José María Salgado or ‘Pepe’, as he was known by all his relatives, was 21 years old when, posing as a policeman, he planted a bomb in the dining room of the Federal Police Superintendencewhich caused one of the largest massacres in Argentina.
Apparently, and based on the testimony of people who survived the event, ‘Pepe’ entered the cafeteria on July 2, 1976 and asked for lunch.
Minutes later, he stood up as if to greet someone outside the compound, but left his belongings where he was, including the backpack in which the bomb was found.
Who was Jose Maria Salgado?
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1955, in an upper middle class family. His father was a highly recognized lawyer in the city and he, Salgado, grew up in a Catholic family that was very involved in the church.
‘Pepe’, before becoming involved in the Peronist Youth, could be described as a young catholic, conservative, ‘boy scout’, from family and landlord.
From what the writer and journalist Ceferino Reato collects in the book ‘Massacre in the dining room’, his father, grandfather and uncle were always anti-Peronists -they did not follow Juan Perón, former president of Argentina- but ‘Pepe’ and his brothers, those who occupied the position of the middle, yes they were Peronists.
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José María Salgado, Pepe, Sergio or Daniel, the 21-year-old agent who planted the powerful Vietnamese bomb that blew up the dining room of the Federal Security Superintendence in 1976. Ceferino Reato pic.twitter.com/sH3BHYrNzI
– Julioac13 (New Account) (@Julioac13) March 28, 2022
However, ‘Pepe’ was the only one who chose armed struggle, the others limited themselves to beliefs. From what his family comments in the story that the journalist collected in the book, everyone was surprised by the sudden ferocity with which “Pepe” defended his actions.
By 1974, people around him began to notice these changes in his personality and thoughts.
While he was crossing his engineering career he met people with whom he became more involved in the Peronist cause.
First it was a girlfriend named Mirta Noemí Castro, with whom he would later have a son he would never meet, and then the writer Rodolfo Walsh, who was a key character for what would happen years later.
It was Walsh, according to what Reato reported, who incorporated him into the Montoneros Intelligence and Information Service -a terrorist group that followed Perón-. From there, ‘Pepe’ was less and less part of his engineering study group and more of the revolutionary cause.
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The attempt
The bomb killed 23 people and left 110 injured.. Apparently, the aim of the attack was to weaken the police, killing people in high command.
However, among all the victims there were only two officers and they were not even in high ranks.
The vast majority of people who lost their lives that day were officials from other parts of the Federal Police, including a civilian who was visiting a friend.
45 years after the Montoneros attack on the Federal Police canteen: 9 kilos of explosives and 24 deaths without justice
The bomb was planted by José María “Pepe” Salgado and detonated at 1:20 p.m. on July 2, 1976 at the Security Superintendence. pic.twitter.com/dnEcoQetL0
– Carlos Pellegrini (@pichichaje) July 2, 2021
Apparently, the higher-ups didn’t eat lunch there, but instead went to other restaurants in the area.
The bodies of the victims were unrecognizable, mostly incinerated. This was considered the most violent massacre in Argentina for many years.
As Reato commented in an interview with the media ‘Infobae’, ‘Pepe’ was only the material author of the bomb. According to the journalist, “he (Walsh) was the one who designed the operation.”
Today marks 45 years of impunity for the main terrorist attack of the 70s. Made by Montoneros, devised by Walsh and Verbitsky, they murdered 24 Innocents and injured 66. The bomb in the Federal Police Dining Room detonated while people were having lunch in 1 crime with total treachery pic.twitter.com/umEFNcRlWN
– Victoria Villarruel (@VickyVillarruel) July 2, 2021
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Police announce the death of ‘Pepe’
On March 12, 1977, ‘Pepe’ was arrested on public roads by civilians. His family came to think that he had been kidnapped.
The “official” information they had appeared in several newspapers on June 3 of that same year, in which they announced that, apparently, “three subversives had been killed in a confrontation”, among them ‘Pepe’, who was also accused of having planted the bomb.
According to what the police stated in a statement at the time and which Reato collects in his book: “The attempted arrest was related to the culmination of a long investigation carried out by the Federal Police in an attempt to determine the author of the blowing up of the dining room of the Federal Security Superintendency.
In addition, he made sure that the two “guerrillas” had died in the middle of a confrontation with the “Legal Forces”.
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‘Pepe’, his true death and torture
Apparently, ‘Pepe’ was taken to the Navy Mechanics School (Esma) which, due to those years of violence in Argentina, was used as a clandestine detention and torture center.
He lasted approximately two months there and, apparently, was later handed over to the Federal Police.
The tortures he underwent can only be inferred from the conditions in which his body was in the morgue. “His teeth had been pulled out with pliers or pliers and his eye sockets gouged out, possibly with a spoon,” Reato describes.
In addition, the hands and the head showed signs of having been tied with steel cables, Reato assumes that “so that it would not move during those torments.”
Nearly two months after his death, his mother was finally able to retrieve his body. The woman noted bruises on her arms and hands, but was not allowed to fully examine her son.
Later he found out that they were “electric prod burn scars”, as he recalls in the journalist’s account.
According to morgue data, ‘Pepe Salgado’ would have reached the street alive where in clashes with the police he would have received ten gunshot woundswhich caused his death.
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