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After that, the revolt quickly faded out. During the afternoon, tank-led army units captured the rebels' air base east of the capital. With no place to land and refuel, the pilots gave up, headed across the River Plate toward Uruguay, longtime haven for enemies of Juan Perón. Before nightfall, 38 planes carrying 124 revolutionaries landed on Uruguayan soil. The flyers blamed their defeat on the fog, which hindered rebel planes and warships and prevented a planned landing on the Buenos Aires waterfront; they also complained bitterly of a last-minute backdown by army commanders who had promised to join the revolt. Through the night, a clandestine radio transmitter kept proclaiming that army garrisons in the interior had revolted. But the claim was not borne out. For the moment, Perón had won.
The estimated toll stood at 360 dead, nearly 1,000 wounded. The Plaza de Mayo district was blood-spattered and bomb-scarred, littered with the wreckage of torn buildings, shattered windows and smashed-up vehicles. After a seven-minute victory speech by Perón, eulogizing the loyal army, mobs of civilians raged through the capital. That night the sky glowed red as flames leaped up from at least seven Roman Catholic churches and the residence of Argentina's Cardinal Primate.
The Father of Chaos. It was Argentina's bloodiest and most chaotic day since the country came under the control of Juan Peron, a man who once said to a group of fellow army officers: "I am the son and the father of chaos." In nine years as President, he had feuded with the press, political parties, courts, farmers and businessmen before taking on the church.
He had weakened his opposition by dividing it, e.g., playing off industry against agriculture, and when such mild tactics failed, he used policemen, bullyboys and wrought-up mobs to frighten and smash his opponents. His jails have been populated at various times by editors, politicians, students and priests. His only opposition in the federal Congress comes from a remnant of twelve Radical Party Deputies, who are permitted to go on voting against the Peronista majority because they serve the stage-prop purpose of suggesting that Argentina is a democracy.
Last year Perón sniffed the beginnings of a new opposition, led by Roman Catholic priests and members of Catholic lay organizations. The Catholic hierarchy in Argentina had supported Perón during his rise to power and his early years as President. What crystallized Catholic opposition to Perón was largely his campaign to Peronize the minds of Argentine school children. (Says a Peronized first-grade reader: "Perón is the leader. Everyone loves Perón. Everyone sings, 'Viva Perón! Viva the leader! Viva!'") Catholics set out to organize a Christian Democratic political party. Last October oratorical rumbles against "sectarian" opposition signaled the outbreak of a war of harassment against the church.