Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s nineteenth-century classic Facundo emphasizes the need to penetrate a unique national identity, for “without that it is impossible to understand our political personalities, nor the primitive and American character of the bloody struggle which is tearing apart the Argentine Republic.” For Martin Edwin Andersen, the military officers who ran Argentina during the so-called “Dirty War” from 1976 to 1983 (and who saw themselves as the defenders of Western Christianity against Marxist revolution) perpetuated a savage dictatorship on the basis of a myth of subversion concocted to destroy democracy. What Andersen lacks is a necessary penetration into the political culture that gave rise to the “Dirty War.” Instead, his study is directed at a populist exposé of a conspiracy: how the national security apparatus infiltrated and manipulated leftist guerrilla forces in order to justify a police state. Out of this investigation comes a wealth of primary material. And the narration, although often anecdotal, proves gripping in its revelations of human cruelty.
Dossier Secreto begins, like most studies of Argentine militarism, with the army coup of 1930. Part one then summarizes the events of the thirties and moves quickly to the rise of Juan Perón and the continuing dominance of his movement through the sixties and the early seventies. The chaos engendered by Perón’s death in 1973 set the stage for the terror that followed. Andersen highlights the role of José López Rega, whom he colorfully calls “The Rasputin of the Pampas” (a good indication of the flavor of this book). López Rega is credited with making the military responsible for a war against supposed subversives during the government of Isabel Perón, but he was soon pushed aside so that the army could assume complete control and begin the Proceso de la Reorganización Nacional, as the generals called their “Dirty War” plan.
Part 2 of the book focuses on the subjects of repression: the labor unions, the Third World priests, and the advocates of modernist culture. Despotism was carried out through disappearances and torture centers, and the process is graphically described. Part 3 concludes with the public outcry after the Falklands/Malvinas war, which ousted the military and brought hope for a more democratic Argentina with the election of Raúl Alfonsín.
How can this military barbarism be explained? Andersen limits himself to positing an inherent fascism infecting a malevolent officer corps, and the nefarious influence of outside forces from Europe and the United States. Ultranationalist organizations in France and Italy receive particular attention because of connections they had in Argentina. But the Proceso is better understood as the end result of the collapse of Argentine society and institutions during the twentieth century. Andersen’s detailed concern with military matters therefore misses the opportunity to investigate the army’s response to the prolonged economic and political crisis in Argentina.
An amazing array of sources makes Dossier Secreto live up to its title. Andersen has digested great quantities of the recently published materials from Argentina, but the originality of his work lies in its many confidential sources: official reports, both Argentine and U.S., and the testimonies of various participants, several of whom chose to remain unidentified. What these documents show is the way such groups as the Montoneros were used by a partnership of military and civilian conspirators. Judging such sources, of course, remains an open question, but no future historians can ignore Andersen’s book. However basic his aims in denouncing the Argentine military, his diligence in pursuing this goal has given us a valuable resource.
