Operation Massacre Read Online Free PDF Page A

Massacre . Literally it means something like “a massive, swelling avoidance,” but it’s a colloquial expression that I chose to translate as “no one wants anything to do with it.” No one was interested in publishing Walsh’s yellowing pages, no one wanted to get too involved in his mess.
    When I didn’t know something and couldn’t find any written evidence to help me, I would ask my mother, an Argentine who was born in the ’ 40 s, or my right hand in this entire operation, Pablo Martín Ruiz, born in the ’ 60 s in Argentina. Pablo checked over every single translated sentence at least twice with an eye for accuracy and political and historical context. I needed to understand where Walsh stood politically in order to translate his tone with integrity, especially when it came to the appendices, each one tracking a different current in Walsh’s personal journey as an activist. Perhaps the most trying segments were in the third part of the book, which is composed primarily of abstruse legalese. I recruited my brother, a lawyer in the US Department of Justice, to check that my wording was as accurate as it could be, especially given the different justice systems and time periods involved.
    I take my lead from Walsh in thanking those who helped make this translation possible: to my dear friend Dante for giving me Walsh’s book as a gift, and to his mother, who took the time to find photographs for possible use in this edition. Thank you to Daniel Divinsky at Ediciones de la Flor and to everyone at Seven Stories Press. The writings of Eduardo Jozami, Michael McCaughan, and Luis Alberto Romero were especially useful to me. I am grateful to Ben for reading and keeping me to a higher standard of excellence. To my family, thank you for supporting me with your time, your attention, and your whole hearts, as always. A Ileana, mi querida abuela, gracias por tu apoyo y tu amor siempre . Pablo Martín Ruiz was my Enriqueta Muñiz: I simply could not have done this without him. Dan Simon was my Bruno and Tulio Jacovella, my Leónidas Barletta. But of course these comparisons are perverse: no one had to risk their lives so that this translation could be published, and for that I am truly thankful.
    Â 
    â€”Daniella Gitlin
    Footnotes:
    4 Jozami, Eduardo. Rodolfo Walsh: La palabra y la acción (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2006), 151 .

 
    Prologue
    News of the June 1956 secret executions first came to me by chance, toward the end of that year, in a La Plata café where people played chess, talked more about Keres and Nimzowitsch than Aramburu and Rojas, and the only military maneuver that enjoyed any kind of renown was Schlechter’s bayonet attack in the Sicilian Defense. 5
    Six months earlier, in that same place, we’d been startled around midnight by the shooting nearby that launched the assault on the Second Division Command and the police department—Valle’s failed rebellion. 6 I remember how we left en masse, chess players, card players, and everyday customers, to see what the celebration was all about; how, the closer we got to San Martín Square, the more serious we became as our group became smaller; and how, when I finally got across the square, I was alone. When I reached the bus station there were several more of us again, including a poor dark-skinned boy in a guard’s uniform who hid behind his goggles saying that, revolution or not, no one was going to take away his gun—a handsome 1901 Mauser.
    I remember finding myself alone once more, in the darkness of Fifty-Fourth Street, just three blocks away from my house, which I kept wanting to get to and finally reached two hours later amid the smell of lime trees that always made me nervous, and did so on that night even more than usual. I remember the irrepressible will of my legs, the preference they showed at every street for the bus station, returning to it on their own