Farewell, Dear Hearts

"I feel that I have accomplished the part of my duty that bound me to the Cuban revolution. I bid farewell to you to our comrades, to your people who are now mine. I make formal renunciation of my duties in the leadership of the party, of my post as minister, of my rank as major, of my Cuban citizenship. Other lands of the world claim the aid of my modest efforts, and the time has come for us to separate."

The letter bore no date--only "Havana, Year of Agriculture."* It was signed by Argentine-born Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, Castro's longtime No. 2 man, who has been missing for seven months after a bitter doctrinal dispute with the dictator; Che preferred a hardline, Peking-style Communism, Castro the softer, Moscow variety (TIME cover, Oct. 8). Two weeks ago, Castro promised a document that would explain Che's absence and his status. Now before 5,000 Cubans in Havana's Chaplin Theater, Castro said that Che gave him the letter last April, asking him to read it publicly "when we considered it most advisable." Said Castro: "Those who think that revolutionaries are insensitive men have in this letter an example of all the sentiment, all the sensitivity, all the purity that a revolutionary can contain in his soul."

And then some. "My only fault of any gravity," Che's letter continued was in not having trusted more in you from the first moments of the Sierra Maestra, and not having understood your qualities as leader and revolutionary. I have lived magnificent days. I thank you for your lessons and your example.' As for Che's young wife Aleida and his three children, whom he left behind, "I ask nothing for them because the state will educate them and give them enough to live on." Out front in the audience, as Castro read the letter was Aleida herself, dressed in black and verging on tears.

No End to Rumors. Was the letter genuine? Washington's Castrologists doubted it. It seemed like one of those familiar fictions that Communist regimes publish to paper over the cracks in the fac,ade. It was too mawkish in its Fidelity for a tough guy like Che, too humble for a man who once snickered that Fidel joined in only one battle of the revolution, and that "proved a failure." Nor did it explain anything about Che's fate--except that he was out of power in Cuba.

Where he was and what he was doing were still intriguing questions. U.S Intelligence professed to know nothing One possibility was that Che was still in Cuba, either dead, or in prison If not, the April date referred to by Castro revived the rumors of last spring that Che had been killed in the first days of the Dominican civil war.

If Che was alive and out of Cuba he could be anywhere. Miami's anti-Castro exiles twanged with speculation that Che was with the guerrillas in Peru in Colombia, in Guatemala, that he was in the Congo trying to salvage that badly fought rebellion, or (most farfetched of the rumors) maybe even in Viet Nam.

A great many Cubans were eager to follow Che in one respect--they wanted to bid farewell to the Communist island Castro continued to repeat his promise of free exit for anyone, and President Johnson asked Congress for $126 million to supplement the $32 million already set aside for aid to Cubans in the U.S. "I declare to the people of Cuba," said Johnson, "that those who seek refuge here will find it."

Marie of Failure. Barring a sudden flip-flop by Castro, as many as 50,000 Cubans might pick up the offer. In Havana, there were reports that Cuba's Interior Ministry was flooded by telegrams from exiles in the U.S. seeking to get friends and relatives out. Hundreds of eager Cubans queued up outside Havana's Swiss embassy, which handles U.S. affairs in Cuba.

Jumping the gun last week, one Cuban refugee from Miami took a 25-ft boat to Cuba and returned with 15 new refugees, including his 84-year-old mother, his wife, daughter, an uncle and two Castro militiamen.

Some U.S. reporters, who think that everything automatically goes wrong for the U.S. in Latin America, argued that Castro's ploy would embarrass the U.S. because it would allow Castro to get rid of potential revolutionaries. More pertinently, as President Johnson pointed out, there is "the mark of failure on a regime when many of its citizens voluntarily choose to leave the land of their birth. The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people."

* By the Castro-concocted calendar 1959 was the Year of Liberation, 1960 the Year of Agrarian Reform, 1961 the Year of Education, 1962 the Year of Planning, 1963 the Year of Organization, and 1964 the Year of the Economy.

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