Juan Pern

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"Juan Domingo Peron" redirects here. For other uses, see Juan Domingo Peron (disambiguation).

His Excellency

General
Juan Domingo Pern

29th and 40th President of Argentina

In office

12 October 1973 1 July 1974

Vice President Isabel Martnez de Pern

Preceded by Ral Lastiri

Succeeded by Isabel Martnez de Pern

In office
 4 June 1946 21 September 1955

Vice President Hortensio Quijano

Alberto Teisaire

Preceded by Edelmiro Farrell

Succeeded by Eduardo Lonardi

20th Vice President of Argentina

De facto

In office

8 July 1944 10 October 1945

President Edelmiro Farrell

Preceded by Edelmiro Farrell

Succeeded by Juan Pistarini

Minister of War

In office

24 February 1944 10 October 1945

President Pedro Pablo Ramrez

Edelmiro Farrell

Preceded by Pedro Pablo Ramrez

Succeeded by Eduardo valos

Secretary of Labour and Social Security

In office
 1 December 1943 10 October 1945

President Pedro Pablo Ramrez

Edelmiro Farrell

Preceded by Position established

Succeeded by Domingo Mercante

Personal details

Born Juan Domingo Pern

8 October 1895

Lobos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Died 1 July 1974 (aged 78)

Olivos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Resting place Museo Quinta 17 de Octubre

San Vicente, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Political party Labour (19451947)

Justicialist (19471974)

Spouse(s) Aurelia Tizn (m. 1929; her death 1938)

Eva Duarte (m. 1945; her death 1952)

Isabel Martnez Cartas(m. 1961; his death 1974)

Religion Roman Catholicism(excommunicated and

reconciled)

Signature

Military service

Allegiance Argentina

Service/branch Argentine Army

 Years of service 19131945

Rank Lieutenant General

Juan Domingo Pern (Spanish pronunciation: [xwan domio peon]; 8 October 1895 1 July
1974) was an Argentinelieutenant general and politician. After serving in several government
positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President, he was thrice elected President of
Argentina, serving from June 1946 to September 1955, when he was overthrown in a coup d'tat,
and then from October 1973 until his death in July 1974.
During his first presidential term (194652), Pern was supported by his second wife, Eva
Duarte ("Evita"), and the two were immensely popular among many Argentines. Eva died in 1952,
and Pern was elected to a second term, serving from 1952 until 1955. During the following period
of two military dictatorships, interrupted by two civilian governments, the Peronist party was
outlawed and Pern was exiled. When the left-wing Peronist Hector Cmpora was elected President
in 1973, Pern returned to Argentina and was soon after elected President for a third time. His third
wife,Mara Estela Martnez, known as Isabel Pern, was elected as Vice President on his ticket and
succeeded him as President upon his death in 1974.
Although they are still controversial figures, Juan and Evita Pern are nonetheless considered icons
by the Peronists. The Perns' followers praised their efforts to eliminate poverty and to dignify
labour, while their detractors considered them demagogues and dictators. The Perns gave their
name to the political movement known as Peronism, which in present-day Argentina is represented
mainly by the Justicialist Party.
Peronism is a political phenomenon that draws support from both the political left and political right.
Peronism is not considered a traditional party, but a political movement, because of the wide variety
of people who call themselves Peronists, and there is great controversy surrounding his personality.
The following Argentinian presidents were Peronist: Hector Campora, Isabel Pern, Carlos Menem,
Eduardo Duhalde, Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner.

Contents
[hide]

1Childhood and youth

2Army career

3Military government of 19431946

4Pern's first term (19461952)

o 4.1Domestic policy

o 4.2Foreign policy and adversaries

o 4.3Growth and limitations

o 4.4Focus on infrastructure

5Eva Pern's influence and contribution

 6Opposition and repression

7Pern and Fascism

o 7.1Protection of Nazi war criminals

o 7.2Pern and the Jewish and German communities of Argentina

8Pern's second term

9Exile (19551973)

o 9.1Che Guevara and Pern

10Pern's third term (19731974)

o 10.1Relationship with Allende and Pinochet

11Mausoleum and legacy

12Footnotes

13Further reading

14External links

Childhood and youth[edit]

Main article: Early life of Juan Pern

Patio inside the home in Lobos where Pern was born.

Juan Domingo Pern was born in Lobos, Buenos Aires Province, on 8 October 1895. He was the
son of Juana Sosa Toledo and Mario Toms Pern. The Pern branch of his family was
originally Sardinian, from which his great-grandfather emigrated in the 1830s; in later life Pern
would publicly express his pride in his Sardinian roots.[1] He also had Spanish[2] and French Basque
ancestry.[3]
Pern's great-grandfather became a successful shoe merchant in Buenos Aires, and his grandfather
was a prosperous physician; his death in 1889 left his widow nearly destitute, however, and Pern's
father moved to then-rural Lobos, where he administered an estancia and met his future wife. The
couple had their two sons out of wedlock and married in 1901.[4]
His father moved to the Patagonia region that year, where he later purchased a sheep ranch. Juan
himself was sent away in 1904 to a boarding school in Buenos Aires directed by his paternal
grandmother, where he received a strict Catholic upbringing. His father's undertaking ultimately
failed, and he died in Buenos Aires in 1928. The youth entered the National Military College in 1911
at age 16 and graduated in 1913. He excelled less in his studies than in athletics,
particularly boxing and fencing.[1]

Army career[edit]

Lt. Pern (left) and General Jos Uriburu (middle), with whose right-wing coup in 1930 he collaborated. Pern
backed the more moderate General Agustn Justo, however.

Pern began his military career in an Infantry post in Paran, Entre Ros. He went on to command
the post, and in this capacity mediated a prolonged labor conflict in 1920 at La Forestal, then a
leading firm in forestry in Argentina. He earned instructor's credentials at the Superior War School,
and in 1929 was appointed to the Army General Staff Headquarters. Pern married his first wife,
Aurelia Tizn (Potota, as Pern fondly called her), on 5 January 1929.[4]
Pern was recruited by supporters of the director of the War Academy, General Jos Flix Uriburu,
to collaborate in the latter's plans for a military coup against President Hiplito Yrigoyen. Pern, who
instead supported General Agustn Justo, was banished to a remote post in northwestern Argentina
after Uriburu's successful coup in September 1930. He was promoted to the rank of Major the
following year and named to the faculty at the Superior War School, however, where he
taught military history and published a number of treatises on the subject. He served as military
attach in theArgentine Embassy in Chile from 1936 to 1938, and returned to his teaching post. His
wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer that year, and died on 10 September at age 29; the couple
had no children.[4]
Pern was assigned by the War Ministry to study mountain warfare in the Italian Alps in 1939. He
also attended theUniversity of Turin for a semester and served as a military observer in countries
across Europe. He studied Benito Mussolini's Italian Fascism, Nazi Germany, and other European
governments of the time, concluding in his summary, Apuntes de historia militar (Notes about
military history), that social democracy could be a viable alternative to liberal democracy(which he
viewed as a veiled plutocracy) or totalitarian regimes (which he viewed as oppressive).[4] He returned
to Argentina in 1941, and served as an Army skiing instructor in Mendoza Province.[1]

Military government of 19431946[edit]

Main article: 1943 Argentine coup d'tat
See also: Argentina during World War II

President Edelmiro Farrell(left) and his benefactor, Vice President Juan Pern, in April 1945.

In 1943 a coup d'tat was led by General Arturo Rawson against conservative President Ramn
Castillo, who had been fraudulently elected to office.[5] The military was opposed to
Governor Robustiano Patrn Costas, Castillo's hand-picked successor, who was the principal
landowner in Salta Province, as well as a main stockholder in its sugar industry.
As a colonel and his power of premier minister, Pern took a significant part in the military coup by
the GOU (United Officers' Group, a secret society) against the conservative civilian government of
Castillo. At first an assistant to Secretary of War General Edelmiro Farrell, under the administration
of General Pedro Ramrez, he later became the head of the then-insignificant Department of Labour.
Pern's work in the Labour Department witnessed the passage of a broad range of progressive
social reforms designed to improve working conditions, [6] and led to an alliance with the socialist
and syndicalist movements in the Argentine labour unions. This caused his power and influence to
increase in the military government.[7]
After the coup, socialists from the CGT-N1 labour union, through mercantile labour leader ngel
Borlenghi and railway union lawyerJuan Atilio Bramuglia, made contact with Pern and fellow GOU
Colonel Domingo Mercante. They established an alliance to promote labour laws that had long been
demanded by the workers' movement, to strengthen the unions, and to transform the Department of
Labour into a more significant government office. Pern had the Department of Labour elevated to a
cabinet-level secretariat in November 1943.[8]

Demonstration for Pern's release on 17 October 1945

Following the devastating January 1944 San Juan earthquake, which claimed over 10,000 lives and
leveled the Andes range city, Pern became nationally prominent in relief efforts. Junta leader Pedro
Ramrez entrusted fundraising efforts to him, and Pern marshaled celebrities from Argentina's
large film industry and other public figures. For months, a giant thermometer hung from theBuenos
Aires Obelisk to track the fundraising. The effort's success and relief for earthquake victims earned
Pern widespread public approval. At this time, he met a minor radio matinee star, Eva Duarte.[1]

The Perns at their 1945 wedding

Following President Ramrez's January 1944 suspension of diplomatic relations with the Axis
Powers (against whom the new junta would declare war in March 1945), the GOU junta unseated
him in favor of General Edelmiro Farrell. For contributing to his success, Pern was appointed Vice
President and Secretary of War, while retaining his Labour portfolio. As Minister of Labour, Pern
established the INPS (the first national social insurance system in Argentina), settled industrial
disputes in favour of labour unions (as long as their leaders pledged political allegiance to him), and
introduced a wide range of social welfare benefits for unionised workers. [9]
Employers were forced to improve working conditions and to provide severance pay and accident
compensation, the conditions under which workers could be dismissed were restricted, a system of
labour courts to handle the grievances of workers was established, the working day was reduced in
various industries, and paid holidays/vacations were generalised to the entire workforce. Peron also
passed a law providing minimum wages, maximum hours and vacations for rural workers, froze rural
rents, presided over a large increase in rural wages, and helped lumber, wine, sugar and migrant
workers organize themselves. From 1943 to 1946, real wages grew by only 4%, but in 1945 Peron
established two new institutions that would later increase wages: the aguinaldo (a bonus that
provided each worker with a lump sum at the end of the year amounting to one-twelfth of the annual
wage) and the National Institute of Compensation, which implemented a minimum wage and
collected data on living standards, prices, and wages.[10] Leveraging his authority on behalf of
striking abattoir workers and the right to unionise, Peron became increasingly thought of as
presidential timber.
On 18 September 1945, he delivered an address billed as "from work to home and from home to
work". The speech, prefaced by an excoriation of the conservative opposition, provoked an ovation
declaring that "we've passed social reforms to make the Argentine people proud to live where they
live, once again." This move fed growing rivalries against Pern and on 9 October 1945, he was
forced to resign by opponents within the armed forces. Arrested four days later, he was released due
to mass demonstrations organised by the CGT and other supporters; 17 October was later
commemorated as Loyalty Day. His paramour, Eva Duarte, became hugely popular after helping
organize the demonstration; known as "Evita", she helped Pern gain support with labour and
women's groups. She and Pern were married on 22 October.[1]

Pern's first term (19461952)[edit]

Domestic policy[edit]
Pern with military uniform, drinking coffee.

