Argentina (ARG)South America, AmericasMarch 22, 1971
Event Summary
On March 22 to 23, 1971 the Argentine junta of armed forces commanders, led by army commander-in-chief General Alejandro Lanusse, forced President Roberto Marcelo Levingston to resign, an internal coup that put Lanusse himself in the presidency and began the wind-down of the Revolucion Argentina toward elections. Levingston, an obscure intelligence officer installed by the junta only nine months earlier, had tried to prolong military rule and pursue his own line, alienating Lanusse and the commanders. The decisive trigger was the Viborazo (the second Cordobazo) of mid-March 1971, a militant worker and student uprising in Cordoba against Levingston's hardline governor Uriburu, which laid bare the regime's loss of control.
Levingston blamed Lanusse for the disorder and, at a March 22 confrontation, reportedly tried to have Lanusse arrested; instead the junta demanded his resignation, which he tendered in the early hours of March 23. Lanusse was sworn in on March 26 and moved to negotiate a political exit, including secret contacts with the exiled Peron, leading to the 1973 elections.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Roberto Marcelo Levingston, forced by the junta to resign on March 22 to 23, 1971; sources record that he resigned and was not physically harmed rather than fleeing abroad, a mismatch with the dataset fate of fled the country, flagged here.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Roberto Marcelo Levingston (president forced to resign)
Alejandro Lanusse (army commander who led the removal and took the presidency)
The Junta de Comandantes en Jefe (the three-service junta)
Sources
On March 22, 1971 a military junta led by General Alejandro Lanusse, Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Army, executed a bloodless internal coup against President Roberto Marcelo Levingston, forcing his resignation after nine months in office, as Levingston's attempts to consolidate personal authority and diverge from the Argentine Revolution's goals had isolated him from the junta.
In response to renewed anti-government rioting in Cordoba, the labor crisis under his leadership, and his attempt to dismiss Lanusse, Levingston was deposed on 21 to 22 March 1971 by another military junta led by Lanusse; Levingston died in 2015 at age 95 as the longest-lived President of Argentina.
After the Viborazo in Cordoba, the corollary came on 23 March 1971 when President Levingston, the main backer of the ex-governor Uriburu, was deposed by the Junta of Commanders, and three days later General Lanusse assumed the Presidency of the Nation and began the path toward calling national elections; at the March 22 summit Levingston reportedly tried to have Lanusse arrested before presenting his resignation at 2:10 am on March 23.
Alejandro Agustin Lanusse was de facto president of Argentina between 26 March 1971 and 25 May 1973 during the Revolucion Argentina, replacing General Levingston, after the Junta de Comandantes requested the resignation of the de facto president on 23 March, which Levingston obeyed, following his 8 June 1970 designation as an intelligence officer then unknown to the public.
SOURCE REVIEWEDTodo Argentina, Dictadura de Roberto M. Levingston 1971open source ↗
Editorial Note
Fate discrepancy flagged: the dataset codes Levingston's fate as fled the country, but sources consistently record that he was forced to resign in a bloodless internal coup on March 22 to 23, 1971 and was not physically harmed or exiled (he remained in Argentina and lived to age 95); this record enriches the event as the dataset codes it while noting the discrepancy prominently. Date nuance: the junta demanded the resignation at the March 22 confrontation, Levingston resigned in the early hours of March 23, and Lanusse was sworn in March 26; the dataset's date is March 22, and all are recorded. Arc link: this is an internal reshuffle within the Revolucion Argentina regime, connecting to the June 8, 1970 removal of Ongania that installed Levingston (batch 22) and the 1966-06-28 founding coup (batch 18); Lanusse then steered the regime to the March 1973 elections.
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: President Roberto Marcelo Levingston, forced by the junta to resign on March 22 to 23, 1971; sources record that he resigned and was not physically harmed rather than fleeing abroad, a mismatch with the dataset fate of fled the country, flagged here..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; fled the country. 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
“Lanusse to Take Argentine Presidency,” by H. J. Maiden Berg, March 26, 1971
“New Argentine Junta Hints at Elections,” March 24, 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 →