Isabel Peron Back in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES — Isabel Peron, the enigmatic former president, returned to Argentina from her exile home in Madrid today to the surprise of just about everybody, including the leaders of the Peronist movement.

Peron, who oversaw two years of economic chaos and political violence before her Peronist-elected government was overthrown by the military in 1976, characteristically said little about her reasons for coming back. “I simply wanted to be in Argentina, and here I am,” she told astonished bystanders and airport staff before she was whisked away in a limousine. She was last in Argentina in 1984.