From Operation Gladio - Paul L Williams:

But no Latin American country, not even Pinochet’s Chile, could equal the levels of violence that followed the military coup of March 24, 1976, in Argentina. Indeed, the only regime to create a state of fear approximating that of Argentina was Hitler’s Germany.37 (There were other parallels to Nazism, including a government-sponsored hate campaign against the country’s four hundred thousand Jews.) As many as thirty thousand political prisoners (including students, union organizers, journalists, and even pregnant women) were killed or disappeared during the 1976–1983 “Dirty War,” which was fully endorsed by the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.38 Political killings took place on the average of seven a day in 1977. Nor were Argentines the only victims. An estimated fourteen thousand refugees from other South American military regimes were told to leave the country or face the possibility of arrest. Torture was automatic for anyone arrested, according to a spokesman for the World Council of Churches.39

THE US ENDORSEMENT

Recently declassified National Security documents show that the CIA and the US State Department remained primary sponsors of the military junta, which was led by General Jorge Videla. On February 16, 1976, six weeks before the coup, Robert Hill, the US ambassador to Argentina, reported to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the plans for the coup were underway and that a public relations campaign had been mounted that would cast the new military regime in a positive light. Hill added that even though “some executions would probably be necessary,” the leaders of the junta remained determined “to minimize any resulting problems with the US”40On March 25, 1979, two days after the coup, William Rogers, assistant secretary for Latin America, advised Kissinger that the military takeover of Argentina would result in “a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood.” To this warning, Kissinger responded, “Yes, but that is in our interest.”41

On March 30, 1976, Ambassador Hill sent a seven-page assessment of the new regime to Kissinger. In the report, Hill wrote, “This is probably the best executed and most civilized coup in Argentine history.” One week later, US Congress approved a request from the Ford Administration, written by Kissinger, to provide $50 million in aid to the new military regime.42