Kidnapped by the Junta

Fascinating … if this gripping account teaches anything, it is the folly of tyrannical regimes believing they can act with the same violence and impunity abroad as they do at home’ THE SPECTATOR ‘Heart-thumpingly powerful … history told from the closest and most frightening quarters.’ SINCLAIR MCKAY, author of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park Forty years on from the outbreak of the war, acclaimed TV journalist Julian Manyon digs down into Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ and its effect on the Falklands conflict On May 12th, 1982, after the first bloody exchanges of the Falklands War, journalist Julian Manyon and his TV crew were kidnapped on the streets of Buenos Aires and put through a traumatic mock execution by the secret police. Less than eight hours later they were invited to the Presidential Palace to film a world-exclusive interview with an apologetic President Galtieri, the dictator and head of the Argentine Junta. Spurred on by the recent release of declassified CIA documents about Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’, Manyon discovered that his kidnapper was a key figure in the Junta’s bloody struggle against left-wing opposition, with a terrifying record of torture and murder. Also in the secret documents were details of the wider picture – the turmoil inside the Junta as the war with Britain got under way, and how Argentina succeeded in acquiring vital US military equipment which made its war effort possible. Published on the 4th anniversary of the Falklands conflict, this book is an extraordinary insight into the war behind the war. Manyon provides a harrowing depiction of the campaign of terror that the Junta waged on its own population, and a new perspective on an episode of history more often centred on Mrs Thatcher, the Belgrano and the battle of Goose Green. ‘Shocking, terrifying and revealing. Ground-breaking history, expertly told – a dramatic new insight into the Falklands conflict.’ ROGER BOLTON, BBC journalist and broadcaster