Constitution and Liberty, which went from the Congress to the Recoleta neighborhood, headed by fifty opposition figures, among them the Radicals José P. Tamborini, Enrique Mosca, Ernesto Sammartino and Gabriel Oddone, the socialist Nicolás Repetto, the Antipersonalist Radicals José M. Cantilo and Diógenes Taboada, the conservative (PDN) Laureano Landaburu, the Christian Democrats Manuel Ordóñez and Rodolfo Martínez, the pro-communist Luis Reissig, the Progressive Democrat Juan José Díaz Arana, and the rector of the UBA, Horacio Rivarola.

It has been said that the demonstration was made up mostly of middle- and upper-class people, which is historically indisputable, but this does not invalidate the historical significance of its social breadth and political plurality. The march struck the power of Farrell-Perón head-on and unleashed a succession of military demands against Perón's continuance in the government, which came to a head on October 8 when, in the face of an adverse vote by the officers of Campo de Mayo, which was under the command of General Eduardo J. Ávalos (one of the leaders of the GOU), with the support of Radicalism through Amadeo Sabattini, Perón submitted his resignation from all his posts. On October 11 the United States asked Great Britain to stop buying Argentine goods for two weeks in order to bring about the fall of the government.

On October 12 Perón was arrested and taken to Martín García Island. At that moment the leaders of the opposition movement had the country and the government at their disposal. «Perón was a political corpse» and the government, formally headed by Farrell, was in reality in the hands of General Ávalos, who took office as Minister of War in place of Perón and only sought to hand power over to civilians as soon as possible.

Perón was replaced in the vice presidency by the Minister of Public Works, General Juan Pistarini, who held both posts, and the head of the Navy, Rear Admiral Héctor Vernengo Lima, took charge of the Ministry of the Navy. The tension reached such a point that the Radical leader Amadeo Sabattini was booed as a Nazi in the Casa Radical, a gigantic civilian rally attacked the Círculo Militar (October 12) and a paramilitary commando went so far as to plan Perón's assassination.

The Casa Radical on Tucumán Street in Buenos Aires had become the center of the opposition's deliberations. But the days went by without any resolution being taken, often going so far as to encourage employers' revanchism. Tuesday, October 16, was payday:

When they went to collect their fortnightly pay, the workers found that the wages for the October 12 holiday were not being paid, despite the decree signed days earlier by Perón. Bakers and textile workers were the most affected by the employers' reaction. "Go complain to Perón!" was the sarcastic reply.

Organizations such as the University Federation of Buenos Aires, the Argentine University Federation and the Bar Association in some cases took part in coup-plotting and terrorist activities.

October 17

File:JuanDomingoPeron-RadioNacional.ogg

Historic photo known as Las patas en la fuente ("Feet in the fountain") during the demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo on October 17, 1945.

Perón's sash, displayed in the Bicentennial Museum.

On Wednesday, October 17, there was a massive mobilization of between 300 000 demonstrators (Félix Luna) and 500 000 people, workers and very humble sectors who occupied the Plaza de Mayo demanding Perón's release. A decisive role in it was played by union leaders, the metalworkers Ángel Perelman and Patricio Montes de Oca, Alcides Montiel of the brewery workers' union, Cipriano Reyes of the meatpackers' union, rank-and-file leaders of the CGT who went around the factories urging workers to leave their jobs and march, chanting slogans in favor of Perón, along the main streets toward the center of the Federal Capital, and activists such as the Uruguayan writer Blanca Luz Brum. Earlier, in the early hours of the 17th, a mobilization began of the workers of La Boca, Barracas, Parque Patricios and the working-class neighborhoods of the west of the Federal Capital, as well as of the surrounding industrial areas. The number of workers who came out from Berisso, a town near La Plata, was very significant. The action was barely coordinated by a few union leaders who had been agitating in the previous days, and the main driving force came from those very columns, which fed the movement as they marched.

President Edelmiro J. Farrell maintained a detached attitude. The most anti-Peronist sectors of the government, such as Admiral Vernengo Lima, proposed opening fire on the demonstrators. The new strongman of the military government, General Eduardo Ávalos, remained passive, hoping that the demonstration would break up on its own, and refused to mobilize the troops. Finally, faced with the forcefulness of the popular pressure, they negotiated with Perón and agreed on the conditions: Perón would speak to the demonstrators to calm them, would make no reference to his detention and would get them to leave, and for its part the cabinet would resign in its entirety and Ávalos would request his retirement; Perón would also retire and would never again hold any post, but in exchange he demanded that the government call free elections for the first months of 1946.

At 11:10 p.m. Perón came out onto a balcony of the Government House and spoke to the workers as they celebrated their triumph. He announced his retirement from the Army, celebrated the «festival of democracy» and, before asking them to return peacefully to their homes, taking care not to harm the women present, said:

Many times I have attended meetings of workers. I have always felt an enormous satisfaction: but from today on, I will feel a true pride as an Argentine, because I interpret this collective movement as the rebirth of a workers' consciousness, which is the only thing that can make the Fatherland great and immortal… And remember, workers, unite and be more brothers than ever. On the brotherhood of those who work our beautiful Fatherland must rise, in the unity of all Argentines.

— Juan Domingo Perón, October 17, 1945

Five days later Perón married Evita and his friend Mercante took over the leadership of the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare; he would finally be elected President in the elections of February 24, 1946.

1946 elections

Main article: 1946 Argentine presidential election

Proclamation of the Perón-Quijano ticket, on February 10, 1946.

After a short period of rest, during which he married Eva Duarte in Junín (Buenos Aires Province) on October 22, Perón began his political campaign. The sector of the Radical Civic Union that supported him formed the UCR Junta Renovadora, which was joined by the Labor Party and the Independent Party; the Radical organization FORJA dissolved itself to join the Peronist movement.

The Argentine Rural Society (SRA) would play an active role in the campaign, counting on the active backing of Spruille Braden, the United States ambassador to Argentina. During the campaign two events occurred that deeply affected the outcome: on the one hand, the discovery of a large check handed over by an employers' organization as a contribution to the campaign of the Unión Democrática. The second was the involvement of the U.S. Department of State in internal matters, at the urging of Ambassador Braden, in the electoral campaign in favor of the Tamborini-Mosca ticket.

At the same time it came to light that Raúl Lamuraglia, a businessman, had financed the campaign of the Unión Democrática through million-peso checks from the Bank of New York intended to support the National Committee of the Radical Civic Union and its candidates José Tamborini and Enrique Mosca. Later, in 1951, the businessman would contribute resources to support the failed coup d'état of General Benjamín Menéndez against Perón, and in June 1955 he would finance the bombing of Plaza de Mayo.

In 1945, the United States embassy headed by Spruille Braden promoted the unification of the opposition in an anti-Peronist front, which included the Communist, Socialist, Radical Civic Union, Progressive Democratic and Conservative parties, the Argentine University Federation (FUA), the Rural Society (landowners), the Industrial Union (large companies), the Stock Exchange, and the opposition unions. During his brief tenure as ambassador, and making use of an excellent command of the Spanish language, Braden acted as a political leader of the opposition, in an evident violation of the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a foreign country. In 1946, a few days before the elections, Braden promoted the publication of a report called "The Blue Book" ("El Libro Azul"), accusing both the military government and the previous one (the Castillo presidency) of collaborating with the Axis powers, according to documents compiled by the U.S. Department of State. In response, the political parties backing Perón's presidential candidacy published a reply book entitled "The Blue and White Book" ("El Libro Azul y Blanco"), which skillfully established the slogan Braden or Perón.

In the middle of the 1946 electoral campaign, sectors linked to the Argentine Rural Society, the local branch of the Radical Civic Union and the Liberal Party of Corrientes planned an attempt on his life in Corrientes; on February 3, 1946, as Perón marched through the streets of Goya, this group positioned themselves on the rooftops with weapons. From a vehicle in which the Liberals Bernabé Marambio Ballesteros, Gerardo Speroni, Juan Reynoldi and Ovidio Robar were traveling, they fired firearms at the people who, having learned the news at the port, were marching toward the center to repudiate the assassination attempt.

The Unión Democrática supported the Blue Book and the immediate occupation of Argentina by military forces led by the United States; in addition, it demanded that Perón be legally barred from being a candidate. This, however, did not happen and only served to destroy the Unión Democrática's chances of victory. Perón in turn published the Blue and White Book, making public a slogan that posed a stark choice, «Braden or Perón», which had a strong influence on public opinion at the time of voting.

Popular support, organized by the Labor Party and the UCR Junta Renovadora, gave Perón the presidency in the elections of February 24, 1946, in which he was defeated only in Córdoba, Corrientes, San Juan and San Luis. Perón won with 52.84% of the votes, while Tamborini came in second with 42.87% of the votes, ten points below Peronism. In the Electoral College (there was no direct vote), Perón received 299 electoral votes against only 66 for Tamborini. The Unión Democrática collapsed at the moment of its defeat and never united again, while Perón's allied parties were unified into the Peronist Party at the end of that year.

Unlike the elections held during the Infamous Decade, the February 1946 elections were recognized as absolutely clean by the opposition leaders and newspapers themselves.

Some opposition media refused to publish the result once the presidential elections had been held. The newspaper La Prensa did not report the news that Perón had been elected President. It took more than a month to print the news, indirectly, by publishing a quotation from New York Times that took it as a fact that Perón had won the presidential elections. When power was handed over, the newspaper reported the event without mentioning Perón a single time.

First presidency (1946–1952)

Main article: First government of Perón

The outgoing de facto president, Edelmiro Farrell, hands over the attributes of presidential command to Juan Domingo Perón on June 4, 1946. With this ceremony, Perón officially inaugurated his first presidency.

Juan Domingo Perón's first presidential term ran from June 4, 1946 to June 4, 1952. Among its most notable actions were the building of an extensive welfare state, centered on the creation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and the Eva Perón Foundation; a broad redistribution of wealth in favor of the most neglected sectors; the recognition of women's political rights; an economic policy that promoted industrialization and the nationalization of basic sectors of the economy; and a foreign policy of South American alliances based on the principle of the third position. In the same period a constitutional reform was carried out that enacted the so-called Constitution of 1949.

In the party sphere, the three parties that had supported his candidacy (Labor, UCR-JR and Independent) were unified into the Peronist Party, and he supported the founding of the Female Peronist Party in 1949.

Economic policy

File:Borlenghi.1947.oga

During Perón's government the policy of import substitution was deepened through the development of light industry, which had been promoted since the previous decade. Perón also invested heavily in agriculture, especially in wheat planting. During this period the agricultural sector was modernized; on the basis of the development of the steel and petrochemical industries, mechanization and the supply of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted, so that agricultural production and efficiency increased.

The four pillars of the first Peronist economic discourse were: "domestic market", "economic nationalism", "preponderant role of the State" and "central role of industry". The State gained growing importance as regulator of the economy in all its markets, including that of goods, and also as a provider of services.

In 1946, with Perón already president-elect, the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic was nationalized by decree-law 8503/46. At the same time, a policy of discretionary allocation of credit took place through the formation of specialized official banks: the newly created Banco de Crédito Industrial supported the activity of "industry and mining", the Banco Nación did so with "agriculture and commerce", the Banco Hipotecario Nacional financed "housing construction", and the Caja Nacional de Ahorro Postal "consumer credit". The Caja was also the body assigned to promote the "capture of small savings" arising from the new distributive policies.

The lending rate differed according to the purpose of the loans and was the sole and discretionary prerogative of the National State. All deposits of public and private banks were nationalized. With this measure, added to the "absolute control of monetary issuance" (by virtue of the nationalization of the BCRA), the State obtained hegemony over the sources of money creation in the system. Likewise and, in return, it assumed full guarantee of bank deposits.

The active participation of the State in economic activity, together with the distributive wage policy and the recapitalization of industry—which, more because of supply problems than regulations, had been unable to re-equip throughout the war period—put pressure on aggregate demand, which grew at a disproportionately higher rate than supply, causing an explosive increase in imports. This would mark the birth of high inflation in Argentina.

The set of measures taken clearly denotes a strong stimulus to consumption, to the detriment of saving, for this sub-period. Despite the appearance of incipient inflation, the demand for money remained high throughout the stage, although with a declining trend from 1950 onward.

Faced with the shortage of foreign currency—a product of the stagnation of the primary sector—with which the capital goods and inputs needed for the industrialization process were imported, in 1946 Perón nationalized foreign trade through the creation of the Argentine Institute for the Promotion of Trade (IAPI), which meant a state monopoly of foreign trade. This allowed the State to obtain resources that it used to redistribute toward industry. This intersectoral transfer from the agrarian sector to industry caused conflicts with some agricultural employers' associations, especially the Sociedad Rural Argentina.

Perón signing the deed by which all the railways passed into the hands of the State.

In 1947 he announced a Five-Year Plan to strengthen the newly created industries and begin heavy industry (steelmaking and electric power generation in San Nicolás and in Jujuy). Perón asserted that Argentina had obtained political freedom in 1810, but not economic independence. Industrialization would diversify and make more complex the productive matrix (Scalise, Iriarte, n.d.) and this, in turn, would allow Argentina to transcend the role assigned to it in the International Division of Labor. The Plan sought to transform the socio-economic structure; reduce external vulnerability (reducing debt and nationalizing public services); improve the standard of living (through redistribution and public works in health, education and housing); accelerate industrial capitalization and develop the local financial system (to stabilize the balance of payments). Thus, the State assumed an active participation in the economy.

