Companero

by Jorge G. Castaneda

  ‡2 Che was aware of the problems he raised for those Communists willing to join the armed struggle. In one of the earliest entries in his campaign diary, he notes: “I warned the Bolivians about their responsibility in violating party discipline in order to adopt another line.” Ernesto Che Guevara, “Diario de Bolivia,” new annotated edition, published in Carlos Soria Galvarro, ed., El Che en Bolivia, Documentos y Testimonios, vol. 5 (La Paz: Cedoin, 1994), p. 63. This is the most recent edition of the journal, and the most complete in its annotations.

  *12 Some parts of this deluded plan might have been feasible. A confidential report by the Intelligence Section of the U.S. Department of Defense noted, on March 16, 1967, that a group of Panamanian revolutionaries planned to sail in secret from their country to Argentina, where they would receive military training at a camp commanded by Ernesto Guevara. Department of Defense Intelligence Report, Alleged Training of Panamanian Revolutionaries in Algeria, Colón, March 16, 1967, report number 2230024967 (Secret).

  †5 The plan has already been described by Régis Debray in La guerrilla del Che (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1975), p. 75. Benigno confirms it in Vie et mort (p. 127); his corroboration is important because it comes from somebody who was actually at the training camp.

  ‡3 Renán Montero, Iván, interview with the author, Havana, August 25, 1995. This interview was the only one in this book that could be neither recorded nor conducted with a witness present. Renán Montero had never spoken of his role in Bolivia, much less in Nicaragua, where he fought beginning in 1961 with Tomás Borge and the group of Sandinistas armed by Che; he was later deputy chief of state security from 1979 to 1990. A foreign correspondent accompanied this author to a house where Montero was staying, ratified that he was indeed Montero, and can vouch for the fact that Montero agreed to be interviewed by the author. However, he was not present at the interview itself.

  *13 Benigno, Vie et mort, pp. 131–132. The son of Jesús Suárez Gayol (el Rubio, the first Cuban to die in Bolivia), together with his wife, Marial, confirmed the general tenor of this anecdote, during a conversation with the author in Havana in January 1996.

  †6 This legend, confided to the author by a source who preferred not to be identified but who has proven reliable in the past, does not necessarily contradict the account given by Fidel Castro himself. In his interview with Gianni Miná in 1987, Castro described how, “on the day he left,” he played a practical joke on Che, inviting him to have lunch with several Cuban leaders; nobody recognized Guevara. This was not, however, the last time Che and Fidel were alone together; for on this occasion, Che appeared in secret before his own companions.

  *14 Monje states that he explained this to Che during their conversation on December 31, 1966: “We bought this property first of all as a transit point toward the south, a place to concentrate troops and then transfer them. Strategically, it is a very bad location. Not only because the mountains are bare and rugged, but because there are no inhabited settlements. It’s a kind of trap, unsuited for guerrilla warfare. You have to get out of there immediately, because you will lose. This is a bad choice from the point of view of the armed struggle; [we chose it] for another purpose entirely.” Monje, interview.

  †7 Another person close to the guerrillas, Humberto Vázquez Viaña (brother of Jorge, el Loro), maintains that Monje opposed the Alto Beni in part because it was home to Maoist peasant organizations controlled by his arch-enemy, the pro-Chinese Oscar Zamora. See Humberto Vázquez Viaña, “Antecedentes de la guerrilla del Che en Bolivia,” Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Stockholm, research paper, Series #46, 1987, p. 27.

  ‡4 Debray, interview. Debray adds: “I completed the report and gave it to Piñeiro. I did not speak with Che.”

  **2 It is still not clear to Debray whether his report was shelved for chronological reasons—by the time he finished it, Che was already on his way to Bolivia—or political reasons, due to Piñeiro’s and/or Castro’s reluctance to pass it on to Guevara. He was later told that his report would be used in opening a second and third front, in the Alto Beni and Cha-pare. Debray, interview.

