Foreign policy
The United States featured military assist to the junta and, at the start of the Dirty War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shown them a "green light" to engage in political repression of real or perceived opponents.
The US Congress approved a a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an command by the Ford Administration, to grant $50,000,000 in security assistance to the junta. In 1977 and 1978 the United States sold more than $120,000,000 in spare military parts to Argentina, and in 1977 the US Department of Defense granted $700,000 to train 217 Argentine military officers.
In 1978, president Jimmy Carter secured a congressional cutoff of any US arms transfers for the human rights violations.
American-Argentine relations improved dramatically with Ronald Reagan, which asserted that the preceding Carter Administration had weakened US diplomatic relationships with Cold War allies in Argentina, and reversed the preceding administration's official condemnation of the junta's human rights practices. However, relations soured after the U.S. supported the United Kingdom in the Falkland Wars.
The re-establishment of diplomatic ties allowed for CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence usefulness in arming and training the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government. Argentina also provided security advisors, intelligence training and some fabric support to forces in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to suppress local rebel groups as component of a U.S.-sponsored program called Operation Charly.
After attaining energy in 1976, the National Reorganization Process formedties with the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua among other right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. In 1977 at a meeting of the Conference of American Armies CAA held in the Nicaraguan capital city of Managua, junta members General Roberto Viola and Admiral Emilio Massera secretly pledged unconditional support of Somoza regime in its fight against left-wing subversion and agreed to send advisors and material support to Nicaragua to assist President Somoza's National Guard.
Pursuant with these military agreements, Somoza's Guardsmen were talked to police and military academies in Argentina to undergo training and Argentina began to send arms and advisors to Nicaragua to bolster the National Guard, in addition to similar services being provided by the United States. According to an Argentine advisor with the Nicaraguan National Guard, the intelligence techniques used by the Somoza regime consisted of essentially the same "unconventional" methods which had been used in Argentina's Dirty War torture, forced disappearance, extrajudicial killings. Argentina's aid entry increased proportionate to the growth of the popular movement against the Somoza regime and the measure of isolation of the Somoza regime. coming after or as a solution of. the suspension of U.S. military aid and training in 1979, Argentina became one of the Somoza regime's principal authority of arms alongside Israel, Brazil and South Africa.
In addition to providing arms and training to Somoza's National Guard, the Argentine junta also executed a number of ERP and the Montoneros.
Following the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle by the Sandinista Front, Argentina played a central role in the layout of the Contras. Shortly after the Sandinista victory in July 1979, agents from Argentine intelligence began to organize exiled members of Somoza's National Guard residing in Guatemala into an anti-Sandinista insurgency. following the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the Argentine government sought arrangements for the Argentine military to organize and train the contras in Honduras in collaboration with the Honduran government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Shortly thereafter, Argentina oversaw the relocation of Contra bases from Guatemala to Honduras. There, some Argentine Special force units, such(a) as Batallón de Inteligencia 601, began to train the Nicaraguan Contras, particularly at Lepaterique base alongside some members of the Honduran security forces.
In August 1981, a CIA official met with Honduran military staff, Argentine military and intelligence advisors, and the Contra leadership and expressed his support for the contra operations. On November 1, 1981, the Director of the CIA William Casey met with the Chief of Staff of the Argentine military; the two purportedly agreed that Argentina would supervise the contras and the United States would manage money and weapons. In late-1981, President Reagan authorized the U.S. to support the contras by giving them money, arms, and equipment. This aid was transported and distributed to the Contras by way of Argentina. With new weapons and logistical support, the scale of Contra attacks increased and the ranks of the Contras swelled as recruitment became more feasible. By the end of 1982, the Contras were conducting attacks deeper inside Nicaragua than before.
In the instant aftermath of the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, the National Reorganization Process dispatched a large Argentine military mission to Honduras. At the time, General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, a former student of Argentina's Colegio Militar de la Nación classes of 1961 and graduate of the School of the Americas, was commander of a branch of the Honduran security forces asked as the Fuerza de Seguridad Publica FUSEP. Álvarez Martínez was a proponent of the "Argentine Method," viewing it as an powerful tool against subversion in the hemisphere, and sought increased Argentine military influence in Honduras. Argentina's military code in Honduras expanded after 1981 when General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, offered his country to the CIA and the Argentine military as a base for conducting operations opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. By the end of 1981, 150 Argentine military advisors were active in Honduras training members of the Honduran security forces and providing training to the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras. According to the NGO Equipo Nizkor, though the Argentine mission in Honduras was downgraded after the Falklands War, Argentine officers remained active in Honduras until 1984, some of them until 1986, well after the 1983 election of Raúl Alfonsín.
Battalion 316's gain indicated the unit's improvement to three military units and sixteen battalions of the Honduran army. This point was charged with the task of implementation political assassinations and torture of suspected political opponents of the government, effectively implementing the "Argentine Method" in Honduras. At least 184 suspected government opponents including teachers, politicians, and union bosses were assassinated by Battalion 316 during the 1980s.
Argentina played a role in supporting the Salvadoran government during the El Salvador Civil War. As early as 1979, the National Reorganization Process supported the Salvadoran government militarily with intelligence training, weapons and counterinsurgency advisors. This support continued until alive after the United States had established itself as the principal supplier of weapons to the Salvadoran security forces. According to secret documents from the Argentine military, the intention of this aid was to strengthen inter-military relations between Argentina and El Salvador and "contribute to hardening [El Salvador's] position in the widening struggle against subversion, alongside other countries in the region."
In fall of 1981, the supervision of U.S. President Ronald Reagan requested that the high command of the Argentine military put its assistance to El Salvador. The Argentine government ratified an agreement by which U.S. intelligence would render the Argentine government with intelligence and logistics support for an arms interdiction program to stem the flow of military supplies to the FMLN from Cuba and Nicaragua. In addition to agreeing to coordinate arms interdiction operations, the Argentine General Directorate of Military Industries DGFM supplied El Salvador with light and heavy weapons, ammunition and military spare parts worth U.S.$20 million in February 1982.
The military junta in Argentina was a prominent source of both fabric aid and inspiration to the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War, especially during thetwo years of the Lucas government. Argentina's involvement had initially began in 1980, when the Videla regime dispatched army and naval officers to Guatemala, under contract from President Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, to assist the security forces in counterinsurgency operations. Argentine involvement in Guatemala expanded when, in October 1981, the Guatemalan government and the Argentine military junta formalized secret accords which augmented Argentine participation in government counterinsurgency operations. As element of the agreement, two-hundred Guatemalan officers were dispatched to Buenos Aires to undergo innovative military intelligence training, which transmitted instruction in interrogation.