I didn\u2019t force Che Guevara to leave Cuba. That\u2019s yanqui propaganda designed to impugn my loyalty and judgment and decency. I\u2019ve loved Che since meeting him in Mexico City before the Revoluci\u00f3n and admired him more than anyone because more than anyone I\u2019d benefitted from his extraordinary talents. He accompanied Raul and me and eighty-two patriots on the creaky ship Granma that returned us to Cuba where government forces killed and seized sixty-five, and only seventeen of us escaped into the tropical Sierra Maestra mountains. During our heroic battle against the forces of imperialist cretin Fulgencio Batista, I bestowed great authority on Che, the physician-warrior. While we lauched guerilla operations from deep in our mountain redoubt, I permitted him to establish medical clinics. I encouraged him to start Rebel Radio and a newspaper to share our message. I let him administrate schools where we taught illiterate campesinos to read. I guided his building of small factories for grenades and the repair of weapons. I directed him to train new recruits to fight. I allowed him to shoot deserters and spies and laggards who wanted to quit. I ordered him to lead our troops in the decisive Battle of Santa Clara where Che derailed an armored enemy train and cut the nation in half. <\/p>\n
I congratulated him for being first to arrive in Havana \u2013 on January second, 1959 \u2013 since I was securing other cities and couldn\u2019t make it until six days later. I named him commander of La Caba\u00f1a Fortress where Batista\u2019s cutthroats \u2013 the cretin himself had escaped to the Dominican Republic \u2013 were given fair trials prior to being imprisoned or executed. I rarely complained, and only privately, that Che appeared to enjoy shooting people in the head. He was, let me emphasize, killing enemies who\u2019d murdered twenty, thirty, forty thousand Cubans during the reign of Fulgencio Batista. I never stated that Che\u2019s estimate of a few hundred executions La Caba\u00f1a Fortress seemed quite low. However many died there died in the strong hands of Che. <\/p>\n
About a week before Che\u2019s duty ended at the fortress, he got married. Raul attended the ceremony. Many people did. They were invited. I wasn\u2019t. I went anyway.<\/p>\n
Embracing the bearded warrior, I said, \u201cI\u2019m very happy for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGracias.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope this one works out better than your first.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident it\u2019ll be longer and more harmonious than any union you\u2019ll ever have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps you can be equally clever in explaining why I wasn\u2019t told.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the first person I thought of, but events moved so rapidly we were unable to locate you. You do pride yourself on being hard to find.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease step into the other room,\u201d I said. <\/p>\n
I led him into a bedroom and closed the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are laughing you snubbed me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve explained otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holding my right elbow in my left hand I extended the right onto my beard and stroked it, staring at the floor awhile before I looked at Che and said, \u201cI\u2019ve decided we need you to travel around the world for three months. Talk to leaders in Morocco, and the Sudan, and Egypt, and Pakistan, and India, and Thailand, even Japan, and others as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI must administer the Agrarian Land Reform Law, as we agreed, and ensure the wealthy relinquish what belongs to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you\u2019ll certainly do, upon your return.\u201d <\/p>\n
I accelerated what I\u2019d already planned would be a rapid consolidation of my power, seized land from baronial thieves, and was quite confident when Che Guevara returned. <\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations, I\u2019ve placed you in charge of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled and shook my hand. Could I trust this man? He began grabbing land even faster than I had. I didn\u2019t disagree with his moves. If I had, he couldn\u2019t have made them. We liberated a half millions acres of land owned by yanquis. They whined, and Eisenhower reduced U.S. sugar imports. Che denounced our imperialist enemies. So did I. But yanqui journalists praised Che for brilliance and wit. Perhaps I got as much praise as Che, but I deserved more, especially after I conceived the Cuban Literacy Campaign and put Che in charge. Literacy rapidly climbed from sixty to ninety-six percent. The masses applauded both of us. <\/p>\n
\u201cYour achievements have been extraordinary,\u201d I told him. \u201cIn time, I think your programs as Minister of Industries will also be quite successful, so I\u2019m making you our Finance Minister and President of the National Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cubans thought it was wonderful the humble warrior began signing our currencies simply as Che. That was a dramatic flourish. Only Che could compete with me as a showman. I should have put him in charge of our national theater or tourism. I erred in giving him so much economic authority. I hadn\u2019t realized he was such a doctrinaire Marxist because he was daily becoming more so. He wanted all our working efforts founded on moral incentives. Cubans couldn\u2019t eat morality, and production plummeted while absenteeism soared. I can\u2019t blame all that on Che since I failed to fire him. I\u2019m too trusting. And I can\u2019t indict him for our humiliation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I more than anyone wanted tactical nuclear weapons to deter the yanquis from attempting another Kennedy-inspired invasion, the next no doubt far larger than their Bay of Pigs fiasco. Regardless of what I said about Khrushchev and the Soviet Union, I didn\u2019t want some minister, like Che, publicly bellowing, \u201cIf the missiles had been under our control, we would have fired them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Che often said he wasn\u2019t a \u201cdesk man.\u201d He was a revolutionary who needed to fight, and I assured him I still wanted to export our socialist miracle. I didn\u2019t kick him out. He didn\u2019t want to stay and was thrilled in late 1964 I sent him on a three-month diplomatic tour as my \u201croving goodwill ambassador in Africa\u201d and elsewhere. Che visited leaders in Mali, and the Congo, and Guinea-Bissau, and Ghana, and Algeria, and North Korea, and in February 1965 returned to Algeria and repeatedly, albeit obliquely, accused the Soviet Union \u2013 our primary benefactor \u2013 of conspiring with the capitalists to exploit the desperate people of the Southern Hemisphere. <\/p>\n
Diplomatic cables fired in from the Soviet Union. Russian diplomats stopped by to rebuke me and warn that my country might in the future receive less help. They wanted to know, \u201cWho\u2019s in control of Cuban foreign policy, you or Che Guevara?\u201d<\/p>\n
They knew the answer. They really did know, didn\u2019t they? I was humiliated they\u2019d even ask. <\/p>\n
A couple of weeks later I greeted Che at the Havana airport. His wife was also there. I let them talk a few minutes. Okay, let\u2019s go, I motioned to Che. We were driven to a quiet room where I shut the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in charge,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot as well as you should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one\u2019s as skilled or qualified as I.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Cubans are waiting to shout, \u2018Che.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to stand in front of the wall at La Caba\u00f1a Fortress?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people would destroy you.\u201d<\/p>\n
With restraint he didn\u2019t deserve, I slapped his face. <\/p>\n
Che attempted to throw a right I preempted, pushing that shoulder with my left palm, and dipped to brace and nail his ribs with a right hook. I felt air and life leave his body as he sank onto both knees. <\/p>\n
Unable to talk, he motioned wait, meaning a minute or two. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou seem rather enthused, or at least not entirely distraught, about prospects in the Congo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d rather spread the Revoluci\u00f3n in South America.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve agreed conditions still aren\u2019t favorable there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people of the Congo will rise behind your leadership, and after victory there you can take your best officers to the most promising country in South America. You have my military and financial backing now as you will in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many troops will you provide?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot many, at this time, but they\u2019re very well trained and exceptionally motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Che didn\u2019t have much success in the Congo. He couldn\u2019t rouse the people after all, and they almost killed him. Thank goodness he got out. He sent messages asking to return to Cuba. Really, coming back a loser would have ruined his reputation, and I wouldn\u2019t have looked good, either. I doubted he wanted another desk job and that anyway would\u2019ve been quite impossible. <\/p>\n
\u201cTell him I\u2019ll arrange for him to come back to Cuba, briefly, in absolute secrecy, so we can discuss his next campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
We got him in undetected and agreed Bolivia needed him. The indigenous people there had always been trampled. Che could motivate and organize them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident you\u2019ll win in Bolivia,\u201d I told him, grasping his shoulders. \u201cI think our greatest problem is getting you into the country unrecognized.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already figured that out. My treatment starts tomorrow. One at a time all the hairs on my head, accept around the sides, will be plucked, and the hair on the sides will be dyed gray as will my moustache. My beard will be shaved.\u201d<\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t have known the dashing Che, who got into Bolivia quite easily but he again failed to arouse the campesinos. After several months fighting, he was starving and filthy when national soldiers, guided by the CIA, wounded and captured him. The following day they killed Che. Many stunning photographs revealed his luxuriant dark wavy hair and masculine beard had grown out and he looked quite nice, he in fact looked very much alive and relaxed, as he lay on his back, head propped up, pretty brown eyes staring into eternity. <\/p>\n
A week later in Havana I eulogized Che before a million aggrieved Cubans in Plaza de La Revoluci\u00f3n. I praised his intelligence and decency and bravery and much more but stated, \u201cIf as a guerrilla he had an Achilles heel, that Achilles heel was his excessive aggressiveness, his absolute contempt for danger.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fidel and Che Smile<\/a> I didn\u2019t force Che Guevara to leave Cuba. That\u2019s yanqui propaganda designed to impugn my loyalty and judgment and decency. I\u2019ve loved Che since meeting him in Mexico City before the Revoluci\u00f3n and admired him more than anyone because more than anyone I\u2019d benefitted from his extraordinary talents. He accompanied Raul and me and eighty-two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1437,1439,909,148,156,103,155,1443,241,451,167,183],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nFidel and Che in Discussion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"