The watery brown eyes stare out from sockets sunk into folds of flaccid flesh. Thin purple veins straggle across the high cheekbones, so close to the surface that they almost seem etched on the first layer of skin. The second chin sags into a second throat. Black dye has been used on the swept-back hair, but the cosmetic is not enough. Juan Domingo Perón, almost 78, looks his age —and feels it. He tires easily; he has trouble concentrating. Yet he must try to marshal his failing faculties. Nearly two decades after he was run out of Argentina, a deposed, despised despot, Peron is home again, exalted again, in charge again of one of the richest countries in Latin America.
The aging caudillo's comeback may well be the political feat—or at least phenomenon—of the century. It is rare enough for a failed leader to get a second chance in a stable democracy, even if he is relatively young. But overthrown dictators hardly ever return to the scene of their prime, unless it is behind guns pointed at their successors. Though no stranger to force, Perón has used none directly to regain his power.
He is back—with his third wife Isabel at his side, trying to fill the role of the revered Eva—because the people of Argentina want him back. He is back —seeking to formalize his power by running for President this month—also because the military that ousted him finally let him back. Most of all, Perón is back because Argentina is in a state of chaos, racked by terrorism and factional clashes that threaten to engulf it in civil war. Both the masses and the military look to him in desperation. He seems to them to be the only man who can somehow pull together a nation that has never fulfilled its potential and has seldom experienced darker times.
Thus the triumph of Perón's return is conditional. The walls of Buenos Aires are plastered with posters from the past, showing a robust, smooth-faced Perón. But it is the future that will determine his ultimate place in Argentine history—and, more crucially, the destiny of the country itself. If he fails his second chance, Perón will be worse off than he was after his first, and so will Argentina. In short, the man and the country are on the same spot, their destinies and fortunes inextricably entwined.
The problems they face are immense. The nation is much more complex, much more politicized, much less tractable than it was when Perón last ruled. Marxists and fascists fight in the streets. Leftist guerrillas roam the cities and countryside alike, terrorizing public officials and business executives. In the past two years, there have been more than 200 kidnapings and about $80 million has been extorted in ransom money, chiefly from big business concerns. Some multinational corporations, such as Coca-Cola and Otis Elevator, have evacuated their executives. The economy is blighted. Between January and May, the cost of living had risen 67%; though emergency measures have arrested the climb for the moment, inflation remains a specter. Beef exports, the biggest source of income, have slumped despite the fact that world markets are begging for meat.