Eva Duarte de Perón, born 7 May 1919 in Los Toldos, Argentina and died 26 July 1952 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, known affectionately as Evita, she was the second wife of Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón. Juan Perón is one of Argentina’s most revered presidents. Evita currently rests in Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, for good, one would hope?

There is much written about Evita and much more is disputed about both her birth and the formative years of her life – but who cares? This iconic lady won the hearts of the people. She was a catalyst for social reform, a campaigner for women’s rights and the champion of the needy in Argentine society. Successive military junta’s would later fear her legacy.

Lloyd Weber would later romanticise her story in the hit show Evita and Julie Covington’s ‘don’t cry for me Argentina’ would be a number one hit throughout the world. The name Evita and ‘don’t cry for me Argentina’ are very popular search terms on the internet showing the widespread appeal of this most endearing character and a story that ends in tragedy.
     
It is worth touching on Juan Perón, who outside Argentina is often overshadowed by Evita and the calamity of his return to Argentine politics in 1973.

Juan Perón was a boy soldier (16) who rose quickly through the officer ranks becoming the military attaché to Chile and then Italy, where he witnessed Nazi Germany’s expansionism and the distasteful grip of fascism in Europe. Along with Eva Perón’s influence, the latter period of his military career are thought to have changed Perón’s conservative politics.

Juan Perón returned to Argentina in 1941, during the next two years he made full colonel, and joined the United Officers Group (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, GOU, P2), a secret military lodge that engineered the 1943 coup to overthrew an ineffective and corrupt civilian government.

The military regimes of the following three years came increasingly under the influence of Perón. Perón was a shrewd political operator and initially took the minor post of secretary of labour and social welfare, but could see that this role would be pivotal in him influencing policy that would affect the masses and win him popular appeal. Perón won the support of the underprivileged labourers (the descamisados, or “shirtless ones” as they would later be known).

In 1944, however, as a protégé of Pres. Gen. Edelmiro J. Farrell (1944–46), Perón became minister of war and then vice president.

However, the direction of government and Perón’s ‘socialism’ had few fans in the ultra-conservative armed forces. The tide of socialism sweeping Europe and the America’s was of great concern and Argentina’s pending free elections worried both the military and business leaders. Not least those who saw communist bogeymen under every American bed. Now it is Muslims.

In October 1945, Perón was ousted from his position by rival army and navy officers in Argentina’s shortest coup, which resulted in the labour unions rallying the workers of greater Buenos Aires - Perón was released from custody on 17 October 1945. That night, from the balcony of the presidential palace (Casa Rosada), he addressed 300,000 people. He promised social justice and reform, and to lead the Argentine people to victory in the pending presidential election.