  *15 Vázquez Viaña and Aliaga Saravia, Bolivia: Ensayo de revolutión continental, provisional edition, July 1970, pp. 18–19. Benigno suggests another explanation for Papi’s acceptance of Ñancahuazú: “Papi was a man with many illusions. These illusions had to do with his personal situation. Over in Lagunilla [near Ñancahuazú] he had met some girls; Coco Peredo was with one and Papi with the other, and that led them to have closer relations in the area.” The idea seems a bit far-fetched, but becomes more plausible in the light of Che’s personal evaluation of Papi, which remained unpublished until early 1996: “7/2/67 (three months). He has not reached top physical condition, nor does he have the ideal character. He has some bad habits and is somewhat resentful, apparently because his privileged position in the C. has been very diminished in the current constellation.” “7/5/67 (six months) Bad. Though I talked with him, he has not corrected his deficiencies, and is effective and enthusiastic only in combat conditions.” Carlos Soria Galvarro, “El Che evalua a sus hombres,” La Razón (La Paz), October 9, 1996.

  †8 “Piñeiro’s unit was supposed to support Ernesto in his activities in the Congo, or Argentina, or, finally, in his operation in Bolivia; but they did not prepare a network in Bolivia, either. There was nobody from Piñeiro’s team here.” Jorge Kolle, interview.

  *16 In contrast to Debray, Angel Braguer, “Lino,” asserts that “Che did read the Frenchman’s study, but he accepted the fait accompli in the southeast because he was in a hurry and, especially, he did not want to get into any more fights in Cuba.” Braguer, interview.

  †9 Lino, interview. According to Ciro Bustos, Che told him during a conversation at the camp that when Papi Martínez Tamayo traveled to Cuba in September, he said that Che should hurry up and enter Bolivia, or else he would never enter. See Ciro Bustos, “Account of His Stay,” p. 201.

  *17 Nora Feigín, telephone conversation with the author, Washington, D.C., September 22, 1995. Gustavo Villoldo, one of the three Cuban-origin envoys sent by the United States to Bolivia, confirms (when expressly questioned) that Che was indeed in Chile. Gustavo Villoldo, interview with the author, Miami, November 21, 1995. Reyna Carranza, Gustavo Roca’s second wife, has confirmed to the author that her husband did indeed tell her several years later that he had met Che at the Mendoza airport in Argentina (almost on the Chilean border), and that Che had blond hair, wore glasses, and was returning from Chile. But Roca died in the 1980’s and his papers were destroyed when he fled Argentina after the 1976 military coup; there is no way of knowing whether Roca made the story up, or his widow has embellished it somewhat. Rey, na Carranza, interview with Marcelo Monjes, at the request of the author, Córdoba, September 19, 1996.

  †10 In Benigno’s words, “There is no food, no medicines, no weapons.” Benigno, interview.

  *18 Hurwitch/AmEmbassy La Paz to Ruehcr/SecState, January 4, 1966 (Secret), NSF, Country File, Bolivia, vol. 4, box 8, LBJ Library. The CIA station chief at La Paz recounts in his unpublished memoirs that President Barrientos once feared he had suffered a heart attack; the CIA immediately sent a cardiologist from the United States. “Barrientos was too good a friend of the United States to neglect a possible illness.” John Tilton, unpublished memoirs, graciously lent to the author by John Tilton, chapter 9, “Chasing Ol’ Che,” p. 113.

  *19 Somebody said to me, I’m not sure if it was Piñeiro, How are you going back to Bolivia? I’m going back Moscow-Prague-La Paz. Do you know why I’m asking? We might have some information for you in Prague. So I arrived in Moscow, and said to them, Get me a direct flight to Bolivia. I don’t want to go to Prague. These people in Prague have something up their sleeve.” Monje, interview.

  †11 Monje, interview. In a coded message from Castro to Che dated December 14, 1966, and found among Che’s papers when he was captured on October 8, 1967, Fidel notified Che that he had “misinformed” Monje
as to the camp’s location. See Soria Galvarro, El Che, vol. 4, p. 299.

  *20 “My impression is that when he realized … I had decided not to yield on strategic matters, he focused on them in order to force a break.” Guevara, Diario, p. 73.

  †12 Monje asserts that Castro sent a message to Che in December, before the meeting, advising him to “make any concessions, except those having to do with strategy”—such as the matter of leadership. Monje, interview.

  ‡5 Guevara, Diario, p. 72. In his monthly summary, Che notes resignedly, “The party is against us and I don’t know where this will lead, but it will not stop us and might even be beneficial in the long run (I am almost sure of this). The more honest and combative people will be with us.” Ibid., p. 88.

