40 DG: Argentine Peronist elected official John William Cooke characterized Peronism as the “hecho maldito” (“cursed deed”) of the middle class. The phrase is most commonly interpreted as pertaining to Peronism’s complicated relationship to the middle class—specifically, to the movement’s tendency to submit to its desires
41 DG: Ministers of the Argentine Economy under Presidents Aramburu and Frondizi. For década infame, see Note 13.
Appendices
Prologue to the Book Edition
(from the first edition, July 1957)42
Operation Massacre was published in the journal Mayoría between May 27 and July 29 of 1957: nine articles in total.
I had already covered the events that I recount there in a half-dozen articles that were published by the newspaper Revolución Nacional between January 15 and the end of March 1957.
Now the book is being published by Ediciones Sigla.
The names I mention here might suggest that I have an exclusive preference for tough, nationalist presses. That is not the case. I wrote this book for it to be published, for it to act, not so that it could join the vast number of reveries dreamed up by ideologues. I investigated and recounted these awful events to bring them to light in the fullest way possible, to provoke fear, to have them never happen again. I consider whoever helps me publish and circulate the story to be an ally; I will not ask what your politics are.
That is how I respond to cowards and to those who are weak of spirit when they ask me why I—someone who considers himself a man of the Left—am collaborating journalistically with men and publications of the Right. I reply: because they dare to take the risk, and right now there is no hierarchy that I recognize or accept as being more noble than that of civil courage. Or would they prefer that I kept quiet about these things on account of ridiculous partisan prejudices? While the ideologues dream, more practical people torture and kill. That is concrete, that is urgent, that is of the here and now.
If necessary, I can renounce or put off all political philosophies whose truths are, in the end, of a speculative nature. I cannot, I will not, and I should not renounce one basic feeling: indignation in the face of abuse, cowardice, and murder.
I have also learned that partisan differences are perhaps the most superficial rifts that come between men. It’s other ones that matter: the insurmountable, irreducible differences in character. Among people who think like I do about the majority of abstract issues, I have discovered an alarming pragmatism when it comes to concrete situations that require almost instinctive reactions, the kinds of reactions that make being human worthwhile.
The torturer who becomes an executioner at the slightest provocation is a present-day problem, a clear target that the civil conscience ought to obliterate. We have ignored the fact that there has been a beast lurking among us. Even in Nazi Germany, years of misery, fear, and bombings were necessary to bring it to light. In the Argentine Republic, six hours of rebellion were enough to make its repulsive silhouette emerge. Here it is, with the name it happens to carry today, for all to see. And to act accordingly.
The rest, at this exact moment, does not interest me.
Footnotes:
42 Necessary clarification: In the editions of Operation Massacre that appeared during Walsh’s life, there is some confusion regarding this prologue (which the author signs “La Plata, July 1957”), the “Introduction” (p. 157) (signed “La Plata, March 1957”), and the “Obligatory Appendix” (p. 165), also dated March of that year. The first book version, published by Sigla, finished printing on November 30, 1957, and included these texts (without further clarifications), which were written beforehand during different months. [Ediciones de la Flor Editor’s Note.]