a ready response among non-Communists to their incitement against the sending of Argentine troops to Korea,” while in Cuba, a recent incident in which American servicemen urinated on a statue of the Cuban nationalist hero José Martí had been “magnified” by local Communists, “thereby seriously, if temporarily, lowering popular esteem of the U.S.” The CIA also warned that the Communists could exploit “liberal democratic aversion to dictatorial rulers” in some nations, straining relations between their countries and dictatorships friendly to Washington.
Ernesto was in his fourth year of medical school when, citing his own Communist threat, Perón began cracking down on the left. During the purge, a Córdoba acquaintance of Ernesto’s, Fernando Barral, was arrested for “Communist agitation” and held in police custody for seven months. Barral was a Spanish Republican exile whose father, a famous sculptor, had been killed while defending Madrid. As a foreign national, he was to be deported back to an uncertain fate in Franco’s Spain, but after the Argentine Communist Party secured Hungary’s offer to receive him as a political exile, he was allowed to go there instead.
Except for random encounters, Barral and Ernesto had not had much contact since the Guevaras’ move to Buenos Aires. Barral had meanwhile fallen in love with Ernesto’s cousin Carmen Córdova Iturburu. Although his romantic feelings were unrequited, Barral and Carmen were close friends. Perhaps Ernesto viewed Barral as a rival for his cousin’s affections; perhaps he simply disliked Barral’s “dogmatism,” a speculation later made by Barral himself. Whatever the case, throughout Barral’s imprisonment, Ernesto remained unmoved. Ernesto neither visited Barral in prison nor (in a repetition of his behavior during Alberto Granado’s detention) joined the efforts to secure a release.
One friend recalled Ernesto advising his maids to vote for Perón because Perón’s policies favored their social class. According to Mario Saravia, Ernesto joined a Peronist youth organization on campus in order to use its extensive library facilities and check out books otherwise unavailable to him. Another time, on the suggestion, half in jest, of Tatiana Quiroga, prior to an ambitious trip through Latin America he was planning, hedrafted a letter to Evita, asking her for a jeep. Tatiana helped him write it, and she remembers that they had fun doing it. They never received a reply.
IV
By the time he was in his early twenties, Ernesto stood out socially as an attractive oddball. Indeed, he defied definition and was oblivious of ridicule. Most of his peers dressed impeccably in ties, blazers, pressed slacks, and polished shoes, but he wore grimy jackets and odd-fitting, old-fashioned shoes that he bought at remainder sales.
Ernesto had perfected this untended image. As Dolores Moyano recalled, his sloppiness was a favorite topic of conversation among her friends. “One has to know the mentality of the provincial oligarchy to appreciate the remarkable effect of Ernesto’s appearance,” she wrote. “All the boys we knew put a great deal of effort and money into obtaining the latest fads: cowboy boots, blue jeans, Italian shirts, British pullovers, etc., back then in the early fifties. Ernesto’s favorite piece of clothing in those days was a nylon shirt, originally white but gray from use, which he constantly wore and called La Semanera, claiming he washed it once a week. His trousers would be wide, floppy, and once, I recall, held up by a piece of clothesline. With Ernesto’s appearance into a party, all conversation would cease, while everyone tried to look nonchalant and unimpressed. Ernesto, enjoying himself hugely and perfectly aware of the sensation he was creating, would be in complete command.”
He was hopelessly tone-deaf and learned to dance only when his friends taught him the steps and pacing of the beat. At the beginning of each
Ernesto was in his fourth year of medical school when, citing his own Communist threat, Perón began cracking down on the left. During the purge, a Córdoba acquaintance of Ernesto’s, Fernando Barral, was arrested for “Communist agitation” and held in police custody for seven months. Barral was a Spanish Republican exile whose father, a famous sculptor, had been killed while defending Madrid. As a foreign national, he was to be deported back to an uncertain fate in Franco’s Spain, but after the Argentine Communist Party secured Hungary’s offer to receive him as a political exile, he was allowed to go there instead.
Except for random encounters, Barral and Ernesto had not had much contact since the Guevaras’ move to Buenos Aires. Barral had meanwhile fallen in love with Ernesto’s cousin Carmen Córdova Iturburu. Although his romantic feelings were unrequited, Barral and Carmen were close friends. Perhaps Ernesto viewed Barral as a rival for his cousin’s affections; perhaps he simply disliked Barral’s “dogmatism,” a speculation later made by Barral himself. Whatever the case, throughout Barral’s imprisonment, Ernesto remained unmoved. Ernesto neither visited Barral in prison nor (in a repetition of his behavior during Alberto Granado’s detention) joined the efforts to secure a release.
One friend recalled Ernesto advising his maids to vote for Perón because Perón’s policies favored their social class. According to Mario Saravia, Ernesto joined a Peronist youth organization on campus in order to use its extensive library facilities and check out books otherwise unavailable to him. Another time, on the suggestion, half in jest, of Tatiana Quiroga, prior to an ambitious trip through Latin America he was planning, hedrafted a letter to Evita, asking her for a jeep. Tatiana helped him write it, and she remembers that they had fun doing it. They never received a reply.
IV
By the time he was in his early twenties, Ernesto stood out socially as an attractive oddball. Indeed, he defied definition and was oblivious of ridicule. Most of his peers dressed impeccably in ties, blazers, pressed slacks, and polished shoes, but he wore grimy jackets and odd-fitting, old-fashioned shoes that he bought at remainder sales.
Ernesto had perfected this untended image. As Dolores Moyano recalled, his sloppiness was a favorite topic of conversation among her friends. “One has to know the mentality of the provincial oligarchy to appreciate the remarkable effect of Ernesto’s appearance,” she wrote. “All the boys we knew put a great deal of effort and money into obtaining the latest fads: cowboy boots, blue jeans, Italian shirts, British pullovers, etc., back then in the early fifties. Ernesto’s favorite piece of clothing in those days was a nylon shirt, originally white but gray from use, which he constantly wore and called La Semanera, claiming he washed it once a week. His trousers would be wide, floppy, and once, I recall, held up by a piece of clothesline. With Ernesto’s appearance into a party, all conversation would cease, while everyone tried to look nonchalant and unimpressed. Ernesto, enjoying himself hugely and perfectly aware of the sensation he was creating, would be in complete command.”
He was hopelessly tone-deaf and learned to dance only when his friends taught him the steps and pacing of the beat. At the beginning of each
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