Argentina: Peron: This is the Year

The message from Madrid to Buenos Aires sounded confident enough: “I have irrevocably decided to return in the year 1964.” Juan Domingo Perón, 69, Argentina’s exiled dictator, has been talking about returning for nearly ten years, but never before had he set a definite time limit or made such extensive plans.

According to Perón’s plan, Operación Retorno will take him before Dec. 31 to either Paraguay or Uruguay, where he will wait while an emissary goes on to Buenos Aires to announce the imminent return of El Líder. Then if Argentina’s 3,000,000 Peronistas react as Perón hopes they will, the old dictator will move on to Buenos Aires and demand immediate presidential elections, which he reckons he would easily win. Should serious opposition develop, Perón says: “Sometimes in history a civil war has been the only way to save a sinking nation.”

New Tune & “Tourists.” Until a few months ago, such talk was laughed off by most Argentines. Fewer are laughing now. An intelligence evaluation prepared for the Argentine army high command concedes: “The return of Perón does not appear an impossibility.” Under pressure from more moderate advisers, Peron has changed his tune, no longer rants about ruling as a strongman, but says rather that his role would be to unite the country’s warring factions. The inability of President Arturo Illia’s weak-willed regime to cope with the country’s deepening economic problems makes many Argentines wish for a more aggressive government.

Some retired army officers and a few still active ones in the lower echelons may be willing to make a deal with Perón. Many politicians also seem eager to make deals; police estimate that 500 Argentine “tourists” are now in Madrid seeking to see the onetime dictator.

Most important, President Illia has said that “Perón’s return is up to Perón.” Devious Scheme? Still, Perón faces tremendous opposition. Alarmed by the reports of Perón’s preparations, Argentina’s chief of naval operations, Rear Admiral Benigno Varela, last week declared: “The navy will not permit El Retorno under any circumstances.” Anti-Perón civilians have organized a commando band to storm the airport or harbor if Perón tries to land.

Perón’s chances of regaining power are, in fact, remote. Some observers think another ploy may be in the wind.

They have a sneaking suspicion that the present exercise is a devious scheme into which Perón has been drawn by his top lieutenant in Argentina—Augusto Timoteo Vandor, 41. Known as El Lobo, The Wolf, Vandor has already proved his cunning by shouldering aside old-line Peronista bosses for control of the Peronista organization. He believes in “Peronismo without Perón,” and if Perón fails to return after setting such a specific deadline, his disappointed followers may finally write off their old hero. In that case, El Lobo would be in position to convert himself from Perón lieutenant to genuine leader of the largest political faction in Argentina.