The mission of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies is to develop academic

programs for educating primarily civilians in planning and management of defense

and security; for familiarizing civilians with the military profession and military

affairs; and for studying the defense policymaking process in general. In addition, the

Center is charged with promoting civil-military collaboration on defense matters and

with encouraging national, regional, and international dialogue regarding defense

themes. To accomplish this, the Center conducts a core course on Defense Planning

and Resource Management, and a specialized course on Defense Economics and

Budgeting. In addition, it holds seminars and conferences, and promotes research,

teaching, outreach, and dialogue on defense and security matters.

For more information, visit the Center’s Web site at: http://www3.ndu.edu/chds/

English/History/sMessage.htm

F rom the Foreword to

Argentine Civil-Military Relations:

From Alfonsín to Menem

This book is an important contribution to the

much-needed institutional analysis of the

evolution of democratic governance in

Argentina. Huser uses the constructs of political

culture, organization of the state, and political

economy as the pillars of his analytical

framework, especially emphasizing political

culture to explain Argentina’s difficulty in

coming to grips with the civil-military problematique. Further analyses of the workings of the

institutional underpinnings of successful

governance and functional civil-military

relations are needed in Argentina and many

other countries of Latin America, where, after

more than a decade of reforms, civilian

leadership is often the absent element in the

civil-military equation.

—Margaret Daly Hayes

Director, Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies
Argentine Civil-Military Relations

From Alfonsín to Menem
Argentine

Civil-Military

Relations

From Alfonsín to Menem

by Herbert C. Huser

A Publication of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY PRESS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

2002
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are

solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense

Department or any other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release;

distribution unlimited.

Portions of this book may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided

that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy

of reprints or reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Huser, Herbert C.

Argentine civil-military relations : from Alfonsín to Menem / by Herbert C. Huser

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1–57906–059–5

1. Civil-military—Argentina—History—20th century. I. Title.

JL2020.C58 H88 2002

322’.5’098209048—dc21

2002011812

First Printing, November 2002

NDU Press publications are sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office. For ordering information, call (202) 512–1800 or write to the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government

Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. For GPO publications on-line access their Web site at:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/sale.html.

For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, consult the National 

Defense University Web site at: http://www.ndu.edu.
Contents

Foreword by Margaret Daly Hayes........... xi

Chapter One

Introduction.............................. 3

Chapter Two

The Nature of Argentine Civil-Military 

Relations ................................. 7

Political Culture—The State—Power Relationships—Political 

Economy—Conceptual Framework for Civil-Military Relations

Chapter Three

Argentine Political Evolution 

and Civil-Military Relations ................ 27

Era One: 1810–1870—Era Two: 1870–1930—

Era Three: 1930–1983—Transition

Chapter Four

Military Reform under Alfonsín............. 53

Mission and Organization—Education and Socialization

Chapter Five

Review of the Past, Rebellion,

and Reconciliation under Alfonsín .......... 91

Legacy of the Dirty War—The Uprisings—The Alfonsín Legacy

vii
Chapter Six

The First Menem Administration:

Reconciliation Continued .................. 125

Pressing Issues—Looming Unrest—Defense Policy—

Military Policy—Education and Training—Restructuring

Chapter Seven

The Second Menem Administration:

Roles, Resources, and Restructuring ......... 167

Civil-Miliary Relationship Issues—Contemporary Roles and 

Missions—Resources for the “Smaller, Better” Force—Restructuring:

Codifying Civil-Military Relations—The Menem Legacy—Reflections

Appendix: Defense Organization ............ 197

Notes .................................... 203

List of Interviews.......................... 225

Selected Bibliography ...................... 229

Index .................................... 239

About the Author ......................... 253

viii ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Illustrations

Tables

1. Taxonomy of Political Roles of the Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2. Retirements and Promotions: Highest-Ranking Officers 

(December 1983–January 1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3. Average Tenure in Position: Highest-Ranking Officers 

(December 1983–January 1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4. Total Army Personnel (1983–1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

5. Arms Imports (1973–1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

6. Two Decades of Military Conscription (1973–1994). . . . . . . . . . 151

7. Military and Civilian Personnel Strength (March 1999) . . . . . . . . 184

Figures

1. Currents in Political Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2. Relationship between the Armed Forces and Security 

Forces Budget and the Gross Domestic Product (1970–1988). . . . . 77

3. End Strengths of Active-Duty Army Personnel (1985–1992) . . . . . 150

4. Comparisons of Personnel Status: Active, Retired,

and Pensioned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

5. Projected Army Organization and Deployment (1995) . . . . . . . . 163

6. Participation in Combined Exercises (1991–1999) . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7. Defense Budgets (1992–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

8. Military Restructuring System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

CONTENTS ix
Foreword

As this book goes to press, Argentina is once more in the throes of

political crisis. At the close of 2001, Fernando de la Rua, Argentina’s third popularly elected president since the military government of 1976 to 1983, resigned just 2 years into his term. A constitutional successor resigned after a week, having irritated the factions in his

own party to the extent that they refused to support him. Riots that caused

the deaths of 26 citizens and 13 police brought the third interim president

down. Then more rioters broke into the halls of Congress and set fire to

the building, causing the fall of the next successor. A commentator for La

Nación observed that Argentina was living a “crisis without precedent” and

that its political leadership was playing its last card. When Eduardo

Duhalde assumed the leadership of a hastily assembled unity government—the fifth president in 2 weeks—he addressed the Argentine people,

saying: “The country is broken.”

Amidst this chaos, where were the military? Long the arbiters of Argentine politics in the 20th century, throughout the 3 weeks of political and

economic crisis, the military remained secure in their barracks while the

police handled the rioters. The armed forces leadership was approached,

but their response to civilian appeals for military action to restore order

was, “Only when commanded to do so by law of Congress.” Military leaders demonstrated their clear understanding of the armed forces’ objective

role in Argentine society.

Herbert Huser’s book tells the story of the evolution of civil-military

relations in Argentina from the late 1970s through 1999 and the inauguration of President Fernando de la Rua. It is a story of lessons learned and

not learned by both the military institution and the civilian leadership.

Huser observes that “the civilian contenders in Argentine politics have

been inconsistent about the objective place of the military within the state

xi
apparatus.” This may be the keystone of Huser’s account: civilian politicians tried, throughout some 20 years, to impose subjective controls over

the once-powerful armed forces through budget cuts, personnel reductions, and limits on the scope of roles and missions. Where they often

failed, however, was to provide the civilian leadership and direction that

the military profoundly desired.

More than a handful of books cover the Argentine political transition

and civil-military relations in that country. The analysis at hand complements these other assessments in a number of ways. First, Huser may be

the only recent author who has brought a thorough understanding of the

military institution itself to the study. A retired Army officer who served

more than 6 years in Argentina between 1969 and 1984, Colonel Huser understands better than most the impact of budget constraints, failure to

maintain readiness, phantom regiments, and blind insistence on service

autonomy while facing growing demands for shared activities—jointness—and even about bureaucratic stubbornness. Huser also understands

the idealized system of civilian command and control of the military that

Samuel Huntington made popular in The Soldier and the State, which was

published in 1957. His assessment of the consequences of civilian failure

to provide the evolving Argentine armed forces with constructive guidance

regarding missions or programs is especially useful and instructive to U.S.

Government authorities who often fail to see the differences in process

hidden behind similarities in form in U.S. and Latin America militaries.

Huser’s analysis of the shortcomings of efforts to build a strong Ministry of Defense are also insightful. He looks closely at the efforts of Raúl

Alfonsín’s government to bolster the role of the civilian Ministry and of

the Joint Staff and describes the organizational shortcomings that failed to

provide the desired ministerial leverage over the armed forces for so long.

Finally, Huser examines the convoluted path that draft legislation

followed before a comprehensive defense law could finally be passed in the

Argentine Congress. At the same time, he delineates the intricacies of the

“review of the past” as forces seeking accountability for alleged human

rights violations in the face of those resisting the review in various trials,

uprisings, and pardons.

Throughout the period in question, civil-military relations were a

prominent issue in the Argentine political agenda. The issue dominated

the Alfonsín government’s agenda, and, while less prominent under Carlos Menem, the military question was never far from being a political hot

xii ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
button. Huser describes a general failure on the part of Argentina’s political

authorities to develop a consensus on “the objective role of the military.”

Absent civilian leadership, the military itself undertook reforms—in

organization, education, and mission. Huser describes the initially tentative and then ever-bolder efforts by the armed forces to institute reforms

that would satisfy civilian critics, only to find the critics interested not in

positive efforts but in restrictions. During the Menem period, the administration used the military as an instrument for Argentina’s reentry into

the democratic community of nations, sending first the navy and then the

army on peacekeeping missions to global hotspots. The armed forces successfully represented their country, demonstrated a capacity for professional adjustment, and also learned professional practices that they would

want to imitate at home. The experience left them even more committed

to their revised objective roles.

Reading Argentine Civil-Military Relations leaves one with the haunting recognition that the armed forces did much more to reform themselves, and with a much more professional assessment of the role of the

military in democratic society, than civilian politicians were generally able

to articulate. In coming to this conclusion, one recognizes that the civilmilitary rapprochement has not concluded in Argentina. The country is

still waiting for civilians to decide what specific roles they want their

armed forces to play in representing and defending the nation and how

they will exercise leadership over their now-subordinate armed forces. The

“military question” remains open, waiting for civilian leadership.

This book is an important contribution to the much-needed institutional analysis of the evolution of democratic governance in Argentina.

Huser uses the constructs of political culture, organization of the state,

and political economy as the pillars of his analytical framework, especially

emphasizing political culture to explain Argentina’s difficulty in coming

to grips with the civil-military problematique. Further analyses of the

workings of the institutional underpinnings of successful governance and

functional civil-military relations are needed in Argentina and many

other countries of Latin America, where, after more than a decade of reforms, civilian leadership is often the absent element in the civil-military

equation.

This is the second title published for the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University. The first, La reestructuración de las fuerzas armadas y el rol del Congreso: la experiencia argentina (Restructuring the Armed Forces and the Role of Congress: The

FOREWORD xiii
Argentine Experience) by Pablo Carlos Martinez in 2002, documents the

Argentine legislature’s handling of the 1998 Defense Reform Bill and is

written from the perspective of an inside observer to that process. The center’s publication program is intended to promote a better-documented

and more analytic record of the evolving state of civilian military relations

and defense management issues across Latin America. Hopefully, this is

just the first of many studies of the fairly dramatic changes that are taking

place in defense and security relations throughout Latin America.

Margaret Daly Hayes

Director, Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies

xiv ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Argentine Civil-Military Relations

From Alfonsín to Menem
Chapter One

Introduction

During the past 20 years, the movement in Latin America toward

elected, representative governments and away from authoritarian

regimes has made democracy—in many cases fragile and conditional but nonetheless real—the overwhelming political choice throughout the Western Hemisphere. Institutions and societies long accustomed

to trying to deal with authoritarian, arbitrary, and autonomous political

actors, often including military organizations, have been scrambling to

adapt to often radically changed, and much more accountable, political

settings. The road to a democratic polity in almost all of Latin America has

been uneven at best, and in some cases strewn with potholes. But the various peace arrangements resolving decades of violence in Central America

and the transitions to elected civilian regimes in all of South America attest to a general sense that force no longer is an acceptable instrument for

settling political disputes.

Correspondingly, a body of academic literature on transition to

more democratic regimes has appeared in recent decades that tries to explain this sea change in governance in Latin America. Politically, a dispute

has erupted among those who have tried to take credit for this new state of

affairs and those who sought to affix blame for the existing situation. Consequently, the emergence of democracy is often expressed as a triumph of

good over evil, the emergence of civilian regimes and the banishment of

military or quasi-military ones. But such morally satisfying judgments

border on both self-righteousness and ethnocentrism. Furthermore, they

beg more useful questions: What led to authoritarian governance and military politics in the first place? What caused the widespread shift to democratic form and increasingly to democratic substance? How real is the

change, and what are its implications?

This book examines the nature and evolution of the crucial relationship that underlies the answers to those questions, the civil-military

3
relationship, by focusing on the Latin American country where politics

would seem to have been clearly conditioned by the nature of and

changes in that relationship, Argentina. The nature of the Argentine civilmilitary relationship and the changes in it are best understood by examining disputes between military and civilian political actors over the legitimacy of political authority and political roles.

Argentina from 1983 to 2000 is a striking example of civilian rule reinstated under stress. Throughout this period, the media were filled with

accounts of an Argentina in dire straits, beset by problems that proved to

be mostly invulnerable to the ministrations of President Raúl Alfonsín’s

regime and that continued to challenge President Carlos Menem’s administration. Nonetheless, civilian representative government endures. Few

would have predicted that Alfonsín would transfer power to another civilian via election and that the electoral process would continue, albeit under

a new constitutional regime instituted in 1995. Such an event had not occurred in Argentina in decades.

An examination of the evolving relationships between Argentina’s

civilian political institutions and its military institutions helps to explain

why Argentine politics in the current democratic era developed as it did. It

may also help in understanding the contemporary Argentine political

scene and is potentially useful in exploring the civil-military relationships

and democratic consolidation in other Latin American countries, especially in the Southern Cone.

This work is organized in the following manner: chapter two explores the contributions of the political culture, state, and political economy triangle to the description and explanation of civil-military relations.

Chapter three gives a historical perspective of civil-military relations in

Argentina as a basis for understanding the antecedents of the contemporary relationships, setting forth the evolution of the political culture and

the contest for legitimacy in Argentina, and detailing the events that precipitated a sudden change from authoritarian to democratic governance

under the elected Alfonsín administration.

Both chapters four and five examine civil-military relations in the Alfonsín administration (1983–1989) with respect to key factors that compose the substance of the relationships, the estado militar (military status).

Military status is defined as the set of

military prerogatives . . . areas where, whether challenged or not, the

military as an institution assumes they have an acquired right or privilege, formal or informal, to exercise effective control over its internal

4 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
governance, to play a role within nonmilitary areas within the state

apparatus, or even to structure relationships between the state and

political or civil society.1

For analysis of the Alfonsín administration, these prerogatives are

grouped into four categories: mission and organization, resources and industry, education and socialization (covered mostly in chapter four), and

accountability and discipline (dealt with in detail in chapter five). A commentary on the Alfonsín legacy concludes chapter five.

Chapter six continues the analysis of the civil-military relationship

by examining the first Menem administration, which ended in 1995. It is

divided into sections on review of the past and accountability, defense policy, and military policy.

Chapter seven considers the continuing Menem administration

under a new constitutional regime (a 4-year term that ended in 1999) and

analyzes the continuing effects of the Alfonsín and Menem administrations on civil-military relationships and the roles of the military. The final

section of chapter seven provides conclusions about the civil-military relationship and democratic consolidation in the current context of Argentine politics and offers observations on their future in that nation.

INTRODUCTION 5
Chapter Two

The Nature of Argentine

Civil-Military Relations

Explanation of civil-military relations in Latin America in general

and in Argentina in particular typically focuses on three areas: political culture, the state, and political economy. This book relies on

political culture to describe and explain civil-military relations in Argentina, but the other two approaches also can make significant contributions to understanding the phenomena of civil-military relations and can

provide concepts and frameworks that are crucial to a complete analysis

and evaluation.

Combining these approaches usefully examines all three elements in

a dynamic political system model that has three major components: inputs, conversion, and outputs.2 Political culture is most closely associated

with inputs. The state is associated with conversion: how institutions deal

with inputs and create outputs through governance. Political economy focuses on outputs, the products of the system.

Political Culture

Political culture and its mechanism, political socialization (the

process of induction into or transmittal of political culture), are fundamental to understanding civil-military relations in any context, but perhaps especially in Latin America. Lucian Pye provides a useful synthesis of

the basis of the approach:

Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments which

give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the

underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system. It encompasses both the political ideals and the operating norms of a polity. Political culture is thus the manifestation in

7
aggregate form of the psychological and subjective dimensions of

politics. A political culture is the product of both the collective history of a political system and the life histories of the members of

that system, and is thus rooted equally in public events and private

experiences.3

The political culture approach is most helpful in explaining legitimacy, a key concept in relating beliefs to behavior in terms of the political

actions of both military and civilians.

The Iberian Legacy

The impact of Iberian heritage on Latin American political institutions and personalities is unmistakable. As Howard Wiarda states, “Latin

America . . . remains paternalistic, hierarchical, authoritarian, Catholic,

corporate, personalist, and elitist to its core.”4 Although an overlay of constitutional republicanism was applied following the revolutions against

Spain between 1810 and 1824 and after the Brazilian monarchy in 1889,

and although Latin America has modernized considerably in the 20th century, many fundamental attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments inculcated by

300 years of Spanish or Portuguese rule appear tenacious and resilient,5

undergirding the “political tradition . . . [which is] absolutist, hierarchical,

bureaucratic-patrimonial.”6

Civilians and the military share this political legacy. “Despite institutional boundaries and functional equivalency,” says Martin Edmonds,

“military armed services reflect the society from which they come and

which they serve.”7 Non-Latins in particular are tempted to attribute authoritarian regimes to machinations of the military alone. Indeed, military

intervention in politics is routinely described as predatory and praetorian,

corrupt and reactionary; military authorities are portrayed as usurpers of

constitutional government and permanent enemies of the people.8 But

this belief does not stand up under scrutiny. Civilian authoritarian regimes

also have flourished in Latin America, with Mexico providing perhaps the

most salient and contemporary example. Latin American constitutional

arrangements enshrined a powerful chief executive, relatively unburdened

by countervailing institutional powers, such as legislatures, courts, or a

federal structure. The tendency to place all significant political power in

the hands of one person, or very few persons, reflects the Hispanic tradition of pyramidal power and social structure, run from the top and imbued with the principle of verticality.9

8 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
The militaries of Spain and Portugal evolving in the 15th and 16th

centuries were militaries of orders, castes, and special privileges, fueros militares, that gave them the status of a fundamental corporate pillar of political society. The system accommodates force—and its handmaiden, violence—easily.10 Conversely, little room was available for notions of

consensus and compromise. To the extent that subsequent influences do

not successfully challenge or counteract this entrenched and resilient Iberian heritage, it is often viewed as antithetical to notions of representative,

democratic government. This heritage provided an alternative notion of

legitimacy of authority to that of the democratic idea of consent of the

governed, and by implication it recognized another route to gain and

maintain power in that Latin Americans sometimes view the military as a

legitimate alternative to civilian rule.11 Hence, there exist “general legitimized routes to power”—not just elections but “coups, revolts, real revolution, heroic acts, strikes.”12

Because indigenous influences played little part in governance in isolated, sparsely populated Argentina, its political culture appears especially

indebted to the Hispanic legacy. Although Argentina had a different political climate than Spain, and subsequent externally derived influences would

make important impressions on Argentine political culture, such phenomena as isolation and later extensive immigration from Southern Europe

tended to reinforce the political legacy of colonial Spain in terms of the

substance of political activity. Lawrence Harrison argues that “(The) dominant (Hispanic) cultural characteristics remained basically unchanged.

The nation’s problems have typically been solved by force and power.”13

Moreover, as shown by Daniel Poneman, “democracy is not rooted in the

successive waves of peoples that led to present-day Argentina.”14

Argentine scholars categorize this phenomenon by the level of political culture. One asserts that despite modernity, Argentina does not have a

“mature political culture”—that is, one that would guarantee civil supremacy over the military and eschew the use of force.15 Military officers

also point out that the low level of political culture makes room for the

military in government.16

Concepts of Legitimacy

Force and power characterized the long period of internecine warfare

among factions led by personalist, tyrannical leaders (caudillos), who embedded themselves in the constitutional constructs in Argentina, undergirded the oligarchical republicanism of the Golden Age (1880–1914), and

emerged in 1930 under military auspices, dominating Argentine political

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 9
life until 1983. To the extent that the Hispanic legacy to Latin American political culture informed civil-military relations, it would sustain the notion

that the Argentine political culture may represent that legacy faithfully and

with a high degree of contemporary relevance.

Consequently, notions of legitimacy in the Argentine context could

differ greatly from expectations in other contexts. Legitimacy, which is

crucial in assessing the civil-military relationship, is a general belief in the

appropriateness of political authority. It must “support common notions

of the locus of decisionmaking authority, the techniques by which decisions are to be made, and the means by which rulers are to be empowered.”17 In political communities in which that general belief is unchallenged (for example, in a representative democracy of long standing or

even in a monarchy), legitimacy of political authority is not in question.

But in Latin America, “no particular techniques of mobilizing political

power, nor specific political resources, are deemed more appropriate to

political activity than others.”18 Political actors have disparate resources,

and differing notions of legitimacy of political authority are apparent in

the Latin American political systems.

Observers would not necessarily view military involvement in politics in Argentina as aberrant behavior. Wiarda claims that “By law and

constitution, as well as hallowed tradition and custom, the military, under

certain circumstances, has the right and obligation to involve itself in internal politics.”19 The military may be seen as the epitome of pure civic culture reflecting the tradition or the dominant values of the parent society.20

Hence, the military hierarchy may undertake political activities that appear illegitimate, illegal, or both to an outsider, but that in the military

view—one often shared by many in the society in which they are operating—are neither. Beliefs may predispose the Argentine military to act in

certain ways, even at times irrespective of their objective environments.21

Three attributes of the military—mission, professionalism, and socialization—best illuminate those beliefs in the context of political culture.

Mission

In Argentina, the military mission has a more transcendental quality than the straightforward, instrumental nature of a tasking in the

United States. An idealistic sense of mission propelled the great liberators

of Latin America, such as José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar. This literal notion of liberation proved unsustainable, but the militaries of the

independence movements and their national heirs retained the legitimizing titles of “liberators” and “progenitors” essential to the creation of the

10 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
nation. The military also remained a recognized player in the larger society,

part of the “unholy trinity” of army, church, and landed gentry. And the

military in Latin America received a broad mandate of political functions:

defend the nation, maintain internal order, guarantee constitutional rights,

and enforce laws.22 This open-ended mission gave the Latin American military establishment pretensions to another title, that of custodian, “some

special and indeed unique identification with the national interest.”23 The

mission is “in accordance with their interpretation of what must be done in

a given situation to defend the nation and national values.”24

Some Argentines see this legitimization of the military by its identification with enduring values as endowing it with a “latent mission” to

form the moral reserve of the republic—the military officer as depository

of national values.25 Furthermore, these values are a constant within the

military, which sees itself as the preserver and defender of patriotism from

any perceived danger.26 The military has been said to act from patriotism

when others do not; when military members see things awry, they tend to

act. This behavior is an expression of the “super-interest”—the military

must act if political parties, government, or the constitution fail and the

country is threatened with “not surviving.”27 Hence, the military is legitimized not only as the moral conscience and ethical reserve of society but

also as the defender of traditional, constant values. It considers its acts to

be those of salvation of the republic.28

In the l960s and 1970s in Argentina, the military came to wear this

custodial mantle as the arbiter of the national interest as embodied in the

National Security Doctrine.29 Mission thus can be regarded as one essential element of the relationship of the military officer to the government,

and one that in Argentina gave the military a sense of political legitimacy

and purpose quite apart from that conferred by popular consent.

Many military officers in Argentina expressed this sense of transcendent mission by disdaining traditional politics—“the politics of antipolitics,” a general belief that a nation’s destiny is too important to be left to

the vagaries of partisan politics and incompetent politicians.30 This view,

in extremis, becomes messianic: the “pure, vigorous, and patriotic” military, as savior of the nation, is too easily juxtaposed with the “corrupt, effeminate, and cosmopolitan” civilians.31 Moreover, the Argentine military

has appeared to echo the sentiments expressed by one of its own, General

Juan Carlos Onganía, on his assumption of power in 1966: that the military is the “people’s fallback” against civilian depredations, that “the military have a special responsibility, a special mission, that transcends their

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 11
obligation to existing authorities.”32 The military’s sense of mission did not

change; the armed forces “still saw themselves as independent of the government, exempt from subordination to the law, endowed with the privilege to define the national interest, and with the prerogative to be the central organs for the protection of such interest.”33 Legitimacy, then, inhered

for the military in its mission to protect traditional, national values quite

apart from the government of the day.

Professionalism

The second factor scholars often cite when examining the military in

Argentina’s political culture is professionalism. Because of the military’s

beliefs and attitudes about mission, however, an instrumental professionalism—with the armed forces dedicated to the military arts and at the

service of government—has been rare.34 But three aspects of military professionalism—expertise, responsibility, and corporateness 35—are vital to

explain the propensity for the military to take on political roles.

Expertise denotes more than mere technical competence; it implies

the ability to counsel on matters relating to the military profession. Attempts in the early 20th century to professionalize the Latin American militaries by means of foreign missions used a fairly narrow definition of expertise and failed to inculcate pristine technical competence. Missions

from those countries considered experts at the turn of the century were

autocratic or aristocratic and reinforced militaristic values. Discipline,

honor, and obedience were as much a part of professionalization as new

weaponry, tactics, or doctrine. Thus, professionalization enhanced military capabilities in the application of force, but these capabilities could be,

and were, employed in political ways. “The professionalization of the military [permitted] it to regulate itself as an institution and . . . freed the officer corps from control by civilian elites.”36

Responsibility is tied to the question: To whom or what is the military

loyal? The beliefs and values that undergird loyalty are fundamental to the

question of legitimacy; whom will the military obey? Latin military establishments often sense divided loyalty between defending the people of a nation or state on the one hand, and the rulers of that nation or state on the

other. In the days when the state and the ruler were regarded as indivisible,

this issue did not present a problem. But in modern times of competition

for governance, loyalty to the state can become a cover for disloyalty to incumbents in government. Because the military considers itself the custodian of the national interest, military officers could conclude that they must

not subject themselves to the authority of the current government if they

12 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
are to serve the state loyally. This sort of loyalty to the state will push even

“professional” militaries into confrontation with civilian authorities.37 Culturally, it might also reflect the fuero militar (military privilege) of Old

Spain in which “military interests [are] distinct from civil interests, [and]

military loyalties [are] distinct from civil loyalties.”38 Therefore, adherence

to the idea of verticalidad—obedience of and loyalty to authorities in the

governmental hierarchy—must compete with horizontalidad—the obedience and loyalties engendered by membership in and inculcation into the

military institution itself.39

Horizontal loyalty undergirds the military’s corporate identity. Military officers belong to three select fraternities: the army, the navy, and the

air force. Rivalries often are maintained between services, but officers

share an understanding of things military and a bond in the face of external challenges—membership in organizations that are authoritarian in

nature, hierarchically structured, and possessed of a virtual monopoly of

force. Officers believe that this special bond devolves upon them a special

status, complete with certain perquisites and privileges, reminiscent of

fuero militar and enshrined in military status (estado militar).40

This military corporatism and its often seen concomitant, praetorianism—the military exercise of independent political power backed by the

use or threat of force—suggest that “Latin Americans [militaries] represent an independent, self-contained, technocratic, corporate elite that...

wields political influence and enhances authoritarian practices and orientations.”41 Although Latin American officers are often diverse in political

thinking and the military institutions often are susceptible to factionalism

along political and other lines, the sense of military identity has often been

sufficient to permit even a politically divided officer corps to coalesce in

the face of a perceived threat to its corporate identity.

In the contemporary setting, this divided loyalty has other political

repercussions. The armed forces as institutional (governmental) entities

are at odds with the armed forces as a corporate entity. An Argentine observer, using the Argentine Army as the most salient example, referred to

the situation as “an organized and hierarchical army versus a sovietized

[unionized] one.”42 These dissimilar loyalties severely strain the military

officer corps, especially when the fundamental value structure of the military, with its traditionalist, historically generated image as the moral reserve, is threatened. Political expressions of these strains are significant in

civil-military relationships.

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 13
But corporateness as reflected in the Argentine military is not an

aberration to the general political culture in which all rulers are organized

in corporate fashion, a series of contentious groups battling for power. The

military is one such group, with an elaborate and exclusive system. For instance, “Argentina is one type of society that produces (military) intervention: convulsed with value crisis, divided and fractured in stagnant compartments, different sources of legitimacy are argued, simultaneously and

exclusively by the groups in contest.” The civilians and military have trouble “penetrating the psyche and value hierarchy of each other.”43 In the

blunt words of a senior retired Argentine Army officer, the military and

civilian elites talk past, not to, each other.44

This conflicted polity has not agreed on the basis for legitimacy—a

common set of values undergirding appropriateness of authority. Irreconcilable value differences and lack of understanding result in a deteriorated

civil-military relationship: “the [civilian] government can’t run what it

doesn’t understand, or understand what it does not know about.”45 The

sense of compartmentalization is palpable.

Professionalization and creation of a self-aware corporate entity in

Argentina had significant political repercussions. Modernization, aimed at

removing the military from politics, marked the end of civilian hegemony

in nearly every country in the region. Consequently, the “armies, in emancipating themselves from civil society and the ruling class, became repoliticized on a different basis according to their own organizational

logic.”46 Corporate identity gave the Argentine military a sense of the need

to act politically to fend off threats, real or fancied, to the military institution. According to one scholar, “In short, the process of professionalization

gradually turned the Argentine military, especially the army, into a formidable political force—quite apart from, and sometimes antagonistic to, the

country’s constitutional apparatus.”47

Socialization

Military education and socialization have given continuity to these

attributes. In many Latin American countries, professionalization and

corporate identity were accompanied by the creation of an elaborate set of

educational institutions, quite apart from the civilian ones, that assured

the intergenerational transmittal of the attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments

that strengthen the military political culture. “Specific socialization and resocialization of officers by military institutions” occurs.48 Of particular

importance is the recruitment of future officers from among carefully selected teenagers, providing them with a military education that imbues a

14 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
“deeply rooted corporate spirit.”49 The competence of the military establishment in addressing any given subject will rarely be subsequently questioned, despite internal differences. Systems of professional military education have reinforced this process of procurement and indoctrination.

Argentina represents the refinement of this military socialization

process through successive educational endeavors. Many observers credit

the country’s system of military schools with instilling the Argentine military officer with such a sense of professional perfection that he presumes

himself suited for national decisionmaking at the highest levels.50 The system includes military high schools, liceos militares, a principal source of reserve officers; the Colegio Militar de la Nación, the only source for army

regular officers (with counterpart academies in the other services); and an

array of branch, service, technical, and command and staff schools for

each service. Moreover, the intensity and isolation of these experiences and

their emphasis on the traditional military values of honor, discipline, and

duty have until recently left little room for support of democracy (and the

free expression and consensus that accompany it) in the military education process. In the words of an Argentine general of the Peronist era, antidemocratic feelings have been inculcated in the military. He expressed

that the fundamentals of Argentine military doctrine on this issue are a

phobia against the essential forms characterizing political cooperation in

the great Western democracies; a lack of confidence and a deprecation for

every citizen who feels a vocation for problems of a public nature (socalled professional politicians); and a lack of faith in the citizenry.51

Reinforcing the isolation of the educational experience is the physical

isolation of military officers and their families, who have tended to live in

military neighborhoods, either official or unofficial. Outside the capital or

other large metropolitan areas, military members go about their routine in

self-contained, often physically isolated posts and garrisons. They associate

mostly among themselves, carrying their highly structured, formal occupational demeanor into their social and, often, family life. For the Argentine

military officer, the military ethos and the national ethos are frequently undifferentiated. This service in remote areas emphasizes the extent to which

the military is seen as set apart in society. The military political culture,

then, became the apotheosis of the general political culture in the view of

the military, and the institutions became the repository for Argentinidad—

an overwhelming sense of nationality, of the “ideal” Argentine.

Nonetheless, political culture is an imperfect analytic tool, and maintaining some reservations about its use is wise. Scholars have credited 

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 15
political culture with both instilling an apolitical stance in the military and

reinforcing its proclivity to intervene.52 Some allow that the political culture approach is somehow useful but criticize it as difficult to operationalize and faulty in its categories of analysis.53 Others, referring specifically to

Latin America, excoriate the notion of cultural reductionism and tend to

reduce the influence of political culture on political behavior to an absurdity. Ad hominem attacks dismiss the leading political culture advocates as all North American and incurably ethnocentric with respect to

Latin America.54

But these attacks are not constructive. Acceptance of the concept of

political culture implies acceptance of the notion that beliefs guide behavior and that the source of these beliefs is important. Most criticism seems

to rest in the difficulty of explaining which beliefs are associated with

which behavior. Nonetheless, when combined with significant contributions from the other two approaches, political culture and socialization

provide the best baseline for a useful construct to explain civil-military relationships in the context of this work.

The State

Political culture seeks to deal with the propensity of Latin America

and, in particular, the Argentine military establishments to get involved in

political matters. The military political culture is a necessary factor to explain or predict military political action, but it is not by itself a sufficient

condition. Another crucial factor is the relationship of the military institutions to the other political institutions in the nation.

One conceptual framework for exploring this relationship consists of

three political arenas: civil society, political society, and the state.55 Civil

society incorporates the intermittently political, social institutions of a

polity, such as special interests, civic organizations, and other such groupings. Political society encompasses the core institutions of politics: parties,

elections, electoral rules, political leadership, alliances, and legislatures.

But the state gives pattern to this substance in terms of civil-military relations, the state being more than government—“the continuous administrative, legal, bureaucratic, and coercive system that attempts not only to

manage the state apparatus but to structure relations between civil and

public power and to structure many crucial relationships within civil and

political society.”56

However, structure alone does not empower; public people such as

civilian and military bureaucrats, seeking autonomy and freedom of action

16 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
in political decisions and allocations, determine the relative scope and

power of the state in the larger polity.57 Intrinsic to the notion of state

power in any country is the indispensable link between authority and coercion. To the extent that the military subsumes the coercive powers of the

state in both internal and external dimensions, the military as claimant to

legitimate authority is enhanced.

Where the military is a major political player, the state as an arena of

politics takes on a different character. It may be not only a forum for the

activities of politically oriented, independent interest groups or parties but

also an arena for competition and conflict over autonomy and governance

among institutions intrinsically a part of the state. Resolution of such

competition sometimes consists of acceding to elections, the formal expression of popular consent, but often takes the form of autonomous actions by one institution of the state vis-à-vis others. The implication of the

use of force, coercion, and often violence is clear. The vehicle for such reordering is often not the election, but the coup d’état.

Power Relationships

The nature and arrangement of political institutions are important

to an understanding of the civil-military relationship within, and beyond,

the state. The significant attributes to examine are the strength or weakness of the civilian and military institutions in relation to each other, the

roles of the military within the political framework, and civil-military

boundaries.

The strengths of civilian political institutions are often seen in Latin

America to be conditioned from the outset, but several circumstances enhance the chances for civilian control of the state. One is the diminution

of political violence, often cited as being endemic to Latin American political systems.58 Succeeding in this task rests on the amount of public support that the civilian sectors can aggregate, largely determined by the ability to allocate, communicate, and mobilize.59 The state approach, then,

deals with legitimacy in terms of the effectiveness of political structures

and institutions.

Another way to view power relationships and authority of state actors

is through subjective and objective control. Subjective control seeks to

maximize civilian control by having the military subscribe to the same code

of conduct, ideas, and policies as the dominant civilian institutions. The

object is to civilianize the military. Objective control, on the other hand,

seeks to militarize the military, making it professional in the functional

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 17
sense and instrumental in conduct, a tool of the state. Samuel Huntington,

originator of this approach, states, “The antithesis of objective civilian control is military participation in politics.”60

But the political strengths of military institutions have often determined the political role or roles of the military establishment in Latin

America. Appeals to force and violence have been common. In Argentina,

the coercive capabilities of the military have taken on particular importance because the civilian contenders in Argentine politics have been inconsistent about the objective place of the military within the state apparatus. Various factions of the civilian political establishment have sought out

the military as an ally in political conflict. These circumstances have created

opportunities for the military to engage in a higher level of political activity. Although the proximate causes of any particular case of military increase in political action are many (corruption, domestic policy failure,

massive withdrawal of popular support, riots, insurrections, or guerrilla activity with a concomitant increase in the level of violence and appeals to

force), the military most often has been politically involved when a civilian

faction or sector has sought it out as an agent of political change.

In Argentina, as in most of Latin America, the military has been an

autonomous political actor, picking and choosing its political alliances or

foes and not being definitively subordinate to the government in power.

Social groups in Argentina often intervene in politics directly rather than

through formal government institutions.61 Those institutions may be too

weak to cope with the political power of sectoral interests in Argentina,

such as the wealthy, the middle class, the working class, the church, the

military, and the universities. For a significant portion of its modern political history, Argentine politics has been the product of a clash between

two forms of this sectoral politics: civilian movimentismo and military

praetorianism.

Movimentismo helps to describe the “civil” in civil-military relations;

it is a manifestation of a political culture rooted in the Hispanic colonization.62 It may be seen as a form of populist corporatism, found in societies

based on highly developed integrative movements (such as Hipólito

Irigoyen’s Radicalism and Juan Domingo Perón’s Justicialism). Crucial to

movimentismo is a strong personal streak—a caudillo in charge, which reinforces an authoritarian bent—and verticalidad, since the movement is

organized from above and constantly seeks to transcend class or sectional

divisions. It also relies on the state as the mechanism of promoting political harmony and distributive justice in a paternalistic fashion.63

18 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
But the Achilles’ heel of movimentismo is the difficulty of translating

it into highly institutionalized, complex political regimes, the bulwark

against corporate military involvement in politics.64 The civil polity in this

case apparently plays by the rules that the military finds most congenial,

what one Latin American author refers to as the “praetorianization of Argentine society—autonomous, sectorial, corporate political actors.”65 This

leads to the pervasive Argentine political syndrome of various political

factions seeking the political support of the military, the “knocking at the

barracks door.”

The weakness and debilitation of Argentine civilian regimes may

provide the prime consideration for intervention: that the corporate and

bureaucratic interests of the military are threatened. In a society in which

the military establishment has exercised a monopoly of force in defense

and domestic order, such uncertainty can trigger a response on the part of

the military to exercise autonomous political power—to engage in praetorian rule.

But the exercising of political power by the military is not an “all-ornothing” proposition. If it were, the term civil-military relations would

have little meaning. The military in Argentina has played various political

roles, which may be better understood by examining classifications of roles

that permit analysis in specific situations.

A British student of civil-military relations offers the first of two such

frameworks especially relevant to the Argentine case.66 He not only deals

with the relative strength of civil and military power but also provides the

concept of boundaries between civil and military institutions. He posits

that separation is key to objective control, that maintaining an “integral”

boundary between the duties and missions of the military and civilian institutions is essential for civilians ever to emerge as dominant. But this situation obtains virtually exclusively in the Western democracies of long

standing—for example, the United States, the United Kingdom, and much

of Western Europe. However, he regards subjective control, a “permeable”

boundary, as confined to revolutionary regimes—best represented in

Latin America today by Cuba, where military and civilian authority are indistinguishable. Praetorianism, which most nearly describes the Argentine

case, is expressed as a “fragmented” boundary. This situation lends itself to

competition for political authority and to disputes over the legitimacy of

that authority.

Another classification scheme particularly for Argentina is an adaptation of one originally applied to the Spanish military. (See table 1.) This

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 19
differentiation of military roles as expressed in the Argentine case is useful

in the analysis of contemporary Argentine civil-military relations.

The state approach is limited by the difficulty of concentrating on

that which is to be explained rather than on that which explains. An advocate of examining civil-military relations in this way asserts that he purports to deal with how, and not why, the military is important in governance, the “black box” of the political system.67 But this approach is helpful

in exploring the range of possibilities of military involvement, the resources available, and the boundaries (or lack of them) in the civil-military relationship.

Political Economy

The state’s relationship to the socioeconomic setting is also important to the civil-military relationship. The nature of the military establishment may be further illuminated as well by analyzing it in the national social and economic context.

Economic considerations condition military political behavior and

affect the civil-military relationship. As the waves of economic modernization lapped against Latin American shores, the military establishments,

professionalized and possessed of an aura of technical competence in an

escalating technological environment, have “increasingly felt themselves

not only qualified to deal with national economic and social development

20 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Table 1. Taxonomy of Political Roles of the Military

Indicators during the

Political Role Political Entity Form of Action Historical Examples Radical Government

Influences Interest Solicits Logia de San “Full Stop”

Martin (1921)

Pressures Pressure Group Imposes Decrees for “Due

annihilating Obedience”

subversion (’75)

Replaces Power Contender Guides (Tutelary) Argentina from

1955 to 1966

Substitutes Military “Party” Exercises Power Argentine 

(Institution) Revolution (’66) 

and Proceso (’76)

Source: Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Centro de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 133.
and the concomitant tensions and crises but also superior to civilian

regimes in their ability to perform these endeavors.”68 But this was, at least

intuitively, a break with past reasons for questioning civilian rule; that is,

civilians were not up to the task of preserving the national interest as the

military saw it. This fissure resulted in the traditionalist-modernist division within the military establishments. Would the military involve itself

in political decisionmaking to promote socioeconomic change or to prevent it? In either case, could the causes for military involvement be derived

from socioeconomic factors?

Assuming that modernization is inherently destabilizing, the military

in many places could perceive an inability on the part of civilian institutions to cope, leading to institutional crisis and partisan bickering and raising alarms in the military establishment concerning the safety of national

interests. In Latin America, the state has been perceived as an engine of development and modernization.69 The state sector has rivaled the importance of the private sector, particularly in matters of economic infrastructure. Economic relationships have been much more likely to be tightly

controlled and regulated, reflected in such things as government control of

unions; issuance of permits for almost any type of economic activity; control of international commerce and trade; and pervasive government intrusiveness into all aspects of economic life, perpetrated by an extensive bureaucracy. The state has been in the business of setting economic goals and

planning the utilization of both state and private resources.

This state dominance in setting state-society boundaries creates an

atmosphere congenial to military control. Although early development of

military industries in Latin America during World War II was modest by

the standards of the belligerents, such efforts were undertaken in the name

of self-sufficiency in Argentina and elsewhere and laid a basis for an economic role for the military. Also, as the military sought to modernize itself, it became increasing aware of a link between national security and national development. Consequently, the 1960s witnessed the emergence of

a conceptualization of national security that embodied much more than

defense. This would come to be elaborated as the National Security Doctrine, encompassing almost the entire national enterprise—political, economic, and social—within the rubric of national security. The military

was, by tradition and capabilities, the guarantor of national security. Military role expansion thus was seen as a consequence of modernization and

national economic development, and the civil-military relationship reflected these factors.70

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 21
Another model using the political economy approach is useful in explaining military presence in societies undergoing economic development

and modernization. This is the bureaucratic-authoritarian model, with its

emphasis on capital formation, a technocratic bureaucracy, and repression, responding to the interests of upper-class economic elites themselves

beholden to external machinations of the world capitalist system. The

main contention of this formulation is that the military institutions would

provide stability, order, and national leadership (that is, control), while selected other sectors (principally technocrats, bureaucrats, and upper-level

private economic and social sectors) would harness efforts to the creation

of national economic growth and power. Some sectors, particularly the

urban organized workers, peasants, and much of the middle class, would

have to contribute major resources without any real prospect of major

gain.71 This model suggests that the military’s predispositions and attitudes about socioeconomic matters had more to do with repression in Argentina during the institutional military regime known as the Proceso government than did any real danger posed to security by guerrillas.72

The military involvement in politics and the civil-military relationship itself go beyond a sorting of the military and civilian roles in the

polity. Not only is the boundary between the state and society moved outward when the military becomes involved in modernization and development, but also the boundary between the civilian and military institutions

becomes permeable, with little or no distinction in political terms.

In the Argentine case, the civil-military relationship in terms of political economy has tended to center on the competition and conflict between two politically active sectors not contemplated in the constitutional

Argentine political structure, the military and organized labor (refer again

to praetorianism and movimentismo).73

Although the political economy approach offers significant insights

into the nature and scope of the civil-military relationship, it may be less

fruitful overall than the other two approaches. Economic-based theories

have been criticized as being both conspiratorial and instrumental, blaming intervention of the military on manipulation from abroad and making

the military merely the jack-booted economic police of the higher social

classes.74 It is open to the charge of economic reductionism. In the case of

the most elaborate and rigorous example of this approach that addresses

Argentina—the bureaucratic-authoritarianism theory, in which military

intervention is tied to the phenomena of incomplete industrialization and

class conflict in highly dependent countries—this may be plausible but not

22 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
causal. Economic factors per se do not really explain military political action; the military is much too autonomous, corporate, and self-centered

for that.75 But the economic factors that inform the civil-military relationship in Argentina are important and play a part, in different ways, in discussion of both the Alfonsín and Menem administrations. The historically

extraordinary place of military industries (Fabricaciones Militares) of the

army and like enterprises of the other two services in the civil-military relationship and in Argentine society suggest that considerations of political

economy will provide a necessary part of this work.

Conceptual Framework for Civil-Military Relations

The concept of legitimacy is crucial to understanding and explaining

political activity, whether by military or civilian. The fundamental assumption of representative democracy anywhere is that the legitimacy of

governmental authority is a settled issue. That is, in a democratic polity, a

single mechanism, enshrined in a democratic regime and its basic political configuration, is agreed upon as conferring political authority, expressed in both succession and governance. The mechanism is the competitive election by which political leaders are selected and held

accountable to the people.

The political evolution of the Latin American republics rarely has

manifested this fundamental assumption. Rules have not been agreed

upon; there have been varied political actors, individual and institutional,

“power contenders” being a useful formulation.76 Various succession

mechanisms are repeatedly observable in Latin American politics (coups,

countercoups, palace revolts, revolutions, dynasties, and several types of

elections). Recurrent accountability of all political authorities to the people has been more an exception than a rule in most of Latin America.

Argentine scholars examining civil-military relations in their country

note that these power contenders base their claims of authority in differing,

often conflicting notions of legitimacy. Argentine politics may be characterized as different sources of legitimacy being advanced, simultaneously

and exclusively, by groups in contest. In other words, democracy is not a

given in the political culture, and a single rule of legitimacy does not apply;

fragmented legitimacy and conflicts are apparent.77 The military exhibits

divided loyalties and puts forth notions about legitimacy of authority based

on values and beliefs inconsistent with democratic governance.78

Therefore, examining the notions of legitimacy as expressed by the

contenders for power in Argentina will permit, in both historical and

NATURE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS 23
contemporary contexts, an appreciation of the country’s evolving civilmilitary relationship and a detailed understanding of the disputes over

legitimacy of authority that are reflected in estado militar.

A civil-military relationship is based on how coercive force is organized and controlled in a polity.79 Fundamentally, then, the distribution of

a state’s power between civil and military elements forms the basis of civilmilitary relations.80 Since the emergence of the nation-state as the dominant pattern of political organization, this distribution has come to refer

to the “patterns of subordination, control, and influence involving the

armed forces (principally the officer corps) and civilian governmental

leadership.”81 These patterns have meaning within the entity known as the

state, in which authoritative political decisionmaking for the society occurs. Generally, the state distinguishes among the military services (army,

navy, and air force)—the “formal, legitimate, and permanent instruments

of armed coercion at the disposal of national governments,”82 engaged in

the protection of the nation from the threat or use of violence by other

states—and other authorities imbued with coercive means, particularly

those engaged in law enforcement. In cases where the military writ may

transcend that distinction, the civil-military relationship takes on added

significance. Argentina has been such a case.

The patterns of behavior that constitute the civil-military relationship are reflected in estado militar, the changes in which reveal the outcomes of the contests over legitimacy of authority. Hence, the political

roles of the military may be analyzed in terms of estado militar. In 

Argentina, these disputes arise because the developing political culture

spawned alternative sets of beliefs and attitudes that motivate political behavior by differing claimants to authority and that are reflected in different views of the role of the state and its institutions.

Three currents are identifiable within the Argentine political culture

stream. The use of the term current seeks to maintain that these identifiable representations of Argentine historical political culture are contained

within a common stream that is informed by the Hispanic colonial political heritage.83 Each current is, in important ways, beholden to that legacy,

but each responds as well to exogenous influences in the course of

Argentina’s history as a nation. The constitutionalist, nationalist militarist,

and authoritarian populist currents provide alternative bases for the assertion of legitimacy of political authority. (See figure 1.)

These currents offer differing notions about the appropriate underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system;

24 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
NATURE OF CIVIL

–MILITARY RELATIONS 25

Figure 1. Currents in Political Culture

Current andEarly HistoricalExamples

Basis forClaim toLegitimacy

RelevantExternalFactors

PoliticalExpressionsin Argentina

Constitutionalist LAW

TucumánDeclaration1816Constitutionof 1853

United StatesConstitution Western Democracy

OligarchicalRepublicanism,PoliticalDemocracy

Nationalist/Militarist

FORCE

EarlyTriumviratesMilitaryHeroes

ForeignMilitaryMissions

MilitaryPraetorianism,Corporativeness

AuthoritarianPopulistCaudillos European

Mass Movements

Mass Praetorianism,RevolutionaryMovements

IDEOLOGY

Factors UndergirdingBasis of Legitimacy Claimant

ElectedLeadership

PoliticalParties

AppointedLeadership

ArmedForces

CivilMilitaryRelationshipas Reflectedin EstadoMilitar

Mass Movements

Competition

For

Legitimate

Authority

EmergentLeadership

HispanicColonialLegacy toPoliticalCulture:Paternalistic,Hierarchical,Authoritarian,Catholic,Corporate,Personalist,Elitist
hence, legitimacy, the derivation of a general belief in the appropriateness

of authority, is not a settled question. Political actors express these concepts of legitimacy in competing claims to authority. The civil-military relationship as revealed in estado militar expresses the patterns of subordination, control, and influence that result from the competition for

legitimacy of authority.

The premise that legitimacy of authority is not a settled question in

Argentina is recognizable and verifiable through examination of estado

militar. The constructs outlined above make clear the nature of the civilmilitary relationship, both in its historical manifestations and in the Alfonsín and Menem administrations:

■ The roots of the civil-military relationship lie in common political

culture.

■ Within the Argentine political culture are identifiable currents that

are associated with competing notions of political legitimacy of authority.

■ The civil-military relationship in Argentina is an expression of the

outcome of competition by the claimants to legitimate authority.

■ The civil-military relationship is made manifest in estado militar,

the set of prerogatives that gives substance to the institutional and

personal roles of the military in the polity and reflects the boundaries between the state, the military, and the civil society.

■ The civil-military relationship in Argentina, therefore, is neither

capricious nor arbitrary, and a thorough analysis of the phenomenon will help to describe and explain the relationship and the role

of the military and the civilians in the contemporary evolution of

representative democracy in Argentina.

26 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Chapter Three

Argentine Political

Evolution and Civil-Military

Relations

Democracy generally requires community, consensus, organization,

and accountability. It also requires a military establishment divorced from politics. Making a case that all, or indeed any, of these

conditions have prevailed in Argentina for significant periods of time before or since independence is difficult. Democratic form has been observable in Argentine political history, but it has rarely been accompanied by

democratic substance. The legitimacy that would accrue to democratic institutions has been seriously contested in Argentina because alternatives to

democracy also have been presented as legitimate. In this sense, Argentina

lacks a civil tradition or dimension in which the political art is concerned

with the rights and duties of citizenship.84 Governance, then, has not been

concerned primarily with the elaboration of civil rights, the achievement of

compromise, or the rule of law. The explicitly political tradition emanating

from the Hispanic political legacy, with its focus on acquiring and maintaining political power and control of the state, motivates political actors,

including those involved in the civil-military relationship.

The Hispanic political tradition of the colonial era (1536–1810) in

Argentina offers no reinforcement of civic culture or mitigation of political culture as the primary motivation for the activity of the state. Rights

were conferred by the sovereign, who by definition was the embodiment

of the law; his authority was not questioned. Because political organization was corporate, recognized groups (including the military) acquired

rights at the behest of the sovereign; the rights of the military, fuero militar, were the “special privileges and obligations that ensured the military

27
an especially elevated position in the social and political order.”85 Consequently, there were “military interests distinct from civil interests, military

loyalties distinct from civic loyalties.”86 Likewise, other corporate interests

were recognized in colonial Argentina, particularly the Roman Catholic

Church and holders of land granted by the king (the future estancieros).

The people—the fundamental basis of democratic thought and action—

had no substantive meaning.

Moreover, the circular problem of whether the political culture affects

the political institutions or vice versa was moot in Argentina as the country began to acquire a national identity. Both culture and institutions were

imported without significant modification from militant, Catholic Spain in

the 16th century. No significant indigenous influences played a part in isolated, virtually unpopulated Argentina. The Hispanic political culture applied with special intensity; no clash of form and substance occurred then.

The struggle for independence, when it came, was a war of separation, not

of revolution. The political mindset of criollos, the Hispanic inhabitants

born in the New World, did not differ significantly from that of peninsulares, those born in Spain. Argentina had as antecedent a negative or immature political culture inconsistent with a democratic republican life. Authorities had a paternalistic disposition to impose or oblige political

conduct. There was little tolerance or moderation, and society was predisposed to segregate politically into self-interested, corporate groups, with little room left for compromise or a sense of the larger community.87

Era One: 1810–1870

Argentine political history before 1983 is divisible into 3 eras, each approximately 60 years in length. The first era, from the declaration of separation from Spain in 1810 to the end of the War of the Triple Alliance in

1870, was one characterized by intermittent civil war, a period in which Argentina’s national identity, let alone its sense of political community, was

unclear. In a reverse of the conventional wisdom about democracy in Latin

America (all form, no substance), in Argentina the substance of the Hispanic political legacy outlined above remained but the forms disappeared;

that is, the Crown, through its colonial administration, vanished as the

locus of sovereign authority. Even as criollo hero (and idolized military

leader) José de San Martín undertook the liberation of southern South

America from Spain, early attempts to consolidate Argentina from the exviceroyalty of Río de la Plata failed. The absence of the Crown fragmented

political leadership, and the new United Provinces of the South, established

28 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
at Tucumán with a formal declaration of independence on July 9, 1816,

were anything but unified. By the time San Martín completed the expulsion

of the Spanish from the southern half of the continent in 1824, Bolivia and

Paraguay had broken away, with Uruguay following suit in 1828. Central

authority, such as it was, disintegrated, and the caudillo, epitomized by luminaries such as Juan Manuel de Rosas and Facundo Quiroga, came to express the quest for a new locus of authority. Politics by force of arms was

given a long and bloody birth. The caudillo aspired to sovereignty, recognizing no authority higher than his own. Legitimacy, as it had been with the

Spanish kings, was personalized. These circumstances constituted militarismo sin militares 88 (militarism without soldiers) since no national military institution truly existed at the time. Factitious chaos, a term later coined

by Argentine author H.A. Murena, could be said to characterize Argentine

politics throughout this first era. The personalism of the caudillos, their resort to threat and use of force and violence, and their reluctance to be circumscribed by an independent legal standard resonate in Argentine politics

and government to this day.

Nonetheless, during this same era, a number of Argentine political

leaders or aspirants, intellectuals, and even generals sought an alternative

to governance by unaccountable warring bands. The victory of innerprovinces alliance leader General Urquiza over Buenos Aires Province

caudillo Rosas at Caseros in 1852 provided an opportunity for the introduction of a new constitutional regime in Argentina. The constitution,

promulgated on May 25, 1853, formally evidenced the current of constitutionalism in Argentine political history. Although Argentine intellectuals, notably Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and José Alberdi, had long insisted that no relief from the barbarism of caudillos was possible without a

constitutional government and its implications of representation and

democracy, no precedent in the culture existed for the formulation of such

a regime. Framers of those constitutions that evolved “borrowed eclectically from abroad, and conformed too rarely to political and social realities at home.”89 In the Argentine case, the model was the Constitution of

the United States, a decidedly Enlightenment document at odds with Hispanic-based political culture.90

But if the form of government outlined by the Founding Fathers in

Philadelphia was the model, many of its most important precepts, particularly those enshrining separation of powers and compromise and consent as its basis, were vitiated by provisions of the Argentine Constitution

of 1853. Prominent among these were the preponderant powers of the 

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 29
executive, the provisions for state of siege (during which constitutional

guarantees could be suspended), and the power of the president to intervene directly in the provinces.91 Moreover, this document provided the

theoretical foundation, but not the practical guidelines, for popular sovereignty.92 Because it was not congruent with the political culture, the Constitution did not replace other pretenders to political legitimacy, although

during the second era of Argentine political history it superficially appeared to have done so. In reality, a distance remained between the constitutional order and the political order.93 The 1853 Constitution itself exacerbates the problem in terms of the civil-military relationship, proscribing

as sedition the military as governor in one article, but at the same time

codifying essentially political roles as the fundamental military missions:

“to guarantee the defense of the nation, to maintain internal order, to

guarantee constitutional rights, and to enforce the laws.”94 The document

would not definitively establish the rule of law (estado de derecho) over the

rule of force. The forms of representative democracy were not enough; the

habits of democracy did not accompany them.

Era Two: 1870–1930

Scholars have characterized the second era of Argentine politics,

roughly from 1870 to 1930 (when the first military coup against a constitutional government occurred), as a period of limited liberal democracy,

an oligarchical republic, and a time of laissez-faire and linkage to the outside world.95 Politics—both franchise and governance—was in the hands

of a few, relatively wealthy, usually landed men. These liberal-oligarchical

regimes had a marriage of convenience with the military.96 This sector

dominated the Golden Age of 1880–1914, as Argentina became a strong

national entity, built a modern infrastructure, and organized its economy

principally around agricultural commodities for export. At the same time,

the previously underpopulated Argentine Republic experienced a tremendous surge of immigration, mostly from Southern Europe. Urban Argentina, especially Buenos Aires, took on a fin de siècle European air, with

cultural artifacts and demographics to match. Laissez-faire capitalism on

the British model flourished, largely with British money. The sense of aristocracy was palpable, and the new cultural colonization of the turn of the

century reinforced the Hispanic tradition brought by the original colonizers 350 years earlier. The economic liberalism of the Golden Age was not

accompanied by political liberalism.

30 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
In the last third of the 19th century, the military had become much

more defined as a national force, and academies to produce officers for the

army and navy were established in 1869 and 1872, respectively. The latter

date also saw the introduction of conscription, and by 1882 the Argentine

Army had four divisions comprising three branches (infantry, cavalry, and

artillery). In 1884, the General Staff was organized, and the military became much more organized and institutionalized throughout the 1880s

and 1890s under the leadership of General Julio Roca (also twice president

of Argentina in this era). Changes capping the 19th century were the establishment of Escuela Superior de Guerra (Superior War School) in 1900 and

the 1901 reforms of War Minister Ricchieri that codified much of estado

militar. Much as in the United States, this small national military was

largely occupied with establishing the national writ throughout the country’s territory and fighting a series of Indian wars in the south (similar to

those in the American West, and with similar results).

Roots of Movimentismo

Midway through the second era, tenuously linked events occurred in

the civilian and military realms. In 1890, the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR),

popularly known as the Radical Party, was formed and began to challenge

the “aristocratic, oligopolistic, hierarchical, and stratified society dominated by the estanciero [rancher].”97 Within 2 decades, the Radicals had

become the political vehicle of the evolving middle class (based considerably on the expanding population of immigrants) and were dedicated to

popular sovereignty (or at least adult male participation, achieved in

1912). The UCR became the first mass party in Argentina and combined

constitutionalist and populist elements. It was, in its early incarnations,

the first expression of movimentismo in Argentine politics.

This first movement—there would be two movimientos and a speculative third one, all of which would be heavily involved in civil-military relations—was led by Hipólito Irigoyen, the founder of modern populist,

partisan politics in Argentina. He succeeded in unifying the Radicals (a

feat not achieved again until 1983), and he became president in 1916. With

his alter ego Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, he presided over the “Radical experiment” from 1916 until 1930, when he was ousted by Argentina’s first

military coup. His legacy was a Radical Party that, more than any other

party in Argentine history, would be cited as the vehicle of failed civilian

politicians. Factionalism engendered even during his tenure would come

to haunt the Radical Party, and uncompromising factions in the civilian

polity often were cited by the military establishment (even as a fraction of

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 31
its number perpetrated a takeover) as its reason for having to rescue the

nation from squabbling politicians. The military became the bane of the

Radicals’ existence, and the underlying distrust and enmity reverberate to

the present day.

But to no small degree, the Radicals witnessed the creation of a modern, professional military establishment in Argentina, and the evolution of

the Argentine military (especially the army) under the Irigoyen and Alvear

administrations had profound effects on the civil-military relationship in

the following era.

20th-Century Changes

If the first half of the 19th century was characterized as militarismo sin

militares—the era of the caudillo—and the second half as militares sin militarismo—the military, essentially the army, being an armed adjunct of the

oligarchic political elites—then the 20th century could be characterized as

militares y militarismo.

98 The transformation of the Argentine Army and

Navy into corporate, professional armed forces was the remaining current

forming the basis for an aspirant to legitimacy of political authority. From

this point on, “the military factor” or “the military question” became increasingly important in Argentine politics and governance.

The first agent of this transformation in Argentina was an Imperial

German military training mission, a program established in 1899. The following year, the Escuela Superior de Guerra, the preeminent school of military doctrine and thinking, was founded. German tutelage fostered the

emergence of a professional uniformed officer corps. But the result was not

a pure military professionalism, an institution acting solely as the armed

servant of the state and loyal to the incumbent civilian authority. The result

instead has been characterized as professional militarism—a corporate, institutionalized military officer corps, loyal to the nation in an abstract

sense, but above all loyal to themselves.99 This reality created a bifurcation

of loyalty, horizontal versus vertical, that became important in the civilmilitary relationship beginning with the Irigoyen presidency in 1916.

The foreign missions encouraged military assumption of national

goals, broadened the horizons of the Argentine military, and gave its members the sense that they could define as well as defend the national interest.

Consequently, the military establishment, especially the army, was poised to

become a political contender. The agents of Wilhelmine Germany, in their

role in the formation of a powerful, armed, politically aware military establishment, had done nothing to inculcate any notions of democratic form or

substance. On the contrary, the European military missions reinforced the

32 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
political culture of the Hispanic tradition in its military manifestation.

Through visiting professors, student exchanges, and rotating staff assignments between Argentina and Germany, the Imperial General Staff passed

its notions of discipline, duty, and professional modalities on to a significant part of the Argentine Army officer corps.

However, it was the movement politician and Radical Party leader

Hipólito Irigoyen who set the military on the long road to overt political

intervention. Elected president in 1916 as a Radical tide (made possible by

the expanded franchise and the growing immigrant-based middle class)

temporarily swept aside the oligarchical republicanism of the Golden Age,

Irigoyen sought to subordinate the military to the party. His efforts would

have caused no concern in the “pre-professional” days since the ruling

elites did the same thing as a matter of course. But Irigoyen tried to make

the prerogatives of estado militar less contingent on the evolving professional attributes of the military than on the political loyalties of the officer

corps to radicalism. Hence, politicians constantly challenged an increasingly corporate, professional armed force on its position in society and its

perquisites. Moreover, the foreign advisors returned to Europe and to

World War I as the Irigoyen administration came in.

In 1921, several senior army officers founded the Logia de San

Martín, a secret society intended to counteract, through the Circular Militar (Officers’ Association) and the army high command, the politicization

of the officer corps by Irigoyen and his cronies in the UCR. An example of

what they hoped to combat was Radical efforts to reward and reinstate officers who had sided with them in the tumultuous early days of the UCR,

including during factional rebellions in 1890, 1893, and 1905. The first

such society, the Logia Lautaro, had been founded by San Martín himself

in 1812 with significant political influence in the early days of separation

from Spain.

Although it existed only until 1926, the Logia de San Martín became

the first vehicle for military involvement in politics in Argentina. Paradoxically, although the Logia was created to counteract partisan political activity, this high-level association of army officers became a corporate political interest group, seeking to counteract Irigoyen’s interventions in

promotions, pay, and budgets.100 It was the first political expression of horizontal loyalty in the military, the sense that corporate interests came before governmental interests and that the military was more likely to embody and protect the national interest than any regime of “mere

politicians.” Throughout the 1920s, civilian and military factions jousted

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 33
for control of the distribution of military prerogatives. Although the constitutional regime survived the 1920s and Irigoyen was reelected in 1928 to

succeed his lieutenant Alvear, the construct of the Argentine Army officer

corps—corporate, increasingly self-aware, politicized, and discontent with

political assaults on estado militar—was inclined toward political action,

indeed overt intervention. Its opportunity was not long in coming.

Era Three: 1930–1983

The third era extends from the coup in 1930 to the inauguration of

Raúl Alfonsín as president in 1983. The reelected Irigoyen was an old man,

and his return, while a popular triumph, papered over divisions in a Radical Party rent by factions and increasingly unable to govern. (The eerie

reprise of this situation in the return of Juan Perón to the presidency in

1973 is illuminating.) One scholar put it best as a time of “economic crisis

and political arteriosclerosis.”101 Propensity and opportunity for a small

but motivated fragment of the military, tacitly supported or at least not resisted by the rest, to take power directly reached a flashpoint on September 6, 1930, as General José Uriburu and his band of followers ousted a

caretaker regime created to cover Irigoyen’s senility. Thus began the long,

overt involvement of the military in Argentine politics.

Military in the Wings

Even though a military faction overthrew a civilian regime and

would do so next in 1943, the military would not dominate political affairs

for some time after the 1930 coup. The times of institutional military rule

were yet to come. From 1930 to 1943, the military was the backstop of the

Concordancia, an attempt to return to the ancien régime of 1880–1914,

which the oligarchy saw as the Golden Age of Argentine history. General

Uriburu, a disciple of the German militarism that had heavily influenced

the modernizing Argentine Army and a proponent of fascism, had been

unable to consolidate a truly military regime. Uriburu, dying of cancer,

was obliged to yield to General Agustín Justo, Minister of War in the 1920s

and a constitutionalist who became president after a fraud-riddled election in which the Radicals did not participate. His inauguration ushered in

what opposition sectors called the década ínfame from 1932 to 1943, characterized by close links between the economic elite of Argentina and

British interests that were formalized in the Roca-Runciman Pact between

the two countries.

The military supported this conservative regime, and the politics of

Argentina returned to elite group dominance. The populism of the Radicals

34 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
was submerged but not forgotten. However, the military was not enthusiastic about the liberal-internationalist bent of the Concordancia and admired

the apparent successes of Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco in Latin

political environments not unlike their own and having much more authoritarian-nationalist overtones.102 Hence, the military became identified

not only with corporatism but also with fascism, a characterization that

dogs it still.

The Perón Era

World War II strained the marriage of the military and the traditional

conservative elites to the breaking point. Another logia, the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, was formed; among its leaders was Colonel Juan Domingo

Perón, the one man whose political shadow would rival that of the military

institution itself. Perón created a segundo movimiento, expanding his part in

the coup of 1943 and the military government that followed into a major

political role based on his mobilization of urban labor. As Minister of Labor

in the Edelmiro Farrell government (1944–1945), he created a militaristic,

personalist movement that became a contestant for the mantle of legitimacy. Mobilizing urban organized labor beyond the confines of party politics or military machinations, Perón bested both the military authorities

(who briefly imprisoned him on the island of Martín García in the River

Plate) and the Radicals (who sought to beat him in the 1946 electoral contest), and rode a wave of populism to overwhelming victory in an open, if

highly charged, contest. Perón thus used the forms of constitutional

democracy to grasp the reins of power. But he gave great impetus to the

militarization of Argentine society. The process was characterized by escalating institutional military participation in the state, especially in the creation of military industries or the vast expansion of those organized under

the direction of General Savio during World War II; the martial design and

functioning of the Peronist movement; and the limitation of constitutional

practice, as, for example, Perón’s abrogation of the 1853 Constitution in

1949 in favor of one of his own.103 Despite having gained office through

election, Perón did not seek legitimacy by appeal to constitutionalism. He

embodied the movimentismo approach to power and represented the authoritarian populist current of legitimacy in the political culture.

Of the six revolutionary movements104—the military overthrows of

duly constituted civilian regimes between 1930 and the present—the first

two (in 1930 and 1943) saw the military establish itself as a force to be

reckoned with in Argentine politics, a corporate sector involved first with

the agro-industrial interests of the Concordancia and then as one of the

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 35
first Perón administration’s twin pillars, along with urban organized labor.

Although the military establishment as institutions did not at that point

exercise direct control of the state apparatus (even though Generals

Uriburu, Ramírez, and Farrell were military presidents by virtue of forceful intervention), the presence of the military as a major political player

was recognized. But the military intervening in this “corrective” fashion

proved to be an unstable political partner, unseating the oligarchy in 1943

and Perón himself in 1955.

Through the next two revolutionary movements (in 1955 and 1962),

the military sought legitimization of its authority by resort to its custodial

mission, using force to “set things right” and “restore” civilian government.

The military sought to order Argentine political life along constitutional

lines but with the military accorded a role as the final arbiter of “proper”

civilian governmental practice. This led to military action to suppress

movimentismo as practiced by Perón, and the public accorded considerable

latitude to the military in this effort. Many cheered the demise of Perón’s

regime, and Lieutenant General Pedro Aramburu, who became the president shortly after Perón was overthrown, was highly regarded. He restored

Argentina to constitutional government, but neither he nor the military

established representative democracy as the unquestioned, legitimate

source of authority. Although the elections of 1958 and 1963 resulted in

civilian democratic governments, they were flawed and did not change the

underlying political culture that fostered competing claimants for legitimacy. The major political actors of note at this time—Radicals, Peronists,

and the military—clearly represented the three different currents in the

ongoing stream of Argentine political culture. Summing up the situation

at the end of the 1950s, “[around 1960] competing groups indulged in sectarian nostalgia, each recalling a different golden age and looking forward

to a partisan utopia.”105

The main problem that Radical presidents Arturo Frondizi (1958–

1962) and Arturo Illia (1963–1966) confronted was not running the country but controlling the military, and both ultimately would fail. Subsequent events confirmed the trends in military involvement, which by then

were quite clear. The political involvement of the military was becoming

increasingly institutional and cross-service, with its implications of rivalries both within the different services and between them. But these rivalries generally were not ideological; they were based on turf battles between

the services and other such military cleavages as branch of service or year

of graduation from the service academy. These internecine quarrels were

36 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
largely confined to the very highest levels of the services’respective hierarchies.106 Before 1987, the only instance of open factionalism occurred in

the army, with the armed contests between the Azules (constitutionalist

soft-liners favoring at least the forms of civilian rule) and the Colorados

(military hard-liners favoring military rule and continued prohibitions on

the Peronists). But even these forceful disputes were over means, not ends.

The threshold for overt military intervention was pushed lower and lower.

And the time between military intrusions to overthrow civilian governments was becoming shorter and shorter (1930–1943, 13 years;

1946–1955, 9 years; 1958–1962, 4 years; 1963–1966, 3 years; 1973–1976,

less than 3 years).

Upsetting an Uneasy Balance

However intrusive the military was in Argentine politics from 1955

to 1966, a balance of sorts remained in the civil-military relationship.

Civilian institutions stayed intact, including political parties (the Peronists, although branded illegal, continued functioning underground). The

military justified the 1955 and 1962 intrusions as necessary to set things

right; military intervention in politics was still seen as corrective and tutelary in nature but dealing with things that were at least nominally constitutional. But the military also clearly set itself up as an unaccountable

judge of the fitness of civilian regimes, becoming in fact as well as in theory the political arbiter. Two results were possible. One was that the military, having saved Argentina (in its view) from the depredations of Peronism in 1955 and 1962, could declare victory and return to the barracks.

The limited nature and time frame of the military administrations from

1955 to 1958 and from 1962 to 1963 (with a civilian interim president in

the latter period) gave some credence to that theory.

But the military’s perceptions of threats from within and without

were significantly heightened in the early 1960s. The Peronist movement

refused to die, despite Perón’s lengthy exile. And the Cold War, embodied

for the Argentine military in the militant, revolutionary communism of

Fidel Castro, increasingly was challenging the idealized Western, Christian

society the military espoused and believed should be reflected in Argentinidad. A new and powerful idea, the National Security Doctrine, was

evolving in which external and internal security could not be divided and

security and development could not be separated.107 The military, aware of

the Brazilian experiences of the early 1960s, not reassured by the weak, ineffective government of Arturo Illia, obtained a second result: military institutional rule.

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 37
Coup of 1966

General Onganía, leader of the constitutionalists in the fighting

within the army in 1962, was, ironically, the architect of the Revolución Argentina, as the coup of 1966 was called. He was picked (and later ousted)

by a triservice military junta, an organism designed to mitigate interservice rivalries by including the commanders in chief of all three. The Constitution of 1853, restored after Perón’s fall in 1955, was replaced by a

Statute of the Revolution, a document created and imposed by the military

alone. Civilian institutions of political action, such as the legislature and

political parties, were disbanded or proscribed. Onganía and his administration were the embodiment of corporate military institutional rule, the

custodians of the nation, the final repository of the national interest. Onganía himself most cogently expressed the motivations involved in the action shortly after the coup: The overthrow of Arturo Illia was a “revolutionary action [that] finds its irrefutable principles in the defense of the

essential values of the republic.” Moreover, “the Armed Forces constituted

the medium of legitimate expression of that popular will which has been

isolated through cunning.” Hence, “the armed forces actively participate in

the national interest.”108 Consequently, all political activity came under

military auspices.

The submerging of the constitutional current meant that the question of political legitimacy was less settled than ever. The quest for political authority became a battle between actors who regarded force or violence as primary political resources. The military was in charge of the

government and met challenges with repression and coercion. The Peronists, though repressed and underground, had not given up their dreams

of a restoration. And a new actor emerged that would become the bête

noire of the bureaucratic-authoritarian military governments that came

into being in 1966 and 1976: armed insurgents of the extreme left. In the

1970s, these three autonomous, nonconstitutional political actors—the

military, the Peronists, and the guerrillas—vied for political power in Argentina. “Factitious chaos” was again the order of the day.

Onganía learned that the military’s “special responsibility” as he had

enunciated it during the 1966 coup could transcend military presidents

and administrations as well as civilian ones. The military institution, unsuited to governance (but very well suited to intervention and veto), was

exposed to political demands that did not square with its notion of

custodian of the national interest. Elimination of constitutional form 

and the eclipse of aspirants to political authority based in that current of

38 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
legitimacy enhanced the viability of those aspirants based in the authoritarian-populist current, be they Peronists or guerrillas. The military became increasingly disenchanted with Onganía as he sought more personal

power and freedom from the junta and removed him from power in 1970.

They replaced him first with an unknown, General Roberto Marcelo Levingston, and then with General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, the serving

Army Commander in Chief.

Turbulent 1970s

Argentina was a political battleground in the 1970s, with the unaccountable and heavily armed contenders vying for political control. Although the military as a political actor sought refuge in constitutionalism

as a way of further reducing its exposure and accountability, the result was

a display of democratic form over democratic substance. General Lanusse

led the residue of the Onganía military administration to an electoral outcome with the 1973 presidential victory of Héctor Cámpora, a left-leaning

Peronist functionary. Cámpora immediately issued an extensive pardon to

imprisoned guerrillas, vitiating the legal battle against guerrilla warfare;

the Congress then passed a law granting amnesty on May 27, 1973. Renewed confrontation with the military was assured.

Nonetheless, the effect of the Lanusse initiative was to restore a measure of political legitimacy to the Peronist movement, with Perón himself,

18 years in exile, soon to be returned to Argentina to lead it again. But the

movement was riven by factionalism and included armed elements of

both the left (epitomized by the youth arm, the Montoneros) and the right

(the notorious Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance). Other armed revolutionary bands were increasingly active, especially the People’s Revolutionary Army (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, or ERP), which engaged

in armed attacks against military and civilians alike. Even Perón’s triumphal return to Argentina in 1973 was marred by lethal conflict between

armed bands seeking the right to be the anointed militants of Perón.

In 1973, a parody of the constitutional process involving the military,

the Peronists, the Radicals, and other groups restored Juan Perón to the

presidency. But the old and frail Perón could not control the antipathies of

the various wings of his own movement for each other, let alone take on

the guerrillas—some of whom even proclaimed allegiance to him. On July

1, 1974, Perón was dead, and his third wife and vice president, María Estela Martínez de Perón (Isabelita), became the first woman president of

Argentina (a role denied even the legendary Evita, Peron’s second wife).

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 39
Mrs. Perón, who had little support even within the Justicialista (Peronist) party, could not match the political savvy and power of any of the

other contenders for political control. Finally, hoping desperately to preserve a Peronist legacy, she set the armed forces against the guerrillas in an

officially supported campaign to end insurgency in Argentina. The military pocketed that mandate but was not content with it. Allowing the Peronist regime to slide into chaos, the military solidified its claim to be the

guardian of the nation, protector of the state, and custodian of the national interest. On March 24, 1976, in the face of vanishing popular support for the Peronist regime and amid official and unofficial clamor for action, the military answered the call once again.

The Proceso

The Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (National Reorganization

Process), or simply the Proceso, was a “classic representation of conservative, institutionalized military dictatorship.”109 Under the Proceso, corporate, praetorian military rule reached its apogee. Taking literally its role as

custodian of the nation, the military government became the avatar of messianic military idealism, the Western, Christian military knights protecting

the Argentine way of life against the onslaught of totalitarian communism.

The military took over almost all aspects of governance. Most major

government officials were military personages. The military president,

General Jorge Rafael Videla, ruled with the junta, composed of the commanders in chief of the army, navy, and air force. The generalato (flag officers) of each service and their advisors (the Comisión de Asesoramiento

Legislativo) acted practically as a political party, providing an ersatz deliberative body to back up rule by decree. The military intervened in many

areas of national life, including labor unions and government banks.

Those entities not intervened in were abolished, including the legislature

and political parties. In effect, the military sought to marginalize the Argentine populace from politics: no participation, no roles.110

The goals of the Proceso were to eradicate the terrorists, especially

the ERP and the Montoneros; to establish a robust laissez faire economy,

led by an elite, technologically aware private sector and unrestrained by

popular concerns or demands; to restore traditional values, led by Christian morality and emphasizing suitability and efficiency; and to establish

Argentina as a reliable Western ally in the larger arena of geopolitics and

the East-West conflict.111 These goals were to be effected by whatever

means were necessary, including the use of force in repressing and coercing not only the subversives (the definition of which became ever

40 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
broader) but also opponents of the economic programs of the Proceso

government, especially the unions and the now-sub-rosa political parties.

Ostensibly, the ultimate goal of the Proceso, as expressed in the “Act Fixing the Purpose and Basic Objectives for the Process of National Reorganization,” was “the future installation of a republican, representative, and

federal democracy.” However, no time limit was set, and in the early years

of the Proceso, no one expected that any such result would obtain in the

foreseeable future.

The most immediate task of the military government was to deal with

the guerrillas, rural and urban, who continued to plague Argentina. The

military had made clear its belief that this struggle was nothing less than a

counterrevolutionary war, in which only annihilation of the enemy would

be considered a satisfactory outcome. The military actions followed the

French pattern that emerged in their response to anticolonial insurgency

rather than the American counterinsurgency format. No quarter would be

given; the supporting infrastructure, whatever the military determined that

to be, would be destroyed. Operations would be decentralized, carried out

in military zones free from civilian interference and with civilian security

and police forces clearly subordinate to the military.112 The military commonly employed the language of organicism to justify and explain its actions, a vernacular common among many institutions organized along corporate lines. The Argentine body politic was envisioned as a real body,

diagnosed as fearfully ill from “cancer,” a “social pathology” that required

surgery and “extirpation of the diseased tissues.”113 The cancer was thought

to be so severe that any means used to arrest it were noble. In practical

terms, this meant that the military would employ all means necessary,

which included kidnapping, torture, and murder, to liquidate the guerrillas

and those considered their sympathizers (collectively called subversivos).

The military saw this approach as meeting the guerrillas, especially the ERP,

on their own terms, as they had not hesitated to attack military personnel

as well as to kidnap and assassinate them in pursuit of their goals. But the

military extended this campaign far beyond battles with the “regular” guerrillas, resulting in that body of individuals caught up in the fight who became known as desaparecidos (the disappeared). And the unrelenting savagery of the tactics on both sides in the conflict left a residue of bitterness

and divisiveness that still taints civil-military relations and that gave the antisubversive operations an abiding nickname: the Dirty War.

By 1979, the first objective of the Proceso government had been accomplished. The guerrillas, along with thousands of others regarded as

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 41
supporters or sympathizers, were killed, imprisoned, or driven into exile.

The Dirty War was a tactical success, but in a larger, strategic sense it was

a failure. Domestically, it resulted in a public regard of the military as oppressors on the wrong side of the struggle of good and evil (which the military regarded the antisubversive operations to be) and as no better than

their adversaries, maybe worse. Internationally, the operations turned Argentina into a pariah state, regarded as a bastion of unmitigated military

rule that paraded all the sins of the authoritarian right, as unremitting in

the abuse of its own people as the totalitarian left to which it presumed to

be an alternative. And the Dirty War engendered a new factionalism within

the military that eventually undermined the Proceso government itself.

The tactical victory convinced a significant part of the military, particularly younger officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who had

fought directly against the guerrillas, of the rightness of the cause and of

the messianic vision of Argentina that accompanied it. The Malvinas conflict (the South Atlantic War) in 1982 would reinforce the ultranationalist,

fundamentalist, and conservative religious views of these individuals and

their sympathizers, who were to play a major role in the evolution of civilmilitary relations in the Alfonsín regime. They manifested and exacerbated the conflicting horizontal and vertical loyalties that so conditioned

military beliefs and behavior in respect of civilian and military authority.

Argentina under the Proceso was a proponent of an open economy

even as it held on to and intervened in the vast network of state enterprises

that undergirded economic life. As the country became very involved in the

international capital and goods markets, it went heavily into debt, financing both capital acquisitions and consumer spending with borrowed

money. The peso became tremendously overvalued, creating the plata dulce

(sweet money) of 1979–1980. But the euphoria did not last long. Argentine

economic productivity could not sustain the bubble, which burst in 1980.

Much of the borrowed money had been squandered on unproductive enterprises or nonproductive expenditures (such as military equipment) or

had taken flight overseas. With the guerrillas gone and the economy spiraling downward in 1981, disgruntled civilians and even considerable portions of the military began to question the continued presence of a pervasive, repressive military regime. Full governmental control was hard on the

military institutions and was resulting in considerable wear and tear and

loss of prestige. Absent the unifying goal of fighting and winning the antisubversive war, the political activity of the armed forces began to turn inward on the Proceso regime itself, and events that would profoundly affect

a future transition to civilian government began to unfold.

42 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Transition

In March 1981, internal military politics led to the replacement of

President Jorge Rafael Videla by Lieutenant General Roberto Viola, “in accordance with the constitutional norms of the Process of National Reorganization.”114 Viola wanted to change the policy of the Proceso by reorienting economic policy and negotiating with traditional political

parties.115 In other words, he recognized the need to find some modalities

of governance that would take the pressure off the military establishment.

In this sense, Viola started a transition toward something other than outright military rule.

Viola, as leader of the blandos (soft-liners), initiated several steps to

reach some accommodation between the military institutions and the

disaffected civilian sectors. He reduced the role of José Martínez de Hoz,

the economic czar of the Proceso, and appointed more civilian ministers

to reduce military visibility. He created the Multipartidaria, a forum for

dialogue with the political parties. And he sought labor and business accords to try to reduce the animosities engendered by the deteriorating

economic situation, as the economic bubble of false prosperity burst in

the early 1980s. For a few months, the government seemed to be finding

the road toward republican government that it had promised at the time

of the 1976 coup.

But others in the military found little to recommend Viola’s conciliatory posture. After Lieutenant General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri became Commander in Chief of the Army in May 1981, the junta itself increasingly became a redoubt of the duros (hard-liners). These officers,

motivated by the consequences of the antisubversive campaign and the deteriorating economic situation, had little patience for Viola’s efforts to reduce the hardening animosities between military and civilian sectors. The

hard-liners wanted a return to repression of dissent and a continuance of

the economic policies of Martínez de Hoz. They saw no future in the liberalization approach, long under way in Brazil and something of a model

for Viola. The hard-liner answer coalesced into an internal front, which in

turn organized a tripartite arrangement in which the three armed services

literally exercised a third of the political power, with their chiefs still constituting the junta to which Viola had to answer.116 This arrangement was

the ultimate corporate organization: the only type of representation was

virtual, and the only voices in government were those of the armed services, each service acting as a party and accountable only to itself.

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 43
The political activities of the junta independent of President Viola vitiated most of his efforts to find a future course for the military government in the face of widespread disintegration of support for it. Viola was

not up to the task, and he became physically ill. On November 21, 1981,

Major General Horacio Tomás Liendo took over as an interim president, a

situation that gave the hard-liners the opportunity to make their move for

full control. On December 11, 1981, Army Commander in Chief Galtieri

took over as president in a “palace coup.”

Galtieri hoped to reassert the original goals of the Proceso, but he

could not heal the splits within the military establishment nor restore the

confidence of other sectors of the Argentine body politic in military governance. His only hope lay in some sort of transition that he could try to

control from above. But by March 1982, the political parties (more vocal

since the founding of Multipartidaria) and labor unions were openly opposing continued military rule. Galtieri, backed by junta members Admiral Jorge Anaya and air force Brigadier General Basilio Lami Dozo,

searched for a way to overcome public animus toward the military for the

antisubversive war and for the deterioration of the economy. The military,

its rule based on force, needed a forceful demonstration of its continued

right to political authority. Denied that opportunity by the unfortunate

consequences of the internal war, the junta looked beyond the normal territorial environs of the Argentine Republic. Only one external issue

aroused almost unanimous feelings in the Argentine people: the recuperation of the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands) and the other South Atlantic

islands that Argentina had claimed, and the United Kingdom had held, for

almost 150 years.

The South Atlantic War

The Argentine invasion of these islands on April 2, 1982, was initiated based on three assumptions: that occupation of the Malvinas and

other islands would heal the rifts in the Argentine body politic that threatened to destroy it; that the United States was a de facto ally (and also, in

the opinion of many Argentines, a de jure ally under the Inter-American

Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance) and would not oppose such action by a

government that was helping combat the communists in Central America

with advisors to the Nicaraguan contras; and that Great Britain would not

fight to hold on to the residual of the British Empire represented by these

distant isles, whose strategic utility seemed to have ended as a coaling station for British warships in World War I. Government leaders viewed the

invasion as a crusade, in accordance with the messianic vision of Greater

44 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Argentina that complemented their fundamentalist, unyielding view of

political action. Moreover, no project short of war—an enterprise about

which all military men could agree—probably could have overcome the

divisions within the military. Leaders hoped that a “just war” would heal

the rifts between the soft-liners and the hard-liners, and perhaps more importantly, between the junior and the senior officers. The junior officers

(lieutenant colonel and below) were increasingly concerned about the corruption that would accompany continued military governance and about

the entire military being excoriated for the less salutary political consequences of the Dirty War, which the younger officers felt was tarnishing

their victory over armed insurrectionist bands. The Malvinas recuperation

was intended as evidence that the military hierarchy should continue, in

the national interest, to run the government.

The South Atlantic War was a dismal failure, politically and militarily, for the Argentine military government and for the armed forces in general. Although a generalized euphoria about the recovery of the Malvinas

was sustained for a few weeks, the excitement and momentary public support for the junta (and, by extension, for the armed forces) evaporated as

it became clear that not only would Britain strike back, but also that no

great surge of international support was forthcoming for the Argentines.

Branded an aggressor by the United Nations, reduced to seeking solidarity

with Cuba and Panama to fight the “imperialists,”Argentina and its armed

forces were unprepared for the British reaction. And the United States,

after several failed attempts at shuttle diplomacy, supported the United

Kingdom as the aggrieved party (and NATO ally).

With the navy bottled up in its main port at Puerto Belgrano and the

army pinned down in the Malvinas and unable to support its expeditionary force from Patagonia, the air force valiantly strove to head off disaster. But it could not do it alone. The armed forces’ longstanding policies

to operate as three autonomous forces, with little joint capacity in either

planning or operations (the Joint General Staff in the Ministry of Defense

had always been weak), prevented any effective coordination of effort. This

lack of coordination contributed to the Argentine armed forces being ill

prepared to fight a major war in the South Atlantic against a great power

that had significant outside support. In 10 weeks, all was over. The Argentine military occupation force in the Malvinas, mostly army, surrendered

to the British on June 14, 1982.

In the wake of the South Atlantic War, the military establishment

sunk to the nadir of its fortunes. Its armed forces in the islands had been

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 45
beaten and obliged to surrender. The government’s economic program

was a shambles and was only worsened by the conflict. The military establishment had alienated public support by losing the external war, and it

was beset by charges of massive human rights violations that had arisen

from the antisubversive operations. A profound crisis of self-confidence

occurred within the military as well. And the younger front-line officers in

the Malvinas conflict, especially those of the army, were embittered by the

political activities of their superiors that had earned the opprobrium of

the Argentine people. The junior officers did not feel that they or the military institution should have to bear that burden. They continued to feel

justified in their mission and its execution and were appalled that they ultimately were regarded as butchers and losers, not soldiers.

Collapse of Proceso

The parlous state of the Argentine military and the Proceso government was testimony that the military leaders had based the government’s

claim to legitimacy on the use of force and that they had failed. Consequently, all the putative alternatives to constitutional democracy had, at

least temporarily, appeared to have failed: exclusionary democracy, corporatist populism, “soft” military rule, and institutional coercive military

rule.117 The country was ready for the untried: constitutional government.

In any event, a vacuum had to be filled as the Proceso government tottered

toward collapse. Galtieri was shown the door, and on July 1, 1982, retired

army General Reynaldo Bignone, a virtual unknown, was sworn in as interim president, with General Cristino Nicolaides as Army Commander in

Chief. The junta dissolved, and the air force and navy entered “political

limbo.”118 To Bignone fell the task of assembling a mechanism of transition

while he was the titular head of a government that had lost all credibility.

And he had to insure that the disintegration of military rule was not accompanied by disintegration of the military institution.

Bignone proceeded along two tracks. The first task was to detach the

armed forces from the nature of, and responsibility for, the successor government to the Proceso. The military was to make no deals with any party

to share power (although rumors abounded that some in the military and

some Peronists favored, even pursued, such a deal). No arrangements were

to be made to accommodate the corporate entities in Argentina, such as

the labor unions and the economic elite, in the quest for political power.

Competitive election, unconditioned by the military, was to be the sole vehicle for access to political authority. On September 10, 1982, Bignone

published a new parties law, putting the political parties and their eventual

46 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
candidates forward as the sole beneficiaries of the electoral process. They

were to have a chance to demilitarize the state.119

By removing the military from the governing process, Bignone was

making a virtue of necessity. The military had acquiesced to the mechanism

of constitutional democracy, the competitive election. But the second task

in Bignone’s two-track process, ensuring the internal health of the military

institutions, was of equal consequence in the minds of the military. Not

until December 1983, after the elections in October, did the interim military government formally hand over control to the civilians. In the meantime, ensuring the health of the military included such activities as undertaking a rearmament program, restoring discipline and organizational

integrity in the ranks, and preempting civilian prosecution of those responsible for the Dirty War and the Malvinas debacle.120 Although overt

political aspirations by the military were ended temporarily, the Argentine

armed forces, individually and collectively, were not prepared to self-destruct. And these initiatives that occupied the lame-duck Bignone administration became major issues in civil-military relations in the future.

The 1983 Presidential Election

Civilians were equally unprepared for the political vacuum in the

country after the Malvinas disaster. The political parties, which were in internal political exile under the Proceso, needed months to rehabilitate their

structures and prepare for and wage the internal campaigns necessary to

choose candidates for the general election. Nonetheless, most observers

felt the transition proceeded rapidly, a mere 15 months from the designation of Bignone as president to the elections. The year 1983 was one of

considerable political significance, and attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments

coalesced both within and outside the military establishment that suggested the nature of the civil-military relationship in the coming regime.

The parties now faced the daunting task of bringing about constitutional democratic government. They had the opportunity to decisively establish political authority based on legitimacy accorded by the constitutional current in the stream of Argentine political culture. However, “The

institutionalization of democracy presupposes two processes: the weakening of the institutional infrastructure of authoritarianism and corporatism, and the display of at least a modest degree of efficacy by the new

political institutions.”121 In other words, the coming political contest

needed to be characterized by competition among contenders recognized

as legitimate in a democratic election. The military had to be proscribed

from acting in any manner as a contestant, and the Peronist movement

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 47
had to confine its mobilization techniques to securing votes within the

electoral process. Two circumstances augured well for these conditions in

the spring of 1983: the almost total absence of political credibility of the

military establishment, and the Peronists’ lack of a charismatic leader who

might be tempted to try to override the electoral process on a wave of popular enthusiasm.

Although 13 national political parties of almost every persuasion

competed at some level in the elections of October 1983, two clearly

emerged as having a chance to obtain the presidency, a majority in the

Congress, and a majority of governors of the provinces: the Peronists and

the UCR.122 Neither party was unified, and the selection of candidates had

significant consequences for the party’s chances in the election and for its

political leanings in the administration if victorious. In this disaggregated

but politically vibrant milieu, Dr. Raúl Alfonsín made his successful bid to

become the UCR candidate for president of Argentina. His eventual main

opponent, Italo Luder of the Peronists, was not chosen until September

1983, quite close to the election, after internecine squabbles involving not

only the Justicialista Party but also the labor unions. Thus, the Radicals

had their best chance in decades at the electoral target of a majority mandate for the president and a majority contingent in the Congress as well.

Raúl Alfonsín headed a sector of the Radical Party, Renovación y

Cambio (Renewal and Change), that he had established. This wing of the

party was considered the furthest to the left of the three factions within the

UCR. The National, nominally the bulk of the party and once led by longtime Radical politician and candidate Ricardo Balbín, was considered a

centrist group, and the Córdoba, from which would emerge the Radical

candidate in 1989, Córdoba Governor Eduardo Angeloz, was thought to

be center-right.123 Alfonsín eschewed such designations, describing himself

as social-democratic and an admirer of the social-democratic regimes in

Western Europe; indeed, he visited several Western European countries in

the months before the election.124

But a major supporting element of the Alfonsín campaign, some

members of which became important figures in the Alfonsín administration and the Radical delegation in Congress, was the Radical youth—including university students (Franja Morada) and the organization charged

with mobilizing the youthful adherents of the Radical Party, the Junta Coordinadora Nacional de la Juventud Radical, or Coordinadora. Its members

were politically to the left of Alfonsín and prompted a more confrontational approach toward the corporate sectors in Argentine society: the

48 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
unions, the church, the vested financial interests, and particularly the military. They were at the forefront of the human rights groups and reinforced Alfonsín’s affinity for those believed to have been persecuted by the

military.125 Alfonsín had identified himself early on with the human rights

advocacy groups that emerged in the 1970s and early 1980s in response to

the excesses of the Dirty War. He was the leader of one such group, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, and as a lawyer had defended accused those of being subversives.126 This role clearly identified him with

those who would demand accountability on the part of the military establishment for the “disappeared.”

Alfonsín’s attitude toward the military establishment was apparent in

his campaign speeches made in the 6 weeks before the election. He emphasized two broad themes: the elimination of corporatist politics on the

part of the military, and the search for justice for the actions of the military in the antisubversive campaign. In a speech in Resistencia, Argentina,

on October 27, 1983, he urged particularly the junior officers “to add

themselves to the process of democratization of the country and to break

the antidemocratic alliances that the military coup-making high commands had traditionally made with minorities of the country.”127 (Alfonsín used the term minorities to denote other corporate interests, especially

economic ones and the unions.) This theme of democracy was a common

one. Alfonsín adhered to the view that not only was democracy the right

choice, but also that “All else was tried, all was tested, and all failed.”128 His

statement in an early campaign speech indicated that he extended this philosophy directly to the armed forces themselves: “I will take over as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and I will take the necessary [but

unspecified] measures to make them democratic, because without democratic Armed Forces it is evident that there will not be stable democracy in

Argentina.”129

But Alfonsín’s campaign speeches were most revealing with respect

to seeking accountability of the armed forces for the Dirty War consequences. In an interview, he stated that “the responsibilities for the repugnant methodology [used by the military] must be sorted out between

those who acted exceeding [their authority] in complying and those who

in the face of extraordinary confusion agreed to carry out orders.”130 Moreover, he believed that by means of this sorting out, “we will seek reconciliation.” Alfonsín later established three categories of involvement in the

antisubversive activities from 1976 to 1979: the high command issuing the

orders, those who exceeded their authority in their zeal to wipe out the

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 49
subversion, and those who were just following orders. This triad of responsibility became a major factor in the civil-military relationship.

It was far from clear who the victor in the election would be. The

proliferation of parties and the record number of people in the Argentine

electorate with declared party affiliations (about a third) reduced the likelihood that any presidential hopeful would garner a clear majority of the

vote. Many Argentines were resigned to yet another minority government,

with the victor elected by only a plurality of the vote. Because of this situation, the results of the election represented a considerable, and at the time

very welcome, surprise. Raúl Alfonsín won the presidency with 52 percent

of the vote, with only 40 percent going to his principal opponent, Peronist

Italo Luder. The two parties thus garnered 92 percent between them at the

expense of the center-right parties—especially the Center Democratic

Union (Union de Centro Democrático, or UCD), lead by Alvaro Alsogaray

and long considered sympathetic to the military, whose support fell from

20 percent in 1973 to 3 percent in 1983 at the presidential level—and the

hard left, which fell from 9 percent to 3 percent.131 Alfonsín attracted most

of that change, and he was successful in presenting a credible alternative,

even for the right, to more Peronism. The Peronists were hurt by open

squabbling, their recent past, and unappealing candidates; their support

dropped from 50 percent in 1973 to the 40 percent Luder was able to win.

Alfonsín also was rewarded with a Radical majority in the Chamber of

Deputies, although not in the Senate, where powerful provincial parties

undercut the Radical total. Nonetheless, Alfonsín won a clear victory, giving the impression that he was in a position to execute reforms and demand accountability on the part of the military, things that no civilian

president in two generations had been able to do.

The period between Alfonsín’s victory and his inauguration was abbreviated; inauguration day was moved up to December 10, 1983. Although Alfonsín’s speeches and the UCR platform indicated the general

position a Radical administration was going take concerning the military,

they tended to be short on the specifics if not downright vague about the

details of policy. Indeed, the best precis of the situation in November and

early December 1983 was written years later by the National Committee of

the Radical Party in summing up a seminar on defense that took place on

October 3–6, 1989:

The situation in 1983: In December of 1983 we came to power aware

that defense and military policies had been and would continue to be

a major challenge for any constitutional government. In this challenge

50 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
were in play the exercise of real power by governments elected by the

people, the political stability of democracy and even the survival of

the nation. For half a century the Armed Forces had been directed autonomously with respect to civil society and had intervened by force

in the highest level of direction of the State. We were dealing with,

then, putting in place a different mode of subordination to civil

power and the National Constitution, internal restructuring and the

proper place of the Armed Forces in Argentine society. This had been

broken due to a past highlighted by terrorism, its illegal repression, illegitimate rule of the State and defeat in the Malvinas. Distanced from

society, the Armed Forces are found to be divided, without capacity to

act together and with diminished capacity to carry out their mission.

In 1983, then, we had to begin by resolving matters of the past to take

up the present and the future, facing the defense situation with the

idea of securing fundamental reforms. Overcoming the conflicts and

violence of the past, within a framework of no exemption from

blame, truth and justice, was the responsibility of all Argentine society and not only the defense area. Any other way would have been an

erroneous simplification. Surely, someone coming from outside could

ask: What does the national defense policy have to do with the trials

of some military personages for crimes against human rights?

Nonetheless, the national defense policy was overshadowed and conditioned by the matter of the trials.132

Clearly, then, no a priori resolution of the cuestión militar, no bargain

or pact with the military (as had often been the case in the past), was in

place before the inauguration of the Alfonsín administration. The stage

was set for an unprecedented challenge to estado militar.

POLITICAL EVOLUTION 51
Chapter Four

Military Reform under

Alfonsín

The Alfonsín administration, in its efforts to change substantively

the civil-military relationship in Argentina and to make it conform

to the constitutional order and democratic mandate the administration had achieved in the election of 1983, embarked simultaneously on

two broad policy and process endeavors that turned out to be contradictory and to have incompatible goals: reforma militar (military reform) and

revisión del pasado (review of the past). Although these two processes were

intended to establish the rule of law (and therefore the legitimacy of civilian authority over the military establishment) in a constitutional, democratic manner, they would have far different effects on both military and

civilian perceptions of the nature and extent of estado militar. Neither

would end the disputes over legitimacy of authority in military matters.

However, an examination of the factors relevant to analyzing civil-military

relations in the Alfonsín years is needed before conclusions can be drawn

about the reform process.

The policies and processes of this administration are divisible into

four categories for examining estado militar, all of which were virtually unchallenged military prerogatives until the 1982 debacle and Alfonsín’s election in 1983. Three of these categories will be used to examine military reform: mission and organization, resources and industry, and education

and socialization. The fourth, accountability and discipline, will be the vehicle to examine the review of the past in the next chapter.

Mission and Organization

This section deals with the part of civil-military relations centering on

the control of organized force at government disposal and the delineation

53
of the uses to which it could, or should, be put. Four major elements in the

Argentine case will be examined: civilianization, emphasizing the role and

functioning of the Ministry of Defense (MOD); the Joint Staff; the military

hierarchy, concentrating on the army; and the evolution and promulgation

of the Ley de Defensa (Defense Law).

Civilianization: The Ministry of Defense

The Argentine Constitution of 1853 stipulated that the President of

the Republic was the commander in chief of the armed forces. Even a cursory look at the history of civil-military relations belies that provision in

practice up to the election of 1983. Even military presidents were not always in control of the armed forces; Onganía, Videla, and Viola were

ousted by their own juntas. But Raúl Alfonsín knew that if the military

chain of command effectively stopped at the commanders in chief of the

army, navy, and air force, as generally had been the case since 1930, then

military institutional autonomy would vitiate any hope of reforming the

military system. Consequently, among the first steps of the Alfonsín administration were efforts to revise that chain of command so that the command authority that had belonged to the service commanders in chief

would really belong to the President of the Republic and, by his delegation,

to the Minister of Defense. Toward this end, a new ministries law was devised even before Alfonsín took office, returning to the limit of eight ministries specified by the Constitution of 1853, and imbuing the Minister of

Defense with much broader power than before.133 More directly, on January 31, 1984, Decree 436 was promulgated, which delegated some of the

president’s authority to the Minister of Defense and to the redesignated

military Chiefs of Staff rather than to the commanders in chief of the three

armed forces.134

These changes were designed to place even operational control of the

armed forces in the hands of civilians, with military forces doing their bidding. Moreover, nominations and changes in assignment of all officers of

the grade of colonel and above now rested with the Minister of Defense

(promotion to general officer still required Senate approval, as provided

for in the Constitution). Furthermore, the serving chiefs of staff initially

had to be content with the army grade of major general or its navy and air

force equivalent, one rank lower than previously (lieutenant general).

Fewer officers would be selected for general and admiral; almost all would

stay at the initial level of brigadier general or its equivalent. The power and

prestige of the flag officers thereby was to be decreased.

54 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
As the chain of command was being restructured to assure primacy

of the civilians (the president and the Minister of Defense), the scope and

domain of the MOD was expanded at the direct expense of the individual

services. Within days of taking office, Alfonsín and his new Minister of Defense, Raúl Borrás, appointed a new Chief of the Joint Staff and three

Chiefs of Staff of the respective services.135 The Chief of the Joint Staff,

Army Brigadier General Julio Fernández Torres, was accorded primacy of

place in these nominations, even though at the time of his appointment,

he was junior to the new Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Brigadier Mayor

Teodoro Waldner. That anomaly was corrected later—but by presidential

initiative, not by the strict seniority system that prevailed in the armed

forces. This action was taken with the clear intent that no other “commanders in chief” should be present in the hierarchy to challenge the president or his duly chosen civilian officials.

With another decree, Alfonsín removed the enormous General Directorate of Military Industries, or Fabricaciones Militares, from the exclusive jurisdiction of the army and placed it under Borras’ purview, thereby

significantly increasing the bases for control by the Ministry of Defense

over resources.136

In July 1984, control of Gendarmería Nacional (Border Troops)

passed from the army to the Ministry of Defense, and the senior official of

that security force became one of their own, not an army general. Similarly, in October 1984, Prefectura Naval (Coast Guard) moved to the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry and away from that of the navy.137 Control

of these security forces therefore was no longer an armed forces prerogative, and determination of mission and resources for these institutions

passed to civilian hands.

These early moves by the Alfonsín administration sought to break

longstanding patterns of subordination and control of the MOD to the

armed forces. Prerogatives long considered the exclusive province of the

military were, at least ostensibly, no longer in its hands. Other longstanding attributes of power, particularly the institutional autonomy of command with respect to the employment and administration of the armed

forces, had moved to the hands of the president and the Minister of Defense. Both the Ministry and the Joint Staff organization, which had been

marginalized before the Alfonsín years, were being officially and legally

placed at the very center of the decisionmaking process.

Completing the organizational framework of the MOD, considerable power and authority were vested in the Secretaries of the Ministry of

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 55
Defense, subordinates of the Minister but having considerable jurisdiction in their respective areas, such as military affairs, policy, production,

and budget. The official holding the title of Secretary of Defense was effectively the Undersecretary, principal subordinate of the Minister. The

Ministry of Defense was, at least in theory, far more powerful than any

previous Ministry of Defense in Argentina and had the legal backing and

delegation of command authority to be a decisive element in civilian control of the military.

Nonetheless, even though “the increase of participation by civilian

functionaries in the substantive exercise of political power in the area of

military and defense policy, constituted an outstanding aspect of the

process,”138 such a dramatic shift of statutory power and responsibility for

defense and military matters from military to civilian hands engendered

severe problems. Civilians had scant experience in military and defense

policy formulation; defense matters had always been viewed as the military’s job (even if governance had not). Horacio Jaunarena, the first Alfonsín Secretary of Defense who later became Minister of Defense,

lamented that there were “very few” qualified candidates from the civilian

side and that it was difficult to “armar los cargos” (fill the jobs).139 Far too

few knowledgeable civilians were available to man the Ministry, to lead

such major dependencies as the Fabricaciones Militares and the National

Defense College, and to serve as advisors to the legislative commissions

that dealt with defense matters. No independent body of civilian knowledge, no “institutional memory” that might provide countervailing opinion in the military’s own terms, existed. There was no discrete body of

civilian officials used to dealing with the military when the civilians, at

least formally, had the upper hand. As one Argentine scholar on the subject put it, the Ministry had been “emptied through the years due to the

political clout and institutional autonomy of the Forces.”140 In a real sense,

no one knew what a reformed or restructured military institution would,

or should, look like. Nor was it clear what such reformed, restructured

military forces should do; they were “black boxes” to the civilians.141 That

void, among other things, meant that a major reform project, which eventually emerged as the Ley de Defensa, would be considerably delayed.

Hence, political considerations, and indeed partisan ones, guided the formulation of defense policy and the nature of estado militar more than disinterested analysis of the defense and security needs of Argentina.

Another major problem the Ministry of Defense had to face was the

lack of continuity at the top. Alfonsín would have four Defense Ministers,

56 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
starting with Raúl Borrás. He was not particularly optimistic about the

chances for a thoroughgoing reform of the military during his tenure, or

even during the supposed 6-year run of the administration, stating in

March 1984, “It will be difficult to change them thoroughly.”142 He saw his

job as reining in the power that the military had exercised as a matter of

right, stating that reform would be designed to inhibit the military from

remaining what it had been, “the most powerful pressure group of the last

50 years of Argentine history.”143 Borrás and Alfonsín both wanted to relieve that pressure, inasmuch as it often had manifested itself in the form

of coups. Borrás served only from December 1983 until March 1985, when

he succumbed to cancer.

Replacing Borrás as Defense Minister was long-time Radical politician Dr. Roque Carranza, who served for less than a year, dying in office in

February 1986. Although highly regarded personally, he did not have the

job long enough to make a significant mark on the Ministry of Defense or

the military.

Carranza’s successor, Germán López, moved from the Office of Secretary General to the president to occupy the Defense portfolio. As a result

of a scandal involving members of the intelligence services working in his

Ministry, López was forced to resign in early June 1986. He, like his predecessors, made little difference in his short tenure.

Alfonsín’s fourth and last Defense Minister, Horacio Jaunarena, had

been with the Ministry from the beginning of the Alfonsín administration

as Secretary of Defense, the number-two man in the Ministry. Jaunarena

was in the job when the much heralded, but little advanced, Defense Law

finally began to make its way through the legislature to passage. He had to

deal with levantamientos (uprisings) within the military of Semana Santa,

Monte Caseros, and Villa Martelli. And Jaunarena was still present in the

wake of La Tablada, the guerrilla attack on an army garrison in January

1989 that many saw as a vindication of the military and that cast serious

doubt on the Defense Law.

The Joint Staff

The enhanced scope and power of the Ministry of Defense (as envisioned by the Alfonsín administration) and the authority of the Minister

of Defense (as delegated by the president) to formally exercise operational

control over the armed forces made it logical that military authority over

the mission and direction of the armed forces should rest in that military

structure most closely tied to the Ministry of Defense and indeed subordinate to it: the Armed Forces Joint Staff.

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 57
The Joint Staff had existed for some years as a dependency of the

weak Defense Ministry structure of previous governments, but it never

had the control in military matters that it was to receive under the Alfonsín administration. The Argentine armed forces, under the commanders in

chief system, had always been autonomous in their organization, training,

and doctrine—and in their concepts of what jointness was all about. In

fact, they had been effectively compartmentalized, as Horacio Jaunarena

suggested in referring to the Malvinas conflict: “Each service fought its

own war.”144 No one had ever paid much attention to the Joint Staff, it had

not been in the chain of command, and members of the armed forces

mostly regarded it as a dead end in terms of assignment or promotion.

The Alfonsín administration, through the Ministry of Defense,

looked to change this, believing that joint planning and concentrating the

strategy and doctrine functions in the Joint Staff would reduce the autonomous political power of the army, navy, and air force. These beliefs

eventually were enshrined in the Defense Law proposal to Congress.145

Through these measures, Alfonsín sought to strengthen vertical loyalty; as

he made clear in his first public speech after taking office to the

Granaderos, or Presidential Guard, “I know very well that it is absolutely

necessary to understand that our national Constitution, as in all civilized

countries on earth, establishes the subordination of the Armed Forces to

the powers established by the Constitution.”146 The Joint Staff, as the uniformed component of the MOD, was seen as a way to forge a major link

in this chain of constitutionality. But as one long-time student of the

MOD points out, “There did not exist experience or resources accumulated in the core of the democratic forces . . . nor did there exist in the State

[Argentina] an institutional tradition or routines established to articulate

the relationship between the constitutional power and the Armed

Forces.”147 The Alfonsín administration conceived of the Joint Staff as a

major link in establishing such institutional traditions and routines consonant with democratic government and not responsive to the autonomous pretensions of the services and their political past, but defense

and military policy had always been left to the armed forces, individually,

and they had little incentive for surrendering autonomy.

Several early steps were taken to give the Joint Staff the necessary authority and organization to carry out the new role envisioned for it. The

head of the Joint Staff, redesignated the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, became the ranking military officer on active duty in the Argentine military,

with the rank of lieutenant general or its equivalent in the navy or air force.

58 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Three departments were created within the Joint Staff to operationalize the

concept of jointness: Personnel and Logistics, Operations and Intelligence,

and Policy and Strategy, which included doctrine. To staff these departments, the Joint Staff was empowered to draw on the very best that the

services had to offer, and service on the Joint Staff would no longer be considered prejudicial to military careers (according to one source, over 80 percent of the Joint Staff was replaced in December 1983). The goal, according

to the first head of the Department of Policy and Strategy, was to create a

“new axis” for the professional military in Argentina.148 Or, as a later

Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff outlined it, the Joint Staff was supposed to

be the authoritative channel between the armed services and the Ministry

of Defense, providing the military guidance pursuant to MOD military and

defense policy to the now-subordinate armed forces and security force adjuncts of MOD.149 An integrated staff would lead to an integrated military

effort in addressing the defense needs of the country.

Meeting Opposition

Resistance to these measures and the ideas behind them was apparent from the outset. It came from the military services that stood to lose

position, influence, and effective control of their own institutions if the

joint system were fully implemented. Resistance also came from some elements of the Radical Party, especially those associated with Coordinadora,

the Party’s youthful elements, who regarded moves that ultimately might

enhance military capabilities as a potential threat to their vision of civilian government.

The actual evolution of the Joint Staff under these conditions was

troubled from the start. One immediate problem was the lack of a statute

defining the responsibilities and relationships of military organizations in

the constitutional regime (the applicable law, Ley de Defensa, would not be

passed until April 26, 1988, over 4 years into the Alfonsín administration).

Another controversy surfaced quickly over the president’s choice to

head the Joint Staff. Although he could appoint any serving officer to this

highest position, his selection of Army Brigadier General Julio Fernández

Torres (26th in seniority among army generals when Alfonsín took office

and before the Proceso generals were out) occasioned an immediate dispute with the new Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Brigadier Mayor Teodoro

Waldner, who held the higher grade at the time of Fernández Torres’ appointment.150 Fernández Torres was not formally promoted to lieutenant

general, resolving the seniority problem, for several months.

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 59
This early jockeying for the top spot on the Joint Staff was an indication of service resistance to changing their autonomous instincts and

their desire to be treated as equals. For example, although no such provision was made in military regulations, the idea of rotating the top position

among the services gained much sympathy. Each service would have an

opportunity to gain prestige and further its interests, regardless of doctrinal, operational, or qualifications considerations relevant to the post. The

underlying values sustaining such behavior, not only military corporateness and identification but also service institutional “horizontal loyalty,”

would undercut any idea of joint doctrine as being more than just the sum

of the individual service parts.

General Fernández Torres encountered a series of these problems

that would bedevil the Joint Staff during the Alfonsín administration and

eventually render it ineffective as a vehicle for establishing a new direction

in hierarchy in the civil-military relationship. A primary task of the Joint

Staff was to develop a new defense doctrine, which Fernández Torres

sought to do through his choice for Chief of the Policy and Strategy Department, Brigadier General Heriberto Auel. Auel wanted to develop doctrine suitable to modern environments in both the conventional and nonconventional senses, replacing what he termed “antiquated von der Goltz

[a long-dead German strategist] thinking” that he felt characterized the

Argentine military.151 He intended to end “conceptual stagnation,” a condition that had resulted in the failures in both the Dirty War and the Malvinas conflict, and to replace it with a doctrine for “unpredictable war” (as

opposed to “total war” in the World War sense). In his view, such doctrine

would require strategic thinking, joint (not just coordinated) planning,

and operational control by the Joint Staff.152

But Auel quickly ran into opposition—particularly from the air force,

which had no interest in sharing or giving up any of its longtime interest in

air and space, not to mention operational control of air force assets. This

dispute bubbled over, leading to the relief of air force Brigadier Simari as air

force delegate to the Joint Staff. The air force further showed its displeasure

by its last-minute withdrawal from the first joint maneuvers planned by the

new Joint Staff in September 1984, “due to differences in doctrine as a consequence of the part assigned to the air force in the exercise.”153

Complicating Auel’s doctrine and strategy formulation was the lack

of direction from civilian authorities on what exactly they wanted the

armed forces of Argentina to address. The armed forces always had unchallenged authority in divining the potential threats to Argentina

60 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
(hipótesis de conflicto, or scenarios of conflict) and the potential for military responses (hipótesis de guerra, or scenarios for war). But Auel’s job

was to get such defense guidance from civilian authorities and to transform it into Joint Staff doctrine that would prescribe the roles and missions of the military. Auel finally was able to get Alfonsín to approve a

joint planning and doctrine concept for external defense but not for any

military role in internal security. Some civilian authorities prevailed upon

Alfonsín not to define internal conflict as war on both philosophical and

practical grounds, arguing that the military was wrong to engage any part

of the Argentine population in hostilities, that responsibility for both internal and external security had been a linchpin of military authority for

decades, and that the time to redefine these mission responsibilities was

now. This argument would go far beyond the Joint Staff arena, would be

played out in the debate over the defense law, and would continue beyond

the Alfonsín administration.

A Weak Foundation

Adequate doctrine was not the only, perhaps not even the most

pressing, problem. Since the comprehensive defense law had not been

passed, the Joint Staff had no well-defined legal basis to do much of anything. The command attributes—the real authority to command and

control the military, which had been taken away from the former commanders in chief—had been delegated by the president in some measure

to the Minister of Defense and to a much lesser extent to the service

Chiefs of Staff. In order for the Chief of the Joint Staff to exercise these

attributes on behalf of the Defense Minister under whom he served, he

needed subordinates with operational control directly in his chain of

command—in U.S. terminology, unified commands and commanders

(joint units). No such commands existed in Argentina. Territorial responsibilities and peacetime organization had always been divided

among the services, which—viewing the idea of joint commands and

joint staff control as likely to deliver a mortal blow to service autonomy

and their control of resources—were not keen to relinquish a final say in

dispositions and force structure. The strong service traditions and customs about a wide range of missions and responsibilities hindered moves

toward jointness. Consequently, as one Joint Staff source put it, the best

that the Chief of the Joint Staff could achieve would be parity with the

service Chiefs of Staff, not superiority.154

Moreover, the Joint Staff did not control the resources to achieve the

goals envisioned for it. Control and distribution of resources were key

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 61
factors in defining the civil-military relationship. In the case of the Joint

Staff, the reorganization and restructuring necessary to implement an integrated command structure with unified, not service-specific, command

at the top would require considerable funds. New commands would have

to be created and staffed, a new communications system constructed, and

physical locations and equipment changed and modernized to fit with

new joint doctrine, training, and logistics. The funds available to achieve

this were very limited. The necessary commands and staffs were never

created, units were not redeployed, and training exercises were rarely

held. A little progress was made in coordinating logistics (common items)

and intelligence information, and one army general on the Joint Staff succeeded in establishing a Joint Staff course at the army Escuela Superior de

Guerra, which later became an independent course for mid-range officers

of all the armed forces.

