Goodbye to a great man

Por Andrew Graham-Yooll, de Buenos Aires Herald

It is safe to say that a majority of Argentines have some personal recollection, a little anecdote, with which they feel personally linked to the man who was President Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín. That is a characteristic of all men who achieve greatness, and there is no doubt that Alfonsín's death last night, 19 days into his 83^rd year, will stir many such thoughts.

My own recollections of Alfonsín began with the informative lunches he agreed to attend at the now long-defunct Strangers' Club, in the heart of Buenos Aires' banking area, organized by Le Monde's correspondent, Phillippe Labreveaux This was during the ban on politicians imposed by general Juan Carlos Onganía's regime in the sixties. And the relationship might be said to have closed, or climaxed for me with his generous agreement to speak at a launch of one of my books at the Feria del Libro in the late nineties.

Looking back on his life, Alfonsín devoted all his years to politics. In a country where ostracism was a regular feature of political activity, he took the bad times with the good and was always able to look beyond the moments of misfortune, seldom damning individuals, often attributing failings to circumstances which he saw as undertandable.

But as many have already said in the last few days and in the hours since his death last night, Alfonsín will be credited always for leading Argentina to democracy, or constitutional rule, at least, and for putting his predecessors, the leaders of the military dictatorship, on trial in 1985. As professor Ronald Dworkin, the US philosopher and political scientist, said at the time (as a guest of the government during the trials), that was unique in modern history and Alfonsín's courage to stage the trials will remain an example to the world and in the annals of international law.

Many will argue that he may have looked, but did not always see, as in the case of the disastrous economic policy of his government which saw the country slide into hyper inflation. But even then, the mismanagement by the Radical party as from 1987 was not all its own doing. There was a lot inherited. After all, the military dictatorship had left Argentina in an undeclared financial default, which the army chiefs failed to admit to when they hastily left government at the end of 1983. But Alfonsín failed to seize the opportunity provided by this weakness, perhaps due to pride perhaps because of miscalculation, and he did not grab at the offers of renegotiation proffered by the international agencies.

There will be so much to say that is good about Alfonsín the man, the politician and his brave leadership in the days and weeks to come, that no obituary space will be sufficient so soon after he has stopped breathing.

Take for example the simple question as to what would have happened had he lost the October 1983 election which he had never expected to win. A Peronist government would have come in his stead, led by the late Italo Argentino Luder, and he would have amnestied the military, and probably given comfort and succor to the worst criminals in their employment. Luder had promised to respect the auto amnesty dictated by the last general in government house, General Bignone (whose name should be better remembered as Big Nothing). Alfonsín put the generals on trial, when they were still powerful with mean and material sufficient to cause trouble, not like more recent haranging.

My own justification of Alfonsín and his government (which goes well beyond any attempt to explain any aspect) is that he was honest, he was clean from beginning to end. In Argentina that is superlative.

As a personal illustration of that sweeping claim, it was interesting to be his unofficial informant during the Malvinas conflict, when even the leader of the Radical party (Contín) went on a freebee to Stanley on a flight arranged by general Galtieri (who seemed more interested at the time in the duty free booze available on the islands). Alfonsín was no prepared to support the military landing. And he was ostracized, yes, again, for making no statement of support for the military adventure of April 2 (yet he later refused to restore diplomatic links with Britain demanding full sovereignty over the islands). At the time, Argentina had gone bananas with joy over the invasion. Dr. Luis Caeiro, who had been president Arturo Illia's information secretary, invited me during the conflict to pay a weekly visit on Alfonsín to brief him on what they are saying about all this in London.

This was in May 1982, just 18 months from being elected president. Alfonsín sat in a tiny grey office, near Congreso, assisted by a man who was at once his driver and poured interminable mates for the four of us (Caeiro, Alfonsín, the driver and self).

And it was invoking our old acquaintance at the Strangers' Club lunches in 1968 or thereabouts, and the Malvinas meetings, that the president called my home in London, in 1984, and demanded that I travel to Buenos Aires (escorted part of the way by presidential guards of Felipe González, head of the Spanish government) to become the first (there were more after my folly) witness for the prosecution against Mario Eduardo Firmenich, the arrested leader of the Montoneros. Alfonsín quite explicitly said he needed one guerrilla sentenced (Firmenich got 30 years, Menem freed him after five) to convince people he could put both sides on trial.

His willingness to launch my book on those years (A State of Fear, in Spanish translation) was what he unabashedly referred to, with a wink, as, Just returning a favour! when I thanked him for his speech.

Politics have a way of bringing people together, and throwing them apart. For me that was confirmation of my admiration and affection for the man.

Apart from the personal angle there is much to be said about the politician and what his government really gave Argentina. With Yrigoyen, with Perón, wherever people's sympathies may lie, Alfonsín will be remembered as one of Argentina's truly great.