Authors: Jon Lee Anderson
May 14, 1928
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is born in Rosario, Argentina, to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna. (Birth certificate is falsified to indicate June 14 birth date.)
1932
Family moves to Alta Gracia.
1943
Family moves to Córdoba.
1946
Ernesto graduates from Colegio Nacional Dean Funes in Córdoba.
March 1947
Family moves to Buenos Aires.
1947
Ernesto enters Faculty of Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires.
January 1, 1950
Ernesto takes off alone on first motorcycle trip, around Argentina.
February 9, 1951
Ernesto ships out to sea on an oil tanker.
January 4, 1952
Ernesto and Alberto Granado set out on “Motorcycle Diaries” trip.
March 10, 1952
Fulgencio Batista takes over as president of Cuba in a coup d’état.
August 1, 1952
Ernesto returns to Buenos Aires.
April 1953
Earns medical degree.
July 7, 1953
Ernesto and Calica Ferrer leave Buenos Aires for Bolivia. “Otra Vez” trip.
July 26, 1953
Fidel Castro leads an attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. He is captured, tried, and imprisoned.
December 1953
Ernesto arrives in Guatemala City. Meets Hilda Gadea.
June 18–27, 1954
U.S.-sponsored coup in Guatemala.
September 1954
Ernesto arrives in Mexico.
May 1955
Fidel is freed from Isle of Pines prison in an amnesty signed by Batista.
July 1955
Ernesto meets Fidel in Mexico City.
August 18, 1955
Marries Hilda Gadea.
February 15, 1956
First child, Hilda Beatriz Guevara, born.
June 24, 1956
Ernesto, who has begun training for revolution with Fidel’s band of Cuban exiles, is arrested by the Mexican police. He is imprisoned for nearly two months.
November 25, 1956
Granma
sets off from Mexico for Cuba.
December 2, 1956
Granma
arrives at Playa las Coloradas on Cuba’s southeastern coast.
December 5, 1956
Rebels are attacked and dispersed at Alegría de Pío.
January 17, 1957
Successful attack on La Plata army barracks.
February 17, 1957
Herbert Matthews of
The New York Times
interviews Fidel in the Sierra Maestra.
February 17, 1957
Che executes the traitor Eutimio Guerra.
May 28, 1957
Rebel attack on army garrison at El Uvero.
July 22, 1957
Che made
comandante
.
August 31, 1958
Che leads Rebel Army column toward the Escambray mountains of Las Villas province.
October 16, 1958
Rebel Army column led by Che reaches Escambray.
December 28, 1958
Che’s column of the Rebel Army begins the battle of Santa Clara.
January 1, 1959
Batista flees Cuba. Santa Clara falls.
January 2, 1959
Che and Camilo Cienfuegos begin advancing on Havana. When Che arrives in the city, he occupies La Cabaña fortress, where, as Supreme Prosecutor, he will oversee numerous trials and executions.
January 8, 1959
Fidel arrives in Havana.
February 9, 1959
Che is made a Cuban citizen.
February 16, 1959
Fidel becomes prime minister.
May 22, 1959
Che and Hilda divorce.
June 2, 1959
Che marries Aleida March.
June 12–September 8, 1959
Che travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa.
October 8, 1959
Che is made director of the new Industrialization Department of the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (INRA)
November 1959
Che becomes president of the National Bank of Cuba.
March 5, 1960
At a funeral service for the victims of an explosion on the ship
La Coubre
, in Havana harbor, Alberto Korda photographs Che on the speakers’ platform.
April 1960
Che’s guerrilla warfare manual,
La Guerra de Guerrillas
, is published by INRA’s Department of Military Training.
October 19, 1960
The United States imposes a trade embargo on Cuba, prohibiting all exports except food and medicine.
October 22, 1960
Che leaves Havana to visit the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, China, and North Korea.
November 24, 1960
Che and Aleida’s first child, a daughter, Aleida (Aliusha), is born.
January 3, 1961
Eisenhower breaks off diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba.
February 23, 1961
Che becomes minister of industry.
April 17–20, 1961
Bay of Pigs invasion.
August 1961
Che represents Cuba at the OAS economic conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay. Meets privately with President Kennedy’s adviser Richard Goodwin.
