foreign
As the Cold War increased in momentum the Soviet Union and China began
funding, fostering, and actively supporting communist insurgencies around the world.
Their primary locations were Africa, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia,
where most of these former European colonies were ripe for being influenced.
For the United States the greatest threat was just 90 miles south of Florida, Cuba and
the communist dictatorship established by Fidel Castro and his proxies throughout Latin America.
Who was Ernesto "Che" Guevara? How is he important to the global Marxist revolutionary movement?
Why was he considered both toxic and dangerous to his communist supporters and the United States
alike? Hello I'm Colin Heaton former soldier, Marine Corps scout sniper, history professor, historian and
book author and we will answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina and was the eldest of five
children in an upper class Argentine family of pre-independence immigrant Spanish and Irish
ancestry. Guevara grew up in a family that had communist sympathies and supported the Republican
communist forces in the Spanish Civil War. He was an active athlete and was competitive in swimming,
football (or soccer if you will), golf, cycling, shooting, and was a professional rugby player.
He was also a chess master as a teenager taught by his father and attended the University of Buenos
Aires where he graduated and then enrolled in medical school. His favorite subjects in school
included philosophy, literature, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology,
biology, history, and archeology. This is where he began fine-tuning his Marxist ideologies. Guevara
traveled throughout Central and South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease
he witnessed, blaming the American-owned United Fruit Company among others for the conditions,
In Guatemala he was supported by president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman who had nationalized
land owned by United Fruit Company, almost 300, 000 acres and he also started land reforms,
confiscating land from wealthy families and redistributing the property of the peasants.
The United States became aware in May 1954 that a ship carrying infantry and light
artillery weapons was dispatched by communist Czechoslovakia for the Arbenz's government.
The CIA response was to support an armed force of several hundred anti-Arbenz Guatemalan refugees
and mercenaries led by Carlos Castillo Armas to remove Arbenz from office, and on 27 June Arbenz
chose to resign and Armas became president. This event drove Guevara deep into the communist camp.
Unfortunately where Guevara failed in his logic was the fact that the American
companies in Latin America provided jobs to the locals that they would otherwise not have.
Guevara had become a known quantity and he was a hunted man and he sought refuge in the Argentine
Embassy until he could be given safe conduct to Mexico. As a result of this perceived exploitation
by the wealthy capitalist nations he firmly adopted the Marxist mantra of a Workers Revolution.
Guevara swore on a photograph of Joseph Stalin to become the ultimate communist. Guevara arrived
in Mexico City on 21 September 1954 and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital
and at the Hospital Infantile de Mexico and lectured on various medical subjects.
His first wife Hilda noted in her memoir "My Life with Che" that for a while Guevara
considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by
the poverty he saw and blamed on capitalism. While in Mexico City Guevara met Raul and Fidel Castro
and he joined their 26th of July Movement, then sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma to assist
in the overthrowing of U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Upon Landing many of the 82 men
on board were either killed in the attack by Batista's forces or executed upon capture, with only 22 men
including Guevara remaining to join Castro's fledgling force. Guevara soon rose to prominence
among the insurgents for his intellect and tactical knowledge and was promoted to second in
command, and he played a key role in the two-year Guerrilla war that finally removed Batista.
After the revolution he led the Council of Justice that reviewed the cases and approved of the firing
squads for Cubans deemed to have not supported the revolution. Che sent many people even the innocent
to their deaths which did not go unnoticed abroad. The numbers if those killed by Che
Guevara personally number around 100 but of those killed at his direction the estimates go as high
as 20,000. Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness, including slow torture.
Even of family members of those who were accused of anti-revolutionary activities.
In a February 5th 1959 letter to Luis Paredez Lopez in Buenos Aires, Guevara states
unequivocally quote: "The executions by firing squads are not only necessary for the people
of Cuba but also an imposition of the people," end quote. Alternatively, during the revolution Guevara
also made it compulsory for the literate members of the revolution to teach the illiterate how to
read and teach other basic educational skills. He also created several medical clinics and trained
local physicians to help treat illnesses that killed people outside of the developed world; even
basic treatments of common diseases to include measles, chickenpox and malaria were rare and caused
deaths among the poor. He also authored the books the Motorcycle Diaries, Guerrilla Warfare, Episodes
of the Cuban Revolutionary War, while he was reforming Cuba's banking and education systems
as well as helping create and modernize the Cuban military. Castro Courted the Soviet Union
and Premier Nikita Khrushchev needed by Cubans to support and place intercontinental ballistic
missiles there as a threat to the United States, and support Cuban sovereignty as a Soviet ally.
