Southern Cone Documentation Project

Featured Posting

Barack Obama throws flowers in the River Plate

‘Declassification Diplomacy’: Lessons Learned on The Argentina Declassification Project (ADP)

Washington D.C., September 22, 2021 - In an effort to advance a novel foreign policy tool known as “Declassification Diplomacy,” the National Security Archive today posted key…

Sep 22, 2021

Previous Postings

Coup leaders Admiral Massera and General Videla

Argentina’s Military Coup of 1976: What the U.S. Knew

Mar 23, 2021

Argentina’s House of Horrors

Jul 21, 2020

A Human Rights Hero: The Legacy of Franklin Allen (Tex) Harris (1938-2020)

Mar 10, 2020

The CIA's ‘Minerva’ Secret

Feb 11, 2020

Inside Argentina’s Killing Machine: U.S. Intelligence Documents Record Gruesome Human Rights Crimes of 1976-1983

May 30, 2019

Declassification Diplomacy: Trump Administration Turns Over Massive Collection of Intelligence Records on Human Rights and Argentina

Apr 12, 2019

Declassification Diplomacy: Trump Administration to Turn Over Trove of Declassified Records to Argentina on Human Rights Violations Committed During Military Dictatorship

Mar 24, 2019

Trump Continues U.S. Declassified Diplomacy with Argentina

Apr 27, 2017

Operation Condor: Condemned to Life!

Jan 17, 2017

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About this Project

Working with partners in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, the Southern Cone Documentation Project aims to support the effort for truth and justice and to address human rights violations committed by military regimes in the region in the 1970s and 1980s. Using U.S. declassified documents and records from regional secret services, project Director Carlos Osorio has introduced critical evidence in multiple judicial proceedings including trials featuring Operation Condor and Operation Mexico (both in Argentina), and against Uruguayan former President Juan Maria Bordaberry. The project has pushed successfully for the declassification of more than 8,000 US documents in the 1990s and early 2000’s in an effort to fill the historical gaps left by policy makers and to portray a more complete image of Latin American dictators and the nature of their U.S. partnerships. We are currently supporting the declassification of thousands of additional documents, announced by the Obama Administration in March 2016. With this evidence the Southern Cone Project will continue to assist victims of human rights abuses by exposing new information regarding repressive military regimes in South America and the complex role of U.S. policy.

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Project Director

Carlos Osorio, Director of the National Security Archive's Southern Cone Documentation Project, receiving a special award from the Argentine Embassy in Washington for his work in providing critical documentary evidence and testimony to numerous high-profile trials in Argentina aimed at uncovering and prosecuting human rights violations by the military junta from 1976-1983.

Blog Posts

Pinochet’s Secret Envoy to Kissinger: Contreras

Dec 22, 2015

Brazil Truth Commission Releases Report

Dec 10, 2014

Document Friday: The National Security Archive is Named in a wikileaks Cable!

Dec 17, 2010

Technology and Scholarship: Spring 2009 Virtual Internship on Human Rights in Argentina

Jan 15, 2010

Children of the Disappeared: “The documents enable us to touch them…”

Dec 17, 2009

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Project Publications

Operación Cóndor. Una Década De Terrorismo Internacional En El Cono Sur
Jan 1, 2005

Featured video

Declassification Diplomacy: United States Declassification Project for Argentina, April 12, 2019

More video and audio in Southern Cone Project Media Library

Argentina Collection

This Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) collection.makes available 2,429 selected, previously classified government documents chronicling the development of U.S. policy as it attempted to deal with the tragedy experienced in Argentina during the late 1970s. This critical, formative period featured a political collapse verging on civil war; a military coup; and tens of thousands of illegal detentions, torture and kidnappings.