The Rest Is History - 496. Evita: The World's Most Powerful Woman (Part 3)

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

“There is only one man who can lead any worker’s regime.” Together, Eva and Colonel Perón built a political movement powered by operatic rhetoric. Perónism promised genuine benefits for the working class, denouncing violence and emphasising ritual and spectacle. Eva embodied the working-class migrant to Buenos Aires that Perón sought to attract, and she increasingly entered the role of his partner both at home and in government. Ostentatiously flamboyant in her dress sense, how did Evita become a woman of the people who also wore Christian Dior? Listen as Tom and Dominic unpack how Eva became Evita, the most powerful woman in global politics. _______ *The Rest Is History LIVE in the U.S.A.* If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and New York.  *The Rest Is History LIVE at the Royal Albert Hall* Tom and Dominic, accompanied by a live orchestra, take a deep dive into the lives and times of two of history’s greatest composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Tickets on sale now at TheRestIsHistory.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Anouska Lewis Editor: Becki Hills Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. There is only one man who can lead any worker's regime. He lives for your problems. He shares your ideals and your dream. He supports you, for he loves you, understands you, is one of you. If not, how could he love me? So that, of course, was Evita Dominic in the eponymous musical by

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and she is appealing to the Descamisados the the poor of Argentina and saying that Peron is on their side and one of the things that I've really enjoyed about doing the series is seeing the way in which the story in the musical, which is probably the version of Evita's life that most people listening to this will be most familiar with, how it maps onto the reality, but also the way in which Tim Rice, who's such a brilliant lyricist, has kind of used the raw material. So there's a speech that Ava gives in 1949 basically it is in prose what those lyrics from the musical are the opposition says that it is fanaticism that I'm a fanatic for Peron and for

the people that I'm dangerous because I'm too sectarian and too fanatical on Peron's behalf but I answer them with Peron fanaticism is the wisdom of the spirit I say yes I am fanatically for Peron and for the Descamisados of the nation. So she is fusing the two and she's offering herself. She loves the Descamisados. She loves Peron. Perfect. Marriage made in heaven. It's why actually, in other circumstances, I would say your lamentable singing, I would

discourage it. But as you know, Tom, I really have encouraged you to sing in these episodes. I mean, I say that in all sincerity. I couldn't get enough of it. You've been begging me to sing. The West End musical, which is melodramatic, and its critics said that

of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's work at the time, but that matches perfectly the style of Peronist rhetoric. And her constant talk of love, of martyrdom, of sacrifice, which I think she got from the world of the tango,

from the soap operas that she had grown up doing from her teens onwards. I think that got from the world of the tango, from the soap operas that she had grown up doing from her teens onwards. I think that gives Peronism its unique flavor. It's that much more than any kind of policy proposals or anything like that. So last time, if you remember, we talked about how Ava and Juan Peron met, how his political career became stratospheric, how there was this great rally on the 17th of October 1945, which was almost like an act of communion between Peron and the masses. Dominic, important to say, has not brought Peron to power as yet.

It has simply meant that he can run in the forthcoming election. Yeah, which is scheduled for February 1946. Peronism does have some substance. It's not just style. So there's an emphasis on social justice. This is what gives Peronism its name, the creed, justicialismo, which is justicialism, which is kind of impossible to translate in English. It sort of means nothing. There is obviously a very strong nationalistic element to it.

Kind of anglophobic nationalism, would you say? Yeah, definitely anglophobic. Britain is seen as the, it's not quite the colonial oppressor, but Britain is the country that owns the railways, the banks. It's the country that all of this oligarchic conservative elite in Buenos Aires look to, and that therefore the descalizados, the shirtless ones, the working classes, resent. So that is a big element of it. People have sometimes said, is it just italian fascism i think we explored some of this in the last episode and it is in style but peronism is

also about delivering genuine benefits to the working classes i think that makes it different it's not particularly although it can be rhetorically very violent it's not about violence it's about ritual spectacle but also welfare public I mean, in a way, Dominic, would you say it's not far off the kind of the trend in continental European politics at the moment, actually, that it's very kind of statist concern with what might be cast traditionally as left-wing politics, but with an emphasis on the primacy of the nation and patriotism. It's actually a kind of a programme that lots of people looking at our own general election has said is missing, but quite a lot of people in britain would quite possibly identify with i think so i think it's basically uh people often joke don't know they say um the the sweet spot of british

politics is to hang child molesters and give loads of money to the nhs yeah and that's basically peronism yeah there's a bit of that in peronism i think you could you could make comparison between peron and some of the sort of authoritarian strongmen, Erdogan, Orban, and so on. People who wrap themselves in the flag, they have a client base to whom they give benefits. Fascist is not quite the right word, but there are elements, maybe, that are similar. And I think Peron absolutely has that. Just to reiterate, the one thing perhaps that really distinguishes it is the quality of emotion. I mean, you could call it histrionic if you're negative or operatic if you're being positive, but it's very, very kind of heightened rhetoric, isn't it? And of course,

