Civil disorder and conflicts with the Armed Forces CONINTES Initially, the Frondizi administration repealed several instruments of repression against Peronism and the labor movement. On June 26, 1958 the National Congress repealed Decree Law 4161/56, passed by the dictatorship to ban Peronism, and passed an amnesty law that freed thousands of Peronists and trade unionists imprisoned by the Liberating Revolution. It also repealed the Residence Law No. 4144, passed in 1902, which Argentine trade unions had been denouncing since its very passage. Frondizi also tried to lift the electoral ban on
Peronism. Most Perónists feared being associated with left-wing figures, however, and sided with the military in their opposition to the left. In addition, many Peronists did not recognize the legitimacy of the Frondizi government, and various political and union groups multiplied their sabotage and attacks, even forming a guerrilla group known as Los Uturuncos. Frondizi also faced constant military interference over much domestic and international policy. Responding to that pressure Frondizi issued secret decree 9880/1958 on November 14, 1958, when facing an oil workers' strike shortly after taking office. The program, known as CONINTES, for "Conmoción Interna del Estado" or "internal shock to the state", was first sketched out during the Perón regime; it allowed the president to declare a
state of emergency that suspended a variety of constitutional rights and guarantees and enabled the militarization of society by establishing militarized zones in the main population centers and industrial cities such as
La Plata, while authorizing the armed forces to carry out raids and arrests, during which trade unionists and Peronists were interrogated, without complying with constitutional norms. Furthermore, during the state of emergency, strikes and demonstrations were declared illegal. Because of economic problems in the country and a steep rise in consumer prices, the military forced him to impose harsh austerity measures in 1959, which resulted in more civil unrest. Frondizi declared a national state of emergency in 1960 following a bomb attack by the Peronist resistance on the private home of an Army Captain that killed his daughter. Two days later he issued another decree transferring persons arrested under the CONINTES Plan to the jurisdiction of military tribunals. When Frondizi met with military leaders following the bomb attack the military called for declaration of martial law, which carried with it the possibility of the death penalty. Lieutenant General Carlos Severo Toranzo Montero told the President: "(...) and with express determination to shoot anyone caught red-handed. Martial law, in this way, will limit terrorism." To avoid this, Frondizi implemented the less severe CONINTES Plan for the second time. CONINTES gave Fronzini authority to put provincial police forces under the control of the military in order to use the armed forces to repress workers' strikes and protests, student and citizen mobilizations in general, and sabotage and guerrilla actions by emerging leftist guerrilla groups as well as the Peronist resistance. Thousands of people were arrested, and at least 111 were convicted in summary trials conducted by military courts-martial. Tens of thousands of transportation and public service workers were forcibly inducted into military service and placed under the command of the armed forces. Unions were raided, and party-controlled unions were closed down. During this period, police and prison torture became visibly widespread, to the point that the head of the main opposition bloc of deputies and future Vice President of the Nation, Carlos Perette, stated that "the complaints of torture have assumed unparalleled projections." The levels of repression reached were related to the major strikes of oil, railway, meat, banking, and metal workers, and the large worker-student mobilizations organized by the Argentine University Federation (Federación Universitaria Argentina or "FUA") against private universities known for one of their slogans, "Secular or Free". Technically the plan ended on August 1, 1961, with the sanction of Decree 6495/1961 that repealed decrees 9880/1958 and 2628/1960. As a replacement for the CONINTES Plan, Frondizi drafted a bill for the Suppression of Terrorist Activities that was approved on July 21, 1960, establishing more severe penalties, after the modification of the Penal Code.
The Córdoba Intervention On February 16, 1960, an explosion occurred in the Shell-Mex gasoline depots in the San Fernando neighborhood of Córdoba. The explosion caused the deaths of nine people and injured twenty others. It shocked public opinion, with the main media outlets immediately labeling it a terrorist act. Three Peronist leaders were arrested, while several union members unrelated to the events were also imprisoned. They were eventually released without trial. The government, for its part, ordered the arrest of the top leaders of Córdoba's Peronist movement and dozens of union leaders, using the repressive powers of the Conintes Plan. The explosion was used——and, according to some sectors of the UCRI, carried out intentionally——to overthrow the governor of Córdoba, the intransigent radical Arturo Zanichelli, accused by sectors of the Armed Forces of "facilitating Peronist and Marxist infiltration." On May 12, 1960, Army Commander-in-Chief Carlos Toranzo Montero issued a widely reported press statement accusing Zanichelli of complicity in the "attack" and of "organizing and arming terrorist groups." The conservative Democratic Party of Córdoba and the Independent Civic Party——which answered to Minister
Álvaro Alsogaray, the military's choice for
Minister of the Economy——also held the governor responsible, in line with the military accusation. The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces demanded that President Frondizi assert federal control of the three branches of the province of Córdoba. Frondizi yielded to military pressure and sent a bill for intervention in the province, which was only approved by the Senate. Without the approval of the Chamber of Deputies, Frondizi finally ordered the federal intervention of Córdoba on June 15, 1960, appointing Juan Francisco de Larrechea, linked to the right-wing minister Alsogaray, as intervener. The faction led by Zanichelli considered it a "new type of coup d'état."
The November 30, 1960 Uprising On November 30, 1960, a group of civilians and military personnel, some active and others retired, commanded by General Miguel Ángel Iñíguez, carried out actions in several cities, mainly Rosario and Tartagal, with the aim of overthrowing President Frondizi. That day, an armed group seized the guardhouse of the 11th Infantry Regiment in Rosario. Retired Colonel Julio Barredo Barredo, who commanded the attackers, was killed in the confrontation, while a non-commissioned officer and two conscripts were killed among the defenders. At the same time, a group of soldiers and civilians seized the School Battalion, the city hall, the police station, the railway station, the airport, and the city's two bank branches in Tartagal, Salta province. A few hours later, members of the National Gendarmerie and other garrisons retook the Rosario barracks after four hours of fighting, while other forces did the same with the occupied facilities in Tartagal. The uprising revived other topics of discussion, including the issue of the legalization of political parties and the elections to be held in February 1961.
Petroleum development When Frondizi took office, the Argentine economy was suffering from severe external restrictions caused by a large trade deficit, which prevented it from having the necessary foreign currency to import the inputs needed by the industrial sector. A substantial part of this deficit was due to oil imports; oil production had not grown significantly since
Standard Oil was forced out in the 1930s. 60% of the oil consumed by Argentina had to be imported and 80% of all the oil was used to generate electricity), As Argentina relied more on motor vehicles, oil imports drained the country in foreign exchange. How to achieve increased oil production was a contentious issue by the 1940s. The UCR (
Radical Civic Union) favoured a state monopoly, believing it necessary to control the
oil reserves. In the
Declaration of Avellaneda (a common platform supported by Balbin's UCRP—his wing of the UCR—and Frondizi's UCRI), the state's need to invest in
oil exploration and to make Argentina self-sufficient in the short term was expressed as policy. In 1958, contracts were signed with US oil companies for them to operate on behalf of
Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF). The goal was to achieve self-sufficiency in hydrocarbons and avoid having to purchase them abroad. In three years of management, Argentina achieved a 150% increase in oil and natural gas production. For the first time in history, the country achieved self-sufficiency in oil, and Argentina went from being an oil importer to an exporter. The achievement of self-sufficiency produced a gain of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual crude oil import costs, which helped create almost uninterrupted economic growth over the next thirteen years, especially in industry. The new oil contracts totaled two hundred million dollars. Thanks to these contracts, oil production tripled in four years. Due to these actions, in September the oil workers' unions declared a general strike in protest of the oil contracts. The president declared a state of siege, imprisoning Peronist unionists; in effect, the Frondizi-Perón pact was broken. Thirty-six oil drilling rigs had been purchased for the extraction of oil, the largest purchase made in the history of Argentina. In 1960, more than one hundred of these teams were working for the Administration, twice as many as
Yacimientos Petrolíferos FiscalesYPF normally had, thus solving the energy crisis that existed around 1958, and ending the "electric diet" and the blackouts that occurred. the country suffered constantly. While Frondizi encouraged foreign investment in a number of sectors, ten of the 25 largest projects were for exploration of new oil fields. The record public investment in the
petrochemical sector led to a fivefold increase in
synthetic rubber production; by 1962, the production of crude oil tripled to 16 million cubic meters. Achieving self-sufficiency in oil freed hundreds of millions of dollars in annual import costs for Argentina and helped create 13 years of nearly uninterrupted economic growth, particularly in industry. dating from the Frondizi era, when modern architecture came into vogue locally.
