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events for 1975

Jan 2, 1975 Government brings charges against Héctor Ricardo Garcia, owner of Crónica.
Jan 4, 1975 Journalists in Córdoba strike to protest the politically-motivated firings of 33 newsmen at Radio Universidad and Channel 10.
Jan 23, 1975 60 supposed Triple-A members attack Córdoba-based La Voz del Interior printing plant, destroying the new “cold” printing equipment. It is later confirmed that many or perhaps all of the participants were police officers.
Feb 5, 1975 Decree 261, issued by Congress, orders military to carry out operations necessary to neutralize or annihilate subversive elements in Tucumán.
Feb 7, 1975 Bunge and Born executive Antonio Muscat shot by Montoneros on way to work.
Feb 9, 1975 Army communique made public on February 10 announces that executive branch has asked the Army to take on the task of fighting leftwing guerrillas the Tucumán province. This is the first time the armed forces have been called on to combat guerrillas since the military left government on May 25, 1973. The Army calls the ensuing campaign “Operation Independence.”
Feb 12, 1975 University of Buenos Aires announces that students will no longer be admitted to the departments of psychology, sociology, and educational science. Entry to the philosophy school had been closed at an earlier date, when the government called it a breeding ground for Marxists.
Feb 12, 1975 Noticias Argentinas reports that two of its journalists covering military actions in Tucumán were detained for 12 hours, blindfolded, beaten, and ordered out of the province.
Feb 14, 1975 Union men Héctor Noriega and Carlos Leva abducted and killed by Triple-A.
Feb 14, 1975 First official confrontation between Army and ERP, according to film made by the military three years later, on the event’s anniversary.
Feb 16, 1975 The body of El Intransigente journalist Luciano Jaime, who was a relative of a left-wing labor leader, is found partially dismembered by a bomb in Salta.
Feb 18, 1975 Government orders the arrest of Guillermo Patricio Kelly and Miguel Szwec, edotors of four-page periodical Marchar.
Feb 20, 1975 Úlitima Hora begins publication, following format of the banned paper Crónica and using that paper’s equipment.
Feb 20, 1975 Government decree 394 closes right-wing magazine Cabildo after the paper criticies José Lopez Rega, then the Preisdential secretary and Social Welfare Minister. Its successor publication, with the same editor (Ricardo Curutchet) — El Fortín — appears on stands on March 20. This publication is banned by decree 1159 on May 9.
Feb 26, 1975 John Patrick Egan kidnapped by Montoneros, who say they will kill him unless they are shown evidence that 4 “disappeared” Montoneros are alive and well. Egan is found dead on the 28.
Mar 19, 1975 In a series of attacks in Córdoba, shots are fired at La Voz del Interior, 2 radio stations, a trade union building and a police station.
Mar 21, 1975 Right-wing paramilitary gang of 15 goes on rampage near Temperley, abducting 8 people who are subsequently killed and their corpses bombed. The bodies are left with a note saying the dead had belonged to the Montoneros and ERP. The Heraldreports that 25 people were killed this day and the following, apparently by right-wing death squads.
Mar 23, 1975 Police declare a news blackout on the subject of the round-up and murder of 8 people near Temperley on March 21st.
Apr 11, 1975 Herald reports that nearly 400 people have died in political violence since July 1974, including a children’s doctor who died with 80 bullet wounds.
Apr 11, 1975 Triple-A kill at least five Chilean nationals in Ezeiza, outside the city of Buenos Aires. One body is marked “We were members of the ERP.”
Apr 17, 1975 Peronist Youth and Montonero leaders arrested near Ezeiza Airport, accused by police of conspiring to upset Chilean President Pinochet’s visit to Argentina. Arrestees include Peronist Youth leader Juan Carlos Dante Gullo, Ricardo Durques, María Cristina Rodriguez, Armando Almada, Roberto Botini, Héctor Botto, Emiliano Costa, and former El Descamisado editor Dardo Cabo. After Cabo’s arrest, his father reported that Cabo had been tortured severely, partly paralyzing an arm.
Apr 19, 1975 Attempted takeover of San Lorenzo armory unit by guerrillas.
Apr 25, 1975 SADE (the Argentine Writers’ Society) reports that young writers Berta Solana Macias, Jorge Reboredo and Juan Carlos Higa have been abducted. They are later found to be under arrest by police.
Apr 29, 1975 Ana María Guzetti, journalist who had worked for the closed, left-wing El Mundo and challenged president Juan Domingo Perón to investigate the Triple-A, abducted. Found alive on May 8.
May 8, 1975 Herald reports that over 200 people have died from political violence since the year’s start.
May 8, 1975 Ana María Guzetti reappears, beaten and drugged but alive.
May 8, 1975 The son of imprisoned printers’ union leader Raimundo Ongaro — Alfredo Máximo Ongaro — is murdered in an apparent effort to stop his father’s ongoing criticism of the government.
May 10, 1975 Beginning what is to be a prolonged campaign against actors, the Triple-A threatens 5 show business personalities, telling them to publish ads denouncing Marxist guerrillas and violence in general. In the words of the front-page Herald headline, the actors are to “denounce violence or die.”
May 15, 1975 Jorge Money, a La Opinión business page reporter, is kidnapped from a pharmacy near his home. His body is found on May 18.
May 19, 1975 The body of La Opinión financial page writer Jorge Money is identified — he had been abducted on May 15 — showing marks of severe torture (including fingernails torn out). The staffs of all major Argentine papers call a strike in memory and protest.
May 22, 1975 Clarín business section writer is reported to have narrowly escaped an abduction attempt.
May 22, 1975 Enrique Alonso, staff writer for La Opinión, receives a death threat. He leaves the country shortly thereafter.
May 25, 1975 Government reports that 350 left-wing guerrillas have been killed in the last 4 months.
May 26, 1975 Crisis reporter Carlos María Villar Araujo is arrested. He is reportedly freed 24 hours later, but then “disappears” until May 28, when he “reappears” and says he had been held in an unidentified location and questioned by a group of people including uniformed security force members.
Jun 4, 1975 In what will come to be known as the “Rodrigazo,” economy minister Celestino Rodrigo sharply devalues the peso only two days after being named to his post, sparking mass protests.
Jun 27, 1975 Large protest organized by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in the Plaza de Mayo draws around 30,000. The Herald calls it the “greatest challenge to Peronism in 30 years.”
Jul 6, 1975 La Opinión publishes story by Heriberto Kahn that for the first time publically links Social Welfare Minister López Rega with the right-wing paramilitary terror organization known as the Triple-A.
Jul 11, 1975 President Maria Estela de Perón reluctantly accepts Lopez Rega’s resignation.
Jul 15, 1975 Lt. Colonel Julio A. Larrabure kidnapped by PRT-ERP. Larrabure dies on August 19.
Jul 19, 1975 López Rega leaves the country on secretive trip to Europe. He is at first said to be on a “special mission” at the president’s request, but soon the word is that he is just establishing connections.
Jul 25, 1975 Numerous bomb attacks by presumed leftwing guerrillas mark the anniversary of Eva Perón’s death. The police chief’s home, a financial company, a police station and a Fiat dealer are among the targets.
Aug 27, 1975 General Videla becomes head of the Army, replacing General Laplane.
Aug 28, 1975 Bomb near runway in Tucumán causes crash of Army C-130 carrying anti-guerrilla troops, killing six.
Sep 4, 1975 Rene Vicari escapes from captivity of apparently leftwing guerrillas and leads police to the “people’s prison” in Rosario where he says he was held with colonel Julio Argentino Larrabure until the colonel’s death on August 19.
Sep 12, 1975 Herald announces that over 700 have been killed in political violence since July, 1974, with the heaviest losers being the leftwing groups which have lost 248. This total notably does not include those killed by the Army.
Sep 14, 1975 President María Estela de Perón departs for an extended “holiday,” leaving Italo Luder to serve as interim president.
Sep 16, 1975 Police reveal that María del Carmen Maggi, who “disappeared” 4 months before after being taken by a group of 14 men, is in police custody.
Sep 24, 1975 Former Herald editor the late David Kraiselburd awarded Maria Moors Cabot prize.
Oct 2, 1975 Interim president Italo Luder establishes an anti-guerrilla “Defense Council” consisting of the defense minister and the commanders of the three armed forces. Decree 2770 officially establishing the council takes effect October 6.
Oct 2, 1975 Radical Party senator Hipolito Solarí Yrigoyen calls for anti-torture committee after mounting reports of police abuses, including secretive arrests only acknowledged after several days as well as 35 cases of torture including the use of electric shock, beating, and mock executions.
Oct 5, 1975 Montoneros attack the Army’s 29th Regiment in Formosa City while simultaneously taking control of the airport and bringing in a hijacked 737 in an attempt to rescue imprisoned members of their group. 15-20 of the attacking Montoneros escape on the plane, but no prisoners are rescued. The Herald calls the clash the bloodiest in over 3 years, and the heaviest fighting in the guerrilla war. Estimates of the dead vary substantially from the initial Army reports of 15 Montoneros and 11 Army soldiers dead.
Oct 6, 1975 Decree number 2772, issued by Congress, orders carrying out of the military and security operations necessary to annihilate the action of subversive elements in all of Argentina.
Oct 9, 1975 Hermenegildo Sábat, Political cartoonist for Clarín, and Fine Arts Museum director Samuel Oliver “disappear” along with 2 companions after abduction by armed men. They “reappear” about four hours later in police custody, despite earlier denials by police that they had been detained. Sábat and the other 2 are released later in the day, but Oliver is detained until October 15, and when released reports that he was tortured.
Oct 17, 1975 President María Estela de Perón returns from a 33-day “holiday” in which Italo Luder served as interim president. Herald headline proclaims “Isabel to fight evil.”
Oct 21, 1975 Army announces that about 150 leftwing guerrilla “subversives” have been “killed in action” in Tucumán since the Army was sent into the province. Army losses are said to be 21.
Oct 22, 1975 Herald raided by 11 policemen at 10:30 pm. Raiding officers only identify themselves after Deputy María Cristina Guzman (who was secretly alerted) calls the office. Officers demand that Andrew Graham-Yooll be summoned to the office. Graham-Yooll’s desk is searched and he is arrested, to be released the following day at 10:30 am.
Nov 3, 1975 Retired General Jorge Caceres Monie killed by Montoneros.
Nov 5, 1975 President Isabel Perón says that her government is threatened by a conspiracy of of “journalistic terrorism” after rumors of a change of government circulate in the media.
Nov 13, 1975 The City of Buenos Aires accuses Última Hora of “a real campaign of journalistic terrorism” for reporting a measles epidemic. The paper is banned for 5 days.
Nov 20, 1975 Navy chief Admiral Massera announces that the Navy will assist the Army with fighting guerrillas in Tucumán.
Nov 20, 1975 Fate Electronica personnel strike to protest “disappearance” of 2 labor delegates.
Nov 21, 1975 Morgue personnel strike to protest “disappearance” of 2 employees taken by “a group of men who identified themselves as police.”
Nov 24, 1975 British book publisher’s representative Richard Whitecross is arrested along with his Argentine wife Cristina Lange. They are accused of harboring a Chilean refugee but never charged.
Dec 5, 1975 Herald reports that over 800 have been killed in political violence, some of which killing an Argentine downplayed in a foreign publication as “just the police cleaning up.”
Dec 6, 1975 Herald reports that 806 people have died in political violence in 1975.
Dec 12, 1975 Writ of habeas corpus filed for 17 relatives of ERP leader Mario Roberto Santucho who “disappeared” on December 8.
Dec 12, 1975 Ban on Crónica lifted by court order. The paper returns to the stands on December 20, declaring in its headline, as it had on on December 16, 1974 in statements precipitating the paper’s ban, that the “Malvinas are Argentine.”
Dec 14, 1975 Radical senator Hipolito Solarí Yrigoyen calls for a probe of human rights violations in Argentina, saying that the major foreign newspapers of the world are preoccupied with human rights in Argentina.
Dec 18, 1975 A faction of the Air Force led by Brigadier Orlando Jesus Capellini revolts, taking control of the Morón air base. The rebellion collapses on December 22.
Dec 19, 1975 Nine children, who had “disappeared” on December 8 along with several others connected to ERP leader Santucho, are released without explanation by police.
Dec 19, 1975 Major newspapers report rumblings in the armed forces, and talk of the possibility of a coup overthrowing president María Estela de Perón and installing Videla.
Dec 23, 1975 Montonero guerrillas attack the Army’s Domingo Viejobueno 601st Arsenal Unit in Monte Chingolo. Initial reports say 100 dead, with casualties on both sides.
Dec 24, 1975 In Christmas Eve address, Army commander Videla says that order and security must overcome the chaos in Argentina. “Faced with darkness,” says Videla, “the time of the awakening of the Argentine people has arrived.” Videla’s words are widely seen as heralding an imminent coup.
 
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