Isabel Perón's final 24 hours: loneliness, Operation Bolsa and the secrets of her detention

On March 23, 1976, a circular from the Central Bank announced the launch of banknotes of 5,000 and 10,000 new pesos, equivalent to half a million and one million national pesos. The day before, the stock exchange had already abandoned the euphoria of the previous week: uncertainty caused a general fall in securities and shares. Speculators took refuge in the dollar black market, which had risen to 450 pesos. From January to March, the parallel dollar had increased by 150 percent and, in the last year, by 1135 percent. It was the best financial haven: almost three times more than wholesale prices in the same period, which had grown by 474.3 percent — 28.5 percent by the month of February.

Faced with the imminent coup, companies were holding merchandise and people stood in line or quarrels with storekeepers and merchants. In the capital, the municipal supply authority tried to go out to the crossroads by setting up street stalls selling milk, sugar, oil, kerosene. There they sold a dozen eggs at 40 pesos -10 cents-, half as much as in the stores.

By mid-March, large producers had stopped delivering to retailers: the Municipality sent inspectors to the refrigerators to confiscate the hoarded eggs. Then the Association of Producers and Marketers of Poultry and Eggs put itself in expenses with a request to defend itself against the accusations of the government of Isabel Perón and explain that they did not speculate on eggs. They called it “It's over!” and the first paragraph stated that “our patience was filled by the repeated demonstrations of incapacity or bad faith of the officials who have conducted the economic policy related to the production and marketing of eggs, which is the only cause of the current shortage of this product”. The request ended with a sentence that, on 23 March, could not be read ambiguously: “From this moment on, the production and marketing of eggs throughout the country is declared on alert”.

That afternoon the title of La Razón, eight columns, was clear: “The end is imminent. Everything is said.” And, at the top of its first page, a small text: “Seven days in December, thirty-one in January, twenty-nine in February and twenty-three days in March add up to the three months that have elapsed since Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla delivered, from the front of operations in Tucumán, together with the forces under his command, in Christmas Eve, his transcendent speech. As today marks the ninety days of this dramatic appeal, that some seem not to have given it too much consideration in its proper dimension and depth, we must remember, in the critical circumstances of the present, some of the expressions of Lieutenant General Videla, who said: 'The Argentine Army, with the just right granted to him by the quota of blood shed by his sons, heroes and martyrs, he demanded with anguish but also firmly, an immediate awareness to define positions. Immorality and corruption must be adequately sanctioned. Political, economic and ideological speculation must cease to be the means used by groups of adventurers to reach their ends. ' The country wonders, three months after those harsh words, what should General Videla say if he spoke today? A responsible source responds: “Nothing now, everything is said.”

In Buenos Aires, at Casa Rosada and Congress, meetings were held to find a solution to the inevitable. That morning, in a court in San Isidro, Blanca and Erminda Duarte had filed a lawsuit for a summary trial against Maria Estela Martínez de Perón to recover the body of her sister Eva, who lay in Quinta de Olivos, because “any claim that Mrs. Martínez could invoke on the body of Mrs. Martínez from Perón, who has no relationship of kinship and/or affection with her...”.

Meanwhile, the general secretary of the CGT, Casildo Herreras, flanked by José Rodríguez, from SMATA, and Ramón Elorza, from gastronomicos, appeared in Montevideo with an inexcusable sentence:

- I erased myself.

A notice published in all the newspapers and signed by the League for Human Behavior showed a drawing of a soldier with a starry sky background. Its title read “You are not alone...” and, below, the text explained that “... your people support you. Yes, the fight is not easy. But knowing which side the truth is on makes it easier. Your war is clean. Because you didn't betray. Because you didn't swear in vain. You didn't even sell your country. You didn't even think about running away. Because you wield the truth with your hand, you are not alone.”

On television, the leader of the Intransigent Party, Oscar Alende, used the space granted to political parties, in view of elections scheduled for the end of 1976. Everyone knew that the polls would not open. Banfield's doctor, despondent, said:

-We live the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one that engages what should have been and was not and what we are going to be. This is a time when we will have to decide whether Argentines are going to be defeated and dominated perhaps for many years or whether the nation is going to rise up on itself on the basis of its immense possibilities and the enormous quality of its people...

