Censorship in Argentina

Author(s): R. Dwight Wilhelm

Source: International Social Science Review , WINTER 1991, Vol. 66, No. 1 (WINTER
1991), pp. 21-28
Published by: Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41881969

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 Censorship in Argentina
R. Dwight Wilhelm
Telecommunications Department
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana 47306
USA

For almost two decades, a series of Argentine military dictators waged a

multifaceted censorship war against the media of that nation. Their influence
reached beyond the customary print media, radio, and television into the
arts- film, theater, and opera. We know now that their purpose was to stifle
the flow of any information which might have proved detrimental to the
barbaric activities of their regimes which the events of history have since
revealed. To their way of thinking, it was all being done to maintain the
"purity" of Argentine culture. Argentina's geographic proximity to other
countries, however, undermined in several crucial ways the dictators' censor-
ship efforts within the country. And this eventually was one of the factors
which contributed to their downfall.

Introduction

In 1983, following almost two decades of military dictatorship interrupted only

by a brief three-year (1973-1976) Peronist civilian government, Argentina re-
turned to an elected government under President Raúl Alfonsin. During the past
seven years, the nation has been very much in the news as it tried, convicted, and
sentenced in civilian courts several of the military dictators whose regimes had
been notorious for massive human rights violations and economic disaster, getting
the nation involved in a war with England etc.
Argentina has one of the most developed and advanced systems of mass media in
Latin America with more than 150 radio stations, 35 television stations,1 approxi-
mately 200 Spanish and foreign language newspapers,2 and numerous magazines.
The electronic media are a mixture of radio and television services, a few of which
are government operated, but most of which are privately owned.
Yet, during the era of the dictators, all of the Argentine media operated under

Dr. R. Dwight Wilhelm earned his doctorate at Columbia University. He

has taught at several institutions of higher education, including Union Theo-
logical Seminary and the communication faculties of Central Michigan Uni-
versity and Ball State University, his current position. In the United States, he
has worked in both commercial and public broadcasting. From 1969 to 1976,
he lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while working as consultant for a Na-
tional Council of Churches-sponsored communication project in six countries
of the southern cone of South America. More recently, he spent the summer
of 1988 as senior Fulbright lecturer in Colombia and returned there in the
same capacity during the summer of 1989. In addition to journal articles, he
is author of Two Ways to Look South: A Study Guide to Latin America (Friend-
ship Press, 1979).
21

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22 WINTER 1991, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 1

strict government censorship. At the beginning, it was

restraint, which allowed the government to deny that
existed. Later, censorship became quite overt with sev
which did not comply.

Print Media Intimidation

Even such an internationally known and respected newspaper as Buenos Aires'

La Prensa was forced to comply. Following a visit to Argentina in 1977, Massa-
chusetts Congressman Robert Drinan wrote, "the 108 year old newspaper La
Prensa prints what it is told to."3
A few did not and, as a result, brought down severe consequences on them-
selves. Robert Cox, the 41-year-old O.B.E.-winning editor of the English-
language daily Buenos Aires Herald, refused to capitulate to censorship. The result
was that in April 1977, he was arrested and jailed briefly. After his release, he
persisted in ignoring government gag rules and so had to leave the country in
December 1979 because of death threats against him and members of his family.4
Another example of violent action against the press happened in Córdoba,
Argentina's second largest city, and was directed at that city's largest newspaper,
La Voz del Interior ( The Voice of the Interior). On January 23, 1975, just after
midnight, a delegation from the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, later revealed
to be a government-backed secret paramilitary group, invaded the facilities of the
paper. Employees were rounded up, the press room sprayed with machine gun
fire, and explosives were set off. An earlier attempt had been made to bomb the
same newspaper and, on that occasion, employees had recognized some of the
would-be bombers as policemen.5 It should be noted that, in Argentina, the police
are actually a part of the country's military forces.
Kidnappings and unexplained disappearances of working journalists were com-
mon. In April 1977, newspaper executive Edgardo Sajón was kidnapped6 and,
later that year, Oscar Serrat, an Argentine journalist working for Associated Press
as day editor in their Buenos Aires office, disappeared on his way to work one
morning.7 The following year, the editor of El Cronista Comercial (The Commer-
cial Analyst), Julian Delgado, disappeared mysteriously for reasons still not clear.8
The most internationally famous case was that of La Opinión and its editor,
Jacobo Timerman. At first, his refusal to comply with government censorship was
met on several occasions with the confiscation of all copies of his newspaper as it
hit the streets of Buenos Aires. Later, there were visits to his facilities by detach-
ments of troops. When this still did not bring the results desired by the govern-
ment, several of his staff were attacked and severely beaten by persons never
apprehended. Then, at least one of his staff members became one of the early
desaparecidos (disappeared ones) for which that period of Argentine history has
now become internationally notorious. Finally, in 1977, when Timerman persisted
in reporting censored information about human rights violations by the army and
federal police, raids on military installations by various antigovernment groups,
the increasing number of persons (usually professionals) who were disappearing
mysteriously, etc. , he was arrested, imprisoned, and his newspaper confiscated by
the government. Probably, the only thing which kept him also from disappearing

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW 23

was the focus of attention on his situation by inte

world Jewish community. He was held in prison
Roberto Viola for more than a year.
When world opinion against the Argentine milita
strong, Tïmerman was stripped of his Argentine c
in 1979. The government seizure of La Opinión an
man's life received much attention in the world n
wrote of his experiences, including torture, at the
The book, Prisoner Without Name, Cell Without
by Alfred Knopf. A made-for-television movie by
book aired in the United States on NBC on M
Scheider as Timerman and Liv Ulmann as his wife.9
Nor were magazines exempt from government control or retaliation when one of
them printed something which incurred the wrath of the military. One of the most
notable instances of such retaliation was against Primera Plana ( Front Page),
Argentina's leading news magazine. In 1969, the magazine reported the takeover
of a radio station in Córdoba by a group of retired army officers to broadcast an
antigovernment attack. The same magazine had also reported on other national
unrest and suggested that the then-president General Juan Carlos Ongania was
about to be overthrown by a right-wing group.
The press, in general, was being blamed for fomenting unrest in Córdoba, a
hotbed of antigovernment activity, where protesting students and workers had been
attacked by the federal police at the cost of 21 lives.
So, even though the Argentine constitution guarantees freedom of the press, the
military government closed Primera Plana and also confiscated two other maga-
zines which carried stories of the rumored overthrow of Ongania. Commenting on
the chilling effect this might have on the free flow of news about events within the
country, Newsweek stated, "Given the pressure he [Ongania] is putting on the
Argentine press, readers may not be able to tell very much from the papers and
magazines that continue to publish."10
Even the publications of religious materials did not escape government attack.
In September 1976, the publication and distribution of the materials of Jehovah's
Witnesses were banned in the country."
Satire and humor, when aimed at the government in general or at the heads of
state in particular, were not tolerated. General Ongania was quick to close the
weekly satirical Tía Vicenta ( Auntie Vicenta) because it had made fun in a cartoon
of his walrus-like moustache. It had also sarcastically suggested that the two
clasped hands prominent on the Argentina national emblem be changed to a
military boot.
As a result, the publishers of the daily Buenos Aires newspaper El Mundo ( The
World), which had distributed Tía Vicenta, replaced its managing editor with a
relative of the same minister of the interior who had been ordered by the Ongania
government to close the magazine.
When the respected La Prensa sided with Tía Vicenta, saying that Ongania had
committed a "grave error," what resulted was a further tightening of press con-
trols. Police were ordered to confíscate from the news vendors' kiosks all copies of
local political magazines, girlie magazines, and any foreign publications critical of
Ongania.12

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24 WINTER 1991, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 1

Radio and Television

The government-owned and -operated radio and television channels functioned

as direct propaganda instruments during much of this era. Only the government's
version of events happening within the country appeared on newscasts, and any-
thing which the government did not want reported was not. In addition, govern-
ment policies and practices were lauded and promoted.
Privately owned television and radio stations followed suit out of fear of what
might happen to them and their facilities if they did not. On a few occasions,
stations were raided by detachments of soldiers. But these were usually for the
purpose of intimidating other stations in order to keep them in line.
Other methods were also used to pressure the radio and television stations into
compliance with government wishes. For example, almost all broadcast equip-
ment in Argentina at that time was of foreign manufacture. So the government
rigidly controlled the importation and distribution of replacement parts. Put sim-
ply, if a station wanted to keep its equipment operating and on the air, it cooperated
with the government.
A similar tactic was used with newspapers. If a publisher wished to continue to
receive newsprint, which was also imported and strictly controlled, he quickly
found it necessary not to incur the government's disfavor.

