In December 1981, the inhabitants of a small Salvadoran hamlet were systematically exterminated by the Atacatl Battalion, a US-trained counter-insurgency force. The Reagan administration, determined to preserve US support for El Salvador's war against leftist guerrillas, downplayed reports of this massacre, dismissing them as propaganda, and the American-funded war in El Salvador continued. Mark Danner's subsequent reconstruction is a masterpiece of scrupulous investigative journalism and a testament to the forgotten victims of one of the worst massacres in Latin American history.