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Here in the confusion of the streets where a new sense of purpose is coming to be born. Here among the anonymous mass of working, suffering, thinking, silent people. Here in the midst of exhaustion and hope, justice and mockery. Here in this shapeless mass, the driving force of a capital city, nerve center and engine of a great American country.
Here she is. The woman.
So that was the introduction to a radio program called, brilliantly, The Soldier's Revolution Will Be the Revolution of the Argentine People. Very Radio 4 title there. Great title. I tune in. And that was broadcast on Argentine radio, obviously, on the 14th of August, 1944. And the program was kind of dramatizing in
instances of poverty out in the reaches of Argentina. So it will be listing TB statistics and illiteracy and undernourishment. And the woman in this was played by Eva Duarte, who is the subject of our ongoing series, better known as Evita, and in due course to become Eva Peron. And in the course of this radio program that is broadcast, she speaks at the very end of the program. And Eva
And Ewa Duarte says, "The revolution was made for exploited workers. It was made because of the fraud of dishonest politicians and because the country was bankrupt of feeling at the verge of suicide. There was one man who could bring dignity to the notion of work, a soldier of the people who could feel the flame of social justice.
It was he who decisively helped the people's revolution. Now, the name of this man is not given. But, Dominic, I think it's fairly clear who is being alluded to. And that person is Colonel Juan Domingo Perón, the most significant political figure in Argentina in 1944. That's right. And a person with whom, by the time Eva is voicing that, she is having an affair. And
And the relationship between Ava and Peron is at the heart of this extraordinary story. It is indeed, Tom. Hello, everybody. At the point when they do that, she does that broadcast, their relationship is about eight months old. They had met at the beginning of 1944. Now, if you listened to the last episode, you will remember that she moved from the endless rural hinterland of the Pampa to Australia.
Buenos Aires to seek her fortune, to make her career in radio and in show business. And then actually she hasn't done too badly because after a lot of struggle and poverty and kind of casting couch misery, by the beginning of 1944, she is an established radio actress, isn't she, Tom? We were talking about her last time in all these soap operas. She is. And we were talking about how when she began, she was playing the part of housemaids and secretaries and so on. But by this time, she's starting to play queens. Yes.
She is indeed. So she gets cast to play the part of various significant female figures from history. So heroines of history, it's called. That's right. There's a series. And among them is Elizabeth I. Yeah. Catherine the Great. Lady Hamilton. So Nelson's lover. Wow.
Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek. So all the stars of history. But it's a sign that, you know, she's kind of made it, hasn't she? So at least in the terms of radio stars, she's become acting royalty. She has. It's an interesting one, isn't it? Because she's playing heroines of history, these strong women. And of course, she's remembered herself as a strong woman.
But as that reading that you did, the woman, a lot of our listeners, particularly if they are women, will say, oh, how disappointing that actually that program, the woman is merely the handmaiden of the man.
of Perón. And that sort of tension lies at the heart of Evita's story, that on the one hand, she is the personification of the strong woman, I suppose. But as we will see, everything for her is about Perón. Her entire political persona, as bizarre as it may sound, is based on a kind of self-abnegation, being wrapped up with this army officer who becomes the most significant politician, arguably, in Argentina's
To do the heroines of history, she actually had to get permission to do that. She had to go to see army officers. And the reason for that is that in the summer of 1943, there had been a military coup in Argentina. This is not something that had massively impinged on her, or there's no sense that she had cared about it, or that she was even particularly political.
But there has been this reasonably bloodless military coup. Argentina at this point is wealthy and successful. But is it a functioning democracy? Are coups too a penny? Is this unusual? It's politics for a bit of a mess. You can basically take that as read at every given moment of this entire series. It's politics are a bit chaotic and a bit of a mess. So there had been a radical president called Irigoyen.
in 1930 who'd been toppled. And then in the 1930s, they call it in Argentina the infamous decade. I mean, actually, by the standards of the 1930s, Argentina's really not that infamous. Yeah, not bad. Or indeed the 70s in Argentina, I guess. Exactly. But...
They had a succession of very corrupt, kind of oligarchic. There's a lot of talk about this, the oligarchy. And the oligarchy, the big conservative landowners. So they had run Argentine politics throughout the 1930s. And actually people were getting a bit sick of them by the 1940s because they say, these people just sew everything up for their own interests. They're actually total puppets. Just hanging out harrods, playing polo, all that. Yeah, British capital. And there's a group of young military officers in 1943 who had said,
enough. Argentina can do better than these sort of people in tweed suits talking about the chukka and drinking port or whatever they're doing. Yeah, we're better than this. And they pointed out, most of our economy is actually owned by British firms. All our railways are owned by the British. American companies own the whole automotive. This is wrong. Argentina should run its own companies. We're not just a province, basically, of the British empire. And so they had swept away
the existing government in 1943. And the big star of that group of officers is this guy, Juan Peron. So I know Tom, you love that film Evita. And in the film he's played by Jonathan Price, who is a very distinguished actor. He's just not Juan Peron. I like Jonathan Price's hair in the film. It looks completely artificial. And I think that that is true to Juan Peron's tonsorial style.