Movies, the Theater, the Arts

Movie censorship was exercised at both political and moral levels. The censor's
scissors were very evident in the case of a bare bosom or a bit too suggestive sexual
activity. In such cases, the scissors were put to work without concern for sound
track, esthetic content, etc. It was only after I had seen Stanley Kubrick's A
Clockwork Orange in Chile that I realized fully all that had been censored from the
version I had seen earlier in Argentina.
Film censorship probably reached its zenith during Ongania's regime. Offi-
cially, all the military dictators were extremely prudish, although it was generally
recognized that privately most of them maintained mistresses. But Ongania's
prudishness was more in evidence because of his extreme actions against the arts.
He banned such internationally recognized artistic films as the Czechoslovakian
Loves of a Blonde. And although Antonioni's Blow-Up was based on a short story
by Argentina's own Julio Cortázar, this film was also forbidden by Ongania on
supposed moral grounds.13
Political feelings run high in most dictatorships, and Argentina was no excep-
tion. Therefore, the government did not permit such highly politicized films as
Costa Gavras's Z to be shown. For, even though the setting of the film was in
Greece, the story of a country under military domination, with the accompanying
excessive human rights violation, etc., so paralleled the Argentine situation that
the generals feared that it might incite increased terrorist activity on the part of
such antigovernment groups as the Montoneros and the Ejército Revolucionario
del Pueblo (People 's Revolutionary Army).
Gavras's State of Siege was, however, permitted to be shown in the country. This
film, which is based on an actual historical event in neighboring Uruguay, deals
with the kidnapping and subsequent murder of American CIA secret agent Dan

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW 25

Mitrione by the militant antigovernment Tupum

this film was acceptable when Z had not been was
government hoped that the film's action, which w
devil," would discharge or redirect some of the s
which had built up in the Argentines against their
Even though all films had to be approved by the
occasionally a film with a strong sexual orient
through. But when it did, it usually did not la
Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, starring Marl
Buenos Aires the day it opened. The next day, the g
and closed the theater.
On at least one occasion, censorship was suspected of being the result of anti-
Semitic feeling on the part of the military government. Although Argentina has
repeatedly denied officially that anti-Semitism exists in the country, recurring
activities against Jews have indicated it not only exists but is never far below the
surface. The case in point here was the film Los Gauchos Judios ( The Jewish
Gauchos ) by Argentina director Juan José Jusid. Originally, the reason given for
censoring the film was "for private and unlisted reasons." The resulting reaction,
primarily from the intellectual community, was so strong that the censors were
forced to come up with another reason. The real reason, they finally tried to
explain, was that the film had not faithfully interpreted the real meaning of the
book on which it is based. That book, which bore the same name, had been written
in 1910 by the Argentine author, Alberto Gerchunoff,14 and its historic authenticity
had never before been questioned.
Nor did opera and the theater escape the military's puritanical attention. Four-
teen months after General Ongania seized control of the government, Japanese
Crown Prince Akihito paid a state visit to Argentina. In honor of the occasion,
Stravinski's Rite of Spring was presented. Halfway through the performance, the
general ushered his wife and 28-year-old daughter out of the theater. The following
morning, he informed the mayor of Buenos Aires that it was a dirty ballet and
should not be performed there. So dirty was it, he explained, that he had had to go
to confession as a result of having attended.
In August 1967, the Federal Police raided Buenos Aires's Institute of Modern
Art Theater and closed it minutes before the scheduled opening of Harold Pinter's
The Homecoming. The theater had to remain closed 15 days as a penalty and as a
warning to them and other theater groups not to produce any other "dirty plays" in
the future.
Still further evidence of censorship in the performing arts has to do with Alberto
Ginastera, who was the first Argentine to compose an opera of any importance.
The premiere performance of his Bomarzo was in Washington, D.C., to an
audience which included the likes of the late Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
However, three months later, just prior to its scheduled opening in Argentina,
Ongania banned the opera because it was "too obsessed with sex."15

Results of the Censorship

While the military dictators of Argentina of that era seemed obsessed with
censorship of the mass media within the country, the potential effects of media

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26 WINTER 1991, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 1

from' outside the country seemed to be of less conc

The major cities of Argentina lie in close geographi
countries on all but the east side. So, while the g
national press, radio, and television, it could not p
signals from outside the country. Such an example
located in Uruguay, just 25 miles across the Rio
Uruguay and Argentina on the northeast. So people
regularly to sources such as this to find out what was h
Also, Voice of America, the BBC, Radio Moscow
transmitter in Havana, Cuba) put strong signals into
from the other neighboring countries of Paraguay,
Argentines were pretty well aware of much that was h
result of information that was spirited out of the
foreign media.
Attempts were made to control foreign media rep
foreign news media representatives had to register
action directed at foreign media personnel was u
applied. In 1977, two such instances did occur. In Oc
arrested several foreign journalists covering a dem
front of the Congress building. Among those arreste
from NBC radio, UPI, CBS-TV, The Will Street
national working for AP.'7
The following month, Al Ortiz of Voice of Ameri
BBC were detained for seven hours for having trie
some women who had assembled in Plaza de Mayo i
House to demand information about disappeared
given for detaining the reporters was "for verificat
But very little prevented foreign journalists from fili
had to cross the river into neighboring Uruguay or
in some locations was less than half an hour. And retali
sent out of the country was sporadic and generally
Despite the tight control on their own news magaz
made on any regular basis to keep out foreign maga
missing a copy of the international edition of Time
throughout my seven years there. News periodicals
and Europe entered more or less freely and were on
in the case of Ongania already mentioned.
About the only foreign magazine strictly forbidd
searches were diligent in intercepting copies which
neighboring countries. However, one was never sure
agents to get their hands on Playboy was officially
censorship on moral grounds complemented the gove
television programs and films. The television progra
tad Leblanc was cancelled because of too much skin
government.19

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW 27

Observations

These specific attempts of the Argentine military governments to muzzle all

their mass media for nearly two decades point us toward several observations.
First, media censorship as an effective means of controlling the flow of informa-
tion into, and within, a country has become a thing of the past. In today's
electronic age, it is futile if not, in the final analysis, impossible. Whereas national
channels of print and electronic journalism may be somewhat controlled, multiple
incoming electronic signals cannot. In situations such as Argentina's, where many
broadcast band stations can easily be picked up from neighboring countries on
readily available transistorized radios and on car radios, there is no effective way
of preventing persons within the country from listening. And, with such a multi-
plicity of signals, jamming becomes impossible. Now, with reception directly
from satellites, internal censorship is rendered even more useless.
Second, attempts at media censorship are counterproductive. When a people
becomes aware that news is being withheld from them, rumors run rife. In the
absence of reliable information, human nature tends to imagine the worst. This
condition is exacerbated where there is already great distrust of the government
and, in addition, it leads to even greater distrust and animosity. The personal
experience of the author in the Argentine situation verifies that the number of
rumors seemed to run in direct proportion to the degree of media repression at any
given time. So, the streets were constantly alive with distorted or totally baseless
reports about supposed incidents which had happened in one part of the country or
what was about to happen within the government. But nobody believed the official
reports in the national media.
Third, the only way a government can hope to control news effectively is to
prevent media's access to it in the first place. But even this type of control has its
limits. For media personnel have ways of obtaining information. And, unless
borders are totally closed and watched carefully, reporters can and do cross into
neighboring countries and file their stories. And, once in international channels,
news inevitably makes its way back to the place of its origin via some medium.
These conclusions are not necessarily peculiar to the Argentine situation of the
1960's and 1970's. They only demonstrate that the Argentine military regimes of
that era fell victim to what they either did not know, or chose to ignore, about
attempts at mass media censorship in today's world.

NOTES

'J. Frost, editor, World Radio-TV Handbook 1985, New York: Billboard Publi-
cations, 1984, pp. 313-315, 429.
2Robert Brown, editor, Editor and Publishing International Yearbook 198
New York: Editor and Publisher, 1985, pp. 57-60.
3Commonweal, February 18, 1977, pp. 103-104.
"Arthur Banks and William Street, editors, Political Handbook of the World:
1982-1983, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983, p. 25.
'New York limes, January ¿4, 1973, p. I.
6Ibid., May 15, 1977, p. 17.
Ubid. , November 11, 1977, p. 7.

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28 WINTER 1991, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 1

'Banks and Street, loc. cit.

9New York Times, May 22, 1983, p. II, 25.
i0Newsweek, August 18, 1969, p. 91.
"New York Times, September 9, 1976, p. 8.
nNewsweek, August 8, 1966, p. 45.
"Time, August 18, 1976, p. 33.
l4The Nation, August 16, 1975, p. 126.
l5lime, August 18, 1976, p. 33.
l6New York Times, June 6, 1978, p. 8.
"Ibid. , October 15, 1977, p. 9.
"Ibid. , November 25, 1977, p. 17.
l9Time, August 18, 1976, p. 33.

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