JUAN PERÓN ii JUAN PERÓN The Life of the People’s Colonel Jill Hedges I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Jill Hedges, 2021 Jill Hedges has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. Cover design by Alice Marwick Cover image: President of Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón, 1950. (© Universal History Archive/Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-7556-0271-1 PB: 978-0-7556-0272-8 ePDF: 978-0-7556-0269-8 eBook: 978-0-7556-0268-1 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. For Andrés, with love vi CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface x List of Abbreviations xii Introduction BACK TO THE FUTURE 1 Chapter 1 A BRIEF CHILDHOOD 9 Chapter 2 THE ARMY 21 Chapter 3 POTOTA AND POLITICS 33 Chapter 4 TURNING POINT? 47 Chapter 5 IN THE ASCENDANT 59 Chapter 6 SAN JUAN 73 Chapter 7 SAN PERÓN 89 Chapter 8 CANDIDATE 107 Chapter 9 EARLY DAYS 119 Chapter 10 IF I DEFINE, I EXCLUDE 135 viii Contents Chapter 11 AT THE PINNACLE 149 Chapter 12 DECLINE AND FALL 165 Chapter 13 ISABEL 183 Chapter 14 UNSETTLED EXILE 189 Chapter 15 MADRID 199 Chapter 16 RETURN 217 Chapter 17 THE MOST MARVELLOUS MUSIC 229 Chapter 18 LEGACY 241 Notes 245 Bibliography 256 Index 261 ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Perón (left) with his brother and mother, around 1899 (Archivo Gráfico de la Nación, Wikimedia Commons) 18 2 Perón (right) as the army’s fencing champion (AFP via Getty Images) 27 3 Perón as a young man (Bettmann/Contributor) 30 4 Perón and Evita’s civil marriage ceremony, October 1945 (Wikimedia Commons) 109 5 Evita, Perón and Domingo Mercante reading the election coverage in Evita’s newspaper Democracia, 1946 (Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Wikimedia Commons) 117 6 Perón riding his horse Mancha in 1946 (Photo by Mondadori via Getty Images) 128 7 Perón and Evita attend a gala at the Colón Opera House in 1949 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images) 133 8 Perón and the poodles in 1950 (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) 150 9 Perón and Evita on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, on 17 October 1951 (Wikimedia Commons) 160 10 Perón greets racing champion Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955 (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) 169 11 Perón (right) riding a scooter with the members of the UES in 1955 (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) 171 12 Perón typing his memoirs in exile in Panama, 1956 (OFF/AFP via Getty Images) 181 13 Perón and Isabel in Madrid, late 1972 (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images) 208 14 Perón, his secretary José López Rega (left) and President-elect Héctor Cámpora in Rome, March 1973 (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) 220