Industrial policy In addition to the insufficiency in oil production Frondizi also needed to address inadequate steel production, the lack of electricity, and the insufficiency and obsolescence of transport (especially railways). He had inherited economic problems from Perón's 1946-55 administration, characterized by budget deficits because of huge railroad subsidies that cost the treasury a million dollars a day. In addition, Perón had used much of the US$1.7 billion in budget reserves at the time of his election to
nationalize the various private railway companies by buying them from French and British interests, then modernizing and expanding them. Critics complained that the railways employed too many workers and produced bloated payrolls that strained national budgets. Frondizi adopted
developmentalism as his basic government policy, based on the recommendations of
ECLAC and "dependency theory", originated during the 1950s by intellectuals from all over
Latin America. His main collaborators were
Rogelio Frigerio, Gabriel del Mazo (one of the fathers of the University Reform),
Oscar Alende (governor of the province of Buenos Aires), Roque Vítolo, Rodolfo Martínez, and Carlos Florit. However, frondizista developmentalism differed from the ECLAC model by relying mainly on multinational companies, rather than the State, as a driving force behind industrial development. Frondizi began to abandon the position of his book
Petroleum and Politics as early as 1956 and concluded that oil contracts with foreign industries could constitute a solution to the energy deficit. , 1958. Frondizi assigned economist
Rogelio Julio Frigerio to develop a bold plan to make Argentina self-sufficient in motor vehicles and petroleum, as well as to quickly extend the country's semi-developed road and electric networks. In the 1950s, these served less than half the population, and fewer than 20% in
the poorer north. Frondizi's economic vision was a radical departure from the nationalist one of Perón. To achieve greater investment in industrial development, Frigerio supported passage of the Law of Foreign Investment. This provided foreign corporations with incentives similar to those offered to local ones. It created the Department and Commission of Foreign Investments, which was also designed to give foreign investors more legal recourse when operating in the country. Inflation would rise as a result of the investments made in 1958 and 1959 (some of them emerging in relation to the energy problem), to the point that it reached 113% annually by early 1959. To combat inflation, the government implemented a 60% salary increase, with the warning that much of this increase would be absorbed by rising inflation, in addition to reducing public spending. Thanks to oil exploitation and increased production, inflation fell to 27.1% in 1960, and to 13.7% in 1961. Until the late 1960s, according to World Bank data, Argentina had a per capita GDP similar to that of Austria, Italy, Japan, and Spain. Better able to maneuver after the 1959 recession receded, Frondizi began to see results from his economic policies (known as
desarrollismo — "developmentalism"). By 1961, he earned the support of much of the country's large
middle class. Argentina and marketed between 1958 and 1962. Between 1958 and 1963, the historical maximum of foreign investments in Argentina was reached: around 23% of the total for the period between 1912 and 1975. The industrial branches favored in this second stage of the import substitution process were the
automotive, the
oil and
petrochemical,
chemical,
metallurgical and
electrical and non-electrical machinery. Investments were oriented towards taking advantage of the possibilities offered by a protected domestic market. . During those years, foreign investment increased tenfold, as did domestic investment, thus achieving significant industrial modernization. And just as Frondizi had anticipated, the foreign currency reserves previously spent on imported fuel and other raw materials were now allocated to the purchase of industrial equipment, modernizing industry, and basic infrastructure. 90% of all foreign investment during his term went into oil exploration, oil refineries, the auto industry, steel, and household durables. There was an investment of $140 million in the petrochemical industry between 1959 and 1961. The industry was modernized in 1960 and 1961 with a value of one billion dollars in imported machinery and equipment. Expansion of the steel industry was achieved despite obstacles from the Directorate of Military Manufacturing, which opposed the involvement of private capital.
