Tuesday, June 14, 2005

A Che Guevara anecdote on his birthday

I was listening to the radio the other day and Felix Rodriguez was talking about Che Guevara. Rodriguez is a Cuban American former CIA agent that hunted Guevara down in Bolivia, which is to say that his perspective is very different than most of the other writers that put Che on a pedestal. Anyway I’m listening to this guy and he says that one day he was at a funeral and an elderly lady came up to him. She said that her son had been sentenced to die before a firing squad in Cuba’s La Cabaña. She had gone there to ask for clemency for her son. She sat across from Guevara in his office. He seemed interested in her case. He asked her what her son’s name was. She obliged. He asked her what his scheduled execution date was. She obliged. He picked up the phone and called an aide. He gave the aide the prisoner’s name and scheduled execution date and said “make sure we do him today so his mother won’t have to wait.” This is the man that millions idolize.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there a published collection of these Cuban stories? There should be. Not fiction, just a written record of Cuban exile family stories.

Henry Louis Gomez said...

You're right. There should be. I don't know if there is one. Of course the relatives of a lot of Guevara's vicctims may be here in the US but many are also on the Island. I have just bought the book by the author I mentioned in the post. His name is Felix I. Rodriguez. I will write about it when I'm done reading it.

Nemesis said...

I have mentioned this one before but here it goes -
Che is wrecking chaos in La Cabaña so KaSStro sends a guy to look over him (Even for KaSStro Che was just pushing it ) Not only was Che killing prisoners but actual guards and kept insulting Cubans in a most horrific way, calling them CUBANICHES
So this "spy" goes back to KaSStro and tells him .. Comandante tenemos un problema.. ALL they say is true the man has gone mad.
KaSStro tell him to go back to La Cabaña and wait for his call.
The flunky goes back and after a while KaSStro call the flunkies office (Che never seemed to answer his phone) so The flunky goes next door tells Che that EL COMANDANTE wanted to talk to him
Che walks into the guys office chats with KaSStro a bit , and says " so YOU think we have a problem Fidel?" Apparently KaSStro acknowledges they do.. So Che tells KaSStro - wait a second.. With that he pulls a gun a puts a bullet on the spies head. Picks up the phone and goes "There…. NO MORE PROBLEMS"
Any questions why he HAD to go to Bolivia

Anonymous said...

We could set up a blog used only to post the stories with a link for people to email them to us. It should be bilingual. It could by anonymous or not. What do you think?

Henry Louis Gomez said...

I will set up a section on my site trenblindado.com so people can send in their first hand experiences with Che. If I get enough I'll dedicate a new site to it. Something like victimsofche.com