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María Estela Martínez de Perón
María Estela Martínez de Perón | |
|---|---|
 Martínez with the baton and the presidential sash upon assuming the presidency | |
| President of the Argentine Nation[lower-alpha 1] | |
| In office July 1, 1974 – March 24, 1976 | |
| Preceded by | Juan Domingo Perón |
| Succeeded by | Jorge Rafael Videla (de facto)[lower-alpha 2] |
| Vice President of the Argentine Nation[lower-alpha 3] | |
| In office October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974 | |
| President | Juan Domingo Perón |
| Preceded by | Vicente Solano Lima |
| Succeeded by | Víctor Martínez[lower-alpha 4] |
| First Lady of the Argentine Nation Ceremonial office | |
| In office October 12, 1973 – July 1, 1974 | |
| President | Juan Domingo Perón |
| Preceded by | Norma Beatriz López Maseda |
| Succeeded by | Vacant (1974–1976) Alicia Hartridge (1976–81) |
| President of the Justicialist Party | |
| In office July 1, 1974 – February 21, 1985 | |
| Preceded by | Juan Domingo Perón |
| Succeeded by | Vicente Leonides Saadi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | María Estela Martínez Cartas[4] February 4, 1931 |
| Party | Justicialist Party |
| Spouse | Juan Domingo Perón (1961–74) |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Signature |  |
María Estela Martínez de Perón (La Rioja, February 4, 1931), better known by her nickname Isabel Perón or Isabelita, is a former Argentine politician who was Vice President of the Nation during the last presidential term of Juan Domingo Perón, her husband, and who, after his death on July 1, 1974, took office as President. Her time in office (1974–1976) occupied the greater and final part of the historical cycle known as the «Third Peronism» (1973–1976). She was overthrown by the last civic-military coup d'état in the country's history on March 24, 1976, bringing this period to an end.[5]
Married to Juan Domingo Perón in 1961 and settled in Madrid, Spain, she was appointed as his personal delegate in Argentina on two occasions, given her husband's inability to return to the country as a consequence of the proscription of Peronism. With the end of that proscription she settled with Perón in Argentina and, with the return of Justicialism to power, she was chosen by Perón himself as his running mate and candidate for the Vice Presidency for the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) in the September 1973 elections, in which the Perón-Perón ticket won with 61.85% of the vote, taking office on October 12, 1973. After Perón's death on July 1, 1974, Martínez de Perón assumed the Presidency, becoming the first female president of her country and the first woman in the world to hold the headship of state and of government of a republican country with a presidential system.[6][7][8]
Martínez de Perón's presidency took place in a very complicated political and economic context, and her government is generally portrayed negatively, characterized by a persistent deterioration of political and civil liberties. Martínez de Perón was strongly influenced by José López Rega, her Minister of Social Welfare, who was considered a virtual «prime minister».[9] Martínez de Perón signed the first of the so-called annihilation decrees, which were used by military, police and parapolice forces to carry out the torture, kidnapping and execution without trial of persons considered «subversive».[10] Under her mandate the «Rodrigazo» took place, a macro-adjustment of economic variables that meant a serious deterioration in the living conditions of the population and produced a strong reaction from the trade unions and a serious political crisis that led to the resignation of López Rega.[11] In order to preserve the constitutional institutions, Martínez de Perón announced that the presidential elections would be brought forward to October 1976, but on March 24 of that same year a coup d'état put an end to the constitutional regime and established a civic-military dictatorship that called itself the «National Reorganization Process».[5] After her overthrow, Martínez de Perón was placed under house arrest, being released only five years later, in 1981. After that she settled in Spain, where she lives to this day.[12] From her arrival in government she was nominal president of the PJ until February 1985, when she was succeeded, first by Vicente Saadi (as interim president of the National Justicialist Congress), and later by Antonio Cafiero, leader of the «Peronist renewal», who won the party elections of 1987.[13]
In early 2007, as a result of the reopening of judicial cases for political murders committed during her government, her extradition to Argentina was requested.[14] The Spanish Audiencia Nacional considered that the crimes committed during her mandate could not be considered crimes against humanity and that they had therefore become time-barred.[15] From her overthrow onward, and with the exception of a series of minor appearances in the 1980s and 1990s, Martínez de Perón has generally remained outside the public sphere, refusing to grant interviews and avoiding expressing political opinions.[16]
Martínez de Perón's legacy is historically controversial, even within the ranks of Justicialism itself.[17] Her critics usually describe her as an «ineffective», «weak» or «disoriented» president who remained under the influence of various power figures,[18][19][9] while others consider her consciously responsible for the political repression that occurred during her presidency.[20] Some figures inside and outside Peronism consider her government a triggering factor both of the coup d'état and of the first electoral defeat of Justicialism after the end of the dictatorship and the return to democracy in 1983.[21] There is a broad historical consensus that Martínez de Perón lacked the political experience necessary to hold the office, and that this largely gave rise to the undue influence of other people on her political actions as well as her early fall from power.[17][22][9] Since the death of Roberto Marcelo Levingston in 2015, Martínez de Perón is the former Argentine head of state who has lived longest after the end of her government.[23]
Early years
María Estela Martínez Cartas[4] was born on February 4, 1931, in the capital city of La Rioja Province, in northern Argentina, into a lower-middle-class family. Her parents were Carmelo Martínez (1893–1938), a bank employee from the City of Buenos Aires who had been posted to the Riojan district, and María Josefa Cartas (1897–1966).[24] Her cousin was the renowned Argentine artist Juanita Martínez.[25]
After the death of her father in 1938, Martínez, then seven years old, was sent to Buenos Aires to live with José Cresto and his wife, Isabel Zoila Gómez de Cresto, who ran a spiritualist school and were her adoptive parents.[26] Martínez became estranged from her biological family after their separation and remained with the Cresto couple from then on.[27] Martínez ended her studies after the fifth grade of primary school in Buenos Aires;[25] and during her adolescence she studied Spanish dance, French and piano, also in Buenos Aires.[26][27]
During this period she began her career as a dancer, adopting the stage name «Isabel» or «Isabelita», which she had chosen as her confirmation name in reference to Saint Elizabeth of Portugal.[28][29][30][31] In 1951, at the age of twenty, she joined a dance company with which she began a tour of Latin America, traveling to Uruguay, Colombia and Venezuela. According to the historian Joseph A. Page, the troupe went directly from Medellín to Panama at the end of 1955,[32] while other versions claim that Martínez separated from the troupe and worked on her own as a dancer at the «Pasapoga» cabaret on Urdaneta Avenue in the city of Caracas, Venezuela, between 1953 and 1955, using the name «Isabel Gómez», after her adoptive mother.[26]
Martínez de Perón broke off relations with her biological family some time before her marriage to Perón. At the time of her trip to Argentina in 1965 and 1966 as her husband's delegate, her mother (who fell ill and died a few months later) tried to visit her, but Martínez de Perón refused to receive her, which was harshly portrayed by the anti-Peronist press.[33] Her brother Carlos Ernesto Martínez also tried to visit her, without success, and was arrested in March 1966 on alleged assault charges, which led her family to claim that the arrest had political motives.[33]
Meeting and marriage with Perón
Between December 1955 and January 1956 Martínez traveled to Panama as part of the Joe Herald's Ballet company's tour of Latin America.[32] The date of her arrival in that country is unknown, with versions stating that she was already there in December 1955 and others citing that her trip took place on January 28, 1956.[34] At that time, former president Juan Domingo Perón was in exile after the coup d'état of September 1955 that had overthrown his government and established a military dictatorship that called itself the «Revolución Libertadora», which banned Peronism and Perón himself from Argentine political life. According to the earliest versions, on December 22, 1955, Perón was invited to attend a show in which Martínez performed, which was supposedly where they first met. There are also numerous versions of how and when Martínez formally met Perón.
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A first version held that Carlos Pascali, former Argentine ambassador to Panama, took Martínez to the apartment that the exiled former president occupied in the Panamanian capital and that they formally met there.[32] A second version held that, after learning of his presence at a show in which she performed, Martínez herself approached Perón on her own and asked him for a job, having lunch with him and then being given a room in the same apartment.[32] Finally, a third version claimed that Perón attended the show and, pleased with it, gave small medals to the dancers by way of congratulation, including one to Martínez, who would have introduced herself to him after this.[32] Most versions agree that Martínez asked to work as his secretary or personal assistant, stating that she could do so without pay.[32][34] By the end of January 1956, Perón and Martínez had already begun an intimate relationship and were living together.[34] When they met, Perón was around sixty years old, while Martínez turned twenty-five shortly after meeting him.[34]
After a brief stay in Panama, Martínez accompanied Perón when they moved to Caracas, Venezuela, on August 8, 1956, where they led a modest life due to the economic conditions of exile.[34] They remained in that country for a little over a year, until a military uprising overthrew the authoritarian government of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in January 1958. Fearing an attempt on his life, Perón and Martínez took refuge in the embassy of the Dominican Republic, to which they decided to move separately under the auspices of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Perón traveled on January 27, 1958, while Martínez did so days later.[34] They lived in the Dominican Republic for almost exactly two years, and on January 26, 1960, they moved to Spain as part of a maneuver to guarantee their departure on the part of the Argentine government of Arturo Frondizi, the Trujillo regime and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.[34]
There is a wide divergence of sources and versions regarding when the marriage between Perón and Martínez took place, as well as the ulterior motives for the union. Some sources agree that Perón actually had no intention of marrying his secretary, keeping her as a concubine, but that the harshly conservative regime of Francoist Spain pressured him to «regularize» his marital situation, as it did not look kindly on the exiled former president—twice widowed—living together with a woman much younger than himself.[31] The official version states that the marriage took place through the Catholic Church on November 15, 1961, at the residence of Perón's personal physician, Francisco Flores Tascón.[34][31] Another version, however, claims that the marriage took place many months earlier, on January 2 or 5 of the same year, and that a waiting period was observed before finally making it public.[34][35] It was the third and last marriage of Perón, who had been widowed twice before, from his first wife Aurelia Tizón (1902–1938) and from his second wife and First Lady during his presidency, Eva Duarte (1919–1952), who was also a historical figure within Peronism.[35] Martínez de Perón accompanied her husband for the rest of his exile at his residence in Puerta de Hierro. Perón affectionately referred to his wife as «Chabela» or «Chabelita», while she used the name «Isabel Perón» in public from then on.[35]
Later, Martínez de Perón stated that during her stay in Madrid she became pregnant by her husband on two occasions, both times suffering miscarriages.[36][22] This, however, contradicts the historical accounts that state that Perón was sterile after an accident in his youth, and for that reason had no children with either of his two previous wives.[37]
Beginnings in politics
First trip to Argentina and conflict with «Peronism without Perón»
After Perón's overthrow and the proscription of Peronism from Argentine political life, the country went through a period of persistent political instability, with elected governments and a constitutional reform whose legitimacy was questioned (withdrawal from the 1957 Constituent Convention of the UCRI and other parties questioning its legitimacy, proscription of Peronism and of communism; coup d'état against Frondizi; arbitrary detention of President Frondizi, annulment under military pressure of the 1962 elections, suspension of Congress, intervention of the provinces in 1962).[38][39][40][41] After the breakdown of the Perón–Frondizi Pact—which had guaranteed the election as president of Arturo Frondizi (intransigent radical) with the support of Peronism—the crisis of the restricted democracy eased after the election of Arturo Umberto Illia (people's radical) with a high number of blank votes, corresponding to the proscribed Peronism and to a lesser extent to Frondicism and communism. At the same time, on the internal front, Perón's leadership was challenged by a phenomenon known as «neo-Peronism» or «Peronism without Perón», led largely by the metalworkers' union leader Augusto Timoteo Vandor, which promoted electoral participation under different party labels while maintaining Justicialist doctrines, and which gained strength after its victory in the 1965 legislative elections.[42][43] Faced with this situation and with the impossibility of traveling to the country after a failed attempt to do so in 1964, Perón appointed his wife as his personal delegate in Argentina.[44]
Martínez de Perón landed at Ezeiza Airport on October 10, 1965, after taking a flight from Spain with a stopover in Paraguay, and remained in the country for eight months.[45][46] The day after her arrival was a holiday for the press, so the population did not learn of her arrival until October 13. At first, Martínez de Perón stayed for a few days at a hotel in Recoleta, Federal Capital, where she was harassed by anti-Peronist groups in complicity with the Argentine Federal Police.[45] Given this situation, she moved to Luz y Fuerza, at 1700 Callao, in the same city, where the aggressions continued and ended up turning into sporadic riots. After a series of changes of location, Martínez de Perón chose to accept an offer to reside temporarily in the private homes of Peronist leaders.[45] Perón attributed his wife's trip to alleged family problems before the Spanish press, ruling out that she would carry out any kind of political activity.[45]
As Perón's personal delegate and with the aim of displacing Vandorism, Martínez de Perón took part in more than six hundred meetings across the country in almost all the provinces, holding meetings with leaders of the Peronist Resistance and fostering the organization of the Justicialist Party under Perón's leadership.[45] On April 17, 1966, elections were due to be held to renew the governorship of Mendoza Province, which had a three-year term different from the four-year term used by the other Argentine districts. The government of Arturo Illia allowed the various Peronist factions to run, and they went to the polls divided between the candidacy of Ernesto Corvalán Nanclares (of the Justicialist Party founded by Perón from exile the previous year) and Alberto Serú García (of the neo-Peronist Mendoza Popular Movement).[44] Despite the proscription, the fear of the country's political and military elite of a Peronist victory in Mendoza led the government to authorize Martínez de Perón's presence in Argentina and to allow her to campaign for verticalist Justicialism, with the aim of encouraging a division of the Peronist vote.[44] In a letter addressed to Perón, Martínez de Perón referred critically to Vandor: «Vandor etc. have shown their true colors and they must be given no quarter because they are trash».[47] Ultimately, the division of Peronism brought about a victory for Emilio Jofré, candidate of the provincial Democratic Party, while verticalist Justicialism, however, overwhelmingly beat Vandorism, which came in fourth place.[44] In this regard, Martínez de Perón wrote in another letter: «I would have liked to give you the government of Mendoza but I think it is better this way; what really mattered was not the collusion but to oust forever the cancer of Peronism».[47]
