Reporting Argentina's Dirty War: an editor's story

[struggle4progress]

By BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press
2009-06-19 08:12 AM

Robert Cox risked his life chronicling the first years of Argentina's Dirty War (1976-83) that left thousands missing. Decades later, though, he still couldn't bear to write his own story of confronting a deadly junta.

Now his son has told his story -- how an editor at a small English-language daily in South America, the Buenos Aires Herald, courageously covered kidnappings and killings at a time most colleagues were silent.

"Dirty Secrets, Dirty War _ The Exile of Editor Robert J. Cox" is a 221-page account by CNN Web producer David Cox of his father's life reporting on the run-up to a 1976 military coup and the chaos that ensued in the South American country ...

"Within the whole family we have been dealing with this for many years," said David Cox, 42, who spent his early years in Argentina. "We all wanted my father to write the story of what happened to us and to him" ...

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=980912&lang=eng_news

[Judi Lynn]

1. It moves one to tears to know there was once a writer who didn't seek to please

power in the world by sucking up to it, like our own corporate "journalists," and chose to shine his only light on pure evil, instead.

Just like the NY Times' Simon Romero, Francisco Toro, that great lady, the self-sacrificing tower of truth, Judith Miller, or the Washington Post's Juan Forero. Or maybe not.

Will we EVER see someone of this man's strength again in our lifetimes? What are the chances? This is a book it would be a privilege to read, and a need.