HUNTS FORTUNE IN GUEVARA'S DIARY
General Alfredo Ovando, commander in chief of the Bolivian army, on Novenber 6 confirmed the report that the Barrientos regime is seeking to sell the field journal kept by Ernesto "Che" Guevara to the "highest bidder," according to the Paris daily Le Monde [November 8].
It had been rumored since the execution of the wounded guerrilla leader that the diary which he had kept since 1966 was the object of strenuous bidding. One publishing house was reported to have offered $20,000.
The journal was involved in the trial of Régis Debray in Camiri. The head of the military tribunal had repeatedly stated that he was going to "prove" the "guilt" of the defendant from entries in the journal. He publicly stated that he expected that it would be made available by the heads of the army.
Régis Debray, for his part, stated that he hoped that the entire journal would be read into the court record, since this would decisively prove his innocence. Only now after the final pleadings of the prosecution and the defense has it been admitted by the government that the journal would not be offered in court owing to its commercial value.
"It appears, moreover," continues "M.N." (Marcel Niedergang], the contributor of the dispatch to Le Monde, "according to certain indications that photocopies of various passages of this journal have already been sold by the Bolivian authorities.
"In addition, we have learned that documents written by Régis Debray in prison and confiscated by the authorities are said to have been added to 'Che's' journal and 'offered' in this extravagant auctioneering."
According to the November 9 Le Monde, a French publisher, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, who was seeking to acquire the exclusive rights to Che Guevara's field journal and other documents on the guerrilla struggle in Bolivia has given up.
After announcing that he had made an offer of $100,000 to the Bolivian government to obtain these rights, he said he learned that Guevara's family is completely opposed to publishing the writings of Che. Consequently he instructed his agent in La Paz to break off negotiations.
An American outfit, Magnum, is however pressing to get an exclusive from Barrientos on the captured documents.
One result of General Ovando's admission that the "gorillas" are auctioning off the documents written by the revolutionist they murdered, is to show with unusual clarity the true nature of their “anti-Communisn. "
It is a question of dollars and cents. And if they display a certain skill in pushing up the bids for what they have to offer, it's because of the patient schooling given them by their masters in the Pentagon, the State Department and the