Che Gueverra, The Pretender

Che Gueverra, The Pretender

Time Magazine also erred regarding Che's sense of humor, which was on par with Nurse Ratched's. As most Latin Americans of a certain age know, Che was a ringer for a Mexican Movie star of the fifties namedCantinflas. Shortly after Che entered Havana, one of Cuba's traditionally sassy newspapermen made sport of this resemblance. He did it exactly once. Those firing squads were working triple-shifts at the time. The reporter heeded Che's warning not to do it again.In Che's first decree when his guerrillas captured the town of Sancti Spiritus in central Cuba during the last days of the skirmishing against Batista's army, he outlawed alcohol, gambling and regulated relations between the sexes. Popular outcry and Fidel's good sense made him rescind the order."I have no home, no woman, no parents, no brothers and no friends," wrote Guevara. "My friends are friends only so long as they think as Ido politically."Che’s Concentration CampsIn 1960 at a town named Guanahacabibes in extreme Western Cuba,Che initiated Cuba's concentration camp system. "We send to Guanahacabibes people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals. . it is hard labor...the working conditions areharsh..."Among the many categories of criminals against revolutionary morals were "delinquents." Please take note Che T-shirt wearers: this "delinquency" involved drinking, vagrancy, disrespect for authorities, laziness and playing loud music. Among the more hilarious manifestations of Che idolatry was the rock musician Carlos Santana's grand entrance to the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony where he stopped, swung open his jacket, and proudly displayed his Che T-shirtas the cameras clicked and idiots howled.By the late 60's among the tens of thousands of inmates at Guanahacabibes and the rest of the UMAP concentration camp system in Cuba were "roqueros," hapless Cuban youths who tried to listen to Yankee-Imperialist rock music. Carlos Santana, was grinning widely -- and oh so hiply -- while proudly sporting the symbol of a regime that made it a criminal offense to listen to Carlos Santana.*****************By late 1964 Minister of Industries' Che had so badly crippled Cuba's economy and infrastructure and so horribly impoverished and traumatized its work force that the Russians themselves were at wits end. They were subsidizing the mess, and it was getting expensive -- much too expensive for the paltry geopolitical return. "This is anunderdeveloped country?!" Anastas Mikoyan had laughed while looking around on his first visit to Cuba in 1960. The Soviets were frankly tickled to have a developed and civilized country to loot again, like the countries of Eastern Europe after WWII.Alas, the looting, at first, went in the opposite direction. Castro was no chump like Ulbricht or Gomulka. A French Socialist economist, Rene Dumont, tried advising Castro as the wreckage of Cuba's economy spiraled out of control. "The Cuban Revolution has gone farther in its first three years than the Chinese in its first ten," he observed. Hencethe mess. (That was before Marxist US President Bill Clinton bailed out Red China by giving them Billions of US taxpayer dollars.) As Cuba's Minister of Industries, Che wanted to refashion human nature. With hapless Cubans as his guinea pigs, he was intent on creating a "new socialist man," diligent, hard-working, obedient, free from all material incentives and always ready to go with the program -- in brief, lobotomized shirkers or smartalecks who offered lip wouldfind themselves behind the barbed wire, watchtowers and guard dogsof Guanahacabibes in short order.Interestingly, Jack Nicholson whose film character in One Flew OverThe Cuckoo's Nest continually ran afoul of Nurse Ratched is amongCommunist Cuba's most frequent visitors and Castro's most ferventfans. "Fidel Castro is a genius!" gushed Nicholson after a visit in 1998."We spoke about everything," the actor rhapsodized. "Castro is ahumanist like President Clinton. Cuba is simply a paradise!" This mayhave more to it than the usual Hollywood vacuity upstairs. "My job wasto bug Jack Nicholson's room at the hotel Melia Cohiba when hevisited Cuba," says high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector DelfinFernandez, from Madrid today, "with both cameras and listeningdevices. Most people have no idea they are being watched while theyare in Cuba. But their personal activities are filmed under orders fromCastro himself. Famous Americans are the priority objectives ofCastro's intelligence."Che the Soccer PawOne day Che decided that Cubans should learn to play and like soccer(futbal) like the citizens of his native Argentina. A Sugar plantationnamed Central Macareno near Cienfuegos had been recently stolenfrom its American owners (not that most Sugar plantations in Cubawere American-owned as leftist mythology holds. Barely one-thirdwere.) The plantation also included a huge orchard of Mango, Avocadoand Mamey trees that were just starting to give fruit. Che orderedthem all cut down and the ground razed in order to construct a soccerfield.A year later the field was weed grown, pot-holed and unusable. Thedecaying trunks of the formerly fruit-yielding trees were still piled uparound the edges of the field even as most Cubans scrambled for freshfruit on the new black market (under that arch-villain of leftist lore,Batista, Cubans had no need for a black market.) At any rate, itseemed that -- the threat of Guanahacabibes or not -- Che's Cubansubjects simply didn't take to Che's futbal.Che’s Socialist Industrialization SchemesChe's fetish to "industrialize" Cuba immediately and by decree, as hethought his role model Stalin had "industrialized" the Soviet Union,ended Cuba's status as a relatively developed and civilized country. Inone of his spasms of decrees, Che ordered a refrigerator factory builtin Cienfuegos, a pick and shovel factory built in Santa Clara, a pencilfactory built in Havana. Supply? Demand? Costs? Such bourgeoisdetails didn't interest Che. None of the factories ended up producing asingle product.Che railed against the chemists in the newly socialized Coca-Colaplant because the Coke they were producing tasted awful. Some of theflustered chemists responded that it was Che who had nationalizedthe plant and booted out the former owners and managers, who tookthe secret Coca-Cola formula with them to the United States. Thisimpertinence was answered with the threat of Guanahacabibes.During this time Che's ministry also bought a fleet of snow plows fromCzechoslovakia. Che had personally inspected them and wasconvinced they could easily be converted into sugar cane harvestingmachines, thus mechanizing the harvest and increasing Cuba's sugarproduction. The snowplows in fact squashed the sugar cane plants,cut them off at the wrong length and killed them. Four years into therevolution Cuba's 1963 sugar production was less than half of its pre-Revolutionary volume.The Soviets themselves finally put their foot down. Their Cuban larkwas getting expensive. In 1964 they told Castro that Che had to go.Castro knew who buttered his bread and had never much liked Cheanyway. Besides, the Revolution was well entrenched by then, and inany case there were many willing executioners now, so Che mighthave outlived his usefulness.Another Phony Hoax by Pro-Che American MarxistsHere we come to another hoary myth spun by Che's hagiographers: his"ideological" falling out with the Soviets. Che's pureness ofrevolutionary heart, we're told, led him to clash with the corrupt Sovietnomenklatura.In fact it was a purely practical conflict. The Russians were fed up andsimply refused to bankroll Che's harebrained economic fantasies anylonger. Che saw the writing on the wall. In December 1964, right afterhis visit to the U.N., he visited his friend Ben Bela in Algeria anddelivered his famous anti-Soviet speech, branding them "accomplicesof imperialist exploitation." [35]To many it looked like Che was setting the stage for a role as theTrotsky of his generation. Che probably saw it as a more seemly rolethan that of a hopeless economic bumbler.When he touched down in Havana after the speech, the regime's presswas absolutely mute regarding both his speech and his recent return.Soon he was invited to visit the Maximum Leader and Raul. In fact,Maximum Brother Raul had just returned from Mother Russia itself,where Che's Algeria speech had caused quite a stir. As soon as he gotwithin earshot, both Castros ripped into Guevara as undisciplined,ungrateful and plain stupid."Fidel!" Che shot back. "Dammit, show me some respect! I'm notCamilo!" Che's wife, Aleida (he'd ditched Hilda by then) was forced tojump in between the men, exclaiming, "I can't believe such a thing ishappening between longtime companeros."Che finally went home, where he found his telephone lines cut. Muchevidence points to Che being held in house arrest at this point. And itwas under that house arrest that a seriously chastened -- andapparently frightened, after all, who better knew the consequences ofupsetting the Maximum Leader? -- Che composed his famous "FarewellLetter to Fidel," in which his groveling and fawning was utterlyshameless."I deeply appreciate your lessons and your example … my only faultwas not to have had more faith in you since the first moments in theSierra, not having recognized more quickly your qualities as a leaderand a revolutionary. I will take to my new fields of battle the faith thatyou have inculcated." and on and on in relentless toadying.Che Tries To Start Guerrilla WarsChe's few public appearances between his return from Algeria and hisdeparture for the Congo always found him in the company of SovietKGB trained state security personnel. His Cuban welcome had wornout. By April 1965 he was in Tanzania with a few dozen black Cubanmilitary men. Code named "Tatu," Che and his force entered theeastern Congo, which was convulsed at the time (like now) by anincomprehensible series of civil (actually, mostly tribal) wars.Tatu's mission was to help the alternately Soviet and Chinese backed"Simbas" of the Congolese red leader, Laurent Kabila. These werefighting the forces of the western-backed Moise Tshombe. Tshombe'sforces consisted of Belgian foreign legionnaires, mercenaries underthe famous "Mad" Mike Hoare, Congolese who opposed Kabila, and ahandful of Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans sent by the CIA. The Cubanswere mostly pilots who provided close-in air support for "Mad" Mike.Here is Mike Hoare's opinion, after watching them in battle, of his CIAallies: "These Cuban CIA men were as tough, dedicated and impetuousa group of soldiers as I've ever had the honor of commanding. Theirleader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicatedsoldier I've ever met."Together Mad Mike, Rip and the Cubans made short work of Kabila's"Simbas," who were murdering, raping and munching (many werecannibals) their way through many of the defenseless Europeans stillleft in the recently abandoned Belgian colony."Tatu's" first military mission was plotting an attack on a garrisonguarding a hydroelectric plant in a place called Front Bendela on theKimbi River in Eastern Congo. Che's masterstroke was to be anelaborate ambush of the garrison. Tatu himself was stealthily leadinghis force into position when ambushers became the ambushed. Chelost half his men and barely escaped with his life.His African allies started frowning a little more closely at Tatu's c.v.and asking a few questions (but in Swahili, which he didn'tunderstand.) Tatu's next clash with the mad dogs of imperialism wasat a mountaintop town called Fizi Baraka. And another hideous routensued. Che admits as much in his Congo Diaries, but he blames it allon Congolese who were terrible soldiers. Yet, for some reason, theCongolese on Hoare's side seemed to fight rather well.One thing that did impress the Simbas about Tatu was that "he neverwent down to the river to wash." Che frequently attacked what hecalled his “dumb nigger” allies in his diary.*****************The Bolivia AdventureTatu's Congo mission was soon abandoned as hopeless and in ahumiliating retreat across Lake Tanganyika, Che and the CastroCubans barely escaped Africa with their lives. Che now set his sightson Bolivia for the next guerrilla adventure, for living his dream ofturning the Andes "into the Sierra Maestra of the Continent," forcreating "two, three many Vietnams."It would be difficult to imagine a more cockamamie plan for Boliviathan Che's. Under President Paz Estenssoro in 1952-53 Bolivia hadundergone a revolution of sorts, with an extensive land reform that --unlike Che's and Fidel's -- actually gave ownership of the land to thepeasants, the tillers of the soil themselves, much like DouglasMcArthur's land reform in post-war Japan. Even crazier, Che himself,during his famous motorcycle jaunt had visited Bolivia and witnessedthe positive results of the reform. Still, his amazing powers of selfdeceptionprevailed.Che convinced himself that in a section of Bolivia where thepopulation consisted -- not of landless peasants -- but of actualhomesteaders, he'd have the locals crowding into his recruitment tentto sign up with a bunch of foreign communists to overthrow thegovernment that had given them their land, a series of rural schoolsand left them completely unmolested to pursue their lives. These wereIndians highly suspicious of