That same year he created the Sociedad Mixta Siderúrgica Argentina (Somisa), appointing General Manuel Savio at its head, and the company Agua y Energía Eléctrica. In 1948 the State nationalized the railways, mostly owned by English capital, and created the company Ferrocarriles Argentinos. Also in 1948 he created the National Telecommunications Company (ENTel). In 1950 he created Aerolíneas Argentinas, the first Argentine airline.

In the area of science and technology development, he began the development of nuclear energy with the creation of the National Atomic Energy Commission in 1950, with scientists such as José Antonio Balseiro and Mario Báncora, who exposed the fraud of Ronald Richter and then laid the foundations of the Argentine nuclear plan.

In the aeronautical sector, great impetus was given to national production through the Military Aircraft Factory, created in 1927 by Radical president Marcelo T. de Alvear, with the development of jet aircraft standing out through the Pulqui Project directed by German engineer Kurt Tank. In Europe some 750 specialist workers were hired, two teams of German designers Reimar Horten, an Italian team (headed by Pallavecino) and French engineer Emile Dewoitine. These teams, together with Argentine engineers and technicians, would be in charge of designing the jet aircraft Pulqui I and Pulqui II, the twin-engine Justicialista del Aire, later renamed I.Ae. 35 Huanquero, Horten flying wings, etc. Likewise, San Martín arranged the entry into the country of an important group of professors from the Polytechnic University of Turin, with whom the School of Engineering of the Argentine Air Force was created. This academic staff also formed part of the faculty of the School of Engineering of the University of Córdoba. Also manufactured were the I.Ae. 22 DL advanced trainer, the I.Ae. 24 Calquín bomber and attack aircraft, the I.Ae. 23 primary trainer, and the I.Ae. 30 Ñancú twin-engine fighter. Completing that period were the I.Ae. 25 Mañque assault glider, the "El Gaucho" aircraft engine, the AM-1 Tábano remote-controlled rocket and elementary training and civil-use aircraft: the Colibrí, the Chingolo, and the F.M.A. 20 Boyero. The realization of these aeronautical projects led to the formation of an important network of suppliers of high-quality parts, and as a consequence, the creation of the industrial park that was the basis of Córdoba's later industrial development and take-off.

After the first three years of government, the classic phase of the import substitution process was exhausted and the expansive phase of economic policy based on the growth of aggregate demand and income redistribution came to an end. The political crisis would extend until 1952, the year in which the government decided to adopt a new political-economic course.

The political crisis that began in this period had its origins in the external sector, with a 33% fall in imports and exports, and was compounded by the precipitous fall in reserves, which dropped to 150 million dollars when at the start of the administration they had reached levels of 1,500 million dollars. This scenario had a major aggravating factor: "The strangulation of productive capacity", the result of insufficient capitalization of the productive structure over a long period, added to the lower availability of goods due to the contraction in imports. In addition, it is important to note the fall in agricultural production in 1951–1952 caused by the effects of droughts.

The Government maintained its expansive monetary, fiscal and wage policy, but the pressure of aggregate demand on an economy with fewer available goods and services exacerbated inflationary pressures until, in 1951, an inflation record for the country up to that point in the 20th century was reached. The cost of living rose 37% and wholesale prices 48%.

Education policy

Primary and secondary education

Main article: Primary and secondary education in the first government of Perón

During the Peronist government, enrollment in primary and secondary schools grew at higher rates than in previous years: while in 1946 there were 2,049,737 students enrolled in primary schools and 217,817 in secondary schools, by 1955 there were 2,735,026 and 467,199 respectively.

Most children of the middle class and a significant part of the upper strata of the working class gained access to secondary education, especially in commercial and technical education.

Religious instruction in primary and secondary schools, which dated from the presidency of Ramírez, was abolished on December 16, 1954 in the context of the conflict with the Catholic Church.

One of the causes of irritation for the opposition was the introduction into school textbooks of drawings, photographs and texts praising Perón and Evita, such as "Long live Perón! Perón is a good ruler. Perón and Evita love us" and other similar ones. In secondary school the subject "Civic Culture" was introduced, which in practice was a means of propaganda for the government, its protagonists and its achievements; Eva Perón's book La razón de mi vida was compulsory at the primary and secondary levels.

The faster growth of secondary school compared with primary school indicates that most children of the middle class and a significant part of the upper strata of the working class gained access to secondary education, which is confirmed by the fact that the greatest increase occurred in commercial and technical education. In 1954, the Congress with its Peronist majority repealed religious instruction in public schools (but not in private ones). Congress approved the Statute for Teaching Personnel of Private Educational Establishments and the Private Education Union Council, which equalized the rights of private school teachers with those enjoyed by public school teachers.

Regarding kindergartens, the Simini law was approved in 1946, establishing the guidelines for preschool education for young children aged three to five. In 1951, the Law of Stability and Career Ladder number 5651 was enacted, which was approved by all sectors. As regards teachers' salaries, it established that they would be determined by the budget law and that periodic bonuses would apply both to tenured and substitute teachers. On promotions, it specified that positions above first-category vice-principal would be filled through competitive examination. In turn, teachers succeeded in joining the teacher classification tribunal.

University education

In matters of university policy, during his first presidency Perón promoted measures intended to bring the popular sectors closer to the public university. In 1948 he sent Congress a bill to create the National Workers' University (now called UTN), which was created by Law 13,229 and put into operation in 1952, with centers in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Bahía Blanca and Avellaneda. The aim of the Workers' University was to orient it toward productive engineering with free study regimes that would facilitate access for young workers. The main measures of his government were unrestricted admission, free tuition and scholarships, in order to open the University to the people, which represented a whole socio-cultural revolution for the time. Free tuition was embodied in decree 29337 of 1949 (Broches, 2009). During Perón's first government, curricula were coordinated, conditions of admission to the University were unified, 14 new universities were created, and the budget was raised from 48 million (1946) to 256 million (1950). Free university tuition allowed the number of students to grow from 49,000 in 1946 to 96,000 in 1950. Full-time dedication was established to allow professionals to do research. In addition, for the first time a scholarship system was established for low-income students, funded by a 2% tax on salaries established in articles 87 and 107 of Law No. 13,013. This made it possible that by 1956 Argentina was the country with the largest number of university students in all of Latin America.

The residential block of the University City, designed in 1949 and begun that year.

In 1949 he decreed free tuition for public university education (Decree 29,337/1949); by 1955 the number of university students had tripled.

On announcing the decree, Perón declared:

As of today, the current university fees are abolished so that education may be absolutely free and within reach of all young Argentines who wish to educate themselves for the good of the country.

— Juan Domingo Perón

During his term the building of the new Faculty of Law was also constructed, and the Faculties of Architecture and Dentistry were created, all of the University of Buenos Aires. In his second presidency Perón created the National Council of Technical and Scientific Research (CONITYC), the immediate predecessor of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), and a new regional branch of the Workers' University was opened in Tucumán. There was the creation of the Institute of Mining and Geology of the UNT in the Province of Jujuy, which would be followed by the creation of institutes in the fields of the arts, law, economics and scientific research. In this way, he also planned the construction of the University City in the Sierra de San Javier, whose works began in 1949. In the north he expanded the University in the region, creating the Institute of Geology and Mining, the Institute of High-Altitude Biology and the Institute of Popular Medicine, in Jujuy; the Technical School of Vespucio and the Institute of Humanities, in Salta; the School of Agriculture in El Zanjón, in Santiago del Estero, for example. He incorporated the Salesian University of Labor into the UNT and created the University Medical Service.

After 15 years of restricted democracies and military interventions over civilian governments, in 1946 Congress enacted a new Higher Education Law that placed the universities under the rules of a democracy without proscription. To that end, and marking a milestone in the history of higher education legislation, Peronism enacted in 1947 Law No. 13,031, called the Guardo Law, in honor of the Justicialist deputy who drafted its articles. This legislation put an end to the long validity of the four articles of the brief Law No. 1597 of 1885, the "Avellaneda Law", which had served as the legal framework until then.

In 1949, with the intention of addressing some of the demands of university members, incorporating advances of the law enacted in 1947 and laying the foundations for a new Law, an article was incorporated into the Argentine Constitution of 1949. In 1954 a new Law, 14,297, was enacted. It incorporated some other postulates of the University Reform, such as the definition of extension and the direct participation of students; this law deepened student participation in the government of the Faculties, granting them the right to vote. At the National University of Tucumán a profound transformation was carried out, through multiple creations and a vast regional expansion, such as the construction of the University City on Cerro San Javier and the founding of the University Gymnasium in 1948. There was the creation in 194 of the Institute of Mining and Geology of the UNT in the Province of Jujuy. The construction of the University City in the Sierra de San Javier was planned, whose works began in 1949. He expanded the University in the region, creating the Institute of Geology and Mining, the Institute of High-Altitude Biology and the Institute of Popular Medicine, in Jujuy; the Technical School of Vespucio and the Institute of Humanities, in Salta; the School of Agriculture in El Zanjón, in Santiago del Estero, for example. He incorporated the Salesian University of Labor into the UNT and created the Medical Service. In 1946, under Perón's presidency, and due to the growing industrialization of Argentina during World War II, the National Commission for Apprenticeship and Vocational Guidance (CNAOP) was created and factory-schools were founded for the training of workers. In this way, by means of Law 13,229 of 1948, the National Workers' University (UON) was created. By 1955 it already had institutes in the Federal Capital, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe, Rosario, Bahía Blanca, La Plata and Tucumán. The curricula favored specialties such as mechanical construction, automobiles, the textile industry, and electrical installations.

Health policy

Forjador de la Nueva Argentina (Forger of the New Argentina) (1948), painted by Raúl Manteola, on display at the Bicentennial Museum.

In 1946 Ramón Carrillo was appointed Secretary of Public Health, and in 1949, when new ministries were created, he became minister of the area. From his post he sought to carry out a health program aimed at creating a unified, universal system of preventive and curative health and social assistance in which the State would play a preponderant role. Health policy was characterized by the expansion of hospital centers and the implementation of nationwide health strategies directed by the Secretariat of Public Health. Carrillo decided to devote himself to attacking the causes of disease with the public power within his reach. Under an ideological conception that put the social above individual profit, it was possible to make progress in areas such as infant mortality, which fell from 90 per thousand in 1943 to 56 per thousand in 1955, while tuberculosis fell from 130 per hundred thousand in 1946 to 36 per hundred thousand in 1951. Under his administration, health standards that became embedded in Argentine society began to be enforced, such as mass vaccination campaigns and the mandatory certificate for school and for carrying out official procedures. Mass nationwide campaigns were implemented against yellow fever, venereal diseases and other scourges. At the head of the Health Secretariat he carried out a successful campaign to eradicate malaria, directed by doctors Carlos Alberto Alvarado and Héctor Argentino Coll; the creation of EMESTA, the first national medicine factory; and support for national laboratories through economic incentives so that medicines would be available to the entire population. During his administration almost five hundred new health establishments and hospitals were inaugurated.

Government action brought about a substantial improvement in public health conditions. The period was also characterized by the establishment or consolidation of the unions' health funds (obras sociales), especially those with the largest number of members, such as the railway workers and the bank workers. The number of hospital beds, which was 66,300 in 1946 (4 per 1,000 inhabitants), rose in 1954 to 131,440 (7 per 1,000 inhabitants). Campaigns were carried out to combat endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis, using DDT on a large scale for the first and penicillin for the latter, and health policy in schools was stepped up by making vaccination compulsory there. The number of beds in the country increased from 66,300 in 1946 to 132,000 in 1954. He eradicated, in only two years, endemic diseases such as malaria, with extremely aggressive campaigns. He practically made syphilis and venereal diseases disappear. He created 234 free hospitals or polyclinics. He reduced the tuberculosis mortality rate from 130 per 100,000 to 36 per 100,000. He ended epidemics such as typhus and brucellosis. He drastically reduced the infant mortality rate from 90 per thousand to 56 per thousand.

In 1942 some 6.5 million inhabitants had running water and 4 million had sewerage services, and in 1955 the beneficiaries numbered 10 million and 5.5 million respectively. Infant mortality, which was 80.1 per thousand in 1943, fell to 66.5 per thousand in 1953, and life expectancy, which was 61.7 years in 1947, rose to 66.5 years in 1953.

Sports policy

During his government sport reached a high degree of development: the launch of the Evita National Tournaments, the unification in 1947 of the Argentine Sports Confederation (CAD) with the Argentine Olympic Committee (COA), the presence of hundreds of athletes abroad competing in different disciplines, the promotion of non-traditional sports, the organization of the 1950 basketball world championship and of the 1951 Pan American Games, and state sponsorship of Juan Manuel Fangio were the first links of a national sports policy. Driver Juan Manuel Fangio won five Formula 1 world championships. The Argentina men's national basketball team won the first World Championship, and boxer Pascual Pérez became the first Argentine world champion, beginning a long saga of champions that would make Argentina a power in professional boxing. In the same period, Argentine paleta pelota won the two gold medals in that specialty's events at the first Basque Pelota World Championship, dominating the discipline from then until the present day. The 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games marked Argentina's greatest era of splendor at the Olympic Games; after these games Argentina would not win as many gold medals again until the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In 1956 the delegation fielded only 28 athletes, the smallest number in the country's history, and those were the first games in which Argentina did not win any gold medal.

