Juan Domingo Peron: A History by Robert J Alexander

Author:Robert J Alexander [Alexander, Robert J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780367018191
Google: 0HCkDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 50737462
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Evita's Wealth

The Welfare Foundation was the most likely source of the very considerable fortune which Eva Perón undoubtedly acquired during the years that she was the president's wife. After her death, some foreign papers speculated that Eva Perón was one of the world's richest women. Whether or not that was the case, the certainty is that she was very well endowed with this world's goods when she died.

Evita was not bashful about flaunting her possessions. She frequently wore very expensive jewelry, rich furs, very costly dresses, and other high-priced raiment. Immediately after the overthrow of Perón, the Lonardi government opened the part of the presidential residence which she had used for the purpose of showing off her vast assortment of clothing, jewelry, and other things that were still there in the hope that workers viewing the collection would begin to have doubts about Evita's supposed concern for the poor and the downtrodden. There were on display hundreds of dresses, hundreds of pairs of shoes, scores of coats and other outer garments, and a large collection of jewelry, much of it very expensive.

Evita apparently saw no contradiction at all between her having exploited her position as Perón 's wife to amass very quickly a large fortune, and her public posture as a valiant fighter for the poor and "martyr of labor," She would dress in very expensive clothing even when addressing or visiting working-class groups. She apparently had no worry about the possibility that some of those to whom she was talking might see a contradiction between her words and her deeds.

One of the many stories told about Evita was one about an occasion when she was heckled by someone in a working-class audience who asked her why, if she was such a fighter for the povery stricken workers, she wore such expensive clothes as she had on that occasion. She is supposed to have replied that her clothes were a good illustration of her fight for the workers, because what she was fighting for was that every worker's wife could dress as elegantly and as expensively as she herself did.

Certainly her rapid acquisition of a large fortune illustrates one aspect of her personality. One can suppose that it had some impact in reinforcing the dislike and disdain that the military officer group—and their wives—had for Evita. If the fortune was as large as some rumors claimed, and most of it (as rumor again maintained) was transferred to bank accounts in Europe, Evita's rapid accumulation of wealth may even have had some, albeit modest, adverse effect on the country's balance of payments.

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