"In compelling detail two leading U.S. civil rights attorneys recount
the extraordinary life and deliberate killing of the world’s most
storied revolutionary: Ernesto Che Guevara. Michael Ratner and Michael
Steven Smith survey the extraordinary trajectory of Che’s career, from
an early politicization recounted in the Motorcycle Diaries,
through meetings with his compañero Fidel Castro in Mexico, his vital
role in the Cuban revolution, and his expeditions abroad to Africa and
Latin America. But their focus is on Che’s final days in Bolivia where,
after months of struggle to spread the revolution begun in Havana, Che
is wounded, captured and, soon after, executed. Bound and helpless,
Che’s last words to his killer, a soldier in the Bolivian Army, are
“Remember, you are killing a man.”
Referencing internal U.S. government documentation, much of it
never before published, Ratner and Smith bring their forensic skills as
attorneys to analyze the evidence and present an irrefutable case that
the CIA not only knew of and approved the execution, but was
instrumental in making it happen. Cables from the agency disavowing any
U.S. role in the murder were merely attempts to provide plausible
deniability for the Johnson administration.
The spirit of Che Guevara, as an icon and an inspiration, is as
vibrant today as it ever was. News photographs of democracy protestors
in the Middle East carrying his image have circulated the world in
recent months. For anyone drawn to his remarkable life and its violent,
unlawful end, Who Killed Che ? will engage, anger and educate."