Translated from Spanish by Jonas Konefal ’25. Original with declassified documents here.
On October 13, 1980, the Norwegian Parliament announced that Adolfo Pérez Esquivel would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The news gave enormous weight to the criticisms against the military dictatorship for human rights violations. From the announcement until the award ceremony on December 10, United States diplomats reported new information about the Nobel Prize. In the most recent declassification of CIA, FBI, and State Department documents there are at least thirteen files from this two-month period. They include information about the military reaction to Esquivel’s prize, his career, and discussions within the United States Embassy about the position the country should take on the issue. Forty years later, in partnership with the National Security archive and the College of William & Mary, the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) shares these documents.
“Argentine efforts to discredit his reputation are not surprising. His case clearly undermines the Government of Argentina (GOA) propaganda that only violent terrorists were the victims of the ‘dirty war,’” said R. Cohen of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs in an October 20 memorandum. He was writing seven days after the announcement that Adolfo Pérez Esquivel would win the Nobel Prize.
The answer from the Argentine dictatorship was immediate. The news reached the country on October 14 in an announcement by the host of Radio Colonia, Ariel Delgado. That same day, the military junta issued an extensive statement in which it notes public surprise about the nomination and defends itself against those who might use the award “as a condemnation of the Process of National Reorganization” (PRN).
The translation of the fragments of the military statement is the first of two documents regarding the issue that appear in the U.S.’s most recent declassification effort’s 43,000 pages of intelligence on the military dictatorship. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires summarized the military’s message in a document titled “Reaction of GOA to the Nobel Prize,” sent to the State Department in Washington.
The military statement affirmed that Argentina was going through a war that started in 1969 with the development of the Guevara theory of “foquismo.” The junta took power in 1976 on a transitional basis to achieve the “reestablishment of an authentic democratic and republican system and the rule of law.”
According to the junta, “the activities carried on by Pérez Esquivel, while the country lived through the highest intensity of the armed struggle against terrorism were used—notwithstanding his intentions—to help obtain immunity for members of various terrorist organizations.” During the following weeks, members of the armed forces used public statements to continue attacking the figure of the Nobel Prize winner and linking him with armed organizations.
In another October cable from the Embassy, United States officials informed the State Department of Rafael Videla’s comments. Videla, in a “bitter allusion” to Esquivel, said on October 28 that “those who brought peace to Argentina did so without the support of a Committee on Human Rights, nor did they need an award to deserve our respect.’”
Despite attempts to disparage the Nobel Prize Committee’s decision and attack the image of Pérez Esquivel, the junta’s stance did not convince United States diplomats. In the first memorandum cited in this article, R. Cohen makes it clear that Esquivel was given the prize for his non-violent activism “and because he was a high-interest US case,” for which the US “should acknowledge this role and not hesitate to give recognition to it.”
In another memorandum, in light of a potential meeting between First Lady Eleanor Rosalynn Carter and Pérez Esquivel, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinsky informs Carter that “the government has suggested indirectly that he may have contributed to terrorism. Our embassy is aware of no information that would substantiate the charge. Indeed, he is a strong advocate of Gandhian non-violence.”
A Brilliant Political Blow
In 1977, when Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was kidnapped, the United States Embassy considered his detention as a “high interest” case. There were even senators and congressmen who interceded publicly to advocate for his release. Several of the thirteen documents about the Nobel Prize from October 13 to December 10 of 1980 reiterate information about Esquivel’s detention and the Embassy’s position on the matter.
Pérez Esquivel was detained and incarcerated without any kind of due process. He was tortured and survived “los vuelos de la muerte”—the infamous flights in which military operatives would sedate prisoners and throw their bodies into the River Plate. On May 5, 1977, not long after Esquivel’s initial detention on April 4, authorities transported him to the San Justo aerodrome, where they took him on board a plane that flew over the River Plate. Adolfo was already familiar with the “vuelos de la muerte,” as he had denounced them in front of the Organization of American States (OAS). A last-minute order changed the plane’s flight path, and when it landed Pérez instead became captive of the National Executive Power in Unit 9 of La Plata. He was released June 25, 1978, during the final game of the World Cup, but for another fourteen months he remained under “libertad vigilada”—a conditional release in which he had to report to junta authorities.
“Pérez Esquivel is among those Argentinians who have shone a light in the darkness. He champions a solution of Argentina’s grievous problems that dispenses with the use of violence, and is the spokesman of a revival of respect for human rights,” highlighted the Nobel Prize Committee in the announcement of his receiving the award.
On October 14, after the news of award became public in Argentina, Adolfo gave a lecture in the Justice and Peace Service (SERPAJ) building. The next day, after the military communication, he gave another one in the headquarters of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights. There, he talked on the urgency of revealing the fate of all the desaparecidos and assuring the end of human rights violations.
The U.S. Embassy in Argentina wrote a report with the subject line “The Nobel Bombshell” which reported the content of these public speeches by Pérez Esquivel, along with their initial reactions. The report says, for example, that the decision of the Norwegian parliament was received with satisfaction by human rights activists, and that they considered it “another turn in the screw of international pressure on the military.” They described it as “a brilliant political blow.”
On November 14, before beginning the voyage that finished with the December 10 ceremony in Oslo, a celebration honoring the achievement took place at a religious venue. The Embassy report remarks on the difficulty of finding a space for the event, with many requests being rejected. In his speech, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel talked about peace and social justice activism, condemning once again the dictatorship’s economic policy and human rights violations.
“Pérez Esquivel’s recent highly political remarks against the GOA have increased the GOA’s conviction that the Nobel Committee’s award was made as part of an international effort designed to destabilize the present Argentine government,” the report observes.
What to Do with the Nobel Peace Prize? The Positions of U.S. Diplomacy
Before arriving in Oslo to receive the prize, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel travelled to the United States to meet with the authorities of the UN General Assembly, who were in the country at the time.
The Washington Office on Latin America requested a meeting between Pérez Esquivel and the Secretary of State. The memorandum, dated November 18, was prepared by the Deputy Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Patricia Derian, and the Deputy Secretary for Interamerican Affairs, William Bowdler. This report explicitly mentions a point of tension, which appears in the rest of the documents only indirectly: What should the official position of the United States be?
Patricia Derian, who had been committed to denouncing human rights violations in Argentina since she was Assistant Secretary of State, advocated for the meeting with Esquivel. She herself had been one of the first to congratulate him when he received the Nobel Prize.
The eight-page, November 18 memorandum summarizes Derian’s position. For her, the meeting would “have important symbolic significance in affirming our continual support of human rights and in acknowledging our previous high interest in this case.” She noted that Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned in 1977 without due process, and, according to reports, was tortured by the current military government. She added that Esquivel’s case had been one of great interest for the U.S. in 1977 and 1978. Derian also recalled that the State Department had recommended that President Carter personally send a congratulatory message to Esquivel when he received his award.
She added, furthermore, that “receiving him will confirm that we stand in support of constructive OAS action on Argentina.” However, the Deputy Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Wiliam Bowdler, was diametrically opposed to the visit. In Bowdler’s view, the Argentine government would view the meeting with Pérez Esquivel and other exiled Argentinians as “part of an international effort designed to destabilize the present Argentine government.” He believed that in this context, a meeting would “increase polarization at the OASGA (Organization of American States General Assembly) and could contribute to the GOA making good on its threat to walk out of the OAS.”
William Bowdler recommended that the Secretary of State not meet with Esquivel until the 1979 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) report was dealt with in the OASGA, and until more was known about the political views of the Nobel Laureate. The latter objection was based largely on Esquivel’s public statements repudiating U.S. military intervention in El Salvador. “A meeting with you or the Deputy Secretary now could prove embarrassing later on if Pérez Esquivel steps up the rhetoric against U.S. interest,” he added.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s meeting didn’t occur during his trip to the U.S. A few days later, the non-violence advocate landed in Oslo to receive the prize, which he accepted in the name of the people of Latin America.
In the days prior to the award ceremony, the U.S. Embassy in Oslo reported the Argentine government’s intent to boycott the ceremony. “An Embassy officer has been advised by a representative of the Argentine Embassy that no one from the Argentine Embassy will attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on December 10.” The explanation given was that the award was “not objective,” but a political decision designed to shame the Argentine government. The report adds, “The Argentine Embassy representative advised that the foregoing information would be conveyed to all diplomatic missions in Oslo.”
Argentine diplomacy tried to boycott the ceremony, and the Argentine press didn’t report on the award ceremony. All the while, hundreds of protestors met on December 10 in the Plaza de Mayo. Encouraged by the international impact and celebration of the award, they again demanded the reappearance of the desaparecidos. The protest was repressed and ended in the detention of 27 people.
Production team:
Carlos Osorio, director of the NSArchive’s Southern Cone Documentation Project
Silvia Tandeciarz, William & Mary professor
CPM Communications Department