Secret files slam Evita

By George Harris

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She may have been adored by theatre-goers worldwide, but Eva Peron was held in contempt by the British Government, according to official Foreign Office files.

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Years before Don't Cry for Me Argentina was even dreamt of, the wife of the Argentinian President was being scathingly discussed in showbiz terms by British Diplomats.

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Sir John Balfour, the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires in 1950 described the then 29-year-old as being the 'egomaniac star of her own political pantomime.'

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She demanded honours and titles from overseas countries, spent money like water, was frivolous and self-obsessed. The British government regarded her as a 'dangerous and remarkable' woman, according to the files.

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Sir John lunched with Eva on board the British-built liner SS Eva Peron in 1950. They sat beneath her full-length portrait and the ashtrays were inscribed with quotations by the president and his wife.

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His report to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin raged about: 'Prodigal expenditure and demagogic propaganda with an eye to vote-catching, the haphazard grant of favours without a corresponding attempt to inculcate the recipients with a sense of civic responsibility, the vindictive appeals to class hatred, the growth of corruption among the bureaucracy, the enrichment of persons in high places by dubious means; above all the projection on to the stage of national politics of the technique of the vaudeville - not to say pantomime - by a woman who, until her meeting with Peron, had had no knowledge of public life other than that vouchsafed to a minor actress or film star; all this had invested the doings of the senora and of her numerous satellites with an air of self- interest and extravagant frivolity which bodes ill for the future.

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'Notwithstanding the spectacular success which the leading actress has so far achieved with the former groundlings, her own performance, if not that also of the presidential compere to whom she owes her career, is likely to last so long as tickets can be procured from the official box office at popular prices.

'As it is, there is something dreamlike and impermanent about the whole meretricious mise-en-scene.'

Despite her public profession that she was a servant to her husband's wishes, the diplomat noted that she was in fact 'the driving force of all national activities in the country.'

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When rumours first spread that Eva was ill, a Foreign Office official noted: 'Whatever the truth about these rumours, nothing but good could result from a prolonged spell of ill-health.'

Yet despite the official misgivings, Eva Peron still holds sway as a cult figure almost 50 years after her death from cancer, in 1952, at the age of 33.