ARGENTINA: Little Eva

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Jaime Yankelevich immediately penned a memo: "Fire Duarte." It looked for a while as if Eva, for once, had picked a loser, but she never conceded the fact. She stayed close to Juan and paid him a long visit in the military hospital where he was confined. Then, suddenly and gloriously, another coup put Perón back in power, stronger than ever. Eva marched off to Yankelevich, settled herself again in her old job and demanded back pay for the ten days she had lost.

Jaime paid up bitterly, but there were more shocks in store for him as well as for every blueblood in Buenos Aires. It was clear by then that Perón would run for President and almost certainly win. Every haughty lady in the snooty Avenida Alvear was up in arms at the thought of That Woman as the First Lady of the land. They knew that, as President, Perón would have to ditch Eva or marry her. They did not dare think that he would take the latter course. Then one day Eva summoned Jaime to demand the use of his radio station for the campaign. Jaime refused. "You dirty obscenity of a Russian," Eva screamed. "You'll see what happens if you refuse!" And as Jaime gasped, she flashed a brand-new marriage certificate before his eyes. "I tell you this," she said with supreme confidence, "as the First Lady of the land." Eva and Juan were married secretly in October 1945, in the village of Magdalena. News of the alliance was announced "semiofficially" in December.

Me, Too. Six months later, newly inaugurated President Perón led his lady into the presidential mansion for the first time. "Look at the size of the rooms,'' trilled Eva. "I'd like something to eat," said Juan. "Me, too," answered Eva. "But where?" Then she found the dining room. "Whew, it's big," she exclaimed and then, "Heavens! I've found another." They had supper in the third (middle-sized) dining room.

Evita was as pleased as a ten-year-old over her new home, but for all that she had no intention of settling down to housekeeping, even in a presidential mansion. Opposition papers were soon sniping at Argentina's new "dual presidency." One ran a daily column chronicling the activities of the Presidente and the Presidenta. As a First Lady, there had never been anything in Argentina like Eva. Just as Perón, the savior of the descamisados, had risen to power by playing expertly on the feelings of Argentina's unhappy workers, so Eva made women's liberation her battle cry. She was the New Woman, free and untrammeled.

With messianic fervor she encouraged the public to call her "Evita," in a land where nicknames are restricted to the closest friends. While society ladies shuddered, huge, larger-than-life-sized pictures of the First Lady blossomed all over the country with the legend: "I prefer to be simply EVITA to being the wife of the President, if this EVITA is used to better conditions in the homes of my country." On the radio other feminists were silenced to make Evita's voice the louder.