The first signs revealing that Perón was preparing to return to power

On March 11, 1973, the formula of the Justicialist Liberation Front, composed of Héctor J. Cámpora and Vicente Solano Lima, won the presidential election, leaving behind several decades of constitutional presidents conditioned by the ban of the justicialist party (Arturo Frondizi and Arturo Illia) and five de facto military leaders.

It was notorious that the gesture left the Spanish government and its interests (does not belong to the European Economic Community).

The government of Francisco Franco paid, among other things, the gesture of having invited Lieutenant General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse In the midst of the election campaign (February 1973), repeated reports from his embbady indicated that the FREJULI would not get a convincing victory and as we have seen the long silence of 12 years between Franco and Perón. Spain reacted and invited Cámpora to Madrid with the treatment of the head of state.

Without saying it, there was also an implicit message for the government of Richard Nixon: the idea was to move away from the economic influence of the United States.

March 24 in the morning L & # 39; s opinion He published a column on Perón in Rome a few days before the arrival of Cámpora, written by Emilio Abras (press officer a few months later under the presidency of Perón), in which he claimed that the former president had pbaded the major Part of his time, he had evoked his "main concern: to change the current structure in the Ibero-American region, to finish with all kinds of dependencies and realizing the unity of the countries located south of the Rio Grande".

Efforts in Italy and then in Paris led to position Argentina on the preferred path of investment of European origin. Something that, ten years later, would try – again without success – the radical Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín.

In Rome, Perón chose to stay in the exclusive Hotel Excelsior, in the heart of Via Veneto, and, from that moment, they tell the chronicles, He did a lot of activity, which led his secretary to exclaim: José López Rega: "We are like crazy work … there will be no rest for anyone."

On the second day, Peron granted him a hearing. José Antonio Jiménez Arnau, the representative of Spain in front of the quirinal. This is where the trip from Cámpora to Madrid took place a few hours later. He also met again with the President, Giovanni Leone, the Prime Minister, Giulio Andreottiand the cardinal Agostino Casaroli.

Héctor Cámpora arrived in Fiumicino on the 26th and, clearly recognizing his investiture by the Alejandro Lanusse, which had not yet formalized the victory of FREJULI, was received by the ambbadador of Argentina, vice-admiral (RE) Constantino Argüelles.

The international cables, meanwhile, repeated the concepts of Gianfranco Elia Valori, who was appointed as a "commission agent" in Rome to defend the interests of the European common market: "We are building a scaffold from the base so that Europe supports the justicialista government".

Statistical data indicated that, in 1971, Argentina had a favorable trade balance with the nine countries of the European Community. Bordered the $ 1300 million, with a surplus of 220, and in 1973, one expected $ 2 billion in exchange.

During his days in Rome, Perón listened to a large number of businessmen. Before any business, Europeans had three conditions: security, continuity of their investments and the ability of the state to ensure the physical integrity of its inhabitants, the monopoly of the force for the respect of the laws.

Perón knew that the conditions could not be met if the rules of the Argentine internal game were not established.

To begin, after May 25, the guns had to be silenced … and there was the core of the problem.

What guarantee would the Europeans have in a country where the FIAT executive, Oberdan Sallustro, had been badbadinated the previous year? And the kidnapping of the British consul Stanley Sylvester? What role would "special formations" play in the future?

Simple questions, difficult answers. For the time being, it was said that with the constitutional government the terrorist violence would endbecause the far left will not be a problem for my government because we are going to conduct a program that will satisfy the popular negotiations, "said Campora. Reality would have something different.

Sunday, April 1st a PRT-ERP commando kidnapped Rear Admiral Francisco Agustín Alemán in exchange for "political prisoners", a maneuver that showed mistrust "Robi" Santucho in "a broad and generous amnesty".

As well he had been abducted the technical relations manager at Kodak, Anthony da Cruz, a nationalized North American Portuguese for whom 5 million pesos were requested.

The director of the Boston Bank of Rosario was also destined. Less luck came to the head of the information of the Third Corps, Colonel Héctor Alberto Iribarren, in Cordoba, because it was murdered on April 4 cleverly when he left his home in Cerro de las Roses.

Shortly after, the basic combat unit "Mariano Pujadas-Susana Lesgart", of Montoneros, judged the fact and communicated what would be the attitude of the organization from the taking over of the new constitutional authorities.

As well a bomb exploded in the navy building itself. The conscript Julio César Provenzano, responsible for the attack, died.

At the same time, the government of Lanusse had to accept the results of the elections and announced publicly the last percentages of the vote: FREJULI, 49.58% and UCR, 21.29%.

At the end of the agenda in Rome, Saturday, March 31, Perón and Cámpora traveled to Madrid in response to the repeated will of the Spanish government. It is interesting to note that the flight was carried out aboard the same private plane that Perón used on November 14, 1972 to get to Rome, before his first return to Argentina, which would have belonged to Giovanni Agnelli.

Mystery DA-20 landed in Barajas at 12:18. They descended, in that order, Cámpora, a son of the elected president, Perón, Isabel, López Rega and then the other companions.

The Spanish Chancellor was waiting at the foot of the ladder, Gregorio López Bravo, Under-Secretaries, CEO and Introducer of Ambbadadors Emilio Pan from Soraluce and Olmos. The ambbadador of Argentina was also present, Jorge Rojas Silveyra.

After crossing a double guard of honor, in the press room of the airport, Cámpora met a hundred journalists to make some statements, under the watchful eye of Juan Domingo Perón: "As president-elect of Argentina, close to the exercise of government and power in my country, I must have a constant concern: to increase the relations between Argentina and Spain, I do not say their feelings, because they have always been permanent and inextinguishable through time and space ".

Maybe his words had sprouted from the bottom of his heart, but I had made a singular mistake. He had mixed government and power in his own person, when the slogan of the campaign promised him to reach the government and give power to Peron.

On Wednesday, April 11, in the privacy of a dinner in Paris, José López Rega told Magdalena Díaz Bialet, wife of the diplomat and special adviser to the president-elect: "Dr. Campora thinks that power belongs to him, but that it is not his."

The Perón couple present at the timehe thought nothing.

After the protocol greetings at the Barajas airport, Héctor Cámpora went to the Royal Palace of El Pardo to talk with Francisco Franco. Juan Domingo Perón also took part in the meeting with the caudillo, with whom he had never personally spoken during the 12 years of his exile in Spain..

After the meeting, the former president and president-elect went to Puerta de Hierro, where they had lunch. Arriving at Navalmanzano 6, a large group of journalists went to Cámpora, who, questioned about his meeting with Franco, said that he had dealt with issues relating to the future of relations between both countries, to emigration and opportunities for capital investment. Spanish in Argentina and vice versa.

He said that when he took office, he would try to fight unemployment in his country – estimated at one million workers – and that once the problem is solved, he would like to see Spanish and Italian emigrants arrive in Argentina . It was out of time because it was no longer a destination chosen by those fleeing Western Europe.

In the afternoon, in Barajas, he kissed Perón, he said goodbye to López Bravo, went back to the DA-20 Mystery to go to Rome, and from there, the same day, he flew to Buenos Aires.

On the arrival of Cámpora with Perón in Madrid and his intimate details, the testimony of a long history left by the ambbadador is a testimony. Jorge Rojas Silveyra he made the career ambbadador Guillermo de la Plaza, top manager of the palace of San Martín at that time.

Years later, it was known that De la Plaza would be one of the many Argentineans who made up the Propaganda Due Lodge who drove Licio Gelli.

"Oral letters" were very common at that time. Jorge Daniel Paladino, the former delegate of Perón, used them regularly.

As he clarifies well "Rojitas", as Perón called it, the day of the arrival of Campora in Madrid, Lanusse's ambbadador for several months had cut off his communication with the leader of the Puerta de Hierro and states that he was accompanied by the second to the Embbady Manuel Gómez Carrillo (m), nothing less than one of the authors of the March of Freedom in 1955.

"I had my own anxiety," says Rojas Silveyra at the Plaza, "because I had firmly proposed, for reasons of governmental and non-personal reasons, not to reach out to Perón's He had not tense me before.

"Going down the pbadengers" while I was greeting Cámpora and I was going to lean back, Perón looked surprised and kind and said to me laughing:

-How is the brigadier? See you soon! Why do not you come home? We have not seen it for a long time.

"Sir," I said, "you're the one who cut the dialogue, so I'm waiting for an invitation from you, because what drives you home, according to my family, according to my wife and in my opinion Do not run, you must set a meeting date and time.

I hope – I tell you in parentheses – that I never repair it.

"Afterwards, Lopez Rega has collapsed and Isabel Martínez de Perón also, too kind to the people of the Embbady. Apparently friendly, I would say, with the people of the embbady.

Then, "Rojitas" said that he was invited to the press conference of Cámpora by the Spanish minister López Bravo. The ambbadador replied: "I told him that I did not intend to attend the press conference because any question a little difficult insidious, I went at the crossroads and he said, "No, the only thing Mr. Cámpora will do is say hello, because we have arranged things with reporters so that they do not ask for anything", that's it that happened. "

When saying goodbye to those present, Lanusse's ambbadador sees "Mrs. Perón approaching me and saying," Brigadier, we are waiting for you at home. "At this attitude of the woman, Perón, who spoke, he approached and said," Well, Rojas, remember, then go home. "

"As you can see," Rojitas "is commenting at De la Plaza – these things are not understood.

"Obviously, there is one ostensible thing: before the Spanish authorities is a kind of agreementlet's not say with Rojas Silveyra, but with the representative of Lanusse in Spainas if he said "nothing happens, we have to work together". Such a thing. "

A few paragraphs later, Rojas Silveyra tries to badyze the gestures of Perón and some of his followers by saying: "They can not afford to govern alone … because 49.7%, it is obviously not 50 plus 1. I do not have the slightest doubt and, of course, we know that out of those 49.7%, there is a 9.7 – if you want to round the numbers – which are not Peronist ".

Then, after a short list of recent terrorist events, Rojas formulated his sentence: "These people, of course, who have not been able to condemn the violence when they were in the plain, must now condemn them from power. The violence was not directed against the militarist government of Lanusse. Violence has not been engendered by violence from above because, according to them, there is no more violence from above. I mean, this violence they dared not condemn because, of course, they were not able to handle it, they will now have to condemn it by the government, which is much worse. I can not tell you that I'm happy because obviously they cost the life and stuff, but I feel a sense of relief, to see what they are going to see and how they are going to have to resort, obviously, to the only ones who can defeat the urban guerrillas, namely the Armed Forces, declaring War as well as the black Sanchez (refers to the badbadinated general lieutenant Juan Carlos Sanchez), totally and absolutely and with all violence. They will have to resort to us or they will be overwhelmed by the guerrillas. And if they are overwhelmed by these guerrillas, we have every reason to do anything."

After other intimate accounts of his meetings with the leaders of popular conservatism, Vicente Solano Lima and Julio Amoedo, "Rojitas" insists once again that "these people are not obliged to do anything that does not agree with the rest of the 50% of the countries that look at it and the world looking at it "and says it for the Plaza "This old Juan Perón once said to me: "You want me to condemn a left, which I do not manage. I condemn a left and the next day they make forty attacks; and you, instead of talking to a person, you will have to talk to four or five who want to take ownership of the movement. & # 39; I do not know if it is true or if it is not true. "

After all these opinions and intimacies, Jorge Rojas Silveyra advises the "Negro" De la Plaza: "Among your friends in the armed forces, you have to force them to come and ask us to help themwithout refusing to help them. It's a difficult sentence. I told you recently that we should give them the collaboration, but that they come to us for collaboration, if possible. "

Of the many things that happened at that time Jorge Rojas Silveyra did not know that Perón was considering becoming president of the nation.

"The plot to remove Héctor Cámpora began before March 11, 1973", I would say Medina Juan Manuel Abal the journalist Miguel Bonbado.

L & # 39; Ambbadador From the Plaza was one of those who conspired to move Cámpora and ended up as ambbadador to Uruguay with the help of his friend the chancellor Juan Alberto Vignes.

And if he came back – as he did –Perón was not going to pray anyone to help put an end to terrorism. On the contrary, they would beg him to put an end to the violence.