Remembrance

Each Argentine knew who Eva Perón was; some, however, based their knowledge on their feelings while others depended on the rational interpretation of facts. Tangible reality began to take the form of myth and those of us who did not share Evita's chronological space in time but wished to know her found that for many years our way was blocked by silence. "We Do Not Speak of That" is not only the title of an Argentine film but also a signpost of our history. The works that were published, the movies that were filmed, the voices that even today are raised in praise or condemnation confirm that Eva Perón has transcended both time and myth.

Juan Peron and Eva Duarte de Peron Official Portrate

Bicentennial Museum, Buenos Aires

If life is a continual choice and we continue to evolve until the hour of our death, then on July 26, 1952, Evita, the child born thirty-three years ago in a small Argentine town, had reached the end of her journey: she had become forever Evita.

Eva's father, Juan Duarte, had two families: one with his legal wife, Adela D'Huart, and another with his mistress. María Eva was the fifth child born to the mistress, Juana Ibarguren. Duarte did not hide the fact that he had two families and divided his time between them more or less equally for a time, although he eventually abandoned his mistress and their children, leaving them with nothing more than a paper formally recognizing the children as his. He died in a car accident when Evita was only six years old, and the illegitimate family, blocked out of any inheritance by the legitimate one, fell on hard times. At the age of fifteen, Evita went to Buenos Aires to seek her fortune.

Eva Duarte and Libertad Lamarque

Actress and Radio Star:

Attractive and charming, Evita quickly found work as an actress. Her first part was in a play called The Perez Mistresses in 1935: Evita was only sixteen. She landed small roles in low-budget movies, performing well if not memorably. Later she found stable work in the booming business of radio drama. She gave each part her all and became popular among radio listeners for her enthusiasm. She worked for Radio Belgrano and specialized in dramatizations of historical figures. She was particularly known for her voice portrayal of Polish Countess Maria Walewska (1786-1817), mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was able to earn enough doing her radio work to have her own apartment and live comfortably by the early 1940's.

Eva Duarte Marries Juan Perón

Evita met Colonel Juan Perón on January 22, 1944 at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires. By then Perón was a rising political and military power in Argentina. In June of 1943 he had been one of the military leaders in charge of overthrowing the civilian government: he was rewarded with being placed in charge of the Ministry of Labor, where he improved rights for agricultural workers. In 1945, the government threw him in jail, fearful of his rising popularity. A few days later, on October 17, hundreds of thousands of workers (roused in part by Evita, who had spoken to some of the more important unions in the city) flooded the Plaza de Mayo to demand his release. October 17 is still celebrated by Peronistas, who refer to it as "Día de la lealtad" or "day of loyalty." Less than a week later, Juan and Evita were formally married.   Living with an unmarried woman (who was a lot younger than he was) caused some problems for Perón until they married in 1945. Part of the romance certainly must have been the fact that they saw eye-to-eye politically: Evita and Juan agreed that the time had come for the disenfranchised of Argentina, the "descamisados" ("Shirtless ones") to get their fair share of Argentina's prosperity.

1946 Election Campaign:

Seizing the moment, Perón decided to run for president. He selected Juan Hortensio Quijano, a well-known politician from the Radical Party, as his running mate. Opposing them were José Tamborini and Enrique Mosca of the Democratic Union alliance. Evita campaigned tirelessly for her husband, both in her radio shows and on the campaign trail. She accompanied him on his campaign stops and often appeared with him publicly, becoming the first political wife to do so in Argentina. Perón and Quijano won the election with 52% of the votes. It was about this time that she became known to the public simply as "Evita."  Evita's fame and charm had spread across the Atlantic, and in 1947 she visited Europe. 

