Robert A. Potash, an emeritus professor of Latin American history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who died at age 95 on Dec. 30, 2016, was a world authority on the presidents of Argentina from 1928 to 1973.
I was Bob’s last doctoral student and later worked with him from 1986 to 1991 on the UMass program with Argentina.
Of the most memorable moments, none can surpass the visit of President Raúl Alfonsín to UMass in November 1986. Alfonsín was the first democratically elected president after the military regime of terror known as the “Dirty War” (1976-83).
Plans for the visit began in 1985 with conversations between then-UMass Chancellor Joseph Duffey and the rector of the University of Buenos Aires. I handled the details of the presidential visit, along with the chancellor’s staff.
We originally expected a group of 10 to 12, with the Argentine ambassador and first minister. In the end, the visitors numbered 75 to 80 Argentines, including senators and deputies. We adapted.
The welcoming ceremony, in which UMass awarded the president an honorary doctorate, was followed by lunch at the Campus Center. That’s when things got interesting.
The weather in New England, as we well know, can be unpredictable, especially in November. The day began with a bit of rain which then turned to sleet and snow. By lunchtime conditions were getting worse.
The president’s staff determined that all further activities that day, including dinner at the Potashes’ house, would be canceled, as the president had to get to Bradley International Airport. I advised them that it would be better to await snow in the evening, at which time the roads would be more accessible. My advice was not accepted.
So the Potash dinner was cancelled. Bob’s wife Jeanne then invited numerous friends and colleagues to dinner, as the caterers had already prepared a fine repast.
The hotel rooms in the Campus Center were vacated; the suitcases were sent on to the airport by truck. The truck and the buses carrying the Argentine visitors then slid off the road five miles out of town and returned to Amherst. The hotel rooms had been vacated and were no longer available. I therefore got the chance to put senators and deputies together in the few rooms that were still available. But that is not the end of it.
Dinner at the Potash house was now back on! We then had twice the people expected for dinner at a normal, three-bedroom home in Amherst. State Police, U.S. Secret Service, and Argentine security forces surrounded the home.
Pictures were taken, with President Alfonsín sitting in Bob Potash’s favorite chair and sharing photo ops with family and friends. In the basement of the house, I was sitting with the head of security and the chief of the military household, eating off paper plates.
After some time, when the snow had covered the ice on the road, the chief said to me, “You know, you were right, it’s better to wait for the snow.” I responded that it would have been nice to listen to local knowledge on the matter.
In the end, all came out well. The following years brought a series of conferences on the transition from military to democratic government in Argentina, funded by the Tinker Foundation of New York. UMass, in conjunction with the Fulbright Commission, received dozens of Argentine graduate students, all of whom finished their studies for master’s or doctorate degrees.
Nonetheless, that very human evening in the Potash house – over a meal that was canceled and then restored – is for me the most meaningful moment. Robert and Jeanne Potash did not receive President Raúl Alfonsín as a formal invitee, but rather as a welcomed member of their extended family.
The transition to the next presidency came earlier than programmed, but it was the first time in Argentine history since the 1920s that one elected president peacefully ceded power to another. For that Bob Potash and many Argentines worked very hard indeed, many over paper plates in the basement of a house in Amherst, Massachusetts, in November 1986.
Jeffrey A. Cole, a native of Amherst, is a semiretired Latin American historian who now lives in Virginia. He earned a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he taught and was associate director of the UMass exchange program with Argentina from 1985 to 1991.