Alejandro Agustin Lanusse

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (Buenos Aires, August 28, 1918-Buenos Aires, August 26, 1996) was an Argentine soldier and dictator. He was the de facto president of Argentina between 1971 and 1973, in the civic-military dictatorship that called itself the “Argentine Revolution”.

During his brief tenure, the political party committees were reopened —closed by Juan Carlos Onganía— and the Great National Agreement was created, which nominated Ezequiel Alfredo Martínez as a continuation candidate. Lanusse handed over power under free elections —which had not been held for twenty-one years—, but carried out with an electoral regime created by the dictatorship, installing a second round, which led to the candidacy of Héctor Cámpora. Lanusse appointed Minister of the Interior to radical Arturo Mor Roig, who was the promoter of the Great National Agreement. During Lanusse's management, the first kidnappings of left-wing militants in Argentina occurred —and it is from these that the forced disappearance of people began to become generalized as a method of State terrorism— and the Trelew Massacre took place, when members of FAR, ERP and Montoneros in a joint operation, seized the Rawson prison to escape. 19 prisoners who did not manage to escape were victims of firing squad.

After his term ended, he retired and kept a low profile, but not for long, since he had an outstanding performance questioning and criticizing the procedures and violations of human rights during the National Reorganization Process, being one of the few high-ranking military opponents of the regime, in addition to the only one to testify against his military peers during the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, after the return of democracy on December 10, 1983.

Biography

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse Gelly was born on August 28, 1918 in the city of Buenos Aires. He was one of the eight children of the marriage made up of Luis Gustavo Lanusse and Albertina Gelly. He completed his primary studies at Colegio Champagnat, and did secondary school at Colegio Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.

Military career

At the age of sixteen, Lanusse took and passed the entrance exam to the Military College of the Nation in 1935. He joined the Cavalry Weapon of the Argentine Army on July 30, 1938. He was part of the Grenadier Regiment in Horse.

At the end of 1941 Lanusse was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. On November 15 of that same year, he married Ileana María Bell Bidart (Buenos Aires, May 19, 1919-Buenos Aires, July 16, 2012), daughter of Eduardo Jorge Bell Shaw and Cora Dolores Bidart Malbrán. The couple had nine children: Alejandro, Eduardo, Gustavo, Virginia, Marcos, Estela, María Luisa, Ileana and Matías.

After passing through various destinations —Mendoza, Salta, Campo de Mayo, Chajarí— he joined the coup d'état orchestrated by General Benjamín Menéndez against Juan Domingo Perón on September 28, 1951. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, was imprisoned in harsh conditions in Rawson and Río Gallegos until he was released on September 19, 1955, one day before the overthrow of Perón by the uprising led by Eduardo Lonardi.

Between October 1955 and March 1958, he was head of the Grenadier Regiment on Horseback (presidential escort). In 1956 he was sent to Rome as special and extraordinary ambassador to the Holy See on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Pius XII, from where he returned in 1960 when he was appointed deputy director of the Superior War College. During the presidency of José María Guido (1962-1963) he was a member of the blue side (supporter of an early restoration of democracy). Determined anti-Peronist, he was involved in the coup by Juan Carlos Onganía against Arturo Umberto Illia, produced on June 28, 1966, which they called the Argentine Revolution. In 1962 he had commanded the first armored division, and replaced Julio Rodolfo Alsogaray, on August 26, 1968 as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, a position that he would hold until May 25, 1973.

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse recently assumed as new president, for a few years thought he would be the last president de facto.

There was a request for collaboration from the US CIA to the Argentine government in September 1970, to remove President Salvador Allende, which Lanusse, being Commander-in-Chief of the Army, immediately rejected.

Presidency

The divergences with the policy of Juan Carlos Onganía and the weakening of the Argentine Revolution in the face of the insurrectionary climate, generated by the incipient clandestine armed organizations after the Cordobazo, led him to demand his resignation and, after his refusal, to overthrow him.

The Board of Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces, which Lanusse integrated as Chief of the Army, replaced Onganía in that instance with Roberto Marcelo Levingston, who, after a brief period as president, was in turn dismissed and replaced by Lanusse himself who became president in March 1971.

Alejandro A. Lanusse (right) together with Juan Carlos Onganía.

