Argentina (ARG)South America, AmericasJune 8, 1970
Event Summary
On June 8, 1970 the Argentine military junta, the joint chiefs of the armed forces, deposed General Juan Carlos Ongania, the dictator it had installed in 1966, replacing him with General Roberto Marcelo Levingston in an internal reshuffle of the Revolucion Argentina regime. Ongania's authoritarian, corporatist rule had been fatally weakened by the Cordobazo, the May 1969 worker and student uprising in Cordoba, and by rising guerrilla violence, culminating in the kidnapping and killing of former president Pedro Eugenio Aramburu by the Montoneros in late May 1970. Ten days after that murder, the junta led by commander-in-chief General Alejandro Lanusse forced Ongania to resign, judging him unable to control the mounting disorder.
Rather than call elections, the junta installed Levingston, a little-known general recalled from his post as military attache in Washington, who was expected to be pliable but who chose to deepen the regime. Levingston in turn was ousted by Lanusse in March 1971, and the regime finally yielded to elections in 1973.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: General Juan Carlos Ongania, deposed by the military junta on June 8, 1970 and not physically harmed; General Levingston was sworn in on June 18.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Juan Carlos Ongania (dictator deposed by the junta)
Alejandro Lanusse (commander-in-chief who led the removal)
Roberto Marcelo Levingston (general installed as successor)
Sources
On June 8, 1970 the joint chiefs of staff led by General Lanusse deposed Ongania and appointed to the presidency General Roberto Marcelo Levingston, who was recalled from his post as military attache in Washington, after the Cordobazo inspired a wave of strikes and protests and a series of political assassinations including that of former president Aramburu.
SOURCE REVIEWEDGlobalSecurity.org, Revolutionary Argentina 1955-72open source ↗
Faced with increasing opposition, in particular following the Cordobazo, General Ongania was forced to resign by the military junta composed of the chiefs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and was replaced by General Roberto M. Levingston, who far from calling free elections decided to deepen the Revolucion Argentina.
Levingston took the presidency of Argentina on 18 June 1970 in a military coup engineered by commander-in-chief Alejandro Lanusse that deposed Juan Carlos Ongania over his ineffective response to the Montoneros and other guerrillas, and Levingston was himself deposed on 21 March 1971 by another military junta led by Lanusse.
Britannica records that the armed forces overthrew the Ongania government in June 1970, that General Roberto Marcelo Levingston replaced Ongania but inflation returned and terrorist acts increased, and that Levingston was overthrown in March 1971 and replaced by General Alejandro Agustin Lanusse, who promised to reestablish democratic elections by the end of 1973.
SOURCE REVIEWEDBritannica, Argentina: Military government 1966-73open source ↗
Editorial Note
Arc link: this June 1970 removal of Ongania is an internal coup within the Revolucion Argentina regime that Ongania himself had headed since the June 28, 1966 coup against Illia (enriched in batch 18); it must not be conflated with that founding coup. Coding note: the dataset labels this a palace coup because power passed from one military-regime figure to another within the ruling structure; Ongania was not physically harmed. Date nuance: the junta deposed Ongania on June 8 (the dataset's date) and Levingston was sworn in on June 18; both dates are recorded. Arc forward: Levingston was ousted by Lanusse in March 1971, and the regime yielded to the March 1973 elections that returned Peronism, all separate later events.
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: General Juan Carlos Ongania, deposed by the military junta on June 8, 1970 and not physically harmed; General Levingston was sworn in on June 18..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.
Luttwak
Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.
New York Times
“Argentine Chief is Forced to Quit in Military Coup,” June 9, 1970
“Argentine Junta Pledges a Return to Civilian Rule,” June 10, 1970
“Lanusse to Take Argentine Presidency,” by H. J. Maiden Berg, March 26, 1971
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →