Che Gueverra Was An Irishman Named Ernest Lynch

Che Gueverra Was Actually an Irishman Named Ernest Lynch
This profile, edited and adapted by Breaker McCoy (quikmaneuvers.com, 2008), utilized some excerpts from an article written by Humberto Fontova, entitled "Fidel's Executioner," published by FrontPageMagazine.com on October 14, 2005.There Was no Bloody Revolutionary War in Cuba
In effect, “General” Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar conceded victory to the Castro guerrillas in the beginning ... Castro had no more than a total of 1000 support troops and 270 fighters opposing Batista's army of 4000- 40000 men depending on the source.
The Batista war was an elaborate ruse and gaudy clown show falsely exaggerated by the American leftist media. After the “glorious victory”, Castro’s lot were content to run down and execute the few Batista men motivated enough to shoot back (most of these were of humble background), settle into the mansions stolen from Batistianos,and enjoy the rest of their booty.In December 1956, a party of 70 badly trained revolutionary rich boys led by Castro, landed from a yacht named Granma intending to start an armed resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra. They had landed at Los Colorados beach, on the southwestern coast of Oriente Province.Castro's forces were attacked by the Cuban military aircraft, but he and 20 men survived by escaping into the wooded mountains of the Sierra Maestra. Less than two years later 3 80man rebel columns and a thousand man unarmed logistics force defeated Batistas 4,000-40,000 man army navy and air force. Batista's army was not an army, but a corrupt bunch of thugs with no motivation and not much organizational discipline.As an American intelligence liaison reported: “I asked how the (Batista)army was doing in its operations against the guerrillas and was told that it was not fighting. Only rarely did it venture from its barracks and obviously was very reluctant to move into the hills to seek out the rebels.” Batista spread his weird army out all over Cuba insquad sized groups of 8-10 men stationed in hundreds of villages and towns. Inviting defeat in detailIn an act of desperation, Batista sent one of his most feared officers after Castro with a force of 500 men in 1968. But even this effort backfired. Many troops pulled up lame with self-inflicted injuries.Others sold the rebels their guns. Castro captured the army's communications trailer and opened a number of fronts that went unchallenged as his three small columns advanced into Havana.A Typical Cuban War BattleOn January 14, 1957, Castro’s entire 25 man army came to a halt by the Magdalena River, which separates La Plata and a ridge beginning in the Sierra Maestra and ending at the sea. Fidel gave orders for target practice as some sort of training for his troops — some of the men were using weapons for the first time in their lives. Therevolutionists bathed there as well — having ignored matters of hygiene for many days — and those who were able to do so changed into clean clothes. At that time Castro’s army had 23 working weapons: nine rifles equipped with telescopic sights, five semiautomatic rifles, four bolt-action rifles, two Thompson submachine guns, two submachine guns, and a 16-gauge shotgun.They were low on ammunition and prepared to attack the local Bastista Barracks manned by a 9-man squad.As Cheo later said: “We had 22 weapons ready for the attack. It was an important occasion, and we had very little ammunition. We had to take the army barracks at all costs, for failure meant wasting our ammunition, leaving us practically defenseless. The plan of attack was simplistic:-4 men armed with semi automatic weapons would attack the palm thatched barracks from the right-Castro and Che would attack fire at the center with four men-Raul Castro and the rest of the men attacked from the left“We approached within 40 meters of the barracks. By the light of a full moon, Fidel initiated the gun battle with two bursts of machine-gun fire and all available rifles followed. Immediately, we demanded the enemy's surrender, but with no results. The murderer and informer Chicho Osorio was executed as soon as shooting broke out.The attack had begun at 2:40 a.m., and the guards put up a much fiercer resistance than we had expected. A sergeant, armed with an M-1, responded with fire every time we demanded their surrender. We were given orders to use our old Brazilian-type hand grenades. Luis Crespo threw his, and I mine, but they did not detonate. Raúl Castrothrew a stick of dynamite and nothing happened. We then had no choice but to get close to the quarters and set them on fire, even at the risk of our own lives. The light from the blaze showed us it was simply a storeroom full of coconuts, but we had intimidated the soldiers and they gave up the fight.” We quickly took stock of our takings:9 men eight Springfields, one Thompson machine gun, and about 1,000 rounds; we had fired approximately 500 rounds. In addition, we now had cartridge belts, fuel, knives, clothing, and some food. Casualties: they had two dead, five wounded, and we had taken three prisoners. Some, along with the informer Honorio, had fled. On our side, not a scratch.We freed all the civilians and at 4:30 a.m. on January 17 started for Palma Mocha, arriving at dawn and searching out the most inaccessible zones of the Sierra Maestra.Ernesto Guevara De La Serna y LynchHad Ernesto Guevara De La Serna y Lynch (Aka Che Guevara) not linked up with Raul and Fidel Castro in Mexico city that fateful summer of 1955 -- had he not linked up with a Cuban exile named Nico Lopez in Guatemala the year before who later introduced him to Raul and Fidel Castro in Mexico city , Lynch the Irish-Argentinan would still be a rich kid turned hobo.Ernest Lynch (aka Che Guevara) would have continued his life of a traveling hobo, mooching off women, staying in flophouses and scribbling unreadable poetry. Che was a Revolutionary Ringo Starr. By pure chance, he fell in with the right bunch at just the right time and rode their coattails to fame. His very name "Che" was imparted by theCubans who hob-knobbed with him in Mexico. Argentines use the term "Che" much like Cubans use "Chico" or Michael Moore fans use "dude."The Cubans noticed Guevara using it so they pasted it to him. And it stuck. But today his famous photo by Alberto Korda ranks as the most reproduced print in the world. Last year Burlington Industries introduced a line of infant wear bearing his famous image. Even the Pope, on his visit to Cuba in 1998, spoke