Background Historian
Osvaldo Bayer and researcher
Atilio Borón have argued that the
Triple A has antecedents in the parapolice bands that emerged at the beginning of the , following the
Social Defense Decree Law.
Creation , head of the Triple A.
José López Rega, from 1973 when he was appointed
Minister of Social Welfare by
Héctor J. Cámpora, began to surround himself with militants from other groups who "wanted to eliminate the left", among them former members of the
Tacuara Nationalist Movement of the Movimiento Nueva Argentina (MNA), militants of the Juventud Federal of the Peronist leader
Manuel de Anchorena, of the
Concentración Nacional Universitaria, of the
Comando de Organización, technical cadres of
Guardia de Hierro and orthodox trade union groups specialized in doctrinal training. In addition, he created the Juventud Peronista República Argentina (JPRA), because he needed an apparatus that would go out to fight for "the streets" directly against the
Tendencia, groups that responded organically to the organizations
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias and
Montoneros (which financed themselves with bank robberies and kidnappings of businessmen for ransom). The organization was sustained with resources from the Ministry, and it even allowed them entry into the youth branch of the Peronist Superior Council, the institutional body from which they began to combat the Juventud Peronista Regionales, the surface organization of
Montoneros. The
Triple A was believed to have been organized in 1973 by José López Rega and
Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the
Argentine federal police, during the brief interim presidency of
Raúl Lastiri in 1973. Reportedly, the movement was conceived at a high-level
Peronist meeting on 1 October 1973, attended by President
Raúl Lastiri, Interior Minister
Benito Llambí, Social Welfare Minister
José López Rega, general secretary of the Presidency
José Humberto Martiarena and various provincial governors. The group operated under the governments of Lastiri, Perón and Isabel Perón through López Rega resignation and exile in July 1975. Villar and his wife were murdered in 1974 with a bomb that was planted on his
cabin cruiser in
Tigre by members of the
Montoneros, a militant, leftist group. Workers of the Ministry and militants of the
Juventud Peronista de la República Argentina (JPRA) began to simulate attacks by
Montoneros against themselves as part of a strategy to present themselves as military targets of left-wing groups, which allowed them to revalue themselves within the Ministry. López Rega, a devotee of
occultism and self-styled
divinator, became a powerful force in the Peronist movement. He exerted great influence over
Perón, who was elected to the presidency and took office in 1973, and his wife Isabel Perón, elected as vice-president, who succeeded to the presidency upon Perón's sudden death on 1 July 1974. To support the paramilitary group, López Rega drew on funds from the Ministry of Social Welfare, which he controlled. Some of the members of the Triple A had earlier taken part in the Peronist
1973 Ezeiza massacre. On the day Perón returned from exile, snipers shot and killed numerous (13 at least killed) left-wing Peronists at the mass gathering to welcome his return, leading to the definitive separation between left and right-wing Peronists. There are theories about the name of the Alliance that could be due to the
esoteric profile of López Rega, who believed that the morality of humanity would evolve as the three magnetic vertices of the triangle of the Triple A developed. According to a 1983 article in
The New York Times, the group was founded when there were an increasing number of guerrilla attacks by
left-wing militant groups, which were met by harsh
repression of
political dissidents on the part of the
military,
paramilitary and
police forces. This environment of social unrest was the justification used by the subsequent military junta for its
Dirty War against political opponents. But testimony at the 1985
Juicio a las Juntas trial established that by 1976, both the
ERP and the
Montoneros had been dismantled, and the political dissidents had never posed a real threat to the government.
Attacks prior to the public emergence of the Triple A On 15 August, militants of the JP who were carrying out a demonstration in support of the resigning governor Bidegain were detained and tortured. On 7 September, Oscar Suárez, upon recovering his freedom in Tucumán, denounced that he had been a victim of torture inflicted by Héctor García Rey, chief of the provincial police, linked to López Rega. On 14 September, the "Ateneo 20 de junio" of the JP was machine-gunned by unknown assailants. On the 19th, the
Federación Gráfica Bonaerense denounced the disappearance of Sergio Joaquín Maillman, 24 years old. On the 13th he had been seen wounded and beaten when he was taken out of a light-blue
Ford Falcon and introduced into the house at Miraflores 2044. At the end of that block was installed the Fifth Surveillance Corps of the Federal Police. The car in which he arrived at Miraflores had license plate C 468.596, whose registered owner was María Esther Tagarelli de Martini, an official of the Ministry of Social Welfare. On 28 September, in Rosario, the lawyer
Roberto Raúl Catalá was shot; the attackers left pamphlets in which they assigned themselves the character of "anti-Marxist commands". that was read by Senator
José Humberto Martiarena and distributed among the governors present. Through the document, the
Justicialist National Movement called to "assume self-defense and attack the enemy on all fronts and with the greatest determination", arguing that in this lay the life of the Movement and of its leaders. For the purposes of that defense, it issued a series of directives, declaring the state of mobilization of material and human elements to confront that war, calling for a campaign of reaffirmation of Justicialist doctrinal principles that should clarify the differences with Marxism. Item 6, "Intelligence", warned that "in all districts an intelligence system will be organized at the service of this struggle, which will be linked to the central body that will be created". Item 9, "Means of struggle", specified: "All those considered efficient will be used, in each place and opportunity. The necessity of the means proposed will be assessed by the leaders of each district".
During the third government of Perón (1973–1974) Perón assumed his third presidency on 12 October 1973. On 14 October,
Constantino Razzeti, a biochemist and JP leader, was assassinated. In
Santos Lugares, after being doused with gasoline, the Ateneo Peronista "Heroica Resistencia", located at Avenida La Plata 3820, was set on fire; the Superior Council of the JP of the
3 de Febrero Partido operated there, some of whose militants had been subjected to provocations days earlier by the Comando de Organización directed in the area by Susana Thompson. On the 26th, the
Concentración Nacional Universitaria (CNU), the Comando Universitario Peronista de Derecho (CUPDED), the Legión Revolucionaria Peronista, the Grupos de Acción Peronistas (GAP), the Movimiento Universitario Nacional (MUN) and other right-wing organizations held an event in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Law that ended with damage to the facilities. The meeting had the support of the CGT and of the Provisional Superior Council of Justicialism. Among those present were
Alejandro Giovenco, Juan Carlos Gómez (identified as the murderer of the student
Silvia Filler in Mar del Plata in 1972 and a police official), Jorge Rampoldi (member of the former Sindicato de Derecho), César Augusto (from the same entity), Raúl Padrés, Rodolfo Galloso and José Luis Núñez, with similar backgrounds. The dean Mario Kestelboim requested police intervention, which manifested itself in the presence of sub-commissioner Solano. The official stated that he could not act without consulting his superiors, for which reason he withdrew. Nor did the patrol cars or the assault vehicle stationed in the vicinity intervene. In an interview granted in 1986 to the journalist
Santiago Pinetta, Iñíguez himself stated that his resignation occurred as a result of his enmity with López Rega, who after the assassination of
José Ignacio Rucci began to demand from the government the creation of
death squads to combat "subversion". When conveying this request to Perón, the president: On 11 May, Father
Carlos Mugica was ambushed when leaving the church of
San Francisco Solano in
Villa Luro, where he had just celebrated
Mass. According to witnesses, it was
Rodolfo Eduardo Almirón, a high-ranking member of the Triple A, who shot him with a submachine gun in the
abdomen and the
thorax, causing his death a few minutes later after being transferred to a
hospital. According to
Miguel Bonasso, upon learning of the death, the Peronist leader
Arturo Sampay told him:
During the government of Isabel Perón (1974–1976) On 6 August 1974 four Peronist militants were kidnapped by the Triple A at their homes; hours later the bodies were found riddled with bullets in the city of
La Plata, the retired non-commissioned officer Ireneo Chávez and his son Rolando Chávez; Luis Mancor, a journalism student, and the head of the Sindicato Único de Petroleros, Carlos Pierini. On 10 September 1974, the lawyer
Alfredo Alberto Curutchet in the locality of
San Isidro was seized in public, bound and riddled with bullets by members of the Triple A. The lawyer's body was found dead on a street in the locality of
Béccar thanks to an anonymous police report of submachine gun bursts in the area. The lifeless body "was found face down and bound with a leather belt; next to him, scattered on the ground, were thirty-one spent 9 mm cartridges and two spent 12-gauge shotgun shells". On 15 November 1974
Marta Adelina Zamaro y Nilsa Urquía were kidnapped by the Comisión Anticomunista del Litoral (CAL), a kind of
Santa Fe version of the Triple A. Their bodies were found near
Esperanza the following day with signs of torture by electric prod, beatings and drowning. On 2 December, Berta Molina de Montenegro, a member of the
Workers' Revolutionary Party, was murdered, her death being mentioned by the ERP in one of its communiqués. During November 1974, attacks were carried out that are attributed to it or were claimed by the organization itself: a bomb was detonated at a Juventud Peronista premises; a bomb against the person of the recently appointed interventor of the
National University of the Littoral; a bomb exploded at the premises of the Frente Antiimperialista por el Socialismo (FAS) in San Fernando; at the FAS premises in Virreyes another bomb was detonated;
Manuel Carballo, a member of the JP, was shot; several Peronist militants who were at the Basic Unit "Evita" celebrating Mother's Day were attacked by a group of thugs. According to the journalist
Hernán López Echagüe, the activity of the extreme right came to be directed by the trade unionist
Lorenzo Miguel. == Organization ==