Hunting Che

by Mitch Weiss

  By the end of the meeting, Shelton knew he would work well with the CIA men.

  * * *

  A month after the Samaipata fiasco, Barrientos was still taking heat. Army troops continued hunting the guerrillas in the operations area, drawing fire now and then. The country was still reeling from the Saint John’s Day Massacre. There were calls to lift martial law and let life return to normal. Reporters continued to flood his country, and they were asking how long Barrientos would stay in power. Many of the stories contained quotes from unnamed U.S. diplomats.

  Barrientos knew who those sources were: Henderson. To his face, the ambassador was condescending. Henderson was always admonishing Barrientos as if the president were a petulant child: No, you can’t have more aid. Your troops can handle the guerrillas. Behind the scenes, Henderson regularly criticized Barrientos for failing to eliminate the guerrilla threat.

  Barrientos had friends in the U.S. military command. They wanted to send arms and even troops to Bolivia. But Washington was cautious. If they didn’t want the guerrilla war to spread into a regional conflict, they’d better take off the handcuffs, Barrientos argued. He was particularly annoyed when U.S. pressure stopped Argentina from sending in backup troops. It was unusual in Latin America for one nation to ask another to send troops into its territory. Memories of disputed boundaries and land grabs reached back generations, but Barrientos was growing increasingly worried about the guerrilla threat. He reached out to Argentine president Juan Carlos Ongania, who was just as paranoid about Che as Barrientos was.

  Barrientos lost his temper when a New York Times story trumpeted the request around the world. The newspaper said the Bolivian appeal “appears to demonstrate the increasing concern of the government of President Rene Barrientos . . . over the effectiveness of the guerrillas both in combat and in creating a nationwide feeling of alarm.” The story added that the guerrillas in southeastern Bolivia are “well organized, armed with modern weapons, and led by Cuba-trained Communists.”

  The president blamed Henderson for leaking the story. His talks with Argentina were supposed to be secret. No one was privileged to know about those conversations except the Americans, and it was the United States that had again thwarted his plans. Argentina had already sent weapons, food, and equipment, and soldiers were just the logical next step. Argentina was worried that the guerrillas could spill across the border. They knew that Che—if he was indeed alive—would love the chance to lead a revolution in the country where he was born.

  As one Argentine military official put it: “We just don’t have enough troops to send to Bolivia right now. The people in the military are frustrated as hell because they all think that there is another Sierra Maestra getting started in Bolivia, and we can’t really do anything about it under the circumstances.” (Castro and Che had prepared their drive to power in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra Mountains.)

  In public, Barrientos tried to be diplomatic about the leaks. None of the stories he referred to quoted Henderson. Still, it was clear where the negative information had originated. Like most diplomats, Henderson spoke to the U.S. media on background matters, under cover of anonymity. It wasn’t unusual for journalists to visit and interview Henderson at the embassy. The New York Times was probably the most influential newspaper in the world. It was the first newspaper politicians and bureaucrats in Washington grabbed in the morning. When Bolivian reporters asked Barrientos about the Times stories, he kept his cool but quickly assigned blame, using only suave diplomatic double-talk:

  “Just as Mr. Henderson has his opinions based upon some information, so I can assure each Bolivian citizen absolutely that the guerrillas are not going to succeed in this country. Everything Mr. Henderson says, if it is as reported, is completely false. But I doubt that he would have said such things . . . because I do not believe Mr. Henderson talks such nonsense.”

  Henderson patched up his relationship with the president, assuring him he did not know who had made the comments or leaked the documents. Barrientos wasn’t an idiot. He understood the way the game was played. He accepted Henderson’s apology and sent a cable to the State Department saying, “I want to make clear that Henderson is my good friend and I do not believe he would have said those things which I call nonsense.”

  The telegram calmed the storm, but Barrientos knew he couldn’t trust Henderson. He came to the nub of the matter: He could not expect much help from outside powers. No one could solve Bolivia’s problems but Bolivians. Yes, they would accept U.S. aid and training. But in this conflict, they were clearly on their own.

  * * *

  In early August, Bolivian troops spread out and searched the area around the guerrillas’ original base camp in Nancahuazu. They combed every surface for things they might have missed in earlier searches. But unlike on previous expeditions, they had a map—thanks to Ciro Roberto Bustos.

  He had been in jail since his arrest with Debray and Roth in April. If the Argentine Communist thought life was tough in a guerrilla camp, his Bolivian captors showed him how much worse things could get. After a near-execution in the field by Bolivian conscripts, he’d spent the following months in a filthy prison cell, awaiting trial or perhaps official execution. Bustos had been a dilettante revolutionary, happy to bullshit for hours about Marx and Stalin, using his rebel warrior rap to pick up women at parties. But that was a long time ago. It was another world out on the front lines, carrying guns, marching over mountains, living in the jungle. He wasn’t cut out for the real thing.

  Psychologists say every person has a unique way of dealing with fear. Some can suck it up and perform well, while others crumble under the pressure. It all has to do with background and upbringing. If your child is taught to hunt and fish at a young age, he becomes comfortable around guns and animal carcasses—things that more fastidious people might find disturbing. If the child is sheltered from harsh experiences, he tends to shun confrontation and violence. That’s why in battle, some people run toward a firefight while others retreat. Bustos realized that he just hadn’t been raised for the regimen of rebellion. He had no stomach for real revolution, even though he never saw combat during his months in the rebel band. Being a revolutionary was uncomfortable, dirty, and brutal. Sitting in his cell, wondering if he would die that day, Bustos caved in. He told the Bolivians everything he knew.

  Bustos said the guerrillas had abandoned the original base camp, but that they returned from time to time. They had storage areas there, filled with critical supplies. He drew a set of detailed maps of the camp, showing everything the Bolivians needed. Once he started talking, he couldn’t shut up.

  At first, the Bolivian military moved cautiously into the area, afraid of booby traps or guards. But on August 6, the troops hit the jackpot: several caches of weapons, including submachine guns, grenades, and a mortar. They found medical supplies, passports and travel itineraries, a list of contacts in Bolivia, deciphered radio messages from Havana, and codebooks. And there were snapshots, dozens of candid photos of the guerrillas. There was even a cigar butt.

  It was an amazing find. Barrientos was ecstatic. Here was even more proof that Cuba—and more specifically Che—was behind the nation’s troubles.

  For Barrientos, the most damning evidence was the photos. One woman in the snapshots was Loyola Guzman, a twenty-five-year-old member of the Bolivian Communist Youth. She was arrested immediately and taken to the Ministry of Interior building in La Paz. During interrogation she provided information on eleven members of the guerrillas’ support network in the capital city. When the guards left her alone for a moment, Guzman threw herself out the third-floor window. A cornice of the building broke her fall, and she was only slightly injured.

  Police took her to a hospital, where she told the press she would rather kill herself than betray her comrades.

  “I am fully conscious of my situation. I am in this situation because of my conviction,” she told the media. “Despite the error tha
t I have committed, since many documents have gotten out that can be used by the authorities to arrest many people, I hold to my ideas. Although this is a blow to us, the struggle will go on, even if many more people will die.”

  The police had already started rounding up the suspected guerrilla contacts in La Paz. Guzman knew what would happen to them. They would be tortured and killed. Barrientos had no patience for disloyalty.

  Barrientos was not the only one intrigued by the recovered paperwork and documents. Annoyed at American resistance to his demands for help, the president balked at releasing the materials to the United States—he and other cabinet members feared they would never be returned. After wrangling with Henderson and State Department officials, Barrientos agreed to hand over some of the items, but only after the Bolivians meticulously catalogued every scrap.

  U.S. military officials particularly wanted the passports. The one of a clean-shaven, middle-aged man with glasses and a receding hairline was particularly interesting. They suspected they knew who he was, but wanted to make sure.

  Word of the discovery reached President Johnson. Rostow, the president’s assistant for national security affairs, included a brief note with the memo, explaining why the Bolivians wanted the materials returned quickly: They planned to use them to prosecute Debray.

  Like everything else in the U.S.-Bolivian relationship, custody of the materials became contentious. Barrientos pressed for their return, but the United States kept asking for more time. Finally, the documents were sent back—but one key item was missing: the cigar butt. The Bolivians asked the State Department where it was, but officials there said they didn’t know. They asked the CIA. Their answer was simple: “Consumed in analysis.”

  * * *

  As the sun set over the fields, the Green Berets slipped off their gear and settled into the chairs at Kiosko Hugo. It seemed the entire unit was there, with Rodríguez and Villoldo as well.

  Since arriving at La Esperanza, the CIA men had tried to blend in with the other soldiers. Few of the others knew who they were, or why they were there.

  Villoldo spent most of his time with Special Forces’ Captain Cruz, training the Rangers’ intelligence unit. Rodríguez lived in Santa Cruz, working with Major Saucedo, Eighth Division chief of intelligence, piecing together news as it arrived from the countryside. Rodríguez tracked down leads and fattened his files on the individual guerrillas. He and the major were an important team. As the mission continued, Rodríguez made frequent trips to La Esperanza, just to clear his head and refresh his spirits.

  Shelton and Rodríguez sipped beers at the makeshift bar. Rodríguez enjoyed Shelton’s company. One Sunday morning, Rodríguez was awakened by music and clapping. When he walked outside, he spotted a guitar-playing Shelton flanked by a soldier twanging a washtub bass, another playing the washboard, and a Green Beret clacking a pair of spoons. The Bolivians loved it.

  There was always a lot of talk about Vietnam around the bar. Everyone, even the Bolivians, wanted to know what it was like over there, how things were going. Was the United States winning? Shelton didn’t mind talking about it. But like a good soldier, he didn’t dwell on why they were fighting. Once the war started, that didn’t really matter.

  Rodríguez looked at it differently.

  Vietnam was another front in the bitter fight against Communism. He had made a promise, after Castro and Che took his country, to strive for freedom for his “brothers and sisters living in slavery under Communist oppression.”

  But more importantly, he promised to stand firm to his last breath and defend the values of the United States, his adopted country. His homeland had been taken away from him, and his family was cast off to find their own way. But Rodríguez wasn’t rudderless. Instead, he had found purpose in the struggle to right the wrongs brought on by Communism. And that meant taking the fight to guys like Che in Bolivia, even to Asia, if need be.

  That night, Rodríguez told Shelton about his role in the Bay of Pigs disaster. He told Shelton how the original plan would have freed two thousand political prisoners, how it was changed after Kennedy was elected president. The president changed the location of the landing from Trinidad City to the Bay of Pigs—it had an airfield and was farther away from large groups of civilians. The brigade of Cuban exiles landed on a beach called Playa Girón.

  The invasion in April 1961 was a disaster—everything went wrong. Castro captured more than eleven hundred soldiers from the U.S.-backed exile force Brigade 2506. Rodríguez later found out why it all went so wrong. Before the invasion, Cuban exiles in Miami had been shooting off their mouths. Soviet agents picked up on the chatter and warned their Cuban allies about the planned attack. So when the exiles stepped onto Playa Girón, Castro’s army was waiting for them.

  Rodríguez wasn’t there. He was in Havana, he said, where he’d spent several months setting up a resistance network and smuggling weapons. “I was lucky to make it to the Venezuelan embassy in Havana,” Rodríguez said. He spent five and a half months in the embassy before escaping.