Conicet promoted development in these industries by conducting scientific research that produced improvements in technology and products.
Renewable energy The Frondizi administration designed large hydroelectric projects, such as the Chocón and Cerros Colorados hydroelectric dams, to provide the country with clean energy. Servicios Eléctricos del Gran Buenos Aires (or SEGBA by its initials), a public company responsible for the production, distribution, and marketing of electrical energy, was founded. This service was divided and privatized in 1992 by Carlos Menem into three operating entities: EDENOR, EDESUR, and EDELAP.
Agriculture Although the Frondizi government's policy had focused primarily on the development of the country's industrial activity, it did not neglect the agricultural sector, which represented an important source of foreign currency for the Argentine economy at the time. Thus, thanks to the development of the steel and petrochemical industries, which promoted technological advancement and the provision of necessary machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides, national agricultural production increased.
INTA promoted rigorous scientific research in this field in accordance with national standards. Three factors played a key role in this entire process: the greater availability of credit at viable rates; greater tax breaks; and the participation of private capital. To give an example of all this, in 1957, before Frondizi assumed the presidency, 6,000 tractors were sold in Argentina. In the last year of his term, annual tractor sales rose to 20,000 units, a result of the growth of the agricultural sector. There was also progress in the agricultural sector, starting with the development of the steel and petrochemical industries, which promoted the modernization and provision of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery, thus increasing agricultural production and productivity.
Aerospace El presidente felicita al comodoro Aldo Zeoli por el exitoso lanzamiento del cohete Alfa Centauro. The President congratulates Commodore Aldo Zeoli on the successful launch of the Alfa Centauro rocket. Since the first administration of Juan Domingo Perón, various types of propellants had been tested for launching rockets manufactured entirely in Argentina. However, throughout the 1950s, these activities stagnated. Beginning with the Frondizi administration, experiments resumed, first developing solid-propellant engines in December 1959. Decree No. 1164 of January 28, 1960 established the CNIE, the first organization responsible for rocket crews. Engineer Teófilo Tabanera was appointed president, and on June 27, 1961, the Executive Branch created the Center for Experimentation and Launching of Self-Propelled Projectiles (CELPA).[130][131] The first launch of an aircraft built entirely in Argentina took place on February 2, 1961, when the APEX A1-02 Alfa Centauro took off from the town of Santo Tomás, in Pampa de Achala (Córdoba province).
Labor policy Union elections were held in 1957, with Peronists winning most of them. The unions had been grouped into three groups: the 62 Organizations (Peronists), the 32 Democratic Guilds (socialists and radicals) and the MUCS (communists). In 1958, Law No. 14,499 provided that retirees would automatically receive an equivalent of 82% of what they received when they worked. In October 1960, Peronist and independent unions formed the Commission of 20 to demand the return of the
General Labor Confederation (CGT), which had been under government control since the 1955 military coup. To pressure the government, the Commission of 20 declared a general strike on November 7, forcing President Frondizi to receive them and finally agree on March 3, 1961, to return the CGT to the Commission of the 20. During the Frondizi administration, the new Trade Union Law No. 14,455 was passed, establishing the freedom to create unions through simple registration and designating the most representative of all as the recognized unions, with the aim of unifying worker representation before employers, the government, and international organizations. The law also established recognition of elected
delegates as union representatives in the workplace and prohibited their dismissal without judicial authorization. In 1961, the railway union La Fraternidad filed a complaint against the Argentine government with the International Labour Organization (ILO) for violating its and its members' freedom of association. The ILO's Committee on Freedom of Association upheld the union complaint, recommending that the organization draw the Frondizi government's attention to its obligation to respect the agreements reached with the unions.
