Word: che
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...students were being incited to riot and demonstrate by non-student communist forces. (This was clearly not the case -- the communists played little part in the events up to this point and were to play an even smaller part in the events that were to follow.) Portraits of Che Guevara had been adopted by the students as a symbol of their movement. The students explained that as they were willing to give their lives to defend the Mexican constitution and preserve freedom of speech and the autonomy of the University, they felt that the portrait...
Somebody was bound to try, and now Director Richard Fleischer is set to start filming 20th Century's biography of Che Guevara, Marxist folk hero killed while trying to export Castrostyle revolution to Bolivia. "We're already being blasted from left and right," says Fleischer. "The rightists don't want Che glorified, and the leftists are sure their idol will be defiled." As for the Cu bans, says Fleischer, "I don't think we'll be playing Che in Cuba-though they might acquire a print so they can shoot at the screen...
Even so, Americans have never before undergone so many sustained surprises both at home and abroad as they have in the past year. Last summer Israel smashed the Arabs, Red China exploded its first H-bomb, Johnson met Kosygin in New Jersey, the Bolivians killed Che Guevara, the Nigerian civil war began destroying Black Africa's most promising nation, and Negro rioters ran wild in Detroit and Newark...
Probably the most valuable part of the book is the introduction by James, who puts the diary's daily notations in thoughtful perspective. Che failed in Bolivia, James concludes, by ignoring his own precepts. He picked Bolivia as a centrally located focus for Latin American revolution, disregarding the fact that Bolivian peasants had already benefited from one revolution in 1952, and had no quarrel with the government or army. He highhandedly overruled local Communists and relied on imported Cuban revolutionaries. He wandered about the country with no coherent strategy, and in the end, he let his guerrillas be hemmed...
...much as anyone, it was Castro himself who ensured Che's defeat by leaving him to wander in Bolivia with neither the proper material nor moral support. James ascribes that betrayal to their longstanding rivalry. Had Che succeeded in leading a continental revolution, he would have emerged the greater leader, and might well have jeopardized Castro's future position. For his part, Che, as the apostle of Communist revolution in Latin America, had little choice but to go to Bolivia. Concludes James: "He needed a revolution far more than the revolution needed...