He's a big burly man, isn't he? You were comparing him to Dominic West. And I think that's a really good shout. A big shout out to Dominic West who listens to The Rest is History. Nice to have you with us. You should play Juan Perón if there is ever a Netflix drama about Perón. So Perón is much older than Ava. He was born in 1895. So he's almost 20 years older. In fact, he is 20 years older.
was the son of a guy who was like a tenant farmer, basically. He's born in Buenos Aires province in the middle of nowhere. His father goes off to Patagonia. Juan is sent off to school in Buenos Aires, boarding school. He's a very sporty boy. He's a big...
big person. Except Dominic. Intriguingly, he's keen on kind of individual sports, but shockingly for an Argentine, he doesn't like football. He doesn't really like team sports. Is that right? And I don't know whether there's some kind of psychological cast can be read into that. He's not a team player. Well, do you know what he loves? His fencing.
And of course, Oswald Mosley is a champion fencer. I mean, that is a film waiting to be written. The Oswald Mosley Juan Perón fencing contest. But Dominic, I think that Perón, just to stick up for him, is a much more attractive figure than Mosley. Yeah. He's kind of fun, isn't he? He's amusing. People like him in a way that Mosley is kind of more fascist leader in waiting. And Perón is not really a fascist.
Perron is not a cad in the way that Moses got, although Perron is guilty later on of some quite dubious behavior. Perron is not a kind of out-and-out bounder. So from the point when he goes into the military academy, everybody says of Perron, he's a really big man. He's a big man in the barracks. He's popular with the other guys. Like, he's more than six feet tall. As you said, Tom, he's handsome and he's kind of burly, but he's a good laugh.
He's very charming. He's easygoing. You know, he's not prickly. He's not ridiculously proud. He's not particularly aggressive. He's actually good company. He doesn't seem to take himself seriously, which again is kind of massive contrast with Mosley. And I suppose generally with kind of fascist dictators in this period. He is someone who...
can almost laugh at himself, comparing him to Eva, who never laughs at herself. I mean, that is a real point of contrast. It is. It is. So his first wife is totally unlike Eva Perón. She's a schoolteacher called Aurelia Tizon. They got married in 1929. She died of uterine cancer in 1938. And he's supposedly very upset. There is actually a story that he was at the barracks with the guys and they're just gossiping about girls.
They said, oh, you're very quiet. And he said, actually, I've only ever been with my wife. So although he's a bit of a matinee idol, I don't think he's a complete player in the sense that, you know, you might expect him to be. I mean, he never really talks about his first wife. So the only public comment he ever made on her was made in an interview he gave in 1970.
And he said that she was a very nice girl, a concert guitarist. She played very well. Unfortunately, she died young. I mean, not the most emotional testimony. It's not most effusive. No. Given they were married for almost 10 years, Tom. And as you say, she dies of uterine cancer. Yeah. And...
That is something for the listener to bear in mind. Yeah. So he's rising through the ranks of the military in the 1930s. I mean, they're not fighting anybody, obviously. So actually, they just spend their time training. And he's a history professor at the military academy. I'm just wondering about this, the fact that the Argentines' military are not fighting. Does this give a sense of perhaps that they are playing at being soldiers? You know, war is breaking out in Europe at this point.
Argentina is standing aloof from it. The emphasis on braid and medals and large peak caps and everything that becomes such a feature of the Argentine military. Do you think that in a way, just as Eva is playing at being a queen,
Peron is kind of playing at being a colonel. Maybe a tiny bit, Tom. Argentine military listeners will be very offended by this bit of the conversation. Yeah, but to not be fighting at a time when all the world is at war. I mean, it's quite something, isn't it? I think it's fair to say Juan Peron must have never fired a shot in anger.
and probably never really saw a shot fired in anger in his entire life. And that was true of a lot of Argentine officers of his generation. There is fighting in South America. So there's a war between Bolivia and Paraguay called the Chaco War, a horrible war in the 1930s. But Argentina is not involved.
They go and they tour Europe and things, and they observe other armies. But you're right, there is a slight element of the Gilbert and Sullivan, maybe, about all this. The training that the Argentine military get is very German, isn't it? It's very German. He wrote a book about the Eastern Front in the Great War, so Germans versus Russians. He wrote a book about the Russo-Japanese War. He teaches the campaigns of
the Franco-Prussian War, the campaigns of the First World War and so on. But kind of emotionally, he seems to dislike violence. He's not a man who relishes it. I think that's absolutely right. And again, that's not generally a feature of fascists, is it? No, not at all. So this question about Peron and fascism, I mean, we might as well just get into that right away, because in 1939...
He is sent as a military attache to Italy. He specializes in Alpine troops. He's going to ski troopers. That's be useful on the pamper. Yeah. Well, there are, you know, he goes off to Mendoza where there is some skiing. Yeah, fair enough. Because, of course, if they were ever to fight Chile, they would have to do it in the Andes. You were totally right when you said about Germany. The Argentine army, it was modeled on the German army. Spikes on helmets, goose stepping, all that. Spikes.
Spikes on helmets, they use German manuals, all of that kind of thing. Perron goes to Germany when he's in Europe and he sees Hitler's Germany and he says, this is absolutely brilliant. He describes it as an enormous piece of machinery functioning with marvelous perfection where not even the smallest piece was missing. His biographer, Joseph Page, wrote a great book about Perron, said of him, he clearly found nothing at all to object to in Nazi Germany or fascist Italy.
he talks about them afterwards or at the time, he says, "Oh, brilliant. Trains run on time. Everything is very ordered. Love it." He does, however, visit Spain in the aftermath of the Civil War, and he's appalled by what he sees there. So again, I think it's that when he's visiting Germany and Italy, the violence inherent in the fascist regimes there are not as obvious as they are in Spain, where entire cities are in ruins.
And so he has a kind of prickly relationship with Franco, as we will see later in this series. He does indeed. Yeah, absolutely right. So the sort of the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, their sort of ideological excesses, he's just baffled, I think, by that. And there's some evidence that once or twice the subject of Jews came up. And like a lot of people, he would sort of say, oh, there are too many Jews. Or, you know, he'd indulge in kind of mild things.
saloon bar anti-Semitism. So Franco, for example, was very anti-Semitic. Later, when he's in power, he discourages his followers from launching anti-Semitic measures. He does indeed. The person he looks up to, actually, is Mussolini. He claimed later on, he invented a story that he had shaken Mussolini's hand. Because that's not the kind of thing that most people would be
making up. But he undoubtedly thinks Mussolini is a very great man. So,
So, when Mussolini was held prisoner towards the end of the Second World War, and he's famously rescued by German paratroopers in this very sort of daring raid, Perron thought this was brilliant. And he had a toast. He was at a dinner and he said, oh, toast to the rescue of this tremendous fellow Mussolini. And what he likes about Mussolini and Mussolini's Italy, and what I think make a big impact on him, first of all, he thinks it's a kind of organic community in which capital, big business,
And Labour, the workers, are united behind the duché. Kind of corporatist. Corporatist, exactly. And isn't that wonderful? That's how society should be. Good people getting together, working in the common good. Yeah. Behind the single leader who really cares about his people. But he does also like the flags and the swagger, doesn't he? Well, that's it. At the heart of Peronism, I think, is a style rather than substance. It is. And the style is...
ritual, spectacle, rallies, flags, and a kind of madly excessive sentimentality. And actually, that kind of politics is fun. It is more fun than talking about, you know, incomes policies in those kind of darkened rooms. And the sentimentality of it and the kind of histrionic emotional pitch is obviously one that works better if you have people of both sexes as the public front of the regime. Of course it is. So... A man and a woman, perfect. What could be better than a couple doing it, Tom? So...
Is that something that might be possible for Perron, do we think? I think it is possible. He comes back to Argentina in the middle of the Second World War.
And he is the big star of this new regime that has come in in 1943. And we get sort of really good glimpses of him from American reports. So the FBI sent a report to the State Department in 1943. A big man, six feet tall, stands out in a crowd. He speaks with vivacity and energy with no care as to style or words. Sometimes he is violent, but then he calms himself and he laughs loudly. He gives the impression of a permanent sense of humor and gives the feeling he doesn't take things too seriously. And the OSS, which is an ancestor of the CIA, very similar.
Not a cultured person, but possessed of an affable personality, decision-making ability, and a capacity for violence. And actually, the OSS in 1943 said, he will one day be the president of Argentina, and he will do it with a kind of managed democracy that would give him the appearance of legality, whereas he will actually be the autocrat, the authoritarian. I think there are worse kinds of dictators to have, to be honest. There are. I mean, I don't think the rest of history is generally a fan of 20th century dictators. No. But if you had to choose one, probably he'd be the one. Do you think? Uh...
I mean, it's an invidious question. This is such a, this is the road to cancellation, Tom. Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite dictator? So I, as you know, I have a cushion with Tito's face on it.
And I also have Tito's cookbook. So I've got to put a bid in for Tito at this point. But I think they're cut from a similar cloth. The avuncular, burly, faintly Reagan-esque quality to him. And his kind of... I think dark glasses. You've got to have dark glasses. I like that in a man. Um...
And an obsession with braid. Oh, he loved his braid. Well, I mean, I suppose the other thing about him, he's not really a man of conviction, is he? Not especially. Beyond the conviction that he should be in power. And as you were saying, you know, it's all about the vibe and stuff. You get the kind of the emotional sense of what he wants. And then the details of the policy is actually kind of less relevant. He's kind of stitching together all kinds of different programs. So he had this famous aphorism, doesn't he? The only truth is reality.
And that's a very useful aphorism for a politician to have. Yeah. No, it's why later on you get left-wing Peronists and right-wing Peronists, and they are literally at the opposite end of the political spectrum.
But they're both Peronists. And what does that even mean? I mean, this is the baffling thing is Ava's biographers, Nicholas Fraser and Marisa Navarro say there was no one Peron. There were just a series of Perons. He too is playing a part like Ava is, I think it's fair to say. And he's brilliant at improvising as well. He is. So he can change his personality, his image, depending on the opportunities that emerge. And again, this will be crucial in explaining the uses that he puts his marriage to Ava to. Exactly. He's just really, really good at politics.
So after 1943, he was the number two in the war ministry, but basically the big man. And he asked for and got the Department of Labor, which is kind of an incredibly unglamorous thing to ask for. But he is smart. It's not a braid-friendly ministry, is it? No, but he knows that Argentina's trade union movement is behind those in Europe. So only a small proportion of the workforce are unionized.