February 1962
President Kennedy tightens trade embargo.
May 20, 1962
Che and Aleida’s first son, Camilo, born.
August 27–September 7, 1962
Che visits Soviet Union.
October 1962
Cuban missile crisis.
June 14, 1963
Che and Aleida’s third child, Celia, born.
March 1964
Tamara Bunke (“Tania”) is sent from Havana to Europe to establish a false identity before infiltrating Bolivia as an agent for guerrillas attempting to foment revolution.
April 1964
The guerrilla band sent by Che to launch an armed struggle in Argentina is destroyed in the mountainous Salta region of northeastern Argentina. Their leader, Jorge Ricardo Masetti, disappears. Most of the survivors are arrested and imprisoned.
July 26, 1964
The OAS imposes sanctions on Cuba. Mexico is the only member state that does not sever ties with Cuba.
August 5, 1964
The United States begins bombing North Vietnam.
November 4–9, 1964
Che visits the Soviet Union.
December 9, 1964
Che embarks on a visit to the United States, Algeria, Mali, the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Tanzania, China, France, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, and Egypt. He will be away for three months.
December 11, 1964
Che addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
February 24, 1965
Che and Aleida’s fourth child, Ernesto, born.
February 25, 1965
Che addresses the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers.
March 15, 1965
Che returns to Cuba but soon drops from public view.
April 1, 1965
Che leaves Havana in disguise, bound for Africa.
April 19, 1965
Che arrives in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, en route to the Congo to lead a Cuban brigade in support of the Congolese rebels.
May 19, 1965
Che’s mother, Celia, dies in Buenos Aires.
October 3, 1965
Fidel reads Che’s “Farewell Letter” publicly.
November 21, 1965
Che and his men flee the Congo.
November 1965 to March 1966
Che lives secretly in the Cuban embassy in Dar es Salaam, where Aleida visits him.
March–July, 1966
Che moves to Prague, where he alternates between safe houses in the city and in the countryside. Aleida visits him again.
July 1966
Che returns to Cuba, secretly, and prepares for the Bolivian expedition.
November 1966
Che arrives in Bolivia disguised as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman. Within a few days, he leaves La Paz for a camp established for his guerrillas in a remote wilderness area in the southeastern part of the country.
April 16, 1967
Publication of Che’s “Message to the Tricontinental,” which calls for “two, three, many Vietnams.”
August 31, 1967
A rearguard column of guerrillas, including Tania Bunke, is intercepted and massacred by Bolivian forces at a place on the Masicuri River known as Vado del Yeso.
October 8, 1967
Che’s last battle. He is wounded and captured by Bolivian soldiers.
October 9, 1967
Che is executed in the hamlet of La Higuera after spending the night in captivity. His body is transferred by helicopter to the town of Vallegrande, where an autopsy is performed. The body is displayed to the public for the next twenty-four hours.
October 10, 1967
Death masks are made of Che’s face. His hands are amputated.
October 11, 1967
Che’s body is secretly buried in the early morning hours.
July 1997
Che’s body is unearthed at the burial site at the airport in Vallegrande, Bolivia.
October 17, 1997
Che is interred in a mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba. A memorial was built there to honor him as the Heroic Guerrilla.
A biography is achieved with the collaboration of many people, and since this project spanned five years, I have a great many to thank. Some of them may not approve of the final result. To them, I can say only what I have always said: My sole loyalty in this book was to write the truth, as I saw it, of Che Guevara’s life; his truth, not anyone else’s.
In Cuba, where the bulk of my time was spent and research done, I owe gratitude to Che Guevara’s widow, Aleida March, who emerged from three decades of hibernation to open up to an impertinent, prying American. I know that there were many who advised her against it. I appreciate her trust. She allowed me to draw my own conclusions about what I learned. To María del Carmen Ariet, Aleida’s aide-de-camp and probably the world’s foremost Che scholar, I owe a great deal. Orlando Borrego, Che’s protégé, shared his knowledge and his archives and also treated me as a friend. For that I am forever grateful. Cuba’s former spymaster, the late Manuel Piñeiro Losada, alias “Barbarroja,” helped shed light on Che’s clandestine activities. Also many thanks to Aleida Piedra, my assistant and faithful friend, who practically became a member of our family.
