style="font-size:15px;"> “Welcome to the team, Martin,” Walsh said. “Just call me Red.”
“Yes, sir!” the German snapped as he tried to click the non-existent heels of his soft shoes. In his navy raglan with the hood pulled down, he now looked more like a local fisherman than a resident of the Old World. Except, of course, for his blondness.
And so the three of them were heading through the Andes to the land of the pampas and ferocious gauchos. This is all that Walsh himself knew about this country so far. Well, not everything… Besides the gaucho, there was also the president – Juan Perón.
Walsh once again glanced at the dullness behind the window and tried to remember what he had dug up on this odious Argentinian politician.
Perón was born in 1895, in the village of Lobos near Buenos Aires. His father was quite a successful landowner, cattle breeder, and even worked as a bailiff. Thanks to his connections and finances, he could provide his son with a decent education. The future president graduated first from Collegio Militar (military school), and then from Escuela Superior de Guerra (military college).
Thus, the young Perón was destined for a military career from childhood. He went from a second lieutenant in the infantry to captain and entered the military academy in 1926. Perón successfully graduated in 1929 and he taught military history and strategy there. He even published several books in this area – ‘Notes on Military History’ and ‘History of the Russian-Japanese War’ and others.
With the rank of major, Juan Perón took part in the uprising against Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1930. Afterwards, he served for some time as the personal secretary of the Minister of War in the new government.
After becoming a lieutenant colonel in the Argentine army, Perón worked as a military attaché in Chile. In 1939–1940 he was on a European business trip with the mission of observing the preparations for the Second World War by the leading powers. He had to determine the conditions for the neutrality of his country and the balance of forces between the two blocs – fascist and democratic.
Perón was by then already a very experienced diplomat, politician, and intelligence officer. He chose Italy as his place of permanent deployment. From there he traveled to Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal.
To get a complete picture of what was happening in Europe on the eve of the Great War, Perón met with both the Spanish Francoists and the Republicans. He even visited the German-Soviet border along the former Eastern Front of the First World War. Perón studied the tactics of the Alpine shooters in Italy, attended six-month courses in applied and social sciences at the universities of Turin and Milan. He interviewed Mussolini and high-ranking German military personnel. He showed interest in both Italian fascism and ‘Russian communism’.
Such a hellish mixture of a talented politician and military man could not but find a way out. Upon returning to his homeland in 1941, Perón joined a secret officer group intending to overthrow the existing order. Indeed, while still traveling through Italy, Perón published five books about Mussolini, describing his military methods and tactics.
And on June 4, 1943, a mutiny broke out, during which Perón, along with generals Ramirez and Rawson, overthrew the existing government and established a new government in Argentina.
Walsh chuckled at himself, assessing the Jesuit nature of Juan Perón. In the new government, he demanded for himself only the post of Minister of Labor and Social Security, which was strange for an obviously pro-fascist young man.
The new junta put an end to the then-conservative latifundist, pro-English-minded regime. This was easy, considering that the overwhelming majority of the masses hated the rich landowners and wealthy herders who were fattened by hired labor. People saw in them only henchmen of the British crown, and in their eyes, the rebels-fascists looked like the true patriots.
At first, General Pedro Ramirez led the junta. But he looked ever more towards emissaries from Washington, which did not suit both Vice President Farrell and Perón himself. These two figures united on January 26, 1944, and called for a break in relations with Japan and Germany. Thus, enlisting the support of the Americans themselves, they toppled Ramirezin short order, replacing him with Farrell.
Perón became vice president while still handling social issues. He secured the support of most trade unions. Under his guidance, they restructured in the image and likeness of Mussolini's syndicates. And when in October 1945, on the balcony of the presidential palace, the weak-willed Farrell, who was nothing but a political figure, kissed Perón and officially handed over power to him, the popular masses strongly supported it.
The military realized they were, as the saying goes, caught with their pants down. Yet, it was too late to do anything with the newly made president. The ‘descamisados’ saw him as the only people's leader. When the army tried to detain Perón or arrest him, the crowd simply took him away from the soldiers.
Perón himself called his ideology ‘Justicialism’. He was building a system based on an alliance of trade union associations. In it, everyone registered with the state administration. Mass nationalization began: railways, heavy and light industry, energy, infrastructure, medicine, and education became state-owned.
Half-destroyed Europe desperately needed Argentinian produce: meat, grain, and steel. This formed a favorable external economic environment. The profits from trade that entered the country did not become frozen in stabilization funds and did not settle in the pockets of those in power. Instead, the government invested it in various industries and the social sphere. When these injections were not enough for some of Perón's projects, the funds came from the large owners. The country flourished as never before.
At the end of the forties, Argentina was seriously considering joining the ‘nuclear club’ of powers. It was then that the United States remembered the weak ‘firing’ compartment of one of the German submarines interned from Argentina. And they strained in earnest. The White House's plans did not include expanding the elite ‘atomic get-together’ to one more member – especially not the unpredictable and pro-fascist Argentina. Under the leadership of Perón, not controlled from Capitol Hill, she could complicate the life of the states in Latin America, where Uncle Sam's bankers and entrepreneurs got accustomed long ago to behaving like it was their backyard. The White House could not let that happen…
Walsh blinked as yet another unexpected maneuver from the absent-minded pilots shook him from his reverie. Redrick’s stomach was somewhere in his throat as the plane banked to the right without warning and descended to the ground along some unthinkable trajectory.
Out of the corner of his eye, Walsh noted Rosenblum and Bohnenkamp were not exactly masculine specimens from a brochure. The first covered his mouth with a checkered handkerchief and tried his best not to empty his stomach into his own hands. The German simply bent his head to his knees and clasped the back of his head, freezing in the fetal position.
He noted the surprised look of the American and explained with a pale smile:
“The instructor at the base taught us this way. He said that in the event of a plane crash, this position gives the maximum chances of surviving the impact.”
Walsh shrugged his shoulders, got up, and walked towards the cockpit. The floor tilted thirty degrees to the left. He had to rest against the wall and grab the straps on the ceiling. Pulling open the corrugated door of the cockpit, he stuck his head in and almost staggered back. Through the windshield, heavy thunderclouds appeared to be rushing straight towards him.
The co-pilot, in his canned glasses and flight helmet, turned to him.
“Something wrong?” he asked in an ordinary voice, raised over
