Actual guards, both Lunsford and Lowell decided at about the same moment. Those rifles are not ceremonial.
“Beautiful building,” Lowell said.
“It was given to the Army in the early years of the century by the family who owns La Nacion, our major daily newspaper.”
“How interesting,” Lowell said.
“The Plaza Hotel, mi coronel, is on the far side of the Plaza,” the sturdy man said, and pointed.
They came close to the Círculo Militar. The huge gates swung inward, and in a moment Lowell saw that they had been pulled open by two men in white jackets. The soldiers with the automatic rifles unslung them, came to attention, and held the rifles stiffly in front of them, in a maneuver not unlike Present Arms in the U.S. Army Manual of Arms, as the Buick rolled through the gates.
One of the white-jacketed men walked quickly to the car and opened the rear door.
Lowell and Lunsford got out.
A tall officer, in a splendidly tailored uniform—brown tunic, Sam Browne belt, pink riding breeches, and glistening riding boots—came out of the building, walked up, came to attention, and saluted.
“Colonel Lowell, Teniente Coronel Ricardo Fosterwood, a sus órdenes. I have the honor to be aide-de-camp to Teniente General Pistarini.”
“How do you do, Colonel? This is Major Lunsford.”
They all shook hands.
“Why don’t we go inside and get out of this beastly summer heat?” Fosterwood said, and waved them into the building.
Beside a curving marble staircase there was an elevator. There was hardly enough room for the three officers.
Fosterwood apologized for the size of the cramped elevator.
“I have always wondered if the Frenchman who designed this building did so in the belief that Argentines were all dwarfs, or whether he thought we liked to stand really close to ladies in the lift,” he said.
The three smiled at each other.
The elevator stopped, and Fosterwood slid the folding door open, then motioned them outside. He led them down a wide corridor, opened the left half of a huge, massive, heavily carved door, and waved them through it.
“I took the liberty of placing the major in one of the bedrooms in this suite,” Fosterwood said as he came into the elegantly furnished living room of the suite. “It would be no trouble at all to arrange—”
“I’m sure that Major Lunsford will be completely comfortable here,” Lowell said.
“General Pistarini has ordered me, as our first order of business, to go through a custom he said he learned at your Fort Knox while on a visit there. ‘Cutting the dust of the trail’?”
“One of our most sacred customs,” Lowell said.
Fosterwood bowed them through another door. It turned out to be a bar, with a white-jacketed bartender in attendance.
“And I believe bourbon whiskey is the dust-cutter of choice?”
“Actually,” Lowell began, stopped, and then went on. “Actually, two things. I’m a scotch drinker, and actually it’s a little early in the day for me to start on anything.”
“In that case, let me introduce you to an Argentine custom,” Fosterwood said. “We say it’s never too early, or too late, to have a glass of champagne.”
“We of the infantry say the same thing,” Lunsford said.
“I think we’ll find French champagne and Argentine,” Fosterwood said.
“Argentine, if you will,” Lowell said.
The bartender produced a bottle of champagne and glasses.
“To your very pleasant stay in Argentina, mi coronel,” Fosterwood said, raising his glass.
“Thank you,” Lowell said. “And when would you say it would be convenient for General Pistarini to receive me, so I can offer my thanks for his magnificent hospitality?”
“Odd that you should ask,” Fosterwood said. “There is a small problem at the moment, nothing that can’t be managed, but bothersome enough that General Pistarini feels he should be at Campo de Mayo until it is resolved. . . .”
“And Campo de Mayo is what?” Lowell asked.
“It’s one of our major bases, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Our military academy is there, and one of our cavalry regiments.”
“I see.”
“The General asked me to ask you, if you felt up to it, after your long trip, if you might not like to play a little polo with him this afternoon at Campo de Mayo.”
“I’m not really an Argentine-class polo player,” Lowell said.
“Oh, this would just be a friendly game between friends,” Fosterwood said. “To help pass the time, so to speak.”
“I’d be happy to play with the general,” Lowell said. “There is the problem of breeches and boots. . . .”
“Not a problem at all. I’m sure we can outfit you with no difficulty. May I tell the general you will join him?”
“How do we get from here to there?” Lowell asked.
“The car, of course, is at your disposal,” Fosterwood said.
“The Buick?”
“And the drivers will all speak English. So, mi coronel?”
“Please tell General Pistarini that, even with the knowledge that I will be a rank amateur playing with the world’s best, I am delighted to accept his kind offer.”
“And you, Major?”
“I am not a polo player, Colonel. Thank you just the same,” Lunsford said.
“But you will come anyway? There will be a—you call it barbecue—I’m sure.”
“Yes, I will. Thank you very much.”
“If you left here at three, or a little after,” Fosterwood said. “The driver will know where to take you.”
“And the car will be downstairs?”
Fosterwood nodded. “The car is at your disposal during your visit.”
“Thank you.”
“And, now, with your permission, I will leave you to get settled. I suspect my general needs me. He usually does.”