During his government he showed signs of pragmatism, restoring diplomatic relations with China, repatriating the body of Eva Perón and allowing Peronism to participate in elections for the first time in 18 years, authorizing Perón to return from exile in Spain in 1972 At the economic level, important infrastructure works such as roads, dams, power plants and bridges were executed and started. While judicially important legislative advances were made under his mandate (beyond not being legislative acts in itself since the rule of law was subverted), such as the first organic law of its kind in the country, the National Law of Administrative Procedures (decree-law 19,549), the first organic law of the system of Commercial Companies (decree-law 19,550) and the first law, outside of what was the old Code of Commerce, Bankruptcy and Bankruptcy (decree-law 19,551), among other.

On May 28, 1971, through Decree-Law No. 19 053, he approved the creation of the Federal Criminal Chamber of la Nación, also known as "el Camarón", a project presented by the Minister of Justice Jaime Perriaux to judge what was defined as "subversion".

During his presidency, Florida Street was transformed into a pedestrian street and the tunnel on Avenida del Libertador was inaugurated. He maintained good relations with his Latin American peers, unlike several de facto presidents, not disagreeing on ideologies, coming to meet with the Uruguayan conservative Jorge Pacheco Areco and even with the socialist president of Chile Salvador Allende.. He even met with the caudillo Francisco Franco in Madrid.

On October 26, 1971, Lanusse sent his Army Chief of Staff, Alcides López Aufranc (1921-2015), to lead the repression against the strike of the mechanical and metallurgical workers during the so-called Viborazo (name which remained as a popular response to a saying of the inspector Uriburu, who had ordered "cut off the head of the viper").

The personnel of the Concord and Materfer plants of the Fiat company formed two guilds: the SITRAC (Concord Workers' Union) and the SITRAM (Motherfer Workers' Union). On October 26, 1971, the dictatorship of Lanusse took away the union personry. On the same day, General Alcides López Aufranc occupied the headquarters of the guilds, and sent Gendarmerie to occupy the factories. Thus Fiat was able to fire delegates and 300 other workers.

Gabriela Esquivada, 2009.

The basic objective of Lanusse was to try to block any possibility of a return of Peronism to power. One of his first actions was to form his cabinet with political sectors considered "close" and functional to the game of hindering Peronism. At the head of the Ministry of the Interior, he appoints the radical of the town Arturo Mor Roig, with the consent of Ricardo Balbín.

The political initiative implemented by his interior minister, Mor Roig, consisted of promoting the formation of a right-wing force, one of the left (expressed through Peronism), and another of the center (expressed by radicalism). For this, the end of the old litigation is promoted among those who considered themselves legitimate depositaries of the UCR acronym without additions. This is how the UCRP becomes the UCR again, while what had been the UCRI is structured around the Integration and Development Movement (MID), led by Arturo Frondizi, and the Intransigent Party, led by Oscar Alende.

The idea of a return to Juan Domingo Perón began to emerge. This aimed at two tactics. Give power to the Justicialista Party, while he negotiated with the political parties to hold the elections.

GAN (Grand National Agreement)

Lanusse together with the president of Chile, the socialist Salvador Allende (1971)

To carry out the project of a democratic exit, Lanusse appointed as Minister of the Interior a radical militant politician, Arturo Mor Roig, who would be the promoter of the Great National Agreement, also created to find the best way to clean up the name of the Argentine Armed Forces. The GAN was an attempt to find a political solution to the military regime. In April 1971, Mor Roig announced the lifting of the political ban, and reinstated the assets to the political parties, the political committees were reopened, political freedom was given place, without any type of restriction and assuming the commitment emanated from of the document of the call La Hora del Pueblo, to then arrive at the GAN.

Trelew massacre

Within a political climate of growing violence, the Trelew massacre occurred, among other events. That massacre further weakened the de facto government. The event began on August 15, 1972, when a group of guerrillas from the FAR, ERP, and Montoneros, in a joint operation, seized the Rawson prison to make the escape. The plan failed, due to various failures, causing only their bosses to escape the country towards Chile and then to Cuba. The rest turned themselves in to the Argentine Navy, and a few days later, on August 22, they were victims of a firing squad, simulating an escape attempt. The confusion left three survivors, who could not survive the National Reorganization Process.

Democratic exit

Lanusse receives José Ignacio Rucci and Adelino Romero in his office, May 1972.

The government announced that the elections would take place on March 11, 1973, and the handover of power would take place on May 25, it was imposed as a condition that the candidates had to be in the country before August 25, 1972, and remain within the country until the date of assumption.

Faced with Perón's refusal to comply with the conditions imposed for the electoral round, Lanusse said the famous phrase:

But here they do not run me anymore, nor will I admit that they run more to any Argentinean, saying that Perón does not come because he cannot; I will allow them to say because he does not want, but in my intimate jurisdiction I will say because he does not give the leather to come.