approvingly about Che's "ideals." Che owes all this hype and flummery to the century's top media swindler, Fidel Castro, who also dispatched the hero deliberately to his death. As those who know say, "Fidel only praises the dead."Other than his competence at murdering bound, gagged and blindfolded men, Che Guevara failed spectacularly at everything he attempted in his life. First he failed as an Argentine medical student. Though he's widely described as a medical doctor by hishagiographers (Castaneda, Anderson, Taibo, Kalfon) no record exists of Guevara's medical degree. When Cuban-American researcher Enrique Ros inquired of the Rector of the University of Buenos Aires and the head of its Office of Academic Affairs for copies or proof of said document, Ros was variously told that the records had beenmisplaced or perhaps stolen.Che Guevara Lynch was Never A Guerilla Fighter/LeaderChe Guevara's most famous book is titled Guerrilla Warfare. His famous photo is captioned "Heroic Guerrilla." On the other hand his most resounding failure came precisely as a guerrilla, while there is no record of him prevailing in any bona-fide guerrilla battle. In fact, there are precious few accounts that he actually fought in anything properly described as a battle. The one that describes his most famous military exploit is referred to as "The Battle of Santa Clara," which took place in December 1958. The loss of this "battle" by the Batista forces is alleged to have caused Batista to lose hope and flee Cuba. To commemorate this historic military engagement, Castro has built a Che Guevara museum in Santa Clara."One Thousand Killed in 5 days of Fierce Street Fighting," proclaimed a New York Times headline on Jan 4, 1959 about the battle. "Commander Che Guevara appealed to Batista troops for a truce to clear the streets of casualties" the articles continued. "Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3,000 men." (Some New York Times correspondent claimed that he did that with “3 sling shots and 2 pea shooters. Such Heros!”)"Those of us who were there can only laugh at this stuff," say participants on both sides who live in exile today. In fact, the Battle of Santa Clara -- despite what those early versions that propagandist Jayson Blair reported -- was a puerile skirmish. Che Guevara's own diary mentions that his column suffered exactly one casualty (a soldierknown as El Vaquerito) in this ferocious "battle." Other accounts put the grand total of rebel losses as from three to five men. Most of Batista's soldiers saw no reason to fight for a crooked, unpopular regime that was clearly doomed. So they didn't fire a shot, even those on the famous "armored train," that Guevara supposedly attacked andcaptured.Today that armored train is a major tourist attraction in Santa Clara. The train, loaded with 373 soldiers and $4M worth of munitions, was sent from Havana to Santa Clara in late December of 1958 by Batista's high command as a last ditch attempt to halt the rebels. Che's rebels in Santa Clara bulldozed the tracks and the train derailed just outside of town. Then a few rebels shot at it and a few soldiers fired back. No one was hurt. Soon some rebels approached brandishing a truce flag and one of the train's officers, Enrique Gomez, walked out to meet them. Gomez was brought to meet Comandante Guevara."What's going on here!' Che shouted. "This isn't what we agreed on!" Gomez was puzzled. "What agreement?" he asked. It turned out, unbeknownst to the troops inside, Guevara had used funds the revolutionaries had raised from anti-Batista Cubans to buy the train and all its armaments from its corrupt commander Colonel FlorentinoRossell, who had already fled to Miami. The price was either $350,000 or $1,000,000, depending on the source.Actually Che had every reason to be upset. Actual shots fired against his troops? Here's another eye-witness account regarding Che's famous "invasion" of las Villas Province shortly before the famous "battle" of Santa Clara. "Guevara's column shuffled right into the U.S. agricultural experimental station in Camaguey. Guevara asked manager Joe McGuire to have a man take a package to Batista's military commander in the city. The package contained $100,000 with a note. Guevara's men moved through the province almost within sight of uninterested Batista troops."Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo was a Rebel captain who had been in on many of these transactions but he defected mere months after the Rebel victory. In an El Diario de Nueva York article dated June 25th 1959 he claimed that Castro still had $4,500,000 left in that "fund" at the time of the Revolutionary victory. "I don't know what might have happened to that money." Rodriguez Tamayo adds.Yet immediately after the Santa Clara bribe and skirmish, Che ordered 27 Batista soldiers executed as "war criminals." Dr. Serafin Ruiz was a Castro operative in Santa Clara at the time, but apparently an essentially decent one. "But Comandante" he responded to Che's order. "Our revolution promises not to execute without trials, without proof. How can we just....?""Look Serafin" Che snorted back. "If your bourgeois prejudices won'tallow you to carry out my orders, fine. Go ahead and try them tomorrow morning -- but execute them NOW!" It was a Marxist version of the Red Queen's famous line to Alice in Wonderland:"Sentence first -- verdict afterwards!"Che Guevara's own diary puts the grand total of his forces' losses during the entire two-year long "civil war" in Cuba at 20, about equal to the average number dead during Rio de Janeiro's carnival every year. To put it briefly, Batista's army barely fought.Officials in Cuba's U.S. embassy at the time became a little skeptical about all the battlefield bloodshed and heroics reported in the New York Times and investigated. They ran down every reliable lead and eyewitness account of what the New York Times kept reporting as bloody civil war with thousands dead in single battles.They found that in the entire Cuban countryside, in those two years of "ferocious" battles between rebel forces and Batista troops, the total casualties on both sides actually amounted to 182. New Orleans has an annual murder rate double that.Typically, Che Guevara doesn't even merit credit for the perfectly sensible scheme of bribing rather than fighting Batista's army. The funds for these bribes derived mostly from Fidel's snookering of Batista's wealthy political opponents, convincing them that he was a "patriotic Cuban, a democrat," and that they should join, or at least help fund, his 26th of July