“Did you expect this, mi coronel?” Lunsford asked. “The Red Carpet?”
“Not quite this way.”
“Those guys at the airport were spooks,” Lunsford said.
“They’re called the SIDE. Felter told me that.”
“And who was the Air Force guy at the airport?”
“He said that this was an Air Force post, whatever the hell that means, and that he had been sent by the Air Force, correction, defense attaché, to take us to our quarters, and then to report to him.”
“I wonder how he knew we were coming,” Lunsford said. “Report to him?”
Lowell nodded. “I told him to go fuck himself.”
Lunsford laughed. “No, you didn’t.”
“I told him to tell his boss that I hoped he could find time in his schedule for me to pay a courtesy call on him.”
“And this invitation to play polo?”
Lowell shrugged helplessly.
[ SIX ]
Office of the Defense Attaché
United States Embassy
Sarmiento 663
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1325 3 January 1965
“You wanted to see me, Colonel?” Colonel Richard J. Harris, Jr., USA, inquired of Colonel Robert McGrory, USAF, from the latter’s doorway.
“Come in, Colonel,” McGrory said.
“Hello, Charley,” Harris said to Major Charles A. Daley, USAF, who was standing at a position pretty close to attention in front of McGrory’s desk.
“Sir,” Major Daley replied.
“Major, would you please repeat for Colonel Harris’s edification what transpired when you were at Ezeiza this morning?”
“Yes, sir,” Major Daley said.
“Those officers weren’t on the plane?” Harris asked.
“Colonel, please be good enough to allow the major to give his after-action report,” Colonel McGrory said.
“Sorry,” Harris said.
“Sir, I went to the reception area of Ezeiza with a sign with ‘Lieutenant Colonel Lowell’ wr
itten on it. About the very first people to come off the airplane—through the doors from Immigration—were a tall white man and a Negro. They were with a man I believe was from SIDE. The white man—”
“Why do you think they were from SIDE, Charley?” Harris interrupted.
“Sir, I believe I have seen the man before, and later, when they left the airport, there were two of the cars, those little Falcons SIDE uses?”
“Yeah,” Harris said.
“I suggest, Colonel, that the major’s report could be more expeditiously completed if you could refrain from interrupting him.”
“Sorry,” Harris repeated.
“As I was saying, sir, one of the gentlemen with the man I believe was from SIDE came up to me and said he was Colonel Lowell. I told him who I was, and what I wanted.”
“He delivered the message, Colonel,” McGrory said, “that as soon as they were in their quarters he was to report to me.”
“And?”
“Sir, Colonel Lowell said that I was to tell Colonel McGrory that he hoped Colonel McGrory could find time for him to pay a courtesy call while he was in Argentina, and that he was sorry I wasted my time going to the airport.”
“To make things crystal clear to the colonel, Major,” McGrory said, “did you make it absolutely clear to Lieutenant Colonel Lowell that it was an order to report to me, not a request?”
“Yes, sir. I made that perfectly clear, sir.”
“Is that clear to you, Colonel?”
“Crystal clear, Colonel. Instead of reporting to you, Colonel Lowell replied that he hoped you would find time for him to pay you a courtesy call.”
In other words, he told Charley to tell you to go fuck yourself. I like this guy already.
“I intend to make a full report of this,” Colonel McGrory said. “It’s disobedience to an order, clear and simple.”
“And then these two people left the airport? With the man from SIDE?” Harris asked.
“Yes, sir. As I said before, there were three cars parked illegally in the taxi area, two Falcons and a Buick. Colonel Lowell, and the Negro man. . . .”
“I think we can safely presume, don’t you, Charley, that the Negro man is Major Lunsford?” Harris asked.
“Yes, sir, I think we could do that.”
“Go on, Charley,” Harris said.
“Yes, sir. Colonel Lowell and Major Lunsford got in the Buick, and it drove off, with one of the Falcons following it.”
“You have any idea where they went?” Harris asked.
“Are you telling me, Colonel, that you don’t know where they are?” Colonel McGrory asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea where they are, Colonel.”
“That better be the truth, Colonel. If I find out later—”
“The truth is, Colonel, that I deferred to your announcement that it was the business of the defense attaché to meet these officers, and left the matter entirely in your capable hands. Have you got something else for me, Colonel?”
“That will be all, thank you, Colonel.”
Colonel Harris returned to his office, repeated the essentials of the conversation to Master Sergeant Wilson, and suggested that Wilson ask his buddy, the Assistant Administrative Officer (Housing & Medical Services) of the United States Information Agency, which was also housed in the Embassy Chancellery, if he had any ideas where the two Army officers might be found.
An hour later, Master Sergeant Wilson told him that Lowell and Lunsford were in the Círculo Militar.
[ SEVEN ]
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 2 January 1965 1110 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #9.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
By Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, and in consideration of the fact that SUBJECT holds Argentinian citizenship by birth, the following information is furnished:
1. (Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Former Argentine President Juan D. PERÓN arrived in Rio de Janeiro at 1307 GMT aboard scheduled Iberia Airlines Flight 909. PERÓN and party of eight (8) Argentine nationals were detained by Brazilian Air Force at direction of Brazilian government.
2. (Reliability Scale Three) (From CIA Rio) PERÓN and party intend to travel by air to Montevideo, Uruguay. PERÓN does not have visa required for such travel.
3. (Reliability Scale Two) (From CIA Rio) It is intention of Brazilian government to deny PERÓN permission to enter Brazil. PERÓN does not possess the required visa.
4. (Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Buenos Aires) Argentine government has reinforced border crossing points with Army officers under orders to deny PERÓN entrance to Argentina. Surreptitious entry, however, is believed possible.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
VIII
[ ONE ]
Círculo Militar
Plaza San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1440 3 January 1965
Lieutenant Colonel Lowell and Major Lunsford, both now dressed in seersucker suits—Lowell had considered proper dress, decided against uniforms, and against too much informality, as open-collar polo shirts might have been—walked through a smaller gate in the huge gates of the Círculo Militar toward the Buick.
The driver saw them coming and got quickly out of the car and opened the door for them. He tried to take a small leather bag from Lowell’s hand, but Lowell declined, saying, “I’ll just put it in the back with me. And before we go to Campo de Mayo, I have to stop at the Plaza Hotel for a minute.”
“Of course, sir.”
The bag contained a change of linen and toilet articles. “What’s that for?” Lunsford had asked when he saw him packing the bag.
“Polo, for your general edification, my dear major, is a sport in which the riders sweat as much as their mounts. The ponies are replaced at least once each chukker; the players are not. I am desperately going to need a shower and a change of undies when the Argentines are through with me. If not hospitalization.”
“You’re not any good at polo?”
“When I was a young man, I thought I was a very good polo player,” Lowell said, “and so did Barbara Bellmon’s father. My skill kept me from simonizing a lot of tanks and armored cars, which is how the other enlisted men of the United States Constabulary spent their time. I had a four-goal handicap.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re rated, one to ten, on your skill. Ten is top. Four guys on a team. You add up the handicaps and get, say, a five- or six-, or maybe even a ten- or twelve-goal handicap team. I thought I was pretty hot stuff with my four-goal handicap. And then, at Ramapo Valley, in New York, I played my first game against an Argentine team. They trotted happily onto the field with forty goals between them. Everybody had a ten-goal handicap.”
“You played any lately, mi coronel?” Lunsford asked, chuckling.
“Indeed I have. And I have been rated again, and now I am a one-goal -handicap player, which I think reflects their opinion of me as a very nice fellow, rather than my skill on the field.”
He paused and then added. “Before we go out there, I want to go to the hotel to see if someone canceled my reservations.”
“Can’t you call?”
“I would like to know, if they’re canceled, who did it,” Lowell said.
When the Buick pulled out of the parking area reserved for guests of the Círculo Militar, a black Ford Falcon followed it. They moved about halfway around the wide avenue that circles Plaza San Martin, then turned off it and into a drive under one corner of the Plaza Hotel.
A doorman in a silk top hat o
pened the door of the car for them.
“This won’t take long,” Lowell said to the driver. “How will I find you?”
The passage under the hotel was obviously a drop-off/pick-up-and -get-moving-quickly area.
The driver acted as if the question surprised him.
“I will wait for you here, mi coronel.”
Lowell smiled and walked into the hotel with Lunsford trailing him.
“What is that, some pigs is more equal than other pigs?” Lunsford asked quietly. “And you noticed the old Ford?”
“Actually, it’s probably a new one,” Lowell said. “They still make them down here.”
He walked to the reception desk.
“My name is Lowell,” he said. “I think I have a reservation.”
“Oh, Mr. Lowell,” the desk clerk said immediately. “I am so sorry you didn’t connect with the car at Ezeiza.”
“I didn’t know you were sending a car,” Lowell said. “But no problem, a friend met me.”
“And your luggage, sir?”
“That will be along after a while,” Lowell said.
“Will you excuse me just a moment, Mr. Lowell?” the desk clerk said.
A moment later a man in formal clothing appeared in front of the desk.
“Mr. Lowell, I am Dominic Frizzelli, the assistant manager. I would like to apologize for our driver not being able to find you.”
“A friend met us; it was no problem. And I very much appreciate your courtesy in sending it.”
“You are very gracious. If you’ll come with me, please?”
He led them to an elevator, which took them directly to the foyer of a suite on the top floor.
The suite was large and elegantly furnished, and its windows provided a view of the ancient trees in Plaza San Martín, and, beyond, of the River Plate. There was a large basket of fruit and a bottle of champagne in a silver cooler. The suite was not as large nor as elegantly furnished as their accommodations in the Círculo Militar.
“This is very nice,” Lowell said.
“Mr. Delaplaine of the Bank of Boston personally inspected it, sir, and thought you would find it satisfactory. This is where they often accommodate their distinguished visitors.”
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