President Pern at his 1946 inaugural parade.

Pern and his running mate, Hortensio Quijano, leveraged popular support to victory over a Radical
Civic Union-led opposition alliance by about 11% in the February 24, 1946 presidential elections.
Pern's candidacy on the Labor Party ticket, announced the day after 17 October 1945, mobilization,
became a lightning rod that rallied an unusually diverse opposition against it. The majority of the
centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR), the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and most of the
conservative National Autonomist Party (in power during most of the 18741916 era) had already
been forged into a fractious alliance in June by interests in the financial sector and the chamber of
commerce, united solely by the goal of keeping Pern from the Casa Rosada. Organizing a massive
kick-off rally in front of Congress on 8 December, the Democratic Union nominated Jos
Tamborini and Enrique Mosca, two prominent UCR congressmen. The alliance failed to win over
several prominent lawmakers, such as Congressmen Ricardo Balbn and Arturo Frondizi and
former Crdobagovernor Amadeo Sabattini, all of whom opposed the Union's ties to conservative
interests. In a bid to support their campaign,US Ambassador Spruille Braden published a white
paper, otherwise known as the Blue Book[11] accusing Pern, President Farrell and others of Fascist
ties. Fluent in Spanish, Braden addressed Democratic Union rallies in person, but his move
backfired when Pern summarized the election as a choice between "Pern or Braden". He also
rallied further support by responding to the "Blue Book" with his own "Blue and White Book", which
was a play-off of the Argentine flag colors, and focused on the antagonism of Yankee imperialism.
[12]
He persuaded the president to sign the nationalization of the Central Bank and the extension of
mandatory Christmas bonuses, actions that contributed to his decisive victory.[13]
ngel Borlenghi, an erstwhile socialist who, as Interior Minister, oversaw new labor courts and the opposition's
activities.

When Pern became president on 4 June 1946, his two stated goals were social justice and
economic independence. These two goals avoided Cold War entanglements from choosing between
capitalism and socialism, but he had no concrete means to achieve those goals. Pern instructed his
economic advisers to develop a five-year plan with the goals of increasing workers' pay, achieving
full employment, stimulating industrial growth of over 40% while diversifying the sector (then
dominated by food processing), and greatly improving transportation, communication, energy and
social infrastructure (in the private, as well as public, sectors).[14]
Pern's planning prominently included political considerations. Numerous military allies were fielded
as candidates, notably Colonel Domingo Mercante who, when elected Governor of the
paramount Province of Buenos Aires, became renowned for his housing program. Having brought
him to power, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) was given overwhelming support by the
new administration, which introduced labour courts and filled its cabinet with labor union appointees,
such as Juan Atilio Bramuglia (Foreign Ministry) and ngel Borlenghi (Interior Ministry, which, in
Argentina, oversees law enforcement). It also made room for amenable wealthy industrialists
(Central Bank President Miguel Miranda) and socialists such asJos Figuerola, a Spanish economist
who had years earlier advised that nation's ill-fated regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera. Intervention of
their behalf by Pern's appointees encouraged the CGT to call strikes in the face of employers
reluctant to grant benefits or honor new labor legislation. Strike activity (with 500,000 working days
lost in 1945) leapt to 2 million in 1946 and to over 3 million in 1947, helping wrest needed labor
reforms, though permanently aligning large employers against the Peronists. Labor unions grew in
ranks from around 500,000 to over 2 million by 1950, primarily in the CGT, which has since been
Argentina's paramount labor union.[14] As the country's labor force numbered around 5 million people
at the time, Argentina's labor force was the most unionized in South America. [15]
President Pern (right) signs the nationalization of British-owned railways watched by Ambassador SirReginald
Leeper, March 1948.

During the first half of the 20th century, a widening gap had existed between the classes; Pern
hoped to close it through the increase of wages and employment, making the nation more pluralistic
and less reliant on foreign trade. Before taking office in 1946, President Pern took dramatic steps
which he believed would result in a more economically independent Argentina, better insulated from
events such as World War II. He thought there would be another international war.[16] The reduced
availability of imports and the war's beneficial effects on both the quantity and price of Argentine
exports had combined to create a US$1.7 billion cumulative surplus during those years.[17]
In his first two years in office, Pern nationalized the Central Bank and paid off its billion-dollar debt
to the Bank of England;nationalized the railways (mostly owned by British and French
companies), merchant marine, universities, public utilities, public transport (then, mostly tramways);
and, probably most significantly, created a single purchaser for the nation's mostly export-oriented
grains and oilseeds, the Institute for the Promotion of Trade (IAPI). The IAPI wrested control of
Argentina's famed grain export sector from entrenched conglomerates such as Bunge y Born; but
when commodity prices fell after 1948, it began shortchanging growers. [1] IAPI profits were used to
fund welfare projects, while internal demand was encouraged by large wage increases given to
workers;[9] average real wages rose by about 35% from 1945 to 1949,[18] while during that same
period, labor's share of national income rose from 40% to 49%. [19] Access to health care was also
made a universal right by the Workers' Bill of Rights enacted on 24 February 1947 (subsequently
incorporated into the 1949 Constitution as Article 14-b),[20] while social security was extended to
virtually all members of the Argentine working class.[21]
From 1946 to 1951, the number of Argentinians covered by social security more than tripled, so that
in 1951 more than 5 million people (70% of the economically active population) were covered by
social security. Health insurance also spread to new industries, including banking and metalworking.
Between 1945 and 1949, real wages went up by 22%, fell between 1949 and 1952, and then
increased again from 1953 to 1955, ending up at least 30% higher than in 1946. In proportional
terms, wages rose from 41% of national income in 1946-48 to 49% in 1952-55. The boost in the real
incomes of workers was encouraged by government policies such as the enforcement of minimum
wage laws, controls on the prices of food and other basic consumption items, and extending housing
credits to workers.[10]
Foreign policy and adversaries[edit]
Pern first articulated his foreign policy, the "Third Way", in 1949. This policy was developed to avoid
the binary Cold War divisions and keep other world powers, such as the United States and the
Soviet Union, as allies rather than enemies. He restored diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union,
severed since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918, and opened grain sales to the shortage-stricken
Soviets.[22]
U.S. policy restricted Argentine growth during the Pern years; by placing embargoes on Argentina,
the United States hoped to discourage the nation in its pursuit of becoming economically sovereign
during a time when the world was divided into two influence spheres. U.S. interests feared losing
their stake, as they had large commercial investments (over a billion dollars) vested in Argentina
through the oil and meat packing industries, besides being a mechanical goods provider to
Argentina. His ability to effectively deal with points of contention abroad was equally hampered by
Pern's own mistrust of potential rivals, which harmed foreign relations with Bramuglia's 1949
dismissal.[7]
The rising influence of American diplomat George F. Kennan, a staunch anti-communist and
champion of containment, fed U.S. suspicions that Argentine goals for economic sovereignty and
neutrality were Pern's disguise for a resurgence of communism in the Americas. The U.S.
Congress took a dislike of Pern and his government. In 1948 they excluded Argentine exports from
the Marshall Plan, the landmark Truman administration effort to combat communism and help rebuild
war-torn European nations by offering U.S. aid. This contributed to Argentine financial crises after
1948 and, according to Pern biographer Joseph Page, "the Marshall Plan drove a final nail into the
coffin that bore Pern's ambitions to transform Argentina into an industrial power". The policy
deprived Argentina of potential agricultural markets in Western Europe to the benefit of Canadian
exporters, for instance.[1]
As relations with the U.S. deteriorated, Pern made efforts to mitigate the misunderstandings, which
was made easier after President Harry Truman replaced the hostile Braden with
Ambassador George Messersmith. He negotiated the release of Argentine assets in the U.S. in
exchange for preferential treatment for U.S. goods, followed by Argentine ratification of the Act of
Chapultepec, a centerpiece of Truman's Latin America policy. He even proposed the enlistment of
Argentine troops into the Korean War in 1950 under UN auspices (a move retracted in the face of
public opposition).[23] Pern was opposed to borrowing from foreign credit markets, preferring to float
bonds domestically. He refused to enter the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (precursor to
the World Trade Organization) or theInternational Monetary Fund.[14]

As president, Pern took an active interest in the development of sports in Argentina, hosting international
events and sponsoring athletes such as the boxing great Jos Mara Gatica (left).