  **3 “The Bolivian revolution and armed struggle must be planned and directed by Bolivians. Our leadership has no excuses to make, and takes very seriously its responsibility in this area. Within this requirement, it does not underestimate or reject any voluntary help it might receive from revolutionary cadres and experienced military from other countries. This view of the Political Commission was unanimously backed by the Central Committee.” Quoted in Soria Galvarro, El Che, vol. 1, p. 51.

  *21 Informe sobre la situation en Bolivia (en base al informe de la delegatión del PC Boliviano en conmemoración de la VII Reunión Partidaria en la RDA,” Institut für Marxis-mus-Leninismus beim Zentral Komitee der SED, Zentrales Parteiarchiv, SED Internationale Verbindungen, Bolivia 1963-70, DY 30/IV A2/20/142, Berlin.

  †13 This interpretation is shared by one of Che’s companions in the Congo and Régis Debray (La guerrilla, p. 103). It also coincides with Che’s own version, according to Mario Monje: “He told me about his experience in Africa, … the problems he had had there, how he depended upon forces that couldn’t be mobilized, and how there were contradictions he couldn’t resolve.” Monje, interview.

  *22 The text of the interrogation, which confirms that this was the first reliable information to reach the army about Che’s presence in Bolivia, appears verbatim in Gary Prado Salmón, La guerrilla inmolada (Santa Cruz: Grupo Editorial Punto y Coma, 1987), pp. 80–82.

  *23 The CIA also believed that the Cubans were overtaken by events: “Moreover, this professionalism has been attained even though the guerrillas were discovered by accident well before they felt themselves ready to begin actual operations.” Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Intelligence Memorandum, The Bolivian Guerrilla Movement: An Interim Assessment, August 8, 1967 (Secret), NSF, Country File, Bolivia, vol. 4, box 8, Intelligence memo, LBJ Library, p. 4.

  †14 “After considerable prodding, [Bolivian] Army patrols began to follow up reports of groups of bearded strangers in southeast Bolivia. On 23 March, an Army patrol stumbled into a guerrilla hideout.” Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Memorandum, Cuban-Inspired Guerrilla Activity in Bolivia, June 14 (Secret), National Security File, Intelligence File, Guerrilla Problem in Latin America, box 2, no. 6, Memo, LBJ Library.

  *24 Interview with the author.

  †15 Interview with the author, Paris, November 3, 1995.

  ‡6 According to the head of the CIA’s Country Team in Bolivia, Gustavo Villoldo, “Tania was not subjected to an autopsy. She was not pregnant. Nothing was really known, primarily because there was no autopsy. There was a rumor that she was pregnant, but I do not believe it was true.” Conversely, Félix Rodríguez, the other CIA agent on the ground in Bolivia, has stated in interviews, including one with the author, that Tania was pregnant. Villoldo, interview.

  *25 Benigno notes that if she was three months pregnant, Che cannot have been the father; the guerrillas were split into two groups on April 20, and Tania died on August 31. According to Benigno, the father was Alejandro, a member of the rearguard with whom Tania had a love-hate relationship. Benigno, interview with the author, Paris, November 8, 1996.

  †16 Eduardo Josami, written communication to the author, November 5, 1996. He was referring in particular to Juan Pablo Chang Navarro, el Chino, a Peruvian activist who visited Che, was stranded with the guerrillas when fighting began, and died in October of that year.

  *26 “No, we were never able to transmit a single message from the mountains. Ever. We always received, but were never able to transmit anything. It wasn’t possible.” Benigno, interview.

  *27 “[The press] received all kinds of guarantees and confidences from the U.S. Embassy and military advisers from Washington assuring them that the Bolivian panic was all a maneuver to get more military assistance from the United States.” Andrew St. George, “How the US Got Che,” True Magazine, April 1969, p. 92.

  *28 “The capture of Debray and Bustos was not essential in finding out about Che; that was already known.” Villoldo, interview.

  †17 The distinction between the two agents named González was communicated to the author by Gustavo Villoldo during an interview in Miami on November 22, 1995. It was corroborated by Larry Sternfield in a telephone conversation with the author on November 4, 1996.

  *29 Roth did not mention this tradeoff in his own account; he notes only that the guerrillas asked him to fulfill this task. George Andrew Roth, “I Was Arrested with Debray,” in Evergreen magazine, April 20, 1967.

  *30 “There is a shameful reality. Vietnam … is tragically isolated. In a bitter irony, the solidarity of the progressive world with … Vietnam is like the plebeians’ encouragement to gladiators in the Roman circus. The point is not to wish a victim well, but to share his fate.” Ernesto Che Guevara, “Mensaje a la Tricontinental,” quoted in Obra revolucionaria (Mexico, D. F.: Ediciones ERA, 1969), p. 642.

  *31 St. George, “How the US,” p. 93. The first White House document to confirm Che’s presence is dated May 11, and says: “This is the first credible report that Che Guevara is alive and operating in South America.” Walt Rostow to the President, May 11, 1967 (Secret). The first available CIA report stating categorically that Che was in Bolivia is dated June 14; it is a summary which obviously recapitulates previous information. Central Intelligence Agency, Cuban-Inspired Guerrilla Activity, June 14 (Secret).

  *32 Lino, interview. Lino acknowledges, however, that Havana did not know Joaquín’s group had been isolated until it was announced that the rearguard had been annihilated on August 31.

  *33 Benigno, interview. Lino, in contrast, believes that when communications were cut between Havana and Bolivia, Montero decided to leave on his own. Already ill with acute amebiasis, he was extremely depressed by Che’s refusal to enlist him in the guerrilla group.

  *34 Montero, interview. Debray, however, recalls that Montero never showed his face during those early days in March, and he always believed that Montero had already left Bolivia by then. He argues that the reason Tania was forced to take him and Bustos up to the mountains was precisely because Renán had already left; the argument is plausible, and Renán’s claim that he was still in La Paz sounds somewhat weak. Debray, interview.

  *35 This explanation was suggested to the author by Volodia Teitelboim, the Chilean writer and Communist leader, during a conversation in Mexico City on November 12, 1996. By 1967, Teitelboim was already one of the top leaders in the Chilean Communist Party, and would have been informed of any decisions taken at the time.

  †18 Mario Vargas Salinas, El Che, Mito y Realidad (Cochabamba-La Paz: Editorial Los amigos del libro, 1988), p. 57. Vargas Salinas was the retired general who announced to the press in November 1995 that Che’s body had not been cremated but buried, thus triggering a long, costly, and thus far futile search.

  *36 On five occasions in the course of a year, the author attempted to interview Ciro Bustos by telephone at his home in Malmö, Sweden, as well as in writing. He always refused to answer any questions on this matter. For their part, the Cubans think it was one of Moisés Guevara’s men, Chingolo, who led the army to the cave. See Adys Cupull and Froilán González, La CIA contra el Che (Havana: Editora Política, 1992), p. 96. However, it does not seem that Chingolo an
d his companions would ever have seen the cave, or that they were present when it was dug. Apparently the Cubans take this version from the confession extracted, under torture, from Paco or José Castillo Chavez, the only survivor of Vado del Yeso, where Che’s rearguard was annihilated. See “Paco cuenta su historia,” Presencia (La Paz), August 2, 1996.

  *37 “In reality, Tania suffered a lot because she had a cancer that didn’t let her sleep.” Paco, quoted in Vargas Salinas, El Che, p. 102. See also “Tamara Bunke, Drei Leben in einer Haut,” Der Spiegel, no. 39, September 23, 1996.

  *38 One of the most extravagant and intelligent fantasies appears in a novel by Joseph Marsant entitled La séptima muerte del Che. Originally published in Paris, it was translated into Spanish and published in 1979 by Plaza y Janés. Marsant is a nom de plume for Pierre Galice, who was a cultural attaché at the French Embassy in Havana during the late sixties. His central thesis is that Manuel Piñeiro planted one of his men in Che’s team in order to betray the Argentine. The most likely candidate would have been Braulio, or Orlando Pantoja Tamayo, who did in fact come from the team of Piñeiro and Ramiro Valdés at the Ministry of the Interior. The purpose was to blame the Soviets for Che’s death, so as to induce a break between Castro and Moscow. Intelligence sources from another West European country have commented that Galice was extraordinarily well informed—as is evident in his text—and that his story has some truth to it, fantastic though it might seem.

  *39 According to Lino, over sixty Bolivians had been trained in Cuba and were ready to leave for Bolivia to reinforce Che; they never received the order. Lino, interview. In the next-to-the-last coded message sent Che from Havana, in July 1967, he was informed that “we are preparing a group of 23 persons, the great majority from the ranks of the Bolivian Communist Party’s youth movement.” See Soria Galvarro, El Che, vol. 4, p. 307.