Little Eva

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On Buenos Aires' broad, stately Avenida Alvear last week, municipal workers in faded blue denim wearily hammered together a new temporary grandstand. "What is this for?" asked a reporter. "The July 9 Independence celebration? The arrival of Chile's President?" "Quien sabe?" answered a carpenter. "Perhaps for that. Perhaps for the return of the Snora from her voyage. Ah, snor, you have read of this voyage? A miracle, is it not so? Surely, all the world must know of it."

Surely the world did. And without a doubt, the triumphal tour of Argentina's beryllium-bright First Lady to the musty corners of the Old World had its miraculous aspects. For sleek, 28-year-old Dona Maria Eva Duarte de Peron was no ordinary tourist. There was scarcely a capital where her iridescent progress had not been reported inch by inch, scarcely a newspaper from the Times of London to New York's Daily Worker which did not wonder out loud over the significance of the trip.

In Argentina itself, Evita's tour was the talk of every town. Whether they considered her God's gift to the working class or a devil's advocate against the established order, the citizens of Argentina, who are Argentine first and partisan second, could not repress their pride in the First Lady's spectacular accomplishments.

"I Don't Care." Eva herself was an old story by now, but this latest romp had given conversation a new spice. For weeks, shopgirls riding the crowded subway of Buenos Aires had aired their views. "I don't care what she was," said one. "I just hope she can do what she promises." Pomaded young executives in the Calle Florida and stolid portenos (citizens of Buenos Aires) sipping tea in the Boston Bar rehashed the question of Eva's position. "I don't mean to be snobbish. I don't mind her humble origin in the least; many of us descended from poor immigrants, but there are other considerations." In the American Club, U.S. businessmen snickered knowingly over the old unprintable gags, as they followed Eva in the daily papers. And befurred society women stopped time & again to tell each other: "And my dear, it seems unbelievable, but did you hear what she said in . . ."

Even in the chancelleries where Eva's trip had been planned (President Peron hailed it as "the greatest act of its kind in Argentine history"), anguished ministers kept constant tabs on Eva by transatlantic telephone. "If only," thought some, their fingers crossed, "she'll keep off politics!" At the last minute, four weeks ago, when Eva was about to take off from Moron airport, President Peron had rushed his pet ghostwriter aboard her plane, just in case. But one never could tell about Eva. To the women of Spain, on the first leg of her journey, she said disarmingly: "I did not come for an Axis, but only as a rainbow between our two countries."

Shimmer & Impulse. As a rainbow, shimmering with a new change of clothes at every appearance, coruscating with glittering jewels, shapely, brown-eyed Eva was unbeatable. Spaniards, high & low, took to her with open arms. Up & down the nation for two weeks and four days (TIME, June 23) they feted her, showered her with gifts and, as a grand climax, pinned upon her well-rounded bosom the Grand Cross of Isabella la Catolica. Eva loved it. The promise of Franco's bauble had spurred her trip. The other reasons for the extravaganza were not so clear. But at least Argentina was advertised, and Eva meanwhile had a wonderful time as she flashed her dazzling smile at ambassadors, cooed at crowds, fondled babies, and impulsively pressed 100-peseta notes into the hands of tearful, nursing mothers.

Even without a pot of Argentine gold and boatloads of Argentine wheat at its end, Argentina's rainbow would have been welcome in Spain.

Italy was a different story. There were Communists there, particularly in the north, ready to shatter Little Eva's poise with shouted obscenities and angry demonstrations. There were tactless, unreconstructed Fascists, too willing to hail Argentina's best-forgotten wartime associations.

But in Rome there were also unpolitical G.I.s on hand to meet Eva at the airport and give a low wolf-whistle as she emerged from her private plane in slick, flower-printed silk pulled skin-tight over her hips and bosom. There was an audience with the Pope, luncheon with the Foreign Minister, a Grand Hotel reception glittering with papal titles, and a dazzling performance of A'ida under the stars in the ancient Baths of Caracalla. Eva, in black flowered silk with a white fox cape, her hair, ear lobes and shapely neck glittering with diamonds, arrived on the arm of Premier de Gasperi just in time to delay the second act a full half-hour. Some of the paying guests were furious, but the Latin American diplomats, who had the best seats, cheered wildly.

The Likes of Eva. "I like all music, concerts and operas--especially Chopin," said Eva later to a reporter, admitting that her Italian reception, despite the Communists, had been "enchanting." "I don't understand politics," she continued, her alabaster hands fluttering expressively, but "I am profoundly religious." The Pope had been "marvelous." "What saintliness!" said Eva Peron, her brown eyes rolling heavenward.

The reporter asked if she enjoyed reading as much as music. "Oh yes," said Eva. And did she have any favorites? "Why do people ask me questions like that? I like everything I read." But surely she must have some favorites. "Well," said Eva, her brow furrowed in agonized thought, "Plutarch." "He's an ancient writer," she added hastily.

The reporter nodded and asked how she was enjoying her trip. "Oh," said Eva, "it's been magnificent. The most moving sight to me has been seeing hundreds of people in Spain and here in Italy waiting for hours in the boiling sun just to be able to throw a flower at me."

One day Eva's car bumped into an Italian woman who had rushed forward to ask that her son be allowed to go to Argentina. Eva got out to help, promised that the woman's petition would be granted. Next day, as she had done in Spain, she visited public nurseries, stuck lire into grimy, outstretched hands, talked steadily about her love for children and the poor.

The day Eva Peron left Rome for Milan, the boiling sun hid under a cloud. Cooling showers put an end to the heat wave that had stifled the city. At the Argentine Embassy, a wan official ran a finger under his collar and said: "I don't know whether I'm gladder that the rain came or that Eva has gone." But in France and England, there were other Argentine officials whose worries were just beginning.

Would Eva go to Paris and London? There had been some loud reverberations. In Paris, Mmes. Auriol and Bidault had expressed their willingness to carry a welcome as far as a purely private tea party. Britain's press had warned of a frosty reception (the Royal Family will be in Scotland, obviating the possibility of a palace snub). The final decision would doubtless be made by Eva. She was as used to having her own way as she was to snubs.

Rainbow's Start. It was not the humble swamp from which the Argentine rainbow first rose that earned her the haughty looks of B.A.'s aristocrats; it was the murky clouds through which she had climbed to arch so gracefully over their heads.

Official quarters resent investigation into Eva's past (she has never been listed in Argentina's Who's Who), but unofficial biographers state that Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1919, in the tiny village of Los Toldos in Buenos Aires province. Her father, Juan Duarte, was a handsome and susceptible small landowner of nearby Chivilcoy. Her mother was a dark-eyed Basque named Juana Ibarguren, whose charms were sufficient to lure Juan from his wife. The couple set up housekeeping in a tumbledown house with an unkempt yard overrun by chickens. They had five children, of whom Eva was the last.

Soon after, hard times came; Juan lost his property and died, leaving Juana and the children in poverty. Like most landholders, no matter how small, Juan had been a member of Argentina's Conservative Party. But after his death, his rich friends in the party had little time for Juan's five orphans or their mother. For help, Juana was forced to turn to a local politician of the Radical Party.

Cinderella. Eva may have remembered in later years how he helped the family move to the larger town of Junin, where he got the eldest girl, Elisa, a job in the postoffice. With Elisa's pay, Dona Juana managed to make ends meet. In time she established herself as a respectable boardinghouse keeper, and one by one she set about marrying off her daughters to the star boarders. The first two were soon settled, but thin, dark, energetic little Eva had other ideas. Movie magazines were full of Cinderella success stories, and there was a girl down the street who had run away to sing in Buenos Aires and ended up a banker's wife. Eva knew what she wanted. After two years of high school, she left for the big city, to become one of the desperate band of young hopefuls cluttering the casting offices along Calle Corrientes, Buenos Aires' Broadway.

There was little but determination to recommend Eva as an actress, but with energy and persistence she managed to wangle a few small parts in radio and the movies. (Her movies are never shown in Argentina these days.) She landed at last in a permanent if lowly job with Radio Belgrano, one of the biggest stations in the Argentine capital. There had been many men to help her on her way, and she had soon learned to pick the comers among them.

One night in July 1943, a month after the Generals' Revolution that put an end to Argentina's landholders' regime, Eva marched into her dressing room at Radio Belgrano. "Girls," she told her fellow actresses, "watch me." With that she picked up the telephone and asked for General Ramirez, the new President of the Republic. "Hola" she chirped, while the girls gaped, "is that you, General? Well, I'd love to dine with you. Thank you so much. You're very kind."

High Velocity. In no time, news of the call reached fat, excitable Jaime Yankelevich, the station's owner. Eva's salary was upped from 150 to 5,000 pesos a month. Her "official velocity," as the girls called it, was under way. Spiraling vortexlike in the wake of a revolution, it was to carry Eva to dizzying heights.

Three months later, Radio Belgrano had a party at its studios. The grand salon was filled with artists from stage & screen, important people in business and in the new Government. Among them were an eligible widower, Colonel Juan Peron, the Under Secretary of the War Ministry, and Eva Duarte, the rising radio star. It was the kind of warm, spring night on which romance blooms readily, and Eva Duarte and Juan Peron looked long and languidly at one another. Later, they went together to Tigre, a suburban resort a few miles up the muddy Rio de la Plata, where many a porteno goes to relax among the orange trees and the purple blossoms of the jacaranda. Soon afterward, Eva began to arrive for work at Radio Belgrano in a War Ministry limousine.

By 1944, Colonel Juan Peron had become the most powerful man in the Government. Eva was earning 35,000 pesos a month in radio, and almost that much in movies. She had moved to a new, modern apartment in fashionable Calle Posadas. Apartment A was her number. Colonel Peron took Apartment B. Evita (as he always called her) and Juancito (as she called him) were discussed from one end of B.A. to the other. Three society girls were arrested for spitting on their doorstep, but prospering Evita cared little. Her own star, and that of Juan Peron, were rising.

The Coatless. Unlike most of his co-revolutionaries, Peron was wise enough not to put all his faith in the military. In Argentina's Labor Ministry he worked long & hard to cultivate the miserable workers whom everyone else had neglected He became the friend of the worker, the champion of the descamisados, or coatless ones. At his side Eva Duarte discovered within herself a deep compassion for the underprivileged. She planned labor reforms, became head of the Radio Association, and took to calling her coworkers "my children." With Juancito she forged ahead valiantly in her new interests until October 1945, when Peron was suddenly forced out of the Government.

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 Peron 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 Peron 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, Peron 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 Peron 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 Peron, 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.

Free Hand. Devoted and well aware of his wife's value as a pressagent, Juancito gave her a free hand with her campaign for women's suffrage, her labor reforms and her peripatetic philanthropies. An undistinguished glassblower who had succeeded Peron as Secretary of Labor was moved aside to give Eva office space.

She still has no official title, but every day, after breakfast with her husband at 7, she shows up in her office, to work from 9 to noon receiving delegations of workers and trade unionists, hearing hard-luck stories and doling out advice and aid. A battery of secretaries is always on hand to take notes and handle a voluminous correspondence. In the afternoons, after a quick lunch with Peron, Evita is on her rounds again, visiting factories, addressing workers or distributing largess in the best bread-&-circus style.

The Hearts. In the first eleven months of their joint reign, the Argentine Government announced recently, Eva has given away in her husband's name some $4,280,000 worth of schoolbooks, clothes, shoes, furniture, toys, cakes and cider. The gifts are always accompanied by one of Eva's flowery speeches, with constant references to the "heart of Peron" and the "heart of Evita." So standard have these phrases become that opposition Cartoonist Tristan draws bejeweled Eva as a blank face with a heart-shaped mouth as her only identification. Last November, when Evita traveled to the sugar-rich Tucuman province, where sugar workers live in abject peonage, seven people were crushed to death in the rush for gifts. Eva was cool through it all. "I bring a message of love," she said, "for the workers of Tucuman."

In Argentina Evita holds the official title of "First Samaritan," but whether her unbounded love for the masses has been repaid in kind is open to question. Eva has few close friends and many bitter enemies in the land of her conquest. Even the most ardent Peronistas are divided as to whether she is a boon or a blight. She constantly interferes in state affairs, and certain it is that her highhanded palace intrigues have earned Peron many an enemy he might not otherwise have had. Last fall Eva threw the Argentine Senate into a furor when she charged into a sacrosanct closed session to demand immediate appointment of some friends as judges. The outraged Senators politely told her to scram. When Evita complained to Juancito, the entire body was summoned to the Casa Rosada to be scolded officially for bad manners.

Whether she wills it or not, Eva's reign undeniably has its impact on Argentine politics. Only last week, with the First Lady a safe 6,000 miles away, a bitter debate over her trip led two deputies to send challenges to duel to a Radical Party colleague. Eva's enemies have a way of disappearing from the Government. Her family and friends are equally apt to hang on through thick & thin. Eva's brother is now Peron's personal secretary; her eldest sister Elisa is virtually the political boss of Junin. The husbands of Eva's two other sisters each hold lucrative political appointments.

Yet the Presidenta, her waxen face as deadpan as it always is when she is not smiling, will insist time & again that her husband governs alone, neither asking nor getting her advice. "I am his wife," she says, "and I am interested only in social work."

Last week, in an expensive flowered dress and white picture hat, her burnished, bleached gold hair in sleek rolls over her ivory nape (Italians compared her to Lana Turner), Eva Peron bared her soul to Italy's League of Women Voters. "I am a woman of the people," she said. "All my efforts, all my longings and all my concerns are directed to support women's just aspirations." Eva and the women of Italy sighed deeply. Then, smiling graciously, Argentina's First Lady accepted their gift: a 1554 copy of the Divine Comedy--by Dante, an ancient author.

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