The recent history of Argentine Intelligence cannot be told without mentioning the figure of Antonio “Jaime” Stiuso. His influence is not explained by a formal position – he has not held one for more than a decade – but by something deeper and more persistent: the control of knowledge, networks and routines that survive changes in government. In the SIDE, names pass; links, files and internal codes remain. Stiuso embodied the operational heart of Intelligence for years. He was the man who accumulated sensitive information, international contacts and political reading skills. When he fell from grace, he not only took his personal history with him: he left a structure that continued to function with its logic. Since then, his figure reappears recurrently, as a reference, as an informal consultation, as a godfather of cadres who continue to be active within the organization.
This persistence reveals a structural characteristic of the Argentine Intelligence system: its institutional weakness. Each attempt at reform – AFI, interventions, dissolution and return to SIDE – promised to put an end to the past, but ended up reproducing known schemes. The dependence on experienced operators, the lack of new cadres with internal legitimacy and the opacity in the chain of command reinforce the gravitation of figures like Stiuso, even when they are no longer in the organizational chart. The influence is also sustained by the international dimension. For decades, Stiuso built fluid relationships with foreign agencies, a capital that the Argentine State never managed to institutionalize.
When political authorities change, these bridges do not disappear: they are recycled. In a system that needs external cooperation, whoever knows the channels and speaks the language of the trade retains real power. Stiuso’s “ghost” is not just a person: it is a mode of operation. It explains why internal affairs are never completely organized, why formal leadership coexists with informal leadership, why each leak refers to long-standing disputes.
It also exposes a broader problem: the difficulty of building a professional, controlled Intelligence with clear rules, which does not depend on individual figures but on solid institutions.
