Arturo Frondizi

President of Argentina

28, 1908 Paso de los Libres, Corrientes, Argentina

April 18, 1995(1995-04-18) (86) Buenos Aires, Argentina

May 1, 1958 – March 29, 1962

27th President of Argentina (1958-62) Arturo Frondizi Ércoli (October 28, 1908 – April 18, 1995) was an Argentine lawyer, journalist, teacher and politician, who was elected President of Argentina and ruled between May 1, 1958 and March 29, 1962, when he was overthrown by a military coup. His government was characterized by an ideological shift, inspired by Rogelio Frigerio, towards a type of developmentalism less promoted by the State and more oriented to the development of heavy industry as a consequence of the installation of multinational companies. Its socio-labor, oil and educational policy had peaks of high conflict, with large demonstrations and strikes by the labor movement and the student movement, as well as numerous attacks against the government for political purposes in which 17 civilians and soldiers were murdered. The Frondizi government suffered great pressure from the armed forces, which was imposed on it by the liberal Economy Ministers Álvaro Alsogaray and Roberto Alemann, and the retirement of Frigerio as a government advisor. Despite this, Frondizi was able to continue with its development line. He was unable to finish his presidential term, as he was overthrown by a coup on March 29, 1962. That day he was detained by the coup military and a decree of the Executive Power of José María Guido validated his detention without trial for eighteen months, preventing him from participating in it in the 1963 elections. Frondizi criticized the inauguration and the government of Arturo Illia, who in fact accepted the overthrow of Frondizi as legal and annulled some of his oil contracts. In 1966 he supported the military coup that overthrew Illia, thinking that the "Argentine Revolution" was an opportunity to make an economic revolution. However, he would abandon that idea when Adalbert Krieger Vasena assumed the Ministry of Economy. On April 18, 1995, Arturo Frondizi died at the age of 86 at the Hospital Italiano in the city of Buenos Aires of natural causes.