On This Day In History Communist Revolutionary Ernesto 'Che" Guevara Was Executed In Bolivia

 On this day in history Communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed in Bolivia.

Although Guevara was and is a hero to leftists around the world, many others, like me, believe he was a despot, a murderer, and an utter failure as a revolutionary.  

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

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

And you can read my Washington Times review of Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer's 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 

The Truth About Che Guevara

Michael J. Totten a the World Affairs Journal offers a piece on the truth about Ernest "Che" Guevara.

Che Guevara has the most effective public relations department on earth. The Argentine guerrilla and modern Cuba’s co-founding father has been fashioned into a hipster icon, a counter-cultural hero, an anti-establishment rebel, and a champion of the poor. As James Callaghan once put it, “A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

The truth about Che now has its boots on. He helped free Cubans from the repressive Batista regime, only to enslave them in a totalitarian police state worst than the last. He was Fidel Castro’s chief executioner, a mass-murderer who in theory could have commanded any number of Latin American death squads, from Peru’s Shining Path on the political left to Guatemala’s White Hand on the right. 

 

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

 

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/truth-about-che-guevara

 

 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine interview with journalist Mitch Weiss, co-author of Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World's Most Famous Revolutionary, and my Washington Times review of the book, 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.

More from The Anti-Che, Freedom Fighter And Patriot Felix Rodriguez,

Jay Nordlinger at National Review offers a follow-up to his piece on Cuban-American Felix Rodriguez, the CIA agent who helped hunt down Communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

A couple of months ago, I went to visit Felix Rodriguez in his Miami home. In the August 5 issue of National Review, we published a piece: “The Anti-Che: Felix Rodriguez, freedom fighter and patriot.” (A blunt and true title.) We also published the piece online at https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/353799/anti-che

I would like to give you a few more notes about Rodriguez, supplementary to the piece. I think you’ll find them worth your while.

But first, I should answer a question that some will have: Who is Felix Rodriguez?

He is a Cuban-born American. Former CIA agent. Was infiltrated into Cuba before the Bay of Pigs. Got out some months after that disaster. Was assigned to Bolivia, to help that country’s forces hunt down Che Guevara. Got him. Rodriguez was the last person to talk to him, really. And an interesting conversation they had.

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

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358877/more-anti-che-jay-nordlinger?splash=

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

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

Note: The above with Felix Rodriguez (on the left) and 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.