Alvaro Alsogaray
Álvaro Carlos Alsogaray (Esperanza, June 22, 1913-Buenos Aires, April 1, 2005) was an Argentine politician, soldier, and economist who promoted liberalism in Argentina in the second half of the of the 20th century.
Biography
Early Years and Military Career
Alsogaray was born in Esperanza, Santa Fe province, on June 22, 1913, as the son of General Álvaro Enrique Alsogaray, who had an important role in the 1930 coup, and Julia Bosch, of Swiss descent. His great-grandfather, Álvaro José de Alzogaray, played a fundamental role in the Battle of the Vuelta de Obligado in 1845, being an assistant to Admiral Guillermo Brown, who established Argentine control over the lower part of the Paraná River, and his grandfather, Álvaro Antonio Alsogaray, He was a lieutenant colonel of the Argentine Army, and a Paraguayan warrior, present in the combats of Yatay, Paso de la Patria, Estero Bellaco, Tuyutí, he was decorated with the medals awarded during the war. He was the brother of General Julio Rodolfo Alsogaray, Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Army between 1966 and 1968.
He married Edith Gay, also of Swiss descent, in his native Esperanza, in December 1940. With her he had 3 children: María Julia (1942-2017), Álvaro Luis (1944), and Eduardo (1946-2019).
Álvaro Alsogaray, after graduating from the Military College of the Nation as a second lieutenant of infantry, obtained the title of military engineer at the Army Technical School in 1943, during this stage at the Military College he paraded with the cadets to celebrate the coup d'état of 1930. In that march he coincided with Juan Domingo Perón, with whom an intense enmity would later separate him.
Business career
_look_over_issues_of_the_first_newspaper_to_be_printed_on_bagasse,_the_Holyoke_Transcript-Telegram,_January_26,_1950.jpg){kind=spacer}
He was also dedicated to business activity, where he participated in the creation of companies such as ZONDA (Sociedad Mixta Zonas Oeste y Norte de Aerolíneas Argentinas), joint ventures created by the State from which Aerolíneas Argentinas would later emerge when it was nationalized in 1949, and the economic consultancy CADESYM SA.
His brother, General Julio Rodolfo Alsogaray, was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and led the coup against Arturo Illia. Two sons of Julio Alsogaray joined the Montoneros group as combatants. One of them, Juan Carlos, died in Tucumán after being captured by the Army after the Burruyacu combat, accused of having commanded the bomb attack on a Hercules C-130 military plane in which 6 were killed and 26 wounded, all of them gendarmes.
Álvaro Alsogaray was the father of three children (Álvaro, María Julia and Eduardo), married to Edith Lea Ana Gay.
Public official
In 1955, Alsogaray was appointed official of the Liberating Revolution, from September of that year to June 1956 he was Undersecretary of Commerce and then Minister of Industry. He later he Minister of Economy and Minister of Labor during the Government of Arturo Frondizi.
After the 1966 coup d'état ―in which his brother, Lieutenant General Julio Rodolfo Alsogaray, participated―, he was appointed ambassador to the United States until 1968. Again Minister of Economy, as well as President of the Interministerial Labor Council, Economy and Services, during the Government of José María Guido. His rigid ideological scheme reached him to be summoned by the de facto government of Guido and later by the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía, who appointed him ambassador to the United States.
Frondizi's Minister of Finance (1959-1961)
Between 1959 and 1961 he was Minister of Finance under Arturo Frondizi, who was pressured by the military to appoint him. Alsogaray traveled to the United States to agree on the arrival of US Army General Thomas Larkin to Argentina. This is how the so-called Larkin Plan arose, which consisted of abandoning 32% of the existing railways, laying off 70,000 railway employees, and scrap all steam locomotives, as well as 70,000 carriages and 3,000 cars. Thus began the massive elimination of steam locomotives and a long series of cancellations and raising of tracks.
The plan was suspended due to a 42-day rail strike in 1961. As a result of the Larkin Plan, trains stopped running on almost all of the former Buenos Aires Provincial Railroad, the branches of the former Patagonian Railroad, those of the Central del Chubut, of the Roca Railway and other lines. On October 30, some 200,000 railway workers stick to the strike. Workers are required to report to work or be detained. President Frondizi resorted to the gendarmerie and the army, subjecting the railway workers to the Code of Military Justice, allowing the strikers to be transferred to barracks, subjecting the railway workers to the Code of Military Justice, to be tried by military justice, to through the CONINTES plan (Internalcommotion of the State).
Guido's Minister of Economy (1962)
After the military coup against Frondizi, José María Guido (1962-1963) took office, following him in the line of succession. After the efforts of Jorge Wehbe and Federico Pinedo in the Ministry of Economy, Alsogaray was called to occupy the position again.
A new "stand by" with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which imposed the reduction of import duties to zero, the increase in taxes on consumption and the rates of public services. Withholding taxes on traditional exports were reduced, the money supply was restricted, and public spending and investment were reduced. The dollar reached $138 its lowest value in history until then. The decrease in economic activity contracted the tax base, so the state deficit did not decrease but increased. It was not possible to pay the bills or the salaries of the public sector, which the Minister of Economy determined to pay with titles of the "forced patriotic loan". The development economist Aldo Ferrer has characterized Alsogaray's economic policy in this way: "This strategy sought to definitively dismantle the labor movement, reinstate the mechanisms of economic power and distribution in force before Peronism and establish the Argentine economy in a framework of dependency, once again, on the exporting agricultural sector and on the commercial and financial groups linked to them". being at that time brand new Minister of Economy of the radical president Arturo Frondizi.
Political career
He founded the Independent Civic Party (1956), the Nueva Fuerza party (1972) and the UCeDé (1982). He was a candidate in 1958 and 1965 for the Independent Civic Party and in 1973, for the Nueva Fuerza party. In the 1973 elections, the party led a gigantic advertising campaign, novel for the time but which could not exceed 2.07% of the vote.
As head of the UCeDé, he was a candidate for president of the Nation in 1983 and 1989. In this last election, the formula he shared with Alberto Natale (belonging to the Progressive Democratic Party) reached close to one million votes, placing third after Carlos Menem (Justicialista Party) and Eduardo Angeloz (Radical Civic Union).
He was a national deputy for the city of Buenos Aires for sixteen consecutive years, between 1983 and 1999 (he was elected four times: in 1983, 1987, 1991 and 1995), and later appointed ad honorempresidential adviser i> during the government of Carlos Menem.
In 1983, he also founded the National Confederation of the Center, whose purpose was to bring together the right-wing parties of the different provinces, but he only managed occasional alliances with the Progressive Democratic Party (of the province of Santa Fe), the Democratic Union Center (from the province of Córdoba) and the Democratic Party (from the province of Buenos Aires). His political support was consequently limited mainly to the electorate of the city of Buenos Aires and suburbs of the middle and upper sectors. By the mid-1990s, the party had lost a large part of its electoral wealth, hampered by acts of corruption involving various party members. Alsogaray already announced in 1997 that in the UCeDé "there is corruption, disorder and indiscipline".
In the 1990s, he was appointed adviser for foreign debt and he fully devoted himself to a pharaonic and frustrated project: the aeroisla. Accused of working for the Dutch group that wanted to carry out the work and fought with half of the cabinet, in 1991 Alsogaray decided to leave the government, at the same time his daughter María Julia would end up being prosecuted for corruption and imprisoned.
Style
In his public presentations or before the media, he cultivated a particular, acid and dispassionate style, often branded as pedantic, very rare in the political sphere during the times in which he served. During his steps through the Ministry of Economy, he accompanied his speeches with graphics that were displayed on television.
Since November 1968, he was a member of the National Academy of Economic Sciences, where he was ranked number 20. He was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. In 1985 the Francisco Marroquín University (of Guatemala) awarded him an honorary doctorate in Political Science.
Political and economic ideas
Alsogaray was an admirer of the great liberal theorists, Ludwig Erhard, Luigi Einaudi, Jacques Rueff, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. He was markedly against Peronism.
In his political writings there is a clear adherence to the so-called "orthodox" programs: fight against inflation, privatization of public services, reduction of state expenses and promotion of private initiative.
Most frequent critics and their responses
Alsogaray was objected to his participation in dictatorships ―such as the “Libertadora” Revolution (in 1955) and the “Argentina” Revolution (in 1966)― to which Alsogaray used to reply that numerous leaders had participated in those same dictatorships from different parties ―such as Alfredo Palacios (of the Socialist Party) who was ambassador to Uruguay in 1955; Carlos Alconada Aramburú (of the Radical Civic Union), who was Minister of the Interior in 1958; or Arturo Mor Roig (of the Radical Civic Union), who was a minister during the dictatorship of General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse―.
On March 21, 1976 ―three days before the coup d'état that would initiate the process―, in his statements published by the Clarín newspaper (of Buenos Aires), he maintained that
[...] the government ministers themselves and the leaders of a caduca and irresponsible opposition already speak openly of the coup d’etat. The worldly and material interests encourage them [...] Why would there be a coup to free the political leaders from their guilt? Why carry the disaster while at the same time supplying them with free and unscathed escape from the trap they've gotten into? Why transform them into ununderstood martyrs of democracy, precisely at the time they will be forced to proclaim their great failure?Alvaro Alsogaray
He was also criticized for his defense of the actions of the Armed Forces during the National Reorganization Process (1976-1983). He was credited with having presented a bill fourteen years earlier to build a monument to Jorge Rafael Videla.The alleged project does not appear in the records of the Argentine Congress.
Published Works
He published newspaper articles in defense of economic liberalism and the social market economy, or criticizing the current political situation. Among his books are:
- 1968: Bases for future political action.
- 1969: Politics and economy in Latin America.
- 1969: Theory and Practice in Economic Action.
- 1981: Argentine industrial structure and policy.
- 1982: State participation and intervention in the economy.
- 1989: Liberal bases for a government program.
- 1993: Experiences of 50 years of Argentine politics and economy.