Che's Assassins Revealed
Klare, Mike
For a remarkable case study in U.S. counterinsurgency, Newsletter readers should take a look at Andrew St. George's "How the U.S. Got Che" in the April issue of True magazine. St. George, a former...
...The U.S...
...George asserts, "that this asthmatic, softfaced medico who never went to military school or owned a brass button had a greater influ- ence on inter-American military policies than any single man since the death of Josef Stalin...
...moreover, he confirms Roger Count- ill's assertion in the Guardian (October 12, 1968) that U.S...
...imperialism...
...Wil- liam K. Skaer of the Air Force...
...Southern Command (CINCSOUTH), Gen...
...planes equipped with infrared sensing devices were used to pinpoint Che's guerrilla campsites...
...Robert W. Porter, Jr...
...George relates, "was mapped in small precise grids....Wide-winged, Giant RB-57's flew over Bolivia out of Howard Air Force base high in the Canal Zone, while miles underneath dusty little bush planes...put-putted back and forth pinpointing every single heat source on miles and miles of winding infrared superfilm...
...The guerrilla-infested zone," St...
...CINCSOUTH's intelligence chief, Gen...
...Presumably these "bush planes"belonged to Mark Hurd Aerial Surveys, as sug- gested by the Guardian in October...
...In his reconstruction of the U.S...
...These groups worked closely with the only overt U.S...
...The outcome of this meeting was to reject an Army proposal for the direct intervention of U.S...
...George makes the following points: * President Kennedy's interest in "special warfare" and counterinsurgency was largely a re- sponse to Che's strategies for multi-national guerrilla struggles against U.S...
...force -- a Special Forces contingent responsible for the training of a Bolivian anti-guerrilla Ranger battalion...
...The aerial survey group made extensive use of infrared surveillance techniques in the hunt for Che's group...
...The Bolivian operation was planned at the Presidential level...
...George acknowledges that the 1967 counter-guerrilla campaign in Bolivia was directly controlled by the United States...
...A U.S...
...covert force in Bolivia, known as a Special Operations Group, consisted of a clandestine CIA group with agents scattered throughout the guerrilla region, and a topsecret Special Aerial Survey Detachment under the control of CINCSOUTH...
...George, a former New York Times reporter, has been closely associated with the CIA, and his account of Che Guevara's capture is likely to be the most accurate and revealing we will ever see...
...In his essay, St...
...strategy, attended by Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson...
...Secretary of State Dean Rusk...
...It is a little-known but solid fact," St...
...the head of the U.S...
...CIA Director Richard Helms...
...Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, Covey T. Oliver...
...troops (which would have legitimatized Che's conception of a second Vietnam) and instead to mount a covert operation which would rely on U.S.-trained Bolivian troops for the dirty work...
...On April 9, a secret con- ference was held in the Chiefs-of-Staff conference room in the Pentagon to map out U.S...
...and President Security Assistant Walt W. Rostow...
...spyship of the Pueblo variety is on constant patrol outside of Havana harbor monitoring all Cuban radio traffic...
...White House Hemis- pheric Adviser William Bowdler...
...operation in Bolivia, St...
Vol. 3 • March 1969 • No. 1
