My Life With Che

The Making of a Revolutionary

Hilda Gadea

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781473816541
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

He stayed to talk that day for some time. Eventually Lucila left the room. Then we turned to more personal matters, the disagreement completely forgotten. I confessed that I had been deeply moved by what he had written in the book' Che Guevara's first wife, Hilda Gadea, was with him during a tumultuous period in his life, the period which turned him from an intellectual theorist to a dedicated revolutionist. After 5 years of marriage and the birth of their daughter, Hildita, Hilda Gadea paints an intimate and extraordinary portrait of this legendary figure; one who is a romantic wanderer, a philosopher and doting suitor and father. Ernesto Guevara and Hilda Gadea met in Guatemala as members of the political-exile community. Later they were forced to flee Mexico, where their friendship grew stronger and where, stimulated by the intelligence and knowledge of Hilda, Che's vista's broadened and his convictions hardened. Hilda's account of their life together in Mexico is filled with joy but at times is terribly strained. They found it difficult to make a living and Che suffered from severe asthmatic attacks. Nevertheless the excitement of involvement with the Castros and other Cuban refugees infuses every page. Gradually the character of this great leader is revealed by the woman who knew him best, providing a vital key to acomprehension of Che's legendary qualities.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Timeline of Events

Foreword

RICARDO GADEA

My Life with Che

HILDA GADEA

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Mr. Ralph Schoenman, Director of Studies in the Third World, who encouraged me to write this book; to Myrna Torres, who verified dates and places; and to Juan Aguilar Derpich, for copying my drafts and making helpful comments.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

March 1921	Hilda Gadea Acosta is born in Lima, Peru
1946	Gadea graduates with an economics degree
1948	Manuel A. Odria takes power and Hilda is forced into exile in Guatemala
December 1953	Gadea meets Ernesto Guevara
January 1954	Gadea introduces Guevara to the Cubans of the 26th of July Movement
March 1954	Guevara proposes for the first time
October 1954	Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz is overthrown by coup d’etat; Gadea joins Guevara in Mexico
January 1955	Gadea accepts Guevara’s marriage proposal
September 1955	Hilda Gadea marries Ernesto Guevara
February 1956	Gadea gives birth to Hilda Beatríz “Hildita” Guevara in Mexico City
November 1956	Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and the rest of the Cuban revolutionaries leave to invade Cuba on the Granma, arriving December 2
January 1959	Gadea and Hildita join Guevara in Cuba
May 1959	Gadea and Guevara divorce
October 1967	Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia
February 1974	Hilda Gadea dies in Havana, Cuba
August 1995	Hildita Guevara dies in Havana, Cuba

FOREWORD

HILDA BENITA GADEA ACOSTA, la China, as we called her, was born in an old house in downtown Lima on March 21, 1921, the eldest of six siblings. All her life she was known as an idealist, a woman with a strong temperament—dynamic, enthusiastic, extremely intelligent and with ideas that were far ahead of her time.

Hilda studied in Lima, finished high school in 1938, and immediately enrolled in a one-year program to become a technical accountant. At the same time, with great dedication, she studied French, English, and German. Some years later, these studies would allow her to read the classics in their original languages with Ernesto.

In 1940, Hilda was admitted to the Major National Univerisity of San Marcos, South America’s oldest university. She studied Economics, earning degrees as a Public Accountant in 1944 and as an Economist in 1946. People who met her during those years remember her as a brilliant student, despite her financial hardships.

Our family could not afford to pay for Hilda’s studies so she always had to support herself—she worked as a secretary, an assistant accountant, and as a translator. In 1946, the same year she graduated from college, Hilda also started a small family business called Amarilis a hairdressing salon for ladies, in downtown Lima.

WHAT DEFINED HILDA’S LIFE was her early involvement in politics. At a time when very few Peruvian women dared to demand their rights as citizens and to break conventions based on chauvinism, she took a bold political and social stance. Some of Hilda’s contemporaries vividly remember her activism and leadership during the student marches against the dictatorship of General Oscar Benavides, who governed Peru from 1933 to 1939.

While in college, Hilda quickly became known for her work with the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance’s (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, or APRA) University Youth movement, known as the JAU. Hilda was a combative and powerful speaker and soon became a student leader and a member of the political cadre of the Juventud Aprista Peruana (JAP), to which JAU belonged. On several occasions she was elected student representative.

After the final defeat of Benavides’ government, the APRA began to lead popular revolts against the oligarchic government of Manuel Prado, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. The student movement was one of the fundamental pillars in this effort. This popular opposition to Prado’s government played a decisive role in the electoral victory of the Democratic Front headed by José Luis Bustamante y Rivero.

The new government opened a short democratic parenthesis (1945–1948) that made the APRA party and the Communist party legal. APRA founder Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre returned from exile, and the APRA won their first parliamentary majority.

Because of her outstanding work in the youth and student organizations, during the Second National Congress of the APRA on May 1, 1948, Hilda was awarded an extraordinary honor. She was elected national secretary of statistics at age twenty-seven, thus becoming the youngest member and one of the only two women to belong to the National Executive Committee of APRA, one of the most important Latin American parties at the time.

