Alejandro Agustín Lanusse

Alejandro Agustín Lanusse Gelly (born August 28, 1918 in Buenos Aires ; † August 26, 1996 there ) was an Argentine military and politician. He was de facto President of Argentina between March 22, 1971 and May 25, 1973 and the last head of government of the dictatorship of the so-called Argentine Revolution .

Career

Lanusse studied in a military high school and joined the cavalry of the Argentine armed forces in 1938 . There he was the commander of a regiment until 1951, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment for participating in a coup against Juan Perón . In 1955, after Perón's forced resignation, he was freed and sent as ambassador to the Vatican in 1956 . In 1960 he returned and became vice director of the military high school in Buenos Aires.

Lanusse was a strict anti- Peronist and therefore took part in two coups against the Perón-friendly governments of the Unión Cívica Radical ( Arturo Frondizi and Arturo Illia ), which resulted in the military dictatorship of the so-called Argentine Revolution from 1966. In 1968 he was named head of the armed forces under the presidency of Juan Carlos Onganías .

Because of political differences and the weakening of the dictatorship by popular uprisings from the Cordobazo in 1969, he distanced himself from Onganía and demanded his resignation. Since he refused, he forcibly installed Roberto Levingston as the new president as head of the armed forces , whom he replaced himself after renewed uprisings in March 1971.

Reign

Lanusses reign was marked by a very pragmatic policy. In economic policy, he focused on improving the infrastructure and built roads, bridges and power plants, but without being able to improve the dictatorship's bad image.

Furthermore, he initiated measures for democratization, which became known under the name Gran Acuerdo Nacional . He approached Peronism for the first time since the beginning of the dictatorship and invited Perón himself to return from exile. In April 1971, the political parties that were banned under the dictatorship were re-allowed. Nevertheless, the political climate at that time was marked by increasing violence, which led Lanusse to call free elections for 1973, with the only condition that Perón himself was not allowed to participate in the elections.

Héctor Cámpora , the Peronists' candidate, emerged victorious from the election . After losing the election, Lanusse retired.

Post-reign activities

After his retirement from politics, Lanusse became an active critic of the following military dictatorship, the so-called Process of National Reorganization (1976-83), in which some relatives and former employees of him perished in secret torture centers. He also worked as an author and wrote the books Mi Testimonio (My statement) and Confesiones de un general (Confessions of a general). He died on August 26, 1996.

Web links

Commons : Alejandro Agustín Lanusse  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Testimony of Lanusse in the trial against the military dictatorship 1985 ( Memento of June 17, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
Roberto Marcelo Levingston	President of Argentina 1971 - 1973	Héctor José Cámpora