I just happened to see a LONELY PLANET travel show about Cuba-and (apparently) the che Guevara cult is still in full swing. You can attend Che University, get a degree in “Che” studies, buy Che t-shirts, berets, etc. Che has been sold to the cuban people as something like a saint…yet i was told once (by a Cuban history professor) that Castro actually was very jealous of Che’s popularity…so much so that he (Castro) arranged for Che to be captured in Bolivia. he (the Cuban history prof.) didn’t say if castro intended Che to be executed, but Castro was happier getting him out of the way.
Is there any proof that castro actually wanted Che dead? I suspect my source had a bit of bias-he escaped from cuba with just his clothes, and lost a brother to Castro’s henchmen.
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As far as following of Che Guevera, you can go pretty much anywhere in Latin America and get your fill of t-shirts, hankies, soccer shirts, etc. with images of Che.
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Short anwer wi/ the context of historical information: No.
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A bit longer answer w/o getting into GD: I would recommend highly reading John Lee Anderson’s Che Guevara: A Revolutianary Life in so far as this period of Che’s life.
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A bit of GD, this story always makes the rounds, but this rumor always deflects the real reasons of Che’s capture: a) Bolivia Military captured him using military intelligence and strategy; b) Bolivia was not “fertile” ground for his foco tactics; c) CIA aided in his capture.; d) in the end it was the Bolivian officers who were involved in the capture that shot him.
XicanoreX
I don’t know if he wanted him killed but it certainly seems he wanted him out of the way.
The true story of Che Guevara’s death was generally known in Moscow and I have heard it independently repeated by Muscovites. It goes this way:
In 1965, the USSR decided that Che Guevara needed to be eliminated. Incredibly, his politics were too far to the left for them. But Che Guevara was fighting a guerilla war against the government of Bolivia and was very hard to find. Yevgeny Yevtoshenko a famous Russian poet with international travel privileges, in the employ of the USSR, took off for South America where, armed with twenty-four bottles of vodka, he found Che and they became very good friends. Yevgeny hung out with Che. Che had a very bad cough; in fact, he had early tuberculosis; he was a medical doctor and knew this, but he said to Yevgeny, “what is there to do? There are some medics but no hospitals and no medicine.” Yevgeny became very concerned indeed. He said, “I can take you back to my country! I am important there–you will be my buddy Jose from South America. They will be happy to fix you up, no cost to you. Why don’t you come?” So Che came to the USSR, and had his tuberculosis cured. While there, he had his own private East German nurse (picture tall, blond, beautiful nazi with ram’s horns and a very starched uniform) who was assigned to honeytrap him. It was a transforming experience for Che; he had never had such love or such sex before. They were married, and when Che was well, they both went back to South America, he with starry eyes and she with a radio transmitter that the Bolivian army was listening to. Not long after, the Bolivian Army found Che Guevara in his secret camp and shot him to death. Then they raped and shot his East German nurse to death. The USSR was functionally blameless, though they orchestrated it.
And that is how Che Guevara died. All Moscow knew this, because Yevgeny Yevtoshenko’s wife knew this; “the shit’s still abroad,” she would tell people when Yevgeny was in South America, being Che Guevara’s best friend. This is the only piece of “shit” about himself that Yevtushenko never admitted to in print.
Since this information is generally “known” in Moscow, would you perhaps have some kind of cite for this interesting story?
I’ve known many people from Moscow, and this is the first I am hearing of it.
Thank you in advance. Or apologies if I am being “whooshed.”
Well, it’s unfortunately up to each of us to decide if we’re being whooshed… Yevtoshenko isn’t talking, and there is no documentary evidence to support the story, so it cannot be published in a historical journal. All of the facts check out, however, and the story was taken for granted by Moscow’s literary circle in which Yevtoshenko’s wife moved. It’s a “reliable rumor.”