“What do they plan to do with him?”
“I talked to General Barrientos’ ambassador here. He says he doesn’t want another public trial of the kind they went through with Regis Debray. That just gave the whole world one long philippic by Bertrand Russell et al. on the crimes of capitalism. General Barrientos has published the names of over fifty soldiers and civilians killed by Che Guevara and his guerrillas during the past few months. Usually by ambush. My guess is they’re going to execute him. But they’ll give us access to him if that’s possible. I am sure of that.”
Arriving at Lima at six to catch the connecting flight to La Paz, Blackford was intercepted by an official from the embassy with a cable.
It said:
GUEVARA WOUNDED AND CAPTURED. BOLIVIAN MILITARY ARE TAKING HIM FROM QUEBRADA DEL YURO WHERE THE AMBUSH CLOSED IN TO LA HIGUERA WHERE HE WILL BE BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS MESSAGE. AT LA PAZ PLANE WILL BE WAITING TO TAKE YOU TO VALLEGRANDE. THERE A CAR WILL DRIVE YOU TO LA HIGUERA. COLONEL ZENTENO EXPECTS YOU.
It was after eight when he put down at La Paz. Blackford strained for air in the toplofty altitude until he put on his oxygen mask. The little airplane climbed slowly and headed southeast to vault the 250 miles to Vallegrande. The night was clear, and the pilot weaved through the snowy crags of the Andes. Blackford sat in the copilot’s seat of the Lockheed Lodestar. For some reason he was reminded that this was the same model airplane in which one of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands—he could not recall his name; the one who made Around the World in Eighty Days—had been killed. He took the mike and spoke to the pilot, whose oxygen mask, against the pale moonlight, gave him a proboscis like an astronaut’s. “What do they have at Vallegrande by way of navigation?”
The pilot spoke into the tiny mike that rested on the protruding end of his headband. “Omni, Señor.”
“What is the elevation of Vallegrande?”
“It is three thousand one hundred meters.”
A hell of an altitude to wage a guerrilla campaign in, Blackford thought, and looked out at the deep ravines and canyons that stretched ahead of him.
The flight was uneventful, and Blackford missed the comfort of the oxygen when he put aside the mask after they had landed. A station wagon drove up to the aircraft. Blackford made arrangements with the pilot. “Probably tomorrow, perhaps not until the next day.” The pilot would wait, he said, and every couple of hours would check with the airport for messages. “There is usually someone on duty here, though not between midnight and six,” the airport manager said.
They drove off on a macadamized road that became dirt within a few kilometers. La Higuera nestled in a little valley. It was midnight, and the square was empty. The driver took Blackford to a building at the corner. A village cantina, which doubled as a small hostelry. The same man served from the bar and registered guests. He asked Blackford whether he was Mr. Oakes. Blackford nodded, while signing the register. The bartender handed him a letter. “We are closing for the night, señor. Can I give you something to drink?”
Blackford asked for a cold beer. A young man carried his suitcase up the wide wooden staircase to the second floor. His room number was seven. The bath and bathroom were at the end of the hall. It was chilly, but not cold. Blackford tipped the boy and opened the letter.
It was from Colonel Zenteno and said that he would be breakfasting at seven and would brief Sr. Oakes at that time. Blackford opened the bottle of beer, drank half of it, went off toward the bathroom to brush his teeth, and, on opening the door, came head-on up against a large burly man.
“Perdón,” Blackford said, closing the door and walking back to his room, where he finished his beer and hoped that the food at La Higuera would not find him spending the midnight hour as the hotel’s other guest was spending it.
Colonel Zenteno was a man of few words, as he had established at midnight the night before. While eating a breakfast of steak and eggs and rolls he told Blackford that Che was physically weak, and, in mood, perfectly docile. Zenteno had instructions from General Barrientos of some importance.
The colonel looked about him. There were six other officers breakfasting, but they were in the far corner of the dining room, and the radio on the high shelf above the kitchen door was blaring out the melancholy songs of the area, with twangy guitars providing a percussive accompaniment that made it easy to keep Colonel Zenteno’s voice all to himself. The colonel talked and ate at the same time.
“What I am telling you is of course confidential. I had yesterday evening a telephone call from the President. General Barrientos has reaffirmed the decision of the High Command to execute the guerrilla Guevara, even as he would have executed us if he had caught us, and even as he executed the Cuban guerrillas at Escambray when he was in Cuba. I and Colonel Selnich will question him”—he looked at his watch—“beginning at eight. You may sit with us or not as you desire. There are two other guerrilleros captured, in the other room in the schoolhouse. They will be questioned simultaneously, then shot.
“Are there any questions you wish us to ask him?”
“Probably not many you wouldn’t be asking him anyway. We’ve cracked his codes, as you know. But we haven’t been able to cross-check all the aliases he has been using. Our records could use an alias key.”
“That is on our list.”
“Is he that cooperative?”
“Yesterday evening he was not only cooperative, he was talkative. Who knows today?”
“I assume you have not told him he is going to be shot?”
“We have not. When he was captured, he told the soldier who had the rifle aimed at him, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I am Che Guevara, and I am worth much more to you alive than dead.’”
Zenteno laughed. “He is not worth a hundred pesos to us now. His movement is abolished. He was a total failure. He is worth money only to his worshippers. There are no Bolivians among them. Except the two in an adjoining room in the schoolhouse, and they will be late-Che-worshippers by noon.” Again he laughed, and lit a cigarette.
“I have four or five questions to put to him that the Agency wants asked. That is why I am here. I have also a personal question to ask him.”
“Then you do not wish to sit with us while we interrogate him?”
“No. You are recording your exchange?”
“Of course.”
“Where is the schoolhouse?”
The colonel pointed across the square. “It is the second house from the corner, over there. The second house on the right. Opposite is the church.”
“You will send for me?”
“I will send for you.”
The call came just after eleven.
Wearing corduroy pants and a sweater, and carrying a clipboard, Blackford Oakes set out across the square, led by a lieutenant. He was taken without ceremony to the entrance to a schoolroom.
He opened the door.
On the right, pushed together, were the children’s chair-desks, perhaps ten of them. The teacher’s desk had been pulled up toward the door, and in the vacated space a cot had been set.
He lay on it, propped up. Not readily recognizable. He was very thin and very yellow, and he wheezed from his asthma. His chestnut hair curled down, reaching to his shoulders. His beard was fuller than it had been, his moustache also; Che Guevara had not shaved recently. He wore an open gray sweater, and a pipe was on the bed table.
“I understand you know Guevara, Sr. Oakes.”
“Yes,” Blackford said.
“Well,” Zenteno signaled to Colonel Selnich. “Come along, Andrés.” And to Blackford, “If you need me, there is a guard outside.” The two Bolivian colonels walked out.
“So it was not adiós after all, Caimán.”
“No, Che. My life was saved by President Kennedy.”
“I never pretended I had any voice in your liberation.”
“I honor that. Your last words to me were that I was to remember we are at war with each other.”
“Yes, and our pe
rsonal circumstances have changed since that day … almost exactly five years ago. Yes. The President gave his speech on October 22, 1962, and here we are … October 9, 1967—almost exactly on the anniversary. Well, I have lost this one. But you will lose the big one, Caimán. You wait and see.
“But you want to question me, I know. You will find me very helpful respecting all questions the answers to which do not matter. Go ahead. This will not take long.” He smiled as he reached for his pipe. “Not like the conversations we had about the Acuerdo.”
“I want first to ask whether Fidel Castro ordered the assassination of John Kennedy.”
“Oh you do, do you? Well, let me first ask you: Did John F. Kennedy order an assassination of Fidel Castro?”
“I am going to answer that question, Che. He acquiesced in the idea. The initiative was not his. Now will you answer my question?”
“No.”
“My next question is: Had any of the missiles been armed with a nuclear warhead by October 22 five years ago?”
“No. In ten days, if there had been no interference, half of them would have been armed. In two weeks, all of them.”
“My next question: Did Castro initiate the request for the missiles, or did Khrushchev make the suggestion?”
“It was Khrushchev. Via Adzhubei.”
“Next question: Are there any nuclear weapons in Cuba?”
“There were none when I left. It has been over two years, you know. That wretched year in the Congo.”
“And finally: Is there any approach that might be made to Castro that would alter his reliance on the Soviet Union?”
Che laughed, and tugged on his pipe. His voice was weak, but he worked into it the old irony. “The only approach you could make to Castro would be through Mao Tse-tung. In short: No. But know this: Among other things, Castro’s prominence, his singularity, requires him to be the dominant communist—the only communist power in the western hemisphere. He likes it, Caimán.”
The door was abruptly opened. It was the same lieutenant who had led him in.
“I am not quite through, Lieutenant.”
“Señor, the colonel needs to speak to you immediately. You can return.”
Blackford, who had been sitting on the desk section of one of the children’s chairs, got up and followed the lieutenant on the three-minute walk to the hotel. He was led to the dining room, which Colonel Zenteno had turned into a provisional office.
The colonel was flustered. “I have just had a message from the President. It was delivered by messenger from Vallegrande—there are no telephones in La Higuera. The President, and I quote him”—he read from the dispatch he held in his hand—“‘wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the CIA and to President Johnson for the help you have given us during this campaign. He is prepared to make a very special gesture.’”
Colonel Zenteno looked up solemnly at Blackford. “You may have the prisoner alive if you wish. If you do not want him, we will proceed with the execution. The story to the press will be that he died in the schoolhouse last night from the wounds after the fire fight.
