The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

details to me. It was more a function of our personal relationship. I would even venture to say he crossed the line and told me some of these stories because he was personally troubled by the excesses being committed by the Argentine forces in the course of their war against subversive organiza- tions. As for his planned mission to Central America to gather intelli- gence there, he never suggested to me that it was in connection with Operation Condor or anything similar. • Regarding my query concerning the two Montoneros who were seized in Rio, Prof. McSherry reports accu- rately that I approached this in a casu- al, seemingly indifferent manner. However, this was to put my contact at ease in order to maximize the chances he would respond to the question. I agree this was no joking matter, and I should not have described it that way. The ERP and the Montoneros, the two militant organizations engaged in a struggle to overthrow Argentina’s military government by force, en- gaged in violent attacks against the military and police and their families. These were not Mahatma Gandhi-like groups, but an armed insurgency against the government that did not represent the ideals of liberal democ- racy. If they had ever succeeded in seizing power, they would have installed a dictatorship, most likely on the model of Castro’s Cuba, possibly even bringing Argentina within the orbit of the Soviet Union. It goes without saying that both groups were hostile to the United States and to American interests in Argentina. So there was no reason why the United States would want to see these people come to power. Yet while the U.S. respected the right of the Argentine government to defend itself from this rebellion, it was also shocked by the extrajudicial and even criminal methods used by the military to deal with this insurgency. The U.S. had an interest in reduc- ing the human rights violations com- mitted by Argentine forces during this armed struggle. The large number of messages that were released under FOIA reveal that almost every office in Embassy Buenos Aires was involved in reporting on the human rights viola- tions taking place, making representa- tions to the Argentine government to conduct itself in a more civilized and humane manner, and making inquiries as to the welfare of specific prisoners of special interest to the United States. The Argentine military did not appre- ciate these efforts, of course, and resented the fact that they did not have the full support of the United States in what they had convinced themselves was an epochal battle of Western civilization against interna- tional communism. Defusing Tensions My own discussions with my Argentine military intelligence con- tact focused on the potential threat against American personnel from rad- ical Argentine insurgents. I deter- mined early on that this threat was minimal, and that continued to be my assessment until the end of my tour. However, I discovered that there was a latent threat against our personnel from the Argentine security forces. On one occasion, my military con- tact informed me of an impending action to arrest all of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo on the grounds that they constituted a subversive threat and that many of them were aware of the locations where armed guerrillas were in hiding. I told my source that this was a mistake that could only bring further harm to Argentina’s already sinking reputation abroad, but he said there was nothing that could be done to reverse this decision. When I reported this to Amb. Castro, he immediately telephoned Argentine Army chief of staff General Viola to protest this harebrained scheme, and the action was called off. Of course, this did not win us any friends with my source’s superiors in Army military intelligence. At another point, my source revealed to me that Argentine Army intelligence was interested in bring- ing the embassy’s human rights offi- cer (and later president of AFSA), F.A. “Tex” Harris, in for questioning about his contacts with the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and other human rights organizations — even abduct- ing him if necessary. I succeeded in neutralizing this threat by having my contact engage instead in an informal conversation with Tex as to the ratio- nale of United States human rights policy. During that exchange, he explained why it would have been foolish and counterproductive for the Argentine military to attempt to interfere with the embassy’s contacts with human rights groups. The embassy’s extensive contacts with Argentine trade unions were also viewed with suspicion and hostility by the army’s intelligence service. To- gether with the AFL-CIO, the em- bassy labor attaché was cultivating the Peronist labor leadership and bring- ing about a rapprochement between it and the democratic international 74 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 My own discussions with my Argentine military intelligence contact focused on the potential threat against U.S. personnel from radical insurgents.