God's Assassins: State Terrorism in Argentina in the 1970s

by Patricia Marchak, William Marchak

Overview

God's Assassins tells the story of state terrorism in Argentina through interviews with participants on all sides of this issue. They include military officers, "third world" priests, Catholic church officers who supported military objectives and methods, former members of guerrilla movements, survivors of prison camps, journalists, trade unionists, and others who experienced state terrorism in Argentina. Patricia Marchak combines excerpts from these interviews with documents and media reports from the time and her own insightful study of Argentina's history to provide an analysis of the process as well as the causes of state terrorism. The graphic and moving interviews in God's Assassins show the complexity of these causes and indicate that there is no simple explanation of the period. Was the head of a major guerrilla movement a double agent? Did the intelligence service actually believe it was engaged in the third world war? Why did the Catholic church turn on its own priests? Through her interviews, Marchak reveals much that will never appear in official documents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773520134
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	10/12/1999
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.20(d)
Lexile:	1390L (what's this?)

About the Author

Patricia Marchak, former dean of arts and professor emerita, University of British Columbia, is the author of several books including Logging the Globe, The Integrated Circus, God's Assassins, and Reigns of Terror.

Table of Contents

	Tables	vii
	Acknowledgments	ix
	Map of Argentina	xi
Part 1	Introduction
1	Introduction	3
2	Coping with State Terrorism	21
Part 2	Historical Origins
3	A Violent History	43
4	Peronism and Militarism	57
5	Unionism	75
6	A Very Brief Revolution	93
Part 3	Escalation of Violence
7	The Dirty War	109
8	Imprisoned under Pen	128
9	El Proceso	146
10	Revolutionaries and Sceptics	169
11	Tucuman	193
12	The Media and the International Context	212
Part 4	The Central Institutions of the Repression
13	A Deeply Divided Church	235
14	Third World Priests' Movement	251
15	The Military Defence	266
16	Other Military Perspectives	291
	Conclusion
17	Conclusion	319
Appendix	Revolutionary Organizations, 1960s to Early 1970s	341
	Notes	345
	Bibliography	359
	Index	377

Editorial Reviews

This is a paperbound reprint of a 1999 book. Under the Argentine military junta, some 30,000 people were disappeared, while many others were imprisoned, tortured, executed, and assassinated, in a state effort to root out communists, union sympathizers, peasant activists, and anyone else the regime deemed subversive to the Catholic capitalist conservative order. Marchak (emerita, U. of British Columbia) presents the results of interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict and with the numerous people who were simply victims, hoping that the wide ranging testimonies and personal analyses will shed light on the origins of and resistance to the state perpetrated terrorism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"God's Assassins is a remarkably successful attempt to get inside a nightmare. I was in Argentina at the time and thought I understood what was going on. Now I understand much more - especially about what was going through people's minds. A fine and instructive book." Gwynne Dyer.

From the Publisher