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This paper explores the issue of silence under the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). Silence spread rapidly in Argentine society during the first years of the so called National Reorganization Process (PRN) and it became crucial for the maintenance of the illegal regime, This silence was actually assured not only by the action of the military government, but also by the clear identification of the political and social forces with the aims and values of the Proceso. However, this prevailing silence and the resulting failure of the existing discourses to articulate the effects of the dirty war resulted in a temporal suspension of meaning within the reality of the PRN. Silence became then the instance that would finally put into question the apparently smooth functioning of the PRN and would force the emergence and constitution of a new social movement and a new language of human rights in the country.