Peron-Ingles Digital

Perón
and National Defense

Perón
and National Defense
Perón, Juan Domingo
Perón and National Defense / Juan Domingo
Perón ; compilación de Claudia Decándido.
- 1a edición especial - Ciudad Autónoma de
Buenos Aires : Universidad de la Defensa
Nacional, 2022.
174 p. ; 21 x 15 cm.
ISBN 978-987-47903-7-8
1. Defensa. I. Decándido, Claudia, comp. II. Título.

CDD 355.00982
Idea and project: Claudia Decándido

Editorial coordination : Martín H. Bertone
Book cover and interior design: María Cordini
Translation: Malén D’Urso (except the first speech, which was translated
by Cecilia Palluzzi)
Illustrations: Javier Armentano, Guadalupe Belgrano, Florencia Rivière,
Hugo Seri
Collaborators: Ana Clara Alberdi, Matías Caciabue, Diego D’Urso, Rodrigo
Hobert, Ricardo Huerta, Dolores Lucero Belgrano, Martín Molinas, Carla
Morasso, Milagros Malamud, Belén Ordoñez
ISBN 978-987-47903-5-4
Impreso en Multigraphic Servicios Gráficos

Belgrano 520, C1091AAS. Buenos Aires.
en el mes de noviembre de 2022.
Hecho el depósito que indica la ley 11.723

Impreso en Argentina.
Ninguna parte de esta publicación, inclusive el diseño de cubierta,
puede ser reproducida, almacenada o transmitida en manera alguna
ni por ningún medio, ya sea eléctrico, químico, mecánico, óptico, de
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Index
A man ahead of his time

Foreword by Jorge Taiana 5
The strategic thought of General Perón

Foreword by Agustín Rossi 9
The persistence of a thought

Foreword by Jorge Battaglino 14
Perón and National Defense

Foreword by Ernesto López 21
Speech given at the opening of the Chair
of National Defense of the National Uni-
versity of La Plata (1944). 31
An active State which promotes the

industry
Foreword by Norma López 59
Speech given on the occasion of the in-
tegration of National Post-War Council
(1944). 63
Perón and philosophy

Foreword by Juan José Giani 79
Organized community. Presentation at the
closing act of the First National Congress
of Philosophy (1949). 85
Regional defense of the resources

Foreword by Nilda Garré 109
Inaugural speech for the War College,
Buenos Aires City (1953). 119
Perón’s message to the peoples and

governments of the world
Foreword by Aldo Duzdevich 139
Environmental message to the peoples
and governments of the world. Madrid
(1972). 143
A model for the country

Foreword by Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez 155
Argentine model for the national project.
Speech given at the opening of regular
sessions of the National Congress (1974). 160
Notes as an Epilogue
Sergio A. Rossi 170
FOREWORD Jorge Taiana1
A man ahead of his time

The two words, National Defense, may make some
people think that it is a problem whose approach and
solution are only of the interest and competence of a
Nation’s armed forces. Reality is quite different. Its
solution includes all its inhabitants; all the energies,
all the wealth, all of the most diverse industries and
productions; all the means of transport and com-
munication routes, etc., and the Armed Forces are
only, as we shall see later on in my presentation, the
instrument of struggle of that great whole that forms
“the Nation in arms”.
Juan Domingo Perón
National University of La Plata,
June 10th, 1944
General Juan Domingo Perón was a man ahead of his time. His
integral vision about the Argentine society and the interna-
tional political context let him look a bit beyond what common
men and many politicians who were his contemporaries saw.
In 1944, when the Second World War was entering into its
final stage, Perón defined National Defense as an issue which
not only concerns the Armed Forces, but which should also
involves the people and its institutions, thus giving meaning
to that concept. Besides the context in which he reflects, fo-
cusing his attention on a world war, he understands that the
1 Argentine minister of Defense . He served as minister of foreign affairs (2003-2010),

congressman of Mercosur (2015-2019) and senator (2019-2021), among other posi-
tions.
-5-
A man ahead of his time - Jorge Taiana
task of National Defense must be comprehended as a means

of realization of the people. In other words, it is not possible
to accomplish the task without the Armed Forces, without the
workers, without the businessmen, and the different social
sectors sheltered by the State, pulling all together.
The present book, published by University of National De-
fense, includes the fundamental lines of reasoning which the
former president established to analyze, reflect and define a
political project based upon the defense of national values, but
including society as a whole. It comprises six speeches and
lectures in which his political thought is scrutinized through-
out the years. Between the first transcribed lecture, which
the president delivered in 1944 at the National University of
La Plata, and the last one, his speech before the Legislative
Assembly in May 1974, thirty years had passed.
It is well-worth noting how his thought evolved and devel-
oped, especially on his last speech at Congress in 1974, where
the peronist movement was already established in the political
scene with the strength of a political party and the lucidity of a
leader settled as a statesman in his third term of presidency,
presenting an Argentine Model for the future of the country.
All six speeches of the former president support each other
to the extent that they connect the core ideas of justicialism
such as political sovereignty, economic independence and
social justice —the three flags which guide the Peronist prin-
ciples. Each speech successively presents the components he
uses to conceive his idea of the concept of national defense.
Eager to debate and exchange ideas, the first Peronist
government organized in 1949 the first National Congress
of Philosophy, in which many intellectuals participated, both
from Argentina and from different parts of the world. On the
exposition of his thought, Perón explained the concept of orga-
nized community as another core idea upon which his political
philosophy is based. Thus, all the definitions are one by one
interwoven, ultimately shaping the justicialist doctrine, which
has been installed for more than seventy years at the center
-6-
of debate and of arguments about the models of country dis-

puted in Argentina.
With the end of the Second World War and the new divi-
sion of the global scene, Perón embarks on the construction
of the Third Position. In a world demarcated by the bipolarity
of capitalism and communism, he started developing a third
international political space that raises the flags of self-de-
termination of the peoples outside those two poles. The Third
Position then comprises a tendency to regional unity so that
third world countries can develop and progress by protecting
each other and strengthening ties.
Ahead of his time in his analyses, it is noteworthy how Gen-
eral Perón evaluates a socio-environmental crisis as a conse-
quence of human action upon natural resources, almost since
his first writings. Environmental conservation is constantly
mentioned from the decade of 1940 until his last speech in
1974, where he expresses his concern about “a fight for re-
sources and ecological preservation”. There he also shows the
necessity of scientific technological development, indispens-
able to step up in the race towards a greater industrialization
and to achieve the country’s sustained growth.
The last text, the transcription of the speech before the
Legislative Assembly in 1974, two months before his passing
away, may be the former president’s posthumous legacy. In
his proposal, which he called Model for the National Project,
he calls for the pacification of the country and the need for an
agreement of national unity to move forward. Perón pronounces
this speech after suffering the prohibition by decree and the
physical and legal persecution of everything which alluded
to justicialism, an 18-year exile in Madrid, as a consequence
of military coups d’état which led to dictatorships that held
democracy interrupted and intermittent.
I want to fundamentally keep the concept of “nation in
arms” elaborated by Perón, which expresses a world view of
Defense as a whole which transcends the military component
and incorporates the notion of People, industrial production
-7-
A man ahead of his time - Jorge Taiana
and development, science and technology, natural resources,

transport and means of communication. It is a concept which
comprises everything that Defense Policy means to a country.
As a conclusion, it is necessary to say that General Perón’s
texts astonish us due to their current validity. Some of them are
over seventy years old. Pointing out some nuances, they can
be perfectly extrapolated to the present day, as they express
the lucidity he had and show the importance he knew how to
build as a statesman over the years.
-8-
FOREWORD Agustín Rossi2
The strategic thought of General Perón
Homeland does not consist of the limited time of our

lives. We live forever in our children as well as in our
works. As a consequence, we aspire to provide future
generations with a more fulfilling life. Stronger in the
respect of their rights. Happier in the fulfillment of
their duties.
Juan Domingo Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine politician who served

in the military, he was three times president of the Argentine
Republic and founder of Justicialist Party (PJ in Spanish), whose
movement is presented as one of the most important ones in
the Argentine history, and a case study of international reach.
Undoubtedly, his work has transcended his life.
Perón and National Defense is a publication of the University
of National Defense (UNDEF in Spanish), whose objective is to
spread part of the work and strategic thought of General Perón
beyond the limits of our country. In this sense, the selection of
six speeches delivered by Juan Domingo Perón between the
years 1944 and 1974 will be translated into three languages:
English, Chinese and Russian.
It is well-worth pointing out that in 1950 Perón created the
National War College, later called National Defense College
(1973), whose emblematic building, located at Maipú Street
2 Argentine minister of Defense of the Nation (2013-2015, 2019-2021).
-9-
The strategic thought of General Perón - Agustín O. Rossi
262 in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the current head-

quarters of UNDEF, first Institution of Higher Education with
these characteristics in Latin America.
Almost half a century has passed since Perón pronounced
these speeches. The decades that separate us from his time
and work let us analyze his thought from another perspective.
Undoubtedly, the categories and concepts expressed there are
still valid in this XXI Century and by going back in time to his
texts and speeches, we observe that he was ahead of his time.
Amongst the readings proposed by this publication, you will
find the Speech given at the opening of the Chair of National
Defense of National University of La Plata on June 10, 1944;
the Speech of the inauguration of “National Post-War Council”
on September 6, 1944; the Presentation at the closing act of
the First National Congress of Philosophy in Mendoza, delivered
on April 9, 1949; the Inaugural conference for the National War
College in Buenos Aires City of November 11, 1953; whose orig-
inal copy is sheltered at UNDEF; the Environmental message to
the peoples and governments of the world, a letter dated 21st
February, 1972 written by Perón during his exile in Madrid;
and, lastly, the Speech given at the opening of regular sessions
of the National Congress on May 1st, 1974: Argentine model
for the national project.
This selection summarizes the main ideas which shape the
core of Perón’s thoughts and constitute the Justicialist doctrine.
Economic independence, political sovereignty and social justice
are the three “flags” which summarize the doctrine of Justi-
cialist movement, unfold and explained throughout these six
speeches. Around these key ideas, this publication condenses
structural concepts such as Pueblo (People), Homeland and
Organized Community. Additionally, it lets us go over Perón’s
ideas upon the third position, national unity, national integra-
tion, the defense of natural resources, economic development
with participation of the industry according to the possibilities
of the country, amongst other important issues.
In the introductory studies which precede each speech,
- 10 -
written by Jorge Battaglino, Ernesto López, Norma López, Juan

José Giani, Nilda Garré, Aldo Duzdevich and Cristina Álvarez
Rodríguez, you will find different analyses which will let us
broaden the horizon of knowledge of General Perón’s work,
framed in its social, political and historical context.
Throughout the readings, you will observe that a constant
theme in his thoughts is the centrality he grants to the category
“pueblo” (“people”) as a key actor in the development of the
Nation, and in the “national unity” of that people as a condition
to the defense of the country. To Juan Domingo Perón, people’s
participation is a necessary condition in every transformation
process and for leading the destiny of the Nation, which is
nothing more than the destiny of the people itself.
I would like to focus on the Speech given at the opening of
the Chair of National Defense of National University of La Plata
in 1944, since there are outlined several of the concepts which
can be found throughout Perón’s entire work and thought. On
this occasion, I specifically highlight his idea of the organization
of modern national defense, and the bound between people
and Armed Forces.
In this speech, situated in the context of Second World War,
Perón unravels and disaggregates the concept of National
Defense, considering it a topic which concerns the totality of
citizenship and its different resources and richness, where
Armed Forces are the fighting instrument of the great group
which constituted the “Nation in arms”. As politics establishes
the objective, political leadership of defense must be the guide
which orients the actions.
Additionally, he expresses the view about the importance of
protecting natural resources and brotherhood with the peoples
of America. Moreover, he refers to economy and industrial ac-
tivity as factor of development with participation of the State
as promoter, paying special attention to the development of
defense industry.
In the speech pronounced on occasion of the creation of
National Post-War Council, a consulting body from the national
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The strategic thought of General Perón - Agustín O. Rossi
government whose aim was to contribute to the economic and

social order of the country, you will find a broader development
of his idea about economic policy, participation of the State
in the economy and development of national industry within
the framework of economic freedom and political sovereignty.
In order to penetrate into the concept and grounds of orga-
nized community, philosophical basis of justicialist movement,
I recommend reading General Perón’s presentation at the
closing act of the First National Congress of Philosophy, which
was held at National University of Cuyo (Mendoza Province).
In this presentation he synthetically expresses, from a philo-
sophical and sociological perspective, what the third position,
in which justicialism as a national political movement can be
found, represents.
Another of the Speeches which sheds light on Perón’s stra-
tegic thought about Argentine international policy is that of
November 11, 1953 at the National War College. I emphasize an
interesting element that General Perón presents, on the basis
of real and effective union amongst South American countries,
about the possibility of also planning a common defense.
The ideas around a third position in defense of sovereignty,
the self- determination of small nations and defense of natural
resources converge in the letter that General Perón wrote from
his exile in Madrid in 1972. In that Environmental message to
the peoples and governments of the world Perón said, “...We
believe that the time has come for all peoples and governments
worldwide to become aware of the suicidal path humanity has
taken by contaminating the environment and biosphere.” In this
message, he enumerates the problems related to the environ-
ment and proposes nine concrete actions to act accordingly,
disaggregating considerations to all Third World countries. All
these problems are indissolubly bound to the three flags which
summarize the doctrine of justicialist movement.
Lastly, the sixth speech which is part of this publication –Ar-
gentine model for the national project– must be read taking into
account the political context which Argentina was experienc-
- 12 -
ing in those first years of the decade of 1970, with the recent
arrival of Perón from the exile after 18 years of proscription
of Peronism.
In this speech at the opening of regular sessions of the
National Congress, Juan Domingo Perón made a clear call to
the unity of Argentine people, a unity in ideas and a unity in
action: “above any disagreement, the destiny of our Homeland
belongs to all of us equally.”
He also presented the need of a national project which
should be built from the own awareness of the Argentine peo-
ple. He proposes an Argentine Model within the framework of
a full democracy of social justice. In this sense, he specifies
his conception about the actors that should be part of the
configuration of what he calls “the Argentine model”: youth,
workers, businessmen, intellectuals, Armed Forces, Church,
women and political parties.
Exactly two months after that May 1st of 1974 in which he
pronounced that speech, Juan Domingo Perón passed away.
Undoubtedly, the echo of his words can still be heard in the
current debates about the construction of a sovereign and free
Homeland. Its validity invites us to read and reread each of
these speeches which shed light upon some times of history,
and illuminates us in order to continue thinking collectively
about our common destiny. In this way, as the General accu-
rately expressed, “national defense is thus another subject that
must incite us to ensure our people’s happiness.”
- 13 -
FOREWORD Jorge Battaglino3
The persistence of a thought
The publishing house of University of National Defense (UNDEF)

has embarked on the task of translating Juan Domingo Peron’s
emblematic speeches into different languages. Some of them
are specifically about issues of national defense, whilst others
identify tendencies and scenarios in the international context
which are unavoidable when reflecting upon national defense
and sovereignty. In both cases, it is a coherent and systemat-
ic group of analyses which present the distinctive feature of
combining conceptual profoundness and political view.
This initiative posed diverse challenges. From the problem
of choosing amongst the intellectual work of a prolific thinker
–whose complete works contain many dozens of titles– to the
care of the translations, which require a special sensitivity and
ability to capture the meaning of the time and the concepts
and ideas which describe it.
The pieces which have been translated have a special value
to UNDEF, since Perón was the founder, in 1953, of the Na-
tional War College, current headquarters of Rector’s Office at
University.
Perón’s concern about defense issues was not only related
to his position as a military person, but also to the importance
he assigned to the promotion of the national and sovereign
development of the country. To Perón, national defense was
not an exclusive responsibility of the Armed Forces; society
as a whole must also commit to it. Hence, civil military inter-
action was essential so that the issues of war, defense and
peace were not only studied in military academies, but also in
3 President of University of National Defense.
- 14 -
public universities. To that effect, he promoted the creation of

the Chair of National Defense in National University of La Plata
in 1944 and, on the occasion of its opening, he pronounced
a speech which every person interested in these topics must
read compulsorily. In that speech, not only did he reaffirm
the importance of training civilians for “the solutions of the
diverse and complex aspects that shape the issue of the na-
tional defense of the Homeland”, but also he identified the
group of problems that the defense of the nation was facing
at that time (and which are surprisingly valid nowadays). It is
interesting to point out that his definition of national defense
is similar to the one which decades later will be expressed in
the Defense Law passed in 1988, currently valid.
The intellectual acumen of this narrative piece is evinced
when Perón introduces concepts such as “satisfied and un-
satisfied nations”, which years later will be the core ideas of
theories which are very used presently in the field of foreign
affairs, such as the one about transition of power.
A few months later, on September 1944, Perón pronounces
a new speech within the framework of the creation of National
Post-War Council (CNP in Spanish), which revolves around
the concern about postwar economic development. Despite
not being the key topic of the argument, Perón presents there
the importance of development, not only in terms of general
well-being but also in the strengthening of national defense.
There he adopts a decisive stance in favor of the State assuming
a governing and guiding position in social relations and the CNP
being the institution which will coordinate, plan and execute
everything regarding matters of social and economic nature.
It will be in the speech of creation of National War College
in November 11th 1953, where Perón will show a great ana-
lytic and political dexterity to combine a solid analysis of the
international context with a proposal of a regional policy that
intended to preserve for the region the highest possible levels
of national autonomy and sovereignty. It is a reflective piece
which is complemented by the one he pronounced in La Plata
- 15 -
The persistence of a thought - Jorge Battaglino
in 1944, although with a greater emphasis on the international

dimension of defense and a very elaborated exercise of the
political grounds of defense, from a solid theoretical, empiric
and political analysis. His reasoning is based on the assump-
tion that the overpopulation in the world will lead to a growing
demand of food and raw material. From there we derive the
strategic importance of Latin America as a region whose rela-
tion between the level of population and the existence of raw
materials and production of food makes it exporter of what
the majority of the countries of the world will increasingly de-
mand. The implications of national defense are evinced by a
logic which is conclusive. Perón states that “precisely in these
circumstances lies our greatest danger, because it is undeniable
that humanity has proven, throughout the history of all times,
that when one has lacked food or elements that are essential
for life —such as raw materials and others—, one has provided
oneself with them, taking them by any means necessary, that
is to say, resorting to skilled combinations or to force... we are
under the constant threat that one day those overpopulated and
over industrialized countries, which lack food or raw material
but possess an extraordinary power, would use that power to
deprive us of the elements we possess excessively in relation
to our population and our needs.” His exercise does not finish
there, it rather continues with a political proposal that is revo-
lutionary for that time, not because it had not been previously
expressed in the writings of thinkers and politicians but due
to the importance of the person which was proposing it. His
well-known phrase “the year 2000 will surprise us united or
dominated” is nothing more than a call to union amongst Chile,
Brazil and Argentina; but mainly, it is a call to respond regionally
to the existent disparity of power in the international system.
This first step would make the other countries of the region join
in and create a bloc of regional power. The idea of a regional
defensive scheme or, in other words, the resignification of na-
tional defense in regional terms is logically deduced from his
reasoning. The best way of protecting national interests was
- 16 -
to think defense regionally.

It is well-worth mentioning that this call to union is covered,
in the same speech, by a cape of realism which is typical of a
politician who transcends his time. Perón states, regarding the
project of unity, “I have never harbored many illusions about
the chances of it; therefore, we continue working for these
unions, because they will come for the peoples. We have very
sad experiences of the unions created by governments; at least
none, for one hundred and fifty years, could crystallize for real.
We shall try the other path which has never been taken in order
to see if, from the bottom, we can influence in a determining
way so that those unions become true.”
In the Environmental message to the peoples and govern-
ments of the world in 1972, Perón resumes the stance on in-
ternational issues taken in his speech of November 1953,
focusing on the effects of a model of capitalist development
which destroys nature and risks the survival of the planet.
There he states that “the time has come for all peoples and
governments worldwide to become aware of the suicidal path
humanity has taken by contaminating the environment and
biosphere, wasting natural resources, enlarging its population
incessantly and overestimating technology. It is necessary to
change this path immediately by means of an international joint
action.” This analysis, which emphasizes the competition for
natural resources which are more and more scarce due to an
environmental crisis of great proportions, highlights the impor-
tance of strengthening defense to protect what is sought-after
by great powers.
The last speech translated here, The Argentine Model, of May
1st 1974 alludes to the importance of identifying a national
project. In this speech he presents the need of reaching nation-
al agreements upon strategic policies. It should be noted the
importance attributed to “promote and coordinate industrial
activity” or the centrality of “scientific-technological problem”,
key to achieve greater margins of natural autonomy. There
he proposes that the mission of the Armed Forces is to fight
- 17 -
The persistence of a thought - Jorge Battaglino
against imperialisms, that is to say, that military people are in

charge of the classic role of defense before other countries.
Additionally, he mentions the importance of activities which
support the community and their contribution to national de-
velopment, through their participation in the development of
national war industry.
To sum up, this group of speeches reflect the thought of a key
leader to comprehend Argentine history. Perón’s thought has
transcended him due to his ability to explain an epoch, to orient
political action and to account for the present. Perón reminds
us that national defense must be thought from a diagnosis of
the international context and that it leads us necessarily to its
signification it in regional terms. Moreover, the main challenge
the Armed Forces face is to prepare themselves to face extra
regional States. That is their main mission. Everything else
is a distraction which places the country and the region in a
dangerous defenselessness. Current challenges are not so dif-
ferent from the ones Perón identified more than 60 years ago.
- 18 -
Opening of the Chair of National Defense of the
National University of La Plata
“National defense preparation is hard work,

and demands a constant effort throughout
many years.”
(1944)
FOREWORD Ernesto López4
The speech delivered by Juan Domingo Perón on June 10th,

1944, which became known as Significado de la Defensa Na-
cional desde el punto de vista militar (Concept of National De-
fense from the military perspective), is still read and re-read
with great esteem and utility. And that says a lot, considering
that this speech was delivered more than 70 years ago, on
the occasion of the opening of the Chair of National Defense
created in the National University of La Plata, by resolution of
its Superior Council, approved on September 9, 1943. Three
days before that Saturday 10th June, Perón had been appoint-
ed vice president of the Nation by the then de facto president
General Edelmiro Farrell.
Facets that are infrequently found on a man of arms converge
in him: he used to be a diligent cadet of good performance, he
was a professional who was highly regarded by his superiors, he
was a studious man interested in history and strategy, he was a
young professor at the Superior War College, he was a military
attaché in Chile and performed his work in assistantships or
as an aide-de-camp to the highest ranks of the Army. He was
sent on an educational trip to Italy. As a Superior Officer, with
the rank of Colonel, he was already emerging as a distinguished
politician. And he was also quite a prolific writer. It is well-worth
displaying some of these features as they help understand the
soundness which is found in the aforesaid speech, a reference
text which clearly reflects Perón’s military world view.
He entered the Military School on March, 1911. Once he
finished his studies, he ranked 43rd in order of merit of his
4 Sociologist who specializes in civil–military relations, and university professor. He

served as an ambassador in Haiti and Guatemala.
- 21 -
Perón and National Defense - Ernesto López
Class (the 38th one), which totaled 121 second lieutenant

candidates. That is to say, he was just barely under the best
qualified third. It is worthwhile highlighting, to ponder this per-
formance, that he was part, along with other four companions,
of younger group of cadets of that class, all of them born in
1895. The rest of them were all distributed between that year
and 1891. About his following formative stage -that related to
the Superior War College- there is no order of merit. Yet it can
be said that he was one of the only eleven members of the 38th
Class who studied and achieved the highly regarded position
of Staff Officer in 1929.
In 1920, with the rank of First Lieutenant, he was assigned
to the “Sargento Cabral” School, an institution in which second
lieutenants of the Army were –and still are– educated and
instructed. Whilst he was there, he wrote in 1923 a manual
on “Military Gymnastics”, destined for candidates who were
studying on that institution. It was his first contribution to
writing. In 1925 his article “Campañas del Alto Perú” (“Upper
Peru Campaigns”) was published in Revista Militar.
On January 1930, he was appointed substitute professor
at the Superior War College. In December, he was appointed
professor of the Subject “Military History”. Back then, he still
held the rank of Captain. It was extremely infrequent for a junior
officer to be named professor at such level. It is evident, on the
other hand, that his activity as a writer was combined with his
training as a Staff Officer and his performance as a professor.
In 1931, Biblioteca del Oficial del Círculo Militar published
his article El frente oriental en la guerra mundial de 1914 (The
Eastern front in the world war of 1914). And in 1932, Apuntes
de Historia Militar (Notes on Military History) –another book–,
firstly edited by Superior War College, and later by the aforesaid
Biblioteca del Oficial.
In 1935 he published Toponimia araucana (Araucarian top-
onymy), edited for the first time in the Official Bulletin of the
Ministry of Agriculture, which contains a glossary of Araucarian
toponymic expressions and its derivations. Perón had lived a
- 22 -
great part of his childhood in Patagonia. At the beginning of his

adolescence, he was sent to Buenos Aires, to some relatives’
house, so that he could complete his studies at high school.
But he returned to the South, to his parents’ house, in summer.
He was therefore used to the Araucarian culture.
In 1939 he published, co-authored with Colonel Enrique
Rottjer, Las operaciones en 1870 (The operations in 1870),
edited by Biblioteca del Oficial and, in 1942, the article “Co-
mandos de Montaña” (“Mountain Commandos”) in Revista
Militar. Anyhow, this is just a part –and not the totality– of
Perón’s texts published in this period, prior to the speech he
delivered at the University of La Plata. Then came other texts.
Another singular facet of Perón is the following: in 1929
he was assigned to the General Staff of the Army (EMGE in
Spanish) to work as assistant to the Colonel Francisco Fasola
Castaño, deputy chief of that entity. In 1930 he joined the Pri-
vate Secretariat of the then Minister of War, who was General
Francisco Medina. In 1931, already with the rank of Major, he
was appointed assistant to General Guillermo Mohr, Chief of
EMGE. And in 1932 he was destined aide to the Minister of War,
General Manuel Rodríguez, whom he accompanied during his
entire term of office, which ended in 1936.
This journey of Perón is noteworthy. Colonel Fasola worked
in that previously mentioned position during the second and un-
finished presidential term of Hipólito Yrigoyen. General Medina
was minister during the de facto government of General José
Félix Uriburu, agent of Yrigoyen’s overthrow in 1930 through
a military coup. Generals Mohr and Rodríguez were in favor of
General Agustín Pedro Justo, who influenced Uriburu’s removal
from power and was his successor: he was elected president
of the Nation in the deceitful elections of 1932. Justo led an
alliance called Concordancia (Concordance), in which he was
accompanied by a part of the Radical Civic Union called “anti-
personalist”, which opposed Yrigoyen. This event initiated a
political period which is usually referred to as “The Infamous
Decade”, where electoral fraud prevailed, which was also de-
- 23 -
scribed –in opposition– as “patriotic” by various journalists

and/or researchers.
It is noteworthy that superior officers of different and even
antagonistic political colors were called for positions of proxim-
ity and confidence. And it leads us to think that Perón’s abilities
were the things demanded from this young officer, who was
only 34 years old when he started the journey through these
positions.
On February 1939, already with the rank of Lieutenant Col-
onel, he was assigned on a study mission to Italy. At that time,
the president of the Nation was Roberto Marcelino Ortiz, leader
of the Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union.
He remained in that country until the beginnings of 1941.
He visited different Italian mountain units and he was even
incorporated to a specific alpine unit. He was able to observe
first-hand the beginning and first part of the development of
Second World War, specifically what was happening on the
European theater: a real privilege for military personnel. More-
over, he had the opportunity to visit Germany, France, Spain
and Portugal.
In brief, all that unusual grounding is what, in one way or
another, contributed to building and consolidating the view-
points which reverberate in his consistent speech of 1944.
Two dimensions to address the issue
The main object of the speech is obviously the national

defense, which is addressed according to two dimensions
which are well-worth considering. One is the local order: “...our
beloved Homeland is going through times of transformation
and test. Furthermore, it is living a true struggle of genera-
tions, which should end up in a future” , writes. He refers to
the complex situation of end of cycle which triggered the coup
d’état of 1943 in Argentina. Whereas the second one refers to
the international context of that time, which he describes in
- 24 -
this way: “I have witnessed in Europe the most extraordinary

