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That sample of naval power was enough for the loyalist generals still holding out in Buenos Aires. Peron and his top followers bugged out to foreign embassies, leaving in charge an interim junta made up of 14 not-so-Peronista generals. Next day members of the junta boarded a rebel cruiser in the Plate, agreed to surrender their authority to a government headed by General Lonardi. Before handing over the capital of Argentina to the rebels, the short-lived junta happily carried out a final operation: disarming the red-armband fascist bullyboys of Perón's Alianza Popular Nacionalista.
It was the first day of the Argentine spring; that morning the drenching late-winter rains ended, and the sun broke through the clouds. Cheering crowds surged through the streets of Buenos Aires in a wild outburst of joy and relief.
Lonardi & Co. lost no time undertaking a brisk spring housecleaning. Jail doors flew open to let out Peron's political prisoners. New-broomed out of office were Peron's provincial governors and city officials. Lonardi dissolved the federal Congress, ordered all Peronista members arrested pending investigation. Elections were promised within eight months.
The new government announced that the provinces of Presidente Peron and Eva Peron would resume their old names.
Chaco and La Pampa.
Civilians did some energetic, unofficial housecleaning on their own. Crowds smashed into the headquarters of Peronista organizations, scuffled for the honor of ripping down pictures of the nation's longtime master. All over Argentina, busts of the Perons crumbled under lusty hammer blows, Peronista publications went up in blazing bonfires.
Curfew in Rosario. Amid the joyous uproar it was easy to forget that some Argentines were sorry to see Juan Perón go. The grievances recited by General Lonardi—that Peron subverted the laws, violated constitutional rights, mismanaged the economy, packed the courts, burned churches and permitted vast graft—were all true enough. But Peron also gave organized labor, which the old. established parties had never bothered to court, a new sense of dignity and importance—that was the real secret of his success.
Lonardi had hardly taken the presidential oath, when riots broke out in working-class sections of Buenos Aires. In the industrial city of Rosario, a rumor that Perón had left the Paraguay to lead a counter-revolt brought on a bloody clash between gun-toting soldiers and stone-throwing Peronista workers. The new government decreed an 8 p.m. curfew, warned that demonstrators would be shot.
If Lonardi & Co. are to rule Argentina without using curfews and threats to shoot, they will have to overcome the workers' fears. Showing shrewd political sense, Lonardi announced that labor "can have as much confidence in this government as in the former . . . The conquests of the workers will be maintained and improved." Gone With the Winter. At week's end the country was mainly peaceful again.
One sign of confidence was a sharp upward spurt in the free-market value of the wobbly peso. The U.S. joined the parade of nations officially recognizing the Lonardi regime as Argentina's new government.