During her stay in Argentina, Martínez de Perón met José López Rega at the house of Lieutenant Colonel Bernardo Alberte (where she was staying temporarily because of her tour).[45] López Rega was a policeman from Buenos Aires Province who then ran a small printing shop, called Suministros Gráficos, which he had offered to place at the service of the Peronist movement.[48] He was also a recent member of the ANAEL Masonic lodge and was nicknamed «El Brujo» (The Sorcerer) because of his fondness for esotericism.[45][48] After hearing him speak during the subsequent meeting, Martínez de Perón requested a private interview with López Rega, during which she asked him to accompany her to Spain to work with her and Perón in Madrid, serving as the couple's private secretary, a proposal López Rega accepted.[45][48] López Rega quickly won the trust of Perón's wife during the interview.[45][49] According to López Rega himself, Martínez de Perón, drawn by López Rega's inclination toward esotericism and occultism, which she shared, had asked him to help her «protect herself from the evils of politics that are coming upon her».[45] On June 28, 1966, while Martínez de Perón was still in the country,[34] the government of Arturo Illia was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by General Juan Carlos Onganía, which had the initial approval of Perón himself,[34] before the anti-Peronist character of the new dictatorial regime, which would remain in power until the end of the proscription, became evident.[34] On July 9, 1966, Martínez de Perón returned to Spain accompanied by López Rega, the latter settling in Puerta de Hierro together with the Perón couple.[49]
Second trip to Argentina
The figure of Martínez de Perón began to become known among the Argentine public because of the documentary film Perón: Actualización política y doctrinaria para la toma del poder, which contained a series of interviews in which Perón assessed the situation of the Justicialist movement and the steps to be taken to regain power, with Martínez de Perón appearing in some of the recordings. The banning of the documentary by the military government meant that it had to be distributed clandestinely.[50] Also notable was an interview that Martínez de Perón granted to the journalist and correspondent Armando Manuel Puente, of Revista Panorama, that same year, in which she revealed details about her life with Perón and the constant visits by political leaders and prominent figures.[51] Months later, Martínez de Perón was sent again to Argentina to support the appointment of Héctor José Cámpora as Perón's personal delegate ahead of the discussion of the Great National Agreement proposed by the de facto president Alejandro Agustín Lanusse within the framework of the deep crisis suffered by the ruling dictatorship.[52][51] Cámpora's appointment came to the detriment of Jorge Daniel Paladino, who had begun discussions with the government to achieve the legalization of Peronism and the institutional and democratic normalization of the country.[53][54]
Martínez de Perón arrived in Argentina for the second time on December 7, 1971. On this occasion she was received by a massive gathering at the airport, with numerous journalists trying to interview her and demonstrators chanting Peronist songs.[55] The attendance of numerous members of the various Peronist unions, as well as other supporters, was estimated at 10,000 by its organizers and at least 7,000 by the press.[55] The gathering made evident the deep divisions that by then affected Peronism between its orthodox sector and the so-called «Revolutionary Tendency», inclined toward the political left, which was reflected in the opposing chants, which ran the risk of sparking violent clashes.[55] Perón himself had expressed his fear that his wife's arrival would cause riots, and specifically arranged the trip so that Martínez de Perón would arrive in Argentina on a Thursday, a working day, in order to prevent a mass turnout.[55] The decision to send Martínez de Perón was due to the fact that her intimate relationship with the Justicialist leader prevented her from being seen as a figure associated with either of the two Peronist factions, being considered the only one who could not «distort» the doctrine of the movement.[51][55] The Great National Agreement was flatly rejected by Peronism and liberal sectors, which considered that it was nothing more than an attempt by the armed forces to remain in power and to condition the incoming democratic government.[56]
Return of Peronism to Argentine political life
With the agreement proposed by the regime discarded, free elections were called with the participation of Peronism.[57] However, a series of restrictions regarding the residence of candidates prevented Perón himself from running, since candidates had to establish their domicile in Argentina before August 25, 1972. The Justicialist Party formed a coalition with other parties that had previously been anti-Peronist: the Integration and Development Movement (MID), led by former president Arturo Frondizi, the Popular Conservative Party (PCP) and sectors of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC); it became known as the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI). Given the impossibility of Perón's candidacy, the candidate was Héctor José Cámpora, with the popular conservative Vicente Solano Lima as running mate and candidate for vice president.[57] The FREJULI ticket won the elections of March 11 with 49.56% of the vote over 21.29% for Ricardo Balbín, candidate of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), and 14.90% for the conservative Francisco Manrique. Likewise, Justicialism obtained an absolute majority in both legislative chambers with 144 of 243 deputies (124 of them belonging to the PJ and the rest to its electoral allies) and 44 of 69 senators, and won the government of almost all the provinces, with the exception of Neuquén (governed by the neo-Peronist Neuquén People's Movement) and Santa Fe (governed by the MID in alliance with the PJ). Those elected were sworn in on May 25, 1973.[58] At the urging of Perón and Martínez de Perón, López Rega was appointed Minister of Social Welfare in the Cámpora Government, a post he would hold until the presidency of Martínez de Perón herself. A few days before the swearing-in of the elected government, between May 8 and 18, Martínez de Perón, accompanied by López Rega, led a diplomatic mission to the People's Republic of China and to North Korea, where she met with the supreme leader Kim Il-sung.[59] Finally, both she and Perón remained in Madrid until preparations were made for the definitive return of the Justicialist leader to Argentina, in June of that same year.[60]
September 1973 presidential election
Cámpora presidency
The arrival to the presidency of Héctor J. Cámpora took place in the context of the stratagem used by the outgoing military government to prevent Perón's candidacy for the presidency, so his campaign slogan «Cámpora to the government, Perón to power» made it clear that it was Perón who held real political power after the electoral victory.[61] On the day of the Justicialist leader's return to Argentina, June 20, 1973, the Ezeiza massacre took place, a violent clash between right-wing and left-wing factions of supporters who were vying for power within Peronism itself, prompting Perón to express his displeasure with the administration Cámpora was carrying out, which had already become apparent during his stay in Madrid shortly before the return trip. Shortly after this event and at Perón's request, Cámpora and Solano Lima resigned as president and vice president on July 13, with the aim of calling new elections without proscriptions, in which Perón could stand as a candidate.[61] The influence that José López Rega by then exerted over Justicialism was shown in that the second in the line of succession, Alejandro Díaz Bialet, provisional president of the Senate, was sent out of the country to allow Raúl Alberto Lastiri, president of the Chamber of Deputies and third in the line of succession, to assume the presidency as interim head of state until elections were called. Lastiri answered to the most right-wing sector of Justicialism and was a member of the anti-communist lodge Propaganda Due, of which López Rega (at the time his father-in-law) was also a member.[62]
By 1973, the health of Perón, at nearly eighty years of age, had begun to worsen, and it was known by most of the political spectrum that he would not complete the four-year term for which he would be elected. When Cámpora took office, the struggles and clashes between the sectors with divergent ideological approaches that coexisted within Justicialism intensified. Juan Manuel Abal Medina, a key figure in Justicialism at that time, stated in an interview in 1999:
The first symptoms of complication appeared in February 1973: Perón was being operated on for his prostate at the Puigvert clinic, in Barcelona, and he went into cardiac arrest during the procedure (…). López Rega found out and began to organize his advance. The secret was kept and he began his task of undermining Cámpora. The first ally López Rega sought was not the right, it was the Peronist left. Nobody paid attention to him. He sought me out, because I was positioned further to the left, and he began to speak ill of Cámpora to me (…) «They want to leave us out», he would say. Whom?, I asked myself. López was nobody, he served the coffee. I didn't take him seriously. But López spoke for Isabel. He would tell me: «The true loyalists are us, you, the señora who is so fond of the Montoneros…». And they had some contacts with the Montoneros, some meetings. Obviously they came to nothing.[63]
Perón-Perón ticket
Given this scenario and with growing political violence between the different sectors of Peronism, the figure of the Vice President of the Nation took on key importance. After failing in an attempt to seek a unity ticket with the radical leader Ricardo Balbín, discussions and speculation began over who would be Perón's running mate. On July 26, on the twenty-first anniversary of the death of Eva Perón, the Justicialist leader's candidacy for the presidency was officially proclaimed (despite being considered a done deal since the calling of the previous March elections), without it being specified at that time who would be the vice presidential candidate.[64]
The idea that Martínez de Perón be Perón's running mate, which began to be speculated about that month, was due to the fact that she was the only figure apart from Perón himself who had not taken sides in the internal conflict of Justicialism. On July 31, Cámpora confirmed that the idea of a «Perón-Perón» ticket was being considered.[65] Despite this, Martínez de Perón lacked almost entirely any political experience, notwithstanding the skill she had shown in representing her husband in diplomatic matters, and she had had no professional training before her meeting and relationship with Perón. The Justicialist leader himself was at first opposed to the idea of his wife being a candidate, worried about the situation she would find herself in if he died in office.[31]
However, for his part, López Rega was one of the main promoters of Martínez de Perón's candidacy and ended up dispelling Perón's doubts.[31] Finally, the proclamation of the Perón-Perón ticket took place on August 5, 1973, at the Teatro Colón.[66] Leaving aside the frustrated pre-candidacy of Eva Perón in 1951,[67] it was the fourth time a woman had run as a candidate for Vice President of Argentina, preceded by the communist Alcira de la Peña (1951 and 1954), the independent civic Ana Zaefferer de Goyeneche (1958)[68][69][70] and the Trotskyist Nora Ciapponi (March 1973),[71][72] as well as the first with a real chance of being elected. The replacement of Ciapponi by José Francisco Páez as running mate of Juan Carlos Coral (PST) meant that she was also the only female candidate in that election.[73]
The elections took place normally on Sunday, September 23, resulting in a landslide victory for the Perón-Perón ticket, which won in every province and obtained 61.85% of the valid votes cast against 24.42% obtained by the radical ticket made up of Ricardo Balbín and Fernando de la Rúa, 12.19% for the conservative ticket of Francisco Manrique and Rafael Martínez Raymonda, and 1.54% for the PST candidacy, made up of Juan Carlos Coral and José Francisco Páez. With a margin of 37.43% over the second most-voted option, the result obtained by Perón and Martínez de Perón in September 1973 constituted the largest percentage margin between the two most-voted candidates in Argentine electoral history. In terms of votes obtained, it was the second-highest percentage of votes since the reelection of Perón himself in 1951, and the last time a single ticket won in every electoral district of Argentina. After the electoral victory, Martínez de Perón reportedly told the media: «I am a humble woman of the people whose only merit is to have been a disciple of Perón and my love for Perón and for the Argentine people».[74]
Vice presidency (1973–1974)
Perón and Martínez de Perón were sworn in as President and Vice President of the Argentine Nation, respectively, on October 12, 1973. With her arrival to the vice presidency, Martínez de Perón became the first woman to hold that office in Argentine history.[74] She was also First Lady of the Argentine Nation at the same time because of her marriage to Perón; the only one of the three women who have held the Argentine vice presidency to have this distinction.[74]
Martínez de Perón's vice presidency was short, due to her husband's health problems, and was characterized by the office being practically vacant, according to what numerous officials would later recount.[74] Gustavo Caraballo, then Secretary General of the Presidency, later stated that Martínez de Perón did not carry out any legislative work and hardly attended the Senate (over which, as Vice President, she was constitutionally required to preside) during the nine months she held the office, with most of the duties falling to the Christian Democrat José Antonio Allende, provisional president of the body.[74] According to Caraballo, Martínez de Perón presided over the upper house only on a few occasions, which were preceded by complex preparation with written outlines and by avoiding the session becoming «complicated».[74] The provisional president, Allende, would later state that Martínez de Perón neither knew nor remembered the name of practically any of the members of the ruling bloc.[74] The sessions at which Martínez de Perón was present were deliberately shortened, with the floor being given only to the bloc leaders and to one or two senators.[74]
From November 1973, just one month after his return to power, Perón's health began to decline, so Martínez de Perón took charge of the executive power on two occasions.[74] Perón remained in the presidency until his death on July 1, 1974, and Martínez de Perón assumed the presidency that same day. There is a version, from the journalist Heriberto Kahn, that on the very morning of his death, Perón consulted the legal and technical secretary of the presidency, Gustavo Caraballo, about the possibility of finding a legal mechanism for the headship of state to be handed over to Ricardo Balbín as soon as he died, to which Martínez de Perón responded with silence and López Rega protested that it was an unconstitutional action.[75] Perón doubted his wife's capacity to exercise her office in the prevailing political context, and reportedly advised his wife never to make an important decision «without consulting Balbín».[75]
According to statements by Martínez de Perón herself in a later interview, she intended to submit her resignation from the presidency on the very day of Perón's death but was persuaded to remain in office by most of her political entourage, who promised her support.[76]
Presidency (1974–1976)
Death of Perón and accession
At around 2:00 p.m. on July 1, 1974, Martínez de Perón publicly announced the death of Juan Domingo Perón on national broadcast. In this announcement she was styled for the last time "Madam Vice President of the Nation in exercise of the executive power."[77] She said: "With great sorrow I must convey to the people the death of a true [her voice breaks] apostle of peace and nonviolence; I constitutionally assume the highest office of the country."[75][77] During her brief speech, Martínez de Perón asked the population and the country's main political figures to support her in governing. She also asked her opponents and adversaries to cooperate in fulfilling the objectives set out by Peronism. She ended her address with the words: "May God enlighten me and strengthen me to fulfill what God and Perón gave me as a mission."[77]
Martínez de Perón's arrival in the presidency set off a small debate over the title that should be used for her: whether she should be called "presidente" or "presidenta."[1] When she came to power, Martínez de Perón was the first woman to serve as head of state in the Americas. She was also the first female head of state of a republic whose head of state used the title "president." On July 10, 1974, nine days after she came to power, some media outlets had referred to her as "presidenta." In response, the Secretariat of Press and Broadcasting issued a statement:
"Through the Secretariat of Press and Broadcasting of the Presidency of the Nation, information was released intended, as stated, to avoid erroneous designations of the office of Mrs. María Estela Martínez de Perón. Having assumed the highest office in fulfillment of a constitutional mandate, she is to be recognized as the 'Most Excellent Madam President [presidente] of the Argentine Nation.' It is stated that this designation is established by Article 74 of the National Constitution, which provides that the Executive Power shall be exercised by a citizen with the title of 'President of the Argentine Nation.'"[1]
The dispute over the title arose again decades later, in 2007. That year Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected president and chose to use the feminine form of the title.[2] The Real Academia Española considers the feminine "presidenta" the most appropriate term for the office when it is held by a woman.[2] During Martínez de Perón's government, however, the press and institutions usually called her "la presidente" or "señora presidente."[1] Very few media outlets used the feminine form of the title.[78]
Political aspects
Initial context
The presidency of Martínez de Perón took place within the worldwide framework of the Cold War. At the time, the Cold War was intensified by the United States' defeat in the Vietnam War, by the actions of strong guerrilla and terrorist organizations in many countries (ETA, the IRA and the Red Brigades), and by the rise of communist parties in Europe.
