The Cult of Che

At his capture and summary execution last October by Bolivian soldiers, Cuban Guerrilla Ernesto (Che) Guevara became an instant martyr of the New Left. Fidel Castro's former second-in-command was the victim of his own botched insurgency, in which he failed to follow his own precepts for guerrilla warfare. Yet, in the seven months since his death, the Che legend has given rise to a cult of almost religious hero worship among radical intellectuals, workers and students across much of the Western world.

Placards proclaiming such slogans as "Che Is Alive" dot anti-Viet Nam and other student protest demonstrations, and portraits of Che have been carried in practically every student riot in Europe this spring. Guevara-style beards have become a fad around Milan, and students in Florence have adopted Che's dark blue Basque beret as a trademark. Handkerchiefs, sweatshirts and blouses decorated with his shaggy countenance are popular in half a dozen countries. French schoolgirls hang his photo in their boudoirs alongside those of movie idols, and students at the London School of Economics now greet each other with the salutation "Che." Peruvian grammar-school children hold hands, dance in a circle and chant a new nursery rhyme: "With a knife and a spoon, long live Che Guevara."

In the U.S., Che has become an idol of the New Left. Posters invoking his memory are carried by student demonstrators, and half a dozen books by or about Che have been published since his death. Among them are two editions of Guevara's recollections of the Cuban insurrection in the Sierra Maestra. Several publishers have tried to pry Che's 30,000-word Bolivian diary out of the hands of the Bolivian army, which seized it, but so far all such negotiations have bogged down.

On the Bandwagon. Che cultists reverently equate him with such other leftist heroes as Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh, and French Marxist Regis Debray, a captured member of Che's Bolivian guerrilla band now serving a 30-year prison sentence. "I can't think of a revolutionary in the last century who had his romantic appeal," says Tariq Ali, 24, Pakistani-born leader of London's anti-Viet Nam demonstrators.

Among Italy's emerging new breed of Roman Catholic militants, the Jacques Maritain Circle (named after the French philosopher) arranged a memorial mass in Che's honor last February, and Catholic services for him have been held in several other countries. In Brazil, mythmakers have circulated thousands of copies of a photograph of the dead Che captioned "A Saint of Our Time." Italian students have christened him Angela della Pace--"Angel of Peace."

The mystique of Che has created not only a cult but a new source of profits for composers, poster makers and book publishers. "Everybody is jumping on the Guevara bandwagon," says Vice Chairman Rayner Unwin of the London publishing house of Allen & Unwin. Four Italian publishers are working the field, including Milan's Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, whose 95-c- version of Che's handbook. Guerrilla Warfare, has gone into three editions totaling 40,000 copies. At least half a dozen moviemakers are scrambling to get on-screen first with a Guevara biography. Most of them are Europeans, but in the U.S., Director Richard Fleischer, who has just completed The Boston Strangler, is ready to begin work for 20th Century-Fox on a film entitled simply Che.

More Zeal than Wit. Little of the Guevara fervor has touched the world of elders in Europe or North America, but South Americans take it more seriously. Former Argentine President Juan Peron has praised Guevara as a great hero. Says Liberal Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara: "The Guevara cult is being fueled by the indefinite postponement of basic reforms by Latin American governments." In Paris on a speaking tour, the archbishop recently hailed Guevara as "unforgettable," and warned that the violence he preached is "the only alternative" to rapid South American social reform.

Only a few governments have so far tried to stifle the spread of the Guevara legend. Lest it become a shrine, the two-room schoolhouse where Che was shot to death in the tiny mountain hamlet of Higueras has been razed by the Bolivian army. After a Barcelona publisher printed an edition of The Writings of Che Guevara without first submitting it to the Ministry of Information, the Franco government obtained a court order that all copies be destroyed. Brazil's political police gave battle with somewhat more zeal than wit. Bursting into a chic Rio boutique not long ago, they confiscated a batch of women's blouses emblazoned with Che's visage across the breast. Amused. Brazilians promptly nicknamed the boutique "Chez Guevara."

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