Che Guevara and the CIA in the Mountains of Bolivia
Published: Oct 9, 2020
Briefing Book #725
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Argentine-born Revolutionary Executed 53 Years Ago
Declassified Records Describe Intense U.S. Tracking of Guevara’s Movements, Initial Doubts about His Death, and Hopes that His Violent Demise Would Discourage Revolutionaries in Latin America
Washington, DC, October 9, 2020 – Fifty-three years ago, at 1:15 p.m. on October 9, 1967, Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara was executed in the hills of Bolivia after being captured by a U.S.-trained Bolivian military battalion. A CIA operative, Felix Rodriguez, was present. U.S. officials had been tracking Guevara’s whereabouts ever since he disappeared from public view in Cuba in 1965. The highest White House officials were intensely interested in confirming his death, then using it to undermine leftist revolutionary movements in Latin America, as a selection of White House and CIA documents posted today by the National Security Archive describes.
President Lyndon Johnson himself received regular updates on Guevara’s whereabouts, the record shows, reflecting continuing, deep concerns over Cuban-inspired revolutionary activity in the region. Today’s posting features National Security Council memos, CIA field reports, and other documents that follow several strands of the story, from Guevara’s ill-fated campaign in Bolivia, to La Paz’s request for U.S. help in creating a “hunter-killer” team to “ferret out guerrillas,” to reports of Che’s last conversation and execution (provided by an under-cover CIA officer at the scene), to the intensive efforts of the United States to mount a posthumous propaganda campaign based on Guevara’s diary and other captured records. In a number of cases the documents have previously been released but are now available with fewer security redactions.
The materials are selections from the recent digitized documentary compilation, “CIA Covert Operations III: From Kennedy to Nixon, 1961-1974,” part of the Digital National Security Archive series published by ProQuest. It is the third in an ongoing series edited by John Prados and focuses on CIA decision making and operations in the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Iraq, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The records relating to Cuba build on the previous work of the National Security Archive’s Cuba Project, directed by Peter Kornbluh, which has produced many groundbreaking publications on Guevara, Fidel Castro, and U.S.-Cuba relations.
Che Guevara and the CIA in the Mountains of Bolivia
By John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
The Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto (“Che”) Guevara de la Serna had been Fidel Castro’s right-hand man in the Cuban Revolution, had developed theories of mass action, and for a decade kept himself where the action was. Che helped Castro defeat the CIA’s Bay of Pigs invasion, stood with him at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and felt out of place when the day’s work lay in simply administering government. Che left Cuba in 1964 for a tour of Africa, until the Congolese fight against Joseph Kasavubu drew him there. That rebellion proved to be a bust. By 1966 Che was ready for fresh ventures and he wanted them to be in Latin America.[1]
More:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-intelligence/2020-10-09/che-guevara-cia-mountains-bolivia?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=718a1bb9-5db5-42bf-91cf-6435edb0c1ee
Guevara changed his look to evade detection in 1966 (Alternate History Wiki - Fandom).
Another disguise:
