Britain bowled over by Che’s ‘Irish charm’

BRITAIN’S Foreign Office succumbed to the “Irish charms” of iconic revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, a previously unseen document reveals.

Guevara was considered by the British Government to be the most influential figure in Cuba after Fidel Castro.

The Argentinian is described with grudging admiration in the 1968 Foreign and Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on Leading Personalities in Cuba.

Released to The National Archives more than 35 years later, the file describes Guevara’s upbringing in a “middle class” family of Spanish-Irish descent and the events leading up to his involvement in the Cuban revolution.

“He is an able and hard-working man, who was perhaps the most competent and the clearest-headed of the inner circle,” it states. “He can show himself cultured and soft-spoken as well as cold and contemptuous.

“This bearded Argentinian, with his Irish charm and his inevitable military fatigue uniform, has exercised considerable fascination over many men and women.”

Guevara’s student years and the road trip described in his self-penned Motorcycle Diaries are also mentioned in the report. The government document refers to the revolutionary’s first meeting with the future Cuban leader during a trip to Mexico in 1956. That meeting sparked Guevara’s interest in the Caribbean island and ultimately led to him joining Castro’s 82-man invasion.

In 1958, Guevara’s band of fighters conducted the “successful” march from Cuba’s Oriente province through government lines to central Las Villas, the report says.

It adds that Guevara “denies membership of the Communist party”, adding: “His thought has developed more and more on Marxist lines and there have been signs that he is attracted by Chinese ideas and practice.

“Until 1964 he was perhaps the most influential figure after Fidel Castro.”