Paula Lugones
03/25/2021 18:09
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 03/25/2021 6:13 PM
A document declassified by the United States on the last Argentine dictatorship revealed that
a group of American officials
wanted the Peronist businessman
Jorge Antonio
, who was then in exile, to return to Buenos Aires after the military coup of March 1976 and
later become president
.
According to a cable published by the National Security Archive in the framework of the 45th anniversary of the coup, to which
Clarín
had access
, the US ambassador to Argentina,
Robert Hill
, indicated that he was contacted on March 11 by advisers of the US congressmen Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms who traveled to Buenos Aires together with a former CIA deputy director Daniel Graham and a Cuban exile Raymond Molina.
"They told me they were here
in connection with Jorge Antonio's return to Argentina
and Graham told me that Antonio hoped to be the next president of Argentina," Hill wrote.
And he added that the group told him that this initiative
had
already
obtained support from Panama, Venezuela and Nicaragua
.
As they told the ambassador, “the military government would remove Ms. Perón from power and they would call elections immediately afterward.
Antonio would return, provide the military with evidence that would totally discredit Ms. Perón, and then he
would be elected president because he had support and money
”.
Graham asked Hill what he thought about it.
According to the cable, Hill responded: “My reading is that Jorge Antonio was
completely discredited
in Argentina.
He may have some evidence against Ms. de Perón and the military could allow her to return to Argentina, at least temporarily.
But beyond that the chances that Jorge Antonio could be president are, in my opinion,
nil
”.
The declassified document in the United States that reveals that officials from that country wanted the Peronist businessman Jorge Antonio as post-dictatorship president.
The ambassador suggested to the group that they
leave the country as soon as possible
.
Jorge Antonio, who died in 2007, was one of the closest and most influential men over
Juan Domingo Perón
.
He had met the president when he worked at Mercedes Benz and approached him to offer him a project.
He owned various media and also ventured into agricultural, forestry and real estate businesses, set up a grain exporting company and even had a bank.
After the coup of '55 his assets were confiscated and after a visit to Cuba he went into exile in Madrid, where he bought the land to build Puerta de Hierro, the house where Perón was staying.
Clarín has been revealing a series of secret documents that were declassified and reveal details of what the US government knew about the arrival of the 1976 coup.
The new batch of declassified documents - to which Jorge Antonio's revelation is now added - provides evidence of multiple contacts between the coup plotters and US officials and
shows that the United States tacitly supported them
, since Washington shared the position of the US military. that the coup was "inevitable".
The documents also indicate that US officials knew that the dictatorship would remain for a prolonged period, during which there
would be an unprecedented repression, they
point out from the body that analyzed the records.
Carlos Osorio, director of the Documentation Project of the National Security Archive of the Southern Cone, who carefully analyzed the immense package of declassified information, pointed out to
Clarín
the importance of this batch of documents.
"There is no evidence that the United States instigated the coup," Osorio said.
However, he affirmed,
"they tacitly supported him, since Washington shared the position of the military that the coup was inevitable,
the only alternative to chaos in Argentina."
The documents, Osorio noted, "indicate that US officials knew that
the dictatorship would remain for an extended period
during which there would be unprecedented repression."
In addition, they reveal that “the United States“ discreetly ”communicated to the military, more than a month before the coup, that
Washington would recognize the new regime.
"They wanted to convince themselves that General Videla, the coup leader, was moderate," he
said.