Nevertheless, the democratic promise of the Bustamante y Rivero government soon shipwrecked. The oligarchs conspired with army leaders to overthrow the government and Bustamante seemed hesitant to quell the conspiracy. With limited resources, the APRA bases and the military constitutionalists prepared to fight the military coup.

On October 3, 1948, there was an insurrection at the Navy Base of Callao. The Marines rose in a confused, disorganized effort that was brutally quashed by the army. The oligarchs accused the APRA leaders, who had not in fact endorsed the rebellion, of attempting to take power by force. This was the perfect excuse for the military coup led by General Manuel A. Odría, launched in Arequipa¹ on October 27.

Odría’s new dictatorship unleashed a brutal persecution against people’s organizations. The APRA was immediately declared illegal. As one of its first measures, the military government dictated a confinement order for all APRA leaders. Thousands of militants were taken to concentration camps, and many were tortured and assassinated. Hilda went underground to avoid this same fate.

During the terrifying first weeks of persecution, Hilda hid in the homes of party comrades and friends from San Marcos. She eventually obtained asylum at the Guatemalan embassy in Lima. The ambassador and his family cordially received Hilda, and during her short stay they developed a great affection for her. After securing a safe-conduct pass from the coup authorities, Hilda left for Guatemala on Christmas Day, 1948.

IN OCTOBER 1944 Guatemala was living through a period of hopeful democratic process, which followed the dictatorships of generals Ubico² and Ponce.³ A year later, in the first free elections of its history, a teacher, Juan José Arévalo, was elected president of the republic, promoting a program of economic and social reforms. The so-called October Revolution gave rise to enormous expectations for change and justice for the people of Guatemala.

In Guatemala, Hilda began working as an economist at the Institute of Promotion for Production (INFOP), an organization created by the government to provide financial credit to peasants. She earned a modest salary, equivalent to around US$350 a month, which, according to her closest friends, she spent very carefully.

People exiled with Hilda in Guatemala remember that she was extremely selfless in both her professional and political work for the sibling country that had welcomed her. Many APRA leaders were exiled in Guatemala during the same period, and they created the Committee of Apristas in Exile, electing Hilda as their secretary of social assistance.

When Juan José Arévalo’s mandate expired in 1950, democratic elections were held and Colonel Jacobo Árbenz assumed the presidency. The main platform of his campaign while running for election was agrarian reform, demanded by the peasant majority. Since the lands belonging to the United Fruit Company—which owned the largest estate in Guatemala, and in the whole of Central America—were affected by these reforms, Guatemala became the target of the aggressive maneuvers by the United States, which denigrated the country, calling it an advance test of “communist intervention” in the continent. Meanwhile, solidarity for this unusual democratic revolution kept growing in the international community.

Hilda managed to gather a good number of Latin American militants who had sought shelter in this democratic oasis. Peruvians, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Cubans, with the most diverse political experiences, formed a large, friendly group; men and women of different countries, animated by great social passions and revolutionary ideas. By the end of 1953, Hilda had introduced Ernesto Guevara and Eduardo “Gualo” García (who had been traveling with him through South America) to this restless group of young people.

Hilda was very skilled at convincing her friends to aid the political exiles; she organized parties, hikes, cultural and other activities. Myrna Torres, daughter of the great Nicaraguan intellectual Edelberto Torres and a very close friend of Hilda’s, remembered:

Through Hilda we met the Cuban exiles who had taken part in the assault on the Moncada Quarter: Antonio Ñico Lopez, Arming Arencibia, Galician Antonio Lopez and Mario Dalmau. Also two other Cubans, Benjamin de Yurre, an authentic,⁴ who later on became secretary to President Urrutia during the Cuban Revolution, and Jose Manuel Vega, Cheché. The former were really good revolutionaries, although not very prepared; the latter were nice and we all became good friends. But, the one I came to truly appreciate as a brother was Ñico Lopez.

Through Hilda I also met many exiles from Venezuela, Peru and Honduras, but the ones who made the biggest impression on me and my friends were the Argentineans Ernesto Guevara and Eduardo García, who stood out for their simplicity and natural demeanor.

The relationship between Hilda and Ernesto Guevara heated up against the backdrop of the decisive political events that took place in Guatemala. A strong attraction grew between them, based on ideals and love. This relationship lasted three years, until the definitive departure of Che on the Granma.

Hilda, a veteran militant and exiled leader of one of the main Latin American parties of the time, and Ernesto, a man of vast intellectual and political talent, but without previous experience in a party, agreed in their revolutionary vision. The flagrant intervention of the United States in Guatemala defined their relationship as a couple and forced them to flee to Mexico.

During these decisive years in Guatemala and Mexico, Ernesto and Hilda shared many happy experiences—infinite debates on literature and politics, friends, trips, the encounter with the Cubans of the Moncada Barracks, their marriage in Tepotzotlán an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents