Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Havana, Jan 10. - Rodolfo Walsh, one of the founders of Prensa Latina, would probably have turned 97 today, had it not been for his intense revolutionary life, always in danger, dedicated to just causes.
Born in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, his testimonial novels are well known, such as “Operación Masacre” (1956) and other investigations.
He began his work as a proofreader and translator at the Hachette publishing house and, in 1953, published his first book Variaciones en rojo and, in 1956, Antología del cuento extraño, among many other books. At the same time, he worked for the magazines Leoplán, Panorama and Vea y Lea.
In 1959, he traveled to Cuba invited by Jorge Ricardo Masetti and other founders of the Latin American Information Agency Prensa Latina, such as Gabriel García Márquez.
There he headed the agency's Special Services department, where he accidentally discovered and revealed secret communications about the preparations in Guatemala for the military invasion of Playa Girón (Cuba) by the United States.
The historical event is brilliantly recreated by García Márquez in his chronicle “The journalist who got ahead of the CIA”, 1977, in the Colombian magazine Alternativa.
Upon returning to Argentina, he founded the weekly newspaper of the CGT of the Argentines, which he directed between 1968 and 1970. In 1972, he wrote for the Villero newsweekly and, from 1973, for the newspaper Noticias, which sent him as a correspondent to Palestine.
In 1976, in the midst of the military dictatorship, he created, together with other journalists, the Clandestine News Agency (ANCLA), an information chain that issued more than 200 cables that circulated from hand to hand.
Walsh was a member of the Montoneros organization and wrote "Cartas Polemicas" from hiding.
After the first anniversary of the coup, he distributed the first copies of his famous Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta and that day, March 25, 1977, at the age of 50, he faced off with soldiers, who fatally wounded him and took his body.
Where Walsh's remains are located was never revealed. (Text and Photo: PL)
