Leopoldo Galtieri

Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli (15 July 1926 – 12 January 2003) was an Argentine military officer who served as the de facto President of Argentina from December 1981 to June 1982. Galtieri ruled as a military dictator during the National Reorganization Process as leader of the Third Junta with Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo.

Galtieri was chief combat engineer of the Argentine Army and a patron of the 1976 military coup d'état, which helped him become commander-in-chief of the army in 1980. Galtieri overthrew Roberto Eduardo Viola, was appointed president, and established Argentina as a strong Cold War ally of NATO and the United States, while introducing fiscally conservative economic reforms, and increasing Argentine covert support for the anti-communist Contras guerrillas during the Nicaraguan civil war. In domestic policy, General Galtieri continued the Dirty War with the 601 Intelligence Battalion death squad reporting directly to him.

Galtieri's declining popularity due to his human rights abuses and the worsening economic stagnation caused him to order an invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982. Galtieri was removed from power after Argentina's defeat by the British Armed Forces in the Falklands War in June, which led to the restoration of democracy and, in 1986, his court martial prosecution and conviction for war crimes and other offences. Galtieri was pardoned by Carlos Menem in 1989 and lived in obscurity until his arrest for new charges shortly before his death in 2003.