Pope Pius XII and Eva Perón in Rome

In 1947, Eva embarked on a much-publicized "Rainbow Tour" of Europe, meeting with numerous dignitaries and heads of state, such as Francisco Franco and Pope Pius XII. Biographers Fraser and Navarro write that the tour had its genesis in an invitation the Spanish leader had extended to Juan Perón. For political reasons it was decided that Eva, rather than Juan Perón, should make the visit. Fraser and Navarro write that Argentina had only recently emerged from its "wartime quarantine", thus taking its place in the United Nations and improving relations with the United States. Therefore, a visit to Franco, with Salazar the last remaining west European authoritarian leader in power, would be diplomatically frowned upon internationally. Fraser and Navarro write that Eva decided that, if Juan Perón would not accept Franco's invitation for a state visit to Spain, then she would. Advisors then decided that Eva should visit many European countries in addition to Spain. This would make it seem that Eva's sympathies were not specifically with Franco's fascist Spain but with all of Europe. The tour was billed not as a political tour but as a non-political "goodwill" tour.

Eva Perón Arrives in Madrid

Eva was well received in Spain, where she visited Capilla Real, the tombs of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. Francoist Spain had not recovered from the Spanish Civil War (the autarkic economy and the UN embargo meant that the country could not feed its people). During her visit to Spain, Eva handed out 100-peseta notes to many poor children she met on her journey. She also received from Franco the highest award given by the Spanish government, the Order of Isabella the Catholic.  Eva then visited Rome, where the reception was not as warm as it had been in Spain. Though Pope Pius XII did not give her a Papal decoration, she was allowed the time usually allotted queens and was given a rosary.   Her next stop was France, where she was generally well received. She visited the Palace of Versailles, among other sites. She also met with Charles de Gaulle. She promised France two shipments of wheat.  While in France, Eva received word that George VI would not receive her when she planned to visit Britain, regardless of what his Foreign Office might advise, and that her visit would not be viewed as a state visit. Fraser and Navarro wrote that Eva regarded the royal family's refusal to meet her as a snub, and canceled the trip to the United Kingdom. Eva, however, gave "exhaustion" as the official reason for not going on to Britain.  Eva also visited Switzerland during her European tour, a visit that has been viewed as the worst part of the trip. According to the book Evita: A Biography by John Barnes, while she traveled down a street with many people crowding her car, someone threw two stones and smashed the windshield. She threw her hands up in shock, but was not injured. Later, while sitting with the Foreign Minister, protesters threw tomatoes at her. The tomatoes hit the Foreign Minister and splattered on Eva's dress. After these two events, Eva had had enough, and after two months returned to Argentina.  Members of the Peronist opposition speculated that the true purpose of the European tour was to deposit funds in a Swiss bank account. "The opposition in Buenos Aires", write Fraser and Navarro, "assumed that the genuine purpose of the whole European visit was for Eva and her brother to deposit money in Swiss bank accounts, and that the rest had been devised to conceal this. Many wealthy Argentines did this, but there are many more convenient and less conspicuous ways of depositing money in Swiss accounts than meeting the Swiss Foreign Minister and being shown around a watch factory." Fraser and Navarro conclude, "Was there a Swiss bank account? It seems unlikely."

During her tour to Europe, Eva Perón was featured in a cover story for Time magazine. The cover's caption–"Eva Perón: Between two worlds, an Argentine rainbow"–was a reference to the name given to Eva's European tour, The Rainbow Tour. This was the only time in the periodical's history that a South American first lady appeared alone on its cover.

In 1951, Eva appeared again with Juan Perón.  However, the 1947 cover story was also the first publication to mention that Eva had been born out of wedlock. In retaliation, the periodical was banned from Argentina for several months.  

After returning to Argentina from Europe, Evita never again appeared in public with the complicated hairdos of her movie star days. The brilliant gold color became more subdued in tone, and even the style changed, her hair being pulled back severely into a heavy braided chignon. Additionally, her extravagant clothing became more refined after the tour. No longer did she wear the elaborate hats and form-fitting dresses of Argentine designers.