Communications policy

Perón's government was the first to implement a policy regarding the media.

In the opinion of Sergio Arribas, the State formed a monopoly of information and a monopoly of the media to consolidate its influence over the masses, favored an oligopolistic configuration of the broadcasting media system based on an articulated set of rules, and restricted three basic freedoms of the individual: a) freedom of expression and its two variants, freedom of thought and freedom of opinion. b) freedom of printing. c) freedom of the press. And on the other hand, the government enabled" Data refuted by other historians: for example, between January 27 and March 19, Evita gave six radio speeches demanding the enactment of the women's suffrage law, speeches which, with the exception of the Clarín newspaper, were silenced by the main newspapers of the time, such as La Prensa and La Nación, both of anti-Peronist tendency. (Valobra 2009, p. 53)

Cinema benefited from the implementation of three measures: the mandatory exhibition of Argentine films throughout the country (Law 1299/47), the regulation of the law protecting the film industry (Decree 16688/50) and the protection of the film industry (Decree 11731/52). As a result, in 1950 58 films were produced, a production record, expanding to other Spanish-speaking countries with Dios se lo pague, which broke audience records in much of the world. In the 1946–1955 period, popular cultural traditions were reformulated and influences from European realisms were integrated, but basically the approaches of classical Hollywood cinema were adapted. These policies benefited the film industry in different ways, a process further favored by the distributionist measures that guaranteed an increase in the flow of spectators and positioned cinema as one of the popular entertainments with the greatest impact. This legitimization of the sector had also been accentuated with the holding, in Mar del Plata, of the first Argentine Film Festival in March 1948.

The print press was favored by the ratification of the law of the Statute of the Professional Journalist declared in 1946.

As for television, the first broadcast was made from Channel 7 on October 17, 1951, with the transmission of a political event, "Loyalty Day", held in Plaza de Mayo.

The country's first Broadcasting Law (14241/53) was enacted in 1953. It defined the service as being of "public interest", created the Ministry of Communications, established the requirement of 70% national capital for licensees, granted licenses for 20 years with the possibility of extension subject to the approval of the Ministry of Communications, made the promotion of government action, education and national culture mandatory, and did not restrict advertising. Article 24 of the law established that the call for bids had to be made within 45 days of its promulgation.

In June 1954, by means of Decree 9967/54, the licenses of the three radio networks that existed in the country (LR1 and "Red Azul y Blanca", LR3 and "Primera Cadena Argentina de Broadcasting" and LR4 and "Red Argentina de Emisoras Splendid") and the license for Channel 7 and two other licenses for television channels were put out to tender. The award of the licenses, through Decree 17959/54, was made "to licensees who met an implicit condition in the call: belonging to a state/family political structure that was unconditional to Perón": LR1 was awarded to Editorial Haynes, chaired by Oscar Maroglio (former president of the state-owned Banco de Crédito Industrial), LR3 to the Asociación de Promotores de Teleradiodifusión, managed by Jorge Antonio, a personal friend of Perón, and LR4 to La Razón, chaired by Miguel Miranda, former president of the Economic and Social Council.

Foreign policy

Main article: Foreign policy of the first government of Perón

Juan Atilio Bramuglia, former union leader of the Unión Ferroviaria of socialist origin and a founder of Peronism, was President Perón's first Minister of Foreign Affairs and author of the Peronist doctrine of the third position in the face of the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.

In 1946, a few months after the end of World War II, which raised the United States to the position of foremost world power. Among the causes of the confrontation between the United States and Argentina during Perón's government were the historic priority that Argentina gave to relations with Great Britain, the traditional policy of neutrality that Argentina maintained for almost all of World War II and the competing economies of both countries, to which were added the nationalist policy and the strong union influence in the Peronist government. As a consequence of these demonstrations by the Argentine government of compliance with inter-American commitments, the United States, in July 1946, released the Argentine gold and funds of the Banco Nación and the Banco Provincia that had been blocked since 1944. In addition, the invitation to Argentina to participate in the Rio de Janeiro Conference held in 1947 was accompanied by a change in the diplomatic actors involved in U.S. foreign policy toward the country. Truman announced the resignation of Braden, in order to bring positions closer with Argentina.

On the other hand, bilateral relations improved thanks to a new cabinet change in the U.S. government, in which President Truman appointed General Marshall Secretary of State. With Marshall, officials in favor of cooperation and military balance throughout the continent became consolidated in the U.S. bureaucracy.

Regarding the definition of the security zone, the Argentine delegate, Pascual La Rosa, asked that the Malvinas Islands and Antarctica be included within this zone, yielding perhaps to pressure from civilian and military nationalist sectors. The special military committee formed by Argentina, Chile and the United States accepted the Argentine proposal to include the Malvinas Islands and Antarctica within the security zone of the TIAR treaty.

Diplomatic relations between Argentina and the Soviet Union had been interrupted for more than thirty years since the Russian Revolution of 1917. Already during 1945, when Perón was vice president; once he was President, diplomatic, consular and commercial relations between Argentina and the Soviet Union were officially established.

The first Minister of Foreign Affairs appointed by Perón was the union lawyer of socialist background Juan Atilio Bramuglia, one of the founders of Peronism. The first mission he entrusted to him was to reverse Argentina's situation of isolation. In that context the Justicialist third position was developed, a philosophical, political and international stance that distanced itself both from the capitalist world and from the communist world. Perón himself first outlined the content of the Justicialist third position in a Message to All the Peoples of the World delivered on July 16, 1947, when Argentina's turn came to preside over the Security Council during the first crisis of the Cold War (the Berlin Blockade). Perón's message was broadcast by more than a thousand radio stations around the world, including the BBC in London:

The work to achieve international peace must be carried out on the basis of the abandonment of antagonistic ideologies and the creation of a world consciousness that man stands above systems and ideologies, and it is therefore not acceptable that humanity be destroyed as a burnt offering to hegemonies of the right or of the left.

— Juan Domingo Perón

Later, in the Message opening the sessions of the National Congress delivered on May 1, 1952, he would expand on the concept:

Until we proclaimed our doctrine, capitalist individualism and communist collectivism rose triumphant before us, extending the shadow of their imperial wings over all the paths of humanity. Neither of them had achieved, nor could achieve, the happiness of man. On the one hand, capitalist individualism subjected men, peoples and nations to the omnipotent, cold and selfish will of money. On the other hand, collectivism, behind a curtain of silence, subjected men, peoples and nations to the crushing and totalitarian power of the State... Our own people had been subjected for several years by the forces of capitalism enthroned in the government of the oligarchy and had been fleeced by international capitalism... The dilemma before us was categorical and apparently definitive: either we remained under the shadow of Western individualism or we advanced along the new collectivist path. But neither of the two solutions was to lead us to the conquest of the happiness our people deserved. That is why we decided to create the new foundations of a third position that would allow us to offer our people another path that would not lead them to exploitation and misery... Thus Justicialism was born under the supreme aspiration of a high ideal. Justicialism, created by us and for our children, as a third ideological position aimed at freeing us from capitalism without falling into the oppressive clutches of collectivism.

— Juan Domingo Perón, May 1, 1952

The Argentine third position was carried forward first by Bramuglia and then by later foreign ministers in a pragmatic sense that avoided confrontation with the United States.

In 1946 Argentina refused to support the independence of Indonesia and to condemn the Dutch intervention; it did not support the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, although it would do so on February 14, 1949, and immediately established diplomatic relations. Argentina repeatedly refused to vote for India's proposal on South African racism (first, third, fifth, sixth and eighth sessions); it voted against all resolutions censuring the annexation of the territory of South West Africa by South Africa (second, fourth and seventh sessions); it voted against the motion to investigate the action of French colonialism in Morocco (ninth session); it abstained on investigating the action of French colonialism in Morocco (ninth session); it abstained (until the fifth session); it voted in favor of Chiang Kai-shek (from then on) when the Chinese problem was discussed; it voted for all the American proposals regarding the Korean War (fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth sessions); it abstained on the motions in favor of Puerto Rico (eighth session); it abstained when the independence of some Dutch colonies was demanded (tenth session). On the other hand, at the Tenth Pan-American Conference held in Caracas, it abstained from voting on the condemnation of the regime of Jacobo Árbenz, which governed Guatemala: on that point.

Shortly after taking office, Perón sent to Congress for ratification the Act of Chapultepec (a Pan-American alliance, the direct predecessor of the OAS) and the treaty creating the United Nations. The Chamber of Senators approved the ratification unanimously, but in the Chamber of Deputies the Radical opposition proposed rejecting both treaties, abstaining in the vote along with seven deputies of the ruling party, and was strongly criticized by Ernesto Sanmartino, Luis Dellepiane and Arturo Frondizi.

At the United Nations, Argentina came to present 28 reservations in defense of its sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands. Likewise, declarations in favor of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the lands of the Antarctic sector were repeated in the framework of the Inter-American Conferences in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 and Bogotá in 1948. At the latter, the American Commission of Dependent Territories was created. It distinguished between territories "under colonial tutelage" (Greenland, the Antilles, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, among others) and "occupied" territories. Among the latter were the Malvinas Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, the South Georgia Islands, the American Zone of Antarctica and Belize (Lanús, 1984 (b): 190).

In 1950, Argentina formally declared its sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands. Meanwhile, the British Crown expanded the limits of its sovereignty over the islands, by including that same year under its dominion the continental shelf, the seabed and the

Especially from 1953 onward, Argentina sought and succeeded in signing numerous South American integration agreements.

First, in February 1953 Perón visited Chilean President Ibáñez and signed the Act of Santiago. On this occasion both countries established the foundations of economic complementation. They committed to expanding trade, gradually eliminating customs duties, and promoting the industrialization of the two nations, among other things. Four months later, Ibáñez would return the visit to Perón, and both would sign the Chilean-Argentine Economic Union treaty; later Perón invited Brazil to participate in the economic union.

Argentina quickly signed other economic union agreements with Chile, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia, which proposed the opening of borders. In 1946 agreements were signed with Brazil for the use of the Uruguay River, with Chile on economic, financial and cultural cooperation, and with Bolivia on commercial and financial matters. Later this trend was reinforced by several complementary initiatives, such as the signing of an Act of Union with Chile in February 1953 in order to coordinate the development policy of both countries; the proposals for Latin American integration made by the Argentine delegation at the 5th meeting of ECLAC in April 1953; the Treaty of Economic Union signed with Paraguay in August 1953; d) the Complementation Agreement with Nicaragua in December of the same year; the Argentine-Ecuadorian Act of Union, agreed on the same date as the previous one; the Economic Union Agreement with Bolivia signed in September 1954; and the agreements on trade and payment systems reached with Colombia and Brazil.

In 1947 Argentina signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR). In 1947 Argentina achieved an international success by being elected to serve for two years on the UN Security Council, even assuming its presidency in 1948 to deal with the conflict generated by the Berlin Blockade, a task entrusted to Bramuglia, who adopted an active mediating role between the two sides. On June 3, 1947, in an unprecedented gesture, President Truman invited the Argentine ambassador Oscar Ivanissevich to come to the White House, where he conversed amiably with him, in the conspicuous absence of Braden, who resigned two days later. Immediately Argentina established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and then began trade negotiations and concluded trade agreements with Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Latin America played a very important role in Perón's foreign policy, because it was seen as a bargaining chip vis-à-vis the world. It was necessary to improve and perfect ties within the subcontinent in order to have a better negotiating position. Perón contributed to improving and consolidating relations with neighboring countries. One of the greatest achievements of Argentine diplomacy in this period was the signing of the ABC Pact with Brazil and Chile on November 1, 1951, to promote external cooperation, non-aggression and arbitration. It was a way of counteracting U.S. influence in the area and establishing a balance and consultation mechanisms among the three signatory countries.

Later the Treaty of Punta Arenas would be signed, on March 15, 1956, by which the Chilean half of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego was incorporated into the Argentine National Territory of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, in addition to the islands of Dawson (Magallanes Province), Navarino, Picton, Lennox, Nueva, Diego Ramírez and other corrections. The Argentine Republic thus obtained some 39,100 km².

Despite all this, the United States continued to act to the detriment of Argentina, going so far as to prohibit Marshall Plan funds from being used to buy Argentine grain and meat. The U.S. ambassador in Argentina, Bruc, sent President Truman a letter in which he revealed part of this plan against the country...: "Fitzgerald... declared that he was going to use the ECA to 'bring the Argentines to their knees'… Fitzgerald instructed the army to buy meat in any country except Argentina, no matter how much higher the price.

