Il Duce, Perón had briefly been a troop instructor in the province of Mendoza before going to work at military headquarters in Buenos Aires. There, he had made his move as the driving force behind the shadowy military group calling itself the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, which had launched the coup of June 1943.
Over the next three years, Perón maneuvered his way to the top. After the coup he became undersecretary for war, serving under his mentor, General Edelmiro Farrell. When Farrell became vice president in October 1943, Perón asked for and was given the presidency of the National Labor Department. It quickly became his power base. Within a month, he had transformed his seemingly obscure job into a ministry renamed the Department of Labor and Welfare and was answerable only to the president.
A sweeping series of reformist labor decrees began to flow from Perón’s office. The measures were aimed at appealing to disenfranchised workers while organized labor groups linked to the traditional political parties were being destroyed. Before long, Perón had brought the country’s workforce to heel under his own centralized authority. The phenomenon that would be known as
peronismo
had begun. Very soon, it would radically alter Argentina’s political landscape.
By late 1943, with the United States in the war, Nazi Germany was on the defensive throughout Europe and North Africa, and Mussolini had been overthrown in Italy. Suspecting the Argentine regime, and Perón in particular, of serving as thinly disguised representatives for the Third Reich in Latin America, the United States stepped up pressure on Argentina to abandon its official neutrality in the war. Many Argentines shared the Americans’ suspicions. Perón’s populist appeals to the social “underclass” in rhetoric reeking of Fascism had alienated Argentina’s liberal middle classes. They were joined by the traditional oligarchy, which saw the status quo in danger. Most people of the Guevaras’ social class had become virulent
antiperonistas
. But their opposition did not stop Perón from becoming even more powerful.
In March 1944, Farrell became president. Perón was war minister, and by July he was vice president as well. Of the three high-level positions he now held, however, the most important was still his post as Secretary of the Department of Labor and Welfare. Perón was known to everyone in Argentina.
Ernesto Guevara Lynch remained active in Acción Argentina, and he and Celia also joined Córdoba’s Comité Pro–De Gaulle, a solidarity network aimed at helping the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France. Unbeknownst to them, young Ernesto had resumed the old Nazi-hunting activities his father had left unfinished. With a school friend, Osvaldo BidinostPayer, he stealthily returned to the small mountain community of La Cumbre, where his father’s group had conducted surveillance of the hotel suspected of being the headquarters for Nazi operations in Argentina’s interior. Ernesto senior had warned his son against sniffing around, telling him that of the two government investigators sent there, only one had returned, the other presumably having been murdered. But the boys went anyway. They approached the hotel at night. Through an open window, Bidinost recalled later, they caught a glimpse of a couple of men busy at “a long table with lots of metal boxes and things.” But before they could see more, their presence was detected. “They heard us, someone came out with lanterns, and they fired two shots at us. We left and never returned.”
In spite of such escapades, Ernesto’s commitment to political causes fell far short of active militancy during his high school years. He and his friends, who included children of Spanish Republican refugees such as the González-Aguilars, were, like their parents, politically “anti-Fascist,” and given to arguing precociously over what had “really happened” in Spain. But they had much less
Over the next three years, Perón maneuvered his way to the top. After the coup he became undersecretary for war, serving under his mentor, General Edelmiro Farrell. When Farrell became vice president in October 1943, Perón asked for and was given the presidency of the National Labor Department. It quickly became his power base. Within a month, he had transformed his seemingly obscure job into a ministry renamed the Department of Labor and Welfare and was answerable only to the president.
A sweeping series of reformist labor decrees began to flow from Perón’s office. The measures were aimed at appealing to disenfranchised workers while organized labor groups linked to the traditional political parties were being destroyed. Before long, Perón had brought the country’s workforce to heel under his own centralized authority. The phenomenon that would be known as
peronismo
had begun. Very soon, it would radically alter Argentina’s political landscape.
By late 1943, with the United States in the war, Nazi Germany was on the defensive throughout Europe and North Africa, and Mussolini had been overthrown in Italy. Suspecting the Argentine regime, and Perón in particular, of serving as thinly disguised representatives for the Third Reich in Latin America, the United States stepped up pressure on Argentina to abandon its official neutrality in the war. Many Argentines shared the Americans’ suspicions. Perón’s populist appeals to the social “underclass” in rhetoric reeking of Fascism had alienated Argentina’s liberal middle classes. They were joined by the traditional oligarchy, which saw the status quo in danger. Most people of the Guevaras’ social class had become virulent
antiperonistas
. But their opposition did not stop Perón from becoming even more powerful.
In March 1944, Farrell became president. Perón was war minister, and by July he was vice president as well. Of the three high-level positions he now held, however, the most important was still his post as Secretary of the Department of Labor and Welfare. Perón was known to everyone in Argentina.
Ernesto Guevara Lynch remained active in Acción Argentina, and he and Celia also joined Córdoba’s Comité Pro–De Gaulle, a solidarity network aimed at helping the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France. Unbeknownst to them, young Ernesto had resumed the old Nazi-hunting activities his father had left unfinished. With a school friend, Osvaldo BidinostPayer, he stealthily returned to the small mountain community of La Cumbre, where his father’s group had conducted surveillance of the hotel suspected of being the headquarters for Nazi operations in Argentina’s interior. Ernesto senior had warned his son against sniffing around, telling him that of the two government investigators sent there, only one had returned, the other presumably having been murdered. But the boys went anyway. They approached the hotel at night. Through an open window, Bidinost recalled later, they caught a glimpse of a couple of men busy at “a long table with lots of metal boxes and things.” But before they could see more, their presence was detected. “They heard us, someone came out with lanterns, and they fired two shots at us. We left and never returned.”
In spite of such escapades, Ernesto’s commitment to political causes fell far short of active militancy during his high school years. He and his friends, who included children of Spanish Republican refugees such as the González-Aguilars, were, like their parents, politically “anti-Fascist,” and given to arguing precociously over what had “really happened” in Spain. But they had much less
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