Intelligence Reports

On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His execution remains a historic and controversial event; and thirty years later, the circumstances of his guerrilla foray into Bolivia, his capture, killing, and burial are still the subject of intense public interest and discussion around the world.

As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project is posting a selection of key CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation relating to Guevara and his death. The selected documents, presented in order of the events they depict, are scans of the original reports and provide only a partial picture of U.S. intelligence and military assessments, reports and extensive operations to track and "destroy" Che Guevara's guerrillas in Bolivia; thousands of CIA and military records on Guevara remain classified, even some of the documents that you will find on these pages have segments of the text removed for security reasons. But they do offer significant and valuable information on the high-level U.S. interest in tracking his revolutionary activities, and U.S. and Bolivian actions leading up to his death.

CIA Biographic Register on Che Guevara		CIA - The Fall of Che Guevara and the Changing Face of the Cuban Revolution		CIA, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Fidel Castro Delivers Eulogy on Che Guevara
This five-page CIA document, from August 1964, contains extensive information about Ernesto "Che" Guevara		This intelligence memorandum presents an assessment that Guevara's preeminence as a leader of the Cuban revolution has waned...		On October 18, 1967, the third day of national mourning, Fidel Castro delivered a eulogy to a crowd of almost one million at the Plaza de La Revolución...
CIA - Intelligence Information Cable		CIA - Debriefing of Félix Rodríguez		Department of State - Guevara's Death, The Meaning for Latin America
This CIA cable summarizes intelligence, gathered from September 1966 through June 1967, on the disagreement between the Soviet Union and Cuba over Che Guevara's mission to Bolivia...		When Che Guevara was executed in La Higuera, one CIA official was present--a Cuban-American operative named Félix Rodríguez...		In this interpretive report for Secretary of State Thomas Hughes summarizes the importance of "the defeat of the foremost tactician of the Cuban revolutionary strategy