Guevara

ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA, THE RESTLESS REVOLUTIONARY from Argentina, joined Fidel Castro in Mexico in the mid‑fifties, and from then on Guevara's star was in the ascendancy. Eventually he would become one of the most colorful lights in the Communist galaxy.

Guevara's activities during a turbulent ten years have been fully recorded, by himself as well as by others: the expedition to Cuba, the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, final victory, and then the many positions Guevara occupied in the new Castro regime. But after this came mystery, a period of two years when Guevara slipped completely from public sight. Guevara had made a lengthy trip which carried him from the United Nations to Africa, to Europe, to Asia, and then back to Cuba‑where he promptly disappeared. Historians, newspapermen, and intelligence agents have delved into the puzzle, but as yet only partial fragments have come to light.

In Paris, I was able to learn some of the missing pieces of information, details regarding Guevara's ill‑fated attempt to lead a guerrilla war in Africa, and his later, final adventure in Bolivia. That Guevara had secretly returned to Africa after his previous, well‑publicized trip was first learned when Ciro Roberto Bustos, an Argentinian who joined Guevara in Bolivia and was later captured by Bolivian troops, made a detailed statement to Bolivian Intelligence which included the gists of conversations Bustos had had with Guevara. Guevara had believed, according to Bustos, that revolutions could be engendered in Africa and South America, with the advantage in favor of Africa because of its greater distance from the United States and its greater logistic possibilities (Soviet Union, China, United Arab Republic, Algeria). During his extensive voyage through Africa and Asia before disappearing from Cuba, Guevara arranged for his incorporation in the struggle in the Congo, that is, he chose Africa. But the experience turned out to be negative, because, he said, the human element failed. . .

What had happened in Africa?

One of the collaborators with Cuban Intelligence in Paris was a Cuban doctor, Rodrigo Alvarez Cambra (who used the nickname "Kiko"). Cambra had obtained a scholarship for advanced studies in his field, orthopedics, and spent about a year in Paris, during which time his intelligence tasks consisted primarily of working among university students. Cambra visited the chancellery for romantic as well as professional reasons: he was dating a French girl, Anik, employed there as a secretary and translator.

Cambra had been in the Congo with Guevara, and in conversations with me he revealed what had happened there. For Guevara and a group of Cubans who were with him this had been an odyssey of frustration. They had endured severe privations, and little had been accomplished. Rather than leading a guerrilla campaign, they found themselves giving their African allies rudimentary military training, and when not occupied thus, they were busy trying to keep the tribes from fighting among themselves.

In one combat, Cambra related, a Cuban and several Africans were killed, and a number of Guevara's African allies had fled in terror. Later the tribesmen who had not retreated demanded that the others drink the blood of slain enemies in order to regain their lost valor. For good measure, the Cubans were expected to do likewise, and this they refused to do.

There were angry arguments, and the tribe that was expected to drink blood rebelled outright. Guevara and his Cubans had to flee through the jungles, pursued by enemy troops and their former allies. It took them a month to get to safety, and Guevara remarked in disgust that it would be another hundred years before the Africans would be ready to receive help in winning their "liberation."

Cambra revealed that the Russians had been against Guevara's African adventure, warning that the Africans were not yet sufficiently developed for a movement of this type. Fidel Castro had not agreed, and there had been friction between him and the Russians over the matter. As it turned out, events proved the Russians to be right, and the affair ended in a near‑farcical fiasco.

Guevara eventually slipped back into Cuba, there to prepare his Bolivian adventure‑he was now accepting his second choice of a target area, since Africa had failed. Toward the end of 1967 he secretly entered Bolivia, and there launched a new guerrilla movement. Despite initial successes, the guerrillas soon suffered setbacks because of the lack of cooperation of the local peasantry and persistent pursuit by the Bolivian army.

The Intelligence Centro in Paris performed a support role for Guevara. While he was in Africa, groups of eight to twelve soldiers would arrive periodically in Paris from Cuba. All were Cuban Negroes, and the Centro had to find hotel accommodations for them before they could be sent to Africa. Their rugged appearance caused French eyebrows to be lifted, particularly in view of their pose as "technicians" and other "professional" people. Even after Guevara's adventure had ended, Cuban Negro soldiers were still being sent to Africa as Castro persisted in attempting to establish his influence there. A substantial Cuban military mission was accepted and set up at Brazzaville.

The Paris Centro continued to lend support when Guevara was in Bolivia. Isolated as he was in the Bolivian jungles, Guevara had difficulty in communicating with Havana. This problem was partially solved by having Guevara send written messages to an agente buzon in Paris, who then turned them over to the Centro. These messages were transmitted in sealed envelopes. From Paris the envelopes, still unopened, were dispatched by courier to Havana, where they were subjected to laboratory tests to find out whether they might have been tampered with at any point in their long journey.

A major service performed for Guevara by the Centro was the recruitment of a writer to go to Bolivia to gather material for what was to have been the first public revelation of Guevara's presence in that country. Havana had requested that a trustworthy and ideologically suitable writer be found, and to this end Lopez, the chief of the Centro, contacted Francois Maspero, a French editor and publisher with whom Intelligence had had dealings. Maspero, in turn put Lopez in contact with Regis Debray, a French writer of lesser note. A number of conversations ensued, and Lopez succeeded in recruiting Debray for the task. Lopez, in talking to me, described Debray as impulsive, determined, highly cooperative, and "considers himself very brave." Debray was sent to Cuba, and from there made his way to Bolivia and Guevara's guerrilla encampment. Bu romantic dreams in Paris did not jibe with the realities of a harsh bush existence in Bolivia, and Debray was soon eager to leave t guerrillas. He did so, was captured, brought to trial, and given thirty‑year prison sentence.

Cuban Intelligence did not lose interest in Debray. In Paris, the Centro continued to maintain contact with his mother.

Guevara's Bolivian effort ended in complete failure. Guevara and the remnants of his group were tracked down, and Guevara was taken prisoner and shortly afterwards executed. The story did no end there, however, for the Intelligence Center in Paris. Guevara had kept a daily diary in Bolivia, and this had been captured by the Bolivian army. Newspapermen and publishers' representatives from around the world sought to buy or otherwise obtain copies of the diary, but the Bolivian High Command delayed in reaching a decision on this ‑ and then a startling event occurred. Fidel Castro announced that Cuba had secured a copy of the diary and was publishing and releasing it for worldwide distribution.

How had Cuba obtained the diary? It was soon revealed that copy had been sent to Cuba by a most unlikely person, Anton Arguedas, Minister of the Interior in the Bolivian government, was head of the Bolivian police had played a major role in breaking the clandestine apparatus which was to have provided support for Guevara's guerrillas. Had Arguedas been a Castro agent all along? The answer seems to be no, for the Cuban government appears to have been as surprised by his actions as were the Bolivians. The Central Principal of Intelligence in Cuba sent an urgent message to the Centro in Paris instructing it to send two officials to make contact with Arguedas, who had fled to Chile. These officials were to find out if Arguedas wanted to go to Cuba, and if so, to assist him in getting there. They were also to ascertain whether he had any additional documents he wished to turn over to the Cuban government.

Roberto Alvares Barrera (code name "Remigio") and I were selected to go to Chile. Ambassador Castellanos, who maintained friendly relations with other Latin American diplomats in Paris, was requested to obtain Chilean visas for us and this he accomplished promptly. The person we were instructed to contact for assistance in Chile was a sympathizer toward the Cuban Revolution, Senator Salvador Allende, now president of Chile. Just as we were about to depart, a new message from Havana called the whole thing off. Arguedas was talking wildly, and Intelligence now thought better of trying to contact him.

One last chapter of the Guevara affair remained. Three Cubans survived Guevara's final battle with the Bolivian Rangers who had been pursuing him. Realizing that further fighting was futile‑"This is finished" they said ‑ they had decided to flee rather than risk their lives further. In Chile, Senator Allende sent a number of Bolivian scouts fanning out to see if they could make contact with any guerrilla survivors. Two of these guides eventually found the three Cubans and began guiding them to Chile.

