Emilio Eduardo Massera (19 October 1925 – 8 November 2010) was an Argentine Naval military officer, and a leading participant in the Argentine coup d'état of 1976. In 1981, he was found to be a member of P2 (also known as ''Propaganda Due'', a clandestine Masonic lodge involved in Italy's

strategy of tension A strategy of tension ( it, strategia della tensione) is a policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. The purpose is to create a general feeling of insecurity in the population and make people seek security in a strong go ...

). Many considered Massera to have masterminded the

junta Junta may refer to: Government and military * Junta (governing body) (from Spanish), the name of various historical and current governments and governing institutions, including civil ones ** Military junta, one form of junta, government led by ...

's Dirty War against political opponents, which resulted in over 30,000 deaths and disappeances.

Biography

Coming from a Catholic family, Emilio Massera was born in Paraná, Entre Ríos, to Paula Padula and Emilio Massera, grandson of immigrants from Switzerland. Massera entered Argentina's Naval Military School in 1942, obtaining his commission as a midshipman in 1946. After the ''

Revolución Libertadora ''Revolución Libertadora'' (; ''Liberating Revolution'') was the coup d'état that ended the second presidential term of Juan Perón in Argentina, on 16 September 1955. Background President Perón was first elected in 1946. In 1949, a ...

'' in 1955, Massera entered the Naval Information Service. During his career he occupied different positions within the Navy, including command of the sail training ship ARA ''Libertad'' and command of the Sea Fleet in 1973. In 1974 Massera was promoted to the rank of full Admiral and became the Commander-in-Chief of the

Argentine Navy The Argentine Navy (ARA; es, Armada de la República Argentina). This forms the basis for the navy's ship prefix "ARA". is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the ...

, after the government sent a number of senior admirals into forced retirement. Between 1976 and 1978 Admiral Massera was part, together with Jorge Rafael Videla and Orlando Ramón Agosti, of the military junta that deposed President

Isabel Perón Isabel Martínez de Perón (, born María Estela Martínez Cartas, 4 February 1931), also known as Isabelita, is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads ...

and ruled Argentina ''de facto'' during the

National Reorganization Process The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...

. On September 1978 Massera stepped down from both the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and from his seat in the Military Junta. In 1981 he travelled to Bucharest, Romania. After the end of the dictatorship in 1983, he was tried for human rights violations and sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

and the loss of his military grade. However, on 29 December 1990 he was

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

ed by then-President

Carlos Menem Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. H ...

. Massera was free until 1998, when he was imprisoned again pending an investigation of several instances of kidnapping and suppression of identity of minors during his term, as well as orders of torture, execution, confinement in illegal detention centers and drowning of prisoners. He also explained the delivery of diplomatic passports to Licio Gelli, head of

Propaganda Due Propaganda Due (; P2) was a Masonic lodge under the Grand Orient of Italy, founded in 1877. Its Masonic charter was withdrawn in 1976, and it transformed into a criminal, clandestine, anti-communist, anti-Soviet, anti-leftist, pseudo-Masonic, a ...

, by stating that Gelli had "supported sin the struggle against subversion and in the management of the image of Argentina abroad". In 2004 he suffered a cerebrovascular accident caused by a burst aneurysm, and he was admitted in the Military Hospital of Buenos Aires. As a result of the stroke, Eduardo Massera was declared legally irresponsible because of insanity on 17 March 2005, and the cases against him were suspended. Massera died on 8 November 2010 of an hemorrhagic stroke in the Hospital Naval of Buenos Aires. The funeral was kept in secrecy to avoid escraches, and was attended by only 10 people, without any representation of the government or the armed forces.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Massera, Emilio Eduardo Argentine Navy admirals Operatives of the Dirty War People from Paraná, Entre Ríos 1925 births 2010 deaths Argentine people of Swiss-Italian descent Argentine prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Argentina Argentine people convicted of crimes against humanity Recipients of Argentine presidential pardons Argentine anti-communists Argentine Freemasons Politicide perpetrators