Educational policy In addition to industrialization, there was also room for education: technical schools multiplied, ushering in a decade (1963-1974) in which Argentina would record the highest growth rates in the world and significantly reduce poverty. As a demonstration of the importance of science and technology, during his administration, he encouraged the INTI (National Institute of Technical Education), the INTA (National Institute of Technical Education), the National Council of Technical Education (CONET), with state, employer, and union representation, and the CONICET (National Institute of Technology and Communications), chaired by Nobel Prize winner
Bernardo Houssay. Frondizi, however, advanced other educational reforms to dovetail with his economic policy. His administration renamed the National Workers' University (a technical school inaugurated by Perón in 1948) as the National Technological University, which acquired new autonomy through the passage of Law 14,855 of October 14, 1959. He proceeded to incorporate the National Workers' University network of campuses (
technical schools inaugurated by Perón in 1948) under the
national university aegis, by which he established the
UTN system in 1959, and opened numerous new campuses. The UTN became the leading alma mater for Argentine engineers in subsequent decades. Frondizi initially opposed Aramburu's Law 6403 of 1955, which advanced private education generally, and parochial Catholic-run schools staffed with lay teachers in particular. Confident the new policy would be upheld, church supporters founded the
Argentine Catholic University. The UCRI campaigned against the policy, though when Frondizi took office, he shifted in favor of further, pro-clerical reforms, which he then referred to as "free education." Opposed by many in his own party, and especially by the President of the
University of Buenos Aires (his brother, Risieri), Frondizi was open about his motivation for the policy change, declaring that "I need the support of the church." . During a speech before the OAS Frondizi denounced the deterioration of the terms of trade in the region and supported "Operation Pan-America", a version of the
Marshall Plan for Latin America proposed by Brazilian President
Juscelino Kubitschek, whose goal was the development and formation of capital in Latin America. The
Kennedy Administration later cited Operation Pan-America as inspiration for the
Alliance for Progress. Four months after the victory of the
Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba was still part of the
Organization of American States (OAS). The island had not yet declared itself a socialist state and
Fidel Castro was even viewed sympathetically by some sectors that would later revile him. On May 1, Castro arrived at the
Ezeiza Airport; Admiral
Hermes Quijada welcomed him on behalf of President Frondizi. Castro gave a famous ninety-minute speech the following day before the OAS in which Castro praised the American democracy, which had welcomed Latin American immigrants. Frondizi and
John F. Kennedy came to have a good personal relationship and even mutual consultation on international issues. Although both had similar positions politically and economically, they disagreed on certain aspects of security in the hemisphere. On the one hand, Frondizi was in broad agreement with Kennedy's
Alliance for Progress, which was intended both to foster economic development and democratic change in
Latin America and to counter Cuban influence. However, Kennedy's administration security policy was at odds with the foreign policy of the Frondizi government, which promoted the principle of non-intervention and the right of self-determination of the peoples. During the OAS meeting in Punta del Este in January 1961, Argentine Foreign Minister
Miguel Ángel Cárcano opposed the exclusion of Cuba from the inter-American system. . . Frondizi's relationship with others in the Kennedy Administration was not so friendly. Frondizi suspected—and may have complained to
Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy's Ambassador to the United Nations—that the US ambassador to Argentina,
Roy R. Rubottom Jr., was collaborating with elements of the Argentinian military to destabilize his regime. Relations between Frondizi and the US embassy worsened further when Argentina offered to mediate the tensions between the US and Cuba, which it later expanded to a proposal that Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico collectively serve as mediators. Of the four possible mediators, Arturo Frondizi argued in favor of
Argentina, due to its balance in foreign policy (
Brazil and
Mexico were closer to third-partyism) and due to the lack of a deep internal contradiction (
Chile had a conservative anti-
communist government). Frondizi continued his efforts to negotiate an entente between the
U.S. and
Cuba. Preliminary talks were held at the Cuban Embassy in Buenos Aires. Someone who did not belong to the diplomatic service, but who was linked to the Frondizi team, contacted
Ernesto Guevara in 1961 and let the Argentine president know that the Cuban minister accepted his mediation to try to find a negotiated solution. At the same time, some Argentines such as Horacio Rodriguez Larreta (father) met with Guevara in
Punta del Este and participated in the famous meeting he held with Richard Goodwin, an advisor to President Kennedy. After that conference, Guevara let Frondizi know that he was interested in talking with him. reading
La Nación. At that time, Guevara signaled his willingness to reach an understanding with the United States to coexist peacefully.
Guevara told Frondizi that he wanted to speak with him and that he was willing to travel to Argentina. It was necessary to bring Guevara to Argentina in the most secret way possible, using a civilian plane, since it would cause a major political problem for the country if the military found out about this meeting. The person chosen to take the Cuban leader to his meeting in Argentina was Congressman Jorge Carrettoni, who had orders not to fly on the same plane as the guerrilla leader so as not to arouse suspicion. Carretoni ignored those instructions when Guevara, fearing that he was being led into a trap to assassinate him, refused to fly without Carretoni. Frondizi then met with Guevara at the presidential
Quinta de Olivos residence. The meeting caused
Adolfo Mugica to resign twenty days later from his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship on August 29, 1961. Frondizi's attitude towards the
Cuban Revolution of 1959, along with the visit of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara ended up weakening the government's relationship with the military power, even more than it already was. The army formally protested these meetings with Cuban leaders, and pressured the president to change his policy with respect to
Cuba. Cuban exiles in
Buenos Aires tried to forge documents with the intention of implicating members of the Government in an alleged Castro plot. Frondizi ordered an investigation, and even the army's own report, the famous case of the "Cuban letters," was nothing more than a lie. Once the meeting between the President and Guevara was discovered, Frondizi said: Only the weak avoid confrontation with men who don't think like them. None of the statesmen of the great Western nations refuse to speak with the leaders of communist countries. We never wanted to be rulers of a people afraid to confront their ideas with other ideas. This meeting led the
military to withdraw their support from his administration, as it opposed leftist populist movements and
Communism. Cuban exiles in Buenos Aires circulated what appeared to have been forged documents implicating members of the Cuban government in support of leftist subversives in Argentina. Frondizi ordered an investigation, which concluded that the letters might be spurious. The army formally protested these meetings with Cuban leaders, and pressured the president to change his policy with respect to
Cuba. Under pressure from the military Frondizi was forced to break relations with Havana on February 8, 1962.
Asia to President Arturo Frondizi. During a tour of
India,
Thailand, and
Japan, President Frondizi met
Rajendra Prasad, King
Rama IX and Emperor
Hirohito. The objective was to seek new markets, in response to Argentina's imperative need to trade and obtain investments, a key to the program development and trade cooperation. In addition Frondizi sought to reinforce Argentina's non-aligned international position in the face of the
Cold War.