The group encountered Guido ("Inti") Peredo Leigue, who had been the Bolivian guerrilla chieftain under Guevara. Peredo was also fleeing, and he demanded the right to get to Chile first, with the Cubans to follow later. The Cubans heatedly stated that they were foreigners who had come to fight for Bolivia, and it was their prerogative to leave first, and that at any rate Peredo could wait because he knew the land better. The Cubans continued on their journey, prepared to battle with Peredo if he attempted to stop them. Thus ended ignominiously the comradeship Guevara had sought to develop between Bolivians and Cubans. (The following year Peredo was killed by Bolivian police.)

Before reaching the Chilean frontier, the Cubans and their two Bolivian guides arrived at a town frequented by border smugglers. They sought food and rest, and were taken to the home of a local official, who greeted them in apparent friendship. They realized, however, that he was setting a trap to capture them. To make their escape they had to shoot their way out of the town. As they were leaving they heard Bolivian transport planes circling overhead, presumably carrying paratroopers. The troops were evidently unable to jump because of the night darkness.

Once into Chile the five men hid in a cave, where they listened to a transistor radio they had somehow obtained along the way. When news reports convinced them that Chile would not be hostile to them, they surrendered to the Chilean authorities. The men were granted safe ‑ conduct to leave the country. Havana contacted its Embassy in Paris, which made arrangements for the five men to fly to Tahiti and then to Paris. The French acquiesced to this provided that the Cubans made no public statements while on French soil.

Ambassador Castellanos and the second in command of the Intelligence Centro, Alberto Diaz Vigo (who doubled as consul), flew to Tahiti to meet the guerrillas and escort them to Paris. I was among the Cuban officials who greeted them at Le Bourget Airport and took them to Orly Airport, from whence they flew on to Prague, Moscow, arid Havana. In conversing with the men, I learned the details of their escape and obtained new insights into the Guevara affair in Bolivia. For one thing, I was told, Bolivia had never been Guevara's primary goal. He had planned to use it merely as a springboard. From Bolivia the guerrilla movement was to have fanned out into adjoining countries, creating what Guevara hoped would become "two, three, or many Viet Nams" in the Western Hemisphere.

One of the reasons the guerrilla movement floundered was that it failed to receive expected reinforcements. Additional men trained in Cuba were to join Guevara, but upon arriving in La Paz they would meet with Mario Monje, a Bolivian Communist leader who had broken with Guevara over the issue of Cuban as against Bolivian leadership of the guerrillas. Monje, I was told by the Guevara survivors, would inform the new arrivals that the movement was "a disaster, a failure," that they would not be able to reach the guerrillas. He would convince them to turn back.

There has been puzzlement as to why Guevara persisted in remaining in Bolivia‑ when it became evident that his group faced inevitable defeat and destruction. The survivors revealed that this was not so, that actually Guevara had decided to leave Bolivia. He remained those final‑and what proved to be fatal‑days because he was attempting to locate a guerrilla remnant that had become separated from the main body, and which he did not want to abandon. (Guevara was unaware that that group had already been wiped out by the Bolivian army.)

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The Ernesto Guevara of those last, desperate days was not the flashing figure of legendary fame. He was "wasted physically, totally destroyed," according to the survivors. Realizing that defeat was imminent, "everything bothered him, exasperated him‑he had a temper of all the devils upon him." Not only had Guevara suffered decisive military defeat; worse, his hopes had evaporated and his dreams forsaken him. The long and arduous road he had chosen to travel had ended in complete failure.

There was a footnote to the story of the Paris Centro and Guevara. Months after Cambra, the doctor who had been with him in Africa, returned to Havana from Paris, a German lady came to the

Cuban Embassy. A secretary inquired of her, "What do you wish? " "I am the wife of Dr. Alvarez Cambra," the woman answered, "and I want to ask about him, I want to see him." She was clearly in an advanced state of pregnancy.

The secretary informed me, and I then spoke to the woman, asking her again what she wanted. She repeated impatiently, "1 am Dr. Cambra's wife, and I haven't heard from him in two or three months, and I want to see him."

I told her that Cambra had returned to Cuba, whereupon she staged an emotional scene, crying that she had been abandoned. I

later learned that the woman had obtained travel papers and had gone to Cuba to seek Cambra. This led to amused speculation in the Intelligence section: the staff knew that Cambra already had one wife in Cuba.