of the library of the Central Committee of the Argentine Communist Party; Luciano Kasio of the Archivo de Prensa (Presidencia de la Nación), not only for his tireless help in digging up dusty folders but for making me welcome in the Casa Rosada; the staff of La Nación, especially Pablo Blasberg; journalists and unionists Jorge Chinetti and Enrique Tortosa of the FAP/APBA and the UTPBA; and Sr. Rufino of the Círculo de la Prensa.
Funding for this work came through grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the Chancellor of the University of California, and the UC–Berkeley Department of History. Additionally, support has come from the University of Oklahoma’s Vice President for Research, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of International and Area Studies, and the Department of History. At OU I am particularly grateful to my colleagues Rob Griswold, Sandie Holguín, and Terry Rugeley for their invaluable professional advice, patience, and encouragement.
Finally, my wife, Claudia, has sacrificed more than either of us care to remember in the course of completing this project. She has constantly encouraged and supported me in my research, writing, and teaching of Latin American and Argentine history from our first days in San Francisco and Buenos Aires through the present. Along the way, we have had the good fortune of being accompanied by our beautiful daughter, Fiona Violeta, whose birth coincided with the first written words of this project. This book is as much theirs as mine. Now that it is finished, I can promise both Claudia and Fionita that the late-night typing will end—for a while.
Abbreviations
| AGN | Archivo General de la Nación | |||
| AGN-AJ | Archivo General de la Nación—Archivo Justo | |||
| AdeP | Archivo de Prensa | |||
| ALN | Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista | |||
| AP | Associated Press | |||
| APBA | Asociación de Periodistas de Buenos Aires | |||
| ASNE | American Society of Newspaper Editors | |||
| CADEPSA | Compañía Argentina de Ediciones y Publicidad, Sociedad Anónima | |||
| CGT | Confederación General de Trabajo | |||
| FAP | Federación Argentina de Periodistas | |||
| FATI | Federación Argentina de Trabajadores de la Imprenta | |||
| FGB | Federación Gráfica Bonaerense | |||
| FORJA | Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Juventud Argentina | |||
| GOU | Grupo de Oficiales Unidos | |||
| IAPA | Inter American Press Association | |||
| IAPI | Instituto Argentino de Promoción e Intercambio | |||
| PC | Partido Comunista | |||
| PE | Poder Ejecutivo | |||
| PL | Partido Laborista | |||
| PP | Partido Peronista | |||
| PS | Partido Socialista | |||
| PSI | Partido Socialista Independiente | |||
| SIP | Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa | |||
| STP | Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión | |||
| SVDRA | Sindicato de Vendedores de Diarios, Revistas y Afines | |||
| UCR | Unión Cívica Radical | |||
| UD | Unión Democrática | |||
| UP | United Press |
INTRODUCTION:
FROM FOURTH ESTATE TO FOURTH ENEMY
The history of the Argentine people is the history of their liberties. The history of Argentine liberties is the history of the national press.
—La Prensa, November 11, 1943
When Juan Domingo Perón announced his new government’s economic agenda from the stage of the Teatro Colón, the working men and women sitting in the posh seats of the famed Buenos Aires opera house could not miss the symbolic importance of the act. Not only was the Argentine president directly addressing Argentine workers “as compañero to compañero,” he was doing so from the cultural bastion of a national elite in clear retreat. Declaring his government