At the regional level, when Martínez de Perón took office, Argentina was the only state in the Southern Cone that still had a democratic constitutional government. During the previous year, successive coups d'état had overthrown the only neighboring democracies, Chile and Uruguay. These coups imposed military dictatorships under the respective leadership of Augusto Pinochet and Juan María Bordaberry. Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia had already had similar regimes for several years. Because of their marked anticommunist character, these regimes were supported by the United States through Plan Condor.
Domestically, Argentina also faced growing political violence, with several armed groups of differing ideologies in action. The government showed marked administrative ineffectiveness in various areas. Violent state action against the left also led to a persistent weakening of political and civil liberties in the country.[79]
The international human rights organization Freedom House publishes the "Freedom in the World" report. Its reports published in January and February of 1975 and 1976, during Martínez de Perón's presidency, both lowered Argentina's rating to "partly free." In January 1974, when Perón was still governing, the country had been rated "free."[80] Since the index was first published in 1973, these were the only two occasions, together with the crisis of December 2001, on which a constitutional Argentine government received a score lower than "free."[80]
At first, President Martínez de Perón set aside the policy of rapprochement between Perón and the opposition leader, the Radical Ricardo Balbín. Instead she relied chiefly on her Minister of Social Welfare, José López Rega, who had been Perón's personal secretary. López Rega was known as "Daniel" to those close to him and as "the Warlock" to his political adversaries. He strengthened the presence of right-wing sectors in the government over other groups. He also organized a parapolice force known as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance or Triple A. This force harassed prominent figures of the left, and its actions would end in kidnappings, torture and murders.[81][82]
The real extent of López Rega's influence within Martínez de Perón's government is a matter of historical debate. Some accounts describe him as a kind of "de facto prime minister" or "shadow president."[81][9] In this view, he made the vast majority of political decisions during a little more than half of Martínez de Perón's term. He had already begun to build this influence during the last years of Perón's life and his third term.[9][82] Some footage shows Martínez de Perón giving public speeches while López Rega stood behind her moving his lips. This led to claims that he had almost direct control over both the political and the physical actions of the President.[81][82][83]
Martínez de Perón lacked the charisma of Eva Perón and of Perón himself. Her husband's death had nonetheless left a widespread sense of a power vacuum. At first her image as a "grieving widow" earned her broad political and public support. This support began to fade as the months passed, with the economic decline and the controversies that affected her.[84][85]
López Rega's influence over government actions gave rise to numerous historical anecdotes. So did his controversial relationship with Martínez de Perón, shaped by their shared passion for esotericism. One account holds that, before returning to Argentina, he tried to perform supposed mystical rituals with the embalmed body of Eva Perón in order to "transmit" to Martínez de Perón the spirit of the Justicialist leader's previous wife. Another concerns his claim to have "resurrected" Perón "several times" through magic during his presidency.[86][85]
According to Julio Broner, president of the General Business Confederation, Ricardo Balbín tried to persuade Martínez de Perón to remove López Rega from his post in order to "preserve the public image" of the presidency. This allegedly led the minister to close the President's inner circle around himself, with the supposed aim of "Peronizing" the cabinet.[85] Between August and October 1974, the heads of four key ministries (Interior, Economy, Education and Defense) were dismissed or forced to resign. They were replaced by leaders from the most right-wing sector of Peronism. Notable among the newcomers were officials from Perón's first presidency who had distanced themselves from his leadership after his overthrow.[87][85]
In less than two years in office, Martínez de Perón changed the holder of each of her ministries at least four times.[88] Only three of her ministers lasted a full year in office. These were López Rega himself and Foreign Minister Alberto Juan Vignes, both appointed before she reached the presidency, and Pedro Rolan Yañez, head of the briefly autonomous ministry of public health.[88]
Between 1973 and 1976, the Triple A was responsible for the disappearance and death of between seven hundred and eleven hundred people.[89][90][91] The figure of López Rega and the rightward political turn of Martínez de Perón's government led the Peronist left to move from internal dispute to open opposition to the government. This opposition even turned into armed violence. The Peronist guerrilla organization Montoneros sought to contest the President's authority. On September 6, 1974, it announced that it would go underground, which undermined the governability of the fragile democracy.[92] One year later, on September 8, 1975, during Martínez de Perón's rapprochement with the military, the government declared the organization "illegal and terrorist."
Martínez de Perón's own role in the actions of the Triple A later became a matter of controversy, and court cases were opened against her. In 2007, her defense lawyer Atilio Neira stated that the President "did not have information" about the paramilitary group's crimes.[93]
Situation of the provinces
In the elections of March 1973, the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) had won twenty-two of Argentina's twenty-three provincial governorships. It was defeated only in Neuquén Province, where the neo-Peronist Neuquén People's Movement (MPN) won. Of the governorships won by the FREJULI, twenty-one answered to the Justicialist Party and one, Santa Fe Province, to the Integration and Development Movement (MID).
The internal conflict within Peronism had intensified during Perón's third term. It led to numerous federal interventions and early departures of governors. During Perón's third term, Formosa Province, governed by Antenor Argentino Gauna, was placed under intervention on November 19, 1973. Eleven days later, Governor Juan Manuel Irrazábal of Misiones and his lieutenant governor, César Napoleón Ayrault, died in a sudden plane crash. Their deaths left the province under a prolonged interim administration.
Three governors also left office early. Oscar Bidegain of Buenos Aires resigned in January 1974. Ricardo Obregón Cano of Córdoba was overthrown in a police coup, which led to the intervention of the province in February. Alberto Martínez Baca of Mendoza was removed through impeachment proceedings by the legislature in June. The policy of intervening against governors politically identified with the left-wing sector of Peronism became more frequent during Martínez de Perón's term. The same applied to governors suspected of involvement in the "Marxist infiltration" of Peronism.
In July 1974, weeks after Martínez de Perón took office, a bill was brought before the Congress of the Argentine Nation to intervene the three branches of government of Mendoza Province. Alberto Martínez Baca had been suspended from office and replaced by Lieutenant Governor Carlos Mendoza, of the orthodox sector. The suspension came in impeachment proceedings carried out by a sector of Peronism in the legislature with the support of the opposition parties. They alleged that Martínez Baca answered to the "lefty" sector of Justicialism.[94][95]
The moves to remove the Mendoza governor from power had begun at the end of 1973. By December of that year, the provincial branch of the Justicialist Party had already been placed under intervention. Martínez de Perón, for her part, had a good personal relationship with Martínez Baca. She had met him when he was the running mate of Ernesto Corvalán Nanclares in the provincial elections of April 1966. At that time the President was Perón's personal delegate, and their ticket represented verticalist Justicialism against the Vandorist project.[94][95]
The government sponsored attempts at mediation between Martínez Baca and the opposing sectors of Justicialism, which were considered the only alternative for preserving the province's institutions. These attempts failed.[95][94] The intervention was approved in early August. On August 13, Martínez de Perón appointed Antonio Cafiero as federal intervenor, before the impeachment had been completed in the provincial Chamber of Senators.[95]
The next intervention carried out during Martínez de Perón's government was that of Santa Cruz Province, at the time the most remote and least populated in the country. Its governor, Jorge Cepernic, belonged to the sector of "the Tendency." He had been elected by an absolute majority of the vote in March 1973.[96] During his term, measures had been taken against large landed estates, and he had allowed the film "La Patagonia rebelde" to be shot in Santa Cruz territory.
Cepernic's government had suffered progressive destabilization by conservative forces both inside and outside Peronism, which accused him of being a Marxist infiltrator. This harassment largely eased during Perón's third government. Three months after Perón's death, however, the opposition to Cepernic grew stronger and forced his fall. On October 7, 1974, days after the end of Congress's session period, Martínez de Perón decreed the federal intervention of the provincial executive branch and replaced Cepernic with Augusto Pedro Saffores.[97][96]
The national government banned "La Patagonia rebelde" on October 12. Numerous officials of Cepernic's administration and activists of the Peronist sector loyal to him were arrested. The former governor himself was frequently threatened during the rest of Martínez de Perón's administration. The dictatorship that succeeded her in 1976 kept him imprisoned for almost six years.[97][96][98]
Days after the intervention of Santa Cruz Province, Martínez de Perón traveled to Salta Province, in the north of the country, to attend the 7th National Eucharistic Congress. She arrived there on October 13, 1974. By then, Salta Peronism was in a severe internal conflict between Governor Miguel Ragone, with the sector loyal to him (the Green List), and his opponents. Besides orthodox Peronism, the governor also faced strong attacks from the local right. Ragone was a native of Tucumán and did not belong to the Salta political elite. He also habitually associated with working-class and humble people. As a result, the province's extensive oligarchy accused him of being a "communist."[99]
During her visit to the province, Martínez de Perón refused to share a viewing stand with Ragone at the Congress, which was seen as a sign of rejection. A month later, on November 23, the President decreed the federal intervention of Salta and replaced the governor with intervenor José Alejandro Mosquera. On March 11, 1976, thirteen days before the coup d'état that overthrew Martínez de Perón, Ragone was kidnapped and murdered. His killers were members of the army and of the Salta police linked to the Triple A.[100][101][102]
In the first weeks of 1975, Martínez de Perón sought to create a new political climate in the face of persistent instability, and announced that she would begin a process of institutional normalization. To this end, on January 21 she ordered the intervention of Misiones Province. Since late 1973 the province had been under a prolonged interim administration by the president of the legislature, Luis Ángel Ripoll. This was despite the rules then in force, which required new elections to complete the term after the simultaneous death of the governor and lieutenant governor in a plane crash.[103]
Juan Carlos Taparelli took charge of the intervention of the province. He organized provincial elections for April 13, the only elections held during Martínez de Perón's government. The two main candidates were Miguel Ángel Alterach, of the ruling Justicialists, and the Radical Ricardo Barrios Arrechea. Dissident Peronism ran as a coalition of the Third Position party and the Authentic Party, with Agustín Teófilo Puentes as its candidate.[104]
The elections were largely free. Even so, the ruling party made numerous judicial and political moves that were perceived as an attempt to undermine the chances of dissident Peronism. Notable among these were attempts to challenge Puentes's candidacy in court on the grounds that the parties could not use Peronist symbols.[105] There were also acts of censorship or aggression against the various candidates.[105] Alterach openly defended Martínez de Perón's administration and used the campaign slogan "Isabel is Perón."
In a polarized context, Alterach was elected governor, but by a narrower margin than the one Irrazábal had obtained in the previous election. He received only 46.52% of the vote against 39.13% for Arrechea. Arrechea managed to win back almost all of the Radical vote for the official UCR, part of which had until then been held by the Intransigent Party. Puentes was hurt by the aggressive campaign against him and by the polarization between the FREJULI and the UCR. He received only 9.62% of the vote.[106][107]
Annihilation decrees
During the last months of 1974, Martínez de Perón's government began a process of repression and militarization of Argentine society. This process lasted until her overthrow and was deepened and taken to the extreme by the subsequent dictatorship. On November 6, 1974, five months after coming to power, Martínez de Perón imposed a state of siege by decree throughout the national territory. Among the nominal objectives of the legitimized repression, the decree set out the following purpose: "With all energy, to eradicate expressions of a pathological barbarism that has been unleashed in the form of a treacherous and criminal terrorist plan against the Nation."[108]
Under this decree, numerous political and union leaders were detained without trial. The most notable case was the "Operation Red Serpent of the Paraná" against the militant unionism of the metalworking hub in Villa Constitución. More than three hundred people were detained without trial, and the Triple A waged a campaign of terror against the local population. The operation set off demonstrations and strikes against the government and left between twenty and thirty people murdered or disappeared.[108] In the course of the operation, the first clandestine detention center (CCD) was set up in the bachelor dormitories of the Acindar company. Such centers would later multiply during the dictatorship.[109]
On February 5, 1975, Martínez de Perón issued Decree 261/75, also known as the first annihilation decree. It established an emergency zone in part of Tucumán Province, then governed by the Justicialist Amado Juri, in order to fight the guerrilla group known as the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) by military means. The ERP had established a strong rural presence in Tucumán. Its main aim was to set up a "liberated zone" or "revolutionary focus" within the province. Once it controlled the territory, it intended to launch an armed conflict against the Argentine state and seek international recognition.[110] Montoneros also maintained a small nucleus in Tucumán of about thirty combatants, which would grow to one hundred the following year.