Believing that international sports created goodwill, however, Pern hosted the 1950 World
Basketball Championship and the1951 Pan American Games, both of which Argentine athletes won
resoundingly. He also sponsored numerous notable athletes, including the five-time Formula 1 world
champion, Juan Manuel Fangio, who, without this funding, would have most likely never competed in
Europe. His bid to host the 1956 Olympic Games in Buenos Aires was defeated by the International
Olympic Committee by one vote.
Growth and limitations[edit]
Economic success was short-lived. Following a lumbering recovery during 1933 to 1945, from 1946
to 1948 Argentina gained benefits from Pern's five-year plan. The GDP expanded by over a fourth
during that brief boom, about as much as it had during the previous decade. Using roughly half the
US$1.7 billion in reserves inherited from wartime surpluses for nationalizations, economic
development agencies devoted most of the other half to finance both public and private investments;
the roughly 70% jump in domestic fixed investment was accounted for mostly by industrial growth in
the private sector.[14] All this much-needed activity exposed an intrinsic weakness in the plan: it
subsidized growth which, in the short term, led to a wave of imports of the capital goods that local
industry could not supply. Whereas the end of World War II had allowed Argentine exports to rise
from US$700 million to US$1.6 billion, Pern's changes led to skyrocketing imports (from
US$300 million to US$1.6 billion), and erased the surplus by 1948.[24]
Pern's bid for economic independence was further complicated by a number of inherited external
factors. Great Britain owed Argentina over 150 million pounds Sterling (nearly US$650 million) from
agricultural exports to that nation during the war. This debt was mostly in the form of Argentine
Central Bank reserves which, per the 1933 Roca-Runciman Treaty, were deposited in the Bank of
England. The money was useless to the Argentine government, because the treaty allowed Bank of
England to hold the funds in trust, something British planners could not compromise on as a result of
that country's debts accrued under the Lend-Lease Act.[14]
The nation's need for U.S. made capital goods increased, though ongoing limits on the Central
Bank's availability of hard currency hampered access to them. Argentina's pound Sterling surpluses
earned after 1946 (worth over US$200 million) were made convertible to dollars by a treaty
negotiated by Central Bank President Miguel Miranda; but after a year, British Prime
Minister Clement Attlee suspended the provision. Pern accepted the transfer of over 24,000 km
(15,000 mi) of British-owned railways (over half the total in Argentina) in exchange for the debt in
March 1948. Due to political disputes between Pern and the U.S. government (as well as to
pressure by the U.S. agricultural lobby through the Agricultural Act of 1949), Argentine foreign
exchange earnings via its exports to the United States fell, turning a US$100 million surplus with the
United States into a US$300 million deficit. The combined pressure practically devoured Argentina's
liquid reserves and Miranda issued a temporary restriction on the outflow of dollars to U.S. banks.
The nationalization of the Port of Buenos Aires and domestic and foreign-owned private cargo ships,
as well as the purchase of others, nearly tripled the national merchant marine to 1.2 million tons'
displacement, reducing the need for over US$100 million in shipping fees (then the largest source of
Argentina's invisible balance deficit) and leading to the inauguration of the Ro Santiago Shipyards
atEnsenada (on line to the present day).[25][26]

Repairs at the Ro Santiago Shipyards

Exports fell sharply, to around US$1.1 billion during the 194954 era (a severe 1952 drought
trimmed this to US$700 million),[24] due in part to a deterioration in terms of trade of about a third. The
Central Bank was forced to devalue the peso at an unprecedented rate: the peso lost about 70% of
its value from early 1948 to early 1950, leading to a decline in the imports fueling industrial growth
and to recession. Short of central bank reserves, Pern was forced to borrow US$125 million from
the U.S. Export-Import Bank to cover a number of private banks' debts to U.S. institutions, without
which their insolvency would have become a central bank liability.[27] Austerity and better harvests in
1950 helped finance a recovery in 1951; but inflation, having risen from 13% in 1948 to 31% in 1949,
reached 50% in late 1951 before stabilizing, and a second, sharper recession soon followed.
[28]
Workers' purchasing power, by 1952, had declined 20% from its 1948 high and GDP, having leapt
by a fourth during Pern's first two years, saw zero growth from 1948 to 1952. (The U.S. economy,
by contrast, grew by about a fourth in the same interim).[14] After 1952, however, wages began rising
in real terms once more.[18]
The increasing frequency of strikes, increasingly directed against Pern as the economy slid
into stagflation in late 1948, was dealt with through the expulsion of organizers from the CGT ranks.
To consolidate his political grasp on the eve of colder economic winds, Pern called for a broad
constitutional reform in September. The elected convention (whose opposition members soon
resigned) approved the wholesale replacement of the 1853 Constitution of Argentina with a
new magna carta in March, explicitly guaranteeing social reforms; but also allowing the mass
nationalization of natural resources and public services, as well as the re-election of the president. [29]
Focus on infrastructure[edit]
Emphasizing an economic policy centerpiece dating from the 1920s, Pern made record
investments in Argentina's infrastructure. Investing over US$100 million to modernize the railways
(originally built on a myriad of incompatible gauges), he also nationalized a number of small, regional
air carriers, forging them into Aerolneas Argentinas in 1950. The airline, equipped with 36 new DC-
3 and DC-4 aircraft, was supplemented with a new international airport and a 22 km (14 mi) freeway
into Buenos Aires. This freeway was followed by one between Rosario and Santa Fe.[29]

Reservoir of the Valle Grande hydroelectric dam, near San Rafael, Mendoza

A hospital near Rosario, one of hundreds built during the Pern years

Pern had mixed success in expanding the country's inadequate electric grid, which grew by only
one fourth during his tenure. Argentina's installed hydroelectric capacity, however, leapt from 45 to
350 MW during his first term (to about a fifth of the total public grid). He promoted the fossil
fuel industry by ordering these resources nationalized, inaugurating Ro Turbio(Argentina's only
active coal mine), having natural gas flared by the state oil firm YPF captured, and establishing Gas
del Estado. The 1949 completion of a gas pipeline between Comodoro Rivadavia and Buenos
Aires was another significant accomplishment in this regard. The 1,700 km (1,060 mi) pipeline
allowed natural gas production to rise quickly from 300,000 m3 to 15 million m3 daily, making the
country self-sufficient in the critical energy staple; the pipeline was, at the time, the longest in the
world.[29]
Propelled by an 80% increase in output at the state-owed energy firm YPF, oil production rose from
3.3 million m3 to over 4.8 million m3 during Pern's tenure;[30] but since most manufacturing was
powered by on-site generators and the number of motor vehicles grew by a third, [31] the need for oil
imports grew from 40% to half of the consumption, costing the national balance sheet over
US$300 million a year (over a fifth of the import bill).[32]
Pern's government is remembered for its record social investments. He introduced a Ministry of
Health to the cabinet; its first head, the neurologist Ramn Carrillo, oversaw the completion of over
4,200 health care facilities.[33] Related works included construction of more than
1,000 kindergartens and over 8,000 schools, including several hundred technological, nursing and
teachers' schools, among an array of other public investments.[34] The new Minister of Public Works,
General Juan Pistarini, oversaw the construction of 650,000 new, public sector homes, as well as of
the international airport, one of the largest in the world at the time.[35] The reactivation of the dormant
National Mortgage Bank spurred private-sector housing development: averaging over 8 units per
1,000 inhabitants (150,000 a year), the pace was, at the time, at par with that of the United States
and one of the highest rates of residential construction in the world. [14]

Production line at the state military industries facility, 1950; on line since 1927, Pern's budgets modernized
and expanded the complex.

Pern modernized the Argentine Armed Forces, particularly its Air Force. Between 1947 and 1950,
Argentina manufactured two advanced jet aircraft: Pulqui I (designed by the Argentine engineers
Cardehilac, Morchio and Ricciardi with the French engineer mile Dewoitine, condemned in France
in absentia for collaborationism), and Pulqui II, designed by German engineer Kurt Tank. In the test
flights, the planes were flown by Lieutenant Edmundo Osvaldo Weiss and Tank, reaching 1,000 km/h
(620 mph) with the Pulqui II. Argentina continued testing the Pulqui II until 1959; in the tests, two
pilots lost their lives.[36] The Pulqui project opened the door to two successful Argentinian planes:
the IA 58 Pucar and the IA 63 Pampa, manufactured at the Aircraft Factory of Crdoba.[37]
Pern announced in 1951 that the Huemul Project would produce nuclear fusion before any other
country. The project was led by an Austrian, Ronald Richter, who had been recommended by Kurt
Tank. Tank expected to power his aircraft with Richter's invention. Pern announced that energy
produced by the fusion process would be delivered in milk-bottle sized containers. Richter
announced success in 1951, but no proof was given. The next year, Pern appointed a scientific
team to investigate Richter's activities. Reports by Jos Antonio Balseiro and Mario Bncora
revealed that the project was a fraud. After that, the Huemul Project was transferred to the Centro
Atmico Bariloche (CAB) of the new National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and to the physics
institute of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, later named Instituto Balseiro (IB).[7] According to a
recently aired History Channel documentary, the secrecy, Nazi connections, declassified US
intelligence documents, and military infrastructure located around the remote facility all argue for the
more likely objective of atomic bomb development. The Argentine navy actually bombed multiple
buildings in 1955 - an unusual method of decommissioning a legitimate research facility.

Eva Pern's influence and contribution[edit]

First Lady Eva Pern (left) tending to the needy in her capacity as head of her foundation

Eva Pern was instrumental as a symbol of hope to the common laborer during the first five-year
plan. When she died in 1952, the year of the presidential elections, the people felt they had lost an
ally. Coming from humble origins, she was loathed by the elite but adored by the poor for her work
with the sick, elderly, and orphans. It was due to her behind-the-scenes work that women's
suffrage was granted in 1947 and a feminist wing of the 3rd party in Argentina was formed.
Simultaneous to Pern's five-year plans, Evita supported a women's movement that concentrated on
the rights of women, the poor and the disabled.
Although her role in the politics of Pern's first term remains disputed, Eva introduced social justice
and equality into the national discourse. She stated, "It is not philanthropy, nor is it charity... It is not
even social welfare; to me, it is strict justice... I do nothing but return to the poor what the rest of us
owe them, because we had taken it away from them unjustly." [1]

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

She established the Eva Pern Foundation in 1948, which was perhaps the greatest contribution to
her husband's social policy. Enjoying an annual budget of around US$50 million (nearly 1% of GDP
at the time),[38] the Foundation had 14,000 employees and founded hundreds of new schools, clinics,
old-age homes and holiday facilities; it also distributed hundreds of thousands of household
necessities, physicians' visits and scholarships, among other benefits. Among the best-known of the
Foundation's many large construction projects are the Evita City development south of Buenos Aires
(25,000 homes) and the "Republic of the Children", a theme park based on tales from the Brothers
Grimm. Following Pern's 1955 ousting, twenty such construction projects were abandoned
incomplete and the foundation's US$290 million endowment was liquidated.[39]
An August 1951 rally organized by the CGT for a Pern-Evita ticket failed to overcome military objections to
her, and the ailing first lady withdrew.

