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The Good Earth. Argentina itself is partly responsible for this. Argentina is far from other major world centers of power. It is also twelve feet of black earth lying flat and rich on vast plains around one of the world's great rivers, the Plata. Argentina automatically renews its fabulous grain and cattle wealth with every cycle of the seasons, and no amount of mismanagement on high can seem to ruin it. When citizens knock off work at midday in the capital city of Buenos Aires (pop. 3,200,000), the sizzle and crackle of broiling beef is heard all over the town, and almost anybody who wants to can lunch on a saddle-sized steak for as little as 25¢. Argentines, mainly of Spanish or Italian descent, accept their good fortune with dignified complacency. They have not gone to war in 81 years. They are not the kind of people who can be led on adventures of foreign conquest; but while the good life stays reasonably good, they are equally unlikely to revolt against Perón at home.
The son of a bailiff and great-grandson of a Sardinian Senator whose name may have been Peroni, Juan Perón was born in the heart of the richest pampas, at Lobos, just 60 miles south of Buenos Aires. Rugged outdoor upbringing made him a standout in sports by the time he was appointed to the military academy at 16. He was the army's champion swordsman, and one of its best shots. Sent to Italy as attaché just as World War II broke out, he caught the fever of Fascism, skied with Italian Alpine regiments, listened to // Duce thunder from his balcony.
Back in Argentina, he helped found a secret Group of United Officers (GOU), and began a "crusade for spiritual renovation." Generals fronted for the 1943 revolution, in which the army overthrew the landholders' regime of the moss-backed Conservative Party, but Colonel Perón using his power as boss of the GOU assured the revolt's success. Named to the key post of Under Secretary of War, Peron skillfully juggled assignments and slipped his own men into all the important army commands.
The day came when President Pedro Ramirez sent a messenger to demand the cocky colonel's resignation. Perón coldly replied: "Tell the wretches who sent you that they will never get me out of here alive." That night, six GOU men burst into General Ramirez' study and forced him at gunpoint to sign over his powers to Perón's special front man, General Edelmiro Farrell; Perón, the real boss, became Vice President and Secretary of War.
Juan Perón was too smart to remain merely an army strong man; he set to work building political power. Generations of farm-minded governments had ignored the country's underpaid workers. Announcing, "I am a syndicalist," Perón created a new Department of Labor and began courting members of the sindicatos (trade unions). He drank scratchy red wine with them in sweaty waterfront bars. He talked their language and listened well. Using the Argentine governmental power to appoint legal "interventors" in almost any field, he installed leaders loyal to him at the heads of the unions.