The UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History

Can the resistance thrive far from the battlefields, in places disconnected from the focal points of conflict? This study examines the intermesh of diplomacy, culture, and resistance in Argentina during World War II, breaking assumptions about neutrality in a country later shadowed by its ties to postwar fleeing Nazi fugitives. Argentina’s undecided wartime stance—fluctuating between official neutrality and Axis sympathies—was molded by U.S.-led propaganda, European colonial-cultural ties, and profound internal divisions. At the heart of all this was Albert Guérin, a WWI veteran and industrialist who led the Free French Committee in Buenos Aires. His grassroots resistance completely diminished geographical boundaries between continents. The committee united ideological factions through BBC broadcasts, distributed over 150,000 propaganda bulletins across Latin America, and significantly bolstered the Allied cause, recognized even by de Gaulle himself. Simultaneously, through the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), the U.S. leveraged Hollywood and Walt Disney as tools of cultural diplomacy. Gaucho Goofy, as a direct contrast to American cowboys, symbolized the U.S.-Argentine relations but was conspicuously absent in 1945 _Tres Caballeros–_sequence of 1943 _Saludos Amigos–_revealing the fluid and pragmatic nature of U.S. soft power. Through Guérin’s grassroots resistance and U.S. cultural diplomacy, Argentina emerges as a battleground of competing ideologies. Committed to his fight, Guérin declared in 1943, “Only victory will stop us!” Yet, the same Argentina that resisted fascism became entangled in postwar Nazi controversies, underscoring its ideological paradox and the enduring power of words against oppression.