Perón, Juan

Perón, Juan

▪ president of Argentina
Introduction
in full  Juan Domingo Perón  
born Oct. 8, 1895, Lobos, Buenos Aires provincia, Argentina
died July 1, 1974, Buenos Aires
 army colonel who became president of Argentina (1946–52, 1952–55, 1973–74) and was founder and leader of the Peronist movement.

Early life and career
      Perón in his career was in many ways typical of the upwardly mobile, lower-middle-class youth of Argentina. He entered military school at 16 and made somewhat better than average progress through the officer ranks. A strongly built six-foot-tall youth, Perón became the champion fencer of the army and a fine skier and boxer. He served in Chile as a military attaché and travelled to Italy to observe the rise of the Fascists and Nazis during 1938–40. He had a bent for history and political philosophy and published in those fields.

      Perón returned to Argentina in 1941, used his acquired knowledge to achieve the rank of colonel, and joined the United Officers Group (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos; GOU), a secret military lodge that engineered the 1943 coup that overthrew the ineffective civilian government of Argentina. The military regimes of the following three years came increasingly under the influence of Perón, who had shrewdly requested for himself only the minor post of secretary of labour and social welfare. In 1944, however, as a protégé of Pres. Gen. Edelmiro J. Farrell (1944–46), Perón became minister of war and then vice president. Clearly he was bidding for undisputed power, based on the support of the underprivileged labourers (the descamisados (descamisado), or “shirtless ones”) and on his popularity and authority in the army.

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

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

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

      If Perón did not structurally revolutionize Argentina, he did reshape the country, bringing needed benefits to industrial workers in the form of wage increases and fringe benefits. He nationalized the railroads and other utilities and financed public works on a large scale. The funds for those costly innovations—and for the graft that early began to corrode his regime—came from the foreign exchange accumulated by Argentine exports during World War II and from the profits of the state agency that set the prices for agricultural products. Perón dictated the political life of the country by his command of the armed forces. He severely restricted and in some areas eliminated constitutional liberties, and in 1949 he arranged a convention to write a new constitution that would permit his reelection.

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas F. McGann Ed.

Additional Reading
Robert J. Alexander, Juan Domingo Perón (1979); and Joseph A. Page, Perón (1983), are biographies. Analyses of the development of Peronism and its effect on Argentina can be found in Robert D. Crassweller, Perón and the Enigmas of Argentina (1987); Eduardo Crawley, A House Divided: Argentina, 1880–1980 (1984); Robert A. Potash, The Army & Politics in Argentina, 1945–1962 (1980); and Frederick C. Turner and José Enrique Miguens (eds.), Juan Perón and the Reshaping of Argentina (1983).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Perón, Juan (Domingo) — born Oct. 8, 1895, Buenos Aires province, Arg. died July 1, 1974, Buenos Aires President of Argentina (1946–55, 1973–74). After attending military school, he served in the 1930s in Italy, where he observed the successes of the Fascists. In 1943… …   Universalium

  • Perón, Juan Domingo — ► (1895 1974) Militar y político argentino. Líder del Grupo de Oficiales Unidos que dirigió el golpe de Estado de junio de 1943. Fue presidente de la República en 1946 58, pero fue derrocado por los militares en 1955. Se exilió en España y asumió …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Perón, Juan — (1895–1974)    President of Argentina (1946–1955, 1973–1974). Born Juan Domingo Perón Sosa on 8 October 1895 in Lobos, a small town in the province of Buenos Aires. His family was rural middle class. In 1913 he graduated from the Colegio Militar… …   Historical Dictionary of the “Dirty Wars”

  • Perón,Juan Domingo — Pe·rón (pə rōnʹ, pĕ ), Juan Domingo. 1895 1974. Argentine soldier and president (1946 1955 and 1973 1974). His second wife, (Maria) Eva Duarte de Perón (1919 1952), known as “Evita,” was popular for her charitable works. Perón was succeeded in… …   Universalium

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  • Juan Peron — Juan Perón Pour les articles homonymes, voir Perón. Juan Perón en 1946. Juan Domingo Perón ( …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Juan Duarte — Juan Duarte, Juancito Juan Ramón Duarte, Juancito (n. Los Toldos, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1914 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 9 de abril de 1953) fue un político argentino, hermano mayor de Eva Perón que se desempeñó como secretario privado del… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Perón — Peron oder Perón ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Andrea Peron (* 1971), italienischer Radrennfahrer Carlos Perón (* 1952), schweizerischer Musiker Eva Perón (1919 1952), Primera Dama von Argentinien François Péron (1774 1810),… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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