The third position adopted by Argentina was considered "unfavorable" to the interests of the United States. A memorandum from the U.S. Department of State dated March 21, 1950 states:

There is one aspect of Argentine policy called the "third position" which is unfavorable to the interests of the United States. When it was first publicized in mid-1947, this concept seemed to be an indication that, in world affairs, Argentina wished to follow neither the capitalists of the United States nor communist Russia but was choosing an independent course. Other nations were invited to join Argentina in a third group that would work for peace and counteract the trend toward war between the two blocs. Subsequently, however, President Perón has assured us that the "third position" is a peacetime policy and a "political device" which will have no effect whatsoever if the United States and the Soviet Union should go to war, in which case Argentina would immediately declare war on the side of the United States. Whatever Perón's intentions, Argentine propagandists of the "third position" have damaged U.S.-Argentine relations and to a lesser extent have been a cause of embarrassment to the United States in its relations with other American republics. In Argentina and abroad, they have vilified Moscow and its international influence, but with equal and perhaps greater severity they have attacked "Yankee imperialism" and "Wall Street" for various alleged activities in the Western Hemisphere. It is our policy to counter this propaganda whenever possible. Through diplomatic channels we point out to Perón and his representatives that if the Argentine Government is sincere in its professed desire to collaborate with the United States against communism, it must refrain from weakening the cause of democracy through attacks on the United States.

Another controversy was the entry into Argentina and other South American countries of numerous fugitive Nazis during and after World War II, among them Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele, Erich Priebke, Dinko Sakic, Josef Schwammberger, Gerhard Bohne, Walter Kutschmann and Ante Pavelic.

The Jewish Virtual Library wrote that "Perón also expressed sympathy for Jewish rights and established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1949. Since then, more than 45,000 Jews have emigrated to Israel from Argentina".

In that period Argentina took in several political exiles from Bolivia after the overthrow of Colonel Gualberto Villarroel in July 1946, such as Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Augusto Céspedes, Carlos Montenegro and General Alfredo Pacheco Iturri.

Through the Eva Perón Foundation, the country also provided assistance to other countries, such as Bolivia, Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Spain, France, Honduras, Israel, Japan, Paraguay and Uruguay,

Equal rights between men and women

Juan Domingo Perón with his wife Eva Duarte, the main promoter of women's rights. This portrait by Numa Ayrinhac, exhibited at the Bicentennial Museum, is the only official one of an Argentine President accompanied by the first lady.

During Perón's first government there was a historic change regarding the recognition of women's rights. The new social rights were incorporated into the highest legal text, as was women's suffrage, which had been approved in 1947 and which vindicated women, until then marginalized from Argentine political life.

Perón was the first Argentine head of state to put the women's issue on the table. Perón and Evita opened the way for women's political participation. Progress was rapid. In the 1950s, no country had the number of women in Congress that Argentina had.

Women's suffrage

In 1947 the law was enacted recognizing for all women over 18 years of age the right to vote and to be elected (women's suffrage), so that only then did universal suffrage exist in Argentina. The right had already been recognized in San Juan by the constitutional reform of 1927. At the national level, the right to vote had been demanded by women since 1907, when Alicia Moreau and other women founded the Pro-Women's Suffrage Committee. However, neither the Radical Civic Union nor the conservatives institutionally supported the demand, and the bills presented were systematically rejected. In 1945 Juan Domingo Perón promoted women's suffrage and a rumor spread that it would be enabled by decree, but the initiative was rejected by several groups and in the end did not happen. During the campaign for the 1946 elections, the Peronist coalition included the recognition of women's suffrage in its platforms.

However, resistance to women's suffrage was not absent within Peronism either. In that respect Eva Perón (Evita) played an important role. After October 17, 1945, at Evita's proposal, Perón—from his post as vice president—tried to enact the Women's Suffrage Law. However, resistance both within the Armed Forces in government and from the opposition, which alleged electoral motives, frustrated the attempt. Another influence was the fact that Evita's influence within Peronism was relatively weak before February 24, 1946. Between January 27 and March 19, Evita gave six radio speeches demanding the enactment of the women's suffrage law, which, with the exception of the Clarín newspaper, were silenced by the main newspapers of the time, such as La Prensa and La Nación, both of anti-Peronist tendency. (Valobra 2009, p. 53)

After the 1946 elections, Evita began to campaign openly for women's suffrage, through women's rallies and radio speeches, at the same time as her influence within Peronism grew. The bill was presented immediately after the constitutional government took office (May 1, 1946). Although it was a very brief text of three articles that could hardly give rise to debate, the Senate gave the bill preliminary approval on August 21, 1946, and Law 13,010 was finally approved in the Chamber of Deputies on September 9, 1947, establishing equality of political rights between men and women. The Female Peronist Party succeeded in obtaining 23 female deputies, three female delegates of national territories and 6 female senators—the only women present in the National Congress—, and 80 female provincial legislators.

Legal equality in marriage and parental authority

Perón speaks live from his office over LRA Radio Nacional. (Photo: AGN)

The political equality of men and women was complemented by the "legal equality of spouses and shared parental authority" guaranteed by article 37 (II.1) of the Constitution of 1949.

In 1955 the Constitution was repealed, and with it the guarantee of legal equality between men and women in marriage and with respect to parental authority, with the priority of men over women reappearing.

The constitutional reform of 1957 did not reincorporate this constitutional guarantee either, and Argentine women remained legally discriminated against until the law of shared parental authority was enacted in 1985, during the government of Raúl Alfonsín. The Constitution was a constitution belonging to the current of social constitutionalism that incorporated the rights of workers (the workers' decalogue), the rights of the family, of old age, of education and culture; state protection for science and art; and compulsory and free primary education. In addition, the equality of men and women in family relations; university autonomy; the social function of property; election by direct vote for deputies, senators and president; and the immediate reelection of the President.

Social policy

Among other social and political reforms, during his first government Perón repealed the law establishing discrimination between legitimate and illegitimate children, and a broad housing plan for workers was developed. In 1951 LR3 Televisión Radio Belgrano, now called Channel 7, began broadcasting.

Labor policy

During the first Peronist government "the wage component of national income exceeded, for the first time in History, the remuneration obtained in the form of profits, interest and land rent. In 1948 the former amounted to 53% against 47% for the latter, which compared favorably with the situation prevailing only five years earlier, when workers received 44.4% and entrepreneurs, capitalists and rentiers received 55.6%". The pension system was expanded to benefit self-employed workers, entrepreneurs and professionals. In 1948 a pension fund was established for people without resources not covered by the retirement system, and legislation was passed on pensions for widows. In 1946 payment of the aguinaldo (annual bonus) was incorporated as a right. The first labor courts were created and put into operation, the Statute of the Rural Laborer was established and collective labor agreements were regulated. In the 1950s, with the eminent growth of the labor movement, the union health funds became one of the main areas of the unions. During Perón's government Law 23,852 on Professional Associations was enacted, as well as Law 33,302, which created the National Institute of Remunerations and established the Aguinaldo. Both laws strengthened the union economy. Independence and autonomy in the management of resources made growth possible and placed the unions in a privileged position. The OSS (union health funds) covered the majority of the economically active population (between 70 and 80% of the total). Health insurance was born in Argentina, with contributions from wages, on a voluntary basis, by branch of activity and with criteria of equity and solidarity. In this way, those with better wages contributed alongside those with lower incomes to a solidarity fund administered by the workers through their own organizations.

In 1947 he proclaimed the 10 basic rights of workers and obtained their enactment as law by the National Congress: the right to work, to fair distribution, to training, to decent working and living conditions, to health, to well-being, to social security, to the protection of the family, to economic improvement and to the defense of professional interests. These rights were formalized through a decree of the National Executive Power, under number 4865, and were later incorporated into article 37 of the Constitution of the Argentine Nation, enacted by the Constituent Convention on March 11, 1949.

On November 15, 1950 the 1950 railway strike in Argentina began over wage demands. It ended eight days later with a "gentlemen's agreement" between the strikers and Juan Francisco Castro (Minister of Labor), under which they would return to work the next day, November 24, 1950. They would be granted a wage increase and the sanctions applied to the strikers would be lifted.

In the first week of December 1950, the Government annulled the agreement reached. On January 16, 1951, Perón forced Minister Castro to resign. A new strike began to demand the release of the imprisoned leaders. The Government declared the conflict illegal. In a speech delivered on January 24, 1951, Perón stated, referring to the railway workers: "Whoever goes to work will be mobilized, and whoever does not go will be prosecuted and will go to the barracks to be tried by military justice, in accordance with the code of military justice". About two thousand workers were arrested and some three hundred remained in prison, and the strikers returned to work three days later. On June 20, 1951 Perón pardoned 611 prosecuted workers, with around 24 remaining in prison.

Between 1945 and 1948 the real wages of public employees rose 35% and those of industrial workers rose by an average of 50%. In the same period, consumption—in both the public and private sectors—rose about 20%. Pension funds went from 300,000 members in 1944 to 3,500,000 in 1949. And a fund was established by law to grant pensions to any person of limited means over 60 years of age not covered by any retirement system.

To this reality were added the benefits of the indirect wage:

• housing plans
• free distribution of clothing for schoolchildren,
• free distribution of school textbooks,
• free vacation camps,
• personalized attention to individual and family needs by the Eva Perón Foundation (directed by Eva Perón).

Energy policy

Logo of the company Gas del Estado.

Juan Domingo Perón resumed the nationalist-oriented energy policy that Yrigoyen had promoted with the creation of YPF, through the nationalization of hydrocarbons, which was backed by article 40 of the Constitution of 1949. In six years of government oil production was increased by 50%, reaching 84% of total crude extraction, with a policy of consumption subsidies. However, self-sufficiency was not achieved. ANSEC, which operated the electricity service in most of the country, was nationalized. Perón nationalized other large companies such as Standard Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, the large landholding companies, Bunge y Born, etc. He created the state company Agua y Energía Eléctrica and promoted the development of popular cooperative power plants. (Del Río 1960, p. 37) The energy plan approved by Perón also included rural electrification—abandoned by the international trusts—and the prohibition of new energy and gas concessions, which would be the responsibility of the State, except for exceptional reasons. As of January 1, 1946 the mechanism of the National Energy Directorate had been structured, giving rise to four entities: Gas del Estado, Combustibles Sólidos y Minerales, Centrales Eléctricas del Estado and Combustibles Vegetales y Derivados. In 1943, the country had an installed capacity in hydroelectric plants of 45,000 kW; by 1952, the national company Agua y Energía had seven times more: 350,000 kW. To this must be added a portfolio of studies and projects worth 6 million kilowatts. In this way the government consolidated an integrated energy system that, together with the production of fuels by YPF, was strategically articulated. In this model, state companies were the spearhead of an integrated and centralized energy system, in which the production of energy and water was consolidated as a "public good" and the production of oil and steel as strategic goods to supply the industrial fabric. In the 1950s the CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission) was also created.

During Perón's government, within the framework of the First Five-Year Plan (1947–1952), major infrastructure works were carried out throughout the country: the Puerto Nuevo (CADE) and Nuevo Puerto (CIADE) power plants were interconnected, achieving an interconnected generation system in the area of the Federal Capital and Greater Buenos Aires, to which 14 provinces would be added. In addition, through the First Five-Year Plan a set of important public works was carried out in the energy area and in heavy and mining industries, accompanied by an improvement in infrastructure, that is, in transport, roads and hydroelectric works, intended to modernize the country's infrastructure, which was necessary for the accelerated industrialization process that his developmentalist government promoted. Electric power production between 1946 and 1955 (in millions of kWh and including self-generation) went from 3.84 in 1946 to 7.20 million in 1952.

The First Five-Year Plan (1947–1952) had resulted in the start of works on 41 hydroelectric plants throughout the country. The most important by installed capacity were:

• Condarco and Nihuil I and II (in Mendoza),
• Escaba (in Tucumán),
• Ameghino (in Chubut) and
• Cassaffousth, Molinos I and San Roque (in Córdoba).

As regards transmission lines, important sections had been completed, such as Río Tercero-Córdoba (100 km), Escaba-Tucumán (100 km) and Concepción del Uruguay-Rosario (92 km), and various lines were under construction at various points in Argentina.

There was also a dizzying increase in the production of accumulators, electric lamps, electric motors, cells, batteries and phonograph records. Sales of refrigerators between 1950 and 1955 increased more than 4 times and sewing machines in the same years grew 50 times.

For the Second Five-Year Plan (1952–1957), construction began on 11 thermal power plants and 45 more hydroelectric plants. Also, for the distribution of irrigation water, construction began on 29 reservoirs, 59 dams and other works. (In 1955, the dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu—the Liberating Revolution—discontinued all the public works of the Second Five-Year Plan, which had been running for only three years.)

Perón also promoted energy diversification. In 1948, the Peronist government planned the development of biofuels. This innovative vision in energy matters would be completed in 1950 with the creation of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). The Puerto Nuevo (CADE) and Nuevo Puerto (CIAE) power plants were interconnected.

41 hydroelectric plants were built throughout the country, increasing installed hydroelectric capacity from 45,000 kW (kilowatts) in 1943 to 350,000 kW in 1952. On December 11, 1947 he signed a contract between YPF and the American oil company Drilexco for the exploration of forty oil wells, since the resources the State had were not sufficient to achieve self-sufficiency on its own. The President sent Congress a law for investments in the oil sector. The law was successfully enacted in 1953.

