Justo, Agustín Pedro

Justo, Agustín Pedro ägo͞ostēnˈ pāˈᵺrō ho͞osˈtō [key], 1876–1943, president of Argentina (1932–38). An army general, he rose to prominence (1922) as minister of war under Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear and later participated in the conservative revolution that overthrew Hipólito Irigoyen (1930). As president he became a leading exponent of Pan-Americanism and the League of Nations; together with his foreign minister, Carlos Saavedra Lamas, he was instrumental in ending the Chaco War. In World War II, Justo supported the Allied cause and was, in the face of much pro-Axis sentiment in Argentine political circles, the chief advocate of the United Nations in Argentina. When Brazil declared war on the Axis he requested and received the rank of honorary general in the Brazilian army.

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