'It's Over': How I Captured Che Guevara

Clare Hargraves at FT magazine offers a piece on former Bolivian soldier Gary Prado (seen in the below photo), the man who captured Communist Revolutionary Che Guevara.

On October 8 1967, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was captured in Bolivia. A key player in the 1959 Cuban revolution, Guevara had travelled to the country in the hope of turning it into one of the “many Vietnams” he had called for in his 1966 “Message to the Tricontinental”. Accounts of the events surrounding Guevara’s death have varied, and some details remain contested.

“On October 8 my soldiers were controlling the route out of the Yuro ravine, an area that was covered with thick underbrush, rocks and trees. At around one o’clock they shouted that they had two prisoners. I ran 20 metres uphill to see them and asked one of the captives to identify himself. ‘Che Guevara,’ he said. The other was ‘Willy’ [Simeón Cuba Sarabia, another guerrilla].

There were confusing rumours about three or four possible ‘Che Guevaras’ being in the region at that time, so it was essential to check his identity. I asked Che to show me his right hand because, according to the information I had, he had a scar on the back of it. The scar was indeed there. He didn’t look much like the photographs. He presented a pitiful figure, dirty, smelly and run-down. He’d been on the run for months. His hair was long, messy and matted, and his beard bushy. Over his uniform he was wearing a blue jacket with no buttons. His black beret was filthy. He had no shoes, just scraps of animal skins on his feet. He was wearing odd socks, one blue, one red. He looked like those homeless people you see begging in the cities pushing a supermarket trolley. I noticed that he was carefully carrying an aluminium pan with six eggs in it — it showed he’d had contact with the locals.

Che had been wounded in his right calf when trying to escape capture by running down the ravine. I had placed a machine gun to cover the area, plus a 60mm mortar to support it. My soldiers had opened fire on Che, hit him in the calf, made a hole in his beret and broken the M2 carbine he was carrying.

Che was depressed, completely demoralised. He was seeing the end. He’d had five guerrillas killed, so he wasn’t happy about that. He saw me calling up more troops to secure the area and said: ‘Don’t worry captain, this is the end. It’s over.’ I said: ‘It may be over for you, and you might be a prisoner now, but there are still some good fighters in the ravine.’

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.ft.com/content/63632118-a891-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the capture of Che Guevara via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/11/my-piece-on-look-back-at-hunt-and.html  

Lowry: In Cuba To Make "History," Obama Stands In The Shadow Of Tyranny

Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, offers his take on President Obama's visit to Cuba in his column in the New York Post.

President Obama inadvertently found the perfect photo op for his Cuba visit at a wreath-laying ceremony at the José Marti Memorial in Havana.

A news photo at Revolution Square caught Obama standing together with American and Cuban officials with an enormous mural of the iconic revolutionary Che Guevara looming over his shoulder on the adjacent Ministry of the Interior building.

Che, of course, is ubiquitous on dorm-room walls and T-shirts in the United States and a hero of the Cuban revolution. He also was a coldblooded killer who set up the Cuban gulag and presided over summary executions of political prisoners. (Trials were, per Che, “an archaic bourgeois detail.”) No doubt, he would have been astonished at the Yanqui president coming to Revolution Square to pay his respects — and exceedingly pleased.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link: 

http://nypost.com/2016/03/22/in-cuba-to-make-history-obama-stands-in-the-shadow-of-tyranny/

A History Lesson For Jesse Ventura On His Hero Che Guevara

Cuban-American author Humberto Fontova offers a history for Jesse Ventura on his hero Che Guevara in a column at Townhall.com.

“I respect the fact that he would die for his convictions. So a mirror of Che Guevara has a profound place in my house. I’m not the least ashamed to say that when I go to wash my hands I look at Che,” gloats Jesse Ventura.

"The jury saw the evidence,” gloats Jesse Ventura regarding his judicial victory over Chris Kyle’s widow. “And the jury found that I had been defamed….Chris Kyle did lie and Jesse Ventura told the truth. I am a victim here."

“Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. We execute (and jail and torture and steal) based on revolutionary conviction.” (Jesse Ventura’s source of daily inspiration, Che Guevara, February 13, 1959.)