But the Alfonsín administration did not give the military establishment, even the Joint Staff that ostensibly was its instrument of operational

control, the resources that would have made possible an effective unified

force. Pleading economic hard times, Alfonsín prefaced calls for reform

with statements such as “in accordance with our own possibilities,” reflecting pressure to keep a lid on military resources.155 And consequently

the Joint Staff could not muster the clout to deal with the independentminded services, themselves severely strapped and not wont to surrender

anything to an integrated structure if they could help it.

Fernández Torres, then, was frustrated in almost all of his moves to

make the Joint Staff viable. In December 1984, at the end of his first year

in office, he made a report to the armed forces decrying the “worsening

decay in the situation of Argentina’s defense,” and he retired in March

1985.156 General Ricardo Pianta, who was retiring as Army Chief of Staff,

was offered the job but declined it. Alfonsín then appointed air force

Brigadier Mayor Teodoro Waldner, Fernández Torres’ early rival and the

ranking officer in all three services, to the top position.

Waldner did not succeed in making the Joint Staff any more authoritative than Fernández Torres had. Indeed, many viewed his appointment as a vindication of those who advocated the traditional apportionment of roles, missions, and resources among the services. Coordination,

planning, and some training done by a joint organization was all well and

good, but the services never accepted the idea of integrated units and unified command and control. Waldner’s own style reinforced this more collegial approach to military policy; he averred that he was not in favor of

62 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
the “imposition” of jointness, but rather of an accord among the four

general staffs.157 Others were less sanguine in their assessment of the effectiveness of the Joint Staff under Waldner, who served until the end of

the Alfonsín administration. One flag officer who served at the Joint Staff

referred to it as a “paper tiger,” and the general consensus among those

best informed was that the real influence of the Joint Staff on the services

after 1984 was nil.158

Moreover, the inability of the Ministry of Defense to establish the

Joint Staff as the locus of uniformed authority in the Argentine military

establishment suited many in the Alfonsín administration. As Borrás had

indicated, they regarded reducing the political power of the military to be

a short-term goal, and interservice rivalry suited that objective.159 For

some, a small, weak, and underfunded military was more than enough.

The Chief of the Joint Staff might be a useful vehicle for reducing the

power of the individual service Chiefs of Staff, still perceived by many as

the main threat and potential source of coups despite their redesignation.

The resources to back up a fully integrated force with unified commands did not come. Although a verbal and legal commitment was made

to jointness, as the defense law eventually showed, the civil-military relationship remained far more defined by service and civilian authorities’ interactions than by regarding the military as subordinated via the joint

staff structure.

Military Hierarchy

The military services had always been autonomous in terms of internal organization and disposition of the military assets in Argentina.

This independence was reflected in the basic law concerning military personnel at the time of the transition, which formed much of the legal, formal basis for estado militar in Argentina.160 But even before Alfonsín took

office, Provisional President Bignone, as part of the transition process, decreed the transfer of the command authority away from the commanders

in chief (redesignated as chiefs of staff) to the president himself as sole

Supreme Commander. Some powers were conferred upon the Chiefs of

Staff as well as the Minister of Defense, but the Chief of Staff was not

charged with command and administration of the armed force under

him in the measure the former commander in chief had been.161 Of particular importance was Decree 436, which placed all actions regarding superior personnel (colonel or equivalent and above) in MOD hands. This

meant that almost no senior officer could be transferred, promoted, or retired without action by the senior civilian in the defense chain and, in the

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 63
case of promotions, approval and presentation to Congress by the president himself.

The Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces, thus reduced in power and

lacking a defense law to codify a new arrangement in terms of mission and

organization (and the resources to carry one out if it existed), were faced

with demands to reorganize and restructure their debilitated military organizations. The underlying premise of the demands was: make do with

less. The Radicals had made campaign promises to reduce military expenditures to “peacetime” levels. The parlous state of the economy and the

compelling needs of the Radical administration to divert funds elsewhere

reinforced the Radical premise (especially among its more militant stalwarts) that fewer military resources would translate into fewer military

political resources.162 (Military people often used the term arrinconar, “to

put in a corner; to slight or neglect,” in describing their perception of the

attitude of the administration.)

Challenges for the Army

The army was most directly affected by this transfer of authority. The

air force and the navy—smaller and more technically advanced than the

large and dispersed army, with its greater territorial responsibilities—were

better able to weather the organizational storms. Both suffered some reductions in size, but nowhere near those that befell the army. The air force

redistributed its assets into highly mobile forces, with enough aerodromes

and squadrons to maintain the integrity of the force. Its equipment, although heavily depleted from Malvinas actions, was serviceable. The navy,

relatively untouched by the war (except for loss of the cruiser ARA Belgrano, which was not particularly significant in terms of total force), divided its assets into an active and a standby fleet, thereby assuring that limited resources went to sustain the newer vessels and enhanced as much as

possible the navy’s capabilities. Major restructuring early on was not as

traumatic for the other services as for the army.

The army was faced with the most daunting task to restructure.

Numbering slightly more than 96,000 uniformed members (not including

cadets and students) in 1983, it sank to a low point in 1987 (for the Alfonsín administration) of just over 53,000, recovering slightly by 1989 to

57,500. But resistance to reorganizing the army, both from within and

without, was considerable. The army was spread throughout Argentina in

scores of units, tied into the local infrastructure, and long considered to be

the symbol of national power, especially in such places as Patagonia, the

Andean Cordillera, and Argentine Chaco. But reduced to taking in less

64 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
than 40 percent of the usual number of conscripts by 1986 (in the modern

era, annual army conscription had been about 65,000), many units were

manned at one-quarter of anything the army considered adequate. But

other than reduced numbers, such reorganization as would take place was

motivated much more by political considerations than military ones.

The political restructuring that the Alfonsín administration sought

through Defense Minister Borrás centered on the vast military training

and schools complex at Campo de Mayo, just outside the federal capital,

and on the First Army Corps Headquarters in Palermo, a neighborhood in

the center of Buenos Aires. These two sites traditionally had provided the

wherewithal for military takeovers and were regarded as two symbols of

the military presence. (A third, Edificio General San Martín, the Army

Headquarters, looms large behind the Presidential Palace, Casa Rosada,

but in Alfonsín’s time in office no one suggested moving or changing it.)

Borrás’ plans began surfacing in public reports in August 1984: the dissolution or transfer of First Army Corps Headquarters.163 Also reported were

his desire to move the army training facilities at Campo de Mayo to the interior and to sell 3,500 of the 5,000 hectares of Campo de Mayo.164

Borrás himself would accomplish only the first goal. First Army

Corps Headquarters was dissolved by a decree issued October 20, 1984,

along with a number of small units whose dissolution also seemed politically motivated: the Junín and Zárate Advance Intelligence Organizations,

and all the military police and electronic operations companies. The

standing down of these latter units was part of a general campaign to reduce (or eliminate if possible) the military intelligence services, which

many civilians regarded as major sources of the excesses that had occurred

in the antisubversive operations.165 The Corps Headquarters later was resurrected as IV Corps in Santa Rosa, La Pampa Province, at the terminus of

the Sarmiento Railroad and far from the center of governmental power.

But the massive unit moves that Borrás foresaw did not happen on his

watch or on Alfonsín’s. The units of I Corps were redistributed but not

physically relocated.

The motivation for army reorganization in the Alfonsín years died

with Borrás. Although other ostensible moves toward reorganization surfaced, such as the Commission for the Evaluation and Functioning of the

Army’s Organization report in October 1985 and a study entitled “Modernization of the Armed Forces” in June 1986, no major reorganization ever

took place in the army under Alfonsín.166 (Even in 1990, Argentine Army

officers at the highest levels were very much preoccupied with reorganizing

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 65
the service, as it still remained to be done under President Menem. The organizational chart of the army in 1990 was virtually unchanged from that

of 1983.)167 The army was a shell, an undermanned version of its old self.

No money to organize joint units had been appropriated, and no resources

had been made available to restructure and consolidate the army’s far-flung

forces. The little that had been done, as during Borrás’ time, had the opposite effect: disperse the command structure to make the military’s might

less adaptable to political purposes.

Personnel Changes

In another sense, however, the turnover in the highest levels of personnel (particularly the army) was continually reorganizing the armed

forces of Argentina. Because Alfonsín chose mostly junior officers as his

first Chiefs of Staff, seniority rules forbidding a senior officer of the same

rank to serve under his junior, even at that rank, obliged large numbers of

army, navy, and air force generals, admirals, and brigadiers to retire. A

number of others also retired rather than serve in the new circumstances.

(See table 2.)

This turnover also was evident in the number of Chiefs of Staff each

service had. The navy had only one, Admiral Ramón Arosa, former Chief

of the Military Household in the Bignone provisional government. A junior admiral, Arosa weathered the entire Alfonsín administration. This

meant that the navy’s very modest efforts at structural reorganization were

accomplished within the service and were relatively successful given the resource constraints at the time.

The air force had two chiefs of staff. The first, Waldner, was very senior, so few brigadieres in the air force were obliged to resign. When Waldner became the Chief of the Joint Staff in March 1985, Brigadier Mayor

Ernesto Crespo succeeded him as Chief of Staff, where he would remain

until the end of the Alfonsín administration.

The situation was quite different in the army. Five chiefs of staff

served in the Alfonsín years, three of them for only a matter of months.

The first, General Jorge Arguindegui, was ranked 29th on the seniority list

when the interim Bignone government relinquished power, and his appointment occasioned the retirement or resignation of 35 of the 53 army

generals then on active duty. He served from December 1983 to early July

1984. As the first incumbent of the newly created and relatively weak chief

of staff position, Arguindegui felt the full effect of the Alfonsín government’s attempts to establish control over the army. He grew increasingly

frustrated by his lack of authority, especially over senior officers. Because

66 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Arguindegui had no authority over those in the rank of colonel and above,

he had to ask the Defense Minister to exercise authority in matters of internal discipline. Borrás apparently was unwilling to follow Arguindegui’s

lead in the matter, and Arguindegui, frustrated by what he considered political interference in military matters, resigned.

Arguindegui was succeeded by his deputy, General Ricardo Pianta,

who served from July 1984 to early March 1985. Faced with the reorganization drive of Borrás, Pianta’s role was one mostly of damage control, trying to ensure that the army lost as little ground as possible. When General

Fernández Torres quit as Chief of the Joint Staff in March 1985, Pianta was

nominated to succeed him, but he retired instead.

Pianta’s successor was General Hector Ríos Ereñú, the longest serving of the Army Chiefs of Staff under Alfonsín. His appointment caused a

sizeable number of retirements and resignations; 51 of the 53 generals

serving at the time of Alfonsín’s inauguration were no longer on active

duty within 2 years.168 During his tenure internal divisions, not just individual discontent, became manifest in the army. In trying not to antagonize the civilian authorities at the time of serious civil-military confrontation over the consequences of the antisubversive operations of 1976–1979,

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 67

Table 2. Retirements and Promotions: Highest-Ranking Officers

(December 1983–January 1989)

Army Navy Air Force Total

In grade when Alfonsin became 53 25 36 114

President

Promoted during the constitutional 69 41 40 150

government

Total 122 66 76 264

Retirements when Alfonsin became 35 17 9 61

President

Retirements during the Alfonsin 54 25 39 118

government

Total retirements 89 42 48 179

On active duty (1989) 33 24 28 85

Source: Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 125.
Ríos Ereñú instead alienated considerable numbers within his own force.

The Semana Santa (Holy Week) uprising ended his tenure in April 1987.

Next to serve as Army Chief of Staff was General José Dante Caridi,

from April 1987 to December 1988. He was faced with reestablishing the

internal discipline shattered by Semana Santa, while at the same time seeing through the Punto Final and Obediencia Debida laws that would free

most of his officers from the specter of the dock. But he had to put down

one uprising, Monte Caseros, and deal with another, Villa Martelli, that

ended his tenure as Chief of Staff.

The last Army Chief of Staff of the Alfonsín administration was General Francisco Gassino, who served from December 1988 until Alfonsín resigned the Presidency in July 1989. In January 1989, Gassino had to deal

with the guerrilla attack on La Tablada, an army garrison near Buenos

Aires. His handling of this situation, described in the next section, was revealing of the state and nature of civil-military relations in Argentina by

that time.

The changeover rates of the Chiefs of Staff in the respective services

trickled through their hierarchies. Table 3 shows the average tenure of toplevel military officers in each service. Key units, such as Army Corps,

changed hands every few months. Staff positions at the headquarters suffered similar turnover rates, as staff incumbents replaced field commanders. Consequently, serious organizational change within the armed forces

of Argentina was severely hampered in the army, where the greatest turbulence occurred.

The Defense Law

The question of mission was perhaps even more difficult in civil-military terms than that of organization. Until the Malvinas war, the armed

forces had been almost exclusively involved in what could be termed internal security matters, culminating in the drastic antisubversive campaign

of 1976–1979. The consequences of the Dirty War provided fuel for the

other aspect of civil-military relations in the Radical administration, the

review of the past. But the legacy of the Dirty War, coupled with the ongoing conflict between Argentina and Great Britain over the Malvinas and

other South Atlantic territories, also made clear that Alfonsín would have

to spell out the concept of national defense and to define the relationship

of the military services to defense needs and to civilian institutions if there

was to be any real chance of reforming and redirecting the military. No objective definition of the military role in the Argentine society existed. As

one Radical observer said, “The Constitution does not define in precise

68 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
terms the mission of the armed forces.”169 Article 87 of the 1853 Constitution simply says that the President of the Republic disposes of the armed

forces to attend to the needs of the nation. But the general disposition even

of previous civilian governments had been to leave military matters in military hands. The laws on the books had been promulgated during military

governments without debate and lacking real precedents. These militarysponsored laws embodied a premise that was antithetical to any putative

Radical-sponsored defense law: that is, that both internal security and external defense were proper areas for the military derivation of hipótesis de

conflicto and within the normal purview of the military establishment.

Law 16,970, enacted at the beginning of the Onganía military regime

in 1966, evidenced the National Security Doctrine, which, in the Argentine

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 69

Table 3. Average Tenure in Position: Highest-Ranking Officers

(December 1983–January 1989)

Number Average Tenure

Service Position Serving (in months)

Interservice: Chief of the Joint Staff 2 30

Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff 3 20

Army: Chief of Staff 5 12

Deputy Chief of Staff 6 10

Inspector General 6 10

Commanding General II Corps 6 10

Commanding General III Corps 8 7

Commanding General IV Corps 5 12

Commanding General V Corps 6 10

Navy: Chief of Staff 1 60

Deputy Chief of Staff 2 30

Chief of Naval Operations 3 20

Air Force: Chief of Staff 2 30

Deputy Chief of Staff 3 20

Chief of Air Operations 3 20

Source: Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 169.
and other Latin American contexts, came to cover both defense and internal security, based on the idea of protecting vital interests of the nation.170

This defense law provided the military with the authority to be involved

either externally or internally in cases where those interests were substantially threatened or order had broken down. Though a little more explicit

in its assignment of responsibilities than the Constitution, the law did

nothing to limit the military as an autonomous agent in defense matters.

Its successor, Law 21,264, enacted by the junta that had evicted Mrs.

Perón from the Presidency in May 1976, was called the Law of National Security. Basic law of the Proceso government, anathema to the Radicals as the

root of the repression by that military government, it permitted general

military intervention in matters of internal security. It established Special

Stable War Councils, which dealt with matters of internal order. The net effect of this law from a Radical point of view was that it gave the military

carte blanche to carry out the Dirty War with no restraining legalities.

But a type of law that had been easy for the military governments to

promulgate was exceedingly difficult for the Radical government to legislate. The Radicals themselves were not of one mind on the matter, and they

did not control both houses of Congress. Moreover, the more explicit

focus of the early Alfonsín administration was not on what the armed

forces should do but on how they should be brought to account for what

they had already done. Defense and military policy were lower on the political agenda than bringing the military establishment to justice and marginalizing it politically.171

Consequently, the Alfonsín administration had a much better sense

of what it did not want to see happen concerning these roles and missions

than of what it did want.172 The government wanted nothing to do with

anything that might smack of the hated National Security Doctrine, the

guiding principle of the military governments. Therefore, the military

was to have no role in internal matters. The administration did not want

anything resembling military autonomy, desiring that the changes already

made in subordination, such as the empowering of the Minister of Defense and the elimination of the command authority from the Chiefs of

Staff, be codified into law. Moreover, through the defense law proposal, it

sought to institutionalize the notion of jointness by giving primacy to the

Joint Staff as the locus of doctrine, plans and training, and strategy, and

not permitting the services to “fight their own wars” nor to be responsible for hipótesis de conflicto or hipótesis de guerra. Hence, in spite of its importance in any meaningful reform, the defense law was slow in evolving.

70 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Not until August 21, 1985, more than a year and a half into the Alfonsín

administration, did the Chamber of Deputies pass the Defense Law as

proposed. This version remained before the Senate for over 2 more years

and was debated not only by the legislators but also by the chiefs of staff

of the army, navy, and air force in their testimony before the Senate Defense Commission in 1986. Their objections centered on the narrow definition of national defense as repelling external aggression, the exclusion

of military intelligence agencies from having a role in the internal sector

(the Alfonsín administration had “civilianized” the State Information Service, which was dominated by military personnel), and the lack of designation of each service head as the service commander in chief again.173

Others argued over whether the very broad powers the Argentine president had to employ armed force in the nation, to whatever end, should

be, or could be, delimited by the defense law. The Alfonsín administration, then, sought a law that would definitively establish the division of

labor and authority with respect to the military, a very tall order indeed.

The defense law remained in limbo, as practically all attention directed at the military was about the Dirty War and human rights. Reintroduced in the House in a modified version and passed in December 1987,

the law finally passed the Senate on April 26, 1988. Two uprisings in the interim (Semana Santa in April 1987 and Monte Caseros) had brought home

the effects of the lack of a definitive statute determining the status of the

military. Until then, the Senate had ignored the bill (a member of the Senate Defense Committee reported that it met in plenary session an average

of only once a year; Congress was rarely a player in defense matters of any

sort, most being done under ministerial authority by executive order).174

The Ley de Defensa Nacional 175 established the primacy of the president, the civilian and military nature of the defense establishment and the

components thereof (the Ministry of Defense and a National Defense

Council), the tasking of the Joint Staff, and the subordinated nature of the

Chiefs of Staff and the services. But it was more notable for what it excluded than for what it included. The difference between national defense

and internal security was to be permanent; defense was to be concerned

only with external aggression (Article 2). Article 4 stated that “internal security will be ruled by a special law,” which was never promulgated during

the Alfonsín administration. Moreover, again reflecting what the administration did not want, Article 15 of the law specifically forbade the military

intelligence services from working questions concerned with internal policy. The reputed role of the servicios, as military intelligence organizations

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 71
were pejoratively called, still haunted the Radical and Peronist legislators.

The new law abrogated the old ones, particularly Law 16,970, seeking to

lay to rest forever the specter of the National Security Doctrine.

Implementing legislation for many aspects of the law were deliberately left for a later time. The National Defense Council had one year to

come up with a series of major legislative proposals outlined in Article 46

of the law: organic laws for the armed forces and for defense production,

laws for territorial organization and mobilization, organic laws for the

Gendarmería Nacional and Prefectura Naval, a law defining the national

intelligence system, and a law concerning state secrets. In other words, Argentina had a defense law that was a basis for defense policy, but provisions

for generating an implementing military policy were delayed. Moreover,

no date was established for the presentation of a legislative proposal for the

special law governing internal security. The matter of response to “internal

aggression” was closed to the military but undefined elsewhere. This article in the law was based on the premise, widely held by the Radicals, that

no internal aggression was likely, or even possible, against the democratic

government. However, less than a year after the law was passed, the Radicals had a rude awakening.

La Tablada

On January 23, 1989, a ferocious armed attack took place at the barracks of the Third Infantry Regiment at La Tablada, a community and garrison in the province of Buenos Aires near the federal capital. The attackers spread leaflets as they assaulted the garrison, decrying “Marxist

subversion within the government” and the ruling Radical Party’s “campaign to destroy the army.”176 Consequently, many initially believed that

another military uprising was in progress, seeking to take over a military

garrison and proclaim a “new Argentine Army” in the mold attributed to

Colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin, leader of the Villa Martelli uprising a

month and a half earlier. Even military leaders not on the immediate scene

of the attack initially were fooled. The government thought it was dealing

with yet another protest by dissident officers. But before long it understood that this was something far different from the nearly bloodless confrontations of the military dissidents.

The attackers arrived in a beverage truck and eight private vehicles

outside the garrison. Conscript soldiers fighting back against the attackers were killed and wounded, outcomes that had been assiduously

avoided in the military confrontations. First the Buenos Aires Provincial

Police were called to quell the attack, but the attackers had entrenched

72 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
themselves in the regiment’s mess hall and put up fierce resistance. This

was not just another uprising. It was the first attack in force by armed insurgents against an army garrison since the ERP assault on the Monte

Chingolo Ordnance Battalion in December 1975, even before the Dirty

War era.177 And it turned out to be more severe than any of the eight similar attacks that occurred during the 1970s.

The actions of the provincial police were insufficient to dislodge the

insurgents. Consequently, General Gassino, then Army Chief of Staff, dispatched units of the 10th Motorized Infantry Brigade, the Patricios Infantry

Regiment, Military Institute troops, and Commando Unit 601 (Rangers) to

relieve the garrison. Under the redistribution of command authority and

the provisions of the new Defense Law, however, the Army Chief of Staff

had no authority to move his own troops in a situation affecting internal

security, even in defense of his own units. Gassino essentially exceeded his

formal authority. In an instance of extreme threat, the corporate military

institution reacted as it always had, in defense of its own. Horizontal loyalty

superseded vertical loyalty, but the legitimacy of Gassino’s action would not

be seriously questioned by the administration.178

The battle lasted about 32 hours, but the police, supported by army

tank and artillery fire that practically destroyed the installation, eventually

overcame the guerrillas. The casualties were staggering: 2 policemen and 8

soldiers dead (including the deputy commander of the regiment, his

tongue cut out by the guerrillas), 58 other government soldiers and police

wounded, and 28 guerrillas killed. Some 13 insurgents surrendered, and

from documents recovered from them at the scene, the real nature of the

attack unfolded.

The attackers were identified as belonging to a small Leftist group

called Movimiento Todos por la Patria (MTP), the All for the Fatherland

Movement. Among the attacker dead was Jorge Baños, leader of the

movement and former human rights activist. Baños had been a lawyer for

Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, a former ERP leader. Some reports linked Gorriarán himself to the attack. Captured documents revealed that the attackers tried to create the impression that the military, in a new uprising,

had attacked their own barracks, and that they, the MTP, had acted as a

popular resistance to overcome the rebellion. Counting on another

groundswell of popular indignation such as had greeted the actual military uprisings, they planned to lead a convoy to the Casa Rosada and call

on Alfonsín to put himself at the head of a popular armed movement (the

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 73
speculative tercer movimiento, following the first under Irigoyen and the

second under Perón).

As outlandish as this scenario seems in retrospect, the guerrilla plot

and attack were the Alfonsín government’s worst nightmare come true. The

Alfonsín defense policy implicitly rested on the assumption that a guerrilla

attack against any entity of a truly democratic regime was unthinkable. The

military had been marginalized de jure from involvement in internal matters but had de facto been the only force capable of dislodging and defeating the attackers. Worse, it provided the basis for claims by the military to

be vindicated in their actions in terms of internal defense in the Proceso

years. The “special law” indicated in the Defense Law to govern internal security did not yet exist. The legitimacy of the use of military force in the internal environment remained an unsettled question.

The political ramifications were severe. In a nationally televised

speech on January 25, 1989, Alfonsín reported that the guerrilla attack was

“the most serious and most decisive challenge faced by my administration”—having already experienced three armed military uprisings—and

that Argentina faced “armed aggression of irregular ultraleftist forces.”179

He also congratulated the men of the army “who acted with determination

and courage to check the action of the criminals.”

The fact that the attack occurred only 3 months before the presidential elections in 1989 aroused speculation (Carlos Menem, the Peronist

candidate and future president, made statements to the press) that elements in the Alfonsín administration had a hand in the plot in order to

short-circuit the election and perpetuate the current Radical administration in power. Several military sources attributed at least tacit support for,

and knowledge of, the plot and the consequent attack to Alfonsín administration members who were alumni of Coordinadora. In the military view,

the leadership of the Radical youth had extreme Leftist leanings and may

have seen a resurgence of the armed Leftist movement as the way to follow

the Alfonsín regime with some form of revolutionary populism—the tercer movimiento.

180

On January 25, Alfonsín issued two decrees to attempt to limit the

damage. Decree 82 enjoined the Procuración General de la Nación (the Argentine equivalent to the U. S. Attorney General) to conduct an in-depth

investigation of the attack.181 Decree 83 acted more directly on defense

policy and determination of mission, creating a Security Council composed of the Ministers of Defense, Interior, and Foreign Relations, the

Secretary of Intelligence, the Chief of the Joint Staff, and the service

74 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Chiefs of Staff.182 The Secretary of the Council was to be appointed by the

president and would advise him. The stated scope of matters for the

Council’s consideration included a “strategy for antisubversive action.”

The Council’s inclusion of the top military figures was a specific ratification of military interest and involvement in internal security matters.

A subsequent decree of March 10, 1989, gave substance to the work

of the Security Council.183 It created a Committee of Internal Security,

whose membership included the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the

Joint Staff, and it charged the Minister of Defense with maintaining the

current situation profile. Although the decree made the police and security forces the first line of defense against internal armed groups, it specifically provided for the intervention of the armed forces when such police

and security forces were insufficient, and it allowed the president to designate a military chief of all forces engaged in a specific action. It further

provided for intelligence support by all members of the National Intelligence System.

The Alfonsín administration had sought to reform the mission and

organization of estado militar by changing de jure the legal bases for the relationship of the military institutions to the civilian authorities of government. This effort was consistent with the current of legitimacy upon which

the Alfonsín regime’s claim to political authority rested: the constitutional

current, Estado de Ley. But the military organization in reality had changed

little. The organizational integrity of the services had not been changed, nor

had the joint units that might have created a basis for a truly different structure been formed. The inertia of territorial organization was maintained.

The three services still operated basically as three separate entities, reinforcing at least aspirations of autonomy. Although the Ministry of Defense

had been accorded a much greater role than previously in establishing defense and military policy, and command authority had been conferred

largely on civilians, few understood what that involved in practical terms.

The lack of expertise was exacerbated by personnel turbulence, both in the

Ministry of Defense and in the armed services, particularly in the army.

This impeded translating the de jure provisions of the Alfonsín reform effort concerning mission and organization into de facto guidelines for

changing military institutional behavior.

The La Tablada incident illustrated these inconsistencies. The use of

military force in an internal political dispute, in circumstances that conformed to the military’s beliefs about its proper role in the society, undermined the pretensions of the Alfonsín administration’s military and

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 75
defense policy. The de facto civil-military relationship remained, in the

mission and organization senses, based on competing claims to authority.

Civilian control had not been definitively achieved.

Resources and Industry

Although organizational and legal constructs are fundamental to

defining estado militar and establishing legitimacy of authority, nothing can

be guaranteed without resources and a resource base. Control of resources

and how and by whom they are used was key to Alfonsín’s reform effort.

Money

The ability to exert a claim on the public purse had always been an

important attribute of the Argentine military establishment. Because defense is considered an inherent obligation, indeed a duty, of government,

the amount of public resources that the military could command has been

crucial to its political power. The military claim on resources grew during

the 1970s and early 1980s to considerable proportions, hitting an all-time

high of 29.2 percent of government expenditures in 1980 for the armed

forces and the security forces (Border Troops and Coast Guard) alone, not

including the Ministry of Defense itself.184 This figure represented 4.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which with a similar figure of

4.7 percent in 1981 would set high levels of the total national output devoted to the military. This trend reflected the military’s ability to obtain resources both to press the antisubversive campaign of 1976–1979 and to

engage in a military buildup in the face of perceived threats from Chile

(the Beagle Channel dispute and border problems in the south).

Clearly, then, securing and exercising control over the budget of the

military establishment was a major way to change the civil-military relationship. The election of 1983 and the concomitant restoration of Congress imbued the Alfonsín administration with authority under the Constitution to exercise control over public expenditure. No longer could a

military president in effect ratify and fund the military’s requests, and Alfonsín did not intend to do so.

The calendar year 1984 revealed the Alfonsín administration’s plans

for controlling military power by severely curtailing military expenditures.

Pleading difficult economic times and serious needs elsewhere, Defense

Minister Borrás took a budget request to Congress almost 40 percent

smaller than that of 1983 in terms of the percentage of GDP.185 Although

numbers varied depending upon what one included as the military’s

budget, the impact on the services was very severe. Increasing the impact

76 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
of these reduced funding levels were the effects of high inflation and late

adoption of the budget for the year. By the time the money arrived in the

military’s coffers, its purchasing power had eroded even further.

Figure 2 shows the differences in resource allocation of the military

and civilian governments. The amount of money available to the armed

forces dropped, reaching a low point of some 2.4 percent of GDP in 1987

and 1988. This amount is not much different from the period 1970–1974,

during which the average of GDP was 2.3 percent.186 But during the years of

the Proceso government, the military establishment grew considerably larger

than the peacetime one of the early 1970s, and it had spent billions, much of

it borrowed money, on equipment and other military wants. Debt service,

strictly imputed, consumed most of the military budget. Little money was

available for salaries and operations, not to mention pensions for an aging,

top-heavy military. And it had the consequence of reinforcing inertia in

terms of restructuring, the linchpin of reform, especially in the army.

The military most directly felt the budget reductions at all levels of

the hierarchy in salaries. The Alfonsín government unlinked the military

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 77

Figure 2. Relationship between the Armed Forces and Security Forces

Budget and the Gross Domestic Product (1970–1988)

Source: Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Centro de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 133.

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

5

4.5

4

3.5

3

2.5

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

Percent
pay scale from that of the judiciary, by far the most rewarding of the national pay scales, under which a lieutenant general made the same salary as

the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The military salaries became the

same as the normal civil servant scale, a situation that severely reduced the

purchasing power of military members. The subjective comparison was

even worse when military salaries in the Alfonsín years were compared

with those of the Proceso, when a grossly overvalued peso meant that a

general was making the nominal equivalent of about U.S. $4,000 a month

(plus numerous perks). In the Alfonsín years, he was fortunate if he earned

the nominal equivalent of $400.

The salary crisis also had severe effects on the operations of the military. Unable to live on what they were paid, many military members, including officers, took second jobs—a circumstance unheard of in Argentine

military life. Participants in the 1987 and 1988 uprisings cited the resulting

drop in prestige in the minds of military officers as a basis for the revolts.

The effects on operations also were severe. Most of the budget went

toward paying the restrained salary schedule and servicing the military’s

enormous debt. No money was available for training or even day-to-day

operations. Hence, flying hours and steaming time were reduced, and

training exercises for military units became few and far between. Maintenance, especially in the army, became sporadic. For example, 90 percent of

the army’s tanks reportedly were out of service at one time due to maintenance deficiencies.187

Delays in receiving such money as the Congress and administration

would eventually make available to the services also caused serious problems and hardships. Final budgets were approved late in the year, and the

value of the money had been reduced by inflation. Consequently the army,

in particular, fell behind in its payments to suppliers, often by as much as

180 days. This led in at least one instance to a boycott by army suppliers.188

As time went on, suppliers inflated prices in anticipation of being paid late

in devalued currency, a practice that further reduced available funds for

the services.189 By the end of 1984, many units were on a half-day schedule, stopping work before noon because the military could not provide

meals. Even the army headquarters went on reduced time to save money.190

The beleaguered military wound down, almost coming to a standstill and

unable to do much of anything except struggle for its own survival. Such

a state of affairs provided fertile soil for dissidents who, beset for other reasons, would seek redress through confrontation.

78 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Manpower

Other than money, manpower was the most visible measure of

strength for the military. Because of the cadre-conscript organization of

the military, most of its purported strength lay in the 1-year conscripts

who were inducted under the obligatory service laws then in effect (a lottery each year drew from the year group of all 18-year-old males eligible to

serve). Although the navy and air force inducted some conscripts—usually

those willing to serve longer terms to avoid the army—it was the army that

depended on the conscription to fill out its far-flung units dispersed

throughout Argentina.

The normal size of an annual army induction in the latter half of the

20th century had been some 65,000 conscripts. During the Proceso government, to counter perceived threats in the south and to create new units in

even more remote places, the total rose to some 78,000. In 1983, the year

before the Alfonsín regime, 64,640 reportedly were conscripted, near the

historical average.191 A comparison of this level of manning and that of the

Alfonsín years is provided in table 4. (For the 15 or so years before the Proceso period buildup, the Argentine Army was estimated to have 5,000 officers, 15,000 NCOs, and 65,000 conscripts. The navy had about 32,000 in

all ranks, and the air force, about 17,000.)

The Alfonsín regime’s desire to minimize military presence and influence, coupled with the budget drop in 1984, put heavy pressure on the

military to substantially reduce the number of conscripts called to active

duty in 1985. Even before that, in 1984, the army was obliged to release

many of its conscripts early, both because it could not feed and clothe

them and because the president authorized the Army Chief of Staff to let

them go, a clear expression of his desires in the matter. Many of the 62,902

inducted in 1984 were thus out of the army in a matter of months.

After 1984, the conscription of young males into the army experienced a nearly 55 percent diminution, hitting a low point of 24,921, then

leveling off near 30,000. Hence, the army under Alfonsín was about 60 percent the size of its historical norm but was still dispersed in the same number of units with a deteriorating armament, equipment, supply, and maintenance situation. By 1988, the total size of the armed forces was estimated

at 78,000, or some 60 percent of their former normal strength.192

Despite the diminished number of active-duty members in the

armed forces, the few efforts to change the basis upon which recruiting for

the bulk of the manpower was done were unsuccessful. Law 4,031, passed

in 1901, remained the legal underpinning of the cadre-conscript system by

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 79
80 ARGENTINE CIVIL

–MILITARY RELATIONS

Table 4. Total Army Personnel (1983–1989)Category 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989Officers 6,154 5,891 5,804 5,857 5,900 5,895 5,878Noncommissioned Officers (NCOs) 24,805 23,536 24,182 23,575 22,583 22,510 22,494Volunteers 457 298 228 262 144 210 290Civilian Personnel 13,682 13,299 11,847 11,504 10,114 12,100 12,318Conscripts 64,640 62,902 35,327 24,930 24,921 28,343 29,169Candidates (NCO) 4,598 4,488 3,470 2,977 2,187 2,051 2,072Cadets (Officer) 1,529 1,154 1,164 887 781 980 1,156Military High School Students 3,919 3,726 3,569 3,322 3,037 3,080 3,212

Total 119,784 115,294 85,591 73,314 69,667 75,169 76,589

Difference (-) (1983/other years) 4,490 34,193 46,470 50,177 44,615 43,195Percent Difference (-) 3.75 28.54 38.79 41.83 37.24 36.06

Source: Cronista Comercial and La Nueva Provincia newspapers, as found in Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Union para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 173.
which the Argentine armed forces were manned. Although some proposals to move toward a voluntary service system were made periodically during the Alfonsín years, only one real effort was made to do so: a navy pilot

program inaugurated in mid-1987 to recruit volunteers for some technical billets. But the program was only a modest one, and it did not meet expectations. Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Arosa, assessing the program a

year later, said only 500 of the 700 candidates turned out to be medically

qualified. Moreover, their incorporation occurred at the time of the army

uprising at Monte Caseros, and another 200 had second thoughts. Only

300 made it to the units of the navy.193 So volunteers, outside of the officer

and NCO cadres, remained a handful of former conscripts who decided to

extend their enlistment (about 1 percent in the army). Voluntary military

service would have to await another administration.

Equipment and Armament

The other visible manifestations of military power were armament

and equipment. The Proceso government had spent several billion dollars

on armaments for the Argentine military and contracted for much more.

Before Alfonsín took over, the Bignone interim government continued

contracting, especially to make up for losses the Argentine armed forces

suffered in the Malvinas conflict.

With the advent of the Alfonsín administration, this effort was severely curtailed. Within 2 years, the Ministry of Defense practically halted

arms imports, devoting what money it had to fulfilling contracts already

in force. Table 5 details Argentina’s arms imports from 1973 to 1986.

A comparison of the Alfonsín and Proceso years makes clear the precipitous decline in arms importation. In addition to the efforts of the administration, outside actors prevented some contracts from being fulfilled—most notably, British pressure on the U.S. government stalled the

Argentine Navy contract with Israel for 12 Skyhawk A4Q navy fighters, a

U.S.-designed airplane with U. S. engines. The Argentine military had to

rely more on internal means to provide for equipment needs, which would

affect the services quite differently. The navy was the most able to sustain

a reequipment and modernization effort. Continuing a fairly robust construction program begun in the early 1970s (with the laying down of the

Type-42 missile destroyer Santísima Trinidad), it sought to incorporate

new vessels into the fleet, including submarines and frigates, built in Argentine shipyards under contract with foreign companies for design and

machinery. The air force, although not able to build its own fighters and

interceptors, was able to maintain what it had acquired and to supplement

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 81
its fleet with a few locally produced aircraft. Although the army had been

least affected by the loss of major end items in the Malvinas conflict, it had

a very difficult time even acquiring spare parts for its aging inventory. It

was not alone with this problem. The navy sought to sell its two British

Type-42 destroyers, one of which had been built in Argentina with British

assistance before the Malvinas war. British policy had made the acquisition

of spare parts virtually impossible.194 The air force, cut off from spare parts

for many of its planes by British pressure on the United States, also turned

inward, and Air Force Chief of Staff Ernesto Crespo bragged that the force

had developed a formidable in-house maintenance capability for its foreign-built planes.195

Things were little better at the Ministry of Defense level. Although

the MOD had the power of the purse (within the limits set by the Congress), the lack of civilian manpower with a true appreciation of defense

needs was evident. The Minister of Defense could apportion smaller

82 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Table 5. Arms Imports (1973–1986)

Year Millions of Dollars (1983 constant value)

1973 98

1974 72

1975 52

1976 82

1977 62

1978 528

1979 660

1980 254

1981 560

1982 303

1983 975

1984 435

1985 140

1986 95

Source: Ernesto López, “Gasto militar en la Argentina: 1970–1986,” in Defensa y democracia, un debate entre civiles y militares, coord. 

Gustavo Druetta et al. (Buenos Aires: Puntosur, Editores, 1990), 325.
shares of the total defense budget to the services (the amount of the defense budget retained at the Ministry of Defense level would grow from 24

percent in 1981 to 33 percent in 1988, an increase of over one third).196 He

also could change the ratio of monies among the services (the army’s share

of the service-designated money, historically the largest, fell from 40 percent in 1981 to 33 percent in 1988; the navy’s share rose from 35 percent

to 40 percent, and the air force posted a small gain, 25 percent to 27 percent),197 but the path to accomplishing a major restructuring of the armed

forces, essential to reform, remained unclear. The funds reserved for the

MOD were consumed by paying for its own personnel and material needs,

financing joint activities including the Joint Staff, and servicing the defense-related debt.

The mismatch between operational requirements, as the military

services had been used to elaborating them and carrying them out, and the

resources available was considerable. Each service had always defined its

own mission and then had sought, again on its own authority, the resources necessary to do it. Attempts by the administration to change this

state of affairs were important politically, as they tried to subordinate the

military services to the Ministry of Defense and to put control of the resources in civilian hands. But there were few knowledgeable civilian hands

into which to put such control, and there was no system for reconciling the

mission-resources dilemma.

In 1986, the Alfonsín administration finally agreed to accept outside

help. In that year, the Ministry of Defense enacted a pilot program of the

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System used by the United States

military.198 This system constituted the major contribution of the United

States, distrusted for its role in the Malvinas war, to the civil-military relations equation in Argentina during the Alfonsín years.199 The system

stresses jointness, multiyear planning, a systematic approach to defense

missions and needs, and clear civilian control from the president down

through the chain of command. Although the system was fully implemented by the end of 1989, it would remain for a future administration to

assess the fruits, or lack of them, of Ministry-level allocation of resources.

The final stage required linking programs and budgets to strategic military

planning, and the experience of the Joint Staff and the relationship of the

services to it, added to the vagaries of the new Defense Law, left the Argentine military still unable to distinguish between wants and needs.

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 83
Industry

On December 23, 1983, 2 weeks after his inauguration, Alfonsín attempted to subordinate yet another valuable resource of the military to direct civilian control. He issued Decree 280, which transferred Fabricaciones

Militares from the army’s jurisdiction to that of the Ministry of Defense.

The Ministry already had majority participation in a number of joint ventures with other state entities or private interests, including the naval shipyards Talleres Navales Dársena Norte (TANDANOR), Astilleros y Fábricas

Navales del Estado (AFNE), and Astilleros Domecq García; the medium tank

factory Tanque Argentino Mediano Sociedad del Estado (TAMSE); electronics concerns; and a small forging plant. But Fabricaciones Militares, with its

14 subsidiary factories and its majority financial interest in the vast Sociedad Mixta Siderúrgica Argentina (SOMISA) steelworks, its iron supplier

Hierro Patagónico Sierra Grande (HIPASAM), and substantial financial interests in a complex of chemical concerns, was the linchpin of the militaryindustrial complex.200 General Savio began this enterprise in 1941. The Escuela Superior Técnica (Higher Technical School), established in 1930,

trained generations of engineers and scientists for the army. These specialists ran the military-industrial complex of the army, and large numbers of

retired officers had seats on the boards of the various mixed companies and

in the employ of Fabricaciones Militares itself.

The Fabricaciones Militares complex now fell under the jurisdiction

of the Secretary of Defense for Production, one of the principal civilian assistants of the Minister of Defense. His task was not only to assure civilian

control of the military-industrial complex but also to decide how to reduce the economic effects of this vast organization in Argentina. A civilian

was appointed to head Fabricaciones Militares (a billet historically filled by

an Argentine Army major general), and efforts were made to extend civilian control down to the operating levels. But the army engineers that ran

the organization on a day-to-day basis were well entrenched, both organizationally and in terms of their specific knowledge of the operations of the

14 factories. Examples of the tension between the civilians and the military

included a Defense Ministry decision that Fabricaciones Militares would be

externally audited, and a minicrisis occasioned by the reshuffling of the

Fabricaciones Militares board so that it consisted of four civilians and two

military officers (apparently provoking a near revolt among the rank-andfile military officers at the institution).201 In the end, the operators, including such key positions as the Division Chiefs for Production and Development and the managers of the factories, remained military.202 This

84 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
outcome allayed a major concern among military officers that they would

be commanded within a military institution by civilians, which was prohibited by the fundamental military statute (Law 19,101).

Breaking the military hold on the military-industrial complex, which

was a major contributor to the gross national product (GNP), was not

easy. The complex included Fabricaciones Militares, the other Ministry of

Defense holdings, and the air force’s aircraft production companies in

Córdoba, which did not come under MOD in Alfonsín’s time. According

to a former Secretary of Defense for Technical Planning in the MOD, two

approaches were tried, and both would fall short.203

The first attempt was to set up a holding company to act as an umbrella organization for all military industries. This idea surfaced as a proposal for a bill in April 1985, seeking to establish a “General Savio State

Corporation.” This law would have repealed Law 12,709 of October 9,

1941, the founding statute of Fabricaciones Militares. The holding company was to be able to enter into negotiations for all weapons and equipment purchases and all exports and service contracts.204 This idea was

found to be unworkable in 1985. Defense Minister Jaunarena later sought

to resurrect the idea as a vehicle for privatizing military holdings. Fabricaciones Militares continued to exist as a separate entity—as would the aircraft production facilities, still under the air force—and the various companies in which the MOD had a financial interest went on as before.

The other route considered to diminish direct military control over

industries was privatization, particularly for those companies run or controlled by Fabricaciones Militares whose production was not military in

nature, such as the chemical companies. Nonetheless, the Alfonsín administration was reluctant to tamper with an economic asset, albeit one that

lost money (as did almost all state enterprises in Argentina), and one that

was so visible in the economy, providing substantial employment and

products. Moreover, in a fragile economy, the amount of private sector interest in purchasing state enterprises that might not make sense competitively was not overwhelming. Consequently, when Defense Minister

Jaunarena finally organized a series of proposals under the Defense Production Secretariat to sell five of the petrochemical companies, the naval

shipyards, and the tank factory, there was no rush of buyers for them. By

the end of the Alfonsín administration, only one company, Atanor S.A.M.,

a petrochemical concern, had been sold.205

The air force arranged the only successful efforts at joint ventures

with private interests. It worked closely with such firms as Germany’s

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 85
Dornier and Brazil’s Embraer through an aerospace joint venture firm

Fábrica Argentina de Materiales Aeroespaciales. This joint venture produced the IA–63 trainer, which sold well abroad, and led to the co-production with Brazil of a small 19-passenger transport (which debuted in

1990, after the Alfonsín government). Not only were aircraft a success economically for Argentina, but also when Defense Minister Jaunarena was

resurrecting the idea of Fabricaciones Militares as an overall agency under

the MOD, he noted that the air force was taking similar (albeit independent) action.206

The efforts of Fabricaciones Militares to sell abroad were not very

successful; the enterprise offered little that was competitive, and Foreign

Minister Dante Caputo blocked most sales anyway. The Ministry of Defense had little more luck with Tanque Argentino Mediano (TAM), an Argentine medium tank produced by the wholly owned firm of TAMSE.

Once the needs of the Argentine Army were met, efforts were made to sell

a number of units. But the eventual price at which the tank and its derivatives were offered abroad was set too high, and that, coupled with other

restrictions, meant that there were no takers. An offer from Ecuador,

which was considering replacing its dated AMX–13 with TAM, was headed

off by Alfonsín himself in conversations with Ecuador’s president.207

The Alfonsín administration’s efforts at reforming the military production capabilities of the armed forces had minimal results. The major

role of the military-industrial complex in the economy mitigated efforts to

reduce the military component of its direction, as evidenced by the retention of military personnel in key positions. Moreover, two-thirds of the

production of the 14 factories of Fabricaciones Militares went to civilian

uses anyway, and pressure was considerable to leave well enough alone.208

Successful programs, such as the air force’s aircraft construction in Córdoba, continued with a substantial degree of autonomy; marginal programs, such as the tank program, found no buyers for products or facilities, but the capabilities remained intact and remained a part of the

military-industrial complex. The navy eventually suffered the same fate; it

had invested heavily in expensive submarine and surface vessel facilities

and equipment and almost had to suspend building in the 1980s due to

lack of funds.

Overall, the attempted reallocation of resources by the Radical government did not significantly further the reform aims of the Alfonsín administration. Such adjustments as did occur seemed the result as much of

exogenous factors, such as debt and lack of manpower, as of conscious

86 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
policy. Although the armed forces clearly were obliged to “make do with

less,” their basic modus operandi remained almost unchanged, and little

restructuring that would alter the de facto patterns of subordination,

control, and influence occurred. The military, as its leaders professed

many times, recognized the dire economic situation of the country and

the need to constrain public expenditures in general. Indeed, they proclaimed themselves supporters of a smaller, but better, force.209

But the draconian nature of the budget cuts—particularly as reflected in salary cuts and substantially reduced standards of living for military personnel, especially junior officers and NCOs—engendered discontent that would result not in a “smaller, better” force but in a “smaller,

bitter” one. The armed forces saw lowered funding levels and the reduction of conscription as attacks on their institution and as efforts to reduce

their prestige by undermining their standard of living and reducing their

capabilities for self-preservation. The services responded by seeking to

take care of their own (for example, cadre strength in the army changed

little in the Alfonsín period, despite a huge drop in conscript levels, and

units continued at skeleton strengths rather than being disbanded). Attitudes toward civilian authority remained confrontational, and the legitimacy of that authority continued to be questioned. The disputes over resources manifested themselves concurrently in the severe confrontations

taking place over the military’s past actions. Reducing the military’s resources was seen not as reform, but as retribution.

Education and Socialization

Attempts to reform military missions and structures made apparent

the visible manifestations of the civil-military relationship. But less tangible was the reform of mentality, or of the attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments,

and the loyalties that they engender, that undergirded the military establishment and informed civil-military relations.

The focus of establishing new patterns of military socialization, from

the top of the hierarchy down, was the military education system. This system, which had existed for decades, was responsible for the mentality in

the military at the time Alfonsín took office. Understanding this will assist

in examining the two major parts of the Radical administration’s attempts

to change estado militar: altering military socialization patterns and conducting a review of the past.

The military education system in Argentina is one of the most complete in Latin America. It begins with a system of military high schools (of

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 87
which there were six army, one air force, and four navy during the Alfonsín era)210 and continues with the service academies. The oldest of these,

the army’s Colegio Militar de la Nación, dates to 1869. The academies are

the sole source of officers for regular line and staff (excluding doctors,

lawyers, and other professionals) in all three services. Throughout an officer’s career, more service-run schools educate the lower, middle, and

higher grade officers and NCOs. Consequently, ever-higher levels of military schooling continue reinforcing an officer’s initial socialization.

The Alfonsín administration realized that instilling a change in military attitudes was essential for the long-term effectiveness of democratic,

civilian government. But although the need for considerable changes in

the military educational system was evident, the actual changes in the system were relatively few, and those that were made were left almost entirely

in the hands of the armed forces (with the exception of the creation by the

Ministry of Defense, through the Joint Staff, of the Senior Joint Staff

Course for higher level officers). The National Defense School (Escuela de

Defensa Nacional), with a student body of both military and civilian middle-range government officials, received a civilian director under the Alfonsín administration, and more prestige and consideration were sought

for it as the highest level educational institution directly subordinate to the

Ministry of Defense.

Efforts to close the military high schools (as one Radical former

functionary of the Alfonsín government said, such military training

should not begin at 12 years old)211 or turn them over to the Ministry of

Education, allegedly as a budget-saving measure, were unsuccessful. Consequently, a portion of the high-school population of Argentina continued

to receive what some Radical politicians considered indoctrination by the

military. (Perhaps it was just too hard a sell; Alfonsín himself was a graduate of Liceo Militar San Martín.)

But the main focus of the Alfonsín administration’s efforts to

change the military attitudes was on the service academies. It sought curriculum changes that not only would update the curriculum to be more

technologically and scientifically proficient and “professional,” but also

would imbue the cadets and midshipmen with ideas in consonance with

democratic government and the marginalization of the military from

politics. However, no corresponding change in structure occurred. Each

service maintained control of the details of the curriculum change at the

academies. For example, the head of the Colegio Militar de la Nación from

1983 to 1987, General Deimundo Piñeiro, tried to redefine the concept of

88 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
military authority and command, institute a modern, scientific curriculum similar to a college or university, and imbue the cadets with a sense

of realism concerning the changed political circumstances.212 His goal was

not a democratic army—although many in the Radical administration

would have preferred a “citizen-soldier” military, or as some officers

phrased it, a “sovietized” military, perhaps even with unions on the European social-democratic model.213 Deimundo Piñeiro wanted “an army

that knows how to live in a democratic system.”214 But as the sole-source

procurement mechanism, the service academies providing all line and

staff officers still inculcated the aspiring officers with a value system in

which military beliefs had primacy.

The other main initiative was to civilianize some of both form and

content, in the education of officers particularly. In 1986, Army Chief of

Staff General Ríos Ereñú presented a plan, the Career Plans for Permanent Cadres of the Army, that sought to incorporate features such as degrees and university courses into the army curriculum for officers at all

levels.215 But no equivalent of the Reserve Officers Training Corps was

achieved in Argentina. The army schools continued to be self-contained,

the navy and air force arranged to expose their cadets to civilian collegelevel courses through cooperating universities, and efforts were made to

have appointments to the faculty at the academies made by virtue of

competitive examination. But no concerted effort was made to move

these procedures to the Ministry of Defense.216 The furthering of “comprehension” between military and civilian was occurring on terms that

the services could sustain without real reform. Consequently, relationships between military and civilian institutions of higher learning remained cozy and inbred, and retired officers continued to dominate the

civilian faculties of the military educational establishment, particularly

those of the higher level war schools.

Clearly, none of these alterations could affect the socialization of

those who had already passed through the military educational system.

The changes caused consternation among the faculty and students of the

military institutions, and many viewed them as another aspect of civilian

attack on these institutions. The attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments inculcated by the military educational and socialization process for generations

found their most salient expression not in questions of reform that related

to what the military would learn or do in the future, but what it had

learned or done in the past.

MILITARY REFORM UNDER ALFONSÍN 89
Chapter Five

Review of the Past, Rebellion,

and Reconciliation under

Alfonsín

President Alfonsín sought to establish new patterns of subordination

and control of, and influence over, the military based on the legitimacy of the constitutional, civilian government in matters of defense and military policy. Undertaking such a task was itself daunting

enough in a society in which military application of force to establish either external or internal order and governance was accepted as a matter of

fact. But in the Argentine case, the new government was obliged to look

both forward, toward efforts to establish civilian supremacy, and backward, at history and its own pledges from the election of 1983 to hold the

military establishment accountable for the actions of its forces under the

Proceso government. This contest over primacy in the relationship between the civilian authorities and the military establishment centered on

the Dirty War, the antisubversive operations of 1976–1979.

Legacy of the Dirty War

The military and the Radical government had very different perceptions about the conduct and the consequences of these operations. The

military saw the antisubversive operations as a real war, waged against

guerrilla bands that were ideologically communist and externally supported. The armed forces documented 21,642 terrorist acts from 1969 to

1979 that were said to have resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 civilians

and hundreds of soldiers and police officers.217 Acting under orders promulgated by the civilian government of María Estela Martínez de Perón, the

military had succeeded in annihilating the guerrilla bands that had

91
plagued the country since the late 1960s, especially the ERP and the Montoneros, the extremist youth offshoot of the Peronists. In the military view,

this war was necessary, indeed crucial, in turning back the forces of antiChristian, anti-Western totalitarianism that threatened the Argentine way

of life. The armed forces felt that the cause was just and obligatory, the legitimate execution of the mission of the military in Argentina. The law of

force had the force of law.218

For the new Radical government, which saw the war quite differently,

the focus of the antisubversive operation was not the extermination of the

guerrilla bands, but the concurrent annihilation of thousands of others

caught in the military dragnet. These were the desaparecidos, people tagged

with the all-inclusive title of subversivos. For the Radicals, the military was

not out to eliminate subversion, in the narrow sense of overcoming armed

aggression by small groups, but to eliminate subversives, who were all

those who challenged in any way the Proceso government and its military

underpinnings. They believed General Ibérico Saint-Jean when he said in

1977, “First we will kill all the subversives; then . . . we will kill their sympathizers; then... those who remain indifferent, and finally we will kill the

undecided ones.”219 More than a few members of the Radical government

had had relatives (for example, Minister of Interior Enrique Nosiglia’s sister) who were caught in the military campaign to break the back of armed

resistance.220 Many civilians regarded the active involvement of the military intelligence services, as well as the then-military-dominated State Information Service, as the activity of right-wing death squads. Unsubstantiated but widely believed estimates of the number of desaparecidos

reached 30,000 as the administration took office. (Although this was more

than three times the number generally accepted later, such figures contributed to the highly charged atmosphere in which accounting for the

past occurred.) As a result, the Radical promise to seek justice in the matter of the antisubversive operations was infused with a sense of the need

for condemnation, retribution, and punishment.

Consequently, the military was under no illusions as to what might

happen once the civilian government was in power. Even before Alfonsín’s

election, the Bignone government tried to preempt the actions of the successor regime by according amnesty both to persons guilty of terrorism

and subversion and to those who tried to suppress such activities.221 This

act was, in effect, a self-amnesty for the military, which hoped to get the

matter of the consequences of the antisubversive operation off the table

before the new government came to power.

92 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Sweeping Changes

That was not to be. Three days after taking office, Alfonsín issued Decree 158, submitting to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the

highest military tribunal, the nine members of the three military juntas

that had formed the Proceso government, not just the first two as he had

promised during the campaign.222 They were to be tried under military jurisdiction for homicide, illegal detention, and torture. In January, a similar

decree was issued for General Ramón Camps, who, outside of the juntas,

was the number-one target for human rights violations allegedly committed while he was Buenos Aires Provincial Police Chief.223

Moreover, Alfonsín declared the Bignone-era law of amnesty null

and void. This action had the net effect of returning the cases against alleged terrorists and guerrillas to the normal legal channels. The military,

on the other hand, was opened to charges and summary court action in

military courts.

But the most far-reaching change that Alfonsín, acting through the

Congress, made was Law 23,049 modifying the Code of Military Justice.224

This law struck at the heart of estado militar, seeking to end virtual military autonomy in accountability of military members before the law. Of

the new law’s many provisions, most germane to the civil-military relationship was Article 10, which provided for ex post facto judgment by the

Supreme Council of the actions of military personnel and security personnel under their jurisdiction at the time, provided that such actions occurred between March 24, 1976, and September 26, 1983 (during the Proceso regime up to the Bignone-era law granting amnesty) and that these

actions were related to alleged crimes committed in the repression of terrorism. Moreover, it provided that the rulings of the Supreme Council of

the Armed Forces could be appealed, or, if the Council did not act within

6 months, could be referred to the jurisdiction of the Federal Appeals

Courts. In addition, it provided that common crimes—those not military

in nature under the Code but committed by military personnel—would be

handled by civilian courts. The military regarded this provision as devastating, as rank interference in internal discipline, and as an example of setting one level of the military against another.225

The situation that the Alfonsín government presented with these actions was extremely disturbing to the military. Although Alfonsín had left

the actual process in military hands (the Supreme Council of the Armed

Forces), the tone of the documents—especially Decree 158, with its categorical denunciations of the activities of the military under the three juntas—

REVIEW OF THE PAST 93
was that guilt had already been determined and that all that remained was

the punishment.226 And the condemnation was quite political in nature; the

accused, at least these nine high-ranking officers, were leaders of the government during the antisubversive operations as well as leaders of the military services. And the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, formerly the

final arbiter of military justice, was reduced essentially to a court of first instance, subject to review by the Federal Appeals Courts. In the view of the

officers, this assault on military rights and privileges was harsh, vindictive,

judgmental, and wrong.227

The military never admitted that the trials of the nine junta members

were anything but illegal and unconstitutional (much later, military members and their sympathizers wrote long articles and gave interviews pointing out the lack of legal grounding and the denial of due process that they

believed characterized those trials). Had the matter ended there, as Alfonsín and others had implied that it would with the two decrees naming specific individuals, the imminent civil-military confrontation might have

been avoided.228 But Law 23,049, which modified the Code of Military Justice, opened the door to hundreds of accusers against large numbers of

military personnel and security force personnel. The law stated: “It will not

be necessary in these cases that an indictment be drawn up, and the trial

(before the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) will be initiated by accusation or by the Council sua sponte.”229 This permitted an official commission, the National Commission about the Disappearance of Persons

(Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas, or CONADEP), to

gather evidence to support that the military during the antisubversive operations had carried out a vast program of repression on ideological

grounds against innocents, not just a counterguerrilla war as the military

contended. The law energized the human rights organizations to begin accusing hundreds of officers of violations that could now be brought before

the military bar.

