In 1971, Jorge Cedrón decided to make a film out of Operation Massacre. He shot the film in secret due to the restrictions that Lanusse’s dictatorship had placed on most political activities, as well as some artistic ones.48 About thirty professional actors, most of them first-rate, accepted the risk of shooting the film.
They finished shooting in August of 1972. With the help of the Peronist Youth movement, union and student groups, and run-of-the-mill Peronism, it was screened hundreds of times in the neighborhoods and slums of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires and throughout the country without ever falling into the hands of the police. It was estimated that more than one hundred thousand had seen it before May 25, 1973. Ever since that day, there has been a hold on a permit from the Film Institute to show it legally.
Julio Troxler plays himself nicely in the movie. After a conversation with him and Cedrón about the book, we came to the conclusion that the film should not limit itself to the events described in the text. Troxler’s active militancy for nearly twenty years gave him the authority to encapsulate the collective experience of Peronism during the difficult years of resistance, proscription, and armed struggle.
So the movie includes a text that does not appear in the original book. I have included it in this edition because I understand that it makes the book whole and gives it its ultimate meaning.
Footnotes:
48 DG: Alejandro Lanusse was first appointed in 1968 as one of the commanders of the Armed Forces under General Onganía’s de facto presidency. He himself then served as the de facto President of Argentina from 1971 to 1973.
49 DG: The FAP (Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas [Peronist Armed Forces]) and the FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias [Revolutionary Armed Forces]) were left-wing Peronist guerrilla groups that were started in the late 1960s and mainly active during the early 1970s. In 1973, after much negotiation, the FAR merged with the Montonero movement. Walsh himself worked with the FAP before joining the Montoneros in 1973.
50 The Descamisados (The Shirtless) were another left-wing Peronist guerrilla group active in the early 1970s that merged with the Montoneros in 1973.