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Authors: Jon Lee Anderson
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notion of, or even interest in, the events taking place in Argentina at the time. When young Ernesto did espouse a political opinion, it was usually provocative, designed to shock his parents or peers. For instance, when Córdoba’s
peronista
militants were rumored to be preparing to attack, with stones, the local Jockey Club, a symbol of the conservative landed oligarchy, Ernesto declared his willingness to join them. “I wouldn’t mind throwing some stones at the Jockey Club myself,” some of his friends heard him say. They assumed this was a sign of his pro-
peronista
sentiments, but it was just as likely he was being a bloody-minded teenager.
When Argentina’s government finally broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis powers, Ernesto’s parents were overjoyed. But his young friend Pepe González-Aguilar had never seen Ernestito so angry as the moment when he confronted his celebrating parents. “I couldn’t understand how he, who had always been anti-Nazi, didn’t share our happiness,” he said. Later, Pepe surmised that Ernesto’s anger was due to the fact that the decision had been made not on principle, but because of U.S. pressure, and he shared Argentine nationalists’ sense of shame that their country had buckled under to the Americans. Nevertheless, when the Allied forces liberated Paris in September 1944, Ernesto joined the celebrating crowd in Córdoba’s Plaza San Martín, accompanied by several of his school friends, their pockets stuffed with metal ball bearings, ready to hurl at the hooves of the horses of the mounted police called in to keep order. (In recognition of his own efforts, Ernesto senior received a certificate signed by de Gaulle himself, thanking him for the support he had given to the people of France in their hour of need. For the rest of his life, he kept it with him as one of his proudest possessions.)
Despite some retrospective attempts to see an early hint of socialist ideals in the teenage Ernesto Guevara, virtually all his Córdoba schoolmates recalled him as politically uninterested. To his friend José María Roque, Ernesto didn’t have “a defined political ideal” at the time. “We all loved to argue politics, but I never saw Guevara get involved in any sense.” Nor did Ernesto let his antifascism get in the way of friendship. One of his classmates was Domingo Rigatusso, a poor Italian immigrant’s son who worked after school selling sweets to the patrons of the local cinemas. Rigatusso steadfastly supported Mussolini in the war, as did his father, and Ernesto referred to him affectionately as a
tano fascio
, a slang term meaning “Italian Fascist.”
Raúl Melivosky, the son of a Jewish university professor, recalled briefly belonging to a “cell” of the Federación Estudiantil Socialista (FES) with Ernesto in 1943, at a time when the militant youth wing of the pro-Nazi Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista was intimidating students sympathetic to the Allies. Melivosky, who was a year younger than Ernesto and in his first year at the school, had heard about him before they were introduced. Ernesto was pointed out as the only student in school who had stood up in class to a notoriously pro-Nazi history professor over a factual inaccuracy.
When the FES decided to form three-man units as a defensive measure against the students of the Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista, Ernesto was assigned to be the leader of a group that included Melivosky and another first-year student. “We were cells in name only,” Melikovsky recalled. “We didn’t meet, and practically the only thing we did was to call ourselves cells.” But, one afternoon, when he and some other students were blocked from leaving the school grounds by some Alianza bullies who were brandishing penknives embossed with their group’s condor insignia, Ernesto hurled himself at the throng, whirling his school satchel around his head. To the grateful Melivosky, Ernesto seemed “more than brave. He was
peronista
militants were rumored to be preparing to attack, with stones, the local Jockey Club, a symbol of the conservative landed oligarchy, Ernesto declared his willingness to join them. “I wouldn’t mind throwing some stones at the Jockey Club myself,” some of his friends heard him say. They assumed this was a sign of his pro-
peronista
sentiments, but it was just as likely he was being a bloody-minded teenager.
When Argentina’s government finally broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis powers, Ernesto’s parents were overjoyed. But his young friend Pepe González-Aguilar had never seen Ernestito so angry as the moment when he confronted his celebrating parents. “I couldn’t understand how he, who had always been anti-Nazi, didn’t share our happiness,” he said. Later, Pepe surmised that Ernesto’s anger was due to the fact that the decision had been made not on principle, but because of U.S. pressure, and he shared Argentine nationalists’ sense of shame that their country had buckled under to the Americans. Nevertheless, when the Allied forces liberated Paris in September 1944, Ernesto joined the celebrating crowd in Córdoba’s Plaza San Martín, accompanied by several of his school friends, their pockets stuffed with metal ball bearings, ready to hurl at the hooves of the horses of the mounted police called in to keep order. (In recognition of his own efforts, Ernesto senior received a certificate signed by de Gaulle himself, thanking him for the support he had given to the people of France in their hour of need. For the rest of his life, he kept it with him as one of his proudest possessions.)
Despite some retrospective attempts to see an early hint of socialist ideals in the teenage Ernesto Guevara, virtually all his Córdoba schoolmates recalled him as politically uninterested. To his friend José María Roque, Ernesto didn’t have “a defined political ideal” at the time. “We all loved to argue politics, but I never saw Guevara get involved in any sense.” Nor did Ernesto let his antifascism get in the way of friendship. One of his classmates was Domingo Rigatusso, a poor Italian immigrant’s son who worked after school selling sweets to the patrons of the local cinemas. Rigatusso steadfastly supported Mussolini in the war, as did his father, and Ernesto referred to him affectionately as a
tano fascio
, a slang term meaning “Italian Fascist.”
Raúl Melivosky, the son of a Jewish university professor, recalled briefly belonging to a “cell” of the Federación Estudiantil Socialista (FES) with Ernesto in 1943, at a time when the militant youth wing of the pro-Nazi Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista was intimidating students sympathetic to the Allies. Melivosky, who was a year younger than Ernesto and in his first year at the school, had heard about him before they were introduced. Ernesto was pointed out as the only student in school who had stood up in class to a notoriously pro-Nazi history professor over a factual inaccuracy.
When the FES decided to form three-man units as a defensive measure against the students of the Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista, Ernesto was assigned to be the leader of a group that included Melivosky and another first-year student. “We were cells in name only,” Melikovsky recalled. “We didn’t meet, and practically the only thing we did was to call ourselves cells.” But, one afternoon, when he and some other students were blocked from leaving the school grounds by some Alianza bullies who were brandishing penknives embossed with their group’s condor insignia, Ernesto hurled himself at the throng, whirling his school satchel around his head. To the grateful Melivosky, Ernesto seemed “more than brave. He was
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