Arturo Frondizi

The couple, shortly after getting married, had arrived in the country in the early 1890s from the Italian town of Gubbio.

Giulio achieved a comfortable position for his home as a building contractor.

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.

Arturo Frondizi was born on October 28, 1908, in Paso de los Libres, province of Corrientes, Argentina.

Son of Isabella Ércoli de Frondizi and Giulio Frondizi.

The family relocated to Concepción del Uruguay in 1912, and in 1923 to Buenos Aires.

In the mid-1920s, Frondizi played soccer as a defender in the lower ranks of Club Almagro.

On some occasion he claimed to be a fan of said club.

Arturo and Silvio traveled in 1923 to the province of Buenos Aires accompanied by their father.

They attended the Mariano Moreno National School, where later Risieri would also study.

In 1925, before completing the last year of high school, Arturo tried to enter the Colegio Militar de la Nación, but was postponed.

During those last years of high school, he turned his life upside down, beginning to worry more about studies, he put aside games and sports.

In this way, during the fifth year, his grades began to improve.

Already as a distinguished student, he began to contribute to the student newspaper Estimulen.

Frondizi identified with Yrigoyenismo when he was a teenager and studying in high school.

Hipólito Yrigoyen had been elected president when he was 8 years old and served his term when he was 14.

For the first time in Argentine history, a president had been elected by secret and compulsory vote, in massively attended elections.

Despite this, and throughout his university career, Frondizi had a negative view of political activity and vowed never to set foot in a local party.

In 1926, he suffered a serious injury to his arm as a result of a bad fall.

In 1927, he entered the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires, where he graduated in July 1930.

He refused to withdraw his diploma of honor the year after it was issued, due to his refusal to receive it from the hands.

of the then de facto president José Félix Uriburu, who had overthrown Yrigoyen on September 6 of the previous year.

His opposition to the dictatorship that overthrew Yrigoyen led him to participate in a demonstration on May 8, 1931, during which he was arrested and placed at the disposal of the provisional government.

Frondizi himself has said that this arrest decided him to put aside the career of teacher that he had planned to pursue, to start a career as a politician.

At the end of 1932 he was arrested for the second time and after being released he joined the Unión Cívica Radical.

On October 28, 1932, Frondizi got engaged to Elena Luisa María Faggionato, to marry on January 5, 1933.

They built a summer cottage in 1935 at the then-secluded seaside resort town of Pinamar.

From this union his only daughter, Elena, would be born in 1937.

After the birth in 1937 of their daughter, Elena (their only child), the Frondizis named the cottage Elenita.

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 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.

Arturo was one of 14 sons; his brothers included Silvio, who became a professor of law at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and was assassinated in 1974 by the Triple A, and Risieri, who became a philosopher and rector of the University of Buenos Aires.

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.