When Perón's second term began in 1952, Argentina was in an acute energy crisis: YPF was very far from making the country self-sufficient in fuel, it imported 60%, and in 1954 it had its first balance of payments crisis. Faced with this situation, Perón decided to go all the way with the goal of self-sufficiency and proposed signing the contract with Standard Oil of California, recognizing YPF's operational inability to achieve this goal; the company would exploit an extensive area of southern Argentina with oil fields. The contract established an exploitation of a mixed nature (joint venture), by which California would produce jointly with YPF the 9,000,000 cubic meters that Argentina imported, eliminating an extra expense of almost 300 million dollars for fuel imports. Through this agreement, Perón sought to increase oil production in the following years in order to maintain domestic supply and even begin exporting oil and its derivatives, so as to increase the availability of foreign currency.

There was fear that abusive concessions would be made to foreign oil companies under the new regulations; legislator John William Cooke was a notable opponent of it, and it was annulled after the coup d'état that overthrew Perón in 1955. Future President Frondizi would also strongly oppose it.

File:Discurso de Alfredo Palacios criticando a Perón - Sin ruido.ogg

The distribution company Gas del Estado was created for the distribution of that resource. The first gas pipeline was put into operation, connecting the city of Comodoro Rivadavia with the City of Buenos Aires, with a length of 1,600 km. It was inaugurated on December 29, 1949, being the first of its kind in South America and the longest in the world at that time; it was also built without external financing. But after the 1955 coup d'état the valves and terminals needed for the pipeline to be able to carry gas to homes were never built. In turn, the constitutional reform nationalized the oil fields, thus making YPF a state monopoly.

During his years in exile, Perón said regarding YPF:

I believe that YPF has neither the organizational capacity nor the technical capacity nor the financial capacity for an effort of that nature. The systems used in Argentina are far removed from the new methods of exploration, prospecting, test drilling and rational exploitation of modern oil fields. YPF's production costs are absolutely uneconomic. Making this a question of self-esteem is dangerous and stupid… These operetta nationalists have done as much harm to the country with their stupidities as the colonialists with their cunning. Some negative and others excessively positivist, they represent two scourges for the country's economy.

— Juan Domingo Perón.

In this regard, in 1946 YPF's refining capacity was 2,435,000 m³ per year, while toward the end of the second Peronist government it had been expanded to 6,083,054 m³; well drilling would triple. During the years of Peronist government the important Campo Durán and Madrejones fields were discovered, as well as others in Mendoza, Plaza Huincul, Río Gallegos and Tierra del Fuego.

Acts of violence

Perón's first two presidencies were characterized by growing political violence. Peronists denounced the racist, classist, coup-plotting and terrorist actions of the anti-Peronists, carried out in murders, massacres and coups d'état, while the latter denounced police torture, arbitrary detentions, the violation of freedom of the press and of expression, and the political murders produced by the action or omission of the government.

Among the acts of violence for which the government was most criticized are: the arrest and conviction of union leader Cipriano Reyes, accused of being part of a coup plot; the torture inflicted by the Federal Police on Ernesto Mario Bravo, Luis Vila Ayres, Juan Ovidio Zavala, Roque Carranza, Yolanda J. V. de Uzal, and the siblings María Teresa and Jorge Alfredo González Dogliotti; the resignation and dismissal of a large number of university teachers; the arrest of opposition deputies such as Ricardo Balbín, Ernesto Sanmartino and Alfredo Palacios; restrictions on freedom of expression and of the press; the expropriation of the newspapers La Prensa and La Nueva Provincia; the judicial conviction for contempt and imprisonment of Michel Torino, owner of the newspaper El Intransigente of Salta; the burning of the headquarters and library of the Socialist Party and of other premises of non-Peronist parties and of the Jockey Club; the burning of churches of June 16, 1955; and the torture, murder and disappearance of physician Juan Ingallinella. at the same time as it took control of all radio stations and promoted the creation of Peronist media.

Among the acts of violence for which the anti-Peronists are most criticized are: the arrest of Perón and the plan to murder him in October 1945; the coup d'état plan of February 1946; the widespread use of public expressions of hatred and discrimination such as «aluvión zoológico» ("zoological flood"), «grasas» ("greasers"), «cabecitas negras» ("little black heads"), «sarampión populista» ("populist measles"), and «¡Viva el cáncer!» ("Long live cancer!") when Eva Perón was dying of that disease; the creation of terrorist civilian commandos; the coup d'état of September 28, 1951; the Plaza de Mayo terrorist attack of April 15, 1953; the bombing and strafing of Plaza de Mayo on June 16, 1955, which caused more than 350 dead and 800 wounded; the coup d'état of September 16, 1955 that overthrew Perón; the desecration, abduction and disappearance of the corpse of Eva Perón; the executions and murders of Peronists in 1956, which caused the deaths of Lieutenant Colonel José Albino Yrigoyen, Captain Jorge Miguel Costales, Dante Hipólito Lugo, Clemente Braulio Ros, Norberto Ros, Osvaldo Alberto Albedro, Carlos Lizaso, Nicolás Carranza, Francisco Garibotti, Vicente Rodríguez, Mario Brión, Carlos Irigoyen, Ramón R. Videla, Rolando Zanetta, Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Lorenzo Cogorno, reserve Second Lieutenant Alberto Abadie, Colonel Eduardo Alcibíades Cortines, Captain Néstor Dardo Cano, Colonel Ricardo Salomón Ibazeta, Captain Eloy Luis Caro, First Lieutenant Jorge Leopoldo Noriega, NCO Néstor Marcelo Videla, Chief NCO Ernesto Gareca; Chief NCO Miguel Ángel Paolini; musician Corporal José Miguel Rodríguez; Sergeant Hugo Eladio Quiroga, Miguel Ángel Maurino, Staff Sergeant Isauro Costa, carpenter Sergeant Luis Pugnetti, musician Sergeant Luciano Isaías Rojas, Major General Juan José Valle and Aldo Emil Jofré; the outlawing of Peronism in 1956 and the thousands of arrests and dismissals of militants, artists, athletes, public employees and teachers sympathetic to Peronism; the military intervention of the unions in 1956; the repeal by military proclamation of the Constitution of 1949; restrictions on freedom of expression and of the press; the annulment of the 1962 elections; the disappearance and cover-up of the murder of union leader Felipe Vallese in 1962; the detention of the plane in which Perón intended to return to Argentina in 1964 by the Brazilian military dictatorship at the request of the Argentine government of Arturo Illia; and the proscription of the Peronist Party between 1955 and 1972 and of Perón until 1973.

The mutual hatred between Peronists and anti-Peronists would last for many years. In 1973 Perón and the Radical leader Ricardo Balbín embraced publicly in order to convey to the population the need to put an end to that hatred, with limited results. Among many other people involved, the Peronist Antonio Cafiero—who had been Perón's Minister of Economy—and the Radical historian and politician Félix Luna have reflected on the mutual political violence between Peronists and anti-Peronists:

Félix Luna (1993): It was an atmosphere in which the opposition was regarded as if it were a negative shadow in the country, a sector that, for not sharing the ideals of the majority, had to be marginalized from the political process.

Antonio Cafiero (2003): The terrorist attacks of that ill-fated afternoon marked the beginning of a stage of violence, pain and death that would extend over thirty years of Argentine History. Those winds sown on the afternoon of April 15 brought these later storms. I must say it: it was the Peronists who paid the highest tribute to this ordeal. Because violence had two faces. That of Peronism, during the period of proscription and exile (1955-1973), was characterized by a kind of verbal boasting and attacks on symbolic physical property, certainly very valuable and respectable. On the other hand, that of anti-Peronism was characterized by brutal terrorism and contempt for the value of human life. The Peronists were insolent. But anti-Peronism oozed hatred. The Peronists boasted: the anti-Peronists shot people. We had to wait twenty years to achieve the reconciliation of Peronists and anti-Peronists that Perón and Balbín bequeathed to us.

The military dictatorship installed in 1976, of anti-Peronist ideology, carried political violence to the paroxysm of genocide and systematic state terrorism. After democracy was restored on December 10, 1983, political violence between Peronists and anti-Peronists was substantially reduced.

Constitutional reform

Main article: Argentine Constitution of 1949

Also during Perón's first government the National Constitution was reformed in 1949, incorporating the labor and social rights (Art. 37) that characterized social constitutionalism and the legal bases for expropriating large monopolistic companies (Art. 40). At the same time, indefinite presidential reelection was established (Art. 78). This Constitution would be repealed by a proclamation of the military regime that overthrew the Peronist government.

Political rights of the inhabitants of the national territories

Official portrait of Juan D. Perón's first term in 1946.

During his first presidency Perón began a policy of recognizing political rights in the national territories—Chaco, Chubut, Formosa, La Pampa, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands—whose inhabitants could neither elect their own authorities nor elect the national authorities. At that time only citizens living in the fourteen existing provinces—Buenos Aires, Catamarca, Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Jujuy, La Rioja, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, San Luis, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán—and the Federal Capital had political rights.

Article 82 of the Constitution of 1949 had established that the elections of the President and vice president were to be held by direct vote of all citizens living in the provinces, the Federal Capital and the federal territories. Until then, the election was carried out by the provincial electoral colleges, which could only be elected by those living in the provinces and the Federal Capital. In order to regulate that right, Perón issued Decree No. 17,821 of September 10, 1951, enabling for the first time the participation of the inhabitants of the national territories in the presidential elections of 1951, in which women also voted for the first time.

In the same decree Perón established the post of delegate of each national territory to the National Chamber of Deputies, elected by the citizens of each of the territories. The delegates had voice and vote in the committees, but in plenary sessions they had only a voice and did not count toward the quorum. Finally, he established that from 1951 the authorities of the municipalities located in the national territories would be elected by popular vote.

The policy of expanding political rights was completed with the process of their provincialization, so that their authorities would be elected by the inhabitants of the national territories themselves. By Law 14,037 of August 8, 1951, the first two territories were provincialized: Chaco and La Pampa. The new provinces were constituted a few months later through respective constituent assemblies, democratically elected, which enacted their respective constitutions and the names they would bear, deciding to call them Juan Perón and Eva Perón, respectively. During his second presidency laws were enacted provincializing all the other national territories, although the dictatorship that overthrew him would partially reverse the decision, reestablishing the national territory of Tierra del Fuego. The reestablishment of indirect voting prevented the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego from voting in presidential elections until 1973.

Second presidency (1952–1955)

Main article: Second government of Perón

Perón and Evita on June 4, 1952, during his second inauguration.

After the reform of the Argentine National Constitution, the reelection of the President became possible. Perón ran again as a candidate in the first national elections in which women voted, and won with 62% of the vote.

The IAPI once again began to subsidize the agricultural sector, and an "Economic Plan for the Current Situation" was carried out. The government also began seeking foreign capital investment in the oil sector in order to develop heavy industry. This was a source of controversy and drew criticism from the opposition, among them Frondizi.

Political rights of the inhabitants of the national territories

In his second presidency Perón continued his plan to extend the political rights of the inhabitants of the national territories, promoting the provincialization of all the territories that still remained: Chubut, Formosa, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, the last two merged into a single province. These measures were partially annulled by the dictatorship that overthrew Perón in 1955, which reestablished the national territory of Tierra del Fuego, whose inhabitants thus lost the rights that provincialization had granted them.

On December 21, 1953, an act of economic union was signed between Argentina and Ecuador, and on September 9, 1954, another act of economic union was signed with Bolivia. The distribution company Gas del Estado was created to distribute that resource. The first gas pipeline was put into operation, connecting the City of Comodoro Rivadavia with the City of Buenos Aires, with a length of 1,600 km. It was inaugurated on December 29, 1949, being the first of its kind in South America and the longest in the world at that time; it was, moreover, built without foreign financing. Also, from 1953 to 1955, the Justicialista cars were built. In his second term Perón continued his plan to expand industry. In 1955 the government founded the Balseiro Institute, which trains professionals in Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Telecommunications Engineering, as well as postgraduates in Physics, Medical Physics and Engineering.

Economy

Argentine products had been deliberately excluded from the European markets that participated in the Marshall Plan because of the political differences between the United States and Perón's government, leading to a crisis in 1952. This would damage the Argentine agricultural sector, which depended on Europe for its agricultural exports, and would help precipitate the deterioration of the country's economy; the Argentine State's source of genuine revenue was cut off to a great extent, which became evident from the end of Perón's first presidency. Wages, which had risen considerably up to that point, were frozen, as were prices, by means of biannual contracts. The government responded by raising interest rates on bank loans, reducing inflationary pressure but halting the rapid growth of the share of wages in total output.

President Perón in 1952, beginning his second term.

In 1952 the Peronist government decided to pay off the foreign debt completely; the country, which had been a debtor of m$n 12,500 million, became a creditor for more than m$n 5,000 million. The State took charge of selling the exportable surplus of national production and of purchasing the fuels, raw materials and capital goods required for the agricultural, industrial and mining development of the country.

Regional trade: the State was to undertake negotiations with the Latin American nations taking into account the need for complementarity among the national economies and for the joint defense of their interests. Likewise, in the whole of its trade relations with countries of the same region and of others, and before international economic bodies, the State was to defend the following principles: international economic relations could only be fully carried out between free nations; international trade was to contribute to economic independence within the framework of cooperation. The development of economically less advanced countries was to be achieved through progressive industrialization, on equitable terms of trade and under conditions of lesser external vulnerability; international trade was to be carried out through the general acceptance of parity between the prices of manufactured goods and raw materials; the adoption of a universal and permanent countercyclical policy would protect the less developed nations from the depressive tendencies that might arise in the developed economies; discriminatory measures threatening the stability, development and economic independence of countries were to be condemned; and efforts were to be made so that the aims, structure and decisions of international economic organizations conformed to the fundamental principles and objectives set out in the plan.

