in ArgentinaThis new evidence of Evita's cozy ties with prominent Nazis corroborates the long-held suspicion that she and her husband, Gen. Juan Peron, laid the groundwork for a bloody resurgence of fascism across Latin America in the 1970s end '80s.Besides blemishing the Evita legend the evidence threatens to inflict more damage on Switzerland's image for plucky neutrality. The international banking center is still staggering from disclosures about its wartime collaboration with Adolf Hitler and Swiss profiteering off his Jewish victims.The archival records indicate that Switzerland's assistance to Hitler's henchmen didn't stop with the collapse of the Third Reich.And the old Swiss-Argentine-Nazi connection reaches to the present in another way. Spanish "superjudge" Baltasar Garzon is seeking to open other Swiss records on bank accounts controlled by Argentine military officers who led the so-called "Dirty War" that killed and "disappeared" tens of thousands of Argentines between 1976-83.During World War IL Gen. Peron -a populist military leader -- made no secret of his sympathies for Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany.Even as the Third Reich crumbled in the spring of 1945, Peron remained a pro-fascist stalwart, making available more than 1,000 blank passports for Nazi collaborators fleeing Europe.With Europe in chaos and the Allies near victory, tens of thousands of ranking Nazis dropped out of sight, tried to mix in with common refugees and began plotting escapes from Europe to Argentina across clandestine "ratlines."At the Argentine end of that voyage was Rodolfo Freude. He also was Juan Peron's private secretary, one of Evita's principal benefactors and the chief of Argentine internal security.Freude's father, Ludwig, played another key role. As managing director of the Banco Aleman Transatlantico in Buenos Aires, he led the pro-Nazi German community in Argentina and acted as trustee for hundreds of millions of German Reichsmarks that the Fuehrer's top aides sent to Argentina near the war's end.By 1946, the first wave of defeated fascists was settling into new Argentine homes. The country also was rife with rumors that the thankful Nazis had begun to repay Peron by bankrolling his campaign for the presidency, which he won with his stunning wife at his side.In 1947, Peron was living in Argentina's presidential palace and was hearing pleas from thousands of other Nazis desperate to flee Europe. The stage was set for one of the most troubling boat-lifts in human history.The archival records reveal that Eva Peron stepped forward to serve as Gen. Peron's personal emissary to this Nazi underground. Already, Evita was an Argentine legendBorn in 1919 as an illegitimate child she became a prostitute to survive and to get acting roles. As she climbed the social ladder lover by lover, she built up deep resentments toward the traditional elites.As a mistress to other army officers, she caught the eye of handsome military strongman Juan Peron. After a public love affair, they married in 1945.As Peron's second wife, Evita fashioned herself as the "queen of the poor," the protector of those she called "mis descamisados" -- "my shirtless ones." She created a foundation to help the poor buy items from toys to houses.But her charity