in the 1940s, a lot of people see this as very suspect. We talked before about the great writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges is typical of a kind of Argentine elite who think this is Nazism. And actually, the opponents of Perón in the election in 1946, so the socialists, the communists, the radicals, they come together to form something called the Unión Democrática. Their emblem is the Phrygian cap of liberty, and their slogan is for liberty against Nazism. And of course, the man who is spurring them on is the former US ambassador with his excellent name, Spruill Braden, who says Perron is a Nazi, which I think is unfair because I don't think he is a Nazi. I mean, this is something that Churchill had said in the British general election, that Labour would introduce the Gestapo. Now it's happening

in 1946 that people are accusing their opponents of being Nazis. I mean, this is obviously a tradition in the post-war democratic world that will run and run and run. And I think there's another kind of interesting way in which this election that Perron conducts is looking forward to the future, which is his obsession with taking off his jacket. I mean, politicians are still doing that today, aren't they? They kind of get out on the stump. Tony Blair loved to take a jacket off. Yeah, they're always rolling up their sleeves and that kind of thing. Perron does that and he's the first person to have done it. He does all this campaign on trains.

He goes all over the country. Of course, Argentina, a massive country. He goes to Rosarium and Doza Cordoba on the train with Ava at his side. It's the first time a candidate's wife has travelled with a presidential candidate. So again, that is something that elections in subsequent decades will also pick up on. Totally. Yeah. She doesn't say anything, by the way. So she's not giving speeches for him. She's just standing there looking ornamental while he is giving these kind of hoarse speeches. It's a sign of Peronism's weird ambiguity and kind of slight meaninglessness that he is attacking the

opposition. He says they're socialists, they're communists, they're oligarchs, and they're weird ambiguity and kind of slight meaninglessness that he is attacking the opposition he says they're socialists they're communists they're oligarchs and they're working for the united states and people say hurrah these are these are obviously terrible people and he says again basically me or spruill braden he actually says the choice is this the real choice is between braden and perron and on braden's side it is the oligarchic communist ticket. A political scientist reading this would be like, what? That is just babble. These are communists and polo-playing, faux-British kind of bankers are.

But they both occupy a place in the kind of demonology of the Argentine working classes. Well, also, I mean, Perón can occupy the centre ground. He can attack his opponents both as being extreme left and extreme right. That's exactly what he wants to do. He does it brilliantly. He wins a big majority. He wins 52% of the vote in February 1946. His party, which he has created really for the occasion,

the Labour Party, party of the trade unions, win loads of Senate seats and governorships and all of that kind of stuff. And it is clear that he has built this extraordinary, very broad coalition. Of course, the problem with any coalition so broad is that you're trying to please everybody. However, Dominic, he has a wonderful wife in the form of Ava. And shortly before his inauguration, she broadcasts the entire future course of the Peron government in a daring sartorial maneuver when she goes to this banquet and she sat down next to the cardinal

and she wears an off-the-shoulder dress. It's a bit like Jean Shrimpton wearing that mini dress at Melbourne, if you remember. It is. So it ranks alongside that as one of the two great moments in world history. So the elite alongside that as one of the two great moments in world history. So the elite, again, are very shocked by this. To sit next to a cardinal and to leave your shoulder bare.

Incredible scenes. Particularly since this is one of the very few moments when Ava is slightly overweight. Overweight? Tom, I can't believe you've done that. We're not about fat shaming on the rest of history.

Yes. I mean, I'm merely reporting what maybe hostile comments were said about her. Okay. So I want to distance I'm merely reporting what maybe hostile comments were said about. Okay. So I want to distance myself from this lack of gallantry, by the way.

Anyway, so Perron is in power. But Dominic, also, you've missed out the other key thing that happens shortly after the inauguration. Hold on. Were you the same person as the Tom Holland

who five minutes before we started recording was begging me to cut stuff out of the notes? Yeah, I know. But this is the best bit where after the inauguration, Perron goes and slides

down the staircase, doesn't he? And he's racing someone. I did cut that. But this is the best bit where after the inauguration, Perron goes and slides down the staircase, doesn't he? And he's racing someone. I did cut that. I deliberately cut that out. I thought, the audience don't need to know that we were sliding down there.

I think it shows him in a very good form. If I was president and I had an enormous staircase, I would do that. Well, it's now, you've shared it with everybody. Perron takes over Argentina

at a very propitious moment. They have stayed out of the Second World War and they've become enormously rich. They're very rich War and they've become enormously rich. They're very rich already. They've become enormously rich. Britain alone owes them $2 billion,

basically, for meat. Because of the collapse of the European economy because of the war, Europeans are desperate for Argentine products, cereals and meat and all that sort of stuff. At the same time, because European industries have been devastated, they're not producing goods for Argentina

to waste its money on, as it were. So they have to buy Argentine-made goods. So it's win-win for Argentina. It's brilliant. Now, there's a danger, which if you are smart, you would be able to see in 1946, which is Europe will recover at that point. They'll have their own farming back up again. They won't need all our stuff. Plus, they will be making import stuff to export to us, and we will be wasting our valuable currency reserves on european made radios or whatever it might be in the meantime perron doesn't think about this he's just about giving benefits to his sort of base so he says i'm going to nationalize a lot of these british railways and nationalize those industries i'm going to industrialize

