The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.5

By Peter Kornbluh

Archives

On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to
death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and
guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His
execution remains a historic and controversial event;
and thirty years later, the circumstances of his
guerrilla foray into Bolivia, his capture, killing, and
burial are still the subject of intense public interest
and discussion around the world.As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of
Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba
Documentation Project is posting a selection of key
CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation
relating to Guevara and his death. This electronic
documents book is compiled from declassified records
obtained by the National Security Archive, and by
authors of two new books on Guevara: Jorge Castañeda's
Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Knopf),
and Henry Butterfield Ryan's The Fall of Che Guevara
(Oxford University Press). The selected documents,
presented in order of the events they depict, provide
only a partial picture of U.S. intelligence and
military assessments, reports and extensive operations
to track and "destroy" Che Guevara's guerrillas in
Bolivia; thousands of CIA and military records on
Guevara remain classified. But they do offer
significant and valuable information on the high-level
U.S. interest in tracking his revolutionary activities,
and U.S. and Bolivian actions leading up to his death.

Contents:

Declassified Documents

The Death of Che Guevara: A Chronology

New Books on Che Guevara (further information)

DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

Visit archives
to view each document.

CIA, The Fall of Che Guevara and the Changing Face of
the Cuban Revolution, October 18, 1965:

This
intelligence memorandum, written by a young CIA
analyst, Brian Latell, presents an assessment that
Guevara's preeminence as a leader of the Cuban
revolution has waned, and his internal and
international policies have been abandoned. In domestic
policy, his economic strategy of rapid
industrialization has "brought the economy to its
lowest point since Castro came to power," the paper
argues. In foreign policy, he "never wavered from his
firm revolutionary stand, even as other Cuban leaders
began to devote most of their attention to the internal
problems of the revolution." With Guevara no longer in
Cuba, the CIA's assessment concludes, "there is no
doubt that Castro's more cautious position on exporting
revolution, as well as his different economic approach,
led to Che's downfall.