To the 65th anniversary of Arturo Frondizi’s accession to the presidency of the Nation

On February 23, 1958, Arturo Frondezi won the presidential election Ricardo Balbin. The victory of the candidate of KILL implied a serious defeat for the military government of the Liberating Revolution, which welcomed the postulant of the people’s radicalism.

The contribution of Peronist voices had been decisive.

The Venezuelan capital had been the scene of pact between Frondizi and Juan Domingo Perónwhich would allow the former to become President of the Nation that year.

The events took place in singular circumstances. The arrival of Rogelio Frigerio -the envoy of Frondizi- in Caracas occurred a few days before the outbreak of the revolution this would put an end to the government of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. More precisely on January 23 of that year. When a revolution brought about the overthrow of the dictator and the rise of the four-decade period of democracy structured around the political system that will go down in history as the Punto Fijo pact.

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The rush of events forced Perón to leave the Venezuelan capital and settle in Ciudad Trujillo (Dominican Republic). But before that, the justicialist leader was going to seal an agreement with the representative of Frondizi.

It was then that Perón agreed to support Frondizi in the elections that would take place weeks later.

Of course, Perón hosted the money that Frigerio took him to Caracas. Until then – contrary to the versions propagated by his detractors – the deposed leader had lived his first years of exile in a framework of extreme austerity, as confirmed in these columns by the historian Juan B. Yofre.

For years it would be discussed how necessary the pact with Perón had been. Or if he could have won without the need for agreements with the vigilante leader. With the lower costs generated by this extreme.

This interpretation assumes that Perón made – as so many times during his long political life – the necessity of a virtue. It’s reasonable to assume that Frondizi was going to win anyway. In fact, much of the vote that had been loyal to Perón would vote for the UCRI. With or without Perón controls.

In his book “Behind the crisis”, Emilio Perina says: “The truth is that when Frigerio went to see Perón, he had already joined the victorious line so as not to lose the last possibility of gravitating directly to his movement. The visit of Frigerio added nothing in favor of Frondizi’s candidacy and decided nothing about the disposition of Perón, who acted dragged down, like a caboose, by a process that overwhelmed him. instead allowed Perón, skillfully, from the tail of the train, to place himself again in the locomotive, postponing, once again, the great possibility of the incorporation of Peronism into the democratic and legalistic event of the country”.

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Perhaps Perón would have acted on the basis of an objective reading of events. In accordance with the realistic criteria which he almost always imposed on his political actions. The immediately preceding electoral result – the constituent elections of 1957 – would have made the general think. At the time, Perón’s order to vote white was observed by 24% of the electorate.

This assessment assumes that Perón himself was aware of an indisputable reality. His own movement then gathered less than half of the wills that had accompanied him during his government. Far from the overwhelming 62 percent of the votes that Admiral Teissaur had obtained in the elections to cover the vice-presidency in 1954.

The magnitude of Frondizi’s triumph would lead many developers to believe they would have won the same even without the Perón deal. Certain facts have contributed to these beliefs. The UCRI won in all the provinces. In the Chamber of Deputies, the pro-government bloc expanded to 133 seats, which represented about 70% of the body. In the Senate, all seats were held by the ruling party.

Other views hold that the contribution of Peronist votes was essential. The truth is that in 1958 the UCRI obtained two million more votes than those obtained by the UCRI in the election of July 28, 1957.

The UCRP was largely defeated. Perhaps a bitter taste that radicalism would take years to assimilate. In her book “Frondizi, the Politics of Confusion”, Celia Szusterman wrote years later: “but if Frondizi, Frigeristas and Peronistas could argue endlessly about the real owner of victory, there is no doubt about the identity of the vanquished. The results represented a clear setback for the Provisional Government and for the UCRP, united in their hatred of Peronism and the Peronists.

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The military government would be perplexed by the results. “Continuism” had fallen and the alarms would immediately sound for the eventual return of Peronism. Rosendo Fraga reflected years later: “The complex relationship that Frondizi will have with the army and the armed forces as a whole must be understood from the fact that the government of the Liberating Revolution, chaired by Aramburu and Rojas, saw how the desirable succession to Ricardo Balbín’s candidacy for the UCRP, an expression of the most of antiperonwho had even occupied the Ministry of the Interior during the de facto regime through Carlos Alconada Aramburú, who a quarter of a century later would be Minister of Education and Justice in the government of Raúl Alfonsín”.

Emilio Perina had expected that the victory would correspond to the candidate who presented himself as an opponent of the provisional government. In a letter to Frondizi himself, sent from Rio de Janeiro nearly two years earlier, he had predicted that “a government that orders to be shot will never win elections in our country.”

Following the victory of the UCRI candidate, the New York Times qualification “Frondizi wins the Argentine elections, supported by Perón”. The caption read, “Left-wing lawyer wins presidential election over moderate leader Balbín.” The Soviet press also thought it saw a “leftist” in Frondizi. An element which then excited the local communists but which will later complicate the president in his difficult coexistence with the Armed Forces. This is how Izvestia headlined: “the Argentine people are determined to oppose the enslavement of Argentina by North American capital”. Pravda claimed that a “left-wing government” had been elected.

In Washington, the choice of Frondizi was greeted with caution. An internal State Department memo prepared by Undersecretary Roy Rubottom for his superior John Foster Dulles indicated that Frondizi had largely triumphed (“by overwhelming proportions”) and warned that the UCRI had received the support of “a conglomeration of elements” which included “the nationalist extreme right, the Catholics, the Peronists and the Communists”.

Frondizi would still surprise at this level as well. Because during his government, Argentina maintained friendly relations with the United Statesto a point of closeness perhaps only surpassed decades later by Presidents Carlos Menem and Mauricio Macri.

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