The decree signed by Martínez de Perón was secret and unknown to the public. It authorized the army to "carry out the military operations that may be necessary for the purpose of neutralizing and/or annihilating the actions of subversive elements operating in Tucumán Province." It placed the forces of the Federal Police and the Tucumán Police at the disposal of the Army, together with the support of the Navy and the Air Force.[111]
The issuing of this decree for the annihilation of subversion was the prelude to state terrorism.[111] This solution did not fully satisfy some military sectors. One of them was the officer chiefly responsible for the operation, General Acdel Vilas. Vilas admitted that he had exceeded his functions, had not respected the spirit of the presidential order, and had overridden the country's legal political authorities.[112]
The Operation included a series of military engagements with the guerrilla groups in the rural area. However, the military action was concentrated in the cities. There it repressed civilians active in political, union, student, religious and social organizations, which were generically regarded as "left-wing" elements. Vilas considered that the supposed "war" waged in Tucumán was "eminently cultural." In his view, the guerrillas in the Tucumán hills were "only the armed manifestation of the subversive process and not the most important one."[113]
Under this first decree, the Army imposed a regime of state terrorism in Tucumán for the first time. After the coup d'état, this regime would be applied to the whole country. The Army illegally detained thousands of people and set up a clandestine detention center in a school in Famaillá, where it kept the detainees disappeared. It systematically tortured the detainees, carried out illegal public executions, and made the bodies of those murdered disappear.[114]
Vilas was finally relieved on December 18, 1975, and replaced by Antonio Domingo Bussi. Bussi intensified the State's terrorist action. In the last three months of the constitutional government, 91% of the victims were detained-disappeared.[115] He also moved the Famaillá CCD to the Nueva Baviera sugar mill and opened thirteen other clandestine detention centers.[116]
According to the historian Felipe Pigna, the meetings in which the coup d'état was prepared began in early 1975. They took place on the estate of José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, a key figure in the economic policy later carried out by the de facto regime.[117] Julio González, Martínez de Perón's private secretary, gave an account of a conversation with Colonel Jorge Montiel, secretary of the SIDE, who later disappeared. According to González, Montiel had confided to him that he had information that officers of the Armed Forces were in contact with the guerrilla leaderships in order to destabilize the government.[118]
Martínez de Perón gave speeches defending the repression against the guerrilla organizations, arguing that they endangered social peace. On May 1, 1975, the Workers' Day commemoration, the country was in a state of particular tension. That day Martínez de Perón gave a forceful speech before the Plaza de Mayo against the guerrillas. She said she would fulfill her objective of "taking the country where it belongs, as General Perón wanted" at all costs, and declared: "Those anti-patriots who oppose me, I will give them the whip." The crowd responded with loud chants of "we're going to smash them." Martínez de Perón added: "We have had too much patience and understanding. I am not afraid of them."[119][120][121]
Economic and social measures
End of the Social Pact established by Cámpora, and health policy
| Year | GDP growth |
|---|---|
| 1974[122] |  5.4%
|
| 1975[123] | ▼ −1.4% |
On taking office, Martínez de Perón inherited the policies of the Social Pact. These had been established during the government of Héctor José Cámpora and continued during Perón's third presidency under Minister of the Economy José Ber Gelbard. The "Pact" had three main objectives. The first was for wage earners to reach a share of 40–50% of national income within four years. The second was to reduce the existing high inflation, and the third was to consolidate economic growth. Its main agreement was that the unions gave up wage bargaining (the negotiation of collective agreements) for two years. In exchange, companies froze prices and granted a fixed-sum wage increase, which for the lowest-paid categories amounted to a real increase of 20%.[124]
At first, Martínez de Perón committed herself to maintaining the policies of the "Pact," as well as the economic nationalism that Perón had encouraged. Two of her first important economic policy decisions were the enactment of a new labor contract law favorable to workers and the grant to the state oil company YPF of a monopoly over service stations.[125]
In the first months after Perón's death, however, the social pact quickly collapsed. Argentine merchants engaged in agio, that is, withholding essential products to speculate on price increases. They hid basic products such as cooking oil and sugar and developed a black market in goods.[126] Only three months after reaching the presidency, Martínez de Perón replaced Gelbard with Alfredo Gómez Morales. Gómez Morales was a historic figure of Peronism who had already served as Minister of Economic Affairs during Perón's second term.[127] The end of the Social Pact reopened wage bargaining for sectoral collective negotiations, which the unions had suspended in agreement with the government since 1973.
Despite the growing political instability, some measures taken during Martínez de Perón's government lasted for many years. Among them were the nationalization of several television channels and the enactment of the labor contract law. In the labor sphere, important collective agreements were also updated, such as that of commercial employees, which is still in force.
In health policy, public health was in the hands of Pedro Rolan Yañez. Under him, broad improvements in health were achieved through public policies, and health plans were designed that improved state-level services. Argentina was also brought to take part within the World Health Organization (WHO). This active role in public health continued until the resignation of Yañez. He served as minister of a ministry separate from Social Welfare between July 21, 1974, and August 1, 1975.
Other measures, such as YPF's monopoly on fuel sales, were repealed by the military government. A social measure that froze the installments on home-purchase loans enabled many families to own their first property. Nevertheless, and despite a currency devaluation, the Argentine economy suffered serious damage from rising inflation, and capital investment came to a standstill. On top of these difficulties, several European countries suspended imports of Argentine beef. The monetarist solution attempted by Minister Gómez Morales was unsuccessful. It caused a sharp contraction of liquidity and began a complicated process. One of the lowest unemployment rates in the country's history had been reached, but at the cost of very high inflation.[128]
The "Rodrigazo"
By 1975 Argentina had come to rank among the countries with the greatest income equality outside the Eastern Bloc.[129] Alfredo Gómez Morales failed, and his policy had markedly increased the fiscal deficit. The Peronist far right led by López Rega was then able to impose Celestino Rodrigo as his successor. Rodrigo took office on June 2, 1975.
On June 4 he announced the economic policy to be implemented, designed by Deputy Minister Ricardo Zinn. It included a devaluation of the peso of more than 150% against the commercial dollar. It also included an average increase of 100% in the price of all public services and transport, and a rise of up to 180% in fuel prices.[130] In return, he announced a 45% wage increase. His aim was to have prices run ahead of wages in order to wipe out companies' debts, and then to stabilize and liberalize the economy for the entry of foreign capital.[131] To justify the measures, Rodrigo set out a series of principles opposed to consumerism. He asked all Argentines to reduce their spending, especially on luxury and imported goods.[131]
This adjustment policy became known as the "Rodrigazo." Historiography remembers it as the beginning of a series of economic policies centered on the "adjustment" and "realignment" of the economy, which ultimately ended up harming wage earners and production, especially industry.[132] Rodrigo's policy set a cap of 40% on wage increases agreed in collective bargaining. The unions had agreed with the employers' chambers on wage increases averaging twice the cap. They harshly rejected the economic policy, and protests against it broke out all over the country.[133][131]
The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) demanded that the President ratify the collective agreements.[133] Martínez de Perón's government refused. The CGT therefore declared the first general strike against a Peronist government.[134] The strike lasted forty-eight hours, on July 7 and 8.[131]
Union pressure achieved an average wage increase of 180%. Combined with Rodrigo's measures, this raised inflation to levels never before seen in Argentina.[132] At the same time, the crisis destroyed the political legitimacy of López Rega and of the sector of Peronism loyal to him.[131] In the last days of June and the first half of July, demonstrations demanded López Rega's removal from the government with the slogan: "Isabel, have courage, kick out the Warlock!"[86]
According to the historian Marcelo Larraquy, a mass rally against the Minister of Social Welfare took place in the Plaza de Mayo. During it, López Rega allegedly demanded violently that Martínez de Perón go out onto the balcony to vindicate him. When she refused, he allegedly slapped her, which led the presidential guard to threaten him.[86] López Rega remained shut in with the President for some days at the Olivos presidential residence. He finally resigned on July 11 and was named ambassador of Argentina to Spain, which amounted to a kind of de facto exile.[135]
Economic aftermath before the coup d'état
Rodrigo and Zinn resigned a few days after López Rega, and because of the debacle the Ministry of the Economy was left temporarily vacant. The economy went into recession, and the country was left on the verge of default on its foreign debt. For this reason, the government was forced to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the first ever made by a Peronist government.[133]
Martínez de Perón appointed Pedro José Bonanni as minister. He called in businessmen to help draw up a new economic plan and left the unions out of the consultations. This decision forced his resignation only three weeks after his appointment. On August 11, Antonio Cafiero took office as minister. He was unable to change the catastrophic course the economy was taking, which was aggravated by the operations already being carried out by the coup-plotting groups. By the end of the year the public deficit had reached 12.4%, and all social indicators were deteriorating rapidly.
On February 3, 1976, Cafiero was replaced by Emilio Mondelli. Under his management, Argentina had the first hyperinflationary outbreak in its history in March of that year, when prices rose 54% in a month. That same month the coup group took power. It imposed a dictatorship that would combine systematic state terrorism with the first neoliberal economic plan in Argentina.[133]
Relationship with feminism
Martínez de Perón was the first woman to serve as Argentine head of state. Even so, the relationship between her and the feminist groups then active in Argentina was tense. She generally drew on a conservative Catholic and right-wing discourse.[136] Her period in government was marked by practically no institutional policy that expanded women's rights.[136] El Caudillo was a far-right magazine used by López Rega and the Triple A as a means of propaganda during the first half of Martínez de Perón's government. It described feminism as "a stronghold of Marxist, lesbian and ugly women."[137] All thirty-nine ministers who headed the various ministries during Martínez de Perón's term were men.[136][138]
In March 1974, shortly before Perón's death, his administration had criminalized the over-the-counter sale of contraceptive pills. Martínez de Perón's government maintained this measure.[139] During this period the government took a markedly anti-abortion stance. It portrayed the feminist struggle for the legalization of abortion and for absolute divorce as a combination of "non-Argentine interests." According to the government, these interests sought to "destroy the family" and "threaten motherhood as the natural function of women."[136]
The United Nations declared 1975 the "International Women's Year." In April of that year, Martínez de Perón's government created a commission to organize the celebrations. The government, however, showed an almost open rejection of the participation of the country's main feminist groups, the Argentine Feminist Union and the Feminist Liberation Movement. The commission's actual activity was very limited, except for the organization of a seminar planned for March 1976.[136] The President took part in a Women's Congress in August 1975. Feminist organizations were excluded from it on the grounds that they "fostered the struggle against men."[138][136]
During the second half of the year, Deputy María Cristina Guzmán of Jujuy introduced bill 21,182 on shared parental authority, one of the main demands of the feminist movement. Until then the man had all the rights of parental authority over the children, while the woman had only obligations in that respect.[138] Argentina had once had legislation on shared parental authority during Perón's first presidency. It had been repealed by the "Revolución Libertadora" and never restored.[138]
The earlier legislation was regarded as a long-standing Peronist achievement, and the bill was ultimately approved by both chambers of Congress. Martínez de Perón nevertheless vetoed it on October 22, 1975. She argued that it was "unclear" as to whether parental authority was shared or joint, placing the man and the woman only in an "indistinct" position.[140][138]
The government was headed by a woman, yet it kept its distance from feminist issues and took almost no action on them. This drew strong criticism from left-wing and center-left figures in the country.[136][138] The newspaper Avanzada Socialista praised the situation in France, which had just legalized abortion, and in Italy, which was in the process of introducing an absolute divorce law. It contrasted them with the situation in Argentina, stating: "The only law proposed so far this year concerning the situation of women was vetoed by the Executive Power."[136] The law establishing shared parental authority would not be approved until 1985, and absolute divorce not until 1987, both under the government of Raúl Alfonsín.[140][138]
Foreign relations
Turn to the right
Martínez de Perón's government took place in an international context of a pronounced turn to the right. The dictatorships that had surrounded Argentina since the second half of 1973 had consolidated themselves. In this period Operation Condor was formed with the support of the United States, in order to coordinate the intelligence services and extend state terrorism throughout South America. At the same time, in 1975, Chile became the first country in the world to apply the new economic model developed from the ideas of Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago. This model would become known as neoliberalism.
Martínez de Perón's foreign policy was conducted by her Foreign Minister, Alberto Vignes, a member of the anticommunist lodge Propaganda Due. It abandoned the Third World and Non-Aligned stance in the Cold War that had marked the presidencies of Cámpora and Perón, above all in relations with the other countries of Latin America. Argentina cooled its relations with those countries whose governments the United States considered "leftist": Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.[141]
Martínez de Perón's government canceled all the negotiations that the previous Peronist presidents had been conducting to bring Argentina into the Andean Pact. Instead, it sought to establish a regional power bloc with the dictatorships of Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay, based on a shared anticommunist ideology. This bloc was in turn meant to check the "expansionism" of Brazil. In particular, Argentina had a diplomatic conflict with Mexico. The dispute arose because Mexico, making use of the right of asylum, protected a large number of Argentines persecuted by the Triple A, among them former President Cámpora.[141]
Policy on the Malvinas Islands
During Perón's last government, secret negotiations had been held between the Argentine and British governments. They took place within the framework of the two countries' dispute over sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands. The discussion centered on the possibility of establishing a joint administration of the territory under an "Anglo-Argentine condominium" until a possible complete transfer of sovereignty.[142] Perón had favored the idea, but the negotiations cooled after his death and Martínez de Perón's accession.[142]
At that time, and until 1982, Argentina exercised its sovereignty over the exclusive economic zone around the Malvinas, from 12 nautical miles out to 200. The United Kingdom, which did not claim those waters, did not object to Argentina's administrative acts there, such as the interdiction of foreign vessels fishing illegally in the area.[143] One such act was carried out against the British research vessel RRS Shackleton on February 4, 1976, toward the very end of Martínez de Perón's government. The Argentine Navy destroyer ARA Almirante Storni (D-24) fired shots across its bow because it was conducting research without Argentine authorization 80 miles from the Malvinas Islands. The ship was then escorted by the destroyer and an aircraft to Puerto Argentino/Stanley.[144]
Rapprochement with the military and health problems
Martínez de Perón's health was a matter of controversy during her presidency. She was seen as a sickly woman who suffered constant nervous breakdowns and unhealthy weight loss while in office, which led to repeated leaves on health grounds.[145][81] On July 25, 1975, two weeks after the fall of López Rega, a CIA report summarized:
"Doctors have confined Mrs. Perón to her bed, which set off a new round of speculation over whether she will request a leave, possibly for a long period of two months. Although her press aides describe her difficulties as the flu, she suffers from a serious nervous condition and needs frequent heavy sedation. She has lost a great deal of weight."[145]
The CIA was concerned about a possible widening of the power vacuum after López Rega's departure from the government. It described Martínez de Perón as a woman inclined to react to personal and political distress with depression, and suggested that this might be a cause of her health problems. After López Rega's fall, political pressure against her grew. Raúl Lastiri resigned as president of the Chamber of Deputies. The lawyer Ítalo Luder was installed as provisional president of the Senate and thus as Martínez de Perón's constitutional successor.[145][81]
On September 13, 1975, Martínez de Perón requested leave for health reasons. By then she could barely sleep and weighed only 41 kilograms. Luder therefore assumed the executive power on an interim basis.[146] During her leave, Martínez de Perón stayed in Ascochinga, near the provincial capital of Córdoba, at an Air Force holiday camp.[147] She was accompanied by Alicia Raquel Hartridge de Videla, Delia Viera de Massera and Lía González de Fautario.[147] They were the wives of the three commanders of the Armed Forces: Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera and Héctor Fautario.[147][81]
During his brief period in charge of the executive power, Luder strengthened the power of the military. At their request he enacted three more annihilation decrees, which extended to the whole country the order to "annihilate" guerrilla activity. The decrees created a National Defense Council controlled by the Armed Forces and placed the national and provincial police forces under the military's orders.[148] One of the Army's first decisions was to militarize the country into five zones. Within each zone, the corps commander had autonomy to order whatever repressive actions he considered necessary, including the establishment of clandestine detention and torture centers.Seoane 2001, pp. 23–73 Luder also announced that the elections scheduled for March 1977 would be brought forward to the second half of 1976. The date, however, would not be confirmed until the last days of the year.[146]
At a meeting of the Army high command led by the then Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Jorge Rafael Videla, with the participation of French and American military advisers, the National Counterinsurgency Strategy was secretly approved. It ordered that the procedures and guarantees of the rule of law be dispensed with, and that repressive actions be carried out clandestinely and without acknowledgment by the state authorities.[114] Shortly afterward, on October 23, 1975, Videla spoke publicly at the 11th Conference of American Armies held in Montevideo. He declared: "If necessary, in Argentina all the people necessary must die to achieve the country's peace."[149]
Directive 404/75 of October 28 established the military zoning of the country. It placed the country under the autonomous power of the Armed Forces, above the constitutional provincial authorities. This policy pursued a possible process of Bordaberrization (a dictatorship with a civilian president), similar to the one carried out in neighboring Uruguay by its then president, Juan María Bordaberry.
Numerous sources document that the coup had been planned even before Martínez de Perón took office, in case Perón died in office. Even so, at the end of September and in the first half of October it was considered feasible that Martínez de Perón might extend her leave indefinitely or resign the presidency. That would have placed the headship of state permanently in the hands of Luder and allowed an institutional coup that would be "against Isabel, but not against everyone."[117][81] This option was seen as the only way to avoid a new coup d'état.
On October 17, 1975, however, Martínez de Perón returned to the presidency and flatly rejected the idea of resigning in statements to the media.[81] Her nurse, Norma Bailo, said in a later interview that she had the impression the President did not make decisions on her own. Bailo suggested that she had in fact intended to resign several times but was forced not to.[81] It is considered that once Martínez de Perón decided not to resign the presidency and leave Luder as interim president, it became practically impossible to avoid the coup d'état.[81]
Political crisis and overthrow
Uprising of December 1975
Martínez de Perón's refusal to resign led to the Armed Forces' final decision to overthrow the constitutional government.[150][151] After Martínez de Perón's return became known on October 16, the Navy and the Army, led by Massera and Videla respectively, had begun to plan the coup. The commander of the Air Force, Fautario, refused to support them.[150]
On December 18, 1975, an attempted coup d'état took place, led by Brigadier Jesús Orlando Cappellini. At the same time, the coup group manipulated the situation to force the removal of Fautario and his replacement by Orlando Ramón Agosti, who favored the coup.[150] The government had received the first irregular signals on December 15. It believed the matter was only an internal dispute within the Armed Forces and thought that removing Fautario would put down the rebellion.[150][151] The Minister of the Interior, Ángel Federico Robledo, stated on national broadcast: "An institutional conflict concerning the leadership of the air arm has been exploited by a small group of retired officers and civilians to turn it into a subversive attempt, which found no echo either in the Armed Forces or among the people."
The rebellion led by Cappellini nonetheless continued until December 22. It included a bombing of the 7th Brigade with Air Force aircraft and was halted at the last moment through the mediation of the military vicar Adolfo Tortolo.[150] Ultimately the coup failed because Videla refused, at that moment, to support an outright overthrow of Martínez de Perón's government. He considered that the right time had not yet come.[150][151][152] Despite the uprising, Martínez de Perón delivered a message on national broadcast in which she repeatedly refused to resign. She did, however, announce that the presidential elections would be brought forward to October 17, 1976.[151] At the same time, she declared that she would not allow anyone "with petty purposes" to try to usurp power unconstitutionally.[153]
The uprising did not succeed in overthrowing Martínez de Perón. The coup group did, however, manage to use it to get rid of Fautario. He was the last officer loyal to the constitutional government and the only obstacle between the sector favorable to Videla and a successful coup d'état and seizure of power.[154][155]
On December 23, days after the coup attempt, the People's Revolutionary Army carried out a failed assault on a battalion in Monte Chingolo, Buenos Aires Province. The attack resulted in numerous casualties for the guerrilla organization. Several prisoners were executed clandestinely after surrendering.[156][152] Videla then spent Christmas Eve in Tucumán, where Operativo Independencia was still under way, and used his time there to harangue the armed forces deployed in the area. Videla then issued a ninety-day ultimatum, until March 24, to Martínez de Perón's government to "put the country in order."[152]
On December 29, the military vicar Adolfo Tortolo met with Martínez de Perón and tried to persuade her to give up power. The negotiation failed when the President once again refused to resign. The military leaderships responded that her departure from the presidency would be "the only non-negotiable point."[157] Martínez de Perón then met personally with the three commanders on January 5, 1976, and again rejected their requests that she resign.[148] New pressure to force her resignation, also unsuccessful, came on February 17 of the same year. In private, Martínez de Perón explained to her Minister of Defense, José Deheza, that she believed resigning would mean "validating what is going to come afterward."[158] The coup d'état had been planned since October 1974, and the United States Department of State knew of the preparations twelve months before it took place.[159][160][161]
Coup preparations
On August 14, 1975, a month after López Rega's resignation, a scandal broke out. Allegations surfaced that Martínez de Perón had embezzled large sums of money from the "Solidarity Crusade" into her personal accounts in Spain. The Crusade was a charitable organization created and directed by her government. The accusation was published in the opposition newspaper La Prensa.[162] The accusations led Congress to open an investigation starting in November.[162]
After the coup attempt of December, the Integration and Development Movement (MID) announced its withdrawal from the ruling coalition, of which it had been part for three years. The MID, led by former President Arturo Frondizi, was the second-largest party in the ruling Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI).[157] At the same time, the Justicialist blocs in both chambers of Congress were deeply split between a "verticalist" sector that supported the government and a "rebel" sector.
This split left the ruling party without its own majority in the Chamber of Deputies. It went from having 142 deputies to 102. Against them stood 129 deputies of the opposition (the UCR, the FUFEPO, the APR and some provincial parties) together with the anti-verticalist sectors. Another 12 deputies held independent positions.[163][164]
That same month, the government suffered a serious break with the governor of Buenos Aires, Victorio Calabró. He stated that with Martínez de Perón remaining in power, it would be impossible for the constitutional government to reach the presidential elections successfully. His statements prompted a failed attempt at federal intervention.[148][164] The Minister of the Economy, Antonio Cafiero, was replaced by Emilio Mondelli. Mondelli announced his "Economic Emergency Plan," which included new price caps for bread, pasta, cheese, butter, powdered milk and cooking oil. The measure remained in force until the beginning of the military government.[165]
A sector of the opposition led by the Radical Senator for Buenos Aires, Fernando de la Rúa, promoted impeachment proceedings against Martínez de Perón. There were two attempts to remove the President through institutional means. One was submitted by Deputy Héctor R. Valenzuela, of the Bloquist Party of San Juan, and the other by Francisco Moyano, of the Democratic Party of Mendoza.[166] Neither obtained enough votes to succeed. The second, however, prompted an intense debate in the Chamber of Deputies on February 25, 1976, a month before the coup.[166] After the attempt, Lorenzo Miguel announced that the 62 Organizations would once again back the government, after a period of markedly critical stance.[167]
During the last months before the coup d'état, numerous opposition media outlets played a very important role in weakening the constitutional government. They instilled in the population the idea that a coup d'état was an inevitable conclusion, and even a preferable one.[168] Throughout 1975, several newspapers highlighted the President's inability to govern. They also sought to discredit any proposal to find a legal way out of the political crisis, in an attempt to deepen the country's instability.[168] Headlines against Martínez de Perón's government appeared almost daily up to the day of the coup. In the final weeks, newspapers such as Clarín and La Nación openly urged the Armed Forces to intervene and put an end to the constitutional regime.[168]
In the days before the military uprising, some political leaders made statements giving their opinion on a possible coup d'état. The liberal conservative leader Álvaro Alsogaray expressed skepticism about overthrowing Martínez de Perón in an interview on March 21. He argued that it would be questionable to do so at a time when the opposition had unprecedented chances of defeating Peronism by electoral means. He declared: "Why turn them into misunderstood martyrs of democracy, precisely at the moment when they will be forced to declare their great failure?"[157]
On March 16, Balbín had given a speech on the national radio and television network. He stated that the government's isolation had caused the State to stop functioning after Perón's death. He closed with the words: "All the incurables have a cure five minutes before death. I would wish that we Argentines, today, did not begin counting the last five minutes."[169]
On March 23, 1976, the last day of Martínez de Perón's government, the newspaper La Razón ran the headline: "Everything has been said, the imminent end."[168] The front page of Clarín read: "Changes imminent in the country."[170][171] That same day, numerous events seemed to herald the coup. The military began deploying its forces in the main cities of the interior. Several deputies began removing their belongings from the Palace of Congress and requesting advances on their salaries.[170][171]
The coup d'état of 1976
Shortly after midnight on March 24, 1976, Martínez de Perón boarded the presidential helicopter bound for the Olivos presidential residence. With her were her private secretary Julio Carlos González; the head of her personal guard, Rafael Luisi; a young officer of the Patricios 1st Infantry Regiment; Lieutenant Antonio Diamante of the Navy; and two Air Force pilots.[157] During the flight, the pilot announced that the aircraft had a malfunction and that they had to make an unscheduled landing at Aeroparque. The party entered the offices of the Base commander.[157]
At about 3:10 a.m., General José Rogelio Villarreal told Martínez de Perón: "Madam, the Armed Forces have decided to take political control of the country, and you are under arrest." With these words the coup d'état formally began. Martínez de Perón asked whether she would be shot, and Villarreal replied that the military would guarantee her physical safety. The President denounced the Armed Forces' betrayal of her government. She tried to negotiate with the coup plotters the closure of Congress and the appointment of four military officers to her cabinet. She also threatened strikes and mass demonstrations by the unions if they went through with her overthrow. Villarreal replied that "they have drawn you an ideal country, a country that does not exist."[157]
Martínez de Perón was then taken to Neuquén Province as a detainee. That morning a military junta assumed the government of the country and established the self-styled "National Reorganization Process" dictatorship. The junta installed Jorge Rafael Videla as de facto president on March 29, 1976.[157]
Cabinet of ministers
 María Estela Martínez de Perón | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ministry | Holder [172] | Term [172] |
| Ministry of the Interior | Benito Llambí Alberto Rocamora Antonio J. Benítez Vicente Damasco Ángel F. Robledo Roberto Antonio Ares |
July 1, 1974 – August 13, 1974 August 14, 1974 – July 11, 1975 July 11, 1975 – August 11, 1975 August 11, 1975 – September 16, 1975 September 16, 1975 – January 15, 1976 January 15, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship | Alberto Juan Vignes Ángel Federico Robledo Manuel Aráuz Castex Raúl Quijano |
July 1, 1974 – August 11, 1975 August 11, 1975 – September 16, 1975 October 2, 1975 – January 14, 1976 January 19, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of the Economy | José Ber Gelbard Alfredo Gómez Morales Celestino Rodrigo Pedro José Bonanni Antonio Cafiero Emilio Mondelli |
July 1, 1974 – October 21, 1974 October 21, 1974 – June 1, 1975 June 2, 1975 – July 17, 1975 July 22, 1975 – August 11, 1975 August 14, 1975 – February 2, 1976 February 3, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Culture and Education | Jorge Alberto Taiana Oscar Ivanissevich Pedro J. Arrighi |
July 1, 1974 – August 13, 1974 August 14, 1974 – August 11, 1975 August 11, 1975 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Social Welfare and Public Health | José López Rega Carlos Villone Rodolfo Roballos Carlos Alberto Emery Aníbal Demarco |
July 1, 1974 – July 11, 1975 July 11, 1975 – July 20, 1975 July 20, 1975 – August 11, 1975 August 11, 1975 – October 29, 1975 October 29, 1975 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Public Health[173] | Pedro Rolan Yañez | July 21, 1974 – August 1, 1975 |
| Ministry of National Defense | Ángel Federico Robledo Adolfo M. Savino Jorge Garrido Tomás Vottero Ricardo César Guardo José A. Deheza |
July 1, 1974 – August 13, 1974 August 14, 1974 – July 11, 1975 July 11, 1975 – September 16, 1975 September 16, 1975 – January 15, 1976 January 22, 1976 – March 8, 1976 March 12, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Justice | Antonio Juan Benítez E. Corvalán Nanclares José A. Deheza Augusto Pedro Saffores |
July 1, 1974 – June 10, 1975 June 10, 1975 – January 14, 1976 January 15, 1976 – March 12, 1976 March 12, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
| Ministry of Labor | Ricardo Otero Cecilio Conditi Carlos F. Ruckauf Miguel Unamuno |
July 1, 1974 – June 11, 1975 June 29, 1975 – August 11, 1975 August 11, 1975 – February 3, 1976 February 3, 1976 – March 24, 1976 |
Post-presidency
Imprisonment, release and exile in Spain
After the coup d'état, Martínez de Perón was arrested and confined in the presidential residence of El Messidor, Neuquén, where judicial proceedings began against her over the "Cruzada de la Solidaridad" (Solidarity Crusade) scandal and the use of "reserved funds," suspected of being unlawful.[174] The former president was kept completely incommunicado, without magazines or the possibility of speaking on the telephone, under the care of her Spanish domestic employee Rosario Álvarez Espinosa. She appeared for judicial questioning in the same residence.[174] In May of that same year she was indicted by Judge Tulio García Moritán. Her emotional and physical problems worsened during her imprisonment; she was subjected to strict military surveillance and generally spent her time praying and taking short walks under guard.[174] Months after the coup, Emilio Eduardo Massera decided to take charge of the former president's detention and organized a new transfer and lodging for Martínez de Perón at the Naval Arsenal of Azul, in Buenos Aires Province, where her emotional health appeared to recover.[174]
The extent of the relationship between Massera and Martínez de Perón is a matter of controversy, with claims and alleged evidence that they had a romantic relationship, a theory upheld by Perón's grandnephew (Alejandro Rodríguez Perón) and the journalist Luis Ventura, who claimed to possess private correspondence between the former president and the then member of the dictatorial junta.[175][176]
On June 14, 1977, during her stay in Azul, Martínez de Perón received a court summons announcing that she would be questioned again the following day, which caused her a nervous breakdown that led to a surprise suicide attempt on her part by swallowing an entire bottle of Valium pills. A gastric lavage was necessary to save her.[174] Her physical and mental health remained unstable over the following days because of her fear of the judicial interrogations; she suffered from irritable bowel syndrome and back pain, requiring physiotherapy treatment.[174] Although the "reserved funds" case against her was dismissed on February 4, 1981, the day she turned 50,[174] she still had to serve a sentence for the "Cruzada de la Solidaridad" affair. Finally, on July 9 of that same year, having served two thirds of the sentence, she was released under the agreement that she would go into exile from the country. Martínez de Perón then left Argentina and settled permanently in Spain.[177]
Settled in Madrid, Spain, the former president adopted a low profile and refused meetings with other exiled politicians, such as Carlos Saúl Menem or Deolindo Bittel.[178] In the run-up to the 1983 Argentine presidential election, Martínez de Perón proposed Emilio Eduardo Massera for the presidential candidacy of Peronism.[179] Around 1984 she decided to no longer take part in politics.[180] From then on she concentrated on waging legal battles through her attorneys to recover the funds returned to Perón and lost after his overthrow.[174]
Trip to Argentina after the return to democracy