Maybe it’s a coincidence that Jesse Ventura draws daily inspiration from a regime that jailed and tortured the most women political prisoners of any regime in the Americas —indeed, that introduced this Stalinist horror to the Western Hemisphere?  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2014/08/08/a-history-lesson-for-jesse-ventura-on-his-hero-che-guevara-n1876505

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine interview with Humberto Fontova via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache4.jpg

And you can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the hunt for Che Guevara via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/11/my-piece-on-look-back-at-hunt-and.html  

My Piece On A Look Back At The Hunt And Capture Of The World's Most Famous Revolutionary, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

 

My piece on the hunt and capture of Communist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was published in Counterterrorism magazine.

Long before the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. hunted and helped capture another notorious enemy - Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. The Argentine doctor and Communist revolutionary, who joined Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution and helped run the post-revolutionary government, was an ardent critic and foe of the United States.

You can read the rest of the piece above and below:

 

You can also read my Washington Times review of Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World's Most Famous Revolutionary via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-washington-times-review-of-hunting_6.html

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge.

Ernesto 'Che" Guevara Was Killed On This Day In Boliva In 1967

Communist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was killed on this day in Bolivia in 1967.

You can read more about Che Guevara in Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer's Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture The World's Most Famous Revolutionary.

You can also read my Washington Times review of the book via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-washington-times-review-of-hunting_6.html

The Wrap-Up With The Anti-Che, Freedom Fighter And Patriot Felix Rodriguez

Jay Nordlinger at National Review offers his third and final piece in his series on Cuban-American Felix Rodriguez, the CIA agent who helped capture Communist revolutionay Che Guevara in Boliva in 1967.

In 1976, Felix Rodriguez left the CIA for several reasons. (Readers of my magazine piece will recall this.) One of those reasons was security. His cover was blown; he was receiving death threats.
The Agency offered to give Rodriguez and his family new identities and move them to a different state. Rodriguez decided against. It would be too disruptive, too upsetting to the family, he determined.

So, the Agency took some steps to afford him some security. They outfitted his home in various ways. They bullet-proofed his car, at Langley. They gave him a mobile phone — “something very rare at the time,” says Rodriguez. When he called a seller of such phones, he was told that the waiting list was ten years. Then Langley made a call. And Rodriguez got the phone in two days.

There were some other arrangements as well, and the Rodriguezes forged ahead.

Rodriguez is not very interested in money, and he has lived frugally. “I am very organized with my finances. I have never had a penny of interest on my credit card. If I don’t have the money, I don’t buy whatever it is.” He bought his house in 1969, for $29,800. “We borrowed 8,000 for the down payment.”

This seems a classic American story, old-school.

You can read the rest of the piece and link to part one and two of the series via th below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358986/wrap-anti-che-jay-nordlinger

You can also read my Washington Times review of Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture The World's Most Famous Revoluntionary via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-washington-times-review-of-hunting_6.html   

Note: The above photo of Felix Rodriguez (on the left) with Che Guevara was provided by Felix Rodriguez.

The Anti-Che: Felix Rodriguez, Freedom Fighter And Patriot

Jay Nordlinger at National Review offers an interesting piece on an interesting man, Felix Rodriguez.

Miami, Fla. — Felix Rodriguez seems fated to be linked to Che Guevara. This is not entirely just. Rodriguez loves freedom, and has worked tirelessly for it; Guevara loved tyranny, and worked tirelessly for it. “Two sides of the same coin,” some people say. Maybe — but only in the way that light and dark are two sides of the same coin. Rodriguez had a role in stopping Guevara. He was there, in the Bolivian mountains, in 1967. He was the last person to talk with Guevara — a man who did so much to tyrannize the country where Rodriguez was born, Cuba.

The story of Guevara’s last day has been told many times, in many ways. Rodriguez told it in his 1989 memoir, Shadow Warrior. It is told in a book published earlier this year, Daybreak at La Higuera, by Rafael Cerrato, a Spaniard. La Higuera is the village where Guevara met his end. Cerrato’s main sources for the book are Rodriguez, who was working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez, whose nom de guerre was Benigno. A Cuban, Benigno was Guevara’s lieutenant in Bolivia. He was also a member of Fidel Castro’s inner circle. He defected in 1996 — and now he and Rodriguez are friends.    

