The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior

by Horacio Verbitsky (Author), Esther Allen (Translator)

10 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1565840096

ISBN-10: 1565840097

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

More Buying Choices

5 New from $34.00 18 Used from $12.31

23 used & new from $12.31

Deliver to France

See All Buying Options

Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

A retired Argentine naval officer candidly discusses his personal participation in the harsh treatment of Argentine dissidents, detailing the military's systematic campaign of torture and murder, the role of the Church, and his own feelings about his behavior.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Horacio Verbitsky

10

Paperback
$15.25
Osvaldo Bayer

2

Paperback
$12.00
Nicholas Fraser

63

Paperback
$12.90
Valeria Manzano

1

Paperback
$37.50
Peter Kornbluh

28

Paperback
$20.65

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Nicholas Fraser

63

Paperback
$12.90
Osvaldo Bayer

2

Paperback
$12.00
Valeria Manzano

1

Paperback
$37.50
Lila Caimari
Paperback
$24.02
William Kelleher…

28

Paperback
$18.95
Jeremy D. Popkin

1

Paperback
$23.70

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Francisco Silingo was a junior naval officer in the Argentinean military dictatorship of the 1970s. Convinced by his superiors that extreme measures were essential in defending Argentina from subversives, he pushed drugged political prisoners out of airplanes into the Atlantic Ocean. Silingo related his experiences to author Horacio Verbitsky because his former commanders began denying such practices ever occurred--though they had gone to great lengths to justify them to their men. This book caused outrage in Argentina in 1995, when nearly 9,000 of the "disappeared" remain unaccounted for.

From Publishers Weekly

A bestseller in Argentina, this electrifying document is the businesslike confessional of retired Lieutenant Commander Adolfo Scilingo, who admits to participating in the Argentine military dictatorship's campaign of torture and murder between 1976 and 1983. In extensive interviews, Scilingo tells Argentine journalist Verbitsky how he took part in "aerial transports"?throwing heavily sedated, naked political prisoners out of airplanes into the Atlantic Ocean. Under Verbitsky's relentless cross-examination, Scilingo also admits that he joined in a kidnapping and observed a prisoner being tortured. Aerial executions of the regime's opponents, he charges, were approved by Church authorities, and a chaplain comforted the officers after their missions. In the introduction, Mendez, general counsel for Human Rights Watch, notes that hundreds of known torturers have avoided prosecution thanks to the Argentine military's clout, and more than 9000 families still do not know the fate of loved ones. Translation rights: Planeta Argentina, Buenos Aires.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Hardcover: 207 pages
Publisher: The New Press (August 1, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1565840097
ISBN-13: 978-1565840096
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 10 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,071,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #139 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Argentina
- #595 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Latin America
- #978 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > Latin America

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Customer reviews

Write a customer review

See all 10 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Veronica Martino

The Flight by Horacio Verbitsky--Book Review

May 29, 2001

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Verbitsky transcribes Scilingo's confession regarding the "flights" in which he participated during Argentina's dirty war, between 1976-83. The trivialization of his testimony gives the reader insight on how "desensitized" to their own excesses, the military had become by the time their "deed" was over. Scilingo was the first naval officer to admit to the military's violation of human rights during the war against "subversives". He exempts himself of responsibility by claiming that in the process of carrying out orders from the commanders in charge,the officers themselves, had also become victims of the process. He provides details involving the "loading" of the planes from which live bodies were thrown into the South Atlantic Ocean. A worthwhile tool in making an assessment on the entire story...

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Not what I expected

November 7, 2005

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Having read several books on this subject matter, I expected THE FLIGHT to provide an in-depth insider's point of view of the events in question. I really didn't learn anything new here. And I agree with the other reviewer who said that this translation is terrible. There are several awkward translations of key terms, such as "final stop" for "punto final", the law prohibiting further legal action taken against the military leaders after a certain date. Try Feitlowitz's "A Lexicon of Terror" instead.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Nicolas R.

Missing chapter!

July 11, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Hi, the book was delivered perfectly. But there is a chapter missing in the edition. You should tell people about this issue. I was able to understand the book because I am from Argentina, but without that chapter its hard to understand the book if you are not familiar with the story. It is OK for me but I do not think people would like it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

coastx

Five Stars

February 28, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Excellent!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Martin Edwin Andersen

"El Perro" Verbitsky was himself an "efficacious collaborator" during the military's supposed dirty "war"

October 2, 2013

For those who do not know the real story of "El Perro" Verbitsky's own collaboration with the Argentine armed forces during the so-called dirty "war," I suggest readers who can read Spanish check out "Horacio Verbitsky, tribulaciones de un "doble agente; EL DÍA QUE LA FUERZA AÉREA LE AGRADECIÓ POR SUS SERVICIOS) ([...]

Or my own, "Pope Francis and some still dirty secrets from Argentina's so-called dirty 'war;' When the accuser should stand among the accused" ([...]

As Jacobo Timerman (who I worked with at Newsweek) once commented to me, how was it that his former employee Verbitsky, well known as a former Montonero intelligence official, was allowed to live undisturbed in Buenos Aires during the worst of the military repression?

To which I would add: How was it that Verbitsky could be mentioned, by name, in a book he ghostwrote while supposedly in clandestinity that was published by the Air Force (in 1979) and read by the same vicious military he claimed to oppose in armed struggle, and not be bothered?

Readers, beware!

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Martin Edwin Andersen

A better story is Horacio Verbitsky's own dirty secrets from the so-called dirty "war"

October 4, 2013

Format: Hardcover

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Amazon Customer

Powerful Reading

February 10, 2004

Format: Hardcover

Anyone who wants to understand what went through the minds of the torturers, and comprehend how they could perpetuate their atrocities needs to read this deeply moving book. The grubbiness, the gangsterliness, the banality, the bureaucracy and the horror are conveyed in their true magnitude. Yet there is a detachment about it that adds to its credibility. This book is not about left or right, it condemns no political ideology, it doesn't blame the USA - it just tells us what happened and explores deeply how it could happen. I read this book and could not get its vivid presence out of my head for days. Like some psychological trauma, I needed to talk it over afterward.

9 people found this helpful10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

A customer

disappointing

January 24, 2004

Format: Hardcover

I thought this book had a lot of potential, but turned out to be a long-winded lament of Scilingo. It lacked a comprehensive historical overview of Argentinian politics, which would have placed the Dirty War in its proper context. Not useful for first time readers to modern Argentinian politics. Its not even a story of Scilingo himself. I found it a bit clumsy

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Paperback

Horacio Verbitsky

10

$15.25

The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought