As a member of the first Junta Militar, alongside General Jorge Rafael Videla and Brigadier Orlando Ramón Agosti, Massera played a central role in the state’s systematic campaign of repression known as the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. His tenure as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (1974–1978) made him one of the most powerful figures of the regime, responsible for some of its most notorious human rights violations.
Under Massera’s authority, the Navy’s Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) in Buenos Aires became one of the dictatorship’s main clandestine detention and torture centres, where thousands of political prisoners were interrogated, tortured, and “disappeared.” Beyond his role in state terror, Massera cultivated political and ideological ambitions of his own, envisioning a post-dictatorial Argentina led by a corporatist and nationalist elite. He attempted to position himself as a future civilian leader of a restructured state, drawing on Catholic traditionalism, anti-communism, and authoritarian nationalism to justify the regime’s violence.
Massera’s international connections extended beyond Latin America. He maintained close relations with European reactionary circles and was a key interlocutor between the Argentine junta and transnational networks of anti-communist coordination during the Cold War. Declassified documents and journalistic investigations have linked him to Italian Masonic and far-right circles, particularly through Propaganda Due (P2) and its leader Licio Gelli, with whom Massera shared both ideological affinities and financial dealings. These ties reflected the broader convergence between Southern Cone military regimes and European authoritarian networks in the 1970s, united by the goal of combating leftist movements and preserving hierarchical social orders.
Following the restoration of democracy in Argentina, Massera was tried and convicted in 1985 for human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture, and murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was later released under the amnesty laws of the 1990s and spent his final years under house arrest after those laws were overturned in the 2000s. Massera’s legacy endures as one of the most emblematic figures of Argentina’s Dirty War, a symbol of the fusion of military authoritarianism, ideological fanaticism, and transnational repression that defined the Southern Cone dictatorships.