they're going to be like lovely pensions and nice benefits. And you could say in all this, he is not that dissimilar from Franklin D. Roosevelt in the New Deal in America in the 1930s or from the Labour government in Britain in the 1940s or so many social democratic governments around the world. But to be fair, Dominic, Clement Attlee's wife is kind of not going out onto the street and giving sewing machines to people clement atley's wife was a conservative well there you go so there you go yeah so this is what perron is offering is a wife who's kind of literally handing out stuff to people so what she does straight away which is absolutely extraordinary by the standards of argentine politics is avaon, who, don't forget, at the beginning of 1944, was a radio actress and

nothing but a radio actress. When they come in in 1946, she moves into the Ministry of Labour. She establishes an office there, Peron's old kind of stronghold, and people queue up to see her, and she basically gives them things. That is her role. You need stuff for our new school. My child is sick. I need help know stuff for our new school my child is sick i need help getting a permit to do and do this but the great symbol is the sewing machine isn't it which again is so kind of moving because it's her remembering her mother and how her mother with her sewing machine was able to just about keep her head above water and of course the sewing machine associated with women so that's why it makes sense for her to be kind of handing that out. Now, is she doing this just because Perron

has told her to? I think she clearly loves it. She says again and again, she says, I've always wanted to be somebody. She tells one of her friends, I always wanted to cut a figure in history. And I think this is a new part for her and one in which she can pour her energies in a way she never has before. Do you think at this point that she is consciously thinking I could build up a power base here? No, I don't. I don't think actually at any point. Now, maybe some people listening to this will disagree. I don't believe that at any point she thought I want to build up a power base independent of my husband. No, no, no. that's not what I'm saying because she always sees herself as part of Perron, but she wants to be his partner in government as well as emotionally,

doesn't she? Do you think she's starting to think in those terms already at this point, or does that come later? No, I do think that, but I don't think she would get the opportunity unless he wanted it. It would be nice to say this is a story of an independent woman and unfettered female agency, but I think that would actually be wrong. I think if Perron hadn't wanted her to move into the Ministry of Labour to do all these things, she wouldn't have done it. Well, I mean, we said how Perron is instinctively more cautious than Ava. So he likes clearly to have Ava kind of testing the waters for him. So that's what's happening. But when Ava is handing stuff out, I mean, she's essentially building up a client base. And also she is establishing links with the unions on a kind of

a closer basis than Peron had ever done. And over the course of time, Ava's links to the unions will become much stronger than Peron's, which isn't to say that she is opposed to Peron, quite the opposite. She would see herself as serving his purpose. But we said that when she first meets him, she is not political at all. And she ends up incredibly political. I mean, she proves to be brilliant at politics. I think there's a smartness, though, from Peron. Peron has to put somebody in that role.

And whoever he puts in that role will build up a relationship with the unions and an independent power base of their own. One of the things that made him successful all the relationship with the unions and an independent power base of their own. One of the things that made him successful all the way from the 1940s to the 1970s is he's really good at playing off people against each other and maneuvering with rivals. He doesn't want anybody else to have that job. And for her to have that job is perfect for him because she is his creature. She's not elected in her own right. She's no threat to him.

So great. And I think the one other thing about that, Tom, is that by putting her there, she is his creature. She's not elected in her own right. She's no threat to him. So great. And I think the one other thing about that, Tom, is that by putting her there, she is the symbol, she is the personification of what he's trying to achieve, which is the uplift of a working class migrant to the city. Right. And so that kind of working class accent with her kind of salty vocabulary that she's picked up in the slums of Buenos Aires and which her acting patrons had urged to get rid of now becomes an incredible advantage, doesn't it? It does. If you listen to recordings of her voice in the Eva Perón Museum in Buenos Aires, I have to say, if you ever thought American Presidential Library Museum was a little too

hagiographical, go to the Perón Museum of Buenos Aires and you will see them in a very different light because it's basically like you're trapped inside a massive vat of Ava Peron flavoured treacle. And her voice is kind of coming out all the time in these endless clips. And she has this kind of rasping, slightly monotonous, it's actually not a very pleasant voice, I have to say. But effective on the stump, right? But it works, right? It works because it is the message, which is it is unfiltered. It is authentic. It is the voice of the street. And people are already being primed to listen to her because she's familiar from the radio.

Familiar from the radio, exactly. So there's a lot of snobbery about that, that kind of the elites say that it was only their servants who had listened to Ava's broadcasts. But of course, from Ava's purposes, that's perfect, because these are exactly the people that Peron is out to get. There are more people in domestic service than there are employing domestic servants. So another thing that people are very snobbish about is the way at first she dresses. She links up with the wife of Peron's kind of congressional majority leader. And this woman is called Liliana Guado, who writes a brilliant account actually of Ava in these years and she says you know she didn't know what to wear she didn't know how to dress so she

goes into this story and what she's looking for Tom is of course bling bling exactly so she she will go in and she'll say I want a discount I want something for my mother we'll pay you later and the check never comes and the story is that Ricky Yardie and his assistants, when he saw her coming at the end of the street, he'd say, quick, I can't hide all the best stuff. Did you see that she had a gay best friend? Of course she did. Paco Hamandrou. Like somebody from a Richard Curtis film. Yeah, really is. So he was a cross-dressing dress designer and they were very close.