Movement in order to bring democracy and prosperity to Cuba ChiefØ executioner for the Castro regime, responsible for the murder of thousandsØ Was appointed Cuba's Minister of Economics in 1960; within months the Cuban peso was practically worthless. Was appointed Cuba's Minister of Industries inØ 1961; within a year a previously prosperous nation was rationing food, closing factories, and losing hundreds of thousands of its most productive citizens, who were happy to flee with only the clothes on their backs.US Leftist Media Promoted and Pimped Castro and Che Guevara (Lynch)A communist Jew and admitted bigot, Herbert Matthews, traveled with Castro and all his propaganda was reported in the US media as fact. From 1956 through 1960, the years when the US media was pretending that Castro was not a communist.Matthews of the NY Times should be grouped with fabricators like Stephen Glass of The New Republic or the latest Times reporter to shame the paper, Jayson Blair, whose deceptions were elaborate and deliberate. Matthews was trying to curry communist favor; even after hebroke with Castro, his pivotal role early in the revolution guaranteed him free access. He was prohibited from continuing to report about the revolution by his own editors.Matthews wrote sympathetically about Castro because journalism was not about truth, to him journalism was a propaganda tool, a crusade for Marxism, a weapon for righting wrongs and tipping power towards communismIn August of 1960, a year and a half after Che Guevara entered Havana ahead of his "column" of "guerrillas," Time magazine featured the revolutionary comandante on its cover and crowned him the "Brains of the Cuban Revolution." (Fidel Castro was "the heart" and Raul Castro "the fist.")"Wearing a smile of melancholy sweetness that many women find devastating," read the New York Time articles, "Che guides Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence and a perceptive sense of humor.""This is not a Communist Revolution in any sense of the term," The New York Times had declared a year earlier. "Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he is decidedly anti-Communist.""It would be a great mistake," Walter Lippmann wrote in the Washington Post that same month, "even to intimate that Castro's Cuba has any real prospect of becoming a Soviet satellite."A few months earlier the London Observer had observed: "Mr. Castro's bearded youthful figure has become a symbol of Latin America's rejection of brutality and lying. Every sign is that he will reject personal rule and violence."Time magazine was in perfect sync with her major-media peers --utterly wrong.Lynch the ExecutionerGuevara was no more the brains of the Cuban Revolution than Cheka head, Felix Drezhinsky had been the brains of the Bolshevik Revolution,or Gestapo chief Himmler the brains of the National Socialist Revolution, or KGB head Beria the brains behind Stalinism. In fact Che performed the same role for Fidel Castro as Drezhinsky performed for Lenin, and Beria for Stalin. Che Guevara was the Castro regime's chief executioner.Under Che, Havana's La Cabana fortress was converted into Cuba's Lubianka. He was a true Chekist: "Always interrogate your prisoners at night," Che commanded his prosecutorial goons, "a man is easier to cow at night, his mental resistance is always lower."A Cuban prosecutor of the time who quickly defected in horror and disgust named Jose Vilasuso estimates that Che signed 400 death warrants the first few months of his command in La Cabana. A Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu, who was often on hand to perform confessions and last rites, says Che personally ordered 700 executions by firing squad during the period. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book Yo Soy El Che! that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad.In his book Che Guevara: A Biography, Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first year of the Castro regime. Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban-American CIA operative who helped track him down in Bolivia and was the last person to question him, says that Che during his final talk, admitted to "a couple thousand" executions. But he shrugged them off as all beingof "imperialist spies and CIA agents."Vengeance, much less justice, had little to do with the Castro/Che directed bloodbath in the first months of 1959. Che's murderous agenda in La Cabana fortress in 1959 was exactly Stalin's murderous agenda in the Katyn Forest in 1940. Like Stalin's massacre of the Polish officer corps, like Stalin's Great Terror against his own officer corps a few years earlier, Che's firing squad marathons were a perfectly rational and cold blooded exercise that served their purpose ideally. His bloodbath decapitated literally and figuratively the first ranks of Cuba's anti-Castro rebels.Lynch the Hobo in GuatemalaFive years before the beginning of the Castro Revolution, while still a Communist hobo in Guatemala, Che had seen the Guatemalan officer corps with CIA assistance rise against the Red regime of Jacobo Arbenz and send him and his Communist minions hightailing into exile. (For those leftists who still think that Arbenz was an innocent"nationalist" victimized by the fiendish United Fruit Company and their CIA proxies, please note: Arbenz sought exile not in France or Spain or even Mexico -- the traditional havens for deposed Latin-American politicians -- but in the Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia. Also, the coup went into motion, not when Arbenz started nationalizing United Fruit property, but when a cargo of Soviet-bloc weapons arrived in Guatemala. "Arbenz didn't execute enough people," was how Guevara explained the Guatemalan coup's success.)Fidel and Che didn't want a repeat of the Guatemalan coup in Cuba. Equally important, the massacres cowed and terrorized. Most of them came after public trials. And the executions, right down to the final shattering of the skull with the coup de grace from a massive .45 slug fired at five paces, were public too. Guevara made it a policy for his men to parade the families and friends of the executed before the blood, bone and brain spattered firing squad.Che Lynch Rides a Yatch to CubaFidel had brought the recently monikered "Che" on the Granma invasion of Cuba as the rebel group's doctor, based on his bogus credentials. On the harrowing boat ride through turbulent seas from the Yucatan to Cuba's Oriente province in the decrepit old yacht, a rebel found Che lying comatose in the boat's cabin. He rushed to