Department of State report, “Political Violence in Argentina,” Confidential, June 16, 1975.[1]
In June of 1975, the US State Department expressed concern on the increasing level of rightwing violence in Argentina and the growing likelihood of a military takeover of the Argentine government. Detailing the violence and chaos of the government under President Isabelle Peron and her advisor Lopez Rega, the report makes clear that violence is escalating in Argentina and is unlikely to decline for some time. In the 1970s thousands of leftist terror bombings had created panic in Argentina and a violent response from both the government and rightwing terror groups.[2] To assess the violence, the report analyzed an article from the Buenos Aires Herald accounting for the deaths of 503 people since the start of Mrs. Peron’s presidency in 1974. The report broke down the sources of violence in Argentina into both leftwing terror groups such as the People’s Revolutionary Army or ERP and Montoneros who the US believed were inspired by Che Guevara, rightwing terror groups such the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, and government police and military services. Based on the analysis of the newspaper article, the majority of the violence is being perpetrated by rightwing forces, with 190 deaths of leftist political figures. The violence is spread all across Argentine society with both workers, business leaders, police and politicians being subject to violence. The regular use of police killings of prisoners is highlighted along with the complete failure of the Argentine judicial system to maintain any sense of control or integrity. All of this leads the report to believe that a military coup is inevitable as Peron’s Argentine government has very little popularity. It is just a matter of time before the military builds enough public support to position itself to overthrow the government. That prediction would prove correct as the Argentine military did take stage a coup nine months after this report was written. In two additional sidebars, the report focused on US interests, which were primarily business centered, noting that the agitation from leftist groups maked it difficult for foreign investment due to worker conflict and targeted attacks on businessmen in Argentina. The second sidebar comments on the growing danger of human rights violations in Argentina and how regularly torture is used by the Argentine government. The report ends with the need to publicly reiterate US opposition to the use of violence and human rights violations. The report does not state that the US should apply any real pressure to the Argentine government to curb the violence, most likely because it still saw the threat of leftwing terror and political agitation as a hinderance to US interests in Argentina. In the end, this account of growing violence was just a foretaste of what would become Argentina’s Dirty War during the military dictatorship from 1976-1983.
[1] “Department of State report, ‘Political Violence in Argentina,’ Confidential, June 16, 1975,” National Security Archive, November 11, 2020, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6020921-National-Security-Archive-Doc-02-Department-of.
[2] Alexander Dawson, Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 288.