crisis the world has seen since 1939 to 1941.” Obviously, he
is referring to the Second World War and to his possibility of
observing it in situ, as it has been previously mentioned. Both
dimensions will be now examined separately.
On the first one he does not focus explicitly in his speech,
apart from that which has been already alluded to, probably
due to precaution or concern. Anyway, it is not difficult to ex-
plore, even if it is perfunctorily, that which he was able to im-
ply. The “revolution” of June 4th 1943 had ended the regime
of “patriotic fraud” which had been installed after Yrigoyen’s
overthrow, as it had been previously mentioned. Paradoxically,
on that same day the Concordance convention was supposed
to meet to nominate Robustiano Patrón Costa, a conservative
leader from Salta Province, as a candidate for president in the
elections which were to happen in 1944. On the other hand, it
is well-worth mentioning that Perón had participated in that
coup d’état and certainly he was aware of the struggle among
the different parts that had took part in that movement of June.
And it is highly likely that he was not interested in showing in
public anything about that.
It is worthwhile pointing out, additionally, that his brief men-
tion of the vertiginous, changing and at the same time renovat-
ing cycle which had begun on June 1943 was accurate. What
Perón did certainly not imagine when he delivered his speech
was that he was going to be defenestrated on October 1945
and be arrested in Martín García Island, or that he would be
rescued by the historical event of October 17th in that year,
or that he would become presidential candidate and winner
of the elections on February 1946. It must be recognized,
nonetheless, that that Perón of June 1944 was right about his
prediction that “times of transformation and test” would arrive
and there would be “a struggle of generations”. And that the
combination of both processes was going to shape the future.
He showed, in any case, a sensible and sharp perception of what
was coming in the near future, beyond his personal vicissitudes.
- 25 -
His approach to the dimension about the international con-

text is more profound. He mentions the failure of “the defunct
League of Nations”, created in 1919, which was unable to avoid
the hostilities that traveled through the world, which include
the war between China and Japan, the Italian conquest of
Ethiopia, the warlike struggle between Bolivia and Paraguay,
and the ongoing world war. He alludes to the human condition
kneaded from mud, which would be incapable of assuring un-
interrupted universal peace. From that he deduces that war
is an inevitable social phenomenon. He classifies the nations
of the world into satisfied and unsatisfied, and he points out
that the former tend to be pacifists whereas the latter are
more prone to war.
Upon this idea, and anticipating that war is a “dreadful
scourge” and that it should be “avoided when possible”,
he alludes to the Latin aphorism which recommends si vis
pacem para bellum (if you want peace prepare for war), which
he believes “has been widely proven by plenty of historical
examples”. And he highlights, in the following page, that
our country is a pacifistic one but that, inevitably, it must be
prepared to exercise defense.
National Defense
Perón states practically from the beginning that national

defense is not an exclusive concern of the Armed Forces of a
Nation, but it also implies a host of components that exceed
what is properly military. And that it –defense– “includes all
its inhabitants; all the energies, all the wealth, all the diverse
industries and productions; all the means of transport and
communication routes, etc., and the armed forces are only,
as we shall see later on in my presentation, the instrument of
struggle of that great whole that forms the Nation in arms”.
Hence, he borrows textually the tittle of a book written by
German General Colmar van der Goltz, published initially in
- 26 -
1883, to set a key starting point: strictly speaking, it is only the

military instrument of a State who uses arms, but the supply
of those arms and the host of functions on which the military
movement and its usage depend –industries, transport, com-
munications, food, health service, etc.– depend on the effort of
the totality of the nation. That is on the base –Perón will later
say– of “...the theory on national defense, by which nations
seek to channel in peacetime and use in wartime the State’s
living force to the last drop in order to achieve their political
objective.” A page later he builds that well-known metaphor
through which he indicates that a fighting country can be rep-
resented by a bow and its corresponding arrow. The point of
the arrow –its stone or metal– are the Armed Forces. The rest
of it: the arrow shaft, the wood of the bow and the string are
provided by the effort of the whole nation. That is to say that
the defense constitutes a system which includes the military
instrument, but also other equally indispensable components.
Perón additionally states that “national defense preparation
is hard work, and demands constant effort throughout many
years”. In other words, it is something that cannot be impro-
vised and demands some dedication and effort which need
to be sustained over time. He will reinforce, a little later, this
idea quoted above. He will say “a country’s national defense
organization is a vast and complex task that takes years and
years, by which a series of preparatory measures must be taken
during peacetime, to provide their armed forces with the best
conditions to achieve success in a conflict that may arise”.
About the issue of national defense, Perón deals with the
matter of the preparation of the Armed Forces for the eventual-
ity of war. He indicates that it “is not an easy task and it cannot
be improvised in moments of danger”. One must anticipate the
creation of reservists, the provision of arms, ammunitions and
other means of fighting which cannot be acquired or fabricated
right away when danger hurries along. He also mentions that
one must pay attention to job provisions of the Armed Forces,
to the development of operations plans of the three Forces, of
- 27 -
mobilization, supplying, transportation, communication and

preparation of human resources. Regarding this last matter,
he focuses on the paradox that “when presenting themselves
to fulfill their obligation to learn to defend their Homeland, a
high number of citizens must be rejected because they do not
meet the necessary physical conditions... And in the geography
texts of the whole world it can be read that we are the country
of beef and wheat, of wool and leather”.
It is well-worth highlighting his appreciation of the “industrial
problem”, about which he expresses that it constitutes “the
critical issue of our national defense”. He describes a country
that has been historically focused on agriculture and livestock,
which served as framework to the development of industrial
activity, initially stimulated by the lack of manufactured prod-
ucts, as a consequence of First World War. Once this was over,
some activity remained by itself, with no guidance or help from
the State. It was, anyways, a minor activity related to what we
now call import substitution.
With the arrival of Second World War –which Perón refers to
as “the current conflict”– the industrial production increased
due to an obligatory reduction of the imports. Perón under-
lines this achievement, yet he goes further. He recognizes that
confidence has been put in the fact that “we would find in the
foreign markets the war material we needed to complete the
initial endowment of our Army and ensure their replenishment,
has proved to be a utopia”. Perón does not present the motives
of the reticent attitude from countries which could have even-
tually supplied the Argentine arms demand. Nonetheless, one
must conclude, on one hand, that many of the nations engaged
in war were not capable of doing so. But, on the other hand,
it also had a negative impact the neutrality held by different
national governments during the war period.
Perón shows in the development of this topic his industri-
alist vocation, which he would put into action during his first
two presidential mandates. He says about this matter: “Na-
tional defense demands a powerful industry of our own, and
- 28 -
not just any industry but a heavy one”, to which he believes

the support of the State is necessary. Simultaneously, he also
considers that there should be protection for other industrial
undertakings that would be convenient, differentiating them
from those he calls “artificial”.
The topics presented so far are the key issues of the speech.
There are other meaningful but less relevant themes: com-
merce, banking and financial activities related to national de-
fense, the importance of land and road communication, and
the relevance of a robust economy, amongst other, which he
examines from a conceptual and general dimension. He focuses
his attention also on the actions which must be set in motion
after the ending of the war. About the economy, for example,
he states that once the warlike conflict is over “it is necessary,
as in the other aspects, to transform that war economy so
specialized in a peacetime economy”, a transformation which
should be produced in the agriculture and livestock activity
and in every order of production, he adds.
It is well-worth reiterating that his approach to these last
issues is merely conceptual. His references to the previously
mentioned problems are more theoretical, with little or no
immediate correlation with concrete reality. Yet it is evident
that the end of the war was already in his head on June 1944.
The end
The ending of the war conflict between United States and

Japan, during the Second World War, reached a solution through
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as it is well-
known. This circumstance ignited the will of other powers to
produce those fateful devices. Obviously, there were heavy
restrictions upon Germany and Japan, which still remain. But
finally, and during a pretty brief period, Russia –back then Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics–, United Kingdom, France and
Popular China manufactured them. Those weapons changed,
- 29 -
partly, the ways and methods of war; and to a large extent,

also, the doctrinaire field related to defense.
The mutually assured destruction, guaranteed by nucle-
ar arsenal, reduced the possibilities of war conflict between
those who managed to get weapons, as well as the chances
of conventional war amongst them. That is, simply, because
those who were to lose in a conventional conflict would have
the possibility to appeal to the usage of atomic bombs, which
would put their contenders and the whole world on the verge
of collapse.
It could be said that conventional wars survived; it could
even be confirmed that the world is still devastated by them and
by other non-nuclear ways of performing them (revolutionary
wars, asymmetrical wars, hybrid wars and others). There are
even conventional forms of war amongst the big powers with
nuclear capacity in different regions, practiced by pressure or
dissuasion, which until now, luckily, has not surpass that level.
A clear example of this is what is now happening in the South
China Sea. On the other hand, military industry in the most
diverse countries of the world has not ceased to manufacture
ships, planes, arms and communication systems, amongst
other undertakings, all destined for conventional war.
So, in a world mainly constituted by national States, where
only a minority of the countries possesses nuclear weapons,
the pair conventional war-national defense is still valid.
This speech proves that Perón possessed a profound and
updated view of the contemporary international scenario and
a clear perspective of the national defense of that time, which
he presents with a singular clarity and simplicity. It can even be
said that his reading still provides valuable historical, cognitive
and interpreting supplies. It is like an old wine which rests in
the winery and, every time it is tasted, it still offers its quality.
- 30 -
1
Speech given at the opening of the Chair of
National Defense of the National University of
La Plata
June 10, 1944
I deeply appreciate the kind invitation extended to me

by Dr. Labougle to open the Chair of National Defense, oc-
cupying this high position at the University.
My investiture of Minister of War forces me to accept such
an honor, placing me before other Armed Forces comrades,
whose knowledge on the subject you shall be able to enjoy
in the coming dissertations.
I feel obliged to say that the kind considerations about my
person expressed by Doctor’s Labougle’s deference, which
I value and appreciate, are based, mainly, on his proverbial
benevolence.
The Armed Forces, and within them, those of us who
have devoted ourselves to analyzing, penetrating and un-
derstanding the complex issue of war, could not but rejoice
with the resolution of the Upper Council of the University of
La Plata, of 9 September 1943, which provided the creation
of the Chair of National Defense, and to implement it in the
current year.
This measure, which I fearlessly define as transcenden-
tal, will make the distinguished group of intellectuals who
study in this house know and be interested in the solutions
of the diverse and complex aspects that shape the issue
of the national defense of the Homeland, and, later, when
by natural gravitation the most qualified among them are
summoned to fulfill their destinies, if they have continued
to deepen their studies, we shall have true statesmen who
will ensure the greatness to which our Nation is entitled.
Once more, it is convenient to repeat San Martín’s piece
of advice in his speech of 22 July 1820 addressed from his
Headquarter in Valparaiso, “to the inhabitants of the Pro-
- 31 -
SPEECH June 10, 1944
vinces of Río de la Plata”:

“Finally, for your own sake, I beg you learn to distinguish
those who work for your health from those who meditate
your ruin; do not expose yourselves to men of good that will
abandon you to the advice of ambitious men; the strength of
virtuous souls does not stretch to the point of suffering from
being at the same level as the evil; and wretched shall be the
nation where such an outrageous parallel goes unpunished”.
Eternal words from the Great Captain. Today, as then,
our beloved Homeland is going through times of transfor-
mation and test. Furthermore, it is living a true struggle
of generations, which should end up in a future. May God
make it bright and happy.
The world must be structured in new ways, with new
political, economic and social content. Serious is the res-
ponsibility of the teachers of the present. Uncertain, the
future of this youth, who must be in charge of that future,
as the leader of a people that are on the move, that have
wealth, drive and a tradition of glory to defend.
I have witnessed in Europe the most extraordinary crisis
the world has seen since 1939 to 1941. I have seen in it the
facts what I shall subsequently retell. Therefore, rather than
an academic lecture on the topic, I have chosen to take a
realistic approach to the modern national defense problem,
in its wide content, its causes and its consequences.
The topic that has been proposed to me, “Meaning of the
national defense from the military point of view”, I consider
it very convenient for this conference, since it will allow me
to analyze the whole picture of the national defense problem,
leaving the study of its partial aspects for later.
The two words, National Defense, may make some people
think that it is a problem whose approach and solution are
only of the interest and competence of a Nation’s armed
forces. Reality is quite different. Its solution includes all
its inhabitants; all the energies, all the wealth, all of the
most diverse industries and productions; all the means of
- 32 -
transport and communication routes, etc., and the Armed

Forces are only, as we shall see later on in my presentation,
the instrument of struggle of that great whole that forms
“the Nation in arms”.
There have been many intellectuals whom I, unequivo-
cally, classify as utopian, who, in every time and country,
have stated that war can be avoided. However, always in a
short term, a new conflagration has come to impose the
most serious dissent to this theory.
The most recent and almost most tangible example is
the defunct League of Nations, in whose actions so many
hopes for uninterrupted peace were gathered, and that
showed itself powerless to prevent Japan and China from
fighting for more than a decade, approximately; Italy from
conquering Ethiopia; Paraguay and Bolivia from shedding
blood in the Chaco forest, and finally, the world from burning
in the current conflagration that is knocking on our doors.
Statesmen who currently lead the war of the main fighting
countries, whether under the banner of the “New Order”
or that of the “United Nations”, display to the eager eyes
of their people a future happiness based on uninterrupted
peace and cordiality between nations, and the promise of
true social justice between States.
This mirage can only be hope for peoples who, exhaus-
ted in a long and bloody fight, seek in the hope of future
happiness the incentive needed to make a last effort, in
search of a triumph that will ensure the existence of their
respective nations.
In fact, someone should have to prove unquestionably that
the United States of America, England, Russia and China, if
the United Nations win the war; and the same for Germany
and Japan, in the opposite case, shall never have, in the
future, conflicting interests that would lead them to a new
conflict; and even that the victors shall not want to establish
a new odious imperialism, that would force the rebellion of
the oppressed, to only then believe that the word “war” is
- 33 -
definitely discarded from every lexicon.

But humans, we were kneaded from mud, and being the
only constituent cell of nations, shall never be able to find
an ideal solution for the complex problems in every aspect
(social, economic, financial, political, etc.), that could ensure
universal uninterrupted peace.
Europe, the overpopulated continent by excellence, is
where these problems suffer their most acute crisis, thus
constituting a volcano with unstoppable internal energy
that erupts periodically, rocking the whole world.
The American continent, without experiencing the inten-
sification of these same problems, has many times found
in arbitration the solution for the territorial issues, derived
from more defined borders. But many times, it has flamed
in fratricide battles, or its nations have been dragged into
extra-continental conflicts, whose solutions, many times,
were not in their best interest.
A forewarned listener may think that my statement that
war is an unavoidable social phenomenon is a consequen-
ce of my professional training, because some think that
us, military officers, want war to have the opportunity of
displaying our skills.
Reality is quite different. Military officers study the art
of war so deeply, not only as regards tactics, strategy and
the use of materials, but also as a social phenomenon, and
understanding what a dreadful scourge it represents for a
nation, we know it should be avoided when possible, and
only resort to it in extreme cases.
One thing is certain, we fulfill our fundamental obligation
of being prepared for carrying it out, and willing to make the
biggest of sacrifices in the battlefields, leading the armed
youth that our Homeland has confided to us for the defense
of its patrimony, liberties, ideals or honor. If you want peace,
the best way to keep it is to be ready for war.
The aphorism Si vis pacem, para bellum has been widely
proven by plenty of historical examples, for it to be even
- 34 -
questioned.
We only need look back at the beginning of this conflict
to see how France, victor of the 1914-18 War, and the first
military power in the world, since that moment until Ger-
many begins, in 1934 approximately, its intense military
preparations, more or less undercover, in a few days is dis-
banded and definitely eliminated from the conflict.
It is evident that France’s deep internal disorganization
led it to neglect its war preparation, despite clearly seeing
the danger threatening it, which was skillfully exploited
by Germany, who made it pay a high price for its mistake.
Someone may say that England was not prepared for war
either, and that it currently seems to have the best perspec-
tives of success. Those who say this forget that in the English
Channel, which luckily for the country separates it from the
continent, has always ruled incomparably its fierce fleet,
preventing the German army from disembarking; that its
army’s poor preparation cost Dunkirk’s disaster; and, finally,
that its reduced aviation could not avoid the incursions of
the German one, of which Coventry ruins are evidence.
World’s nations can be divided into two categories: the sa-
tisfied and the unsatisfied. The former have everything and
need nothing, and their people’s happiness is ensured, to a
larger or shorter extent. The latter are missing something
to meet their needs: markets where to sell their products,
raw materials to elaborate, enough food; a political role to
play, related to their potential, etc.
Satisfied nations are fundamentally pacifists and do not
wish to expose the happiness they enjoy to the hazards of
war.
Unsatisfied ones, if politics does not provide them with
what they need or seek, shall not fear turning to war to
achieve it.
The former, clinging to the idea of an invariable peace,
because they much desire it, generally neglect their war
preparation, and do not spend what is needed to keep their
- 35 -
people’s happiness.
The latter, knowing that a war is probable, since they do
not have what they want peacefully, they will resort to it;
save misery from misery, and are thoroughly prepared to
hold it, and at a certain moment may excel the richest and
most powerful nations.
Thus, there are peaceful and aggressive nations.
Our country, evidently, is among the former. Our people
can enjoy, relatively, of present happiness; but, unfortuna-
tely, we cannot scrutinize deep down other nations’ thoughts
to timely know if someone wants to take it from us.
National defense preparation is hard work, and demands
constant effort throughout many years. War is as varied an
issue as it is complex, and leaving everything to improvi-
sation the moment it breaks out would mean following the
suicidal policy we criticize so much.
Let us not forget that if we are forced to go to war and,
what is worse, if we lose it, we will necessarily turn into the
opposite of a pacifist nation, taking the role of a country
that seeks claims for the sake of recovering the nation’s
patrimony and its sullied honor.
Since ancient times, war has constantly evolved, from
family to tribe, from it to professional armies and merce-
naries, to mass uprising, shown by the French Revolution
and, later, by Napoleon. And lastly, to the total fight of peo-
ples against peoples, which we have seen in the 1914-1918
conflict, and which has reached its ultimate expression in
the current one.
The concept of “Nation in arms or total war”, generated
by marshal von der Goltz in 1883, is, somehow, the most
modern theory on national defense, by which nations seek
to channel in peacetime and use in wartime the State’s li-
ving force to the last drop in order to achieve their political
objective.
Today, all peoples have their fates at their fingertips. They
forge their own fortune or their own ruin. It is natural that
- 36 -
they, as a whole, defend what each of them loves and is in-

terested in defending of the Homeland and its patrimony.
During the time of professional armies and mercenaries,
the peoples did not take part in conflicts but were present
either by means of the strong contributions to solve them
or in the devastations left behind by armies. A great mass
of the population did not suffer from the conflict, and, so-
metimes, even ignored it.
The French Revolution wars and, later, those of Napoleon
affected the French people due to the contribution in human
material they represented.
It is only the 1914-18 World War that shows participating
nations endeavored in the highest effort to achieve victory.
The war is played on the battlefield, on the sea, on the air, on
the political, economic, financial and industrial field; and
even the hanger of enemy nations is subject of speculation.
Great general and admirals, with efficient armies and
fleets, are not enough to achieve victory any more. By them,
representatives of all the energies of the Nation have a le-
ading role to play in the direction of war, and, many times,
it is them who steer the conduction of the operations of the
armed forces.
But even in 1914-18, behind the fighting armies, the pe-
oples, devoted to a constant effort to keep the armed forces
fighting power, lived in relative calmness and wellbeing.
A nation’s morality was kept on the basis of the success
obtained on the battlefield, skillfully exploited by clever
propaganda.
The current conflict, with the considerable technical
progress of aviation, shows us the highest expression of the
concept “nation in arms”.
The peoples of the fighting nations are not protected
against war activities, since powerful air fleets seed des-
truction and death in more or less defenseless populations,
seeking to undermine their morality and destroy the sources
of war potential of the enemy nation. The pamphlet takes an
- 37 -
important role next to the terrible fire and explosive bombs,

when loading the powerful bombers.
A fighting country can be represented by a bow and its
corresponding arrow, tensed to the maximum limit allowed
by its string’s resistance and by the elasticity of its wood,
and aiming at one single target: winning the war.
Its armed forces are represented by the stone or metal
that forms the point of the arrow; but the rest of it, the string
and the bow, are the whole nation, up to the last expression
of its energy and power.
As a consequence, it is not enough that we in the armed
forces strive to prepare the instrument of struggle, to study
and understand war, drawing lessons from the different
conflicts that have blighted the world. It is also necessary
for all the bright minds of the Nation, each focused on the
aspect that is of interest for their activities, to make an effort
to know, study and understand it, as an only way to obtain
a comprehensive solution to the problem that may arise
and we shall solve, if God decides one day for war to ring
its clarion on the banks of Río de La Plata.
As a consequence, the decision of the Upper Council of
the University of La Plata, which I mentioned before, cons-
titutes, without a doubt, a valuable step towards that aim
we must achieve.
A country’s national defense organization is a vast and
complex task that takes years and years, by which a series
of preparatory measures must be taken during peacetime,
to provide their armed forces with the best conditions to
achieve success in a conflict that may arise. A series of pro-
visions will be considered, so that the nation can acquire
and keep the production and sacrifice rhythm imposed by
war, while the best use that can be made of its armed forces
will be foreseen. And, finally, another series of provisions,
once the war has finished: dismantle the war machine the
country has become, and regain its normal peace life, with
the minimum of hassles, convulsions and upheaval.
- 38 -
Due to the briefness imposed to me by this conference,

I shall limit myself to succinctly analyze its main aspects;
and to avoid the roughness of dealing with this topic with
only a theoretical approach, I shall refer to the lessons left
by the military history, and their implementation to our
country’s specific problems, the best I can.
Any country in the world, whether big or small, weak or
powerful, with a high or low level of culture, has a particular
political objective.
The political objective is the need or ambition of a good,
which a State tends to keep or conquer, for its perfection
or enlargement.
The political objective can be anything: territorial vin-
dication or expansion, political or economic hegemony,
market or other commercial advantages’ acquisition, social
or spiritual impositions, etc.
They have been classified as negative or positive, depen-
ding on whether trying to keep the existent, or to conquer
something new, in the continent or in the world, according
to their projections.
The nations’ political objectives are a direct consequence
of the peoples’ sensitivity. And we must remember that they
have that safe instinct that, while solving serious problems,
drives them to what is more convenient.
Statesmen and leaders only interpret them and put them
into practice in a more or less explicit and precise way.
Peoples’ true wisdom and their leaders’ good judgment
consists of, precisely, not having an exorbitant political
objective, that has no relation with the nation’s potential,
which, on the contrary, would force it to face such a powerful
enemy that it would not only have to forgo its aspirations,
but lose part of its patrimony.
It is also true that nations have, in their histories, crucial
times when, to defend their patrimony or their honor, they
must sustain a hopeless fight; because, as our Independence
parents have taught us, “better to die than to live as slaves”.
- 39 -
Our country, like only a few in the world, can boast res-
pectable and worthy political objectives.
Our leaders have never upheld principles of territorial
claim or conquest. We do not want to exercise political,
economic or spiritual hegemony in our continent.
We only pursue our natural growth, by exploiting our
riches, and the possibility of placing the surplus of our pro-
duction in the different world markets to be able to acquire
what we need.
We want to live in peace with all the goodwill nations in
the world. And the progress of our brothers in America only
produces us satisfaction and pride.
We want to be the happiest people on earth, since nature
has been bountiful with us.
Diplomacy must act in a similar way as the direction of
a war. Like war, it has its forces, its weapons, and it must
fight the battles needed to conquer the aims set by politics.
If politics gets diplomacy to obtain the objective set, its
job is reduced to that and it ends there, whatever that ob-
jective is.
If diplomacy cannot get the political objective set, then
it is in charge of preparing the best conditions to achieve
it by force, if the situation shows that it is necessary to use
this extreme means.
The political period that preceded this conflict represents
an excellent example that will clarify these concepts.
Since the advent of the National Socialist Party to power,
in 1933, the German Government showed its intention to
achieve, by all means, the resurgence of imperial Germany
of 1914 and even exceed it, dismissing as out of place the
points that still remained as obligations of the Treaty of
Versailles.
It was its diplomacy which, without the backup of su-
fficient military power, allowed it, in 1935, to introduce
mandatory military service, to militarily occupy Rhineland,
and, finally, to sign the Anglo-German Naval Agreement
- 40 -
with England that would permit it to assemble a tonnage for

its navy equivalent to 35% of the English one, which would
outnumber the French one. The French reaction, which
could be determinant at that time, was perfectly neutralized
by German diplomacy.
Then, undoubtedly backed by the considerable force that
the Third Reich had managed to build, in March 1938, the
plain and simple annexation of Austria took place. By the
end of September of that same year, the Munich Agreement
grants it the territory of Sudetenland, which belonged to
Czechoslovakia, until the country disappeared completely
on 15 March 1939. And seven days later, on 22 March, the
Lithuanian chief of staff, minister Urbsys, hands the keys
to Memel in Berlin itself.
Almost immediately, German diplomacy begins to stir
things up in Poland. Its resistance, supported by France
and England, cannot be defeated, so it has to create the best
conditions to use its armed forces to achieve its political
objective.
Poland seems to be supported by Russia, and French and
English delegations meet in Moscow to, undoubtedly, deal
with the European political problem, when the whole world
is surprised by the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, on
23 August 1939.
Political leadership and diplomacy, with skill and cun-
ning, have greatly facilitated the work of military leadership.
A week later, the latter starts working in optimal conditions.
In disputes between nations, without a higher and im-
partial court to appeal to, and, above all, with the necessary
force to enforce its decisions, diplomacy actions will be all
the safer and broader the greater the argument of force it
can ultimately deploy.
Thus, our diplomacy, which has a constant task to per-
form, strengthening the political, economic, commercial,
cultural and spiritual relationships with the other countries
of the world, in particular with continents and, within these,
- 41 -
with our neighbors, has as an argument to deploy, besides

our spirit’s traditional nobility and munificence, the power
of our armed forces, which should be increased according
to its importance, to ensure the respect and consideration
they deserve in the world and continental group of nations.
During war, foreign policy and diplomacy activities do
not diminish. On the contrary, as we can see in the current
conflict, they redouble their efforts to continue creating the
best fighting conditions for the armed forces.
We shall only see how doubtful neutral countries are
neutralized, the efforts made to enroll in the conflict the
supporters, or those who watch with benevolent neutrali-
ty. The way in which the opponent is discredited and their
propaganda is canceled abroad. The sympathies that must
be generated in the markets that produce weapons and
raw materials. The use of the press and political parties of
allied and neutral countries to make war look friendly. The
exploitation of the divisions and quarrels within the group
of enemy countries to provoke its dismemberment, etc.
And we will easily understand that all intellect and political
capacity must be mobilized to serve the national defense.
Finally, once the war has finished, whether successful
or beaten, politics must continue fighting the most difficult
part of the battle to obtain, in the conflict’s aftermath, the
political objectives fought for, whether highly achieved, or
to reduce the price of defeat to an acceptable minimum,
respectively.
This aspect of politics gains more importance in coali-
tions wars, in which so many interests clash at the peace
table, or to avoid the intervention of powerful neutrals who,
not having intervened in the conflict, also want to be part
of the dispossession of the defeated.
We should only analyze the depth and extent of each of
these aspects to prove that the special knowledge and skills
required for their solution cannot be developed when war
arrives, but it is necessary for the political minds to cons-
- 42 -
tantly study in preparation during peacetime.