The portion of the five-year plans which argued for full employment, public healthcare and housing,
labour benefits, and raises are a result of Eva's influence on the policy-making of Pern in his first
term, as historians note that at first he simply wanted to keep imperialists out of Argentina and create
effective businesses. The humanitarian relief efforts embedded in the five-year plan are Eva's
creation, which endeared the Peronist movement to the working-class people from which Eva had
come. Her strong ties to the poor and her position as Pern's wife brought credibility to his promises
during his first presidential term and ushered in a new wave of supporters. The first lady's willingness
to replace the ailing Hortensio Quijano as Pern's running mate for the 1951 campaign was defeated
by her own frail health and by military opposition. An 22 August rally organized for her by the CGT on
Buenos Aires' wide Nueve de Julio Avenue failed to turn the tide. On 28 September, elements in
theArgentine Army led by General Benjamn Andrs Menndez attempted a coup against Pern.
Although unsuccessful, the mutiny marked the end of the first lady's political hopes. She died the
following July.[1]

Opposition and repression[edit]

Among upper-class Argentines, improvement of the workers' situation was a source of resentment;
industrial workers from rural areas had formerly been treated as servants. It was common for better-
off Argentines to refer to these workers using classist slurs like "little black heads" (cabecitas negras,
the name of a bird), "greased" (grasas which came from people with grease on their hands or
fingernails, i.e., blue-collar workers), "shirtless" (descamisados, since they doffed their shirts to
perform manual labor). Conservative Radical Civic Union Congressman Ernesto Sammartino mused
that Pern's voters were a "zoological flood" (aluvin zoolgico).[40] In the 1940s, upper-class
students were the first to oppose Peronist workers, with the slogan: "No to cheap shoe dictatorship"
(No a la dictadura de las alpargatas). A graffiti revealing the strong opposition between Peronists
and anti-Peronists appeared in upper-class districts in the 1950s, "Long live cancer!" (Viva el
cncer!), when Eva Pern was ill.[41] She died of cervical cancer in 1952 at the age of thirty-three.[42]
At a time when credentialed teaching personnel were in short supply, Pern had fired more than
1,500 university faculty who opposed him.[14] These included Nobel laureate Bernardo Houssay, a
physiologist, University of La Plata physicist Rafael Grinfeld, painter Emilio Pettoruti, art scholars Po
Collivadino and Jorge Romero Brest, and noted author Jorge Luis Borges, who was appointed
"poultry inspector" at the Buenos Aires Municipal Wholesale Market (a post he refused). [43] Many
faculty left the country and migrated to Mexico or the United States. Weiss recalls events in the
universities:
As a young student in Buenos Aires in the early 1950s, I well remember the graffiti found on many
an empty wall all over town: "Build the Fatherland. Kill a Student" (Haga patria, mate un estudiante).
Pern opposed the universities, which questioned his methods and his goals. A well-remembered
slogan was, Alpargatas s, libros no ("Shoes? Yes! Books? No!"). Universities were then 'intervened'.
In some, a Peronist mediocre was appointed principal. Others were closed for years."(Weiss, 2005,
p. 45)

The labor movement that had brought Pern to power was not exempt from the iron fist. Elections in
1946 to the post of Secretary General of the CGT resulted in telephone workers' union leader Luis
Gay's victory over Pern's nominee, former retail workers' leader ngel Borlenghiboth central
figures in Pern's famed 17 October comeback. The president had Luis Gay expelled from the CGT
three months later, and replaced him with Jos Espejo, a little-known rank-and-filer who was close to
the first lady. This was done on unsubstantiated charges that he had colluded with Pern's enemy,
the former U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden.[14]

Union leader Cipriano Reyes, jailed for years for turning against Pern

The meat-packers' union leader, Cipriano Reyes, turned against Pern when he replaced the Labor
Party with the Peronist Party in 1947. Organizing a strike in protest, Reyes was arrested on the
charge of plotting against the lives of the president and first lady, though the allegations were never
substantiated. Tortured in prison, Reyes was denied parole five years later, and freed only after the
regime's 1955 downfall.[44] Cipriano Reyes was one of hundreds of Pern's opponents held at
Buenos Aires' Ramos Meja General Hospital, one of whose basements was converted into a police
detention center where torture became routine.[45]
The populist leader was intolerant of both left-wing and conservative opposition. Though he used
violence, Pern preferred to deprive the opposition of their access to media. Interior Minister
Borlenghi administered El Laborista, the leading official news daily. Carlos Aloe, a personal friend of
Evita's, oversaw an array of leisure magazines published by Editorial Haynes, which the Peronist
Party bought a majority stake in. Through the Secretary of the Media, Ral Apold, socialist dailies
such as La Vanguardia orDemocracia, and conservative ones such as La Prensa or La Razn, were
simply closed or expropriated in favor of the CGT or ALEA, the regime's new state media company.
[13]
Intimidation of the press increased: between 1943 and 1946, 110 publications were closed down;
others such as La Nacin and Roberto Noble's Clarn became more cautious and self-censoring.
[46]
Pern appeared more threatened by dissident artists than by opposition political figures (though
UCR leader Ricardo Balbn spent most of 1950 in jail). Numerous prominent cultural and intellectual
figures were imprisoned (publisher and critic Victoria Ocampo, for one) or forced into exile, among
them comedian Nin Marshall, film maker Luis Saslavsky, pianist Osvaldo Pugliese and
actress Libertad Lamarque, victim of a rivalry with Eva Pern.[47]

Pern and Fascism[edit]

In 1938, Pern was sent to many countries of Europe, to study them. At his return, he would explain
that he had a positive impression about national syndicalismduring the government of Benito
Mussolini in Italy, Ioannis Metaxas in Greece and Adolf Hitler in Germany. By that year, he thought
that those countries would become social democracies. His exact words were as follows:
Italian Fascism led popular organizations to an effective participation in national life, which had
always been denied to the people. Before Mussolini's rise to power, the nation was on one hand and
the worker on the other, and the latter had no involvement in the former. [...] In Germany happened
exactly the same phenomenon, meaning, an organized state for a perfectly ordered community, for a
perfectly ordered population as well: a community where the state was the tool of the nation, whose
representation was, under my view, effective. I thought that this should be the future political form,
meaning, the true people's democracy, the true social democracy.[48]

Juan Pern

After the end of World War II and the rise of Pern to a popular leader, anti-Peronist politicians and
authors would point that Pern once manifested support for Mussolini and Hitler, implying that such
support involved the whole of their governments or the paths actually taken by Italy or Germany after
1938. One of the most famous examples was when Spruille Braden did so during the 1946 election,
leading to the "Braden or Pern" slogan that was key of the Peronist victory.
However, historian Felipe Pigna states that no researcher who has deeply studied Pern would
consider him a fascist. Pigna identifies Pern as a pragmatist who took useful elements from all
modern ideologies of the time, such as fascism, but also the "New Deal" policies of U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "national defense" principles, social views from religion, and even
some socialist principles.[49] According to historian Tulio Halpern Donghi, Pern was driven by strong
convictions but not by full support to any mainstream ideology; although he did not try to hide his old
admiration of fascist Italy, it wasn't a strong influence on him. [49]Arturo Jauretche said that Pern was
neither fascist nor anti-fascist, simply realist, and that the active intervention of the working class in
politics, as he saw in those countries, was a definitive phenomenon. [49]
Protection of Nazi war criminals[edit]
Further information: Ratlines (history)
After World War II, Argentina became a haven for Nazi war criminals, with explicit protection from
Pern. Author Uki Goi alleges that Axis Power collaborators, including Pierre Daye, met with Pern
at Casa Rosada (Pink House), the President's official residence.[50] In this meeting, a network would
have[clarification needed]been created with support by the Argentine Immigration Service and the Foreign
Office.[speculation?] The Swiss Chief of Police Heinrich Rothmund[51] and the Croatian Roman Catholic
priest Krunoslav Draganovi also helped organize the ratline.
An investigation of 22,000 documents by the DAIA in 1997 discovered that the network was
managed by Rodolfo Freude who had an office in the Casa Rosada and was close to Eva Pern's
brother, Juan Duarte. According to Ronald Newton, Ludwig Freude, Rodolfo's father, was probably
the local representative of the Office Three secret service headed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, with
probably more influence than the German ambassador Edmund von Thermann. He had met Pern
in the 1930s, and had contacts with Generals Juan Pistarini, Domingo Martnez, and Jos Molina.
Ludwig Freude's house became the meetingplace for Nazis and Argentine military officers
supporting the Axis. In 1943, he traveled with Pern to Europe to attempt an arms deal with
Germany.[52]
Nazi exile network principal Rodolfo Freude (2nd from left) and President Pern (2nd from right), who
appointed Freude Director of the Argentine Intelligence Secretariat

And after the war, Ludwig Freude was investigated over his connection to possible looted Nazi art,
cash and precious metals on deposit at two Argentine banks, Banco Germanico and Banco
Tournquist. But on 6 September 1946, the Freude investigation was terminated by presidential
decree.[53]
Examples of Nazis and collaborators who relocated to Argentina include Emile Dewoitine, who
arrived in May 1946 and worked on the Pulqui jet, Erich Priebke, who arrived in 1947, Josef
Mengele in 1949, Adolf Eichmann in 1950, former Commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka death
camps Franz Stangl, Austrian representative of Spitzy in Spain Reinhard Spitzy,Charles Lescat,
editor of Je Suis Partout in Vichy France, SS functionary Ludwig Lienhardt, German industrialist
Ludwig Freude, and SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Klaus Barbie.
Many members of the notorious Croatian Ustae (including their leader, Ante Paveli) took refuge in
Argentina, as did Milan Stojadinovi, the former collaborationist Prime Minister of monarchist
Yugoslavia.[54] In 1946 Stojadinovi went to Rio de Janeiro, and then to Buenos Aires, where he was
reunited with his family. Stojadinovi spent the rest of his life as presidential advisor on economic
and financial affairs to governments in Argentina and founded the financial newspaper El
Economista.
A Croatian priest, Krunoslav Draganovi, organizer of the San Girolamo ratline, was authorized by
Pern to assist Nazi operatives to come to Argentina and evade prosecution in Europe after World
War II,[54] in particular the Ustae. Ante Paveli became a security advisor of Pern, before leaving
for Francoist Spain in 1957.[55]
As in the United States (Operation Paperclip), Argentina also welcomed displaced German scientists
such as Kurt Tank and Ronald Richter. Some of these refugees took important roles in Pern's
Argentina, such as French collaborationist Jacques de Mahieu, who became an ideologue of the
Peronist movement, before becoming mentor to a Roman Catholic nationalist youth group in the
1960s. Belgian collaborationist Pierre Daye became editor of a Peronist magazine. Rodolfo Freude,
Ludwig's son, became Pern's chief of presidential intelligence in his first term. Milan Stojadinovi
founded El Economista (The Economist magazine) in 1951, which still carries his name on its
masthead.
Recently, Goi's research, drawing on investigations in Argentine, Swiss, American, British and
Belgian government archives, as well as numerous interviews and other sources, was detailed
in The Real ODESSA: Smuggling the Nazis to Pern's Argentina (2002), showing how escape
routes known as ratlines were used byformer NSDAP members and like-minded people to escape
trial and judgment.[56] Goi places particular emphasis on the part played by Pern's government in
organizing the ratlines, as well as documenting the aid of Swiss and Vatican authorities in their flight.
[citation needed]
The Argentine consulate in Barcelona gave false passports to fleeing Nazi war criminals and
collaborationists. Recently declassified files from Brazil and Chile reveal that during WWII Pron sold
10,000 blank Argentine passports to ODESSA the organisation set up to protect former SS men in
the event of defeat.[57]
Toms Eloy Martnez, writer and professor of Latin American studies at Rutgers University, wrote
that Juan Pern allowed Nazis into the country in hopes of acquiring advanced German technology
developed during the war. Martnez also noted that Eva Pern played no part in allowing Nazis into
the country.[58] However, one of Eva's bodyguards was in fact an ex-Nazi commando named Otto
Skorzeny, who had met Juan on occasion.[59]
Pern and the Jewish and German communities of Argentina [edit]
Further information: History of the Jews in Argentina and German Argentine
When I realized that Pern, contrary to previous governments, gave Jewish citizens access to public
office, I began to change my way of thinking about Argentine politics...