foreigners and especially of whiteforeigners, to boot. Che was undaunted by any of these facts. Hasta lavictoria siempre! as he liked to say. At this stage in his life Che wasprobably more deluded than Hitler in his Bunker.There is no evidence that Castro took the Bolivian mission seriously.His Soviet patrons were certainly not behind it. They knew better.They'd seen every guerrilla movement in Latin America wiped out. Theonly thing these half-baked adventures accomplished was to upset theAmericans, with whom they'd cut a splendid little deal during theMissile Crisis to safeguard Castro. Why blow this arrangement withanother of Che's harebrained adventures? Much better to work withinthe system in Latin America, reasoned the Soviets at this time, subtlysubverting the governments by using legitimate Communist parties. Afew years later Allende's electoral victory in Chile seemed to bear theSoviets out.In fact, the East German female guerrilla, Tamara Bunke or "Tania"who linked up with Che in Bolivia (they'd met as early as 1961 andwere reputedly lovers) was actually a KGB-STASI agent sent to keepan eye on Che. Alas, poor "Tania" ( remember Patty Hearst'sSymbianese Liberation Army moniker?) was mowed down by machinegun fire along with her entire "rearguard" group after a Bolivianpeasant relayed their position to the army and helped plan an ambush.The Bolivian Communist party itself stood aloof from Che's finalmission. Its head, Mario Monje, was a faithful follower of the Sovietparty-line. The only Bolivians Che managed to recruit were renegadeCommunists and Maoists. Che's guerrilla force averaged 40-45members and was pompously named the "National Liberation Army."Yet at no point during its 11 month venture did Bolivians make upmore than half of its members. And most of these came from the citiesand areas far distant from the guerrilla base. The rural populationshunned their "National Liberation Army" like a plague."We cannot develop any peasant support," Che admits in his diaries."But it looks like by employing planned terror (emphasis mine) we mayat least neutralize most of them. Their support will come later."It never did. It was the campesinos themselves who kept reporting theguerrilla's whereabouts to the army, with whom they were generally onexcellent terms. And for an excellent reason: it was composed mainlyof Bolivian campesinos, not bearded foreigners who stole theirlivestock.Among the unreported idiocies regarding Che's Bolivian debacle, washow he split his forces into a vanguard and a rearguard in April of1967, whereupon they got hopelessly lost and bumbled around , halfstarved,half-clothed and half-shod, without any contact for 6 months --though they were usually within a mile of each other. They didn't evenhave WWII vintage walkie-talkies to communicate. Che's masterfulGuerrilla War, gives no explanation for such a tactic.Dariel Alarcon, a Cuban who was one of the three guerrillas whomanaged to survive and escape Bolivia, reports in his book, Benigno;Memorias de un Soldado Cubano how in the very midst of thisblundering around, Che was obsessed with posing for photos. One wasChe atop a (presumably stolen) horse on a ridgeline where he wasstrategically silhouetted against the bare sky. Che handed Alarcon hisPentax and had him back off just the right distance to capture theentire scene. Che nodded then plucked out a machete and waved ithigh over his head, even adding a sound score to the scene, shouting:"I am the new Bolivar!" as Alarcon dutifully clicked away.While Che was posing for pictures neither he nor anyone in his grouphad any way to communicate with Cuba. Castro had sent an agentnamed Renan Montero to La Paz to keep in touch with Che, butMontero abruptly left Bolivia in July of 1967 and returned to Cuba.Significantly, just a week earlier, Alexie Kosygin had visited Cuba andmet with Castro, where he laid it on the line.Kosygin had just come from a meeting with Lyndon Johnson where theU.S. President had laid it on the line, complaining about Castroitesubversion in Latin America, and how this was a clear breach of thedeal the U.S. and Soviets had cut back in October 1962 that had keptCastro unmolested. Now this mischief in Bolivia might force the U.S.into an agonizing reappraisal of that deal.Well, Castro didn't have his heart in the Bolivian adventure anyway.And now he could finally rid himself of the Argentine popinjay. Monterocame home and Che was cast completely adrift.The Truth About Che’s SurrenderBarely two months later the "National Liberation Army" was wiped out.Che's capture merits some clarification. His hagiographers haveromanticized his last day alive. Che was defiant, they claim. Che wassurprised, caught off guard and was unable to properly defend himselfor to shoot himself with his last bullet as was his plan.Nothing in the actual record supports this fantasy. In fact everythingpoints to Che surrendering quite enthusiastically, right after heordered his men to fight to the last man and the last bullet.Most did, but Che was captured with a full clip in his pistol. Even moresuspiciously, though he was in the bottom of a ravine during the finalfirefight and could have escaped in the opposite direction like a few ofhis men, Che actually moved upwards and towards the Boliviansoldiers who had been firing. Yet he was doing no firing of his own inthe process. Then as soon as he saw some soldiers he yelled, "Don'tshoot! I'm Che!"Immediately after his capture his demeanor was even more interesting"What's your name, young man?" Che asked a soldier. "Why what agreat name for a Bolivian soldier!" he blurted after hearing it.The firefight was still raging after Che's surrender. His men, unliketheir comandante, were indeed fighting to the last bullet. Soon awounded Bolivian soldier was carried by."Shall I attend him?!" Che asked his captors."Why? Are you a doctor?" asked Bolivian army captain Gary Prado."No, (the truth at last!) but I have some knowledge of medicine,"answered Guevara, resuming his pathetic attempt to ingratiate himselfwith his captors.Another interesting factoid is that Che was captured wearing hisfamous black beret, and it sported a bullet hole. Yet those on theBolivian mission with him like Dariel Alarcon attest that Che neveronce wore that beret during the Bolivian campaign. Che had alwaysworn a military cap, all pictures of him in Bolivia back this up. Somespeculate that Che put on his famous black beret (and even shot ahole in it) to make a dramatic celebrity surrender and impress hiscaptors. He probably expected a few snapshots in the process.After a peaceful capture, Che seemed to have expected a trial whichwould become a worldwide media sensation, with pleas for hisfreedom pouring into Bolivia like a blizzard from leftists in every cornerof the globe. This would have been the case had the Bolivians beenfoolish enough to try him. The trial of Regis Debray a few monthsearlier had given them a taste.Debray was a French Communist journalist who had spent much timein Cuba and was a serious Castro/Che groupie. He had gone to Boliviaand met with Che and his band and seemed poised to do for Che inBolivia what Herbert Matthews had done for Castro in Cuba. ButDebray would also act in a more official capacity as a recruiter andmessenger for the guerrillas.Debray was captured by the Bolivian Army, worked over, and sang likea canary about Che's presence in Bolivia (not completely known inApril of 1967) and what he was up to. The U.S. was alerted and sentsome Green Berets to help train a Ranger Battalion of the BolivianArmy, along with some Cuban-American CIA men to help withintelligence work. One of these, Felix Rodriguez (currently President ofthe Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, and a friend of mine I'm very,very proud to say), convinced the Bolivian military to stop summarilyexecuting all the guerrilla prisoners. Questioned properly and treateddecently, they could provide valuable information and help close thenet on Che and his group.And so it happened with a prisoner named Jose Castillo Chavez.Rodriguez played good cop with him and deciphered Che'swhereabouts. He persuaded the Bolivian military to send their Rangerbattalion to the area post-haste."But their training isn't complete," replied the Bolivian commander."No matter!" answered Rodriguez. "I think we've got Che pin-pointed!Send them in!" Barely a week later Che was yelling his pitiful plea tothose Bolivian Rangers. "Don't Shoot! -- I'm Che, I'm worth more to youalive than dead!"The Bolivian high command didn't see it that way. Though he wascaptured alive, Che was executed the next day. Compared to thecourageous and defiant yells of his own firing squad victims -- "I kneelfor no man! Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo! Aimright HERE!" –Che Guevara proved on his last day alive that he was unworthy tocarry his victims' slop buckets. He whimpered like a motherless child.Bibliography not included to save space.