The industrial branches favored in this second stage of the import substitution process, under the Second Five-Year Plan (1952–1957), were the automotive, oil and petrochemical, chemical, metallurgical, and electrical and non-electrical machinery industries, intended to be basic industries for the country. Investments were directed toward taking advantage of the opportunities offered by a protected domestic market. The agricultural sector was modernized: on the basis of the development of the steel and petrochemical industries, mechanization and the supply of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted, so that agricultural production and productivity increased.

The diesel-electric locomotive No. 1, CM1 Justicialista, was built starting in 1952 and began operating during the summer of 1952–1953, covering the 400-kilometer route between Constitución and Mar del Plata in 3 hours and 45 minutes. The following year it made periodic trips to Bariloche and Mendoza, at an average speed of 150 km/h.

In 1953 Law No. 14,122 was enacted, which sought to grant legal guarantees to owners; its main objective was to attract companies to metal-mechanical production in Córdoba in association with the Military Aircraft Factory. Also in Córdoba, an automobile factory called Industrias Kaiser Argentina was set up. Both companies obtained generous loans from the Industrial Bank, guarantees of a reserved domestic market, and facilities, equipment and qualified personnel, thus making profits from their first year of activity. These were the greatest fruits of industrial expansion associated with foreign capital, creating the first and largest metal-mechanical hub in the country up to that time. Large factories were set up for the production of engines, motor vehicles, locomotives and aircraft, in addition to converting the Military Aircraft Factory into IAME (Industrias Aeronáuticas y Mecánicas del Estado) and later into DINFIA (Dirección Nacional de Fabricaciones e Investigaciones Aeronáuticas). The industrial branches favored in this second stage of the import substitution process, under the Second Five-Year Plan (1952–1957), were the automotive, oil and petrochemical, chemical, metallurgical, and electrical and non-electrical machinery industries, intended to be basic industries for the country. Investments were directed toward taking advantage of the opportunities offered by a protected domestic market. The agricultural sector was modernized: on the basis of the development of the steel and petrochemical industries, mechanization and the supply of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted. From 1953 onward there was a rapprochement between the United States and Argentina, and the incorporation of foreign capital into the national economy was encouraged.

He achieved a series of important economic agreements with Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and finally with Brazil, the Economic Union. These agreements stipulated the reduction of customs barriers, the exemption of certain products from taxes, and the opening of a line of credit among the signatory countries.

By 1953 the inflationary process had been brought under control, and the economy began to grow rapidly again from the beginning of 1955.

Social crisis and conflict with the Church

On July 26, 1952, First Lady Eva Perón died, which caused a crisis in Perón, who began to take certain measures that damaged the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Peronist government, which worsened over time.

From then on Eva was designated "Spiritual Leader of the Nation," an honorary title she had received days earlier. Thereafter, every day at 8:25 p.m., all radio stations had to announce that at that hour Evita "passed into immortality."

Perón with students of the Union of Secondary Students (UES) in 1953.

During this period, the irritation of groups that had until then supported the government converged with that of the opposition, which regarded Peronism as a type of populism based on the social resentment of the popular classes against what it generically called "the oligarchy," which included the Argentine upper-middle and upper classes, attributing to them a position that promoted social inequality.

At the end of 1954 a complex escalation of confrontations began between the government and the Catholic Church, which until that year had actively supported Peronism. In response to relatively modest opposition gestures by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the government reacted by enacting Law No. 14,394, whose article 31 includes divorce. Shortly afterward, the Municipality of Buenos Aires, then directly controlled by the President, prohibited merchants from displaying nativity scenes or other religious figures in commemoration of Christmas. In an escalation lasting a few months, the government removed the status of public holidays from certain Catholic religious festivities, allowed the opening of establishments for the practice of prostitution, prohibited religious demonstrations in public places, and expelled two bishops, Manuel Tato and Ramón Novoa, from the country.

The overthrow (1955)

Main article: Revolución Libertadora (Argentina)

Victims of the Bombing of the Plaza de Mayo.

Church of San Ignacio after the burning of churches of June 16, 1955, perpetrated by supporters of President Perón in response to the bombing of the Plaza de Mayo perpetrated by the anti-Peronists.

Since 1951, anti-Peronist civilian-military sectors had been carrying out terrorist acts through the so-called civilian commandos.

On June 16, 1955, the civilian commandos, made up of conservatives, radicals and socialists, together with the Navy and sectors of the Catholic Church, attempted a coup d'état that included the Bombing of the Plaza de Mayo and of the center of the city of Buenos Aires, with more than 364 dead and hundreds wounded. The attack was carried out by some twenty Naval Aviation aircraft against the crowd gathered at a demonstration. The attacks continued until 6 p.m. The Army set up tanks and anti-aircraft batteries to protect the President, whereupon the insurgents were ordered to attack members of the Army and the civilians who supported Perón. Finally, the attackers requested political asylum in Uruguay.

Troops loyal to Perón's government resist the coup d'état in the Buenos Aires Province town of Ensenada.

Perón then asked the population for calm in a public radio address, but the burning of several churches took place, attributed to the Peronists or to the communists, while the police did nothing and the firefighters limited themselves to preventing the fire from spreading to neighboring buildings.

Perón then declared the so-called Peronist revolution to be over, and called on the opposition political parties to establish a process of dialogue that would avoid civil war. On July 15 Perón, in a speech, insisted on the call for pacification; the opposition political parties again requested the use of the radio, and this time it was granted. For the first time in ten years, the opposition was able to use the state media. In his speech of July 27, 1955, Arturo Frondizi accepted pacification in exchange for a concrete plan ranging from the restoration of constitutional guarantees to the industrialization of the country. The speech had to be submitted in advance, and as it was read it was recorded and broadcast on air with a 10-second delay, during which a Colonel of the Intelligence Service checked that he did not depart from the previously submitted text. On August 9 and 22, the leaders of the Democratic Party and the Progressive Democratic Party spoke on the radio.

The news of the murder of the communist leader Ingallinella had a tremendous impact and was spread in Catholic publications. Perón replaced Alberto Teisaire as President of the Peronist Party with Alejandro Leloir. On August 31, 1955, Perón ended the talks in the famous five-for-one speech.

Finally, on September 16, 1955, the coup d'état began that would overthrow the constitutional President Juan Domingo Perón, the National Congress and the provincial governors. It began in Córdoba, was led by General Eduardo Lonardi and lasted until September 23. On September 16, 1955, after entering the Artillery School in Córdoba, Lonardi went to the bedroom of the unit's commander and, faced with an attempt at resistance by the latter, shot him. The watchword was: one must be brutal and proceed with the utmost energy. An investigation into the number of people killed in the coup documented at least 156 fatalities. In the face of this, sectors of Peronism and even opposition sectors went to demand weapons to prevent the military from seizing power, but the President refused them and went into temporary exile in Paraguay, delegating power to a Military Junta that would later surrender to the rebels.

Exile

Main article: Exile of Perón

1955 to 1966

After the Revolución Libertadora that overthrew Perón in 1955, the de facto President Eduardo Lonardi kept the Constitution unchanged and attempted to achieve "national reconciliation," with "neither victors nor vanquished," maintaining the political and social changes that had taken shape previously. Shortly afterward he was forced to resign by the hardest-line sectors of the Army and the Navy, and General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu took office; he outlawed Peronism and Perón himself, the mere mention of whom was considered a crime. The proscription of Peronism would last, with brief exceptions that never included allowing Perón to take part, until the early 1970s.

On October 12, 1955, a court of honor was formed in the Army, presided over by General Carlos von der Becke and also made up of Generals Juan Carlos Bassi, Víctor Jaime Majó, Juan Carlos Sanguinetti and Basilio Pertiné, to judge Perón's conduct; some of its members had served him loyally. Days later, the Court ruled that Perón had committed a wide range of offenses, including incitement to violence, burning of the national flag, attacks on the Catholic religion and statutory rape, accusing him of having a relationship with Nelly Rivas, who was then a minor, and recommended that he be stripped of his rank and prohibited from wearing the uniform. General Lonardi subsequently signed a decree approving and implementing those recommendations.

After he went to Paraguay, President Alfredo Stroessner advised him to leave the country, since he could not guarantee his safety in the event of possible attempts on his life. Stroessner gave him a safe-conduct to go to Nicaragua, but while on the way he decided to seek asylum in Panama; he stayed at the Hotel Washington in the city of Colón, at the Caribbean end of the Canal, where he finished the book he had begun writing in Asunción: La fuerza es el derecho de las bestias. The book could not be published in Argentina, since everything related to Perón was prohibited, even mentioning his name. He had to leave Panama because a Pan-American conference was to be held there with the attendance of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, so he spent a few days in Nicaragua, where he was received by President Anastasio Somoza, and in August 1956 he decided with his entourage to go to Venezuela, which was governed by the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez. During his stay in Caracas he enjoyed the official protection of the National Security Directorate, although the Venezuelan dictator never received the former Argentine president, whom he disliked because of political differences. However, after the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez on January 23, 1958, Perón had to take refuge in the embassy of the Dominican Republic and from there he left for that country, where he was received by the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.

He moved from the Dominican Republic to Spain, arriving in Seville on January 26, 1960. He settled in Madrid, where he married the dancer María Estela Martínez de Perón, "Isabelita," whom he had met in Panama in 1956. After living for some time in two rented houses, he settled in the residential area of Puerta de Hierro, where he built a house known as the "Quinta 17 de Octubre," at number 6 on Calle de Navalmanzano. According to the Freemason leader Licio Gelli, Perón was also initiated into his lodge Propaganda Due (P2) by Gelli himself, in a ceremony at Puerta de Hierro.

During the Revolución Libertadora, groups of Peronist trade unionists and militants carried out acts of sabotage in factories and public offices, detonated explosives on railroad tracks and blocked streets and avenues, among other actions. These actions, known as the Peronist Resistance, were organized by former deputy John William Cooke, whom Perón appointed as his personal delegate in Argentina and to whom he delegated the leadership of Peronism. The former president backed these actions, and even supported Cooke's intention of turning Peronism into a revolutionary movement of the left or center-left.

There were also some military conspiracies, notably the military uprising of June 9, 1956, under the command of General Juan José Valle: a group of Peronist military officers and militants attempted an uprising against the de facto government. The attempt failed, and both Valle and several of his military and civilian followers were executed by firing squad. The repression extended to non-Peronist sectors of the working class. Nevertheless, the union leaders retained their enormous influence over the industrial and service unions. In a letter that Perón sent to Cooke, on the very day of Valle's uprising, he did not show the slightest compassion for the rebel officers: the leader criticized their haste and lack of prudence, and asserted that only their anger at having had to suffer involuntary retirement had motivated them to act.

During his years in exile Perón published several books: Los vendepatria (1956), La fuerza es el derecho de las bestias (1958), La hora de los pueblos (1968), etc.

In 1958, with the presidential elections imminent, it is presumed that Perón made a pact with Arturo Frondizi, candidate of the UCRI, for the support of the Peronists for the latter's presidential candidacy, in exchange for the restoration of legal union status to the trade unions and the end of the electoral proscription of the general and his movement. Frondizi won the presidency, but fulfilled the agreement only in part. Most of the trade unions came back under Peronist control. The circumstances in which the pact was made, as well as its very existence, are a matter of debate among historians. On the one hand, Enrique Escobar Cello, in his book Arturo Frondizi el mito del pacto con Perón, denies that pact, arguing that to this day there are no copies or genuine records bearing Frondizi's signature; it should be noted that Frondizi himself always denied the pact. The historian Félix Luna has also cast doubt on the pact for the same reasons put forward by Cello. In turn, Albino Gómez, in his book Arturo Frondizi, el último estadista, also questions the existence of the pact and, moreover, suggests that Peronist support for Frondizi may have been the product of the coincidence of ideas between Perón and Frondizi on the measures that had to be adopted in the country; it should be noted that the General was a reader of the magazine Qué!, directed by Rogelio Frigerio. In 2015 Juan Bautista Yofre stated in the book Puerta de Hierro that Perón received half a million dollars for making the pact with Frondizi. Against this is the historian Felipe Pigna, who relates that his followers denied that he had accepted money for it.

Between March 17 and April 17, 1964, Perón reportedly met with Che Guevara at his house in Madrid. The meeting was kept in the utmost secrecy and has become known thanks to the journalist Rogelio García Lupo. Che gave Perón funds to support the operation to return to Argentina that he was preparing. At that meeting Perón reportedly committed himself to supporting guerrilla initiatives against the Latin American dictatorships, which he indeed did until 1973.

In December 1964, during the government of Arturo Illia, Perón attempted to return to Argentina by plane. But the government ratified the decision taken by the 1955 dictatorship to prohibit him from residing in the country and asked the military dictatorship governing Brazil to detain him when he made a technical stopover in that country and send him back to Spain.

1966–1972

In Argentina, the 1950s and 1960s were marked by frequent changes of government, almost always the result of coups d'état. These governments were marked by continuous social and labor demands. The Peronists alternated frontal opposition with negotiation in order to take part in politics through neo-Peronist parties.

