Introduction

The relationship between the power brokers in the decade following Perón's overthrow has been described as a ‘stalemate’ or an ‘impossible game’. Both concepts refer to the incapacity of three main political agents (the military, the Peronist movement – especially through the trade unions it dominated – and the Radical Party) to forge a viable political order, since each of these three had the power to block the implementation of the designs of the other two actors. The ‘Liberating Revolution’ of 1955 – initially led by General Eduardo Lonardi, who was influenced by Catholic nacionalismo but who was soon unseated in a palace coup by Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, who led the more ‘liberal’ sectors of the armed forces – was thus as unable to eradicate Peronism from the political scene as were the succeeding civilian governments, presided over by the Radical politicians Arturo Frondizi (1958–62) and Arturo Illia (1963–66). With the Peronists barred from participating in elections, each of these governments suffered from a lack of legitimacy, which ultimately resulted in yet another military coup in 1966. As is often the case, political instability was accompanied by cultural and intellectual ferment, set in the context of the extension of higher education and widening participation in cultural activities. As Oscar Terán and Silvia Sigal have argued, this lent intellectuals – despite or perhaps because of their position at the fringes of political power – increasing weight in the provision of (often radical) ideological narratives which influenced politics. This background provides compelling explanations for the reinforcement of the link between history and politics after 1955. In the face of a restricted democracy, political actors grounded their quest for power in sources of legitimation other than democratic elections, and turned to ‘invented traditions’.

With the exception of Rock's study, which has traced the continuity of the ‘Nationalist movement’ through to the 1980s, Argentine history between 1955 and 1966 has rarely been examined explicitly through the lens of ‘nationalism’. The reason for this may be that in the 1960s, to borrow Terán's words, ‘anti-imperialist discourse [and nationalism, if we will] was hardly visible because, like God, it was everywhere’.