Argentina-United States Bilateral Relations

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Argentina-United States Bilateral Relations ARGENTINA-UNITED STATES BILATERAL RELATIONS Edited by Cynthia J. Arnson Carlos Osorio Carlos Sersale di Cerisano Kathryn Sikkink F.A. “Tex” Harris John Dinges María José Guembe Cynthia J. Arnson Juan Gabriel Tokatlián Mark Falcoff Beatríz Nofal Joseph S. Tulchin ©2003 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org Cover images (clockwise from top left): Presidents Carlos Saúl Menem and Bill Clinton, Washington, D.C., June 1993, ©Jeffrey Markowitz/Corbis Sygma; The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, mothers of the "disappeared," demonstrate in Buenos Aires, August 2003, ©Horacio Villalobos/Corbis; Workers protesting government-imposed economic austerity measures, Buenos Aires, December 2001, ©AFP/CORBIS Latin American Program Cold War International History Project ARGENTINA-UNITED STATES BILATERAL RELATIONS An Historical Perspective And Future Challenges Edited by Cynthia J. Arnson Carlos Osorio Carlos Sersale di Cerisano Kathryn Sikkink F.A. “Tex” Harris John Dinges María José Guembe Cynthia J. Arnson Juan Gabriel Tokatlián Mark Falcoff Beatríz Nofal Joseph S. Tulchin WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS LEE H. HAMILTON, DIRECTOR BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair; David A. Metzner, Vice Chair. Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States; Bruce Cole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Roderick R. Paige, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Colin L. Powell, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Daniel L. Lamaute, Tamala L. Longaberger, Thomas R. Reedy WILSON COUNCIL Bruce S. Gelb, President. Diane Aboulafia-D'Jaen, Elias F. Aburdene, Charles S. Ackerman, B.B. Andersen, Cyrus A. Ansary, Lawrence E. Bathgate II, John Beinecke, Joseph C. Bell, Steven Alan Bennett, Rudy Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Melva Bucksbaum, Charles W. Burson, Conrad Cafritz, Nicola L. Caiola, Raoul L. Carroll, Scott Carter, Albert V. Casey, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, Melvin Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., Michael D. DiGiacomo, Sheldon Drobny, F. Samuel Eberts III, J. David Eller, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Sim Farar, Susan Farber, Joseph H. Flom, John H. Foster, Charles Fox, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, Morton Funger, Gregory M. Gallo, Chris G. Gardiner, Steven J. Gilbert, Alma Gildenhorn, David F. Girard-diCarlo, Michael B. Goldberg, Gretchen M. Gorog, William E. Grayson, Ronald Greenberg, Raymond A. Guenter, Edward L. Hardin, Jr., Jean L. Hennessey, Eric Hotung, John L. Howard, Darrell E. Issa, Jerry Jasinowski, Brenda LaGrange Johnson, Shelly Kamins, Edward W. Kelley, Jr., Anastasia D. Kelly, Christopher J. Kennan, Michael V. Kostiw, Steven Kotler, William H. Kremer, Raymond Learsy, Abbe Lane Leff, Perry Leff, Dennis LeVett, Francine Levinson, Harold O. Levy, David Link, Frederic V. Malek, David S. Mandel, John P. Manning, Jeffrey A. Marcus, Jay Mazur, Robert McCarthy, Linda McCausland, Stephen G. McConahey, Donald F. McLellan, J. Kenneth Menges, Jr., Philip Merrill, Kathryn Mosbacher, Jeremiah L. Murphy, Martha T. Muse, Della Newman, John E. Osborn, Paul Hae Park, Gerald L. Parsky, Michael J. Polenske, Donald Robert Quartel, Jr., J. John L. Richardson, Margaret Milner Richardson, Larry D. Richman, Carlyn Ring, Edwin Robbins, Robert G. Rogers, Otto Ruesch, B. Francis Saul, III, Alan Schwartz, Timothy R. Scully, J. Michael Shepherd, George P. Shultz, Raja W. Sidawi, Debbie Siebert, Thomas L. Siebert, Kenneth Siegel, Ron Silver, William A. Slaughter, James H. Small, Thomas F. Stephenson, Norma Kline Tiefel, Mark C. Treanor, Anthony G. Viscogliosi, Christine M. Warnke, Ruth Westheimer, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr., Paul Martin Wolff, Joseph Zappala, Nancy M. Zirkin, Richard S. Ziman ABOUT THE CENTER The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relation- ship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees. In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, sup- ported financially by annual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of founda- tions, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that pro- vide financial support to the Center. | iv | TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1 Cynthia J.Arnson, Latin American Program, and Christian Ostermann, Cold War International History Project PART ONE:THE DIRTY WAR’S DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON BILATERAL RELATIONS Chapter 1 11 Carlos Osorio, National Security Archive Chapter 2 29 Carlos Sersale di Cerisano, Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chapter 3 37 Kathryn Sikkink, University of Minnesota Chapter 4 43 F.A.