Ezequiel Zabotinsky, president of the Jewish-Peronist Organizacion Israelita Argentina, 1952

1955[60]

Juan Pern and Jos Ber Gelbard

Fraser and Navarro write that Juan Pern was a complicated man who over the years stood for
many different, often contradictory, things.[61] In the book Inside Argentina from Pern to
Menem author Laurence Levine, former president of the US-Argentine Chamber of Commerce,
writes, "although anti-Semitism existed in Argentina, Pern's own views and his political associations
were not anti-Semitic...." Laurence also writes that one of Pern's advisors was a Jewish man from
Poland named Jos Ber Gelbard.[62] U.S. Ambassador George S. Messersmith visited Argentina in
1947 during the first term of Juan Pern. Messersmith noted, "There is not as much social
discrimination against Jews here as there is right in New York or in most places at home..." [13]

Golda Meir talks with Evita Pern on Meir's visit to Argentina, 1951.

Pern sought out other Jewish Argentines as government advisers, besides Ber Gelbard. The
powerful Secretary of Media, Ral Apold, also Jewish, was called "Pern's Goebbels." He favoured
the creation of institutions such as New Zion (Nueva Sin), the Argentine-Jewish Institute of Culture
and Information, led by Simn Mirelman, and the Argentine-Israeli Chamber of Commerce. Also, he
named Rabbi Amran Blum as the first Jewish professor of philosophy in the National University of
Buenos Aires. After Argentina became the first Latin American government to acknowledge the State
of Israel, Pern appointed Pablo Mangel, a Jewish man, as ambassador to that country. Education
and Diplomacy were the two strongholds of Catholic nationalism, and both appointments were highly
symbolic. The same goes for the 1946 decision of allowing Jewish army privates to celebrate their
holidays, which was intended to foster Jewish integration in another traditionally Catholic institution,
the army.
Argentina signed a generous commercial agreement with Israel that granted favourable terms for
Israeli acquisitions of Argentine commodities, and the Eva Pern Foundation sent significant
humanitarian aid. In 1951 during their visit to Buenos Aires, Chaim Weizmann and Golda
Meir expressed their gratitude for this aid.

Evita and Juan Pern at the Plaza de Mayo, 1951. Ral Apold is visible behind Pern.

The German Argentine community in Argentina is the fourth-largest immigrant group in the country,
after the ethnic Spanishand the Italians. The German Argentine community predates Juan Pern's
presidency, and began during the political unrest related to the 19th-century unification of Germany.
Laurence Levine writes that Pern found 20th-century German civilization too "rigid" and had a
"distaste" for it.[62] Crassweller writes that while Juan Pern preferred Argentine culture, with which he
felt a spiritual affinity, he was "pragmatic" in dealing with the diverse populace of Argentina.[13]
While Juan Pern's Argentina allowed many Nazi criminals to take refuge in the country following
World War II, the society also accepted more Jewish immigrants than any other country in Latin
America. Today Argentina has a population of more than 200,000 Jewish citizens, the largest in Latin
America, the third-largest in the Americas, and the sixth-largest in the world. [63][64][65][66] The Jewish
Virtual Library writes that while Juan Pern had sympathized with the Axis powers, "Pern also
expressed sympathy for Jewish rights and established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1949. Since
then, more than 45,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel from Argentina."[67]

Pern's second term[edit]

Pern and the ailing Evita during his second inaugural parade, June 1952. Eva died the following month.

Facing only token UCR and Socialist Party opposition and despite being unable to field his popular
wife, Eva, as a running mate, Pern was re-elected in 1951 by a margin of over 30%.[68] This election
was the first to have extended suffrage to Argentine women and the first in Argentina to be televised:
Pern was inaugurated on Channel 7 public television that October. He began his second term in
June 1952 with serious economic problems, however, compounded by a severe drought that helped
lead to a US$500 million trade deficit (depleting reserves).[4]
Pern called employers and unions to a Productivity Congress to regulate social conflict through
dialogue, but the conference failed without reaching an agreement. Divisions among Peronists
intensified, and the President's worsening mistrust led to the forced resignation of numerous
valuable allies, notably Buenos Aires Province Governor Domingo Mercante.[1] Again on the
defensive, Pern accelerated generals' promotions and extended them pay hikes and other benefits.
He also accelerated landmark construction projects slated for the CGT or government agencies;
among these was the 41-story and 141 m (463 ft) high Alas Building (transferred to the Air Force by
a later regime).[69]
Opposition to Pern grew bolder following the first lady's 26 July 1952, passing. On 15 April 1953, a
terrorist group (never identified) detonated two bombs in a public rally at Plaza de Mayo, killing 7 and
injuring 95. Amid the chaos, Pern exhorted the crowd to take reprisals; they made their way to their
adversaries' gathering places, the Socialist Party headquarters and the aristocratic Jockey Club
(both housed in magnificent turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts buildings), and burned them to the
ground.

Designed and manufactured in Argentina, the Justicialist was part of Pern's effort to develop a local auto
industry.

A stalemate of sorts ensued between Pern and his opposition and, despite austerity measures
taken late in 1952 to remedy the country's unsustainable trade deficit, the president remained
generally popular. In March 1954, Pern called Vice-Presidential elections to replace the
late Hortensio Quijano, which his candidate won by a nearly two-to-one margin. Given what he felt
was as solid a mandate as ever and with inflation in single digits and the economy on a more secure
footing, Pern ventured into a new policy: the creation of incentives designed to attract foreign
investment.
The Alas Building under construction

Drawn to an economy with the highest standard of living in Latin America and a new steel mill in San
Nicols de los Arroyos, automakers FIAT and Kaiser Motors responded to the initiave by breaking
ground on new facilities in the city of Crdoba, as did the freight truck division ofDaimler-Benz, the
first such investments since General Motors' Argentine assembly line opened in 1926. Pern also
signed an important exploration contract with Standard Oil of California, in May 1955, consolidating
his new policy of substituting the two largest sources of that era's chronic trade deficits (imported
petroleum and motor vehicles) with local production brought in through foreign investment. The
centrist Radical Civic Union's 1951 Vice-Presidential nominee, Arturo Frondizi, publicly condemned
what he considered to be an anti-patriotic decision; as president three years later, however, he
himself signed exploration contracts with foreign oil companies.
As 1954 drew to a close, Pern unveiled reforms far more controversial to the normally conservative
Argentine public, the legalization of divorce and of prostitution. The Roman Catholic Church's
Argentine leaders, whose support of Pern's government had been steadily waning since the advent
of the Eva Pern Foundation, were now open antagonists of the man they called "the tyrant."
Though much of Argentina's media had, since 1950, been either controlled or monitored by the
administration, lurid pieces on his ongoing relationship with an underage girl named Nlida "Nelly"
Rivas,[70] something Pern never denied, filled the gossip pages.[5]Pressed by reporters on whether
his supposed new paramour was, as the magazines claimed, thirteen years of age, the fifty-nine-
year-old Pern responded that he was "not superstitious." [71]
Before long, however, the president's humor on the subject ran out and, following the expulsion of
two Catholic priests he believed to be behind his recent image problems, a 15 June 1955 declaration
of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation[72] (not of Pope Pius XII himself, who alone had authority to
excommunicate a head of state)[73] was interpreted as declaring Pern excommunicated.[74] The
following day, Pron called for a rally of support on the Plaza de Mayo, a time-honored custom
among Argentine presidents during a challenge. However, as he spoke before a crowd of thousands,
Navy fighter jets flew overhead and dropped bombs into the crowded square below before seeking
refuge in Uruguay.
Scene in the Plaza de Mayo following a failed coup attempt against Pern, 16 June 1955. He was deposed
three months later.

The incident, part of a coup attempt against Pern, killed 364 people and was, from a historical
perspective, the only air assault ever on Argentine soil, as well as a portent of the mayhem that
Argentine society would suffer in the 1970s.[5] It moreover touched off a wave of reprisals on the part
of Peronists. Reminiscent of the incidents in 1953, Peronist crowds ransacked eleven Buenos Aires
churches, including the Metropolitan Cathedral. On 16 September 1955, a nationalist Catholic group
from both the Army and Navy, led by General Eduardo Lonardi, General Pedro E. Aramburu, and
AdmiralIsaac Rojas, led a revolt from Crdoba. Taking power in a coup three days later, which they
named Revolucin Libertadora(the "Liberating Revolution"). Pern barely escaped with his life,
leaving Nelly Rivas behind,[75] and fleeing on the gunboatARP Paraguay provided by Paraguayan
leader Alfredo Stroessner, up the Paran River.
At that point Argentina was more politically polarized than it had been since 1880. The landowning
elites and other conservatives pointed to an exchange rate that had rocketed from 4 to 30 pesos per
dollar and consumer prices that had risen nearly fivefold.[4][28] Employers and moderates generally
agreed, qualifying that with the fact the economy had grown by over 40% (the best showing since
the 1920s).[76] The underprivileged and humanitarians looked back upon the era as one in which real
wages grew by over a third and better working conditions arrived alongside benefits like pensions,
health care, paid vacations and the construction of record numbers of needed schools, hospitals,
works of infrastructure and housing.[7]

Exile (19551973)[edit]

The new leader, GeneralEduardo Lonardi, waves in a 1955 newsmagazine cover. His gradualist approach to
"de-Pernization" led to his prompt ousting.
First meeting of the Junta's Civilian Advisory Board, 1955. Despite great pressure to the contrary, the board
recommended that most of Pern's social reforms be kept in place.

