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In-Depth Information
Peronist victories in 10 of 14 provincial elections proved too much for
the military. The generals annulled the elections, arrested Frondizi, and
replaced him with a civilian caretaker.
At this point, factionalism within the military came to a head. At
issue was the military's attitude toward the popular forces underlying
Peronism. One faction of the military, called the Azules (blues), recom-
mended a return to the conciliatory approach. They proposed to negotiate
the reentry of the “moderate” labor union leaders into the public arena as
allies of the military, a kind of Peronism without Perón. The Colorados,
or “crimson” faction, adamantly opposed this strategy and suggested that
the military assume formal control of the government, if necessary, to
crush the Peronists and their labor movement once and for all.
The weak interim president could only stand by helplessly as the two
military factions began to fight. The Azules and Colorados skirmished
in La Plata and at several army and navy installations around the
nation's capital. The tank forces of the Azules prevailed. They purged
the officer corps once again by retiring the hard-liners, but not without
causing rancor among the surviving officers. The policy of the Azules
failed anyway, as workers refused any collaboration without Perón him-
self, as we will see below.
A new election in 1963 offered little escape from the cycle of instabil-
ity. The military prevented Frondizi, Perón, or a Peronist stand-in from
running, and the winning candidate, Arturo Illia, became president on
the basis of having received just one-quarter of the vote. Illia came from
the opposite Radical Party faction from Frondizi, which did not prepare
him for dealing with the unstable political atmosphere. Controlling gov-
ernment deficits and inflation demanded strong political will, but Illia's
decision to devaluate the peso had the immediate effect of further reduc-
ing the earnings of wageworkers. The unions reacted with massive strikes
in late 1964. Then many Peronist congressional candidates avoided the
military proscriptions in the 1965 elections, won seats in the Congress,
and attacked all the legislative proposals of President Illia.
Despite their earlier reluctance, the Azules decided to take complete
control of government. The Azules' military leader—the mustached,
polo-playing tank commander General Juan Carlos Onganía—sent a
group of officers to “invite” President Illia to vacate the office of the
presidency so as to avoid acts of violence. “What violence are you
talking about?” Illia is reported to have replied, “Violence has been
unleashed by you in the Republic. . . . You have nothing in common
with the Army of San Martín and Belgrano; you have caused great harm
to our country and will continue to do so by such behavior” (Potash
