Vandor was born in
Bovril,
Entre Ríos Province, to a
Dutch father and a
French mother, in 1923. He enlisted in the
Argentine Navy in 1941, and later became a non-commissioned officer aboard the minesweeper
ARA Comodoro Py. He left the Navy in 1947, however, and joined the new
Philips factory in the
Saavedra neighborhood of
Buenos Aires. There, he met his future wife, and gained a reputation for strategic thinking that earned him the nickname of
El Lobo (the Wolf). He became the steward of the Phillips factory
UOM local and in 1954, led a strike for better pay at the facility. Its success made him prominent in the UOM (the
steelworkers' union within the
CGT, the paramount trade union in Argentina), but led to his arrest following a 1955
military coup that overthrew the populist administration of
Juan Perón. Introduced to the exiled Perón in
Santo Domingo in 1958, Vandor cultivated good relations with amenable figures in management and the military, and on the lifting of government
receivership over the CGT in 1961, Vandor was elected Secretary General of the UOM, the largest of the CGT's 62 unions. He represented labor as part of the troika of Perón's official delegates in Argentina, and as such helped negotiate potential endorsements ahead of the
1963 elections. As the leading CGT political strategist, he was at least as influential in the
Peronist movement as CGT Secretary General
José Alonso, and helped plan "Operation Return", a 1964 mission to slip Perón into Argentina. The mission's failure, and Alonso's support for a military coup against President
Arturo Illia made opponents of Alonso and Vandor, and the two labor leaders backed opposing candidates in a
Mendoza Province gubernatorial race in the
1965 elections. Vandor became increasingly critical of Perón, in part from a conviction that the aging leader might never return to Argentina. His vocal challenge to Perón's influence reached a high pitch during the Mendoza campaign, with slogans such as "For a Peronism without Perón," and "to save Perón, one has to be against Perón," and led the exiled leader to send his wife,
Isabel, to promote Alonso's candidate. This resulted in the defeat of both Peronist candidates, however, and a conservative candidate was ultimately elected. Vandor had the CGT leader ousted in February 1966, after which Alonso formed the "62 Organizations Standing with Perón" faction of the CGT. The military dictatorship installed that June and headed by General
Juan Carlos Onganía lost Alonso's support by the end of 1966, and the two leaders found common cause in both their support for a "participationist" point of view (in favor of negotiations with the regime rather than for headfront opposition), and in their opposition to the more confrontational
Raimundo Ongaro. These developments came to a head in March 1968, when Ongaro, head of the Graphists' Union, and Vandor both sought the post of CGT Secretary General. Perón, wary of Vandor, supported the graphist leader, and Ongaro was elected to the post. The CGT elections were annulled by Labor Minister Rubens San Sebastián, however, leading to a temporary schism within the CGT. Vandor thereafter reconciled himself with Perón, who favored a moderately critical stance towards the junta, opting for the participationist stance. == Assassination ==