After the dictatorship installed in 1955, and above all after the dictatorship installed in 1966, which abolished political parties, several armed groups appeared in Argentina whose aim was to fight the dictatorship, and insurrectionary popular uprisings took place in various parts of the country, the best known of which was the Cordobazo. Most of these armed groups adhered to Peronism, such as Montoneros, the Marxist-Peronist FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias), the FAP (Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas) and the FAL (Fuerzas Argentinas de Liberación).

A few months after the dictatorship of Onganía was installed, between September and October 1966, Perón met in Madrid for the second time with Che Guevara, who asked him for Peronist support for his guerrilla project in Bolivia. Perón committed himself not to prevent those Peronists who wished to accompany Guevara from doing so, but did not agree to involve the Peronist movement as such in a guerrilla action in Bolivia, although he did pledge Peronist support when Che's guerrilla moved its action to Argentine territory.

Perón publicly supported revolutionary Peronism and its guerrilla organizations, which he called "special formations," and justified armed struggle against the dictatorship. Although he never uttered it verbatim, one of the best-known phrases attributed to Perón is "Violence from above begets violence from below." He also developed a "political and doctrinal updating" of Peronism, adapting it to the Third World revolutionary struggles then under way, and defining the Peronism of the 1970s as a "national socialism." To express the socialist content that Peronism took on in the 1970s, the Tendency would adopt the slogan "Perón, Evita, the socialist homeland." In 1970 Perón set out his adherence to socialism in these terms:

My position regarding foreign influence on the Argentine problem is very well known: either the country frees itself from the imperialism that neocolonizes it or it will never be able to solve its economic problem... Today's world is marching toward a socialist ideology, as distant from the already obsolete capitalism as from dogmatic international Marxism... Justicialism is a Christian national socialism.

— Juan Domingo Perón

Among the most notable actions of the Peronist guerrillas during the dictatorship that called itself the Argentine Revolution were the murders of former dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, a key figure in the 1955 coup d'état against Perón, of the trade unionists Augusto Timoteo Vandor and José Alonso, the taking of La Calera, and the escape from the Rawson prison.

One week after the murder of Aramburu by Montoneros, on June 1, 1970, the dictator Onganía was forced to resign, and the project of installing a permanent corporatist dictatorship collapsed. The military regime was then forced to begin a process of transition toward an elected government that would include Peronism but would be led and controlled by the military. The ideologue of this project was the dictator General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, who called the plan the Great National Agreement (GAN).

Perón then made contact with the leader of the anti-Peronist wing of Radicalism, Ricardo Balbín, who had been stripped of his immunity as a deputy and arrested during his presidency. Perón and Balbín began a relationship of historic reconciliation, expressed in La Hora del Pueblo, and in the appointment of Héctor J. Cámpora as his personal delegate, which would thwart the dictatorship's plans to impose a "national agreement" government under military tutelage.

In 1971, and above all in 1972, Perón would base his actions on four fronts:

• On the political front, and on the basis of his alliance with Balbín, Perón sought to reconcile Peronism with the political currents that had been anti-Peronist during his government: the People's Radicalism, Frondizism, Christian democracy and the popular sector of conservatism.
• On the trade union front, Perón sought to neutralize neo-Vandorist unionism, which favored a Peronism without Perón and reaching an agreement with the dictator Lanusse, by supporting José Ignacio Rucci in the General Confederation of Labor, a man with little power of his own but in favor of achieving Perón's return as the priority objective of the labor movement.
• On the business front, Perón established an alliance with the group of national businessmen led by José Ber Gelbard, secretly a member of the Communist Party and President of the General Economic Confederation.
• Finally, Perón gave priority at that time to the youth front, linked to grassroots militancy, the insurrectionary popular uprisings and the guerrilla struggles. To that end he appointed as secretary of the Peronist Youth Rodolfo Galimberti, leader of JAEN, a guerrilla organization that would become part of Montoneros.

"Perón returns"

Perón at Ezeiza, under the umbrella of José Ignacio Rucci, returning from his exile, November 17, 1972.

On November 18, 1972, Perón and Balbín, the two foremost leaders of Peronism and Radicalism, met and embraced publicly to give a message and a symbol of concord that might ease political violence in Argentina.

In the second half of 1972 the center of the political situation was occupied by a head-on struggle between Perón and the dictator Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, head of the Great National Agreement, who hoped to be elected President with the support of Peronism and Radicalism. In July, Lanusse delivered a public message to the country in which he called Perón a coward, saying "he doesn't have the guts" ("no le da el cuero"), and challenged him to return to Argentina within a month if he wanted to run as a candidate in the elections. On August 22 the most anti-Peronist sector of the Navy, opposed to holding elections, murdered 16 imprisoned guerrillas in what is known as the Trelew massacre, a crime that several historians regard as one of the precedents of the state terrorism that would unfold in Argentina in the following years.

Perón surprised public opinion by announcing his return on November 17, 1972. Operation Return was led by the newly appointed secretary general of the Peronist Movement, Juan Manuel Abal Medina, and strongly supported by revolutionary Peronism under the slogan "Fight and He Returns" ("Luche y Vuelve"), on which the organizational burden fell. Perón returned on an Alitalia plane that landed at Ezeiza, accompanied by dozens of personalities from the most diverse fields. That day hundreds of thousands of people mobilized to receive Perón, despite the repression carried out by the dictatorship to prevent it, which is why November 17 is regarded by Peronism as Militancy Day.

Perón took up residence in the house at 1075 Avenida Gaspar Campos, in Vicente López, and remained in Argentina for almost a month, until December 14. In that time he completely thwarted the plan of Lanusse and the dictatorship to hold elections under the tutelage of military power. His first gesture was to meet with Balbín, his most bitter adversary, and to embrace him publicly as a symbol of the "national unity" that both proposed as the core of their political platforms. Perón and Balbín examined at that time the possibility of forming a Peronist-Radical front that would put forward a Perón-Balbín ticket, but internal struggles within their own parties prevented it. In any case, in those days Perón brought about the organization of a broad political coalition, called the Justicialist Liberation Front (Frejuli), made up of several sectors that had historically been anti-Peronist: Frondizism, the Christian democracy of José Antonio Allende and the Popular Conservative Party of Vicente Solano Lima, who would be the Front's vice-presidential candidate.

In that period Perón concluded another agreement of great importance: the Programmatic Agreements of the Plenary of Social Organizations and Political Parties, signed or endorsed on December 7 by almost all the political parties, the labor movement through the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and the national business community through the General Economic Confederation (CGE) and the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA). This agreement would be the basis of the Social Pact of 1973, which would be the axis of democratic government until Perón's death in 1974.

Although Perón clearly appeared to be one of the political figures with the greatest popular support in the country, the dictatorship decided not to allow him to run in the elections set for March 11, 1973, on the grounds that he had not been residing in Argentina when the elections were called. Despite the alliances established, Perón found himself without sufficient strength to force the dictatorship to reverse his proscription, which is why he had to choose a person who would represent his political significance to head the presidential ticket. Perón's last act, before leaving again for Madrid, passing first through Paraguay and Peru, was to privately designate Héctor J. Cámpora, a man close to revolutionary Peronism and the Peronist guerrilla organizations, a decision that was announced at the Congress of the Justicialist Party on December 16 and resisted for several hours by the neo-Vandorist unionism led by Rogelio Coria, until it received Perón's direct order by telephone. The election campaign would adopt as its slogan: "Cámpora to the government, Perón to power."

The third Peronism

Main article: Third Peronism

File:PeronenlaCGT-1973-TVPublica.ogv

On March 11, 1973, Argentina held general elections. Héctor José Cámpora, with the approval of Perón in exile, won the elections with 49.5% of the vote; the Radical leader Ricardo Balbín had come in second with 21.3%, and, since the FreJuLi had not obtained more than 50% of the vote, a ballotage had to be held between the first and second forces. However, Balbín acknowledged Cámpora's victory and withdrew from the ballotage. Perón's delegate took office on May 25, 1973, thus bringing to an end the dictatorial period of the self-proclaimed Argentine Revolution.

Perón returned to the country on June 20, 1973. That day, during the rally prepared to receive him, a shootout broke out involving sectors of "orthodox" Peronism positioned on the stage, among whom was a large part of the trade union movement, and youth sectors linked to Montoneros. The event is known as the Ezeiza massacre and left 13 dead and 365 wounded. The circumstances of the massacre vary according to the different testimonies: Miguel Bonasso, who belonged to Montoneros, maintains that there was no confrontation and that there was only a massacre. The historian Felipe Pigna maintains that the youth columns were attacked from the stage. Horacio Verbitsky maintains that it was an ambush carried out from the stage by the "old trade union and political apparatus of Peronism." In the trial investigating the Triple A, two investigations have been added, carried out by Marcelo Larraquy (López Rega: la biografía) and Juan Gasparini (La fuga del Brujo), which agree in identifying far-right sectors as the perpetrators of the massacre.

Cámpora resigned on July 13, 1973, leaving the way clear for Perón to run in the new elections.

Third presidency (1973–1974)

Juan Domingo Perón photographed on April 23, 1973.

In the elections of September 23 Perón won with 62% of the vote against the Radical candidate Ricardo Balbín. He became president for the third time on October 12, 1973, with his wife María Estela Martínez de Perón as vice president.

Perón assumed his third presidency in a very complicated international situation. Shortly before, on August 23, 1973, the worldwide oil crisis had begun, which completely changed the conditions under which capitalism and the welfare state had been developing since the 1930s. Almost simultaneously, on September 11, a military coup d'état with the support of the U.S. CIA had overthrown the socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, worsening the prospects for establishing democratic governments in Latin America. At that time, only Argentina had a democratically elected government in the Southern Cone, while Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay were under military dictatorships supported by the United States, within the broader framework of the Cold War.

In October 1973 a parapolice group known as the Triple A (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina) began to operate, murdering left-wing militants, both Peronist and non-Peronist. The group was financed by the government and directed by the Minister of Social Welfare, José López Rega. In the following two years it would murder 683 people, some 1,100 according to other sources. Perón's knowledge of the Triple A's activities is a matter of debate among researchers. According to the historian Marina Franco, from that moment on "a state of growing legal exceptionality linked to a political-repressive logic centered on the elimination of the internal enemy" began to take shape.

On January 19, 1974, the guerrilla organization ERP attacked the military garrison of Azul, the best-armed military unit in the country. The assault attempt, led by Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, failed, and during it the ERP killed the conscript Daniel González, Colonel Camilo Gay and his wife, and took prisoner Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Ibarzábal, who would be murdered ten months later. For its part, the ERP suffered three casualties, while two guerrillas captured by the military disappeared.

Perón responded by forcefully condemning "terrorism" in a national broadcast and blamed, without naming him, the governor of Buenos Aires Province, Oscar Bidegain, one of the five governors allied with revolutionary Peronism. He also ordered the National Congress to hasten a reform of the Penal Code to toughen the penalties for crimes committed by guerrilla groups, making the rules of the deposed dictatorship even harsher. The thirteen deputies that revolutionary Peronism had opposed the reform: Armando Croatto, Santiago Díaz Ortiz, Nilda Garré, Nicolás Giménez, Jorge Glellel, Aníbal Iturrieta, Carlos Kunkel, Diego Muñiz Barreto, Juan Manual Ramírez, Juana Romero, Enrique Svrsek, Roberto Vidaña and Rodolfo Vittar, all of them linked to Montoneros and the JP.

On January 22 Bidegain resigned and was replaced by Victorio Calabró, a trade unionist from the UOM belonging to the orthodox sector. On January 25 Perón summoned the dissident deputies to a meeting that he had broadcast live on television. Tension reached its peak, and Perón maintained that if they did not agree, they had to leave Peronism:

This whole discussion must take place within the bloc. And when the bloc decides by vote whatever it may be, that must be holy writ for all those who belong to it; otherwise, they leave the bloc. And if the majority decides, one must accept or leave. Whoever is not happy... leaves. We are not going to be sad over losing a vote... We want to keep acting within the law, and in order not to step outside it we need the law to be strong enough to prevent these evils. Now then: if we do not take the law into account, all this is over in a week, because I form a sufficient force, I go looking for you and I kill you, which is what they do. That way, we go to the law of the jungle, and within the law of the jungle, I would have to allow all Argentines to carry weapons. We need that law, because the Republic is defenseless.

— Juan Domingo Perón

That same day, January 25, the penal reform was approved and eight deputies of revolutionary Peronism resigned their seats. Four days later Perón appointed Commissioner Alberto Villar, one of the heads of the Triple A, as deputy chief of the Federal Police.

On February 28 a police coup d'état known as the Navarrazo overthrew the governor of Córdoba Province, Ricardo Obregón Cano, the second of the five governors close to revolutionary Peronism to be removed. Perón would place the province under federal intervention without restoring the constitutional authorities to their posts.

On May 1, 1974, a large demonstration was held in the Plaza de Mayo on the occasion of International Workers' Day, during which Perón would speak. The sectors of revolutionary Peronism attended in large numbers, challenging the government with the chant "What's going on, General, that the people's government is full of gorillas?" Perón responded by calling them "beardless youths," "stupid" and "infiltrators," and immediately afterward, in the middle of the speech, a huge section of the demonstrators left the square in open rupture.

