Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía

by Russell H. Bartley, Sylvia Erickson Bartley

Overview

This is a stellar, courageous work of investigative journalism and historical scholarship—grippingly told, meticulously documented, and doggedly pursued over thirty years. Tracking a Cold War confrontation that has compromised the national interests of both Mexico and the United States, Eclipse of the Assassins exposes deadly connections among historical events usually remembered as isolated episodes.
            Authors Russell and Sylvia Bartley shed new light on the U.S.-instigated “dirty wars” that ravaged all of Latin America in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s and reveal—for the first time—how Mexican officials colluded with Washington in its proxy contra war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. They draw together the strands of a clandestine web linking:

• the assassination of prominent Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía
• the torture and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena
• the Iran-Contra scandal
• a major DEA sting against key CIA-linked Bolivian, Panamanian, and Mexican drug traffickers
• CIA-orchestrated suppression of investigative journalists
• criminal collusion of successive U.S. and Mexican administrations that has resulted in the unprecedented power of drug kingpins like “El Chapo” Guzmán.

            Eclipse of the Assassins places a major political crime—the murder of Buendía—in its full historical perspective and shows how the dirty wars of the past are still claiming victims today.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299306403
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	11/30/2015
Edition description:	1
Pages:	552
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Russell H. Bartley is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He worked as a correspondent for the Mexico City daily newspaper unomásuno from 1980 to 1989. Sylvia Erickson Bartley is a historian, historical records archivist, and photographer. She worked as a photojournalist for unomásuno from 1984 to 1989.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments                             
 
Introduction: Journalist Down
1 Knight Errant                                  
2 Under the Carpet                            
3 Legwork                                          
4 Coordinates of Power                     
5 Ballet Folklórico, Act I                   
6 Ballet Folklórico, Act II                  
7 Grand Finale                                               
8 After the Curtain                            
9 Back on the Pavement                    
10 secret, noforn                            
11 Attorneys in Wonderland             
12 On Down the Rabbit Hole            
13 By Mutual Consent                      
14 Alien Terrain                                 
15 Prohibited Conversations             
16 Extreme Prejudice                         
17 Occam’s Razor: Parsing the Evidence                  
Epilogue                                             
 
Glossary of Names                            
Notes                                                 
Sources                                               
Index

Editorial Reviews

A compelling account of the thirty-year investigation by reporters Russell and Sylvia Bartley to unravel two of the most significant political assassinations of the twentieth century—the blatant 1984 slaying of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía and the brutal 1985 torture-execution of U.S. DEA agent Kiki Camarena. Rather than finger-pointing, arm-waving accusations, the authors use these killings to plunge deep into the clandestine domain created by shipment of CIA guns south through Mexico to the Nicaragua Contras and smuggling of drugs north into the U.S., simultaneously compromising the Mexican state and corrupting U.S.-Mexican relations.”—Alfred W. McCoy, author of Torture and Impunity: The CIA Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation



“These events have been a taboo subject for mainstream media and most academics. Like a Russian novel, Eclipse of the Assassins has a vast cast of characters meshing together in a world where the murder is never perfectly solved but is finally understood.”—Charles Bowden, author of Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields


“An informed and informative expose of the dark underbelly of American political corruption that was well hidden from the general public by the presidential administrations that inflicted it. . . . Invaluable and highly recommended.”—Midwest Book Review


“Reflects a thirty-year investigation by the two reporter authors who examine two of the most important political assassinations of the 20th century: a Mexican journalist and a U.S. DEA agent. . . . No collection strong in international politics or espionage should be without this hard-hitting examination, which takes two seemingly isolated circumstances and connects a range of events.”—Bookwatch


“Uncovers the authors’ proposed motive for the Buendía assassination: his knowledge of Mexico’s connection to the Iran-Contra affair. . . . Offers important insights into Mexico’s dirty war and the US-Mexican relationship during the late Cold War. . . . Bartley and Bartley have uncovered a chilling transborder history of government collusion to silence criticism and subvert dissidents.”—Hispanic American Historical Review

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