Events reached their nadir for the military within 6 months of the

publication of this law. In July 1984, as a portent of things to come, six

human rights organizations gave the Senate committee considering armed

forces promotions a list of 896 officers whom they accused of having committed human rights violations during the previous decade.230 But in late

September the full effect of the difference in perceptions was made clear

by two events and their consequences that would condition civil-military

relations until the end of Alfonsín’s term and beyond.

94 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
On September 20, 1984, CONADEP submitted its report to the administration. The document was the unapologetic product of those seeking

to bring the military to justice for the purpose of condemnation and punishment (CONADEP, led by leftist writer and human rights activist Ernesto

Sábato, and including others of similar orientation, made no pretense of

impartiality; no military voice was heard in the Commission). The report,

entitled Nunca Más (Never Again), included the testimony of family and

friends of the disappeared and exposition of scores of alleged detention

centers. CONADEP estimated that some 9,000 persons, not 30,000, had

constituted the disappeared (even that lower figure remains disputed; desaparecidos kept turning up, with documented cases in Mexico, France, and

Holland), and that 340 detention centers had existed.231 It opened 7,380

files on victims and prepared 1,086 files for use in cases denouncing military personnel for crimes during the antisubversive campaign. The commission excoriated the military for having carried out a program of extreme repression. And by this time, more than 200 cases were already in the

hands of the Supreme Council. The military, almost en masse, regarded the

whole process conducted by CONADEP as one of extraordinary and

wholesale condemnation instead of impartial investigation.232

The other signal event of this time was the Supreme Council of the

Armed Forces report that it could reach no conclusion about the nine

junta members and therefore could not hand down sentences within the

time frame prescribed by Law 23,049, even with an extension that had

been granted. But beyond that, the Supreme Council made clear what the

military position on the antisubversive struggle would be. In its note submitted to the National Federal Criminal Appellate Court, which had jurisdiction in the event of no conclusion, the Council stated that the antisubversive operations had been perfectly legal “from the viewpoint of form

and substance” and that the accused (the nine junta members plus Camps)

could only be indirectly charged with malfeasance.233 Furthermore, it impugned the evidence gathered by the human rights organizations as selfserving and probably collaborative. On this basis, the Supreme Council

pleaded insufficient evidence and an inability to arrive at the truth.

The Supreme Council report “fell like a bombshell,” and the effects

were immediate.234 The Federal Appellate Court asked for the documentation on the cases for perusal, anticipating (correctly) that the Supreme

Council would not meet the October 11 deadline for a verdict. The

Supreme Council in a separate note asked Defense Minister Borrás to stem

the tide of complaints that came after its announcement that it would not

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convict the military juntas and Camps. But Borrás replied that if the

Council had trouble with criticism, including slander, it too had recourse

to the courts. An outraged General Tomás Sánchez de Bustamente, the

head of the Supreme Council, led the Supreme Council of the Armed

Forces to resign en masse. The trials of the nine junta members continued

in a civilian court, but they did not open until April 22, 1985.

Although these trials and the attendant activities of the human rights

organizations (nine separate organizations, plus CONADEP, competed

and cooperated for attention in this arena) dominated public attention in

the early part of the Alfonsín administration, two other trends discernable

in the patterns of civil-military relations proved crucial in their later evolution. One was the increasing incidence of military figures taking issue

with what many in the armed forces believed was a deliberate campaign to

undermine the military’s prestige and position in Argentine society. Initially confined to a few public statements by generals—such as one by

General Aguado Benítez in January 1984, which prompted a reprimand

and a “gag rule” by the administration—personnel at all levels of the military, active and retired, increasingly took up the counterattack against the

human rights organizations and the media’s views of things. The core of

the counterattack was that the military had fought and won a war against

armed internal aggression but that the aggression was continuing against

the armed forces in the guise of a human rights campaign. The charges

and accusations of the human rights organizations and CONADEP were

simply the latest phase of the subversion, intended to win off the battlefield what had not been won on it. Military officers labeled younger members of the Radical Party in government, often tied to Coordinadora, as

subversivos vergonzantes (shameful subversives) bent on destroying the

military from within the government.235 Other public expressions of alarm

and resistance to the idea of putting the military institution in the dock

along with hundreds of its officers surfaced as early as April 1984, in remarks by Army Chief of Staff Arguindegui and a group of senior army and

air force officers.236

The second trend was embodied in indications by Alfonsín and some

of his top advisors, such as Defense Minister Borrás, that the early outpouring of demands to indict the entire military establishment and to

punish hundreds of its officers for criminal misconduct eventually would

have to be restrained, that reconciliation would have to come. The clear

implication of the party platform and early public pronouncements of the

president-elect was that justice should be meted out only to the juntas, and

96 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
even then just to the first two.237 But by the time the Code of Military Justice revisions were passed, the call for an accounting clearly had spread far

beyond those limits. Nonetheless, as early as March 1984, Alfonsín publicly

indicated that “a soldier must discharge his duties by obeying the orders of

his commander, the commander must in turn be willing to adequately discharge the mission entrusted to him by law.”238 He tempered this allusion

to what became known as “due obedience” in this and other speeches by

referring frequently to the necessity for the rule of law, the establishing of

the Estado de Ley. He also struck themes of reconciliation and “putting

aside divisions,” as in his Flag Day speech of June 1984.239 In the first of

several speeches delivered at the annual Armed Forces Comradeship Day

dinner, Alfonsín averred his belief that the men in uniform had committed “errors, serious errors” but that these errors should be recognized

“without looking backward in a revanchist spirit.”240

But for many months, the public outcry led by the human rights organizations drowned out any other observations on military actions in the

antisubversive campaign. Barely noticed was the circulation in August

1984 of an anonymous flyer in the Campo de Mayo army garrison bearing

the name of Major Barreiro (the attempted arrest of whom would touch

off the Semana Santa uprising in 1987). Although apocalyptic in tone, the

flyer was prophetic in content:

We, the officers and noncommissioned officers of the nation’s Armed

Forces, guardians of the nation’s arms, under the sign of the cross, by

the will and decision of our Hispanic-American heritage, in keeping

with our honorable pledge to our sacred flag, and in view of the blood

shed by our predecessors categorically repudiate the government’s

procedures against our comrades-in-arms who struggled, in their role

as soldiers, against the disruptive power of Marxism now disguised

under social democracy. And we warn those who advocate their desire

to live in peace and democracy that their attitude is far from the path

that will allow them to achieve their objectives. Determined in our decision not to yield to nor to negotiate with the enemy, we extend this

warning to all those commanders who may yield to the pressure exerted by the enemy and hand over their subordinates without even

putting up resistance to the order to do so.241

Although the names typed on this pronouncement attributed it to a

small group of junior officers, it reflected fairly faithfully the modal attitude of military officers—particularly the retired military, whose ranks at

REVIEW OF THE PAST 97
the senior level had been swelled by the many retirements, resignations,

and dismissals of the Alfonsín administration.

Moreover, the bulk of the allegations fell among the retired and

soon-to-be-retired officers who were the senior leaders during the antisubversive operations. Active-duty officers, working in circumstances

changed radically by the Alfonsín administration’s reform attempts,

tended to be more circumspect. But the consensus of opinion within the

military was clear: The antisubversive war had been legal and justified, and

if excesses had been committed, the matter could be settled by disciplining

a few individuals (which the army had even done to about 30 members,

including 2 officers, before the Alfonsín regime came to power).

Military personnel expressed little doubt that they had tradition,

virtue, and principle squarely on their side in the matter of the Dirty War.

But the determination of significant elements of the military to avoid accountability on the civilians’ terms led to severe internal discipline problems. The navy and air force—blessed with continuity at the top, relatively

few members accused of misconduct, and no internal problems of the

scope that afflicted the army—quickly handled the minor incidents that

occurred in their ranks in the late 1980s.242

But the army was an entirely different story. Hundreds of officers, including junior ones, stood accused and faced losing everything if brought

before the courts. They had been the front-line troops in the antisubversive operations, directly engaging the guerrillas and carrying out the orders of their superiors.243 Increasingly, those who had issued the orders

were being retired and had their own problems. Consequently, as the trials and accusations continued in 1985 and 1986, younger officers became

distrustful of, and embittered toward, their internal military hierarchy,

particularly the Army Chief of Staff. Horizontal loyalties surged against

vertical loyalties.244 Demoralizing the army, as the pay cuts, lack of equipment, and perceived campaign of calumny had done, did not depoliticize

it. Those who shared the experience and sacrifices of the Dirty War and the

Malvinas war—especially those in the army who had ties going back to the

Colegio Militar and within the army’s branches—were dismayed by the assaults they sustained for what they considered honorable, indeed nationsaving, service. The serious questioning of military accountability raised

serious questions of military discipline.

The years 1985 and 1986 provided plenty of grist for the confrontational mill of the civil-military relationship. The disputes centered on four

main issues, all of which the military perceived as striking directly at the

98 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
viability of their institutions and the legitimacy of their past and present

conduct. The first was a lack of recognition of what the military considered its praiseworthy role in the antisubversive operations and the Malvinas war. The second were the trials, viewed as an attempt by the government and particularly by elements of the Radical Party allied with the

human rights organizations, to condemn the military for its actions in the

antisubversive operations and to punish hundreds of officers for doing

their duty. The third was the military perception of a public campaign assisted by government-controlled communications media to besmirch the

honor and ethics of the military institutions. The fourth was the enforced

penury placed on military personnel by the reductions in the military

budgets. The cutbacks were viewed both as an attack on the military’s

prestige in the society and as an undermining of its standard of living, a

life free from real want having been regarded as a perquisite of a military

officer’s career.

The Trials

On April 22, 1985, the trials of the nine members of the three juntas

of the Proceso government opened in public session in the Federal Appellate Court of Buenos Aires. These trials did nothing to allay the emotions

on either side of the battle for right in the consequences of the antisubversive war. But the positions of the two sides on the legitimacy of military

actions did not change. General Videla, the president during the first of the

three juntas, refused to present a defense, arguing that only the military

could be his “natural” judges as required by the Constitution.245 He maintained this stand even in the face of such testimony as that of retired General Alejandro Lanusse, who had been president in the early 1970s.

Lanusse testified that members of the first two juntas, plus Generals

Camps and Suárez Mason (the latter fled to the United States and was extradited much later), had personally known of and participated in criminal acts in the antisubversive campaign.

The government, but not all of the Radical Party and certainly not all

of the populace, clearly hoped that the trials of the juntas and the generals

would be sufficient to establish culpability. On July 7, 1985, President Alfonsín gave an extraordinary speech in his second appearance at an Armed

Forces Comradeship Day dinner246 in which he deplored the “progressive

loss of our state of legality” over the previous 50 years. But he did not

blame the military for that, even as the instigator of coups: “The coups

have always been civilian-military in character.” From this state of illegality, he averred, terrorism emerged, an expression of the “cultural decay” of

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Argentina. The state (that is, the military) had fought violence with violence, perpetuating the cultural decay. The solution, he said, was a “gigantic cultural reform” called democracy. The military, a product of the nondemocratic culture, had fallen into error.

But he also clearly indicated that revenge was not an acceptable

method of cultural reform: “We know perfectly well that there are those

who confuse justice with vengeance and that disintegrating forces are still

on the move in Argentina’s disorganized society who would like us to believe that those who are seated in the chair of the accused are not individuals but the Armed Forces.” This he deemed an insult to the nation’s institutions. He blamed the latest illegalities of the Armed Forces on leaders

who had led it astray, a consequence of authoritarian rule (those leaders

were, not coincidentally, on trial). But he also blamed civilians and the

fractious groups in Argentine society for seeking to use the military to selfish purposes. He ended the speech with a call for reconciliation.

Other straws were in the wind at about the same time that a solution

to the accountability problem was reached. Army Chief of Staff Ríos Ereñú

prophesied that the trials under way (which he considered lopsided and

lacking a proper accounting for the preexisting situation to the 1976–1979

operations) would have “a final solution that would be a political solution

guaranteed by a legal act”247—in other words, leading to an eventual

amnesty or pardon.

Although the senior active-duty officers tended to keep quiet about

the trials, the retired officers did not. Groups of retired officers stubbornly

defended the rightness of the military’s actions in the antisubversive operations. They also rallied around a pro-military organization called Relatives

of the Victims of Subversion, organized as a putative counterweight to

CONADEP to emphasize the sacrifices of military people and their families

who had been killed, imprisoned, or tortured by the guerrillas in the 1970s.

In mid-August 1985, an important poll emerged on public opinion

about the military.248 It revealed that 49 percent of the 800 people interviewed in 6 towns and rural areas in the Tucumán and La Pampa Provinces

thought the military “contribute to the country’s well-being,” and 50 percent thought it was “harmful,” almost a dead heat. Even more revealing,

given the tremendous publicity (most of it prejudicial to the military) surrounding the review of the past, CONADEP, and the trials, only 33 percent

thought the military should act “only in case of an external attack,”while 67

percent felt their mandate included dealing with the cases of “terrorist aggression or internal subversion.” Interviewees expressed this appreciation of

100 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
the role of the military and its mission in spite of their ranking of the military as last of 12 institutions in prestige value and their 79 percent approval

rating of the trials of the junta members.

The prosecution presentation in the trials closed in September 1985.

The state prosecutor asked for life in prison for 5 of the 9 and 10 to 15

years each for the other 4. The defense presentation went on for weeks,

based on the contention that the military had acted not against innocents

but against aggressors in a “revolutionary war.” Meanwhile, hundreds of

other accusations and charges piled up, reaching some 1,700 denunciations affecting about 300 officers of the military and security forces, most

of them army.

On November 11, 1985, in the midst of the junta trial, the trial by the

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of 16 officers charged with political and military misconduct in the South Atlantic War (Malvinas war)

began. These charges grew out of an investigation by a military commission headed by retired Lieutenant General Benjamín Rattenbach. Those

accused included members of the last of the three juntas, General Galtieri,

Admiral Anaya, and air force Brigadier General Lami Dozo, who were also

awaiting the outcome of the human rights trials. No civilian or military

dissent was raised in this matter of accountability in the Malvinas.

On December 9, 1985, the verdicts in the trials of the three juntas

were announced. General Videla and Admiral Massera were given life sentences, General Viola 17 years, Admiral Lambruschini 8 years, and

Brigadier General Orlando Agosti 41

⁄2 years imprisonment. The other

four—air force Brigadier General Omar Graffigna, Galtieri, Anaya, and

Lami Dozo—were acquitted, although the latter three remained in confinement while being tried on the Malvinas charges. All guilty sentences

were immediately appealed to the Argentine Supreme Court.

More significantly for civil-military relations, the other hundreds of

cases that had backed up pending the resolution of the trial of the juntas

were remanded to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for action

against area and unit commanders and military officers in charge of operations in which criminal acts allegedly took place.249 But in remanding the

cases, the civilian court did not distinguish between those responsible for

the excesses and those acting in due obedience, that is, following orders,

since Law 23,049 did not permit that discrimination in Dirty War cases.

The decision to remand the cases began debate over two notions of signal

importance in assessing accountability in terms of civil-military relations:

punto final (full stop), an end to the time in which military officers could

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be investigated and summoned to court to answer for alleged misconduct;

and obediencia debida (due obedience), distinguishing between those who

decided on and planned illegal acts and those who were simply instruments of action. Civil-military relations for the next year and a half were

caught up in these two concepts.

The year 1986 was a time of efforts to steadily shrink the scope of accountability except as exercised by the military itself, such as in the case of

the trials as a consequence of the Malvinas war. And it marked the beginning of a series of occasions in which the Alfonsín government did not

treat the military as a subordinate instrument of policy, which was the

focus of the reform efforts, but as essentially a political entity, one with

which bargains could be struck. An early example was the April 24, 1986,

instruction by Alfonsín to expedite the trials of some 300 officers then

charged. But expediting also meant paring the list, throwing out cases

deemed to have insufficient evidence (an implicit undermining of the

thousands of denunciations of Nunca Más) and cases in which the accused

were “following orders.” Predictably, Army Chief of Staff Ríos Ereñú hailed

this turn of events as a breakthrough, affirming the role of the judicial

process; the human rights groups saw it as a “camouflaged amnesty.”250

In May 1986, the sentences in the Malvinas war trial came down: 12

years for Galtieri, 14 for Anaya, and 8 for Lami Dozo. Ríos Ereñú got to the

heart of this decision: “The most important thing is the establishment and

the fulfillment of the Armed Forces Supreme Council role of studying the

case and of administering justice.”251 But the Supreme Council did not act

with any such dispatch in the 300 or so cases on its hands stemming from

the antisubversive operations. Consequently, the 6-month time frame for

Council action again expired, and the cases went to the federal courts—

awakening expectations in the military that a new round of trials would

ensue. Alfonsín had made no assessment of culpability in the antisubversive operations, and he had not followed up his order to expedite trials

with how to go about it. He was left with finding a way to conclude the trials without calling for an amnesty. His step toward reconciliation, as he

saw it, was the punto final law.

In October 1986, another poll revealed that the military was still near

the bottom in prestige, but not in perceived power.252 The poll, which sampled 800 people in both the federal capital and metropolitan areas of

Buenos Aires, showed the military well down the list on prestige; only 2.2

percent of respondents put it highest. The top two winners were the

Catholic Church (22.6 percent) and the political parties (18.7 percent).

102 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
But when respondents were asked to rank by power, the political parties

got a 23.5 percent ranking, the Church 16.6 percent, and the military was

third at 11.5 percent, ahead even of the legislative, executive, and judicial

branches. The pollsters interpreted this as a sign that the military still had

a “veto” power in politics. Moreover, the renowned Argentine sociologist

Torcuato di Tella, commenting on the disparity between prestige and

power, pronounced it “dangerous, not only for them but for a balanced

democracy. In the countries of greatest political stability, the military get

more respect from the public, and thus they become more closely tied to

national consensus.” Polls such as this (published in the mass-circulation

daily Clarín) probably confirmed the views of many in the military that

they were being denied their rightful place and that a campaign to demoralize and discredit them was indeed affecting the public adversely.

On December 24, 1986, just before the summer vacation period

when government activity practically ceases, the government promulgated

Law 23,492, essentially repealing Article 10 of Law 23,049.253 This punto

final law had two main points. Those officers not subjected to a judicial inquiry within 60 days of the sanctioning of the law would be freed from

prosecution; and the federal appellate courts were authorized to take over

any human rights case being considered regardless of its status.

Although the punto final law was intended to assure the military that

a certain end would come to the trials, in the short run it had the opposite

effect. The federal courts worked through the vacation period, issuing

hundreds of new summons for military personnel to appear—indicating

that some in the now-independent judiciary were unwilling to close the

book on the military’s alleged misconduct without at least calling in as

many military personnel as possible for questioning.254

Moreover, in December 1986, the Supreme Court upheld at their

original level the convictions of the five junta members found guilty in the

trials, and General Camps, the unrepentant and arrogant general who personified the excesses of the antisubversive operations, was sentenced to 25

years in jail. These events set up the coming confrontation between some

junior officers, with the support of many retired ones, against the current

army hierarchy. In the words of General Ríos Ereñú,“Punto final had the effect of presenting me as on the side of the government against the army.”255

Horizontal and vertical loyalty again were at odds with each other.

In addition, the military detractors clearly were unprepared to settle

for a legal, juridical denouement that they felt sure would be a condemnation. Secure in their own minds that the antisubversive operations had been

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right, proper, and legitimate, they would seek not judgment, but vindication. Many retired officers absolutely opposed any accommodations and

accused Ríos Ereñú of being corrupt, a traitor who surrendered the military.256 Nor had other frustrations diminished: the perceived collaboration

between elements of the government (particularly the newly prominent

members of Coordinadora) and the media to tarnish the reputation of the

military and to portray military personnel as responsible for all the troubles

of the country; and the continued frustration of low pay (particularly acute

among junior officers) and no money to conduct operations.257

The punto final law focused the trial process, now almost entirely in

civilian hands, on real cases involving scores of officers and hundreds of

lower ranking members. The requirement in the law for a summons to appear in court to be questioned about the alleged involvements sharpened

the conflict. The nominal end date for such citations was February 22,

1987, but jurisdictional battles envisioned in the law effectively extended

that deadline in many cases. Military officers who failed to appear when

summoned were to be cashiered.

Although thousands of allegations and denunciations had been

made against members of the military, the number in which evidence was

deemed sufficient to issue a citation to appear was far fewer. The numbers

were nonetheless very significant. The total number of human rights trials

(resulting from the consequences of the antisubversive operations)

processed during the punto final period was 450, of which 173 defendants

were Armed Forces officers (the other 277 were NCOs, gendarmes, Coast

Guard, or police).258 The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces also

seemed increasingly less likely to decide the outcome of these cases, since

it had been effectively reduced to a court of first instance. The Council was

under fire from the federal appellate court for allegedly delaying processing of cases before the punto final law and for dismissing charges against a

group of admirals accused in trials centered on the Navy Mechanics

School (Escuela Mecánica de la Armada, or ESMA), which had achieved a

reputation as the most vile of the torture centers during the antisubversive

operations. The courts, then, were prepared to proceed.

Moreover, members of the junior ranks and many retired officers

viewed the army High Command as being equivocal, a perception borne

out in an Army General Staff document published in La Crónica newspaper of March 24, 1987. The report stated that “if cases stemming from the

war on terrorism are brought to trial, one must believe that the truth will

emerge in court” and that “the army not only seeks court investigations

104 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
but also a full vindication of the war and of the comrades-in-arms who

fought it.”259 To those committed to the legitimacy of force in the antisubversive war, the two were mutually exclusive. Especially to the junior officers who had been lieutenants in the antisubversive war and in Malvinas

and who had taken most of the casualties, it seemed that they would bear

the brunt of this fight too.260 For them, vindication consisted of vitiating

the role of the courts, and by implication, the rule of law as decided by

civilian politics. Since the military had been cast in the role of political adversary, many demanded a political solution—meaning virtual exemption

of the military from control by civilians, except in the most nominal sense.

Legitimacy of the role of the armed forces would then be sui generis, devolving to a political culture in which different bases for legitimate rule

compete for primacy. A crisis of authority, with horizontal and vertical

loyalties working precisely at cross-purposes to influence the patterns of

civil-military relations, was imminent.261

The Uprisings

On April 7, 1987, the Supreme Court of Argentina declared rebellion

a common crime (one not tried in military courts) in response to a motion by the first junta to have its appeals heard by the Supreme Council of

the Armed Forces. This action was intended to apply to a situation in

which the junta members had rebelled in taking over the government from

the constitutional authorities in March 1976. They could not know that an

uprising that would challenge the chain of command and discipline was

about to take place.

Semana Santa

On April 15, 1987, Major Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro took refuge in

the garrison of the 14th Infantry Regiment at Córdoba, refusing to obey a

summons to appear at Federal Court for a statement in the La Perla

human rights case. He was cashiered under the Code of Military Justice.

Police were sent to apprehend him for contempt of court, but some members of the Córdoba garrison supported him (or at least would not assist

in apprehending him).

President Alfonsín recognized the Barreiro refusal for what it was;

the gauntlet had been thrown down on the question of the trials. He

tried to preempt the incipient rebellion, telling Congress on April 16 that

“this is not just an emotional reaction on the part of an individual but a

calculated maneuver by a group of men who seek to do something that

would force the government to negotiate its position.”262 He called on all

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members of the armed forces to obey the orders of their superiors and

their commander in chief (himself).

But Barreiro was not alone in his resistance. Many officers of the 14th

Infantry Regiment rallied to his cause and refused to assist in his arrest.

The chain of command of the army had been broken; junior officers had

compromised the discipline system. General Ríos Ereñú was caught in the

middle. From the administration’s point of view, the military reforms had

the desirable effect of circumscribing the autonomy of the top of the military hierarchy; but they also had severely circumscribed the Chief of

Staff’s authority over those below him, as the command authority now

rested no lower than the Minister of Defense. This put the president in the

position of having to exert his constitutionally mandated command authority himself.

On April 17, 1987, a more serious development occurred. Lieutenant Colonel Aldo Rico, identifying himself as the Commander of the

18th Infantry Regiment in San Javier, Misiones Province, announced that

he had left that remote post and had taken over the Army Infantry

School at Campo de Mayo. This action moved the rebellion much closer

to Buenos Aires. From this installation came an outpouring indicative of

the severe level of discontent and of fractured discipline in the army.

These frustrations were expressed in Communiqué Number 1, which

Rico issued from Campo de Mayo on April 17. It cited the failure of the

current army leadership to stop the injustice and humiliation heaped

upon the Armed Forces; decried the fierce and endless media attacks to

which the forces had been subjected; asserted that the war against subversion was a political issue demanding a political solution; listed the

supposed supporters of the rebellion; and claimed that the military leadership would bear the responsibility for any escalation of the situation or

repression by force.263

General Ríos Ereñú, after meeting with Alfonsín, countered with his

own communiqué, stating that he would tend to his unspecified duties as

Chief of Staff and not participate in the coming confrontation. Plans were

enacted to suppress the uprising, and the president would select his own

field commander. Ríos Ereñú, effectively sidelined from the crisis, resigned

within days, effectively fulfilling a key rebel demand even before any direct

confrontation. In the meantime, Barreiro had fled the garrison at Córdoba, and those who had shielded him, including Regimental Commander Luis Polo, surrendered.

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The crisis now centered on the Army Infantry School, controlled by

Lieutenant Colonel Rico and his colleague, Lieutenant Colonel Venturini.

The Infantry School fell under the jurisdiction of the second in command

of Campo de Mayo, General Augusto Vidal. Under his auspices and with

the assistance of General Auel (in whom Rico had confided by telephone,

since Auel was hundreds of miles away at the time), a meeting was

arranged between Rico and Venturini and Defense Minister Jaunarena,

along with two intermediaries, Lieutenant Colonel Julio Vila Melo and

Monsignor Medina, Chief of Military Chaplains.264

Although no written record of any agreement from this meeting exists, and Alfonsín later claimed that he had negotiated nothing with the

rebels, some understanding was reached. It encompassed the resignation

of Ríos Ereñú; some relief from prosecution of the middle-range officers

accused of misconduct in the antisubversive operations; an end to what

was perceived as a campaign to destroy the prestige and ethics of the military; and no use of force against the rebels.

Alfonsín went to his meeting with the rebel colonels backed by fervent public and Congressional support. As the commander in chief, Alfonsín was obliged to directly confront a dissident faction of the military.

And although the rebels did not question his authority and reiterated that

their quarrel was with their own leadership, Alfonsín’s ability to suppress

the rebellion by force if necessary was questionable. Throughout the army,

officers were refusing to arrest their rebelling comrades, let alone shoot

them. However, General Vidal, on the scene as supervisor of the military

training facilities at Campo de Mayo, convinced Rico that armed resistance

was neither necessary nor possible.265 Rico surrendered without a fight,

and the troops that were mobilized to suppress the rebellion returned to

their barracks. This turn of events was fortunate for the army; the commander of these troops, Second Army Corps Commanding General Arturo Alais, later said that he was not in a position to put down the rebellion by force.266

Rico, brought before a civilian judge in the San Isidro Federal Court,

acknowledged his “sole responsibility for events at the Infantry School.”

He explained that the troops’ refusal to obey the orders of the army hierarchy by confining themselves to the school (which some observers characterized more as a job action or a strike than a rebellion)267 was an attempt not to overthrow the government but to find a “political solution

to the problems created by the consequences of the antisubversive war.”268

A more revealing look was provided by an anonymous young army 

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captain, who had accompanied Rico throughout the incident, in remarks

to an Italian interviewer:

Did you ever want to attack the existing power system?

There was never any plan on our part against the president’s authority. We did what we did because we could not stand still and watch our

institution being taken apart, destroyed, and accept our comrades’

persecution one after another and their being condemned as criminals. The sacred pact of fraternity and mutual defense is the very

foundation of the army. Indeed how can a soldier obey if he sees individual officers being singled out and condemned without any of

their comrades standing up to defend them?

Why did you break the chain of command? Why did you rebel against

the generals too?

In fact it was the generals who broke the chain of command at the

moment they agreed to play along with the political game. For years

we were made fools of by a government that did what it wanted with

us. First it said that only the generals would be held responsible, then

it included all officers, then it talked about pacification, but meanwhile it destroyed the army, cutting its funds and allowing officers’ living standards to deteriorate. Moreover, it subjected us to constant

moral attacks and isolated us from society.

In this connection are you calling now for a political solution to the

plans [sic] for the past?

What we are saying is that the context of the war on subversion is now

forgotten. A bomb used to explode every 5 minutes and the Marxists

had a comprehensive organization, with weapons, bases, and foreign

aid. It was a war in which the country’s very existence was at stake. We

were ordered to fight it. I was 24 when I was sent into the mountains

and I know what it is like to be approached by an armed man ready

to kill me. We fought that war for Argentina and now we are being

treated like criminals.

Do you therefore want a reassessment of the positive role of that war?

Yes. There is no chance of restoring dignity to our institution unless

there is a reassessment of that historic event and of that war’s importance for this country.

Do you deny that there were massacres, tortures, and mass disappearances?

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There was a fabrication, a total manipulation, created by the very people whom we were fighting. For instance, who manufactured the evidence for the trials: Marxist intellectuals, politicians—all people who

stood to benefit politically from these charges.

It is said . . . you told a general that you did not mind dying. Is that

true?

Yes, I risked my life, 25 years imprisonment, and my children’s future

in that revolt; but unless you have that total dedication there is no

point in living as a soldier.

It is statements like that which make people say that you are an elite

group with a messianic mission.

No. In fact we had the lowliest role in combating subversion. We dealt

solely with its armed wing, not its brains, which for that matter still

exist and are perpetuating themselves in the universities. We only

want to serve the constitution with honor.

What if the president does not satisfy your demands?

I believe that he will satisfy them.269

The Semana Santa uprising was over in 4 days. It involved only about

150 military personnel, caused no casualties, and counted on no open support from other armed forces.270 But it had profound effects on the patterns of subordination, control, and influence in the remaining years of

the Alfonsín administration. Although it was not so apparent at the time,

Alfonsín had in effect negotiated with a rebel faction of the army that had

broken the chain of command and that was supported, actively and passively, by others in the military. The problem of loyalty within the army

had not been resolved. The civil-military relationship remained conflictual, a seesaw balance punctuated by rebellion and insubordination.271

In the wake of this first uprising, on April 28, 1987, another poll appeared in the newspaper La Nación in an article on “The Power and Legitimacy of the Armed Forces.” The military profession again scored lowest

in the esteem of those polled (farmers, 91 percent favorable; political parties, 71 percent; bishops and priests, 58 percent; and military, 42 percent).

Sixty-seven percent of the interviewees blamed the country’s problems on

the Proceso government. But the question about the proper mission for the

military elicited the same response division as the 1985 poll: 32 percent

said it should have only an external mission, but 68 percent said that the

armed forces also should act in case of internal aggression. One Argentine

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professor, using this poll to seek to explain public attitudes on the military,

declared the populace “schizophrenic.” The Argentine public largely condemned the past military leadership, but a two-to-one margin felt the military institution was still right for resolving internal conflicts.272

Alfonsín enjoyed a tremendous outpouring of popular support in

the plazas and in the Congress and was perceived as having faced down the

rebels. However, administration policy and the actions of Congress reflected that the military, and especially the army, was still a political force

to be reckoned with, that the apolitical military contemplated by constitutional structure and the rule of law was not yet the force in being, and that

the political authority of elected leaders was, despite de jure reforms to

date, still subject to challenge. The most immediate evidence of this, coming swiftly on the heels of the Semana Santa uprising, was the Alfonsín administration’s proposal of the obediencia debida bill to Congress. The original version of this bill would have exempted all military and security

personnel at or below the rank of lieutenant colonel during the Dirty War

from prosecution for crimes allegedly perpetrated during the antisubversion operations (including kidnapping, torture, and murder—those

crimes contemplated in Article 10, Law 23,049) “because it is presumed

that these actions were committed under the due obedience principle.”273

Regardless of contrary evidence, officers in those cases were presumed to

have acted under the coercion of a superior. The reformed Code of Military Justice had an obediencia debida provision, but Congress had inserted

a provision then that opened the door to the human rights charges: that

the code would not apply in the case of officers who committed “atrocities

or abnormal crimes”—in other words, Dirty War violations.274

On May 7, 1987, Attorney General Juan Octavio Gauna issued a ruling that struck down the “atrocities or abnormal crimes” exemption to the

old obediencia debida provision of Article 514 of the Code of Military Justice. Declaring the exemption unconstitutional since it was ex post facto law

under the terms of Law 23,049, this decision paved the way for consideration of the new obediencia debida bill that Alfonsín introduced in a speech

to Congress on May 13. While excoriating the military for the direct political actions that their leaders had taken in the past 50 years, Alfonsín also

denounced terrorism, “a cruel and bloodthirsty form of elitism,” and he attributed the antisubversive war to the most recent triumph of “military

messianism in a weak and divided society.” But Alfonsín said that the outpouring of support for him during the Semana Santa crisis showed that

that society no longer existed. He thus presented the obediencia debida

110 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
legislation as a definitive step toward pacification, not as “a sign of weakness and concession” but as “a sign of generosity and justice.” Alfonsín

placed responsibility squarely on “those who conceived this vast, inhuman

plan” and stated that the rest of the accused acted in a “state of moral, psychological, and material coercion.”275 Gauna, in his brief on obediencia debida, pointed out that none of the higher-ranking authorities had ever admitted a plan for murder, torture, and kidnapping. But that did not derail

Alfonsín’s plan for extensive exoneration. For him, the responsible parties

were the juntas, his original target in the trials, and they had been tried and

convicted. His new law stated that in the cases of lieutenant colonels and

lower, “it will be legally presumed [emphasis added] that these individuals

acted under coercion.”276

The Chamber of Deputies passed the bill as presented on May 16,

1987. Representatives of the human rights organizations, seeing what they

believed was a massive rejuvenation of military political power in Argentina, shouted slogans at the Radical deputies from the balconies. Majority Leader Jaroslavski ordered them arrested. But although the results in

the Chamber of Deputies appalled the activists, they did not go far enough

for the new Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General José Dante Caridi. According to a report on a meeting of military commanders, distinctions between lieutenant colonel and colonel and active and retired were not acceptable.277 Caridi averred that discrimination on the basis of rank would

reopen, not heal, wounds. His statement echoed a widely held view among

military personnel that the trials were an attack on the corporate military

institution and that vindication and recognition of military actions as

just—not criminal—was the proper course of action, rendering due obedience moot.278

A confirmation of expanded military bargaining power came swiftly

after Alfonsín’s move toward de facto amnesty for most of the accused.

The Argentine Senate passed an amendment to the Chamber of Deputies

bill that would “extend the immunity to higher-ranking officers who did

not hold posts of commander in chief, Chief of Zone, Chief of Subzone,

Chief of the Security or Police Force, or Prison Director, if it is not legally

established, within 30 days after the law is sanctioned, that they had decisionmaking power or participated in generating orders.”279 The Chamber

of Deputies passed this version on reconsideration, and it was found constitutional by the Supreme Court. The amendment covered many who

were colonels and brigadier generals at the time of the antisubversive operations. The net effect of the legislation was to reduce the number being

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processed in the courts to 100, the number of officers of the armed forces

therein to 62, and the number thereof on active duty to only 6.280

But the attempted rebellion also resulted in considerable change in

the army hierarchy. All top generals except for new Chief of Staff Caridi

were retired for not controlling their officers. Caridi said that although

their sentiments may have been with the younger officers, generals have to

use their heads; they should have acted sooner, not just crossed their

arms.281 Of the rebels, only Barreiro was detained; Rico appeared in a civilian court for attempted rebellion; and the others were either relieved of

their posts and placed a disposición (a status usually associated with pending disciplinary action), or were set back in their schooling (usually a career destroyer).

Although Caridi and the other Chiefs of Staff were satisfied that they

had confronted the administration and widened the legal path to reconciliation and recognition of the military’s role in the antisubversive operations, the dissident junior officers were unmollified. They were convinced

that the military had done nothing wrong and that the institution was still

threatened, even though individuals were less endangered. These perceptions meant that Semana Santa, Operación Dignidad as Rico termed it,

would not be the last rebellious episode.

After the passage of the due obedience law, disaffected elements in

and associated with the military appeared to perceive the administration

and the top-level military hierarchy as politically weakened. Alfonsín himself warned that this was the case in his Armed Forces Comradeship Day

speech of July 1987, stating that the armed forces would be the target of a

“major psychological campaign.” He enjoined each Chief of Staff to “implement a special program, drawn up by the respective intelligence service” to counteract this perception and ordered that “severe disciplinary

sanctions be used on any personnel making political statements.”282 Evidence of such a campaign already existed. On June 25, bombs had gone off

on 16 premises of the ruling Radical Party in greater Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Rosario, and Tucumán. Extreme right-wing elements believed to be

associated with the military (especially with the military intelligence services) were thought to be responsible.283 And the retired, many of whom

had court cases still pending or in process, maintained that the military

was subject to a campaign of attack on its honor and ethics, especially in

the “means of social communication”—television, radio, and educational

institutions.284

112 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Tests of the Chiefs of Staffs’ capabilities to keep their forces in line

were not long in coming. Ex-Major Barreiro, cashiered but at large, was

becoming a hero of the “fundamentalists” (later known as los carapintada,

referring to the camouflage makeup they wore in subsequent uprisings)

and was touring the country showing a video called Operación Dignidad.

This film called not only for an end to all trials but also for a public vindication of the antisubversive operations, which the dissidents regarded as a

war in all respects.285 Caridi ordered the video confiscated if found or

shown anywhere in the army, and any officers who allowed it to be shown

were to be punished.

Other manifestations of continued tension within the military occurred at the Third Infantry Regiment at La Tablada. Several officers expressed their displeasure at what they considered Caridi’s mistaken policies seeking to punish those involved in or supporting the Semana Santa

uprising. Even the navy came in for some attention in the wake of the due

obedience decision. Navy Lieutenant Alfredo Astiz, charged in some of the

most famous allegations coming out of the Dirty War, had not been convicted by a military court and remained on active duty. Four admirals

whose final sentences had not been decided but who did not fall under the

obediencia debida umbrella pressed for lighter punishment. And Lieutenant Colonel Rico continued to receive the homage of supporters, even

though he was imprisoned in the NCO Combat Support School at Campo

de Mayo.

Monte Caseros

On December 30, 1987, Rico’s confinement was changed from the

Combat Support School to house arrest at a club. On January 14, 1988, reports began circulating that army officers who supported Rico had begun

confining themselves to barracks to protest what they understood to be a

coming charge of mutiny, which would subject Rico to prison confinement. Rico decided to resist return to confinement, issued a statement refusing to recognize the authority of the Army Chief of Staff or of a military court “until minimum justice is guaranteed,”286 and left the club

where he had been staying. Caridi declared Rico a fugitive and indicated

that he would be declared in rebellion, and a request that he be cashiered

went to the Minister of Defense. The Minister of Interior was told to instruct all police to apprehend Rico.

But on January 17, the commander of the 4th Infantry Regiment at

Monte Caseros, which became the focus of the second uprising, declared

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that he adhered to Rico’s Operación Dignidad. Shortly, Rico’s presence

there was confirmed, and support began to spread.

The army took a different approach to this uprising, which, unlike

the first, was centered far from Buenos Aires. Ríos Ereñú had followed the

letter as well as the spirit of the law and did not take charge in any part of

the resolution at Campo De Mayo of the first uprising. Caridi was fully in

charge (with Alfonsín’s tacit support), keeping the Secretary to the Army

General Staff, Colonel Chichizola, informed of army actions being taken.

He personally took charge of the II Corps troops deployed to confront

Rico at Monte Caseros.

This time, the units that reportedly supported Rico showed no cohesion. Officers and NCOs squelched isolated rebellion attempts by their colleagues, and no blood was shed. At Monte Caseros, a mine explosion reportedly wounded two people as the troops under Caridi’s direction moved

against the garrison. Scores of officers were arrested in various units.

Although Caridi called this rebellion a personal thing for Rico,287 he

had publicly and repeatedly, if less brazenly, advocated virtually the same

things as Rico (save nonrecognition of his own authority). The main issue

remained unresolved: the internecine battle between adherents of horizontal loyalty, championed by the junior officers who had fought, often

with distinction, in the antisubversive operations and the Malvinas war,

and supporters of vertical loyalty, including the top military hierarchy,

whom the rebels and many others viewed as compromised through their

dealings with the civilian leadership. The rebels and their sympathizers still

believed that the military hierarchy had abandoned the corporate, institutional well-being of the armed forces even as it sought, through Alfonsín’s

obediencia debida legislation, to absolve individuals of culpability. The demands of the disaffected in the military—satisfactory pay, a budget permitting full operations, vindication for the role of the military as a whole,

and an end to perceived media attacks—went unsatisfied.

The remarks of Lieutenant Colonel Luis León, a fugitive rebel and a

leader of the second uprising, in January 1988, were prophetic: “Because

the army internal crisis is not definitively solved, the chapter is not entirely closed, and another one, probably more controversial and politically charged, will start.”288 Caridi himself would make the same point

about the antimilitary media campaign. In deploring the appearance of

La Noche de los Lápices (“The Night of the Pencils”), an antimilitary film

shown in public schools which Caridi said characterized the military as

assassins, he advised the Education and Justice Minister that he had “just

114 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
bought Semana Santa number three.”289 Alfonsín also concurred that the

conflict was unresolved. On January 28, 1988, he stated that “there are still

small groups that could carry out this type of action,” but that despite yet

another uprising, “from my viewpoint, the result of this event (the second

one) has been highly positive because it will allow us to reorganize the

army so it can play a leading role in the process of democratization.”290

His words brought into great relief the continuing contradiction between

the corporate and constitutional roles of the army.

The chasm in law between accountability and discipline became

more apparent in the wake of the second uprising. Increasingly, defendants in cases requiring military or civilian court action or both were those

accused of rebellion or insubordination rather than alleged human rights

violators. For example, in September 1988, two officers removed from

their posts by Caridi appealed the decision to a civilian court, using the accountability-era review system to question acts of breach of discipline.

Civilian accountability of the military services did not reinforce military

discipline. In this instance, Alfonsín intervened to uphold Caridi’s decision

by requesting a higher court to overrule the lower civilian court that had

sustained the appeal of the two officers.291

The application of due obedience during 1988 also further reduced

the scope of accountability for the alleged misdeeds of the antisubversive

operations. By the end of 1988, only 20 cases—all of high-ranking military

officers who had retired—were being addressed by the courts in some way.

No active-duty officers now faced punishment for actions in the 1970s.292

But the same was not true for the already convicted Malvinas war

chiefs, the last junta of Galtieri, Anaya, and Lami Dozo, who had been sentenced by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. In July 1988, the state

decided to prosecute the three in federal appeals court for professional

negligence. The prosecutor said he would seek stiffer sentences than those

imposed by the Supreme Council. The matter of accountability at the

highest levels was not yet closed.

And neither was the matter of discipline. As the number of military

personnel in the judicial process for the antisubversive war allegations fell,

the number (almost all army) being processed for involvement in the uprisings rose, reaching a total after Monte Caseros of 432.293 Some officers

also were disciplined by early retirement or missed promotion for not putting down the rebellions in the various units or for not moving quickly

enough. From his jail cell, Rico taunted the hierarchy with bulletins and

REVIEW OF THE PAST 115
communiqués that became regular reading in many army garrisons. The

dispute over the matters of right, and rights, continued.

Near the anniversary of the Semana Santa uprising, a series of bombings signaled the reappearance of violent protest, instigated by the rightwing movement Alerta Nacional and the terrorist organization known as

OAS–MRP. Although the ringleaders were rounded up quickly, the incident did nothing to lower tensions, and it heightened suspicions that Rico

and others might have civilian allies. Extralegal challenges competed with

legal ones as the runup to the 1989 election for Alfonsín’s successor took

shape (Alfonsín could not succeed himself, as the 1853 Constitution specified 6-year terms with no consecutive reelection). The candidates of the

two major parties were selected in the summer of 1988. Neither candidate,

Eduardo Angeloz for the Radicals or Carlos Menem for the Peronists, represented the dominant faction of his party during the Alfonsín administration. Late 1988 found public attention directed at this building electoral

campaign and the economic difficulties of the Alfonsín years. But doubts

persisted about the effects of military reform and the review of the past,

even though Alfonsín in his Independence Day address to the armed forces

hierarchy had insisted that the consolidation of democracy was well under

way and that the armed forces, under the newly passed Defense Law, were

an integral part of it. In the speech, Alfonsín praised the “heroes of the

South Atlantic” and stated that “the public must not fail to recognize the

efforts made by the Armed Forces in defense of our republican system of

government.”294

Villa Martelli

On December 1, 1988, the uncertainties manifested themselves once

again. About 45 officers of an elite Prefectura Naval unit at Zárate near

Buenos Aires took arms and deserted the unit. (This was the second nonarmy breach of discipline. At the time of the Monte Caseros uprising, a

small group of air force personnel tried to take over the metropolitan airport in downtown Buenos Aires, but they garnered no support.) Alfonsín,

in Mexico at the time, dismissed the action as a “little problem” and continued his diplomatic activities. But this incident was not an isolated one,

despite its apparent origin in a service other than the army. The rebels

went straight to the Infantry School at Campo de Mayo, where they joined

other commando and special forces contingents, at the seat of the April

1987 Semana Santa uprising. Los carapintada were in charge.

The leader of the uprising was Colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin, a

hero of the Malvinas war who had been advising Manuel Noriega’s elite

116 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
units in the Panama Defense Force. Seineldin was widely regarded as representing the ultranationalist, messianic, fervently Catholic (he was a convert) sentiment in the army, the stronghold of which was the Army Infantry

branch.295 Seineldin was not linked to human rights violations. He was a

role model for the junior officers, who saw him as incorruptible, heroic, and

self-sacrificing.296 Colonel Seineldin quickly made clear that this was again

a matter of horizontal versus vertical loyalty, the fault line between corporatism and constitutionalism, describing himself as “an army operations

commander who has taken up arms against the army Chiefs” to lead a rebellion that “definitely aims at restoring the honor” of the military.297

Caridi prepared to take on Seineldin in much the same way that he

had taken on Rico at Monte Caseros. Acting under orders from Vice-President Victor Martínez, Caridi mobilized troops in the Buenos Aires area

and headed them toward Campo de Mayo. He intended to surround

Seineldin and forestall any spread.

But Caridi could not isolate the movement. Other units, including

ones in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Salta, declared their

support for Seineldin. Key among these units was the 10th Logistics Battalion at Villa Martelli, a Buenos Aires suburb on the border of the federal

capital. In a surprise move, Seineldin and his loyalists—unimpeded by

loyal troops deployed to put down the rebellion—traversed the 20 kilometers from Campo de Mayo to Villa Martelli on December 3. Caridi mobilized troops toward Villa Martelli under the command of General Isidro

Cáceres, but he hoped to avoid bloodshed. (The only casualties of the confrontation were three civilians killed in a confused exchange of gunfire

near Villa Martelli, where crowds of people turned out in the first direct

civilian-military episode of the uprisings.)

On December 4, 1988, the rebels issued their demands. They called for

Caridi’s resignation, the extension of obediencia debida coverage to all except

the junta members, suspension of all trials for violations of human rights,

amnesty for the rebels, a better budget, and a promise that only Colonel

Seineldin be held accountable and tried in military court for this latest rebellion. The government would not agree to these issues as the points of a

negotiated settlement, and both Caridi and Seineldin referred to the outcome of their talks over the matter as “an agreement to prevent bloodshed.”298 Seineldin and his supporters gave themselves up on December 5.

Although the government had not negotiated with the rebels, it had

in effect negotiated with the military. The denouement of the third uprising laid bare the status of civil-military relations in Argentina. From the

REVIEW OF THE PAST 117
beginning, the Alfonsín government had dealt with the military as a political adversary, a corporate entity in Argentine society that could be politically overcome (the government took a similar approach to the Church

and the unions). Alfonsín judged correctly that the political resources

based on force that undergirded the military claim to legitimacy in the exercise of authority were at an all-time low in 1983. But if the vertical loyalty and subordination to the constitutional government and the rule of

law had been established de jure, the horizontal loyalty that underlay the

commitment of the individual officers or NCOs to the military institution

continued de facto. The rebels clearly were at odds with the former, but for

many, perhaps most, of the military, they embodied the latter.

A business information agency run by retired military members conducted an informal poll of 984 military personnel in 123 army and navy

units between December 10, 1988, and January 13, 1989 (between the

third uprising and the La Tablada attack by the guerrillas).299 Of those

polled, 82 percent shared completely the objectives of Colonel Seineldin

(vindication of the actions of the Dirty War, better pay, suspension of trials, measures to protect the rebels from punishment, and Caridi’s resignation), and another 6.1 percent gave partial support. Only 3.7 percent did

not concur with the stated objectives. Most did not agree that rebellion

was the way to achieve those objectives, but the military did not question

the belief that it had been right all along.

By the end of 1988, the government was not prepared to confront the

military directly. Alfonsín continued to equate civilian complicity with

military complicity in past illegal behavior. In his last important speech on

military issues to Congress on December 21, 1988, he reiterated earlier

statements that “regardless of the responsibility that the military may have

had over the operational aspect of the coups, we should not forget that

civilians are to blame for providing the ideological inspirations of the

coups.”300 Although excoriating “state terrorism” and the “authoritarian

frameworks, organizations or behavior” that had brought it about, Alfonsín again called for a “cultural reform,” implying that the democratic alternative to that lawless culture had not then been available.

Reinforcing this attitude in a speech, Defense Minister Jaunarena approached the military line, stating that “the republican democracy has neither defined nor designed a self-preservation mechanism for times of crisis,”

and that “the Armed Forces were compelled to militarily [sic] confrontation . . . without the necessary training for this emergency,” in view of the

politicians’ lack of reaction “toward the scourge that hit Argentina as of the

118 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
end of the 1960s.”While he maintained that most of the struggle was waged

outside the framework of constitutional governments, the political legitimacy and legality of a necessary struggle had been questioned; “the situation

was overcome, but reproach could not be prevented.”301

Paradoxically, the revolts strengthened the corporate military’s political hand. In an interview on December 16, 1988, Caridi made explicit

why that was true. He stated that these reactions “will continue to occur

within the Armed Forces, particularly within the army,” if the demands of

the armed forces were not met. The military’s main demand was the “end

of the attacks of which they have been a target for a long time.” He made

clear what that was about: “The consequences of the antisubversive war,

in which there are still pending matters, which must be given a favorable

solution in the shortest possible time.” His disagreement with Colonel

Seineldin was not about the demands; it was about “the path chosen for

posing the demands.”302 That was the difference between the rebels and

the loyal troops.

One more event played a major part in the civil-military relationship

during the Alfonsín years: the guerrilla attack at La Tablada in January

1989 (dealt with in detail in chapter 4). The government viewed this attack

as a last-ditch effort by the extreme left to, in Alfonsín’s words, “unleash a

confrontation between the people and the armed forces and subsequently

take power through a ‘Putsch’.”303 Interrogation of guerrilla survivors, inspection of documents at the scene, and the identities and political roles of

the guerrilla dead bore out this view. The military could thus claim the

mantle of defender of democratic institutions, including themselves, from

bloody attacks by armed, illegal bands reminiscent of the leftist guerrillas

of the 1970s, against whom the military had insisted it had fought a justifiable war. Vindication was seen to be at hand.

The guerrilla attack at La Tablada was the final blow to the Alfonsín

administration’s reform of the military and review of the past initiatives to

establish a different civil-military relationship under a democratic government. The Alfonsín government’s efforts to hold the military accountable

for its decisions and actions in the antisubversive operations did little to

reduce the political weight of the military. Although the Security Council

and the Committee of Internal Security established in the wake of the La

Tablada incident gave a de jure cover for it, the military was reintroduced

into the internal security arena. The apparent vitiation of Alfonsín’s defense policy led to the apparent vitiation of his military policy as well.

REVIEW OF THE PAST 119
In April 1989, between the La Tablada incident in January and the

May election for president, the Centro de Estudios Unión Para la Nueva

Mayoría sought to determine the “image of the Armed Forces.”304 It polled

an unknown number of citizens living in the federal capital, Greater

Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fé, and Mendoza. Although responses from

these locations varied considerably, the poll registered a predominance of

positive opinions about the military in all places, ranging from an evenly

split opinion in the federal capital to a 2.6:1 ratio of positive opinions in

Mendoza. Moreover, the image of the institution had survived the

Seineldin uprising, as opinions of him and his actions were overwhelmingly negative. And this poll reaffirmed previous studies showing that the

public considered internal missions within the military’s purview; positive

opinions of the military’s actions in the La Tablada incident ranged from

4–6.5 positive to 1 negative.

Indeed, military policy would again focus on internal dynamics in

the armed forces—particularly in the army, and specifically on those who

were involved in the uprisings. They were the avatars of a military unrestrained by civilian authority, responsive to their own hierarchy only insofar as it reflected the horizontal loyalties of the military corporate institutions rather than the vertical loyalties to civilian hierarchy, which the

military had no voice in selecting. The rebels, even though they were still

facing disciplinary action from the military, sought to change that. Both

Rico and Seineldin openly supported Peronist candidate Menem in the

presidential race, and military sentiment encouraged a Peronist victory, rejecting the Radical candidate even though he was not of the same political

wing within the Radical Party as Alfonsín.

The Alfonsín regime did not resolve the military question. In the wake

of the La Tablada attack, public opinion generally was favorable toward the

army’s actions in suppressing an attack on one of its own garrisons.305 And

the military question was of low priority, as other problems of the Alfonsín

administration, especially the economic situation, were much more important in the electoral campaign.306 On May 14, 1989, Carlos Menem won the

presidential race, effectively ending the Alfonsín regime. Indeed, Alfonsín,

plagued by food riots in May as well as hyperinflation, decided to leave office several months before his term expired. On July 8, 1989, Carlos Menem

was inaugurated as President of the Argentine Republic.

120 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
The Alfonsín Legacy

The election of 1983 and the transition to civilian rule under the Alfonsín administration were evidence of the establishment of a constitutional regime. But that transition did not settle the question of legitimacy

of authority, even though it marked a major change in the military’s political fortunes. The Alfonsín administration set in motion two political

processes—military reform and the review of the past—that were the arenas of competition for legitimate authority reflected in estado militar. The

evolution and results of these two processes provide a useful framework to

examine the civil-military relationship in that administration.

Military reform, as envisioned by the Alfonsín administration, had as

its goal an apolitical military removed as a contestant for authority. The

basic thrust of reform was to restructure the mission, organization, resources, and education of military institutions to bring them in line with a

constitutional regime. The measures taken to try to effect this result relied

on de jure change, a legal structure that assured the definitive subordination of the military to civilian authority. The reform efforts were directed at

replacing the adversarial, competitive nature of the civil-military relationship with a noncompetitive one in which both civilians and military members accepted civilian supremacy in military and defense matters.

But the implementation of the reforms did less to depoliticize the

military than it did to reduce its political effectiveness by shrinking its political resources. Large reductions in money, manpower, and operational

equipment reduced the level of military activity but did little to change its

nature or motivations. Moreover, reducing levels of resources did not

change the military’s attitudes on its proper role; it only reinforced perceptions that the military was being punished.

The long delay in the Defense Law left the administration bereft of a

basic set of rules from which a new pattern of civil-military relations

might actually have been realized. The delay in a coherent, constitutional

plan for defining the mission and organization of the military vitiated

much of the other reform, such as redistributing the command authorities

and seeking a unified, jointly directed military establishment. The Ministry of Defense and the Joint Staff more often were arenas for competition

between civilians and military than manifestations of a regime of civilian

supremacy. The turbulence at the top of the Ministry of Defense and at the

highest levels of the military services, especially the army, exacerbated this

state of affairs. Coupled with inexperience on all sides in elaborating a

REVIEW OF THE PAST 121
civil-military relationship in a constitutional regime, the turbulence paradoxically reinforced inertia, undermining reform.

When the reforms as they had evolved were tested at La Tablada, the

military’s traditional patterns of loyalty and obedience—although severely

challenged by the constitutional, legal constructs of the Alfonsín administration—prevailed. In the end, the reform efforts did little to change attitudes on either side. But the major confrontation for Alfonsín came not

over differing views of legitimacy of authority in the future but over differing views of legitimacy of authority in the past.

The review of the past directly challenged military perceptions of

proper authority in the pre-Alfonsín era. It disputed the legitimacy of

using force in establishing authority and in political action. As such, the

military perceived the review of the past as an assault on the values that

undergirded its role in society and its involvement in politics during the

Proceso military government, the antisubversive operations, and the Malvinas war. But the confrontation centered on the conduct (or misconduct)

of the military in the Dirty War. The review of the past struck at perhaps

the most salient element of estado militar: individual and institutional accountability of the military. The question of final authority in military accountability was central to the contest over legitimacy.

The review of the past highlighted the adversarial, conflictive nature

of the Argentine civil-military relationship. It pitted the civilian political

authorities against the military establishment in the contentious process of

the trials to judge the conduct of military personnel up to the highest level,

and by extension to judge the armed forces as an institution. It called the

political resources of both civilians and military into play in a contest over

legitimacy of political authority. That competition reflected very clearly

that the civilian and military actors appealed to different currents in the

Argentine political stream and viewed their institutional roles and the relationship between them from varied perspectives.

The Alfonsín administration sought to bracket the confrontation in

legal terms, with the courts as the constitutional embodiment of legitimacy in seeking accountability. But employing the legal structure to deal

with the political past, especially one that had responded to a different notion of the basis for legitimacy, was much more difficult than using the

legal structure to deal with the future nature of civil-military relations.

