statement.

Troops were withdrawn from the polling stations late May 18, and the vote counting resumed. Later that night, he went on television to promise that the results of the elections would be respected. Carter went ahead with his tough statement anyway, to make sure that the Dominican generals didn't develop any ideas of their own. The administration knew that despite Balaguer's concession, military leaders, as one official put it, were "still conspiring" and telling American diplomats that Guzman was a dangerous leftist whose PRD party was infiltrated by Communists. Though the American press had been initially describing Guzman as a "leftist," an experienced US diplomat described him as a "Teddy Kennedy type." Balaguer began freely giving vent to his bitterness against the US. Pro-government newspapers spoke of "US intervention," and Balaguer personally made this point in a conversation with the mayor of Miami, Maurice Ferr^. What Carter did in the Dominican Republic does, of course, raise the question of a US interference in Dominican domestic affairs. But American officials take the view that the US has the sovereign right to refuse "support" to governments of

whose policies it disapproves. The Carter policy, which isn't always consistent, is that aid should be given principally to democratic regimes. Commendable as the rescue of Dominican democracy appears to be, particularly in light of the past US record there. Carter is open to criticism for releasing economic aid funds to Nicaragua, where the opposition is engaged in a bloody battle with the Somoza dictatorship, and to Chile, where President Augusto Pinochet runs a very repressive regime. The issue of aid to dictatorial countries remains highly controversial in the Carter administration. One view is that so-called "basic human needs" assistance should be maintained and that, in the long run, it encourages democracy. The controversy is not likely to be resolved soon, but Jimmy Carter's action in the Dominican crisis points to the kind of policies emerging in the administration. Antonio Guzman can thank Carter if, as expected, he is inaugurated as president of the Dominican Republic on August 16. And, ironically, Balaguer will be the first elected Dominican president ever to turn over the government to a freely elected successor.

Tad Szulc

Argentina Today, I

The Legacy of Peron

by Peter Witonski
The chaotic political disorder of Argentina today is part of the Peronist legacy, as well as the even older legacy of Argentine history. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento wrote in 1842,
The Argentine caudillo is a Mohammed who could change the dominant religion at will and set up a new one in its stead. He is omnipotent. His injustice is a misfortune for his victim, hul il is not considered an abuse, because the caudillo is permitted lo be unjust. Indeed, he must necessarily be unjust. He has always been so.

The late Juan Domingo Peron was the quintessential

Latin A m e r i c a n caudillo: el Lider, el jefe, el Compaflero. He

Peter Witonski is a historian and political scientist, and is the author of The Wisdom of Conservatism (Arlington

was, at various times, the champion of the cabecitas negras (the slum-dwellers of Buenos Aires) and the defender of their landlords; a socialist, a capitalist, a Marxist, a fascist; a devout Catholic, an ex-communicated Catholic; a revolutionary, a counterrevolutionary; a populist, a reactionaryamong other things. He borrowed his ideas freely from the other dictators and ideologues of his generation. In retrospect, he reminds one of an uneasy amalgam of Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Ataturk and Beatrice Webb. He was also a thief who robbed his countrymen blind; a sexual adventurer whose acts of dissipation included the seduction of 13year-old girls ("I'm not superstitious," he joked); and a brutal tyrant whodisposedof hisenemies with ruthless efficiency. "Peron is the air we breathe, Per6n is our sun, Per6n is life," his second wife, Evita, enthused in
h e r book. La Razon de mi Vida.
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House).
June 17, 1978

Tlie eciectic ideoiogy he dubbed justicinlismo was equaliy muitifarious. It appeaied, or seems to have appealed, to virtuaily every hue of the ideological spectrumfrom the fanatical Montonero guerrillas on the far left to the fascist gunmen of the Argentine AntiCommunist Alliance on the far right. His followers included an incongruous assortment of orthodox Communists, conservative businessmen, trade unionists, moderate churchmen and dedicated Nazis. He himself was never easy to pin down. "If I define, I exclude," he once declared. The bulk of his support came from the guarangos, those Argentines who were beyond the social pale, and he dubbed them the descamisndos, or shirtless ones. His mentor was Benito Mussolini. As a young officer he spent several years in Mussolini's Italy, where he received advanced military training, pondered the virtues of the corporate state and absorbed il Duce's histrionic style. Long after Mussolini had been defeated and disgraced, Per6n wrote, "Mussolini was the greatest man of our century, but he made some disastrous mistakes. I, who have had the advantage of witnessing what he did, shall follow in his footsteps without falling into his errors." He also admired Hitler, and in 1944, when it was clear to everyone else that Hitler was finished, Per6n advised his countrymen to "Turn your eyes to the triumphant Germany of Hitler."

