Special Section: Interpretative Challenges in the Archive: Rumor, Forgery, and Denunciation in Latin America and the Caribbean JONATHAN D. ABLARD AND ERNESTO BOHOSLAVSKY Rumors, Pescado Podrido and Disinformation in Interwar Argentina Abstract This article identifies how and why Argentine political rumors were created, spread, and legitimized by government officials, military officers and the press in the interwar years. In that period, the practice of what we now call “fake news”—known as pescado podrido (rotten fish) in Argentina for it poisons the one who hears or repeats it—became more common and took on international proportions. In Argentina, a variety of forces drove the increase in disinforma- tion, including political instability, the rising (and later the banning) of the major- itarian Radical Party, elite anxiety about the threat of communism, and a long- lasting nationalist fear about the integrity of borders. Authorities and right-wing politicians were inclined to see any anti-government actions as linked to interna- tional communism and, in some cases, imaginary Jewish conspiracies. The article offers two case studies: One refers to the anti-Radical Party rumors, especially those spread in the days immediately before and after the coup d’  etat in 1930; and the other to a more generalized atmosphere of anti-communist inspired rumors and fake news in the interwar period. This article is based on research in government archives and newspaper collections in Patagonian cities, Buenos Aires, and Washington, D.C. Argentine official sources included records from the Ministry of the Interior, the Gobernaci  on del Neuqu en, President Agust  ın P. Justo’s papers and recently declassified army and navy documents. Introduction This article analyzes the creation, diffusion, and legitimization of fake news and rumors by government officials, conservative politicians, military officers, and the press in Argentina during the interwar years. The introduction of universal obligatory male suffrage in 1912 brought the advent of popular politics but also an authoritarian and anti-communist reaction supported by sectors of the mili- tary, middle class, and the traditional elite. Internationally, in the interwar years Argentina was the site of increased trade and diplomatic competition between Journal of Social History vol. 55 no. 1 (2021), pp. 65–84 doi:10.1093/jsh/shab043 © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jsh/article/55/1/65/6365172 by Ithaca College Library user on 08 September 2021