The military perceived the changes in the Code of Military Justice and the

calls for the trials of the junta members and hundreds of others as ex post

facto law and as striking at the heart of military accountability for its own,

122 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
and at military discipline in general. For the military, the marginalization

of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces highlighted the attempt to

overpower military law with civilian law.

Moreover, although Alfonsín had hoped to keep the culpability judgments regarding the military focused on the juntas, as they had been the expressly political actors during the Proceso, he was unable to contain the proceedings to those trials. The reform of the Code of Military Justice and the

establishment of CONADEP opened the floodgates of accusations and calls

for a comprehensive effort at calling the military to account. As the scope

of the review increased and as the prospect of trials spread beyond the juntas to hundreds of other military and security personnel, the military—

particularly army officers—perceived the Alfonsín administration as directly attacking the military institutions themselves. The review of the past

overwhelmed reform, and in so doing undercut any chance for cooperative,

apolitical efforts that might have worked in other circumstances. The review of the past pitted the horizontal loyalty of officers to each other and to

the institution against the vertical loyalty to hierarchy, which had grown to

include the constitutional civilian hierarchy as well as the legally subordinated military hierarchy, especially the Chiefs of Staff of the services. The

dimension of horizontal loyalty was reinforced by the prospect of legal

judgment that might convict hundreds of officers and by emergent (rather

than appointed) leadership, especially in the persons of Rico and Seineldin.

Convinced that the trials presented a threat to the military institution and that their actions in the antisubversive operations had been legitimate, just, and correct, several hundred officers and other ranks rebelled

on three separate occasions. Their aim was to force not only the civilians

but also the top-level military hierarchy to stop the trials and seek a political solution. The rebels reflected the attitudes of most military members,

many of whom regretted rebel means but had little quarrel with their

goals. Although the military hierarchy and the Alfonsín administration denied striking any bargains with the rebels themselves, the uprisings had the

effect of reinforcing the political position of the military. The military still

was seen not as an instrument of the government but as a political actor

capable of resorting to the use or threat of force in political action. The political demands of the military could not be ignored. The due obedience

law considerably reduced the exposure of military personnel to possible

trials and punishment. The civil-military relationship remained a reflection of actors exercising political roles based on different notions of the legitimacy of political authority.

REVIEW OF THE PAST 123
Alfonsín himself may have made the case best for examining the

civil-military relationship based on differently derived conceptions of legitimate authority. He said in 1985 that only a gigantic cultural reform,

democracy, could bring the rule of law to Argentina. His comment was an

implicit recognition that Argentine political culture had evolved in a way

that would provide more than one basis for claims to legitimacy of political authority. In Argentina, the level of political activity by the military had

varied considerably over time, reflecting the fortunes of the two sides of

the civil-military relationship. But even in the Alfonsín administration,

when the military’s political resources had been severely reduced, the civilmilitary relationship remained one in which political behavior was conditioned by differing sets of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments. Estado militar,

in its various aspects, continued to reflect the contests over legitimacy, not

the definitive acceptance by all of a common belief in the appropriateness

of authority.

124 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Chapter Six

The First Menem

Administration:

Reconciliation Continued

Carlos Menem found himself occupying the office of President of

Argentina sooner than he expected. Raúl Alfonsín resigned in July

1989, leaving Menem with an economic shambles characterized by

hyperinflation and stagnation. Consequently, the new administration’s relationship with the military was not the first priority. But Menem knew

that he could not simply ignore the military, especially since the outgoing

administration left the Dirty War trials unfinished and the status of those

involved in the uprisings unresolved. Nonetheless, Menem had a freer

hand than Alfonsín in seeking the reconciliation that Alfonsín had promised. Clearly the unofficial military favorite in the 1989 elections because

he was not regarded as antimilitary as Alfonsín had been, Menem had

some breathing room in terms of civil-military relations. However, he

faced a military establishment that still contained significant elements

seeking vindication and one that was strengthened in that regard by the La

Tablada attack in January 1989. He also had to resolve several cases against

military officials charged with human rights abuses related to the antisubversive operations.

“I hate to see even birds in cages,” Menem reportedly said on his inauguration, giving the first indication that he would seek either an amnesty

or a pardon for all military members sanctioned for the antisubversive operations, the Malvinas war, or the three uprisings.307 But Menem balanced

this largesse with a clear message to those still seeking confrontation within

the military, especially the army, and between the military and civilian authority. He named General Isidro Cáceres, who had been instrumental in

125
quelling the third uprising led by Seineldin, as Chief of Staff of the Army,

the service in which the divisions between horizontal and vertical loyalties

were the most apparent. Although they temporarily had no leaders, los

carapintada remained unreconciled to anything less than vindication.

Pressing Issues

The economy required Menem’s attention from the outset, and he

indicated early on that the role of the state sector in the economy would

have to be reduced. The term privatization began to circulate, and Menem

moved to make peace with international lenders. This meant that the state

sector, including the military, took a back seat to efforts to energize the

economy and reduce internal and external debt—a move that later had

significant repercussions for military reform. But Menem decided to grant

pardons to defuse the issue of the review of the past and its consequences

for military discipline.

As Menem came into office, Seineldin was roiling the waters with

declarations about the alleged pact between himself and ex-Chief of Staff

of the Army Caridi at the time of the third uprising in December 1988.

From his confinement in the Palermo barracks, Seineldin excoriated the

high command for nonfulfillment of the pact. A flurry of communiqués

ensued, with denials of the existence of any such pact and further attempts

by Seineldin to influence the civil-military relationship of the incoming

administration.

Menem did not admit that pardons were being considered and that

they would apply to ex-guerrillas as well as the military until mid-August.308 Pressure from the military for pardons had mounted, and speculation was rife as to when they would be granted and who would be covered.

Presumably not wishing to be seen as pressured by either the military hierarchy or by Seineldin, Rico, and their followers, Menem waited a decent

interval before acting. But even as he did, the resolution of this aspect of

the cuestión militar was not complete.

Action came on October 8, 1989—3 months after Menem’s inauguration. He pardoned 280 people, including 39 ranking military officers

who fought against subversion in the 1970s, the 3 ex-junta members who

led the 1982 Malvinas war, all members of the armed and security forces

who took part in the Semana Santa, Monte Caseros, and Villa Martelli uprisings (as well as the attempted takeover of the Aeroparque airport), and

57 former leftist guerrillas, many of whom were still fugitives from justice.309 But the pardon excluded the top incarcerated figures: former de

126 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
facto presidents army Generals Jorge Videla and Robert Viola, their fellow

navy junta members Admirals Emilio Massera and Armando Lambruschini, former Buenos Aires police chiefs Ramón Camps and Pablo Ricchieri, former First Army Corps Commander General Guillermo Suárez

Mason, and Montoneros terrorist leader Mario Firmenich. Decrees

1002–1005 granted the pardons to the various categories of recipients,

among whom were Seineldin and Rico, and (with the exceptions cited plus

a few civilians) were clearly intended to clean out all the categories of people who had somehow been sanctioned during the Alfonsín administration. It did not preclude the armed forces from taking disciplinary action

within their respective services for breaches of military discipline, which

led to the forced retirement of several officers, including Seineldin and

Rico. Seineldin continued to berate Army Chief of Staff Cáceres and organized an open “physical training” demonstration that attracted some

500 of his followers. The pardons mitigated conflict between the civilians

and the military, but not between military and military.310

Furthermore, pardon was not vindication. Most service members

still felt that their institutions had done nothing wrong and that neither

persecution nor forgiveness was right. Seineldin and Rico, although out of

active service and with their channels of access more restricted, remained

a thorn in the side of the Menem administration. Rico chose an explicitly

political path for his new career, raising the banner of “nationalist Peronism”—a decidedly different and more orthodox brand than Menemist

Peronism and one that had appeal beyond the military, since many saw

Menem as having forsaken his Peronist heritage.311

As 1990 began, Rico and Seineldin remained in the public eye, calling for a “national people’s revolution against dollarization” and resistance

to a “sellout” to foreign interests.312 On March 21, General Cáceres died of

a heart attack, thus inadvertently fulfilling a desire of los carapintada. His

successor, General Martín Bonnet, shared Cáceres’ antipathy for Seineldin

or Rico and arrested Seineldin again in early April when he questioned the

military’s disciplinary actions against rebels in the wake of the amnesty.

Looming Unrest

In August, reports surfaced of another levantamiento plot; a State 

Information Service report alleged a “direct action” campaign not only

to settle military internal differences, especially in the army, but also to

take political power.313 Although nothing materialized in the next few

months, the potential for disruption clearly still existed, and messianic

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 127
military ultranationalists would try again to settle differences by confrontation and violence.

Seineldin continued to bait the military and the president, writing

letters and getting arrested as often as he was released. He and Rico, who

had become a full-fledged politician with his own party, the Movement for

Dignity and Independence (Movimiento por la Dignidad y la Independencia, or MODIN), warned of unrest in the military and possible open internal strife in the army. Reports continued of another military uprising,

but as December approached, the struggle remained a battle of words. But

Seineldin’s appeal to junior officers and NCOs remained high. Many of

them had seen nothing in their careers but unrelieved crisis, both within

the military and in the society, and they could not comprehend what a

“normal” military career might be.314 Seineldin and Rico also represented

the “fighting man” and role model, especially for Malvinas war veterans.

Their appeal posed significant danger to military discipline and even constitutional government.

Seineldin began another 60-day period of arrest in a remote army

garrison in Neuquén Province on October 12. In early November, after

several weeks of calm, Menem baited Seineldin about becoming a politician (as Rico had already become).315 Seineldin’s response probably was

not what Menem had anticipated: in the early morning hours of December 3, 1990, Seineldin instigated a revolt against Menem, who was preparing to receive U.S. President George H.W. Bush on December 5.

The revolt struck at the very heart of command and control in the

army, the Edificio Libertador San Martín, seat of the Army General Staff

and a short walk from the Presidential Palace. Earlier uprisings had been directed mainly at the army hierarchy with the intention of forcing military

demands to the forefront and establishing a bargaining position with the

civilian authorities. But this rebellion had all the earmarks of a coup attempt, including a list of civilian politicians with Menem’s name at the top.

Seineldin supporters hoped to take over key communications and military

control facilities, including the army headquarters, the Patricios Regiment’s

Palermo barracks in Buenos Aires, other barracks in metropolitan Buenos

Aires, and even the Coast Guard headquarters in the port area. And the assault was launched without regard to avoiding casualties among the military defenders of the installations. The rebels achieved surprise and a temporary advantage, raising the dispute to a full-fledged crisis.

Menem declared a state of siege and, thus imbued with extraordinary

but constitutional powers, moved against the rebels, who had achieved

128 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
partial success in their objectives by inflicting several officer and NCO casualties on the regular forces. The rebels occupied part of the army headquarters and the Palermo barracks, took over the 601st Quartermaster Battalion at El Palomar, and for a time captured the Tank Factory TAMSE in

the Buenos Aires suburb of Boulogne. Menem ordered Army Chief of Staff

Bonnet to “completely extinguish” the rebels.316

Bonnet deployed overwhelming force to face down the rebels, ordering into action a reinforced mechanized brigade gathered from loyal

Buenos Aires Province army units and garnering support from the navy

and air force as well. The business of establishing normal military control

over the affected garrisons and headquarters consumed the day of December 3. This revolt did not drag on as the earlier ones had done. No reinforcements reached the Buenos Aires rebels, although a column of tanks

commandeered by rebel supporters in Entre Ríos Province tried to break

through. But regular army units controlled the bridge and tunnel chokepoints to the island province. Loyal units mopped up rebels in Buenos

Aires and closed in on sympathizers elsewhere. The last resisters were soldiers in the Entre Ríos garrisons of Concordia and Gualeguaychú, and

three rebel tank crews at Olavarría, a garrison on the pampa in Buenos

Aires Province.

In less than 24 hours the revolt was over. Menem lifted the state of

siege only 2 days after imposing it, and life in Buenos Aires returned to

normal. But despite its short duration, this was the bloodiest of the four

uprisings. Reports attributed 14 dead (including 4 loyal army members

and 3 army rebels) and 55 wounded to the rebellion. Unlike earlier rebellions, this uprising had not avoided armed combat between loyalists and

rebels. The firefights, although few, were real, and no thought was given to

negotiating with the rebels. At least 427 rebels were involved, including 355

army, 47 coast guard, and 25 civilians.317

Within a day of the uprising, Defense Minister Humberto Romero

confirmed the existence of a letter in which Colonel Seineldin, under arrest since October, claimed “absolute responsibility” for the latest incident. If Seineldin’s proclamation was an effort to shield the rebel participants, it was not successful. Menem had given no promises, and his

subordinates, civilian and military, had rebuffed any efforts to discuss

terms. The humiliation of the rebels was complete, and the sympathetic

associations between loyal and rebel officers that had characterized the

earlier rebellions were not in evidence this time. Moreover, this uprising

had involved hundreds of noncommissioned officers rather than being

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 129
top-heavy with officers. Their grievances concentrated more on pragmatic issues such as low pay, demeaning duties, and lack of troops than

on political issues as such. The economic crisis that still besieged Argentina had seriously degraded their livelihood. If their attitude of desperation was widespread, it could portend trouble in the future.

In any event, President Menem was seen as having exercised his responsibilities as commander in chief, and loyal troops showed no reluctance to carry out his orders as they had with former President Alfonsín.

Loyal generals left their offices and personally directed several of the operations to put down the mutiny. Even the scheduled visit of President Bush

2 days after this fourth uprising went off flawlessly, also enhancing

Menem’s reputation as a civilian president who could deal with his own

military in matters of accountability and discipline. Menem had not hesitated to act once blood was shed, although some wondered why the repeated warnings that such a revolt was imminent did not prompt preventive measures to be taken.

Although the fallout from the uprising—particularly the workings of

the military justice system, the trials of the rebels, and the fate of Colonel

Seineldin—continued for months, at year’s end attention shifted to unfinished business regarding members of the military juntas still incarcerated

and others who had completed their sentences: two former Buenos Aires

Province police chiefs convicted of human rights violations; a fugitive former Army Corps commander facing trial; the jailed former leader of the

Montoneros; the Proceso former Economy Minister; and two former officials who had served sentences for appropriating government funds. On

December 29, 1990, President Menem issued pardons for all. According to

Menem, this act closed a chapter and cleared the way for “national reconciliation.”318 He defended this decision throughout his first administration

as being “fair to the armed institution,” including at the Annual Armed

Forces Comradeship dinner in July 1994.319

Menem did not receive political acquiescence on this decision. Opposition parties (except the pro-military UCD Party) backed “day of

mourning” rallies called by human rights organizations, and tens of thousands turned out on December 30 to protest. Those pardoned were glad to

be out of jail or out from under the cloud of their convictions if they had

served out their sentences or were facing trial. However, the former military among them (all but Suárez Mason, not yet tried, had been stripped

of their military status and rank) were still demanding the vindication of

the armed forces in their actions during the Proceso government. Even the

130 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Chief of Staff of the Army, General Bonnet, hailed the pardons as being in

the army’s interest, because “many of their present members fought, and

did so, at the time, in fulfillment of express orders.”320 But he left the call

for vindication to the civilian backers of the military, the UCD Party. Jorge

Videla, a former president and junta member in the Proceso government,

was unrepentant, also calling for “full institutional vindication,” recognition that the military had “defended the nation against subversive aggression.”321 That resulted in a call from the left for repeal of the pardons and

other acts to protest them. Charges and countercharges were the order of

the day, but Menem remained unmoved; no pardons were rescinded, and

no vindication sentiments were officially codified.

Menem did not bypass the military in dealing with the rebels involved in the uprising of December 3, 1990. The Supreme Council of the

Armed Forces was the tribunal for dealing with the rebels. The charge was

mutiny, for which the death penalty could be assessed. The Council was

quick to act; on January 8, 1991, it sentenced three principals charged in

the uprising, Colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin, Colonel Luis Baraldini, and

Colonel Oscar Ricardo Vega, to indefinite imprisonment and discharged

them from the army. Seineldin and the others thus lost their military status, retirement, and privileges. Ten other army officers were sentenced to

lesser terms for being in rebellion. Menem did not consider pardons for

these officers, and they were thus cashiered.

Seineldin used his trial testimony and magazine and newspaper interviews to voice his opinion that disloyalty lay on the side of the army hierarchy, which had broken promises made to rebels. But his protests did

not affect the continuing arraignment and prosecution of those involved

in the fourth rebellion. On April 15, the appeals trials for the initial group

of rebels sentenced by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces began in

federal appeals court, as provided for under Alfonsín-era modifications to

the Code of Military Justice. Again portraying himself as the defender of

military honor against a corrupt hierarchy, Seineldin stated that “more

blood will flow” if the army’s “grave problems” were not solved and that

the rebels had to choose between “the duty of obedience and the duty of

conscience.”322 He and others insisted that written agreements had been

made to satisfy rebel demands in earlier rebellions, and they excoriated

former President Alfonsín for denying it in court. In an open letter to the

Argentine people in a new magazine, Conciencia Nacional, Seineldin characterized himself as the “circumstantial” leader of the “national army,” by

which he meant los carapintada and their allies who had their origins in

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 131
the defenders of the Malvinas. He glorified horizontal loyalty and denigrated vertical loyalty, making polemics against the military and civilian

hierarchy and their purported sellout to foreigners and special interests.

But Menem had the final say. The appellate process was not disrupted, and in mid-August 1991, Menem responded to Seineldin by

branding him “totally impotent” and suggesting that he had “failed in his

life and as a member of the military. . . . The only thing he has done is kill

his companions in arms.”323 By this time, 386 military personnel had been

brought before the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and 58 had received sentences for participation in the fourth uprising. Another 12 officers and 289 NCOs still awaited trial, incarcerated in Magdalena Prison, at

that time the army’s principal correctional facility. On September 2, the

federal appeals court handed down its decision on the initial group of

ringleaders, reaffirming the earlier Supreme Council verdict on aggravated

and bloody revolt and aggravated rebellion or mutiny (since the defendants were military men at the time of the uprising). The Appellate Court

even meted out short sentences to two officers not found guilty by the

Council. Seineldin, who received the heaviest punishment, is serving an

indefinite prison sentence. Twenty-three other army officers were sentenced to 4- to 20-year terms for their participation in this episode.324

Menem basically prevailed on the two salient issues of the review of

the past. He had wiped the slate clean in terms of the Dirty War, pardoning

all the remaining Proceso-era actors still serving sentences. Also pardoned

were those who had completed their terms but who remained convicted

felons, military, guerrilla, and civilian alike, including the archetypes in

each category: Jorge Videla, Mario Firmenich, and José Martínez de Hoz.

Menem had put down the last and bloodiest rebellion, which generally was

considered both a confrontation between los carapintada and the regular

military hierarchy and an attempted coup against the Menem government.

The rebels’ fate was decided in accordance with the regular and appellate

procedures instituted by the previous administration, and Menem subsequently indicated that he would never pardon them. No one (except

Seineldin and his confederates) questioned the legitimacy of action within

either the military or civilian processes.

The two principal military rebel leaders turned out quite differently:

Former Lieutenant Colonel Aldo Rico, cashiered but free, became a nationalist Peronist politician with his own party, the MODIN. He unsuccessfully

contested the governorship of Buenos Aires Province, and he was a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in 1995. Former Colonel Mohamed

132 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Ali Seineldin is unlikely ever to walk out of prison, and although los carapintada organized as the Movement for Ibero-American Integration and National Identity (Movimiento de Identidad Nacional e Integración IberoAmericana, or MINEII), its influence within the military structure,

principally the army, appears over. For the 1995 elections, Seineldin, from

his prison cell, led the organization of a political party called the

Movimiento Restaurador as a “nationalist alternative to the majority parties,” but it sought legal status in only a few provinces.325 The nationalist, irredentist aspirations that led to the Malvinas war, and the antisubversive

operations of the Dirty War that had dominated the military experience of

the rebels and their open and covert supporters in the military, had been resolved—if not to everyone’s satisfaction. A faction-distressed military was

no longer a political actor to the extent that elements were openly challenging the constitutional arrangements or the extant military hierarchy.

But if the conflictive elements of the civil-military relationship abated, serious constitutional and institutional questions remained.

Defense Policy

The Menem administration’s consideration of the roles and missions

of the armed forces was informed by a discredited military legacy and an

inconclusive Alfonsín legacy. Consequently, Menem was faced with an Argentine defense policy in considerable disarray and a set of armed governmental institutions whose main mission at the time he took office was easily interpretable as their own corporate integrity and survival.

The military’s legacy to Menem concerning defense policy was

steeped in the Argentine military tradition. Until the Alfonsín administration, the military establishment was in charge of defense policy—both

the policymaker and the executive agent.326 A self-defined, autonomous

defense policy reflected the historical involvement of the military in policy matters. Furthermore, the individual services had led separate existences, defining their roles and missions according to their own land, sea,

and air capabilities.

This military legacy offered no effective check on the military and no

real accountability, especially since the civil-military relationship revolved

not around the establishment of an instrumental military force at the service of the regime but around the legitimacy of political authority on the

part of civilians and military. The military’s threat perceptions, hipótesis de

conflicto, had centered on regional geopolitics and the Cold War, especially

anticommunism. These concerns shaped the military institutions’ beliefs

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 133
concerning the use of force. In the last manifestation of military institutional rule, the Proceso government (1976–1982), military roles and political roles became indistinguishable, leading to the Dirty War (anticommunism) internally and the Malvinas war (geopolitics) externally. The

military lost both, the first a Pyrrhic victory and a political disaster, and

the second an unmitigated military disaster. The armed forces were seen as

unreliable “trustees of the national essence” and no longer viable as the

sole source of defense policy.327

Raúl Alfonsín and his administration members were much better at

deciding what type of defense policy they did not want than at elaborating

what they did want. They did not perceive Argentina to be internally or externally threatened in any way that would require the use of military force.

And they did not want the military involved in the foreign or domestic

conflict resolution. The administration’s entire review of the past was

predicated on the illegitimacy of military action in internal security matters. In external matters, the administration sought resolution of Argentina’s more intractable differences with others, especially the Malvinas

claims and disputes with Chile over borders and the Beagle Channel islands, through diplomatic channels.

Consequently, the Alfonsín administration did not predicate defense

policy on military capacity. No hipótesis de guerra came from the civilians,

only the rejection of military ones: no threats, no enemies.328 Administration efforts were designed to reduce military resources since the regime

did not want the military to regain its power to intrude politically. The

civilian politicians greatly resented the military and sought a state of affairs in which it would not be tolerated as a political factor. The politicians,

deep down, did not believe that the military, certainly as Argentina had

known it in the modern era, was necessary anymore.329

The Alfonsín administration’s preoccupation with what the military

had done preempted any consideration of what the military should do.

The long delay in promulgating the Defense Law reflected the regime’s

predisposition that the military should do nothing or as little as possible.

The Defense Law provided a legal basis for defense policy, placing it in the

constitutional framework and proscribing the scope and domain of military activity. It also abrogated the old directives of the military governments based on the National Security Doctrine, which Alfonsín abhorred,

but it did not provide enabling legislation to operationalize the defense establishment, civilian or military. The La Tablada incident in early 1989

vividly revealed the law’s shortcomings, but by then it was too late for the

134 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Radical incumbents to act. Although consultative mechanisms were created by emergency measures, the electoral battle and the military’s use of

the La Tablada incident to pressure civilian authorities for vindication of

past roles and missions preempted the use of those mechanisms to consider future roles and missions. Defense guidance, as it would be referred

to in the United States, was nowhere to be found.

Changed Roles and Missions under Menem

Defense policy did not top Menem’s agenda; he had to face the deteriorating economic situation that had forced Alfonsín from office early.

Menem’s first task concerning the military was to defuse the review of the

past issues, a task that had two consequences for civil-military relations.

First, it put to rest the immediate confrontation between military and

civilian authorities, even though a bitter faction of the military would

again try to disrupt the military hierarchy and the Presidency. Second, by

creating a better atmosphere for civil-military interaction, it permitted

Menem to postpone definitive action about military roles and missions,

particularly concerning the allocation of resources to the defense establishment. The civilians seemed intent on two things: that the military cost

as little as possible and that it not cause political problems.330

Therefore, whereas Alfonsín had been unable to avoid confrontation

with the military, Menem could and did elude it. Civil-military relations in

the Menem years were characterized by cordiality, but this goodwill did

not translate into concrete defense guidance in the first Menem administration. No defense planning in the broad sense occurred; although directives for Menem’s consideration were prepared, they always seemed to be

“in the works.”331 The question of what the military should do was addressed internally by military authorities. They pondered the changing

strategic environment that the year 1989 would usher in worldwide. They

addressed the hipótesis de conflicto of old: the concerns about Chile and

“territorial integrity”; the possibilities and prospects of internal subversion; and defense of sovereignty and the national interest. But as one highlevel MOD civilian put it, international bilateral conflicts no longer were

considered viable.332 Absent a real threat (or a created one) that required a

military solution, the services were in danger of looking to civilian political authorities like an expensive ornament, and a tarnished one at that. In

the Menem administration, threats to national security and national interest were seen in economic terms, and Menem saw the solution to those

problems as resting in the reduction of the role of the state.

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 135
Moreover, the administration saw new international economic

arrangements—especially MERCOSUR, in effect from January 1, 1995—

as abolishing the possibility of regional armed conflict with Argentina’s

neighbors, save perhaps Chile (not then a MERCOSUR participant). Minister of Defense Camilión emphasized these views in an interview in late

1994, citing especially the “total intimacy” with Brazil.333

This national strategy of reorienting the national economy away

from the state-centered focus that it had since the first Perón administration in the late 1940s resulted in the deprioritizing of state activities that

were not amenable to privatization, particularly education, health, and defense. These sectors were among the postergados—the postponed.334 This

shift did not mean that these sectors were ignored entirely; all these sectors

represented, in the Argentine context, functions in which the governmental interest was inherent and profound. But it did mean that the central

government contribution to these tasks was minimized. The reorientation

of the economy was another indicator of the divorce of national strategy

from military strategy, of national interest from military interest. Expenditures were reduced to the point that the military forces became almost

nonoperational, and many military assets, especially most of the Fabricaciones Militares industrial complex, were sold or privatized.

Defense policy remained moribund; even national security issues

yielded to economic and foreign policy. Military roles and missions in the

first Menem administration responded to these policy guidelines and their

operationalization rather than to defense or military policy. This subsumption resulted in some interesting roles for Argentine military forces,

and it enhanced two exogenous actors in the defense policy mix: the

United States and the United Nations (UN).

For most of the contemporary era, both external and internal security had been the province of the military. The national security forces

other than the police, such as the National Gendarmerie and the Naval

Prefecture, also were subordinated to the military hierarchy. The military

establishment had been an autonomous, self-defining arbiter of the use of

force. The Dirty War, the Malvinas war, and the Alfonsín administration

formally ended that situation but had put little in its place.

During the first Menem administration, that did not change much.

No one seemed to know how the military should behave with respect to defense. Consequently, many military officers summarized the defense posture as deterrence, a sufficient capability to ward off any threats to Argentina. But civilian preoccupation with economic and foreign policy

136 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
appropriated military assets to further their own policies rather than providing defense guidance upon which force structure and a national security

posture could be predicated that would make deterrence meaningful. The

paucity of traditional functions led to the creation of at least two new roles

to support nondefense missions: international peacekeeping support,

under the auspices of the United Nations, and combatting the international

drug trade, with considerable influence from the United States.

Argentine foreign and economic policy both reflected Menem’s apostasy toward orthodox Peronism. Contrary to traditional standards of Argentine nationalism, statism, and protectionism, Menem was highly internationalist in his foreign policy. He deemed it in Argentina’s interest to be on

the “right side”of both the United States and the United Nations in the postCold War era. And he planned to use military assets to further these ends.

Menem committed two Argentine Navy destroyers to Persian Gulf

duty in support of the forces sanctioned by the United Nations and led by

the United States in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. This action

was unprecedented in a venue outside the Western Hemisphere, and it indicated that Argentina would support international efforts with more than

rhetoric. The only Latin American country to commit forces in the Gulf

War, Argentina was immediately a high-profile, if largely symbolic, actor

in that arena.

Argentina again was a player in a multinational context outside the

Western Hemisphere when Menem committed significant military forces,

this time from the army, to support UN peacekeeping forces in the former

Yugoslavia. Argentina agreed to commit a reinforced battalion in Croatia

as part of a multinational force. This commitment of some 800 to 900

army personnel to duty in Croatia at any one time had significant consequences for military policy. In the context of security and military relationships with the United States, Argentina’s military under the first

Menem administration adopted one nontraditional mission, a support

role in combating the illegal drug trade, and eschewed two others, the continuation of the Condor missile program and the development of nuclear

weapons. All of these moves were controversial because significant elements in Argentine government and society saw them as diminutions of

sovereignty. But Menem needed the confidence of the U.S. Government to

pursue his nondefense objectives in the international arena, and all these

defense-related roles were designed to achieve them.

Tasking military assets to combat the international drug trade raised

several issues: using the military in an internal security mission; involving

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 137
military personnel in nonmilitary roles that were the purview of the National Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard; and diverting military assets to

nonmilitary uses. The military services’ high commands and their counterparts in the security forces discussed these matters, concluding that the

military should not take the lead in this program and that any military involvement was controversial.

Nonetheless, Menem adopted the fight against the illegal narcotics

trade as his own, and in 1991 he created the Federal Narcotics Control Service to combat the trade in Argentina. This civilian agency was the focal

point of Argentine efforts against illegal substances. Most operations in

this regard fell to security forces and to the justice system, but the air force

was significantly involved. Along with the National Gendarmerie, it was

charged with mapping the country to discover clandestine airfields being

used for drug trafficking and with providing radar and aircraft intercept

capability. Hence, one of the armed services was directly involved, and the

other two were charged with providing logistical support.

The Argentine military made several decisions that constituted important confidence-building measures with regard to the United States.

The most controversial was the discontinuation and dismantling of the

Condor II missile project. Conceived in the 1970s, this project had gone on

even under the Alfonsín regime without public knowledge. Designed to be

Argentina’s entry into the high-technology world of missile development,

the Condor program created a web of secret financing and distribution

arrangements, especially with countries in the Middle East. Menem’s election to the Presidency and subsequent developments in the Persian Gulf

region highlighted this project, and the United States began pressing for its

discontinuation if not its dismemberment. The Argentine Air Force, for

which the project was major and separately funded, was loath to give it up

and especially to be seen as bending to U.S. pressure. But Menem knew

that U.S. support for other efforts, including other military programs,

probably would turn on this issue. The Condor program was closed, but

not without some considerable strains.

Although Alfonsín constricted the role of the military in the development of nuclear materials, no clear statement of the Argentine position was made until the Menem administration. On November 28, 1990,

the presidents of Argentina and Brazil signed a “Declaration on the

Common Nuclear Policy of Brazil and Argentina,” establishing a common system of accounting and control for nuclear materials and an independent agency, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and

138 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), for the application of safeguards

to both countries. This led to Brazilian and Argentine ratification of the

Tlatelolco Treaty, which created a nuclear-weapons-free zone in Latin

America. The quadripartite agreement among Argentina, Brazil, the

ABACC, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has greatly reduced international concern about the nuclear programs of both Brazil

and Argentina and has effectively ended a dangerous aspect of the old rivalry between Brazil and Argentina.335

President Menem set his international house in order, in some respects by choosing whether to utilize defense assets in pursuit of foreign

policy objectives. But this finessed the matter of the internal Argentine

civil-military relationship.

Institutional Relationships

Defense and military issues were not high priorities for Carlos

Menem. He engaged the military mostly at a symbolic level, pardoning its

offenses but eschewing its desire for vindication of past actions. He did not

want to confront the military, but more importantly, he did not want the

military to confront him. Hence, as long as he was able to avoid its demands, he shunted the military aside or used it selectively to further his

other plans in the economic and foreign affairs arenas.

The Ministry of Defense, then, was not a primary focus for policy for

the Menem administration. The MOD had the two essential tasks of restraining the military budget and privatizing military industries, both

measures designed to further Menem’s overall economic plan. Indeed,

when Domingo Cavallo became Economy Minister in early 1991, he became by far the most powerful of Menem’s subordinates in the Executive.

The MOD was of secondary interest, a position reflected in the selection

of its leadership.

In just over 4 years in the early 1990s, President Menem had five defense ministers. None had much of a background in defense matters, and

most had interests elsewhere. The first, Italo Luder, had been Raúl Alfonsín’s Peronist opponent in the 1983 presidential election. He stayed only a

few months until the beginning of 1990, and despite efforts by this Peronist

stalwart to raise the profile of the Ministry of Defense and seek better prioritization of assets and needs, not much of consequence occurred during

his brief tenure (except for the pardons, with which he had nothing to

do).336 His successor was Humberto Romero, who remained only a year.

The fourth uprising and the final pardons came late in his tenure, and he

resigned after them. Guido di Tella, whose ambition was the Foreign Office,

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 139
took the Defense portfolio for just 15 days before moving to the Ministry

of Foreign Relations, yielding Defense to Antonio Erman González, a Peronist politician who came in at the same time as Cavallo. He stayed for 2

years essentially to match Defense with Menem’s and Cavallo’s economic

plans and ambitions, resigning in March 1993 to seek elective office. His

successor was Oscar Camilión, a career diplomat of long standing but with

little knowledge of defense matters or priorities. Despite his impeccable

reputation at the time of his appointment, a major arms sale scandal

erupted during his tenure.

Menem did not involve himself in the institutional relationships in

the defense sector. He was cordial to the military but kept it at arm’s

length, not involving it in any significant way in the policy process. He followed Alfonsín’s lead in using the forum of the Armed Forces Comradeship dinner to set forth his thinking about the military. Speaking on July

7, 1990, at his first such opportunity, he asserted what he expected the

civil-military relationship to be. He averred that the military had “finally

inserted themselves in the Argentine and world democratic institutions”

and that there were no longer “different objectives for the Armed Forces,

politicians and each sector of society.”337 In other words, no political role

existed for the military. Furthermore, as a “pillar in the reconstruction of

the Argentine state,” the military, like all other institutions, would be called

“in the direction of self-sacrifice and good judgment. I call on you to put

moderation before the lack of satisfaction.” Hence, the military could not

expect particular consideration in terms of resources, let alone preferential

treatment, in the Menem administration.

The Alfonsín administration’s Defense Law remained in effect, with

most of its provisions still not legislatively implemented. The National Security Council established by Alfonsín remained in existence but was not

convened.338 The use of the armed forces in internal matters was the major

defense question, one that increasingly came under the purview, if not the

jurisdiction, of the Minister of Interior. In early 1990, Interior Minister

Julio Mera Figueroa emphasized that the Menem administration would

use the military to support local law enforcement if necessary.339 This use

was made possible by Menem Decree 392, which dismantled the National

Security Council and transferred its functions to the National Defense

Council established by the Alfonsín-era Defense Law. Many saw this as an

end-run on using the military forces internally, contravening the intent of

the Defense Law.340 But despite some unrest in the country at that time because of the parlous state of the economy, no such use was made.

140 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
However, the precedent was set and was codified 2 years later in the

Domestic Security Law of the Menem administration. This law states,

“The Armed Forces will be used to re-establish order within national territory (including the country’s airspace and sea shelf) in exceptional cases

in which the president deems that the domestic security system established

by this law is insufficient to carry out the stipulated aims.”341 The Minister

of Interior, not the Minister of Defense, was to coordinate any such effort.

Reorganization at the Ministry of Defense reflected Menem’s desire

that it play a supporting role to his economic aims and policies. The only

major reorganization occurred in September 1991 under Defense Minister

Antonio Erman González.342 Two new secretariats and five undersecretariats were created. The military affairs secretariat, with its policy and strategy and scientific and technology research undersecretariats, was to handle the military side of defense policy; the planning and reorganization

secretariat, with its administration and budget, restructuring and investment (privatization), and patrimonial assets (such as real estate) undersecretariats, would address the economic side. The Menem-Cavallo priorities in the defense sector were clearly recognizable in this arrangement.

The Ministry of Defense, then, functioned as a staging area for other

policy initiatives within the Menem administration, but little in the way of

concrete military and defense policy was forthcoming. And the Ministry of

Defense continued to rely on its military subsystems to provide defense

guidance. The process was circular: policy did not flow from the highest

civilian authorities to the lower levels and then to the military services as

the operating agencies. The civilians wanted the military to tell them what

should be done; the military wanted the civilians to tell them what they

should do. Although the recruitment and training of civilian defense officials improved somewhat, many still viewed the civilian defense hierarchy

as being more a conduit for than a director of military ideas.343 The Armed

Forces Joint Staff, clearly subordinate to the MOD, should have been the

principal military source for policy.

The Armed Forces Joint Staff continued to provide the forms of

jointness but not the substance. Although Alfonsín had sought through

legislation to vest the Joint Staff with considerable authority, its power

never approached operational control of military assets. Neither the MOD

nor the services were willing to part with the resources that might have

made the Joint Staff a significant policy body, able to propose or execute

policy. Consequently, the Joint Staff remained the excluded middle, in theory the linchpin between the civilians of the Ministry of Defense and the

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 141
Armed Forces, but in practice unable to affect much, or effect much, either

up the command chain or down it.

This impotence was not for lack of effort on the part of the Joint

Staff. Admiral Emilio Osses, Menem’s first Chief of the Joint Staff, sought

to move the Joint Staff to the forefront of military planning. However, the

basis for the role he envisioned for the Joint Staff, as a senior advisory

group to a Joint Chief of Staff, did not exist.344 Osses therefore created the

Committee of the Chiefs of Staff, designed to bring the top officers of the

army, navy, and air force and the Chief of the Joint Staff into some recognized body.

This was no easy task. The individual services remained wary of

jointness as a standard operating procedure and were not amenable to the

idea of ceding operational control. Consequently, the Joint Staff acted as a

coordinating body, providing input for the proposals for directive action

by the civilian authorities of the Ministry of Defense and synchronizing

the efforts of the three armed services to pursue their tasks. But the main

efforts of the MOD were directed toward reducing military costs, and the

main efforts of the services were focused on surviving. The Joint Staff had

no resources that it could use to enhance joint military capability or to enforce its judgments among recalcitrant armed services. Entrenchment of

the notion of service autonomy, however much proscribed or bounded,

was exacerbated by economic hard times and a lack of direction from the

civilian authorities entrusted with promulgating defense guidance. Without budgetary or operational control, the Joint Staff, and especially its

Chief, was largely ignored.

Further undermining the authority of the Chief of the Joint Staff

was the problem of seniority. Although the president formally vested the

position as the senior military member on active duty, this was not necessarily the case in practice. For example, General Mario Cándido Díaz

was not the senior serving army officer when he was Chief of the Joint

Staff; Army Chief of Staff General Martín Balza was. Given the predispositions of the armed forces to act autonomously and the military personnel system’s rigid prescriptions about seniority and authority, having a

lower-ranking officer serve in a position theoretically charged with directive responsibilities lessened its impact. The result was, as one observer

put it, “no one listened to Díaz.”345 This absence of authority, combined

with the operational and budgetary restraints, had the effect of marginalizing the Joint Staff. The chiefs of staff of the army, navy, and air force remained masters of their domains (as small and pinched as it may have

142 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
been), and they retained more power and prestige than the Joint Staff and

its chiefs among military circles. Despite the best efforts of Admiral Osses

and others, the Joint Staff was still regarded as auxiliary, and ensuring that

top officers served there remained a struggle, as the armed forces were reluctant to part with them.

Resources

Defense Budget

The evolution of the defense budget during the Menem administration clearly showed the effects of political economy. Menem inherited an

economic shambles from Alfonsín. In his first year in office, inflation was

a staggering 5,648 percent.346 The calendar year figure for 1990 improved

but was still 1,343 percent through November.347 Such numbers render almost meaningless any statistical comparison of the defense budget with

GDP or GNP, or with total government expenditures, in the early years of

the administration. However, with the arrival of Economy Minister Cavallo in early 1991, the Menem economic plan began stabilizing, in part by

keeping down expenditures for sectors other than social insurance or the

economy totally or heavily dependent on the state. Defense was the clearest example of this, with no offsetting provincial or private components,

as in the case of health and education. Hence, practically no investment

occurred in the defense sector (the privatization programs and the sale of

defense assets actually decreased defense capital).

One of Cavallo’s first actions was to “dollarize” the economy, pegging

the austral (in March 1991 the Argentine unit of currency) at 10,000 to the

dollar, fully convertible. Soon after, conversion to the peso lopped four

zeros from the value of the austral, and for practical purposes one Argentine peso equaled one U.S. dollar. Although this rate overvalued the peso

considerably, it had dramatic effects on inflation. The calendar year 1991

rate was 84 percent, with the monthly rate in November of that year at 0.4

percent, the lowest such rate not artificially induced in 20 years. The rate

in 1992 fell to 18 percent and annualized at 8 percent in 1993. In 1994, the

inflation rate for the year was slightly less than 4 percent.348 These changes

radically altered the statistical bases for GDP, government expenditures,

and defense budgets, certainly on a nominal basis, so by 1992 comparisons

were possible.

In 1992, the central government budget was 33.77 billion pesos.349

Given a nominal GDP of 226 billion pesos in revised, dollarized figures,

central government expenditures represented 14.9 percent of GDP.350 The

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 143
Ministry of Defense budget, including the armed forces and security

forces and related dependencies and programs, was 4,037 billion pesos, or

11.9 percent of the national budget. This amount represented 1.78 percent of GDP.

In 1993, the budget increased to 39.65 billion pesos, 16.3 percent of

the estimated nominal GDP of 244 billion pesos. The defense budget was

3,994 billion pesos, 10.1 percent of the national budget, and represented

1.64 percent of GDP.351 Contrasting these numbers with the comparable

data for earlier periods, in the first Menem administration the defense

budget went from 2.5 percent of GDP to 1.64 percent. This budget placed

the armed forces in such a tight position for operational funds that on at

least one occasion, the military hierarchy was forced to appeal to the president for supplemental funds to finish a fiscal year.

Focusing on only the military component of the budget shows figures more reflective of the civil-military relationship. The army, navy, and

air force received only about $2 billion of the approximately $4 billion destined for Defense; army figures put the total for the forces even lower, at

$1.88 billion.352 Either way, the amount spent by the military (not including the Gendarmerie or coast guard, nor Defense dependencies such as the

defense factories and companies, the Joint Staff, and the National Antarctic Directorate, plus the enormous accumulated liabilities and debts in the

defense sector), was less than 1 percent of GDP and only 5 percent of the

national budget as a whole. This included all personnel funds for active

and retired members, operational expenses, and capital funds. The personnel funds just for pay, allowances, and social welfare costs totaled $1.4

billion of the $1.88 billion, or some 75 percent of the total, and the costs

were rising. The rest went for operations, with only 2.5 percent designated

for capital expenditures. The effects of these low amounts and their

skewed distribution were substantial; the connection between resources

and restructuring and manpower is examined below in the context of military policy along with the effects on roles and missions.

The state of the defense budget reflected the low priority of the defense establishment to the Menem administration. In the second administration, only enough funding was provided for the continued existence

of military forces; the most salient employments of the military by

Menem, the combined peacekeeping operations under UN auspices, relied on at least the promise of external funding for their support. Capital

improvements and readiness adjustments for the Argentine Armed Forces

144 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
had to await the outcome of the privatization of defense production establishments and the sale of military assets.

Privatization and Defense

The path Menem chose to reinvigorate the economic health of Argentina was privatization, starting with such huge state enterprises as the

telephone company (ENTEL) and the state airline (Aerolíneas Argentinas).

These and scores of other state-owned or -controlled companies, especially

the railroads and the state oil company, had been losing money and piling

up debt for years. Among the major state-owned conglomerations was the

military-industrial complex, over 30 establishments employing tens of

thousands of people and involved in everything from armaments and explosives to iron and steel, electrical products, and chemicals. These enterprises included not only the former army complex, Fabricaciones Militares,

but also the TANDANOR, AFNE, and Domecq García naval shipyards, the

TAMSE tank factory, and the airplane factory at Córdoba.

Alfonsín had made a desultory attempt to privatize some of these defense assets, but only one had been sold by the end of his term. The Ministry of Defense still controlled or had a major financial interest in the rest

when Menem took office. The MOD also had the major liabilities incurred

by the massive debts these industries generated. The military-industrial

complex—increasingly obsolescent, constrained in the market by foreign

policy considerations during the Alfonsín years, and servicing a military

with no money for purchases—represented an unacceptable fiscal drain

on the Argentine state and presented Menem with an inviting target for

privatization.

The year 1991 saw the elaboration of a comprehensive privatization

strategy for all remaining state enterprises, a plan that came to fruition on

November 12 with the issuance of a decree by President Menem.353 The

government was to sell a 30 percent stake in all remaining state companies, with the bid winners taking control of the enterprises. Later, the remaining state shares in the enterprises were to be sold on the local and international financial markets, presumably of companies that in the

meantime under private management had become more viable and valuable. Menem planned to complete many of these controlling share sales

by the end of 1992.

The military-industrial complex was not excluded from this massive

transfer of economic assets to private control. On December 4, 1991, the

Senate authorized the privatization of the more than 30 enterprises under

the Ministry of Defense, including Fabricaciones Militares and the Córdoba

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 145
Air Material (AMC) facility that was still under air force auspices.354 In 1992

and 1993, the military establishment’s involuntary shedding of its once

massive and powerful economic component proceeded. By mid-1993, at

least the initial stage had been accomplished for most of the factories.

The military was alarmed by the scope and magnitude of this privatization drive but had little influence over its direction. Having no money

for procurement, modernization, construction, or restructuring, the military’s only hope lay in seeking a provision that would return to it the

money generated by the privatization of these companies and the sale of

other military assets such as real estate. Defense Minister González, on taking office, had indicated that such would be the case.355 Later, when officials were finalizing plans to privatize the military sector, MOD Planning

Secretary Jorge Pereyra de Olazábal confirmed that intention: “Each enterprise will be privatized following the most advantageous method, for

which reason it is necessary to study them case by case, considering the

equipment that they produce.”356

By June 1993, privatization was in full swing in the military industrial sector. Only the five military production factories of Fabricaciones

Militares (Domingo Mattheu, Fray Luis Beltrán, Villa María, Fanazul, and

Río Tercero, which manufactured arms, ammunition, and explosives) remained, where the army sought to retain some semblance of operational

control. The Menem plan was for these plants to be civilian-owned and -

operated. The army hoped the five could be government-owned but civilian-operated, that is, with controlling shares remaining with the state, to

form a residual defense industry to service the much reduced armed

forces. This effort reflected the continuing military desire not to be completely dependent on the private sector for the barest of military essentials.

But by May 1994, the state and the military already were reduced to minor

players even in the armaments and explosives industries, as feasibility

studies and preparation of offers for privatization or sale were being finalized for these and similar facilities that were not yet divested.357

Matériel

In the first Menem administration, both procurement and production

decisions regarding military equipment focused on combat aircraft and

naval combat vessels. The most telling losses in the War in the South Atlantic

had been aircraft, 95 in all from the 3 services (even though the biggest single loss was the navy cruiser ARA Belgrano—formerly the USS Phoenix).

And much of the inventory that remained, especially in the air force, was

nearing the end of its service life. The losses of 61 air force aircraft in the

146 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Malvinas and of 29 more since that time practically eliminated the Argentine Air Force as a tactical military instrument.358 (A U.S. Government

source indicated that the total number of tactical combat aircraft in 1993

was 18 A–4s and 30 Mirage IIIs, of which only about half in each category

were flyable.) New, or at least replacement, modernized fighters and helicopters for all services were the highest priorities.

On the production side, Argentine military hopes rested on the

IA–63 Pampa trainer (also known as the Pampa 2000), to be built jointly

with LTV Aerospace at the Córdoba facility. Argentina, and especially the

air force as a major beneficiary, competed for a contract by the United

States for 711 air force and navy trainers that was opened for bids in

1994.359 The Argentine plane was expected from early tests to be very competitive. But it was not to be. On December 6, 1994, the U.S. commission

reviewing the contenders’ bids at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, disqualified the Argentine plane. The Argentine Minister of Defense explained the finding that the hydraulic control system in the Pampa

2000 required “extremely accurate” handling and declared it “useless as a

primary pilot trainer.”360 Menem vowed to seek some redress, but none

was forthcoming.

The military services had almost no money in their respective budgets for acquisitions. What little there was went primarily to maintain existing stocks of equipment. Some spare parts were acquired, mostly for airplanes, helicopters, and vehicles, and some equipment was received from

excess U.S. stocks, most notably two C–130 aircraft, the standard transport

plane in the Argentine Air Force. And whereas the army and navy were able

to make do temporarily with existing matériel, the air force could not. Antiquated or irreparable equipment effectively grounded the force by 1995.

By late 1992, the Menem administration had decided to purchase 36

A4M Skyhawks, a modern version of the A4B and A4C aircraft already in

the Argentine inventory, to replace the lost or disabled aircraft. However,

this choice was not universally popular. Chief of the Joint Staff Antonietti,

an air force brigadier general, loudly opposed the purchase of an airplane

he regarded as obsolete.361 He and many others would much have preferred

the F–16 or F–18 top-of-the-line aircraft, but these were not available. (Antonietti lost not only the argument, viewed as the latest episode in his long

feud with Air Force Chief of Staff Brigadier General Raúl Julia, but also his

job; he was replaced by Lieutenant General Díaz shortly thereafter.)

This landmark acquisition, the first major sale to Argentina by external powers since the Malvinas conflict, was not without controversy. Cost

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 147
was a consideration, but the privatization proceeds from the sale of excess

military assets such as real estate and buildings were available. The other

problem was a residual of the War in the South Atlantic: the continued opposition of the United Kingdom to any sale of major weapons systems to

Argentina that might be employable in the Malvinas theater.

The original deal for the A4Ms called for an overhauled and updated

airplane but not one with advanced electronics. The Argentines insisted

that a viable avionics suite, including state-of-the-art radar, be part of the

package. However, this equipment would drive up the cost from an original estimate of $100 million to $125 million for 36 planes to about $230

million. In addition, the British, according to Defense Minister Oscar

Camilión, would try to impede the sale if the sophisticated electronics and

weapons systems were included.362

On February 1, 1994, Foreign Minister Guido di Tella announced

that the United States, exhibiting a “level of trust” in Argentina, had closed

the deal for 36 aircraft with the radars desired.363 In December 1994, President Menem signed a contract giving Lockheed Aircraft a 25-year concession on the AMC with an option for two 10-year extensions. Lockheed was

to refit 18 of the 36 A4Ms there, retaining over 2,000 AMC workers (the

other 18 were to be done in the United States). This move effectively privatized AMC, a Menem objective, and gave Argentina a major stake in this

aircraft refit, with the possibility of establishing AMC as a major maintenance and repair center for all of Latin America.364

The navy continued its refit and construction programs as best it

could. The aged aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo languished, as lack of

costly upgrades and of suitable modern aircraft rendered it unusable. Periodically, the navy sought to get the refit going, but on December 19,

1996, navy Chief of Staff Admiral Carlos Marrón would decide to terminate the program.365

By 1989, as Menem took office, navy construction had stabilized at

two MEKO 140 frigates (four were built and commissioned) at AFNE, and

two TR 1700 submarines at Domecq García (two were already in the fleet).

Because of labor conflicts with the builders and the financial woes of the

navy and the Ministry of Defense, it appeared by the end of the first Menem

administration that even if completed, all these assets would have to be

sold. The frigates later escaped that fate, and the second Menem administration directed the commissioning of two 140 Class ships, ARA Robinson

and ARA Gómez Roca.

366 The submarines being built—two lots under construction and two lots from the German supplier/coproducer Thyssen

148 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Nordseewerke that were never unpacked—were never completed, and efforts to sell them were unsuccessful. Finally, the government decided to sell

all four lots as “spare parts and scrap iron” to a Dutch naval enterprise.367

Military Policy

In Argentina, military policy has often played a major, sometimes definitive, role in the civil-military relationship, given the salience of military

views and the importance of estado militar. This section will deal with the

relationship from the service and unit level, seeking both to differentiate

defense and military policy and to analyze the civil-military relationship

from the latter perspective.

Manpower

By the second half of the Alfonsín administration, the overall manning levels in the military forces had stabilized. The cadre numbers varied

little throughout the Alfonsín period, staying at levels quite high for the

total force numbers (see table 4 for the army; the other two services always

maintained their officer and NCO ranks at high levels). The number of

conscripts, however, had been halved, so that total uniformed force levels

were only about half of even their pre-Malvinas high. Because little restructuring other than simple downsizing had occurred, units were significantly undermanned, particularly in the army, which depended more

heavily on the conscripted soldier than either the air force or navy. Budgetary restrictions were so severe that conscripts sometimes were released

early, as the army could not afford to feed, clothe, house, or arm them

(conscripts were paid next to nothing in cash).

In the Menem administration, the overall manning situation worsened. Figure 3 details the situation for the army, in which the effects of low

overall manning levels were most significant. Cadre strength remained virtually unchanged, indicating that retirements were being matched by acquisitions, and that cadre levels were being maintained at all costs.

But the number of conscripts plummeted further, reaching its nadir

in 1991, with a mere 9,000 or so incorporated into the army. Table 6 details conscript acquisition in the uniformed services from 1973 to 1994,

which turned out to be the last year of conscription. The number of civilians also was reduced by approximately 25 percent by 1992.

The result of this further significant reduction in manpower was that

the Argentine armed forces became essentially a cadre force, skilled and

developed through the military schooling system but having little in the

way of troops or functioning equipment. The cadre constituted some 65

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 149
percent of the force in the army, and more in the navy and air force, contrasting with a historical level before the Malvinas war of 20 to 25 percent

in the army and 50 to 60 percent in the navy and air force.

This manning imbalance had effects far beyond the filling of the

ranks. Retiree costs, part of the military portion of the defense budget,

were increased by the high number of cadre, and the imbalance was worsened by the fact that both officer and NCO retirees were generally at

higher grades, causing a corresponding drain on the personnel accounts.

150 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Figure 3. End Strengths of Active-Duty Army Personnel (1985–1992)

Source: Verde Oliva, no. 3 (August 1992), 3.

35,550 CONSCRIPTS

29,950

CADRE (OFFICERS AND NCOS)

25,560

13,400

8,500

CIVILIANS

11,850

1000's

40

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

35

PERSONNEL BY GRADE

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 

TOTAL PERSONNEL 1985— 77,350 1992— 50,450

367

362

673 2966

527

328

140

76

62

1868

1308

1200

970

4680

34

3006

1229

1667

4520

905

4553

1191 4689

OFFICERS ON ACTIVE DUTY

General

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Major

Captain

First Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Sublieutenant

General

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Major

Captain

First Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Sublieutenant

Sergeant Major

Principal Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Sergeant First Class

Sergeant

Corporal First Class

Corporal

Sergeant Major

Principal Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Sergeant First Class

Sergeant

Corporal First Class

Corporal

NCOS ON ACTIVE DUTY

OFFICERS NCOS

5147

7435

3874

1613

768

503

651

RETIRED NCOS (19,991) UNDER 65 YEARS 

OVER 65 YEARS 

RETIRED OFFICERS (4,676) UNDER 65 YEARS 

OVER 65 YEARS 
(A significant number of widows and dependents also were paid from military funds.) Hence, the army, and the navy and air force as well, were paying approximately an equal number of active and retired cadre. Consequently, active-duty pay, gutted by the hyperinflation of the early Menem

years, remained low. The military budget had no money to increase pay,

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 151

Table 6. Two Decades of Military Conscription (1973–1994)

Year Army Navy Air Force Total

1973 59,664 17,300 7,300 84,264

1974 64,327 18,500 7,320 90,147

1975 68,205 18,684 9,533 96,422

1976 66,949 19,751 9,645 96,345

1977 68,216 20,332 9,212 97,760

1978 71,831 20,350 9,000 101,181

1979 71,033 17,000 12,300 100,333

1980 73,108 17,000 11,000 101,108

1981 73,863 18,500 11,060 103,423

1982 72,643 15,300 11,200 99,143

1983 63,000 15,000 10,500 88,500

1984 63,941 16,500 9,000 89,441

1985 34,185 7,510 6,865 48,560

1986 24,967 5,725 7,000 37,692

1987 28,320 6,600 5,901 40,821

1988 29,090 7,250 5,950 42,290

1989 31,606 9,030 6,119 46,755

1990 16,185 8,500 5,000 29,685

1991 9,789 4,034 1,585 15,408

1992 13,000 5,000 1,800 19,800

1993 15,000 4,000 2,000 21,000

1994 20,000 4,000 2,000 26,000

Source: Argentine Army General Staff, as reported in La Nación.

Note: 1994 is the last year in which conscripts were inducted.
and the Menem administration never compensated for all inflation losses

and dollarized prices. (See figure 4.)

This budget shortfall had another notable and generally deleterious

effect. “The [phenomenon of] double employment was born in the last

part of the Radical government and deepened with that of Carlos Menem

because of the vertical fall of military salaries,” opined one analyst in April

1992.368 His observation underscored a problem that manifested itself in

both the officer and NCO ranks: for some 50 percent of the cadre, particularly among those with assignments in urban areas and unsupported by

the self-contained garrisons of the interior, working two jobs had become

the norm. Sanctioned for the sergeants and tolerated for the officers, this

phenomenon resulted in the “part-time military.” A headquarters or even

a garrison often was almost deserted by the early afternoon. Others operated with even more of a skeleton crew than normal, and other military

152 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Figure 4. Comparisons of Personnel Status: Active, Retired, and Pensioned

Source: Working Paper, Army General Staff, Undated. English Translations by author.

ACTIVE

RETIRED

PENSIONED

ACTIVE

RETIRED

PENSIONED

Officers, Comparison by Status

Noncommissioned Officers, 

Comparison by Status

Lieutenant General

Major General

Brigadier General

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Major

Captain

First Lieutenant

Lieutenant

Sublieutenant

Sergeant Major

Principal Sergeant

Staff Sergeant 

Sergeant First Class

Sergeant

Corporal First Class

Corporal

Volunteer First Class

Volunteer

0

400800

1,2001,6002,0002,4002,8003,200

0

2,0004,0006,0008,000

10,00012,00014,00016,000
personnel worked nonmilitary jobs at night. Everything from selling insurance to providing private security to driving taxis was included.

This development was troubling for the military in that it often resulted in the officer or NCO regarding his military profession as just another job, a career civil service position like any other. Indeed, the “other”

job often became the primary financial support of the member.369 This

phenomenon had significant effects on readiness and availability. And a

part-time military was an even more egregious drain on resources, military and societal, than a full-time professional force would have been.

For example, in April 1992, even after a pay differential to restore

full-time status for at least some members, the lowest professional enlisted

rank, a corporal, earned 476 pesos monthly. The highest, a sergeant major,

earned 1,481 pesos. In the officer ranks, a sublieutenant earned 581 pesos,

and a lieutenant general 3,037. In the middle ranks, a staff sergeant earned

996 pesos, and a major 1,375. According to the figure accepted by the

army, the typical family budget consumed 1,266 pesos monthly. To have a

reasonable standard of living, let alone one allowing freedom from financial worry, compensations had to be made for items in the family budget—

a task almost impossible to achieve in the urban areas. Consequently, double employment continued.370

These top-heavy yet hollow armed forces—available only part of the

time in any meaningful sense and at least nominally underpaid—did not

bode well for a professional, disciplined military force in being. Privatization of assets was considered the only hope for providing additional relief

to those areas for which the state is primarily responsible, including defense. But merely compensating for a cumbersome military establishment

did not enhance Argentine security or satisfy either Menem’s or the armed

forces’ visions for the Argentine military. Consequently, force composition

and manpower goals came under serious scrutiny by the middle of

Menem’s first administration.

In the cases of the navy and the air force, the cadre force was accepted

as a given. Conscripts were not an essential part of the ready force, although each of these services required a small number for ancillary duties.

The main concern was retaining the highly specialized and highly trained

individuals that formed the backbone of a sailing or flying force. For the

navy, highly trained ships’ crews and officers could not be replaced if a

hemorrhage occurred because of low pay or unacceptable working conditions.371 The same was true for the air force, especially in terms of pilots

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 153
and mechanics. These two services probably were about as small as they

could get while retaining viability.

The situation was much different in the army, where conscripts were

key to preserving unit integrity and providing fighting strength. Downsizing by reducing conscription while maintaining cadre strengths would

have created a top-heavy, unwieldy, and expensive force. Therefore, a plan

was necessary to permit a rebalancing of the force.

The army, in the June 1992 issue of Verde Oliva (a house organ first

published in April 1992 and later replaced by the publication Soldados),

put forth such a rebalancing plan.372 The proposal was to reduce the over

29,000-member army cadre by approximately one-third, to about 21,000,

by 1995, leaving the post-1995 army with 4,280 officers and 16,795 NCOs.

Another source agreed with the approximate total of 20,000 but indicated

that the “ideal”would be 2,500 officers and 17,500 NCOs.373 In either case,

this reduction was to be accompanied by a doubling of the number of conscripts to 30,000 from the 1993 numbers. A decrease in cadre and an increase in conscripts eventually would have resulted in a less expensive

force in terms of manpower direct costs, since conscripts were paid next to

nothing, trained in units rather than in schools, and did not draw retirement benefits. But cadre reductions of a third of the force also would have

resulted in some severe dislocations, including the very real possibility of

a reduction in force, in which some members would have been forcibly retired or dismissed with few, if any, benefits.

Advent of Voluntary Military Service

By the end of 1993, the general size and grade levels of the forces to

accompany restructuring had emerged. But in 1994, a far-reaching change

in the doctrine of manning the armed forces occurred. From April 1994 to

March 1995, the Argentine armed forces moved from a cadre-conscript

force to the professional military services (PMS) system.

The decision to undertake this transformation (the most significant

manpower decision since 1901, when conscription was introduced by

Minister of War Ricchieri) was precipitated by the killing of conscript

Omar Carrasco at the 161st Artillery Group at Zapala.374 Forced service in

the military was highlighted in an unflattering way, and speculation began

that an all-volunteer force, or “a professional army” as the Interior Minister put it in the wake of the conscript incident, was being contemplated.375

By late June, the details of PMS and Servicio Militar Voluntario

(SMV), the replacement for conscription, began to emerge. Articles in La

Nación newspaper indicated that the services would need some 29,000

154 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
volunteers (20,000 for the army, 4,000 for the navy, and 5,000 for the air

force). Each volunteer would cost about 10,000 pesos per year (salary and

allowances plus other personnel and operational costs), much more than

the 2,500 pesos per year for a conscript. If pension contributions were included, the Joint Staff estimated a cost of 12,500 pesos per year.376 Pay for

the new volunteer was to be 350 pesos per month, rising to 450 pesos depending on various allowances—over twice the minimum legal wage and

about half of the average worker’s wage in Argentina.377

By July, the steps to enact this plan were under way. Menem provided

the kickoff for recruiting the volunteers in his Independence Day speech

in Tucumán.378 The recruiting goal was set at 26,500 by March 1995, and

Menem expressed hopes that as many as 25 percent of the current conscripts would sign up.

By August, the Ministry of Defense and the Joint Staff had estimated

the annual additional cost of PMS, mostly due to the necessity of going to

SMV: 250 million pesos in new allocations, plus 67 million already considered as the cost of maintaining conscripts, for a total of 317 million pesos.379

But implicitly, conversion to a full-time PMS with SMV meant that

the military, especially the army, could not operate on a part-time basis.

The cadre had to devote its full attention to the new recruits, both to make

them operationally fit, including qualified for such missions as the demanding UN peacekeeping operations, and to encourage them to continue a military career. The conscript could simply be warehoused or sent

home. The volunteer apprentice in the all-professional military could not.

The ability to sustain a full-time military rested on an old but critical issue: pay. An early, optimistic estimate by the Ministry of Defense was

a pay increase of 800 million pesos. Economy Minister Cavallo’s reaction

was predictable: “From where do you want me to get 1.1 billion pesos?!”380

An earlier study attributed to the Joint Staff had given a figure of 100 million pesos. Neither figure prevailed; the 1995 governmental general budget

showed no salary increase for the military in its total government expenditures of 43 billion pesos.381 Although the military hierarchy grumbled

that this would seriously affect the operations and motivation of cadre,

they did not force the issue with Menem. Civilians and military alike recognized the need to regularize military salaries, but the money was not

there in 1994.

In the second half of 1994, the legal framework for SMV fell into

place. On September 1, Menem signed a decree abolishing compulsory

military service, in effect since 1901, and establishing a voluntary system.

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 155
The legislation included an escape clause: there would be a draft only if

there were not enough volunteers.382 The decree exempted the 18-yearolds of the Class of 1976 and sustained other exemptions and deferments

then in effect, thus removing the specter of conscription from some

300,000 Argentine males. Those picked by the lottery from the Class of

1976 continued the process, such as physicals, but were unlikely to be

called.383 And on December 15, the Senate approved the Voluntary Military Service Law. It codified the requirements for volunteers already established by Menem’s decree: single, physically fit men and women between

18 and 24, born in Argentina, and with a primary school education

(through 7th grade) would enter into a 2-year contract, to be completed by

age 26. If the number of volunteers did not fill service requirements, the

Executive could draft men to meet them, the conscripts to receive the same

pay and allowances as if they were volunteers. The conscription law also

made provisions for substitute social service for conscientious objectors

and those opposed to weapons.384

The change to volunteers and a professional military service changed

the civil-military calculus as well. No longer would the armed forces, especially the army, be composed of a politicized cadre and a conscripted,

involuntary troop cohort. This major reform—creating an instrumental

force and vitiating the politicized one that had bedeviled both the Alfonsín and Menem administrations—was a large step toward an Argentine

military institution more attuned to new mission realities, although it initially was not accompanied by prudent adjustments in pay and equipment.

It was a move toward giving the more flexible, responsive structure an operational capability in consonance with national interests as determined

by civilian authority. Menem made clear that he set the priorities, and

while in important respects the postergados continued to be postponed,

this change was designed to align more closely the civilian and military aspirations for the armed forces of Argentina.

Education and Training

Despite some efforts by the Alfonsín administration to civilianize the

military educational system or to imbue the military establishment with the

ideal of the citizen-soldier, the military educational system survived that administration almost intact. But some efforts to equate the military and civilian educational systems began to bear fruit in the Menem administration.

The civilian elements of the curriculum that outside institutions,

especially private universities, initially provided for some officers were

156 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
institutionalized into the services’ school systems. For example, in 1990,

the Army Higher Education Institute (Instituto de Enseñanza Superior del

Ejército, or IESE)—the army umbrella organization including the National Military College (Colegio Militar de la Nación, or CMN), the Superior War School (Escuela Superior de Guerra, or ESG), and the Superior Technical School (Escuela Superior Técnica, or EST)—was brought

within the purview of Law 17,778 concerning universities. This gave it

the character of a provincial university and permitted it to grant degrees

in selected areas, such as international relations, engineering, and accounting.385 Hence, a sublieutenant graduate of the CMN could earn a

Bachiller Universitario or Bachiller Técnico (roughly equivalent to an Associate of Science degree), and students in the superior level schools

could earn more advanced degrees.386 The Sargento Cabral NCO School

and the General Lemos Combat Service Support School aimed to provide a high-school-equivalent education for every graduate, either in the

school or through external courses for those already on active duty.

The impact of these changes and of their equivalent alterations in the

navy and air force was long range. But the removal of barriers in ideas and

institutions was designed to narrow the distance between civilian and military ideals and motivations. No effort was made to challenge the institutional integrity of the military educational system or to engage in alternative officer procurement (such as an ROTC system) for the Cuerpo de

Comando. The Cuerpo Profesional, including such specialists as medical

personnel, veterinarians, lawyers, physical education specialists, and musicians, received military training through the General Lemos Combat Service Support School for men and in the newly established School for the

Professional Women’s Corps for women.

Moreover, and perhaps equally important in the long run, a substantial effort began to incorporate civilian students into the military educational program. The Superior Technical School opened its doors to those

wishing to matriculate in its 5-year engineering programs, and by May

1993, some 41 civilians were enrolled.387 The Superior War School offered a

course on defense and strategy in which civilian university students were

enrolled, and it conducted joint war games or crisis scenarios with students

at the National Foreign Service Institute. The National Defense School (Escuela de Defensa Nacional, or EDN), long having had a joint civilian-military student body and now under civilian administration, worked to fill

gaps in expertise of would-be policymakers in the defense arena.

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 157
The changes occasioned by the reductions in budget and manpower

also affected the formal schooling arena. Fewer positions in the academies

were available, whether officer or NCO, as the needs of the services were

fewer. But the most immediate effect of the budget and manpower decisions was in the area of training, which directly affected mission accomplishment and force readiness.

The dual squeeze on money and manpower that began with Alfonsín continued under Menem. The schooling system continued to provide

the inputs for the cadre force with adequate, if spare, professional formation. But in the units and in the field, the opportunities to exercise professional functions diminished. For example, in May 1993, Defense Minister

Camilión stated that flying time for air force pilots had been reduced 50

percent.388 An earlier newspaper report on a national intelligence conference revealed that the Argentine Navy was spending only 30 days a year at

sea (by contrast, the Chilean Navy was said to spend 260 days at sea).389 A

senior air force officer said that in 1980 (at the high tide of military spending), 70 percent of the air force budget was spent on operations, including

training, and 30 percent on personnel. By 1993, the proportions were reversed, and the amount in real terms available was perhaps one-tenth that

of the earlier period.390 This dire assessment was corroborated for the army

in an article by Army Chief of Staff General Martín Balza, which indicated

that operational money had gone from the equivalent of 1,600 million

pesos in 1980 to a low of 105 million in 1991 (and which army sources said

was at 177 million for 1993).391

The training problem in the army was considerably aggravated by

the fact that, unlike the navy and air force, its fighting strength had depended on conscripts, who were available for a limited time and in very

limited numbers. Consequently, army line officers were not commanding

or staffing units that corresponded to the command levels at which they

should be operating. A captain company commander may have had a platoon-sized unit, a lieutenant colonel battalion commander a companysized one. An infantry regiment commanded by a colonel would have been

fortunate to have 300 men, in contrast to its authorized strength of 800.

The diminished status of training, as of maintenance and readiness,

led to charges that Argentina was “defenseless.”392 Many military and some

civilian observers viewed the country as falling behind its neighbors—especially Chile—in terms of military capability. Chile was often held up as an

example of a country that made the democratic transition with its forces intact—and indeed stronger and more numerous than those of Argentina.393

158 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
These sorts of declarations caused ripples in the civil-military relationship.

The services, still left largely to their own devices because of the lack of resources and the low priority at the Ministry of Defense, remained severely

challenged in their ability to meet what were seen as the legitimate defense

needs of Argentina and to address the military force priorities of the Menem

administration, which lay largely outside defense parameters. The evolution

of the armed forces’ restructuring and force posture in the first Menem administration illustrated this situation.

Restructuring

The composition and disposition of Argentina’s armed forces had

long reflected political as much as military considerations. The concentration of armed might in and around Buenos Aires, the preponderance of

military headquarters in major metropolitan areas, and the distribution of

units (especially the army) as a territorial, constabulary force to “show the

flag” and provide an armed presence throughout the country supported

the idea that the Argentine military was organized as much to enhance its

political power as to provide responsive military formations for defense of

the national patrimony.

Alfonsín recognized this important fact and made at least some symbolic efforts to deal with it while pursuing his goal of minimizing military

political power and assets. The Alfonsín government was not at all convinced that it wanted an effective fighting force in its midst, and consequently its version of restructuring consisted largely of downsizing and

budget restraints.

The Menem administration also had other immediate priorities, but

the continued resource and manpower squeeze made the traditional force

structure (including scattered units and bases) unsustainable. The administration’s objectives in foreign policy and the attendant utilization of military assets made that force structure unwieldy and incoherent. But despite

the lack of any systematic attention to force posture, the military was expected to respond somehow to executive initiatives in the foreign and economic policy arenas. The impulse for real reform in terms of restructuring

was present, but the means to carry it out were still lacking. To cobble together effective, flexible, modern military forces from existing assets

stretched credibility; but to persist in the existing dispositions and compositions of forces risked the accomplishment of even derivative military missions, principally a credible deterrent to attack on vital national interests.

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 159
The “smaller, bitter” forces had been the Alfonsín legacy; the “smaller, better” ones remained an unrealized goal in Menem’s first administration.

The spartan nature of military circumstances was an established fact;

the preferential economic treatment of military wants and needs was long

gone. But military holdings of real estate and other fixed assets were extensive. Freeing up these assets and their sale or lease seemed the only hope

for acquiring the necessary funding to make meaningful changes in the

force structure.

On December 10, 1990, President Menem formally announced the

restructuring of the Argentine Armed Forces.394 His speech included a long

list of measures, but the watchword for most of them was consolidation of

units and sale or disposition of properties. Without this agreed-upon first

step, any hope of modernization and enhanced capabilities was vain. And

although lip service was paid to these objectives at that time, belt-tightening remained the order of the day. No other source of capital improvement, acquisition, or even operational funding could bridge the gap between perceived service needs and the budget allocations. Restructuring

funds had to come from service resources, and the armed forces had to accede to the preferences of the civilian authorities even in the disposition of

their own assets. By September 1991, the sale notices were going up.395

A wide gap separated the goals of restructuring from reality. The

aim, as enunciated by Menem and expressed by the Chiefs of the Joint

Staff, was to create effective, fully equipped units in a joint, rapid deployment mode.396 But higher authorities gave no definitive directions or resources to sustain that notion, however desirable it might be in theory.

The reality was that the services were tasked to perform their own restructuring, and the different priorities in their undertakings reflected

this independence of action.

The navy was far more concerned about training, maintenance, and

operations than about unit composition and disposition.397 The nature of

its assets, mostly ships and planes, made redeployment a relatively

straightforward activity as the changes in missions and particular tasking

required. But flexibility in force composition and disposition was a long

way from jointness. The navy was more disposed to engage in deployment

in a combined format, such as the Western Hemisphere naval exercise

UNITAS or the deployment of ships to the Persian Gulf or off Haitian

shores than to redeploy to accommodate joint task force organization

with its sister services. Navy desires for an integrated sea-air-land force

within its own institution, including an aircraft carrier, destroyers,

160 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
corvettes, submarines, naval aviation, and marines reflected its interest in

service integrity and global orientation (the latter supported for the first

time by Menem administration foreign policy initiatives) as well as interdiction and maritime protection responsibilities.398 This global orientation demanded a concentration and consolidation of resources in the

southern part of the country along its coastline, and consequently significant assets were available for disposal, including the naval arsenal at

Buenos Aires, the submarine building shops (Domecq García), and the

explosives factory. But if navy restructuring reflected an assent to consolidation, it also reflected a continued commitment to as much autonomy

in reconfiguration as possible.

The air force priorities in many ways resembled those of the navy.

Highly mobile assets allowed task organization to be changed fairly easily.

But the air force could not sustain its widespread dispositions, let alone

maintain a satisfactory level of operational effectiveness in widely scattered units. Consequently, consolidation was a major focus for the air

force. The number of air brigades was reduced from nine to five, and

maintenance, training, and operational functions also were consolidated

and managed from three centers: at the centrally located city of Córdoba,

the Buenos Aires suburb of Ezeiza, and the southern city of Rio Gallegos.

Restructuring in the composition and disposition of the army was

the most significant and reflective of changed civil-military realities. Argentina no longer required a preponderance of force near the seat of government or a military presence scattered throughout the country as a symbol of authority and internal mission. The reduced size of the force and its

modest operational resources and equipment prohibited the continuance

of such a constabulary army in any event. And the requirements of the civil

authorities for substantial commitment of army resources to external missions, a new consideration in its force posture, demanded that the army seriously address its composition and dispositions. Army leaders, intent on

avoiding any potential confrontations with civilians over changes in army

dispositions and determined to retain as much autonomy as possible over

internal affairs, made sure that the changes they embarked on reflected

those concerns.

Although army planning efforts to restructure had been in the works

since 1986, substantive work did not begin until 1990 with Menem’s decree.

Even then, the process moved slowly. The Argentine Army intended to convert itself from a territorial military establishment into a flexible, responsive ground combat asset, one that could satisfy rapidly changing national

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 161
and international obligations. Only later did the army realize that its reach

exceeded its grasp in this regard, given the state of the institution and the

assignment of priorities in the Menem administration. (See figure 5.)

The two most significant changes made in the first Menem administration altered both the disposition and the composition of the service. The

army branch schools of the combat arms were placed in a schools brigade

and physically relocated to Argentine Mesopotamia. The infantry, cavalry,

artillery, engineering, and communications schools were transferred from

the huge and politically significant army installation at Campo de Mayo,

near Buenos Aires, to various army units, where training in more realistic

circumstances was possible. In addition, these epicenters for the army’s

combat arms were no longer positioned to serve as nuclei for politically oriented activities, as had been the case in the past (for example, los carapintada at the Infantry School when it was located in Campo de Mayo).

The move of the Tenth Mechanized Brigade, a major combat formation, to Santa Rosa, La Pampa Province, was another example of this desire for a combat-oriented and apolitical environment, as well as distance

from the capital. The old I Corps, of which the Tenth had once been a part,

and the IV Corps, once located at Santa Rosa, no longer existed as intermediate headquarters. The Tenth Brigade relocation was the first step toward creating the Variable Employment Force (Fuerza de Empleo Variable,

or FEV).

The FEV was configured with armored and mechanized brigades,

and it included the Rapid Deployment Force composed of the Fourth Airtransportable Brigade and the 601st Ranger Company. The Regionally Deployed Forces, consolidated from the old territorial garrisons, continued

to provide ground combat elements in border areas to insure territorial integrity and support such ancillary tasks as drug interdiction, community

action, and natural disaster relief.

The most immediate and unprecedented influence on army restructuring, and one with the greatest potential impact on the evolving civilmilitary relationship, was the announcement by President Menem on February 15, 1992, that Argentina would make a major unit contribution to

the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) being deployed to the

former Yugoslavia. Involvement of Argentine military personnel in UN

observer missions around the world in the previous 25 years had

amounted to a few score personnel. This commitment called for what in

the traditional Argentine order of battle and nomenclature was a regiment

(but which in most armies worldwide is designated a battalion), a unit of

162 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 163

Figure 5. Projected Army Organization and Deployment (1995)

Source: Verde Oliva, no. 2 (June 1992), 4– 5.

 FEV: Multipurpose Force

 FDR: Rapid Deployment Force

 Ec: Schools Brigade

 Cdo (S): Rangers

 X: Brigade

 XXX: Corps

 CdoIIMM: Military Institutes Command

FEV

XXX

XXX

XX

X

X

X

c

X

X

X

X CdoIIMM

Ec

FDR

Cdo (S)

X

XXX

X

V

VI

IX

XI

X

X

X

X

I

IV

601

V

VIII

III

II

III

II

XII
approximately 850 personnel at full strength, with its own staff and support personnel. But the unit required—basically a separate combined

arms team at battalion strength—did not exist anywhere in the Argentine

Army. Regiments were at half-strength or less and were not adequately

equipped. This new role, emanating from civil authorities in support of

Argentine foreign policy objectives, was essentially an internal security

mission in a location outside of Argentina. And it was expected to be in

place in 2 months or less.

The Argentine Army had no experience in deploying major combat

units overseas (the Malvinas force projection and occupation were not

considered a foreign deployment and in any event provided few useful lessons for this mission). Because no existing unit was remotely prepared,

and the FEV units in the restructuring plan that might have been so deployed were years from realization, the Argentine Army Battalion (Batallón Ejército Argentino, or BEA) had to be created from the ground up as a

full-strength cadre unit; there was little possibility of preparing conscripts

for participation.

Within days, the search for the proper personnel began. In addition

to technical proficiency, skills in a foreign language (particularly English)

were a fundamental concern. A UN-imposed condition of selection that

the personnel be volunteers did not hamper the battalion’s formation; two

to three times as many personnel reportedly volunteered as there were positions in the 865-man unit. Preparation of the personnel was effected first

at corps level, and then the unit was formed up at Campo de Mayo. In May

1992, the BEA joined 11 battalions from other countries in what had once

been part of Yugoslavia. The Argentines were deployed in Western Slavonia, in the northern part of Croatia.

Argentina deployed seven such battalions to Croatia on approximately 6-month rotations until late 1995, when UNPROFOR stood down.

The preparation and deployment of these peacekeeping units became a

major focus of army activity. The military accrued prestige as a result of

this and other peacekeeping missions, including a 350-man unit composed of army and marine elements deployed to Cyprus in early September 1993. 399 But serious concerns also were expressed. The concentration

of training and assets in the rotating international forces, even though they

had external financial support, seriously cut into the available stocks of

operational equipment. Furthermore, there were worries that Argentina

had two armies: one equipped and trained for peacekeeping and well

nourished by external funds and activities, and the “old constabulary,”

164 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
spread thin and doing without. The army was too ill equipped with money

and assets to be split in this fashion.400

The first Menem administration was characterized by significant

changes in military policy. Whether dealing with manpower, resources,

readiness, or restructuring, the wellsprings of military power that could be

used in political ways—to compete with or confront the civilian leadership

as claimants to legitimate authority—were significantly altered. The political priority of defense and of the armed forces that sustained it was subordinated first to economic and then to foreign policy aspirations and

goals. But the first Menem administration was not the last one. The civilmilitary relationships engendered in the early 1990s continued to evolve in

the late 1990s with Menem at the helm.

THE FIRST MENEM ADMINISTRATION 165
Chapter Seven

The Second Menem

Administration: Roles,

Resources, and Restructuring

On May 14, 1995, Carlos Menem was reelected President of the Argentine Republic. Although other presidents had served more

than one term (or part of a second), only Juan Perón had been reelected to a second consecutive term. However, to allow this, Perón had to

abrogate the 1853 Constitution and replace it with his own. Menem had to

do the same, enjoining the Congress to create a new constitution (which

the legislature passed in December 1994), allowing a president to run for

a second term but limiting each term to 4 years.401

Menem enjoyed considerable political success during his first term,

consolidating most effective political power in the presidency. His Justicialista (Peronist) Party maintained control of the legislative bodies, and

Menem acted effectively to bring the judiciary under his political control

as well.402 The first administration harkened back to the model of movimentismo—characterized by a president accountable to the people

through election but not much bounded by the mitigating effects of

shared powers, checks, and balances, or the “controls that state agencies

(other branches) exercise over other state agencies.”403 Hence, the Menem

era has been described as one of delegative democracy in that “[T]oday,

political power in Argentina is not so much exercised in a representative

fashion as it is wholly delegated to the president, to be wielded as he

deems most appropriate.”404 Evidence of this trend was Menem’s wholesale use—244 times in his first 3 years—of Decrees of Necessity and Urgency, 8 times the use of this type of decree by all other elected, constitutional presidents combined.

167
Consequently, Menem entered his second term with highly concentrated political power and a significant mandate, 49.5 percent of the vote,

more than the 45 percent required under the 1994 constitution to avoid a

runoff and 20 percent more than his nearest competitor. Although most

observers conceded that Menem achieved very significant economic and

political stability in his second term, it was marked by considerable controversy and an agglutination of the opposition, largely ineffective in his

first administration, that raised serious issues and challenges to his “delegative democracy” style. A number of these issues and controversies involved the military and affected the civil-military relationships. An examination and analysis of these matters—political controversies, including

human rights and scandals; roles and missions of the armed forces and the

MOD; resources for defense and security; and restructuring of the defense

establishment—offer a better understanding of the military question in

the contemporary milieu.

Civil-Military Relationship Issues

Human Rights

President Menem’s defeat of the fourth carapintada uprising and his

amnesty and pardons of those involved in the antisubversive operations of

the late 1970s had effectively marginalized the human rights violations issues during most of his first administration. The Internal Security Law of

early 1992, fulfilling a provision of the Alfonsín-era National Defense Law,

had set the military outside the realm, except in extreme cases, of matters

involving internal security.405 But in July 1994, after the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Menem created a new security

agency, led by former Chief of the Joint Staff Andrés Antonietti, to direct

the efforts of all armed forces in emergencies such as response to international terrorism.406 This action raised concerns in the human rights organizations in Argentina that the military really had not abandoned its

concern with and involvement in internal security.

But the real reopening of the human rights issue, agitating the

human rights activists and the military, occurred in the runup to Menem’s

reelection as president of Argentina. In early March 1995, retired navy

Commander Adolfo Francisco Scilingo recounted his involvement in disposing of hundreds of kidnapping and torture victims by dropping them

from airplanes into the ocean.407 His revelations ignited a storm of protest

and rekindled old animosities between the military and human rights

groups, splitting Argentine civil society between those who continued to

168 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
seek redress against the military and those who felt such demonstrations

were divisive and ultimately futile. Menem, who apparently felt that his

reconciliation moves had closed the matter, opposed “rub[bing] salt into

old wounds,” and counseled private confession, not public repentance.408

But public confession continued, and it next came from a very unexpected source: the serving Chief of Staff of the Army. On April 25, 1995,

Lieutenant General Martín Balza stated that the army “employed illegitimate methods, including the suppression of life, to obtain information,”

and that the army “did not know how to take on terrorists by legal

means.”409 Although these startling revelations by the head of the major

military institution in Argentina did not reveal anything not already documented, they were the first acknowledgment of error by a serving officer,

indeed one with great responsibility. Even though some felt these remarks

were politically inspired and designed to undercut Menem in the election

campaign, most found them to be sincere, if unlikely to change the state of

affairs concerning ultimate accountability. In any event, the topic of the

human rights responsibility of the armed forces was reopened.

Nor was the matter of accountability for the excesses and deaths of

the Dirty War confined to the military alone. On October 28, 1995, Mexican authorities arrested and extradited to Argentina Enrique Gorriarán

Merlo, a founder of the ERP—the most radical and vicious of the guerrilla

groups operating in Argentina in the 1970s—and later leader of the MTP.

Gorriarán Merlo had led the most well-known attacks against army units,

including the 1974 attack on an armored regiment at Azul, Buenos Aires

Province, and later the last guerrilla attack at La Tablada in 1989. (He was

also a leader of the group that gunned down former Nicaraguan dictator

Anastasio Somoza in Paraguay.)410 Gorriarán Merlo was the last surviving

guerrilla leader who had not been pardoned. He had tried from abroad to

rally the remnants of the violent left and had even considered reviving insurgency in Argentina, but nothing had come of it. His capture and incarceration was a victory for the Menem government, but it did little to resolve the human rights issues between aggrieved elements of the civilian

populace and the military.

In 1996, the focus of antimilitary demonstrators seeking justice

shifted from the army to the police, whom the militants saw as having inherited the mantle of repression. Demonstrations and their breakup by

police became something of a cause célèbre among the longtime foes of the

armed forces, such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of relatives of the disappeared, and its leader, Hebe de Bonafini. The clashes

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 169
dramatized the longtime antagonism between human rights groups and

uniformed authorities, even though the military was practically a spectator this time.411

In March 1997 a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, sought an international arrest warrant for former General Leopoldo Galtieri, long since absolved by Argentine courts of involvement in the human rights violations

of the Dirty War. Garzón based his demand on the alleged disappearance

of 600 Spaniards during the 1976–1979 operations of the Argentine Army.

The practical effect of the demand at the time was minor, but this issue

resurfaced spectacularly in 1999 with the arrest in Great Britain of General

Augusto Pinochet, former military president of Chile, on a warrant issued

at the behest of the same Spanish lawyer. This issue arose again about

other Argentine military officials accused of crimes against foreigners in

the campaigns against insurgency.

Two major developments in the human rights arena characterized

1998. The first was a government effort to find symbolic closure to the

continuing fissures between the more militant human rights activists and

the military over the killings and disappearances during the antisubversive

operations. The second consisted of efforts to circumvent Menem’s pardons of two leaders of the first junta of the Proceso period and charge the

men with crimes punishable under current Argentine law.

Two initiatives stand out among the efforts to heal the militantmilitary rupture: the closing of ESMA (the Navy Mechanics School) in

Buenos Aires, generally considered the principal institution used as cover

for torture and killings in the Dirty War, and the effort to repeal, if only

symbolically, the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws of the Alfonsín era that

had exonerated most of the military from charges of human rights abuses.

On January 7, 1998, President Menem announced that ESMA was to

be transferred from the Núñez neighborhood of the federal capital to the

navy’s principal base at Puerto Belgrano in Bahia Blanca. Menem proposed razing the place and turning it into a monument or park, a symbolic

reconciliation of the horrors of the past.412 This suggestion provoked

protest from the human rights organizations, which countered with a proposal to turn it into a “museum of horrors” as a permanent reminder of

the Proceso era. The buildings still stand, but the institution has left. The

Naval War College, which was adjacent to ESMA, took over a small portion of the campus for its own needs.

The other major symbolic action was the repeal of the Full Stop and

Due Obedience laws. Enacted in late 1986 and mid-1987 respectively, these

170 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Alfonsín-era laws ended the judicial processing of cases filed against military and security force personnel for human rights abuses and excessive violence in the Proceso period (1976–1983). The repeal of these laws had no

practical effect, because juridically a repeal did not nullify the laws or their

effects.413 But the special session of Congress called to consider this and

other matters important to the military sought to make a clear statement

through the repeal: in the new democratic era there would be no support

for military involvement in politics, even though several congressmen

stated during the debate that the laws had been necessary at the time to

preserve the fledgling democracy of the post-Proceso period.

In June 1998, human rights activists opened another front in their

campaign to bring justice for the victims of the Dirty War by holding the

top leaders of Proceso accountable for some activity on their watch. The

Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo filed suit to have General Jorge Rafael

Videla arrested for complicity in removing from their mothers children

born in captivity and putting them up for adoption, alleging that the orders to do so had come from the highest level.414 Videla was arrested, but

after a month of legal wrangling and a statement by Menem that he would

not intervene in the proceedings, Videla was confined to his home in

Buenos Aires under a provision of the law permitting such for persons

above age 70.415

Although Videla’s accusers thought him culpable, he was by no

means considered the vilest of the former members of the first Proceso

junta. That status was reserved for Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera. On

November 24, 1998, he was arrested and confined by order of a federal

judge. Unlike the broad charges against Videla, who was accused of systematically planning the adoption of hundreds of children, Massera was

arrested on the basis of specific cases that occurred at ESMA under his jurisdiction.416 The human rights organizations alleged that these crimes had

nothing to do with fighting subversion and hence fell outside Menem’s

earlier pardons of such actions. Demands for Massera’s extradition to

Spain, at the behest of the same Spanish prosecutor that earlier had sought

similar action against Argentine military officials of the Proceso period,

generated yet more denunciations against long-retired Argentine general

and flag officers, including such well-known figures as Luciano Benjamín

Menéndez, Argentine commander in the Malvinas war, and Antonio

Domingo Bussi, Governor of Tucumán Province, who had led the Dirty

War operations in the rural areas.

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 171
Army Chief of Staff Balza spearheaded the move toward introspection, which sought to clarify the duty of the military to eschew illegal and

immoral behavior in any endeavor. This movement distressed many former military and high-ranking retired officers, who were anxious over the

arrests of Videla and Massera. In January 1999, these anxieties were

heightened by the arrest and charging of six more high-ranking military

officers, including former military president Reynaldo Bignone and former Army Chief of Staff Cristino Nicolaides. Beset from within by Argentine federal judges acting on demands of human rights groups, and from

without by a Spanish prosecutor seeking redress for alleged crimes against

Spanish citizens in the antisubversive operations, the military institutions

continued to feel besieged by organizations seeking justice (or revenge) for

actions the military considered legitimate and already settled by previous

court actions and presidential pardons or amnesties. Although the present-day military institutions have little in common with those of Proceso,

and those responsible for the excesses of the antisubversive operations are

long retired, the contemporary military officer is tired of having to bear

the burden of defending the services against charges leveled at leaders now

grown old. They agree with President Menem that no useful purpose is

served by reopening old wounds, but others in Argentine society continue

to assail the military leaders of the Proceso period, seeking redress of grievances. The new millennium will not close this chapter in Argentine civilmilitary relations.

Illegal Arms Sales, Corruption, and Civil-Military Relations

Both Menem administrations were characterized by a freewheeling,

deal-making approach to governance. Menem’s populism and his relative

freedom from restraint by the other branches of government permitted

such phenomena as privatization, delegative democracy, and lack of party

discipline to flourish. Consequently, some enterprising souls in Argentina

figured that the government, at least in part, was “up for sale.”

Although corruption, real and perceived, and the resulting scandals

were widespread in the Menem years, the cases that most affected the

armed forces and their relationship with civil authority were those involving illegal arms deals with Croatia, Bosnia, and Ecuador. These transactions

were accomplished through a process called triangulation: a supplier, nominally acting on behalf of the Argentine government or some dependency

thereof, sends arms illegally to another country while making the transaction appear to be going to a third country.

172 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
The vehicle for these sorts of transactions was the Directorate General of Military Factories (Dirección General Fabricaciones Militares, or

DGFM), before the Alfonsín and Menem administrations the powerful

conglomerate that constituted the bulk of the military-industrial complex

in Argentina. By Menem’s time, its economic and political power was substantially reduced, and it was ripe for disaggregation, privatization, or sale.

Nonetheless, the mechanisms for producing and distributing some arms,

ammunition, powder and explosives, and military supplies still existed.

Unscrupulous intermediaries, civilian and military, used these mechanisms to effect significant transactions to other parties with the imprimatur of the Menem government. During Menem’s time, these transactions involved sales ostensibly to Panama and Venezuela, but the actual

recipients were Croatia and Bosnia (1991) and Ecuador (1995).

The two triangulated arms deals had consequences reaching to the

highest levels of the Menem administrations. These scandals exposed the

military, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Relations, and

other top figures of the Menem years to enormous criticism and, as the

revelations continued, to various federal-level charges of official misconduct. A long list of those involved and what they were charged with and investigated for appeared on October 8, 1998, in the Internet version of La

Nación newspaper.

The Croatia-Bosnia Transaction

The first illegal arms transaction got under way in 1991 under retired

army Lieutenant Colonel Diego Palleros. Well connected at the DGFM,

Palleros “piggybacked” on a legitimate plan confected by Defense Minister

Erman González to sell Argentine arms abroad, which had set in motion a

mechanism to obtain weapons for sale abroad from existing inventories,

including those of the army, and replace them with DGFM production.

Classified decrees 1697 and 2283 permitted the sale of weapons abroad to

legitimate buyers.417 The differences between this and the illegal arms

transaction were that the arms and other military items did not go to the

ostensible recipient, but to an illicit customer, and that the proceeds from

the sale went mostly to the dealmakers and other participants in the

scheme rather than to the state coffers.

In a variety of shipments, 6.5 tons of material valued at almost $29

million and ostensibly destined for Panama instead went through a

dummy corporation to Croatia.418 These shipments occurred even as Argentine forces were deploying to Croatia as a part of the UN peacekeeping force. Consequently, Argentine Army forces could have been shot at

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 173
with weapons from their own military factories. Croatia was under a UN

arms embargo, as were all of the fledgling states emerging from the former Yugoslavia, many of which were engaged in serious armed combat

with each other. Bosnia, another such state, also would wind up with

some Argentine arms.

In 1992, Decree 1633 authorized the sale of $51 million in military

matériel to a Bolivian government entity that was not part of the country’s

Ministry of Defense. Another principal in the arms scandals, a Menem

crony and impresario named Luis Sarlenga, managed the putative deal. Although the Bolivian government did not have that kind of money to spend

on Argentine arms, only a presidential transition in Bolivia apparently

aborted the scheme. Where the money would have come from and to

whom the weapons and other items might have gone remained a mystery.

Reports later surfaced that as early as 1992, Argentine officials at the

highest levels had evidence of Argentine arms finding their way to Croatia

and Bosnia. An Argentine officer who had served in Croatia confirmed

that during a visit to Croatia, then-Minister of Defense Erman González,

Army Chief of Staff Balza, and President Menem, among others, were

shown Argentine-made weapons confiscated from Croats. Another officer

indicated that Lieutenant General Carlos Zabala, at the time head of the

Argentine contingent in Croatia, knew of confiscations of Argentine-made

weapons.419 But these revelations did not become public until 1995 as a result of another illegal arms transaction, this one to Ecuador at the time of

the Ecuador-Perú border conflict.

The Ecuador Transaction

The triangulated arms deal to Ecuador involved arms trafficker Jean

Lasnaud. He, Palleros, and Sarlenga took advantage of a secret omnibus

decree that gave DGFM and its intermediaries a free hand in international

arms transactions.420 False papers were arranged to show that Venezuela,

the country of ostensible destination, had purchased about $33 million

worth of mostly small arms and ammunition. According to one source, the

amount was enough to arm 50,000 soldiers for 10 years in normal-use circumstances (Ecuador allegedly planned to use the materials to arm some

6,000 reservists in anticipation of a conflict with Perú).

The final go-ahead for this deal occurred on January 24, 1995, and

the conspirators moved quickly, using dummy corporations to arrange air

transportation to ship to Ecuador the arms and ammunition obtained

from the army under the guise of being turned in for repair or replacement

by DGFM. Considerable evidence indicates that Peruvian authorities knew

174 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
of the shipments and informed the Argentines through the Argentine embassy attachés, but neither the Argentine civilian nor military hierarchy

stopped it, despite traditionally close ties between Perú and Argentina as a

counterbalance to Chile and Brazil. Either the authorities did not believe

that Argentina would permit publicly owned arms and munitions to be

supplied to an ally’s putative enemy, or they did not want to take on

Menem cronies such as Sarlenga.421

But this furtive transfer of Argentine war matériel did not remain

secret for long. Concurrent with the Perú-Ecuador border conflict and

the election campaign came newspaper accounts of the transaction.

Since Argentina was a guarantor of the 1942 treaty that had ended a previous conflict between Perú and Ecuador, and it had declared an arms

embargo on February 10, the fact that Argentine arms had made their

way to one of the combatants was particularly galling. Furthermore,

Ecuador had not received all of the shipment, and part of what it did receive was unusable (Balza later protested that the army thought the

transaction with DGFM was routine and turned in its least usable arms

for repair or exchange). Palleros made up for this deficiency in part with

arms from Iran, but the damage on all sides was done. Perú was scandalized, Ecuador was enraged, and Argentina was decidedly embarrassed. In

addition, uncovering the Ecuadorian transaction also led to revelations

about the Croatian and Bosnian ones. Menem, reelected president in

May 1995, disposed of Sarlenga.

But that did not end the matter. By October 1995, charges began to

flow. The principal agent of the state in pursuing the investigations and

charges in the arms transactions was Federal Judge Jorge Urso. He began

with Sarlenga, charging abuse of office and falsification of documents,

charges that also would fall on many others. Palleros, original architect of

these machinations, fled the country, warned of what was coming by a separate charge against him of dealing in contraband. Charges reached the

ministerial level; Oscar Camilión, Minister of Defense at the time of the

Ecuador transaction, was forced to resign or lose his immunity by congressional action. Foreign Minister Guido di Tella also was tainted by the

scandal, but he was not subject to charge unless he resigned or was fired.

Former Defense Minister and Labor Minister Erman González later came

under fire as well.

Accusations flew among those under investigation or charged in the

illegal arms deals. Balza pointed the finger at DGFM, saying that the army

played by the rules and was unaware of the illicit use to which turned-in

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 175
or exchanged equipment was put. DGFM blamed the relevant ministers as

having agreed to the underlying confidential decrees that, superficially at

least, legitimized arms transactions abroad. Camilión sought to shift the

attention to Foreign Minister di Tella, who, in his view, “should have

known” about the shipments to Croatia.422 More indictments followed in

the next few years, most dealing with hapless DGFM officials, many of

them retired officers who were willing or unwitting confederates of the

DGFM involvement as the vehicle of the illegal arms transactions.

From mid-1995 to mid-1998, the arms scandal and its effects moved

out of the spotlight. Notable changes during this time included the transfer

of DGFM from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Economy. The

once-mighty military-industrial complex had fallen on hard times. Many of

its remaining assets were broken up, sold off, or privatized, dooming the

prospects of significant legal arms transactions (for example, a potential

$1.27 billion deal involving 6 submarines from the Domecq García shipyard disappeared when the shipyard was closed by Decree 40 in 1996).423

In July 1998, the arms scandals returned with a vengeance. Palleros

was arrested in South Africa and jailed pending extradition proceedings.

The 72-year-old Palleros revealed a little of what had transpired in the

early 1990s and threatened to tell a lot more. However, South Africa refused to extradite Palleros. Menem again proclaimed his adherence to the

legal niceties and claimed no knowledge of triangulation, and Interior

Minister Carlos Corach disputed as “ridiculous and offensive” Palleros’s allegations of presidential involvement in the schemes.424

General Balza, rightly or wrongly the focal point for the loss of control and subsequent illegal shipments of arms to Croatia and Ecuador, defended himself before the Defense Commission of the Chamber of

Deputies, and army spokespersons continued to blame the DGFM for all

the troubles. At the same time, Captain Estrada, accused of heavy involvement in the transactions with Ecuador, died “in suspicious circumstances”

at his home in Buenos Aires.425 He had been questioned a few days earlier

by Judge Urso and a federal prosecutor. Some saw his death as a warning

to Palleros and others to keep quiet about who was bribed or otherwise cajoled into cooperating in the arms transfer schemes.426 Moreover, the former Argentine ambassador to Perú at the time of the Perú-Ecuador conflict, Arturo Ossorio Araña, revealed that not only Camilión but also the

higher echelons of the armed forces leadership knew of the transactions

before they occurred. All these revelations led to a war of words among di

Tella, Camilión, Balza, and Paulik over who should have stopped it all.427

176 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
In September and October 1998, federal authorities conducted several

searches (called “raids” in the Argentine press) for documents relating to

the scandal that had surfaced in some of the news organs.428 Although little

came of their efforts, the number of people being investigated and

charged—particularly former DGFM officials—continued to grow. The

“conspiracy of silence,” as the newspapers put it, began to break down.429

Retired General Antonio Vicario, former munitions production chief at

DGFM, was detained after being a fugitive for several days and was accused

specifically of smuggling gunpowder to Croatia. Another officer, retired

Colonel Edberto González de la Vega, also was charged in this matter. With

the arrest of Vicario, federal authorities began to search for the tens of millions of dollars that were unaccounted for. Former Argentine ambassador

to Yugoslavia Federico Bartfeld testified to Judge Urso that 30 coded cables

sent in 1992 to the Argentine Foreign Ministry indicated the presence of

Argentine rifles in Croatia, in violation of the arms embargo against that

country. Bartfeld said the Foreign Ministry had queried the Defense Ministry, then headed by Erman González, about that, and was told no arms

had been sold. (González had established the original, legal regime for arms

sales abroad, but none had been transferred in that manner.)430

These arms scandals probably were the final nail in the coffin of the

Directorate General of Military Factories. The military-industrial complex

created by General Savio—a major factor in the Argentine economy and a

bulwark of the military establishment that at one time formed a “mine-tomunition” vertically-integrated arms industry—was a shadow of its former self. The major elements of military industries in Argentina—the

SOMISA steel complex, the TAMSE tank factory, the Domecq García submarine building yard, and the multielement Military Factories conglomerate—were either gone altogether or no longer under effective military

control. DGFM itself is now under the Minister of Economy and is no

longer an element that could enhance military autonomy or enable a

greater say in defense planning and resources.

But the demise of DGFM did nothing to help the position of the

Menem government. The downgrading and dismantling of military industries in Argentina opened them to civilian and military entrepreneurs,

which led to the corruption of numerous officials and the destruction of

the reputations of others. Unscrupulous operators took advantage of the

apparent need of DGFM and the Ministry of Defense to be relevant and to

enjoy some presence in the world arms trade. The highest military and

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 177
civilian authorities at the time were reduced to covering their tracks in

hopes of avoiding personal culpability for the fiasco.

Contemporary Roles and Missions

Legal Bases

In his first term, Menem made several fundamental changes that

considerably impacted military roles and missions in his second term.431

First among these was the Internal Security Law, which codified the separation of the Gendarmería Nacional and the Prefectura Naval from the military armed forces. The law also evolved the principle of subsidiarity—the

armed forces would not be employed in internal security missions—and

the principle of complementarity—the armed forces may provide logistical support (a major consideration in counternarcotics efforts, among

others). The armed forces combat elements could be deployed only under

a state of siege or to defend their own garrisons. The other major legal

change of the first administration was the Voluntary Service Law of 1994,

which did away with (but retained the possibility of) conscription as the

regular basis for citizen military service and led to an all-volunteer professional military.

These two laws began the disaggregation of security and defense as

twin pillars of military roles and missions, a process completed in

Menem’s second term. In the Proceso government, the conjoining of security and defense roles reached its zenith, with security forces, even national

police, effectively subordinated to the military without any mediating

Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Interior influences. The Internal Security Law put the military out of the law and order business; the Voluntary

Service Law reduced the military presence in socialization and civic action.

Menem expanded on this in the second term. By executive decree

Number 464/96, he transferred the DGFM to the Ministry of Economy

and Public Works and Services, ending the military’s direct connection

with military production. This act terminated the armed forces’ economic

role within the state enterprise framework, which itself had been reduced

enormously.

On October 2, 1996, Menem promulgated Decree 1,116/96, which

permitted the Ministry of Defense to address military planning, in response to general policies and strategies for defense, at the joint staff level,

in order to address external threats and to protect vital interests. Coupled

with a joint staff reorganization formalized in 1997, this decree returned

responsibility for hipótesis de conflicto to the armed forces.432

178 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
In November 1996, Menem reorganized the Ministry of Defense into

its present form. Decree 1,277/96 streamlined the ministry, consolidated

its functions, and, coupled with a physical move of ministry offices to the

Army Headquarters building across the street, permitted a reduction of

personnel and space costs. The armed forces were increasingly integrated,

even physically, into a civilian-led defense organization. They continued to

exercise their professional functions, but the strong influence of civilian

subordination and evolution toward jointness was manifest. This permitted, finally, the formal restructuring of the armed forces to accommodate

their changed situation and changed circumstances, which would be accomplished through the Restructuring Law of March 1998.

The Joint Staff and Joint and Combined Roles and Missions

The Joint Staff was established as an element of the presidency on

September 9, 1948, and it became part of the MOD in 1958. Designed as

an advisory group on military policy to the Minister of Defense, the Joint

Staff for many years languished as an almost ceremonial body, lacking authority as the Ministry itself lacked authority. President Alfonsín tried to

make it the link between civilian and military defense officials, but it was

not given the authority or the resources to exercise much influence.

Nonetheless, the 1982 Malvinas debacle demonstrated the need to

avoid having each service fight its own war. However, serious efforts to empower and organize the Joint Staff to participate in designing and assigning roles and missions were not made until Menem’s second term. A considerable increase in joint exercises and training internally, and in

combined exercises and operations internationally, reflected these efforts.

The most notable moves toward joint exercises came in 1997 and 1998. In

September 1997, an exercise involving 3,000 personnel—32 units from all

three services—simulating a UN peacekeeping operation took place in

Patagonia.433 And in 1998, an exercise in Córdoba Province involving 4,646

personnel brought together elements of all three services.434 Hence, jointness as a concept not only had legal backing but also was being expressed

increasingly in planning and exercises by the Argentine armed forces.

Predating these joint exercises among Argentine military units was a

push toward combined military agreements and exercises. For many years,

the only multinational exercise Argentina participated in with any regularity was UNITAS, a combined exercise with U.S. and Latin American

navies.435 In the early 1990s, peacekeeping provided an even more intensive

venue for the army, and to a lesser extent the Marines, under UN auspices.

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 179
But since 1993, the Argentine armed forces have engaged in an expanding number of combined exercises and operations. Figure 6 shows

the increase in the number of exercises in which Argentina has participated (excluding peacekeeping operations). The navy has been the most

active participant.

The nature of these exercises and maneuvers started reflecting

Menem’s goal of a broader cooperative agenda with Chile. This effort

began with an agreement in July 1997 to hold combined military maneuvers.436 In 1998, command and staff talks took place, and a formal agreement by naval commanders for a combined exercise was reached.437 In

June 1998, the army and air force joined the navy, seeking combined exercises and other measures often described as confidence-building or “Measures for Mutual Trust.”438 In August 1998, the Argentine and Chilean

Navies conducted a “Control Exercise of Maritime Traffic and Search and

Rescue Operations,” designed in part to “break the logic of mistrust and

antagonism” between Chile and Argentina.439 A 4-month exercise in the

Antarctic from November 1998 to March 1999 was the most comprehensive of these bilateral operations.440

Except for relatively benign peacekeeping exercises, Argentine efforts

to promote more formal multilateral ties have met with only modest success. Two initiatives have come to the fore. The first, the ATLASUR combined exercise series, started in 1993, with the most recent iteration 

ATLASUR IV in May 1999.441 These exercises, which include Argentina,

Brazil, Uruguay, and South Africa, are designed to enhance the capability

to form a joint naval force to counteract threats of plundering of fish and

natural resources, to prevent pollution, and to preserve the ecosystem.

The second, and more controversial, initiative was an effort to form

a regional defense entity centered on MERCOSUR. The major proponent

of this in the second Menem administration was Joint Staff Chief Lieutenant General Carlos Zabala. At a bilateral general staff meeting in

Brazil, he cited the evolution of MERCOSUR from a trade bloc toward a

political bloc. General Zabala has called for a collective organization to

consider eventual risks, his model being post-Cold War NATO.442 In June

1998 in Chile, General Zabala reiterated his call for a “joint (combined)

defense system in the region.”443 The Navy Subsecretary for Chile, Pablo

Cabrera, reinforced Zabala’s remarks at a meeting of the Permanent

Committee of Chilean-Argentine Security in July 1998, saying that “these

matters [defense of stability and economic development] should be dealt

with in the MERCOSUR arena.”444

180 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Resources for the “Smaller, Better” Force

The Argentine economy in the second Menem administration reflected the goals of the first: near-zero inflation, a fixed 1:1 peso-to-dollar

exchange rate, privatization, and continuing international integration,

highlighted by MERCOSUR. Consequently, the country also experienced

a continuing relative reduction in the state role in the economy, and those

sectors dependent on central government finances for resources (most notably defense) faced continued austerity in addressing such challenges as a

complete change in recruitment and education, realignment of forces, and

modernization. These conditions were reflected in policies concerning the

twin pillars of the defense resource base, manpower and money, and in

how the armed forces addressed the necessities of restructuring, the final

challenge to the defense sector of the Menem years.

Manpower

In the democratic period since 1983, the number of uniformed personnel (mostly army conscripts) was reduced by at least 50 percent.445 In

1994, the last full year of the first Menem administration, conscription

ended, and the Servicio Militar Voluntario system for accessions to the

ranks took effect in 1995. The result was a leveling out of uniformed personnel strength at just under 72,000. In the army, a redimensioning of the

service born of necessity was also reflected in an almost 50 percent drop in

the number of units. (See table 7.)

The number of civilians employed by the three services also dropped

about 25 percent (based on army data at figure 3). Almost 26,000 civilians

worked for the armed forces, in almost equal numbers for each (army

8,500, navy 8,800, air force 8,600).446 Adding a few hundred civilians for the

Ministry of Defense at all levels (no active-duty military were assigned to

the Ministry, and retired officers and NCOs working there were classified as

civilians) brought the total personnel in the modern-day defense sector to

about 99,000 (excluding Gendarmería Nacional, Prefectura Naval, Defensa

Civil, and DGFM organizations, which are no longer under MOD).

These numerical reductions also mirrored changes in the roles of

the armed forces. The army is no longer the constabulary force it once

was, with a large physical presence in the federal capital and its environs

and scores of garrisons around the country. The complement of personnel to provide such a presence no longer exists. Conversely, the volunteer

system of accession permitted more development of task-oriented units

with better-trained personnel. For example, lower levels of training and

limited availability made conscripts unsuitable for use in highly visible

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 181
peace operations contingents. However, longer-term volunteers could be

so employed. Consequently the army, navy, and air force have a lower “internal profile” and visibility and a higher “external profile.” This affects

civil-military relations because such changes in force posture caused by

recruitment realignments have made the military more instrumental in

foreign policy roles and multilateral defense and security initiatives.

Education

While the change in recruitment had immediate and profound effects on the Argentine military, an equally important change in the education of the military officer corps also was inaugurated. For nearly a century, the Argentine military maintained a system of higher military

education acknowledged to be among the best in Latin America. Until the

most recent democratic era, this system (except for the School of National

Defense, which was established in 1950 and is now under the Ministry of

Defense) contributed little to the education of civilians and military officers together in defense-related curricula. But that changed dramatically in

the Menem administrations, and nowhere more clearly than in the army.

182 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Figure 6. Participation in Combined Exercises (1991–1999)

Source: Briefing by Argentine Armed Forces Joint Staff to United States Joint Staff, September 1999 (Bilateral Working Group, Argentine

MOD, U.S. DOD).

18–

16–

14–

12–

10–

8–

6–

4–

2–

0–

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Number of Exercises

Year

Army

Navy

Air Force
In the early 1990s, the army established the IESE, placing under a single directorate its degree-granting military schools (even military secondary

schools).447 Two of the army schools under IESE—the ESG, the army’s premier staff college, and the EST, the ESG equivalent for specialized engineering and scientific career fields—have opened their doors to civilian

students. Both offer graduate-level programs in addition to their military

ones; from 1994 to 1998, the ESG graduated 362 civilians and 251 military

personnel, and the EST 283 civilians and 108 military.448

In addition, an increasing number of career officers began acquiring

university degrees in cooperative programs with private and public higher

education institutions. The philosophical and academic divide that once

prompted separate education and educational institutions for civilians

and military officers has been modified considerably. The contemporary

military hierarchy still is dominated by those educated in the former system, but resistance to cooperative education arrangements and the integration of military and civilian students has almost disappeared.

Money

The austerity of the first Menem administration carried through to

the second, although funds provided to institute the SMV gave the defense

budget an initial boost. Figure 7 shows defense expenditures from 1992 to

1998. The second Menem administration presented an almost static

budget for the MOD and armed forces, despite a growing GDP in most of

those years. By 1998, the portion of GDP devoted to defense had fallen to

1.1 percent, well below the average of 1.8 percent for Latin Caribbean,

Central American, and South American countries—itself the lowest percentage for any region in the world.449 Even as austere as the totals were in

both net and comparative terms, an examination of two aspects of personnel-related financing—the distribution of funds among categories of

expenditure and the disparity of pay between uniformed military officers

and other comparable public servants—made the effects on civil-military

relations even more striking.

The distribution of funds among categories of expenditure continued a pattern that began even before the Menem years. The 1999 Argentine White Book on National Defense listed the final 1998 defense budget

as 3,746,739,723 pesos, 7.44 percent of the government’s central budget

and 1.07 percent of GDP.450 Of that amount, more than four-fifths of all

available funds for all services plus the MOD itself—81.80 percent—went

toward personnel expenses (49.97 percent) and retirement, pension, and

other social security expenses (31.83 percent). Less than one-fifth of the

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 183
budget—682 million pesos—remained to cover operations, investment

(purchase and construction), and debt service.

The armed forces thus had very limited financial support to conduct

operations, maintain matériel, and attempt modernization. Provisions in

the Restructuring Act designed to alleviate these conditions have not yet

been implemented. The United States gave Argentina considerable help

through Excess Defense Articles and International Military Education and

Training programs, and the United Nations paid for much of the cost of

peacekeeping missions, but this assistance was inadequate to allow Argentina to sustain the force posture required to accomplish the roles and

184 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Table 7. Military and Civilian Personnel Strength (March 1999)

Army

Officers 5,300

Noncommissioned Officers 20,600

Volunteers 15,500

Total 41,400

Navy

Officers 2,300

Petty Officers 13,400

Volunteers 1,500

Total 17,200

Air Force

Officers 2,300

Noncommissioned Officers 9,300

Volunteers 1,500

Total 13,100

Civilians

Army 8,300

Navy 8,800

Air Force 8,600

Total 25,900

Total Military 71,700

Total Civilian 25,900

Grand Total* 98,900

* Adding 1,300 for Ministry of Defense and Agencies (Estimated Numbers).

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999).
missions specified in the White Book. Such a defense establishment—fully

professionalized, well-led, and educated but unable to engage adequately in

the full range of its national and international responsibilities—was frustrated in its attempts to be the instrumental military necessary to continue

the foreign and domestic policy initiatives of the Menem administration.

The Alfonsín administration had delinked the military pay scale from

the judicial pay scale, the highest in the government. By the second Menem

administration, the disparity between the two was enormous. For example,

a service chief of staff (commander in chief before 1984) had been paid the

same as a Supreme Court judge. By 1995, he was earning about one-third

as much per month (3,863 pesos versus 11,151 pesos). Other senior government officials were making twice that of a chief of staff, and compensation for lower grades was not remotely comparable to that of their nominal

counterparts.451 Pay comparability was not contemplated; it would have

taken an even larger bite out of the sector already accounting for the preponderant part of the budget. Military compensation was static, and officers and NCOs continued to leave the services early if other, more remunerative, opportunities presented themselves. This exodus was not the case

in the lower ranks, where volunteer pay was attractive to younger, less experienced people in an economy with an unemployment rate around 15

percent. Nonetheless, the huge portion of the military budget devoted to

personnel-related expenditures yielded a relatively modest return from the

perspective of the individual officer and the armed forces’ leadership. Complaints about individual pay were coupled with frustrations concerning

lack of operational funds and capability. Although these concerns surfaced

only occasionally, they reflected the military’s continued exasperation over

its marginalization and lack of political direction.

