Marón, Gustavo Flashes in the Dark. Band 2: Nuclear espionage in Argentina, Nuclear espionage in Argentina, 1957-1989

A volume from the series Latin America @ War. Flashes in the Dark Volume 2 continues the story of US nuclear espionage carried out from Argentine territory or Argentine airspace. Following the secret deployment of older, modified aircraft that had previously been used to detect uranium deposits, the US Air Force began stationing types such as the Lockheed WU-2A and Martin NB-57B at Ezeiza Airport outside Buenos Aires between 1958 and 1960. These were tasked with detecting radioactive particles from nuclear and thermonuclear explosions in the Soviet Union and France. Later, in 1966, a permanent unit was established in the IV Air Brigade in Mendoza to spy on French explosions in the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls using Lockheed WU-2C, Martin/General Dynamics RB-57F and various variants of the Boeing C-135 investigation and weather aircraft, as well as electronic reconnaissance. Despite the official recognition of AFOAT-1/AFTAC in 1975, much remains secret about these two units, a protective shield to which the USAF's lawyers have contributed very efficiently by refusing to release their documents and even to draw up an official history focusing on the first years of the unit's existence, when the first North American spy planes were deployed in Argentina. However, the door that the USAF had locked with ten padlocks stood next to windows that other US federal agencies opened over time. In fact, over the years, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has obtained and made available to the public documents that were originally classified as secret and originated from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC), the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Environmental Measurement Laboratory (EML). A number of these documents referred to or were related to the AFOAT-1/AFTAC units, enabling the author to reconstruct the nuclear weapons remote sensing activities carried out in Argentina and confirm isolated notes of a symphony that was performed so masterfully in our country for fifteen years without anyone being able to hear it. The air operations carried out from Argentina were classified as top secret (Top Secret and Top Secret Umbra), so the officers were careful not to leave any traces, clues or records behind. The secrecy was so strict that not even the Argentine Air Force knew exactly what was going on in Ezeiza and Mendoza, the two airports from which the secret air operations were permanently carried out and which were both under its jurisdiction. Given the unprecedented and sensitive nature of the topics covered in this book, the author provides numerous bibliographical and documentary references so that other researchers can use them in future work.