thecommander, "Fidel, looks like Che's dead!""Well, if he's dead," replied Castro. "Then throw him overboard." In fact Guevara was suffering the combined effects of sea sickness and an asthma attack. Evidently, Che was not regarded as an invaluable member of the expedition at the time.Che, Minister of EconomicsIn 1960 Castro appointed Che as Cuba's "Minister of Economics." Within months the Cuban peso, a currency historically equal to the U.S. dollar and fully backed by Cuba's gold reserves, was practically worthless. The following year Castro appointed Che as Cuba's "Minister of Industries." Within a year a nation that previously had higher per capita income than Austria and Japan, a huge influx of immigrants and the 3rd highest protein consumption in the hemisphere was rationing food, closing factories, and hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of its most productive citizens from every sector of its society, all who were grateful to leave with only the clothes on their back.By 1961, Guevara was having to give embarrassing explanations to the workers at the office: "Our technical comrades at the companies have made a toothpaste ... which is as good as the previous one; it cleans just the same, though after a while it turns to stone."By 1963, all hopes of industrializing Cuba were abandoned, and the revolution accepted its role as a colonial provider of sugar to the Soviet bloc in exchange for oil to cover its needs and to re-sell to other countries. For the next three decades, Cuba would survive on a Soviet subsidy of somewhere between $65 billion and $100 billion a yearwhich the Soviets received sub rosa from the US government.In fact, by 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Cubans were dieting on a ration of five pounds of rice and one pound of beans per month; four ounces of meat twice a year; four ounces of soybean paste per week; and four eggs per month. Most observers attribute this to "Communist mismanagement." Che himself confessed to his multiple economic errors and failings. Actually, given the goal of Cuba's ruler since January of 1959 -- i.e., absolute power -- the Cuban economy has been expertly managed. Castro inherited a vibrant free market economy in 1959 (something unique among communist rulers). All the others -- from Lenin to Mao to Ho to Ulbricht to Tito to Kim Il Sung --took over primitive and/or chaotic, war-ravaged economies.A less megalomaniacal ruler would have considered that a golden goose had landed in his lap. But Castro wrung its neck. He deliberately and methodically wrecked Latin America's premier economy. A Cuban capitalist is a person that couldn't be controlled, Castro reasoned then, and continues to do so to this day. Despite a flood of tourism and foreign investment for over a decade, Cuba in 2005 is as essentially as poor (and Communist) as it was in 1965 or worse. The Castro brothers are vigilant in these matters.Che actually believed in the socialist fantasy. When he pronounced in May of 1961 that under his tutelage the Cuban economy would boast an annual growth rate of 10% he seemed to believe it.Castro didn't care. He simply knew as a result he'd be running Cuba like his personal plantation, with the Cuban people as his cattle. This is where libertarian/free-market ideologues get it wrong. They insist that with the lifting of the embargo, capitalism will sneak in and eventually blindside Castro. All the proof is to the contrary. Capitalism didn't sweep Castro away or even co-opt him. He blindsided it. He swept it away. He is not Deng or Gorbachev. In 1959 Castro could have easily left most of Cuba's economy in place, made it obedient to his whims, and been a Peron, a Stalin, a Tito - the idol of his youth.He could have grabbed half and been a Tito. He could have demanded a piece of the action from all involved and been a Marcos, a Trujillo, a Mobutu, a Suharto. But this wasn't enough for him. Castro lusted for the power of a Stalin or a Mao. And he got it.*****************Besides the communists were busy creating Marxist-Capitalists (i.e Armand Hammer and the Oil Cartel for example)and Marxist-Catholics in the USA. They already ideologically controlled the universities and divinity schools. All they had to do was be sure to graduate flocks of new commies annually.In late 1957 Castro signed an agreement called "The Miami Pact" with several anti-Batista Cuban politicians and ex-ministers in exile at the time. Most of these were quite wealthy. Indeed if the term, "rich, white Miami Cuban exiles," that liberals scornfully use against current Cuban-Americans ever fit -- it was for the mulatto Batista's liberal opponents, for Fidel Castro's early backers. Among these was formerpresident Carlos Prio who Batista had ousted in his (bloodless) coup in 1952, along with many of Prio's ministers and business cronies. In fact, Guevara went ballistic over the Miami Pact, when he first learned of it, over this shameful deal with "bourgeois" elements. "I refuse to lend my historic name to that crime!" he wrote. "We rebelshave proffered our asses in the most despicable act of buggery that Cuban history is likely to recall!" It was despicable buggery for sure. But Che had the buggerers and the buggerees reversed. Lenin coined the term "Useful Idiots," but to this day Castro remains history's virtuoso at snaring and employing them.Was There a Castro Guerrilla War in Cuba?That a "guerrilla war" with "peasant and worker backing" overthrew Batista is among the century's most widespread and persistent academic fables. No Cuban Castroites who participated actually believe this. The Associated Press dispatches about Castro and Che's "war" were actually concocted and written by Castro's own agent in New York, Mario Llerena, who admits as much in his book, The Unsuspected Revolution. Llerena was also the contact with Castro's most famous publicity agent, the New York Times, Herbert Matthews.National Review's famous 1960 cartoon showing a beaming Castro, "I got my job through the New York Times!" nailed it.In December of 1958 the only pitched battle of the war took place for control of the city of Santa Clara in central Cuba. Following the battle, Batista’s army retreated and disintegrated, and Batista’s regime collapsed. In the early morning hours of January 1, 1959, Batista fled the country.Che Guevara was Really Ernest LynchTo give them credit, most of Castro's comandantes knew their Batista war had been an elaborate ruse and gaudy clown show. After the glorious victory, they were content to run down and execute the few Batista men motivated enough to shoot