Flashes in the Dark Volume 2 (Paperback)
Language: English
Published by Helion & Company, Solihull, 2026
- Softcover
- New

Seller: Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.Grand Eagle Retail
AbeBooks seller since October 12, 2005
Condition: New
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Paperback. 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 2 continues the story of the US nuclear espionage operations mounted from Argentina, beginning with the intensification of Lockheed WU-2A and Martin NB-57B missions from Ezeiza Airport, outside Buenos Aires, in 1960. Tasked with capturing samples of radioactive particles from the atmosphere, these reconnaissance aircraft provided vital intelligence on the progress of French and Soviet nuclear tests. Later, Volume 2 charts the establishment of a permanent US reconnaissance detachment at El Plumerillo Airport in Mendoza in 1966, heralding the arrival of the highly modified Martin/General Dynamics RB-57F to Argentina. Nicknamed 'tired ducks' by onlooking Argentine Air Force personnel, these remarkable aircraft and their crews flew constant missions surveilling the French tests in the South Pacific, braving fallout and the hazards of stratospheric flying. Along the way, Volume 2 also covers the wider regional context of the Cold War, including Argentina's involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as the peculiar events of the Transtage incident. Drawing on extensive research, author Gustavo Maron pieces together the notes of an extraordinary symphony performed for fifteen years in Argentina-without anyone being able to hear it. AUTHOR: Gustavo Maron was born in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1971 into a family of Lebanese immigrants. In 1998, he graduated as a lawyer from the Law School of the National University of Cuyo, Argentina. Since then, he has worked as an advisor to various aeronautical associations, companies and organisations. In parallel, he teaches Aeronautical Law at various Argentine universities and other educational establishments in the country. To date, he has published more than two hundred aircraft investigations on different aspects of Argentine Civil Aviation. This is his first work published by Helion. 113 b/w photos, 12 colour profiles, 2 colour maps This book tells the story of the secret operations on nuclear espionage operations carried out from Argentina by the US Air Force between 1946 and 1974 with the aim of identifying the country's uranium deposits and the development of the Argentine nuclear program, as well as the growth of the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union, China and France. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…
Seller Inventory # 9781804519363
- Title
- Flashes in the Dark Volume 2 (Paperback)
- Author
- Gustavo Maron
- Publisher
- Helion & Company, Solihull
- Publication year
- 2026
- Condition
- new
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1804519367
- ISBN 13
- 9781804519363
Despite the official recognition of AFOAT-1/AFTAC in 1975, much remains a secret around these two units, a shield to which USAF lawyers have contributed very efficiently, who have refused to approve the declassification of their documents and even to the elaboration of an official history focused even on the first years of operation of the unit, those during which the first deployment of North American spy planes to Argentina took place.
However, the door that the USAF closed with ten padlocks was next to windows that other US federal agencies opened over time. Indeed, over the years the National Archives of the United States (National Archives and Records Administration, NARA) have been receiving and making available to the public documents initially classified as secret coming from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC), the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Environmental Measurement Laboratory (EML). A good number of these documents alluded to or were linked to the AFOAT-1/AFTAC units, which allowed the author to trace the activities of long-range nuclear detection carried out in Argentina and confirm isolated notes of a symphony that was performed so masterful for fifteen years in our country without anyone being able to hear it.
The air operations carried out from Argentina were classified as ultra-secret (Top Secret and Top Secret Umbra), so its officers took pains not to leave a single trace, indication or record among us. Such was the secret that not even the Argentine Air Force could know in depth what was happening in Ezeiza and Mendoza, the two airports from which secret air operations were projected permanently, both under its jurisdiction.
Given the unprecedented and sensitive nature of the issues addressed in this book, the author abounds in bibliographical and documentary citations, so that other researchers can exploit them in the course of future work.
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Grand Eagle Retail
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