by HOBART SPALDING
In Who Killed Che? radical attorneys Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith lay out a forceful case indicting the U.S. government of having, in effect, killed Ernesto “Che” Guevara on October 9, 1967. They base their argument on what has been written since the event but also rely heavily on official documents secured under the Freedom of Information Act, after years of waiting. The authors establish beyond a reasonable doubt that, while the man who actually shot Guevara was Mario Terán, a Bolivian army sergeant, the order to liquidate the wounded guerrilla came from Washington. This goes against the standard story, propagated by former president Lyndon B. Johnson and other high-ranking U.S. officials, that the Bolivians ordered Che’s death.
“The history of who is responsible for his murder has heretofore not been understood accurately, especially in America, where it is commonly believed that the Bolivian military dictatorship had him killed,” the authors write in the first paragraph. “Documents which have recently been obtained from the U.S. government lead to a different conclusion: that the U.S. government, particularly its Central Intelligence Agency, had Che murdered, having secured the participation of its Bolivian client state,” write the authors.