“Well,” the colonel paused, “do you want Che Guevara? If so you will have to have a military plane come to La Paz.”
Blackford drew breath. “I would need to consult with Washington.”
“There is no possibility of that. Before the day is over, one half the journalists in the hemisphere will find La Higuera. He must have died—or have been turned over to the United States.”
“He is not guilty of any crime committed on American territory.”
“Please, Sr. Oakes. Do not go into questions of American law. Return to finish your questions—how much longer do you want?”
“Three minutes.”
“And then you tell us. He is your prisoner—or our corpse. We will be waiting.”
The altitude made it no easier for Blackford. He was short of breath when ushered back into the schoolroom. He began to talk, but was interrupted by the shots. Four of them. In the adjacent schoolroom.
“Well,” Che remarked, drawing on his pipe. “There go Willy and Aniceto.”
Blackford paled. “Che, I want to ask you now a personal question. What happened to the reprieve of execution you and Castro signed for Catalina?”
“Castro never signed it. I forged his signature.”
Blackford’s eyes narrowed. “What then happened to the reprieve?”
“I burned it”—he drew his pipe under his left hand, simulating a match burning a piece of paper.
“Why did you do that?”
Che shrugged his shoulders. “Castro wanted her killed.”
“Did you know that at the time you signed the reprieve?”
“Yes.”
There was silence.
“Her execution—” Che began. But stopped. He decided not to tell what little he had in fact done for Catalina, sparing her preknowledge of the firing squad. It would have had a supplicatory feel, unmanly, under the circumstances.
“—Nothing. Never mind.”
Blackford had remained standing ever since his return from the meeting with the colonel. He was leaning against the door. He paused a long moment.
“Well. I guess it’s goodbye, Che.”
“Adiós, Caimán.”
There was a slight wave of the hand.
Blackford walked out into the sun. Colonel Zenteno was there, also a sergeant with a carbine rifle, and the two guards. Blackford looked up at the colonel.
“He is your prisoner, Colonel.”
Colonel Zenteno acknowledged the communication and its meaning with a decisive nod of his head.
Blackford started off toward the hostelry, breathing deeply the rarefied spring air. He had gone only a few steps when he heard the two shots.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to a number of sources, but most particularly to Family Portrait With Fidel (1984) by Carlos Franqui. This revealing narrative, by a sometime friend and colleague of Fidel Castro, is a singular feat of portraiture. I owe a great deal to Mr. Franqui, with whom I also visited. Richard Goodwin recounted his experiences with Che Guevara following the Punta del Este conference in 1961 in The New Yorker (May 25, 1968). Two biographies of Che Guevara were helpful, both titled Che Guevara, the first by Daniel James (1969), the second by Andrew Sinclair (1970). And a most informative book on the missile crisis is Strike in the West (1963) by James Daniel and John G. Hub-bell. Once again I found A Thousand Days, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., useful; perhaps more useful than Professor Schlesinger might have wished.
I am most particularly grateful to Antonio Navarro, a Cuban-American New York business executive who in 1981 wrote Tocayo, an account of his own experiences under Castro until his flight from Cuba in 1961. He gave me one hundred useful details about Havana and otherwise guided me, relying on his knowledge of Cuban terrain, manners, and history. There are anomalies in the book and one or two anachronisms for which he is not responsible.
Dorothy McCartney, the research director of National Review, was once again invaluable. She hopes that future books, if there are to be any, will happen in European countries, access to whose urban features is ever so much easier. I am grateful to Miss McCartney; as also to the indispensable Frances Bronson, whose editorial coordination and drive make life possible.
Samuel S. Vaughan of Doubleday once again acted as my editor. It is inconceivable that anyone alive could have given better advice, or taken greater care. I am profoundly grateful to him. I record also, with gratitude, the criticisms of Christopher Buckley, my son; of Patricia Buckley, my wife; of Priscilla Buckley and Reid Buckley, siblings; of Lois Wallace, Thomas Wendel, Charles Wallen, Jr., and Sophie Wilkins. Dear Sophie couldn’t stand the book’s title, and I think the world should know how heavily she labored to persuade me to change it.
Alfred Aya, Jr., who is my personal Aberdeen Proving Ground, this time around coached me on how to get a bomb to explode at a predetermined altitude. For the benefit of all, I elected t
o leave out one crucial detail, pax vobiscum.
Chaucy Bennetts of Doubleday once again did her splendid job of copy editing. I am bound to profess that in my lifetime I have never come across anyone with her combination of taste and knowledge in editorial detail. And, of course, I would not publish a book Joseph Isola had not copy read. My thanks to them both.
W.F.B.
Stamford, Connecticut
July 26, 1984
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Copyright © 1985 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Cover illustration by Karl Kotas
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See You Later, Alligator Page 32
