In the turbulent history of twentieth-century Argentina, periods of civilian rule were repeatedly interrupted by military interventions that installed generals in the presidential palace. Roberto Marcelo Levingston represents a particular specimen of this phenomenon: a leader chosen not for his own commanding presence or political vision, but as a compromise figure, only to find himself outmaneuvered by the very military establishment that had placed him in power. His brief presidency from 1970 to 1971 illustrates the contradictions and instabilities that plagued Argentina during its years of military governance.
Levingston was born on 10 January 1920 in San Luis Province, a relatively remote and lightly populated region in central-western Argentina. His parents were Guillermo David Levingston Sierralta and Carmen Laborda Guiñazú. After completing his secondary education, he enrolled at the Colegio Militar de la Nación in 1938, the country's premier military academy, and graduated in 1941. He chose cavalry as his branch of service, a traditional and prestigious choice within the Argentine Army. By January 1948 he had risen to the rank of captain, having previously been promoted to first lieutenant. Over the following decades, he developed an expertise in intelligence and counterinsurgency, specializations that would become increasingly central to Argentine military thinking as leftist guerrilla movements grew in strength.
The Argentina into which Levingston was thrust as president in June 1970 was a country under severe strain. The preceding military government of Juan Carlos Onganía had come to power in 1966, promising order and modernization, but had instead presided over growing economic instability and a surge in political violence. The Montoneros, a Peronist guerrilla organization, had kidnapped and killed former president Pedro Eugenio Aramburu in May 1970, demonstrating with brutal clarity that Onganía had lost control of the security situation. The military high command, led by commander-in-chief Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, concluded that Onganía had to go.
The question of who should replace him exposed divisions within the military. Lanusse and his colleagues wanted someone who would be manageable, someone who would not develop independent political ambitions or challenge the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces. They settled on Levingston, who was serving at the time as Argentina's representative to the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington. He was relatively unknown domestically, which was considered an advantage. Lanusse would later describe the appointment as a barbarity while simultaneously defending it as a necessary step to correct the failures of the Onganía era.
Levingston took the presidency on 18 June 1970. His economic approach was strongly protectionist, favoring domestic industry and seeking to insulate Argentina from foreign capital penetration. This was partly a nationalist impulse and partly a response to genuine economic crisis, as the country was suffering from a combination of high inflation and recession that defied easy remedies. His economic advisers pursued policies designed to stimulate domestic production, but the underlying structural problems proved resistant to such measures. Inflation continued, wages stagnated, and popular discontent deepened.
Beyond economics, Levingston's administration was defined by a hard line against political violence. The death penalty was imposed against terrorists and kidnappers, a reflection of the regime's conviction that exemplary punishment could deter the guerrilla organizations that were destabilizing Argentine society. This policy did little to actually suppress the Montoneros or the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, both of which continued their operations throughout his tenure.
The crisis that ended his presidency came from an unexpected quarter: the city of Córdoba. In March 1971, renewed anti-government rioting erupted there, recalling the Cordobazo of 1969, the massive labor and student uprising that had shaken Onganía's government. Córdoba had become a focal point of resistance, its large industrial workforce providing a social base for sustained protest. Levingston's response was seen as inadequate and politically maladroit. He had also made the fatal error of attempting to dismiss Lanusse, the very man who had installed him, apparently believing that he had developed enough of an independent political base to do so. He had not.
On 21 March 1971, Lanusse led another military coup, removing Levingston after a presidency of barely nine months. Lanusse then took the presidency himself, abandoning the pretense of installing proxy rulers and governing directly until elections could eventually restore civilian rule. For Levingston, the experience was a humbling demonstration of the limits of power under military tutelage. He had been chosen as a tool and discarded when he proved inconvenient.
In his personal life, Levingston had married Bety Nelly Andrés in 1943, and the couple had two sons and a daughter. After leaving power he lived in relative obscurity, surviving long enough to witness Argentina's return to democracy and the turbulent decades that followed. He died on 17 June 2015, at the remarkable age of ninety-five, making him the longest-lived president in Argentine history. That longevity, more than anything from his brief time in power, became the fact most often cited in connection with his name. His cabinet had undergone significant turnover during his short presidency, particularly in October 1970, a sign of the instability that characterized his administration from beginning to end.
