Translated from Spanish by Jonas Konefal ’25. Original with declassified documents here.
In the U.S. Embassy’s documents about Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s Nobel Peace Prize, political and diplomatic officials from the Carter administration note that Esquivel’s detention during the Argentine military dictatorship had been a case of high interest in human rights politics. The reports written from the moment of his detention in April 1977 to his release fourteen months later reveal that interest. They document meetings at the Embassy, information requests from senators and congressmen, international pressure, and the initial 1978 proposal for Esquivel’s nomination by Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland.
In the search function of the U.S. Department of State’s website, there are 24 results for “Pérez Esquivel” between April 1977 and June 1978, the 14-month period during which he was detained by the Argentine military dictatorship. The information offered by these documents confirms the intrigue in Esquivel’s situation for U.S. diplomacy, so much so that they classify him a “high interest human rights case.”
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was detained while renewing his passport on April 4, 1977, without charge or any kind of due process. As a human rights icon and proponent of nonviolence who had spoken out against the disappearances, executions, and torture of the military dictatorship, his kidnap generated an immediate reaction both within the country and abroad.
On April 12 of that same year, the State Department asked the U.S. Embassy in Argentina to share any information it had regarding his whereabouts. The response arrived two days later in a memorandum informing that Esquivel had been detained “by order of Executive Decree No. 929” and that “his name appeared on the Interior Ministry’s” list of detained “subversives”. The memorandum further states that he was being kept in a federal security office in Buenos Aires, where he had “been correctly treated and receives daily visits from his wife who brings him food and clothing.”
Given that Esquivel had been detained without any kind of due process, the Embassy’s report also indicates that “numerous groups and persons have expressed interest in concern in this case,” including the Papal Nuncio and the World Council of Churches. It adds that a local bishop had visited him in prison.
On August 9, while Esquivel was in captivity, several Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (ADPH) members commented on his detention in a meeting with Patricia Derian. For the human rights advocates, Adolfo’s case was evidence that the situation hadn’t changed since Derian’s previous visit. Rather, the meeting’s report says, “things are intensifying. The number of disappeared continues to rise and detentions continue.”
A little over a month later, an October 14 cable from the U.S. Embassy sees American diplomacy categorize Pérez Esquivel’s case as one of interest for the first time, according to the Office of External Relations’ human rights working group.
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s detention had generated international complaints from diplomatic, political, and religious officials. Among those were U.S. Senators Charles Percy and Richard Schweiker and congressman John Murtha.
On March 8, 1979, in response to an information request from Senator Percy, the U.S. Embassy in Argentina sent a report of a meeting with Jorge Pascale, a member of the Service for Peace and Justice (SERPAJ) and president of the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights (MEDH). In the meeting, Pascale said that Pérez Esquivel had been detained by the National Executive Power without any charge and that they had denied him the option of leaving the country.
The report records another comment. Pascale believed that the attention surrounding Esquivel’s detention was going to increase in the months following his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize by Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire. These Northern Irish women had themselves received the prize from the Norwegian Parliament in 1976.
On May 25 of that same year, there was another meeting in which Pérez Esquivel’s situation was discussed further. In the Ambassador’s home, officials Tex Harris and Fred Frondon met with members of the ADPH, the MEDH, and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. The tenth point of the meeting’s memorandum records the words of ADPH vice president Emilio Mignone affirming that, in that moment, there were around 4,000 people detained without charges. Mignone comments, “although President Videla says there are no political prisoners in Argentina, those persons held without charges can only be described as political prisoners.”
Mignone uses the cases of Alfredo Bravo and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel to support his criticism and refute the words of the de facto President Rafael Videla. He adds that Argentine government officials themselves have admitted that in Bravo and Esquivel’s cases, “neither person has been involved with subversion.”
On June 19, 1979, Ambassador Raúl Castro announced that the Argentine government had made various decisions regarding cases that the Embassy considered to be “high interest”: “We are checking now on information that decree placing Pérez Esquivel in conditional liberty status has already been issued.”
Pérez Esquivel was released soon after, on June 25. The Embassy confirms this information in a June 28report sent to the State Department. The subject line reads “Pérez Esquivel Paroled.” The document also discusses his parole conditions: “He will be required to report to local police weekly and is prohibited from participating in any political or union meetings.”
These reports on Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s situation returned to the American diplomatic agenda in 1980 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and U.S. officials debated what position the country should take regarding his selection. Several officials, Patricia Derian among them, saw the cited documents as evidence that the U.S. had taken on a commitment to Esquivel’s case in pushing for his release. More than that, though, they were evidence of Pérez’s character and his commitment to defending human rights through nonviolent organizing.