Alberto Teisaire

Alberto Teisaire (May 20, 1891 – October 12, 1962) was an Argentine Navy officer and Vice President of Argentina.

Life and Times

Alberto Teisaire was born in 1891 to Eduardo Teisaire and Clementina Cejas de Teisaire, in Mendoza, Argentina. He enrolled in the Argentine Naval Academy in 1908 and, upon graduation in 1912, was accepted to the United States Naval Academy. There, he was commissioned as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, during World War I. Returning to Argentina, he married Duilia Fayo Lonne and was eventually named Commander of the Navy's flagship, the historic Sarmiento Frigate.^[1]

Teisaire later taught at the Argentine Naval Academy and held numerous policy-making posts in that service, including ones in the Naval Requisitions Department, the Argentine Naval delegations in the United States and Europe, as head of the Navy's River Fleet (1938), and as assistant director of the important Navy Mechanics' School, in 1940, where he specialized in the instruction of navigation and hydrology.^[1]

A power vacuum caused by the replacement of President Pedro Ramírez by a fellow General (Edelmiro Farrell) led to Teisaire's February 29, 1944 appointment as Navy Secretary. He became a reliable ally of the new War and Labor Minister, Col. Juan Perón, whose support of organized labor and their platform had provoked growing rivalries within the military regime. Teisaire became Perón's most prominent ally in the government when, in July, he was named Interior Minister (at the time, overseeing law enforcement).^[2] He retired as Rear Admiral in 1945 to pursue a seat in the Argentine Senate, ahead of the February 1946 general elections.^[3]

Elected as Senator on Perón's Labor Party ticket, Teisaire represented the city of Buenos Aires, a district normally leaning towards Perón's chief opposition, the centrist UCR. A leading member of the local Lions Club, Teisaire also received the German Order of Merit.^[1] He, however, did not enjoy support from the President's influential First Lady, Eva Perón, who refused his request to take part in her 1947 "Rainbow Tour" because (in her words): "I did not want that "maricón" creating a scandal in Paris, when for that I already have Paquito, who at least makes me laugh." ^[4]

Teisaire did well in his career in the Senate, even so. He was elected to the Constitutional Assmebly of 1949, which drafted a replacement of the 1853 Constitution of Argentina (reinstated in 1957), and was reelected Senator in 1951. He was named President of the Senate in 1952 and head of the Peronist Party's Superior Council, effectively making him the third-most powerful member of the administration (after Interior Minister Ángel Borlenghi and Perón, himself).^[2] Controversy surrounding the President's in-laws and political violence both by and against his Peronist movement dominated headlines in the first half of 1953, and Perón took the opportunity of upcoming legislative polls to test his popularity. The Argentine Constitution did not require it at the time; but a special election was announced to replace the late Vice President, Hortensio Quijano, and Perón nominated Teisaire as his candidate for the post.^[3]

The April 1954 elections increased the Peronists' overwhelming majority in Congress and elected Teisaire Vice President by a 30% margin of victory.^[3] Following this success, Perón began to dispense with his hitherto warm relations with the Catholic Church by banning a number of their organizations and periodicals, and with the unprecedented, December 22 legalization of divorce and prostitution. The Vice President supported these moves, arguing that Argentina's Catholic majority were mostly non-practicing and, by extension, probably amenable to Perón's push to limit their influence.^[2]

The miscalculation proved fateful, however, when the conflict destroyed military loyalty for the administration, and a series of violent confrontations from June to September 1955 ended with Perón's September 19 resignation and exile.

Vice President Teisaire was forced to resign on September 23, following which he was coerced into reading a 7-page confession of the "fugitive dictator's" alleged abuses. His "confession" was produced into a 12-minute propaganda film by the Revolución Libertadora, which ordered the footage shown on all movie theatres.^[5]

Teisaire kept a low profile in retirement; as he enjoyed lunch in a suburban Buenos Aires restaurant on October 12, 1962, with his secretary and bodyguard, however, a commando team attacked the group with machine gun fire, killing all three instantly. Teisaire was 71.^[2]

References