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse.

This outburst was responded to by a demonstration of Peronist sympathizers, who interpreted an explicit ban on Perón's return to the country, rejecting the conditions imposed and Lanusse's statements singing the song:

Lanusse... Marmota... Perón will come when they sing the balls!

From Madrid, Juan Domingo Perón appoints Héctor Cámpora as his personal delegate for the presidency. The Justicialismo leader did not agree with these arbitrary and unconstitutional conditions of the de facto government. The elections were won by the Cámpora-Solano Lima formula with 5,908,414 votes, followed by the radical Balbín-Gamond formula, with 2,537,605 votes. Lanusse handed over power on May 25, 1973 to Cámpora.

When Cámpora took office, the Peronist militants sang: "They are leaving, they are leaving, and they will never come back", thinking that a coup d'état would never happen in Argentina again.

Cabinet of Ministers

Ministries of the Dictatorship Alejandro Agustín Lanusse
Portfolio	Owner	Period
Ministry of the Interior	Arturo Mor Roig	26 March 1971-25 May 1973
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship	Luis María de Pablo Pardo Eduardo F. Mac Loughlin	26 March 1971-22 June 1972 22 June 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Economy	Aldo Ferrer	26 March 1971–28 May 1971
Ministry of Finance and Finance	Juan Alberto Quillici Cayetano Antonio Licciardo Jorge Wehbe	1 June 1971–11 October 1971 11 October 1971–13 October 1972 13 October 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock	Ernesto Jorge Lanusse	9 March 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Commerce	Alfredo José Girelli Daniel García	26 March 1971–2 March 1972 7 March 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Education	Gustavo Malek	26 March 1971-25 May 1973
Ministry of Social Welfare	Francisco Manrique Oscar Puiggrós	26 March 1971–8 August 1972 8 August 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of National Defence	José R. Cáceres Monié Eduardo Aguirre Obarrio	26 March 1971–9 May 1972 9 May 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Labour	Rubens San Sebastián	26 March 1971-25 May 1973
Ministry of Justice	Jaime Perriaux Ismael Bruno Quijano Gervasio Colombres	26 March 1971-11 October 1971 11 October 1971–11 July 1972 11 July 1972–25 May 1973
Ministry of Public Works and Services	Oscar Colombo Pedro A. Gordillo	26 March 1971–8 June 1971 21 June 1971–25 May 1973
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Mining	Oscar Chescotta	8 June 1971–25 October 1971
Ministry of Industry and Mining	Carlos Casale Ernesto Parellada	25 October 1971-7 March 1972 8 March 1972–25 May 1973

Subsequent public activities

In 1977 his former press secretary Edgardo Sajón was kidnapped and murdered at the Navy Mechanics School. And in December 1978, her cousin Elena Angélica Holmberg was kidnapped and murdered by clandestine commandos of the Argentine Navy, in Paris, both were victims of the last military dictatorship.

Lanusse was an active critic of the military juntas during the National Reorganization Process, questioning their methodologies. He was against this coup as well as his "proceedings by the left", and testified in the trials held after the return of democracy in 1985. Here is a remarkable paragraph of his testimony on the Saxon case:

Julius César Strassera: Did any authority you interviewed recognize the use of these clandestine methods?

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse: "Being held in pre-trial detention in Campo de Mayo, at the School of Communications, my capture was ordered, let's say my confinement, at the Alcaidía with sentinel at the sight and the raid in my house on the 4th of May; two days later came the head of the Guarnición de Campo de Mayo accompanied by their second, I refer to General Riveros and Bignone; at that opportunity the reudio I told him there were opportunities for him not to live, General Riveros. In addition you have no hierarchy or powers to pretend to tell me how to proceed. The moods were warmed between both and General Bignone, of his personality and idiosyncrasy, pretended to mediate with very little happiness by the way and said: my general, until last year I thought like you, now I have changed the way of thinking; the general regret Bignone, with the same frankness I tell you that until last year I had a concept of General Bigncapone and that now I do not maintain it

Testimony during the trial of the military junta.

He wrote three autobiographical books: My Testimony, Protagonista and Confessions of a General, in these publications he left testimonies of his private and political life, being one of the few Argentine presidents to write his memoirs.

According to Lanusse himself, his de facto government had a center-left position, he was also proud of having presided over a "government that had the purpose of giving back to the people, without discrimination or proscriptions, their right to choose".

With only two days remaining before his 78th birthday, Alejandro Agustín Lanusse passed away on August 26, 1996.