Thanks to Denís Guzmán, the Central Committee official who channeled my initial request to work in Cuba and who tried to smooth over the early glitches of our stay; María Flores, Roberto de Armas, and the late Jorge Enrique Mendoza; Julie Martin and her father Lionel Martin, a wonderful man and good friend who shared his thoughts, years of experience, and personal archives with me; Manuel, Alejandro, Katia
y toda la familia
Gato; Lorna Burdsall, Pascal and Isis Fletcher, Lisette, Ron Ridenour, Veronica Spasskaya, Roberto Salas, Encarna, Fernando and Laly Barral, Leo and Michi Acosta, Micaela and Fernando, Miguel and Tanja, Julio and Olivia, Marta and Carmen, Isaac and Ana, Dinos and Maribel Philippos, Ángel
Arcos Vergnes, Juan Gravalosa, Tirso Saenz, Cristina Campuzano, Alberto Castellanos, Alberto Granado, Osvaldo de Cárdenas, Ana María Erra, María Elena Duarte, Estela and Ernesto Bravo, Mariano, Gustavo Sánchez, Jesús del Valle, Paco Usallan, Marta Vitorte, Cari and
“la profe
[Margarita].” At Cuba’s Council of State, the late Pedro Álvarez Tabío allowed me into the “Che” archives, where I was helped by Efraín González; also, Heberto Norman Acosta. Andrés Castillo Bernal let me examine his own extensively researched manuscript on the Cuban revolutionary war and other documents.
In Argentina, I must thank Calica Ferrer, the late Carlos Figueroa, Chicho and Mario Salduna, Pepe and Chuchi Tisera, Roberto and Celia Guevara, Julia Constenla, Rogelio García Lupo, Reynaldo Sietecase, Hector Jouve, Alberto Korn, Héctor “Toto” Schmucler, Oscar del Barco, Benjamín and Elsa Elkin, Nelly Benbibre de Castro, Emiliano Acosta, Tatiana and Jaime Roca, and everyone in the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense—Anahi, Patricia, Darío, and Mako—and especially Alejandro Inchaurregui, a good friend and an admirable man. Also, Roberto Baschetti, Julio Villalonga, María Laura Avignolo, and Claudia Korol.
In Bolivia, special thanks to Loyola Guzmán and Humberto VázquezViaña. Also, to Rosa and Natalí Alcoba, Martín and Matilde; Ana Urquieta, Juan Ignacio Siles, Chato Peredo, Rene Rocabado, Carlos Soria, Clovis Díaz, Miguel Ángel Quintanilla, and Tania at the Hotel Copacabana. Retired General Reque Terán generously shared his time, documents, and collection of captured photographs.
In Paraguay, Socorro Selich and her daughters, especially Zorka, took me in on trust, unveiling the secrets of the late Colonel Andrés Selich, a key figure in the final hours of Che Guevara’s life. I thank them for their confidence and their hospitality, and also Tilín for his help in making copies of thirty-year-old tapes and photographs.
In Mexico, my research was either coordinated or conducted by Phil Gunson, an excellent journalist, veteran Latin America hand, and good friend of many years. To him I owe a special debt of gratitude for his tireless help in ferreting out people and archives in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama.
In the United Kingdom: Richard Gott and the late John Rettie gave their encouragement, information, and contacts, all of which were invaluable. Thanks also to Duncan Green and Raquel at LAB, Pedro Sarduy and Jean Stubbs; Noll Scott, Landon Temple, Muhammad, Helena Poldervaart, Carlos Carrasco, Ashok Prasad, and Peter Molloy.
In Moscow: Irina Kalinina, Anatoli, Esperanza, Volodya, Mario Monje, and Alexandr Alexiev. In Spain, Henry Lerner, Carmen González-Aguilar, and her late brother, Pepe, who gave me time on his deathbed. In
Sweden, Ciro Bustos opened up his home and heart in our long talks. In Cairo, Carol Berger kindly and selflessly tracked people down for me. In Germany, Peter Müller helped with the Stasi files and in other ways as well. The Swiss filmmaker Richard Dindo generously gave me contacts and tips for Bolivia and some photographs for the book.