Videla

Soon after the coup that brought him to power in1976, General Jorge Rafael Videla began Argentina's dirty war. All political and union activities were suspended, wages were reduced by 60%, and dissidents were tortured by Nazi and U.S. trained military and police. Survivors say the torture rooms contained swastikas and pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. One year after Videla's coup, Amnesty International estimated 15,000 people had disappeared and many were in secret detention camps, but although the U.S. press admitted human rights abuses occurred in Argentina, Videla was often described as a "moderate" who revitalized his nation's troubled economy. Videla had a good public relations firm in the U.S., Deaver and Hannaford, the same firm used by Ronald Reagan, Taiwan, and Guatemala. Not surprisingly, his Economics Minister, Jose Martinez de Hoz, spoke, at Deaver's request, on one of President Reagan's national broadcasts in order to upgrade Argentina's reputation. Videla also received aid from WACL, the World Anti-Communist League, through its affiliate, CAL (Confederation Anticomunista Latinoamericana).
CAL sent millions of dollars to Argentina from sources such as the Italo-Argentine Masonic Lodge P-2, an outgrowth of old U.S. anti-communist alliances with the Italian drug mafia. As part of its WACL affiliation, Argentina trained Nicaraguan contras for the U.S. Videla left office in 1981, and after the Falklands Crisis of 1982 he and his cohorts were tried for human rights abuses by the new government.