Soon she adopted simpler and more fashionable Paris couture and became particularly attached to the fashions of Christian Dior and the jewels of Cartier.  In an attempt to cultivate a more serious political persona, Eva began to appear in public wearing conservative though stylish tailleurs (a business-like combination of skirts and jackets), which also were made by Dior and other Paris couture houses.  At Notre Dame, she was received by Bishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who would go on to become Pope John XXIII. The Bishop was very impressed with this elegant but frail woman who worked so tirelessly on behalf of the poor. According to Argentine writer Abel Posse, Roncalli later sent her a letter that she would treasure, and even kept it with her on her deathbed. Part of the letter read: "Señora, continue in your fight for the poor, but remember that when this fight is fought in earnest, it ends on the cross." 

Women's Right to Vote:  Argentina's Law 13,010:

Not long after the election, Argentine law 13,010 was passed, granting women the right to vote. The notion of women's suffrage was not new to Argentina: a movement in favor of it had begun as early as 1910. Law 13,010 did not pass without a fight, but Perón and Evita put all of their political weight behind it and the law passed with relative ease. All around the nation, women believed that they had Evita to thank for their right to vote, and Evita wasted no time in founding the Female Peronist Party. Women registered in droves, and not surprisingly, this new voting bloc re-elected Perón in 1952, this time in a landslide: he received 63% of the vote.

The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires

was Originally Built as the Eva Perón Foundation 

Since 1823, charitable works in Buenos Aires had been carried out almost exclusively by the stodgy Society of Beneficence, a group of elderly, wealthy society ladies. Traditionally, the Argentine first lady was invited to be the head of the society, but in 1946 they snubbed Evita, saying she was too young. Outraged, Evita essentially crushed the society, first by removing their government funding and later by establishing her own foundation. In 1948 the charitable Eva Perón Foundation was established, its first 10,000 peso donation coming from Evita personally. It was later supported by the government, the unions and private donations. More so than anything else she did, the Foundation would be responsible for the great Evita legend and myth. The Foundation provided an unprecedented amount of relief for Argentina's poor: by 1950 it was giving away annually hundreds of thousands of pairs of shoes, cooking pots and sewing machines. It provided pensions for the elderly, homes for the poor, any number of schools and libraries and even an entire neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Evita City.  

The foundation became a huge enterprise, employing thousands of workers. The unions and others looking for political favor with Perón lined up to donate money, and later a percentage of lottery and cinema tickets went to the foundation as well. The Catholic Church supported it wholeheartedly. Along with finance minister Ramón Cereijo, Eva personally oversaw the foundation, working tirelessly to raise more money or personally meet with the poor that came begging for help. There were few restraints on what Evita could do with the money: much of it she simply gave away personally to anyone whose sad story touched her. Having once been poor herself, Evita had a realistic understanding of what the people were going through. Even as her health deteriorated, Evita continued to work 20-hour days at the foundation, deaf to the pleas of her doctors, priest and husband, who urged her to rest.

On April 9, 1951, Golda Meir, then Labor Minister of Israel, met with Eva Perón

to thank her for the aid the Eva Perón Foundation had given to Israel

Vice Presidential Nomination:

A crowd of an estimated two million gathers in 1951 to show support for the Perón-Eva Perón ticket.  In 1951, Evita set her sights on earning a place on the ballot as candidate for vice-president. This move angered many military leaders who despised Evita and her increasing powers within the government. According to the Argentine Constitution, the Vice President automatically succeeds the President in the event of the President's death. The possibility of Evita becoming president in the event of Juan Perón's death was not something the military could accept.  She did, however, receive great support from the working class, the unions, and the Peronist Women's Party. The intensity of the support she drew from these groups is said to have surprised even Juan Perón himself. Fraser and Navarro write that the wide support Evita's proposed candidacy generated indicated to him that Evita had become as important to members of the Peronist party as Juan Perón himself was.  Evita embraces Perón during the 1951 joint ticket rally, unable to accept popular calls that she run for Vice-President.  On 22 August 1951, the unions held a mass rally of two million people called "Cabildo Abierto." (The name "Cabildo Abierto" was a reference and tribute to the first local Argentine government of the May Revolution, in 1810.) The Peróns addressed the crowd from the balcony of a huge scaffolding set up on the Avenida 9 de Julio, several blocks away from the Casa Rosada, the official government house of Argentina. Overhead were two large portraits of Eva and Juan Perón. It has been claimed that "Cabildo Abierto" was the largest public display of support in history for a female political figure.  At the mass rally, the crowd demanded that Evita publicly announce her candidacy as vice president. She pleaded for more time to make her decision. The exchange between Evita and the crowd of two million became, for a time, a genuine and spontaneous dialogue, with the crowd chanting, "¡Evita, Vice-Presidente!" When Evita asked for more time so she could make up her mind, the crowd demanded, "¡Ahora, Evita, ahora!" ("Now, Evita, now!"). Eventually, they came to a compromise. Evita told the audience that she would announce her decision over the radio a few days later.

Declining Health:

Eva Perón addresses the Peronists on 17 October 1951. By this point she was too weak to stand without Juan Perón's aid. Eventually, she declined the invitation to run for vice-president, saying that her only ambition was that—in the large chapter of history that would be written about her husband—the footnotes would mention a woman who brought the "...hopes and dreams of the people to the president", a woman who eventually turned those hopes and dreams into "glorious reality." In Peronist rhetoric, this event has come to be referred to as "The Renouncement", portraying Evita as having been a selfless woman in line with the Hispanic myth of marianismo. Most biographers, however, postulate that Evita did not so much renounce her ambition, as bow to pressure from her husband, the military, and the Argentine upper class, who preferred that she not enter the race.  On January 9, 1950, Evita fainted in public and underwent surgery three days later. Although it was reported that she had undergone an appendectomy, she was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. Fainting continued through 1951 (including the evening after "Cabildo abierto"), with extreme weakness and severe vaginal bleeding. By 1951, it had become evident that her health was rapidly deteriorating. Although her diagnosis was withheld from her by Juan, she knew she was not well, and a bid for the vice-presidency was not practical. Only a few months after "the Renouncement", Evita underwent a secret radical hysterectomy in an attempt to eradicate her advanced cervical cancer. In 2011, a Yale neurosurgeon studied Evita's skull x-rays and photographic evidence and said that Perón may have been given a prefrontal lobotomy in the last months of her life, "...to relieve the pain, agitation and anxiety she suffered in the final months of her illness."

Re-election and Spiritual Leader of the Nation

On 4 June 1952, Evita rode with Juan Perón in a parade through Buenos Aires in celebration of his re-election as President of Argentina. Evita was by this point so ill that she was unable to stand without support. Underneath her oversized fur coat was a frame made of plaster and wire that allowed her to stand. She took a triple dose of pain medication before the parade, and took another two doses when she returned home.  In a ceremony a few days after Juan Perón's second inauguration, Evita was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation."

Death and Funeral:

Although Evita had undergone a hysterectomy by the American surgeon George T. Pack,  the cancer had metastasized and returned rapidly. She was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy (a novel treatment at that time). Despite all available treatment, she became emaciated, weighing only 79 lb by June 1952. Evita died at the age of 33, at 8:25 p.m., on 26 July 1952. The news was immediately broadcast throughout the country, and Argentina went into mourning. All activity in Argentina ceased; movies stopped playing; restaurants were closed and patrons were shown to the door. A radio broadcast interrupted the broadcasting schedule, with the announcer reading, "The Press Secretary's Office of the Presidency of the Nation fulfills its very sad duty to inform the people of the Republic that at 20:25 hours Mrs. Eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, died."  Eva Perón was granted a state funeral and a full Roman Catholic requiem mass. On Saturday, 9th, the body was transferred to the Congress Building for an additional day of public viewing. After a final Sunday mass, the coffin was laid atop on a gun carriage pulled by CGT officials. Following was Peron, his cabinet, Eva's family and friends, the delegates and representatives of the Partido Peronista Femenino—then workers, nurses and students of the Eva Peron Foundation. Flowers were thrown from balconies and windows.

Mourning:

On Eva Perón's death, the government suspended all official activities for two days and ordered all flags flown at half-staff for ten days. It soon became apparent, however, that these measures fell short of reflecting popular grief. The crowd outside of the presidential residence grew dense, congesting the streets for ten blocks in each direction.  Nearly three million people attended Evita's funeral in the streets of Buenos Aires.  Later, while Evita's body was being moved, eight people were crushed to death in the throngs. In the following 24 hours, over 2000 people were treated in city hospitals for injuries sustained in the rush to be near Evita as her body was being transported from the presidential residence to the Ministry of Labor Building.  The streets of Buenos Aires overflowed with huge piles of flowers stacked. Within a day of Evita's death, all flower shops in Buenos Aires had run out of stock. Despite the fact that Eva Perón never held a political office, she was eventually given an official funeral usually reserved for a head of state.  A memorial was held for the Argentine team during the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki due to Eva Perón's death during those games.

Partial view of the Recoleta Cemetery

and the Church of Our Lady of Pilar

Evita Rests in the Recoleta Cemetery:

Shortly after Evita's death, plans were made to construct a memorial in her honor. The monument, which was to be a statue of a man representing the descamisados, was projected to be larger than the Statue of Liberty. Evita's body was to be stored in the base of the monument and, in the tradition of Lenin's corpse, to be displayed for the public. While the monument was being constructed, Evita's embalmed body was displayed in her former office at the CGT building for almost two years. Before the monument to Evita was completed, Juan Perón was overthrown in a military coup, the Revolución Libertadora, in 1955. Perón hastily fled the country and did not make arrangements to secure Evita's body.  Following his flight, a military dictatorship took power. The new authorities removed Evita's body from display, and its whereabouts were a mystery for 16 years. From 1955 until 1971, the military dictatorship of Argentina issued a ban on Peronism. It became illegal not only to possess pictures of Juan and Eva Perón in one's home, but to speak their names. In 1971, the military revealed that Evita's body was buried in a crypt in Milan, Italy, under the name "María Maggi." It appeared that her body had been damaged during its transport and storage, such as compressions to her face and disfigurement of one of her feet due to the body having been left in an upright position.  In 1995, Tomás Eloy Martínez published Santa Evita, a fictionalized work propounding many new stories about the escapades of the corpse. Allegations that her body was the object of inappropriate attentions are derived from his description of an 'emotional necrophilia' by embalmers Koenig and his assistant Arancibia. Many primary and secondary references to his novel have inaccurately stated that her body had been defiled in some way resulting in the widespread belief in this myth. Also included are allegations that many wax copies had been made, that the corpse had been damaged with a hammer, and that one of the wax copies was the object of an officer's sexual attentions.

Final Resting Place:

In 1971, Evita's body was exhumed and flown to Spain, where Juan Perón maintained the corpse in his home. Juan and his third wife, Isabel, decided to keep the corpse in their dining room on a platform near the table. In 1973, Juan Perón came out of exile and returned to Argentina, where he became president for the third time. Perón died in office in 1974. His third wife, Isabel Perón, whom he had married on 15 November 1961, and who had been elected vice-president, succeeded him. She became the first female president in the Western Hemisphere. Isabel had Evita's body returned to Argentina and (briefly) displayed beside Juan Perón's. Evita's body was later buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

The Argentine government took elaborate measures to make Evita's tomb secure. The tomb's marble floor has a trapdoor that leads to a compartment containing two coffins. Under that compartment is a second trapdoor and a second compartment. That is where Evita's coffin rests. Biographers Marysa Navarro and Nicholas Fraser write that the claim is often made that Evita's tomb is so secure that it could withstand a nuclear attack. "It reflects a fear", they write, "a fear that the body will disappear from the tomb and that the woman, or rather the myth of the woman, will reappear." Located in the northern part of barrio Recoleta, the cemetery is the burial place of many illustrious military generals, presidents, scientists, poets and other prominent Argentinians. The tomb is accompanied by a human scale marble statue of Eva Perón that was commissioned by the Argentine government.