The speech sounded like a mixture of desperate appeal and almost resigned acceptance of the inevitable.

-I would like the Armed Forces to be integrated into a great policy that safeguards national and popular values in the struggle for national and social emancipation... It seems to me that this has no way out.

A week earlier, on March 16, the leader of the Radical Civic Union, Ricardo Balbin, had also sounded resigned and powerless in his message on the national network:

— Some suppose that I have come to give solutions, and I don't have them. But there are. It's that one. The union of Argentines for the common effort of all Argentines.

What Balbin was saying was clear: if there were solutions, they were not the ones that politics could give within democracy.

Everything is said

“It's all right, boys. Everything is normal and I have no news of troop movements. The government does not negotiate and there is no military ultimatum,” Lorenzo Miguel told reporters who asked him what happened when he left Casa Rosada, shortly after zero hour on Wednesday, March 24.

The leader of the UOM and general secretary of the 62 Organizations knew that was not the case: Francisco Deheza, Isabel's Minister of Defense, had just informed him after a meeting between military commanders Héctor Agosti, Emilio Massera and Jorge Videla at the headquarters of the Libertador Building. The coup was inevitable.

Deheza had been in the Defence position for barely 12 days, he was married to Marta Lonardi, the daughter of General Eduardo Lonardi, who had led the actions to overthrow Juan Perón in September 1955. Deheza did not have the slightest impact on what the military commanders would do. That evening of March 23, he summarized the situation before Isabel and the rest of the ministers and justicialist leaders gathered in La Rosada. It was very simple: the military did not accept any negotiations.

The officials and leaders, after midnight, went out the gate of Balcarce 50. Isabel, on the other hand, stayed in her office. Miguel dated Deolindo Bittel and they were approached by photojournalists and chroniclers.

“We will continue to talk tomorrow,” said Bittel, knowing that no one believed it.

Shortly before one o'clock on Wednesday, March 24, the presidential Rambler Ambassador, in black, left the Balcarce esplanade and took Libertador towards the fifth presidential. Inside was a woman who was not Maria Estela Martínez de Perón but a substitute. At the direction of the naval deputy, captain of Frigate Ernesto Diamante, the President was leaving in a helicopter carrying three distinctive signs: the Argentine Air Force inscription, a national cockade and the acronym H-02. General Gustavo Giacosa, who was a military aedican on December 20, 2001 and who accompanied Fernando de la Rúa on the trip to Quinta de Olivos 25 years later, points out the coincidence:

-The helicopter I got on with De la Rúa, much more modern, also said H-02.

Perón's widow went alone with his private secretary, Julio González, and Rafael Luissi, head of the custody. Coincidences, they come up again. De la Rua was also accompanied by his private secretary, Leonardo Aiello. The difference is that the radical arrived at Quinta de Olivos, while Isabelita had been held up.

The deputy told them that this was a security measure in the face of a possible guerrilla attack. In fact, it was the beginning of “Operation Stock Exchange”. This complex operation was set up because the head of the Grenadier Regiment on Horseback, Colonel Jorge Sosa Molina, opposed Isabelita being detained inside the Casa Rosada. There is a double explanation for Sosa Molina's behavior. The first, institutional, Grenaderos is the military protection force of the Head of State. The second was that Sosa Molina was related to José Humberto Sosa Molina, who was a member of the GOU along with Perón and his Minister of Defense during the first presidency. At the same time, despite its origins close to Peronism, Sosa Molina had gained great prestige among his comrades because he was the one who, due to fortuitous information, managed to ambush dozens of armed paramilitaries who were under the orders of José López Rega, Isabelita's main breadwinner, inside Quinta de Olivos. That was on July 19, 1975 and López Rega managed to leave the country and left Perón's widow to his fate.

Sosa Molina's stance led the heads of the coup d'état to design a complex watchmaking that would allow the President to be arrested.

The Detention

Ten minutes after taking off the roof of Casa Rosada, the helicopter landed at the Aeroparque. The pilot used the excuse to the President:

-We have a technical malfunction.

Isabelita and her two companions were taken to the office of the chief of the air base. The office turned into a mousetrap.

“They are in detention,” González and Luissi heard from the mouth of an officer in combat uniform.