Restructuring: Codifying Civil-Military Relations

In March 1998, the Argentine Congress passed the Armed Forces Restructuring Law.452 This legislation represented the culmination of efforts

in the democratic era to consolidate reforms that had occurred in the

1990s and to outline steps, embedded in the law and later amplified in the

MOD White Book on Defense, to align the military instrument and provide for its direction and support. It sought to provide a blueprint for the

future construct of civil-military relations.

Although the Restructuring Law reflected many of the initiatives and

policies of the democratic administrations, it did not originate in the Executive Branch. The initiator of the project was Dr. Horacio Jaunarena, the

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 185
longest serving Minister of Defense under former President Alfonsín, who

was a Radical (UCR) deputy in the Argentine legislature. He and a group

of colleagues drafted a restructuring proposal for the Congress that

reached the Defense Committee in 1996.453 The bill failed in its first submission to the Congress, but Menem adopted it as his own (Jaunarena left

the Congress at the end of 1997) and pushed it to passage by a large consensus in the House and Senate, with final approval by the Senate on

March 19, 1998.

Several preceding laws put the Restructuring Law into context. The

first legal framework that sought to sort out civilian and military responsibilities in defense and security and provide authoritative guidance was

the Defense Law of 1988, but many of its provisions remained unimplemented even 10 years later. Meanwhile, several other laws and decrees

came into force, including the Internal Security Law, the Voluntary Military Service Law, and a new Constitution. Also promulgated were decrees

on joint military planning and on the structure of the Ministry of Defense.

The Menem administration also generated important state reform laws

186 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Figure 7. Defense Budgets (1992–1998)

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999).

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

3126

3211

3756 3759 3790

3699

3747

IN MILLIONS OF PESOS
that dealt with such matters as public administration and privatization

that affected the defense sector significantly.

All of these acts were important in defining, even operationalizing,

aspects of civil-military relationships, but they largely responded to specific situations or were driven by high-profile political necessity. Therefore,

they neither formed a coherent set of guidelines for the armed forces or

the MOD nor established the relationships between them. Hence, the Restructuring Law, as the name implies, dealt with a number of realignment

questions, but its scope and provisions went further.

The Restructuring Law was set forth in six titles. Title I specified a

deterrent strategy that included maintenance of international and interAmerican peace. It reemphasized the framework within which the missions (roles) of the armed forces would be established (the Defense Law

and the Internal Security Law). And it began the emphasis on joint and

combined forces and skills that characterized the restructuring efforts.

Title II envisioned restructured forces deployable in four operational

contexts: in conventional defense, in a UN framework, in support of security forces, and in support of Argentine society or friendly countries. It

specified regional joint commands to carry out these missions and simultaneously reduced service commands and “administrative and bureaucratic structures” in favor of fewer people and more technology.

Title III also emphasized jointness, stressing that joint military planning would determine the mix of active, temporarily activated, and reserve

personnel. Education and training of personnel were to rely more on the

civilian system, especially for professional personnel that the system produces. Simultaneously, higher educational standards were set for officers

and NCOs to be promoted. The president set ceilings for the numbers of

military and civilian personnel in the defense sector, but the armed forces

were encouraged to substitute civilian administrative personnel for military personnel.

Title IV put equipment procurement solidly in the joint arena and directly under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense. Joint military planning was to play a crucial role in what equipment would be sought and

what ends it would serve. Restoring or modernizing existing inventories

was a priority, and procurement was to emphasize deterrent capabilities

and transfer of appropriate technology and training with purchased equipment. Private industry, dual technologies, and continued state-controlled

production only of items deemed indispensable in times of crisis characterized the matériel provisions.

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 187
Title V laid out the program budget categories and prescribed the use

of the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System for MOD, army,

navy, air force, and Joint Staff in separate subjurisdictions of the budget.

Funds for peace missions and community support were excluded; requestors were required to come up with those resources. Steps were taken

toward retirement and pension reforms to make the military system compatible with the civilian one.

This title also specified that beginning in 1999, the defense budget

would be increased 15 percent over 5 years, using 1996 as the base year

(3,504,392,000 pesos). Budget savings made by the services were to be

used for salary increases. Moreover, the act authorized the executive to

provide 1 billion pesos over 5 years (1999–2003) for equipment procurement and modernization, using sale proceeds plus public credits if sales

did not produce the approximately 200 million pesos needed.

Title VI established a Parliamentary Commission for the Pursuit of

Military Restructuring, setting forth its responsibilities to assure the implementation of the provisions of the restructuring law. This title in reality provided for those steps necessary by the Executive, the legislature, the

MOD, and the armed forces to implement the law. Time lines resembling

those used in the Defense Law were established for each.

Despite being called the Restructuring Law, this act essentially

sought to codify and assure the transformation of the defense sector. Ministerial Resolution Number 440/98 promulgated an organization to implement the act within the MOD.454 Subordinate organizations would make a

concerted effort to come up with the necessary inputs to implement the

law. Inasmuch as the law was seen as long-delayed action to lay out the

fundamental bases for the armed forces, the military regarded it as a highly

important and essential step to clarify the roles of civilian and military authorities in defense, including those of the executive, legislative, ministerial, and service institutions. (See figure 8.)

The Restructuring Law was much more ambitious than its predecessor, the Defense Law of 1988, had been, but the lack of implementation of

that previous law had set a negative precedent. And soon the timetable delineated in Title VI of the law began to slip. This slippage continued

through all of 1998 and into 1999. Supporters’ hopes that the Restructuring Law would bear fruit, especially since it had been approved by resounding margins of all parties in the Congress, began to fade. The Achilles’

heel of the Restructuring Law, as with previous efforts at reform, was the

188 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
lack of financial resources to implement it. Resource augmentations were

not forthcoming in 1998 or 1999, nor would they later be.

This state of affairs was particularly disconcerting to the armed

forces, as their work groups under the military restructuring system had

made the necessary proposals to the civilian authorities on time.455 And

not only the Executive but also the Congress had delayed in exercising

their policy and oversight responsibilities.

Consequently, the MOD White Book on National Defense of March

1999, which was the most comprehensive review and exposition of the Argentine defense establishment ever made, still had the measures of the Restructuring Law cast in the future, without executive sanction of the regulatory proposals. Many observers felt the Restructuring Law, like the

Defense Law before it, had not fulfilled its promise.

Nonetheless, the law continued to figure prominently in declaratory

defense policy. Minister of Defense Jorge Domínguez, in an article on

armed forces transformation in Clarín newspaper in January 1999, praised

Congress for its unanimity in passing the Restructuring Law. But having

said that, he moved on to other matters, including military justice reform

and peace operations, not the status of implementation of the law.456

However, in March 1999, he began addressing the matter of funds for

acquisition and upgrading by announcing the prospective sale in 1999 of

military real estate worth 110 million pesos, more than the 76 million realized from such sales during the years 1990–1998, apparently hoping

thereby to redeem the pledge of the Restructuring Law to provide one billion pesos during the 1999–2003 time frame.457 But at the same time, the

15 percent increase in the overall defense budget (approximating 3 percent

per year) that the Restructuring Law also mandated was not forthcoming.458 Congress could not overcome executive branch constraints, some

imposed by outside monitors such as the International Monetary Fund, on

government spending in general. Hence, funds for implementing the Restructuring Law turned out to be speculative.

Mixed signals on defense finances continued in June 1999, when

Minister Domínguez indicated that “all that remains is to launch the program that starts in the year 2000 [sic], which will require an investment

of 200 million pesos per year to re-outfit the force.”459 Clearly, the 1999

deadlines for implementation of provisions of the Restructuring Law had

been missed.

Moreover, the enabling document for joint staff planning, the Strategic Military Directive, which had last been issued in 1989, was still being

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 189
staffed to be sent by MOD for executive approval.460 Because this document presumably would align perceptions of threat and roles and missions

of the armed forces with the Restructuring Law, it is a critical component

also in implementing the law and providing the civilian political strategic

guidance that defines the duties of the armed forces. Hence, as the Menem

era closed, the real closure to the “military question,” long sought by most

in the Argentine body politic and in the armed forces, remained elusive.

190 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

Figure 8. Military Restructuring System

Source: Briefing by Argentina Armed Forces Joint Staff to United States Joint Staff, 1999.

CHIEFS OF STAFF COMMITTEE

 1. Act Regulation

 2. Armed Forces Design

 3. Budgeting

 4. Salary Restructuring

 5. Retirement and Pension System

 6. S3P and Computerization

 7. Mobilization and Reserves

 8. Military Education System

 9. Personnel Act Adaptation

10. Production for Defense 

WORKING GROUPS

ADVISORS

Deputy Chiefs of Staff

MINISTER OF DEFENSE

RESTRUCTURING COMMITTEE

Military Affairs Secretary

Planning Secretary

Technical Coordination Under-Secretary

Joint Staff Deputy Chief

EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT

Policy and Strategy Secretary

Joint Staff Operations Chief
The Menem Legacy

In his first administration, Carlos Menem, first-hand student of the

experience of Raúl Alfonsín with the Argentine military, knew that continued confrontation with the military would be highly prejudicial to the

aspirations of his incoming administration. Inheriting a presidency and an

economy in a shambles, he also knew that there would be little to offer the

military or any state sector. His plans for a complete reorientation of the

economy, and the rewards that might flow from it for distribution later,

would take time; and he would have to call for even greater short-term sacrifice and a significant contribution from the military itself. He therefore

sought not compromise with the military, but instead granted it absolution for past actions, clearing the slate without abjuring civilian presidential authority. In fact, Menem would seek to aggregate political power

much more in the executive than had been the case during the Alfonsín

administration. The sweeping nature of his first pardons cleared both sides

of the equation. Consequently, when the test of military rebellion came for

him—in the form of a final lunge at the centers of power by disaffected officers and NCOs loyal to los carapintada leader Colonel Seineldin—

Menem could be commander in chief with the full compliance of the military establishment, and the locus of legitmate political authority was

firmly established.

These events, in conjunction with the pardoning within days after this

last uprising of the remaining prisoners of the Proceso era, paved the way

for what Menem hoped would be the more enduring accomplishments of

his administration, the reestablishment of Argentina as a significant economic and foreign policy power. He sought to do this through free-market

economics and a reorientation of foreign policy into a much closer relationship with the United States. In the case of the defense sector, this meant

reducing its once-significant role almost to the vanishing point and transforming significant portions of the armed forces into task forces in support

of United Nations peacekeeping roles. These actions reduced remaining

military autonomy and enhanced the operational, instrumental nature of

the armed forces. The externally oriented roles and missions of the armed

forces were further reinforced by the passage of the Internal Security Law,

beginning a series of significant legal and policy steps that would, by the

end of Menem’s time in office, transform the law that was the underlying

basis for estado militar. The legacy of the first administration, then, was the

reduction of the armed forces’ autonomy and the enhancement of their role

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 191
as an instrumental military force, one that was recognized in positive ways

at home and abroad.

However, it would remain for the second Menem administration to

consolidate the reorientation of the armed forces and provide the basis for

continuing transformation of the defense sector, the institutionalization of

the defense establishment, and the integration of the armed forces within

it. The executive continued trying to stabilize the size and scope of the central government, with the concomitant relative reduction of resources

available to defense and other state sectors. Nonetheless, in conjunction

with Congress, the Menem administration would undertake the most ambitious effort to date to delineate the scope and nature of estado militar

and the civil-military relationships that undergirded it.

The second Menem government effectively ended conscription, replacing obligatory military service by lottery with voluntary service designed to have those serving in the much-reduced armed forces contribute

more effectively to the defense effort. This change would have far-reaching

effects in terms of enhancing the quality of recruits, encouraging the service of women, and increasing personnel readiness. It turned out to be a

necessary precursor to the ambitious program of defense sector transformation that the Congress intiated and Menem adopted: the Restructuring

Law and its companion volume, the White Book on National Defense,

which with unprecedented transparency detailed the actual state of the Argentine defense sector and the implications of the Restructuring Law for

its continued evolution and posture. Menem bequeathed to his successor

the blueprint for consolidation of the Ministry of Defense and the armed

forces under objective civilian control.

However, even before the Menem administration left office, other

events and circumstances within the administration and society at large seriously compromised the effective implementation of the restructuring

program. Factors such as the illegal arms sales revealed corruption that tarnished both the administration and the armed forces. Human rights questions continued to bedevil the relationship between the armed forces and

society. Most significantly, in the last 2 years of Menem’s second administration (1998–1999), the economy began suffering serious dislocations due

to downturns in the global economy, weakening markets, and an overvalued currency still maintained at one peso to the dollar (convertibility ended

inflation, but it made Argentine goods difficult to sell against cheaper competition). Hence, once again, the resources needed to implement the plans

were not there. Menem’s legacy, at least in part, was one of unfulfilled

192 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
promises. Civilian leadership remained wanting in terms of direction and

allocation; and storms were brewing, especially in the global economy, that

would severely test Menem’s successors sooner rather than later.

Reflections

The experience of Argentina in transitioning from a military-authoritarian to a civilian-democratic regime, and the evolving patterns of civilmilitary relationships manifested in this transition, have provided an unusually rich and vivid example of this trend in most of Latin America in the

1980s and 1990s. Argentina’s progress along the path to elected, representative rule has not been easy in a place in which civilian rule, let alone civilian authority over the military, was considered problematic. But Argentina

has come a great distance politically from the time when military involvement was the norm. The change of the focus of civil-military relationships

from one end of the spectrum of potential military political roles—praetorian, institutional military rule—to the other—a professional, instrumental military—is unprecedented. And it seemed to require a traumatic experience—the defeat of the armed forces in the South Atlantic war, the end of

autonomous military government, and the continued controversy over the

military role in the Dirty War—to open the way for a new relationship

based on democratic rule and civilian supremacy in political matters, including the role of Argentina’s military and defense establishment.

Carlos Menem was succeeded on December 10, 1999, by Fernando

de la Rua, a Radical running as a coalition (Alianza) candidate, marking

another election that occasioned the transfer of political power from one

party to another. The major concern for the new administration was the

economy, although it initially enjoyed somewhat of an economic (and political) honeymoon. State spending, especially by the provinces, had increased substantially, and the foreign debt had been rising dramatically.

The de la Rua administration entered into what would become a long series of agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an effort to stabilize the economic situation. But the IMF demanded balanced

budgets and reduced state spending.

The major consequence of these IMF demands for the military

(aside from the continued unfulfilled promises of the Restructuring Act)

was an average reduction of 13 percent in government salaries and pensions that applied to military as well as civilian officials. The military, although clearly unhappy at the prospect of a reduced standard of living,

continued following the lead of the civilian administration, as they had

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 193
before (during a jurisdictional dispute involving the Supreme Court of

the Armed Forces and the commutation of sentences of participants in

the La Tablada attack of 1989).

Argentina began 2001 without a vice president, the incumbent

“Chaco” Alvarez having resigned in a political dispute with the administration the previous October. The economic crisis deepened, with the

country’s economy falling behind in the global market and the renegotiation of its debt, punctuated by a series of general strikes. Unemployment

rose at unprecedented levels. Domingo Cavallo was called back into service as Minister of the Economy, but the slide continued. Beset by these

problems, the Alianza government steadily lost support among the general

populace. The resurfacing of corruption scandals, including the detention

of Menem and General Balza on unresolved charges in the arms sale scandals of the mid-1990s, contributed to the general unease.

Then September 11 witnessed the terrorist attacks on the World

Trade Center and the Pentagon, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives.

Suddenly, security everywhere, internal and external, was back on page

one. This highlighted already existing concerns in Argentina about terrorist infiltration into border areas, especially the “Triple Frontier,” the nexus

of Argentine, Brazilian, and Paraguayan territory that was considered a

potential source of fundamentalist Islamic-inspired terrorism in Latin

America. President de la Rua, apparently accepting the argument that this

new wave of terrorism should be considered external aggression, called for

the army to take part in frontier patrols—a mission belonging to the 

Gendarmeria Nacional, which had already increased its presence in the

area. This development led to renewed concern and debate about the

proper role of the armed forces in matters having an internal as well as external component—especially with regard to intelligence control and

oversight, a sensitive subject in Argentina since even before the Dirty War.

The military thus began to have a somewhat higher profile than had been

the case until this point in the de la Rua administration.

On October 14, midterm elections were held for the Argentine

Chamber of Deputies and the Senate—the first direct election of Senate

members by the voters. The Judicialist Party enjoyed significant gains at

the expense of the Alianza. Foot and mouth disease among the Argentine

cattle herds and severe flooding added natural disasters to the already-full

plate of the de la Rua administration. The continuing efforts to restructure debt and stabilize the economy were not successful.

194 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
In December, events came to a head. Bank deposit freezes designed

to limit the public’s access to cash and halt the hemorrhaging of reserves

had led to major protests that escalated into riots, including clashes with

police that led to 28 deaths. Large sectors of the populace demanded the

resignation of Carvallo and de la Rua, who triggered an unprecedented

succession crisis after resigning on December 20. Senate president Ramón

Puerta convened a legislative assembly that appointed San Luis Province

governor Adolfo Rodríguez Saa as interim president for 3 months, pending new elections. He announced more stringent measures, which were

met with more protests. On December 30, Rodríguez Saa resigned, as did

Puerta. Now Eduardo Camano, president of the Chamber of Deputies,

convened the legislative assembly, which on January 2, 2002, chose newly

elected senator Eduardo Duhalde, former governor of Buenos Aires

Province and a Peronist presidential frontrunner in 2003, to fill the rest of

de la Rua’s term. Hence, in the span of 2 weeks, the presidency changed

hands five times. And the new president still faced all of the challenges of

his elected and appointed successors.

Where was the military during all this? In the past, a political crisis of

this magnitude might have provided an opportunity for the armed forces

to exercise autonomous political power, either directly or indirectly, and

again engage in a contest for legitimate political authority. Such a crisis

would have inspired calls for the military to restore order, and during this

crisis, such calls were reported from some sectors of the population. Although the tense, violent political atmosphere may have presented an opportunity, the military—which historically had used violence or the threat

thereof to impose its political will—showed no propensity to act on it. The

long process of the past 20 years had done its work to transform the military political culture and the institutional relationships with respect to defense and security of both civilian and military authorities. The military

was responsive to the needs of society, especially in alleviating somewhat

the economic plight of the poorest sectors of Argentine society through

food distribution, medical services, and other aid. But this response occurred withing the civilian-led structures responsible for such activities,

including the Ministry of Defense.

Chief of the Joint Staff Lieutenant General Juan Carlos Mugnolo

perhaps made the best statement concerning these activities: “The armed

forces possess the necessary structure and resources, and they could not

remain on the sidelines of this effort being expended by all Argentines.

Taking an active part of the community’s current problemsolving is an

THE SECOND MENEM ADMINISTRATION 195
unwaivable obligation.” Responding to rumors of alleged conspiracies, he

stated: “The armed forces will defend the effectiveness of the constitutional order. Each and every one of their members has sworn to defend

the National Constitution, and that is what they will do.” He then alluded

to “the efforts expended” during the past few years to “change a culture of

the military’s intervention in political affairs” and reiterated that the

armed forces have “for years, with conviction, been subordinate to the

Constitution, and have refrained from intervening in anything associated

with domestic political events.”461

The new century, then, marked significant accomplishments for Argentina and its civilian and military institutions. An important reorientation of the relationship of the country’s armed forces to the government

and society has occurred. The historical role of the military as an autonomous political contender appears to have run its course, as have the

contests between the military and the civilian government for legitimate

political authority. The ongoing evolution of Argentine democracy in

times of economic and social hardship and the possibility of further political crisis will no doubt again test many of the fundamental relationships

between government and society, including the civil-military relationships. But military intervention in the exercise of political authority is

much less likely to be sought, or tolerated, by either the military or civilians. That is a profound—and a profoundly good—change.

196 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Structure of the Defense System

197

Appendix: Defense

Organization

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 

PRESIDENT AND

COMMANDER

IN CHIEF

(DEFENSE CABINET)

JOINT STAFF

ARMY NAVY AIR FORCE

NATIONAL 

GENDARMERIE*

ARGENTINE 

COAST GUARD*

STRATEGIC 

OPERATIONAL

COMMANDS

*These organizations are normally 

 under the Interior Ministry. 

National Defense Council

Work Group for

National Strategy

Action Group for

National Strategy

Work Group for

 National Mobilization

(E&A)

(E&A)

(DAC)

(DAC)

CRISIS COMMITTEE

DEFENSE MINISTER CHIEFS OF STAFF

(O) COMMITTEE

(O)

(P&T)

(DAC)

RELATIONSHIPS

ORGANIC (O)

EVALUATION AND ASSISTANCE (E&A)

FUNCTIONAL (F)

PLANNING AND TRAINING (P&T)

SUPPORT (S)

DURING ARMED CONFLICT (DAC)

(SPT)
Organization of the Ministry of Defense

198 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

MINISTER

OF DEFENSE

JAG

High Court of Honor

Court of Honor 

Department for 

Legal Affairs

Office of 

the Secretary

Office of 

Indictments

National Arms

 Registry

Department of 

Administration 

Department of 

Human Resources

Department for 

Planning

Institute for Financial Assistance

Military Geography 

Institute

JOINT STAFF

Army General Staff 

Navy General Staff 

Air Force General Staff 

Internal 

Audit Unit

INDEPENDENT AGENCIES

Deputy Secretary for 

Policy and Strategy

Deputy Secretary for 

Technical Coordination

Deputy Secretary for 

Administration and 

Financial Management

Secretary for Planning

 and Asset Conversion

Secretary for 

Military Affairs

Supreme Court of

the Armed Forces

Military Court

Prosecutor of the

Armed Forces

National Defense

 School

Argentine Military

Sports Federation

Department for 

the Antarctic

Scientific and Technical 

Research Institute of

the Armed Forces

Department for 

Logistics

Department for 

Policy

Department for 

Coordination of 

Asset Conversion

(Pay for Military Retirees)

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 
Organization of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces

APPENDIX: DEFENSE ORGANIZATION 199

✩✩✩

✩✩✩✩

✩✩

✩✩ ✩✩ ✩✩

CHIEF OF THE

JOINT STAFF

Human Resources

Materiel Resources 

Administration 

and Budget

Intelligence

Counterintelligence

International 

Affairs

International Policies

Center for 

Strategic Studies 

Special Studies

Office of Policy

and Strategy

LEGAL MATTERS

OFFICE

Support

Unit

Chief of Operations Chief of Logistics Chief of Intelligence

Doctrine

Operations

Plans and 

Organization

Education and 

Instruction

Deputy Chief of 

the Joint Staff Liaison with 

the Congress

PERSONNEL

Generals 2

Admirals 2

Brigadiers 2

Colonels/Captains 25

Officers 54

NCOs 136

Voluntary Troops 16

Civilians 36

TOTAL 273

References:

1. The stars indicated the rank of the generals or equivalent

 in charge of those areas.

2. Those activities under offices are departments, directed 

 by colonels or equivalent.

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 
Organization of the Argentine Army

200 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

CHIEF OF STAFF

OF THE ARMY

Second Corps

Command (HQ)

12th Monte

(Jungle) Brigade

2nd Armored

Brigade

Third Corps

Command (HQ)

4th Air

Transportable

Brigade

5th Mechanized

Brigade

8th Mountain

Brigade

Army Aviation

Command

Buenos Aires

Military Garrison

Command (HQ)

10th Mechanized

Brigade

11th Mechanized

Brigade

SECRETARY

GENERAL

Department of

Well-Being

Schools and

Institutes

3rd School

Brigade

Military Institutes

Command

Deputy Chief of

Staff of the Army

Inspector General

of the Army

6th Mountain

Brigade

1st Armored

Brigade

Fifth Corps

Command (HQ)

9th Mechanized

Brigade

Chief,

Personnel

Director,

Technology

Director,

Recruitment/

Mobilization

Director,

Commercial/

Information 

Chief,

Interior

Chief,

Operations

Chief,

Logistics

Chief,

Finance

Director of the

General Staff

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 
Organization of the Argentine Navy

NOTES 201

CHIEF OF STAFF

OF THE NAVY

Southern

Naval Area

Riverine

Naval Area

Antarctic

Naval Area

Naval Maritime

Transit Command

Submarine Force

Command

• Policy and Strategy

• Programs and Budgets

• Arms and Electronic Warfare

• Communications

• Salvage and Chemical, 

 Biological, Nuclear Defense

• Search and Rescue

• Fishing Matters

High Seas Fleet

Command

Naval Aviation

Command

Marines

Command

Naval

Secretariat

Deputy Chief 

of Staff

Operational

Services

Naval Operations

Command

Intelligence

Services

Navy Comptroller

• Information Technology

 Services of the Navy

Administration

Court for

Navigation

Coordinator of the

South Atlantic

Maritime Area

Department of

Materiel

Department of

Personnel

Office of 

Naval Instruction

Schools and

Institutes

Director of 

the Navy staff

Offices (Chiefs) of:

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 
Organization of the Argentine Air Force

202 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS

CHIEF OF STAFF

 OF THE

AIR FORCE

Schools and

Institutes

Office of Chief

 of Personnel

Office of Chief

 of Logistics

Office of Chief

 of Plans

Office of Chief

 of Intelligence

Air Region NE

Air Region NW

Central Air

Region

Deputy 

Chief of Staff

Weather Service

Personnel Command Operations Command Materiel Command Air Regions Command

Air Brigade I

Transportation and

Search and Rescue (SAR)

Air Brigade III

Tactical Operations

Air Brigade IV

Instruction and SAR

Air Brigade V

Strategy, Tactical and

Defense Operations

Air Brigade VI

Strategy, Tactical and

Defense Operations

Air Brigade VII

Tactical Operations

and SAR

Air Brigade IX

Transportation

Mar del Plata

Military Air Base

(Antiaircraft Defense)

Rio Gallegos

Military Air Base

Oversight and

Control of the Air

 Space Group

Electronic 

Warfare Group

Air Brigade II

Exploration and

Reconnaissance

Southern Air

Region

Air Police Service

Air Transit Office

Materiel Area

Rio Cuarto

Materiel Area

Quilmes

Supply Group

Palomar

Materiel

 Administration

Group Cordoba

Source: Libro Blanco de la Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Ministry of Defense, 1999). 
Notes

1 Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 97. 2 David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: John Wiley and

Sons, 1965), 30. 3 Lucien Pye,“Political Culture,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 12 (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 218.

4 Howard J. Wiarda, Politics and Social Change in Latin America: The Distinct

Tradition (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974), 18. 5 Although Latin America, as many think of it today, encompasses countries

and traditions other than those derived from the Spanish dominions, it is Spanish America, in terms of political culture, that is significant in historical and contemporary Argentina. 6 Wiarda, 12.

7 Martin Edmonds, Armed Forces and Society (Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1988), 50. 8 Howard J. Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups (Athens, OH: Ohio

University Center for International Studies, 1979), 1. 9 David Rock, “Political Movement in Argentina: A Sketch from Past to Present,” in From Military Rule to Liberal Democracy in Argentina, ed. Mónica PeraltaRamos (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 9. 10 John J. Johnson contends that in Latin America, “militarism is a cultural

residue” and that force in Latin American politics “was elevated to a political principle.” See John J. Johnson, The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 93. 11 David Scott Palmer, “The Military in Latin America” (unpublished monograph, 1984), 3. 12 Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups, 32–33. 13 Lawrence E. Harrison, Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), 119. 14 Daniel Poneman, Argentina: Democracy on Trial (New York: Paragon House

Publishers, 1987), chap. 1.

203
15 José Luis de Imaz, Los que mandan (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de

Buenos Aires, 1964), 50. 16 Antonio José Deimundo Pineiro, “Las relaciones entre la sociedad (civil y

politica) y las Institutiones Militares,”VIII jornados sobre la situación estratégica

mundial (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos, Universidad de Belgrano, 1980), 7. 17 Charles W. Anderson, “Toward a Theory of Latin American Politics,” in Politics and Social Change in Latin America, 250. 18 Ibid., 251.

19 Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups, 2. 20 Edmonds, 52.

21 David Pion-Berlin, The Ideology of State Terror: Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina and Peru (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,

1989), 101. 22 Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups, 6. 23 S.E. Finer, Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Hammondsworth, 1976), 30. 24 Wayne S. Smith, “The Argentine Elections of 1973: Demilitarization and the

Struggle for Consensus” (PhD diss., The George Washington University, 1980). 25 Imaz, 71.

26 Ibid., 78.

27 Humberto J.R. Lobaiza, “Las relaciones civicos-militares en la Argentina,”

Revista de la Escuela Superior de Guerra 506 (June–September 1992): 114. 28 Jorge Ochoa de Eguileor and Virgilio Beltrán, Las fuerzas armadas hablan

(Buenos Aires: Editorial PAIDOS, 1968), 74. 29 See David Pion-Berlin, “Latin American National Security Doctrines: Hardand Soft-Line Themes,” Armed Forces and Society 15 (Spring 1989): 411–429. 30 Brian Loveman and Thomas V. Davies, Jr., The Politics of Antipolitics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 3–13, passim. 31 Alain Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 104. 32 Juan Carlos Onganía, “Message of the revolutionary junta to the Argentine

people,” La Nación, June 28, 1966, 1. 33 Carlos H. Waisman, “The Legitimation of Democracy Under Adverse Conditions: The Case of Argentina,” in From Military Rule to Liberal Democracy in Argentina, ed. Peralta-Ramos, 97. 34 See Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, and Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), for in-depth treatments of

these concepts. 35 Huntington, 5.

36 Rouquié, 35. 37 Finer, 24.

204 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
38 R.A. Humphreys, “Latin America: The Caudillo Tradition,” in Soldiers and

Governments: Nine Studies in Civil-Military Relations, ed. Michael E. Howard

(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1957), 156. 39 “[Argentine officers] are long accustomed to obeying only each other,” and

“the bonds of honor and loyalty instilled in every cadet still run far more strongly

among soldiers than between soldiers and their civilian superiors.” Poneman, 88,

90. 40 Lyle N. McAlister, Anthony P. Maingot, and Robert A. Potash, The Military

in Latin American Socio-Political Evolution: Four Case Studies (Washington, DC:

Center for Research in Social Systems, 1970), 10–11. 41 Amos Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times: On Professionals, Praetorians, and Revolutionary Soldiers (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1977), 175. 42 Marcelo Montserrat, “Democracia y fuerzas en la Argentina,” paper presented at the International Seminar on Democracy and the Armed Forces (Quito:

Corporación de Estudios para el Desarrollo-CORDES, 1988), 28. 43 Imaz, 52.

44 Major General Leopoldo Flores, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with author, July 12, 1990. 45 Deimundo Pineiro, 20.

46 Rouquié, 73. 47 Peter H. Smith, Argentina and the Failure of Democracy: Conflict Among Political Elites (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), 14. 48 Rouquié, 85. 49 Ibid.

50 Loveman, passim.

51 Kalman H. Silvert, The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin

America, rev. ed. (New York: American University Field Staff, Inc., 1966), 218–219. 52 Abraham Lowenthal and Samuel Fitch, eds., Armies and Politics in Latin

America (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), 12. 53 Robert Seidel, review of Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin

American Case, by Lawrence Harrison, in American Historical Review 82 (September 1988): 499. 54 Rouquié, 85. 55 Stepan, 4.

56 Ibid.

57 See also Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschmeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds.,

Bringing the States Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), passim. 58 G. Pope Atkins, “The Armed Forces in Latin American Politics,” in Civil-Military Relations: Changing Concepts in the 1970s, ed. Charles L. Cochran (New York:

The Free Press, 1974), 223. 59 A.R. Luckham, “A Comparative Typology of Civil-Military Relations,” Government and Opposition 6 (Winter 1971): 10.

NOTES 205
60 Huntington, 83.

61 Poneman, 17.

62 Rock, 18.

63 Ibid., 6–11. 64 Perlmutter, 281.

65 Aldo Vacs, “Authoritarian Breakdown and Redemocratization in Argentina,”

in Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America, ed. James 

M. Malloy and Mitchell Seligson (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,

1987), 36ff. 66 Luckham, 22.

67 Rouquié, 10. 68 Atkins, 252.

69 Martin C. Needler, “Political Development and Military Intervention in

Latin America,” in The Military and Modernization, ed. Henry Bienen (Chicago:

Aldine Atherton, 1981), 79. 70 See Alfred Stepan, “The New Professionalism of Internal Warfare and Military Role Expansion,” in Authoritarian Brazil, ed. Alfred Stepan (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1973), 47–65; and Pion-Berlin, “Latin American National Security Doctrines,” 411–429. 71 Guillermo O’Donnell, “State and Alliances in Argentina, 1956–1976,” in The

Journal of Development Studies 15 (October 1978): 3–33. 72 Pion-Berlin, The Ideology of State Terror, 6–9. 73 See Smith, Argentina and the Failure of Democracy, and Donald C. Hodges,

Argentina: The National Revolution and Resistance (Albuquerque: University of

New Mexico Press, 1976), for in-depth treatments of these phenomena. 74 Rouquié, 4. 75 Gary W. Wynia, Argentina: Illusions and Realities (New York: Holmes and

Meier, 1986), 93. 76 Anderson, 252.

77 Montserrat, 28.

78 Eguileor and Beltrán, 73. 79 Paraphrasing Michael E. Howard in Soldiers and Governments, 11. 80 Paul W. Zagorski, “Civil-Military Relations and Argentine Democracy,” in

Armed Forces and Society 14 (Spring 1988): 407. 81 McAlister, 3.

82 Ibid., 1.

83 Other authors have used the terms stream and current with respect to political culture. The most germane use in terms of Argentina is by Susan Milbank,

who divides the Argentine stream of political culture into Iberian and Western

European currents. See Susan Milbank, “Domestic Causes of Military Involvement in Political Succession in Argentina,” in The Process of Political Succession, ed.

Peter Calvert (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 254. 84 Hodges, 298.

206 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
85 Paraphrasing McAlister in Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups, 6. 86 Humphreys, 156.

87 Lobaiza, 106–108. 88 The term is used in La ley de defensa en el marco de la reforma militar, no. 6

(Buenos Aires: Fundación Arturo Illia para la Democracia y la Paz, n.d.). 89 Humphreys, 156.

90 Poneman, 133.

91 Argentine Republic, Constitution of 1853, Articles 67 and 68, in Constitutions of the Countries of the World, ed. Albert P. Blaustein and Gilbert H. Flanz

(Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1990). 92 Milbank, 185.

93 Lobaiza, 110.

94 Wiarda, Critical Elections and Critical Coups, 6. 95 O’Donnell, 5. 96 Juan Rial, “The Armed Forces and the Question of Democracy in Latin

America,” in The Military and Democracy: The Future of Civil-Military Relations in

Latin America, ed. Louis W. Goodman, Johanna S. R. Mendelson, and Juan Rial

(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 10. 97 Herbert C. Huser, “The Role of the Military in Argentina, 1930–1968” (MA

report, University of Texas, 1969), 1. 98 La ley de defensa en el marco de la reforma militar. 99 Frederick M. Nunn, “The Origins and Nature of Professional Militarism in

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru, 1890–1940,” Military Affairs 39 (February

1975): 1. 100 Robert A. Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1928–1945 (Palo Alto,

CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), 11–12. 101 Marvin Goldwert, “The Argentine Revolution of 1930: The Rise of Modern

Militarism and Ultranationalism in Argentina” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas,

1962). 102 Loveman, 169ff. 103 Deimundo Pineiro, 7. 104 Peter G. Snow, Political Forces in Argentina, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger,

1979), 66. 105 Peter H. Smith, “Argentina, the Uncertain Warriors,” Current History 78

(February 1980): 62. 106 Jorge Grecco and Gustavo González, El ejercito que tenemos (Buenos Aires:

Editorial Sudamericana, 1990), 10. 107 Stepan, Authoritarian Brazil, passim. 108 Loveman, 174–175. 109 Pion-Berlin, The Ideology of State Terror, 171. 110 Dennis R. Gordon, “Withdrawal in Disgrace: Decline of the Argentine Military, 1976–1983,” in The Decline of Military Regimes: The Civilian Influence, ed.

Constantine Danopoulos (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), 216.

NOTES 207
111 Poneman, 35. 112 Grecco, 132. 113 Juan Corradi, The Fitful Republic (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 117. 114 Virgilio Beltrán, “Political Transition in Argentina: 1982 to 1985,” Armed

Forces and Society 13 (Winter 1987): 216. 115 Andrés Fontana, Fuerzas armadas, partidos politicos, y transición a la democracia en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad

[CEDES], 1984), 6. 116 Ibid., 17. 117 Waisman, 98. 118 Beltrán, 216. 119 Walter Little, “Civil-Military Relations in Contemporary Argentina,” Government and Opposition 19 (Spring 1984): 209. 120 Gordon, 217. 121 Waisman, 101. 122 Little, 209. 123 Lieutenant General Francisco Gassino, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview,

July 26, 1990. 124 Poneman, 209. 125 For a complete and timely accounting of the influence of Coordinadora in

the Alfonsín administration, see Alfredo Leuco and José Antonio Díaz, Los

herederos de Alfonsín (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana-Planeta, 1987). 126 Edward Schumacher, “Argentina Battles the Political Powers,” The New York

Times, September 19, 1983, A3. 127 La Prensa (Buenos Aires), October 22, 1983, 4. 128 Poneman, 46. 129 La Prensa, September 20, 1983, 3. 130 La Prensa, October 3, 1983, 5. 131 Torcuato Di Tella, “The October 1983 Elections in Argentina,” Government

and Opposition 19 (Spring 1984): 188. 132 Seminario de Defensa Nacional, Comité Nacional UCR (Unión Cívica Radical), 3–6 octubre 1989, 1–2. 133 Law 23.023, Ministerios—Modificación de la ley 22,520. 8 diciembre 1983,

43D Anales de legislación argentina (ADLA), 4025. 134 Decree 436, Delegación de facultades en el Ministro de Defense y en los Jefes de

los Estados Mayores Generales, 13 enero 1984, 44A ADLA 196. 135 Defense Ministry communique reported in Noticias Argentinas, December

15, 1983 (Foreign Broadcast Information Service [FBIS] VI, December 15, 1983,

B9).136 Decree 280, Sociedades cuya titularidad, posesión o tenencia invistan las

Fuerzas Armadas u organismos en jurisdicción del Ministerio de Defensa, COVIARA

(Construcción de Viviendas para la Armada) y Fabricaciones Militares—Transfer208 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
encia del capital accionario al ministerio mencionado, 23 diciembre 1983, 44A

ADLA 153. 137 Decree 2259, Gendarmería Nacional—Dependencia del Ministerio de Defensa 23 julio 1984, 44C ADLA 2586, and Decree 3399, Prefectura Naval Argentina—Dependencia directa del Ministerio de Defensa, 19 octubre 1984, 44C

ADLA 3911. 138 Andrés Fontana, “La política militar en un contexto de transición: Argentina

1983–1989,” working paper 34 (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, 1990), 24, 25. 139 Horacio Jaunarena, interview with author, July 20, 1990. 140 Fontana, 21. 141 Virgilio Beltrán, interview with author, August 9, 1990. 142 Raúl Borrás, remarks, reported in Noticias Argentinas, March 2, 1984 (FBIS

VI, March 5, 1984, B2). 143 Buenos Aires Herald, March 3, 1984, 9. 144 Horacio Jaunarena, interview with author, July 20, 1990. 145 Although it took 4 years to become law, the Ley de Defensa Nacional was

drafted early in the Alfonsín administration. The president’s thinking on jointness

is best reflected in that law, which says in Article 17: “The Joint Staff of the Armed

Forces will assist and counsel the Minister of Defense in matters of military strategy. It will deal with: a) the formulation of joint military doctrine; b) the elaboration of joint military planning; c) the direction of joint military training; d) the

control of operational strategic planning and the effectiveness of joint military action.” Law 23,554, Ley de Defense Nacional, 26 abril 1988, 48B ADLA 1424-1425.

The law also provides for joint commands, subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, but never created. 146 Raúl Alfonsín, speech on the 172d anniversary of the creation of the General

San Martín Grenadier Regiment, Buenos Aires Domestic Service, March 16, 1984

(FBIS VI, March 19, 1984, B1). 147 Fontana, 24. 148 Brigadier General Heriberto Auel, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with

author, August 2, 1990. 149 Vice Admiral Barry Hussey, Argentine Navy (Ret.), interview with author,

July 31, 1990. 150 The equivalent grade for flag officers in the Argentine military services are:

United States Argentine Army Argentine Navy Argentine Air Force

Brigadier General General de Brigada Contraalmirante Brigadier

Major General General de División Vicealmirante Brigadier Mayor

Lieutenant General Teniente General Almirante Brigadier General

Under Carlos Menem, the new grade of Colonel Mayor was inserted between

Colonel and General de Brigada. This became the equivalent of a one-star rank,

but without palms it was not part of the flag officer grades. The army grades then

NOTES 209
had two stars (General de Brigada), three stars (General de División), and four

stars (Teniente General). The additional star brought the Argentine top grades to

the same number of devices as was common for chiefs of services in most countries, but the pay grades did not change. 151 Auel, interview. 152 Ibid. 153 Air Force Command statement, reported by Noticias Argentinas, September

5, 1984 (FBIS VI, September 6, 1984, B3). 154 Confidential interview, Buenos Aires, July 1990. 155 Raúl Alfonsín, speech made in his capacity as commander in chief of the

armed forces, at the armed forces banquet held at army headquarters in Buenos

Aires. Buenos Aires Domestic Service, July 6, 1985 (FBIS VI, July 8, 1985, B1). 156 General Julio Fernández Torres, “Conclusiones de la exposición del Senor

Jefe del Estado Mayor Conjunto de las Fuerzas Armadas Teniente General D. Julio

Alfredo Fernández Torres con motivo de la finalización del ano militar 1984,” unpublished manuscript, December 11, 1984. 157 Brigadier General Teodoro Waldner, Argentine Air Force (Ret.), interview

with author, August 10, 1990. 158 Confidential interview. 159 John Bushnell, former Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy at Buenos

Aires, interview with author, May 16, 1990. 160 Law 19,101, Ley para el personal militar—Sustitución de la ley 14,177, 30

junio 1971, 31B ADLA 1343. 161 Major General Jorge Arguindegui, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with

author, July 16, 1990. 162 Many of these are discussed during the Alfonsín administration in the publications of the Fundación Arturo Illia para la Democracia y la Paz. 163 Clarín (Buenos Aires), August 27, 1984, 2–3. 164 Latin America Weekly Report, WR 84-32, August 17, 1984. 165 Bridagier General Raúl Schirmer, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with author, August 6, 1990. 166 Details are given in commentary of Carlos Fernández, reported by Noticias

Argentina, September 29, 1985 (FBIS VI, October 2, 1985, B2). 167 Information provided by an interviewee who requested anonymity. 168 Robert A. Potash, “Alfonsín and the Argentine Military,” a paper prepared

for the XV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association,

Miami, FL, 1989. 169 Dante Giadone, “La reforma de la Constitución y la reforma militar,” Fundación Arturo Illia publication no. 4 (Buenos Aires: Fundación Arturo Illia para

la Democracia y la Paz, 1987), 10. 170 The gist of this law, on which the paragraph is based, and of Law 21,264 following, is summarized with comments in Defensa y seguridad, Fundación Arturo

210 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Illia publication no. 7 (Buenos Aires: Fundación Arturo Illia para la Democracia

y la Paz, 1985), 6–8. 171 Andrés Fontana makes the essential point clearly in his previously cited

work on the topic, “La política militar en un contexto de transición: Argentine

1983–1989.” In it, he states, “The review of the past became the principal focus of

the civil-military conflict, and over time, took on a politically unmanageable dynamic.” In his view, defense policy and military reform received short shrift as a

result. He reinforces this with the view that “The main factor that affected the military policy and civil-military relations in all its aspects was the nature that the review of the past took on.” Military reform could not be carried out in the atmosphere sustained by the trials and their effects. 172 Auel, interview. 173 The navy testimony was summarized by Noticias Argentinas, August 14,

1986 (FBIS VI, August 20, 1986, B1), and the air force testimony was in the Buenos

Aires Herald, August 22, 1986, 11. 174 Tomás Sánchez de Bustamente, interview with author, July 11, 1990. 175 Law 23,554, Ley de Defensa Nacional, 26 abril 1988, 48B ADLA 1424. 176 As quoted in Latin America Regional Report, Southern Cone, RS-890-02,

March 9, 1989, 2. 177 Rosendo Fraga, La cuestión militar, 1987–1989 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Centro de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoria, 1989), 83. 178 Gassino, interview. 179 Raúl Alfonsín, speech, January 25, 1989, Buenos Aires Domestic Service

(FBIS-LAT-89-015, January 25, 1989, 29). 180 Lieutenant General José Dante Caridi, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview

with author, August 10, 1990; also interviews with Generals Gassino and Auel. The

evidence was circumstantial and no investigation was made, but it was widely believed. 181 Decree 82, Procuración General de la Nación—Se solicita la intervención de su

titular para investigar el intento de copamiento del Regimiento 3 de Infanteriá “General Manuel Belgrano” del Ejército Argentino, 25 enero 1989, 49A ADLA 95. 182 Decree 83, Consejo de Seguridad—Creación, funciones, 25 enero 1989, 49A

ADLA 95. 183 Decree 327, Seguridad interior—Bases orgánicas y funcionales para la

preparación, ejecución y control de medidas tendientes a prevenir y conjurar la formación o actividad de grupos armados, 7 marzo 1989, 49B ADLA 1424. 184 Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini, Las Fuerzas Armadas y el uso de los recursos

económicos, undated monograph, Anexo 4. 185 As quoted in Latin American Weekly Report, WR-34-82, August 17, 1984.

These figures apparently include Ministry of Defense money as well as armed

forces. Rodríguez Giavarini has a drop from 4.2 percent to 2.8 percent of gross domestic product for Armed Forces and Security Troops. 186 Rodríguez Giavarini, 3.

NOTES 211
187 Fraga, 175. 188 Buenos Aires Herald, May 22, 1984, 11. 189 Flores, interview. 190 As related in interviews with several officers who served there at the time. 191 Fraga, 173. 192 Grecco, 116. 193 Buenos Aires Herald, July 6, 1988, 9. 194 Buenos Aires Herald, October 10, 1986, 11. 195 Brigadier Mayor Ernesto Crespo, Air Force Chief of Staff, interview in Observer magazine, as reported by Spanish Radio Service, June 7, 1988 (FBIS-LAT88-111, June 9, 1988, 22). 196 Fraga, 166. 197 Ibid., 167. 198 Rodríguez Giavarini, 13. 199 Bushnell, interview. 200 For a detailed exposition of the array of military companies and the extent

of Fabricaciones Militares participation, see Dr. Roberto Oscar Tafani, “Produccíon para la defensa,” in Defensa y democracia, ed. Gustavo Druetta, et al. (Buenos

Aires: Puntosaur Editores, 1990), 368–374. 201 Commentary by Oscar Raúl Cardos, Noticias Argentinas, June 13, 1984

(FBIS VI, June 19, 1984, B3). 202 Poneman, 105. 203 Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini, interview with author, August 1, 1990. 204 Buenos Aires Herald, April 20, 1985, 9. 205 Latin America Regional Report, RS-88-05, 8. 206 Ibid. 207 Latin America Regional Report, RS-87-03. 208 Tafani, 357. 209 Lieutenant General Julio Fernández Torres, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with author, July 18, 1990; Arguindegui, interview with author. 210 Noticias Argentinas, August 15, 1984 (FBIS VI, August 20, 1984, B5). 211 Dante Giadoni, interview with author, July 12, 1990. 212 Brigadier General Antonio José Deimundo Pineiro, Argentine Army (Ret.),

interview with author, June 28, 1990. 213 Publications of the Fundación Arturo Illia para la Democracia y la Paz, passim, reflecting the thinking of German General Wolf von Baudissin. 214 Deimundo Pineiro, interview. 215 Grecco, 69–70. 216 Seminario de Defensa Nacional, UCR, 4, and a critique of UCR policy on

educational reform by Dante Giadoni in Fundación Arturo Illia magazine, undated, 34–35. 217 “Final Document of the Military Junta Regarding the War Against Terrorism: The Fundamental Concepts,” in Loveman, 205–211.

212 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
218 Deborah L. Norden, Military Rebellion in Argentina: Between Coups and

Consolidation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 58ff. 219 As quoted by Jerry Knudson in The Times of the Americas (Washington,

DC), October 17, 1990, 3. 220 Leuco, 179. 221 Law 22,924, Amnistia de delitos cometidos con motivación o finalidad terrorista o subversiva, desde el 25/5/73 hasta el 17/6/82, 22 setiembre 1983, 43D ADLA

3830. 222 Decree 158, Juicio sumario ante el Consejo Supremo de las Fuerzas Armadas

al Tnte. Gral. Jorge R. Videla, Brig. Gral. Orlando R. Agosti, Almte. Emilio E.

Massera, Tnte. Gral. Roberto E. Viola, Brig. Gral. Omar D. R. Graffigna, Almte. Armando R. Lambruschini, Tnte. Gra. Leopoldo F. Galtieri, Brig. Gral. Basilio Lami

Dozo y Almte. Jorge I. Anaya por los delitos de homicidio, privación ilegal de la libertad y aplicación de tormentos a detenidos con apelación ante la Cámara Federal,

13 diciembre 1983, 44A ADLA 132. 223 Decree 280, Se Somete a juicio sumario ante el Consejo Supremo de las Fuerzas

Armadas al Gral. (R) Ramón J. Camps 18 enero 1984, 44A ADLA 189. 224 Law 23,049, Código de Justicia Militar—Modificación, 13 febrero 1984, 44A

ADLA 8-11. See also Horacio Goett, “El Fuero militar en el marco jurídico-constitucional,” in Druetta. 225 Flores, interview. 226 Decree 158, in explaining the bases for the trials of the juntas, contains such

phraseology as: “Considering that the Military Junta that usurped the government

of the Nation on 24 March 1976, and the commands of the Armed Forces that

were in being at that time conceived and carried out a plan of operations against

subversive and terrorist activity based in methods and procedures [that were] totally illegal,” and “That all the inhabitants of the country . . . were exposed to an intense and prolonged campaign of psychological action designed to establish the

belief that agents . . . of subversion, a diffuse category that encompassed the true

terrorists [but also] mere dissidents and even those that limited themselves to criticizing the methods employed, [all] were deserving of being placed outside the society and even deprived of their human condition, and therefore reduced to objects lacking legal protection.” 227 Brigadier General Carlos Horacio Cerdá, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview

with author, July 17, 1990. As legal spokesman for the military, he reflected the

general view. Very few in the armed forces disagreed with his assessments. 228 Revista Militar 721 (January/July 1989): passim, and General Cerdá in El

Cronista (Buenos Aires), October 4, 1898, 8. 229 Law 23,049, Article 10. 230 Diarios y Noticias (DYN), editorial report, August 2, 1984 (FBIS VI, August

6, 1984, B5). 231 Nunca Más, Informe de la Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1984), 481.

NOTES 213
232 Cerdá, interview. 233 Report of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, as reported by Noticias

Argentinas, September 25, 1984 (FBIS VI, September 26, 1984, B5). 234 Poneman, 94. 235 Auel, interview. 236 Buenos Aires Herald, April 12, 1984, 11, and April 14, 1984, 9. 237 Cerdá, interview. 238 Raúl Alfonsín, speech on the 172d anniversary of the creation of the General

San Martin Grenadier Regiment. 239 Raúl Alfonsín, speech during Flag Day ceremony in Rosario, Argentina, reported in Buenos Aires Domestic Service, June 20, 1984 (FBIS VI, June 21, 1984,

B1).240 Raúl Alfonsín, speech at the Armed Forces Comradeship Day dinner, Condor Building, Air Force Headquarters in Buenos Aires, reported in Telam, July 7,

1984 (FBIS VI, July 9, 1984, B2). 241 Anonymous pamphlet, quoted in Noticias Argentinas, August 10, 1984 (FBIS

VI, August 14, 1984, B2). 242 Captain Carlos Raimondi, Argentine Navy (Ret.), interview with author,

July 17, 1990. 243 Juan Carlos Corbetta, interview with author, July 5, 1990. 244 Grecco, 38. 245 Poneman, 95. 246 Raúl Alfonsín, speech on Armed Forces Comradeship Day, July 7, 1985. 247 General Hector Ríos Ereñú, interview in Gente magazine as reported by

DYN, June 28, 1985 (FBIS VI, June 28, 1985, B2). 248 Poll by Aftalión-Mora and Araujo Noguera, the most frequently quoted

polls in Argentina. As reported in Latin America Weekly Report, August 16, 1985,

10.249 Latin America Weekly Report, WR-85-49, December 13, 1985, 1. 250 Latin America Weekly Report, WR-86-17, April 24, 1986. 251 Ríos Ereñú, remarks made on Radio Mitre (Buenos Aires), as reported by

Noticias Argentinas, May 20, 1986 (FBIS VI, May 22, 1986, B4). 252 Poll by Multimedia Marketing and Aresco, commissioned by Clarín, as reported in Latin America Regional Report, Southern Cone, RS-87-01, January 1987. 253 Law 23,492, Extinción de la acción penal por presunta participación en

cualquiergrado en los delitos del art. 10 de la ley 23,049 y por aquellos vinculados a

la instauración de formas violentas de acción política hasta el 10/12/83—Condiciones—Excepciones. 23 diciembre 1986, 47A ADLA 192-3. 254 Ríos Ereñú, interview. 255 Ibid. 256 Ibid. 257 Corbetta, interview.

214 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
258 Fraga, 118. Other sources give the number of officers as 153 and 191, but

some latitude is needed for varying endpoints of the punto final period due to jurisdictional disputes. 259 La Crónica (Buenos Aires), March 24, 1987. 260 Corbetta, interview. 261 Norden, 108. In table 4, Norden explicates these fault lines in the Argentine

army in terms of cleavages, a different way of looking at the divisions than loyalties. Norden uses the terms vertical and horizontal differently than I do, but the

sense of the lines along which confrontations form and factions appear is the

same. 262 Raúl Alfonsín, speech, Argentina Televisora Color Network, April 16, 1987

(FBIS VI, April 20, 1987, B4). 263 Communiqué of Argentine Army Lieutenant Colonel Rico as reported by

Noticias Argentinas, April 17, 1987 (FBIS VI, April 20, 1987, B4). 264 Brigadier General Augusto Vidal, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with author, August 10, 1990. 265 Ibid. 266 General Arturo Alais, II Corps Commander at the time of the Semana Santa

uprising, in remarks at a news conference, reported by Telam, April 21, 1987 (FBIS

VI, April 23, 1987, B5). 267 Corbetta, interview. 268 Lieutenant Colonel Rico, remarks in court as reported in DYN, April 25,

1987 (FBIS VI, April 27, 1987, B1). 269 Interview of an anonymous Argentine Army captain by Lucia Annunziata,

“A Rebel Confesses in the Campo de Mayo,” La Repubblica (Rome), April 29, 1987,

12 (FBIS VI, May 12, 1987, B2). 270 Fraga, 119. 271 David Pion-Berlin, “Between Confrontation and Accomodation: Military

and Government Policy in Democratic Argentina,” Journal of Latin American

Studies 23 (October 1991): 568. 272 Norberto Rodríguez Bustamente, “Comentario a la ponencia de José E.

Miguens,” in Defensa y democracia, Gustavo Druetta, ed., 117. 273 Law 23,521, Ley de obediencia debida, 8 junio 1987, 47B ADLA 548-9. 274 Law 23,049, Article 11. 275 Raúl Alfonsín, speech to Congress, Buenos Aires Domestic Service, May 14,

1987 (FBIS VI, May 14, 1987, B1). 276 Law 23,521, Article 1. 277 La Nueva Provincia (Bahia Blanca, Argentina), as reported by Noticias Argentinas, May 15, 1987 (FBIS VI, May 18, 1987, B2). 278 Pion-Berlin, “Between Confrontation and Accomodation,” 561. 279 Law 23,521 as amended. 280 Fraga, 118. 281 Caridi, interview.

NOTES 215
282 Alfonsín, speech at Armed Forces Day Comradeship dinner, reported by

Noticias Argentinas, July 8, 1987 (FBIS-LAT-87-131, July 9, 1987, K1). 283 Latin America Regional Report, Southern Cone, RS-87-06, July 1987. 284 Brigadier Federico Alsogaray, Argentine Air Force (Ret.), speech at the Circulo Militar. 285 Report by Buenos Aires Domestic Service, September 15, 1987 (FBIS-LAT-87-

180, September 17, 1987, 18). 286 Statement by Lieutenant Colonel Aldo Rico, as reported by Spanish News

Service, January 15, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-010, January 15, 1988, 25). 287 Caridi, interview. 288 Lieutenant Colonel Luis León, Argentine Army, remarks to La Gaceta (San

Miguel de Tucumán), January 26, 1988, as reported by Noticias Argentinas, January 26, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-017, January 27, 1988, 23). 289 Caridi, interview. 290 Alfonsín, remarks to Spanish News Service, January 28, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-

019, January 29, 1988, 36). 291 Buenos Aires Herald, September 3, 1988, 11. 292 Fraga, 118. 293 Ibid., 163. 294 Alfonsín, Independence Day address, July 9, 1988. 295 Caridi, interview. 296 Grecco, 43–45. 297 Colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin, Argentine Army, interview with journalists

at Campos de Mayo (Buenos Aires Province), reported by Noticias Argentinas, December 2, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-233, December 5, 1988, 30). 298 Seineldin, remarks to Reuters News Agency, reported by Noticias Argentinas,

December 6, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-234, December 6, 1988, 34). 299 Hugo Chumbita, Los carapintada: historia de un malentendido argentino

(Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina, SAIC, 1990), 155–156. 300 Alfonsín, speech to special joint session of Congress, Argentina Televisora

Color Network, December 21, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-246, December 22, 1988, 22). 301 Jaunarena, commencement speech, as reported by Noticias Argentinas, December 17, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-243, December 19, 1988, 30). 302 Caridi, remarks at a swearing-in ceremony, as reported by Noticias Argentinas, December 15, 1988 (FBIS-LAT-88-242, December 16, 1988, 33).

303 Alfonsín, interview on Italian television, as reported in Latin America Regional Report, Southern Cone, RS-89-02, March 2, 1989, 2. 304 Fraga, 141. 305 Ibid., 142. 306 Ibid., 148. 307 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-89-06, August 3, 1989, 1. 308 Buenos Aires Herald, August 13, 1989, 13. 309 Buenos Aires Herald, October 8, 1989, 1, 13.

216 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
310 Rosendo Fraga, Menem y la cuestión militar (Buenos Aires: Editorial Centro

de Estudios Unión para la Nueva Mayoría, 1991), 85. 311 Grecco, 47. 312 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-90-01, February 8, 1990, 1. 313 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-90-07, September 13,

1990, 1. 314 Fraga, 127. 315 Remarks of Vice President Eduardo Duhalde, as reported by Buenos Aires

Domestic Service, October 13, 1990 (FBIS-LAT-90-206, October 24, 1990, 27). 316 Noticias Argentinas, December 3, 1990 (FBIS-LAT-90-232, December 3,

1990, 43). 317 Fraga, 133–135. 318 Latin America Weekly Report, WR-91-01, January 10, 1991, 1 (FBIS-LAT-90-

251, December 31, 1990, 49). Those pardoned were former junta members Jorge

Videla, Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Orlando Ramón Agosti, and

Armando Lambruschini; former Buenos Aires police chiefs Generals Ramón

Camps and Ovidio Riccheri; former Montoneros leader Mario Firmenich; former

General Carlos Suárez Mason; former Economy Minister José Alfredo Martinez

de Hoz; and two civilian functionaries, Norma Kennedy and Duilio Brunello. 319 President Carlos Menem, remarks at Armed Forces Comradeship dinner,

July 6, 1994 (FBIS-LAT-94-130, July 7, 1994, 29). 320 Ibid. 321 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-91-01, February 7, 1991, 1. 322 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-91-07, September 12,

1991, 3. 323 Ibid. 324 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-95-08, October 19,

1995, 3. 325 Clarín, September 4, 1994, 8 (FBIS-LAT-94-175, September 9, 1994, 33). 326 Paul W. Zagorski, Democracy vs. National Security: Civil-Military Relations

in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992). 327 Felipe Aguero, “The Military and the Limits to Democratization in South

America,” in Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective, ed. Scott Mainwaring, J. Samuel Valenzuela, and

Guilllermo A. O’Donnell (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992),

166.328 Pion-Berlin, “Between Confrontation and Accommodation,” 555. 329 Luis Garasino, interview with author, June 18, 1993. 330 Deimundo Piñeiro, interview with author, June 8, 1993. 331 Beltrán, interview with author, June 4, 1993. 332 Ibid. 333 Defense Minister Oscar Camilión, remarks reported by Buenos Aires

TELAM (FBIS-LAT-94-241, December 15, 1994, 39).

NOTES 217
334 Rosendo Fraga, interview with author, June 18, 1993. 335 José Goldemberg and Harold A. Feiveson, “Denuclearization in Argentina

and Brazil,” Arms Control Today 24 (March 1994): 10–11. 336 Colonel Federico Landaburu, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview with author,

November 24, 1998. 337 Menem, speech at Armed Forces Comradeship Day dinner, July 7, 1990

(FBIS-LAT-90-131, July 9, 1990, 40–42). 338 Beltrán, interview with author. 339 Interior Minister Julio Mera Figueroa, remarks reported in Buenos Aires

Herald, from DYN and Noticias Argentinas, March 8, 1990, 11 (FBIS-LAT-90-047,

March 9, 1990, 32). 340 J. Patrice McSherry, Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in

Argentina (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 237. 341 Law 24,049 (domestic security law of the Menem administration), as reported in FBIS-LAT-92-144, July 27, 1992, 15. 342 Defense Minister Antonio Erman González, Noticias Argentinas, September

27, 1991 (FBIS-LAT-91-189, September 30, 1991, 25). 343 Fraga, interview with author. 344 Lieutenant General Mario Cándido Díaz, Argentine Army (Ret.), interview

with author, June 2, 1993. 345 Garasino, interview with author. 346 Buenos Aires Herald, September 9, 1990, 4 (FBIS-LAT-90-175, September 10,

1990, 32). 347 Latin America Weekly Report, WR-92-50, December 24, 1992, 6. 348 Juan E. Corradi, “Menem’s Argentina, Act II,” Current History (February

1995): 76. 349 Fraga, quoting a government source as reported by him in La Nación, November 3, 1992, section 3, 4. 350 United States Embassy at Buenos Aires, Argentina, “Argentina—Economic

Trends Report,” May 1993, 2. 351 Fraga, in La Nación, November 3, 1992, section 3, 4. 352 Verde Oliva, Boletín Informativo no. 6 (March 1993), 3. 353 Latin America Research Report—Southern Cone, RS-91-10, December 26,

1991. 354 Latin America Weekly Report, WR-91-49, December 19, 1991, 11. 355 Defense Minister Erman González, speech reported by Buenos Aires

TELAM, February 1, 1991 (FBIS-LAT-91-023, February 4, 1991, 31). 356 Defense Ministry Planning Secretary Jorge Pereyra de Olazábal, remarks reported by Buenos Aires TELAM, November 13, 1991 (FBIS-LAT-91-222, November 18, 1991, 40). 357 Noticias Argentinas, May 29, 1994 (FBIS-LAT-94-104, May 31, 1994, 46). See

also Patrice Franko, “Defense Production in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile: A 

218 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Comparative Perspective,” Defense Analysis 12, no. 3 (December 1996): 320, for

detailed table of privatization status at the end of Menem’s first term. 358 Fernando Jorge Murillo, “Deterioration in Air Power Over Past Decade Examined,” La Prensa, November 18, 1993, 1, 6 (FBIS-LAT-93-227, November 29,

1993, 58). 359 Noticias Argentinas, May 2, 1990 (FBIS-LAT-90-087, May 4, 1990, 43); modified by Noticias Argentinas, August 24, 1993 (FBIS-LAT-93-162, August 24, 1993,

30).360 Defense Ministry, reported by Noticias Argentinas, December 7, 1994 (FBISLAT-94-236, December 8, 1994), 25. 361 Chief of the Joint General Staff Brigadier General Andrés Antonietti, Argentine Air Force, remarks reported in Noticias Argentinas, October 22, 1992

(FBIS-LAT-92-207, October 26, 1992, 24). 362 Defense Minister Oscar Camilión, remarks in Noticias Argentinas, August

23, 1993 (FBIS-LAT-93-162, August 24, 1993, 30). 363 Foreign Minister Guido di Tella, remarks in Noticias Argentinas, February 1,

1992 (FBIS-LAT-94-021, February 1, 1992, 22). 364 Buenos Aires TELAM, December 15, 1994 (FBIS-LAT-96-247, December 16,

1994, 32). 365 Buenos Aires Ambito Financiero, December 20, 1996, 15 (FBIS-LAT-96-247,

December 20, 1996). 366 Buenos Aires TELAM, May 8, 1997 (FBIS-LAT-97-133, May 13, 1997). 367 Daniel Santoro, “Uncompleted Argentine Submarines Sold as Spare Parts,”

Clarín, January 22, 1996, 8 (FBIS-LAT-96-018, January 26, 1996, 19). 368 El Pais, April 26, 1992, 16. 369 Deimundo Piñeiro, interview with author. 370 El Pais, April 26, 1992, 16. 371 Vice Admiral Jorge Fernando García, Argentine Navy, interview with author,

June 11, 1993. 372 “Restructuración (II),” map, data, and mission statements, Verde Oliva no. 2

(June 1992), 4–5. 373 Noticias Argentinas, May 9, 1992 (FBIS-LAT-92-092, May 12, 1992, 12). 374 “Plan to Change Compulsive Military Service Eyed,” Clarín, August 4, 1994,

21 (FBIS-LAT-94-155, August 11, 1994, 28). 375 Interior Minister Julio Mera Figueroa, remarks (FBIS-LAT-94-074, April 18,

1994, 33). 376 La Nación, June 28, 1994, 14 (FBIS-LAT-94-150, August 4, 1994, 35). 377 La Nación, June 26, 1994, 6 (FBIS-LAT-94-150, August 4, 1994, 36). 378 Carlos Menem, speech at Tucumán, in Clarín, July 9, 1994, 4 (FBIS-LAT-94-

150, August 4, 1994, 38). 379 “Defense Minister on Military Salary Increase,” Clarín, August 16, 1994, 13

(FBIS-LAT-94-165, August 25, 1994, 44). 380 Ibid.

NOTES 219
381 Buenos Aires TELAM, December 23, 1994 (FBIS-LAT-94-248, December 27,

1994, 29). 382 “Compulsory Service Replaced by Voluntary Service,” La Nación, July 26,

1994, 26 (FBIS-LAT-94-146, July 29, 1994, 21). 383 Radio broadcasts transcribed in Noticias Argentinas, September 1, 1994

(FBIS-LAT-94-173, September 7, 1994, 36). 384 Noticias Argentinas, December 15, 1994 (FBIS-LAT-94-243, December 19,

1994, 35). 385 Major General Raúl Julio Gómez Sabiani, Argentine Army, La Nación, May

25, 1993, 9. 386 “Sistema Educativo del Ejército: Primera parte oficiales,” Verde Oliva, no. 3

(August 1992), 1, and “Sistema Educativo del Ejército: Segunda parte suboficiales,” no. 5 (January 1993), 1. 387 Sabiani, La Nación. 388 Defense Minister Oscar Camilión, remarks in Noticias Argentinas, May 11,

1993 (FBIS-LAT-93-090, May 12, 1993, 17). 389 Carlos Manuel Acuña, report on the seminar “The Role of the Armed Forces

in the New World Situation,” at the National Intelligence School, Buenos Aires, reported in La Prensa, April 21, 1992, 9 (FBIS-LAT-92-094, May 14, 1992, 25). 390 Brigadier Luis Domingo Villar, Argentine Air Force, interview with author,

June 16, 1993. 391 Lieutenant General Martín Balza, Argentine Army, article in La Nación, February 25, 1993. 392 Among those making this charge was Admiral Osses upon his retirement as

Chief of the Joint Staff. 393 Garasino, interview with author. 394 Reported in FBIS-LAT-90-237, December 10, 1990, 43–47. 395 Ruben Correa, “Armed Forces to Sell Real Estate Properties,” Somos, July 22,

1991, 16–17 (FBIS-LAT-91-171, September 4, 1991, 29–30). 396 Díaz, interview with author. 397 García, interview with author. 398 Captain Carlos Raimondi, Argentine Navy (Ret.), La Nación, May 29, 1992. 399 Reported by Noticias Argentinas, August 10, 1993 (FBIS-LAT-93-155, August

13, 1993, 16); amplified by statement of Defense Minister Oscar Camilión in Noticias Argentinas, September 10, 1993 (FBIS-LAT-93-175, September 13, 1993, 30). 400 Deimundo Piñeiro, interview with author. 401 The result of this constitutional change was that Menem served two unequal

terms—one 6 years and one 4 years. In 1999, Menem expended considerable effort in seeking a second 4-year term under the new constitution. He was not able

to do so. 402 Christopher Larkins, “The Judiciary and Delegative Democracy in Argentina,” Comparative Politics 30, no. 4 (July 1998): 423. 403 Ibid., 424.

220 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
404 Ibid., 423. 405 Law 24.059, Ley de Seguridad Interior. Derogación del art. 13 de la ley 23.554,

January 6, 1992, 45A ADLA 71. 406 Calvin Sims, “In Argentina, a New Security Apparatus Resurrects Old Fears,”

The New York Times, International Edition, September 11, 1994, 13. 407 Calvin Sims, “Argentina Tells of Dumping ‘Dirty War’ Captives into Sea,”

The New York Times, March 13, 1995, A1. 408 Calvin Sims, “Argentine President Discourages New Revelations on ‘Dirty

War,’” The New York Times, March 30, 1995, A10. 409 “For the First Time, Argentine Army Admits ‘Dirty War’ Killings,” The New

York Times, April 26, 1995, A13. 410 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-95-09, November 23,

1995, 4. 411 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-96-03, April 25, 1996, 2. 412 “Argentina: Menem Announces Transfer of Navy School to Puerto Belgrano,” Buenos Aires TELAM (FBIS-LAT-98-007, January 7, 1998). 413 “Argentina: Further on Repeal of Amnesty Laws,” Buenos Aires TELAM

(FBIS-LAT-98-084, March 25, 1998). 414 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-98-05, June 30, 1998, 3. 415 “Court Ruling Enables Videla To Be Under House Arrest,” Página 12, July 17,

1998, 13 (FBIS Web site, July 17, 1998). 416 “Massera, detenido en Campo de Mayo,” La Nación, November 15, 1998, 9. 417 “Army Issues Communique on Weapons Sales,” Buenos Aires TELAM, September 8, 1998 (FBIS Web site, September 8, 1998). 418 Daniel Santoro, Venta de armas, hombres del gobierno (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1998), 150. 419 “Further Reports on Argentine Arms in Croatia,”Clarín, September 30, 1998

(FBIS Web site, October 10, 1998). 420 Santoro, 223. 421 Ibid., 232–233. 422 Ibid., 291. 423 Ibid., 311–312. 424 “Rodriguez, Corach Refute Arms Smuggling Charges,”Buenos Aires TELAM,

July 29, 1998 (FBIS Web site, August 6, 1998). 425 “Death of Illegal Arms Sales Key Figure,” La Nación, August 26, 1998 (FBIS

Web site, August 27, 1998). 426 Santoro, 346. 427 Ibid., 349. 428 “Prosecutor Raids Military Quarters for Arms Sale Document,” Clarín Web

site, October 16, 1998 (FBIS Web site, October 21, 1998). 429 “Arrest of General in Arms Scandal Seen,” Buenos Aires Herald, October 21,

1998, 12 (FBIS Web site, October 21, 1998).

NOTES 221
430 “DiTella Position in Arms Sales Case Viewed,”Clarín Web site, December 29,

1998 (FBIS Web site, December 31, 1998). 431 The terms roles, missions, and functions are used somewhat differently in the

Argentine military than they are in the U.S. military. Role generally indicates the

purpose of an institution in the United States, whereas in Argentina, this is commonly identified as mission. Function in the United States is what a service or unit

does based on role or roles, and mission is a specific tasking. Both role and mission

are subsumed by function in Argentina. 432 Felix Roberto Aguier and Carlos Jorge Maria Martínez, “Normas constitucionales y legales de la defensa nacional,” in Primeras jornados sobre defensa naciona (Buenos Aires: Circulo Militar, 1997), 134. 433 Soldados, November 1997, 2. 434 Soldados, October 1998, 3. 435 Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Assessment 1998: Engaging

Power for Peace (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1998), 114. 436 Latin America Regional Report—Southern Cone, RS-97-06, June 29, 1997, 1. 437 Barbara Starr, “Argentine, Chilean Navies Hope to Build Trust Through

Joint Naval Exercises,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, May 13, 1998, 6. 438 FBIS-LAT-98-154, June 3, 1998, Web site. 439 FBIS-LAT-98-222, August 10, 1998, Web site. 440 “Argentine-Chilean Joint Exercises Held,” FBIS Web site, March 15, 1999. 441 “South Atlantic Joint Exercises Held,” La Nación, May 8, 1999 (FBIS Web

site, May 9, 1999). 442 Ariel Palacias, “Argentine General Proposes Unified MERCOSUR Defense

System,” O Estado do Sao Paulo, April 15, 1998 (FBIS-LAT-98-111, April 21, 1998). 443 “Zabala Promotes Joint Defense System in Southern Cone,” Buenos Aires

TELAM (FBIS-LAT-98-154, June 3, 1998). 444 “Enfoque Común Mercosur para Defensa y Seguridad,” El Mercurio (Chile)

Web site, July 16, 1998. 445 Fraga, 262. 446 República Argentina, Ministerio de Defensa, Libro Blanco de la Defense Nacional (Buenos Aires: Servicio de Hidrografia Naval de la Armada Argentina,

1999), 22–206. 447 Mauro, interview with author. 448 Bossi, interview with author. 449 Libro Blanco, 24–220. The only country lower in South America is Guyana.

Venezuela is slightly higher (1.2). Chile is shown as 3.5, Brazil as 2.1. 450 Ibid., 24–217, 8. 451 Circulo Militar, Biblioteca de Oficial, no. 770, Primeras Jornados sobre Defensa Nacional (Buenos Aires: Circulo Militar, 1997). 452 Law 24.848, ADLA 53-B, 1557. 453 José C. d’Ororico, “Argentina’s Military Reorganization,” Armed Forces Journal International 135, no. 12 (July 1998): 18–19.

222 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
454 Libro Blanco, 8–70. 455 Ibid. 456 “Defense Minister on Armed Forces Transformation,” Clarín, January 19,

1999 (FBIS Web site, January 20, 1999). 457 Juan Castro Olvera, “Military Property Sales Discussed,” La Nación, March

20, 1999 (FBIS Web site, March 21, 1999). 458 Senator Antonio Berhongaray, Argentine National Legislature, interview

with author, March 1999. 459 “Defense Minister on Armed Forces Restructuring,” Buenos Aires TELAM,

June 29, 1999 (FBIS Web site, June 29, 1999). 460 “

New Defense Strategy, Priorities on the Stocks,” La Nación, September 3,

1999 (FBIS Web site, September 3, 1999). 461 “Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Vows to Defend Argentina’s Democratic

Rule,” Buenos Aires TELAM, March 12, 2002 (FBIS Web site, March 13, 2002).

NOTES 223
List of Interviews

Arguindegui, Jorge. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Chief of

Staff.

Auel, Heriberto. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Chief of Policy

and Strategy Development, Armed Forces Joint Staff.

Beltrán, Virgilio. Legal Advisor to the Argentine Army (1990). Subsecretary of Policy and Strategy, Ministry of Defense (1993). Professor, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (1998).

Berhongaray, Antonio. Senator (UCR), National Legislature.

Bossi, Ernesto Juan. Brigadier general, Argentine Army. Secretary General of the

Argentine Army.

Bushnell, John. Former Deputy Chief of Mission, United States Embassy, Buenos

Aires, Argentina.

Canestro, Horacio. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Inspector General of

the Argentine Army (1990). Former Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces

Joint Staff (1993).

Caridi, José Dante. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Chief of

Staff.

Cerdá, Carlos Horacio. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Judge

Advocate General of the Armed Forces.

Corbetta, Juan Carlos. Director General of Legal Matters, Ministry of Defense

(1990). Secretary of the Supreme Court of Argentina (1993).

Deimundo Piñeiro, Antonio José. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Chief

of the Argentine Army Strategic Institute (1990). President, Infantry Commission, Argentine Army (1993).

Díaz, Mario Cándido. Lieutenant general, Argentine Army. Chief of the Armed

Forces Joint Staff.

225

Note: Descriptions reflect status at time of interview, unless otherwise noted.
Estévez, Diego. Director General of International Financial Relations and Secretary of Housing and Finance, Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires. Former Secretary of Planning, Ministry of Defense.

Fernández Torres, Julio. Lieutenant general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Chief

of the Armed Forces Joint Staff.

Flores, Leopoldo. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Chief of Army

Operations and Former Commander, III Corps, Argentine Army.

Fontana, Andrés. Fellow, Center for the Study of State and Society, and Defense

Matters advisor to Radical Party (1990). Fellow of the Simón Rodríguez Institute and Special Assistant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for National

Security Affairs (1993).

Fraga, Rosendo. Executive Director, Center of Studies “Union for the New Majority” (1998).

Garasino, Luis. Editor, Clarín newspaper. Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law and

Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires.

García, Fernando. Vice admiral, Argentine Navy (Marines) (Ret.). Advisor to the

Defense Committee of the Argentine Senate.

García, Jorge Fernando. Rear admiral, Argentine Navy. Secretary General of the

Navy General Staff.

Gassino, Francisco. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Chief of

Staff.

Giadone, Dante. President, Arturo Illia Foundation for Democracy and Peace.

Aide to former President Raúl Alfonsín.

Hakopian, Andre. Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army. Assistant Army Attache, United States Embassy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Hussey, Barry. Vice Admiral, Argentine Navy (Ret.). Former Deputy Chief of the

Armed Forces Joint Staff.

Jaunarena, José Horacio. Minister of Defense, Alfonsín administration.

Laino, Aníbal. Brigadier general, Argentine Army. Secretary General of the Army

General Staff.

Landaburu, Federico. Colonel Argentine Army (Ret.). Professor of Military History, Argentine Army Superior War School (1993), and author on military

affairs.

Li Puma, Miguel Angel. Colonel, Argentine Army (Ret.). Professor of Strategy,

University of Belgrano.

Lobaiza, Humberto J. R. Colonel, Argentine Army (Ret.). Advisor to Secretary Beltrán, MOD, and military sociologist.

Lodos, Teresa. Lawyer, Adjunct Professor, National Defense School.

226 ARGENTINE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS
Machinandiarena, Francisco. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former

Army Delegate to the Armed Forces Joint Staff and Director of Training for

the Joint Staff.

Mauro, Horacio. Brigadier general, Argentine Army. Director of the Army Higher

Education Institute.

McCary, Douglas. Colonel, United States Army. Army Attache to the United States

Embassy at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Osses, Emilio. Admiral, Argentine Navy (Ret.). Former Chief of the Armed Forces

Joint Staff.

Pianta, Ricardo. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Chief of

Staff.

Raimondi, Carlos H. Captain, Argentine Navy (Ret.). Author and columnist on

defense matters.

Ríos Ereñú, Héctor. Major general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Chief of

Staff.

Rodríguez Giavarini, Adalberto. Former Secretary of Defense for Technical Planning, Ministry of Defense; private economic consultant.

Sánchez de Bustamente, Tomás. Advisor to the Argentine Senate Defense Committee.

Schirmer, Raúl. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Army Deputy

Chief of Staff, Intelligence.

Tibiletti, Luis. Advisor to Senator Eduardo Vaca, Chairman of the Defense Committee, Argentine Senate (1993). Advisor to the Argentine Congress; President of SER 2000, political/military research organization (1998).

Tisi Baña, José María. Colonel, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Advisor to President Raúl Alfonsín; Military Visiting Professor, Argentine Army Staff College.

Verplaetsen, Fernando. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). President of

AUNAR, military retiree advocacy group.

Vidal, Augusto José. Brigadier general, Argentine Army (Ret.). Former Deputy

Commander, Campo de Mayo Military Reservation, and Vice-President,

Círculo Militar.

Villar, Luis Domingo. Brigadier, Argentine Air Force. Secretary General, Argentine

Air Force General Staff.

Waldner, Teodoro. Brigadier general, Argentine Air Force (Ret.). Former Chief of

the Armed Forces Joint Staff.

Zabala, Carlos. Lieutenant General, Argentine Army. Chief of the Armed Forces

Joint Staff.

LIST OF INTERVIEWS 227
Selected Bibliography

Books

Bienen, Henry, ed. The Military and Modernization. Chicago: Aldine Atherton,

1971.

Binnendijk, Hans A., ed. Authoritarian Regimes in Transition. Washington: Center

for the Study of Foreign Affairs, FSI, 1987.

Calvert, Peter. The Process of Political Succession. New York: St. Martin’s Press,

1987.

Child, Jack. Geopolitics and Conflict in South America. New York: Praeger, 1985.

Chumbita, Hugo. Los carapintada: historia de un malentendido argentino. Buenos

Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina, SAIC, 1990.

Circulo Militar (Argentine Army). Primeras jornadas sobre defensa nacional.

Buenos Aires: Edivern, S.R.L., 1997.

———. Segundas jornadas sobre defensa nacional. Buenos Aires: Edivern, S.R.L.,

1998.

Cochran, Charles L., ed. Civil-Military Relations: Changing Concepts in the 70’s.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 237
ABACC. See Brazilian-Argentine Agency

for Accounting and Control of

Nuclear Materials

“Act Fixing the Purpose and Basic

Objectives for the Process of

National Reorganization,” 41, 43

AFNE. See Astilleros y Fábricas Navales

del Estado

Agosti, Brig. Gen. Orlando, 101, 217

Alais, Gen. Arturo, 107

Alberdi, José, 29

Alerta Nacional, 116

Alfonsín, Dr. Raúl

attitude toward the military

establishment, 49

campaign speech themes, 49–50

decline in arms importation, 81–83

defense policy, 134–135

Dirty War and, 49–50, 91–105

election of, 50

first public speech after taking office,

58

as head of Renovación y Cambio, 48

inauguration, 34

Independence Day address to the

armed forces, 116

La Tablada and, 74–76, 119

legacy of, 121–124

military reform under, 53–89, 121, 205

Permanent Assembly for Human

Rights leader, 49

resignation of, 125

review of the past, 91–124, 211

speech after the Semana Santa

uprising, 112

speeches on the trials after the Dirty

War, 99–100

uprisings and, 105–120, 123

Alianza Party. See De la Rua, Fernando

All for the Fatherland Movement, 73

Alsogaray, Alvaro, 50

Alvarez, “Chaco,” 194

Alvear, Marcelo Torcuato de, 31

A4Ms. See Skyhawk aircraft

Anaya, Admiral Jorge, 44, 101, 102, 115

Angeloz, Eduardo, 48, 116

antisubversive operations. See Dirty War

Antonietti, Brig. Gen. Andrés, 147, 168

ARA Gómez Roca, 148

ARA Robinson, 148

Aramburu, Lt. Gen. Pedro, 36

Araña, Arturo Ossorio, 176–177

Argentine Army Battalion, 164

Argentinidad, 15, 37

Arguindegui, Gen. Jorge, 66–67, 96

Army Higher Education Institute, 157

Army Infantry School, 107, 116

Arosa, Admiral Ramón, 66, 81

Astilleros Domecq García, 84, 145, 177

Astilleros y Fábricas Navales del Estado,

84, 145

Astiz, Lt. Alfredo, 113

ATLASUR joint exercise, 180

Auel, Brig. Gen. Heriberto, 60–61, 107

Balbín, Ricardo, 48

Balza, Gen. Martín, 142, 158, 169, 172,

174, 176, 177, 194

Baños, Jorge, 73

Baraldini, Col. Luis, 131

239

Index
Barreiro, Maj. Ernesto Guillermo, 97,

105, 112–113

Bartfeld, Federico, 177

Batallón Ejército Argentino, 164

BEA. See Batallón Ejército Argentino

Benítez, Gen. Aguado, 96

Bignone, Gen. Reynaldo

Dirty War and, 92, 172

election of, 46

Proceso and, 46–47

transfer of the command authority to

the president, 63

Bolívar, Simón, 10

Bolivia

illegal arms sales and, 174

Bonafini, Hebe de, 170

Bonnet, Gen. Martín, 127, 129, 131

Border Troops, 55, 72, 136, 138, 178

Borrás, Raúl

appointment of new Chiefs of Staff, 55

Dirty War and, 95–96

military budget cuts, 76–77

restructuring of the army and, 65

Bosnia

illegal arms sales to, 172, 173–174

Brazil

ATLASUR joint exercises, 180

“Declaration on the Common Nuclear

Policy of Brazil and Argentina,”

138–139

joint ventures with the Argentine air

force, 85–86

liberalization of, 43

Menem administration relations with,

136

as part of the Triple Frontier, 194

Brazilian-Argentine Agency for

Accounting and Control of Nuclear

Materials, 139

Brunello, Duilio, 217

budget. See Economic considerations

bureaucratic-authoritarian model, 22–23

Bush, President George H.W., 128, 130

Bussi, Antonio Domingo, 171–172

Bustamente, Gen. Tomás Sánchez de, 96

Cabrera, Pablo, 180–181

Cáceres, Gen. Isidro, 125–126, 127

Camano, Eduardo, 195

Camilión, Oscar, 136, 140, 148, 158, 175,

176–177

Campo de Mayo, 65, 97

Cámpora, Héctor, 39

Camps, Gen. Ramón, 95–96, 99, 103,

127, 217

Caputo, Dante, 86

Caridi, Gen. José Dante, 68, 111,

113–116, 119

Carranza, Dr. Roque, 57

Carrasco, Omar, 154

Castro, Fidel, 37

caudillos, 9, 18, 29

Cavallo, Domingo, 139, 143, 155, 194

Center Democratic Union, 50

Centro de Estudios Unión Para la Nueva

Mayoría, 120

Chiefs of Staff, 55, 64, 66–68

Chile

combined military maneuvers with,

180

disputes over borders and the Beagle

Channel islands, 134

“territorial integrity” concerns of

Menem, 135

Circular Militar, 33

civilianization, 54–57

CMN. See Colegio Militar de la Nación

Coast Guard, 55, 72, 116, 136, 178

Code of Military Justice, 93, 97, 110,

122–123, 131

Cold War, 37, 133

Colegio Militar de la Nación, 15, 88, 98,

157

Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición

de Personas, 94–95, 100, 123

Commission for the Evaluation and

Functioning of the Army’s

Organization, 65

Committee of Internal Security, 75, 119

complementarity principle, 178

CONADEP. See Comisión Nacional Sobre

la Desaparición de Personas

240 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Concordancia, 34–36

Condor missile program, 137, 138

conscripts. See military manpower

Constitution of 1853

Article 87, 69

creation of, 29–30

Menem’s abrogation of, 167

Perón’s abrogation of, 35

President of the Republic as

commander in chief of armed

forces, 54

replacement of, 38

restoration of, 38

“Control Exercise of Maritime Traffic

and Search and Rescue Operations,”

180

Coordinadora, 48, 59, 74, 96

Corach, Carlos, 176

Córdoba Air Material facility, 145–146,

147

Coup of 1966, 38–39

Crespo, Brig. Mayor Ernesto, 66

Croatia

Argentine peacekeeping forces in, 137,

164

illegal arms sales to, 172, 173–174

Cuba

South Atlantic War and, 45

subjective control example, 19

Cuerpo de Comando, 157

Cuerpo Profesional, 157

Cyprus

Argentine peacekeeping mission to,

164

“day of mourning” rallies, 130

de la Rua, Fernando, 193–195

década infame, 34

“Declaration on the Common Nuclear

Policy of Brazil and Argentina,”

138–139

Decree 82, 74, 211

Decree 83, 74–75, 211

Decree 158, 93–94, 213

Decree 280, 208–209, 213

Decree 327, 211

Decree 392, 140

Decree 436, 54, 63, 208

Decree 1633, 174

Decree 2259, 209

Decree 1,116/96, 178

Decree 1,277/96, 179

Decrees of Necessity and Urgency, 167

Defense Commission of the Chamber of

Deputies, 176

Defense Law

Article 4, 71

Article 15, 71–72

Article 17, 209

beginning of enactment, 57

delay of, 56, 121–122, 134

Dirty War and, 68

La Tablada and, 72–76

Menem’s first administration and, 140

passage by the Chamber of Deputies,

70–71, 116

reintroduction of in the House, 71

Restructuring Law and, 186, 188, 189

slow evolution of, 70–71

delegative democracy, 167–168

desaparecidos, 41, 92, 95, 169–170

Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 137

DGFM. See Dirección General

Fabricaciones Militares

di Tella, Guido, 139–140, 175, 176, 177

di Tella, Torcuato, 103

Díaz, Gen. Mario Cándido, 142, 147

Dirección General Fabricaciones Militares.

See also Fabricaciones Militares

illegal arms sales and, 173, 176–178

Dirty War

Alfonsín’s categories of involvement,

49–50

civilian view of, 92

Code of Military Justice, 93, 97

demoralization of the army, 98

description, 41–42

differing perceptions of the Radical

government and the military, 91–92

disappearance of 600 Spaniards

during, 170

due obedience and, 97, 101–102

estimates of the number of

desaparecidos, 92, 95

INDEX 241
Gen. Bignone’s amnesty, 92

horizontal and vertical loyalties and,

98

main issues of dispute, 98–99

military’s position on, 95, 96, 98

political consequences, 45, 68

punto final and, 101–102, 103–104

reconciliation after, 96–97

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

and, 93, 94, 95–96, 101, 102, 104,

115, 123

the trials, 99–105

Domestic Security Law, 141

Domínguez, Jorge, 189

Dozo, Gen. Basilio Lami, 44

Due Obedience Law, 68, 97, 101–102,

110–111, 114, 115, 117, 170, 171

Duhalde, Eduardo, 195

economic considerations

bank deposit freezes, 195

bureaucratic-authoritarian model,

22–23

central government budget under

Menem, 143–144

conversion to the peso, 143

de la Rua’s administration, 193–195

defense budget under Menem,

143–145

defense budgets, 1992–1998, 186

“dollarization” of the economy, 143

Fabricaciones Militares, 23, 55, 84–87

inflation, 143, 181

laissez-faire economy, 30, 40

Menem’s first administration, 126–127

Menem’s second administration, 181,

183–185, 192–193

military budget cuts, 76–78, 87, 99

privatization, 85–86, 126–127, 136,

145–146

relationship between the armed forces

and security forces budget and the

gross domestic product

(1970–1988), 77

technological modernization, 20–21

traditionalist-modernist division

within the military establishments,

21

unemployment, 185, 194

Ecuador

illegal arms sales to, 172, 174–178

Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP).

See People’s Revolutionary Army

Era One: 1810–1870

absence of the Crown and, 28–29

caudillos and, 29

characteristics, 28

Constitution of 1853, 29–30

militarismo sin militares, 29

United Provinces of the South, 28–29

Era Two: 1870–1930

characteristics, 30

establishment of military academies,

31

General Staff formation, 31

German military training missions,

32–33

immigration and, 30

introduction of conscription, 31

laissez-faire capitalism and, 30

militares y militarismo, 32

movimentismo and, 31–32

20th-century changes, 32–34

Era Three: 1930–1983

Concordancia, 34–36

coup of 1966, 38–39

desaparecidos, 41, 92, 95

Dirty War, 41–42, 45

guerrillas and, 41–42

military intrusions, 37

military role, 34–35

movimentismo and, 35

Perón Era three: 1930–1983, 35–37

plata dulce, 42

Proceso de Reorganización Nacional,

40–42, 43, 46–47, 79, 81–83, 134,

171, 178

revolutionary movements, 35–36

rivalries between different military

services, 36–37

subversivos, 41, 92

turbulence of the 1970s, 39–40

242 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
ERP. See People’s Revolutionary Army

Escuela de Defensa Nacional, 88, 157

Escuela Mecánica de la Armada, 104,

168–169, 170, 171

Escuela Superior de Guerra, 31, 32, 62,

157, 183

Escuela Superior Técnica, 84, 157, 183

ESG. See Escuela Superior de Guerra

ESMA. See Escuela Mecánica de la

Armada

EST. See Escuela Superior Técnica

Estado de Ley, 97

estado militar

under Alfonsín, 53, 56, 75, 122

autonomy of the military services and,

63

civil-military relationship and, 26

definition, 4–5

Dirty War and, 93

legitimacy and, 23–24

under Menem, 192

political roles of the military and, 24

Riccieri and, 31

Executive Decree Number 464/96, 178

Fábrica Argentina de Materiales

Aeroespaciales, 85–86

Fabricaciones Militares. See also Dirección

General Fabricaciones Militares

efforts to sell abroad, 86

external audit of, 84

privatization and, 136, 145–146

removal from the army’s jurisdiction,

55, 84

reshuffling of the board, 84–85

Falkland Islands. See South Atlantic War

Farrell, Edelmiro, 35

Federal Narcotics Control Service, 138

FEV. See Fuerza de Empleo Variable

Figueroa, Julio Mera, 140

Firmenich, Mario, 127, 132, 217

foot and mouth disease, 194

Franja Morada, 48

Frondizi, Arturo, 35

fueros militares, 9, 13, 27–28

Fuerza de Empleo Variable, 162

Full Stop Law, 101–102, 103–104, 170,

171

Galtieri, Lt. Gen. Leopoldo Fortunato, 43,

44, 46, 101, 102, 115, 170

Garzón, Baltasar, 170, 171, 172

Gassino, Gen. Francisco, 68, 73

Gendarmería Nacional, 55, 72, 136, 138,

178

General Lemos Combat Service Support

School, 157

Germany

joint ventures with the Argentine air

force, 85–86

military training missions, 32–33

Golden Age, 9, 30

González, Antonio Erman, 140, 141, 146,

173, 174, 175, 177

González de la Vega, Col. Edberto, 177

Gorriarán Merlo, Enrique, 73, 169

Graffigna, Brig. Gen. Omar, 101

Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 171

Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, 35

Guana, Attorney General Juan Octavio,

110–111

guerrillas. See Dirty War

Hierro Patagónico Sierra Grande, 84

HIPASAM. See Hierro Patagónico Sierra

Grande

hipótesis de conflicto, 69, 70, 133, 135, 179

hipótesis de guerra, 70, 134

Hispanic political tradition, 8–9, 27–28

Horizontalidad, 13, 98, 114, 117, 123, 132

IESE. See Instituto de Enseñanza Superior

del Ejército

illegal arms sales

triangulation process, 172–173

illegal drug trade, 137–138

Illia, Arturo, 36, 38

IMF. See International Monetary Fund

industry, military reform and, 84–87

inflation, 143, 181

Instituto de Enseñanza Superior del

Ejército, 157, 183

INDEX 243
Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal

Assistance, 44

Internal Security Law, 168, 178, 186,

191–192

International Monetary Fund, 193–194

Iran

illegal arms sales and, 175

Irigoyen, Hipólito

election as president, 33

movimentismo leader, 31–32

reelection, 34

joint exercises, 179–181, 182

Joint Staff

under Alfonsín, 57–63

Auel and, 60–61

creation of three departments, 59

lack of resources for, 61–62

under Menem, 141–143, 179

new defense doctrine as primary task

of, 60

Pianta and, 62

resistance to, 59–61

Torres and, 59, 60, 62

Waldner and, 62–63

weakness of legal basis for, 61

Juanarena, Horacio, 56, 57, 58, 85–86,

107, 118–119, 186

Junta Coordinadora Nacional de la

Juventud Radical, 48, 59, 74, 96

Justicialista Party. See Menem, Carlos

Justo, Gen. Agustín, 34

Kennedy, Norma, 217

La Noche de los Lápices, 114–115

La Perla human rights case, 105

La Tablada

Alfonsín’s defense policy and, 74

Committee of Internal Security and,

75

Decree 82 and, 74

Decree 83 and, 74–75

Defense Law and, 134–135

description of attack, 72–73

as final blow to Alfonsín’s military

reform efforts, 119

Gen. Gassino and, 68, 73

Gorriarán Merlo and, 169

government view of, 119

Juanarena and, 57

political ramifications, 74–76

Security Council and, 74–75

laissez-faire economy, 30, 40

Lambruschini, Admiral Armando, 101,

127, 217

Lami Dozo, Brig. Gen. Basilio, 101, 102,

115

Lanusse, Gen. Alejandro Agustín, 39, 99

Lasnaud, Jean, 174

Law 22,924, 213

Law 23,023, 208

Law 23,049, 213, 214

Law 23,492, 214

Law 23,521, 215

Law 16,970, 69, 72

Law 19,101, 210

Law 21,264, 70

Law 23,554, 209

Law 24,049, 218

Law of National Security, 70

legitimacy

description, 9–10

estado militar and, 23–24, 26

León, Lt. Col. Luis, 114

Levingston, Gen. Roberto Marcelo, 39

Ley de Defensa Nacional. See Defense Law

liceos militares, 15

Liendo, Maj. Gen. Horacio Tomás, 44

Logia de San Martín, 33–34

Logia Lautaro, 33

López, Germán, 57

Los carapintada, 113, 116, 126, 131–132,

133, 162, 168, 191

loyalty, political culture and, 12–14, 98,

205

Luder, Italo, 50, 139

Malvinas conflict. See South Atlantic War

Martínez de Hoz, José, 43, 132, 217

Massera, Admiral Emilio Eduardo, 101,

127, 171, 217

“Measures for Mutual Trust,” 180

Medina, Monsignor, 107

244 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
MEKO 140 frigates, 148

Menem, Carlos: First administration

changed roles and missions of the

military, 135–139

Condor missile program, 137, 138

defense budget, 143–145

defense policy, 133–149

deprioritizing of state activities not

amenable to privatization, 136

economy and, 126–127

election, 120

inauguration, 120

inauguration speech, 125

institutional relationships, 139–143

military education and training,

156–159

military manpower levels, 149–154

military policy, 149–156

movimentismo model, 167

navy ship commissioning, 148–149

nuclear materials policy, 138–139

pardons for military and guerrillas,

126–127, 170, 191, 217

pardons for revolt participants,

130–131

peacekeeping support for United

Nations, 137, 144, 180, 191

privatization issue, 126–127, 181

restructuring of the military, 159–165

Seineldin’s revolt against, 128–133

State Information Service report of a

plot against, 127

support from Rico and Seineldin, 120

support role in combating the illegal

drug trade, 137–138

Menem, Carlos: Second administration

abrogation of the Constitution of

1853, 167, 220

civil-military relationship issues,

168–178

contemporary roles and missions,

178–181, 222

defense budget, 183–185

delegative democracy description,

167–168

economy during, 181, 183–185, 192

human rights issues, 168–172

illegal arms sales, 172–178, 192

joint exercises, 179–181

legal bases, 178–179

mandate for, 168

manpower reductions, 181–182

Menem’s legacy, 191–193

military education, 182–183

participation in combined exercises

(1991–1999), 182

Restructuring Law, 185–191

state reform laws, 187

Menéndez, Luciano Benjamín, 171

MERCOSUR, 136, 180

Mexico

civilian authoritarian regime 

example, 8

extradition of Enrique Gorriarán

Merlo, 169

militares y militarismo, 32

militarismo sin militares, 29

military education and socialization

career officers acquiring university

degrees, 183

civilian students, 183

civilianization of form and content in

officers’ education, 89

corporate identity and, 14–15

curriculum changes in the service

academies, 88–89, 156–157

description of education system,

87–88

efforts to close military high schools,

88

establishment of military academies,

31

under Menem, 156–159, 182–183

military equipment and armament. See

also Illegal arms sales

arms imports (1973–1986), 82

budget for under Menem, 147

losses in the South Atlantic War,

146–147

Pampa 2000 aircraft trainer, 147

reductions under Alfonsín, 81–83

Skyhawk aircraft purchase, 147–148

military hierarchy

army restructuring, 64–66

INDEX 245
average tenure in position: highestranking officers (December

1983–January 1989), 69

Decree 436 and, 54, 63

personnel changes, 66–68

retirement and promotions: highestranking officers (December

1983–January 1989), 67

salaries, 77–78, 87, 151–152

second job necessity, 78, 152–153

Semana Santa uprising and, 112

total army personnel (1983–1989), 80

transfer of authority to the president,

64–66

military manpower

under Alfonsín, 79–81

cadre force, 149–154

civilians employed by the armed

forces, 181

comparisons of personnel status:

active, retired, and pensioned, 152

end strengths of active-duty army

personnel (1985–1992), 150

equivalent grade for flag officers in the

Argentine military service, 209–210

introduction of conscription, 31

under Menem, 149–154, 181–182

military and civilian personnel

strength (March 1999), 184

professional military services system,

154–156

retiree costs, 150–151

salaries, 151–152

Servicio Militar Voluntario, 154–156,

181, 183

training problems, 158

two decades of military conscription

(1973–1994), 151

voluntary military service, 154–156

working two jobs and, 78, 152–153

military mission

“latent mission,” 11

liberation and, 10–11

open-ended concept of, 11

professionalism, 12

military reform

armament and equipment reductions,

81–83

arms imports (1973–1986), 82

assignment of all officers of the grade

of colonel and above to the MOD,

54

budget cuts, 76–78, 87, 99, 205

Chiefs of Staff, 55

civilianization, 54–57

Defense Law and, 54, 56, 57, 68–76,

134, 140

education and socialization, 87–89

as envisioned by Alfonsín, 121

expansion of scope and domain of the

MOD, 55

Gendarmería Nacional and, 55, 136

industry and, 84–87

the Joint Staff, 57–63

La Tablada as final blow to Alfonsín’s

military reform efforts, 119

manpower reductions, 79–81

military claim on resources, 76

military hierarchy, 63–68

Ministry of Defense and, 54–57

mission and organization, 53–76

Prefectura Naval and, 55, 72, 136

privatization of industry, 85–86

relationship between the armed forces

and security forces budget and the

gross domestic product

(1970–1988), 77

removal of the Fabricaciones Militares

from army jurisdiction, 55, 84

resources and industry, 76–87

total army personnel (1983–1989), 80

United States Planning, Programming,

and Budgeting System and, 83

MINEII. See Movimiento de Identidad

Nacional e Integración IberoAmericana

Ministerial Resolution Number 440/98,

188

Ministry of Defense

under Alfonsín, 54–57

debts from the military-industrial

complex, 145

246 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
under Menem’s first administration,

139–143

under Menem’s second

administration, 178–179

White Book on National Defense,

183–185, 189

MOD. See Ministry of Defense

“Modernization of the Armed Forces,” 65

MODIN. See Movimiento por la Dignidad

y la Independencia

Monte Caseros uprising

Defense Law and, 71

description, 113–114

Due Obedience Law and, 114, 115, 117

horizontal versus vertical loyalty and,

114, 117

Juanarena and, 57

public opinion poll about, 188

Rico and, 113–116

Rios Ereñú and, 68

Montoneros, 39, 40, 92

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 169–170

Movement for Dignity and

Independence, 128

Movement for Ibero-American

Integration and National Identity,

133

Movimentismo, 18–19, 31–32, 36, 167

Movimento Todos por la Patria, 73

Movimiento de Identidad Nacional e

Integración Ibero-Americana, 133

Movimiento por la Dignidad y la

Independencia, 128, 132

Movimiento Restaurador, 133

MTP. See Movimento Todos por la Patria

Mugnolo, Lt. Gen. Juan Carlos, 195–196

Multipartidaria, 43

National Commission about the

Disappearance of Persons. See

Comisión Nacional Sobre la

Desaparición de Personas

National Defense Council, 140

National Defense Law. See Defense Law

National Defense School, 88, 157

National Military College. See Colegio

Militar de la Nación

National Security Council, 140

National Security Doctrine, 11, 21, 37,

69–70, 134

Naval War College, 170

Navy Mechanics School, 104, 168–169,

170, 171

Nicolaides, Gen. Cristino, 46, 172

nuclear materials, 138–139

Nunca Más, 95

OAS-MRP, 116

Obediencia Debida. See Due Obedience

Law

Olazábal, Jorge Pereyra de, 146

Onganía, Gen. Juan Carlos

coup of 1966 and, 38–39

National Security Doctrine and, 69–70

role of the military and, 11–12

Operación Dignidad. See Semana Santa

uprising

Osses, Admiral Emilio, 142, 143

Palleros, Lt. Col. Diego, 173, 174, 175,

176

Pampa 2000 aircraft trainer, 147

Panama

ostensible destination for arms sales,

173

South Atlantic War and, 45

Paraguay

as part of the Triple Frontier, 194

Parliamentary Commission for the

Pursuit of Military Restructuring,

188

People’s Revolutionary Army

activities during the 1970s, 39

eradication of, as a goal of the Proceso,

40, 41

Permanent Assembly for Human Rights,

49

Permanent Committee of ChileanArgentine Security, 180–181

Perón, Juan Domingo

abrogation of the Constitution of

1853, 35, 167

Grupo de Oficiales Unidos leader, 35

INDEX 247
restoration to the presidency in 1973,

39

segundo movimiento creation, 35

Perón, María Estella Martínez de, 39–40,

91–92

Peronists. See also Menem, Carlos;

Montoneros

coup of 1966 and, 38–39

presidential election of 1983 and,

47–48, 50

turbulence of the 1970s and, 39–40

Persian Gulf War, 137

Perú

illegal arms sales and, 175

Pianta, Gen. Ricardo, 62, 67

Piñeiro, Gen. Deimundo, 88–89

Pinochet, Gen. Augusto, 170

Plata dulce of Era Three, 42

PMS. See Professional military services

system

political culture

currents in, 24–25, 206

description, 7–8

divided loyalty and, 12–14, 98

fueros militares, 9, 13, 27–28

horizontalidad and, 13, 98, 114, 117,

123, 132

Iberian heritage and, 8–9

immaturity of, 9

isolation and, 9

legitimacy and, 9–10

militarism in Latin America, 203

military corporatism, 13

military education and recruitment,

14–15

military mission, 10–12

physical isolation of military officers

and their families, 15

praetorianism, 13

professionalization and, 14–16

verticalidad and, 13, 98, 114, 117, 123,

132

political evolution

Era One: 1810–1870, 28–30

Era Two: 1870–1930, 30–34

Era Three: 1930–1983, 34–42

Hispanic political tradition, 27–28

transitional era, 43–51

Portugal

militaries of the 15th and 16th

centuries, 9

Postergados, 136, 156

power relationships

civilian movimentismo, 18–19

coercive capabilities of the military, 18

military as an autonomous political

actor, 18

military praetorianism, 19

objective control, 17–18

subjective control, 17

taxonomy of political military roles, 20

praetorianism, 13, 19

Prefectura Naval, 55, 72, 116, 136, 178

Presidential election of 1983

Peronists and, 47–48

Radical youth and, 48–49

principle of complementarity, 178

principle of subsidiarity, 178

privatization, 85–86, 126–127, 136,

145–146, 181

Proceso de Reorganización Nacional,

40–42, 43, 46–47, 79, 81–83, 134,

171, 178

professional military services system,

154–156

public opinion polls, 100–101, 102–103,

109–110, 118, 120

Puerta, Ramón, 195

Punto Final, 68

Punto final, 101–102, 103–104, 170, 171

Quiroga, Facundo, 29

Radical Party. See also Alfonsín, Dr. Raúl

campaign promise to reduce military

expenditures, 64

formation of, 31–32

perception of the Dirty War different

from the military perception, 91–92,

96

presidential election of 1983 and,

47–51

Rattenbach, Lt. Gen. Benjamin, 101

Reforma militar. See Military reform

248 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Relatives of the Victims of Subversion,

100

Renovación y Cambio, 48

Restructuring Law

deadline for implementation, 188, 189

defense budget increase, 189

Defense Law and, 186, 188, 189

delay of, 188–189

initiator, 186

lack of financial resources to

implement, 188–189

military restructuring system, 190

passage of, 185

Strategic Military Directive and,

190–191

Title I, 187

Title II, 187

Title III, 187

Title IV, 187–188

Title V, 188

Title VI, 188

restructuring of the military

air force and, 161

army and, 161–162

goals, 160

navy and, 160–161

projected army organization and

deployment (1995), 163

relocation of army branch schools, 162

review of the past

Alfonsín’s legacy, 121–124

as a challenge to the military

perceptions of proper authority, 122

Dirty War, 91–105

political dynamic, 211

uprisings, 105–120

Revisión del pasado. See Review of the

past

Revolución Argentina, 38

Ricchieri, Gen. Pablo, 31, 127, 217

Rico, Lt. Col. Aldo, 106, 107, 108, 112,

113–116, 120, 127, 132

Rios Ereñú, Gen. Hector, 67–68, 89, 100,

102, 103–104, 106, 107

Roca, Gen. Julio, 31

Roca-Runciman Pact, 34

Romero, Humberto, 129, 139

Rosas, Juan Manuel de, 29

Saa, Adolfo Rodríguez, 195

Sábato, Ernesto, 95

Saint-Jean, Gen. Ibérico, 92

San Isidro Federal Court, 107

San Martín, José de, 10, 28–29, 33

Sargento Cabral NCO School, 157

Sarlenga, Luis, 174, 175

Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 29

Savio, Gen. Mario, 84, 177

School for the Professional Women’s

Corps, 157

Scilingo, Cdr. Adolfo Francisco, 168–169

Security Council, 74–75, 119

Seineldin, Col. Mohamed Ali

“physical training” demonstration, 127

revolt against Menem, 128–133

support for Menem, 120

Villa Martelli uprising leader, 72,

116–117

Semana Santa uprising

Alfonsín’s speech after, 112

amnesty for the accused, 111–112

army hierarchy changes after, 112

Barreiro and, 105, 112–113

bombings after, 112, 116

Defense Law and, 71

description, 105–109

Due Obedience Law and, 110–111

effects of, 109

Juanarena and, 57

popular support for Alfonsín and, 110

public opinion poll, 109–110

Rico and, 106, 107, 108, 112, 113

Ríos Ereñú and, 68, 106, 107

September 11 terrorist attacks, 194

Servicio Militar Voluntario, 154–156, 181,

183

Skyhawk aircraft, 147–148

SMV. See Servicio Militar Voluntario

Sociedad Mixta Siderúrgica Argentina, 84,

177

SOMISA. See Sociedad Mixta Siderúrgica

Argentina

Somoza, Anastasio, 169

South Africa

INDEX 249
arrest of Palleros, 176

ATLASUR joint exercise, 180

South Atlantic War

military equipment losses, 146–147

military establishment after, 45–56

military officers’ trials, 101, 102

United Kingdom role, 44–45

United States role, 44–45

younger officers and

noncommissioned officers and, 42

Spain

disappearance of 600 Spaniards during

the Dirty War, 170

international arrest warrant for

Galtieri, 170

militaries of the 15th and 16th

centuries, 9

Special Stable War Councils, 70

State, the

as an engine of development and

modernization, 21

civil society and, 16

as a political arena, 17

political society and, 16

structure of, 16

State Information Service, 127

Statute of the Revolution, 38

Strategic Military Directive, 190–191

Suárez Mason, Gen. Guillermo, 99, 127,

217

subsidiarity principle, 178

Subversivos, 41, 92

Subversivos vergonzantes, 96

Superior Technical School, 84, 157

Superior War School, 31, 32, 62, 157

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

Dirty War and, 93, 94, 95–96, 101, 102,

104, 115, 123

revolt against Menem and, 131

Talleres Navales Dásena Norte, 84, 145

TAMSE. See Tanque Argentino Mediano

Sociedad del Estado

TANDANOR. See Talleres Navales Dásena

Norte

Tanque Argentino Mediano Sociedad del

Estado, 84, 86, 145, 177

Tlatelolco Treaty, 139

Torres, Brig. Gen. Julio Fernández, 55, 59,

60, 62

transitional era

collapse of the Proceso, 46–47

junta role, 43–44

presidential election of 1983, 47–51

South Atlantic War, 44–46

Viola’s role, 43

trials after the Dirty War

Alfonsín’s efforts to expedite, 102

Alfonsín’s speeches, 99–100

Army General Staff report, 104–105

defense presentation, 101

number of human rights trials, 104

opening of, 99

prosecution presentation, 101

public opinion polls, 100–101,

102–103

triangulation process, 172–173

Triple Frontier, 194

UCD. See Union de Centro Democrático

UCR. See Radical Party

Unemployment, 185, 194

Unión Cívica Radical. See Radical Party

Union de Centro Democrático, 50

UNITAS, 179–180

United Kingdom

Roca-Runciman Pact, 34

separation of civil and military

institutions, 19

South Atlantic War role, 44–45

United Nations

Argentine contribution to the

Protection Force, 162, 164

Argentine peacekeeping forces, 137,

144, 180

South Atlantic War and, 45

United Nations Protection Force,

162–163

United Provinces of the South, 28–29

United States

aid to Argentina, 184–185

Argentina’s support role in combating

the illegal drug trade, 137–138

Condor missile program and, 137, 138

250 ARGENTINE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Constitution as model for the

Argentine Constitution of 1853, 29

Excess Defense Articles, 184

International Military Education and

Training Programs, 184–185

Pampa 2000 aircraft trainer and, 147

Planning, Programming, and

Budgeting System, 83

separation of civil and military

institutions, 19

South Atlantic War role, 44–45

UNITAS joint exercise, 179–180

UNPROFOR. See United Nations

Protection Force

uprisings

Monte Caseros, 57, 68, 71, 113–116

Semana Santa, 57, 68, 71, 105–113

Villa Martelli, 57, 68, 72, 116–120

Uriburu, Gen. José, 34

Urso, Jorge, 175, 176, 177

Uruguay

ATLASUR joint exercises, 180

Variable Employment Force, 162

Vega, Col. Oscar Ricardo, 131

Venezuela

ostensible destination for arms sales,

173, 174

Venturini, Lt. Col., 107

Verticalidad, 13, 18, 98, 114, 117, 123, 132

Vicario, Gen. Antonio, 177

Vidal, Gen. Augusto, 107

Videla, Gen. Jorge Rafael, 40, 43, 99, 101,

127, 131, 132, 171, 217

Vila Melo, Lt. Col. Julio, 107

Villa Martelli uprising

description, 116–118

Juanarena and, 57

Rios Ereñú and, 68

Seineldin and, 72

Viola, Gen. Roberto, 43, 101, 127, 217

Voluntary Military Service Law, 186

Voluntary Service Law, 178

Waldner, Brig. Gen. Teodoro, 55, 59,

62–63, 66

War of the Triple Alliance, 28

White Book on National Defense,

183–185, 189

Yugoslavia

Argentine peacekeeping forces in, 137,

162, 164

Zabala, Lt. Gen. Carlos, 174, 180–181

INDEX 251
About the Author

Herbert C. Huser retired as a colonel from the U.S. Army after 25 years of

service. For most of his career, he was a foreign area officer for Latin America, specializing in Argentina, where he served three tours of duty. When

not overseas, he was a professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Military Academy and at the National War College. After retiring in 1987,

COL Huser earned a doctorate at the George Washington University and

subsequently taught at Rhodes College, the Armed Forces Staff College,

and the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) at the National

Defense University. Dr. Huser is now an independent scholar and consultant to the on-line journal, Security and Defense Studies Review.

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The mission of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies is to develop academic

programs for educating primarily civilians in planning and management of defense

and security; for familiarizing civilians with the military profession and military

affairs; and for studying the defense policymaking process in general. In addition, the

Center is charged with promoting civil-military collaboration on defense matters and

with encouraging national, regional, and international dialogue regarding defense

themes. To accomplish this, the Center conducts a core course on Defense Planning

and Resource Management, and a specialized course on Defense Economics and

Budgeting. In addition, it holds seminars and conferences, and promotes research,

teaching, outreach, and dialogue on defense and security matters.

For more information, visit the Center’s Web site at: http://www3.ndu.edu/chds/

English/History/sMessage.htm

F rom the Foreword to

Argentine Civil-Military Relations:

From Alfonsín to Menem

This book is an important contribution to the

much-needed institutional analysis of the

evolution of democratic governance in

Argentina. Huser uses the constructs of political

culture, organization of the state, and political

economy as the pillars of his analytical

framework, especially emphasizing political

culture to explain Argentina’s difficulty in

coming to grips with the civil-military problematique. Further analyses of the workings of the

institutional underpinnings of successful

governance and functional civil-military

relations are needed in Argentina and many

other countries of Latin America, where, after

more than a decade of reforms, civilian

leadership is often the absent element in the

civil-military equation.

—Margaret Daly Hayes

Director, Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies