09/21/2025
I just got off the phone with Robert Cox—or Bob, as he likes to be called—who reached out after I invited him to take part in our upcoming book “Videla: Argentina’s Dirty War General.” This book brings together interviews with historians, journalists, and witnesses to trace the ideology, machinery, and human toll of Videla’s dictatorship.
Bob’s perspective is especially valuable. As editor of the Buenos Aires Herald in the late 1970s, he was one of the very few journalists in Argentina willing to report on the disappearances and murders carried out by the junta. He even met Videla face-to-face and interviewed him, an experience he later wrote about in his own memoir, "Dirty Secrets, Dirty War: The Exile of Editor Robert J. Cox."
Telling the truth came at a heavy price. Bob and his family lived under constant death threats, and by 1979, they were forced to flee Argentina to stay alive. His story is not only one of extraordinary courage but also a rare firsthand account of a regime that tried to erase its crimes.
I hope to bring his story to life in this book. He is one of the few people still alive who saw these atrocities unfold and had the resolve to speak out when almost everyone else stayed silent.
Power, Silence, and the Voices Who Remember Videla: Argentina’s Dirty War General explores the reign of Jorge Rafael Videla, who led Argentina’s military junta from 1976 to 1981 and oversaw a campaign of state terror that left tens of thousands disappeared. Through a series of interviews with le...
