The crimes of Argentina's late-1970s military dictatorship emerge through the eyes of a courageous journalist in this stirring homage, written by his son. Robert Cox was the editor of the English-language Buenos Aires Herald,
the only Argentinean paper that consistently covered kidnappings and murders by government security forces during the “dirty war” against leftists and other opponents. Testimonials reprinted here attest that Robert's reporting and editorials, many reprinted here, saved the lives of many of the “disappeared” and helped break the press establishment's conspiracy of denial. Memoiristic accounts of cheerful family vacations clash with the grim atmospherics, and once Robert and his family flee the country in 1979, the author drops the story of the Herald
and Argentina's ongoing travails. Still, it's a riveting tale. As Robert pushes the envelope of dissent under a brutal dictatorship—seeking out victims' relatives, verbal fencing with outraged military officials, weathering death threats and government thugs—we get an acute sense of the fear bred by repression and of the bravery required to combat it. Photos, b&w photos. (Dec. 2)
