Five years later, however, President Alejandro Lanusse found himself heading an unpopular junta, saddled by increasing political violence and an economic wind-down from the prosperous 1960s.

Seizing the initiative, he gathered leaders from across the nation's political and intellectual spectrum for a July 1971 asado, a time-honored Argentine custom as much about camaraderie as about steak.

The result was Lanusse's "Great National Agreement," a road map to the return to democratic rule, including Peronists (the first such concession the military had made since Perón's 1955 exile).

Partly in recognition for their support and to provide a counter-weight to the left-leaning Cámpora, Perón had the Justicialist Liberation Front (FREJULI) nominate for Vice President Popular Conservative leader Vicente Solano Lima, a newspaper publisher respected across most of Argentina's vastly diverse political spectrum.

The main opposition, the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR), put forth their 1958 nominee, former Congressman Ricardo Balbín (head of the party's more conservative wing).