UNITED STATES—Of course, like many aspects of his life, how far you regard Che Guevara as a terrorist or a liberator is up for grabs. Ultimately, it’s easy to romanticize martyrs – especially when they die not only fighting but young, handsome and charismatic, and their mythologies get a helping hand from Hollywood.
The Motorcycle Diaries sure didn’t do any harm. “What explains the Che mania?” wrote former guerrilla and friend of Guevara Orlando Borrego in a 1997 issue of Newsweek Magazine. “In a world of ferocious competition and consumerism, some element of humanity is still looking for a hero with values.” But, like buying your teen rebellion at Hot Topic or a ‘feminist’ t-shirt from a high-street store that employs female sweatshop labor, those values are often corrupted – capitalism will always find a way to sell protest back to you.
Indeed.
After the goodbye dinner, Guevara, shaved and groomed so he was unrecognizable got in the back of his wine-red Mercedes and told his chauffeur, “Drive, do you think this car is going to drive itself!” He traveled in disguise. His had short hair, heavy black frame glasses, a necktie and conventional suit. A sober businessman. His passport identified him as Ramon Benítez. In La Paz, Bolivia, he was introduced as a middle-aged economist from Uruguay. He snapped a picture of himself, in disguise, in the mirror of his hotel room. He resembles a bourgeois cat a little over the hill, V-neck sweater and slacks, probably an avid golfer.
Che Guevara hiked into the hills, no chauffeur, and he took charge of a small rebel force. He fought battles. He was under fire. It was brave and dismal (who against). When he was captured he cursed fluently. Skin and bones with a long beard, he looked like a mystic. A CIA agent of Cuban ancestry few in to interrogate him. Many serpentine ideological discussions followed. The Bolivian government decided to execute him for inciting revolution on their soil.
“It is better like this,” said Guevara. “I should never have been captured alive.”
“I no longer hated him,” the Cuban-American agent said. “His moment of raw truth had come, and he was facing death with courage and grace.”
Che Guevara was killed on October 8, 1967. His last words, noted by the CIA: “Tell Fidel he will soon see a triumphant Revolution in America, and tell my wife to remarry and be happy.”
His wife, who had also been deeply involved as an officer in the rebellion, later wrote a book Remembering Che: My Life with Che Guevara, published after the Revolution had yet to triumph and she did not remarry and has devoted her life to raising her four children.
“We had some most enjoyable times within the maelstrom of the war, and those moments brought us all closer together. They helped us get to know each other as we really were. Some of us were naive, others, very clever; we were all young and full of hope for a future victory. We took every chance to have fun. I remember Che later wrote: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
To be continued…