  In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, anyone in Cuba even suspected of taking part in the conspiracy was slaughtered. So many people around the world had bought into the image of Che as a romantic revolutionary. But to Rodríguez and the Cuban exiles, Che was responsible for the murders; he was nothing more than a thug.

  Worse was Che’s arrogance. In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States, in Uruguay, Che sent a note to President Kennedy via one of the president’s advisors, Richard Goodwin. It said: “Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it’s stronger than ever.”

  Shelton just shook his head. Rodríguez had gone through hell, he thought. Maybe it was the beer, or the balmy night air, but at that moment, all Shelton could think of was that Rodríguez was “one of us.” He wanted to show him how much he appreciated his service. Shelton took out his pocketknife and made a tiny cut in his finger, just enough to bring a bead of blood. He squeezed the drop into his glass of beer. He looked into Rodríguez’s eyes: “Blood brothers?”

  Rodríguez smiled, charmed at the gesture.

  “Yes, blood brothers.”

  He followed Shelton’s lead. He cut his finger with the knife and let his blood drip into his beer. Then Shelton and Rodríguez exchanged glasses.

  Shelton raised his and shouted: “Salud.”

  “Salud to you,” Rodríguez replied.

  They downed the beers and slammed the glasses onto the table. With that, Shelton made a promise to Rodríguez: If Che was truly working in Bolivia, he would not escape alive.

  “It ends here,” Shelton said.

  * * *

  Even with so much evidence to the contrary, the CIA still refused to acknowledge that Che Guevara might be alive in Bolivia. Che was the face of worldwide revolutionary movements, and CIA analysts just couldn’t see him risking it all in a backwater country like Bolivia. It just wasn’t his style.

  Sure, rumors were rife. The Bolivians had documents and letters they’d found in an isolated camp. All the evidence pointed in one direction. But it all added up to smoke and ashes. No one had actually seen the man. No one could confirm anything.

  The invisible guerrilla still managed to cast a long shadow.

  At the August Latin American Solidarity Organization conference in Cuba, Che was named honorary chairman. Guevara’s name was invoked so many times it was like he was in the room. Delegates from the confederation of twenty-seven Latin Communist and progressive movements sat through one of Fidel Castro’s marathon speeches, wherein he promised to exert more influence in the hemisphere. Around him hung gigantic banners blazoned with Che’s image. The conference soon turned into a pep rally for revolution. Delegates pledged to “strengthen the bond of militant solidarity among the Latin American anti-imperialist fighters and to draw up basic bonds for the development of the contine
ntal revolution.” The Bolivian Communist Party representative Aldo Flores told the audience that Che’s fighters were simply doing their patriotic duty in opposing U.S. advisors and materials sent to aid “oppressive forces” in Bolivia.

  Black activist Stokely Carmichael stirred up the crowd when he promised “we are moving toward guerrilla warfare within the United States, since there is no other way to obtain our homes, our lands, and our rights.” Praising Che, Carmichael echoed the guerrilla leader when he declared that “when the U.S. has fifty Vietnams inside and fifty outside, that will mean the death of imperialism.”

  When the meeting closed, the group declared Che Guevara “The Citizen of Latin America.”

  The conference caught the notice of CIA director Helms, who passed along an August 8 agency report to President Johnson. The analysis of the Bolivian military was stark and scathing. The Samaipata raid had made a deep impression.

  The report said that all five nations on Bolivia’s borders shared U.S. doubts about the Bolivian military’s ability to stop the guerrillas. If the guerrillas succeeded in overthrowing Barrientos, Argentina and Paraguay agreed to consider military intervention.

  The CIA said that the insurgency seemed “more sophisticated and professional than similar efforts elsewhere in Latin America,” and the LASO conference provided propaganda assistance. Because of the “alleged presence of Che Guevara” and the capture of Debray, the CIA predicted that the insurgency would remain in the “public eye.” “It could become a focus for the continuing polemical debate in the communist world over the wisdom of political versus militant revolutionary action.”