85. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, interview with Jorge Ricardo Masetti, reprinted in Granma (Havana), October 16, 1967.
86. Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Un hombre bravo (Havana: Editorial Capitán San Luis, 1994), p. 58.
87. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Celia de la Serna de Guevara, June 20, 1954, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 56.
88. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, “Notas,” in Ariet, p. 47.
89. Mario Dalmau and Darío López, interviews published in Granma (Havana), October 16, 1967.
90. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Beatriz Guevara Lynch, September 1954, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 76.
91. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Ernesto Guevara Lynch, February 10, 1955, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, pp. 88–89.
92. Ernesto Che Guevara, letter to Celia de la Serna de Guevara, July 20, 1955, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 106.
93. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, “Estaciones de paso: El Che Guevara en México,” El Universal (Mexico City), February 1996.
Chapter 4:
Under Fire with Fidel
1. Marifeli Pérez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course and Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 16.
2. Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 309.
3. François Chevalier, L’Amérique Latine de l’indépendance à nos jours (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977), p. 218.
4. Ibid., p. 122.
5. Ibid., p. 314.
6. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria,” Escritos y discursos, vol. 2 (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 5.
7. Hilda Gadea, Che Guevara: Años decisivos (Mexico City: Aguilar, 1972), p. 124.
8. Speech by Fidel Castro during the solemn vigil in Havana in memory of Ernesto Che Guevara, October 18, 1967, in Fidel Castro, Che: A Memoir (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1994), p. 68.
9. Speech by Fidel Castro in Santiago de Chile, in Fidel Castro, Che: A Memoir, p. 99.
10. Gadea, p. 125.
11. Centro para el estudio de la historia militar, De Tuxpan a La Plata (Havana: Editorial Orbe, 1981), p. 9. Hugh Thomas also speculates that the meeting took place “soon afterward.” Hugh Thomas, Cuba: la lucha por la libertad, 1909–1958, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1974), p. 1132.
12. Robert Quirk, Fidel Castro (New York: Norton, 1993), p. 97. The most recent Cuban chronology also mentions July, the celebration of July 26, and a dinner at which Fidel cooked spaghetti. See also Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York: Avon, 1987; first edition, 1986), p. 360; Jean-Pierre Clerc, Fidel de Cuba (Paris: Ramsay, 1988), p. 115; Georgie Anne Geyer, Guerrilla Prince (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 143.
13. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, interview with Jorge Ricardo Masetti, “Che en Guatemala,” Granma (Havana), October 16, 1967.
14. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Notas de su segundo diario de viaje,” quoted in María del Carmen Ariet, Che: Pensamiento político (Havana: Editorial Política, 1988), p. 148.
15. Speech by Fidel Castro in Santiago de Chile, in Fidel Castro, Che: A Memoir, p. 100.
16. Fidel Castro, quoted in Lee Lockwood, Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel (New York: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 143, 144.
17. Lucila Velázquez, in El Nacional (Caracas), October 1967, quoted in Geyer, Guerilla Prince, p. 144.
18. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Celia de la Serna de Guevara, October 1956, quoted in Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Aquí va un soldado de América (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana/Planeta, 1987), p. 150.
19. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Celia de la Serna de Guevara, December 5, 1955, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 121.
20. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Palenque,” quoted in Gadea, Años decisivos, pp. 235–236.
21. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Celia de la Serna de Guevara, September 24, 1955, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 111.
22. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Tita Infante, quoted in Guevara Lynch, Aquí va, p. 130.
23. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria,” Encritos y discursos, vol. 2 (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 5.
24. Thomas, Cuba, p. 1132.
25. Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, interview with the author, Mexico City, July 28, 1995.
26. Nikolai Leonov, interview with the author, Moscow, October 29, 1995.
27. Ibid.
28. Gutiérrez Barrios, interview.
29. Alberto Bayo, photocopy of original notes, quoted in Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Un hombre bravo (Havana: Editorial Capitán San Luis, 1994), p. 78.
30. Alberto Bayo, Mi aporte a la revolution cubana (Havana: Imprenta Ejército Rebelde, 1960), p. 76.
31. “Che was convinced that he had found a mission and a way of leaving his wife.” Quirk, Fidel, p. 98.
32. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, letter to Tita Infante, October 1956, quoted in Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Cálida presencia: Cartas de Ernesto Guevara de la Serna a Tita Infante (Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente, 1995), p. 87.
33. Juan Ortega Arenas, interview with the author, Mexico City, May 23, 1996.
34. Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 165.
35. Thomas, Cuba, pp. 1074–1076.
36. Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, p. 59.
37. Fidel Castro, quoted in Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 22.
38. Che Guevara and Raúl Castro, La conquista de la esperanza (Mexico City: Ediciones Joaquín Mortíz, 1995), p. 141.
39. Harry “Pombo” Villegas, interview with British journalists, Havana, September 1995. Transcript made available to the author.
40. Guevara, “Pasajes,” pp. 57–58.
41. Ibid., p. 63.
42. Ibid., p. 65.
43. Ibid., pp. 88–89.
44. Villegas, interview.
45. Castro, quoted in Cupull and González, Un hombre bravo, p. 107.
46. Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 123.
47. Ernesto Che Guevara, letter to Fidel Castro, July 31, 1957, Carlos Franqui Archives, box 3, file 2, Firestone Library, Princeton University.
48. Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 161.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p. 165,
51. Ibid., p. 119.
52. Ibid., p. 120.
53. See René Ramos Latour, letter to Ernesto Guevara, October 4, 1957, quoted in Carlos Franqui, Diario de la revolución cubana (Barcelona: R. Torres, 1976), p. 318.
54. Carlos Franqui, interview with the author, San Juan, August 20, 1996.
55. Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 222.
56. Ernesto Guevara, letter to René Ramos Latour, December 14, 1957, quoted in Franqui, Diario, p. 362.
57. Ibid.
58. Ernesto Guevara, letter to Fidel Castro, December 15, 1957, quoted in Quirk, Fidel, p. 154.
59. Ernesto Guevara, letter to Fidel Castro, January 6, 1958, quoted in Ernesto Che Guevara, Escritos y discursos, vol 2. (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 300.
60. Franqui, Diario, p. 367.
61. Ibid., p. 368.
62. This anecdote appears in Joel Iglesias, “Mis vivencias con el Che,” Verde Olivo (Havana), October 13, 1974, p. 7.
63. Carlos María Gutiérrez, “Conversación en la Sierra Maestra,” Brecha (Montevideo), October 9, 1987.
64. The content of Bigart’s report appears in a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Cuba to the State Department dated March 3, 1958, published in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1969, Department of State Central File, vol. 6, p. 46.
65. Carlos Franqui, “List of Books Requested for the Sierra,” November 1957, in the Carlos Franqui Archives, Princeton University, box 19, file 4.
66. Joel Iglesias, quoted in Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Entre nosotros (Havana: Ediciones Abril, 1992), p. 9.
67.
Zoila Rodríguez García, quoted in Cupull and González, Entre nosotros, pp. 12–13.
68. Carlos Franqui, handwritten note, “La huelga de abril,” Carlos Franqui Archives, box 19, file 6.
69. Ibid.
70. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Una reunión decisiva,” in “Pasajes,” p. 250.
71. Pablo Ribalta, interview with Juan Carrasco, Verde Olivo (Havana), August 1988, p. 21.
72. Ibid.
Chapter 5:
Our Man in Havana
1. Fidel Castro, letter to Ernesto Guevara, “Marching Orders,” quoted in Che Sierra Adentro (Havana, 1970), p. 141.
2. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria,” Escritos y discursos, vol. 2 (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 258.
3. Joel Iglesias, quoted in Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Entre nosotros (Havana: Ediciones Abril, 1992), p. 10.
4. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Proyecciones sociales del Ejército Rebelde,” January 27, 1959, Ernesto Che Guevara, Escritos y discursos, vol. 4 (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 11.
5. Ibid., pp. 11, 15.
6. Ibid., p. 17.
7. José Pardo Llada, Fidely el “Che” (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1989), p. 132.
8. Guevara, “Proyecciones,” p. 16.
9. Pardo Llada, p. 131.
10. Sergio Rodríguez, quoted in Che Sierra Adentro, p. 113.
11. Enrique Oltuski, interview with Paco Ignacio Taibo II, granted to Taibo and the author, Havana, February 1995.
12. Ovidio Díaz Rodríguez, quoted in Cupull and Gonzáles, Entre nosotros, p. 71.
13. Ernesto Che Guevara, letter to Faure Chomón, November 7, 1958, quoted in “Pasajes,” p. 306.
14. Ibid., p. 200.
15. Ibid.
16. Oniria Gutiérrez, quoted in Che Sierra Adentro, p. 25.
17. Ibid., p. 19.
18. Enrique Oltuski, “Gente del llano,” Revista Casa de las Américas (Havana), vol. 7, no. 40, January–February 1967, p. 53.
19. Ibid.
20. Roy Rubottom to the Secretary of State, “Arms Policy with Respect to Cuba,” August 11, 1958 (Secret), National Archives, lot 61D274, box 2, College Park, Maryland.
21. Oltuski, “Gente,” p. 54.
22. These three passages are from Ernesto Guevara, letter to Enrique Oltuski, November 3, 1958, quoted in Guevara, “Pasajes,” pp. 309–310.
23. Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, interview with the author, Miami, August 3, 1995.
24. Carlos Franqui, Vida, aventuras y desastres de un hombre llamado Castro (Mexico City: Planeta, 1989), p. 126.
25. Fidel Castro, letter to Ernesto Che Guevara, December 26, 1958, quoted in Carlos Franqui, Diario de la revolución cubana (Barcelona: R. Torres, 1976), p. 667.
26. Franqui, Diario, p. 725.
27. Gutiérrez Menoyo, interview.
28. Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 260.
29. Franco Pierini, “As duas mulheres de Che Guevara,” Manchete (Rio de Janeiro), April 20, 1968.
30. José Aguilar, “The Final Chapter,” unpublished ms., p. 8, made available to the author.
31. Oscar Fernández Mell, “La Batalla de Santa Clara,” quoted in Migdalia Cabrera Cuello, Batalla de Santa Clara, leaflet, p. 32.
32. Ibid., p. 35.
33. Gutiérrez Menoyo, interview.
34. Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, interview with the author, Havana, August 24, 1995.
35. Batista cites an interview given by Francisco Rodríguez Tamayo (“el Mexicano”) to Stanley Ross of the Diario de Nueva York. See Fulgencio Batista, Respuesta (Mexico City: private edition, 1960), p. 106.
36. Ramón Barquin and Ismael Suárez de la Paz, interviews with the author, San Juan, August 19, 1996.
37. Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, El Che en combate, La Campaña Guerrillera en Cuba Central (Havana: Fundación de la Naturaleza y del Hombre, Instituto del Libro, 1995), p. 192.
38. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, La batalla del Che, Santa Clara (Mexico City: Planeta, 1988), p. 96.
39. Ibid., p. 98.
40. Rogelio Acevedo González, Audacia, quoted in Batalla de Santa Clara, p. 42.
41. Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, La rendición del regimiento Leoncio Vidal (Archivo de la Sección de Investigaciones Históricas), quoted in Batalla de Santa Clara, p. 115.
42. Director of Central Intelligence, Special National Intelligence Estimate, nos. 85–58, “The Situation in Cuba,” November 24, 1958, quoted in Georgie Anne Geyer, Guerrilla Prince (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 190.
43. Fidel Castro, letter to Ernesto Che Guevara, December 26, 1958, quoted in Franqui, Diario, p. 667.
44. Guevara, “Pasajes,” p. 263.
45. Franqui, Diario, p. 713.
46. Carlos Franqui, interview with the author, San Juan, August 20, 1996.
47. Ernesto Che Guevara, letter to Ernesto Sabato, April 12, 1960, quoted in Claudia Korol, El Che y los argentinos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Diógenes, 1988), p. 113.
48. Guevara, “Proyecciones,” p. 20.
49. Carlos Franqui, Retrato de familia con Fidel (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1981), p. 458.
50. Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Mi hijo el Che (Barcelona: Planeta, 1981), p. 70.
51. Nuñez Jiménez, interview.
52. Hugh Thomas, Cuba: la lucha por la libertad, 1958–1970, vol. 3 (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1974), p. 1533.
53. Ernesto Che Guevara, letter to Revolución (Havana), March 10, 1959, quoted in Ernesto Che Guevara, Cartas inéditas (Montevideo: Editorial Sandino, 1968), p. 8.
54. Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Un hombre bravo (Havana: Editorial Capitán San Luis, 1994), p. 143.
55. Ibid.
56. See Richard Gott, Las guerrillas en América Latina (Santiago: Editorial Sudamericana, 1971), p. 21.
57. Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, En marcha con Fidel (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), p. 147.
58. See especially Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 60–61.
59. Quoted in Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York: Avon, 1987; first edition, 1986), p. 525.
60. Ernesto Che Guevara, interview with Kung Mai and Ping An, quoted in William Ratcliff, “A New Old Che Guevara Interview,” Hispanic-American Historical Review, August 1966, pp. 296–300.
61. Ibid., p. 296.
62. Ibid., p. 294.
63. Quoted in Marifeli Pérez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course and Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 69.
64. Guevara, “Proyecciones,” p. 19.
65. William Bowdler/AmEmbassy Havana to Dept. of State, March 20, 1959, “Communist Penetration at La Cabaña Fortress” (Confidential), U.S. Department of State Files, vol. 10, dispatch 1053.
66. Department of Defense, “Working Paper for Castro Visit,” Survey of the Present Status of Cuban Armed Forces, April 15, 1959 (Secret), National Security Files, box 8, LBJ Library.
67. Quoted in Szulc, Fidel, p. 521.
68. Franqui, interview.
69. Arnoldo Martínez Verdugo, interview with the author, Mexico City, September 10, 1996.
70. Bowdler/AmEmbassy Havana to Dept. of State, April 21, 1959, “Political Orientation of Ernesto Che Guevara” (Confidential), U.S. Department of State Files, vol. 7, dispatch 1194.
71. Topping/AmEmbassy Havana to Dept. of State, May 4, 1959, “Allegations that Ernesto Che Guevara Is Communist” (Confidential), U.S. Department of State Files, vol. 8, dispatch 1242.
72. Quoted in Geyer, Guerrilla Prince, p. 201. Geyer states that another person present at the dinner corroborated Ascencio’s account.
73. Hugo Gambini, El Che Guevara (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1968), p. 207.
74. Memorandum of Conversation, John O’Rourke, Jules Dubois, and William Weiland, June 10, 1959, “Dubois Expects Castro Crackdown on Communists in Cuban Army” (Confidential), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Department of State Central File, vol. 6.
75. Franqui, interview.
77. Hilda Gadea, quoted in Pierini, “As duas mulheres.”
78. Hilda Guevara Gadea, interview with the author, Havana, January 26, 1995.
79. José Pardo Llada, interview with Georgie Anne Geyer, quoted in Geyer, Guerrilla Prince, p. 222.
Chapter 6:
The “Brain of the Revolution”;
the Scion of the Soviet Union
1. Ernesto Che Guevara, “La República Arabe Unida,” Verde Olivo (Havana), October 12, 1959, in Che periodista (Havana: Editorial Pablo de la Torrente, 1988), p. 28.
2. Salvador Vilaseca, interview with the author, Havana, January 23, 1996.
3. Mohammed Hassanen Heikal, The Cairo Documents (New York: Doubleday, 1973), p. 344.
4. José Pardo Llada, Fidely el Che (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1989), p. 143.
5. Memorandum from the Deputy Director of Intelligence and Research to the Secretary of State, “Che Guevara’s Mission to Afro-Asian Countries,” August 19, 1959, quoted in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1958–1960, vol. 6, p. 589.
6. Ernesto Che Guevara, “La India, país de grandes contrastes,” Verde Olivo (Havana), October 12, 1959, in Che periodista, p. 39.
7. Memorandum from the Deputy Director, FRUS, 1958–1960.
8. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Japón,” Verde Olivo (Havana), October 19, 1959, in Che periodista, pp. 43–44.
9. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Indonesia,” Verde Olivo (Havana), October 26, 1959, in Che periodista, p. 49.
10. Ibid., p. 54.
11. Ernesto Che Guevara, “América desde el Balcón Afroasiático, septiembre-octubre, 1959,” in Escritos y discursos, vol. 9 (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977), p. 2.
12. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (el Congo),” unpublished manuscript, Havana, p. 86. See footnote about this text in Chapter 1, p. 5.
13. Ibid., p. 4.
14. Ernesto Che Guevara, “Yugoslavia,” Verde Olivo (Havana), November 26, 1959, in Che periodista, p. 65.
15. Ibid., p. 66.
16. Ibid., pp. 69, 71.
17. Ibid., p. 69.
18. Omar Fernández, quoted in Jean Cormier, Che Guevara (Paris: Editions du Rocher, 1995), p. 270.
19. Philip Bonsai to Roy Rubottom, November 6, 1959 (Secret), in FRUS, 1958–1960, p. 659.
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