The new military regime went to great lengths to destroy both the President's and Eva Pern's
reputation, putting up public exhibits of what they maintained was the Perns' scandalously
sumptuous taste for antiques, jewelry, roadsters, yachts and other luxuries. They also accused other
Peronist leaders of corruption; but, ultimately, though many were prosecuted, none were convicted.
[citation needed]
The junta's first leader, Eduardo Lonardi, appointed a Civilian Advisory Board. However, its
preference for a gradual approach to de-Pernization helped lead to Lonardi's ousting, though most
of the board's recommendations stood the new president's scrutiny.
Lonardi's replacement, Lieutenant-General Pedro Aramburu, outlawed the mere mention of Juan or
Eva Pern's names underDecree Law 4161/56. Throughout Argentina, Peronism and the very
display of Peronist mementos was banned. Partly in response to these and other excesses,
Peronists and moderates in the army organized a counter-coup against Aramburu, in June 1956.
Possessing an efficient intelligence network, however, Aramburu foiled the plan, having the plot's
leader, General Juan Jos Valle, and 26 others executed. Aramburu turned to similarly drastic
means in trying to rid the country of the spectre of the Perns, themselves. Eva Pern's cadaver was
removed from its display at CGT headquarters and ordered hidden under another name in a modest
grave in Milan, Italy. Pern himself, for the time residing in Caracas, Venezuela at the kindness of ill-
fated President Marcos Prez Jimnez, suffered a number of attempted kidnappings and
assassinations ordered by Aramburu.[77]
Continuing to exert considerable direct influence over Argentine politics despite the ongoing ban of
Peronism or the Justicialist Partyas Argentina geared for the 1958 elections, Pern instructed his
supporters to cast their ballots for the moderate Arturo Frondizi, a splinter candidate within the
Peronists' largest opposition party, the Radical Civic Union (UCR). Frondizi went on to defeat the
better-known (but, more anti-Peronist) UCR leader, Ricardo Balbn. Pern backed a "Popular Union"
(UP) in 1962, and when its candidate for governor of Buenos Aires Province (Andrs Framini) was
elected, Frondizi was forced to resign by the military. Unable to secure a new alliance, Pern
advised his followers to cast blank ballots in the 1963 elections, demonstrating direct control over
one fifth of the electorate.[14]
Pern's stay in Venezuela had been cut short by the 1958 ousting of General Prez Jimnez. In
Panama, he met the nightclub singer Mara Estela Martnez (known as "Isabel"). Eventually settling
in Madrid, Spain under the protection ofFrancisco Franco, he married Isabel in 1961 and was
admitted back into the Catholic Church in 1963. Following a failed December 1964 attempt to return
to Buenos Aires, he sent his wife to Argentina in 1965, to meet political dissidents and advance
Pern's policy of confrontation and electoral boycotts. She organized a meeting in the house of
Bernardo Alberte, Pern's delegate and sponsor of various left-wing Peronist movements such as
the CGT de los Argentinos (CGTA), an offshoot of the umbrella CGT union. During Isabel's visit,
adviser Ral Lastiri introduced her to his father-in-law, Jos Lpez Rega. A policeman with an
interest in the occult, he won Isabel's trust through their common dislike of Jorge Antonio, a
prominent Argentine industrialist and the Peronist movement's main financial backer during their
perilous 1960s.[78]Accompanying her to Spain, Lpez Rega worked for Pern's security before
becoming the couple's personal secretary. A return of the Popular Union (UP) in 1965 and their
victories in congressional elections that year helped lead to the overthrow of the moderate
President Arturo Illia, and to the return of dictatorship.[14]
Pern became increasingly unable to control the CGT, itself. Though he had the support of its
Secretary General, Jos Alonso, others in the union favored distancing the CGT from the exiled
leader. Chief among them was Steel and Metalworkers Union head Augusto Vandor. Vandor
challenged Pern from 1965 to 1968 by defying Pern's call for an electoral boycott (leading the UP
to victories in the 1965 elections), and with mottos such as "Peronism without Pern" and "to save
Pern, one has to be against Pern." Dictator Juan Carlos Ongana's continued repression of labor
demands, however, helped lead to Vandor's rapproachment with Perna development cut short by
Vandor's as-yet unsolved 1969 murder. Labor agitation increased; the CGTA, in particular, organized
opposition to the dictatorship between 1968 and 1972, and it would have an important role in the
MayJune 1969 Cordobazo insurrection.[13]

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

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

Pern began courting the far left during Ongana's dictatorship. In his book La Hora de los
Pueblos (1968), Pern enunciated the main principles of his purported new Tricontinental political
vision:
Mao is at the head of Asia, Nasser of Africa, De Gaulle of the old Europe and Castro of Latin
America.[79]

Juan Pern, La Hora de los Pueblos

He supported the more militant unions and maintained close links with the Montoneros, a far-left
Catholic Peronist group. On 1 June 1970, the Montoneros kidnapped and assassinated former anti-
Peronist President Pedro Aramburu in retaliation for the June 1956 mass execution of a Peronist
uprising against the junta. In 1971, he sent two letters to the film director Octavio Getino, one
congratulating him for his work with Fernando Solanas and Gerardo Vallejo, in the Grupo Cine
Liberacin, and another concerning two film documentaries, La Revolucin
Justicialista and Actualizacin poltica y doctrinaria.[80]
He also cultivated ties with conservatives and the far right. He supported the leader of the
conservative wing of the UCR, his erstwhile prisoner Ricardo Balbn, against competition from within
the UCR itself. Members of the right-wing Tacuara Nationalist Movement, considered the first
Argentine guerrilla group, also turned towards him. Founded in the early 1960s, the Tacuaras were a
fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-conformist group founded on the model of Primo de Rivera's Falange,
and at first strongly opposed Peronism. However, they split after the 1959 Cuban Revolution into
three groups: the one most opposed to the Peronist alliance, led by Catholic priest Julio Meinvielle,
retained the original hard-line stance; the New Argentina Movement (MNA), headed by Dardo Cabo,
was founded on 9 June 1961, to commemorate General Valle's Peronist uprising on the same date
in 1956, and became the precursor to all modern Catholic nationalist groups in Argentina; and the
Revolutionary Nationalist Tacuara Movement (MNRT), formed by Joe Baxter and Jos Luis Nell, who
joined Peronism believing in its capacity for revolution, and without forsaking nationalism, broke from
the Church and abandoned anti-Semitism. Baxter's MNRT became progressively Marxist, and many
of the Montoneros and of the ERP's leaders came from this group.[13]
Following Ongana's replacement in June 1970, General Roberto M. Levingston proposed the
replacement of Argentina's myriad political parties with "four or five" (vetted by the Revolucin
Argentina regime). This attempt to govern indefinitely against the will of the different political parties
united Peronists and their opposition in a joint declaration of 11 November 1970, billed as la Hora
del Pueblo (The Hour of the People), which called for free and immediate democratic elections to put
an end to the political crisis. The declaration was signed by the Radical Civic Union (UCRP),
the Justicialist Party (Peronist Party), the Argentine Socialist Party (PSA), the Democratic
Progressive Party (PCP) and the Partido Bloquista (PB).[14]
The opposition's call for elections led to Levingston's replacement by General Alejandro Lanusse, in
March 1971. Faced with strong opposition and social conflicts, General Lanusse declared his
intention to restore constitutional democracy by 1973, though without Peronist participation. Lanusse
proposed the Gran Acuerdo Nacional (Great National Agreement) in July 1971, which was to find an
honorable exit for the military junta without allowing Peronism to participate in the election. The
proposal was rejected by Pern, who formed the FRECILINA alliance (Frente Cvico de Liberacin
Nacional, Civic Front of National Liberation), headed by his new delegate Hctor Jos Cmpora (a
member of the Peronist Left). The alliance gathered his Justicialist Party and the Integration and
Development Movement(MID), headed by Arturo Frondizi. FRECILINA pressed for free and
unrestricted elections, which ultimately took place in March 1973.
Che Guevara and Pern[edit]
Che Guevara and Pern were sympathetic to each other. Pacho O'Donnell states that Che
Guevara as Cuban minister attempted to arrange for the return of Pern to Argentina in the 1960s
and sent financial support for that end. Pern however disapproved of Guevara's advocacy
of guerrilla warfare as antiquated.[81] In Madrid, Pern and Guevara met twice.[82] These meetings, as
the meetings Pern held with other leftists in Madrid (such as Salvador Allende), were arranged with
great secrecy to avoid complaints or expulsion from Francoist Spain.[82] According to Enrique Pavn
Pereyra who was present at the second meeting between Guevara and Pern in Madrid, Pern
would have discouraged and warned Guevara of his guerrilla plans in Bolivia.[81]
...you will not survive in Bolivia. Suspend that plan. Search for alternatives. [...] Do not suicide.

Juan Pern to Che Guevara[81]

Enrique Pavn Pereyra was only present in the first part of the meeting then he served mate so that
Pern and Guevara could drink together and left the meeting room to provide them with privacy.
Pavn Pereyra speculate about the conversation that followed in his absence: Pern would have
then explained to Guevara that he could not compromise support for his planned operations, but that
"when" Guevara "moved activities" to Argentina he would provide Peronist support. [82] After the
encounter Pern commented a friend in a letter about the visit of Guevara:
...an immature utopian but one of us I am happy for it to be so because he is giving the yankees a
real headache.

Juan Pern on Che Guevara[81]

Pern's third term (19731974)[edit]

Pern hosts the head of the opposition UCR, Ricardo Balbn, at his home in preparations for the 1973
campaign.