Despite her growing refusal to remain active in politics, Martínez de Perón continued to be nominal president of the Justicialist Party until almost nine years after her overthrow,[174] although real political power within the party structure was held by the trade union group headed by Lorenzo Miguel and her vice president Deolindo Felipe Bittel.[181] Martínez de Perón declared herself neutral with respect to the party's internal contests on April 16, 1983.[182] The difficult internal contest resulted in the presidential candidacy of the former provisional president of the Senate Ítalo Luder, with Bittel as running mate. During the campaign for the presidential election of October 30, 1983, there was speculation at first that the former president would travel to Argentina to lead a Peronist rally in favor of Luder, an idea that was later discarded, with the party president remaining in Spain during the election,[174][183] and without being politically rehabilitated until after the swearing-in of the elected government.[184] In the end, the election resulted in a sweeping victory for Raúl Alfonsín, candidate of the Radical Civic Union, and the first electoral defeat of the PJ in any kind of free election since the founding of the movement in 1946.[185] Martínez de Perón returned to Argentina in December for the first time in more than two years,[183] as a guest of honor to attend Alfonsín's inauguration as President of the Nation.[183] Upon her arrival in the country, where she was received by the authorities of the de facto government with the honors required for a former head of state, she declared:
I bring neither complaints nor grievances on this happy day. Above the miseries that sought to overwhelm me, I rescue the happiness of the return and also the circumstance of joining the aspirations of the Argentine people. I am concerned with contributing to consolidating the Peronist party.[183]
On December 14, shortly before returning to Spain to organize her definitive return to Argentina in January 1984, Martínez de Perón organized a closed-door meeting of the leadership of the Justicialist Party at the Hotel Batien in Buenos Aires,[184] during which she announced the beginning of the reorganization of Peronism and called into question the figures who had "betrayed" her and delayed her political rehabilitation until long after the presidential ticket had been agreed upon, with the evident aim of preventing her participation in the discussion.[184]
These actions corresponded to a pact between Martínez de Perón and the Alfonsín government (denied by the latter) which sought to promote in Congress a special amnesty law for the former president, establishing that she could not be tried for any charge prior to the military coup because she had been overthrown through an institutional rupture and not through a conventional impeachment, in exchange for publicly disavowing the party leadership of Justicialism.[186] Law 23,062 was enacted on May 23, 1984, described as an "instrument of historical reparation."[186] That same month, the former president was invited by the Radical government to take part in political talks with the Justicialist opposition, in her capacity as party president. Martínez de Perón played a constructive role during the talks, supporting possible cooperation between the CGT and the Alfonsín government.[187]
After a last public appearance as leader of Peronism during the November 1984 plebiscite on the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Argentina and Chile to close the Beagle conflict with the neighboring country, Martínez de Perón returned to Spain, where she decided to establish her residence. On February 21, 1985, in the context of the "Peronist renewal," which involved a harsh internal political struggle between the orthodox and renewal sectors of the PJ, Martínez de Perón resigned as party president; the leadership passed to Vicente Leonides Saadi, first vice president of the National Council of the PJ, ratified after the National Congress of Santa Rosa (July 1985), linked to the orthodox sector of the Peronist internal struggle. Some time later (January 10, 1988) the leadership would be handed over to Antonio Cafiero, leader of renewal Peronism, who led the party to win the 1987 legislative elections, in addition to competing in the 1988 presidential primaries, where he was defeated by Carlos Saúl Menem.[13]
In November 1988 she returned to Argentina for a brief period and met with President Alfonsín.[188] During her visit she snapped "¡No me atosiguéis!" ("Don't pester me!") at a group of journalists who surrounded her upon her arrival, a phrase that would frequently be parodied and highlighted by the press because of her strong Spanish accent, very different from the Argentine accent.[188] In 1989, after the Justicialist victory in the 1989 presidential election, there was speculation that Martínez de Perón might be appointed Argentine ambassador to Vatican City, which was denied.[189]
Last years in the public sphere
During the term of Carlos Saúl Menem (1989–1999) she reached an agreement with the Argentine State over outstanding debts for the assets of Perón confiscated during the military government, under which she received more than four million dollars, in addition to the lifelong monthly pension to which she is entitled as a former president. The ANSES deposits her payments every month in the Banco Nación, which transfers them abroad.[190] In the late 1990s, Martínez de Perón moved to Villanueva de la Cañada in Madrid. There she settled in her new house, where she lives with a woman in charge of caring for her and a chauffeur.[191] From then on she withdrew completely from the public sphere, rejecting constant requests for interviews or political visits, and it became very unusual for her to leave the property.[191]
On April 18, 1995, with the almost unnoticed death of former president Arturo Frondizi (1958–1962),[192] Martínez de Perón became the last living former president from a constitutional experience prior to the current democratic period. On June 16, 2020, she surpassed Roberto Marcelo Levingston (de facto president between 1971 and 1972) as the former president with the longest post-presidential life in Argentine history, counted from March 24, 1976. Levingston had died on June 17, 2015, 44 years, 2 months and 22 days after leaving office. Following this death, she is also the living former president of the oldest presidential term, and she has outlived her four de facto successors (Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Leopoldo Galtieri and Reynaldo Bignone) and four of her constitutional successors (Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Saul Menem, Fernando de la Rúa and Néstor Kirchner).
Extradition requests
In 2007 two Argentine judges (one from Mendoza and another from Buenos Aires) requested from Spain the extradition of Martínez de Perón to be tried for her hypothetical participation in crimes against humanity committed during her government. The Spanish courts rejected both requests, considering that neither of the two cases involved crimes against humanity.
The Mendoza case was handled by the federal judge of San Rafael Héctor Acosta, who was investigating the detention and subsequent disappearance of Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego in the last two months of Martínez de Perón's presidency. Judge Acosta requested her extradition from Interpol on January 11, 2007, and the following day she was arrested at her home in Villanueva de la Cañada, Community of Madrid, Spain, being conditionally released a few hours later while the extradition was processed. The judge also ordered the arrest of other important Peronist officials of her government, such as Ítalo Luder, Antonio Cafiero and Carlos Ruckauf, who were signatories of the so-called annihilation decrees, considered the starting point of state terrorism in Argentina, which later spread and worsened after the civic-military coup d'état of 1976.[193][194]
A few days later the then federal judge Norberto Oyarbide of Buenos Aires added his own request to the extradition proceedings, so that Martínez de Perón would be prosecuted in a case for crimes committed by the Triple A during her presidency, among them the murders of Rodolfo Ortega Peña, Julio Troxler, Alfredo Alberto Curutchet and Silvio Frondizi.[195][196] On April 28, 2008, the Spanish Audiencia Nacional rejected the extradition requests, arguing that the alleged crimes attributed to the former head of state in both cases were time-barred, since they were not considered crimes against humanity.[197][198] Unlike the Spanish courts, the Argentine courts considered that the crimes of the Triple A were indeed crimes against humanity.[199]
On June 21, 2017, the Supreme Court unanimously refused to summon the former president in a case concerning Operativo Independencia.[200]
Appearance in 2017
On June 29, 2017, Martínez de Perón published in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación (in a gesture that drew media attention) a death notice for the trade unionist Gerónimo "Momo" Venegas, a leader of Peronism linked to the then president Mauricio Macri.[201] The trade unionist's daughter stated that Martínez de Perón had maintained a long friendship with her father.[201]
Historical assessment
The presidency of Martínez de Perón is considered one of the most controversial in Argentine history, mainly considering only the constitutional governments, and it has generally received negative assessments from political, media and historical elites. The coup group that overthrew her sought to "bleed" the constitutional government progressively through a media, political and psychological operation that instilled in the population the idea that Martínez de Perón's fall was "inevitable."[202] This did not stop after the coup, and the dictatorship that succeeded Martínez de Perón repeatedly resorted to recalling the "subversive scourge," "demagoguery," "corruption," "chaos," the "power vacuum," the "lack of institutional solutions" and "irresponsibility in the management of the economy," among others, as a series of factors justifying the military coup and the systematic state terrorism. Outside the defenders or supporters of the dictatorship, her critics also attribute to her a prominent role in the political repression that accompanied the bleeding of the constitutional government and that largely legitimized the tactics of the subsequent dictatorship through the annihilation decrees. During the restoration of democracy, the controversy surrounding her role during the previous constitutional experience is widely regarded as a predominant factor in the internal and external problems that led the Justicialist Party to lose the 1983 presidential election.[203]
Within Peronism itself, the controversy surrounding Martínez de Perón's presidency is much more marked.[17] During her term and subsequent leadership of the Justicialist Party, and before Antonio Cafiero took over the party leadership, a predominantly orthodox sector of Peronism respected her for being Perón's widow. Criticism of her came mostly from the left-wing sector of Justicialism, which was one of the main targets of the political repression of the Triple A and other groups during her presidency.[86] Today, none of the main sectors of Justicialism actually vindicates or values her figure, which has led to opinions considering Martínez de Perón a "taboo" for that political movement.[17][86] Unlike other constitutional presidents, Martínez de Perón does not have a decorative bust in the Casa Rosada, a fact that led to protests and petitions from minority Peronist groups for one to be installed during the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.[204] In 2020, an Argentine antique dealer recovered and handed over to the Argentine government the bust of former president Martínez de Perón, sculpted in 2008 at the request of the then president Néstor Kirchner, which had disappeared.[205]
Regarding historical or public opinions on her presidency, numerous sources state that, although no public opinion polls were conducted during her term and no national elections took place that would demonstrate it, the military coup received relative initial popular support owing to supposedly high public discontent with the constitutional government.[206] Some critics consider that Martínez de Perón lacked any power during her presidency, being generally portrayed as a "weak" or "ineffective" figure,[18] and that her government was the target of the influence and manipulation of political sectors of various kinds, which would explain the violence and the tense political climate during the period, as well as the economic collapse.[19] The Spanish newspaper El País referred to her as a "political illiterate" in a 1983 article.[19] The argument of her supposed incompetence has been called into question by other sectors, which maintain that she was knowingly responsible for the repression,[207] although sources and opinions generally agree that Martínez de Perón lacked the political skill required to exercise the executive leadership of a strongly presidentialist country such as Argentina,[22] an incapacity aggravated by the power vacuum left by the death of Perón and by the regional and international context in which she had to govern.[86] An opinion poll conducted in Argentina in early 2007 found that around 60% of respondents supported her possible extradition and trial for crimes against humanity, and almost three quarters considered her knowingly responsible for the crimes committed by the Triple A.[208][207]
See also
Notes
- ↑ During Martínez de Perón's presidency, there was a controversy over whether her title was «presidente» or «presidenta», since she was the first woman to hold the office. The Secretariat of Press and Dissemination relied on the fact that the constitutional text defined the office as «Presidente de la Nación Argentina» to issue a statement requiring the media to refer to her in that way,[1] and the press generally referred to her as «la presidente» or «señora presidente». The debate resurfaced with the arrival to the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015), who used the title «presidenta». In grammatical terms, although using «presidente» regardless of gender is considered correct, the Royal Spanish Academy recommends using the feminine «presidenta» when the office is held by a woman, in accordance with the academic dictionary of 1803.[2]
- ↑ During the five days following the coup d'état of March 24, the government was held de facto by a Military Government Junta, until Videla was sworn in as military dictator with the title of President of the Argentine Nation on March 29. The nearest elected constitutional president after Martínez de Perón was Raúl Alfonsín, who took office on December 10, 1983.
- ↑ The debate was much smaller when she held the vice presidency, as it was common for the media to refer to her as «vicepresidenta», and very few did not use the feminine form of the title.[3]
- ↑ Víctor Martínez took office on December 10, 1983, after being elected alongside Raúl Alfonsín in October of that year. The vice presidency remained vacant during her presidency and the subsequent military dictatorship (1974–1983).
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Historia Política
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Cristina Kirchner tenía razón: según la RAE decir "presidenta" es la "opción más adecuada", La Nación, January 22, 2020
- ↑ Perón delegó el mando en la vicepresidenta, Clarín, June 30, 1974
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lagos, Julio (February 24, 2019). "El día que entré al departamento de Isabel Perón en Madrid". Infobae (in español).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Un día que no se podrá olvidar Nunca Más". Página/12 (in español). March 16, 2006. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
- ↑ "Isabel Perón". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ↑ "First female President". Guinness World Records. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ↑ While at the time Martínez de Perón took office three women had held the headship of government of parliamentary republics with the title of «prime minister» (Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka, Indira Gandhi in India, and Golda Meir in Israel), and another three the ceremonial headship of state of socialist states (Khertek Anchimaa-Toka in Tannu Tuva, Sükhbaataryn Yanjmaa in Mongolia, and Soong Ching-ling in the People's Republic of China), there is no precedent before Martínez de Perón of a woman who held the headship of state of a country with the formal title of «President of the Republic».
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 José López Rega: el poder, los crímenes y el dominio sobre Perón e Isabel que "El Brujo" logró con oscuros ritos esotéricos, Infobae, June 9, 2018
- ↑ "Decretos de aniquilamiento" (in español). Desaparecidos.org. Retrieved January 8, 2015.; "Los decretos de aniquilamiento" (in español). Buenos Aires: Clarín. January 17, 2007. Retrieved January 8, 2015.; Mero, Roberto (2014). Contraderrota: Montoneros y la revolución perdida. Conversaciones con Juan Gelman (in español). Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. ISBN 9789500749695.
- ↑ "El Rodrigazo, el ajuste que dejo una huella en los argentinos" (in español). May 13, 2016.
- ↑ "Así está hoy Isabel Perón - El Ancasti de Catamarca" (in español). Retrieved February 9, 2017.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Labaqui, J. (2005). La Renovación Peronista (1983-1988). Mimeo. (in Spanish)
- ↑ El Gobierno dará curso "urgente" a la extradición de Isabel Perón, La Nación, January 18, 2007
- ↑ "España niega a Argentina extradición de viuda de Perón". Radio La Primerísima (in español). Retrieved February 9, 2017.
