ABSTRACT
On February 2, 1981, less than two months prior to General Roberto Viola's takeover from his predecessor, General Jorge Videla, a 10 percent devaluation of the peso occurred that was to initiate a dramatic change in Argentina's economic situation. As far as the situation in the foreign sector was concerned, international reserves dropped considerably, and without previous notice, Argentina slowly lapsed into a partial suspension of payments of its foreign debt. The chapter analyzes the complex subject of Argentina's foreign debt and to provide an answer to a number of queries concerning it. It provides the process that fed foreign indebtedness from 1976 onward and accentuated it as from 1978, at the same time provoking the unprecedented destruction of Argentina's economic system. The chapter examines the comings and goings of the country's economic policies applied since the beginning of 1981, when the present global national economic crisis began to develop.
