Isabel Perón never wanted to be president.
She was nominated in the 1973 convention as running mate to her husband - populist leader Juan Perón, who was ill - after the various Peronist factions (ranging from far-left to far-right) could agree on no one else.
And practically from the minute she was sworn in (July 1, 1974), people began placing mental bets on how long she would last before a coup: there had, after all, already been 5 in Argentina since 1930.
Aware of this risk, Mrs. Perón was quick to adopt a law-and-order, hard-line stance against mounting far-left violence.
Very hard-line: Besides tacitly approving attacks by the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance, she granted the military nearly every one of their unconstitutional demands - including martial law, which she declared just 5 months after taking office.
She thought that by doing so, a coup - and the resulting bloodbath (the Dirty War) - could still be avoided. She believed an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that she was saving lives.
What she did not know is that a coup had been discussed by the top brass for months - and that by October 1975, it was approved (the joint chiefs called it 'Operation Aries' - scheduled for March 24th as it was).
This footage is from the day (October 15) the coup was green-lighted, when she returned from a month-long leave of absence.
Had she instead resigned - as she had been urged by even her allies - the coup might have been averted; Senate President Ítalo Lúder, the man many were counting on to take over, is the tall, white-haired man in the tan suit ↑
She was later deposed at that very spot, a small base at Newbery Airport (Buenos Aires) where the presidential plane was kept.
Thanks as always for your time and thoughts, Judi. Have a very good weekend.
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