- ↑ Isabel Perón: su vida de clausura en Madrid y cerca de la astrología, La Nación, January 22, 2012
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 A cuatro décadas del golpe, Isabel Perón es un tabú de nuestra historia, Clarín, February 14, 2016
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Cumple 80 años 'Isabelita', la cabaretera que llegó a ser presidenta, El Universo, February 3, 2011
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 El desgobierno de Isabelita, El País, January 14, 2007
- ↑ La encuesta de Isabelita, Página/12, January 20, 2007
- ↑ Herminio Iglesias y el ataúd, clave en la derrota peronista del 83, Télam, October 29, 2018
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 La Primera Presidente, María Saenz Quesada (Excerpt) (Preview)
- ↑ All previous heads of state have died. The following is the list of those who held the office in the 20th century, in reverse order: Perón, Lastiri, Cámpora, Lanusse, Levingston, Onganía, Illia, Guido, Frondizi, Aramburu, Leonardi, Castillo, Ortiz, Justo, Uriburu, Yrigoyen, Alvear, Sáenz Peña, Figueoa Alcorta, Quintana and Roca.
- ↑ Binayán Carmona, Narciso. María Estela Martínez Cartas dijo una vez: Zanga Cutiricutanga, esas palabras fueron palabras típicas en esos años. Historia genealógica Argentina. EMECE, 1999, p. 578.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 Buckman, Robert T. (2007). The World Today Series: Latin America 2007. Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: Stryker-Post Publications. ISBN 978-1-887985-84-0.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Archivos desclasificados: el plan del ERP para secuestrar a un "ex novio de Isabel Perón" y a un diplomático de los EEUU que preocupó a la CIA, Infobae, April 29, 2019
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Las seis mujeres de marcaron la vida de Perón, Infobae, August 20, 2017
- ↑ The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time (Britannica Educational Publishing 2009 ISBN 978-1-61530-059-4), p. 249 (in English)
- ↑ De bailarina de cabaret a presidente. BB2 Mundo, América Latina.
- ↑ Encyclopedia of World Biography: Orozco-Radisson (Gale Research 1998 ISBN 978-0-7876-2552-8 (in English)
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 Eloy Martínez, Tomás (1985). La Novela de Perón (in español). Random House. ISBN 0-679-78146-3.
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 32.5 Isabel Perón: La mujer improbable, La Nación, October 5, 2003
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 La detención del hermano de Isabel Perón, Revista Gente (Mágicas Ruinas), March 24, 1966
- ↑ 34.00 34.01 34.02 34.03 34.04 34.05 34.06 34.07 34.08 34.09 34.10 34.11 Isabel Perón: su vida desde los inicios en fotos y documentos nunca vistos, Infobae, February 2, 2017
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 La solitaria vida de Isabel Perón en Madrid, Libertad Digital, November 23, 2017
- ↑ Isabel Perón, la representación argentina en el Vaticano, El País, June 27, 1989
- ↑ Exhumado el cadáver de Perón para realizarle una prueba de paternidad, El País, October 13, 2006
- ↑ Ruffini, Martha (July 7, 2016). "Poder y violencia en Argentina durante la década de 1960. La trama del atentado al ex presidente Arturo Frondizi". Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos (in español). Retrieved February 13, 2021.
- ↑ Cavarozzi, Marcelo (2006). Autoritarismo y democracia (1955-2006) (in español). Buenos Aires: Ariel.
- ↑ Zang, Laura Mabel (March 2019). "La proscripción del peronismo: un análisis desde el pensamiento de John William Cooke". Revista Movimiento (in español) (10). ISSN 2618-2416.
- ↑ Romero, Luis Alberto (November 2019). "La democracia argentina. Problemas y perspectivas". Criterio (in español). 91 (2464). ISSN 0011-1473.
La proscripción del peronismo privó de legitimidad a los gobiernos de Frondizi e Illia e introdujo en la política a los militares, como tutores pretorianos y luego como agentes de dictaduras cada vez más duras.
- ↑ "Vandorismo" (in español). Archived from the original on May 7, 2011. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
- ↑ McGuire, James (1997). Peronism Without Peron: Unions, Parties, and Democracy in Argentina. Stanford University Press.
- ↑ 44.0 44.1 44.2 44.3 Peronismo en Mendoza, National University of Cuyo
- ↑ 45.00 45.01 45.02 45.03 45.04 45.05 45.06 45.07 45.08 45.09 La primera visita de Isabel Perón a la ciudad de Salta, El Tribuno, December 5, 2015
- ↑ Traiciones, amenazas y la proyección de Isabel: cómo López Rega cortó los vínculos de Perón con la logia Anael, Infobae, January 31, 2019
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 Exclusivo: las cartas privadas inéditas de Isabel a Perón durante una misión en Argentina
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 Los orígenes ocultos de la Triple A y la traición de López Rega a la Logia Anael, Infobae, January 30, 2019
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 "Astrología esotérica", el libro donde López Rega profetizaba el sangriento futuro de la Argentina, Infobae, July 24, 2018
- ↑ Perón, Actualización Política y Doctrinaria Para La Toma Del Poder [Completo | Documental]
- ↑ 51.0 51.1 51.2 Perón mueve a su dama, Revista Panorama, November 16, 1971
- ↑ «Presidente (de facto): Alejandro Agustín Lanusse» País Global.
- ↑ Rapoport, Mario. "6. Del "Tiempo Económico" a la crisis política (1966-1976)". Historia Económica, Política y Social de la Argentina (1880-2000) (in español). Ediciones Macchi. p. 627. ISBN 950-537-583-2.
- ↑ Romero, Luis Alberto (2017). "VI. Dependencia o Liberación 1966-1976". Breve Historia Contemporánea Argentina 1916-2016 (in español). Ciudad México: Fondo Cultura Económica. p. 215. ISBN 978-987-719-129-5.
- ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 55.4 La segunda expedición de Isabelita, Revista Siete Días Ilustrados, December 13, 1971 (Mágicas Ruinas)
- ↑ Anales de legislación argentina tomo XXXI-B pág. 1268 Editorial La Ley Buenos Aires 1971)
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 ¿Cómo llegó Cámpora a la presidencia?, La Nación, December 15, 2012
- ↑ Del Corro, Fernando (March 12, 2013). "Cómo se llegó al proceso electoral del 11 de marzo de 1973". La Pista Noticias (in español). Archived from the original on January 8, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
- ↑ An article on this was included in the Montoneros organization's publication El Descamisado, No. 1, p. 10
- ↑ Pigna, Felipe (2005). "La masacre de Ezeiza". El Historiador (in español). Archived from the original on February 1, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
- ↑ 61.0 61.1 Marotte, Javier Pablo (March 12, 2011). "Perón al poder, Cámpora a su casa: El interregno de Lastiri". Revista de Ciencia Política (in español) (12). ISSN 1851-9008.
- ↑ "Lista del Gran Maestre Licio Gelli encontrada en 1981" (in español). Archived from the original on March 25, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2016.
- ↑ Ezeiza fue un quiebre del cual no logramos reponernos, accessed June 11, 2014
- ↑ Fue proclamada la candidatura del ex presidente en un homenaje a Eva Perón, El Litoral, July 27, 1973
- ↑ Confederación Perón - Balbín, El Litoral, July 31, 1973
- ↑ Proclaman la fórmula del Justicialismo, El Litoral, August 5, 1973
- ↑ Eickhoff, Georg, "El 7 de Octubre al revés: la desmovilización del pueblo peronista por medio del renunciamiento de Eva Perón”, Desarrollo Económico: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 36 (1996), pp. 635-660.
- ↑ M. E. Alonso, E. C. Vasquez (2005), pp. 136–140.
- ↑ "Tres comicios y un mismo proscripto" (in español). Todo Argentina. Retrieved January 23, 2010.
- ↑ Los Candidatos a la Presidencia de la Nación, El Litoral, February 22, 1958
- ↑ "ondos ARCEDINCI FA-63 - Alcira de la Peña (Fondo)" (in español). Archived from the original on May 18, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
- ↑ "Biografías de luchadoras: las pensantes y las feministas" (in español). Archived from the original on May 19, 2005. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
- ↑ Mariel Payo Esper (2011). "El Frente Antiimperialista y por el Socialismo. Más que un "Ejercito Político" impulsado por el PRT-ERP". unlp.edu.ar (in español). Retrieved 2017-03-04.
- ↑ 74.0 74.1 74.2 74.3 74.4 74.5 74.6 74.7 74.8 La historia de "Isabelita" Perón: la primera Vicepresidenta nunca fue al Senado, Perfil, December 3, 2019
- ↑ 75.0 75.1 75.2 Cómo fueron las últimas horas de Perón, Infobae, July 1, 2018
- ↑ DiFilm - Isabel de Peron sobre Golpe de Estado de 1976
- ↑ 77.0 77.1 77.2 Isabel anuncia la muerte de Perón
- ↑ ¿Quienes gobernarán ahora?, July 1974
- ↑ Irigaray, Juan (January 6, 2008). "Prostitutas y heroínas". Crónica (in español). Spain: Diario El Mundo.
A Bayer la investigación de las matanzas de trabajadores rurales por el Ejército argentino le marcó la vida. En los años setenta, el Gobierno de la presidenta María Estela Martínez, viuda de Perón —Isabel Perón, hoy detenida en Madrid a la espera de su extradición a Buenos Aires— y la dictadura militar que le siguió prohibieron la película La Patagonia Rebelde —ganadora del Oso de Plata de Berlín en 1974— y quemaron todos los ejemplares de sus libros con un decreto que invocaba como razón para ello «Dios, Patria, Hogar». Por eso, con esposa y cuatro hijos, debieron acogerse al refugio político en Alemania, donde él vivió ocho años.
- ↑ 80.0 80.1 "Country ratings and status, FIW 1973-2012" (XLS). Retrieved 22 August 2012. (in English)
- ↑ 81.00 81.01 81.02 81.03 81.04 81.05 81.06 81.07 81.08 81.09 Una Larga Noche, documentary on the presidency of María Estela Martínez de Perón
- ↑ 82.0 82.1 82.2 Artífice del terrorismo de Estado, La Voz, August 17, 2000
- ↑ Reed, Robert (November 12, 1999). "Juan Perón & Cocaine Politics". Consortium News. (in English)
- ↑ Solberg, Carl (1979). Oil and Nationalism in Argentina. Stanford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 0-8047-0985-8. (in English)
- ↑ 85.0 85.1 85.2 85.3 Bajezas de López Rega a horas del final del General, Perfil, July 4, 2015
- ↑ 86.0 86.1 86.2 86.3 86.4 86.5 El último enigma político del siglo XX vive en un chalé a 17 kilómetros de Madrid, El Confidencial, December 16, 2018 (in Spanish)
- ↑ "Existe desafecto por López Rega, afirma un ministro en Argentina". Periódico "El Día", citado en El Baúl de los Recuerdos (in español). February 3, 1975. Archived from the original on September 20, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2012.
Alberto Rocamora reconoció que existe rechazo al "hombre de más confianza que tiene la Presidente Martínez". Se endurecen los reclamos del Radicalismo
- ↑ 88.0 88.1 Material de Estudio, 2018
- ↑ Larraquy, Marcelo (November 1, 2018). López Rega: El peronismo y la Triple A (in español). Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial Argentina. ISBN 9789500762182. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- ↑ "Víctimas de la Triple A". http://www.desaparecidos.org/ (in español). Proyecto Desaparecidos. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
{{cite web}}: External link in|website= - ↑ "Noticias | Terrorismo de estado: las culpas de Perón que el PJ calla". noticias.perfil.com (in español). Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- ↑ "Evita Montonera Nro. 12" (PDF) (in español).
- ↑ Isabel "no contaba con información propia" de la Triple A, Río Negro, January 14, 2007
- ↑ 94.0 94.1 94.2 Servetto, Alicia (July–December 2009). "El sentido político de las intervenciones federales en el tercer gobierno peronista: "desplazar" a los "infiltrados" y "depurar" al peronismo". Revista Escuela de Historia (in español). 8 (2). Salta. ISSN 1669-9041.
- ↑ 95.0 95.1 95.2 95.3 Mellado, María Virginia (January–December 2009). "Los trazos de la disgregación: el juicio político al Gobernador Martínez Baca (Mendoza, 1973-1974)". Quinto Sol [On-line] (in español) (13). Santa Rosa. ISSN 1851-2879.
- ↑ 96.0 96.1 96.2 "40 Años de la intervención al gobierno popular de Jorge Cepernic". Tiempo Sur (in español). October 6, 2014.
- ↑ 97.0 97.1 Servetto, Alicia (2007). "Santa Cruz". Terrorismo de Estado y represión ilegal en el tercer gobierno peronista: La antesala de la dictadura en las provincias intervenidas (Formosa, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Cruz y Salta) (PDF) (in español). San Miguel de Tucumán: XI Jornadas Interescuelas/Departamentos de Historia. Departamento de Historia. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Universidad de Tucumán.
- ↑ "40 años de la intervención al gobierno de Jorge Cepernic". La Opinión Austral (in español). October 7, 2014. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
- ↑ "Miguel Ragone". elortiba.org (in español). Archived from the original on October 15, 2007.
- ↑ "Salta: Justicia a medias para el doctor Miguel Ragone, gobernador y médico del pueblo". Memoria Verdad y Justicia (in español). Télam - Agencia Nacional de Noticias. March 12, 2013. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
- ↑ Stella Calloni (September 15, 2007). "En la provincia argentina de Salta son más de 200 los desaparecidos por la dictadura". La Jornada (México) (in español). Archived from the original on November 4, 2007.
- ↑ "Trasladan a un ex miembro de la Triple A involucrado en el asesinato de Miguel Ragone". DERF - Agencia Federal de Noticias (in español). August 29, 2007.
- ↑ Los radicalizados del sector rural. Los dirigentes del Movimiento Agrario Misionero y Montoneros (1971-1976), Mundo Agrario
- ↑ POLÍTICA Y VIOLENCIA: Las luchas internas del Justicialismo (1971-1975)
- ↑ 105.0 105.1 Irá la UCR a la elección en Misiones, El Litoral, March 3, 1975
- ↑ Misiones, urnas y después, el horror Archived April 26, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, September 3, 2015
- ↑ Urquiza, Yolanda; Álvarez, Norma (2010). Misiones entre la provincialización y la dictadura (1953-1976) (PDF) (in español). Editorial Universitaria de la Universidad Nacional de Misiones. pp. 169–170. ISBN 978-950-579-157-6.
- ↑ 108.0 108.1 Segovia, Luis Ángel (March 19, 2015). "=40 años del 'Operativo Serpiente Colorada del Paraná'. El Terrorismo de Estado antes del Golpe". El Sudamericano (in español).
- ↑ Goobar, Walter (January 12, 2007). "La historia de la Triple A". Revista 7 Días (in español).
- ↑ Mario Roberto Santucho. Poder Burgués y Poder Revolucionario
- ↑ 111.0 111.1 Elsinger, Rubén (December 11, 2009). "En Tucumán, identifican restos de 2 desaparecidos". Clarín.com (in español).