On June 6 the governor of Mendoza, Alberto Martínez Baca, was removed through impeachment, the third of the five governors close to revolutionary Peronism deposed that year. In the six months following Perón's death the remaining two would be deposed: Miguel Ragone of Salta and Jorge Cepernic of Santa Cruz.

On June 12 a new rally was held in the Plaza de Mayo, called by the CGT. It was the last time Perón spoke at a mass rally. By then his health was seriously threatened, and his doctors had advised him to resign so that he could be treated properly. He had refused, saying "I prefer to die with my boots on." Aware of his condition, Perón used that day to say goodbye in public. He asked the demonstrators to safeguard the labor gains because difficult times were approaching, and ended with the following words:

I carry in my ears the most wonderful music, which for me is the word of the Argentine people.

— Juan Domingo Perón, June 12, 1974

Four days later, on June 16, Perón fell ill with an infectious bronchopathy that complicated his underlying chronic circulatory disease.

He died on July 1, 1974, and was succeeded by his wife, in her capacity as vice president. The then Technical Secretary of the Presidency of the Nation, Gustavo Caraballo, states that Perón had asked him to amend the Law of Acephaly to allow the Radical leader Ricardo Balbín to take office as his successor, but the legal process to carry out that reform was never begun. Amid growing political violence, María Estela Martínez was overthrown by the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, which began the dictatorship that called itself the National Reorganization Process.

Cabinet of Ministers

Ministries of the Third Government of Juan Domingo Perón
Portfolio	Officeholder	Term
Ministry of the Interior	Benito Llambí	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship	Alberto Juan Vignes	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Economy	José Ber Gelbard	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Education	Jorge Alberto Taiana	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Social Welfare	José López Rega	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of National Defense	Ángel Federico Robledo	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Justice	Antonio Juan Benítez	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974
Ministry of Labor	Ricardo Otero	October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974

Death, burial and legacy

Juan Domingo Perón died on July 1, 1974, at the Olivos Presidential Residence, of a cardiac arrest resulting from the worsening of the chronic ischemic heart disease from which he suffered. The announcement to the country was made by his widow, Vice President María Estela Martínez, who shortly afterward assumed the presidency.

Funeral

Main article: Funeral of Juan Domingo Perón

The funeral procession advancing along the Avenida de Mayo.

Quinta de San Vicente, mausoleum of Juan Domingo Perón.

After several days of national mourning, during which the body lay in state at the National Congress and was visited by hundreds of thousands of people, the remains were moved to a crypt at the Olivos Presidential Residence. On November 17, 1974, the remains of Evita, which had remained in Spain, were brought back by the government of María Estela Martínez de Perón and placed in the same crypt. Meanwhile, the government began to plan the Altar of the Homeland, a gigantic mausoleum that would house the remains of Juan Perón, Eva Duarte de Perón, and all the national heroes of Argentina.

While the body lay in the Congress, 135,000 people filed past the coffin; outside, more than a million Argentines were left without bidding a final farewell to their leader. Two thousand foreign journalists reported every detail of the funeral rites.

With López Rega's flight from the country and the fall of Isabel's government, work on the Altar of the Homeland was suspended and the remains were moved to the Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

On October 17, 2006, his remains were moved to the quinta in San Vicente, which had belonged to him in life and later became a museum in his honor. During the transfer, disturbances broke out between sectors of the trade union movement.

Desecration of his remains

Main article: Theft of the hands of Juan Domingo Perón

On June 10, 1987, the coffin was desecrated when the hands were removed from the corpse. Their fate and the motive for the desecration are unknown, but there are various hypotheses about the motive. First, it could have been revenge: the desecration would have been an act of the famous Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2), in response to a breach by Perón, who had asked it for its "help" before assuming his third term. The operation would have been carried out in complicity with members of the Army, within the framework of the plan of destabilization against Argentine democracy. The second hypothesis pointed to the existence of a Swiss account: his fingerprints would serve to open his own safe-deposit boxes in Swiss banks, where several million dollars would have been kept. This version was ruled out because at that time no accounts with such a system existed in Switzerland. The desecration has also been attributed to the Armed Forces: there were false informants connected with that institution, many witnesses or informants who died suspiciously were connected with it, and there were threats with indications of coming from military quarters. And finally, the opposition has been pointed to: anti-Peronist sectors, alluding to a statement by Perón in which he said he would cut off his hands before asking the International Monetary Fund for a loan, would have carried out the cutting off of the hands.

Peronism after Perón

Main article: Peronism

After the death of its founder, under the government of his widow and successor, María Estela Martínez, the increasingly violent confrontation continued between the two sectors that claimed to represent Peronism: the right, led by Minister López Rega and supported by sectors of the trade union movement, and the left, identified mainly with the armed organizations of that tendency, while the economic situation rapidly worsened and ministerial changes followed one another. The violent struggle and the lack of leadership were used as excuses by the Armed Forces, which overthrew the president.

The military dictatorship that followed, known as the National Reorganization Process, rested on the practice of state terrorism; all political parties were banned, and Justicialist militancy, as well as that of the left-wing parties, was harshly punished by the repression. This made it possible to implement a liberal economic plan that was very burdensome for national industry.

Argentina's defeat in the Malvinas War in 1982 forced the dictatorship to call free elections in 1983, in which Raúl Alfonsín of the Radical Civic Union defeated Peronism, with a campaign that highlighted his rejection of, and commitment to repeal, the military's self-amnesty law, whose validity was accepted by the presidential candidate of the Justicialist Party, Ítalo Argentino Lúder, and the denunciation of an alleged trade union–military pact. A gradual recovery allowed Justicialism to return to power in 1989, with the Peronist government of Carlos Saúl Menem as President, with a marked neoliberal orientation.

Through the application of the Law of Acephaly, the Justicialist Eduardo Duhalde reached the presidency in 2002 and remained in office until 2003. Duhalde decided to support another Justicialist, Néstor Kirchner, in the 2003 elections. When Néstor Kirchner took over the national government, Peronism split, giving rise to the so-called Federal Peronism, opposed to the ruling Kirchnerism. Kirchnerist Peronism governed uninterruptedly for twelve years, as two terms of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were added to that of her husband Néstor Kirchner.

Books and articles

Perón wrote texts in various genres, but especially on politics and military strategy.

• c. 1915: Silvino Abrojo, stage comedy, under the pseudonym José M. Casais.
• c. 1915: El detective de la máscara negra (c. 1915), stage comedy.
• 1923: Reglamento de gimnasia alemán para el ejército y la armada, essay on physical exercises, illustrated by Perón.
• 1925: Moral militar, essay.
• 1928: Las campañas en el Alto Perú (1810-1814), essay.
• 1930: Lo que yo vi de la preparación y realización de la revolución del 6 de septiembre de 1930.
• 1931: El frente oriental de la guerra mundial en 1914, history book.
• 1932: Apuntes de historia militar, history book. Complete online version of the 3rd edition
• 1933: La guerra ruso-japonesa de 1904 a 1905, history book.
• 1934: Memoria geográfica sintética del territorio nacional del Neuquén, essay.
• 1935-1936: Toponimia patagónica de etimología araucana (1935-1936), series of essays published in installments.
• 1938: La idea estratégica y la idea operativa de San Martín en la campaña de los Andes, paper presented at the II Congreso Internacional de Historia de América, held in Buenos Aires in July 1936.
• 1939: Las operaciones en 1870, history book written in collaboration with Colonel Enrique Rottjer.
• 1941-1943: Infantería de Montaña, series of essays published in installments in the Argentine Army's Revista Militar between 1941 and 1943.
• 1943: Antecedentes de la Campaña Libertadora del General San Martín desde 1814 a 1817 (c. 1943), unfinished essay first published in 2007.

"San Martín y Bolívar vistos por Perón", a book that includes part of the original publication

• 1949: La comunidad organizada (facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional Juan Domingo Perón, 2006). Official online version
• 1952: Descartes, política y estrategia (No ataco, critico), series of articles that appeared in the pro-government newspaper Democracia starting in January 1951, signed with the pseudonym Descartes, and published in 1952 by the Undersecretariat of Information of the Presidency. Complete online version
• 1952: Conducción política, compilation of the classes given from March 1951 at the Escuela Superior Peronista located at San Martín 655, City of Buenos Aires, and published by the publisher Mundo Peronista. (Facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Freeland, 1971) Official online version (partial) Complete online version
• 1956: La fuerza es el derecho de las bestias, book written in Panama, with reprints in Chile, Peru and Spain. Complete online version
• 1957: Los vendepatria, book published in Caracas (Venezuela). (Facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Síntesis, 1976.
• 1958: Del poder al exilio. Quiénes me derrocaron, series of articles published in Italy by the magazine Tempo, in Venezuela by the magazine Elite, and in the Madrid newspaper Pueblo. (Facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Ediciones Argentinas, 1974) Online version (partial sample)
• 1963: Tres revoluciones militares, compilation of testimonies published in Spain. Complete online version
• 1967: Latinoamérica, ahora o nunca, compilation of testimonies published in Montevideo. (Facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Pleamar, 1976) Online version (partial sample)
• 1968: La hora de los pueblos, published in Spain and made up of part of the texts published in Latinoamérica, ahora o nunca. (Facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Pleamar, 1973) Complete online version
• 1974: Modelo argentino para el proyecto nacional, unfinished book published after his death in different editions that differ substantially from one another. Official online version (partial) Complete online version

Documentaries

During his exile in Madrid, Perón was interviewed in two feature-length films produced between June and October 1971 by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, in which Perón speaks about the history, doctrine and practice of the Justicialist movement in Argentina:

• 1971: Perón, La revolución justicialista
• 1971: Perón: Actualización política y doctrinaria para la toma del poder

See also

• Revolution of '43
• Third Peronism

Bibliography

• BARREIRO, Hipólito (2000). Juancito Sosa: el indio que cambió la historia (in español). Buenos Aires: Tehuelche. ISBN 9879817508.
• CLOPPET, Ignacio Martín (2010). Los orígenes de Juan Perón y Eva Duarte. ¿Dónde nació Juan D. Perón? (Descubrimientos documentales reveladores) (in español). Buenos Aires: ALFAR. ISBN 978-987-99409-1-4.
• CLOPPET, Ignacio Martín (2011). Eva Duarte y Juan Perón: la cuna materna. Perón y Evita descienden de conquistadores. El parentesco de Borges y Perón (in español). Buenos Aires: ALFAR. ISBN 978-987-99409-4-5.
• COX, David; NABOT, Damián (2006). La segunda muerte; quiénes, cómo y por qué robaron las manos de Perón (in español). Buenos Aires:Planeta Argentina. ISBN 950-49-1608-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• COX, David; NABOT, Damián (2015). Second Death; Licio Gelli, The P2 Masonic Lodge and the plot to destroy Juan Peron. Amazon. ASIN B00S6SC0YW.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• GALASSO, Norberto (2005). Perón. series "Grandes Biografías" (in español). Vol. vol. 1, Formación, ascenso y caída (1893–1995), vol. 2 Exilio, resistencia, retorno y muerte (1955–1974). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Colihue. ISBN 950-581-399-6 (vol. 1), ISBN 950-581-400-3 (vol. 2). {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
• GERCHUNOFF, Pablo; LLACH, Lucas (1998). El ciclo de la ilusión y el desencanto: un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (in español). Buenos Aires: Ariel. ISBN 950-9122-57-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• LUNA, Félix (1971). El 45 (in español). Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. ISBN 84-499-7474-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• METHOL FERRÉ, Alberto (2000). Perón y la alianza argentino-brasileña (in español). Buenos Aires: Theoria Ediciones. ISBN 987-98187-0-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• NUDELMAN, Santiago (1956). Por la moral y la decencia administrativa (in español). Buenos Aires:.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• POTASH, Robert A. (1981). El ejército y la política en la Argentina; 1928–1945 (in español). Buenos Aires:Sudamericana.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• POTASH, Robert A. (1994). El Ejército y la política en la Argentina 1962–1973. De la caída de Frondizi a la restauración peronista, Primera Parte: 1962–1966 (in español). Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. ISBN 950-07-0939-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• POTASH, Robert A. (1994). El ejército y la política en Argentina, 1962–1973; Segunda Parte (in español). Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. ISBN 950-07-0973-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• SAMPAY, Arturo E. (1974). Constitución y pueblo (in español). Buenos Aires: Cuenca.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• SAMPAY, Arturo E. (1963). La Constitución argentina de 1949 (in español). Buenos Aires: Relevo.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• SCENNA, Miguel A. (1974). Braden y Perón (in español). Buenos Aires:Korrigan.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• SCENNA, Miguel A. (1980). Los militares (in español). Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• SCHVARZER, Jorge (1996). La industria que supimos conseguir (in español). Buenos Aires: Planeta. ISBN 959-742-690-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• TRONCOSO, Oscar A. (1976). "La revolución del 4 de junio de 1943". El peronismo en el poder (in español). Buenos Aires: CEAL.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

External links

• Speeches of Juan Domingo Perón
• Instituto Nacional Juan Domingo Perón
• Museo y Biblioteca Presidente Juan D. Perón City of Lobos – Province of Buenos Aires.
• "Cómo se negoció el retorno de Perón a la Argentina", in Clarín