Reuters
Posted on: Saturday 10 October 2020 – 6:31 AM | Last update: Saturday, October 10, 2020 – 6:31 am
The 9th of October marks the 52nd anniversary of the execution of one of the most iconic faces of the social and political revolution in history.
On October 10, 2017, The Natian newspaper published an article about the declassification of the end of Che Guevara.
In an interview with Gustavo Villoldo, who was a senior CIA Cuban agent assigned to Bolivia in 1967, the latter highlighted mementos of Che’s execution on October 9, 1967 (original photos, secret telex, news clips and even fingerprints taken from Che’s dead hands).
He kept a scrapbook and historical results of the CIA’s covert efforts to train and help the Bolivian Special Forces eliminate Che and his small team of guerrilla fighters.
The retired secret agent added that the Bolivians wanted to decapitate Che and keep it as evidence of his death.
Villoldo convinced them that instead, they could make a “death mask” out of plaster, and that cutting and preserving Che’s hands would be sufficient evidence.
Villoldo explained how he arranged for the body to be buried in secret so that it would never be found. Indeed, Che’s remains “disappeared” for 30 years.
In July 1997, without his hands, his bones were placed in a makeshift grave next to an airstrip on the outskirts of Villegrande.
US officials considered Che Guevara’s capture and execution the most important victory for the United States over Cuba and the militant left in Latin America during the era of American intervention and the counterinsurgency war in the 1960s.
Senior CIA and White House officials drafted numerous classified documents analyzing the significance of the killing of Che to US interests in preventing the spread of the revolution in Latin America.
The document was prepared for President Lyndon Johnson five days after Che’s death, and was a short summary from CIA Director Richard Helms detailing Che’s last hours.
The White House memo also confirmed that the Bolivian government was covering up its role in Che’s execution by claiming that his body had been cremated and could not be returned to his native Argentina or Cuba.
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