SPARKS FLY OVER DIARIES OF CHE GUEVARA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000202400003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 22, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202400003-2
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE L -- i
World
Sparks fly over diaries of
The diaries consist of a spiral notebook and a
notebook with cheap plastic covers. They extend
Guevara There is a third document, a series of notes
taken from a smaller notebook, in which Guevara
D.Y. Ray Moseley ~SS~gnn~~att; London gives a personal evaluation of 43 men in his
-Chicago Tribune guerrilla force. At the bottom of some of these
?' 'LONDON-The last time the battlefield diaries pages a large X, Guevara's way of noting that
" men referred to had been killed in battle.
"
Che
of the late revolutionary folk hero Ernesto
Guev ra were seen In public was In June, 1968, a
month before they were published In Cuba.
:Then Sotheby's, the London auction house, an-
nounced last month that it had the diaries and
would sell them on July 16. It set off alarm bells
in Bolivia, where the diaries were supposed to
have ' been held, and an international guessing
ggatne as to how the diaries made their. way to
London.
Sotheby's has said only that it did not receive
the diaries from a Bolivian.
"What has happened to the diaries since the,'
were last seen in public is highly. speculative, '
said Peter Beal, a Sotheby's manuscript expert.
They may have changed hands several times."
There has been widespread but unconfirmed
speculation that a corrupt Bolivian general smug-
gled the diaries abroad to be sold to the highest
bidder. They were last known to be held by the
Bblivian high command.
.TIIE IMMEDIATE reaction from Bolivia and
Cuba was that Sotheby's had acquired fakes. The
Bolivian government now seems to accept that
the, diaries are genuine and has filed suit against
Sotheby's to try to get them back.
.But barring an adverse decision by the courts
$Otheby's says it is going ahead with the sale and
.expects the diaries to fetch about $325,000.
This would seem to be an extraordinary price
for, a' rather bricf account of a failed military
campaign. But Beal said the value of the diaries
is in their authorship rather than their content.
"Ghe Guevara was the most famous revolution-
ary of recent times," he said. "He was the man
' wbo''tried to start'a second Vietnam, and he was a
cult figure. This is the most famous diary of its
kind ever written. I' can't think of anything
cdmkarable."
Beal said the annouheement of the sale has
brought inquiries from all over Latin America
the United. States, France, West Germany and
even New Zealand.
"I WOULDN'T be surprised if the diaries fall to
sell, and I wouldn't be surprised if they go for
twice the estimated value," said. "It's impossi-
ble to say."
As to who might buy them, Beal speculated that
it might be an institution involved in war studies,
a government or a private individual, such as
"someone In the media who is wealthy."
Guevara, the right-hand man of Fidel Castro in
the Cuban revolution, was captured by the
Bolivian army on Oct. 8, 1967, 11 months after he
d begun an afternpt T-o -foment a revolution in
Bolivia that he hoped would spread to all of Latin
America. He %e~_a killed by the army the day after
his capture.
AMONG THOSE evaluated Is Regis Debray, the
French left-wing writer who acts as an adviser to-
French President Francois Mitterrand. Debray
was not a guerrilla, but he visited Guevara and
was later captured by the Bolivian', army and
sentenced to prison. : 4
Guevara's Judgment on Debray was ;mixed: "A
magnificent intellectual has been lost, but I doubt
whether he would ever be a good guerrilla."
SothebF's also plans to sell a diary kept by
Guevara s deputy in the Bolivian campaign, a
Cuban named Harry Viilegas Tamayo, code-
named "Pombo." One of three Cuban survivors of
the campaign, Tamayo lives in Cuba. His diary is
expected to sell for about $75,000.
After Guevara's capture, the CIA is believed to
American journalist Daniel James subsequently
published an English edition in the United States..
SOME PAGES OF the diaries, as well as the
document in which Guevara evaluates his fellow
guerrillas, have, never been published. But Beal
said there is nothing in the unpublished portions
that sheds new light on the history of the guerrilla
that-Gen. Alfred Ovando, head of'the armed
forces when Guevara was captured kept the
ori ginal diaries for a time on his bedside table. He
said they were subsequently placed in a shoe box
that was locked inside a safe at high-command
headquarters under the direct responsibility of the
chief of military Intelligence.
Col. Luis Arce Gomez who headed this section
between 1980 and 1982, has been named in some
Latin American press reports as a leading suspect
in the theft of the diaries. But his defenders say
he is a leading figure in the Bolivian drug trade
and therefore would not need the money from the
diaries.
Beal said Sotheby's legal'advisers are convinc-
ed the Bolivian government has no legitimate
claim to ownership of the diaries.
GUEVARA'S FATHER still lives in Cuba. but
Beal said he has not made a claim to the diaries.
Nor has Pombo.put in a claim for his own diaries.
Many of those involved in Guevara's capture
and death have themselves come to a violent end.
Gen. Zenteno Anaya, the Bolivian field com-
Mario Teran, who shot Guevara,, was "execu
by guerrillas.
Rene Barrientos, president of Bolivia at the
time, was killed in a helicopter crash.
campaign.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202400003-2