When I was in the second half of the MOS portion of the 18D course, we were doing our clinical rotations, I was assigned to work in a hospital on a Basic Training Post. For the first few weeks it was pretty standard sick call type stuff, emergency room rotations labor and delivery. Then near the end of our trip, this salty PA that I had been working with for a couple weeks came up and asked if I knew who Che Guevara was. I said yes, but there was a pause. He clearly wanted my opinion on what I thought of him. So, I continued with something like, he was a communist revolutionary worked in Cuba but I cannot remember where he was killed. I think he was kind of a dirtbag but, honestly, I don’t know much beyond that. With a little grin, he said, I was there when we got him. He went on to recount how he was a young 18D who happened to be in the right place at the right time to get the mission. Naturally, I was a bit astonished, probably not as much as I should have been, because I was a dumb kid, but he had the pictures to prove it. Little did I know, I had been working with a man that was on one of the first successful Special Forces missions!
For today’s counterinsurgency article, we are going to discuss Che Guevera, here’s a brief history: Che Guevara
By the mid-1960s, Che Guevera had become famous for his outspoken criticism of the United States and his support for armed Communist insurgencies. He had been one of the architects of the Cuban Revolution, and was attempting to repeat his success throughout Latin America. His guerilla tactics and talent for proselytizing made him a threat to American foreign policy — and when he turned his attention to Bolivia in 1967, the Pentagon made a decision: Che had to be eliminated.
Major Ralph “Pappy” Shelton was called upon to lead the mission to train the Bolivians. With a hand-picked team of specialists, his first task was to transform a ragtag group of peasants into a trained fighting force who could also gather intelligence. Gary Prado, a Bolivian officer, volunteered to join the newly formed Bolivian Rangers. Joined by Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile working for the CIA, the Americans and Bolivians searched for Che. The size of Che’s group and when they would strike were unknowns, and the stakes were high. If Bolivia fell, it would validate Che’s theories and throw South America into turmoil.
Hunting Che follows the exploits of Major Shelton, Felix Rodriguez, and Gary Prado — the Bolivian Ranger commander who ultimately captured him. The story begins with Che’s arrival in Bolivia and follows the hunt to the dramatic confrontation and capture of the iconic leader in the southeastern village of La Higuera. With the White House and the Pentagon secretly monitoring every move, Shelton and his team changed history, and prevented a catastrophic threat from taking root in the West.
For the Che sympathizers that you may know this is from Britannica online:
After Castro’s victorious troops entered Havana on January 8, 1959, Guevara served for several months at La Cabaña prison, where he oversaw the executions of individuals deemed to be enemies of the revolution. Guevara became a Cuban citizen, as prominent in the newly established Marxist government as he had been in the revolutionary army, representing Cuba on many commercial missions. He also became well known in the West for his opposition to all forms of imperialism and neocolonialism and for his attacks on U.S. foreign policy. He served as chief of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, president of the National Bank of Cuba (famously demonstrating his disdain for capitalism by signing currency simply “Che”), and minister of industry. (emphasis mine)
For this post I thought we would discuss a John Batchelor Podcast and interview with the authors Kevin Maurer and Mitch Weiss about their book Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World’s Most Famous Revolutionary. Amazon describes the book as such:
The hunt for Ernesto “Che” Guevera was one of the first successful U.S. Special Forces missions in history. Using government reports and documents, as well as eyewitness accounts, Hunting Che tells the untold story of how the infamous revolutionary was captured—a mission later duplicated in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As one of the architects of the Cuban Revolution, Guevera had become famous for supporting and organizing similar insurgencies in Africa and Latin America. When he turned his attention to Bolivia in 1967, the Pentagon made a decision: Che had to be stopped.
Major Ralph “Pappy” Shelton was called upon to lead the mission. Much was unknown about Che’s force in Bolivia, and the stakes were high. With a handpicked team of Green Berets, Shelton turned Bolivian peasants into a trained fighting and intelligence-gathering force.
Hunting Che follows Shelton’s American team and the newly formed Bolivian Rangers through the hunt to Che’s eventual capture and execution. With the White House and the Pentagon monitoring every move, Shelton and his team helped prevent another Communist threat from taking root in the West.
The interview is broken into four parts, each about 10 minutes in length that can be found here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
and Part 4:
The interview jumps right into a flight into Bolivia in 1967 and follows Felix Rodriguez (wiki bio here) and Gustavo Villoldo, both Cuban exiles and veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion that were left behind when that went bad. Neither liked Guevarra and believed him to be an executioner and prison warden. It was personal with Villoldo who’s father was given a choice, kill himself or his children. This was ground zero of the Cold War fight with Cuba / Soviet Union in South America and follows them through the jungles of South America until there is a break through when documents are found.
Part two discusses how the U.S. Special Forces got involved by setting up and training the Bolivian Special Forces. Major Ralph “Pappy” Shelton selects his team and goes to Bolivia for his last tour to build a troop from soldiers that had no combat experience in less then six months with rapport built from the strings of guitar. But they all understood how important this mission was.
Part three centers around the intelligence that they gather after a Frenchman that finds the revolutionary lifestyle is not what he thought and surrenders, and Paco who was a disgruntled fighter that Felix ends up turning against Che. They then take a closer look at the Bolivian counterinsurgency forces, and how they work to capture Che. It turns out that the revolution was not going well when he was captured and the problems that the Bolivians will face if they tried to give Guevarra a trial.
Part four provides more details to the story of Felix Rodriguez and the documents that they seized from Guevarra. Rodriguez knew that the Bolivian Government wanted Che dead even though the U.S. may have wanted him alive. Interestingly, even in Bolivia, Che is more revered or remembered than the people who hunted him down. Ultimately, all parties tried to downplay the U.S. involvement.
Overall, this is a great listen and I highly recommend it, and if you have time, we all should probably read the book. Also, if you liked this type of interview, John Batchelor has you covered. There are tons of them here.
In the end, was the story I heard that day in the emergency room true? The interview doesn’t seem to end that way but honestly who cares? I sure didn’t. Whatever happened down there was the stuff of legend that we all should know more about.