So she had no compunction about the sort of flamboyance. She had no shame about that. She said to Lilian Guado, when they said to her, do you want to just dress down a bit because you look a bit vulgar? And she said, no, that's the point. Poor people do not want someone to protect them who is old and dowdy. They all have their dreams about me and I don't want to let them down. And that's basically what Don't Cry For Me Argentina is about. Yes, exactly. You know, dressed up to the nines.

And of course, the other famous song in Evita about this is They Need To Adore Me, So Christian Dior Me. And her taste will become more sophisticated, won't it, in due course. But just on the vulgarity, the second podcast I think we ever did was about Mr. Trump. You made comparisons with Roman Republican politicians. And of course, in those days, ostentatious displays of vulgarity went down very well with the masses, as indeed they do today. She is brilliant at that. I mean, she knows that's what they want.

They want to see the jewels. They want to see that somebody like them has got to the top. Right. But also as her tastes become more sophisticated, she realizes that she can do that, that she can appeal to the descamisadas, but also she can thumb her nose at the people she really detests, the elites, the oligarchical class, by actually dressing as they dress, because she does get this chance to do what the Argentine elites do, which is to go to Europe. This is where the Christian Diormi idea comes from. And imagine if you're the kind of person who goes to the racing at longshore ascot and you are a member of pratt's or white's in london and you're used to going to the cote d'azur and then this awful woman does this that's what the argentine elite think because in 1947

franco has been completely isolated in spain since his victory in the spanish civil war he is very much persona non grata with the allies. And the only people who have ever been Spain's friends, the Argentines. And he says to Perón, I'd love to have you over to, you know, no one comes to Spain. Please come to Spain. Perón doesn't want to go because even though Spain is a big trading partner for Argentina and the obviously enormous cultural, emotional links, Perón, he likes anti-American rhetoric, but he also wants to keep in with the Americans. He knows that would annoy them. Also, he doesn't like Franco, does he? links perron he likes anti-american rhetoric but he also wants to keep in with the americans he knows that would annoy them also he doesn't like franco does he no and he doesn't want to go and see franco he doesn't really approve of franco thinks franco's been too violent and brutal so

the way to get around that perron won't go but he will send ava on almost like a kind of royal progress and she's delighted because of course this is the elite thing to do to go to europe on a little tour it is and one of the things that's a very touching anecdote, that before she goes, a group of kind of very poor women who are her fans turn up and they tell her, Ava, that she should wear her hair in a chignon. So rather than a kind of pompadour hairstyle, 1940s hairstyle, that she should be more cutting edge and i don't know whether that story is true but it is really interesting as showing what you were saying that the more kind of elite the more cutting edge the more expensive she looks the more she is fulfilling the dreams of her fan base and this is what she will do on her tour and the chignon becomes her signature look doesn't it yeah that people want her to be a character in a fairy tale they think of her as somebody from a soap opera they know that she identifies with them and they identify with her.

So she goes to Spain. She's never flown before. She's very nervous, apparently. She writes Per on this letter, which we have. Oh, I'm so sad to be leaving because I'm unable to live away from you. I love you so much. What I feel for you is a kind of idolatry. I don't know how to show what I feel for you, but all this.

I mean, it's basically not like the letter that, remember the bins are on Monday. Arthur's got to sleep over on Friday at Ben Fallows' house. It's not all that. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of, it's just absolutely. Remember to brush your braid.

Gushing, and it goes on forever. It's like she's trapped in the soap opera idiom and can never escape. She gets to Spain. Great hullabaloo. The first guest they have had for years and years. Franco's there to meet her at the tarmac. I mean, who else has Franco ever met? He's met Salazar and he's met Hitler. So not exactly kind of great company. So he's delighted. She goes around Spain, they give her the grand cross of Isabella, you know, Ferdinand and Isabella, Isabella

la Cattollica, and this gigantic crowd, supposedly millions of people. Well, so one of the things that Ava presumably is doing is she's talking about themes of social justice. That's right. That haven't been heard in Spain since the civil war. Everyone just smiles weakly when she starts talking about democracy. Because doesn't Franco, he sends her off to look at the Escorial, the great palace of Philip II and says, oh, you won't be able to see it without bursting into tears. And Evita has this kind of bet that she'll be able to look at it. That's a brilliant story.

I didn't hear that. I haven't heard that story. And then she comes back and Franco says, did you weep? And she says, I didn't weep at all. On the contrary, I thought what a wonderful home for orphans. I have to say, I wouldn't want to be. I'll be frank with you, Tom. I wouldn't want to be sitting next to her.

I'd find that very tiresome. Yeah, but she's the winner because as a result of this, you know, he's lost the bet. He has to give her a priceless tapestry from the Prado. So, you know, she's shown that she cares. She cares about the poor and she gets a tapestry. Yeah. Oh, she's all about kindness.

She's all about being kind isn't she Tom isn't that nice yeah she doesn't go to Britain I thought she did get an invitation well it's complicated Labour MPs did not want her to come because they say they're pals with Franco who's a nightmare of a man and her husband is a complete fascist we don't want her to come she could have come and indeed there was an invitation there was talk of having tea with the Queen as was. So Queen Elizabeth, the person we knew as the Queen Mother. But she messes around with the schedule.

Actually, it's her fault. And the royal family are up in Balmoral. And she has a massive strop. If they're not going to see me in London, I'm not even going to come. Well, fine, don't come. So she didn't come. So she missed out on what would have been the highlights of her life. But she does meet the Pope, doesn't she?

And she feels that he slightly snubbed her because she only gets 20 minutes. 20 minutes is what a queen gets. Right. But this is the reports that come out are that oligarchs have kind of stitched her up by sending pornographic photos of her to the Vatican. I'm assuming this isn't true. No, that's not right at all. She gets 20 minutes.

Communists in Italy protest very violently against her. Interestingly, people protest for her, sing Mussolini era slogans and songs and stuff. So in other words, people perceive her purely through the lens of kind of Italian fascists, 1930s politics. Well, also her treatment is a lot less effusive than it had been in Spain. Definitely. So she wouldn't like that. No. But in Paris, it's a bit better. Paris, you know, people in the French government go all French over her, kiss her hand, praise her beauty. Yeah, kind of lizard-y. And she shacks up with Christian Dior. When you say shacks up, I mean, she wears his clothes. What I mean by that is she leaves her measurements with him. mean tommy you've left your measurements with that well i'm wearing christian deal now so

people are watching this on you did you shack up with christian deal i have no sense um i'm i'm wearing it in uh in avita's honor and i can't believe you're telling people what you're wearing well it's what it's all about dominic it's all about fashion he said that he had only ever designed clothes for one queen and that was avita oh did he really say that he had only ever designed clothes for one queen, and that was Evita. Did he really say that? He did. Yeah, he did. I'm very suspicious of that.

One last bit. She goes to Switzerland. Everybody afterwards says, oh, she obviously went to Switzerland to put loads of stolen money in a Swiss bank account. And as our excellent biographers, Nicholas Fraser and Marisa Navarro say, there are many more convenient and less conspicuous ways of depositing money in Swiss accounts than meeting the Swiss foreign minister and being shown around a watch factory.

So... Yes. It might be a double bluff. Could be a double bluff. She comes back to Argentina. The Argentines are delighted. She has made a kind of regal tour. She's the queen of hearts, all that kind of...

They call it the rainbow tour. The rainbow tour. High-flying of hearts, all that kind of... They call it the rainbow tour. The rainbow tour. High-flying adored, Dominic. Yeah. Interestingly, actually, the Observer, British paper, I think is quite good on this.

So it says this was an exercise in glamour demagoguery. And I don't think they're really wrong. Now, she was accused, I think in Spain, of giving a fascist salute when actually she was

just kind of waving. And the Observer said, to us, the fascist salute means a nightmare that happened, but to Senora Perón, it evidently seems just a gesture in a great show, the theme of which is, poor girl makes good and is beloved by one and all forever and ever. And the Observer says that very scathingly.

But of course, that is the plot of the musical, of the film, and of Evita's life in her own mind, isn't it? Poor girl makes good and is beloved by one and all forever and ever. But is it? Because actually, the kind of the take on the film is pretty hostile to Evita. I mean, this is why Evita is such a polarizing figure. There are people who completely adore her. And there are people who see her as the most monstrous person imaginable. You know, that's why she's so her as the most monstrous person imaginable. You know,

that's why she's so fascinating as a political figure. So I think, I mean, I think it's fair to say that when she comes back from her European tour, she's a figure of even greater glamour to her admirers in Argentina than she had been before. And she's a figure of immense interest to people around the world. I mean, I would say that she is on her way to becoming the second most powerful person in Argentina and, you know, by far the most powerful woman in global politics. So when we come back after the break, let's look at how she does this. Basically what she does as Evita rather than Ava. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip.

And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. And Dominic, we left Ava in the end of the first half saying that she is the most significant female political figure in world politics at this time. So the question is, is she doing anything specifically for women beyond giving them sewing machines? And the obvious question, Argentine women at this point do not have the vote. Is she working to give them the vote? Tom, as always in the rest of history,

the answer is yes and no. Is it? Is it complicated, Dominic? Is it complicated? It is always complicated. So she didn't vote in 1946 because she couldn't vote. There had been 15 attempts in almost 40 years to give Argentine women the vote and they had all failed one way or another. And is that because? Men are bastards. Well, men are bastards, but feminism, again, it's a bit like kind of shooting sticks and polo. It's something upper class. It's something that is associated with the elites. It doesn't seem to have had kind of deep grassroots fervor.

