ABSTRACT
Jacobo Timerman's repeated assertions to this effect blur the distinction between genocidal totalitarian systems and the considerably different bureaucratic-authoritarian system that exists in Argentina. Timerman documents Argentina's persistent revolutions of falling expectations. He has a sharp eye for detail, plus an unflinching capacity to name the names of his tormentors; he speaks with a frankness that helps illumine a national calamity no less than a personal tragedy. Timerman himself is deeply troubled by the behavior of the Jewish community of Argentina. He repeatedly alludes to the fact that its leaders preferred to negotiate in silence, through low-profile diplomacy, rather than make the issue of anti-Semitism a public debate. The relative ease with which Timerman's newspaper empire was dismantled is indicative of this isolation. Unfortunately, psychological discernment is undermined by sociological vacuity. Timerman exhibits a remarkable ability to capture whole the soul of a nation, or at any rate the psychology that informs its polity.