And Perón calculates, people like, actually, Eva Duarte, who have moved to Buenos Aires in the last decade or so, who don't have any representation, who feel very downtrodden. If I can be the person on their side, if I could found unions for them and get to meet the leaders and give them benefits and stuff, they will love me. And that's what he does. And actually, Chilean journalists said in 1943,
If he does this, if he pulls this off, he will be the strongman, the great caudillo of the Argentine Republic, and who knows for how long. He's building up this power base among the working classes. He's very like Clodius in the politics of the late Roman Republic. Is that so? The tribune who establishes the bread dole in Rome, and he fashions paramilitaries out of where previously there had been nothing but inchoate chaos.
So there's maybe a faint element of that, perhaps. The Descamisados of the Roman Republic. Exactly so. So Peronius, as you said, is a great improviser.
improviser, great opportunist. In January 1944, there's a terrible earthquake in the city of San Juan, kills at least 10,000 people. And Perron says to the other people in the government, I've got this. You know, I will handle this. Again, the great improviser. Yeah. You know, not letting a disaster go to waste. And Perron is all over the relief efforts and he's sending out clothes and money and all this, but he's got a brilliant wheeze. And his wheezes will get all the big actors and actresses and singers and stuff going.
On a Saturday, they will go through the center of Buenos Aires with people from the military government. Each one will have a money box. I mean, imagine the scene, all these actors and people giving... I mean, that's brilliant. If that happened in London, what an amazing thing that would be. But this is why...
Ava and Perron are such perfect subjects for a kind of West End musical. Yeah. I mean, the kind of, you know, the stars in West End musicals would go out and do this kind of thing. You know, they'd wear ribbons. Benedict Cumberbatch. I can see him doing it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The nexus is so brilliant. Ava Duarte, as she then was, undoubtedly went to this. She'd love this kind of thing. All her friends are going. She undoubtedly went. Perron.
Perron said later, this is when they first met. Most people think that's not right at all. She would not have made an impression on him. But that evening, there's a big sports arena called the Luna Park. It's where Maradona had his wedding reception. And it's where, in the week that we're recording this, Javier Millay had a book launch where he sang with his rock band and ranted about communism. So great scenes. But you didn't juggle with... No, exactly. Anyway, so at the Luna Park, they have a big gala, Perron's
Perron goes, Ava goes with a friend of hers. She's all dressed up. She clearly has her eye on him. He is much older, but he unfortunately has a rash. Do you see this? No, I missed that. It's a terrible rash. So he has psoriasis. So he always wears a lot of cream and makeup to hide the rash. And actually what that means is he photographs brilliantly because he's all shiny or something. I don't know what it is because of his rash. He looks brilliant.
Rash or no rash. This is a famous bit in the musical where Colonel Perron, Eva Duarte. And then they both sing, I've heard so much about you. And it's off. He's unlikely to have heard anything about her. Well, this is what I wanted to ask. Would he have heard of her? Is she that famous by this point? I think highly unlikely. Have you heard of many radio actresses? No, but if I met someone from the Archers, I'd probably recognize their voice. Felicity Jones is...
Is it? Who was in Star Wars film Rogue One. The best Star Wars film, in my view. She was in The Archers. She was the person who was in like a love triangle with the Grundys. I've never heard of her. Well, she's very famous, Dom. She's an Oscar nominated actress. I've never heard of her. We talked about her school on a previous... Did we? Of course we did. We talked about her private school on a previous podcast.
Very restless history. If she'd met the future dictator of Britain at a gala, that would... Anyway, listen, this is spiralling off. It's a terrible tangent. Anyway, they meet and Ava is basically...
She is the one who is taking the lead. And again, people who've watched the musical will know that Perron already has a girlfriend, doesn't he? Perron is living with somebody who he introduces to everybody. This is a bad sign with Perron. And actually, it will get worse in the final episodes of the series. And also, brilliantly, he calls her...
He calls her the piranha, doesn't he? Yeah. And it's unclear whether that's because she eats so much or because she has a kind of overhanging lip. She has an overbite. So Piran has got this girl. She's 17 years old. She's a teenager from Mendoza where he had been teaching mountain warfare. And she's probably called Maria Ines because newspaper profiles said he has a daughter called Maria Ines.
Unfortunately, I think she's just an extremely and inappropriately young girlfriend. And when Ava finds out that the Piranha is in situ, she wastes no time at all. Yeah, chucks all her luggage out. She actually hires a truck, goes and gets all the Piranha's possessions, puts them in the truck and says, you're out, get back to Mendoza. So that is the end, unfortunately. Piranha gets home after a hard day at the office, you know, talking to union leaders.
The piranha has vanished. The story is that Ava had actually bought some of her own stuff and started unpacking, like moving into the apartment. I think that's probably exaggerated. But I think, I mean, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Because it will become a
a kind of anti-Peronist jibe. It is. That Ava wears the trousers, that Peron is a bit of a wimp in the relationship, that he does what she says. And you can see how, you know, that's a kind of classic misogynist angle to take. But it does seem to correspond to traits within their two personalities, that it's not that Peron is kind of submissive in any way. It's just that he is cooler, calmer,
in a way, more calculating. I think that's exactly it. And Ava is just very impetuous. And I guess that that is what will make them such a good combination. Because in a way, Peron can use Ava to kind of test things out before he...
you know, he takes the step. Anyway, they meet and basically they shack up and they're together for the rest of Ava's life, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. They make their first appearance together. It's very, just a few days afterwards, the 3rd of February, they're seen together for the first time at a broadcast. He goes and inspects the equipment and he speaks to all the actors. And from that point, as you say, they are a couple. Some of his colleagues, even then,
in those first weeks think, this is awful. She is totally the wrong person. She's too common. She's working class. She is brash.