back (most of these were of humble background), settle into the mansions stolen from Batistianos,and enjoy the rest of their booty.British historian Hugh Thomas, though a leftist Labor Party member who sympathized with Castro's revolution, studied mountains of records and simply could not evade the truth. His massive and authoritative historical volume Cuba sums it up very succinctly: "In all essentials Castro's battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign, fought in New York and Washington."Che Guevara, himself, possessed an immense capacity for self deception. On a state visit to Czechoslovakia in 1960 his Cuban companions pointed out the numerous prostitutes on the streets and in the very hotel where they stayed. Che nodded wearily. Back in Cuba when one of them winked and brought up the prostitutes Che flared indignantly. "I didn't see any prostitutes there!" (We don’t have yer damn prostitutes gringo.)The Cubans looked at each other shrugging but knew better than to press the issue. Che didn't want to remember the sight of prostitutes. He wanted to convince himself that such a thing was impossible in a glorious Socialist nation, a sister republic.That gift for self-deception probably led him to believe the guerrilla war fable. And while trying to duplicate it in Bolivia he paid for his obtuseness and wishful thinking with his life. In Cuba, Che couldn't find anyone to fight against him. Cuban ImperialismIn the Congo, scene of another of his guerrilla forays, he couldn't find anyone to fight with him. In Bolivia he finally started getting a tiny taste of both. In short order he was betrayed by the very peasants he set out to liberate (but who didn't see it quite that way), brought to ground and killed.Shortly after entering Havana with the revolutionary forces, Che was already advising, equipping and dispatching guerrilla forces in an attempt to duplicate the Cuban Revolution in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Every one of those guerrilla forces (which were Cuban Communist-led and staffed) was wiped out in short order, usually to the last man. Rafael Trujillo and Luis Somoza weren't about to follow Batista's example of pussyfooting against guerrillas.A few years later Che equipped, advised and sent more guerrillas to Argentina and Guatemala. Again they were stamped out almost to a man. These guerrilla expeditions cost the lives of two of Che's fatally credulous friends: the Argentine Jorge Masseti and the Guatemalan Julio Caceres.Leftist "scholars" complain about The Bay of Pigs invasion as "Yankee intervention" (though every single invader, including the commanders was Cuban) against an innocent nationalist revolution that wished only to be left alone. They might revisit the documentary evidence. In fact Castro and Che launched five of their own versions of the Bay of Pigs invasions before the U.S. had even started contingency planning fortheirs.Castro seemed to know these invasions to spark revolutions were futile. But for Castro they still had a handy rationale. "These foreigners are nothing but troublemakers," he told a Cuban rebel named Lazaro Ascencio right after the revolutionary triumph. "Know what I'm going to do with Che Guevara? I'm going to send him to Santo Domingo andsee if Trujillo kills him."How serious was Castro? We can only guess. But he found a way for Che to earn his keep and stay of trouble in Cuba by assigning him as commander of La Cabana, the fortress where political prisoners were held and killed.Che's role in "Imperialism's First Defeat!" as Castro refers to the Bay of Pigs invasion merits mention. The American invasion plan included a ruse in which a CIA squad dispatched three rowboats off the coast of western Cuba in Pinar Del Rio (350 miles from the true invasion site) loaded with time release Roman candles, bottle rockets, mirrors and a tape recording of battle.The wily Guerrilla Che immediately deciphered the imperialist scheme. That little feint 300 miles away at the Bay of Pigs was a transparent ruse, he determined. The real invasion was coming in Pinar Del Rio. Che stormed over to the site with several thousand troops, dug in, locked, loaded and waited for the "Yankee/mercenary" attack. They braced themselves as the sparklers, smoke bombs and mirrors did their stuff offshore.Three days later the (literal) smoke and mirror show expended itself and Che's men marched back to Havana. Somehow Che had managed to wound himself in the heated battle against the tape recorder. The bullet pierced Che's chin and exited above his temple, just missing his brain. The scar is visible in all post April '61 pictures of Che (the picture we see on posters and T shirts was taken a year earlier.)Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, a Fidelista at the time, speculates the wound may have come from a botched suicide attempt. Che hagiographers John Lee Anderson, Carlos Castaneda and Paco Taibo insist it was an accident, Che's own pistol going off just under his face.Jorge Castaneda in his Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara cannot resist giving Che some credit for "Imperialism's First Defeat."The Mexican author (and recent foreign minister) writes that Che'srole was "crucial," explaining that Cuba's 200,000 man militia played a"central role in the victory." The training of these militia had been inthe hands of Che since 1960. "Without Che" Castaneda gushes, "themilitias would not have been reliable."The Bay of Pigs BattleAfter Castro took over, the Soviets rapidly sent 20,000 soldiers andmuch equipment to Cuba. Against the Bay of Pigs landing Castro sent51,000 troops (including Soviet troops) and militia with limitless Sovietarms, including tanks and planes and batteries of heavy artillery and1400 mostly civilian exile freedom-fighters, most with less than amonth's training. These men carried only light arms and one day'sammunition. The Che-trained Cuban militia hit them, then immediatelyhalted and fled hysterically.They were ordered back, probed hesitantly again, got mauled againand retreated in headlong flight again. They marched back again,many at gun-point, and rolled in battery after battery of Soviet-manned122 mm Howitzers. They rained 2000 rounds of heavy artillery intolightly-armed men they outnumbered 50-1. ("Rommel's crack AfrikaCorps broke and ran under a similar bombardment," explains Bay ofPigs historian Haynes Johnson.) Then Castro's unopposed air forcestrafed the invaders repeatedly and at will.The invaders stood their ground to the last man and the militia wasforced to probe yet again -- and