I definitely don't think it has grassroots fervor. I think you're probably right. I mean, that's not, that's obviously the case in lots of places, that suffrage campaigns are led by generally quite well-heeled women. I think Argentina is, I mean, I don't want to just degenerate into kind of national stereotypes, but it's the land of the gaucho, it's a land of very kind of masculine machismo and so on. But if feminism is seen as something that is the kind of the property of the elites, and Evita will always deny that she's a feminist. I mean, in her biography, which,

you know, may have been, goes written for her, but clearly is expressing her sentiments. She says she wasn't a feminist because I wasn't an old spinster or ugly enough, which would obviously get her cancelled today. Yeah, it would. But it's the sense that she is appropriating that campaign and making it her own. Must be another way of sticking it to the upper classes. Oh, it is. Definitely. Perron, her husband, is in favour of giving Moon the vote. It's a brilliant way to get a lot of votes, right?

Yeah, of course. because they'd vote for him Yeah exactly Actually she lends her voice to a bill introduced by a supporter of hers called Eduardo Colom actually that bill is later dropped it's not the bill that goes through but she does make speeches you know saying it's time for women to have their say

we love Perron let's all vote for him and all this kind of thing so she's a sort of supporting player I. What she does that is much bigger than that is actually setting up a women's party. So it is, of course, it's again, this double-edged issue. It is a Peronist women's party. And when she gives the speech in July 1949, where she says, I'm setting up this party, she says, the point of this party is unconditional loyalty to peron a man to be a peronist is to be loyal and have blind confidence in peron she says yeah and she says of her own role i have been nothing more than the bridge i desire to be between the workers and

the general which again is not very feminist no i think i mean she's i mean i've seen this in her autobiography again no woman's movement will be glorious and lasting in the world if it does not give itself to the cause of a man so that sense of self-sacrifice is obviously a huge part of her kind of personal mythology she's never happier than when she's sacrificing herself for something and i think she genuinely thinks that is a woman's role in society. Okay, but so women's suffrage is past. But the other thing that she's doing, which we were talking about in the first half, is that she has this kind of program of relief of basically giving people stuff. The emblematic thing that she gives out is a sewing machine,

because thereby women can have autonomy, they can have independence, they can make more money for themselves. And of course, she understands this to the depths of her heart because that had been true of her mother. And of course, she'd been a working woman herself, when she was an actress. Of course. In that sense, I mean, that is a feminist program, isn't it? Giving women the chance to stand up on their own feet. When we started this series in the very first episode, after you sang that extraordinary song at the beginning, we talked about Margaret Thatcher going to see Evita in the late 1970s.

Margaret Thatcher never called herself a feminist, distanced herself from feminism, but was a working wife who clearly blazes a trail for other women to follow. And I don't think, I mean, obviously they're very different, but there's a slight element of that here. But yeah, they are very different, but both of them are kind of publicly committed to the notion that women should have the chance to improve themselves, to advance themselves, to rise up in the world. Both of them, you know, coming from very different political standpoints are very keen on that. And I wonder if that is

a part of what makes them such iconic figures. Well, I mean, it definitely pays off in Argentina. Perón does really, really well with women in the next election. And the Peronist Women's Party is probably more committed, more vital, more dedicated than the men's. So she's very, very successful at establishing a lasting legacy. And we'll maybe talk later, actually, when we turn to this issue of social welfare, about how the woman is the dispenser of charity, the mother of the nation, the mother of the descamisados. That obviously plays into or plays on existing stereotypes, existing archetypes, I guess, of women in kind of Catholic iconography and in the kind of folk iconography of so many Argentines, don't you think? Yeah. I mean, she's brilliant at going

with the grain of cultural expectations, but kind of refining it and kind of ratcheting things up. Exactly. So as we said before, in the first half, she had her office at the Ministry of Labour and people would come and she'd give them things and she loved that she loved being photographed giving clothes and food to the poor or her sewing machines or whatever she's getting more and more letters and so in 1948 they institutionalize it the maria eva duarte de peron foundation and this is basically it's so big it's like a government department she is spending the equivalent of about 200 million dollars a year they employ tens of thousands of workers construction workers priests they're giving out half a million sewing machines tom yeah yeah half a million pairs of shoes hundreds

of thousands of cooking pots all of that stuff setting up orphanages and hospitals and schools and all these things so in the musical there's a kind of tone of cynicism around this. The idea that it's all a bit of a scam. And of course, people who were hostile to Evita said, oh, you know, it's just a way for her to better herself. I mean, this is where the money that she was supposedly depositing in Swiss bank accounts was coming from. That doesn't actually seem to be the case.

Actually, amazingly, it seems not really to have been very corrupt at all. I mean, maybe I've got this wrong, but that does seem to be the case. Actually, amazingly, it seems not really to have been very corrupt at all. I mean, maybe I've got this wrong, but that does seem to be, at least in part, down to the unbelievable hard work that Evita puts into it. I mean, she's really, really micromanaging it. She's going into work all the time. I mean, basically, she barely sees Peron. You know, she ends up moving into a different bed because they have completely different waking hours. And she's going around the country and she is perhaps getting an understanding of Argentina and its social problems that most politicians don't get. So there are kind of records of her going out and seeing, you know, the depths of poverty that some people are living in and bursting into tears and coming back and

working even harder to try and relieve it. So I don't want to sound too much of a kind of Evita fanboy, but there is... That's too late, Tom. I think she comes across as a very impressive figure with this in a way that I had not been expecting her to, to be honest. Well, first of all, I think there is a bit of corruption, so I don't think it's uncorrupt.

Of course, but she personally is not doing it to make herself rich. No, I don't think that's... She believes it passionately. Yeah, I mean, she's got a jaw. Yeah, but she's is not doing it to make herself rich. No, I don't think that's... She believes it passionately. Yeah, I mean, she's got a jaw. Yeah, but she's got a Christian Dior me. Got a Dior outfit. She doesn't need the money from the foundation. You're absolutely right.

She works ridiculous hours. She gives up an enormous amount of time. There's a moment when the novelist, the American novelist, John Dos Passos, in 1949, he goes to Argentina and he actually goes to see a day at her foundation and he says you know it's not particularly fancy the place is rammed it's so full of basically people in rags her desk is at the end and as soon as she comes in all the flashlights go off and there's the cameramen are all very excited and people are all crowding around and then basically she literally just she's listening to poor women's troubles and like

wiping the nose of their children and stuff. And she does that all day. And actually- You know what her role reminds me of? Is a medieval queen. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it's like. Tom, I think that is exactly the right comparison.

She is like a medieval queen. But the difference is she works, as you said, so hard. In the Dos Passos account, he hears one of the women say, she is too thin. That woman is working herself to death. And even at this point, people are sort of saying, this is why I thought of Catherine of Siena, the saint that we did a podcast about last year.

There was something almost a bit manic and a bit unhealthy about the drive when everyone else just says, okay, enough now, let's go home. She's like, no, we're going to stay till the small hours, seeing more people, doing more good, all of this kind of thing. Something almost… Well, you might say self-mortifying. Self-mortifying, exactly.

And when Dos Passos describes it, it's a tableau. It's a kind of ritual. There is something religious about it almost. There is a sort of sense that she is playing a part, that she plays day in, day out. There is a ritualized quality to it. And she even has a new outfit. So she starts to dress like a kind of a nun,

wearing black suits, looking more and more gaunt. She sweeps her hair back, so no more of the sort of piled up hair. And she looks austere and serious and dedicated. And of course, the other thing that we've alluded to before is people will come in with open wounds. They're filthy and they have open wounds. They maybe have leprosy or they have some skin disease or whatever so that's very much the part of a saint i suppose she is absorbing into herself all kinds of archetypes that have an incredible cultural resonance right and obviously these these archetypes are ones that you know i mean she's bound to draw on because that's part of the culture that she comes from so she always said

she wasn't what was it a candle lick candle licker. So she wasn't a kind of, you know, she wasn't a church going Catholic, but she clearly is very Catholic. Her impulses, her concerns. I mean, I agree that the comparisons with Catherine of Siena are kind of intriguing. And the emphasis that even the rhetoric that she uses, so it's not just in the soap operas. One of the accounts, I think it's Joseph Page's book about Peron, he says, it seems sometimes that the aim of the foundation under the Peronist regime was not so much the construction of public works as the generation of emotion. And this constant emphasis on love, obviously a very Christian word. An American reporter said, in Argentina today, there's love, love, love. Love makes the Per perrons go around their whole act is based on it they are madly passionately nationally in love they conduct their affair with

the people quite openly you know that again that sense that she's she's constantly talking about love in a way that politicians you know they don't do because they sound a bit weird but churchmen do or saints do and it's the love i suppose most obviously of the virgin for sinners for the poor for the sick for the suffering and peron is kind of cast as a godlike figure she can play the role of the mother of god she can then have you seen the nicknames that people gave the titles the lady of hope the mother of the innocents the standard bearer of the descamisados and the one that you mentioned the the bridge of love. I mean, all of these are obviously coming out of a society where Catholic... Saturated in kind of Marian devotion.

Marian, yeah, exactly. Exactly. She casts herself quite freely as the high priestess of a cult. She says, sometimes I think that Peron... I i mean perron is a man who she sleeps with she knows perron is a normal person but she says i sometimes think that perron ceased to be an ordinary man and became an ideal incarnate where he does leave flowers on her pillow he does but i don't want to give anything away but i mean i don't think my wife would say that of me that i was no longer yeah but you're not perron dominic no it's an idea i don't even believe tom that your wife would say that of you yeah but equally i i am not i am not the helmsman of my country would sadie say if you perron is everything tom is everything

he is the soul the nerve the hope and the reality of the argentine people there is only one man here in our movement with his own source of light and that is peron we all feed from his light i mean if somebody said that about me i would call the police i would be i would find that very disturbing but you are i think it's fair to say very much not a peronist figure right thanks and i mean that as a compliment it's positive absolutely as a compliment thank you thank you because obviously it's not I mean it goes back to what we were saying earlier

that Perron is role playing he is self aware that he can kind of see the humorous aspect of this and that Evita doesn't

Evita takes it all absolutely seriously is not remotely cynical and really believes it and that's obviously very very potent because she brings the sincerity

and Perron brings the calculation yeah I think that's exactly genius combination I think it she brings the sincerity and Perron brings the calculation. Yeah, I think that's exactly. Genius combination. I think it's a brilliant combination. I think you're absolutely right. I think it's one thing that her critics said the Borges type people got wrong. They saw her as purely cynical.

And I mean, Borges is always making jokes about her being a prostitute and stuff and saying she's just a cynical Ari Vist and stuff. Actually, I think she genuinely believes in her message. She couldn't play that part for so long with such dedication. Completely, and drive herself literally into the grave, as we will surely be seeing. So actually, just to sort of step back a bit from Ava and talk about the regime, these have been so far quite good years for Argentina. They're making tons of money from selling all their steaks to Europe. Most people are better off than they've ever been. And the government is giving people more benefits than they've ever had. So pensions, and they're building orphanages, they're building schools, they're doing all these kinds of things.

Peron is not at this point, he's just not a dictator. He has been elected in a popular mandate in what everybody agreed was a fair election. He has a majority in the Congress. The Congress is passing laws. However, I think there is a sense as you get towards the end of the 1940s that he is moving in a direction that actually today in the 21st century is very familiar, what you might call a sort of Orban-Erdogan direction. So elective authoritarianism. Exactly. So if you're one of his opponents, you're not shot, you're not put in prison, you know, no one inserts a cattle prod into you or any of the

things that are later very familiar. But you might get sacked from the National Library. Like Borges. Which is what happens to Borges. Yes, exactly. And sent off to become a poultry inspector. Exactly. Or, I mean, the famous thing. Even though he's blind. He must have been a terrible poultry inspector. Is that the Jockey Club, the Fancy though he's blind, so he must have been a terrible military inspector. ...is that the jockey club, the fancy gentleman's club, apparently set up a fish market right outside, which is very annoying, obviously, for all the people in their nice suits who are going in for a little digestif or something.

There's also occasionally when upper-class protesters get arrested, they are deliberately locked up with prostitutes. Yeah, exactly, that kind of thing. So it's sort of humiliations rather than anything more serious. protesters get arrested they are deliberately locked up with prostitutes yeah exactly that kind of thing so it's sort of humiliations rather than anything more serious but if you're a critic of peron's government you would say look there are actually some quite disturbing signs so as time goes on as so often the way he's getting rid of some of the more independent-minded people around him which he does he purges the supreme. The old guard are disappearing, being replaced by people who are slavishly loyal. Opposition newspapers, the most famous one is a newspaper called La Prensa, which is a kind of

patrician elite newspaper. They are being taken over. And there is also something that I think is quite ominous, which is a law of disrespect. You can be imprisoned for three years for insulting the dignity of public figures. This is an old law and there used to be a defence that you could say, but what I'm saying is true. And now that is taken out. So even if what you've said is true, it is no defence. And that seems very Putin's Russia to me. Yeah, that is. It's also good news for Ava's family, isn't it? Because Juan is still very much on the scene and he's drinking deep. And her mother has become a massive gambler. And there's a government official whose job is to keep her in

chips. So, I mean, that's obviously less sinister, but it is, I suppose, a marker of the fact that even though Evita is flogging herself into the grave, handing out sewing machines, she is not averse to a bit of, on the side, a bit of corruption helping her family. The regime is becoming more and more corrupt as it goes on, as is inevitable with that kind of regime. And of course, when Argentina is doing very well, no one minds. No one cares. As soon as things start to go badly, which they will in the 1950s, people will start to worry about this corruption.

It will become an issue. Now, until Juan Perón, there were term limits for Argentine presidents. Under the constitution, you could not run for two consecutive six-year terms. Perón and his sort of lackeys in the Congress, they amend the constitution so he can now run again. And as we enter the 1950s, there are the first whispers that not merely is he going to run again, but as his vice president, as his running 1950, the 9th of January, she goes, with all of these rumors swirling around, she goes to open in a district called Avellaneda, a suburb of Buenos Aires.

She goes to open a new headquarters of the Taxi Drivers Union, which is one of these unions that they have set up, one of their kind of client unions. It's a really, really hot day. Obviously, it's the height of the Argentine summer. She's going to be cutting the ribbon, and she suddenly has this stabbing pain and she faints and she is rushed to hospital. And no one knows what is wrong with her. Tom, the country holds its breath. Is she going to live or what? Or is she going to become president of Argentina? Who knows? As our listeners will have to hold their breath,

unless, of course, they are members of the Restless History Club, in which case they can listen to the next episode, find out what the problem is, find out whether Evita becomes vice president or not. And if you would like to do that, but you're not a member of the club, you can go to therestlesshistory.com and sign up there. Or otherwise, our next episode will be coming out, I'm sure, very soon. And we're approaching the end game of this extraordinary story and it has to be said that even when

evita dies the mad shit does not stop indeed it intensifies nobody loves that phrase more than you Bye-bye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club.

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