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Jose Lopez Rega
Jose Lopez Rega was Argentina's Minister of Social Welfare during the Peronist government started in 1973 by Juan Peron and continued after Peron's death in 1974 by his third wife and vice-president, Isabel Martinez de Peron (1974-76), until the coup d'etat of 1976 that initiated the so-called National Reorganization Process (1976-83) under Jorge Videla's direction. Earlier a Federal Police corporal, he was made Comisario General of police, the highest rank, under Isabel Peron's rule. He was known as El Brujo ("The Warlock") and El Evola argentino .
Lopez Rega's mother died giving birth to him in Buenos Aires. According to his biography by Marcelo Larraquy (2002), he was a respectful, introverted boy, who had a library covering an entire wall and a special interest in spiritual topics (which would later turn into a passion for esoterism and occultism). He married at the age of 27. In 1944 he joined the Federal Police; with the help of police chief Filomeno Velazco he joined the guard which protected the Casa Rosada, seat of the executive, with the rank of corporal.
In 1951, he met Victoria Montero who introduced him in the subject of esoterism. Lopez Rega was a frequent visitor in Montero's home, where he met members of the freemasons organization. A common interest for esoterism linked him to Isabel, Peron's third wife, in 1965. Sent to Argentina by Peron, exiled in Spain since the 1955 "Revolucion Libertadora" coup, she organized a meeting in the house of major Bernardo Alberte, Peron's delegate and sponsor of various left-wing Peronist movement, among which the CGT de los Argentinos, a labor union federation which, between 1968 and 1972, gathered opponents to a pact with Juan Carlos Ongania's dictatorship, and which had an important role in the 1969 Cordobazo insurrection. After winning Isabel's trust, Lopez Rega traveled to Spain, where he worked first for Peron's security before becoming the couple's personal secretary.
Related websites
Biography of Jose Lopez Rega
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jose Lopez Rega
