On this Day: Che Guevara Is Executed

On Oct. 8, Bolivian Rangers who had been trained by U.S. Army Special Forces found Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known to the world as Che Guevara, in Churro Ravine, Bolivia. They opened fire, killing two of his men and wounding Che.

According to the National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5, “The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified,” after being encircled, Che Guevara shouted, “Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.” Che was then taken to a schoolhouse in La Higuera and held overnight; he would be killed there the next day. There are differing accounts of who killed Che, as well as what his last words were. According to declassified CIA documents, Che told his Bolivian executor, “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man,” or “I will remain standing for this … Know this now, you are killing a man.”

In an interview with the BBC, Felix Rodriquez, a Cuban-American former CIA agent, was the interrogator who told Che that the Bolivian authorities decided there would be no trial for him, and that he would be executed. Mr. Rodriquez said, “Che turned white … before saying: ‘It’s better this way, I should have died in combat.’”

Major David R. Selvage asserts, in “Che Guevara In Bolivia,” hosted by GlobalSecurity.org, that Che Guevara was in Bolivia “to personally implement his foco theory”—his theory of achieving revolution through guerilla warfare tactics, which he had used in the Cuban Revolution.

Che Guevara was an Argentine doctor, who after witnessing a CIA-backed coup in which expropriated land was returned to the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, became a “Marxist revolutionary.” While working in Mexico City as a doctor he met Fidel and Raul Castro, who were planning to return to Cuba to overthrow United States-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar.

After joining the Castro brothers in their efforts, Che soon proved himself as a brave and intelligent fighter in the Cuban Revolution and was promoted to the highest role within the rebel group: Comandante. Despite his role in the creation of a communist Cuba, Che still wanted to lead his own revolution and felt there were more countries that needed his assistance, which brought him to Bolivia.

In his farewell letter to Fidel Castro, dated April 1, 1965, Che writes that he feels his role in the Cuban revolution has been fulfilled and that he must move on. “Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part,” writes Che. Yet, his attempts to incite revolution in Argentina, Bolivia and the Congo, among other places, all failed. 

In his most famous work, “Guerilla Warfare,” Guevara outlines what he considers are the “three fundamental lessons” to learn from the Cuban Revolution for future revolutions:

“(1) Popular forces can win a war against the army.
“(2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.
“(3) In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.”

Despite being dead for over 40 years, Guevara’s role in history is still debated: was he a hero or a failed leader? Time Magazine includes Che Guevara as one of its “100 Most Important People of the Century.” As Ariel Dorfman writes for Time, Che’s impact on South America is not forgotten, “I can remember fervently proclaiming it in the streets of Santiago, Chile, while similar vows exploded across Latin America. ¡No lo vamos a olvidar! We won’t let him be forgotten.”

Yet in his review of “The Motorcycle Diaries,” Slate journalist Paul Berman views Che as a totalitarian, who accomplished nothing and inspired thousands of others to do the same. “And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale,” writes Berman.