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In consolidating his power, Perón avoided some obvious authoritarian pitfalls. Though some of his noisy followers were antiSemitic, Perón repudiated Jew-baiting. Instead of putting opponents in concentration camps, he simply ruined them economically. If newspaper publishers criticized his regime, he might close them for poor lighting, or sanitary conditions in their printing plants. (In all, 100 papers and magazines were shut down.) If a drug manufacturer refused to cooperate, the Health Ministry padlocked his plant on a charge that his drugs were impure. Since most of Perón's opponents were well-to-do, the mere threat of being cut off at the pockets was often enough.
Perón packed the courts and universities with his stooges. Congress voted him absolute powers over his 17 million people, including the right to jail them for "disrespect" to any official from President to dogcatcher; but Perón used the powers sparingly. When he switched constitutions so that he could run for reelection, it became necessary to arrest a few opponents; more often he bullied obstinate critics into fleeing across the river to Uruguay, where they lapsed into total ineffectiveness.
"Vivo Perón Viudo!" But while Peron was emasculating his political opposition, he ran into economic storms. By the middle of 1948, his regime had dissipated some $1.2 billion in foreign exchange that Argentina had piled up during World War II. Some of it went to buy the British-owned railways and the U.S.-owned telephone system and to build up a creditable merchant marine. But millions went down the drain in a reckless buying spree to round up foreign equipment for the President's grandiose five-year industrialization plan. On top of that, IAPI, the state trading agency, demanded such extortionate prices for Argentine products that the country lost a large part of its foreign market. Grafting and fumbling bureaucrats came close to wrecking the economy. The peso sank lower & lower. The cost of living mounted. Perón, who had once shouted: "I would cut off my hand before accepting a loan!" sent envoys to the U.S. early in 1950 to wangle a $125 million credit on admittedly tough terms.
As inflation ate up their original pay rises, the workers turned again to the Peróns for help. Last November, the railway union, a much-favored Peronista outfit, demanded new increases. They were stalled off. Despite blarneying speeches by Evita, a rank & file strike started. The official press charged that the strikers were Reds. "We're not Communists," shouted pickets. "We're hungry Peronistas!"
The situation grew ugly. Trains stopped running in Buenos Aires, and on the walls appeared an ominous phrase: "Viva Perón Viudo! [Long Live the Widower Perón]." Finally, Perón announced he could not tolerate such worker insubordination. For the first time since 1943, the Argentine army was used in a labor dispute and the strike was broken. Whether this tough treatment produced any subsurface cracks in the Peróns' all-important labor support may not be known for months or years.