Che Guevara's Face: How a Cuban Photographer's Image Became a Cultural Icon
Chapter One TRAGEDY IN HAVANA Stone angels bent over graves inside Havana’s Colón Cemetery Palm trees swayed against a gray sky on an unseasonably cold day for a Caribbean island A block away thousands of Cubans filled the streets stunned with grief Before them stood their country’s leader Prime Minister Fidel Castro high on a stage built on a flatbed truck Microphones boomed his voice over the crowd as he began There are moments of great importance in the life of a nation There are minutes that are extraordinary One of these is this moment this tragic bitter moment we are going through today Castro retold the terrible events of the day before March 4 1960 Dockworkers at Havana Harbor had been unloading a cargo of 76 tons 69 metric tons of weapons from the French ship La Coubre Suddenly an explosion had ripped through the ship blowing debris across the harbor waters and alarming people across the city Thirty minutes later a second explosion had shaken the harbor More than 200 had been wounded many losing limbs As many as 100 dockworkers sailors rescuers and others had died many of their bodies damaged beyond recognition Castro firmly believed the explosions had not been accidental but sabotage He declared that for the weapons to explode they must be set off Castro told the crowd that the weapons were destroyed deliberately by those who do not want our country to have defensive strength He bellowed into the microphone We know our enemies
Two explosions rocked Havana Harbor on March 4 1960 causing speculation on who was behind the tragedy Holding exploded bomb casings Castro accused the United States of attacking Havana Harbor Do they want to frighten us he asked Standing in front of a waving Cuban flag he vowed Cuba will not be intimidated In the audience close to the stage Alberto Korda pointed a camera up at Castro taking photographs He was on assignment for the newspaper Revolución Korda’s lens didn’t stop moving for long It traveled between Castro and two famous visiting French philosophers the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir Castro had invited them to sit on the stage and they were listening intently Then Korda saw something unexpected in his viewfinder The president of Cuba’s
Central Bank appeared gazing out across the audience He was 31-year-old Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch de la Serna who had been among those who had rushed to La Coubre to help the victims I saw him step forward with this absolute look of steely defiance as Fidel spoke Korda said later It was only a brief moment that I had I managed to shoot two frames and then he was gone It was only a brief moment that I had I managed to shoot two frames and then he was gone There was good reason for Guevara to be on stage with Castro They had been through much together Earlier that day Korda had taken photos of both men leading a funeral procession for those killed in the harbor Guevara and Castro wore military clothing and heavy boots and they walked together with other government leaders heads held high and arms linked like brothers Behind them people with bowed heads walked behind black hearses rolling along a wide seaside boulevard normally busy with cars
Cuban leaders from left Fidel Castro President Osvaldo Dorticós Che Guevara Augusto Martínez Sánchez and Antonio Nuñez-Jiménez walk arm in arm at the head of the funeral procession for victims of the La Coubre explosion Nearly the same age Castro and Guevara shared a vision Together they had helped topple a government under which Cuba’s many poor people had not had any power For Castro the La Coubre tragedy was proof that the United States not only disapproved of his new government and its freedom to defend itself but was willing to attack his small island nation Florida’s coast was just 90 miles 145 kilometers from its shores He found no comfort in the fact that American officials had denied responsibility for the disaster It is clear today that the U S Central Intelligence Agency began a sabotage
