How were Fernando De la Rúa’s last hours in government?

On December 20, 2001, before seven o’clock, Fernando De la Rúa left his bedroom in silence and went straight to his desk in the presidential villa at Quinta de Olivos. Waiting for him on the table was a sheet full of names and numbers: the records of the calls he had left the night before, a night of hectic negotiations and almost no sleep. Hours earlier, on December 19, De la Rúa had declared a state of siege for the entire country on national television, a measure that inflamed protest and triggered a spontaneous cacerolazo in the main cities. That morning the weather was unbearably tense.

The President pointed out a name and asked that it be communicated immediately. The first call was to the head of the Central Bank, Roque Maccarone, who followed minute by minute the pressure on the banks and the accelerated deterioration of the financial system, in a scenario aggravated by the resignation of Domingo Cavallo the evening before. De la Rúa then left his office and went to the headquarters area. There he asked to see his eldest son Antonio, who arrived immediately. They spoke alone, a brief conversation but filled with concern.

He then called Chief of Staff Chrystian “Vikingo” Colombo, with whom he had tried to reopen dialogue with Peronism in order to maintain governability. Minutes later, Inés Pertiné, his wife, arrived.

While urgent meetings were taking place 200 kilometers away in Montevideo, Vice-Chancellor Horacio Chighizola urgently called the presidential residence. On this day the XXI. Ordinary meeting of the Common Market Council held. The presidential summit was also planned, and Chighizola wanted to know whether De la Rúa would travel. Due to the crisis in Argentina, the meeting of heads of state and government was ultimately interrupted, but the Council meeting was held. Decisions with a technical profile were adopted there – commitments on services, criminal cooperation between countries, updating of regional security standards after 9/11, educational coordination with Bolivia and Chile and extensions of the “restart of Mercosur” – in complete contrast to the chaos that reigned in Buenos Aires on the same day.

Meanwhile, in Olivos, De la Rúa made the decision to go to Casa Rosada. He left by helicopter aboard the Sikorsky S-70 piloted by Claudio Zanlongo and Juan Carlos Zarza, accompanied by a federal police officer and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Giacosa. The flight was short and quiet.

When the President arrived in La Rosada there was general exhaustion. His brother Jorge, Colombo and some ministers were waiting for him: Héctor Lombardo for Health, Andrés Delich for Education and the head of SIDE, Carlos Enrique Becerra. Later, Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini arrived, having urgently arrived from the United States to support him. As several witnesses later admitted, that was it “more active” and almost the only one who was convinced that it was still possible to save the government. The others showed clear signs of wear and tear: tired faces, slow steps, tension in every gesture. “They were devastated,” recalled someone who witnessed the scene and asked not to be named. Colombo walked the halls trying to coordinate talks with the opposition. I knew the way out would be political, or not.

De la Rúa went to the conference room to meet with the cabinet. “Moving the ministers was not an easy task”a witness later recalled. There, in this atmosphere of fatigue and urgency, De la Rúa made his final political move: he proposed the formation of a coalition government with Peronism. The bet was aimed at rebuilding governance in the face of social onslaught and the rupture of the alliance that had brought him to power. On the PJ side, Senator Ramón Puerta was responsible for conducting the negotiations. A few months earlier, in October, the Alliance government, having lost social support, had performed horribly in the general election. And the Justicialista party, which achieved a majority in the upper house, elected the missionary as provisional president of the Senate.

“Puerta was a strong personality who was of central political importance because he was the first in line for presidential succession after the resignation of Vice President Chacho Álvarez,” recalls someone close to the time.

That day, Governor Adolfo Rodríguez Saá invited governors and party leaders to the inauguration of an international airport in Merlo, San Luis. Most of the Peronists – some missing for climate reasons (or so it was said) – had traveled to San Luis. Finally the telephone rang in La Rosada, Colombo answered, on the other hand Puerta announced the decision: Peronism distanced itself and did not accept De la Rúa’s proposal. This refusal, along with the collapse on the streets, the lack of internal support and the chain resignation of his staff, sealed the government’s fate.

De la Rúa went to another office with Rodríguez Giavarini and wrote his resignation on letterhead. “The feeling was one of depression and physical exhaustion, it came from many long days and little sleep.”recalled one witness. Rodríguez Giavarini then submitted the resignation to the Minister of Law and Technology, who presented it to Congress.

Then came the moment that would sum up this historic day: the president’s departure by helicopter from the roof of the Casa Rosada.

The helipad was located in front of the main post office, 230 meters from the government building. Normally the helicopter would land there and then the presidential cars would take the president to the Casa Rosada. But this time it wasn’t possible. The government building was surrounded by a screaming crowd “Let them all go.”

“President, everything is surrounded, you can’t get out”the head of the military house, Admiral Carlos Carbone, told the president. In the Plaza de Mayo, the repression had killed and injured people, and the police moved back and forth uncontrollably. The government building was under siege.

The helicopter was already circling the area when the decision was made to descend on the terrace of the government building for just a few seconds. This was no small detail: “When the Casa Rosada was built, there were no helicopters. What was later used as a helipad is the roof of the White Room, which has no columns in the middle: it is a large vault with little resistance, and in all the years of use, cracks and structural failures appeared,” remembers pilot Zanlongo.

Everyone understood that it was the only way out. The President went to the elevator that leads to the terrace. But before the climb, De la Rúa had a gesture that those who were there have not forgotten and that still breaks their voices today: “He went through the papers on his desk and picked up the Constitution…he walked back there with the Constitution in his hand.”.

“Fernando, you have completed your mission, you have done what you could”Rodríguez Giavarini told him. De la Rúa did not answer.

As they reached the terrace, the helicopter appeared, coming from Aeroparque. Before he walked through the town hall, he crossed the square towards the government building. As he approached the roof, radio communications from the military building were interrupted. In any case, they already had the necessary credentials to carry out their tasks and something that was in their favor: the wind that came from the east. The helicopter barely let its wheels run at full speed without dumping its weight on the terrace: they remained in a kind of hover, touching the ceiling without actually resting on it.

“De la Rúa arrived. But there was too strong an air current that made it very difficult to approach the helicopter. You had to use a lot of strength to walk. Remember also that the president was a man of thin build and advanced age. Two people carried him, one on each side, holding him by the arms. Between the aide and an air force corporal named Orazi, they broke his waist forward and with this strange maneuver they managed to to take him to the ship. Orazi opened the door and De “La Rúa went up with the adjutant. “It was a moment of great stress, the helicopter was flying and any gust of wind could cause you to make a sudden movement that could cause a blade to fall and cause an accident,” recalls Zanlongo.

The President was on board minutes before eight in the evening. The pilot turned to check that the passengers were secured: he saw De la Rúa standing still, almost expressionless, and the aide raising his thumb as a sign that everything was ready. Then the helicopter took off in the direction of Olivos. During the journey, the president put on his glasses and looked out the window at the river.

At some point between the departure of the helicopter from Aeroparque and before arrival at Casa Rosada, it was decided that the ultimate destination would be the Quinta de Olivos. The evacuation was planned with three options: Olivos was the most logical, but Campo de Mayo and the Anchorena farm in Uruguay were also considered. They had even equipped the H01, another presidential helicopter, with additional tanks, giving it great autonomy in the event a lengthy transfer was necessary. Ultimately he chose Olivos because the security conditions were there and his family was there too. And it was decided that the president would stay in the presidential palace that night.

The head of the Grenadier Regiment was waiting for him at the Olivos heliport. Then he got in the car and drove to the presidential villa. His wife and youngest son, Fernando “Aíto” De la Rúa, were waiting for him there. A witness said it was the first time that day he had seen a different expression on her face. “It was a smile when he saw his wife and an attitude of gratitude towards his family. It was an expression of gratitude to those who had supported him in everything. “She hugged him.”

Ten years after the dramatic helicopter scene, De la Rúa LA NACION gave an interview from his law firm in Tribunales, where he continued to practice law. “I resigned because reality overwhelmed me,” he said.

Minutes later the ministers, secretaries and staff arrived. “The house was full of people,” someone said. De la Rúa had ceased to be president with the constitution in hand. And Argentina entered an unprecedented phase: over the next eleven days, five men would occupy Rivadavia’s chairmanship.