Israel: kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann At the end of 1952, the fugitive
Nazi criminal
Adolf Eichmann was located in Argentina thanks to information provided by a friend of the
Austrian Nazi hunter
Simon Wiesenthal. Given the difficulties that Israel faced in trying to obtain the extradition of Eichmann by Argentina (with the consequent danger that the criminal would flee), the Israeli secret services of Mosad planned the extrajudicial kidnapping of Eichmann with the firm support of Israeli Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion, thus violating consular assistance treaties and Argentine national sovereignty. Eichmann was kidnapped in the middle of the street, hustling him into a private car as he was getting off the bus to return home from work, on May 11, 1960. Later, the four men of the Israeli Secret Service transferred him on May 20 from Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires to
Israel in a private plane under another identity and the pretense that he was drunk. Faced with this kidnapping, the Foreign Ministry, through Ambassador
Mario Amadeo, complained to the
United Nations Security Council over this violation of its sovereignty. It received support from the international body, but Israel never intended to return the Nazi criminal to Argentina. Diplomats from the
United States,
Great Britain and
France tried to formalize a meeting between President Arturo Frondizi and Ben-Gurion to seek a solution to the Eichmann case, and that diplomatic relations between Argentina and Israel would not be broken as a result. After several contacts, it was agreed that the meeting between the two leaders would be held in
Brussels in June 1960. The meeting did not occur due to misgivings between both countries. Ultimately, Frondizi severed diplomatic relations with Israel, relations that had recently been established by President
Juan Perón. A short time later, Frondizi re-established ties with Israel. On December 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death on December 15, carried out on May 31, 1962. His last words were: "Long live
Germany. Long live
Austria. Long live
Argentina. These are the countries that I identify with the most and I will never forget them. I had to obey the rules of war and those of my flag. I'm ready".
Antarctic Treaty , March 1961. The Antarctic Conference was inaugurated in
Washington, D.C., United States on October 15, 1959, in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Representatives of twelve states attended the conference. Of them seven claimed sovereignty over some fraction of the
Antarctic continent:
Argentina,
Australia,
Chile,
France,
Norway,
New Zealand, and the
United Kingdom. The territorial rights claimed by
Argentina,
Chile, and the
United Kingdom overlapped considerably. Meanwhile, five other countries (Belgium, the United States, Japan, South Africa and the Soviet Union) had carried out explorations in the region without having presented territorial claims. There were aspects of the future regulation for Antarctica for which there was general consensus, including the pacification of the continent and excluding all activities of a warlike nature, as well as guaranteed access for scientific research for any country that desired to do so. The most complex problem was the consideration of sovereignty claims. , President Arturo Frondizi gives a speech that is broadcast by radio. Argentina's position was to establish the peaceful use of Antarctica and scientific cooperation within agreed limits, and that the Conference not modify the rights of the parties in the least. Regarding the use of the territory, the Argentine government maintained the need to put limits on absolute freedom, in order to preserve ecological interests, and to prohibit nuclear tests and the deposit of radioactive waste. The last proposal took the US delegation as well as the Soviet one by surprise, and the Argentine insistence on it came close to causing a crisis in the meeting, not only internationally, but also within the government of Arturo Frondizi. The treaty was finally signed on December 1, 1959, and was maintained in accordance with the demands of
Argentina that activities of a military nature be outlawed. The Antarctic Treaty entered into force on June 23, 1961. The pact had some success since the area remained free of conflict. The council also succeeded in internationalizing and demilitarizing the
Antarctic continent, where nuclear testing and storing radioactive waste were banned and joint exploration and scientific research were permitted. The signatory countries obtained free access to the entire region with reciprocal rights to inspect their facilities. In his speech on May 1, 1960, Frondizi dedicated a paragraph to the Conference on Antarctica, stating that Argentina had been able to include in the treaty its opposition to the internationalization of the area. The principles of freedom and scientific cooperation had also been included in the treaty. After signing the treaty, Frondizi visited Antarctica. On March 6, 1961, he embarked, along with his entourage, in the Aguirre Bay to go to the
Decepción base on (
Decepción Island). The outward journey was somewhat uncomfortable, as they had to endure severe storms at the crossing of Drake Pass. On March 8 in the afternoon, they anchored in Bahía 1º de Mayo, and then with the icebreaker
General San Martín the first tributes were paid to the authorities who disembarked, being transferred by helicopters and boats to the detachment where the honors were repeated. The military vicar Donamin held a mass, and from there Frondizi gave a speech to the country and greeted the members of the National Navy, researchers, scientists and technicians. ==Overthrow==