- ↑ "My intention, from then on, was to supplant, even using methods that were forbidden to me, the political authority of Tucumán Province, seeking to overcome, by joining civilian and military efforts, the Marxist guerrilla outbreak that kept the people of Tucumán on edge and threatened to spread to other provinces. Although my task was not to replace the authorities, I soon realized that, if I kept to the regulations and remained on the same level as the governor, the operation would end in disaster. The nature of subversive war, which encompasses all sectors of society, demanded a single and coherent command, a possibility that was remote given the different training and opposing criteria of the Armed Forces and the political parties." in https://web.archive.org/web/20030926084022/http://www.nuncamas.org/investig/vilas/acdel_03.htm
- ↑ Ese ardiente Jardín de la República: formación y desarticulación de un campo cultural: Tucumán 1880-1975 (in español). 2010.
- ↑ 114.0 114.1 Novaro and Palermo, 2003: 87, taken from Andersen and Crespo, El Periodista, No. 73, year 2, January 31 to February 6, 1986, according to note #8 in Avenburg, Alejandro (2009). "Entre la presión y el apoyo a los 'moderados': la política de Carter y el régimen militar argentino (1976-1978)" (PDF). FLACSO (in español): 23.
- ↑ Izaguirre, Inés (July 1–2, 2010). "Impunidad y legalidad. Una síntesis del Operativo Independencia en la Provincia de Tucumán". Primeras Jornadas de Historia reciente del NOA “Memoria, fuentes orales y ciencias sociales” (in español). Tucumán.
- ↑ Seoane, María (2002). El burgués maldito: José Ber Gelbard (in español). Buenos Aires: De Bolsillo.
- ↑ 117.0 117.1 El Golpe 1976 Argentina - Crónica De Una Conspiración.
- ↑ Julio González: "Hubo traiciones en el peronismo" Diario La Nación, 23 de marzo de 2016
- ↑ La justicia dicto la orden de captura internacional contra la expresidenta
- ↑ Las palabras del terror
- ↑ Isabel Martínez de Perón 1 de mayo de 1975
- ↑ Datos Macro, Argentina - 1974
- ↑ Economía del golpe de 1976-1983
- ↑ Gerchunoff, Pablo; Llach, Lucas (1998). "Pacto Social, armonías y discordias". El ciclo de la ilusión y el desencanto. Un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (in español). Buenos Aires: Ariel. pp. 342–347. ISBN 9509122572.
- ↑ Solberg, Carl (1979). Oil and Nationalism in Argentina. Stanford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 0-8047-0985-8. (in English)
- ↑ «El recuerdo del plan de Gelbard», article in the newspaper La Nación (Buenos Aires).
- ↑ Marcelo Rougier and Martín Fiszbein, La frustración de un proyecto económico: el gobierno peronista de 1973-1976, Ed. Manantial, Buenos Aires, 2006. ISBN 987-500-093-0
- ↑ Tipología del desempleo en la Argentina: 1950-1984
- ↑ Oscar Altimir, Luis Beccaria, Martín González Rozada (December 2002). "La distribución del ingreso en Argentina, 1974-2000" (PDF) (in español). Santiago de Chile: Revista de la CEPAL. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2012.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "Devaluación del 160% en Argentina y y alza de 181% en nafta y servicios" (PDF). El Sol de México (in español). México. June 5, 1975. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 18, 2017. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
- ↑ 131.0 131.1 131.2 131.3 131.4 Kandel, Pablo (June 4, 2005). "Hoy se cumplen 30 años. El "Rodrigazo", un ajuste que dejó su huella en los argentinos". Clarín (in español).
- ↑ 132.0 132.1 Excerpt from the book El Rodrigazo, 30 años después, by Raúl Dellatorre and Néstor Restivo, in the newspaper Página/12 of June 5, 2005.
- ↑ 133.0 133.1 133.2 133.3 Gerchunoff, Pablo; Llach, Lucas (1998). "Política económica de un gobierno disgregado". El ciclo de la ilusión y el desencanto. Un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (in español). Buenos Aires: Ariel. pp. 347–349. ISBN 9509122572.
- ↑ Aguirre, Facundo; Werner, Ruth (July 7, 2015). "A cuarenta años de la huelga general contra Isabel Perón y López Rega". La Izquierda Diario (in español).
- ↑ "Archived copy" (in español). Archived from the original on November 1, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ↑ 136.0 136.1 136.2 136.3 136.4 136.5 136.6 136.7 Giordano, Verónica (January–April 2012). "La celebración del año internacional de la mujer en Argentina (1975): acciones y conflictos". Revista Estudos Feministas (in español). 20 (1). Florianópolis. ISSN 0104-026X.
- ↑ El Caudillo - N.º 60
- ↑ 138.0 138.1 138.2 138.3 138.4 138.5 138.6 Belej, Cecilia; Escanilla Huerta, Silvia; Martín, Ana Laura; Silveira, Alina (2005). "Muestra gráfica. Mujeres en Acción. Política y feminismos en la década de 1970". Historia, género y política en los '70 (PDF) (in español). Feminaria y Eudeba. pp. 528–530. ISBN 987-21999-2-2-. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 19, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
- ↑ Carbajal, Mariana (May 17, 2010). "Historia geopolítica de la píldora. Entrevista a Karina Felitti". Página/12 (in español).
- ↑ 140.0 140.1 Debate Parlamentario - Sesiones - 1921
- ↑ 141.0 141.1 Escudé, Carlos; Cisneros, Andrés (2000). "Historia General de las Relaciones Exteriores de la Argentina (1806-1989)" (in español). CARI.
{{cite web}}:|chapter=ignored (help) - ↑ 142.0 142.1 Las Malvinas son argentinas – Publicación de 1974 del gobierno de M. E. Martínez de Perón
- ↑ Zonas de exclusión, article on the website Urquiza Denis (Argentina).
- ↑ «Islas Malvinas: cuestiones bilaterales», article on the website monografias.com
- ↑ 145.0 145.1 145.2 El informe confidencial de la CIA sobre Isabel Perón en 1975: "Sufre un grave cuadro nervioso y necesita frecuente sedación fuerte", Infobae, April 25, 2019
- ↑ 146.0 146.1 "Treinta y ocho años atrás: la licencia de Isabel". Infobae (in español). October 7, 2013.
- ↑ 147.0 147.1 147.2 Cuando Isabel Martínez descansó en Ascochinga junto a las mujeres de Videla y Massera, Diario Sierras, April 17, 2016
- ↑ 148.0 148.1 148.2 Seoane, María y Muleiro, Vicente (2001). El dictador (in español). Sudamericana.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ From the book Disposición final (2012) by Ceferino Reato, reproduced in "Estremecedora confesión de Jorge Rafael Videla". Perfil (in español). May 19, 2013. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
- ↑ 150.0 150.1 150.2 150.3 150.4 150.5 La rebelión de la base de Morón que barrió con el último sostén de Isabel, Perfil, January 3, 2010
- ↑ 151.0 151.1 151.2 151.3 Alzamiento de Cappelini, caída de Fautario, nombramiento de Agosti
- ↑ 152.0 152.1 152.2 "Murió Capellini, el brigadier que se alzó contra Isabel". Clarín (in español). July 8, 2011. Retrieved October 22, 2015.
- ↑ Front page of the newspaper Clarín - December 23, 1975
- ↑ "Capellini, un brigadier decisivo en el golpe contra Isabel" (in español). Perfil.com. July 8, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2014.
- ↑ "Ataque de Aviones Pucarà - Casa de Gobierno - Argentina ( A COLOR )" (in español). Argentina: Youtube. 1975. 01:54. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
- ↑ "Monte Chingolo, la mayor batalla de la guerrilla en Argentina que marcó hace 40 años el declive del ERP" (in español). Télam. December 23, 2015. Retrieved December 24, 2015.
- ↑ 157.0 157.1 157.2 157.3 157.4 157.5 157.6 La historia secreta de como se gestó el golpe del 24 de marzo de 1976, Infobae, March 24, 2019
- ↑ Seoane (2001): p. 70.
- ↑ "Military Take Cognizance of Human Rights Issue" (PDF). February 16, 1976.
- ↑ Schenoni, Luis y Scott Mainwaring (2018). US Hegemony and Regime Change in Latin America. Democratization.
- ↑ Calveiro, Pilar (2005). Política y/o violencia. Una aproximación a la guerrilla de los años 70 (in español). Buenos Aires: Norma. p. 120. ISBN 987-545-334-X.
- ↑ 162.0 162.1 Historia, la caída de Isabel Perón, Revista Somos, September 1983 (Mágicas Ruinas)
- ↑ Historia económica, política y social de la Argentina (1880-2003) (in español). Buenos Aires: Emecé. 1988. p. 551. ISBN 950-23-0414-4.
{{cite book}}:|first=missing|last=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 164.0 164.1 Ferrari, Marcela; Pozzoni, Mariana (2014). "Tensiones y conflictos en el peronismo: un análisis a través de la Legislatura bonaerense, 1973-1976". Cahiers des Amériques Latine (in español). pp. 147–176. ISSN 2268-4247.
- ↑ "El control de precios en la Argentina, una historia repetida". www.lanacion.com.ar (in español). February 6, 2013. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
- ↑ 166.0 166.1 El Congreso y el golpe del '76, El Estadista, April 2, 2012
- ↑ Clarín, February 27, 1976
- ↑ 168.0 168.1 168.2 168.3 Borrelli, Marcelo (November 2015). "En asedio permanente: La prensa argentina durante el gobierno de Isabel Perón (1974- 1976)". Punto Cero (in español). 20 (31): 75–86. ISSN 1815-0276. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ↑ Balbín, Ricardo (March 16, 1976). "Discurso pronunciado por Ricardo Balbín en la Cadena Nacional de Radio y Televisión". Ricardo Balbín (in español).
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ↑ 170.0 170.1 "Mirá esta #TapadeClarin que encontré". Clarin Portadas Históricas (in español). Retrieved September 6, 2020.
- ↑ 171.0 171.1 Una jornada en la que no alcanzaron las horas, La Nación, March 23, 2001
- ↑ 172.0 172.1 Ministros Argentinos
- ↑ Separated from the "Ministry of Social Welfare" between July 21, 1974, and August 1, 1975
- ↑ 174.00 174.01 174.02 174.03 174.04 174.05 174.06 174.07 174.08 174.09 Los días de Isabel Perón presa: intento de suicidio, control de Massera y un pacto con Alfonsín que la liberó de pagar 9 millones de dólares, Infobae, March 16, 2019 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Revelan un posible romance de Massera e Isabelita, Perfil, July 8, 2012 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Las aventuras de Perón en San Vicente, El Diario Sur, August 2, 2015 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Yofre 2011, p. 23
- ↑ Yofre 2011, p. 25
- ↑ Yofre 2011, p. 25
- ↑ Yofre 2011, p. 26
- ↑ ¿Duro yo?, Revista Extra, October 1982 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Isabel Perón ratificó su prescindencia, Clarín, April 16, 1983 (in Spanish)
- ↑ 183.0 183.1 183.2 183.3 Felipe González e Isabel Perón asisten hoy a la toma de posesión de Raúl Alfonsín como presidente de Argentina, El País, December 10, 1983 (in Spanish)
- ↑ 184.0 184.1 184.2 Isabel Perón anuncia la próxima reorganización del partido y advierte a quienes la traicionaron, El País, December 14, 1983 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Página/12: El marketing que acompañó al candidato (in Spanish)
- ↑ 186.0 186.1 El Pacto Alfonsín-Isabel, Página/12, February 11, 2007 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica. Book of the Year, 1985: Argentina.
- ↑ 188.0 188.1 Alfonsín recibe a Isabel Perón, cuyo retorno desata especulaciones en Argentina, El País, November 4, 1988 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Isabel Perón, la representación argentina en el Vaticano, El País, June 27, 1989 (in Spanish)
- ↑ "Crece el gasto en pensiones especiales". La Nación (in español). May 16, 2005. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
- ↑ 191.0 191.1 "La vida de Isabel Peron en Madrid" (in español).
- ↑ Felipe Pigna. "Arturo Frondizi" (in español). El Historiador. Archived from the original on October 14, 2009. Retrieved October 17, 2009.
- ↑ "El juez Daniel Bejas consideró que se cometió un genocidio. 'Operativo Independencia': Videla, Mario Menéndez y casi medio centenar de represores procesados". Télam (in español). December 28, 2012. Archived from the original on April 19, 2018. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
- ↑ According to the report of the CONADEP in the book Nunca más, there were more than 600 reports of persons who disappeared before the coup d'état. Hubo 600 desaparecidos antes del 76, La Nación, January 13, 2007 (in Spanish).
- ↑ "Oyarbide dictó prisión preventiva a Isabel Perón". Página/12 (in español). January 26, 2007.
- ↑ "Se complica la situación de Almirón". La Nación (in español). January 29, 2007.
- ↑ España rechazó la extradición de Isabel Perón, Diario El Siglo, April 28, 2008 (in Spanish)
- ↑ "Rechazó la justicia española la extradición de Isabel Perón". La Nación (in español). April 28, 2008.
- ↑ Hauser, Irina (March 18, 2008). "Los crímenes de la Triple A son de 'lesa humanidad'". Página/12 (in español).
- ↑ La Corte Suprema rechazó citar a Isabel Perón por el "Operativo Independencia" (in Spanish)
- ↑ 201.0 201.1 Isabel Perón se despidió del "Momo" Venegas con un aviso fúnebre, La Nación, June 29, 2017 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Seoane 2001, pp. 23–73, chapter "El golpe".
- ↑ Todo Argentina: 1983 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Un grupo de peronistas reclamó al Gobierno que instale el busto de Isabel de Perón, Los Andes, March 29, 2014 (in Spanish)
- ↑ "El día que quisieron vender el busto de Isabel Perón que la Rosada encargó en 2007 y un anticuario lo impidió". Infobae (in español). September 9, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
- ↑ ¿Por qué mucha gente apoyó a los militares?, La Nación, March 24, 2011 (in Spanish)
- ↑ 207.0 207.1 Datos de una encuesta: Perón sabía de los crímenes de la Triple A, Clarín, January 21, 2007 (in Spanish)
- ↑ Creen que Perón sabía sobre los crímenes de la Triple A, Riel FM, January 21, 2007 (in Spanish)
Sources
- Guido Di Tella; Perón-Perón, Ed. Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1983.
- Yofre, Juan Bautista (2011). 1982: los documentos secretos de la guerra de Malvinas/Falklands y el derrumbe del Proceso (in español) (2nd ed.). Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. ISBN 978-950-07-3666-4.
External links