retreat again in headlong flight. Theyeventually stopped and brought in reinforcements. (50-1 was notenough.) They rained another Soviet artillery storm on the utterlyabandoned and hopelessly outnumbered freedom fighters and finallymoved in to overwhelm them -- after three days of effort in which theinvaders hadn't eaten, drank or slept, and had run out of ammunition.Castro's forces took 5200 casualties in the process. The freedomfighters suffered 114.Che did show up at the battle site, but the day the shooting ended. Hewalked into a building strewn with captured and wounded freedomfightersand looked around with his wry Argentine smile. "We're goingto execute every one of you," he barked. Then he turned on his heelsand walked out. As usual, Castro had a much shrewder plan for theprisoners. His regime reaped a propaganda windfall and 62 millionAmerican dollars when JFK ransomed them back.In fact, Castro was fuming at his Militia's performance. A week afterthe battle he visited some of the freedom-fighters in their Havanaprison cells. One had been an old acquaintance from college. "Hombre,if I had 20,000 men like you guys," Castro beamed to his old friend. "I'd have all of Latin America in my hands right now!"*****************The Real Cuban Guerrilla WarOne of the longest and bloodiest guerrilla wars on this continent wasfought not by Fidel and Che but against Fidel and Che -- and bylandless peasants. Farm collectivization was no more voluntary inCuba than in the Ukraine. And Cuba's kulaks had guns, a few at firstanyway, and put up a heroic resistance until the Kennedy-Khrushchevdeal during the "Cuban Missile Crisis" finally starved them of supplies.Cubans know this war as "The Escambray Rebellion."It's rarely reported, but Che Guevara had a very bloody hand in one ofthe major anti-insurgency wars on this continent. Seventy to 80percent of these rural anti-communist peasant guerrillas wereexecuted on the spot on capture. "We fought with the fury of corneredbeasts" was how one of the few lucky ones who escaped alivedescribed the guerrillas' desperate freedom-fight against thetotalitarian agendas of the Cuban regime. (In 1956, when Che linked upwith the Cuban exiles in Mexico city, one of them recalls Che railingagainst the Hungarian freedom-fighters as "Fascists!" and cheeringtheir extermination by Soviet tanks.)In 1962 Che got a chance to do more than cheer from the sidelines."Cuban militia units (whose training and morale Jorge Castanedainsists we credit to Che) commanded by Russian officers employedflame-throwers to burn the palm-thatched cottages in the Escambraycountryside. The peasant occupants were accused of feeding thecounterrevolutionaries and bandits."The Maoist line about how "a guerrilla swims in the sea which is thepeople, etc.," fit Cuba's anti-Communist rebellion perfectly. RaulCastro himself admitted that his government faced 179 bands of"counter-revolutionaries" and "bandits." at the time.So in a massive "relocation" campaign reminiscent of the one SpanishGeneral Valerinao "The Butcher" Weyler carried out against Cubansduring their war of independence at the turn of the century, Castro'sSoviet-trained armed forces ripped hundreds of thousands of ruralCubans from their ancestral homes at gunpoint and herded them intoconcentration camps on the opposite side of Cuba.According to evidence presented to the Organization of AmericanStates by Cuban-exile researcher Dr. Claudio Beneda, 4000 anti-Communist peasants were summarily executed during this ruralrebellion.Che Lynch the Psychopathic Mass MurdererTime magazine notwithstanding, Fidel Castro -- and Fidel Castro alone-- was the "brains" of the Cuban Revolution. And part of his acumenwas his proficiency at sizing up his revolutionary companeros, thendelegating jobs -- then eliminating them in various ways ascircumstances dictated. With Guevara he performed masterfully. Firsthe assigned him to be commander of Havana's La Cabana fortress,which Che promptly converted to a prison and killing field."Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemythat falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odorof gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare mybeing for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with abestial howl!"Che Guevara wrote these lines while in his early twenties, before hehad gotten his hands on any such enemy. The passage appears inChe's Motorcycle Diaries, recently made into a heartwarming film byRobert Redford -- the only film to get a whooping standing ovation atthe Sundance Film Festival. It seems that Redford omitted thisinconvenient portion of Che's diaries from his touching tribute.Two weeks after Che entered Havana and took his post at La Cabanafortress, Castro saw his instincts as a personnel manager fullyvindicated. The "acrid odor of gunpowder and blood" never reachedGuevara's nostrils from actual combat. It always came from the closerange murder of bound, gagged and blindfolded men. "We must createthe pedagogy of the paredon (firing squad.)" Che instructed hisRevolutionary Tribunals: "We don't need proof to execute a man. Weonly need proof that it's necessary to execute him. A revolutionarymust become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."Actually, Che Guevara was anything but a "cold killing machine." Theterm implies a certain detachment or nonchalance towards murder. Infact Che gave ample evidence of enjoying it. Almost all Cubans whoknew him and are now in exile and able to talk freely (Jose Benitez,Mario Chanes de Armas Dariel Alarcon among others) recall CheGuevara as a classic psychopath.In January 1957, shortly after landing in Cuba aboard the yachtGranma with Fidel and Raul Castro, Che sent a letter to his discardedwife, Hilda Gadea. "Dear vieja (i.e, 'Ole Lady' -- on top of everythingelse, Che was also a notorious misogynist) I'm here in Cuba's hills,alive and thirsting for blood." His thirst would soon be slaked.In that very month, January 1957, Fidel Castro ordered the executionof a peasant guerrilla named Eutimio Guerra who he accused of beingan informer for Batista's forces. Castro assigned the killing to his ownbodyguard, Universo Sanchez. To everyone's surprise, Che Guevara -- alowly rebel soldier/medic at the time (not yet a comandante --volunteered to accompany Sanchez and another soldier to theexecution site. The Cuban rebels were glum as they walked slowlydown the trail in a torrential thunderstorm. Finally the little groupstopped in a clearing.Sanchez was hesitant, looking around, perhaps looking for an excuseto postpone or call off the