Nations are obliged to prepare the maximum military
power that their population and wealth allow, to display it
in the battlefields, if war knocks on their doors.
Nations who have neglected the preparation of their ar-
med forces have always paid a high price for their mistake,
disappearing from history or falling in the most abject ser-
vitude. They will be remembered by history, only because of
their excessive mercantilism, and by archaeologists, when
they discover beautiful examples of a great past civilization
that did not know how to cultivate their peoples’ warrior
skills.
The preparation of the armed forces for war is not an easy
task and it cannot be improvised in moments of danger.
Forming educated reserves, especially today, when the
means of fighting have undergone so much progress and
so many technical complications, requires long and me-
thodical work, so that they acquire the maturity and mettle
required by war.
Military art is subject to so many variations that the stan-
ding army must engage in constant work and study, because
when war comes, there is no time to take anything in.
The military officer, in addition to their science, must
meet spirit and leadership requirements to take their troop
to the biggest sacrifices and feats; and that cannot be im-
provised, it can only be obtained with the constant exercise
of the art of leading.
Arms, ammunitions and other fight means cannot be
purchased or manufactured when danger is pressing upon
us, as they are not available in the producing markets, it is
necessary to set up manufacturing processes that demand
a long time. In the arsenals and depositories, it is necessary
to prepare everything that the first operations will demand,
and to anticipate their increase and repairs.
The provisions for the employment of the nation’s armed
forces involve a long and constant task requiring a certain
- 43 -
number of heads and military officers, specialized studies,

which start at the Superior War Colleges and continue later,
with no interruption, throughout a life devoted to constant
professional development.
All these provisions contained in the military plan, whi-
ch coordinates the operations plans of the Army, Navy and
Air Force, are based on basic studies, which require very
in-depth professional and general knowledge.
Within said plan, a number of issues are solved: the total
mobilization of the country, the way in which the borders
will be protected; the concentration of forces in the proba-
ble operation areas; the possible development of the initial
operations; the development of the supply of all kind of
elements to the armed forces; the general development
of the means of transport and mass media of the country;
ground-based air defense of the interior, etc.
As you can see, this work, carried out in full and in detail,
constantly engages the nations’ armed forces senior bodies;
the accuracy of these tasks enables the initiation of the fight
and its continuation in the best possible conditions.
If war arrives, the capacity and character of the Comman-
der in Chief and the war virtues of their forces will try to
tilt the battle chance in their favor, and I am not referring
to God’s help, as both contenders will implore it with the
same fervor.
The armed forces of our Homeland carry out, in this
sense, a silent and constant work, that begins in the troop
units’ barracks, navy ships, and air bases, preparing the
best instrument of struggle within their possibilities. And
is then continued at their institutes of higher studies, to end
in the management work of the Military Staff.
I believe I am not wrong if I say that, for a long time, only
the armed institutions have experienced concerns derived
from the national defense of our Homeland and have tried
to solve those concerns, creating the best instrument of
struggle they could. But it is essential, if we do not want to
- 44 -
see ourselves head for possible disaster, that the rest of the
Nation, without any kind of exception, prepares and plays
the role that in this sense corresponds to each one of us.
Internal policy is key in the preparation of the country
for war.
Its mission is clear and simple, but hard to achieve. It
must provide the armed forces with the highest possible
number of healthy and strong men, of high moral standing
and of strong patriotism. Using this yeast, the armed forces
will be able to reinforce these virtues and easily develop a
high warrior and sacrificial spirit.
Moreover, it is necessary for the mentioned qualities to
be developed in the entire population without exception,
as only within the country can the armed forces find their
moral strength, their will to defeat, and the replenishment
of people, materials, and worn-out or lost elements.
The countries that are at war these days show all the
efforts that are made in order to keep in their people, even
at times of great sacrifices and hardships, the steadfast will
to defeat, while developing all conceivable activities tending
to undermine the opponent’s morale at the same time, thus
giving birth to a new means of fight, the War of Nerves.
Although regarding matters such as form of government,
economic, social, financial, industrial, production and work
issues, among others, any kind of opinions and interests
coexist within a State, in terms of the political objective
generated by the feeling of nationality of that people, being
it unique and inseparable, there cannot be dissenting opi-
nions. On the contrary, that common mystique is like a bin-
ding agent to cement the national unity of a certain people.
When faced with the danger of war, it is necessary to
establish a perfect truce in all the interior problems and
struggles, be them political, economic, social or of any other
kind, in order to exclusively pursue the objective that saving
the Homeland involves: to win the war.
All of us have witnessed how the peoples that have seen
- 45 -
their infighting escalate, taking their blindness to the extre-

me of declaring their blood brothers an enemy and calling
foreign regimes or ideologies for help, have either been
torn apart in fierce battles or have lapsed into abject su-
bordination.
When the danger of war arrives and during its develop-
ment, the internal political action of the States must nota-
bly increase its activities, as the tasks it must carry out are
very important. It is necessary to make the coming contend
popular, defeating the last oppositions and prejudices of
the prevented persons. True social, political and economic
solidarity must be established. The nation’s morale and fi-
ghting spirit must be taken to such a degree that no disaster
or sacrifice could take it down. To develop in the population
a strict sense of discipline and personal responsibility to
contribute in any way to winning the war. It is necessary
to organize a strong machine, able to develop a suitable
propaganda, counterpropaganda and censorship plan pro-
tecting the domestic front from the attacks that the enemy
will constantly carry out. All the civilian population must be
ready to establish passive air defense nationwide by itself,
as the only means to restrict damages and destruction from
the enemy’s bombings, etc.
When the war is over, the internal policy still has an enor-
mous task to carry out, especially if the war has been lost.
At this moment, it seems like the upright nations, which
for several years have lived with constant pressure upon
their nerves, will suddenly unleash their instincts and lower
passions, creating problems and situations that threaten
even the State›s own constitution. Russia and Germany,
upon the 1914-1918 war end, represent enough proof for
this statement.
This internal policy work must be driven by peace in
all spheres. To achieve it, parents start this work at home,
teachers and professors continue working on it in the class-
rooms; the armed forces, in their ships and barracks; leaders
- 46 -
and legislators do it by means of their government work;

intellectuals and thinkers, in their published works; the
film, theater and radio industries, with their education and
advertising work. And finally, each man in the formation of
their self-education.
In relation to this problem and our case in particular,
we will easily prove that it requires very special study and
commitment.
In our fight for independence and in the exterior wars we
have held, without assuming the nation in arms character
we have defined, we can observe sad cracks in the domestic
front that force us to be prudent and forward-looking.
Afterwards, we have offered the world a coast open to any
individual, race, ideology, culture, language and religion.
Undoubtedly, the Nation has enlarged, but there exists the
problem of cosmopolitanism, and what makes this problem
even more complicated is that it is kept within the Nation
in clusters with little or no assimilation at all.
Every year, when presenting themselves to fulfill their
obligation to learn to defend their Homeland, a high number
of citizens must be rejected because they do not meet the
necessary physical conditions, most of the cases originating
from a lack of shelter and sufficient food in childhood. And
in the geography texts of the whole world it can be read that
we are the country of beef and wheat, of wool and leather.
Undoubtedly a major social work needs to be done in
the country. We have excellent raw material, but to shape
it, the joint effort of every Argentine, from those at the top
echelons of the country to the humblest citizen, is essential.
National defense is thus another subject that must incite
us to ensure our people’s happiness.
The 1914-1918 war has already shown us, and with higher
intensity than the current war, the fundamental importance
that the mobilization and the optimum use of the country
industries have for the development of war.
Known is the role the United States of America assumed
- 47 -
in the previous and in the current conflict in which, by me-

ans of the contribution of their industrial power, it becomes
the allied nations’ arsenal, in the biggest effort to tilt the
war luck to its favor.
All the nations in conflict mobilize the whole number
of local industries, and they push the industries at their
maximum level of operations towards a joint effort in order
to supply the armed forces.
Evidently this transformation must be carefully prepared
during peacetime, solving issues such as labor replace-
ment, the procurement of raw material, plants and factories
transformation, factories relocations and scattering due to
air danger, replacement and replenishing of what has been
destroyed, etc.
During war, it is necessary to set this great mechanism in
motion: to regulate its production according to the specific
demands of the armed forces; to ensure the necessary su-
pplies for the civilian population; to acquire the production
of raw materials and the necessary industrial products from
foreign countries, anticipating and neutralizing the enemies’
purchases; to guide actions for the destruction of enemy
industries, pointing targets of aviation and sabotage, etc.
At the end of the conflict, the authorities in charge of
managing industrial production face an even harder pro-
blem: the general demobilization of the industries, with
the socio-political problems derived from it; to ensure the
placement of the stock that is still in the pipeline; to trans-
form, in the shortest possible period, the war industries into
peace products, to reach as soon as possible the reconquest
of the markets where they were acting before the conflict
started, etc. All this requires a vigorous and clever direction,
and the goodwill contribution and joint efforts of industry
leaders and working masses.
Referring to the industrial problem applied to the parti-
cular case of our country, we can express that it constitutes
the critical issue of our national defense. To be able to solve
- 48 -
this crisis, its cause has to be looked for far away.

During a long time, our production and wealth has been
almost exclusively agricultural in nature. That is mostly
why our immigration growth has not been as significant
as expected, given the high profits from this type of pro-
duction in relation to the necessary labor. With saturated
world markets, production was automatically limited and,
as a consequence, the labor that production needed stopped
arriving.
The Argentine capital, invested thus in a safe but not
bright way, was reluctant to look for placement in industrial
activities, considered, for a long time, a crazy venture, and,
even though it might seem funny, ungentlemanly.
Foreign capital engaged mainly in trade activities, where
any profit, however quick and excessive, was always permit-
ted and lawful. Or it sought security via the establishment
of utilities or mother industries, often with minimal profit
backed by the State.
The country economy relied almost exclusively on local
produce, but in their most incipient state of processing, that
then is transformed abroad with evident benefits for their
economy and development, to the detriment of their local
produce, and competes with the products that would still
be elaborated there.
This recovering action had to be undertaken, naturally,
by Argentine capitals, or at least, be promoted by the State,
by preceding them and showing them the way forward.
Happily, the 1914-1918 war, with the lack of foreign ma-
nufactured products, pushed the boldest capitals to embark
on the adventure, and a great diversity of industries was
established, proving our real possibilities.
When the conflict was over, many of these industries
disappeared, some because they were artificial, and others,
that should have been kept, due to lack of official support.
But many gracefully passed the hard test that foreign compe-
tition imposed on them both inside the country and abroad.
- 49 -
But this industrial transformation was carried out by

itself, on the private initiative of some pioneers who needed
to overcome difficulties. The State did not know how to have
that kind of clairvoyance that should have guided and pro-
tected them, orienting the national use of energy, facilitating
the training of labor and managerial staff; harmonizing the
search and extraction of raw material with the needs and
possibilities of elaboration, orienting and protecting their
placement in national and foreign markets, of which the
national economy would have considerably benefited.
To prove it, I will refer to only one aspect. We have spent
large amounts of money abroad for the purchase of war
materials. We have paid seven times their value, because
seven is the war industry’s safety coefficient, and all that
money has gone out of the country with no benefit for its
economy, its industries or the working mass it could feed.
An intelligent policy would have allowed us to set up the
factories to make them in the country, factories we would
have now, along with considerable industrial experience;
and the invested sums would have passed from one pair of
hands to another, all Argentine hands.
What I am saying about the war material can be extended
to agricultural machinery, land, river and sea transport
materials, and any other kind of activity.
Argentine technicians have proven themselves as capable
as foreigners. And if anyone thinks they are not, let’s bring
foreign technicians, and we will soon incorporate everything
they can teach us.
The Argentine worker, when given the opportunity to
learn, has revealed himself as capable as or more than the
foreign worker.
As to machines, if we do not have enough quantity or of
the necessary quality, they can be manufactured or acqui-
red, as many as necessary.
We are offered raw materials from our land’s womb; they
are just waiting for us to extract them.
- 50 -
If we do not have everything, we will acquire it wherever

it is, just like European countries, that do not have every-
thing either.
The current conflict, by making foreign manufactured
products disappear from our markets almost completely,
has made our industries flourish again, in a way that causes
admiration even in the industrial countries par excellence.
The theory that we backed for a long time that if one day
any danger threatened our Homeland, we would find in the
foreign markets the war material we needed to complete
the initial endowment of our Army and ensure their reple-
nishment, has proved to be a utopia.
National defense demands a powerful industry of our
own, and not just any industry but a heavy one.
To that aim official State action is undoubtedly necessary,
to solve the problems I have already mentioned and to pro-
tect our industries, if necessary. Not the artificial ones that,
with purely utilitarian purposes, will have already recovered
the invested capital many times, but those whose activities
are related to that stable work that will benefit the economy
and ensure national defense.
In that sense, the first step has already been taken with
the creation of the General Direction of Military Fabrication,
which includes the solution of the key problems affecting
our industries.
At the same time, it is necessary to guide the professional
training of Argentine youth. Let those lacking in means or
capacity understand that instead of prospering in a public
office, progress is done at the factories and workshops, and
dignity is often gained.
Let those who are completing university courses know
that the industrial professions offer them horizons as wide
as those of Law, Medicine, or Construction Engineering.
Industrial and trade schools, chemistry faculties, electro-
-technical industries, etc., must be multiplied. The National
Defense of our Homeland needs all of them.
- 51 -
Trade, both foreign and domestic in any country, has a

great importance from the point of view of national defense.
Nations at war try to cancel the opponent’s trade to pre-
vent the arrival of necessary supplies not only to the armed
forces, but to the life of the civilian population and its eco-
nomy. The English blockade and the German submarine
campaign are a demonstration of this.
It is necessary then to study carefully during peacetime
the special conditions under which trade will be carried out
during wartime, in order to develop adequate trade policies.
In the first place, since peacetime it is necessary to guide
the trade flows with those countries that are the least likely
to become opponents in a given war situation; with trade
being one of the main sources of the nation’s economy and
finance, it is better to keep it at its most compatible level
with the war situation.
Afterwards the ports from where our products will go
out and foreign products will come in must be studied. It
has to be determined which ones are susceptible to air or
naval attacks, which can be more easily blocked, etc., in
order to know which ones can be used, and the necessary
enlargements of their facilities to enable the absorption of
the trade movements of the other ports.
Following that, it will be necessary to consider the way
in which said products will cross the sea, in order to ensure
they are safe from naval attack by the opponent. The need to
have a large merchant fleet of our own arises, as an optimal
condition, and also a powerful Navy that defends it.
The possibility of diverting products traffic through neu-
tral or allied countries, with whom we are linked by land
routes, should also be studied, as a way to circumvent the
blockade.
A similar study of the critical points on which the enemy’s
trade relies should be carried out, to attack it and thus pa-
ralyze it or destroy it, either by means of direct attack or
due to the competition of similar products in the purcha-
- 52 -
sing markets, employing all the recourses available to trade

policy. The “black lists” represent a significant example.
What has been said about seaborne trade must be na-
turally extended to the land and river communities with
continental countries.
It is necessary, then, to extend the forecasts to the develo-
pment of domestic trade, ensuring the adequate distribution
of the products intended to supply the armed forces and the
civilian population, avoiding speculation and price spikes.
Land communication (railways and roads) and river
routes must be carefully oriented by a wise policy inclu-
ding not only the needs in peacetime, but also during war
time, similarly to those taken into account for sea-borne
trade. Moreover, the needs of the armed forces will have to
be considered, not just as to their supplies, but as to their
mobilization, concentration and the conduction of certain
maneuvers.
Once the war is over, it is necessary to proceed with a de-
mobilization of the country’s trade, orienting it towards its
normal peacetime channel, trying to conquer new markets,
etc., and adjusting everything to the results obtained in the
conflict.
The rapid disappearance of the crisis and depressions
that unavoidably occur in post-war periods will largely de-
pend on the accuracy of these forecasts.
The mere formulation of the trade problems to which I
have referred is enough to give an idea of their seriousness
and importance, and of the need to have real means to solve
them.
The economy of the Nation is of fundamental importan-
ce to the development of the war. The country’s wealth is
called upon to make its maximum contribution to ensure
its success; and on the quality and quantity of the existent
productions will also largely depend the financing of the war.
The possibilities of foreign trade, the particular condi-
tions of the economy of each country and the management
- 53 -
of its finances require the most skillful leadership to avoid

its ruin, despite having won the war.
The consumption of products of a country at war reaches
fantastic figures, and it is necessary to stimulate as much
as possible the production of wealth, despite the fact that
labor, machinery and tools, sources of energy and means
of transport are already demanded to the maximum.
It is necessary, in addition to studying the use of one’s
own sources of wealth, to coordinate them with those of the
allied countries and with those of the regions expected to
be conquered or lost during the conflict.
Undoubtedly the mobilization and transformation of the
country economy, with all the interests that will be neces-
sary to defeat, often uneconomic forms of exploitation that
will be necessary to establish, the adequate distribution of
resources, the determination of the indispensable imports
and the order of priority to establish in them, the organi-
zation of work and the use of personnel, adapting them to
certain activities, the use of means of transport and mass
media, etc., are very complex tasks.
As in the issues analyzed above, countries, since peace-
time, try to subject the economy of probable adversaries
to certain vassalages and critical situations, preparing real
time mines that will explode at the desired time.
Finally, once the war is over, it is necessary, as in the other
aspects, to transform that war economy so specialized in a
peacetime economy.
The transformation that must necessarily take place in
industries, agricultural life and in all the areas of produc-
tion, is of such a nature that, if farsighted measures have
not been adopted in good time, very serious perturbations
will endanger the very existence of the States.
Unemployment and the collapse of industry and trade
plagued warring nations after the 1914-1918 war, spreading
a dangerous and contagious general demoralization.
Known is the aphorism attributed to Napoleon: “Money
- 54 -
makes war”, and the one by von der Goltz: “To make war
you need money, money, and more money”.
The current conflict shows how the budgets figures,
which in England and the United States of America must
be submitted to their legislative chambers for approval,
amounts to truly fabulous figures.
Undoubtedly healthy finances since peacetime notably
facilitate the financial conduction of the war. The existen-
ce of metallic and foreign currency reserves, and healthy
foreign and domestic credit, are other success factors to
be considered.
The financing of war can only be done on the basis of
careful forecasts, formulated since peacetime, adjusted to
the most varied circumstances that may arise.
It will be necessary to make an assessment of the proba-
ble cost of the war, about which it is very easy to fall short.
The establishment of investments will demand the most
severe and strict administration.
In order to obtain resources, all measures, even coercive
ones, will have to be taken to the extreme: mobilization of
existing metallic and foreign currency reserves —voluntary
or forced contributions from internal and external credit—,
of state assets —from the tax system—, of the issue of paper
money, etc., without any consideration of private or parti-
cular interests.
It will also be necessary to wage a ruthless war on the
finances of the adversary nations, especially by attacking
their credit, their currency and their tax system.
It will also be necessary to study the economic and fi-
nancial contribution that will be imposed on the adversary
nation, in case of victory; and the way to pay the war debt
in case of defeat.
Finally, it will be necessary to plan how to move from the
war financial system to the peace one, and the financing of
the incurred debt, that will be a burden for the State finances
for many years.
- 55 -
Gentlemen, this is what military officers mean by natio-

nal defense.
In my presentation, I have tried to express, I hope I have
succeeded, the following issues:
1st that war is an inevitable social phenomenon;
2nd that so-called pacifist nations, as is eminently ours,
if they want peace, they must prepare for war;
3rd that the National Defense of the Homeland is a com-
prehensive problem, which totally encompasses its different
activities; that it cannot be improvised when war comes
knocking at the door, but is the product of long years of
constant and conscientious work; that it cannot be tackled
unilaterally, as with the armed forces’ exclusive approach,
but must be established through the harmonious and in-
tertwined work of the various government bodies, private
institutions and all Argentines, whatever their sphere of
action; that the problems it covers are so diversified, and
require such thorough professional knowledge, that no ca-
pacity or intellect can be spared.
Finally, that its demands only contribute to the aggrandi-
zement of the Homeland and the happiness of its children.
- 56 -
An active State which promotes the industry
Illustration by Florencia Riviere

Integration of National Post-War Council
“Armed forces, economic forces and creating

forces [...] are the foundation upon which
our future must be built so that we stay
economically free and politically sovereign.”
(1944)
FOREWORD Norma López5
An active State which promotes the industry
It is undeniable that, throughout the years and in different

times of the historical journey of our country, some sectors
-extremely well-known and recurrent- have tried to distort or
twist the history of Peronism, its origins and its shapes, many
times focusing those fallacious tales on the excluding figures of
the movement. From the most vulgar things, like affirming that
Perón had x-ray lenses to look at the underwear of the young
girls from the Union of Secondary Students (UES in Spanish),
to a bit more complex speeches, like those which attributed
the course of Peronism to the circumstantial whims of his lead-
er, his political “slyness” or instinct. Although the vernacular
right-wing has opted in the last years for more superficial and
opportunistic speeches to broaden its electoral base, it has
always tried to keep the “logos” for itself, that is to say, the
ability to think and think themselves, to reflect upon the past
and present, and to relegate popular classes to the power of
mob and authoritarianism.
Perón’s speech on September 6th 1944, before the brand-
new National Post-War Council, is a solid and brilliant political
manifesto which anticipated the ideas and objectives of what
later became the project of justicialism, put into action in its
successive governments, as well as some laws and princi-
ples, to put it in some way, which characterized the Peronist
movement, both in its times of expansion and management
and in its years of resistance. It is, additionally, a comprehen-
sive sample of the view and intelligence of a statesman who
5 Journalist and city councilwoman of Rosario. Vice president of Justicialist Party (Santa
Fe district).
- 59 -
An active State which promotes the industry - Norma López
surmised a country in the future, a country “economically free

and politically sovereign”, as he states in one paragraph, at a
time when the world started dividing itself into poles of tension
established by Cold War.
The ending of the Second World War, which had sunk the
world in one of the biggest economic crises of the century, not
only was the germ of imperialism and military interventionism
of the new world powers -United States and Soviet Union- but
also of new ways of economic dominance of transnational
dimension. International organisms of credit were born after
Bretton Woods Conference, such as International Monetary
Fund (decisive actor in Argentine crises since the decade of
1970), and Marshall Plan was beginning to be designed, an
American strategy which hide an expansionist intention un-
der the suit of postwar European reconstruction, and which
asked Argentina for its supply of raw materials, both to Unit-
ed States and to countries distraught by war. In that context,
Perón thought for Argentina a model which would guarantee
redistribution of resources, and the incentive to production
and industrialization, and that at the same time could demand
the larger possible amount of workforce, and the “perfection
of technical knowledge”, which current progressive govern-
ments understand as technology transference, indispensable
condition to national development.
The ambitions that Perón puts forward in this speech are
neither naive nor possibilist. He knew that against that project
were those who have chosen for Argentina the comfortable
role of world’s barn, something that nowadays is still proudly
quoted. Alan Beattie, former economist of Bank of England y
now editorialist of Financial Times, knew how to establish the
differences which lead two young countries such as United
States and Argentina to be respectively a world power and
a country with enormous economic and social inequalities.
All of them redound to the same culprits: national oligarchy,
landowners in the years of the emergence of Peronism, finan-
cial rentiers in the decade of 1970; and the so-called “patria
- 60 -
contratista” (“contracting homeland”), which would later be-

come the support of sterile and invisible economies dedicated
to financial speculation and flight of capital. Today, one of
its main exponents is Mauricio Macri, who managed to grant
a political expression to reactionary and subordinate forces.
Beattie defines the genesis of both countries according to
the different ways of distributing lands, which in our country
was characterized for being concentrated and excluding, which
originated a powerful landowner oligarchy that amassed for-
tunes with meat and grain exports; and to a significant decision
of adapting new internal demands and economic projections
that needed industrialization as a way of progress and hierar-
chical organization of work. Argentine oligarchy, a self-satis-
fying and selfish minority, rejected industrialization to retain
their privileges in the large-scale exploitation (latifundista) of
agriculture and livestock.
Perón knew that no country has ever become rich thanks to
the primary sector of the economy, let alone with lands con-
centrated in few hands. The world context of second postwar
was to him the possibility of changing the rules of the game in
Argentina, strengthening the State as a body which would set
boundaries to the obstinacy of “economic freedom”, more as
an excuse to retain the privileges of the minorities than as a
“stubbornness” of the ruling classes. In the speech there are
clear and repeated references to these conceptions: (eco-
nomic) collective freedom upon the individual one, “despoiling
egoism” and “overwhelming vigor” which should be set aside
and contained by the State in protection of the interests of
great majorities.
This new role of the State could not be limited to the mere
leadership of the economy, let alone to control. Here he starts
to draft, theoretically, perhaps in an incipient way, the concep-
tion of an active State which promotes development, creator
of conditions which favor the workforce, the growth of working
mass and its consequent hierarchical organization, and the
extension of social and labor rights which formerly became
- 61 -
An active State which promotes the industry - Norma López
inalienable flags of Peronism.

The development of the industry for goods and services,
usable in the country and for export to countries devastated
by war, was not only the best project to fit in the coming inter-
national context –war was not over yet–, taking advantage of
a scenario of shortage and demands abroad, but it also was
the path that homeland should go through to achieve its eco-
nomic independence, distribution of wealth, consolidation of
a healthy and fair economy, which would offer work and future
to the Argentine.
Many of those anticipatory thoughts crystallized in the first
postwar years. Additionally, those whom Perón refers to as
the ones who always carry “a sick and decadent skepticism”
occupied the expected place: that of permanent sabotage of
his government, the exhausting attack of those who saw their
privileges diminished and started, in 1955, the long journey
of persecution of Peronism, still present today and may be
repeating the same fallacies. Yet what was thought and pro-
jected, whose ideas were drafted by Perón in this speech,
was put into action. From then on, we all know history: years
of nationalization of railroads, of Rio Santiago Shipyard, of
heavy military and automotive industry, of labor and social
rights, of work and dignity. In other words, years in which we
understood that it was possible to build together a free, fair
and sovereign country.
- 62 -
2
Speech given on the occasion of the integration
of National Post-War Council
September 6, 1944
When I took charge of the Secretariat of Labor and Social

Welfare and I discovered the multiform aspect offered by
our homeland’s social panorama, I had to make my opinions
more concrete by affirming that “civilized life, in general,
and economic life, in particular, just as human life itself,
die out when there is a fault in the organization of the cells
which constitute it.”
Since then on, all my concerns as a governor have centred
on this principle which I consider that polarizes every go-
vernmental action. All my efforts have tended to structure,
each time in a more complete and adjusted manner, capable
and powerful organisms; and to improve the functioning
of mechanisms so that they are sufficiently prepared to be
constantly operational and they can fulfil their purpose,
with the smallest possible resistance.
It is not important here to elucidate if, as far as the social
Argentine environment is concerned, the awaited ideal is
near or far away. What matters is simply to state the fact that
if one does not contribute with the greatest constancy and
the bravest effort to lead, organize and direct the life of the
social body, and whichever elements, factors and systems
contribute to the natural accomplishment of their functions,
the social body dies, falls and precipitates towards the abyss
of disorder, to finally disintegrate in anarchy.
The multiple events of the most varied nature which I
daily witnessed with pleasure at the Secretariat of Labor and
Social Welfare have highlighted the logical concatenation.
And phenomena which, at first sight, are far from each other,
as belonging to opposing fields, are connected in such a way
that in the root of their being or in the essence of their mani-
festations, they harmonize in an identical cause or reason.
- 63 -
SPEECH September 6, 1944.
Therefore, one cannot talk about a bosses’ economy and

a workers’ economy but rather about a national economy.
Hence, problems which affect whichever of the different
social groups that can exist in real life are not peculiar to
the group where they manifest in a certain way, but they
are common to almost all the other groups. Certain and
determined circumstances are enough to expose them, with
more or less virulence; yet answering to a reduced number
of causes that, with analogous characteristics, create the
general economic problems of a country.
And all factors which intervene in production, distri-
bution and consumption of wealth are so closely linked
that workers’ economic life cannot be articulated without
touching the fundamental basis of bosses’ economy. The
existing connection between the problems that affect ones
and others; the influences they mutually exert are eloquent
testimonies of the imperious necessity of intimately coor-
dinating organs and functions which connect individual
action with governmental responsibilities.
Individual economic destiny, the dynamic singular eco-
nomic process are linked and integrated to the national
economic juncture. And when national economies start
relationships with each other, and what we call world eco-
nomy appears, dynamic processes of national economy
are associated to build a wider economy: the economy of
all peoples of the world.
Redistributing human, spiritual and material resources
of a country, when there is a change from a normal period
to an extraordinary one or vice versa, demands coordina-
ted plans which cannot be left at the mercy of an impulse
which inspires the exultation of a feeling or the audacity of
improvisation. Establishing the most convenient economic
policy in the short term and linking its realizations to the
measures that should tend to a longer-term execution are
tasks which require, above all, a vast coordinating action.
Coordination is only possible when there is the determined
- 64 -
vocation of implanting it, the technical capacity to follow it

and enough time to consolidate it.
Armed forces, economic forces and creating forces, to-
gether in an indissoluble union through a solid citizenship
culture, are the foundation upon which our future must
be built so that we stay economically free and politically
sovereign.
The task is certainly not easy, since it requires achieving
the functional homology of numerous gears which act in
multiple and opposing levels. And from this cumulus of
efforts one must obtain, additionally, positive results which
contribute to providing greater satisfactions and safety to
the national community.
There will certainly be someone who, observing the de-
cree which gave the Vice-President of the Nation the superior
direction of Argentine social and economic ordering and
created National Post-War Council, will consider that insis-
ting on defining such orientations is equal to unnecessarily
risking the economic future of the country. Those sceptics’
reaction consists on censoring every national initiative and
criticizing everything that is done, unless it is conditioned
or subjected to what the winners of the current world stru-
ggle decide.
Before this sick and decadent skepticism, I oppose the
high destinies of my homeland. Before this scandal, I clearly
affirm the unbreakable decision that Argentina impulses
the ascent of its economy, the intensification of its cultu-
re, the improvement of its social classes, and achieves the
prestige it deserves before all men of good will who inhabit
the continents of Earth.
And I proclaim this with faith and tenacity, because I
am absolutely sure that all my fellow citizens -except those
blinded by hatred, egoism or political passion- share my
ideas and feelings regarding the social-economic orientation
Argentina should set from now on; which I summarize in
the following fundamental postulates:
- 65 -
1º. The State must not alter the principles of economic

freedom, both for producers and for consumers as well;
yet the disorder provoked by war in world economy de-
mands anticipating solutions which can be applied to the
pressing post-war needs, stimulating production and all
the manpower available with the aim of achieving a just
equilibrium of productive forces and the elevation of na-
tional income.
2º. The State must contribute to perfecting technical
knowledge of any order, in every national activity; to increase
individual efficiency; to effectively improve working and
life conditions of workers; to encouraging the progress of
middle class; and to stimulating private capital as it is an
active element in production and contributes to general
well-being.
3º. All energies consumed to reach the previously indi-
cated objectives will be sterile if there is no ruling principle
that, assisted by the correct consulting strings, will establish
the fundamental principles of economic and social nature;
and will adopt measures which should now be applied to
solve situations caused by the transition from world war
to peace; and also, those measures required for the future
consolidation of normality.
I proclaim firstly the principle of economic freedom.
But this freedom, as all freedoms, can generate the fiercest
egoism if it is not exercised in a way that one’s freedom is
articulated with the others’. Indeed, there is a universally
proved instinct which drives all beings to persevere in their
beings, to secure their conservation and development. This
is the most radical, brave and efficient of all instincts. It
pushes man to obtain what is necessary for living, to seek
some well-being, and secure his future. That instinct is
commonly known as personal interest.
Although the world “interest” is frequently used pejorati-
vely, in “personal interest”, as it refers to a natural tendency,
its use is legit as far as it respects the limits imposed by
- 66 -
individual, familiar and social freedom.

Abuse leads to egoism. But the noble exercise of this hu-
man instinct extends to those who are in some way continua-
tions of the individual person, family members; and reaches
those who surround it: fellow citizens, compatriots, huma-
nity as a whole; and carries within it, thus, one of the roots
of family love, patriotism and the feeling of brotherhood
amongst men and nations. Its strict exercise, in addition to
achieving the desired benefit, is the original source of those
virtues which at the same time help shape it.
But not all of us come to the world with enough social
equilibrium to willingly submit to healthy rules of social
coexistence. Not all of us can prevent deviations of personal
interest from degenerating into an egoism which despoils
other people’s rights; and into a force which dominates
other people’s freedoms. And here, in this point that sepa-
rates good and evil, is where the inflexible authority of the
State must act to rectify individual errors and make up for
the lack of moral strings that should guide each person’s
actions, if one wants future society to be something more
than a concentration camp or an immense cemetery.
Human nature and nature of things meet everywhere,
and are always identical at bottom. But there is a piece of
modes and accidental circumstances which give every epo-
ch and every region of the globe, just as every individual, a
particular physiognomy.
The economic problem, always identical in its general for-
mula, is therefore described according to times and places,
with different hypothesis. These hypotheses are conditio-
ned by the nature of soil and subsoil; climate, geographic
situation, civilization, State form, regime of associations,
cultural development, morality, abundance of population,
industrial technique, means of communication, workers’
situation and other factors related to the idiosyncrasy and
habits of each community. Thus, expecting to accept and
impose a universal standard, expecting to attribute to only
- 67 -
one of these factors all the responsibilities which belong to

the whole, constitutes a utopia and shows the stubbornness
of wickedness.
No regime, examined in the details of its organization,
is immutable, thus. Even though it is possible to discover
universal laws and principles, their application might take
different forms according to the place and time.
Peoples have the essential right to demand their gover-
nors that, when they adapt, with the greatest prudence, the
systems to the changing circumstances, they never abandon
essential principles and laws.
And would it be unfair if this legit right of the peoples was
denied to the State when it wanted to demand the obser-
vance of those who oppose it, or to remind it to those who,
by forgetfulness or distraction, try to benefit from other
people’s good faith?
Yet, in exceptional moments as the present one, in which
the world faces the ruins of institutions that were considered
accomplished and immutable; in which, though uncertainly,
the outlines of future society are taking shape; in which men
of great political experience, as English Primer Minister
Winston Churchill, wonder how it is possible to imagine that
the mass of the people might be able to decide by voting on
the elections the right path which must be taken amongst
the cataclysm of changes humanity faces, I consider I have
a right to state these matters:
First: Is it prudent to leave at the mercy of multiple, di-
verse and contradictory isolated determinations, the orde-
red orientation of the most delicate matters of social and
economic nature?
Second: Should it not be the State who, for the sake of a
superior interest, which is that of each and every member
of the national community, fulfils the inalienable consti-
tutional function of encouraging by all means the general
well-being?
The principle of economic freedom I proclaimed cannot,
- 68 -
thus, prevent the State from performing this tutelary action

to coordinate private activities towards a national collective
purpose, conditioned, consequently, by some precepts which
are consubstantial. If a nation wants to be economically free
and politically sovereign, it must respect and demand that
others respect the basic principles which rule life of men
and peoples: law and morality. And if a nation does not want
to or does not make an effort to stay economically free and
politically sovereign, it will deserve mockery and jeering
from the contemporary, and condemnation from history.
To summarize, the principle of “economic freedom” is
not violated, is not even clouded, when the State “directs the
economy”, in the same way that the freedom to freely move
around the country is not affected when one is directed or
channeled through some routes, instead of allowing irre-
parable damages to be caused to others, by cross-country
galloping, without getting, by the way, any advantage for
the traveler.
The State can orientate social and economic legislation
without intervening at all in the individual action which
corresponds to the industrialist, the merchant, the consu-
mer. These men, keeping every freedom of action granted
by fundamental codes, can adjust their realizations to the
great plans outlined by the State in order to achieve the
political, economic and social objectives of the Nation.
And the fact that I am not innovating old models, nor
improvising orientations to brag about being original, is
proved by the overturning of the classic concept of political
economy, since it became social economy. It moved from
a science that investigated and made only general laws of
production, distribution, circulation and consumption of
material goods to a greater scientific hierarchy, when it
orientated those purposes towards conservation and pros-
perity of social order.
This principle of economic freedom will be the antidote
which opposes the development of collective illusions, on
- 69 -
one hand, and the stimulus to private initiative. Yet just as

prohibitions or limitations to internal and international
commerce, when used as a general system, can lead to as-
phyxiation of activities and the impoverishment of popu-
lation, good organization of human activities requires the
convenient direction as well as the necessary stimulus. Due
to this I have affirmed that, facing the disorder provoked by
world war, it is indispensable to anticipate solutions which
can be applied to the pressing post-war needs, stimulating
production and using all the manpower available with the
aim of achieving a just equilibrium of productive forces and
the elevation of national income.
The State has the duty of stimulating production; yet it
must do so so tactfully that it reaches, at the same time,
the correct equilibrium among diverse productive forces.
To this effect, it will determine which activities are already
consolidated in our environment, which ones require some
support to achieve more strength, due to their vital impor-
tance to the country; and finally, which ones have already
accomplished their objective of making up for the shortage
during the war, but whose maintenance during regular times
would represent an anti-economic burden and there is no
reasonable cause to keep it.
On the accurate combination of different situations will
largely depend the process of future national industrializa-
tion which helps giving normal and well-rewarded occupa-
tion to all those who inhabit Argentine soil.
From a purely industrial point of view, it is necessary to
encourage those industries whose raw materials are ge-
nuinely national, amongst other reasons because they have
greater possibilities of subsisting once the war is over.
We must agree that the particularly favorable conditions
war has created in Argentina, in relation to the rest of the
world, equal an artificial and fleeting protection. The Ar-
gentine industry has not only managed to substitute a great
number of goods which used to be imported from abroad,
- 70 -
but it has also made profit thanks to growing exports, to such

extent that in 1943 it was even equivalent to the exports
value of agricultural products.
All the time the State can encourage or protect some in-
dustries. A hierarchical order can be thought of, preferring
some industries over others. But the creation or support
of artificial industries, whose economic life depends on
some form of protection that, directly or indirectly, always
represents a cost, must be avoided as far as it is possible.
A minimum of heavy industry is always necessary and
convenient to cover the minimum needs of national defense.
Basic elements, such as iron and coal, are not only scarce in
our country but, due to their huge wear, they will probably
have elevated prices even after the war.
We will be out of our resources of old iron, and their im-
portation is inevitable. But let’s take into account that the
sources of world production are perishable, and producing
countries will make it more and more expensive.
Coal will hardly recover its normal pre-war prices becau-
se, in the same way as oil, it is a noble fuel which should be
used for something better than being burned out.
The United Kingdom and the United States, which have
known how to use iron and coal to build their extraordinary
power, are set on investigating the discovery or new surro-
gates, capable of replacing stone coal, whose derivatives are
more necessary and valuable than calories. Analogously,
they try to replace, as far as it is possible, iron and steel with
plastic, derived from agricultural production.
Watercourses, once the State rationally takes advantage
of them, will supply the hydroelectric energy needed, li-
berating us from paying vassalage to coal. In other words,
modern technique has a presentiment about future shortage
of perishable raw materials and focuses its gaze on farming
products. In the inexhaustible pampas of our homeland the
true wealth of the future is hidden.
We should not imitate great industrial countries, following
- 71 -
the path which drove them towards post-war power, because

the circumstances are now very different from those that
existed at the beginning of industrialization. We should
march to the beat of modern times and create industries
based on the country’s raw materials.
Once the first world war finished in 1918, Argentina found
a great range of industries established to make up for the
shortage of manufactured products which used to be impor-
ted. The industrial process had begun and was progressively
growing. Yet this industrial transformation, incremented by
the course of the current war, developed on its own, due to
private initiative of those who possessed more confidence.
“The State -I once said- was not able to observe that evidence
which should have guided them and been their guardian,
orienting the national usage of energy helping teaching the
workforce and directive staff, harmonizing the search and
extraction of raw materials with the needs and possibilities
of its elaboration, orienting and protecting its collocation
on national and foreign markets, which would have consi-
derably benefited national economy.”
May God want that under the present circumstances we
take advantage of past lessons and lived experiences to turn
this blessed land into the true promised land our national
heroes saw on their dreams of greatness.
Little will it cost to support the validity of the principles
contained on the second point of the fundamental ideas
which support my convictions upon social economic policy.
Protecting technical knowledge, increasing individual effi-
ciency, improving workers’ working and living conditions,
fomenting middle class progress and stimulating private
capital are ideas I have been supporting since the same
day I took charge of the Secretariat of Labor and Welfare. I
should not thus expand on details which express my way
of thinking. Yet my recently pronounced words have been
so distorted that I am forced to stop a bit on the last quoted
concept, that is, the incentive to private capital.
- 72 -
Keeping a firm decision economically, and achieving new

developments that intensify general wealth, and improving
the level of the population are tasks which require vast te-
chnical preparation, which cannot be improvised. But it
also demands true boldness to face the evil insinuations
of those who want to obtain new wealth by means of the
suffering of others, and of those who seek red revolution
or anarchic dissipation, the only way to find satisfaction to
their ambitions or compensation for their failure.
I know that there are two flanks to cover, fought by equally
intense enemies. Yet National Revolution was not done in
vain, as it will remove both hate and egoism, and it will
follow its work unperturbedly so that peace and quietness
reign with an equal fulfilment and purity in the fields, in the
workshops, at the office, at the home of bosses and workers.
Anyone who judges this without passion will agree with
me that it is not possible to channel good wishes and eli-
minate bad customs if we let each person decide the path
to follow. It is necessary to bridge gaps, correct mistakes,
orient wills.
To accomplish these objectives, I have been devoting my
best efforts each day and to its realization I devote my will,
my decision and my affection. And bear in mind -and I beg
you to express it to all who desire to adhere to the patriotic
intention which guides me-, that I will not search in exotic
theories nor in other people’s realizations the magic formula
which solves every problem our homeland has established.
To seek the solution to my homeland’s problems, being
Argentine is enough.
One of our constitutional precepts states that all the inha-
bitants of our Nation enjoy the right to use and make use of
their property. And another, a more determining one, adds
that property is inviolable. Private property is, therefore,
unquestionable. But the extension of the rights granted by
it, the forms it presents and the limits it reaches are derived
issues, which cover the entire organization of the property
- 73 -
regime. And in the same way as inheritance law is regula-

ted, professions and industries are organized on the basis
of concurrence or monopoly, the rules that govern trade
agreements and the customs regime are established, just
as employment contracts are regulated.
Therefore, a property regime can only be relatively fair.
And it will be fairer, on one hand, the more it adapts to eco-
nomic, political and social circumstances, created by nature
and history; and on the other hand, the more it produces
economic advantages to private citizens, which would match
the efficacy of the effort they pay in taxes for the commu-
nity. Naturally, the property regime includes manual labor,
intellectual labor, directing work, initiative and capital.
Property regime means wealth regime. General popula-
tion wealth is born out of production, it feels the influence of
available capital. Therefore, for a country’s prosperity it is of
vital importance to encourage the development of capitals,
and their sensible use by private citizens and public powers.
I judge, consequently, that private capital must be stimu-
lated as far as it constitutes an active element of production
and contributes to general well-being.
At the Board of Trade, I said “wealth without social stabi-
lity can be powerful but it will always be fragile.” I also said
that “neither commercial flow should be brusquely modified
nor capital should be attacked in any way, as it, with labor,
makes up a true human body, where the members should
work in harmony.” That is why I respect workers’ interests to
the same extent that I respect capitals. And I add, moreover,
that it would be as foolish to pretend to deny the former as
it would be to disdain the latter. And all those who are here
today know that this will not happen. It will not be allowed
either that each person imposes their will by force or pros-
pers using tricks, as the State, which is able to impede that,
and legitimately possesses the force granted by its authority,
will resort to it every time it will be necessary to ensure that
everyone respects principles of right and equity.
- 74 -
I have always considered it pernicious when capital ex-

pects to become a tool of economic dominance. I consider
it, on the other hand, useful and beneficial, when I see it
improve its function to the rank of effective cooperator of
a country’s economic progress and sincere collaborator
of the production work, when it shares its power with the
physical and intellectual effort of workers to increase cou-
ntry’s wealth.
Humanizing the function of the capital is the great historic
mission which concerns our epoch. That criterion could be
shared or impugned. Yet revise the social history so far in
this century and then, with one hand in your hearts, lawfully
tell me if it is preferable to open the valve of feelings, of good
feelings, or to display egoism to sink our homeland -which
possesses so many resources to make its inhabitants ha-
ppy- into the material disaster and spiritual chaos in which
many peoples and nations have fallen.
I invite you to reflect with good sense upon what I have
been presenting about the need to open our arms to join
together in a feeling of brotherhood which would mean the
social function each of us fulfils in life.
Gentlemen,
By starting the tasks which the superior government
of the Nation has trusted me in order to contribute to the
social and economic order of the country, and to constitute
the National Post-war Council, which should collaborate
with me as a consulting organism, I have experienced the
pressing need to draw the great lines upon which I will build
my future actions. I believe they can represent, both for
bosses and workers, as well as for all the remaining social
groups of the country, the most absolute guarantee that
their rights and interests shall be respected, and that the
general well-being, as far as it is possible and convenient,
shall be encouraged.
These great lines must be strengthen in each specific case
by the report of the consulting body that will accompany me
- 75 -
during the arduous task which I have been entrusted with.

By choosing the gentlemen which integrate National
Post-war Council, I express how honored I am to count on
this valuable cooperation of their intelligence, capacity and
knowledge of the complicated resources of national eco-
nomy.
To their patriotic action and legal report I will adjust my
managing rules. And I foster the hope that, in future action
and facing this new organism, I will also count on the con-
currence of all eminent men, representative of technique,
capital and labor, to compound the commission that, when
it comes to it, I will consider necessary. And I am convinced
that with the same spontaneity and sincerity I will use to
make the call, each of the demanded men will reply my re-
quirements. Because during difficult times worldwide, who-
se repercussions may affect Argentina, none of its children
will stop helping selflessly, just for the sake of contributing
to their homeland’s greatness.
With this confidence I live and with this conviction I work.
JUAN DOMINGO PERÓN.
- 76 -
Illustration by Hugo Seri

Organized community
“We should ask ourselves if, ultimately, the

tendency, the main objective, does not remain
the same, at least regarding what constitutes
our necessary object: Man and his Truth.”
(1949)
FOREWORD Juan José Giani6
Politics -it is well-worth detailing- is always displayed with

three instruments: words, realizations and symbols. They are
generally interwoven, yet some lessons can be learned by
observing them separately. Through the speech, the leader
establishes the doctrine and outlines some orientations, and
through governmental decisions he translates into the material
body of societies all the virtues of that declarations. The symbol
-and here lies its singular characteristic- exerts a substantial
impact through a constitutive polysemy; and transmits a mes-
sage which requires interpretative efforts.
This text we get to write a prologue for interests us initially
as a symbol. A realization, the Congress of Philosophy of Men-
doza in 1949, and a speech, the one General Perón delivers
as presentation. Only that they are tied as a drastic gesture
which must be studied to recover it in its deepest meaning.
Firstly, we are talking about a magnanimous event with no
prior or future comparison, at least in Argentina, organized with
the greatest effort by the National State. Powerful combina-
tion of a discipline filled with blazons and a recently-elected
government which invests it with a strategic nature. And the
datum does not end there, as the president himself assists
and far from limiting himself to a merely festive role or a role
related to protocol, he delivers a sensible presentation which
would result in a book essential to the identity of the nascent
movement.
This connection between the national-popular tradition
6 Professor who holds a degree in Philosophy. He teaches at National University of

Rosario and National University of Entre Ríos, and he is director of Centro de Estudios
del Pensamiento Argentino (Center of Argentine Thought Studies).
- 79 -
Perón and philosophy - Juan José Giani
and philosophy should not surprise us at first, since Hipólito

Yrigoyen already practices it even as a teacher, and the words
with which he builds his moral reprimand against the stateless
materialism of oligarchical regimen basically come from his
handling Karl Krause’s work, halfway between post Kantian
and late romantic.
And in that same direction, Eva Perón expresses in her text
“Historia del peronismo” (“History of Peronism”) a subjugating
thought. The great protagonists of history have been the military
people and the philosophers, she states, and takes as a guide
the relationship of Aristotle with his disciple, Alexander the
Great: superior knowledge and the power of arms as engines
of a brilliant civilization. The derivation comes clearly, placing
her husband in the seat of honor of he who is to incarnate that
formidable alliance at that time.
At the Congress under study, that relation takes an unusual
intensity. The president-military-leader shows the striking
ambition of calling the elite of global philosophy and transmit-
ting to them, from his secular pulpit, a set of truths which he
considers of great importance. Before addressing these words,
we should briefly examine that symbolic structure. Why does
Perón embark on that ambitious initiative?
Let’s specify three reasons. The first one -it is unavoidable
mentioning it- is that the Peronist phenomenon was reviled by
its infuriated adversaries as a morbid manifestation of barbarity,
epithet used by liberal right-wing and left-wing intellectuals
to bombard that experience which, according to them, was
anomalous and filled with social pathologies. Heirs of Sarmien-
to’s lineage, they saw his important leader as an emblematic
expression of caudillismo of creole politics, and his political
performance as opposed to any acceptable form of civilization.
Contrary to what some could suspect, Perón was uncom-
fortable with these unfair nicknames, and did not desired to
build an ideological lineage which would end up captured by
the interferences of the most conservative nationalists. To do
this, he appeals to a majestic response, since he strives to
- 80 -
make figures which are in principle friendlier to his internal

opponents attend this event. Philosophy, a library marked by
ancestral prestige, becomes territory so that Peronism shows
the importance it grants to the most sublime cultural life in the
progress of nations.
But the suspicions about Perón did not finish on that point
at all, they even acquire a darker tone when he is described
as a president allied to the Nazi-fascist model. Presenting the
reasons for this great misunderstanding would take long, yet to
summarize, they could be grouped into two vectors. Echoes of
the second postwar were still distinct and the political analyses
were still bewildered by a time that was already over; hence,
the neutralism practiced by the military government which
took charge on June 4, 1943 raised some angry suspicions.
Additionally, various members of that coup d’état had in fact an
ideological sympathy for the Axis, in a general context which
was strongly anti liberal and to which the own Perón firmly
agreed.
The Argentine president rejected that tag and used these
philosophical views to clarify things. On one hand, he put a lot
of effort into inviting thinkers chased by or strongly critical of
those imperialist nationalism (he was not fully successful in
this task as many declined the invitation, influenced by those
suspicions). And on the other hand, as we will see later in de-
tail, taking Hegel as a target, he argues a disapproval of what
he calls “Statolatry”, with which he hits the soviet regime and
Nazi-fascist totalitarianism at the same time. A peculiar mis-
understanding indeed, as his opponents attribute to him that
from which Peronism is prompt to distance itself.
But let’s address now the substantial aspect of this State
and theoretical operation we have been describing. Perón
never imagined his movement would go down in history as
a mere governmental program or even as a political project,
but rather primarily as a philosophy made in Latin America
destined to twist the fateful destiny of the world. The most
obvious testimony of that dramatic civilizational state was the
- 81 -
two World Wars, which had caused a horrifying and extended

massacre. That brutal setback could not be explained as a
simple consequence of some sick minds, but it responded to
the absolute decrepitude of the liberal-progressive paradigm
which had predominated since the end of XVIII Century.
That paradigm was based on three pillars, now radically
discredited. A perfective sense of history (when human species
has never before found itself on the verge of self-destruction),
a leadership of the developed nations of Europe (when those
same nations and not any other wild region were the ones
responsible for that catastrophic scenario) and the centrality
of science as an instrument for well-being (when that science,
now in a nuclear tone, was the battering ram of a military tech-
nology functional to extinction).
That outlook filled with hopelessness did not finish there,
since both of the main alternatives which had appeared to re-
verse the decay of capitalist liberalism showed an unpleasant
drift. Right-wing nationalisms had combined expansionism with
genocidal racism, and Marxism of Soviet form added, in doses
which made it disposable, authoritarianism and geopolitical
hegemonism in tacit collusion with United States.
Perón then states that the impulse for salvation should come
from Latin America with anti-imperialist energy, since that
continent has been systematically disregarded by The West
as a geoculture full of obscurities and defections. That view of
the Leader already had notable antecedents, being the main
one the doctrine of American Space-Time-History formulated
by Peruvian Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre. That autochthonous
quality of their philosophy supposed for both leaders that
the moral decline of the presumably civilized could only be
repaired by conceptual vitality of those foolishly underesti-
mated countries.
The entire institutional set mounted by justicialist govern-
ment and the words of the president were undoubtedly incisive,
as they were communicating to the most precious bastions of
universal knowledge that it was from the Argentine lands that
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recommendations for rescuing the planet of its deranged path

would emerge.
The references to Sartre’s “nausea” or Heidegger’s “an-
guish” (although mentioned by Perón with some conceptual
imperfections) tried to represent the situation of loss the glob-
al existence of nations was going through. Likewise, Perón’s
eulogistic orientalist allusions support his attempt to explore
ingredients of cultural enrichment outside that Western world
in crisis. So forceful is what is been asserted that later Perón
will call it “Renaissance”, making a scandalous analogy with
that medieval darkness which demanded a curative recovery
of classic tradition.
This regenerative proposal put forward here will take the
accurate name of “third position”, because with it, it is expected
to find harmony between inadequate ends, around which the
possibility of a virtuous future for humanity has collapsed. On
one hand, there appears the tension between materialism and
spiritualism, although it is evident that to Perón the alarming
deviation is the first one. The concept of “materialism” has
served in philosophy both for washing and for cleaning, but to
Peronism it is associated to economic development without
an equitable distribution of wealth, to scientific development
without humanism and to an anthropology only focused on
enjoying merchandise.
The spiritualist medicine which should rectify those mis-
takes implies the full validity of social justice (superior rule of
political code), a care for the other devoted to political action,
and an integration to communal life leaded by the principle of
fraternity.
On the other hand, there appears the dilemma between the
individual and the community, where Perón establishes as a
regulatory utopia the progressive harmonization of the self in
the us. It is clear that the main anti value is egoism (understood
as the overestimation of the own interest), yet at the same time
the desired communitarianism is not organicist nor premodern,
since it could only be wisely expressed without inundating the
- 83 -
inalienable freedom of each human being.

The equation would be neither individualism nor Statol-
atry, in an architectonic search for a model which facilitates
a prudent communal living. If materialist prevalence equally
involves capitalists and communists, the individualist or Stato-
latric exacerbation characterizes the United States and Soviet
Union in each case. “Neither man exploited by capital nor in-
dividual subdued to the State” is the famous apothegm which
the Leader will spread in subsequent and insistent speeches.
As it is easy to notice, Perón’s concerns have remained un-
alterably valid, independent of the obvious geopolitical muta-
tions. And if there was any doubt left, the universal pandemic
we are going through seems to confirm it. A new humanism
based on solidarity, a non-authoritarian communitarianism
and an economic system supported by the value of equality
can find in Perón some clearly fruitful contributions.
- 84 -
3
Organized community. Presentation at the
closing act of the First National Congress of
Philosophy
April 9, 1949
Members of congress, honorable mister vice-president

of the Nation, national and provincial ministers, national
and provincial authorities, ladies and gentlemen,
I desire, members of congress, that when you set foot in
this land you have felt a bit Argentine. And that would be
a great honor for us, and would give us an immense satis-
faction.
To the Argentine heart, in our land, no one is a foreigner
if he carries the desire to feel our brother. That heart and
that brotherhood is our most sincere and most precious
offer to you.
Your feeling at home will be our pride. Here no one will
ask you who you are, and you will be offered, along with
the bread and salt of friendship, this inheritance from our
elderly, which we desire to honor as they did (Applause).
Alexander, the greatest general of all times, had Aristotle as
his master. I have always considered that my trade was so-
mehow related to philosophy. Destiny has made me a public
man. And in this new trade, I am grateful for how far I was
able to make an incursion into the field of philosophy. Our
governmental action does not represent a political party,
but a great national movement, with a doctrine of our own,
new in the political field worldwide.
I have desired, thus, to offer the members of this con-
gress, who honor us with their visit, a synthetic idea of phi-
losophical basis about what our third position represents
sociologically.
I would never pretend to work on pure philosophy, before
the world masters in such scientific discipline. Yet, what I
am to affirm, is underway in the Republic. The difficulty for
- 85 -
PRESENTATION April 9, 1949.
the responsible statesman lies precisely in his obligation to

concrete what he affirms.
Therefore, gentlemen, in my dissertation I do not attack
other systems, I only point out my own opinions, shared
today by an immense majority of our people and incorpo-
rated to the National Constitution of the Argentine Nation
(Applause).
The national Argentine movement which we call justicia-
lism, on its integral conception, holds a national doctrine
that incarnates the great theoretical principles which I will
soon discuss and constitutes, at the same time, the scale of
realizations, already happily accomplished in the Argentine
community.
I have desired to personally present these conceptions
before the members of this congress, with the reassurance
that you will interpret it as a personal effort to contribute
to this congress, and the desire to also personally express
to our welcome guests all our consideration and all our
affection (Applause).
Long would it be to present here a series of matters tho-
roughly well-known by the gentlemen who are listening to
me. Thus, I will just limit this exposition to the conclusions
that, at the State level, belong to the studies which precede
my dissertation, beginning on the first chapter, to answer
the question of the present time: Does that happiness lon-
ged for by man belong to the material world or will man’s
emotional aspirations find the path to perfection?
The importance of activating the genesis of a thought that
could contemplate the future human evolution is indicated
by the current meaning of life.
There is a laborious task underway, aimed at substantially
modifying living conditions to achieve general happiness.
It is important to know if this happiness belongs to the
material world or if it is possible to think that it is related
to achieving man’s emotional aspirations and the path to
perfection through the social body. Yet when we wonder
- 86 -
again if the direction of that thought will be horizontal, or

if it would be possible to add some verticality at the same
time; we should first examine, at least looking for signs, the
panorama which lies in front of us.
We rapidly recognize a [disturbing] symptom in the uni-
versal field. It is frequently identified the danger of technical
progress when it is not followed by a proportional develo-
pment in people’s education. The complexity of technical
development requires sensitive pupils and a strong dis-
position. If we take the skyscraper or the transatlantic as
symbols of modern life, we should promptly prefigure the
spiritual height of the being that lives or travels in them. This
matter holds no rhetoric of flight, since what they reveal is
exactly the magnitude scale according to which man must
adequately rectify his own proportion before the growing
racket of the surroundings.
Life which accumulates in big cities offers us, with a dis-
tressing frequency, the show of that danger to which some
sharp brains have given the terrifying name of “insectifica-
tion”. It is true that the physical does not diminish or increa-
se the intimate proportion, because this consists precisely of
man’s estimation of himself. But it may happen that, without
moral categories, in his spirit occurs a progressive loss of
confidence and a gradual progress of the inferiority feeling
before the exterior giant.
Against such a complex -which is ultimately a cultural
and spiritual problem-, there are few means of self-defense.
Civilization tends to become more complicated and it does
not seem that this intimate mystery could be solved by the
exterior path.
Intransigent materialism counted undoubtedly on the
mechanical and relentless sign of progress, suspecting that,
deprived of his cosmic shadow, man would end up feeling
tiny and a victim of the monstrous vital vibration. Sure of
that, it provided its individual with a substitute of spiritual
proportion: resentment. It has also previously substitu-
- 87 -
ted supreme tendencies for inferior forces, because of that

“will” which yesterday integrated an extremely interesting
theoretical body and now, disappointed, disenchanted, has
turned its disciples into “nausea”. Nausea facing morals,
facing the inheritance of a common life, nausea facing laws
and the inexorable progress of History, biological nausea.
It is somehow incomprehensible that we have moved so
dangerously fast from the disappointment of the insectified
being to the nausea which, behind the sacred laws, pretends
to orientate the comprehension of collective existence. The
symptomatic characteristic of this way of thinking is that it is
not an abstraction, as it was not either, for example, Marxism
-which operated upon social dissatisfaction. Nausea, as a
fantasy, operates upon individual disenchantment. It is the
abstract “anguish” from Heidegger in the practical field: it
belongs to a demoralized society which does not even look
for a certainty to rest its head on. Thus, what is deplorable
is not the theory, but the reality, the last distortion of that
“insectification”. Only that this time the insectified individual
has wanted to isolate himself from the catastrophe with a
shameless grimace.
We should recognize that this was a necessary and com-
pulsory consequence of the painful loss of that magnitude
scale. Armed with it, not only could man face the rough and
merciless vicissitude of his existence but also the crisis
which an evolution as determinant as this would provoke
in his intimacy. The fact that he knew he was attached to
the superior worlds, the material laws of the surroundings,
facilitated a generous concentration of strengths to enter
with a biological happiness to the cycle where all phenomena
seem to overflow.
There is a famous fable by Goethe in which an unfortunate
man is forced to make an extraordinary choice. Melusine,
queen of the country of dwarfs, invites him to reduce his
size and share with her her high hierarchy. She offers him
love, power, wealth, but in an inferior level: he will be king,
- 88 -
but among dwarfs. Relocated to the country where blades

of grass are gigantic trees, this man, the most miserable
mortal, longs for his previous form. And he longs for it -we
suppose- because his magnitude scale warns him that, in
fortune or misfortune, his previous [state] was inimitable.
In the complex issue of existing, man is, simply, a superior
entity.
This can be equally extrapolated to other landscapes, and
preferably to those where disintegration and heterogeneity
of modern life have reduced absolute principles and ideals
to favor material splendor. The miracle of the fable has come
true but the other way round: the man could not choose in
accordance with his proportion; and he who did not have
some faith in his spiritual values substituted the elevated
reaction with resignation or discontent. Gradual blurring
of the perspectives suffered by he who does not possess a
fair consciousness of his hierarchy, the “insectification”.
But such a deviation is not a consequence of the boom
of collective ideals. The individual peacefully accepts his
elimination as a sacrifice for the community, but that is not
beneficial to the community. The sum of zeros is always zero.
A structured hierarchy on personal abdication is only pro-
ductive for those forms of life produced by the association
of the most intolerant materialism, the deification of the
State, the Myth-State or a secret and unconfessed vocation
for despotism.
Healthy and vigorous communities are characterized
by the degree of their individualities and the sense they
are prepared to engender the collective with. To that sense
of community, one arrives from the bottom, not from the
top. You achieve it with equilibrium, not by imposition. The
difference is that, just as a healthy community, formed by
the uprising of conscious individualities, possesses sound
reasons for surviving, the others carry with them the stig-
ma of provisionality. They are not natural forms of evolu-
tion but a parenthesis whose historical value is, exactly, its
- 89 -
cancellation.
When considering the supreme values that shape our
contemplation of the ideal, we observe two great possibilities
of adulteration: one is the amoral individualism, predis-
posed to subversion and egoism, to the return to inferior
stages of the evolution of the species; the other lies in that
interpretation of life which tries to depersonalize the man
in an agonizing collectivism.
Actually, there is swindling in both of them. The nega-
tive factors of the former have been derived, in the latter,
to a superior organization. The exaggerated scorn towards
other people’s reason, the intolerance, have passed from
one’s hands to other’s. Under a no universal freedom either
on means or ends, without ethics or moral, it is impossi-
ble for the individual to realize its ultimate values, due to
the pressure of boosted egotism of some minorities. At the
same time, when materialist collectivism is driven to its
last consequences, that possibility is taken away -the gre-
at possibility of existence- by a mechanical imposition in
constant expansion and always hypocritically criticized.
Hegelian idealism and Marxist materialism, operating
upon universal necessities and calamities which have pro-
foundly influenced general disposition, constitute directions
whose resultant will be worth establishing. From History,
and even from its excesses, we can extract precious lessons
towards which we cannot and should not remain insensi-
tive. While the thought believed it was able to keep to the
fundamental, on purely theoretical areas, the world acted
on its own. But, if the fundamental declined, the practical
fixation of the abstract can have a pernicious influence on
common existence. It is thus necessary to stop once again
and examine our absolutes and clean excrescences and
superfluous addictions from an ideal apt to be a pole to the
logical sense of life.
For that task we consider primordial the [recovery of the
magnitude scale], this is, to return man his proportion, so
- 90 -
that he possesses full consciousness of the fact that, facing

the tumultuous forms of progress, he remains a carrier of
the highest values; so that he is in a human way, that is to
say: with no ignorance.
That is the only way in which we can go from that vertical
“self” to an ideal of a better humanity, sum of individualities
with a tendency to continuous perfectionism.
To suggest that humanity is imperfect, that the individual
is a failed experiment, that the life we comprehend and try
to channel is, in itself and in its present forms, something
irremediably doomed to frustration, makes us [experiment]
the painful sensation that every contact with reality is lost.
We fear the same when an impossible social realization is
entrusted to the abdication of individualities in extreme
powers.
If there is something that enlightens our thoughts, that
makes the joy of living and acting persevere in our soul, that
is our faith on individual values as a basis of redemption
and, at the same time, our confidence in the idea that we are
close to the day in which it will become a vital persuasion the
philosophical principle that states that the full realization of
“self”, [the accomplishment of its most fundamental ends,
lies in general well-being.
Today, when Heidegger’s “anguish” has been taken to
the extreme of founding a theory on “nausea”] and man has
been put on a defensive attitude towards the thing, out of
that a simple polemic can be made, yet it is convenient to
repeat that they were not theories founded on suggestions
but rather a partial biological relaxation. Heroism comes
from disaster, but so does desperation, when two things have
been lost: purpose and rule. What is produced by nausea is
disenchantment, and what can give back to man the comba-
tive attitude is faith in his mission, individually, familiarly
and collectively.
Having said that, the sense of the rule is attached to the
sense of culture. Our rule, the one we try to insinuate here,
- 91 -
is not a matter of juridical impositions but an individual

vision of his own perfection, his own ideal life. On that mat-
ter, there is no doubt that efficiency depends enormously
on our comprehension of the surrounding world as well
as of our acceptance of our own obligations. The mere at-
tempt to draw a comparative chart between the cultural
possibilities of the ancient times and those of the present
would be absurd. Progress, the growth in relationships, the
complexity of the customs have broader our landscape in
an indescribable manner.
It is logical to think, therefore, that dilation of panorama
has resulted in a proportional limitation of situation cons-
ciousness. When in our times issues of Morality and Ethics
are presented -perhaps the most substantive and pressing
issues we must formulate today-, it is not ignored that, in the
confusion of many values, the vertiginous sign of progress
plays an active part. Human evolution has been characte-
rized, amongst other things, for throwing man outside of
himself but without previously providing him with a full
consciousness of himself. To that being outside of himself
can answer the politically organized community through
laws, and then we will have an aspect of the ethic rule. But
for his internal world, for the government of his persona-
lity, there is no other rule that the one achieved through
knowledge, through education, which reassures on us an
attitude in conformity with morality.
On the fact that his rule constitutes an organized system
of limits and inductions absolutely depends the destiny
of society. We cannot even comprehend that destiny as a
sum of freedom and safety if we cannot prefigure in it the
existence of rules. And we are not of those who think that
it is better to solve the problem surgically by entrusting
irresponsible freedom to the vigilant empire of law. Commu-
nities that today desire to be prepared for the future, in
which self-determination and full consciousness of being
and existing integrate a vocation for progress, need, as a
- 92 -
substantial requirement, finding that path, that “theory”,

which illuminates for the human pupils the dark spots of
its geography.
Just as in the exam which we are allowed to take a trans-
figured will appears in its possibility of freedom, the “us”
appears in its supreme order, the organized community. The
thought at the service of the Truth spreads a radiant light
from which, [as] in a spring, the practical disciplines drink.
Yet on the other hand, it is impossible for us to comprehend
the fundamental reasons of philosophical evolution if we
forget its circumstances.
From Plato to Hegel, civilization has held its hazardous
march down every path. Circumstances have changed re-
lentlessly and, for some long periods, one could say that
they repeated, and repeat again with a disconcerting simi-
larity. The substitution of old ways of living for new ones is a
substantial factor of mutations, yet we should ask ourselves
if, ultimately, the tendency, the main objective, does not
remain the same, at least regarding what constitutes our
necessary object: Man and his Truth.
When we observe the Ideal State in Plato, an abstract
State, we comprehend that his world, in relation to ours
and its political appearance, was definitely suitable for an
abstraction of that kind. Pure ideas and the absolute could
fit in this panorama, apprehend and shape it, at least with
intellectual efficacy. One could create a world in which ideal
values and practical representations were susceptible to
happen with some familiarity. Plato affirmed: the Good
is order, harmony, proportion; thus the supreme virtue is
justice. In that virtue we notice the first rule of antiquity
turned into a political discipline. Socrates had tried to de-
fine the man, in whom Aristotle would highlight a decisive
political vocation, that is to say, according to the language
of that time, a sense of order in common life. The Platonic
idea that man and the community to which he belongs are
irresistibly and reciprocally integrated is fundamental to
- 93 -
us. Greek city, whose essence was taken to the empire by

Rome, contained, in a larval stage, all evolutionary paths.
When facts happened in simple stages and relatively
reduced phases it was possible to see political society as a
human body ruled by the unalterable laws of harmony. He-
art, digestive system, muscle, will, brain are, in Plato’s simile,
organs which are happily translated, for their functions and
purposes, into collective biology: a State of justice, in which
each class fulfills its functions for the whole, dedicates to
its special virtue, is educated according to its destiny and
contributes to the harmony of the whole. The Whole, with a
main proposition of justice, with a law of harmony -that of
the human body-, prevailing over singularities, appears in
the Hellenic political horizon, which is also the first political
horizon of our civilization.
Even at the dusk of pagan mythology, the ultimate purpo-
ses of man are not yet clear. He is considered to be attached
to the city, and perhaps more important than his individu-
ality is the abstract virtue he is susceptible to represent.
Indeed, there is no ideal of humanity, even to the clear view
of philosophers.
The Cephissus and the Eurotas are not only geographi-
cal and military limits, but also intellectual. On the other
side of the Pontus there are barbarity and shadows, which
Alexander will tear years later. The Sun is a balloon of fire
a little bigger than the Peloponnese.
Aristotle’s accurate intelligence, which will provide the
method once places have revealed a great part of their mys-
teries, also revolves around that conception of human hie-
rarchy. There are free men and slaves, and it seems that
not everyone is ruled by identical laws. There are worlds
of light and worlds of shadows.
It is not unusual that under such circumstances, the city,
objectified and harmonic, prevails, with an irreducible natu-
re, upon human inequalities, which are inequalities with no
revolutionary vocation. That will let us identify that, when
- 94 -
man is deprived of his supreme rank, or he is not aware of

his high purposes, the sacrifice always benefits petrified
superior entities. Man is a being prepared for social coe-
xistence -as we read in Aristotle-; the supreme Good is not
concreted, therefore, in individual human life, but in the
super individual organism of the State; Ethics culminates
in Politics.
The quoted thoughts accurately define the physiognomy
of the Hellenic world -and bear in mind that they were phi-
losophers, and idealist philosophers were the ones that have
shaped it. Socrates intuited immortality, but he could not
found a system upon it. Plato and Aristotle had to situate that
man, who held an anguishing concern about the ultimate
problem, before common life.
State was born, though the community whose life it tried
to organize was suffering from an insufficient relation of
the transcendence of individual values.
In order to be completed, the Greek idea needed a new
contemplation of human unity from a more elevated point
of view. That contribution was reserved to Christianity.
The Greek State reached its peak in Rome. The city, turned
into an empire, into a world, transfigured in the shape of
a civilization, managed to accomplish historically all the
philosophical premises. It was based on the principle of
classes, on the service of a “whole” and, logically, on the
Hellenic indifference or ignorance of the final reasons of
the individual.
A force which could nail at the public square, as a bronze
spear, the key principle that says there is no innate inequa-
lity among human beings, that slavery is an ignominious
institution; and that could emancipate the woman. A force
able to confer man the possession of a soul subject to the
accomplishment of specific ends that are superior to ma-
terial life; which was ready to revolutionize the existence
in humanity. Christianity, which constituted the first great
revolution, the first human liberation, would be able to ha-
- 95 -
ppily rectify Greek conceptions. Yet that rectification was

rather a contribution.
It enriched man’s character and turned freedom, until
then theoretical and limited, into a universal possibility. In
an orderly evolution, the Christian thought, which perfected
the awesome Greek vision, could later support its philo-
sophical undertakings following the Greek method, and
accept many of their disciplines as its own. What Greece
lacked in order to perfectly define humanity and the State
was precisely Christianity’s contribution: its vertical, eternal
man, God’s image. From him we move on to family, home.
His unity becomes plasma which, through municipalities,
will integrate States, and upon which modern communities
will rest.
Rome was not the closed Greece, which only paid atten-
tion to the external phenomenon of Persian barbarism. It
has integrated in its existence that of other peoples, whose
customs, thoughts and beliefs are different. The needs of
its community were very superior as well. It was extremely
difficult to generate an abstract idea about the conception of
the State, because this has become proportionately complex.
Its history is a continuous process of growth and assimilation
which, once it reaches the summit, is interrupted by violen-
ce. It leaves its institutions, its glory and its civilization to
the world. Before dawn, it adds to this colossal inheritance
the conformity of human dignity.
Freedom, which could be expropriated by force before the
man knew he was possessor of a free and immortal soul, will
never be susceptible to complete extinction. Tyrants may
reduce it or turn it off momentarily, yet no one will ever live
without it anymore: it will be for the man a “consciousness”
of the profound relationship of his spirit with the superhu-
man. What used to be a privilege of the Republic served by
slaves will later be a characteristic of humanity, possessor
of a happy revelation.
When the crisis arose, civilization met bitter centuries.
- 96 -
The fall of the empire, with no comparison in history, makes

the world go back to darkness. But this would have been
dreadful if the Roman twilight would not have enlightened
in the following night the inextinguishable flame of that re-
velation. What allows the gold string of thought to continue
throughout the abyss of the stake and blood is the magni-
ficent miracle that made the bridge of religious ideas not
succumb when the iron of the Barbarians hit the cracked
marble of Rome.
New monarchies, appeared at full gallop, certainly posses-
sed a notable ability to assimilate, yet their cultural impact
was extremely reduced and the empire of force on which
they should depend made that possibility even more limited.
Europe became an armed necessity: just as inhabited areas
were either strategic points or castle’s pits, humanity was
divided into military chiefs, leaders and lords. Little by little,
nothing or very little will survive of what had imprinted its
character into general existence. The principle of authority
lies in strength, due to the mentioned state of need. Kings
themselves watch their attributions and privileges wane
while they see themselves forced to resort to the power
of their rich lords or to request their alliance for military
enterprises.
Knowledge shelters next to altars. In abbeys and mo-
nasteries, the inextinguishable flame, which will later illu-
minate the world again, is conserved. And what protects
from the gigantic crisis the heap of spiritual human values
is, precisely, a mystic sense: the vertical direction, towards
the heights, which some men of faith had attributed to all
things, starting with human nature.
Middle Age belongs to God, it has been said, and on this
fact, on this patient and laborious staying at the edge of dark,
we should see the slow and difficult gestation of Renaissance.
It was an Age characterized by excessive violence. It was an
age in which it is not possible for us to find the form of the
State nor contemplate man. Only thanks to the emphasis
- 97 -
on its misfortune, and even on its brutality sometimes, over

remote purposes and ideals, the resolute evolution became
possible. In the individual, it is not easy to differentiate the
consciousness of his proportion in the religious ideal from
simple ignorance or superstition.
This Age had saints and demons, but on its desolation,
on its poverty, with the horizon always dyed by the shinning
of fires, there was no other escape for man than setting his
eyes and hopes on superior and far away worlds. Faith was
strengthened by misfortune.
Renaissance found rests of a culture spread everywhere
and tried to rebuild with them a new classicism. Upon the
ruins of feudal castles, new monarchies constructed their
throne. The idea of adventure was succeeded by business.
When the first councils went to the service of the king car-
rying their standards, and were distinguished in battle, the
end of a long historic period is completed in practice. The
State will still take some time to appear, but around mo-
narchs, depositories of an ideal mandate, representatives
of what centuries later will be the concept of nationality,
there is the beginning of the gestation of modern peoples’
lives. The English nobles will take from John Lackland the
Magna Carta; the Castilian will make the oath to the throne
in Santa Gadea; and the Aragonese will take from their king
the “Usages” which prove that the State constitution was
in elaboration process as a draft. There will be Chambers,
rudimentary at first, and in the councils the strata will make
everyone hear the voice of unions and municipalities.
This evolution happens under an idealist sign, whatever
its practical realization or political sign, and in the elevated
temperature of popular Faith. Man had faith on himself, on
his destinies, and an undying faith on his subordination to
the Providential. Such a faith partly justifies the titanic ad-
ventures of the time. It was necessary in order to dive into
Atlantic shadows and take the Americas out to the Roman
sun, to stop Tartarus invasion in the doors of Europe and to
- 98 -
rise up a new world of desolation. What was conquered and

discovered during that age constitutes a sonorous hymn to
vocation for the ideal. But it is important to bear in mind
that, without the practical rigor of political organization, the
intellectual mood of the epoch kept the focus on supreme
individual values. When Thomistic school tells us that the
purpose of the State is the education of man for a virtuous
life, we have a presentiment about the enormous importance
of that bridge above the shadows of Middle Age. That man
to whose service, his perfectionism, the State was devoted
was not the germ of anarchic individualism. In order to de-
generate, the focus must be moved on from spiritual values
to material ones. Man was just something that needed to be
perfected, to God and the community. The virtue to which
Saint Thomas referred to will not be entirely indifferent to
the Greek “virtue”, the range of ideal values for the realiza-
tion of our own lives.
Facing humanism, human intelligence tries to distinguish
new paths and orientations. Machiavelli will cover life with
the political imperative, and will sacrifice any other law,
principle or value for real power or the needs of leadership.
Grotius will call the State to become supreme adminis-
trator of man’s happiness and will open new courses to the
authority principle.
Peoples have lived intense decades and centuries, have
projected their forces towards unknown places, have become
unfolded, shared in new worlds, in fantastic and expensive
businesses. An enormous power in spiritual resources was
required so that this could be possible. The peak of absolutes
would generate, as a necessary consequence, the disregard
of absolutes. The intense spirituality of the work created, by
reaction, the disenchantment and materialism which were
going to happen later. On the evolution, maybe for the first
time, it would derive from one extreme to the other, from
one pole to the opposite one; and the objective to suppress
was, inevitably, the ideal temperature.
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Hobbes argues for the absolutism of the State in the ar-

med flow of that time, but he is already addressing a dis-
couraged man. Social unity was not imagined by him as an
indestructible store of values, but as a victim. He was the
first to define the State as a contract among individuals,
but it is well-worth observing that these individuals were
wolves to each other, were beings deprived of virtue and,
surely, of supreme hopes.
During the crisis of absolute monarchies, the genius of
Voltaire spills his sharpness. Certainly, society did not need
his corrosive element to fragment itself under the throne.
Montesquieu warned the monarchy that it was going to be
inherited in the Republic and Rousseau crowned the rising
porch of the epoch. It was characterized by the radical chan-
ge of emphasis. It accentuated the material element, and this
happened both if the subject of thought was the individual,
in which case liberal democracy was insinuated; and if it
was the community, in which case Marxism was sighted.
It is highly likely that Middle and Modern ages have ve-
rified their election with a partial exclusivity in favor of the
spirit, yet it is undeniable that XVIII and XIX centuries did
it, more partially, in favor of the matter. The state of culture
in those centuries was able to foresee the consequences,
yet we should consider it necessary in every evolution both
what seems doubtful and what is right. Rousseau believes
in the individual, makes him an ability of virtue, integrates
him into a community, and adds his power to everyone’s
power so as to organize, through general will, the existence
of nations. To Kant, what is vital in the political field is the
principle of “freedom as man”, of “dependence as subjects”,
and of “equality as citizens”. Rousseau will name “people”
the group of men that, by being conscious of their condition
as citizens and of the obligations derived from this cons-
ciousness, and provided with the virtues of a true citizen,
accept to congregate in a community to fulfill their purposes.
French Revolution was a thunderous prologue of the book,
- 100 -
back then blank, of contemporary evolution. We find in

Rousseau a constructive evocation of community and the
individual identification within it, as the basis of a new de-
mocratic organization. This conception will be a starting
point for the practical interpretation of the ideals of new
democracies.
But it is to a certain extent convenient to examine if in
the original conception, due to the dynamics of the reaction
itself, the unnecessary elimination of all the scale of values
was not produced. We can ask ourselves, for example, if it
was definitely indispensable, in order to give absolute power
to citizen’s will, to firstly blind him to all spiritual possibili-
ties. Secondly, it is necessary to take into account the long
parenthesis that the Empire opened between the prologue
and the continuation of the book of political evolution.
During this parenthesis, the ideal that thought had aban-
doned outdoors was rescued from the stream by opposing
forces, which will fight with extreme violence in the future.
They will not try to attach their absolutes to man’s hierarchy,
nor to his values or to his possibilities of virtue; they will
attach them to the State, or to organizations of a characte-
ristic materialism.
Fichte still creates a broad space where the individual,
subject to the social whole, can realize himself. Hegel will
turn the State into God. He gathered the ideal life and spi-
ritual world he found abandoned to sacrifice them to State
providence, converted into a series of absolutes. From this
philosophical conception will derive the following transla-
tion: materialism will lead to Marxism; and idealism, which
is not focused on man anymore, will be, to Hegel’s successors
and interpreters, the deification of the ideal State with its
necessary consequence, the insectification of the individual.
The individual is subdued, in these, to a historical destiny
through the State, to which he belongs. In turn, Marxists
will convert him into a part, with no landscape or sky-blue
ceiling, of a tyrannized community where everything has
- 101 -
disappeared under the masonry. What becomes clear in both

forms is the nullification of man as such, his progressive
disappearance before the external system of progress, the
Faustian State or the mechanized community.
The Hegelian individual, which believes to possess his
own purposes, lives in a state of illusion, as he only serves
the purposes of the State. To Marx’s followers those purposes
are even darker, as one only lives for a privileged essence of
the community, not in it nor with it. The Marxist individual
is, by necessity, an abdication.
In the middle, there raises the fidelity to liberal democra-
tic principles which fills last century and part of the present.
But with substantial defects, because it was not possible
to unite different points of view, which led to two world
wars and that are still subduing civilized consciousness to
unrelenting pressure. The problem of future democratic
thought is resolving to have space for the community in
its landscape, without distracting attention away from the
supreme values of the individual; emphasizing its spiritual
essences, but with hopes lain in common good.
In the political field, an important part of such crisis of
democratic ideas is due to the time of its appearance. De-
mocracy as a transcendental fact was called to succeed
ipso facto the absolutisms. Nevertheless, it suffered a long
wait imposed by the persistence of moderate monarchies
and stable republics that, in order to survive, believe it was
necessary to apply in low doses the characteristic principles
of pure democracy, preferably those that could be adapted
with no danger. Such operation sweetened evolution, but
it extracted very important parts of the character from the
new order of ideas, which in its full accession found, facing
colossal enemies, its novelty greatly reduced. Thus, the
peoples which could establish it at that time have reached
with it the same paths of necessary perfection, and those
who did not achieved it have chosen to use substitutes, the
extremisms, in order to fulfill by any means the transcen-
- 102 -
dental character.
And however, what is transcendental of the democratic
thought, as we understand it, is still standing, as an enor-
mous possibility to improve life.
On several occasions man has been compared to the
centaur, half man, half beast, victim of its opposing wishes
and enemies; looking at the sky and galloping at the same
time amongst clouds of dust.
The evolution of human thought also remembers the
image of the centaur: submitted to the highest of ideal ten-
sions during long periods of its life, condemned to profound
darkness in others, slave to material deaf appetites very
often. Crisis of our time is materialistic. There are too many
unfulfilled wishes, because the first light of modern culture
has been spread over rights and not over obligations; it has
discovered what is good to possess rather than the good
usage which has been done of what is possessed or of our
own faculties.
The phenomenon was necessary, of historic necessity,
because the world was obliged to abandoned a selfish stage
and focus more on the needs and hopes of the community.
What matters today is to persist in that principle of justice,
to recover the sense of life, to give back to man his absolute.
Neither social justice nor freedom, engines of our time,
are comprehensible in a community established upon in-
sectified beings; unless that, as a painful solution, the ideal
concentrates on the omnipotent mechanism of the State.
Our community, to which we should aspire, is the one where
freedom and responsibility are cause and effect, where there
is joy of being, founded in the pursuit of our own dignity.
A community where the individual truly has something to
offer to the general well-being, something to integrate to it,
and not only his mute and frightened presence.
In a certain way, continuing with the simile, it equals fre-
eing the centaur by reestablishing the equilibrium between
its two natural tendencies. If there have been times of ex-
- 103 -
clusive accentuation of the ideal and times of accentuation

of the material, our time should achieve its ambitious noble
goals by harmony. We cannot reestablish a Centaur-Age
based only on bestial muscle or only on its brain; but ra-
ther a “Sum-Of-Values-Age”, through the harmony of those
simply physical forces and those that perform the miracle
that makes the skies look familiar to us.
Middle Age monks erased the content of pagan books to
cover them with psalms. Contemporary Age tried to erase
the psalms, yet it added nothing more than a promise of
vague freedom to man’s thirst of truths. In 1500 humanity
concentrated its dispersed energies on gigantic businesses
and gave us new worlds and forms of civilization. In 1800
it tried once again and vehemently, generously created an
epoch. Will it not be our time, maybe, the time to gather
human energies to create the supreme period of evolution?
When we think about man, about its self, about us, it is clear
to us that our choice must be object of profound meditations.
Society will have to be a harmony in which there is not any
discordance, nor any predominance of the material element,
nor any state of fantasy. In that harmony which presides
over the rule one can talk about collectivism achieved by
improvement, by culture, by equilibrium. In such regime,
freedom is not an empty word, because its unconditional
state is determined by the sum of freedoms and the ethical
and moral state.
Justice is not a term which insinuates violence, but ra-
ther a general persuasion; and there is thus a regime of
joy, because where the democratic can be strengthened in
universal comprehension of general freedom and good is
where, precisely, the individual can realize himself, and find
in a full way his spiritual euphoria and the justification of
his existence (applause). To the world there still is, and will
be while man is given the chance to choose, the possibility
of reaching what Hindu philosophy calls mansion of peace.
In it, man possesses, facing his Creator, the magnitude
- 104 -
scale, that is to say, his proportion. From that mansion it

is possible to realize the world of culture, the path to per-
fection.
These phrases are from Rabindranath Tagore: modern
world pushes its victims incessantly, but without leading
them anywhere. The fact that the measure of greatness of
humanity lies in its material resources is an insult to man.
We are not allowed to doubt about the transcendence of
the moments which are waiting for humanity. The noble
thought, incited by its vocation for truth, tries to settle a new
landscape. Historical mysteries are certainly considerable,
but they will not delay for a single day the march of the pe-
oples, no matter how huge their uncertainty seems to be.
It is important, therefore, to reconcile our sense of per-
fection with the nature of the facts, to reestablish the har-
mony between material progress and spiritual values, and
to provide again man with an accurate vision of his reality.
We are not collectivist, but the basis of that collectivism
has an individualistic character, and its root is a supreme
faith in the treasure which the man, by his mere existence,
represents (applause).
In this phase of evolution, the collective, the “us”, is blin-
ding the selfish individualism in its sources. It is fair that
we try to resolve if the life of the community must be ac-
centuated above the matter only; or if it would be prudent
that the freedom of the individual alone ruled, blind to the
common interests and needs, provided with an unstoppable
material ambition as well.
We do not believe that any of these forms possesses re-
demptive conditions. They lack the miracle of love, the en-
couragement of hope and the perfection of justice.
The excessive right of one and the massive impersonality
of all are both equally threatening to the reasonable and
elevated idea of man and humanity.
During cataclysms, man’s pupils have seen God once
again and, by its reflection, he has distinguished himself
- 105 -
again. We should not preach and make a Gospel of justice

and progress. It is necessary to found its verification on
individual development as a premise of collective develo-
pment. Resentment and hate which are now blowing in the
world, out of control among peoples and brothers, are the
logical result, not of a fatal cosmic itinerary, but of a long
preach against love. (Applause). That love which comes from
self-knowledge and, immediately, from comprehension and
acceptance of the reasons of the others.
What our philosophy tries to re-establish by using the
term harmony is, precisely, the sense of fullness of exis-
tence. To the Hegelian principle of self-realization in the
us, we point the need of that “us” realizing and perfecting
by the self.
Our community will tend to be of men and not of beasts.
Our discipline tends to be knowledge, it wants to be cultu-
re. Our freedom, coexistence of the freedoms which come
from an ethics to which general well-being is always alive,
present, unavoidable. Social progress must not beg nor
murder, but it must realize itself through full consciousness
of its own inexorability. Nausea is banished from this world,
which may seem ideal, but which is to us a certainty of a
realizable thing. This community which chases spiritual and
material ends, which tends to surpass itself, which longs
to improve and be fairer, better and happier, in which the
individual may realize himself and realize it simultaneously,
will welcome the future man from the high tower with the
noble conviction of Spinoza: “{We feel} and know that we
are eternal.” (Long ovation).
- 106 -
Inaugural speech for the War College
Inaugural speech for the War College
“The future of the peoples and the future of

the nations will be extraordinarily influenced
by the amount of reserve they possess: food
reserve and raw material reserve.”
(1953)
FOREWORD Nilda Garré7
Regional defense of the resources
On November 1953, General Peron, as president of the Re-

public, pronounced a very important presentation at the War
College, setting the fundamental principles of our policies of
foreign affairs and defense.
It gives me enormous satisfaction to comment on that clear
and visionary dissertation about the strategic needs of our
South American countries in order to promote their develop-
ment and a defense policy of their resources and raw materials.
Perón warned about the future of an overpopulated and
over industrialized world, which was going to influence deci-
sively humanity in all its economic, political and sociological
problems.
He added that our continent, especially South America,
was the area with the greatest existence of raw materials and
food, which gave us an extraordinary advantage compared
to the other regions of the world. Yet he pointed out that this
circumstance, initially really advantageous, also implied a great
danger, which we should have been prepared for since it forced
us to consider the threat that more powerful countries, which
did not possess food or raw materials, would try to take those
resources away from us with skillful maneuvers or by force.
Therefore, his government proposed to start an action that
would lead to an effective union of our countries in order to
face a common project and also a common defense.
The initial trigger of Perón’s thought seems to have been
the richness of the region in food and raw materials, and that
7 Argentine minister of Defense (2005-2010) and of Security (2013-2015) , ambassador

to OAS (2013-2015), congresswoman (1973-1976, 1995-2000, 2001-2005, 2015-2019).
Director of Center for Strategic Studies for Defense and Security “Manuel Belgrano”.
- 109 -
Regional defense of the resources - Nilda Garré
circumstance obviously leaded him to the need of foreseeing

the accurate defense of those valuable resources.
Today, we would add water reservoirs and the important
richness of our South Atlantic; of Malvinas, Georgia and Sand-
wich Islands and of the Argentine Antarctica.
On his first government measures, Perón had already tak-
en into account those areas which integrate our geography,
redefining our territory from a Latin-Americanist conception,
in an international scenario where the world powers divided
the world according to the postwar agreements reached on
Yalta Conference, while they tried to keep a geopolitical order
immersed in the so-called Cold War.
In 1946, Perón redefined the Argentine cartography by
recognizing the national territory in its continental, insular
and Antarctic parts. The territorial redefinition counted on an
intense advocacy campaign of the new image of the country,
which promoted in the national imaginary the development of
an austral consciousness, both Antarctic and Atlantic, as part
of the strengthening of our national identity.
Since Perón took office, the Peronist government also pri-
oritized the issue of Malvinas as a State policy and settled
the discussion on sovereignty in all the possible international
scenarios.
For its part, the claim upon the Argentine Antarctic area was
based on the activities that the country was uninterruptedly
putting into action since 1940, although it has initiated them
in 1904.
It is as part of that advocacy of national identity in our people
that Perón expresses the need for a regional unity, which he
proposes initially with Brazil and Chile.
Because identity precedes another process: unity. They are
not contradictory but, on the contrary, they are complementary.
They are not incompatible, they need each other.
Because, as Perón affirms in his speech, these complex
paths of unification are not built by chancelleries nor consoli-
dated by circumstantial political leaderships in the countries.
- 110 -
Unity is given by the peoples; it is nurtured by them; and

they strengthen it and keep it alive. The peoples are the ones
who should feel it and make it possible.
These are generally long processes, sometimes with digres-
sions, sometimes with contradictions and even setbacks. But
they are necessary in order to realize the ambitious objective
of regional political and economic unity that Perón envisioned
would start with Argentina, Brazil and Chile: the so-called ABC.
Historical background
American history showed very significant precedents of

boosts to regional and Latin American unity.
Our Liberators —Generals San Martín and Bolívar— have
advocated for it with conviction and reiteration in the peoples
and the troops under their command.
They were clear about the fact that the definitive consolida-
tion of the liberation of our nations from domination of Spain
and other powers, and the possibility of our autonomous and
sovereign development would only be achieved by the union
of our efforts and by the conception of common necessities
and actions.
At that time, they were not totally understood and faced
many enemies, both internal and external. Nevertheless, the
seed of Patria Grande (Great Homeland) would start germi-
nating in the hearts of their peoples since then.
ABC as cornerstone of Latin American unity
Inspired by the historical root we described and facing the

analysis of the circumstances of that time and the challenges
and opportunities that would happen in the world in the future,
Perón launched ABC: a project of union amongst Argentina,
Brazil and Chile to ensure a defense he considered relative
- 111 -
and he affirmed it was in the continental area we defend and

we live in, because those three countries were, at that time, a
strategic reserve of food and raw materials.
Perón firmly believed in that unity and he was also con-
vinced that that initial unity would later drag the other South
American countries.
Apart from starting a pedagogical action upon the peoples,
Perón conversed and debated the idea with those who were
going to be presidents of those countries: Getulio Vargas in Bra-
zil and General Ibáñez in Chile. Both understood the intended
purpose, shared their reasons and committed to support him
once they were in charge of their nations.
Yet it was not easy. The idea had enemies in different coun-
tries: economic groups which stated the initiative could affect
their interests, military sectors, bureaucracy of chancelleries,
and political groups which put forward ideological reasons and
dangers of possible latent aspirations for hegemony.
We should remember that at that time we had border con-
flicts with Chile, and that many people were afraid of problems
with Brazil due to the perjury that could be generated by an
unjust control of the waters in the superior stretches of our
rivers.
Additionally, since XIX Century, colonial powers opposed
the processes of unity and encouraged the fragmentation ones,
which, by increasing our weakness, facilitated their own plans
of control and exploitation of the resources we possessed.
All these interests extended their influence.
Vargas broke off the negotiation, regretting doing so, but
stopped by difficulties in his internal front, which prevented
him from taking that step. The Argentine president could only
sign a treaty with his Chilean counterpart, General Ibáñez.
Despite the partial achievement of this initiative, Perón con-
tinued trusting on Latin American and regional unity processes
as unavoidable steps towards the sovereign future and peace
of our nations.
- 112 -
Current validity of Perón’s strategic analysis and of his

proposal of South American unity
The analysis that Perón made of an overpopulated world in

the future, which was going to need more and more food and
raw materials, and to which South America would especially
be a reserve, was ratified over the years.
The growing need for natural resources has an irreversible
tendency in the global situation. Let’s see some examples:
• The global demand for food and raw materials, as well as
its effects upon the environment, threaten the air, water
and entire ecosystems of humanity.
• The population growth doubled in less than 50 years,
reaching more than 7,500 million people, and it is con-
sidered that by the year 2050 it will arrive to 8,000 or
10,000 million.
• It is expected that world demand for water will increase
nearly 55% by the year 2050, and we should add that
today there are around 800 million people who have dif-
ficulty in obtain it; some estimates even set the number
in 3,500 million.
These examples of the magnitude of the present demand
for resources project themselves into the future. The report
“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds”, elaborated by the
National Intelligence Council of the United States, foresees
for the year 2030:
... Demand for food, water, and energy will grow
by approximately 35, 40, and 50 percent respectively
owing to an increase in the global population and the
consumption patterns of an expanding middle class.
Climate change will worsen the outlook for the avail-
ability of these critical resources...
This situation shows us once again the global importance
of South America as a region rich in strategic resources. With
- 113 -
a surface area of almost 18 million km2 and an approximate

population of 400 million inhabitants, the region possesses,
apart from its important production of food and raw materials,
almost 30% of the totality of global water resources, important
hydrocarbon reserve and production, and the greatest world
supplies of a crucial mineral such as lithium in three countries
of the region: Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.
Aware of this number of strategic resources, Perón warned
about the necessity of creating alliances and strategic plans
of management, development and collective defense of our
countries and their richness before the wishes of extra re-
gionals actors.
After different integrationist attempts in XX Century, mainly
focused on economy and commerce, of which Mercosur –which
is 30-years-old– is undoubtedly the most important one, the
beginnings of the new millennium started establishing the ne-
cessity, as South American region, of generating an integrating
project guided by politics and oriented towards the construction
of a regional identity with a strategic thought of its own.
Upon these bases, Union of South American Nations (UNA-
SUR) was created in 2008, from a valuable convergence of
political wills and common ideas in various governments of
the region, whose leaders were able to transmit to their peo-
ples and encourage them in that direction: Luis Ignacio “Lula”
Da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, José Mujica in
Uruguay, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia and
Néstor Kirchner in Argentina.
They were a group of visionary and brave patriots who gave
a huge step towards the path of institutionalization of South
American unity.
UNASUR was an integrating project guided, for the first time,
by politics and oriented towards the construction of a regional
identity with a strategic thought of its own.
Amongst its specific objectives, there was the energy inte-
gration, the development of an infrastructure for the intercon-
nection of the region, financial, industrial and productive inte-
- 114 -
gration. In this context, little after its creation, they advanced

on the constitution of Council of South American Defense and,
in 2011, the Center of Strategic Defense Studies of that Council
was created.
Indeed, although UNASUR Constitutive Treaty had only a
timid reference to the promotion of “exchanges of information
and experiences regarding defense”, on occasion of the signing
of the Treaty, the presidents agreed to create a Council of De-
fense as a “body of consultation, cooperation and coordination
regarding Defense”, which ended up being a core component
of UNASUR organic structure. For the first time, defense was
an expressed and institutionalized theme in Latin American
integration.
Changes in the doctrine of strategic planning of military

instrument
The process of growing regional integration appeared on the

mechanisms of strategic planning of the Armed Forces, that
is why the obsolete planning system based on hypothesis of
conflict was overcome. This system was completely dysfunc-
tional as it organized deployments, equipment and doctrine
to “face” countries which were now strategic allies.
In this sense, a structural transformation was made, which
substituted those ancient diagrams for planning systems ac-
cording to abilities, just like those used by the most developed
countries in terms of defense.
Under the umbrella of MERCOSUR, some advances in the
political field started. And with changes in the conformation of
the military instrument, the Defense area was not the exception
to that tendency.
The transformations, besides consolidating bilateral rela-
tions, integration and cooperation, strengthened the objective
that the region should be a peace zone.
Unfortunately, this path of significant progress, pushed by
- 115 -
progressive governments of the region, was interrupted by

profound political changes which were produced by right-wing
governments that later controlled it and still do.
In our country, Mauricio Macri constantly debilitated those
achievements with his decisions and he also participated in the
initiatives which dissolved extremely important institutional
constructions like UNASUR.
Current global context
In the economic and commercial field, the world is decidedly

multi polar and, as Luciano Anzelini states in a recent interview,
...With a noticeable transfer of power and the
West influence over the East regarding commerce,
industry and finance... The strategic military world
scenario remains unipolar, although it is not nec-
essarily hegemonic. United States is currently the
only power with the necessary will and resources to
maintain a projection of power of global reach. That
implies that its Defense policy, its doctrinaire defi-
nitions and its military actions are unavoidable to
understand the international security agenda, par-
ticularly for those neighboring countries like ours.
Nevertheless, China and Russia are executing con-
crete maneuvers in this scenario to balance the ex-
isting power difference...
That means that global context became more complex and
eventually more troubled due to the access to natural resources
of any kind, which are more and more scarce.
In this sense, we should bear in mind, for example, the new
report on Global Trends 2035, which introduces for the first
time the Antarctica as a strategic area.
On this matter, in the quoted interview, Anzelini considers
that
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... Latin America shows signs of being a field of

dispute for the access to resources and for the ex-
tension of influence amongst global powers such
as United States, China and Russia... We should
keep an eye on the existence of a colonial enclave
in Malvinas Islands, with a significant British mili-
tary crew displayed there.”
Conclusions
The passing of time and the historical facts clearly showed

that unity processes amongst countries not only are a historical
“command” of intangible value, but rather the most effective
way of managing national and popular interests before the po-
tential influence of global and local actors which would desire
to manage for others or for few people the singular number of
resources our region has.
In this way, South American unity is a concrete and material
tool to channel our countries through a path of development
which would let us reduce the unacceptable rates of poverty
and inequality we suffer, the importance of unity of the peoples
to realize their autonomous development and guarantee their
sovereignty and resources.
In this sense, Perón made in that valuable presentation in
1953 at the War College some visionary recommendations
which resumed the unfinished objective of Patria Grande of our
founding heroes. Today we should really bear them in mind.
Besides maintaining intelligent dialogs with key actors of
the international system, we should prioritize and strengthen
the strategic society with Brazil in numerous aspects, because
it generated a bond which was one of the cornerstones to the
South American regional integration. Regarding defense, that
bond is essential.
Facing the dismantling of coordination organizations in the
field of regional defense as valuable as the UNASUR Council of
- 117 -
South American Defense, it is urgent to promote the creation of

new multilateral and especially regional bodies of cooperation
for that sector.
And with the aim of integration, Mercosur must be a priority.
- 118 -
4
Inaugural speech for the War College, Buenos
Aires City
November 11, 1953
Gentlemen,
I have accepted with great pleasure this occasion to dis-
cuss the fundamental ideas that have inspired a new inter-
national policy in the Argentine Republic.
It is evident that, due to the host of tasks I undertake, I will
not be able to present before you an academic exposition
of this issue. Yet I will be able to maintain a conversation in
which the most fundamental and the most decisive elements
of our conceptions will be presented modestly and clearly.
Human organizations, throughout the ages, have been
undoubtedly creating successive groupings and regroupings.
From the troglodyte family to our times, that has marked
countless groupings, through families, tribes, cities, nations
and groups of nations. And some even venture to say that,
by the year 2000, continents will be the smallest groupings.
It is evident that this concept is confirmed by the histori-
cal evolution of humanity, and it becomes more real every
day. That is as much as we can say regarding the natural
and fatal evolution of humanity. If we extrapolate this pro-
blem to our America, an appreciation immediately arises,
imposed by our own circumstances and our own situation.
It is evident that the overpopulated and over industriali-
zed world presents an outlook for the future which humanity
has not met yet, at least on such an extraordinary scale. All
the problems that are presently spread around the world
are mostly a product of this overpopulation and over indus-
trialization, whether they are material problems or spiritual
problems. The influence of overproduction is such —and the
influence of technique and that overproduction is such—
that humanity, in all its economic, political and sociological
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SPEECH November 11, 1953.
problems, is profoundly influenced by those circumstances.

If that is the future of humanity, it is evident that these
problems will progress and produce new and more difficult
ones, emerged from the outlined circumstances.
It is also undeniable that the fundamental struggle in
an overpopulated world is about one thing that is always
essential for humanity: food. That is the worst and most
difficult problem to solve.
The second problem that industrialization presents is
raw material: it should be said that in this world that stru-
ggles for food and raw material, the fundamental problem
in the future is a problem of economic basis. And the future
struggle will be more and more related to economy, due to a
greater overpopulation and a greater over industrialization.
As a consequence, by analyzing our problems, we could
say that the future of the world, the future of the peoples and
the future of the nations will be extraordinarily influenced
by the amount of reserve they possess: food reserve and
raw material reserve.
This is such an evident, natural and simple thing that we
would not need to make use of statistics, let alone dialectics,
to convince anyone.
And now we see the problem in a practical and objective
way, and we wonder which are the areas of the world where
there still are the greatest reserves of these two fundamental
elements: food and raw material.
It is evident that our continent —especially South Ame-
rica— is the area of the world where, due to lack of popula-
tion and lack of extractive exploitation, there is the biggest
reserve of raw material and food in the world. This would
indicate that the future is ours and that in the up-coming
struggle we would have an extraordinary advantage over
the other areas of the world that have exhausted all their
possibilities of food production and provisions of raw ma-
terial, or that are inept to produce these two elements that
are fundamental to life.
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If this, gentlemen, is what truly creates the problem of the

struggle, it is undeniable that we have an initial advantage,
and that when it comes to the assurance of a bright future,
we have promising hopes to enjoy it to a greater extent than
other countries.
But precisely in these circumstances lies our greatest
danger, because it is undeniable that humanity has pro-
ven, throughout the history of all times, that when one has
lacked food or elements that are essential for life —such as
raw materials and others—, one has provided oneself with
them, taking them by any means necessary, that is to say,
resorting to skilled combinations or to force. So, in plain
words, we are under the constant threat that one day those
overpopulated and over industrialized countries, which lack
food or raw material but possess an extraordinary power,
would use that power to deprive us of the elements we pos-
sess excessively in relation to our population and our needs.
There lies the problem, outlined on its fundamental basis,
but also on its most objective and realistic ones.
If the small and weak countries survived, in the foreseea-
ble future we could be a conquerable territory, as thousands
and thousands of territories have been since the Phoenician
to the present days. It would not be a new history written
in these latitudes. It would be the history that has been on
campaign for ages, in every place on Earth, so it would not
be even be noteworthy.
This circumstance has induced our government to deal
squarely with the possibility of a real and effective union
amongst our countries, in order to face a common life and
plan, also, a common defense.
If these circumstances are not sufficient, or this issue is
not a decisive factor in our union, I do not believe that there
exists any other circumstance important enough to unite us.
If what I expressed was not real, or was not true, the union
of this part of the world would be purposeless, at least as a
more or less abstract or idealist matter.
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Gentlemen, it is undeniable that from the first moment

we considered this, we analyzed the circumstances and
observed that, from 1810 to our days, there have been cou-
ntless efforts to group this area of the Continent in different
kinds of unions.
The first efforts appeared in Chile, during the starting
days of the emancipating revolutions in Argentina, Chile
and Peru. All of them failed for different reasons. It is un-
deniable that, if it had been done then, it would have been
extraordinary. Unfortunately, not everyone understood the
problem, and when Chile proposed that here to Buenos
Aires during the first days of the May Revolution, Mariano
Moreno was against any union with Chile. Meaning, the
government itself and the most prominent people within it
supported the idea of derailing the union. That failed due
to the Buenos Aires junta.
Afterwards, many others also failed for different reasons.
The problem was then advocated from Peru, and San Mar-
tin’s action also failed. Bolivar was later in charge of that
fight for continental unity —and we know how he also failed.
After that, the first, second and third Mexican congresses
were held with the same purpose. And we must confess
that everything failed —it was mostly our fault. We were the
ones that have always been a bit distant, adopting a sort of
isolationist and egotistical criterion.
We arrive at the present time. I would not want to go down
in history without having proved, at least reliably, that we
have devoted all our real, effective, loyal and sincere efforts
so that this union could be achieved on the Continent.
I believe that the year 2000 will surprise us united or
dominated. I also believe that intelligent people would not
wait for the year 2000 to arrive; they would make a bit of an
effort to make it earlier than the year 2000, and to arrive
in better conditions than those which destiny could offer,
or those which we will live in if we continue being an anvil
that supports blows and not even once a hammer —so we
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can also strike a blow ourselves.

For this reason, already in 1946, by expressing our first
appreciations of strategic and international political nature,
we started to think about this grave problem of our time.
This may be the gravest and most transcendental problem
of the international politics that concerns us —perhaps more
transcendental that whatever may happen in the world war,
or in Europe, or in Asia or the Far East. Because this is our
own problem, and the others are problems of the world we
live in, but are sufficiently distant from us.
I also believe that, in the solution of this grave and trans-
cendental problem, peoples play a more relevant role than
men and governments. That is the reason why, when we
expressed the first appreciations, we analyzed whether this
could be done via acting chancellery as in the 18th Century,
during a great meal with splendid speeches, but that end
once the meal is over, ineffective and insignificant, —as every
action done by chancelleries of this part of the world from
last Century onwards; or whether it would be necessary to
act more effectively, not influencing governments —which
here rapidly change— but influencing the peoples, which
are permanent. Because men pass and governments go by
but the peoples stay.
We have observed, on the other hand, that success —
perhaps the only extraordinary success of communism— lies
on their not working with governments but with peoples,
because they head for a permanent work and not for a cir-
cumstantial one.
And if something transcendental wants to be done at the
international level, it needs to be permanent because, as long
as it is circumstantial, it will not have any importance con-
cerning international politics. For that reason, and taking
advantage of the natural inclinations of our own doctrine,
we started working about the peoples, with no anxiety, with
no hastiness and, above all, meticulously trying to take care
of, to eliminate any possibility of us being accused of inter-
- 123 -
vening in internal affairs of other States.

In 1946, when I took charge of the government, Argentine
foreign policy had no definition.
We did not find any plan of action, and in the Military
Ministries there was not even a remote hypothesis upon
which the military could base their operations plans. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in all its archives, had not a single
active plan regarding the international policy followed by
the Argentine Republic; not even about the orientation, at
least, that regulated the decisions or designs.
That is, we have lived, on foreign policy, responding to
the measures imposed on us by others; but we have never
had a single idea of our own that could have led us, at least
throughout history, in a uniform and consistent direction.
We were devoted to filling in the holes made by the measures
taken by other countries. We had no initiative.
The procedure is not that reprehensible for it is also a
common way of proceeding, perhaps explainable, because
small countries cannot set very active or great objectives
on foreign affairs -yet they require an objective.
I am not saying that we will establish extra continental
objectives to impose our will on the Russian, the English
or the North American. No, because that would be inept.
On this matter, as it has been said and supported many
times, one’s policy must match one’s strength or the strength
required to support a policy.
We cannot possess the latter and, consequently, we have
to limit ourselves to accept the former. But under this cir-
cumstance we can develop our own ideas and fight for them
so that chancelleries, which play 18th-Century style, would
not dominate us with their fantastic dreams of hegemony,
leadership and direction. In order to be a monitor-country
—the same applies to any monitor— it is necessary to take
the lead and let others follow. The problem is to get to the
leading position as soon as possible, and the others will
follow you, even if they do not want to. So, hegemony is not
- 124 -
conquered. Therefore, on foreign affairs, our fight is not for

anyone’s hegemony, as I have already said, but simply and
plainly for the obtaining of what is convenient for the coun-
try, in the first place; in the second place, what is convenient
for the great region which frames the country; and in the
third place, the rest of the world, which is more distant and
out of the reach of our foresight and conceptions.
Therefore, clearly understood, as I have always unders-
tood it, for us, first comes the Argentine Republic, then the
continent and later the world. That has been our position
and will always be, because we understand that our own de-
fense is in our hands; that the defense we may call ‘relative’
is in the continental zone we defend and live in; and that
the absolute one is a dream not yet achieved by any man or
nation on Earth. We only live in a relative safety, thinking,
gentlemen, on the fundamental idea of reaching a union on
this part of the continent.
We had thought that the future struggle would be econo-
mic. History proves that no country has prevailed in that
field, or in any struggle, unless it has a complete economic
unity.
Great empires, great nations have achieved, from the
beginnings of history to our days, great conquests on the
basis of economic unity. And I analyze that, if we dream of
greatness —which is our obligation— for our country, we
must analyze fundamentally that factor, on a stage of the
world in which economy will come to the forefront in every
future struggle.
The Argentine Republic on its own has no economic uni-
ty; Brasil on its own has not either; Chile on its own has no
economic unity either; but these three countries together
at the present moment may build the most extraordinary
unity of the whole world, especially for the future, because
this immense availability constitutes their reserve. Those
countries are reserve of the world.
The others may not be far from exploiting all their energy
- 125 -
resources and raw materials. We have all the reserves and

we have not yet exploited anything.
That exploitation they made of us, keeping us to consume
what they elaborated, may be overturned in the future be-
cause in humanity and in the world there is a justice which
is above all other justices, and some day it will arrive. And
that justice is coming closer to us. We just need enough
prudence and wisdom to prepare ourselves to avoid their
stealing our justice once again, in the exact moment when
we are about to perceive it and enjoy it.
That is what demands, imprescriptibly, the need for union
amongst Chile, Brazil and Argentina.
It is evident that, once achieved this union, the other Sou-
th American countries will follow, which will not be favored
even by the creation of a new grouping and will probably
not make it anyway, nor separated nor united, but only in
small unites.
Having understood this, gentlemen, I started working on
the peoples. I did not forget to work on governments either,
and during the seven years of the first government, whilst
we worked actively on the peoples, preparing the opinion
to accept this action, I conversed with the presidents-to-be,
at least, of the two countries which interested us the most:
Getulio Vargas and General Ibáñez.
Getulio Vargas wholeheartedly agreed with this idea and
wanted to do it as soon as he took office. Ibáñez made the
same statement and committed himself to proceed in the
same way.
I did not deceive myself by thinking that this matter was
settled because they had promised so, for I am certainly
aware that they were men heading to government and that
they would not be able to do what they wanted, but what they
could. I was fully aware that a great part of those peoples
would vehemently be against an action of this kind, due to
personal interests and business mainly. How would the Chi-
lean stockbreeders not be against our unlimited exportation
- 126 -
of Argentine cattle? And how would they, Chilean middle-

men, not be against us solving all the frontier problems for
the interaction of cattle, when a cow or a steer one meter
away from the Chilean frontier into the Argentine side costs
ten thousand Chilean pesos and a meter away from the Ar-
gentine frontier into the Chilean side costs twenty thousand
Chilean pesos?! The one that gets those ten thousand pesos
will never agree with a unity of this kind.
I mention this vulgar case so that the gentlemen may
intuit all the immense spectrum of different interests which
emanate from everything the Chilean and poor “roto” eats
and that they produce. The same phenomenon occurs in
Brazil.
That is the reason why I have never harboured many illu-
sions about the chances of it; therefore, we continue working
for these unions, because they will come for the peoples.
We have very sad experiences of the unions created by
governments; at least none, for one hundred and fifty years,
could crystallize for real.
We shall try the other path which has never been taken
in order to see if, from the bottom, we can influence in a
determining way so that those unions become true.
Gentlemen, I also know that Brazil, for example, encoun-
ters a great difficulty: Itamaraty, which constitutes a supra-
governmental institution. Itamaraty has dreamt, from the
emperor’s times to our days, of a policy which has prevailed
on every man that has occupied that difficult position in
Brazil.
This policy has led them to build an arch between Chile
and Brazil. And that policy must be defeated with time and
with our good procedure.
All the system of Itamaraty must be dismantled, all the
imperial excecrences must disappear, which constitute,
more than any other reason, the main obstacles for Brazil
to establish a true union with Argentina.
We have no problem with them, as long as it is not that
- 127 -
dream of hegemony, in which we are ready to tell them: you

are bigger, nicer, and better than us —we have no problem.
We renounced all that, therefore that will not be a problem
either. But it is undeniable that we thought this problem
was somehow solved.
I will tell the gentlemen a fact that will demonstrate how
we proceed and why we are strongly convinced that we will
win at the end, because we proceed well. Because those who
proceed wrongly are the ones that succumb to their own bad
procedure. Thus, we will not resort under any circumstan-
ce to any subterfuge, malicious act, strange combination,
employed by some chancelleries.
When Vargas assumed the presidency, he promised me
that we would meet in Buenos Aires or Rio and we would
make that treaty which I later signed with Ibáñez —the same
treaty.
That was a formal purpose we had set. Furthermore, we
said, “We will suppress the borders, if necessary.” I accepted
anything, since it was inside the orientation I followed and
inside what I believed necessary and convenient.
I knew I was achieving that here, because when I told my
people I wanted to do so, I knew my people would want what
I wanted, regarding foreign affairs. Because there is here
in the people a consciousness of international politics, and
there is an organization. Additionally, people know that, all
in all, we do not make many mistakes, so they have some
faith in what we do.
Later, Vargas told me that it would be difficult for us to do
it so soon, as he had some complicated political situation in
the Chambers, and before dominating them, he preferred
to reconcile. That is a difficulty in politics. You should first
dominate and later the conciliation comes easily. Different
points of view, different ways of thinking.
He chose a different path and formed a conciliation Cabi-
net, that is to say, he formed a Cabinet where at least three
quarters of the Ministers were his political enemies and
- 128 -
served their own interests, not the ones of the government.

Of course he thought that this in six months would bring
the solution; but six months later the issue was even more
complicated than before. Naturally, he could not come here.
He could not commit himself before his Parliament and
before his own Ministers to undertake a task which implied
having some courage and playing a decisive card before
global international policy, before his people, his Parliament
and the interests that needed to be defeated.
Naturally, I waited. In the meantime, General Ibáñez was
elected president. His situation was not better than Vargas’,
but somehow there had been a plebiscite about anything
that could have been voted in Chile, with very sui generis
elections. Because there those who want to vote, register
and those who do not, don’t —very different from our sys-
tem. But he takes office naturally. As soon as he takes office,
I, in line with what we had discussed, sound him out. He
told me, “Alright, let’s do it. Great!” The General was more
determined —because we generals are usually more de-
termined than politicians. But before doing so, as I had a
previous commitment to Vargas, I wrote him a letter which
I delivered to him through his own ambassador, whom I
called and told, “See, you must go to Rio with this letter and
must explain everything to your president. Two years ago,
we promised to do this. I have been waiting for more than
a year, and he cannot come. I request his authorization to
free myself from that commitment to do it first with Brazil,
and to let me do it with Chile first. Of course, I am asking
for this because I believe that these three countries are the
ones that should unite.”
The ambassador goes there, comes back and tells me,
on behalf of his president, that not only does he authorize
me to go to Chile, freeing myself from the commitment,
but also he lets me represent him and speak on behalf of
him in Chile. Naturally I now know many things I did not
know before. I accepted only the authorization, but not his
- 129 -
representation.
I went to Chile, arrived there and told General Ibáñez,
“I come here with everything settled and I bring president
Vargas’ authorization, because I was first committed to do
this with him and Brazil. Thus everything will end up per-
fectly fine and exactly as we had planned it, and perhaps
our doing will facilitate Vargas’ action and the issue will
have a better solution.”
We arrived, there we made all the chancellery stuff with
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we argue a bit —nothing
serious— and we reached an agreement, not as broad as
we wanted, because people are afraid of some things and,
it is clear, it ended up somewhat cut down but we reached
it. It was not a disappointment either, but it cost us a lot of
convincing and persuading.
And the next day some news arrive from Rio de Janeiro,
where the minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil gave some
dreadful statements against the Pact of Santiago: that he
was against regional pacts, that that was the destruction of
Pan-American unanimity. Imagine my face the following
day when I went there and stood before president Ibáñez.
When I greeted him, he asked me, “What do you think of
the Brazilian friends?”
Naturally the press from Rio de Janeiro crossed the limits
the own minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Neves de Fontoura,
had set. Obviously, I remained silenced, I had no choice but
to do so. I signed the treaty and came back here.
When I arrived, I met Gerardo Rocha, an old talented
journalist, director of O Mundo in Rio, a close friend of pre-
sident Vargas, who told me, “President Vargas sent me here
to give you an explanation of what had happened in Brazil.”
He says his situation is very difficult: he cannot dominate
politically, he has droughts in the North, freezes in the Sou-
th; and the politicians are rising up; communism is very
dangerous, that he was not able to do anything. In short,
that he wants me to forgive him, he does not think like that
- 130 -
and if the minister had done that, he could not have given
orders to him.
I understood everything perfectly. I did not justify his
behaviour, but at least I understood it. Naturally, gentlemen,
under these circumstances, with a situation so mournful
and unfortunate, I had no choice but to tell him to be calm,
as I do not meddle in his stuff; and to do what he could, but
to continue working on this.
Alright, gentlemen, I wanted to tell you this, which is
probably unknown to everyone but the ministers and my-
self. Obviously, these are all historic documents, because I
do not want to go down in history as a cretin who could not
make this union and has not made it. At least I want people
in the future to know that if there have been cretins here, I
was not the only one. There are other cretins like me as well,
and we will all attend together the Cretins’ Ball.
But what I did want is to affirm —as I will publicly do on
some occasion— that all the Argentine policy on foreign af-
fairs has been oriented towards the need of that union. So,
when the moment in which we will be judged by our men
arrives —before the dangers this dissociation will produce
in the future— at least we will be able to justify our own
impotence to achieve the union.
However, I am not pessimistic. I believe that our orienta-
tion, our perseverance, is everyday gaining ground among
this idea, and I am almost convinced that one day we will do
it well and completely, and that we need to work tirelessly for
that. The times when conflicts were between two countries
are already over. Now conflicts have grown in such a way
and have developed such a nature that we must prepare
ourselves for “big conflicts” and not small ones.
This union, gentlemen, is in progress —that is as much
as I can tell you as final.
We are working on it and success, gentlemen, will come.
At least, we have prepared success, we are making it, and
there isn’t the slightest doubt that the day success will come,
- 131 -
I will know how to take advantage of it in the most convenient

way for our country. Because, according to the Napoleonic
aphorism, the one that prepares success and achieves it
will hardly not know how to take advantage of it once he
has obtained it.
On this matter, I am absolutely convinced that we are he-
ading in the right direction. Brazil’s reply, trying to alter the
course of its arch from Santiago to Lima, is only a confused
and desperate reply of a chancellery which does not inter-
pret the moment and which is persisting with a line that is
surpassed by time and events. That can never be effective.
The fight for the Amazonian areas and the areas of La
Plata River has no value or importance. Those are nothing
more than equatorial dreams. In this sense, no geopolitical
factor, or factor of any other nature can confront these two
areas whose factors and characteristics are so diverse.
There is here a unity problem that is above all others and,
under these circumstances, which are perhaps too determi-
ning, if we solved our misunderstandings with the United
States, maybe this would favor decisively the possibility of
a continental union in this part of the American continent.
Gentlemen, as Paraguay has answered, though it is a
small country; as many other countries of this continent
will answer, slowly, with no pressure or violence of any kind,
that is how a sort of union is building up.
Unions must be done following the common procedure;
first, something needs to be connected; later all the other
connections will develop with time and events.
Chile, despite the fight it must lead there, it is already
united with Argentina.
Paraguay is in the same situation. There are other coun-
tries inclined to do the same. If we continue slowly adhering
to other countries, it will not take long until Brazil does the
same —and that will be the beginning of the triumph of our
policy.
The continental union based on Argentina, Brazil and
- 132 -
Chile is much closer than what many Argentine, Chilean

and Brazilian people believe. A great segment in Brazil had
worked to achieve this.
The only thing to be defeated are interests; but when the
interests of the countries start playing a part, the interests
of men must be defeated by them. That is our greatest hope.
Until that happens, gentlemen, we have no choice but
to wait and work so that this is done: and that is our action
and that is our orientation.
Thank you very much.
- 133 -
Perón’s message to the peoples and governments
of the world
Illustration by Guadalupe Belgrano
Environmental message to the peoples and
governments of the world
“The human being [...] is a powerful biological

force and, if he continues destroying the vital
resources the Earth is giving him, he can only
expect true social catastrophes in the next
decades.”
(1972)
FOREWORD Aldo Duzdevich8
Perón’s message to the peoples and governments
of the world
On March 16th 1972, three months before the first UN Con-

ference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Perón
addressed a letter to its General Secretary, Mr. Kurt Waldheim,
in which he expressed,
“The grave problems which haunt humanity in this time of
history have led me to deliver the attached Message to the
Peoples and Governments of the World, which I intend to make
public on 23rd of the current month. I wish to present its con-
tent to you in advance, as your extremely important mission
in defense of international peace and cooperation makes you
one of the main recipients of my message.
»As you will be able to appreciate, I consider that the
problems of environmental pollution, squandering of natural
resources, international tension and arms race are as grave as
they are interdependent, and they therefore demand a vigorous,
immediate and global action. I am particularly worried by the
depletion of natural resources in Third World countries, with
the noticeable consequences which have a great impact mainly
on the humblest sectors of the population. Actually, natural
selection has been turned into a sophism behind which a social
selection and an international selection are hidden.
I understand that United Nations should constitute the
core of any joint international action in this field. To that effect,
undoubtedly it will be necessary to create a new organization
like the already constituted to fight against pollution and coor-
dinate their actions.”
8 Journalist, writer and politician. He was a town councilman in Neuquén City and a
provincial legislator by the namesake province.
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Perón’s message to the peoples and governments of the world - Aldo Duzdevich
Wishing you success in your difficult task,

Juan Domingo Perón.”
17 years had passed since a coup d’état deprived him of
constitutional presidency and forced him to exile, but Juan
Domingo Perón did not need to add titles to his name to sign a
letter addressed to the governments and peoples of the world.
During those months of 1972, the great topics which occu-
pied front pages of newspapers were Vietnam war, the contact
between China and the Soviet Union, Cold War tension and
violence in Belfast. In Argentina, Alejandro Agustín Lanusse’s
dictatorship, harassed by guerrilla and conflicts in the streets,
debated if they would eliminate the proscription of Peronism
or not, and if they would allow free elections.
It is difficult to understand in these times, when most of
the politicians speak and decide according to the immediacy
of polls, that Perón was thinking and discussing the necessity
of an urgent “international joint action” in order to revert “the
suicidal path humanity has taken by contaminating the envi-
ronment and biosphere” in 1972, when only few scientists and
pundits started discussing these issues.
Environmental message to the peoples and governments of
the world is so relevant today that if we put it in the mouth of
another leader of the present, it would be innovative. Because
the urgency that Perón mentioned 50 years ago is the same
word that is currently used in all the debates of international
forums.
As a witness to that time, I must confess that environmental
degradation was not a topic in the agenda of youngsters who
were actively interested in politics in that tumultuous decade
of 1970. And that the majority of us even read that text many
years later.
I mention the historical context because, after 50 years of
following and reading him, Perón continues surprising us every
day. Eva Perón, referring to him, wrote, “do not forget that –as
Napoleon said– men of genius are meteors destined to burn
themselves out in lighting up a century.” And undoubtedly to
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Argentina and a great part of the peoples of the third world,

his light illuminated XX Century, and is still illuminating the
new XXI Century.
Speaking of leaders that light up the century, it is unavoid-
able establishing a continuity of thought and action with another
great world leader of Latin American origin, His Holiness Pope
Francis, who in 2015 dedicated the Encyclical Letter Laudato
si’ to “the urgent challenge to protect our common home”.
Perón addresses his message, from his position as leader of
“those little nations have grown in number and constitute the
gigantic and multitudinous Third World.” He warns that “the
misnamed “Consumer Societies” are actually social systems of
massive squandering based on waste, for the pleasure derived
from profit. (...) Squandering social systems of the most tech-
nologically advanced countries work thanks to consumption of
enormous natural resources provided by Third World. (...) In the
last century, entire continents have been sacked. And a few de-
cades were enough to turn rivers and seas into garbage dumps,
and the air of big cities into a thick, toxic gas. (...) Meanwhile, a
ghost -hunger- travels the world devouring 55 million humble
lives every 20 months.”
The first words of Francis as Pope were, “you all know that
the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems
that my brother Cardinals have come almost to the ends of the
Earth to get him ... but here we are.” He also presents himself,
as a man from geographical and existential peripheries, as a
voice of those who have no voice. At the end of the prologue to
Laudato si’ he explains, “a number of themes which will reap-
pear as the Encyclical unfolds. As examples, I will point to the
intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the
planet, (...) the forms of power derived from technology, the call
to seek other ways of understanding the economy and progress,
(...) the throwaway culture and the proposal of a new lifestyle.”
Perón proposes in his Letter that, “Some pressing and urgent
matters: a mental revolution in men, especially in the leaders
of the most industrialized countries; a modification of social
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Perón’s message to the peoples and governments of the world - Aldo Duzdevich
and productive structures around the world, particularly in

high-tech countries where market economy rules (...). Profit and
squandering can no longer be the basic motor of any society. And
social justice must be the compulsory basis of every system.”
Francis says, “The environment is one of those goods that
cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forc-
es. Once more, we need to reject a magical conception of the
market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply
by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. (...)
For poor countries, the priorities must be to eliminate extreme
poverty and to promote the social development of their people.”
Not only did Perón translate into words his concern about
the environment. In 1973, when he returned to the country and
was elected president for the third time, he created the Secre-
tariat of Human Environment inside the Ministry of Economy
and he put Yolanda Ortíz in charge, a chemist by profession,
who inaugurated an area totally innovative in Argentina and in
many countries of the world.
During his brief time in presidency (he passed away on July
1st 1974), General Perón referred to the environmental issue
at least in eleven speeches. And in his posthumous testament,
a proposal called The Argentine Model, he dedicated an entire
chapter to it, taking a closer look at the concepts of his Message
to the peoples and governments of the world.
I hope my introduction to this visionary and committed
text of General Perón has been brief, and, additionally, I hope
to have aroused curiosity in the reader to know the words of
another great Argentine and Latin American man: our Pope
Francis.
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5
Environmental message to the peoples and
governments of the world. Madrid
February 21, 1972
Almost thirty years ago, when the contemporary process

of decolonization had not yet begun, we announced the
Third Position in defense of small nations’ sovereignty and
self-determination, against the blocs in which World War
Two winners were divided.
Today, when those little nations have grown in number
and constitute the gigantic and multitudinous Third World,
there is a greater danger that affects all humanity and thre-
atens its own survival. This danger forces us to consider
the issue in new terms, that go beyond the strictly political
approach and surpass ideological and party differences,
and enter the field of relationships between humanity and
nature.
We believe that the time has come for all peoples and
governments worldwide to become aware of the suicidal
path humanity has taken by contaminating the environ-
ment and biosphere, wasting natural resources, enlarging
its population incessantly and overestimating technology.
It is necessary to change this path immediately by means
of an international joint action.
Raising awareness is the role of men of science, but poli-
tical leaders are the only ones capable of making it happen.
For that reason, I address the issue as a political leader, with
the authority I enjoy as a precursor of the present Third
World position and resorting to the latest research done
by expert scientists.
The facts
The human being can no longer be considered indepen-
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ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGE February 21, 1972.
dent of the environment he himself has created. He is a

powerful biological force and, if he continues destroying the
vital resources the Earth is giving him, he can only expect
true social catastrophes in the next decades.
Humanity is changing life conditions so fast that it cannot
adapt to the new conditions. Its action goes faster than its
understanding of reality and man has not yet comprehen-
ded -among other things- that resources that are vital to
him and his descendants derive from nature and not from
his mental power. In this way, his life is daily transformed
into an endless chain of contradictions.
In the last century, he has sacked entire continents. And
a few decades were enough for him to turn rivers and seas
into garbage dumps, and the air of big cities into a thick, toxic
gas. He invented the car to make transportation easier, but
he has now built a car-civilization that is founded on a pile
of circulation, urbanization, immunity and contamination
problems in cities and that it is worsen by the consequences
of sedentary life.
Massive squandering
The misnamed “Consumer Societies” are actually social

systems of massive squandering based on waste, for the
pleasure derived from profit. Squandering is generated by
the production of both necessary and superfluous goods
and, among them, those who should be long-lasting are in-
tentionally given a certain lifetime because renewal brings
utilities. Millions are spent on investments to change the
look of items, but not to replace health-damaging goods. And
even new toxic procedures are used to satisfy human vanity.
For example, there are modern cars that should have been
replaced by others with electric engines. Or there is toxic
lead that is added to gasoline just to increase acceleration.
No less serious is the fact that the squandering social
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systems of the most technologically advanced countries

work thanks to consumption of enormous natural resour-
ces provided by Third World. In this way, there is a double
paradox in the problem of relationships within humanity:
some social classes -particularly the ones from low-tech
countries- suffer the effects of hunger, illiteracy and dise-
ases; but at the same time those social classes and coun-
tries that base their over-consumption on the suffering of
the former are not rationally nourished, nor they enjoy an
authentic culture or a spiritually or physically healthy life
either. They struggle between anxiety and tedium, and the
vices produced by misuse of leisure.
Technological mirage
The worst part is that, due to the existence of created

powerful interests or to the generalized false belief that vi-
tal natural resources are inexhaustible, this state of affairs
tends to get worse. Meanwhile, a ghost -hunger- travels the
world devouring 55 million humble lives every 20 months,
affecting even countries that yesterday were granaries of
the world, and threatening to expand suddenly and fatally
in the next decades. High-tech centers announce, among
other wonders, that soon clothes will be cut with laser rays
and housewives will use the television to shop and pay for
goods through electronic systems. The separation within
humanity is aggravating in such a visible way that it seems
to be constituted by more than one species.
Blinded by the technological mirage, the human being
has forgotten the truths in which his existence is based on.
In this way, while he arrives to the Moon thanks to cyber-
netics, new metallurgy, powerful fuels, electronics and a
great deal of fabulous theoretical knowledge, he kills the
oxygen he breathes, the water he drinks, the land that feeds
him, and he increases the permanent global temperature
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without measuring the biological consequences. At the

peak of stupidity, he kills the sea that could have been his
last subsistence basis.
After the land, the sea...
In the course of the last century, the human being has

exterminated almost 200 land animal species. He has now
moved on to marine species. Apart from the effects of over-
fishing, great ocean areas -especially the coastal ones- have
been turned into fish and crustacean cemeteries, due to both
discarded waste and unintentional oil spills. Only the oil
spilled by sunken oil tankers has killed nearly 600 billion
fishes in the last decade. However, we continue throwing
rubbish to the sea now more than ever, we drill thousands
of oil wells in the sea and its coasts and we extend to infinity
the oil tonnage without taking measures to protect marine
flora and fauna.
...And potable water
The growing air toxicity in big cities is well-known but

little has been done to reduce it. In contrast, there is still a
widespread knowledge about the fresh water squandering
problem, both for human consumption and for agriculture.
Deepwater exploitation has turned into deserts broad, once
fertile areas of the globe. And rivers have become wastewater
drains rather than sources of drinking water or means of
communication. At the same time, erosion generated by
irrational cultivation or by natural vegetation elimination
has become a worldwide problem. And land’s biological
cycle -one of the most complex in nature- is intended to
be replaced by chemical products. On top of that, many
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natural sources has been contaminated; the reserve. When

seawater desalination would become our last resource, we
find out that an undertaking such as this -of universal di-
mension- would demand an infrastructure that humanity
cannot finance or develop presently.
Food and weapons
On the other hand, despite the so-called green revolution,

the Third World has not yet managed to produce the amou-
nt of food that it consumes. And to reach self-sufficiency it
needs industrial development, structural reforms and social
justice permanence -which it is far from achieving. On top
of that, financial insufficiency and technical difficulties have
stopped the production development of food substitutes.
Of course, all these blunders culminate in an insatiable
and irrational arms race that costs humanity 200 billion
dollars annually.
In addition to this chaotic set of artificially created
problems, there is an explosive growth in humanity. The
number of human beings that inhabit the world has been
duplicated in the last century and it is going to be doubled
again at the end of the current century or the beginning of
the following one, if the present growth rate remains cons-
tant. If we continue along this path, in the year 2500 each
human being will have only one square foot on the planet.
This global vision is far away in the future but it is not very
different from the reality of big cities and one cannot forget
that 20 years from now half of humanity is going to live in
middle and big cities.
Demographic policy
It is undeniable then, that humanity needs a demogra-
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phic policy. The issue is that, even if we put it into practice,

due to this delayed beginning it will not produce its effects
before the end of the decade as far as education is concer-
ned, and before the end of the century as far as occupation
in concerned. And that the demographic policy does not
produce the desired effects if it is not accompanied by a
matching economic and social policy. Anyway, keeping the
current pace of human population growth is as suicidal as
keeping the squandering of natural resources in the highly
industrialized centers where market economy rules, or in
those countries that have copied their development models.
What cannot be accepted is to base the demographic policy
on the action of pills that endanger the health of those who
take them or their descendants.
What to do
If the problems we have enumerated so far are taken as

a whole, we will confirm that they derive from human gre-
ed and lack of foresight as well as from the characteristics
of some social systems, abuse of technology, ignorance of
biological relationships and natural progression of human
population growth. This heterogeneity of causes must lead
to an heterogeneity of answers, even though in last instance
the common denominator would be human intelligence.
We must respond to collective suicide irrationality with the
rational desire to survive.
To halt and reverse this process that leads us towards
disaster it is necessary to accept some premises:
• Some pressing and urgent matters: a mental revolution
in men, especially in the leaders of the most industria-
lized countries; a modification of social and productive
structures around the world, particularly in high-tech
countries where market economy rules; and the emer-
- 148 -
gence of a biological coexistence within humanity and

between humanity and the rest of nature.
• This mental revolution implies understanding that the
man cannot replace nature when it comes to keeping
the right general biological cycle; that technology is a
double-edged sword; that so-called progress must have
a limit and that we must even give up some civilization
comfort in the future; that nature must be restored in
every possible way; that natural resources are accepta-
ble and should therefore be taken care of and rationally
used by the man; that population growth is increasing
and we need to improve food distribution and social
services diffusion such as education and public health;
that education and healthy amusement must play in the
future the role that superfluous goods and services are
currently playing.
• Every nation has the right to the sovereign use of its
natural resources. But, at the same time, every gover-
nment has the obligation of demanding that its citi-
zens rationally use and take care of them. The right to
individual subsistence imposes the duty of collective
survival, both for citizens and peoples.
• The modification of productive and social structures in
the world implies that profit and squandering can no
longer be the basic motor of any society. And social jus-
tice must be the compulsory basis of every system, not
only for the direct benefit of men but also to increase the
production of food and necessary goods. Consequently,
priorities in goods and services production should be
altered to a greater or lesser extend depending on the
country. In other words: we need new models of pro-
duction, consumption, organization and technological
development that, at the same time, prioritize the sa-
tisfaction of human being’s essential needs, rationalize
natural resources consumption and reduce to the mi-
nimum possible environmental contamination.
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• We need a mentally new man in a physically new world.

A new society based on the full development of human
personality cannot be built in a world corrupted by
contamination of an exhausted environment and thirst,
and driven crazy by noise and overcrowding. We must
turn today’s prison cities into tomorrow’s garden cities.
• Population growth must be planned, as immediately
as possible, but through methods that are not harmful
to human health, adapted to the particular conditions
of each country (this does not apply to Argentina, for
example) and as a part of globally rational economic
and social policies.
• The struggle against contamination of environment
and biosphere, against natural resources squandering,
cities’ noise and overcrowding must begin right away
locally, nationally and internationally. These problems,
internationally speaking, must enter the negotiation
agenda between great powers and also United Nations
permanent life, as an urgent need. This, as a whole, is
not another problem for humanity - it is the problem.
• All these problems together are closely linked to social
justice, political sovereignty and economic indepen-
dence of the Third World, and international détente
and cooperation.
• Many of these problems should be addressed by over-
coming the ideological differences that divide indivi-
duals within their societies or the united States within
international community.
Us, the Third World
Finally, I wish to establish some considerations for our

Third World countries:
• We must protect our natural resources with tooth and
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nail from the voracity of international monopolies that

seek them to feed an absurd kind of development and
industrialization in the high-tech centers where market
economy rules. A great scale increase in Third World
food production cannot be generated without a parallel
development of the corresponding industries. There-
fore, every gram of raw material that is grabbed from
Third World countries today is equal to thousands of
kilos of food that will not be produced tomorrow.
• It is pointless to avoid our natural resources exodus if
we are clung to development methods praised by those
monopolies, which represent the denial of rational use
of those resources.
• As a defense of their interests, countries must tend to
regional integrations and actions in solidarity.
• It cannot be forgotten that the basic problem of the
majority of Third World countries is the absence of a
true social justice and the popular participation in the
running of their destinies. That is the only way to be
in a position to face the distressingly difficult decades
ahead.
Humanity must put itself in readiness for battle to defend
itself from itself.
In this enormous undertaking no one can remain idle.
That is why I call all peoples and governments of the world
to act in solidarity.
- 151 -
Illustration by Javier Armentano
Argentine model for the national project
“Above any disagreement, the destiny of our

Homeland belongs to all of us equally, and it
contains each of our destinies.”
(1974)
FOREWORD Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez9
A model for the country
Argentine Model was the last great work of Juan Domingo Perón,
an event that happened only two months before his death, in
his presentation before Congress on May 1st, 1974. In those
words, one can read his ways of thinking Argentina, a country
which was looking for a solution to particular challenges in a
tumultuous national, continental and international context.
There he explains some notions about the third position, but he
also projects into the geopolitical field the idea that no person
realizes themselves if their community is not realized. That is
to say, no country can realize itself if its continent doesn’t. He
refers to the key role of the youth, workers, entrepreneurs, in-
tellectuals and women. In this way, as constitutional president
of Argentina, he introduced the concept of what would later
become known as Argentine Model for the National Project.
That model, according to his own vision, should be the inter-
pretation of national conscience finding its “definitive course”.
Nonetheless, that expression does not refer to a conclusive
precept but rather to the update of contents which support the
thought and action that should be carried out to consolidate
national unity and the future projection, in order to face the
problems of that time. Many of those principles, which may
be observed in the speeches that precede the presentation
of the Model and are included in this publication, were taken
up by Perón as a way of finding a solution to the challenges of
our country in a national, continental and international context
that dramatically changed.
Amongst them, it is well-worth pointing out that the log-
9 National legislator by Buenos Aires province (Frente de Todos), first vice president
of Justicialist Party.
- 155 -
A model for the country - Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez
ic of third position became once again fully valid as a way of

organization and relation with the international community,
as well as the concept of organized community as framework
to the consolidation of the national project. The prevailing
context was one of profound economic transformations, of
withdrawal of the Welfare State. And also of the transition
from an industrialist model towards deregulation, hegemony
of financial capitalization, regressive redistribution of income
and interference of big powers and multinational conglomer-
ates on the control of resources from Third World countries. In
this context, Perón warned that it was impossible to conceive a
harmonic world integration upon the basis of an indiscriminate
leveling which would depersonalize peoples and dispose of
their historical truth. Therefore, it was essential to strengthen
national culture as the only path to consolidate the national
being and preserving its unity in the coming stages.
Beyond the relevant issues of those years, the third position
is an alternative and future philosophical conception of its own.
It is related to the aspiration of a project to recover nationality,
which does not respond to an ideological system unconnected
to local features. The third position, defined in three levels –
economic, social and political–, pointed at the development
of the individual inseparably connected to their role in the
community. That harmony, as it was presented, would bring
with it the attainment of general well-being. Therefore, those
levels were interrelated from that purpose.
Regarding the economic part, it sought an equilibrium be-
tween the forces of capital and work to achieve a regime of
social economy, establishing a correspondence between indi-
vidual property and responsibility of the community. Regarding
the political part, it tended to cooperation of nations in equality,
taking as a starting point the auto determination of peoples and
sovereignty. Lastly, regarding the social part, it aspired to an
order which would achieve a fair distribution of wealth. Social
justice became, in this way, a balance between individualism
and collectivism. Private property fulfilled a social function,
- 156 -
responding to general well-being and the development of the

community as the only way of achieving full individual devel-
opment.
In this way, justicialism as third position is not presented
as an intermediate or eclectic position, but rather as a new
philosophical conception. Third position movement presented
by Peronism is summarized in what constitutes its three fun-
damental flags: social justice, economic independence and
political sovereignty. Structuring the social order upon these
core ideas would result in a State which intervenes directly
in the control of its territory, in the establishment of a social
economy which allows the equilibrium between forces of capital
and work, and in the fair redistribution of material and spiritual
goods produced by the entire community.
Hence, the Model was established as a horizon when dis-
cussing third position movements as an alternative way to the
imperialisms of that time. Or, expressed differently, as geo-
politics of liberation. Resuming some of his interventions in
the conference of 11th November 1953, and in others such
as the message to the IV Summit Conference of Non-Aligned
Movement in 1973, third position must be translated into action.
Firstly, in the consolidation of continentalism and Latin
American integration for the construction of an important,
non-circumstantial and lasting unity which would allow the
defense of our sovereignty and our resources. This, which Perón
already discerned in 1953, must become the core idea in the
organization of the national project. The lack of population
and the important reserve of food and raw material, although
they can be an extraordinary advantage for the future, can
also represent our biggest danger and threat regarding the
overpopulated and over industrialized countries. The control
of our resources and the environmental preservation from an
agenda which contemplates ecological problems is essential in
this process of national reconstruction. As it can be observed
in his environmental message of 1972, green revolution should
be contemplated as an essential key topic of these debates.
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A model for the country - Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez
Secondly, and closely related to the necessity of reaching

a development of its own and Latin American integration in
order to prevent that we find ourselves subjected to any impe-
rialism, it is presented as a key issue that must be worked on
to make our countries an organized community. That is to say,
the construction of a community conscience where individual
realization is only possible if it derives from social and collec-
tive realization. Building a Latin America within the concept of
organized community, as Perón suggests when introducing the
Model, is going back to the idea that no one can self-realize
in a country that does not realize itself. At continental level,
no country can ever self-realize in a continent that does not
realize itself. That is what guarantees, lastly, the future of the
community.
Liberation, as a common task of the peoples, was hence
closely related to these considerations. On the grounds of the
Model, this objective must be translated into the configuration
of a nation capable of sovereign decision. And additionally,
into an economic system which produces according to the
necessities of the people and the nation, taking into consid-
eration the needs of our Latin American brothers. Moreover,
it had to do with developing a profound cultural nationalism
and preserving our identity and our self-identification while a
scientific-technological basis of our won was being created.
Lastly, it is definitely necessary to preserve the ecology and
protect our natural resources.
In this way, the Model was presented as an update of Perón’s
strategic thought in view of a new world scenario. His political,
economic, social, cultural and environmental objectives were
projected in virtue of an idea of nation open to universality, yet
aware of its own identity.
But the Model also comprised the necessity of establishing
it outside party factions so that it could become a project that
includes the entire Argentine society. In order to achieve this,
it was essential to generate the conditions of an open dialog,
and the agreement amongst all social, political, economic and
- 158 -
cultural sectors. In the undertaking of this task, the youth and

women, as vital forces of the society, were destined, without
political distinctions, to have a central role, together with work-
ers, entrepreneurs and intellectuals.
And the Armed Forces as well, as part of and responding to
the objectives of the nation and the true demands of national
defense, must become a key actor in the support of this trans-
formation. In other words, their participation is not reduced to
the specifically military aspect, but rather they should take part
in the implementation of the process of national liberation, of
defense against neocolonialism and in support of the integral
social development of the country as a whole. Consequently,
and considering the Armed Forces as part of the people and
integrated to its destiny, Perón understood that their leading
role in the national defense transcended what is strictly mil-
itary and that it should be linked to the efforts of the State
and of different social sectors to achieve and consolidate the
harmonic development of the republic, regional integration
and strategic preservation of resources.
Argentine Model was Perón’s last great work. There is a sys-
tematization of his ways of thinking Argentina and the objec-
tives which should mark its future. Yet it also constituted an
invitation to every citizen to debate, imagine and plan our own
ways of conceiving ourselves as a political, social and cultural
community.
That adventure of reflecting, and thinking ourselves as a
space where popular interests and the participation of the
diversity of forces which compose our Nation converge, must
continue constituting the first step towards the construction
of a sovereign, plural and sustainable project. The possibility
of dialog and acceptance of the differences when estimating
solutions should enrich the path instead of opening cracks in
it. Because, as Perón himself would say, “above any disagree-
ment, the destiny of our Homeland belongs to all of us equally,
and it contains each of our destinies.”
- 159 -
6
Argentine model for the national project.
Speech given at the opening of regular sessions
of the National Congress
May 1, 1974
Senators and legislators,

Before reading the message from the Executive Power, I
wish to express on behalf of it the most profound gratitude
towards the legislators, who have enabled the passing of
absolutely indispensable laws. And I also desire to honor
the opposing senators and legislators, whose highly patrio-
tic attitude has not been an opposition but a permanent
collaboration, highly appreciated by the Executive Power.
On such a solemn occasion as this, before a Congress
gathered for the same reason as the present one, exactly
twenty years ago, I said to the Argentine people, by addres-
sing its representatives, “Never have I seen myself as any-
thing more than a man that is too humble at the service
of a cause that is always too big for him. And I would have
never accepted my destiny if it had not been for the cordial
support of our people.”
The configuration of our doctrine, which can be accepted
by every Argentine because it has the nature of a universal
solution — and it can even be applied as a human solution to
the majority of the world problems as a political, economic,
social and philosophical third position— constituted the
first stage of what could be named “depersonalization” of
the purposes that the revolution embodied in me. Perhaps
because I have long felt the vibration of the total revolution
of the people and I was decided to, as I told the Argentine
workers on December 2nd, 1943, “burn myself in an epic
and sacred flame to illuminate the path to victory.”
The doctrine was first adopted by workers. “I chose them
to plant the seed on them.” I have just expressed, “They
were my men!” “I chose the humble. Already then I have
- 160 -
reached the conclusion that the humble can only be saved

by the humble.”
I remember that, when I said goodbye to the Secretary
of Labour and Social Security on October 10th, 1945, I de-
livered all my ideals to them by telling them more or less
this exact words, “One cannot win with violence: one wins
with intelligence and organization”; “the achieved conquests
will be immovable and will run their course;” “we need to
continue structuring our organizations and make them so
powerful that they will be unconquerable in the future;”
“the future will be ours.”
Old are these words, yet they are still fully valid. They
return today to this high stand in order to set the course for
our irreversible revolutionary process and for a national call
to greatness, which cannot be twisted or distorted.
We live tumultuous and exciting times. What used to be
a mere hypothesis and, generally, a rejected or debatable
theory, it is today a universal reality that determines the
course of history.
The Third World’s masses have stood up, and so-far-for-
gotten nations and peoples have come to the fore. The time
of localisms gives its place to the need for our continentali-
zation and for our movement towards planetary unity.
Happily, this time we live in, when we play an unavoidable
leading role, finds us Argentines united, as we used to be in
the most productive epochs of our history.
It is a true miracle that we can converse and disagree with
each other, think differently and accept diverse solutions
as valid. We have reached the conclusion that, above any
disagreement, the destiny of our Homeland belongs to all
of us equally, and it contains each of our destinies.
Our Argentina is pacified, although we are not totally in
peace yet.
We have inherited from the past a large number of con-
flicts and confrontations.
There was and there still is blood amongst us. We acknow-
- 161 -
SPEECH May 1, 1974.
ledge this immediate inheritance which I have just referred

to, and we conclude it is negative. But we cannot ignore that
the world suffers from violence, not as a mere episode but
as a phenomenon that characterizes this entire epoch. It
characterizes — I would say— every epoch of revolutionary
change and readjustment, in which a historic period con-
cludes to prepare the way for another one.
We have embarked on the National Reconstruction.
Among its most important aims there is the reconstruc-
tion of our peace. We will succeed. Nothing is unreachable
with our immense possibilities and this marvellous people
to which we proudly belong.
We do not ignore that violence also comes from outside
our borders, through a calculated sabotage of our irrevoca-
ble decision to free ourselves from any form of colonialism.
Agents of disorder are the ones that pretend to impede
the consolidation of an order imposed by the peaceful revo-
lution advocated and accepted by the majority of Argentine
people.
Agents of chaos are the ones that uselessly try to encou-
rage violence as an alternative to our irrevocable purpose
of peacefully achieving our own development, and Latin
American integration. These are our only aims to avoid
2000 finding us subjected to imperialism.
We will also overcome this violence, no matter its origin.
We will overcome subversion. We will isolate the violent and
the maladjusted. We will combat them with our strength
and will defeat them within the Constitution and the Law.
No victory is valid in this front unless it is also a political
one. And we will succeed. Not only do we have a doctrine
and a faith, but also a decision that nothing and no one will
make it change.
We also have the reason and the means to make it succe-
ed. We will succeed, but not in the limited field of a material
victory against subversion and its agents, but rather in the
consolidation of fundamental processes that lead us towards
- 162 -
the National and Social Liberation of the Argentine People,

which we consider a fundamental chapter in the national
and social liberation of the peoples in this continent.
Forces of order — but of the new order, the revolutionary
order, the forces of the profound change— will prevail over
forces of disorder, which include indeed the old ones of the
exploitation of nations by imperialism, and the exploitation
of men by imperialism, and the exploitation of men by those
who are their brothers and should behave as such.
All of this —and we all acknowledge it— is under way.
Each day we are closer to the outlined aims.
Thus, the time in which there is nothing better for an
Argentine than another Argentine has begun. And this is
enough to make a revolution as important as to thank God
for letting us live to enjoy it.
We are finishing improvisation; not only the country de-
mands it but the world does not admit any other alternative.
It is clear that world society is oriented towards a uni-
versalism that, a few decades from now, can lead us to inte-
grated forms, both in the economic and the political order.
Man’s social integration will be a parallel process, whi-
ch will need a firm and effective union from all workers of
the world, due to their condition as workers and what they
represent in peoples’ lives.
Economic integration will be able to succeed when impe-
rialisms acknowledge that they have entered a new phase
of their historic actions, and that they will have a better
impact on the world and on themselves inasmuch as they
contribute to conceiving and operating world society as a
system, whose only aim would be achieving the total deve-
lopment of man inside that world society.
Political integration will provide the safety margin nee-
ded to fulfil social, economic, scientific, technological and
environmental aims, in the service of world society.
The itinerary is inexorable and we have to prepare our-
selves to follow it. And though it may sound contradictory,
- 163 -
SPEECH May 1, 1974.
such an event demands that we develop a profound cul-

tural nationalism as the only means to fortify the national
being, to preserve it with its own individuality before the
forthcoming stages.
The world as a whole will not be able to constitute a sys-
tem without integrating the countries at the same time
through parallel processes. Whilst this universalist process
develops, there are only two alternatives for our countries:
neocolonialism or liberation.
The persistence in building ideological border walls only
delays the process and increases the cost of constructing
the world society.
To build world society, the continentalism phase is a
necessary transition. Countries should progressively unite
on the basis of geographic proximity and without local and
small imperialisms. That is Argentine conception for Latin
America: just, open, generous, and above all, sincere.
At a national level, no one can develop in a country that
does not develop. In the same way, at a continental level,
no country can ever develop in a continent that does not
develop.
We want to work together to build Latin America under
the concept of organized community. Their triumph will be
ours. We should contribute to the process with all the vision,
perseverance and tenacity needed.
We just wish to walk at the speed of the fastest. And consi-
dering that not everyone thinks in the same way, we should
be respectful of their decisions and resolutely join those
who desire to keep up with our pace.
Latin America belongs to Latin Americans. There is his-
tory behind us.
Future history would not forgive us if we ceased to be
loyal to it.
Concurrently, we will join the action of Third World cou-
ntries, with whom we already share the idea.
Our common task is liberation. LIBERATION has many
- 164 -
meanings:
• POLITICALLY, configuring a substantial nation with
enough capacity to make national decisions, and not a
nation in appearance that maintains the formal attri-
butes of power but not its essence.
• ECONOMICALLY, we should produce basically accor-
ding to the necessities of the people and the nation, also
taking into account the necessities of our Latin Ame-
rican brothers and the world as a whole. And, from an
economic system that currently produces according to
profit, we should harmonize both elements to preserve
resources, achieve a real distributive justice and always
keep the flame of creativity alive.
• SOCIOCULTURALLY, we wish for a community that takes
the best from the spiritual world, the world of ideas,
the world of the senses, and adds to them everything
we own, everything that is autochthonous, in order to
develop a profound cultural nationalism, as I previously
mentioned. That will be the only way to preserve our
identity and self identification. Argentina, as a culture,
can only be identified in one way: ARGENTINA. And
for the continentalist phase we now live in, and the
universalist one to where we are heading, with an open
communication with every other culture, we must alwa-
ys remember that Argentina is home.
• Regarding SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, they are the
core of the liberation problem. Without a sufficient
scientific and technological basis of our own, libera-
tion is also impossible. The liberation of the developing
world demands that this knowledge should be freely
internationalized with no cost at all. We should fight
for this and we need to remember the essence: every
knowledge comes from God.
• The fight for liberation is, to a great extent, a fight for
RESOURCES AND ECOLOGICAL PRESERVATION, and we
participate in that fight. The peoples of the Third World
- 165 -
SPEECH May 1, 1974.
have the great sources of raw materials, particularly the

exhaustible ones. The time when valuable resources
could be violently stolen, with the excuse of political
struggle between ideologies or countries, has passed.
We need to work in order to make the Third World an
organized community as well. This is the time of the peo-
ples and we believe that, in this time, the union of humanity
must be conquered.
Finally, liberation demands a correct INSTITUTIONAL
BASIS, both at a global level and in each country individually.
Institutional organization will be established once it is
clarified: what it is desired, how that will be achieved, and
who will be responsible for each matter.
We have been building a peaceful revolution in the Cou-
ntry to organize the community and prepare it in perfect
conditions to face the future.
Peaceful revolution means, to us, disarming not only
hands but also spirits, and substituting the aggression for
the idea, as an instrument for political struggle.
We have been consistent in this principle. Therefore,
we gathered all the main leaders of POLITICAL PARTIES
that do not integrate the Justicialist Liberation Front, in a
spontaneous and open dialogue with the Ministers of the
National Executive Power, and we will do so hereafter.
ARGENTINE YOUTH —meant to play an active role in the
concrete leading of the future— was invited to organize itself.
We are helping them do so on the basis of the discussion of
ideas, and started by asking each juvenile group to define
and identify their objectives for the Country as a whole.
This is the beginning. The end is the union of the Argen-
tine youth without distinguishing political parties, and the
way is mutual respect and fight, ardorous indeed, but for
the idea.
WORKERS, backbone of this process, are organizing
themselves in order that their participation largely sur-
passes discussions about salary and work conditions.
- 166 -
The country needs workers, as a social group, to define

which society they aspire to, just as all the other political
and social groups.
That demands intense training and also requires that
the idea become the raw material which surpasses all the
other fighting instruments.
BUSINESSMEN have organized themselves over the basis
that made their participation possible through dialogue
and commitment. Hereafter, the Government should define
politically, activity per activity, and make the businessman
commit to a common task so that their creative capacity is
fully integrated to the Country’s interest.
In order to identify the role of INTELLECTUALS, it is es-
sential to remember that the Country needs a reference
model that contains, at least, the attributes of the society it
aspires to, the means to achieve them, and a social distri-
bution of responsibilities to do so.
This process of national elaboration must be achieved
by the simultaneous convergence of three basis: what in-
tellectuals formulate, what the Country wants and what it
is possible to do.
They should organize themselves to do so. The Argenti-
ne intellectual must participate in the process, no matter
which country he is at.
The ARMED FORCES are working on the concept of total
war and, as a consequence, of total defense. The true na-
tional task is liberation, and our Armed Forces have totally
assumed it. Defense against neocolonialism is done in this
way, and the commitment of the Forces is towards the in-
tegrated social development of the Country as a whole, in
a national, social and Christian way.
There is a crucial coincidence between the conception of
the CHURCH, our world vision and our statement of social
justice, as we share the same ethics, the same moral and the
same holy desire for peace and love amongst men.
Regarding the WOMAN, we are profoundly satisfied, as
- 167 -
SPEECH May 1, 1974.
representatives and as men, with their evolution within our

society. More than twenty five years have gone by since the
recognition of the female right to vote, which ended women
political subordination. From then onwards, our women
have proved they can work, choose and fight like men and
preserve, at the same time, the feminine attributes of exem-
plary wives and mothers, which they use to impregnate our
lives with affection.
These conceptions, which have been building our pre-
sent action and constitute our great program for the future,
shape the basic content of the ARGENTINE MODEL that we
will soon present for the Country’s consideration.
Our Argentina necessitates a NATIONAL PROJECT which

belongs to the whole country. I am convinced that, if we all
started doing this work and then we compared our thoughts,
we would find a great instance of national coincidence.
Other countries which have elaborated a national style
had one of these two elements on their side: or centuries to
think about themselves, or the catalyst of external attacks.
We do not possess any of them. Thus, the incitement to
write our own MODEL should come simply from our raising
awareness.
As President of Argentine people, I will propose a MODEL
for the country to consider —humble work, the result of three
decades’ experience in thoughts and action. If that inspires
proposals which motivate coincidence, its mission will be
more than accomplished.
The ARGENTINE MODEL requires the nature of democra-
cy, which we aspire to, by conceiving our Argentina as a full
democracy of social justice. In consequence, the Government
is conceived in its representative, republican, federal and
social form. Social because of its way of being, its objectives
and the manner in which it functions.
Having defined the nature of the democracy which we
aspire to, there is only one way to achieve it: governing with
- 168 -
PLANIFICATION.
We should also propose the country a reform of the NA-
TIONAL CONSTITUTION. To do so, we are already addressing
two aspects: on one side, we collect the Country’s opinions,
and on the other one, we identify the solicitations of the
ARGENTINE MODEL.
Finally, I wish to refer to PARTICIPATION within our full
democracy of social justice. The citizen as such expresses
himself through political parties, whose efficient functioning
has given this Congress the capacity to make history. But
the man also expresses himself through his condition as a
worker, an intellectual, a businessman, a military person, a
priest, etc. As such, he has to participate in a different place:
the NATIONAL PROJECT COUNCIL, which we will create
and whose main task will be to focus on the great work the
whole Country is undertaking.
No member of this COUNCIL should be an emissary whi-
ch supports the position of the Executive Power or any other
authority, apart from that of the social group he represents.
We desire, additionally, to materialize our thoughts about
the way in which the conceptions of each social, and also
political, group are shaped. We consider that the criteria
formalized on basis, platforms and other written texts which
express the thought of political parties and social groups
are their version of the NATIONAL PROJECT.
We must clarify our discrepancies and, in order to do it,
we must not transport our own confusion to institutionalized
social dialogue. We must first clean our ideas from within
so that we could then build social dialogue.
These are, legislators, the main reflections that, as Presi-
dent of all Argentines, I have felt it my duty today to present
for your highest consideration.
- 169 -
NOTES Sergio A. Rossi10
As an epilogue
Little can be added about these speeches of Juan Perón. His

words are still valid, speaking clearly to the present and the
future; and the notes which present each speech link them
together in the course of history and situate them in the in-
tention of the time.
It is well-worth pointing out in this book the careful selection
of texts and the fact they are presented reunited and translat-
ed into various languages. Those words were directed to the
Argentine people indeed, yet they were conceived as carriers
of a message that was proposed to the peoples of the world.
The task of the translator is always difficult, since they
should rewrite the text to transmit accurately the essence of
the content, whilst transplanting the forms -the complex forms
of the language- into a parallel context of rules and values, at
the same time similar and different.
Perón helps the translator as far as essence is concerned
since his concepts are clear and his prose is logic and precise,
yet his way of speaking presents challenges, as it is filled with
assumptions, sayings and ideas of the dialect of Río de la Plata.
To the Argentine audience, he gains clarity and closeness, since
he gathers forms of gaucho poetry and popular tradition. He
resorts to the Spanish collection of proverbs, relies on regional
myths and tales, is simple without being vulgar, and blends all
that with references to Greco-Roman classics and milestones
of universal history.
As a fatherly Martín Fierro with gestures of Viejo Vizcacha11,
10 Secretary of strategy and military affairs of the Argentine Ministry of Defense.

11 Martín Fierro, by José Hernández, is the national Argentine poem. The characters of
Fierro and Vizcacha are an antithetical pair, between a moral archetype and an immoral
- 170 -
he makes Lycurgus interpellate today’s citizen and tell them

that the worst crime one can commit is, in the fight for the
definition of the destinies of the community, not being in any
of the two sides, or being in both of them. He recalls Acropolis
to point out that everything must be done in the proper way
and harmoniously. And he mocks many elevated men with the
example of the mule of the best general of the time, that who
accompanied the Marshal of Saxony in every battle without
ever learning anything about strategies.
Contrary to what his enemies pretended, there is in Perón an
absolute logical coherence, in his conception and in his mes-
sage, which is reflected on his texts throughout four decades,
three of which had him as the main character of Argentine
politics. That coherence and continuity appear on the language
style, from his texts about Patagonian toponymy of Araucarian
etymology and his notes on military history, to the magnificent
speeches on the eve of his death.
Those texts and those speeches are part of a gigantic se-
mantic operation, which was displayed in diverse formats of
communication, re signification and appropriation of meanings;
a semantic dimension of a huge mobilization of national spirit,
which was simultaneously rupture and continuity. Rupture
with decades of colonial subjugation, cultural submission and
social inequality; continuity with the best national tradition
and with a vocation of American union. We can distinguish in
Perón similarities and influences of Latin American leaders and
thinkers which preceded him, such as Haya de la Torre and
Cárdenas, as well as we can observe his influence on others
who followed him, like Torrijos or Chávez.
In the words which are gathered in this book, he presents
the necessity of possessing a national doctrine, integrating
with fraternal peoples of the subcontinent and redefining the
environmental conscience of humanity. Resuming the idea of
nation in arms, national cohesion becomes a key piece which
and opportunistic trickster.
- 171 -
Notes as an epilogue - Sergio A. Rossi
must be forged with social justice and popular dignity. Full in-
tegration of the woman to political life was materialized whilst
Argentine multitudes, until then subjected and marginalized,
for the first time obtained the satisfaction of their material and
spiritual needs.
Perón affirms that the individual can only self-realize in a
community which realizes itself, that modernity and the de-
velopment of societies should not insectify man nor alienate
him; that the innumerable mass of individuals should be im-
bued with national doctrine to become an organized people
and be able to forge their destiny. State planning is essential
to lead the mobilization of national spirit, put it into act and
promote its efficiency. Enunciating the doctrine and explicitly
stating the plan are tools to allow participation and give it a
democratizing sense.
At the end of the decade of 1960, fears and hidden dangers
accumulated in world conscience, which started noticing na-
ture and life itself on the planet were being threatened. Atomic
terror, overpopulation, uncontrolled urbanization, exhaustion
of natural resources, energetic crisis, air and water pollution,
disappearance of rain forests and woods, soil erosion, extinction
of species grow in that perception. The concept of ecosystem
spreads, and the first picture of the Earth from the Moon shows
the fragility of our celestial globe. Perón appears as a leader
of astonishing sensitivity towards the environmental issue. He
anticipates it like no one else and takes this issue from the polit-
ical perspective, and integrates it in a conception which avoids
both the individual, anarchical and disseminated predation of
capitalism and the scientificist planning of State collectivism.
He does so without falling into a naive environmentalism, which
would lead to a block of the development of the peoples, or to
a delay and reserve of regions for the multinational rapacity
and imperialist ambition. Humanity is facing a challenge, and if
in the Paleolithic era it adapted to the medium and in the Neo-
lithic era it faced the challenge of changing it, now it considers
the necessity of a new equilibrium which could restructure the
- 172 -
pact between humanity and nature, control that Promethean

impulse and make science look for a development in harmony
with the environment.
Strengthening popular will and mobilizing national spirit
imposes the demand of integrating individual wills into a great
collective will, which could constantly support the repairing
action. The permanent call to national unity becomes an im-
perative, many times disturbed by enemy hostility and sectoral
misunderstanding. Correcting mistakes, stopping trench fights
and restarting the cycle becomes necessary in order to rebuild
the body of the Nation. Doctrine, planning and leadership come
together in that task, and in that reference and call the own
body of Perón, as the one who enunciates the message and
articulates politics, seeks to call with broad-mindedness and
to include some contradictions, blending them and projecting
them into the future. Just as the Argentine country is a result
of sedimentation, hybridization and fusion, Peronist movement
should be capable of reconciling differences and integrating
them.
Chemistry teaches us to distinguish between mixtures and
solutions. Identical elements juxtapose in mixtures, without
interacting with each other or combining; whereas in solutions
they combine and originate a new compound. Unlike other
countries, here in ours Native Indians, Spaniards, creoles and
late immigrants of XIX Century blend together into a new iden-
tity. In the same way, Peronism collects political and ideological
traditions and integrates them to create the national doctrine.
Peronism is solution and not problem. It is a partial solution,
constantly updated, which requires successive and growing
convergences to be realized.
It is a universalist nationalism. It is not a traditionalist mil-
lennialism which resist changes, getting stuck in the past, but
rather a vocation of modernity situated in the periphery, which
seeks to become universal without arrogance, feeling that it
could contribute with a redeeming ideology, and refusing to
be a mere spectator of an asymmetric globalization, where
- 173 -
Notes as an epilogue - Sergio A. Rossi
few globalize by pushing subordinated multitudes which, as

they are passively globalized, suffer even an identity dilution.
In a time when philosophies of disenchantment are spread
on purpose, individualist egoism is encouraged and the logic of
fragment is promoted, Perón reminds us that we can and we
should dream. And to make it we should dream big, recovering
the attitude of first humanity, barefoot and walking with firm
steps upon the grave and suffering soil, and looking at the stars.
- 174 -
This set of speeches by Juan Domingo Perón upon
national defense and sovereignty, translated by Uni-
versity of National Defense into various languages,
reflects the validity of his thought. As a key leader
to understand Argentine history, his ideas outlived
him due to their ability to orientate political action
and explain an epoch. Perón reminds us that natio-
nal defense must be thought from a diagnosis of the
international context, and that necessarily leads to re
signifying it in regional terms. Additionally, the main
challenge the Armed Forces face is preparing them-
selves to face extra regional States. Everything else is
a distraction which leaves the country and the region
dangerously defenseless. Current challenges are not
so different from those which Perón identified almost
70 years ago.
In these texts, which went through four decades of
Argentine history, other countries, other cultures, we
can find clues to understand the present and some
invariants to build a common future for humanity.

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Perón

and National Defense

1. Defensa. I. Decándido, Claudia, comp. II. Título.

Idea and project: Claudia Decándido

Impreso en Multigraphic Servicios Gráficos

Hecho el depósito que indica la ley 11.723

A man ahead of his time

The strategic thought of General Perón

The persistence of a thought

Perón and National Defense

An active State which promotes the

Perón and philosophy

Regional defense of the resources

Perón’s message to the peoples and

A model for the country

A man ahead of his time

1 Argentine minister of Defense . He served as minister of foreign affairs (2003-2010),

task of National Defense must be comprehended as a means

of debate and of arguments about the models of country dis-

and development, science and technology, natural resources,

Homeland does not consist of the limited time of our

Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine politician who served

2 Argentine minister of Defense of the Nation (2013-2015, 2019-2021).

262 in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the current head-

written by Jorge Battaglino, Ernesto López, Norma López, Juan

government whose aim was to contribute to the economic and

The publishing house of University of National Defense (UNDEF)

3 President of University of National Defense.

public universities. To that effect, he promoted the creation of

in 1944, although with a greater emphasis on the international

to think defense regionally.

against imperialisms, that is to say, that military people are in

“National defense preparation is hard work,

The speech delivered by Juan Domingo Perón on June 10th,

4 Sociologist who specializes in civil–military relations, and university professor. He

Class (the 38th one), which totaled 121 second lieutenant

great part of his childhood in Patagonia. At the beginning of his

scribed –in opposition– as “patriotic” by various journalists

Two dimensions to address the issue

The main object of the speech is obviously the national

this way: “I have witnessed in Europe the most extraordinary

His approach to the dimension about the international con-

Perón states practically from the beginning that national

1883, to set a key starting point: strictly speaking, it is only the

mobilization, supplying, transportation, communication and

not just any industry but a heavy one”, to which he believes

The ending of the war conflict between United States and

partly, the ways and methods of war; and to a large extent,

I deeply appreciate the kind invitation extended to me

vinces of Río de la Plata”:

transport and communication routes, etc., and the Armed

definitely discarded from every lexicon.

they, as a whole, defend what each of them loves and is in-

important role next to the terrible fire and explosive bombs,

Due to the briefness imposed to me by this conference,

with England that would permit it to assemble a tonnage for

with our neighbors, has as an argument to deploy, besides

tantly study in preparation during peacetime.

number of heads and military officers, specialized studies,

their infighting escalate, taking their blindness to the extre-

and legislators do it by means of their government work;

in the previous and in the current conflict in which, by me-

7 Argentine minister of Defense (2005-2010) and of Security (2013-2015) , ambassador