“Tex”Harris,U.S. Foreign Service Officer (retired) Chapter 5 49 Discussion Chapter 6 59 John Dinges, Columbia University School of Journalism “Green Light-Red Light: Henry Kissinger’s Two-Track Approach to Human Rights During the ‘Condor Years’ in Chile and Argentina” Chapter 7 77 María José Guembe, Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales “Recovery of Archives concerning Human Rights Violations During the Argentine Dictatorship” | v | Chapter 8 83 Cynthia J.Arnson “Argentina and the U.S. Congress” PART TWO:ARGENTINA- U.S. BILATERAL RELATIONS: FUTURE CHALLENGES Chapter 9 99 Joseph S.Tulchin,Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Chapter 10 103 Juan Gabriel Tokatlián, Universidad de San Andrés Chapter 11 109 Mark Falcoff, American Enterprise Institute Chapter 12 115 Beatríz Nofal,Eco-Axis, S.A. Chapter 13 123 Discussion APPENDIX:DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FROM THE 133 ARGENTINA COLLECTION CONTRIBUTORS 165 | vi | INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY n August 2002, the U.S. Department of State released thousands of pages of declassified documents on Argentina. The bulk of them were I drawn from the period of the military dictatorship, 1976-1983, and reflected on U.S.-Argentine relations with an emphasis on human rights. The declassification followed years of efforts by Argentine human rights groups, judges, and relatives of victims, together with researchers and non-governmental organizations in the United States, to obtain access to information that might shed light on the human rights abuses of the peri- od, particularly disappearances. The Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and the Cold War International History Project jointly held a seminar in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 2003 (with a parallel event held in Buenos Aires in December 2003), to explore the events of some 25 years ago in light of new information contained in the documents. At the same time, and given the depth of Argentina’s economic and political crisis before and after the 2001 default, we were convinced that the discussion of the past could not be sep- arated from the broader context of contemporary U.S.-Argentine relations. Argentina collapsed financially after several years of recession beginning in the late 1990s. It ultimately defaulted on much of its $150 billion in external debt, and, by decree, converted to pesos billions of dollars of savings and retirement plans held inside the country. Millions of citizens in one of Latin America’s most prosperous countries were thrown into poverty and public confidence in politicians and the political process reached new lows. The international community, including the United States and the International Monetary Fund, initially responded to this scenario with indifference or outright hostility. The U.S. Treasury as well as the IMF withheld new loans and blamed Argentina for the meltdown, downplay- ing the role of previous lending and investment policies by public entities and international financial markets. The sense of abandonment experi- enced by many Argentines was all the more acute given that, for most of the 1990s, Argentina had been touted as a model of the “Washington Consensus” regarding trade liberalization, privatization, and state reform. | 1 | Cynthia J. Arnson This period had also witnessed a period of close friendship between the United States and Argentina, so close, in fact, that one senior Argentine official was moved to describe the relationship as relaciones carnales. This publication explores current as well as past issues in the bilateral relationship. It reflects the perspectives of two groups of experts—schol- ars, journalists, and diplomats from both Argentina and the United States—whose work has long focused on aspects of U.S.-Argentine rela- tions or who had themselves been direct participants in the policy process. In this volume, researchers looking back at the period of the “dirty war” of the 1970s paint a complex and nuanced portrait of U.S. policy during the Ford and Carter administrations. In a paper prepared for this publication, Carlos Osorio of the National Security Archive describes U.S. support for the military junta and a contradictory message
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