Flashes in the Dark Volume 1: USAF Covert Operations and Nuclear Intelligence in Argentina, 1946-1957

Flashes in the Dark focuses on one of the least known and most interesting aspects of contemporary military history: the aerial activities carried out in Argentina by the USAF in the context of the Cold War - the period of bipolar tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that began in 1945, and ended in 1989-1991 when one of the two contending giants collapsed for social, political, and economic reasons.

The book owes its title to the fact that it original fundaments were mere 'flashes' little sparks of information released during more than 20 years of research through huge volumes of documents, photographs, and testimonies collected by the author about air operations and space activities carried out by the North Americans, under conditions of utmost secrecy, from Argentine territory or in Argentine airspace. The book details both those missions and the context and circumstances that led to keeping them secret, even outside the knowledge of the Argentine political and military authorities.

The purpose of the book is to tear the veil of silence and concealment that has wrapped US military activities in Latin America in general and Argentina in particular for decades, to make known to the public opinion aspects hitherto unknown.

The facts and circumstances recounted in the book are practically contemporary with the creation of the USAF as an independent defence institution, which occurred in 1947. A few months later, in August 1948, the Air Force Office of Atomic Energy was created (AFOAT-1), and tasked with managing the so-called Atomic Energy Detection System (AEDS). The top-secret purpose of AFOAT-1 was to discover foreign atomic tests and detect other activities related to nuclear weapons, such as the collection of gases and radioactive microparticles that would make it possible to deduce, by reverse engineering, the industrial capabilities, the technological level and the size of the arsenal. nuclear power from the spied countries, initially the Soviet Union and, later, France and China.

AFOAT-1, later renamed Air Force Technical Applications Center. (AFTAC), had an early triumph in discovering the first Soviet atomic test, conducted in secret on August 29, 1949 in the Semipalatinsk steppe, Kazakhstan SSR. The radioactive debris released into the atmosphere was detected by a specially modified Boeing WB-29 Superfortress flying, under weather investigation cover, between the US air bases at Misawa, Japan, and Eielson, Alaska. This allowed the Tracerlab Incorporated laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts to quickly confirm that the Soviet Union had achieved nuclear capability. With this information in hand, on September 23, 1949, US President Harry S. Truman made the discovery public, which suddenly lifted the veil of Soviet secrecy and forced his rival, Prime Minister Josef Stalin, to admit that, Indeed, his country had carried out a first successful nuclear test.

Subsequently, this intelligence game was repeated countless times, providing accurate information to the highest executive levels of the US government, one more reason to keep secret the operations carried out by the supposedly meteorological planes that, it was publicly declared, only they were conducting "atmospheric research." The intelligence potential of AFOAT-1/AFTAC and its importance to the national security of the United States were such that both agencies always operated in absolute secrecy, to the point that its existence was not recognized until 1975, a year after the USAF will stop using its permanent base in Argentine territory.

Nuclear espionage in Argentina began in 1946 through the secret use of Douglas C-47 Skytrain and C-54 Skymaster aircraft intended to detect uranium deposits, the base material for building nuclear and thermonuclear bombs. The flights then continued with a Boeing WB-29 Superfortress to spy on the atomic project that Argentina was carrying out secretly on Huemul Island in Lake Nahuel Huapi.

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.

Gustavo Marón 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.