Beside the pilot rode CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, an intelligence adviser to the Bolivian Army, especially its Second Ranger Battalion. He had helped shape that unit into an effective antiguerrilla force during its special training by American Green Berets and had continued to assist it during its two weeks in the field, culminating in Guevara's capture.
Rodriguez was one of a team of Cuban exiles brought by the CIA to work with the Bolivian Army, two with the troops in the field and at least several others behind the lines. He had been on the scene when a Bolivian soldier killed the famous guerrilla leader and may even have been in the chain of command that ordered the execution, though that remains uncertain.
Indeed, much that concerns Guevara's last day of life remains uncertain, subject to conflicting stories representing conflicting interests, egos, and political positions. After sifting contrary claims and evidence, however, a few things emerge. Contrary to widespread opinion, the CIA did not kill Guevara, but neither did it or any other branch of the U.S. government try to save him, despite subsequent claims by some officials that Washington wanted him alive.
The Bolivian Army officers whose soldiers caught Guevara had no desire to spare him. They intended to interrogate him quickly and execute him summarily. Their interrogation, however, was hopelessly hostile and accusatory. According to some reports, Guevara spit in the face of the questioning officer. Then Rodriguez took over, apparently getting no information either, but his technique was to go slowly, building friendship and confidence with a prisoner. It is hard to imagine that method working with Guevara either, but, in fact, the Bolivians gave him no time to try it.
One person in Bolivia might have saved Guevara, and he says that he would have tried had he been given the chance. That was American ambassador Douglas Henderson, who, unlike anyone else in the country, could speak officially for the U.S. government. Consequently, he had enormous influence, especially as Bolivia was then greatly dependent on the United States in many ways. Henderson, however, claims that he did not learn that Guevara had been caught until after he was killed. Others on Henderson's staff, however, although maintaining traditional Foreign Service loyalty and politesse, provide evidence that Henderson's memory may be faulty.
Rodriguez claims that the CIA instructed him to keep Guevara alive at all costs, but it is hard to imagine how the agency thought he would do that. Rodriguez played an important role in the effort to check the insurgency, but he was not an influential American official. In fact, a key CIA officer connected with the insurgency denies that any orders went out from Washington to save Guevara, even though officials in Washington and in the embassy in La Paz knew the night before his death that he had been captured.
If Rodriguez had instructions to save Guevara, he seems not to have pleaded the prisoner's case very vigorously. By his own account, he suggested to the Bolivian commander present that the famous guerrilla be spared. But in reply, he says, the commander simply asked him to put Guevara's dead body on a helicopter at 2:00 P.M., then departed for divisional headquarters. Rodriguez agreed, remembering that Guevara not only had helped smash the old Cuba that he loved but also had put friends of his to the wall.
The Bolivians might have been expected to inform Henderson, but, undoubtedly suspecting he would interfere, they said nothing. The president and top army officers were still irritated with him for pressuring them to save the life of French intellectual Regis Debray. Debray, who had taken part in Guevara's conspiracy, fell into the hands of the Bolivians as he was trying to leave the band, having had his fill of gue life. Top Bolivian officials wanted to eliminate him at once, but Henderson, along with many others, urged them to spare him. A long, politically embarrassing trial followed, something they did not intend to repeat in Guevara's case.
By midday on October 9, 1967, with no effort on his behalf from the one person who might have saved him, Guevara was doomed. At 1:10 P.M.—Rodriguez noted the time carefully—the execution order went down to a Bolivian sergeant, who stepped into the room where Guevara was interned and shot him to death. Sometime within the next few hours, according to Rodriguez's account, he sent a short coded message to CIA headquarters near Washington, D.C., reporting the execution. Peculiarly, that information took two days to reach the White House.
An Epoch in Hemispheric Affairs