JL erdn was a kind of genius, but, as some of his countrymen were beginning to discover, his genius was Under Isabelita things went from bad to worse. for public relations, not governing. He ruled his factious country by playing class against class: the oligarquin Peronism ceased to be a political movement and became against the descamisndos, rural Argentines against urban a kind of political gang, controlled by the sinister Jos^ Lopez Rega, a former traffic cop and fortune teller who Argentines, left-wing Peronists against right-wing Peronists. "Al pueblo, los tangos los cantos yo," was his way of flattered his way in the Peronist circle during the dictator's exile in Madrid. During Per6n's last days the saying, "I represent the general will because I call the nefarious Lopez Rega followed him like a shadow and people's tune." Ultimately this philosophy led to told him what to say. According to several witnesses, Per6n's downfall in 1955 and to the downfall of on the day of the dictator's death Lopez Rega tried to Argentina. In a revealing letter to his friend Carlos raise him from the dead by magic. Under the reign of Ibafiez, who became president of Chile in 1953, he came Lopez Rega and Isabelita the so-called Argentine Antias close as he has ever come to explaining what Communist Alliance, a goon squad financed by the justicialismo was all about. "Give to the people, especially Peronist movement, murdered opponents of the the workers, all that is possible," he wrote. "When it regime with brutal frequency. One criticized Mrs. seems to you that you are giving them too much, give Per6n and Lopez Rega only in polite terms; to become them more. You will see the results. Everyone will try too harsh meant certain physical injury. By the time to scare you with the spectre of an economic collapse. Isabelita was finally overthrown in 1976 by the But all of this is a lie. There is nothing more elastic than reluctant General Jorg^ Videla, the nation was on the the economy which everyone fears because no one verge of collapse. Inflation had risen to close to 300 understands it." percent, and the government had been printing money Such was the essence of Peronism. It is an absurdly so rapidly that its pressis and coin-stamping machines frivolous and idiotic philosophy, and yet Argentina had begun to break down from overwork. cannot seem to get it out of its system. When the aged Peron was returned to power in 1973, after 18 years of exile, even he seemed to recognize that the problems he had created in the 1950s with his Thermidorian nostrums could not be solved by rhetoric alone; but, at the same time, he knew that he could not survive if he turned too far from the path of "authentic" Per6nism.
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He found Argentina to be even more deeply divided than it had been at the time of his ouster. He abandoned some of his old methods and tried to enlist old opponents in the Armed Forces and the traditional political parties to aid him in unifying the country and bringing back some semblance of order to the shattered economy. But the dictator could not undo the damage he had done in the 1950s, and Argentina became even more divided after his return. Indeed, on the very day of his triumphal return to Buenos Aires in 1973, fighting broke out between the extreme factions of his own movement, leaving many people dead or wounded; and the undeclared civil war that had plagued Argentina since his overthrow became even more intense. The aging dictator was no longer the man he once had been. With his yellow skin and black-stained hair, he looked more like a badly embalmed corpse than his country's savior. El Lider had become, simply, el Viejo; the orator who had once mesmerized the descamisados could barely be heard by the crowds that massed around the Casa Rosada (the Argentine White House) for his last speeches. When he died in bed in 1974 it was an anticlimax. But before dying Per6n played one last joke on the people of Argentina: he arranged for his third wife, Isabel Martinez de Per6na woman of mysterious origins, possessing no education to speak of and no political experienceto become the country's vice president, and, under the constitution, his successor as president.

