The Expansion of the Argentine Nuclear Program During the Last Dictatorship,1976–83

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the nuclear policy of the last Argentine dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. During that period, the Nuclear Program secured both political and financial backing from the government through the 1979 Nuclear Plan. Paradoxically, this process coincided with the fiscal cut and the destruction of local industry promoted by the Ministry of Economy, headed by the liberal economist José A. Martínez de Hoz. In Martínez de Hoz’ view, inflation and government deficit were identified as the main obstacles to economic growth, and both state intervention and industrial promotion policies were seen as the cause of inefficiency. While the Nuclear Program depended almost entirely on public entities, it is worth asking why it did not suffer the same fate as the rest of the public sector.

This study proposes that the 1979 Nuclear Plan largely represented the maturation of the planning initially laid out by CNEA prior to the dictatorship, in 1968. The autonomy granted to this ‘agent’ empowered scientists and specialists to shape the nuclear agenda. In this context, Castro Madero's role as an interlocutor with the government was crucial in ensuring sustained and effective communication between both spheres.