Nelly Rivas

Nélida Haydeé "Nelly" Rivas (April 21, 1939 – August 28, 2012) was an Argentine woman who is said to have been romantically linked to Juan Domingo Perón, President of Argentina, between the years 1953 and 1955, a relationship that allegedly began when Rivas was 14 years old. Although there are doubts about the veracity of this relationship, it has been widely disseminated by Perón's opponents, and its first appearance originated during the military dictatorship of 1955, as part of a smear campaign against Perón.^[1]

Rivas (center) with Perón (right) in 1953

Early life

Nélida Haydeé Rivas was born on 21 April 1939 at the Rawson Hospital and was the only child of José María Rivas and María Sebastiana Viva. José Rivas was a worker at the Noel candy factory and his wife worked as a caretaker in an apartment building. As a teenager, Rivas participated in activities organised by the women's branch of the UES, an organisation that brought together high school students, at the presidential residence in Olivos.^[1]

Encounter with Perón

As a teenager, she participated in the activities organized in the UES or Union of Secondary Students (female branch), a Peronist organization in which high school students met in the Presidential Residence at Olivos. At this time she met President Peron and became linked sentimentally, and sexually, with the Argentine president between the years 1953-1955, after the death of Evita Perón. At the time they first met she was either 13 or 14 years of age.^[2][3]

This is how Nelly described her first face to face with Perón:

"I was speechless. I felt a chill run through my body. I began to tremble like a leaf (...) I had been stunned by his simplicity and cordiality. I hadn't expected him to be so handsome either."

Nelly told Zavala, according to what he says in his book:

"Perón, in our workers' house, was a god (...) It would be a great falsehood not to recognize that each one of us wanted to be a second Evita."

Though much of Argentina's media had, since 1950, been either controlled or monitored by Perón's government, lurid pieces on his ongoing relationship with an underage girl (something Perón never denied) filled the gossip pages.^[4] Pressed by reporters on whether his supposed new paramour was, as the magazines claimed, thirteen years of age, the fifty-nine-year-old Perón responded that he was "not superstitious."^[5]

Life after Perón

When Perón was overthrown in September 1955, she was arrested with her family in the province of Chaco. During the military government calling itself the "Revolución Libertadora" (Liberating Revolution), her parents were convicted and confined in the Villa Devoto Prison, while Nelly was transferred to a Correctional Asylum for Minors.

The letters she exchanged with Perón were officially published in 1957 by a newspaper in the United States. The relationship was cited among the reasons for the overthrow of Perón in 1955, and following the overthrow, Perón was prosecuted for statutory rape, a crime that occurs when an adult maintains a consensual relationship with a minor; in Argentine law that is under 15 years of age (she was 14 when he started the relationship).^[6] The process prescribed in 1971 whilst Perón was negotiating with the de facto president Alejandro Agustín Lanusse the legalization of the Partido Justicialista.^[7][8]

Perón's alleged relationship with Rivas was frequently evoked by anti-Peronist regimes of 1950s and 1960s in attempt to discredit Peronism; Tad Szulc remarked in 1958 that Perón continues to "haunt Argentina as a highly effective political ghost", given the sensationalized and often falsified coverage of the deposed president in Argentinian media. Perón was described as mentally unstable and a "megalomaniac bent on destroying his own country through absurd subversion and criminal sabotage", and the accusations made against him regarding Nelly Rivas were used a proof of "sexual perversion" of Perón.^[9] Silvana G. Ferreyra remarked that "the image of Perón as a 'seducer of young girls' was part of the anti-Peronist credo".^[10]

It is unknown whether the relationship between Nelly Rivas and Perón really took place. Victoria Allison considers the story a part of smear campaign against Perón conducted the military junta of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, which included similar charges and rumours about Perón.^[9] Ferreyra notes that despite the story being a popular talking point amongst anti-Peronist circles, the Argentinian public at large did not believe the allegations, writing: "As the years went by, the persistence of the Peronist identity among the popular classes was a clear sign of the ineffectiveness of these denunciations."^[10]

Perón's biographer, Jill Hedges, argues that "the concept was hardly novel" in Argentina, and rumours of political figures having affairs with young girls in domestic service or similar positions were common, which did not make the story stand out amongst the other anti-Peronist allegations of the smear campaign.^[11] Perón was also accused of having sexual encounters with film stars during the 1954 Mar del Plata International Film Festival, and photos of him with the members of the women's branch of Secondary Students' Union (Spanish: Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios, UES) that Rivas belonged to sparked moralistic critique already before the allegation of his romance with her was made. Anti-Peronist media mocked Perón for posing with the women of the UES, claiming that he was trying to "forget the irreparable absence [of Eva Perón]"; shortly afterwards, gossip of Perón's alleged relationship with Rivas appeared for the first time.^[12]

Nelly married in 1958 and, in 1973, she reunited with Perón when he returned for his third presidency. Nelly at that time had two children.

She died on the 28th of August 2012 at the age of 73.

References

1. Gilardi, Nicolás (August 20, 2017). "La historia de Nelly Rivas, la "niña amante" de Juan Domingo Perón". infobae.com (in Spanish).
2. Ella tenía 14, él 60: el testimonio de la joven que fue amante de Perón
3. El relato de la "amante" de 14 años de Juan Domingo Perón, Nelly Rivas
4. . Time. October 10, 1955. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved January 27, 2011.
5. Martínez, Tomás Eloy (1997). La Novela de Perón. Vintage Books. ISBN 9780679781462.
6. Alaniz, Rogelio (April 18, 2013). "Perón, Nelly Rivas y "la fiesta del chivo"". El Litoral. Santa Fe. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
7. Rodríguez, Daniel (April 22, 2018). "Ella 14, él 60: La historia de la joven amante de Perón". Retrieved May 25, 2019.
8. Gambini, Hugo (2008). Historia del peronismo. La violencia (1956-1983). Buenos Aires: Javier Vergara Editor. p. 242. ISBN 978-950-15-2433-8.
9. Allison, Victoria (2004). "White Evil: Peronist Argentina in the US Popular Imagination Since 1955". American Studies International. 42 (1). Mid-America American Studies Association: 7.
10. Ferreyra, Silvana (2022). ""Perón Pedófilo": usos políticos del pasado en Twitter". Escuela de Historia (in Spanish). 37 (1). Facultad de Humanidades y Artes (Universidad Nacional de Rosario): 9–10. ISSN 1853-8835.
11. Hedges, Jill (2021). Juan Perón: The Life of the People’s Colonel. I.B. Tauris. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-7556-0268-1.
12. Montrucchio, Marisa (2001). "Hojeando al peronismo en Primera Plana: Una historia sui generis, en los años sesenta". Sociohistórica (in Spanish). 8 (1): 71.

Bibliography

• Nuestro Siglo: Historia de la Argentina, Tomo 1949-1955 "Escándalos y Frivolidades". Director y autor de la obra: Félix Luna. Hyspamérica y Editorial Sarmiento S.A. (1992).
• Amor y Violencia: La verdadera historia entre Perón y Nelly Rivas. Del autor Juan Ovidio Zavala. Editorial Planeta (1987).
• Nelly R., la niña amante de Perón: Novela (anti)histórica. Del autor Santiago Giralt (1994).
• Las vírgenes de Perón. Del autor Ignacio Yrigoyen. Ediciones B (1990).