Flashes in the Dark Volume 3: USAF Nuclear Espionage in Argentina, 1967–1974

Flashes in the Dark explores one of the least known aspects of Cold War military history: the secret aerial missions carried out in Argentina by the United States Air Force. Leveraging over twenty years of research across archives, photographs, and eyewitness accounts, the series reveals how, under the guise of meteorological and scientific work, the USAF conducted clandestine operations on Argentine soil and in its airspace—often without the knowledge of local authorities.

Flashes in the Dark Volume 3 concludes the story of the US nuclear espionage operations in Argentina. It opens with the exposure of the true purpose of the US detachment at El Plumerillo Airport through the persistent efforts of Argentine journalists over 1968, whose original reporting is reproduced within for the first time in the English language. Undeterred by this development, US operations only intensified as French nuclear testing in the South Pacific restarted in 1970, heralding the arrival of Martin/General Dynamics RB-57F and Boeing WC-135B nuclear reconnaissance aircraft in unprecedented numbers to sift through the fallout.

However, as Volume 3 details, the political situation in Argentina and the wider region was fast deteriorating. Before long, the US mission in Argentina would become embroiled not just in nuclear espionage, but in the struggle for control of the country, and the dramatic events of the 1973 coup in neighbouring Chile.

Drawing on extensive research, author Gustavo Marón pieces together the notes of an extraordinary symphony performed for fifteen years in Argentina—under conditions of total secrecy.