See You Later, Alligator by William F. Buckley

Author:William F. Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504018548
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Twenty-four

They breakfasted together, and talked vaguely about what they would do pending Che’s return. “We covered all that is especially interesting in the area yesterday,” Catalina said. “I mean, there are a hundred thousand hectares of the same sort of thing on the Sierra Maestra, or maybe a million hectares—I’m not good at that kind of thing. But to make it interesting to go farther on other trails, you’d need to have someone along who had been there on the campaign. And there are not many left. Or … available.”

“You are referring to Huber Matos?”

“Yes. A name we do not mention. He is a nonperson. It was a very quick journey, from revolutionary hero and boss of Camagüey—to his resignation—to charges of treason—to twenty years in prison.”

“What exactly was the charge against him?”

“It was exactly that, treason. Raúl wanted him executed. Fidel thought about it, thought about it quite a long while in fact, and decided he should be sentenced instead to twenty years.”

“Why?”

“Fidel Castro never says why. He simply decides. He is not particularly oracular or melodramatic about it—I mean when he’s talking to the inner circle, Che tells me—he just decides, and that is it. He does not like the growing prominence of any of his confederates, and Huber Matos as the military and civil head of Camagüey was growing in prestige and resisting some of Havana’s orders, for instance to get on with the executions. So he resigned. Nobody resigns from Castro’s legions.”

“But isn’t Che big, in the sense you say Castro does not like people around him to grow big?”

“Che Guevara is an institution. He is also an Argentine. More even than Castro, he is the Latin-American symbol of radical socialism. It would not be easy to do away with Che, or to do without him. But who knows, one of these days?”

“And Raúl?”

“Raúl is the original Stalinist. Sometimes I think even Fidel is afraid of him. To eliminate Raúl would require direct, Mafia-style skulduggery. You could not haul him up in court and accuse him of treason. Cubans are not much given to fratricide. But you watch, you watch. Not only will Fidel prevail, but Raúl, little by little, will become less prominent.”

“Does Che actively oppose what you persist in calling sovietización?”

“Not openly. And he recognizes the continuing military threat from the United States, and he knows that that requires defensive armament. But as Minister of Industry above all he needs what only the Soviets are sending us right now.”

“What’s that?”

“Everything. I mean, everything they can spare. Raw materials, mostly. And some dollars. These are precious, because with them Che can buy from Canada, and Europe, and Latin America.” Catalina forced herself to smile. “Your imperialist dollar is very much in demand. You smile. So were the gold pieces of the Caesars. Dollars buy food. They also buy explosives. And drugs. And invasions of Cuba.”

“Churchill had a more amiable way of putting that, Catalina, when he was fighting the nazis. He said to us, ‘Give us the tools and we will do the job.

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