execution. Dozens would follow, but thiswas the first execution of a Castro rebel by Castro's rebels. Suddenlywithout warning Che stepped up and fired his pistol into Guerra'stemple. "He went into convulsions for a while and was finally still. Nowhis belongings were mine." Che wrote in his Diaries.Shortly afterwards, Che's father in Buenos Aires received a letter fromhis prodigal son. "I'd like to confess, papa', at that moment Idiscovered that I really like killing."This attitude caught Castro's eye. More executions of assorted"deserters" informers" and "war criminals" quickly followed, all withChe's enthusiastic participation. One was of a captured Batistasoldier, a 17-year old boy totally green to the guerrilla "war," hence hiseasy capture. First Che interrogated him."I haven't killed anyone, comandante," the terrified boy answered Che."I just got out here! I'm an only son, my mother's a widow and I joinedthe army for the salary, to send it to her every month...don't kill me!"He blurted out when he heard Che's unmoved reply, "Don't kill me! --why?"The boy was trussed up, shoved in front of a recently dug pit andmurdered. Fidel was privy to these events. He thought executingBatista soldiers was incredibly stupid, compared to the propagandavalue of releasing them since most weren't fighting anyway. But herecognized the value of executions in intimidating other Cubans, andrecognized Che's value as someone who enjoyed the job. By thesummer of 1957 Che Guevara had been promoted to full-fledged Majoror "comandante," the Rebel army's highest rank. His fame wasspreading.But not all the revolutionaries were favorably impressed. In mid-1958one of the rebels was wounded and made his way to a Dr. HectorMeruelo in the nearby town of Cienfuegos. The good doctor patchedhim up and a few weeks later informed him that he was well enough toreturn to Che's column."No, doctor," the boy responded. Please be discreet with this becauseit could cost me my life, but I've learned that Che is nothing but amurderer. I'm a revolutionary but I'm also a Christian. I'll go and joinCamilo's column (Camilo Cienfuegos) -- but never Che's."As commander of the La Cabana prison, Che often insisted onshattering the skull of the condemned man by firing the coup de gracehimself. When other duties tore him away from his beloved executionyard, he consoled himself with watching the executions. Che's officein La Cabana had a section of wall torn out so he could watch his firingsquads at work.A Rumanian journalist named Stefan Bacie visited Cuba in early 1959and was fortunate enough to get an audience with the already famousleader, whom he had also met briefly in Mexico city. The meeting tookplace in Che's office in La Cabana. Upon entering, the Rumanian sawChe motioning him over to his office's newly constructed window.Stefan Bacie got there just in time to hear the command of fuego, hearthe blast from the firing squad and see a condemned prisoner mancrumple and convulse. The stricken journalist immediately left andcomposed a poem, titled, "I No Longer Sing of Che." ("I no longer singof Che any more than I would of Stalin," go the first lines.)A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was among those jailedby Che Guevara in the early months of the Cuban Revolution. In an ElNuevo Herald article from December 28, 1997 San Martin recalled thehorrors: "Thirteen of us were crammed into a cell. Sixteen of us wouldstand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. Wetook shifts that way. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squaddaily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of thoseminutes would be our last.One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging openstartled us awake and Che's guards shoved a new prisoner into ourcell. He was a boy, maybe 14 years old. His face was bruised andsmeared with blood. "What did you do?" We asked horrified. "I tried todefend my papa," gasped the bloodied boy. "But they sent him to thefiring squad."Soon Che's guards returned. The rusty steel door opened and theyyanked the boy out of the cell. "We all rushed to the cell's window thatfaced the execution pit," recalls Mr. San Martin. "We simply couldn'tbelieve they'd murder him."Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched executionyard with his hands on his waist and barking orders -- Che Guevarahimself. 'Kneel down!' Che barked at the boy."Assassins!" we screamed from our window."I said: KNEEL DOWN!" Che barked again.The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. "If you're going to kill me,"he yelled, "you'll have to do it while I'm standing! Men die standing!""Murderers!" the men yelled desperately from their cells. "Then wesaw Che unholstering his pistol. He put the barrel to the back of theboys neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy."We erupted…'Murderers! -- Assassins!'" His murder finished, Chefinally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and emptied his clip in ourdirection. Several of us were wounded by his shots."After a hard day at the office, Che repaired to his new domicile inTarara, 15 miles outside Havana on the pristine beachfront (todayreserved exclusively for tourists and Communist party members, bythe way). The "austere idealist," Che, hadn't done too badly for himselfin this real estate transaction, known in non-revolutionary societies astheft."The house was among the most luxurious in Cuba," writes Cubanjournalist Antonio Llano Montes. ''Until a few weeks prior, it hadbelonged to Cuba's most successful building contractor. The mansionhad a boat dock, a huge swimming pool, seven bathrooms, a sauna, amassage salon and several television sets. One TV had been speciallydesigned in the U.S. and had a screen ten feet wide and was operatedby remote control (remember, this was 1959.) This was thought to bethe only TV of its kind in Latin America. The mansion's garden had averitable jungle of imported plants, a pool with waterfall, ponds filledwith exotic tropical fish and several bird houses filled with parrots andother exotic birds. The habitation was something out of A Thousandand One Nights.Llano Montes wrote the above in exile. In January 1959 he didn't goquite into such detail in his article which appeared in the Cubanmagazine Carteles. He simply wrote that, "Comandante Che Guevarahas fixed his residence in one of the most luxurious houses on Tararabeach."Two days after his article ran, while lunching at Havana's El Carmelorestaurant, Llano Montes looked up from his plate to see three heavilyarmed Rebel army soldiers instructing him to accompany them. Shortlythe journalist found himself in Che Guevara's La Cabana office, seateda few feet in front of the Comandante's desk which was piled withpapers.It took half an hour but Che finally made his grand entrance, "reekinghorribly, as was his custom" recalls Llano Montes. "Without looking atme. He started grabbing papers on his desk and brusquely signingthem with 'Che.' His assistant came in and Che spoke to him over hisshoulder. "I'm signing these 26 executions so we can take care of thistonight.'"Then he got up and walked out. Half an hour later he walks back inand starts signing more papers. Finished signing, he picks up a bookand starts reading -- never once looking at me. Another half hour goesby and he finally puts the book down. 'So you're Llano Montes,' hefinally sneers, 'who says I appropriated a luxurious house.'"I simply wrote that you had moved into a luxurious house, which isthe truth," replied Llano Montes."I know your tactics!" Che shot back. "You press people are injectingvenom into your articles to damage the revolution. You're either withus or against us. We're not going to allow all the press foolishness thatBatista allowed. I can have you executed this very night. How aboutthat!""You'll need proof that I've broken some law" responded Montes."'We don't need proof. We manufacture the proof,' Che said whilestroking his shoulder length hair, a habit of his. One of his prosecutors,a man nicknamed 'Puddle-of-blood' then walked in and started talking.'Don't let the stupid jabbering of those defense lawyers delay theexecutions!' Che yelled at him. 'Threaten them with execution. Accusethem of being accomplices of the Batistianos.' Then Che jerked thehandful of papers from Mr. Puddle and started signing them."This type of thing went on from noon until 6:30 PM when Che finallyturned to his aides and said. 'Get this man out of here. I don't want himin my presence.'" [24]This was Che's manner of dealing with defenseless men. He acted thisway when he held the hammer. Against armed men on an equal footinghis behavior was markedly different. Two years earlier in the Sierra,Castro had ordered Che to take command over a guerrilla faction ledby a fellow 26th of July Movement rebel named Jorge Sotus, who hadbeen operating in an area north of the area where Fidel and Che wereand had actually been confronting and fighting Batista's army. Che anda few of his men hiked over to Sotus' command station and informedhim that Che was now in command."Like hell," responded Sotus."It's Fidel's order," responded Guevara. "We have more militaryexperience than you and your group.""More experience in running and hiding from Batista's army perhaps,"Sotus shot back. Che dithered and Sotus added. "Besides my men andI aren't about to take orders from a foreigner."Che backed off, hiked back and informed Fidel who didn't press theissue. But a few weeks after Batista's flight and Castro's triumph,Sotus was arrested without warning and shoved in the Isle of Pinesprison. The intrepid Sotus managed to escape, made his way to theU.S. and joined an exile paramilitary group, taking part in many armedraids against Cuba from south Florida until the Kennedy-Khrushchevdeal ended them.Guevara also had a run in with a rebel group named the Second Frontof the Escambray. These operated against Batista in the Escambraymountains of Las Villas province. When Che's column entered the areain late 1958, Che sought to bring these guerrillas under his commandand met much resistance, especially from a comandante named JesusCarreras who knew of Che's Communist pedigree. Again Guevaradidn't press the issue.A few weeks into the January 1959 triumph Carreras and a group ofthese Escambray commanders visited Che in La Cabana to address theissue of how they'd been frozen out of any leadership roles in the newregime. On the way in, Carreras ran into a rebel he'd known in the anti-Batista fight and stopped to chat while the rest of the group enteredChe's office. Once the group was inside, Che began to rip into Carreras(who was still not present) as a drunkard, a womanizer, a bandit and aperson he'd never appoint to any important position.Midway into Che's tirade, Carreras entered the office, havingoverheard much while outside. "Che went white," recall those present.An enraged Carreras jumped right in his face and Che backed off.Finally Carreras challenged Che to a duel, "right outside in thecourtyard," he pointed."How is it possible," Che quickly smiled, "that two revolutionarycompaneros get to such a point simply because of amisunderstanding?"The subject was dropped and they turned to other issues, but a yearlater Jesus Carreras found himself a prisoner in a La Cabana dungeon.A few months later he was defiantly facing a firing squad. Fuego! Thevolley shattered his body. And yes, Che was watching from hiswindow.*****************Even the New York Times admits that the first two months of theCuban Revolution saw 568 firing squad executions. A study by Cuban-American Scholar Armando Lago doubles that figure. One by Dr.Claudio Beneda triples it. The preceding "trials" shocked andnauseated all who witnessed them. They were shameless farces,sickening charades. Guevara clarified the matter. "Evidence is anarchaic bourgeois detail," he explained. "We execute fromrevolutionary conviction."Not that the slaughter ended after the first few months, as most"scholars" imply. In December 1964 Che addressed the U.N. GeneralAssembly. "Yes, we execute, " he declared to the claps and cheers ofthat august body. "And we will keep executing as long as it isnecessary. This is a war to the death against the Revolution'senemies."According to the Black Book of Communism those executions hadreached 14,000 by the end of the decade. (Cuba is a small country. InAmerican terms, this would amount to more than three millionexecutions.)On the eve of his trip to New York, Che gave a speech in SantiagoCuba where he declared: "We must learn the lesson of absoluteabhorrence of imperialism. Against that class of hyena there is noother medium than extermination!"Two years earlier, Guevara had gotten tantalizingly close to thatmedium. "If the missiles had remained we would have used themagainst the very heart of the United States, including New York," hetold the London Daily Worker in November of 1962. "We must neverestablish peaceful co-existence. We must walk the path of victoryeven if it costs millions of atomic victims.""Extermination," Che stressed. "Millions of atomic victims," he said forthe record. "Pure hate, as the motivating force," he repeatedlydeclared.