A Personal Reflection on Ernesto Che Guevara

By Philip Agee

During my years in the CIA in the 1950's and 60's, I naturally accepted the official U.S. position that Che Guevara was an enemy and a threat to the United States. It wasn't until 1967 that I began to rethink my preconceived and uninformed views on Che. I was still in the CIA and under diplomatic status in Mexico City as a U.S. government representative for the Mexican Olympic Games set to begin October 12, 1968 the anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World.

On the night of October 9, 1967, I was at an exclusive restaurant on the main north-south boulevard called Insurgentes Sur not far from my apartment. My dinner companion was a woman originally from a prominent New York family who had married a Mexican, had three daughters, divorced, and remained living in Mexico City. She had been appointed by the Olympic Organizing Committee to work with the U.S. Embassy on the Games which meant working with me. I had gone to Mexico City without my family and was in a divorce process myself.

Familiar story. We became fast friends from the start, although I had not told her that I was in the CIA. She only knew that I was a State Department diplomat who had worked in other Latin American countries and had been assigned to work in the Olympic Games. And although I had not told her of my CIA affiliation, we had already begun to talk of a future together.

Earlier that day the media had carried the news of Che's death in Bolivia. So that night at dinner the subject came into our conversation, and my companion suddenly went into a rage. She started screaming both in Spanish and English about Che and the evil CIA that murdered him. He was, she said, the great hope of Latin America, now eliminated. I was stunned by her emotion and anger, and I sat there thinking that I could never tell her of my CIA work because if she knew she would never speak to me again.

In the days ahead, as we continued to work together on Olympic matters, and to see each other privately, it became clear to me that I had a choice to make. It would be a personal not a political decision. But for the near future I had a commitment to the Ambassador and to the CIA to represent the United States in the Games. So I began planning for my resignation after the Games in late 1968. But the opportunity came earlier that year when the CIA informed me that I was to receive another promotion. I responded that I was resigning from the Agency at the end of the Olympics. I did this and began a new life, although I and the woman who, without knowing it, inspired me to leave the CIA, eventually went separate ways.

A few years later in Cuba I began reading the works of Che Guevara. I was then struggling without much success to write a book on my experiences in the CIA and to expose its methodology. But reading Che was inspirational and motivated me to continue. The book finally came out in early 1975 as Inside the Company: CIA Diary and was an immediate best-seller. It may be a strange story, but the inspiration of Che and reading his works pointed me in a direction that continues to this day. Long live his memory and his work!