William Alexander Morgan: The improbable story of how a high school dropout, ex-con, ranch hand, gambling enforcer, mafia gunrunner and circus fire eater from Ohio, became one of the top leaders in Castro’s revolutionary army (pops), only to be executed as a traitor after the revolution.
posted by mrducts on Dec 8, 2008 - 4 comments

Che Guevara's death
posted by Postroad on Oct 8, 2007 - 87 comments

Che Guevara: The Killing Machine
Che's lust for power had other ways of expressing itself besides murder. The contradiction between his passion for travel--a protest of sorts against the of the nation-state--and his impulse to become himself an enslaving state over others is poignant. In writing about Pedro Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, Guevara reflected: "He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural." He might have been describing himself.
posted by highsignal on Jul 12, 2005 - 82 comments

"We can't be too purist about these things"
Slate: I know there is a conspiracy theory saying that David Atlee Phillips—the Miami CIA station chief—was involved with the assassination of JFK.
Howard Hunt: [Visibly uncomfortable] I have no comment.
Slate: And there were even conspiracy theories about you being in Dallas the day JFK was killed.
Hunt: No comment.
Laura Hunt: Howard says he wasn't, and I believe him.
E. Howard Hunt talks about Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs, Dealey Plaza. And what really happened to Che Guevara. (more inside)
posted by matteo on Oct 8, 2004 - 14 comments

New generation lives to see another Che "Che Guevara is widely remembered as a revolutionary figure, to some a heroic, Christ-like martyr, to others the embodiment of a failed ideology. To still others, he is just a commercialized emblem on a T-shirt. But for Latin Americans just now coming of age, yet another image of Che is starting to emerge: the romantic and tragic young adventurer who had as much in common with Jack Kerouac or James Dean as with Fidel Castro. The phenomenon began a decade ago with the publication of his long-suppressed memoir known in English as "The Motorcycle Diaries," which has become a cult favorite among Latin American college students and young intellectuals..."
posted by Postroad on May 26, 2004 - 24 comments

Revolution or... vodka? The photographer who took the unforgettable (and much imitated) picture of Che Guevara, which still covers the cracks on many a student wall, may have to travel from Cuba to London to prevent an ad agency from using it to sell Smirnoff. "Che was not a drunk," he says. Not the first time that the revolution has been appropriated by the capitalist running dogs...
posted by holgate on Aug 7, 2000 - 2 comments