General elections were held on 11 March 1973. Pern was banned from running, but a stand-in,
Dr. Hctor Cmpora, a left-wing Peronist and his personal representative, won the election and took
office on 25 May. On 20 June 1973, Pern returned from Spain to end his 18-year exile. According
to Pgina 12 newspaper, Licio Gelli, headmaster of Propaganda Due, had provided an Alitaliaplane
to return Pern to his native country.[83] Gelli was part of a committee supporting Pern, along
with Carlos Sal Menem (future President of Argentina, 19891999).[83] The former Italian
Premier Giulio Andreotti recalled an encounter between Pern, his wife Isabel Martnez and Gelli,
saying that Pern knelt before Licio Gelli to salute him. [83]
On the day of Pern's return, a crowd of left-wing Peronists (estimated at 3.5 million) gathered at
the Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires to welcome him. Pern was accompanied by Cmpora, whose
first measures were to grant amnesty to all political prisoners and re-establish relations with Cuba,
helping Fidel Castro break the United States embargo against Cuba. This, along with his social
policies, had earned him the opposition of right-wing Peronists, including the trade-unionist
bureaucracy.
Pern's stand-in, Hctor Cmpora, votes in the 1973 elections. Pern nominated Cmpora to placate the Left,
but their support for Pern waned after the leader made them guilty by association for the growing wave of
violence.

Camouflaged snipers opened fire on the crowd at the airport. The left-wing Peronist Youth
Organization and the Montoneros had been trapped. At least 13 people were killed and 365 injured
in this episode, which became known as the Ezeiza massacre.[84]
Cmpora and Vice President Vicente Solano Lima resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new
elections, this time with Pern's participation as the Justicialist Party nominee. Argentina faced
mounting political instability, and Pern was viewed by many as the country's only hope for
prosperity and safety. UCR leader Ricardo Balbn and Pern contemplated a Peronist-Radical joint
government, but opposition in both parties made this impossible. Besides opposition among
Peronists, Ricardo Balbn had to consider opposition within the UCR itself, led byRal Alfonsn, a
leader among the UCR's center-left. Pern received 62% of the vote, returning him to the
presidency. He began his third term on 12 October 1973, with Isabel, his wife, as Vice President.
Upon Cmpora's inaugural, Pern had him appoint a trusted policy adviser to the critical Economy
Ministry, Jos Ber Gelbard. Inheriting an economy that had doubled in output since 1955 with little
indebtedness and only modest new foreign investment, inflation had become a fixture in daily life
and was worsening: consumer prices rose by 80% in the year to May 1973 (triple the long-term
average, up to then). Making this a policy priority, Ber Gelbard crafted a "social pact" in hopes of
finding a happy median between the needs of management and labor. Providing a framework for
negotiating price controls, guidelines for collective bargaining and a package of subsidies and
credits, the pact was promptly signed by the CGT (then the largest labor union in South America)
and management (represented by Julio Broner and the CGE). The measure was largely successful,
initially: inflation slowed to 12% and real wages rose by over 20% during the first year. GDP growth
accelerated from 3% in 1972 to over 6% in 1974. The plan also envisaged the paydown of
Argentina's growing public external debt, then around US$8 billion, within four years.
Jos Lpez Rega, Pern's personal secretary, proved a detrimental influence over the aging leader, leveraging
this for corruption and revenge.

The improving economic situation encouraged Pern to pursue interventionist social and economic
policies similar to those he carried out in the Forties: nationalizing banks and various industries,
subsidizing native businesses and consumers, regulating and taxing the agricultural sector, reviving
the IAPI, placing restrictions on foreign investment, [9] and funding a number of social welfare
programs.[85]In addition, new rights for workers were introduced. [86]
The 1973 oil shock, however, forced Ber Gelbard to rethink the Central Bank's projected reserves
and, accordingly, undid planned reductions in stubborn budget deficits, then around US$2 billion a
year (4% of GDP). Increasingly frequent collective bargainingagreements in excess of Social Pact
wage guidelines and a resurgence in inflation led to growing strain on the viability of the plan by mid-
1974, however.[14]
Pern's third term was also marked by an escalating conflict between the Peronist left- and right-
wing factions. This turmoil was fueled primarily by calls for repression against the left on the part of
leading CGT figures, a growing segment of the armed forces (particularly the navy) and right-wing
radicals within his own party, notably Pern's most fascist adviser, Jos Lpez Rega. Lpez Rega,
appointed Minister of Social Welfare, was in practice given power far beyond his purview, soon
controlling up to 30 percent of the federal budget.[14] Diverting increasing funds, he formed the Triple
A, a death squad that soon began targeting not only the violent left; but moderate opposition, as
well.[78] The Montoneros became marginalized in the Peronist movement and were mocked by Pern
himself after the Ezeiza massacre. In his speech to the governors on 2 August 1973, Pern openly
criticized radical Argentine youth for a lack of political maturity.

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

Pern's funeral cortge along the Avenida de Mayo.

The rift between Pern and the far left became irreconcilable following 25 September 1973, murder
of Jos Ignacio Rucci, the moderately conservative Secretary General of CGT.[78] Rucci was killed in
a commando ambush in front of his residence. His murder was long attributed to the Montoneros
(whose record of violence was well-established by then), but it is arguably Argentina's most
prominent unsolved mystery.[87]
Enraged, Pern enlisted Lpez Rega to target left-wing opponents. Shortly after Pern's attack on
left-wing Peronism, the Montoneros went underground.
Another guerrilla group, the Guevarist ERP, also opposed the Peronist right-wing. They started
engaging in armed struggle, assaulting an important Army barracks in Azul, Buenos Aires
Province on 19 January, and creating a foco (insurrection) in Tucumn, a historically
underdeveloped province in Argentina's largely rural northwest.[78] In May 1973 the ERP claimed to
have extorted $1 million in goods from the Ford Motor Company, after murdering one executive and
wounding another.[88] Five months after the payment, the guerrillas killed another Ford executive and
his three bodyguards. Only after Ford threatened to close down their operation in Argentina
altogether, did Peron agree to have his army protect the plant. [88]
Pern's failing health complicated matters. He suffered from an enlarged prostate and heart disease,
and by at least one account, he may have been senile by the time he was sworn in for his third term.
His wife frequently had to take over as Acting President over the course of the next year.[89]
Pern maintained a full schedule of policy meetings with both government officials and chief base of
support, the CGT. He also presided over the inaugural of the Atucha I Nuclear Power Plant (Latin
America's first) in April; the reactor, begun while he was in exile, was the fruition of work started in
the 1950s by the National Atomic Energy Commission, his landmark bureau. His diminishing support
from the far left (which believed Pern had come under the control of the right-
wing entorno (entourage) led by Lpez Rega, UOM head Lorenzo Miguel, and Pern's own wife)
turned to open enmity following rallies on the Plaza de Mayo on 1 May and 12 June in which the
president condemned their demands and increasingly violent activities. [1]
Pern was reunited with another friend from the 1950s Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner
on 16 June to sign the bilateral treaty that broke ground on Yacyret Hydroelectric Dam (the world's
second-largest). Pern returned to Buenos Aires with clear signs of pneumonia and, on 28 June, he
suffered a series of heart attacks. The vice-president, on a trade mission in Europe, returned
urgently, secretly sworn in on an interim basis on 29 June. Following a promising day the official
presidential residence of Quinta de Olivos in the Buenos Aires suburb of Olivos, Juan Pern suffered
a final attack on Monday, 1 July 1974 and died at 13:15. He was 78 years old. [1]
Pern's corpse was first transported by hearse to Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral for a funeral
mass the next day. Afterwards the body, dressed in full military uniform, was taken to the Palace of
the National Congress, where it lay in state over the next 46 hours, during which more than 130,000
people filed past the coffin. Finally, at 09:30 on a rainy Thursday, 4 July the funeral procession
commenced. Pern's Argentine flag-covered casket was placed on a limber towed by a small army
truck (escorted by cavalry and a large motorcade of motorcycles and a few armored vehicles)
through the capital's streets back to Olivos.[90] At least one million people turned out for Pern's
funeral, some of whom threw flowers at the casket and chanted, "Pern! Pern! Pern!" as it
passed by. Along the 10-mile route from the Palace to Olivos, hundreds of armed soldiers lining it
were assigned to restrain the crowd. As many as 2,000 foreign journalists covered the ceremony.
The funeral cortege reached its final destination two and a half hours later. There, the coffin was
greeted by a 21-gun salute. Many international heads of state offered condolences to Argentina
following the demise of President Pern.[91] Three days of official mourning were declared thereafter.
[90]
Pern had recommended that his wife, Isabel, rely on Balbn for support, and at the president's
burial Balbn uttered an historic phrase: "The old adversary bids farewell to a friend." [1]
Isabel Pern succeeded her husband to the presidency, but proved incapable of managing the
country's political and economic problems, including the left-wing insurgency and the reactions of the
extreme right.[89] Ignoring her late husband's advice, Isabel gave Balbn no role in her new
government, instead granting broad powers to Lpez Rega, who started a "dirty war" against political
opponents.
Isabel Pern's term ended abruptly on 24 March 1976, during a military coup d'tat. A military junta,
headed by General Jorge Videla, took control of the country, establishing the self-styled National
Reorganization Process. The junta ramped up the "dirty war", combining widespread persecution of
political dissidents with state terrorism. The death toll rose to thousands (at least 9,000, with human
rights organizations claiming it was closer to 30,000). Many of these were "the disappeared"
(desaparecidos), people kidnapped and executed without trial or record.
Relationship with Allende and Pinochet[edit]
Salvador Allende, as member of parliament, had actively rejected Pern's attempts of establishing
cooperation between Chile and Argentina during the 1940s and 1950s. [92] Allende received the
election of Hctor Cmpora, who had previously lived in exile in Chile, as good news. Allende sent
in Aniceto Rodrguez to Buenos Aires to work on an alliance between the Socialist Party of Chile and
the Justicialism. Later Allende assisted to the presidential inauguration of Campora. All of this was
seen with good eyes by Pern who came to refer to Allende as "compaero". However Pern also
used Allende as a warning example for the most radical of his followers. In September just a few
days before the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat he addressed the Tendencia Revolucionaria:
If you want to do as Allende, then look how it goes for Allende. One has to be calm.[92]

Juan Pern

Pern condemned the coup as a "fatality for the continent" stating that the coup leader Augusto
Pinochet represented interests "well known" to him. He praised Allende for his "valiant attitude"
of committing suicide. He took note of the role of the United States in instigating the coup by
recalling his familiarity with coup-making processes.[92]
On 14 May 1974 Pern received Augusto Pinochet at the Morn Airbase. Pinochet was heading to
meet Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay so the encounter at Argentina was technically a stop over.
Pinochet and Pern are both reported to have felt uncomfortable during the meeting. Pern
expressed his wishes to settle theBeagle conflict and Pinochet his concerns about Chilean exiles in
Argentina near the frontier with Chile. Pern would have conceded on moving these exiles from the
frontiers to eastern Argentina, but he warned "Pern takes his time, but accomplishes" (Pern tarda,
pero cumple). Pern justified his meeting with Pinochet stating that it was important to keep good
relations with Chile under all circumstances and with whoever might be in government. [92]

