Arturo Umberto Illia

Martino Illia (1861–1948) was born in Samolaco, province of Sondrio, Lombardy, while his mother Emma Francesconi (1874–1940) was born in Gratacazolo, province of Brescia.

Arturo Umberto Illia (4 August 1900 – 18 January 1983) was an Argentine politician and physician, who was President of Argentina from 12 October 1963, to 28 June 1966.

He was a member of the centrist Radical Civic Union.

Illia reached the presidency of the Nation in elections controlled by the Armed Forces in which Peronism was outlawed and while the previous constitutional president Arturo Frondizi was detained.

During his government, the national industry was promoted, 23% of the national budget was allocated to education (the highest figure in the history of the country), unemployment fell, the external debt decreased, a literacy plan was carried out and sanctioned the Minimum, Vital and Mobile Salary law and the Medications Laws.

He was noted for his honesty and trustworthiness, an example of this being the fact that Illia lived almost all his life in his humble home in Cruz del Eje, where he devoted himself to medicine, and that he never used his influence to his advantage, to the point such as having to sell his car while in office and refusing to use public funds to finance his medical treatments.

After his government, he maintained his active political militancy, rejected the retirement perks he had earned as president, and returned home to continue dedicating himself to medicine.

Arturo Umberto Illia was born in Pergamino, Buenos Aires to Italian immigrants.

He enrolled in the School of Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires in 1918.

That year, he joined the movement for University reform in Argentina (Reforma Universitaria), which first emerged in the city of Córdoba, and set the basis for a free, open and public university system less influenced by the Catholic Church.

This development changing the concept and administration of higher education in Argentina, and in a good portion of Latin America.

Arturo Illia became a member of the Radical Civic Union when he reached adulthood, in 1918, under the strong influence of the radical militancy of his father and of his brother, Italo.

That same year, he began his university studies, with the events of the aforementioned Universitarian Reform taking place in the country.

As a part of his medical studies, Illia begun working in the San Juan de Dios Hospital in the city of La Plata, obtaining his degree in 1927.

In 1928 he had an interview with President Hipólito Yrigoyen, the longtime leader of the centrist UCR, and the first freely-elected President of Argentina.

Illia offered him his services as a physician, and Yrigoyen, in turn, offered him a post as railroad physician in different parts of the country, upon which Illia decided to move to scenic Cruz del Eje, in Cordoba Province.

He worked there as a physician from 1929 until 1963, except for three years (1940–1943) in which he was Vice-Governor of the province.

From 1929 onwards, after moving to Cruz del Eje, he began intense political activity, which he alternated with his professional life.

In 1935 he was elected Provincial Senator for the Department of Cruz del Eje, in the elections that took place on 17 November.

In the Provincial Senate, he actively participated in the approval of the Law of Agrarian Reform, which was passed in the Córdoba Legislature but rejected in the National Congress.

He was also head of the Budget and Treasury Commission, and pressed for the construction of dams, namely Nuevo San Roque, La Viña, Cruz del Eje and Los Alazanes.

On 15 February 1939, he married Silvia Elvira Martorell, and had three children: Emma Silvia, Martín Arturo and Leandro Hipólito.

In the elections that took place on 10 March 1940, he was elected Vice-Governor of Córdoba Province, with Santiago del Castillo, who became governor.

He occupied this post until the provincial government was replaced by the newly installed dictatorship of General Pedro Ramírez, in 1943.

From 1948 to 1952, Illia served in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and frequently spoke out against the Peronist regime.

Working in a Congress dominated by the Peronist Party, he took an active part in the Public Works, Hygiene and Medical Assistance Commissions.

Like in most elections after 1955, Peronists were banned from running in the 1963 election.

The UCR had been divided since their contentious 1956 convention into the mainstream "People's UCR" (UCRP) and the center-left UCRI.

The leader of the UCRP, Ricardo Balbín, withdrew his name from the March 10 nominating convention and instead supported a less conservative, less anti-Peronist choice, and the party nominated Dr. Illia for President and Entre Ríos Province lawyer Carlos Perette as his running-mate.

A “virtual captive” of the armed forces during his nineteen months in office, Guido dissolved Congress and annulled the results of the March 1962 mid-term election that had seen Peronists sweep 45 of the 95 Chamber of Deputies seats and 10 of the 14 governorships at stake.

The Azules defeated an attempted revolt in late 1962 and early 1963 by the rival “Red” faction (Colorados in Spanish), which consisted of hard-liners who favored a military dictatorship.

The election held on 7 July 1963 marked a return to constitutional government in Argentina after a period of political instability and internal strife following the military overthrow of President Arturo Frondizi on 29 March 1962.

Illia’s predecessor, José María Guido, was installed as head of a nominally civilian administration when Frondizi was deposed.

However, Guido succeeded in his top priority of convincing military leaders to allow the 1963 elections.

The 1963 elections were made possible due to support from the moderate "Blue" faction (Azules in Spanish) of the Argentine military led by the Head of the Joint Chiefs, General Juan Carlos Onganía and by the Internal Affairs Minister, General Osiris Villegas.

In the electoral college on 31 July 1963, the Illia-Perette ticket obtained 169 votes out of 476 on the first round of voting (70 short of an absolute majority), but the support of three centrist parties on the second round gave them 270 votes, thus formalizing their election.

Illia assumed the presidency on 12 October 1963.

Arturo Illia became president on 12 October 1963, and promptly steered a moderate political course, while remaining mindful of the spectre of a coup d'état.

Martín Illia was elected to Congress in 1995, and served until his death in 1999.

Gabriela Michetti, elected Vice President in 2015, is a great-grandniece of Illia.