Fairy Tales

Every reporter brings to a story his particular predispositions, but Michele Ray, 29, a comely French journaliste, is something special. Michele views the world as a vast fairy tale. There are the cruel oppressors, who are mainly Americans. And there are the cruelly oppressed, who range from the Viet Cong to Castro's Cubans to Bolivian peasants. Michele's own role is that of the fairy princess who has come to break the spell and liberate them. As she often says, "I think with my heart."

From this romantic point of view, Michele covered the Viet Nam war for nine months, and indeed her life seemed charmed. Deciding to motor the whole length of South Viet Nam, she made 400 miles before the Viet Cong captured her. They treated her considerately, even sharing their tunnel with her during a U.S. air strike. Later, she wrote a vivid article for LIFE Interna tional, in which she stressed her captors' gentleness and perseverance. She contributed battle footage to an anti-U.S. film, Far from Vietnam; a book of hers about the war, The Two Shores of Hell, is soon to appear.

Circling Vultures. From Viet Nam, her romantic quest carried her to Bolivia, where she was determined to rescue Che Guevara's diary from the clutches of the Americans. "The vultures were already circling the body of the martyred revolutionary hero," she said. "I found it bizarre that the diary of this man who had dedicated his life to the fight against American imperialism should be exploited to the profit of the political line he abhorred." A Parisian publisher backed her own bid for Che's diary.

Her efforts to get the diary, according to her version in the current Ramparts, were filled with intrigue. First she called on Bolivian President Rene Barrientos and planted the idea with him that her own bidding would drive up the price of the diary. She "borrowed" a key in order to rifle the hotel room of the chief U.S. negotiator; in the meantime, she wrote, the Bolivian police visited hers. When it looked as if the U.S. consortium might get the diary, Michele offered $400,000, though her backer had no intention of paying that much. The Bolivians, she reports, were not fooled but were happy to see the price go up. Or at least they were until possible lawsuits by Che's family drove off all bidders, and the Bolivians were left with the diary and no money at all. Not that it mattered much. All sorts of people made off with photocopies, including Michele. Said she triumphantly: "The diary in the hands of the U.S. is like the Koran in the hands of the infidels."

Suitable Heroism. The diary business out of the way, Michele concentrated on the mystique of Che's death. She came across a young Bolivian journalist named Jorge Torrico, who offered her information if she would help him get to France, where, he said, he wanted to study. Michele agreed. With Torrico's help, she re-created the events leading up to Che's execution in La Higuera. Those who supervised the murder, she asserts, were two CIA operatives named Ramos and Gonzales.

It makes gripping reading, but it was apparently too much of a fairy tale for New York Times Correspondent Juan de Onis, who claimed there was no evidence linking the CIA to Che's death. It was a fact, reported De Onis, that Che talked freely to a CIA agent shortly before he died. But when Che was finally gunned down by a Bolivian sergeant, the CIA man had gone.

As for Michele Ray, her next stop, she says, is Hanoi.

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