With the President, the treatment was more cordial. He was approached by General José Villarreal, Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo and Rear Admiral Pedro Santamaría. The novelty was reported by Villarreal:

- Ma'am, you're under arrest.

The general asked for his wallet, Isabelita gave it to him. Villarreal took out a small revolver from the inside and returned it to him. Perón's widow was calm, but she tried one last defense. In an aside with General Villarreal, he told him he was wrong.

-There must be a mistake here. An agreement has already been reached with the three commanders. We can close the Congress. The CGT and 62 answer me completely. I lead Peronism, the opposition supports me. I give you four ministries and the three commanders will be able to accompany me in the hard task of governing.

Villarreal's response sounded like a slap:

“To you, madam, nothing more than a leadership of corrupt trade unionists responds to you, your Peronism is divided and the opposition massively asks for your resignation.

When they told her they were going to take her to the El Messidor residence in Bariloche, Isabel Martínez replied that she had no clothes. The military told her that they would go to Olivos to look for her and asked who she wanted to accompany her to her new destination.

-My governor, please.

Half an hour later, the governor, a woman in her 50s, explained to them that she didn't want to go “because I don't have any emotional ties with the lady, for me this was just a job”. At three o'clock in the morning, María Estela Martínez, after having spent almost 20 years at Perón's side and having held the presidency since her death on July 1, 1974, was boarded on the Patagonia presidential plane.

The military coup was underway. “Operation Stock Exchange” was the most thorough of the raids launched throughout the country during that morning. In civilian and uniform, military forces left every barracks to kidnap and kill. Also to occupy radio and television channels. Communication was very careful by those who were implementing the most ruthless criminal plan in Argentine history.

The press releases

The night of Buenos Aires was clear, pleasant: 20 degrees and the sky starry. There was no one on the streets. At 3:21 the broadcaster, grave, was heard on the national channel:

-Communiqué number one. The population is informed that from now on, the country is under the operational control of the Board of General Commanders of the Armed Forces. All inhabitants are advised to strictly abide by the provisions and directives emanating from the military, security or police authority, as well as to take extreme care to avoid individual or group actions and attitudes that may require drastic intervention by personnel in operations. Signed: General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier Orlando Ramón Agosti.

Minutes later, the same announcer said that the state of siege was still in force and that “any demonstration will be severely repressed.” At half past three, the announcer said that the Military Junta ordered compliance with all public services and transport.

Five years in prison and later

Isabelita was taken to a small but elegant French-style castle, surrounded by gardens, built a few meters from the Nahuel Huapi in Villa La Angostura, Neuquén. It was designed, like the Llao Llao Hotel, by the architect Alejandro Bustillo. There the ousted President lived in solitude. He only had the company of Rosarito, his assistant of Spanish origin and some poodle dogs, which was Perón's favorite breed in his exile in Puerta de Hierro. Around the mansion, yes, there was a strong military device that remained the seven months in which Isabelita was in the south.

She was then transferred to a Navy office in the city of Azul, under the magnifying glass of Admiral Massera. After the 78 World Cup, they moved her to the historic fifth of San Vicente. Finally, in July 1981, the dictators granted him an exit to Spain. There, Isabelita chose Puerta de Hierro, an elegant neighborhood next to the Carretera de La Coruña, close to where she had lived with Perón.

He led a life of tranquility despite the fact that Triple A had claimed no less than 500 fatalities during his administration and under the orders of his faithful companion and spiritual guide José López Rega. The only shock he had was in the framework of the Madrid trials, in the Baltasar Garzón court.

In the late 1990s, Argentine lawyer Carlos Slepoy, who was exiled after years of detention, was a key player in the accusations against genocides who enjoyed impunity for pardons and pardon laws. Slepoy substantiated the accusation to Isabelita and that meant that the former president spent five hours in the National High Court while Garzón questioned her. For every answer, every time they asked her, she looked everywhere and said:

I don't remember anything.

At 91 years old, Isabel Martínez de Perón continues to live in the villa of Valle de Ulzama 16, in the quiet Madrid town of Villanueva de la Cañada. His neighbors say that he comes out little and nothing, but that he has perfect attendance at Sunday Mass.

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