Argentine historians and political scientists have long sought to explain why their country, despite its vast wealth, failed to develop a successful political tradition like the United States, the country the founders of Argentina most admired. "We Argentines have succeeded at everything except politics," the
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bargaining. All of this made Perdn very popular; but his most important asset was his partnership with the woman who became his second wifeEva Duarte. Before meeting Per6n Evita was already an established performer in B movies, and the star of a weekly radio soap opera. She was attractive, determined and very ambitious. These were all qualities Per6n lacked. She also understood the common people, and possessed political instincts that no professional soldier could hope to have. She combined the qualities of a beautiful fashion model with those of a secular madonna and a Tammany Hall ward heeler. When Per6n became president she was only 25. She had risen from humble origins and had come to hate the old oligarquia, which she blamed for her childhood poverty. The poor were her constituency (it is said that she knew thousands of Buenos Aires slum-dwellers by name), and her power lay in her ability to remain in touch with them in a way that her husband could never hope to do. Quite often y the early 20th century visitors to Argentina were she would wander through the villas misMas of Buenos appalled by its failure to become a great nation. During Aires simply tossing small bundles of money at the poor the fabled ochentathe Argentine Gilded Age that who flocked to her side. She gave them a sense of began in the 1880sthe eyes of the world turned dignity even as her husband's policies lowered their toward Buenos Aires. The term "as rich as an already low standard of living; and the poor, for their Argentine"inspired by the ostentatious habits of the part, made Evita into a kind of goddess. When she died cattle-breeding oligarquiagained a wide currency in of cancer in 1952, at the age of 33, Peronism lost its Europe. But riches did not bring political stability to most powerful weapon. Argentina. On the contrary, as new industries flourished and agriculture boomed, the fabric of Argentine Under the influence of Evita, Per6n began an era of society began to disintegrate. The old Creole society, reform that revolutionized Argentine society. He gave dominated by the provincial caudillo and his loyal peones, women the vote, he gave the workers a 48-hour week began to collapse as the economy expanded. Massive and 13 months' pay for 12 months' work. He foreign investments, particularly by the British, established a minimum wage, he set up elaborate public modernized the frontier, and waves of immigrants, works projects, and he greatly expanded social services. primarily from Italy and Spain, transformed the At the same time, however, he totally ignored the texture of Argentine society. agricultural sector of the economy (which was then as now the backbone of Argentina) and, at great cost, he Perhaps because so much of the old 19th century nationalized industries simply because they belonged to Argentine culture was washed away by immigration his enemies. He also began a reign of terror that has and modernization, 20th century Argentines have been poisoned political debate in Argentina to the present rather cavalier in their treatment of existing inday. stitutions. For the Argentines, the military coup is a predictable occurrence, like elections in this country. Peron was finally ousted in 1955, but only after he They do not expect much from their caudillos, and had ruined the economy, tortured and imprisoned historically they have never received much from them. thousands of his fellow countrymen and been exPer6n was the one exception. Although he was in many communicated by the Catholic Churcha developways a typical Argentine military caudillo, he aroused ment that cost him dearly, even among the descamisados. more passion in his people than any caudillo before him. The series of military and civilian governments that Those who hated him hated him to the point of never ruled Argentina in Per6n's wake did little to improve uttering his name; those who loved him burned matters, and as economic conditions worsened and religious candles beneath his effigy. political violence grew more savage the nastier aspects of his rule began to fade. The old dictator's popularity Two factors, above all, distinguish Per6n from his increased with each passing year, and by 1971 predecessors. The first was his championing of the Argentines of all classes could look back to his regime Argentine working class, which had long been ignored. As minister of labor in the junta that seized power in with almost sentimental longing. The jailings and beatings were forgotten; only the memory of false 1943, he transformed the moribund General Conprosperity remained. Even the leaders of the oligarquia federation of Workers into one of the most powerful had come to believe that Argentina could only be saved central labor unions in the world, making it his main by Per6n's return to power. power base; and he initiated drastic reforms in working conditions, ordered pay raises and enforced collective At first, in an attempt tocalm the fears of the military
June U, 1978
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historian Julio Irazusta once told me. "Our failure to produce a viable political system has negated our other achievements and reduced us to the status of an inferior nation." Argentina is a land of plenty where survival is often precarious. The splendid parks and avenues of Buenos Aires abut the squalid villas misirias the slums that provided Peronism with the bulk of its supporters. It is a sophisticated country, full of great universities and splendid cultural institutionsand yet in recent years it has been ruled by an ex-bargirl and a gaggle of generals whose intellectual limitations are apparent to anyone who bothers to listen to them. Argentina is a place where conservative Roman Catholicism still holds sway, and yet only a few years ago the most powerful official in the government was a necromancer who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Rasputin.