Mausoleum and legacy[edit]

See also: Hands of Pern

Pern Street in midtown Buenos Aires, one of numerous streets and avenues named in his honor when
democracy returned to Argentina in 1983.
Pern was buried in La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. On 10 June 1987, his tomb was
desecrated, and his hands and some personal effects, including his sword, were stolen. [93] Pern's
hands were cut off with a chainsaw. A ransom letter asking for US$8 million was sent to some
Peronist members of Congress. This profanation was a ritualistic act to condemn Pern's spirit to
eternal unrest, according to journalists David Cox and Damian Nabot in their book Second Death,
who connected it to Licio Gelli and military officers involved during Argentina's Dirty War.[94] The
bizarre incident remains unresolved.[95]
On 17 October 2006, his body was moved to a mausoleum at his former summer residence, rebuilt
as a museum, in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Vicente. A few people were injured in incidents as
Peronist trade unions fought over access to the ceremony, although police were able to contain the
violence enough for the procession to complete its route to the mausoleum. The relocation of
Pern's body offered his self-proclaimed illegitimate daughter, Martha Holgado, the opportunity to
obtain a DNA sample from his corpse. She had attempted to have this DNA analysis performed for
15 years, and the test in November 2006 ultimately proved she was not his daughter.[96][97] Holgado
died of liver cancer on 7 June 2007. Before her death, she vowed to continue the legal battle to
prove she was Peron's biological child.
His namesake Peronist movement, to the present day a struggle of ideologically diverse and
competing interests, remains the central political development of Argentina since 1945.

Footnotes[edit]
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2. Jump up^ Colimodio, Roberto (20 September 2011). "Borges y

Pern: no los uni el amor pero s la sangre" (in Spanish). Clarn.
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3. Jump up^ Cox, David (2008). Dirty Secrets, Dirty War: Buenos Aires,
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5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Rock, David (1993). Authoritarian Argentina.

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8. Jump up^ (Baily,84; Lpez, 401)[clarification needed]

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10. ^ Jump up to:a b McGuire, James W. Peronism without Peron: Unions,

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12. Jump up^ Keen, Benjamin (2000). A History of Latin America (6 ed.).
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13. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Crassweller, David (1987). Pern and the

Enigmas of Argentina. W.W. Norton and Company. p. 221. ISBN 0-
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desconcierto. Buenos Aires: Emec.

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Carrillo". Juventudperonista.obolog.com. 10 June 2009. Retrieved 27
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educacin". Militanciaperonistajoven.blogspot.com. 26 February 2004.
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poca".Lucheyvuelve.com.ar. Retrieved 27 January 2011.

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38. Jump up^ solomensajeronline@hotmail.com. "Eva Pern

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48. Jump up^ Pigna, Felipe (2008). Los mitos de la historia argentina 4.
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fascismo italiano llev a las organizaciones populares a una
participacin efectiva en la vida nacional, de la cual haba estado
siempre apartado el pueblo. Hasta la ascensin de Mussolini al poder,
la nacin iba por un lado y el trabajador por otro, y ste ltimo no
tena ninguna participacin en aquella. [...] En alemania ocurra
exactamente el mismo fenmeno, o sea, un estado organizado para
una comunidad perfectamente ordenada, para un pueblo
perfectamente ordenado tambin; una comunidad donde el estado
era el instrumento de ese pueblo, cuya representacin era, a mi juicio,
efectiva. Pens que tal debera ser la forma poltica del futuro, es
decir, la verdadera democracia popular, la verdadera democracia
social.

49. ^ Jump up to:a b c Pigna, Felipe (2008). Los mitos de la historia

argentina 4. Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta. pp. 2829. ISBN 978-
950-49-1980-3.

50. Jump up^ The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron's
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73. Jump up^ "Canon 2227 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law". 1917.

74. Jump up^ Bosca, Roberto. "Una excomunin que no se cumpli". La

Nacin. Retrieved29 July 2013.

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News. 1 October 1955.

76. Jump up^ Statistical Abstract of Latin America. UCLA Press.

77. Jump up^ "La serie sobre Eva Pern, en una nica entrega". La
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78. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Lewis, Paul (2002). Guerrillas and Generals.

Greenwood Publishing.

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Carmen (2008). "D'une rive l'autre".Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos,
Materiales de seminarios. (Latin-Americanist Review published by
the EHESS),"D'une rive l'autre" (in French). 15 June 2008.
Retrieved 28 June 2008.

80. Jump up^ Ranzani, Oscar (20 October 2004). "La revolucin es un
sueo eterno".Pagina 12 (in Spanish).

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Che". Pgina/12 (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 May 2015.

82. ^ Jump up to:a b c O'Donnell, Pacho (6 September 2007). "Los

encuentros del Che con Pern". La Nacin (in Spanish). Retrieved 23
May 2015.

83. ^ Jump up to:a b c Viau, Susana; Tagliaferro, Eduardo (14 December

1998). "Carlos Bartffeld, Mason y Amigo de Massera, Fue Embajador
en Yugoslavia Cuando Se Vendieron Armas a Croacia En el mismo
barco". Pagina 12 (in Spanish).

84. Jump up^ Verbitsky, Horacio (1985). "Ezeiza". El Ortiba (in Spanish).
Buenos Aires: Contrapunto.

85. Jump up^ Lewis, Daniel K. A History of Argentina.

86. Jump up^ D'Abate, Juan Carlos (1983). "Trade Unions and
Peronism". In Turner, Frederick; Miguens, Jose Enrique. Juan Peron
and the Reshaping of Argentina. University of Pittsburgh Press.
p. 62. ISBN 9780822976363.

87. Jump up^ Moores, Lucio Fernndez (8 October 2008). "Analizan una
indemnizacion que ya cobro la familia Rucci". El Pais (in Spanish).
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88. ^ Jump up to:a b Ghosh, S. K. (1995). Terrorism, World under Siege.

Ashish Publications. p. 24.

89. ^ Jump up to:a b Buckman, Robert T. (2007). The World Today. Latin
America 2007. Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: Stryker-Post
Publications. ISBN 978-1-887985-84-0.

90. ^ Jump up to:a b http://www.itnsource.com/fr/specials/reuters-

digitisation/shotlist/RTV/1974/07/05/BGY509120100/

91. Jump up^ "The death of Juan Domingo Pern" (in Spanish). Archived
from the originalon 25 October 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
 92. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Ortega, Jos (2014). "Pern y
Chile" (PDF). Encucijada Americana.

93. Jump up^ "Argentine Strongman's corpse disturbed

again". International Herald Tribune. 14 October 2006. Archived
from the original on 11 December 2006.[not in citation given]

94. Jump up^ Nabot, Damian, and Cox, David. Second Death: Licio Gelli,
The P2 Masonic Lodge and The Plot to Destroy Juan Peron.
Amazon.com, 2014.

95. Jump up^ "Evita in wonderland: Pulqui and the workshop of

underdevelopment".CineAction. Summer 2009. Archived from the
original on 25 August 2009.

96. Jump up^ "Body of Argentina's Pern to move to $1.1 million

crypt". CNN. 17 October 2006. Archived from the original on 24
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97. Jump up^ "Violence mars reburial of Pern". BBC News. 17 October
2006.

Further reading[edit]
David Cox and Damian Nabot, "Second Death: Licio Gelli, The P2
Masonic Lodge and The Plot to Destroy Juan Peron." (Amazon,
2014)

Gabriele Casula (2004) "Dove naci Pern? un enigma sardo nella

storia dell'Argentina"[1] [2]

Guareschi, Roberto (5 November 2005). "Not quite the Evita of

Argentine legend". New Straits Times, p. 21.

Hugo Gambini (1999). Historia del peronismo, Editorial Planeta.

F2849 .G325 1999

Nudelman, Santiago (Buenos Aires, 1960; Chiefly draft resolutions

and declarations presented by Nudelman as a member of the
Cmara de Diputados of the Argentine Republic during the Pern
administration)

Martnez, Toms Eloy. La Novela de Pern. Vintage Books, 1997.

Page, Joseph. Pern: a biography (Random House 1983)

External links[edit]

Argentina portal
 Wikimedia Commons has
media related to:

Juan Pern (category)

Pern y el peronismo: un ensayo bibliogrfico by Mariano Ben

Plotkin. (Spanish)

Webpage of author Uki Goi with extensive documentation on

Pern's involvement in harboring Nazi fugitives

Biography of Juan Peron a brief biography on About.com

Casahistoria pages on Pern Les Fearns site, also links to Eva

Pern pages

The Twenty Truths of the Peronist Movement (1940s): The

Justicialist movement's core tenets at the Wayback
Machine(archived 10 April 2004)

Juan Domingo Pern Argentine Presidential Messages Well

indexed dating from 1946 onwards. The actual documents are
shown as photocopied images. Note: Downloading can be slow.
University of Texas.

Political offices

Secretary of Labour and Social Security Succeeded by

New office
19431945 Domingo Mercante

Preceded by Minister of War Succeeded by

Pedro Pablo Ramrez 19441945 Eduardo valos

Vice President of Argentina Succeeded by

19441945 Juan Pistarini
Preceded by
Edelmiro Farrell President of Argentina
Succeeded by
First and Second Terms
Eduardo Lonardi
19461955

President of Argentina
Preceded by Succeeded by
Third Term
Ral Lastiri Isabel Martnez de Pern
19731974

[show]
 Juan Domingo Pern

[show]

Heads of state of Argentina

[show]

Eva Pern

[show]

Post-war flight of Axis fugitives

WorldCat Identities

VIAF: 73866687

LCCN: n50083258

ISNI: 0000 0003 6864 4200

l GND: 118739999

SUDOC: 02840937X

BNF: cb120249814 (data)

NARA: 10596956

BNE: XX1059659
Categories:
Juan Pern
1895 births
1974 deaths
Presidents of Argentina
20th-century Argentine politicians
Argentine generals
Argentine people of Italian descent
Argentine people of Sardinian descent
 Argentine people of Spanish descent
Justicialist Party politicians
Knights of Malta
Leaders ousted by a coup
People excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church
Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin
People from Buenos Aires Province
Vice Presidents of Argentina
Argentine exiles
Colegio Militar de la Nacin alumni
Guerrilla warfare theorists
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Republic of Germany
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