Eva And The Generalissimo

Eva Peron and Generalissimo Franco in Madrid in June 1947.

Madrid was the first stop on Peron’s 1947 tour of Europe. Peron was granted the reception of a Head Of State, which raised more than a few eyebrows, even in Franco’s Spain.

It was only decades after the fact that it became widely known that the purpose of Peron’s 1947 trip to Europe had been to facilitate the movement of Nazi funds and ex-Nazi officials from Europe to Argentina.

Although this information became public only in recent years, the U.S. Department Of State and the U.S. Department Of Justice were fully aware at the time precisely what was going on. Because there were more critical matters to address in the immediate post-war period, the U.S. chose not to make an issue of the links established between European underground networks—and such networks were, in truth, scarcely concealed—and the corrupt Argentine government of Juan Peron.

When Peron became President of Argentina in 1945, Argentina was the second-wealthiest nation on earth.

By 1951, Argentina’s public and private reserves had been squandered or confiscated, and the nation had entered a full-scale economic crisis from which it has never recovered.