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/353799/anti-che

You can also read my Washington Times review of Hunting Che, in which Felix Rodriguez is a major character, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-washington-times-review-of-hunting_6.html  

Note: The above photo appears courtesy of Felix Rodriguez.

My Washington Times Review Of 'Hunting Che: How A U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture The World's Most Famous Revolutionary'

My review of Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer's book  Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World's Most Famous Revolutionary appeared in the Washington Times today.

Long before the worldwide hunt and takedown of America’s public enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden, there was another global manhunt for another famous enemy of America: Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

In Kevin Maurer and Mitch Weiss' new book, “Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World’s Most Famous Revolutionary,” the authors tell the story of the Green Beret team that traveled to Boliva in 1967 to train the raw Bolivian soldiers who would, in due course, hunt down and capture Che Guevara.

The United States had been trying to keep track of Guevara for years prior to the 1967 Bolivian campaign, the authors note, chasing his ghost across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia as intelligence analysts built up an extensive profile of him. The CIA knew everything about him, except where he was.

... “The bearded icon took the international stage when Castro rose to power in Cuba. Che and Castro were as close as brothers and shared a missionary zeal for Cuban-supported revolution,” write the authors. “Che  was a Communist evangelist, and his disdain for the United States and its economic hegemony was part of his appeal in an era of youthful rebellion and Cold War paranoia.”

.... In “Hunting Che,” the authors concentrate on the hunt for Guevara in Boliva, offering a snapshot of the Bolivian and American campaign.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/6/book-review-hunting-che/?page=all#pagebreak

You can also read my interview with author Mitch Weiss on the hunt for Che Guevara in Counterterrorism magazine via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/11/my-piece-on-look-back-at-hunt-and.html 

 

The above photo shows the captured Che Guevara with CIA agent Felix Rodriguez prior to his execution. The photo appears courtesy of Felix Rodriguez. 

The below photo of Che Guevara is in the public domain:

 

 

The Below U.S. Army photo is of Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, the man who trained the Bolivian Rangers who hunted and captured Che Guevara. 

 

 

The below photo is of Major Shelton's Green Beret team in Bolivia. 

 



 

The below photo is of Captain Gary Prado, the Bolivian Ranger who captured Che Guevara. 

 

 

United Nations Organization Honors Communist Guerrilla Leader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon offers a piece on the United Nations honoring Communist guerrilla leader and leftist cultural icon Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.

The United Nations’ cultural body is facing a backlash after it decided to honor the “life and works” of the Marxist Argentinian militant Che Guevara, a controversial figure long viewed as a hero of the left.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced earlier this week that it would include Guevara’s “life and works” in its 2013 “Memory of the World Register," which codifies historical material that has a “world significance and outstanding universal value.”

Guevara’s works were submitted to the register by Bolivia and Cuba in 2012. They were accepted earlier this week and endorsed by the director-general of UNESCO.

The announcement sparked an outcry from Cuban-American members of Congress and former U.S. officials who said the United Nations is sullying its reputation by honoring a revolutionary figure who murdered many innocent civilians.

“This cretin described himself as a ‘killing machine,’ and he worked in the service of a totalitarian regime,” Roger Noriega, a former State Department official and U.S. ambassador to the Organization for American States, told the Washington Free Beacon.  

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://freebeacon.com/united-nations-organization-honors-che-guevara/

You can also read an earlier post on Guevara via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/12/che-part-one-and-che-part-two-films.html

Bay of Pigs At 50: Ex-CIA Agent Who Helped Capture Che Guevara Talks About His Experience In The Bay Of Pigs Invasion

Luisa Yanez in The Miami Herald spoke to Felix Rodriquez, the current President of The Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506, on the 50 anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba.

Rodriquez, seen in the above photo, is a former CIA agent who was in Cuba 50 years ago. He later helped hunt down Castro's Communist guerrilla ambassador, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in Boliva.

You can read the newspaper piece via the below link:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/15/2169717/brigade-veteran-says-there-was.html

You can read about how Brigade veterans are honoring the day in Miami via the below link:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/16/2171348/bay-of-pigs-survivors-pay-tribute.html#storylink=omni_popular

You can also read Cuban-American Humberto Fontova's column on the Bay of Pigs, and my interview with Fontova, via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/04/anniversary-of-heroism-and-shame-bay-of.html