I owe Celia the letter of praise I will write after this if I have time. The others are in debt to me as the last word has been mine, even with Beatriz. Tell her that the papers arrive like clockwork and that they give me a very good idea of all the government’s beautiful deeds. I cut out the articles carefully, following the example of my pater, and now Hilda is emulating her mater. A kiss for everyone, with all the appropriate additions and a reply—negative or positive, but convincing—about the Guatemalan.
Now all that remains is the final part of the speech, which refers to the man, which could be titled: “What next?” Now comes the tough part, vieja, the part I’ve never shunned and always enjoyed. The sky has not darkened, the stars have not fallen out of the sky, nor have there been terrible floods or hurricanes; the signs are good. They augur victory. But if they are wrong—and in the end even the gods can make mistakes—I think I’ll be able to say, like a poet you don’t know: “I shall carry beneath the earth only the sorrow of an unfinished song.” To avoid pre-mortem pathos, this letter will appear when things get really hot, and then you’ll know that your son, in some sun-drenched land in the Americas, is swearing at himself for not having studied enough surgery to help a wounded man, and cursing the Mexican government for not letting him perfect his already respectable marksmanship so he could knock over puppets with better results. The struggle will be with our backs to the wall, as in the hymns, until victory or death.
Another kiss for you, with all the love of a farewell that still resists being total.
Your son
[approximately November 1956]
Dear Tita [Infante],
So much time has passed since I last wrote to you that I have lost the confidence that came from our regular communication. (I’m certain you won’t understand much of my letter. I’ll explain everything to you little by little).
First, my little Indian girl is now nine months old. She’s quite cute, full of life, etc.
Second and most important: A while back some Cuban guys, revolutionaries, invited me to help the movement with my medical “knowledge,” and I accepted, because you probably know that this is the kind of work which me piace [ I like]. I went to a ranch in the mountains to direct the training, vaccinate the troops, etc., but I got unlucky (a Cubanism) and the police nabbed us all. And because my papers were suspect (a Mexicanism) I had to swallow two months in jail, and besides that, they stole my typewriter and some other stuff, hence this handwritten missive. Then the government committed the grave error of believing my word as a gentleman, and they freed me on the proviso that I would leave the country within 10 days. Three months later I’m still hanging around, even though I’m underground and with no prospects in Mexico. I’m just waiting to see what happens with the revolution: if it works out well, I’ll head for Cuba; if not, I’ll start to look for a country where I can set up camp. This year my life could change drastically, but this has already happened so many times that I’m not too scared or bothered by it.
Of course, all my scientific jobs fell through and now I’m just an assiduous reader of Charlie and Freddie105 and others like them. I forgot to tell you that when I was arrested they found several little books in Russian and a card from the Institute for Mexican-Russian Exchange, where I was studying the language in connection with the problem of conditioned reflexes.
It might interest you to know that my marriage has almost completely broken down, and will be definitely next month. My wife is going to Peru to see her family, from whom she has been separated for eight years. There is a certain bitterness in the break-up, as she was a loyal compañera and her revolutionary conduct was irreproachable during my enforced vacation. Our spiritual discord was too great, however, and I live with this anarchic spirit that leads me to dream of new horizons the moment I feel “the cross of your arms and the earth of your soul,” as Pablito [Neruda] said.106
I’ll sign off now. Don’t write to me until after the next letter, which will have more news or at least a fixed address.
An ever affectionate hug from your friend,
Ernesto
______________
1. Northern Argentina, near the border with Bolivia.
2. In English in the original.
3. Alberto Granado accompanied Ernesto on his first trip around Latin America; Carlos Ferrer (Calica) was his companion on this second trip that began on July 7, 1953.
4. Land reform and the nationalization of the tin mines were the key demands of the Bolivian people after the revolution of April 9, 1952, led by the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) under the presidency of Víctor Paz Estenssoro.
5. Pedro Domingo Murillo was a Bolivian national hero (from La Paz) and signatory to the Declaration of Independence on July 16, 1809; Melchor Guzmán was a national hero from Cochabamba who launched the cry for liberty on September 14, 1810; and Gualberto Villarroel was the nationalist president of Bolivia (1943-46) who was assassinated.
6. Isaías Nougués was an anti-Peronist exile and one of the most outstanding figures in the Argentine colony in Bolivia. Contact was made with him through his son José María whom Ernesto met on a train during this trip.
7. Ernesto later wrote a poem, “To the Bolivian Miners” (see Appendices).
8. Ernesto’s stay in Bolivia lasted more than a month, although the dates do not appear in his passport. A letter to his mother from Cuzco, dated August 22, 1953 (reproduced below), indicates that he left La Paz on August 7.
9. The De Guia Leprosy Colony. Both Dr. Pesce and his assistant Zoraida Boluarte had offered support during Ernesto’s first trip around Latin America with Alberto Granado, so he visited them when he returned to Lima.
10. Berta Gilda (Tita) Infante was a fellow medical student at the University of Buenos Aires and an active member of the Argentine Communist Youth as well as a close friend.
11. They arrived in Ecuador on September 27, 1953, and passed through immigration on September 28.
12. The Argentine students were Andro Herrero, Eduardo (Gualo) García and Óscar Valdovinos.
13. Dr. Jorge Maldonado Reinilla.
14. Dr. Fortunato Safadi.
15. Velasco Ibarra was elected president of Ecuador several times.
16. See the letter to his mother from Guayaquil, dated October 21, 1953.
17. The boat on which Ernesto enrolled while still a medical student as a medical orderly on a trip round the Caribbean in 1950.
18. The trio now consisted of Gaulo García, Andro Herrera and Ernesto. Calica had left for Venezuela.
19. In a letter of October 21, 1953, Ernesto estimates that he will reach Panama between October 29 and 30. The departure was on October 25 but Ernesto’s passport doesn’t show these dates.
20. The daughter of a Panamanian member of parliament.
21. During his time in Panama, a report about the visit of Ernesto Guevara and Eduardo García appeared in the paper, La Hora, on November 10, 1953. (See appendices.)
22. Ernesto’s article was published as “Un vistazo a las márgenes del gigante de los ríos” (“A View from the Banks of the Giant of Rivers”) in the Sunday supplement of Panamá-América, November 22, 1953. The other article referred to was published as “Machu-Picchu, enigma de piedra en América” (“Machu-Picchu: Stone Enigma of the Americas”) in the weekly supplement of Siete, December 12, 1953. (See appendices.)
23. All members of the Panamanian Students Federation.
24. The date of Ernesto’s arrival in Costa Rica was December 1, 1953, according to his passport.
25. The United Fruit Company.
26. The article titled “Experimento Extraordinario es el que se Realiza en Bolivia” was published in El Diario de Costa Rica on December 11, 1953. (See appendices.)
27. Carlos Prío Socarrás was the president of Cuba who was overthrown by General Batista in March 1952. José (Pepe) Figueres was the president of Costa Rica.
28. At this point Ernesto traveled on to Nicaragua on December 22, 1953.
r /> 29. They arrived in Guatemala between December 23 and 24, 1953.
30. Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) or the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance was founded by the controversial Peruvian politician Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in 1924.
31. A Venezuelan exile with whom Ernesto later had contact in Mexico.
32. The “gringo” was Professor Harold White; after the revolution he was invited to Cuba by Che and he stayed there until his death in 1968.
33. Hilda Gadea was an APRA exile from Peru who later became Ernesto’s first wife.
34. Alfonso Bawer Pais was a communist exile from Honduras who had been a fellow student of Jacobo Árbenz at the Polytechnic College.
35. The eminent Nicaraguan intellectual Edelberto Torres Rivas. His children, Edelberto and Myrna, became friends with Ernesto and supporters of the Cuban revolution.
36. José Méndez Zebadúa was a founding member of the Communist Party of Guatemala (PGT).
37. A Honduran exile. After the fall of Árbenz, they met again in Mexico. Ernesto dedicated his poem “Invitación al camino” to her. (See appendices.)
38. The APRA leader Nicanor Mujica Álvarez was part of the Peruvian exile community in Guatemala.
39. This is the first mention in the diary of the Cubans who mounted the attack on the Moncada and Bayamo barracks in July 1953, some of whom were then in Guatemala. Ernesto had contact with them through Myrna Torres, the daughter of Edelberto Torres, who was a friend of Hilda Gadea.
40. Myrna Torres recalls this party was on Sunday January 24, 1954, and the girl was a teacher, Norma Cabrera.
41. José Manuel Vega Suárez, alias Cheché.
42. Confederación General de Trabajadores de Guatemala (the Guatemalan trade union federation).
43. Jaime Díaz Rozzoto was the private secretary at the president’s office.
44. The Guatemalan Institute of Social Security.
45. See appendices.
46. After the fall of Árbenz, Gutiérrez continued the struggle for the liberation of his homeland. He was disappeared in March 1966 along with the so-called Group of 28, to which Myrna Torres’s husband, Humberto Pineda Aldana, also belonged and who was also assassinated. Ernesto met Myna’s husband Humberto in the Argentine embassy after the coup against Árbenz.
47. Myrna confirmed this festival was on February 13, 1954, on the banks of lake Amatitlán.
48. Carlos Manuel Pellecer, a peasant leader, was affiliated to the Communist Party. He later renounced the left and ultimately became a CIA agent.
49. The youth festival was held at Chimaltenango on February 20-21, 1954, organized by the Guatemalan Democratic Youth
50. Sara de la Serna was an aunt, the sister of Ernesto’s mother.
51. Antonio (Ñico) López was one of the group that attacked the Moncada barracks in July 1953 and was later an expeditionary on the Granma. Because of his left-wing ideas, he became a close friend of Ernesto. He died in the Cuban revolutionary war.
52. Myrna left on March 21, 1954.
53. Dr. Juan Angel Núñez Aguilar, a Honduran agronomist and economist, who at the time was president of the Instituto de Fomento de la Producción de Guatemala (INFOP).
54. Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Educación de Guatemala (Guatemalan Union of Educators).
55. The Vietnamese independence movement inflicted a major defeat on French colonial forces in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March-May, 1954).
56. An undated letter to Ernesto’s family explains the details of what happened. In his book, Aquí va un soldado de América, Ernesto’s father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, suggests this is around April 1954.
57. (Sic) Stanley H. Boggs.
58. Sylvanus G. Morley was a US archeologist famous for his work in Central America, in particular, in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. He wrote several classic texts on the subject, including The Inscriptions of Petén and The Ancient Maya.
59. Construction of this highway began after the Guatemalan revolution with the goal of making a new bridge and an alternative railway line because the existing railroad was owned by North Americans.
60. Ernesto often used the term vieja (old lady) as an affectionate form of addressing his mother.
61. Argentine slang for peso.
62. A character in a novel by the famous French writer Anatole France.
63. A member of APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) in Peru.
64. Dr. Carlos Tejedas.
65. Partido Demócrata Revolucionario and the Partido de la Revolución Guatemalteca.
66. Partido de la Revolución Nacional and the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Communist Party).
67. Che (a common Argentine form of address) plus Bol(shevik).
68. Carlos Castillo Armas established a brutal dictatorial regime in Guatemala until he was assassinated in 1957 by one of his bodyguards, Romero Vázquez Sánchez, in the presidential palace.
69. This was not true. Reyes Flores was not executed but lived for at least another 20 years in Cuba after the revolution.
70. John Foster Dulles later became US Secretary of State under President Eisenhower.
71. Argentina’s national day.
72. José Manuel Vega Suárez, a Cuban exile living in Guatemala.
73. The Cadet Academy (also known as the Polytechnic College) was founded in 1873 and was the training institute for the cadres of the constitutional army. In 1954, the cadets mutinied against Castillo Armas and the school was closed for three years. Turcios Lima was a member of this group and in 1960 he led a rebellion against the repressive government. He later initiated an armed struggle in Guatemala but was killed in 1966.
74. This observation was vindicated some years later when Pellecer renounced his past communist affiliation in his book, Mi renuncia al comunismo.
75. A water bird found in the Río de la Plata area.
76. Roberto Castañeda is currently a professor of ballet.
77. Getulio Vargas, Brazilian president 1930-45 and 1950-54, established the populist “New State” that oscillated between reform and repression. Just before committing suicide on August 24, 1954, he denounced what he described as the “plunder of Brazil” by foreign companies.
78. Víctor Manuel Gutiérrez was a teacher who was disappeared in March 1966 as one of the Group of 28.
79. Roberto Murailles was assassinated in 1981.
80. Father of Humberto and Luis Arturo Pineda.
81. He arrived in Mexico on September 18, 1954.
82. Known as “El Patojo” (“Shorty”) because of his short stature. He lived in Cuba after the 1959 revolution, then joined the liberation struggle in Guatemala and was killed in action. Che gives an affectionate portrait of him in Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Ocean Press, 2006).
83. Ulises Petit de Murat, a scriptwriter and old friend of Ernesto’s father (Ernesto Guevara Lynch).
84. The Latin News Agency was funded directly by the Argentine government.
85. This was Alfonso Pérez Vizcaino.
86. This was to cover the Pan-American Games, which took place in Mexico between March 12 and 16, 1955. Ernesto was an accredited Agencia Latina reporter from January 31 to December 31, 1955.
87. The motion of proteins (electrically charged molecules) in the presence of an electrical field.
88. A reference to a relative of the Guevaras.
89. Frondizi was the key leader of the Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente who assumed the presidency on May 1, 1958. He was overthrown by a military coup on March 29, 1962. Ironically, it was Che Guevara’s visit to Argentina in August 1961, after attending the famous meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, that was used as the pretext for the coup.
90. The official paper of the Argentine Communist Party.
91. The Pan-American games were held March 12-16, 1955.
92. Two Cubans exiled in Mexico.
93. A paper presented at the Ninth National Congress of Allergists, held at the León Scho
ol of Medicine, University of Guanajuato, April 25-30, 1955. The paper was later published in the Revista lberoamericana de Alergología, Mexico City, May 1955, p. 157.
94. This is Ernesto’s first mention of Fidel Castro. The meeting took place towards the end of July 1955 in Mexico City.
95. They married at Tepoztlán on August 18, 1955.
96. See the letter (above) to his mother dated September 24, 1955.
97. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, Orfila maintained close relations with Che and always expressed his solidarity with Cuba.
98. Ernesto notes that in his book on Mayan civilizations, Morley calls him “Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiú.”
99. The photos included in this book taken by Ernesto of these Mayan ruins reveal a high level of technical and artistic ability.
100. Mariana Grajales was the mother of General Antonio Maceo, who led the struggle for independence against Spain in the 19th century.
101. This letter probably dates from August or September 1956, after Ernesto’s release from prison.
102. The reference is to the film “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,” in which Paul Muni played the leading role.
103. Argentine slang meaning a lazy bourgeois who does nothing but eat.
104. Corps et âmes [Bodies and Souls] was a book written by the French writer Maxence Van der Meersch.
105. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
106. The reference is to Pablo Neruda’s poem A Song of Despair.
Appendices
A View from the Banks of the Giant of Rivers1
The Amazon, with its cortege of tributaries, forms an enormous brown continent in the middle of the Americas. During the long rainy months, all of the water courses increase in volume in such a way that the river invades the jungle, turning it into the home of creatures of the water and the air. Beasts of the earth seek refuge on the spots of land that emerge from the water on the brown savannah. Alligators and piranhas (or caneros) are the new, dangerous guests of the Tronda, replacing the ocelots, jaguars and peccaries in the task of preventing human beings from setting up camp in the jungle.