[9] Timerman gained work as a journalist and rose in his profession, reporting for various publications including the Agence France-Presse,[8] Mail, What, News Charts, New Zion, and Commentary.

For example:[6][17] One morning two letters arrived in the same mail: one was from the rightist terrorist organization (protected and utilized by paramilitary groups) condemning me to death because of its belief that my militancy on behalf of the right to trial for anyone arrested and my battle for human rights were hindrances in overthrowing communism; the other letter was from the terrorist Trotskyite group, Ejercito Revolucionario Popular (ERP)—the Popular Revolutionary Army—and indicated that if I continued accusing leftist revolutionaries of being Fascists and referring to them as the lunatic Left, I would be tried and most likely sentenced to death.Timerman maintained his outspoken support for Israel.

A coup in 1976 installed General Jorge Rafael Videla and began "el Proceso"— military rule, including widespread persecution that came to be known as Argentina's "Dirty War".

[23] At the beginning of April, the military began to arrest people connected to the Argentine banker David Graiver, who had left the country in 1975 and was reported killed in a plane accident in Mexico in 1976.

[30] Timerman later testified:[31] After arresting me at my home in the federal capital, they took me to the police headquarters of Buenos Aires Province where I was interrogated by Camps and Etchecolatz; from there they transferred me to Campo de Mayo, where they made me sign a statement.

Ultimately, I was legally interned at the Magdalena penitentiary.Both Ramón Camps and Miguel Etchecolatz were later indicted and convicted for their involvement in widespread torture and "disappearances" during the Dirty War.

[46] The Israeli government maintained diplomatic ties and arms sales to the Argentine regime during this period, despite the Carter Administration's end to US weapons transfers under the Kennedy-Humphrey Amendment.

[54] Carter raised his administration's concerns about human rights in Argentina publicly when General Videla visited Washington DC in November 1977 to sign the Panama Canal Treaties.

[55][56] As part of a broad change in foreign policy based around human rights, the United States Carter Administration in 1978 had condemned Argentina's activities.

These included Chris Dodd, John H. Rousselot, Gus Yatron, Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal, Henry Waxman, and Gladys Spellman, who compared the situation in Argentina to the Nazi Holocaust.

[60] Several commentators have credited the Timerman case and his 1981 memoir with raising awareness of human rights abuses in South America with an otherwise apathetic United States audience.

[67] Seeking to maintain good relations with Argentina to avoid reprisals against political prisoners, the Israeli government downplayed the significance of Timerman's imprisonment.

The Foreign Ministry pressed for relocation of the ceremony on 25 May 1980, when Timerman was to receive the Golden Pen of Freedom Award, from the Knesset to a room in Hebrew University.

Timerman was invited to lecture about his experience in Israel, Europe, Canada, and the United States, which increased his international recognition and publicized the human rights situation in Argentina.

For instance, it described a weekly lecture called "The Academy" held for police and military officers, who were taught that they were fighting a "World War III" against left-wing terrorists.

[46] Argentine diplomats continued to pressure Israel on the topic, saying that Timerman "takes the name of the Holocaust in vain by comparing Argentina today with Nazi Germany".

[31] In 1981, Timerman publicly opposed U.S. President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Ernest Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.

[76] When Timerman attended a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pertaining to Lefever, his presence brought additional attention to the issue of human rights in Argentina.

[80][81] Kristol used the Graiver connection to explain the inaction of the Jewish community in Argentina, suggesting that it had "implicitly vindicat[ed] the Reagan administration's prudent policy on human rights".

[15] On the other hand, Timerman's experiences were used as good reason by some to oppose the Kirkpatrick Doctrine—a key concept under the Reagan Administration for maintaining diplomatic relations with regimes that were classified as "authoritarian", not "totalitarian".

He wrote: "And I'm angry, too, with us, with the Israelis who by exploiting, oppressing, and victimizing them [the Palestinians] made the Jewish people lose their moral tradition, their proper place in history.

"[2] The book describes Timerman's decisions: still recovering from having been tortured in prison, he advised his son Daniel to accept a jail sentence rather than do military service in Lebanon.

"[2] Timerman was one of the earliest and most outspoken Israeli critics of the war, and his status as a Zionist human rights advocate made his opinion difficult to discount.

"[89] Upon returning to Argentina, Timerman testified to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP) about his experience in prison.

[92] In 1985 the government prosecuted numerous people for crimes committed during the Dirty War in the Trial of the Juntas, and major figures were convicted and sentenced to prison.

[96] Timerman was an early critic of Carlos Saúl Menem of the Justicialist Party, who became a presidential candidate after serving as governor of La Rioja Province.

In 1988, during the presidential campaign, Timerman criticized Menem's plan to establish a free port at Isla Martin Garcia, saying it would encourage drug trafficking and money laundering.

[32] "Almost all the torturers were free before this latest batch of pardons", wrote Timerman, "but now the leaders who conceived, planned, and carried out the only genocide recorded in Argentinian history are also at large.

[97] In 1996, with journalist Horacio Verbitsky, novelist Tomás Eloy Martínez, and others, Timerman co-founded a press freedom organization in Buenos Aires known as Periodisitas.

[102] On 9 October 2007, the Catholic priest Christian Von Wernich, personal confessor of provincial chief of police Ramón Camps and holding rank of inspector under Etchecolatz, was convicted of involvement in the abduction and torture of Timerman and numerous other political prisoners in the 1970s.