She is difficult. You know, they say all those things that actually probably a lot of listeners will say, oh God, they're the things that men always say, you know, about somebody. But you know Perron's response to this, quite witty. Go on. What do they want me to do? Go out with an actor. Very good. Brilliant, brilliant advance. And I think on that Perronist witticism, we should take a break. And when we come back, Dominic, let's have a look. So the famous line in the musical is, I'd be surprisingly good for you.
We could find out, is Ava surprisingly good for Perron? And indeed, is Perron good for Ava? We'll be back after the break.
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Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History. Eva has met Perón. The great meeting, kind of the key meeting really in 20th century Argentine history, you might argue. Do you think it would that be? The Lennon and McCartney meeting, the Walton Church fate of Argentine history. Yes. So you said how there are certainly his army colleagues are not happy about Eva. He sticks with her. Presumably he's very attracted to her.
But later he says that he responds to a sense of goodness in Ava. So he said, I realised that I was faced with an extraordinary person. I was not attracted by the beautiful woman, but by the good woman. Of course, she incorporated the two extremes, beauty and goodness. Now, when he says that, and no reason to doubt it, I mean, he was devoted to Ava, it seems. Is he talking solely as someone who's in love with Ava?
a woman or is he speaking as a politician who thinks that he has picked up an asset? Maybe both? No, I don't think both actually. I don't think he views her as an asset at this point. I think in the first year and a half or so of their life together,
My sense from what I have read is that she is simply to him his mistress. Because she kind of hangs around in his bedroom wearing his pyjamas, doesn't he? She does. There's a guy called General Farrell who becomes the new president in February. So just a month after they've met, he is Perron's boss. Perron takes over his old job at the War Ministry. So Perron is now running the War Ministry and the Labour Ministry.
Perron is like the power behind the throne. He's having meetings all the time with other officers, with union leaders, with bigwigs and stuff in his apartment. She is present, but she's literally making the coffee. She says nothing, by and large. And sometimes people say to Perron's intimates, you know, who's the girl? Who's the floozy kind of thing? And actually the quote is, she is one of those tiresome girls who screw all over the place in the hope that someone will give them a part. She's just a girlfriend. That's all she is.
And she continues with her show business career. So you said she's playing the Empress Alexandra. She's playing Queen Elizabeth I. Because she's the big man's girl... That helps with her career. Yeah, she sees herself as a Hollywood film star. And I think she wants to affect that kind of image. So it's the poor man's JFK and Marilyn. Yeah, in a way. There's no sense at this point that she...
is a particularly political animal or that he sees her in that light. So she says of him that he was fabulous, strong and tender at the same time, gentle and careful. Everything is like a festival. He notices everything. Well, she is clearly completely infatuated with Perrault. Yeah, fine. But when we say she said that, her ghostwriter says that. There's no reason to doubt that he is an attentive boyfriend. I think that's fair to say. But I think the key thing is that actually she really believes in his message.
So Peron has positioned himself as the champion of the working classes and in particular of the people who are called the gracitas, the greasers. So people who have come
often from poor cities of Europe or from rundown rural towns and villages to Buenos Aires. And they move in this world of the cheap B&Bs and the lodging houses. Which is the Eva world. It is her world. There's no doubt in my mind when he talks about, I will lift up the masses, I will do all that. And she, his girlfriend is listening. She's like, that's me. This is the period when she plays the part of the woman.
in that radio drama that we opened this episode with. Yeah, exactly. If this, as you said, is being broadcast across the country in squares and so on, then her voice praising this one man who can bring dignity to the notion of work, a soldier of the people who can feel the flame of social justice...
She is the voice of that Peronist propaganda and she's being joined in the kind of public imagination with him. Yeah. And when she says there was only one man and all that, she loves that. She loves being the standard. And what a big thing for her, the girl from nowhere who is the propaganda vehicle for the country.
the coming man in Argentine politics. The interesting question is when she stops to see herself purely as a vehicle, but as a kind of political actor in her own right. We get some sense from the way in which she presents herself in 1945. It's a slow process because at first she starts to get a lot of interviews. She's Perron's girlfriend and she's on the radio and stuff.
And at first in those interviews, it's pure Hollywood cliche. So she says, I like riding horses. I speak French. I love reading Tolstoy. No, Dominic, no. Do you know who her favorite author was? She said her favorite author was. If you don't know it, you will never guess. It's Plutarch. Okay. The second century Greek biographer. Now, you know why she says that?
Because Perron is its Perron's favorite author. Because Perron taught Plutarch and he was obsessed with Plutarch. I mean, she says, oh, I love Plutarch. I don't think she'd ever read Plutarch. I don't want to be mean to her, but there are doubts. But then in February 1945, there was something that I think is really, really revealing. There were shortages of film stock because of the Second World War. So they can't get hold of film. And to make films, you have to get the stock.
and all this. She, because she's Perón's girlfriend, can do this. And she gets all this film and she says, this is the film I want to make. And it's a film called La Prodiga, The Prodigal, The Prodigal Woman. And it's a film about a sort of aging beauty in Spain,
who lives in this village, and she does good works for the poor. There's a dam being... It sounds like a terrible film. There's a dam being built near the town. Brilliant. Where the young engineer, handsome young engineer, she falls in love with the engineer. Thanks to her relationship with the engineer, she's known as the mother of the poor, and she's giving booties to small children or whatever she's doing. And then, at the end of the film, the dam is finished. The engineer goes back.
forgets about her. Somehow her land and her house have been mortgaged to pay for her good works, and so she kills herself. That is the story of this film. It sounds like a rubbish film. She chooses this of all the subjects. She could have played Elizabeth I. She could have done whatever she wanted. She says, no, I want to play this miserable woman who's very kind to the poor and then ends up taking her own life. What could be more revealing? That of all things, this is the thing that she wants to do. And I think that is a sign
there in early 1945 when she's making this film. She is actually, she wants to almost become Peron's message, you know, to live it. Well, she casts herself, doesn't she, as the bridge between Peron and the people. She's kind of Peron is God the Father and she's like the Holy Spirit. Exactly, yeah. Significant Christian figure that Ava will start impersonating. I actually thought that would really appeal to you.
Anyway, this film is overtaken by events because in 1945, obviously, everyone knows 1945, the end of the Second World War. And people in the Argentine military, as we said before, they kind of like the Germans. They obviously have massive links with Italy. Right. And so famously, this is where all the escaping Nazis head, isn't it? Right. There's lots of people in the Argentine military. They loved seeing Britain getting a beating at the beginning of the war. And they got it when the British win.
And there's this sort of mood in the summer of 1945. Oh, that side they were backing is lost, so they've got to go. And the person who's really pushing this, a man with one of the worst names I think we've ever had on The Rest Is History, is the American ambassador, who is a man called... Yeah, how do you pronounce this? His name is... I mean, how would you introduce yourself to people like this at a party? His name is...
I can't even say it. Okay, well, let me see if I can work out how you say it. Is it Spruill? Sprill? Spruillay? I think his name is Spruill Braden. Spruill. Spruill. Is it? I don't know. How would you say it? I mean, we may have listeners called Spruill. I don't believe that. In which case, we should apologize. Such people wouldn't listen to the rest of history. But that is a mad name.
Spruill Braden. He's an enormous man. He's the heir to a copper fortune in Chile. Oh, brilliant. So he's the embodiment of Yankee imperialism. Totally is. With his laughable name. Rising up out of Peronist nightmares.
And Spurl Braden hanging around in the polo clubs of Buenos Aires. Trampling over shirtless peasants as he walks out to his Rolls Royce. He says, this bloke Perron is a terrible man. He's got to go. He's obviously a Nazi. And Spurl Braden is crossing the country walking
meeting liberal politicians and saying, oh, these army officers are dreadful people. You've got to change. If you want to get in with the US, get a kind of more liberal, it's kind of civilian government, get some of the old polo players, rugby people back. Brilliant. Do all that. So by the summer of 1945, it's a very frant, sort of, what's the word? I was about to say, it's
It's frizzled. That's not the right word. It's frazzled. Fraught. Spruill Braden has driven me mad. Fraught and frazzled. It is. It's fraught and frazzled. And Perron himself is going and giving speeches. And he is saying there's an alliance of foreign reactionaries and plutocrats who are trying to bring us down. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. He's not wrong at all. So everything, everyone's got very excited. And then on the 9th of October, and it's such a sort of tiny thing that's the trigger, they appoint a new communications secretary in the government.
And this is a bloke who's a friend of Ava's. He's like an old contact of Ava's. Clearly, you know, Perron has done her a favour. And the job had been promised to an army officer in a garrison outside the city. And he's gutted not to have got the job. And lots of the other army officers say, you know what? This is this flipping awful woman.
You know, she's got Perron's ear. If we're not careful, you know, he'll give all her mates jobs and there won't be any jobs for us. Well, hasn't he already given Ava's brother, Juan, a job as his secretary? He has. So Juan is a generally disliked man, I think is fair to say. And he has indeed. And there's a sort of sense. Now, of course, this is how politics, how Argentine politics works. It works on patronage networks, but they are the wrong people. They're part of a new family. They're the Woodvilles, Tom, of the Wars of the Roses.
And the old guard and the army, well, not the old guard, young officers are like, this bloke's giving all this. And one of them says, we were convinced it was our duty to stop the nation from falling into the hands of that woman, as in fact ultimately happened. I mean, they're not wrong, right? That it is going to fall effectively into the hands of Ava and her friends. In a very complicated and frankly, slightly tiresome series of machinations, Peron is forced to resign.
And he resigns in a style that will become emblematic of Peronism. So he goes to the secretaries of labor and he gives this speech to this huge crowd whipped up by the trade unions where he says,
We'll win in one year. We'll win in 10 years. Who knows? But we will win. I'm not going to say farewell to you. I will say hasta siempre, until the end of time, until forever. Because from this day onwards, I will be with you closer than ever. This is the absolute tone. I would be out on the streets sobbing. Yeah. People have burst into tears. The thing is what I always think about all these speeches and indeed every speech that Per and Ava ever give.
It doesn't mean anything. No, but it's the mood. What does that even mean? I will be with you forever. Yeah. It's the vibe, as you said. It's the mood. Do you know what I would do? What would you do? If there was any prospect of him, say, appearing on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, I would go and stand beneath it
and gaze up rapturous. Yeah, you'd go. That's what I do. If you did that in the 70s, a bomb would go off and you'd be killed. Yeah, but it isn't. It's the 40s, isn't it? So it'd be fine. Yeah, so you're right. Then more weird machinations. Peron ends up being arrested and taken to this island in the middle of the River Plate Delta.
sort of between Argentina and Uruguay. So having watched the musical, I know what happens next, which is that Ava rouses the streets, doesn't she? And pledges a new Argentina. Yeah. But I know, I know Dominic, because I know your ways. You know my methods. I know your methods. You know my methods. That you were going to ruin that, aren't you? You're going to tell me it never happened. Yeah. I'm going to stamp on that, Tom, and tell you that didn't happen at all.
So actually, you're absolutely right. In Peronist propaganda, and indeed, interestingly, in anti-Peronist propaganda. Because they are saying that he's a wimp. He's a puppet of a woman. And this terrible woman rouses the streets to rescue this weakling of a man. Yeah. That is just not right. Ava doesn't have the contacts. Who's she going to rouse? A lot of radio actors and the sound engineers from the radio company. But you know the idea that it's Ava, right?
who pulls this out, that Perron wants to give up, you know, that he wants to find job satisfaction in Paraguay, as Tim Rice puts it. I mean, what that casts him as is Justinian and Ava as kind of Theodora. And I was thinking that there is a quality of Theodora
To Ava. So Theodora is the... Also called a prostitute, right? Called a prostitute, but actress, circus performer, who marries Justinian, the emperor in Constantinople. There's kind of, you know, riots and things, and it looks as though the empire will fall, and Theodora stands by him and goes on to become a saint.
And the quality of Theodora to Ava, don't you think? Oh, that had not occurred to me, Tom, but that is a great point. This is exactly that story, right? This is the story of the Nica riots in whenever it was the mid-6th century. This is exactly what happens. Although...
I think Theodora did stiffen Justinian's resolve. And Ava doesn't because Peron is, he knows what he's doing. He's operating from the background. Well, he's got loads of supporters by now. He's got the unions, hasn't he? In the unions. And the unions, his pals at the CGT, which is the big union organization, they say, let's have a general strike. Poor old Peron, our great pal. You know, let's get people to march on the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, to show their love for Peron.
Now, it's the 17th of October. It becomes the big day, loyalty day, in the Peronist calendar. October is the beginning of the Argentine summer. And because of that, it's a really lovely sunny day and lots of workers leave their factories. And especially these are people from the edge of the city who don't normally go into the middle of the city. So you're kind of Borges-type people, and indeed, Spruill Braden, who
who are kind of, you know, they're toasting Perron's Fall. With bourbon. Yeah, or with a large glass of Mullback. At the country club. Exactly, at the club. And they look out of the window and like, who are all these people? The Great Unwashed. And one of the...
The account says they are literally smaller and darker than the people who usually walk down these central streets in Buenos Aires. These are people from the Cinturón Obrera, the workers' belt around the city. You've come into the middle of the city. The authorities are totally taken by surprise. They would, in other circumstances, have called in troops from the garrisons outside the capital. But the streets are so full of people, the troops could not even get through if they were called in. And so...
By that afternoon of the 17th of October, there are huge crowds in the center of Buenos Aires. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people outside the Casa Rosada calling for Perón. You can see the poverty written in their bodies. You can indeed. Like Eva was La Flaca, wasn't she? The thin one as a girl. Yeah. These are Las Flacas, Las Flocas. Yeah, the skinny ones. Yeah, exactly. And it's hot. It's a hot day. And as people do,
They're football fans celebrating the center of a capital. They jump into the fountains and things and splash around and they take off their shirts. And so this is where the famous phrase comes from. Yes. The Descamisados, the shirtless ones. Originally an insult.
and then embraced by Perron and his supporters. Like the sans-culottes. Yeah. People with no trousers. I mean, it has that element, doesn't it? Because it's not just the idea that you are so poor that you can't even afford a shirt. It's also hovering in the background of that word. Yeah, exactly. So Perron finally is brought out onto the balcony. He's made up with the president and with all the other offices and stuff. I thought you were going to say he's made up his face to cover his rash. Yeah.
But presumably... He undoubtedly has. He's done that as well. He's making up in all kinds of ways. He undoubtedly has. If you're thinking there are some very strange details, episode five or whatever is off the charts. Six, ten, whatever. Yeah, it's going to be off the charts. Perron turns up on the balcony. Everyone starts crying and there are wonderful descriptions of the crowd. There is a quality...
From this point onwards in Argentine politics, I don't know enough about what preceded it to know whether it was already there, but there is a quality of...
just the unbelievably histrionic that everybody is whipping themselves into the most immense lava. And I mean, people aren't, don't die on this day. This is not like a shootout or a street battle. So actually in a sense, but it becomes kind of part of the myth in due course, isn't it? That people had died as we will find out when we look at what was planned for Avers too, that they wanted the ashes of someone who died on this day. And you know, there wasn't anyone. Yeah. It didn't exist. Yeah.
But obviously the myth of it becomes at least as important as the practical consequences. It absolutely does. And in that myth, as we've been saying, Ava comes to play an overwhelming role. So two questions. Firstly, what was Ava actually doing in this? And secondly, what is the role that she is given in the kind of mythic account of it? So in the mythic account of it, it is Ava who whips up the crowd. It's Ava who goes around the factories of Buenos Aires. It's so long since I saw that film. The woman.
Yeah. I don't know if there's like some sort of montage or something, but there should be. There is. It's a new Argentina and she's walking through the streets and they're all cheering and waving red flags and things. Well, not red flags, but they're waving Argentine flags. And this is the image. The events of the day were rewritten to put her at the center of it. That was the myth.
there's no evidence from the time of that happening at all. There's no evidence she was even there. I mean, I'm guessing she might have been there, but there are... So we don't really know what she was doing? No, she's not significant enough a figure at that stage. She later, of course, becomes incredibly significant this time. Don't forget, she's just Perron's girlfriend. It's Perron who goes out, not with Ava, onto the balcony and he gives, again, a
brilliant, perilous speech. He says, I want to mix with this sweating mass as a simple citizen. I want to hug it close to my heart as I would my mother. My only ambition is to be loved by you. And everybody starts crying. Yeah. We're recording this the week that Rishi Sinha went out and announced the general election and he stood there getting rained on while somebody played
New Labour themes from a... Things are going to get better. He should have gone the full perron, shouldn't he? Yeah. He should have kind of ranted, told everyone he loved them, burst into tears, put on his anti-rash makeup, got on some braid. I think that, I mean, you know, probably still probably wouldn't win, but he'd have a better chance. Yeah, it's not like it's worse than what's going to happen. No, I think the weird thing, it's populist, of course,
It's overwrought. But it's more than populist, isn't it? Yeah. It's operatic. I guess so. It is operatic. It's ultra sentimental. It's the political equivalent of going out and singing an aria. Well, that's the kind of thing you do on The Rest Is History, Tom. Well, exactly. So that's why part of me kind of responds to this. Right, clearly. Because the crowd then start chanting this thing that becomes an anthem of Peron's regime.
which means tomorrow is St. Perron's day. Tomorrow, let the bosses do the work. And they think, oh, brilliant anthem, great song, great sentiments. And they all go home and tomorrow, the next day, they have a big general strike. Nobody goes to work.
And they're all splashing around in the fountain, chanting Peron's name. He's set free. And so he can run in the election. He can run in the election. Now, there is one quick coda to that because we'll get to the election in the next episode. And we get to Peron and Eva at their apogee. Five days after this 17th of October, which now will become the annual feast day of Peronism, which they celebrate with these huge rallies. Do you think the fact that Eva comes to be identified with this day and with the Descamisados,
Does she come to believe it? Is that a kind of a part of what inspires her to feel that she's been mystically joined with them? I think so. I totally think so, Tom. Yeah. I think when you look at all her rhetoric in what follows, the constant invocation of the Descamisardus, the belief that she is the
mystical link between them and Peron. Yeah, the bridge. I don't think that there might be a tiny sliver of her that is cynical about it, but I don't really think there is. I think she absolutely believes it. No, I don't think she's cynical at all. I mean, I think Peron is quite cynical.
But I think Ava believes everything. She believes it in the way that Ronald Reagan believed those stories he would tell about the old America and, you know, great actors believe the part they play. Yeah. Well, she's not a great actor. No. On the public stage of Argentina, she plays the greatest role. Of all. Oh, very good. So five days after this big business, they get married.
They get married in their apartment. It is a brief civil ceremony and almost everything about it is false, meretricious. So they claim they got married in Hunin, her hometown, which they didn't. She never goes back there, does she? She doesn't go back. The date of birth is wrong and her name is wrong. She puts her real age as 23 rather than 26. She says she was born in 1922 instead of 1919. And she puts her name as Duarte.
And there is no doubt why she does this. It's not so that she can look younger. She's not vain about that kind of thing. It is actually so that she can claim her father's surname rather than admit her illegitimacy. And a few months later, somebody, we don't know who, but we can guess, goes to Los Tolos, the place where she had been born.
They find the registry, they tear out her birth certificate, and they replace it with a false date and a false name, giving her the name of Duartes. She never admitted to Peron. She never told him that she had been born under a different name. I mean, absolutely extraordinary. And yet the strange thing about that is that it's precisely the fact that she is from the very lowest echelons of society.
that will make her so loved. But there's something, sometimes people are ashamed of things and, you know, isn't that so interesting? It is. And also interesting is that she is going to such lengths to claim the name of Duarte just as she is changing it. Because of course, with the wedding, she's no longer Ava Duarte, she's Ava Perron. Her childhood is not the only thing she wants to erase. In the next few days,
After the wedding, after the big rally on the 17th of October, much of the evidence of her acting career is destroyed. She gets all the publicity stills from all the radio stations and she destroys them. She goes to the photographers and of course she has Perron's muscle behind her. So the photographers who've taken pictures of her all those years, she asks for the negatives and she destroys them. And that film, La Prodiga, it's shown privately to her and never published.
It is clear that from this point onwards, Ava Duarte is dead and the future will belong to Evita Perón, the politician.
And that is what we will be looking at in our next episode, which you can hear straight away if you are a member of the Restless History Club. If you're not and you would like to hear it, you can go to therestlesshistory.com and sign up there. And if not, it will be out very soon anyway. So that's not good marketing on my part, but it is true. And we're all about the truth on the Restless History, unlike Peron and Ava. And we will see you very soon. Bye bye. Hasta luego.
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