by Ciro Bustos
It was after midday by the time I arrived at Federico’s house, in a secluded neighbourhood of family villas with small front gardens. The door was opened by a tall young woman, who looked like Federico but beautiful, with that fresh beauty of provincial girls. I guessed she was his sister and, to inspire confidence, simply asked: ‘Has Federico arrived?’ She looked very nervous, so before she could reply, I added: ‘Tell him it’s Laureano, we’ve changed the job, that’s why I am here.’ Honesty is the best policy. She disappeared but came straight back, inviting me in. And there he was, looking exhausted. He had arrived the previous day but had talked through the night, so had hardly had any sleep. The girl changed from nervous to very friendly, as though we were old friends. I told Federico what had happened and we studied the problem of our shared identity, a problem that could not extend beyond the front door. I could not stay at a hotel, I could not travel with my crude document, and I could not move in with his parents. Federico was meeting Loro Vásquez Viaña that night. They put a camp bed in a small room at the back that had been Federico’s electronics workshop, and left me there with some books and newspapers while they both kept the appointment.
Loro understood the gravity of my problem, and promised to get a document from the group he was contacting. The following evening, he received an identity card from the province of Santa Fe that did not need modifying. Its owner looked quite like me: a little stouter, the same kind of bald, but the front view did not do justice to my nose, and our ages did not correspond.
To the sister’s dismay, we left the next day. We crossed the River Paraná to Corrientes, where Federico sought out an old friend who had once shared his adventures in ‘the Impenetrable’ jungle. José Luis Stachioti, a ship’s engineer, quickly agreed to join this new adventure. Federico gave him a few days to sort out his affairs and make a rendezvous in the town of Bermejo on the Argentine-Bolivian border. We carried on through Entre Ríos to Santa Fe where Stachioti had given us the name of the captain of a tugboat moored by the Paraná. We slept that night in comfortable bunks and in the morning would go our separate ways.
Over coffee, waiting for Federico’s bus for Santiago del Estero, I made my own rather tentative travel plans. Buenos Aires is a jungle: difficult when you don’t know anyone, worse still when you know too many people. I was more inclined to go to the provinces, but Mendoza, my home town, was too close emotionally, and further from the guerrillas in the north. That left Córdoba. I had relatives in Bell Ville, a town in the interior of the province, who had close links to the Left and with whom I saw eye to eye on all things. Ademar Testa was a lawyer, passionate about literature, politics, conversation, food and good wine. His wife Clelia was my wife Claudia’s cousin and on our first visit we had formed a strong affectionate friendship. Ademar owned everything that had ever been published on the Cuban Revolution, Fidel and Che, and made no secret of it. If anyone knew potential or actual revolutionaries, it was Ademar. I decided to head for Bell Ville. When Federico left, I took an intercity bus for Córdoba that stopped at Bell Ville at nine in the evening.
I appeared out of nowhere, and had trouble keeping news of my arrival quiet. I made Clelia swear not to phone her mother, who was very fond of me, or let everyone know I was here, while Ademar kept repeating ‘OK … OK …’. I could not have chosen a better place. They understood what I wanted and the need for absolute secrecy. They made up a bed for me in Ademar’s study and, by the time I went to sleep, we had drawn up a plan of action. This consisted of waiting thirty-six hours for the arrival of a friend, Oscar del Barco – professor, poet, lecturer in literature and philosophy at Córdoba’s Colegio Universitario. He was also the editor and board member of the magazine Pasado y Presente, edited in Córdoba, the most prestigious Marxist magazine in Argentina.
A wavy-haired character with a walrus moustache was introduced to me by mid-afternoon. Oscar inspired immediate confidence, and disarmed me with his honest and affectionate expression. I gave him a general run-down of our project, its origins and its long-term political aims. Oscar asked a few questions, but concluded that the issue was much too important for him to judge alone. He was not a political figure himself, but belonged to a nucleus of intellectuals who were influential in the debate and analysis of events in Argentina. He needed to let the group know of our project. We agreed I should meet whoever they considered appropriate. We also discussed the interminable problem of security. Until we had come to some agreement, knowledge of the meeting must be restricted to the board of the magazine. This should guarantee secrecy. Failing any agreement, the same would apply.
Oscar often stayed the night in the room I was now in, because he taught in Bell Ville the following day. But that night he returned to Córdoba while I was closeted in a climate of conspiracy that allowed Clelia to shower me with affection and empanadas. Oscar came back the following day with the news that the Pasado y Presente board had unanimously agreed to a meeting and we would go to Córdoba that very evening (after dinner, naturally).
José (Pancho) Aricó lived with his wife and children in a neighbourhood of family houses with gardens on the outskirts of the city. It was also where the magazine was produced, and when the latest edition was being printed, work would go on late into the night. The editorial board comprised Pancho Aricó, Oscar del Barco, Héctor Schmucler, Samuel Kiczkowsky – all present on that night – and others I cannot remember now. They published the only internationally recognized analysis and theoretical development of Marxism in Argentina. Independent of the Argentine Communist Party and its networks, the board received information directly from the Kremlin. Getting on for midnight, in a closed room (more for the children’s sake than for discretion), I faced what I suspected would be a challenge to my presentation skills and powers of persuasion. I had no political experience, certainly not at the theoretical levels of intellectuals like these, able to hold their own in the Academy of Political Sciences in Moscow, to teach literature and philosophy, and to psychoanalyze a tree. But if I could debate with Che and Masetti, surely I could keep to the bare essentials, and rely on historical and practical facts.
I began with the obvious: the catharsis that the Cuban Revolution had been for the political struggle of the American peoples. Success in the armed conflict had turned all previous argument about the legitimate weapon of the masses on its head. I argued that now we had such an important historical precedent, it was hard to maintain the illusion of being revolutionaries if we remained on the sidelines. We were ready to go down that road, the road the people must take if the Revolution was to succeed. Someone had to take the initiative, and for the time being, that was our main task. Although we had trained in Cuba, our organization’s aim was to be organically rooted in our own people. My introduction was followed by a question and answer session, from which concrete ideas and proposals began to take shape. As the discussion progressed, I could see a process of mutual seduction. They were seduced by the idea that an armed nucleus of guerrillas was already on the ground, receiving support and ready to train cadres, that it would not depend on any political party, but on the contrary would create the organic, political and ideological framework to accompany its own development. And I was seduced by their ability to grasp the concept, and their intelligence. ‘This will only be possible with Che,’ said Pancho. ‘Exactly,’ I replied.
The magazine had brought together most dissident Communist Party members, and was causing significant rifts up and down the country by defending the Cuban line and supporting the armed struggle. Che’s leadership was the ace up my sleeve, and I laid it on the table at the crucial moment. I had been authorized (this was implicit in my mission) to persuade and organize, and to make controlled use of the most sensitive information. For me everything revolved round the presence of Che, and it appeared to be equally indispensable for the others. Aricó spoke for all of them when he agreed to facilitate contacts in other cities and help me set up the urban network of the People’s Guerrilla Army.
They would canvass support among their readers, and assumed the idea would meet with immediate approval. Meanwhile, I would travel to Buenos Aires, and establish contacts with similarly serious left-wing groups. The meeting ended on an enthusiastic, quite emotional, note; and with total belief in the importance of our enterprise.
I set off for Buenos Aires, armed with an address where I could stay and a contact in the intellectual circles, connected to the Córdoba magazine, which had already split off from the Communist Party in Buenos Aires. The contact was Juan Carlos Portantiero, working at the University of Buenos Aires, who took me to meet some student leaders. One was Daniel Hopen, from the Arts and Humanities department, and another, Horacio, from Physical and Natural Sciences. The meeting took place at the flat of the latter’s father. Lined with walnut and mahogany, it looked as if it belonged to some Saudi sheikh. The revolutionary Left was launched.
I still had to see Masetti’s friend, or rather our mutual friend, Bettanín. He was now a graphic designer at the newspaper La Nación, which had offices in San Martín Street. I went up to a very elegant floor, where a beautiful secretary asked me questions, spoke on the telephone, and finally took me into another room with soft leather armchairs where I waited. Bettanín remembered me, and was as affectionate as I remembered him. I swear he would have offered me a job if I had not mentioned Masetti. His attitude suddenly changed, he became so agitated that his features altered and he started sweating. So I became more guarded with my information, especially about Che. However, I had already told him about the guerrillas, the letter to Illia, and what Masetti wanted from him. Bettanín replied amicably enough, but so categorically that there was no room for argument, or any point in insisting any further. He said that in the six years since we had last seen each other, he had become deeply religious, and was now very, very Catholic. His life had changed, and respect for the commandments of his faith overrode all other considerations. He could not, therefore, participate in a project that involved killing. He said he loved us both very much and had followed press reports of his friend with pride and nostalgia. He wished us luck, assured me that what I had told him would never pass his lips, and advised me to forget this meeting and him. He stood up, embraced me and disappeared. I went down to the street like a scalded chicken and wandered along Florida before taking the metro to Plaza Once, and then a bus to Córdoba. Masetti and I had agreed on a way of communicating which I could use, but he could not. It was time to send some good and bad news, couched in figurative terms, to the poste restante in Tarija.
The response in Córdoba was better than I expected. I went to find Oscar del Barco in the Cerro de las Rosas, a leafy middle-class suburb on a sort of plateau overlooking the city, and we set out to find a man was waiting for us on the last street on the hill. Oscar explained how to get back to his house and then left us alone. The thick-set young man was mild-mannered and eager to talk. We strolled back and forth along the street, under the eucalyptus trees that hid the stars. He asked questions and I gave him straight answers, sparing him nothing. I did not sugar the pill, explained the sacrifice required, gave him no false hopes, did not hide the fact that he would be our first recruit, nor how unprotected we were, nor the degree of our madness which had to be seen as a spark of audacity and lucidity in a barren decadent landscape. I stressed that there would be no time for rest, that mosquitoes would eat better (off our blood) in a single second than we would in a whole day, that every time his backpack was emptied it would be refilled twice over, that his bones would ache and his only relief would be the moon over his hammock. Our aim was to be the red-hot ember that would light the fire in the communal hearth. ‘Sign me up’, said Héctor Jouvé.
In fact, I had first met Héctor’s brother, Emilio Jouvé. Oscar had told me Emilio was the leader of a group of young sceptics, estranged from the Argentine Communist Party. Emilo had passed me on to his younger brother when he understood the extent of the physical commitment required; it was beyond him because he only had one lung. Emilio was a quiet young man with incisive and logical arguments that inspired confidence. Illness had forced him to quit medical school but Héctor was still a medical student. The brothers shared political ideals and had encouraged a whole group of medical students and work colleagues to do political work in local factories. Another member of this group, Agustín Gringo Canello, had already qualified as a doctor but, dedicated to the cause of the dispossessed, was ready to leave his post at the local hospital immediately.
Before going on to Mendoza, I wrote to Masetti asking what to do with the flood of applicants willing to join us. We had to set up a mechanism for incorporating recruits without arousing suspicion, so I suggested using the bus to Tarija but staggering arrivals. I cloaked messages to him in the terminology of a construction company: electrical units, bags of cement, bribes and customs. I gave the address of a bookshop in Córdoba belonging to a friend of Oscar’s, either to leave letters in the name of Laureano, or to ask for me during normal opening hours.
I took the night bus to Mendoza so that I would arrive in the city during the day. Leaving home is easy; going back is more difficult. As I had done in Bell Ville, I turned for help to a left-wing friend, Ramón Avalos, rather than my family. To do my job safely and efficiently, I needed to block my feelings, limit my emotions, keep a distance from my own self. Mendozans are creatures of habit, so I walked from the bus terminal to the Sorocabana café on Avenida San Martín. I bumped straight into Ramón, a journalist and member of our cultural group. I asked him to find a safe house for me and he found none better than his own. More typically Mendozan than the poplars, Ramón’s generosity extended to everyone for no other reason than it was not in his nature to ignore a cry for help. Once the reason for secrecy was revealed (a bit exaggerated in his opinion), we agreed I should talk to his political mentor and our mutual friend, Cholo. Settled in his house, a thick blanket of memories threatened to envelop me while Ramón went about his business, returning at sunset with Cholo.
Cholo was a classmate of my elder brother Avelino and had known me since I was a kid. When he and his friends used to come and study at my house – Marxism, rather than the usual subjects – I would pester them like a tedious bluebottle until one of them, Perelmuter, a bit of a Stalinist, gave me such a huge kick up the arse I remember it to this day. My brother settled nearby in San Rafael but Cholo stayed in Mendoza and we became friends. At the time of this story he was a dissident Communist Party cadre, and the man to speak to about such matters. Although very emotional, he had lost none of his analytical ability. He examined the project using the same criteria we did, and became our contact in the region.
Back at Oscar’s house in Córdoba, waiting for a new identity card so I could cross the border and return to the finca, his wife Beba said someone was looking for me, or rather, someone was looking for Laureano! In Córdoba I used the name Roberto, but she knew about Laureano. A young man, briefcase in hand like a medical supplies salesman, was waiting in the garden. I don’t remember how he got to the house; probably through the usual ritual of contacts and Oscar had sent him over. When he saw me he smiled and said: ‘Ah, Pelao, sorry, I mean Laureano!’ I had no doubt Masetti had sent him, so determined was he to call me Pelao. He explained that he had come from the finca, that he was a friend of Leonardo’s from Buenos Aires University medical school. He had brought instructions for me, before continuing on to Buenos Aires. We arranged to meet later in Buenos Aires so I could introduce him to my contacts. His name was Jorge Bellomo, another Petiso because short men meet the same fate as bald men. He was a Cuba enthusiast who on a trip to Havana had picked up the accent and embraced the cause. He was faithful to it until he was kidnapped and blown up by the Triple A (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance) in 1975.
With Masetti’s instructions in my hand, I was able to send the first batch of recruits before returning to Buenos Aires.
14
They All Wanted to Climb Aboard: September 1963
Studies may w
ell be done of all the different social and psychological mechanisms that prompted a generation of young people to make such sacrifices for a revolutionary ideal. With hindsight, it would seem to be an unrepeatable phenomenon. Perhaps you could say that back then there was a future they wanted to be a part of, and now there is no alternative but the present, and nothing matters but living in the moment.
How terrifying, and at the same time remarkable, that those young people were so willing to give up family commitments, career plans, past achievements and future dreams. They scrapped it all in search of a utopia. And they were attracted not by glory or a guaranteed hamper of prizes, but by a journey into the unknown, leading to almost certain death, or at best a slim chance of survival. They all wanted to climb aboard. I did not have to persuade any of them. On the contrary, I tried to paint as bleak a picture as possible of what lay in store: unbelievable hardships, exhaustion and hunger, and insects that give no quarter. But nothing stopped them.
In Buenos Aires, the Anthropology Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities had become the hub of the EGP, together with the Medical School – Leonardo and Petiso Bellomo’s stamping ground. Bellomo was entrusted with coordinating our project in the capital. He took three new volunteers, Pirincho, Pupi and Grillo, up to the finca in Bolivia, although he himself asked for time to finish his studies. From Córdoba I sent Héctor Jouvé and another recruit whose name I can’t remember, perhaps Colina or del Hoyo. To my embarrassment, I could not go with them because I still had no papers. The problem was solved a few days later, however, when Oscar del Barco obtained from an old Communist Party contact a document I could alter. It came with an added bonus. Oscar suggested I might like to talk to a former regional party secretary who had just split from the national leadership. I felt I was about to hit the jackpot.