in 1943, invited comparisons. Both revolutions had been led by secret military lodges and officers somewhat sympathetic to, if not actually trained by, Germany. Both embarked on nationalistic campaigns to industrialize the nation, demonize a vendepatria elite that had dominated the nation for decades, and achieve economic self-sufficiency. Both forged alliances with the working class to carry out what the State Department considered to be a “totalitarian” agenda. Moreover, at the height of the 1944 nonrecognition crisis, Bolivian Foreign Minister José Tamayo had proposed the formation of an “austral bloc” of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. Although Tamayo’s memorandum was denounced by all sides and he was immediately dropped from the cabinet, it added fuel to the fire.31
The State Department was not alone in its suspicions: even Villarroel’s first ambassador to Argentina apparently warned his president that “if I find any evidence of Peronist involvement in your coup, I’ll resign.”32 Evidently, he did not. The State Department never really found much, either. “So far as the Embassy is aware, it has never been proved that the Revolution of December 20, 1943, received any financial assistance from Argentina,” one foreign service officer observed, but “of course the charge was made by the Department of State” nonetheless. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires could find no evidence, either, except for a highly suspect report from Mauricio Hochschild, whose “penchant for stirring up trouble is well known,” as was his desire to see a government in La Paz more responsive to his interests.33 None of this, of course, deterred Braden from his course.
For their part, the Peronists did, to some extent, see the MNR as a potential ally. Both movements were, the Argentines believed, the targets of an unholy “Communist-oligarch” alliance that had been hammered together in Braden’s office in 1944 between José Arze and Mauricio Hochschild. Braden had supposedly told the tin baron and the PIR leader that “we shall kill the dog and then the fleas will die,” suggesting that his campaign against Perón would eventually lead to Villarroel’s demise. Whether the story was true or not, Peronists viewed the U.S. campaign against Villarroel as an effort to diplomatically “isolate the Argentine Republic.” In the view of the Argentine Embassy in La Paz, if Argentina could acquire “substantial quantities of tin” from Bolivia, “the economy of [that] country [would] change its center of influence” from Washington to Buenos Aires. Villarroel had entered discussions with Peronists to have the iron fields of Mutún opened up to Argentine capital, and in a matter of “greatest importance” to Bolivia, the Argentine Banco Central was offering him loans that Washington and Wall Street refused to consider.34
Despite, however, the Argentine courting of a prolabor government “unprecedented in the institutional history of [Bolivia],” U.S. diplomats reported that “the Bolivian Government has appeared to give the Argentine considerable reason for annoyance.” Bolivian diplomats concurred and even admitted privately that the Argentines had legitimate reasons for a certain mistrust of Villarroel. Disputes arose from Bolivia’s “misuse” of Argentine rolling stock and “its inefficiency in railway matters in general”; they had escalated to the extent that the Argentines had, at one point, recalled their ambassador from La Paz.35
Far more serious, however, was Villarroel’s willing participation in Assistant Secretary Braden’s embargo against Argentina. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation had purchased the entire Bolivian rubber production throughout the war and allocated it to the Allies. As a neutral, Argentina had received no rubber quota and, despite widespread smuggling, was suffering from serious shortages in late 1945. With the end of the war in Europe and the reopening of their traditional markets, the Argentines claimed that the Bolivians were charging exorbitant prices for rubber and then compounding their crime by not delivering it. Argentina retaliated by simply cutting off food shipments to Bolivia. In fact, almost all Bolivian rubber was still committed to be sold to the United States, and Braden refused to permit any sales to Argentina that would lead to a resumption of grain shipments. To avert disaster, the State Department arranged an emergency shipment of ten thousand tons of Australian wheat to Bolivia. Even when the Argentines resumed grain shipments, they had raised the price of their wheat by more than 50 percent, and the absence of Argentine-Bolivian amity should have been obvious.36
In light of episodes such as this, in March 1946, after insisting “for the dozenth time” that “he was no special friend of Argentina,” Villarroel explained to U.S. chargé Adam that he had to give his “avaricious and more powerful” neighbor “every courtesy because of Bolivia’s dependence on it for food.” Although the peronistas may have shared some ideological sympathies with Villarroel and the MNR, there was little hope for long-term cooperation. Paz Estenssoro tried to explain that, because his program for economic diversification was directly aimed at reducing Bolivian dependence on Argentine food imports, Argentina was “not disposed to assist” in his quest for “self-sufficiency.” Indeed, should the MNR achieve its goals of radically increasing the agricultural production of Bolivia, it would be directly at the expense of Argentine exporters.37 In the end, peronistas certainly hoped for some sort of anti-U.S. solidarity with their Bolivian counterparts, but there was little basis for it, despite Braden’s fervent belief that there was.
The Bolivian ambassador in Washington, Victor Andrade, showed a remarkable understanding of Assistant Secretary Braden, the Blue Book, and the strange persistence of the myth of Argentine complicity in Bolivia’s 1943 revolution. Because President Truman and Secretary of State James Byrnes were preoccupied with reconversion and the European Cold War, Andrade argued that Braden had an “unprecedented” free hand in assailing Perón’s Argentina. Bolivia had been drawn into Braden’s campaign by faulty evidence (which could, of course, never be refuted) and his need to “convince the American people of the danger” posed by the Argentine government. “It was not sufficient to tell of [Argentina’s] supposed totalitarian ideology or speak of its failure to take action against subjects of Axis nations,” Ambassador Andrade explained, so Braden needed to find or fabricate an example of Argentine “imperialism” that would “constitute an immediate international threat.” Accusing the Argentines of fomenting the Bolivian revolution accomplished that goal, but, the ambassador was quick to point out, the Blue Book had never really been intended to influence events in Bolivia. Indeed, Andrade believed that Braden had been extremely supportive of Bolivian arguments regarding the tin contract, and he noted that State Department officers had barely mentioned the Blue Book to him. Although silence was part of the State Department’s calculated strategy to let the Bolivians “stew” over the accusations, Andrade was essentially correct in his analysis.38
Still, State Department officials did initially hold out some small hope that, when the Blue Book fell “like a bombshell on Bolivian politics,” it might inspire a revolution against Villarroel. It would give both the FDA and anti-MNR officers “powerful ammunition” to use against Paz Estenssoro and possibly bring about a formal split. Even if this did not occur, U.S. diplomats hoped it might also provide an impetus or a pretext for Villarroel to remove the MNR from his government and to invite the FDA in, providing for an “orderly transition” of power back to the traditional parties and the “moneyed class.” Foreign Minister Pinto was rumored to support that option, and at least one other cabinet member told U.S. chargé Adam that he very much wanted to do just that but could not yet act on his desires. The third and most undesirable possibility was that Villarroel and Paz Estenssoro would retrench, mend their differences, and “hang together” in the face of Braden’s and the FDA’s uncompromising assaults.39
Within days after the release of the Blue Book in February 1946, that third possibility had come to pass. “By strengthening and solidifying the opposition,” Adam explained, “the Blue [Book] has postponed the possibility of the military members of the Government throwing out the MNR and substituting some other civilian group.” Prior to the release, Villarroel and Pinto had shown clear signs that they were “ready to throw all those accused to the wolves,” with the exception of Paz Estenssoro, who, Villarroel assured embassy personnel, was innocent of the charges against him. However, the Blue Book spawned “resentment that [sprang] from patriotic motives,” apparently across the political spectrum