and conservative elements of the oligarquia, he ruled through Hector Campora, a left-wing dentist who ran in Perdn's place for president. But when Campora, in a fit of Jacobinical zeal, emptied Argentina's jails of both political prisoners and common criminals, Per6n decided to dump him and run for the presidency himself. With his third wife, Isabelita, as his runningmate, he was easily elected. But his rule was short and his death was well timed. The economy was on the verge of ruin; the Montoneros, who had suspended their violent activities temporarily upon his return, were killing and kidnapping once again; and a guerrilla war was underway in Tucuman Province. His followers could always believe that he might have saved his country had he lived longer. Just as the 1955 coup enabled him to escape the consequences of his misrule, so his death rescued him from those same consequences in 1974. The responsibility for saving Argentina was shifted to his widow, a woman whose previous professional experience had been working as a hostess in clip joints like the Panama City night club where she met her husband during the early days of his exile. The 1976 coup that ousted Isabelita and her corrupt government had been long awaited. For months the press had hinted that it was imminent. But even as her regime neared its end Isabelita did not want for supporters. She may have lacked Evita's passion, but, for the more ardent votaries of her husband, she remained their movement's symbol. The generals saw clearly that Peronism would not be extinguished simply by overthrowing the Peronist government, a fact that explains their unwillingness to act sooner. The main reason for the military's caution, however, was ideological splintering that had developed in its own ranks during the short time since Peron's return. The Argentine military included every possible ideological faction. Some, like General Jorg^ Videla, the chief of staff, were old-fashioned conservatives, whose views had been formed long ago during their days at the military academy. Many younger officers looked to Peru, where General Alvarado Velasco was fashioning a populist dictatorship under army control. There were other officers who admired the so-called Brazilian "solution," and even a few who derived inspiration from General Pinochet in Chile. General Videla is clearly popular with the bulk of the people. Of course, his popularity has been aided by the temporary eclipse of the Peronist party. For the time being, Peron's henchmenthose who are still in the countryare keeping a low profile. The leaders of the other political parties, most of whom encouraged the military to overthrow Isabelita, are also quiet. But the people have not been quite so quiet. At the World Cup soccer championships in Buenos Aires last week, the crowds called for a return to Peronism. "We want the thieves back! We want the thieves!" they chanted. The junta itself remains fragmented, but none of its members is willing to return the nation to civilian rule.

and hence to Peronism. General Videla, who was reluctant to take power in the first place, has lately given the impression of enjoying his presidential duties. He has even talked about running as a "civilian," in the Brazilian mode. General Albano Harguindeguy, the regime's authoritarian interior minister, has said that the politicians will have to cool their heels for at least 10 years before being allowed to return to power. The most honest appraisal of the future was uttered by General Roberto Viola, the army chief of staff, when he promised, in an aside worthy of Per6n himself, that democracy would be restored "when the circumstances are right." Xhe "right circumstances," as far as the junta is concerned, will not emerge until both political and economic order have returned, and that will clearly take a long time. To sustain their position and to achieve the pacification they promised the people, agents of the regime continue to hunt down urban guerrillas and those suspected of sympathizing with them. The Montonerosthe most powerful urban terrorist organizationhave been dealt a series of devastating blows, but they continue to machine-gun businessmen and politicians and blow up their homes and cars. According to the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights, at least 6000 Argentines have been illegally seized by the authorities, while another 6000 have been arrested under more orthodox conditions. Actually, it is impossible to measure the number of people who have disappeared without a trace. The country's most famous political prisoner, Isabelita, is presently housed at a resort for officers and their wives, where she awaits her trial for misappropriating public funds. It is said that the symbol of the Peronist movement spends most of her time reading women's magazines and talking with the wives of visiting officers. But the political oppression is of little concern to average Argentines. The economy worries them the most. Until recently, the junta was deeply divided over the policies advanced by their own minister of economy, the brilliant Dr. Jos^ Martinez de Hoz. As the regime's most powerful civilian, and as an intellectual with a formidable international reputation, Martinez de Hoz did not always see eye-to-eye with his military colleagues, none of whom possessed much knowledge of economics. Because he was forced to feed some bitter medicine to the country's sagging economy the generals tended to blame him for most of the nation's problems. The old civilian politicians, who would have never dreamed of criticizing the generals, attacked Martinez de Hoz with regularity for his refusal to avail himself of that old Peronist toolthe printing press. After a period of painful economic transition, the economy has begun to improve. Inflation is down dramaticallyfrom over 400 percent in 1976 to 120 percent this yearand the economy is beginning to show signs of momentum.
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Still, Martinez de Hoz's sensible prescriptions are not popular with the people, who continue to prefer Perbn's peculiar schemes. Martinez de Hoz is dispensing real medicine to a society addicted to laetrile. This may explain why Juan Per6n continues to he venerated hy most of his countrymen. He understood their penchant for symbolic gestures, and for almost 30 yearsas an active figure in Argentine political life and as an exilehe pandered to their needs. Today his leninized mummy rests in a secret vault outside of Buenos Aires, next to the expertly embalmed corpse of Evita. The Argentines, with their almost Slavic passion for necropolitics, speak of these two cadavers as if they somehow possessed the power to

influence the Argentine scene today. Perhaps they do. Before Isahelita's ouster, the authorities planned to house Juan and Evita in a massive Peronist shrine, not unlike the great tomb constructed by the Soviets to house Lenin's corpse. The two tyrants were to be joined by the body of Juan Manuel Rosas, a brutal 19th century gaucho despot whose career was, in many ways, similar to Per6n's. It was to have been one more reminder to the descamisados that their leader was still with them. The Argentines tolerate General Videla, but they will never love him the way they continue to love Per6n. They want the thieves back, and they are prepared to bide their time until the moment is right for Peronism to return.

Argentina Today, II: The People are Afraid

Buenos Aires

San Justo is a ravaged, desolate suburb each time, 22 in all. That went on every on the west side of Buenos Aires, a day. They must have enjoyed coming single large ruin made up of vacant lots, back and frightening us again and again. scrap metal dumps and heaps of garbage. It was terrible for us. You found Here and there lie the complejos, im- yourself waiting for them, like friends probable structures, half housing pro- you expect to visit on Sunday. And every jects, half shanty towns, planted time, you wonder if it is over this time, seemingly by accident between two rock or will it happen again tomorrow. In the complejo we don't much like the police, but piles. For a long time now, about 500 once a woman went to them to report squatters have set themselves up there what was going on. She never came as best they can, mostly families of poor back. Now, we simply wait. And we wait workers or the unemployed who subsist for her to come back. If you keep saying on $20 to $40 a month. In spite of this, that, maybe it will help." they heroically resisted the intrusions of Where are these men and women the police for a long time. Last March, today, these workers, simple people, for the first time, things went wrong who have become shadows since they and fascism made its way into the were carried off by the private militia? They haven't been officially arrested; campamiento. Anna M. is barely 30 years old, has a they have swelled the ranks of the host of children; her face is already phantom army that haunts the beautiful withered, pained, pathetic. She receives residential neighborhoods of Buenos us in the tiny room into which the entire Aires. Snatched out of their homes, family is squeezed since the dis- from their families and tribes, already appearance of her husband. "One day grown old in all probability, nameless they came . . . not the police but men in and faceless, they literally no longer civilian clothes with hoods over their exist, except perhaps on some secret faces. They smashed down the doors or register in a jail infested with disease. blew up the locks with dynamite. Each This is approximately what 1 was told time, they forced the women to strip. when I went with a list of names, Sometimes they raped them, not all of accompanied by two lawyers, to the them, only the young ones, always in district police inspector. The police front of their husbands and children. officer who saw us put on the most Then, they beat up everybody, brutally, aggrieved air as he told me that 1 was talking about a band of terrorists who as if they wanted to kill us, even the had gone underground. This is what I children, when they cried, or couldn't was also told by the publisher of a govhold their hands up any longer, the poor ernment-owned daily newspaper to things. And then, when they were whom I brought the same list. He was through, they took away the man, one
June 17, 1978

amused, however, a knowing expression on his face. For him there were no two ways about it: these guys from Complejo 17 were skirt chasers; they had simply taken off to take up their boyhood way of life again someplace else. Robert Giudice, 50 years old, a businessman by profession, lives on Paraguay Street. He asked to see me and, despite my hesitations, begged me to use his name. We talked at the Sheraton Hotel, in a room that a Japanese sportswriter put at my disposal for important occasions when I preferred to avoid being overheard by indiscreet witnesses. He sat across from me, slumped in an armchair. I had the odd feeling that all the time he was speaking to me he neither saw me nor h e a r d m e . His voice w a s d u l l , monotonous, as if he were telling an anonymous story, separate from himself. And yet, he came to tell me his own experience, a horrifying story, almost beyond belief. It is the testimony of a dead man. It all began one night last winter when a group of men burst into his house on Paraguay Street. Everybody was herded into a central room; Giudice and his wife, the three younger children, ages eight, nine and 11, and the oldest daughter, aged 22, whom they had come to find. The next day, when Giudice went to the police, they were barely willing to register his demand for habeas corpus. Your daughter, they told him, has undoubtedly been kidnapped by an underground group. We will find her
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