Michael Ratner (1943–2016)

This book publishes for the first time the U.S. secret police dossiers on legendary revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara and shows how the FBI and CIA monitored his movements and activity in the United States, Mexico, Cuba and Latin America.Thirty years after the death of the legendary revolutionary figure, a Freedom of Information case has succeeded in obtaining the FBI and CIA files on Ernesto Che Guevara. These FBI and CIA files are published for the first time. With an introduction by U.S. show more attorneys Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith, these files reveal that Guevara was being monitored by U.S. secret police well before he joined Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionary, forces. The files begin with a copy of Guevara's passport used during his 1952 visit to Florida, and include documentation of his arrest along with Fidel Castro in 1956 in Mexico."Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino", reads a February, 1958 document giving detailed descriptions of Guevara's appearance, activities and personal,habits as well as reporting on his asthma problem during the period of the Cuban guerrilla war in which he led a rebel column. Watched very closely after the 1959 Cuban revolution, Guevara's every word was recorded and transmitted to the FBI and CIA, with particular note taken of his and-U.S. statements. Several of these speeches have never been published before and are included as a special feature of the book. Later documents are concerned with Guevara's disappearance from Cuba in 1965 and his resurfacing in Bolivia as a guerrilla leader and the circumstances of his death in October 1967. show less

``A riveting and thoroughly documented history of the murder of che Guevara.In an era when when 'targeted assassinations' and 'capture and kill operations' have become routine...[this] examination of the U.S. role in Che Guevara's death could not me more timely``