However Guevara's ruthless executions had become an embarrassment for Castro as he needed to court
the Soviets, but also not antagonize the United States and alienate other Latin America leaders
who feared a similar result in their countries. On June 12, 1959 Castro Saint Guevara on a three-month
tour of mostly Bandung-Pack countries such as Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka,
Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, and Greece, as well as the cities of Singapore and Hong
Kong. Understanding that at some point the killing must stop Castro sent Guevara out of Cuba, which
allowed Castro to appear to distance himself from Guevara and his ruthless methods which troubled
the United States and even the USSR, which was reflected by some of the members of Castro's 26th
July Movement. When Guevara returned to Cuba Castro had assumed total control and Guevara became
finance minister and head of the banking system and education. In retaliation president Dwight D
Eisenhower sharply reduced United States imports of Cuban sugar hurting the economy. At the end of 1960
as part of his economic reforms to offset the loss of the U.S markets he visited Czechoslovakia, the
Soviet Union, North Korea, Hungary, and East Germany and signed, for instance a trade agreement in East
Berlin on December 17, 1960. The result was abject failure as those places did not have a free market
economy and were therefore not strong enough to be competitive with, or even supportive of each
other. Following the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion on April 17, 1961 Guevara went to Moscow and signed
the agreement bringing missiles to Cuba. Guevara wanted this to be a public action, but Khrushchev
demanded secrecy. Guevara was not pleased, hoping to have Cuba recognized as a nuclear power and he
openly stated that quote: "If Cuba was in control of the missiles we would have fired them at the USA,"
end quote. Guevara's social reforms also targeted the gay community of Cuba, such as the arrest and
torture of openly gay writer Virgilio Pinera and many others who disappeared. There was no
room for homosexuality in the new Cuba. On February 24th 1965 Guevara gave a speech in Algiers where
he condemned the Soviet method of social and economic reforms and believed that basically
Soviet communism was a fraud and was reverting back to imperialist capitalism. Since the USSR
was the primary financial supporter of Cuba this was not well received either in Moscow or Havana.
When he returned Guevara disappeared from public view. On October 3rd 1965 Castro publicly revealed
an undated letter supposedly written to him by Guevara seven months earlier and called "Che
Guevara's farewell letter." In the letter Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban
Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for revolutionary causes abroad.
He also resigned from all of his positions in the Cuban government and Communist Party and
renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship. Guevara then went to Africa with over 100 Cubans to assist
in the communist efforts in the Congo, but the U.S was well aware of his activities during the
Congo crisis. The National Security Agency was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing
transmissions aboard the United States Naval Ship Private Jose F. Valdez, a spy ship listening post
located in the Indian Ocean. The expedition was a complete disaster and Guevara with a
dozen survivors fled to Tanzania and stayed in the Cuban Embassy in Dar es Salaam. He then went
to Spain and met with former Argentine President Juan Perron who was given sanctuary by Francisco
Franco. Guevara told Peron of his plans in South America, in particular Bolivia, and Perron warned
against, it predicting failure. On November 3rd 1966 Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz on a
flight from Montevideo using the false name of Adolfo Mena Gonzalez. His cover was as a
middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the organization of American states. He would learn
that Bolivia's Communist Party was a clown show and he received no support from the people who
often informed on his units to the police. Now the hunt for Guevara was on. Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban
exile turned a CIA Special Activities Division operative and helicopter pilot, advised Bolivian
troops during the hunt for Guevera in Bolivia. In addition the 2007 documentary, "My Enemy's Enemy"
alleges that Nazi war criminal former Gestapo Chief in Leon, France, the notorious Klaus Barbie
advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara's eventual capture. Despite being hungr,y
haggard, and wounded, upon his capture Guevara was still defiant. On the morning of October 9
Bolivian president Renee Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. Rodriguez and the CIA wanted
him taken to Panama for further interrogation, but the order was carried out by Mario Teran, a
27 year old sergeant, Guevara was shot nine times by Teran. This included five times in his legs,
once in the right shoulder and arm, and once in the chest and throat, Guevara's body was taken to Vallegrande
and photographed and identified. His hands were severed and sent to Buenos Aires for positive
identification, and later sent to Cuba. On October 17 1997 Guevara's remains, with those of six of his
fellow combatants were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the
Cuban City of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban
Revolution. A marker exists in Bolivia showing where he had been placed in the mass grave before
the excavation and identification of the remains. Guevara's personal possessions, including his watch
and pipe are on display at the CIA Museum. Scholar, philosopher, writer, teacher, healer, revolutionary,
mass murderer, and psychopath. Who was the real Che Guevara? Despite his controversial life
and actions Time magazine named him one of the most 100 influential people of the 20th century.
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