Name	Fidel Castro
Caption	Castro in 1974.
Office	First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
Deputy	Raúl Castro
Term start	October 3, 1965
Predecessor	Position established
Office2	President of Cuba
Term start2	December 2, 1976
Term end2	February 24, 2008
Deputy2	Raúl Castro
Predecessor2	Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Successor2	Raúl Castro
Office3	Prime Minister of Cuba
President3	Manuel Urrutia LleóOsvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Term start3	February 16, 1959
Term end3	December 2, 1976
Predecessor3	José Miró Cardona
Successor3	Position abolished
Office4	7th and 23rd Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement
Term start4	September 16, 2006
Term end4	February 24, 2008
Predecessor4	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Successor4	Raúl Castro
Term start5	September 10, 1979
Term end5	March 6, 1983
Predecessor5	Junius Richard Jayawardene
Successor5	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Birth date	August 13, 1926
Birth place	Birán, Cuba
Party	Communist Party of Cuba
Spouse	Mirta Diaz-Balart (1948–1955)Dalia Soto del Valle (1980–present)
Children	Fidel Ángel Castro Diaz-BalartAlina Fernandez-RevueltaAlexis Castro-SotoAlejandro Castro-SotoAntonio Castro-SotoAngel Castro-SotoAlain Castro-SotoJorge Angel CastroFrancisca Pupo
Alma mater	University of Havana
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	None (Self-described as Secular; formerly Atheist)
Signature	Fidel Castro Signature.svg
Footnote	*Acting presidential powers were transferred to Raúl Castro from July 31, 2006.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; born August 13, 1926) is a Marxist Cuban politician. One of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of Council of Ministers of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until December 2010, when he delegated his responsibilites due to health reasons. His younger brother Raúl Castro is currently Second Secretary of the Communist Party and President of the Councils of State and Ministers and previously served under Fidel as Minister of Defence in 1959-2008.

While studying law at the University of Havana, he began his political career and became a recognized figure in Cuban politics. He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated, and later released. He then traveled to Mexico to organize and train for an invasion of Cuba to overthrow Batista's government, which began in December 1956.

Castro subsequently came to power as a result of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Batista, and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba. In 1965 he became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.

Following intestinal surgery from an undisclosed digestive illness believed to have been diverticulitis, Castro transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006. On February 19, 2008, five days before his mandate was to expire, he announced he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief. On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly elected Raúl Castro to succeed him as the President of Cuba. Castro is currently most active in commenting on world affairs, commonly in the form of his regularly published Reflections, articles offering his view on world events from US foreign policy to global warming.

Childhood and education

, expressing admiration and asking for a $10 bill. In the letter Castro claims to be "twelve years old" and writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill," signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by . Your friend, Fidel Castro."]]

Fidel Alejandro Vittore Castro Ruz was born on a sugar plantation in Birán, near Mayarí, in the modern-day province of Holguín – then a part of the now-defunct Oriente province. He was the third child born to Ángel Castro y Argiz, a Galician immigrant from the impoverished northwest of Spain who became relatively prosperous through work in the sugar industry and successful investing.

His mother, Lina Ruz González (September 23, 1903 – August 6, 1963.), was a household servant. Ángel Castro was married to another woman, Maria Luisa Argota, until Fidel was 15, and thus Fidel as a child had to deal both with his illegitimacy and the challenge of being raised in various foster homes away from his father's house.

Castro has two brothers, Ramón and Raúl, and four sisters, Angelita, Juanita, Enma, and Agustina, all of whom were born out of wedlock. He also has two half siblings, Lidia and Pedro Emilio who were raised by Ángel Castro's first wife. His maternal grandparents were canarian people. Fidel was not baptized until he was 8, also very uncommon, bringing embarrassment and ridicule from other children. Ángel Castro finally dissolved his first marriage when Fidel was 15 and married Fidel’s mother. Castro was formally recognized by his father when he was 17, when his surname was legally changed to Castro from Ruz, his mother’s name. While at Belén, Castro pitched on the school's baseball team. There are persistent rumors that Castro was scouted for various U.S. baseball teams, but there is no evidence that this ever actually happened.

Political beginnings

In late 1945, Castro entered law school at the University of Havana. He became immediately embroiled in the political culture at the University, which was a reflection of the volatile politics in Cuba during that era. Since the fall of president Gerardo Machado in the 1930s, student politics had degenerated into a form of gangsterismo dominated by fractious action groups, and Castro, believing that the gangs posed a physical threat to his university aspirations, experienced what he later described as "a great moment of decision." Rivalries were so intense that Castro apparently collaborated in an attempt on Masferrer's life during this period, perennially hunted the younger student seeking violent retribution.

In 1947, Castro joined the Partido Ortodoxo which had been newly formed by Eduardo Chibás. A charismatic figure, Chibás attracted many Cubans with his message of social justice, honest government, and political freedom. Chibás was running for president against the incumbent Ramón Grau San Martín who had allowed rampant corruption to flourish during his term. The Partido Ortodoxo publicly exposed corruption and demanded government and social reform. It aimed to instill a strong sense of national identity among Cubans, establish Cuban economic independence and freedom from the United States, and dismantle the power of the elite over Cuban politics. Though Chibás lost the election, Castro, considering Chibás his mentor, remained committed to his cause, working fervently on his behalf. In 1951, while running for president again, Chibás shot himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast. Castro was present and accompanied him to the hospital where he died. According to Rafael Diaz-Ballart, Fidel Castro realized that Batista was not a "revolutionary" leader anymore, even though both looked at each other with admiration. mountains east of Santiago where they were eventually discovered and captured.

Although there is disagreement over why Castro and his brother, Raúl, were not executed on capture as many of their fellow militants were, there is evidence that an officer recognized Castro from his university days and treated the captured rebels compassionately, despite the 'illegal' unofficial order to have the leader executed. Castro maintains that his car, which was second in the convoy of 'ten or twelve' cars, encountered a foot patrol near to the Moncada Barracks. When he stopped the car to deal with them, the rest of the convoy also stopped and so the momentum of the operation was lost. He gives this as the sole reason for the failure of the operation.

Castro was tried in the fall of 1953 and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison. During his trial Castro delivered his famous defense speech History Will Absolve Me, upholding his rebellious actions and boldly declaring his political views:

While he was being held at the prison for political activists on Isla de Pinos, he continued to plot Batista's overthrow, planning upon release to reorganize and train in Mexico.

The rebels landed at Playa Las Coloradas close to Los Cayuelos near the eastern city of Manzanillo on December 2, 1956. In short order, most of Castro's men were killed, dispersed, or taken prisoner by Batista's forces. The group of survivors included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Those who survived were aided by people in the countryside. They regrouped in the Sierra Maestra in Oriente province and organized a column under Fidel Castro's command.

From their encampment in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the 26th of July Movement waged a guerrilla war against the Batista government. In the cities and major towns also, resistance groups were organizing until underground groups were everywhere. The strongest was in Santiago formed by Frank País.

In the summer of 1957, País’s organization merged with the 26th of July Movement of Castro. As Castro's movement gained popular support in the cities and countryside, it grew to over eight hundred men. In mid-1957 Castro gave Che Guevara command of a second column. A journalist, Herbert Matthews from the New York Times, came to interview him in the Sierra Maestra, attracting interest to Castro's cause in the United States. The New York Times front page stories by Matthews presented Castro as a romantic and appealing revolutionary, bearded and dressed in rumpled fatigues. Castro and Matthews were followed by the TV crew of Andrew Saint George, said to be a CIA contact person. Through television, Castro's rudimentary command of the English language and charismatic presence enabled him to appeal directly to a U.S. audience.

In 1957, Castro also signed the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra in which he agreed to call elections under the Electoral Code of 1943 within the first 18 months of his time in power and to restore all of the provisions of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba that had been suspended under Batista. While he took steps to implement some of the measures in the Manifesto upon coming into power, Cuba failed to have elections, the most important part of the program, within the allotted time.

In February 1958, Castro published in Coronet Magazine a famous statement of the goals of the movement. He stated that "we are fighting to do away with dictatorship in Cuba and to establish the foundations of genuine representative government" and promised to "prepare and conduct truly honest general elections within twelve months" after success. He also stated, "we have no plans for the expropriation or nationalization of foreign investments here". He also justified his attacks on Cuba's economy as the only way to bring down the Batista dictatorship. Despite his denouncement of dictatorships, Castro himself has been described as a dictator.

Operation Verano

In May 1958, Batista launched Operation Verano aiming to crush Castro and other anti-government groups. It was called La Ofensiva ("The Offensive") by the rebels (Alarcón Ramírez,1997). Although on paper heavily outnumbered, Castro's guerrilla forces scored a series of victories, largely aided by mass desertions from Batista's army of poorly trained and uncommitted young conscripts. During the Battle of La Plata, Castro's forces defeated an entire battalion. While pro-Castro Cuban sources later emphasized the role of Castro's guerrilla forces in these battles, other groups and leaders were also involved, such as escopeteros (poorly armed irregulars). During the Battle of Las Mercedes, Castro's small army came close to defeat but he managed to pull his troops out by opening up negotiations with General Cantillo while secretly slipping his soldiers out of a trap.

When Operation Verano ended, Castro ordered three columns commanded by Guevara, Jaime Vega and Camilo Cienfuegos to invade central Cuba where they were strongly supported by rebellious elements who had long been operating in the area. One of Castro's columns moved out onto the Cauto Plains. Here, they were supported by Huber Matos, Raúl Castro and others who were operating in the eastern-most part of the province. On the plains, Castro's forces first surrounded the town of Guisa in Granma Province and drove out their enemies, then proceeded to take most of the towns that had been taken by Calixto García in the 1895–1898 Cuban War of Independence.

Battle of Yaguajay

In December 1958, the columns of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos continued their advance through Las Villas province. They succeeded in occupying several towns, and then began preparations for an attack on Santa Clara, the provincial capital. Guevara's fighters launched a fierce assault on the Cuban army surrounding Santa Clara, and a vicious house-to-house battle ensued. They also derailed an armored train which Batista had sent to aid his troops in the city while Cienfuegos won the Battle of Yaguajay. Defeated on all sides, Batista's forces crumbled. The provincial capital was captured after less than a day of fighting on December 31, 1958.

Collapse of the Batista regime

After the loss at the Battle of Santa Clara, expecting betrayal by his own army and having lost all backup from the previously supportive US government, Batista (accompanied by president-elect Andrés Rivero Agüero) boarded a plane and fled to the Dominican Republic in the early hours of January 1, 1959. Accompanying Batista into exile was an amassed fortune of more than $300,000,000 that he acquired through "graft and payoffs."

Batista left behind a junta headed by Gen. Eulogio Cantillo, recently the commander in Oriente province, the center of the Castro revolt. The junta immediately selected Dr. Carlos Piedra, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court, as provisional President of Cuba as specified in the Constitution of 1940. Castro refused to accept the selection of Justice Piedra as provisional President and the Supreme Court refused to administer the oath of office to the Justice.

The rebel forces of Fidel Castro moved swiftly to seize power throughout the island. and would shortly thereafter declare that "power does not interest me, and I will not take it." As news of the fall of Batista's government spread through Havana, The New York Times described the scene as one of jubilant crowds pouring into the streets and automobile horns honking. The black and red flag of the 26th of July Movement waved on automobiles and buildings. The atmosphere was chaotic. Castro himself arrived in Havana to cheering crowds and assumed the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on January 8.

Castro consolidates power

Fidel Castro sought to oust liberals and democrats, such as José Miró Cardona and Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Castro's slogan was "Revolution first, elections later".

The new government began expropriating property and announced plans to base the compensation on the artificially low property valuations that the companies themselves had kept to a fraction of their true value so that their taxes would be negligible. During this period Castro repeatedly denied being a communist. For example in New York on April 25 he said, "...[communist] influence is nothing. I don't agree with communism. We are democracy. We are against all kinds of dictators... That is why we oppose communism."

Between April 15 and April 26, Castro and a delegation of industrial and international representatives visited the U.S. as guests of the Press Club. Castro hired one of the best public relations firms in the United States for a charm offensive visit by Castro and his recently initiated government. Castro answered impertinent questions jokingly and ate hot dogs and hamburgers. His rumpled fatigues and scruffy beard cut a popular figure easily promoted as an authentic hero. He was refused a meeting with President Eisenhower. After his visit to the United States, he would go on to join forces with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.

Castro started to organize attacks on President Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Castro himself resigned as Prime Minister of Cuba and later that day appeared on television to deliver a lengthy denouncement of Urrutia, claiming that Urrutia "complicated" government, and that his "fevered anti-Communism" was having a detrimental effect. Castro's sentiments received widespread support as organized crowds surrounded the presidential palace demanding Urrutia's resignation, which was duly received. On July 23, Castro resumed his position as premier and appointed Osvaldo Dorticós as the new president.

Years in power

As early as July 1959, Castro's intelligence chief Ramiro Valdés contacted the KGB in Mexico City. Subsequently, the USSR sent over one hundred mostly Spanish speaking advisors, including Enrique Líster Forján, to organize the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon afterward. To the concern of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba began to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union. A variety of pacts were signed between Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, allowing Cuba to receive large amounts of economic and military aid from the USSR. The mould was set. U.S. disappointment with their lack of power in Cuban decision making fueled Castro's fears leading to increasing Cuban dependence on USSR support.

In June 1960, Eisenhower reduced Cuba's sugar import quota by 7,000,000 tons, and in response, Cuba nationalized some $850 million worth of U.S. property and businesses. Health care and education were socialized. The new government took control of the country by nationalizing industry, redistributing property, collectivizing agriculture and creating policies that would benefit the poor. While popular among the poor, these policies alienated many former supporters of the revolution among the Cuban middle and upper-classes. Over one million Cubans later migrated to the U.S., forming a vocal anti-Castro community in Miami, Florida, actively supported and funded by successive U.S. administrations.

Politburo in 1972.]] By the early autumn of 1960, the U.S. government was engaged in a semi-secret campaign to remove Castro from power.

In September 1960, Castro created Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which implemented neighborhood spying in an effort to weed out "counter-revolutionary" activities. Castro's admiring description of rural life in Cuba ("in the country, there are no homosexuals") reflected the idea of homosexuality as bourgeois decadence, and he denounced "maricones" (faggots) as "agents of imperialism". Castro stated that "homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people". However, in August 2010, Castro called the sending of openly gay men to labor camps without charge or trial "moments of great injustice, great injustice!" saying that "if someone is responsible, it's me."

Loyalty to Castro became the primary criteria for all appointments in the island.

In the 1961 New Year's Day parade, Castro exhibited Soviet tanks and other weapons. The Soviet Union awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize later that year.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (known as La Batalla de Girón, or Playa Girón in Cuba), was an unsuccessful attempt by a US-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days.

Reaction: the socialist state

On May 1, 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist state and officially abolished multiparty elections. Critics noted that Castro feared elections would eject him from power.}}

In a nationally broadcast speech on December 2, 1961, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was adopting Communism. On February 7, 1962, the US imposed an embargo against Cuba. This embargo was broadened during 1962 and 1963, including a general travel ban for American tourists.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. heightened during the 1962 missile crisis, which nearly brought the U.S. and the USSR into nuclear conflict. Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to a possible U.S. invasion and justified the move in response to U.S. missile deployment in Turkey. After consultations with his military advisors, he met with a Cuban delegation led by Raúl Castro in July in order to work out the specifics. It was agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBMs on Cuban soil; however, American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed.

The U.S. government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to U.S. security. As a result, the U.S. publicly announced its discovery on October 22, 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Nikolai Sergevich Leonov, who would become a General in the KGB Intelligence Directorate and the Soviet KGB deputy station chief in Warsaw, was the translator Castro used for contact with the Russians during this period.

In a personal letter to Khrushchev dated October 27, 1962, Castro urged him to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first strike response. Soviet field commanders in Cuba were, however, authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would secretly remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the U.S. implemented a few months later. The missile swap was never publicized because the Kennedy Administration demanded secrecy in order to preserve NATO relations and protect Democratic Party candidates in the upcoming U.S. elections.

Assassination attempts

Fabian Escalante, who was long tasked with protecting the life of Castro, estimated the number of assassination schemes or attempts by the CIA to be 638. Some such attempts allegedly included an exploding cigar, a fungal-infected scuba-diving suit, and a mafia-style shooting. Some of these plots are depicted in a documentary entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro. One of these attempts was by his ex-lover Marita Lorenz whom he met in 1959. She allegedly agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into his room. When Castro realized, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed. Castro once said, in regards to the numerous attempts on his life he believes have been made, "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."

According to the Family Jewels documents declassified by the CIA in 2007, one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion involved Johnny Roselli and Al Capone's successor in the Chicago Outfit, Salvatore Giancana and his right-hand man Santos Trafficante. It was personally authorized by the then US attorney general Robert Kennedy.

Giancana and Miami Syndicate leader Santos Trafficante were contacted in September 1960 about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA, Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli nor Giancana and Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being an official in the Cuban government who was also in the pay of gambling interests, and who did have access to Castro.

After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unknown how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was cancelled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Castro retained control after Cuba became bankrupt and isolated following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The synergic contraction of Cuban economy resulted in eighty-five percent of its markets disappearing, along with subsidies and trade agreements that had supported it, causing extended gas and water outages, severe power shortages, and dwindling food supplies.

In 1994, the island's economy plunged into what was called the "Special Period"; teetering on the brink of collapse. Cuba legalized the US dollar, turned to tourism, and encouraged the transfer of remittances in US dollars from Cubans living in the USA to their relatives on the Island. After massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. while declining a U.S. offer of humanitarian aid.

The U.S. authorized the shipment of food in 2001, the first since the embargo was imposed. During 2004, Castro shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors to compensate for the crisis due to fuel shortages., and in 2005 directed thousands of Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil imports.

Foreign relations

Soviet Union

Following the establishment of diplomatic ties to the Soviet Union, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military and economic aid. Castro was able to build a formidable military force with the help of Soviet equipment and military advisors. The KGB kept in close touch with Havana, and Castro tightened Communist Party control over all levels of government, the media, and the educational system, while developing a Soviet-style internal police force.

Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union caused something of a split between him and Guevara. In 1966, Guevara left for Bolivia in an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution against the country's government.

On August 23, 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian 'counterrevolutionaries', who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists". He called the leaders of the rebellion "the agents of West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble." In return for his public backing of the invasion, at a time when many Soviet allies were deeming the invasion an infringement of Czechoslovakia's sovereignty, the Soviets bailed out the Cuban economy with extra loans and an immediate increase in oil exports.

In 1971, despite an Organization of American States convention that no nation in the Western Hemisphere would have a relationship with Cuba (the only exception being Mexico, which had refused to adopt that convention), Castro took a month-long visit to Chile, following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The visit, in which Castro participated actively in the internal politics of the country, holding massive rallies and giving public advice to Salvador Allende, was seen by those on the political right as proof to support their view that "The Chilean Way to Socialism" was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, the camaraderie between Havana and Moscow was strained by Gorbachev's implementation of economic and political reforms in the USSR. "We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very sad things," lamented Castro in November 1989, in reference to the changes that were sweeping such communist allies as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had an immediate and devastating effect on Cuba.

Other countries

with Castro after his release from prison on July 27, 1991, in Matanzas, Cuba. Their combined anti-apartheid speeches from the event were published as the book How Far We Slaves Have Come!]]

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On November 4, 1975, Castro ordered the deployment of Cuban troops to Angola in order to aid the Marxist MPLA-ruled government against the South African-backed UNITA opposition forces. Moscow aided the Cuban initiative with the USSR engaging in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola. On Cuba's role in Angola, Nelson Mandela is said to have remarked "Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice."

Cuban troops were also sent to Marxist Ethiopia to assist Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden War with Somalia in 1977. In addition, Castro extended support to Marxist Revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, such as aiding the Sandinistas in overthrowing the Somoza government in Nicaragua in 1979. It has been claimed by the Carthage Foundation-funded Center for a Free Cuba that an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Cuban military actions abroad. Castro never disclosed the amount of casualties in Soviet African wars, but one estimate is 14,000, a high number for the small country.

Juan Antonio Rodríguez Mernier, a former Cuban Intelligence Major who defected in 1987, says the regime made large amounts of money from drug trafficking operations in the 1970s. The cash was to be deposited in Fidel's Swiss bank accounts "in order to finance liberation movements".

Cuba and Panama restored diplomatic ties in 2005 after breaking them off a year prior when Panama's former president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000. The foreign minister of each country re-established official diplomatic relations in Havana by signing a document describing a spirit of fraternity that has long linked both nations. Cuba, once shunned by many of its Latin American neighbours, now has full diplomatic relations with all but Costa Rica and El Salvador. Mexican president Vicente Fox apologized to Fidel Castro in 2002 over statements by Castro, who had taped their telephone conversation, to the effect that Fox forced him to leave a United Nations summit in Mexico so that he would not be in the presence of President Bush, who also attended.

At a summit meeting of sixteen Caribbean countries in 1998, Castro called for regional unity, saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their domination by rich nations in a global economy. Caribbean nations have embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro while accusing the US of breaking trade promises. Castro, until recently a regional outcast, has been increasing grants and scholarships to the Caribbean countries, while US aid has dropped 25% over the past five years. Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all independent countries of the Caribbean Community.

North Korea has granted Castro "the Golden Medal (Hammer and Sickle) and the First Class Order of the National Flag".

Libyan de facto leader Muammar al-Gaddafi has granted Castro a "Libyan human rights prize". On a visit to South Africa in 1998 he was warmly received by President Nelson Mandela. President Mandela gave Castro South Africa's highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope. Last December Castro fulfilled his promise of sending 100 medical aid workers to Botswana, according to the Botswana presidency. These workers play an important role in Botswana's war against HIV/AIDS. According to Anna Vallejera, Cuba's first-ever Ambassador to Botswana, the health workers are part of her country's ongoing commitment to proactively assist in the global war against HIV/AIDS,

In Harlem, Castro is seen as an icon because of his historic visit with Malcolm X in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa.

Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was an honorary pall bearer at Trudeau's funeral in October 2000. They had continued their friendship after Trudeau left office until his death. Canada became one of the first American allies openly to trade with Cuba. Cuba still has a good relationship with Canada. In 1998, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien arrived in Cuba to meet President Castro and highlight their close ties. He is the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre Trudeau was in Havana in 1976.

and Castro in 2000.]] The European Union accuses the Castro regime of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". In December 2001, European Union representatives described their political dialogue with Cuba as back on track after a weekend of talks in Havana. The EU praised Cuba's willingness to discuss questions of human rights. Cuba is the only Latin American country without an economic co-operation agreement with the EU. However, trade with individual European countries remains strong since the US trade embargo on Cuba leaves the market free from American rivals.

In 2005, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel ended his visit to Cuba optimistic that relations with the communist state will become stronger. The EU is Cuba's largest trading partner. Cuba's imprisonment of 75 dissidents and the execution of three hijackers have strained diplomatic relations. However, the EU commissioner was impressed with Fidel Castro's willingness to discuss these concerns, although he received no commitments from Castro. Cuba does not admit to holding political prisoners, seeing them rather as mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

Castro is seen as an icon by leaders of recent socialist governments in Latin America. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a long-time admirer and reached agreements with Cuba to provide subsidized petroleum in exchange for Cuban medical assistance. Evo Morales of Bolivia has described him as "the grandfather of all Latin American revolutionaries".

Religious beliefs

Castro was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic as a child but did not practice as one. In Oliver Stone's documentary Comandante, Castro states "I have never been a believer", and has total conviction that there is only one life. Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro in 1962 after Castro suppressed Catholic institutions in Cuba.

In 1992, Castro agreed to loosen restrictions on religion and even permitted church-going Catholics to join the Cuban Communist Party. He began describing his country as "secular" rather than "atheist". Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, the first visit by a reigning pontiff to the island. Castro and the Pope appeared side by side in public on several occasions during the visit. Castro wore a dark blue business suit rather than fatigues in his public meetings with the Pope and treated him with reverence and respect. In December 1998, Castro formally re-instated Christmas Day as the official celebration for the first time since its abolition by the Communist Party in 1969. Cubans were again allowed to mark Christmas as a holiday and to openly hold religious processions. The Pope sent a telegram to Castro thanking him for restoring Christmas as a public holiday.

Castro attended a Roman Catholic convent blessing in 2003. The purpose of this unprecedented event was to help bless the newly restored convent in Old Havana and to mark the fifth anniversary of the Pope's visit to Cuba.

The senior spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian faith arrived in Cuba in 2004, the first time any Orthodox Patriarch has visited Latin America in the Church's history: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I consecrated a cathedral in Havana and bestowed an honor on Fidel Castro. His aides said that he was responding to the decision of the Cuban Government to build and donate to the Orthodox Christians a tiny Orthodox cathedral in the heart of old Havana.

After Pope John Paul II's death in April 2005, an emotional Castro attended a mass in his honor in Havana's cathedral and signed the Pope's condolence book at the Vatican Embassy. He had last visited the cathedral in 1959, 46 years earlier, for the wedding of one of his sisters. Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino led the mass and welcomed Castro, who was dressed in a black suit, expressing his gratitude for the "heartfelt way the death of our Holy Father John Paul II was received (in Cuba)."

Succession issues

According to Article 94 of the Cuban Constitution, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the president. Raúl Castro was the person in that position for the last 32 years of Fidel Castro's presidency.

Speculation on illness 1998–2005

Due to the issue of presidential succession and Castro's longevity, there have long been rumors, speculation and hoaxing about Castro's health and demise. In 1998 there were reports that he had a serious brain disease, later discredited. In June 2001, he apparently fainted during a seven-hour speech under the Caribbean sun. Later that day he finished the speech, walking buoyantly into the television studios in his military fatigues, joking with journalists.

In January 2004, Luis Eduardo Garzón, the mayor of Bogotá, said that Castro "seemed very sick to me" following a meeting with him during a vacation in Cuba. In May 2004, Castro's physician denied that his health was failing, and speculated that he would live to be 140 years old. Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein said that the "press is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem", but maintained that Castro was in good health.

On October 20, 2004, Castro tripped and fell following a speech he gave at a rally, breaking his kneecap and fracturing his right arm. He was able to recover his ability to walk and publicly demonstrated this two months later.

In 2005, the CIA said it thought Castro had Parkinson's disease. Castro denied such allegations, while also citing the example of Pope John Paul II in saying that he would not fear the disease.

Transfer of duties, speculation on illness 2006–2007

On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties was described at the time as temporary while Fidel recovered from surgery he underwent due to an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding". Fidel Castro was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which also became his belated 80th birthday celebrations. Castro's non-appearance fueled reports that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and was refusing treatment, but on December 17, 2006 Cuban officials stated that Castro had no terminal illness and would eventually return to his public duties. However, on December 24, 2006, Spanish newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya reported that Spanish surgeon José Luis García Sabrido had been flown to Cuba on a plane chartered by the Cuban government. Dr. García Sabrido is an intestinal expert who further specializes in the treatment of cancer. The plane that Dr. García Sabrido's traveled in also was reported to be carrying a large quantity of advanced medical equipment. On December 26, 2006, shortly after returning to Madrid, Dr. García Sabrido held a news conference in which he answered questions about Castro's health. He stated that "He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system," and added, "His condition is stable. He is recovering from a very serious operation. It is not planned that he will undergo another operation for the moment." Although most Cubans acknowledge that they are aware Castro is seriously ill, most also seem worried about a future without Castro.

On January 16, 2007, the Spanish newspaper, El País, citing two unnamed sources from the Gregorio Marañón hospital —who employs Dr. García Sabrido— in Madrid, reported Castro was in "very grave" condition, having trouble cicatrizing, after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection caused by a severe case of diverticulitis. However, Dr. García Sibrido told CNN that he was not the source of the report and that "any statement that doesn't come directly from [Castro's] medical team is without foundation." Also, a Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment, while White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report appeared to be "just sort of a roundup of previous health reports. We've got nothing new." On January 30, 2007, Cuban television and the paper Juventud Rebelde showed fresh video and photos from a meeting between Castro and Hugo Chavez said to have taken place the previous day.

In mid-February 2007, it was reported by the Associated Press that Acting President Raul Castro had said that Fidel Castro's health was improving and he was taking part in all important issues facing the government. "He's consulted on the most important questions," Raul Castro said of Fidel. "He doesn't interfere, but he knows about everything." On February 27, 2007, Reuters reported that Fidel Castro had called into Aló Presidente, a live radio talk show hosted by Hugo Chávez, and chatted with him for thirty minutes during which time he sounded "much healthier and more lucid" than he had on any of the audio and video tapes released since his surgery in July. Castro reportedly told Chávez, "I am gaining ground. I feel I have more energy, more strength, more time to study," adding with a chuckle, "I have become a student again." Later in the conversation (transcript in Spanish; audio) , he made reference to the fall of the world stock markets that had occurred earlier in the day and remarked that it was proof of his contention that the world capitalist system is in crisis.

Reports of improvements in his condition continued to circulate throughout March and early April. On April 13, 2007, Chávez was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Castro has "almost totally recovered" from his illness. That same day, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque confirmed during a press conference in Vietnam that Castro had improved steadily and had resumed some of his leadership responsibilities. On April 21, 2007, the official newspaper Granma reported that Castro had met for over an hour with Wu Guanzheng, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who was visiting Havana. Photographs of their meeting showed the Cuban president looking healthier than he had in any previously released since his surgery.

As a comment on Castro’s recovery, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away," Hearing about this, Castro, who is an atheist, ironically replied: "Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."

In January 2009 Castro asked Cubans not to worry about his lack of recent news columns, his failing health, and not to be disturbed by his future death. At the same time pictures were released of Castro's meeting with the Argentine president Cristina Fernandez on January 21, 2009.

Retirement

In a letter dated February 18, 2008, Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of president and commander in chief at the February 24, 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," effectively announcing his retirement from official public life. The letter was published online by the official Communist Party newspaper Granma. In it, Castro stated that his health was a primary reason for his decision, stating that "It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer".

and Dmitry Medvedev.]] On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly of People's Power unanimously chose his brother, Raúl Castro, as Fidel's successor as President of Cuba. Castro also remains the First Secretary of the Communist Party.

Since his retirement, Castro has written a regular column in Granma called "Reflections", in which he writes on world affairs, and has occasionally made pre-taped appearances on television greeting visitors such as Hugo Chavez in his room. In July 2010, he made his first public appearance greeting workers at a science centre and gave his most prominent television interview since falling ill, on the Cuban program Mesa Redonda speaking for an extended period about tensions between the United States, Iran and North Korea.

On August 7, 2010, Castro gave his first speech to the Cuban National Assembly in four years. He addressed the body for ten minutes on international affairs and then remained to listen and respond to questions for a further 70 minutes. In his comments he urged the United States not to go to war with Iran or North Korea and warning about the dangers of a nuclear holocaust. When asked whether Castro may be re-entering government, Culture minister Abel Prieto told the BBC, "I think that he has always been in Cuba's political life but he is not in the government...He has been very careful about that. His big battle is international affairs." In September 2010 the Atlantic began publishing a series of articles based on an extensive and wide-ranging interviews with Castro, the first of which lasting five hours. While warning against the dangers of Western confrontation with Iran in which inadvertently, "a gradual escalation could become a nuclear war," Castro "unequivocally" defended Israel's right to exist and condemned anti-Semitism, criticizing also some of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric:

"I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything..[Iran must understand] Jews were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God..The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust"

Asked if he would tell Ahmadinejad the same things, Castro responded, "I am saying this so you [the reporter] can communicate it" Castro "criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence."

Public image

By wearing military-style uniforms and leading mass demonstrations, Castro projected an image of a perpetual revolutionary. He was mostly seen in military attire, but his personal tailor, Merel Van 't Wout, convinced him to occasionally change to a business suit. Castro is often referred to as "Comandante", but is also nicknamed "El Caballo", meaning "The Horse", a label that was first attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré, who on hearing Castro passing in the Havana night with his entourage, shouted out "Here comes the horse!"

During the revolutionary campaign, fellow rebels knew Castro as "The Giant". Large throngs of people gathered to cheer at Castro's fiery speeches, which typically lasted for hours. Many details of Castro's private life, particularly involving his family members, are scarce as the media is forbidden to mention them. Castro's image appears frequently in Cuban stores, classrooms, taxicabs, and national television. Despite this, Castro has stated that he does not promote a cult of personality.

Family

By his first wife Mirta Díaz-Balart, whom he married on October 11, 1948, Castro has a son named Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart, born on September 1, 1949. Díaz-Balart and Castro were divorced in 1955, and she remarried Emilio Núñez Blanco. After a spell in Madrid, Díaz-Balart reportedly returned to Havana to live with Fidelito and his family. Fidelito grew up in Cuba; for a time, he ran Cuba's atomic-energy commission before being removed from the post by his father. Díaz-Balart's nephews are Republican U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, vocal critics of the Castro government.

Fidel has five other sons by his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander "Alex" and Ángel Castro Soto del Valle. and sought asylum in the United States. She has been a vocal critic of her father's policies. Alina was assisted by Elena Diaz-Verson Amos, wife of AFLAC founder John Amos. Alina lived with Elena in Columbus, GA for several years.

By an unnamed woman he had another son, Jorge Ángel Castro. Fidel has another daughter, Francisca Pupo (born 1953) the result of a one night affair. Pupo and her husband now live in Miami.

His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s. When she went into exile, she said "I cannot longer remain indifferent to what is happening in my country. My brothers Fidel and Raúl have made it an enormous prison surrounded by water. The people are nailed to a cross of torment imposed by international Communism."

Controversy and criticism

Human rights record

, a heavily Cuban-American community.]] Many observers refer to Castro as a dictator and his rule was the longest to-date in modern Latin American history.

Castro's 49-year regime remains one of the most controversial in the history of Latin America. Scholar R J Rummel estimates the casualties of his regime to 73,000, with one study estimating over 119,000 and several others suggesting significantly lower figures.

Allegations of mismanagement

In their book, Corruption in Cuba, Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge F. Pérez-López Servando state that Castro "institutionalized" corruption and that "Castro's state-run monopolies, cronyism, and lack of accountability have made Cuba one of the world's most corrupt states". Servando Gonzalez, in The Secret Fidel Castro, calls Castro a "corrupt tyrant".

As early as 1968, a once-close friend of Castro's wrote that Castro had huge accounts in Swiss banks. Castro's secretary was allegedly seen using Zurich banks. Gonzalez believes that Cuba's paucity of trade with Switzerland contrasts oddly with the National Office of Cuba's relatively large office in Zurich. claimed that the Cuban leader's personal wealth was nearly double that of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, despite anecdotal evidence from diplomats and businessmen that the Cuban leader's personal life was notably austere. This assessment was drawn by making economic estimates of the net worth of Cuba's state-owned companies, and used the assumption that Castro had personal economic control. Forbes Magazine later increased the estimates to $900 million, adding rumors of large cash stashes in Switzerland.|width=100%}}

Authored works

Fully or partially by Fidel Castro

Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today, Ocean Press, 2000, ISBN 1876175184

Che: A Memoir, Ocean Press, 2005, ISBN 192088825X

Cuba at the Crossroads, Ocean Press, 1997, ISBN 187528494X

Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography, Scribner, 2008, ISBN 1416553282

Fidel Castro Reader, Ocean Press, 2007, ISBN 1920888888

Fidel My Early Years, Ocean Press, 2004, ISBN 1920888098

Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1920888454

How Far We Slaves Have Come! South Africa and Cuba in Today's World, by Nelson Mandela & Fidel Castro, Pathfinder Press, 1991, ISBN 087348729X

Playa Giron: Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas, Pathfinder Press, 2001, ISBN 087348925X

Political Portraits: Fidel Castro reflects on famous figures in history, Ocean Press, 2008, ISBN 1920888942

The Declarations of Havana, Verso, 2008, ISBN 1844671569

The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro, Nation Books, 2007, ISBN 1560259833

War, Racism and Economic Justice: The Global Ravages of Capitalism, Ocean Press, 2002, ISBN 1876175478

See also

2006–2008 Cuban transfer of presidential duties

26th of July Movement

Agrarian Reform Laws of Cuba

Left-wing nationalism

Opposition to Fidel Castro

Politics of Cuba

In other media:

638 Ways to Kill Castro

Comandante

Fidel (2001 documentary)

Fidel (film)

My Life (Fidel Castro autobiography)

'' Castro's likeness appears inboth the single player campaign and a "Zombie Mode" Along with former U.S. Presidents JFK, and Richard M. Nixon as well as former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

References

External links

;By Fidel Castro

Archive of Fidel Castro's speeches in 6 languages

Fidel Castro History Archive at Marxists Internet Archive.

Collection of Castro's speeches

"We Don't Hope for Favors from the Worst of Empires"

"Where Have All the Bees Gone?"

"In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan-American Games"

"Time for an Alliance of Civlizations Against Empire"

СССР TV: "Fidel Castro meets L.Brezhnev (USSR) (1974)" on Soviet TV portal (in Russian)

;Images

Castro: Early Years (1953–1961) – slideshow by Life magazine

Fidel Castro: A Revolutionary Life – slideshow by Life magazine

Fidel Castro: A Life in Pictures – slideshow by BBC News

Fidel Castro's Five Decades in Power – slideshow by The Washington Post

Fidel Castro Resigns as President – slideshow by New York Times

;About Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro: From Rebel to El Presidente – timeline by NPR

Arthur Miller: A Visit With Castro by The Nation, December 24, 2003

BBC Video: Fidel Castro Visits Boyhood Home of Che Guevara

New York Times --- Interactive Feature: Three Days With Fidel

PBS American Experience Interactive site on Fidel Castro with a teacher's guide

Guide to the Cuban Revolution Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

Deena Stryker Photographs of Cuba, 1963–1964, Duke University Libraries Digital Collections

NPR Audio: Cuba's Castro an Inspiration, Not a Role Model by Tom Gjelten, September 15, 2006

The Guardian: "The Fidel I Think I Know" by Gabriel García Márquez, August 12, 2006

Washington Post: Fidel Castro Will Always Lead Cuba, Locals Say February 22, 2008

|- |- |- |- |-

Category:1926 births Category:Cold War leaders Category:Communist rulers Category:Cuba – United States relations Category:Cuban atheists Category:Cuban lawyers Category:Cuban people of Spanish descent Category:Cuban revolutionaries Category:Cuban soldiers Category:Living people Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Cuban people of Canarian descent Category:Fidel Castro Category:Fidel Castro family members Category:Galician people Category:Leaders who took power by coup Category:Lenin Peace Prize recipients Category:International activists against apartheid in South Africa Category:People excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church Category:People from Holguín Province Category:Presidents of Cuba Category:Cuban guerrillas Category:Communist Party of Cuba politicians Category:Government ministers of Cuba Category:Socialists Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Lion

Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Honorific-suffix	CC CH PC QC FSRC
Caption	Trudeau in 1980
Order	15th
Office	Prime Minister of Canada
Term start	April 20, 1968
Term end	June 4, 1979
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Predecessor	Lester B. Pearson
Successor	Joe Clark
Term start2	March 3, 1980
Term end2	June 30, 1984
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Predecessor2	Joe Clark
Successor2	John Turner
Office3	Leader of the Official Opposition
Term start3	June 4, 1979
Term end3	March 2, 1980
Primeminister3	Joe Clark
Predecessor3	Joe Clark
Successor3	Joe Clark
Office4	Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
Term start4	April 6, 1968
Term end4	June 16, 1984
Predecessor4	Lester B. Pearson
Successor4	John Turner
Office5	Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
Term start5	April 4, 1967
Term end5	July 5, 1968
Primeminister5	Lester B. PearsonHimself
Predecessor5	Louis Cardin
Successor5	John Turner
Office6	Acting President of the Privy Council
Term start6	March 11, 1968
Term end6	May 1, 1968
Primeminister6	Lester B. PearsonHimself
Predecessor6	Walter L. Gordon
Successor6	Allan MacEachen
Riding8	Mount Royal
Parliament8	Canadian
Term start8	1965
Term end8	1984
Predecessor8	Alan Macnaughton
Successor8	Sheila Finestone
Birth date	October 18, 1919
Birth place	Montreal, Quebec
Death date	September 28, 2000
Death place	Montreal, Quebec
Birth name	Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau
Party	Liberal Party of Canada
Spouse	Margaret Trudeau (1971-1984)
Relations	Charles-Émile Trudeau (father)
Children	Justin TrudeauAlexandre TrudeauMichel TrudeauSarah Coyne (daughter with Deborah Coyne)
Alma mater	Université de MontréalHarvard UniversityInstitut d'Études Politiques de ParisLondon School of Economics
Occupation	LawyerJuristAcademicProfessorAuthorJournalistMember of ParliamentPolitician
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature	Pierre Trudeau Signature 2.svg

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from 20 April 1968 to 4 June 1979, and again from 3 March 1980 to 30 June 1984.

Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals, but he eventually joined the Liberal Party when he entered federal politics in the 1960s. He was appointed as Lester Pearson's parliamentary secretary, and later became his Minister of Justice. From his base in Montreal, Trudeau took control of the Liberal Party and became a charismatic leader, inspiring "Trudeaumania". From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, he dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. "Reason before passion" was his personal motto. He retired from politics in 1984, and John Turner succeeded him as prime minister.

Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect and they salute his political acumen in preserving national unity against Quebec separatists, suppressing a violent revolt, and establishing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada's constitution. His detractors accuse him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly favouring the authority of the federal government in relation to the provinces, especially in trying to control the oil wealth of the Prairies.

Early life

Pierre Trudeau was born in Montreal to Charles-Émile Trudeau, a French Canadian businessman and lawyer, and Grace Elliott, who was of French and Scottish descent. He had an older sister named Suzette and a younger brother named Charles Jr.; he remained close to both siblings for his entire life. The family had become quite wealthy by the time Trudeau was in his teens, as his father sold his prosperous gas station business to Imperial Oil. Trudeau attended the prestigious Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf (a private French Jesuit school), where he was affiliated with the ideas of Quebec nationalism. Trudeau's father died when Pierre was in his mid-teens, and this hit him and the family very hard. Pierre remained very close to his mother for the rest of her life.

Education and the Second World War

Trudeau earned a law degree at the Université de Montréal in 1943; during his studies he was conscripted into the Army, like thousands of other Canadian men, as part of the National Resources Mobilization Act. He joined the Canadian Officers' Training Corps and served with other conscripts in Canada, as they were not liable for overseas military service until after the Conscription Crisis of 1944. Trudeau said he was willing to become involved in the Second World War, but he believed that to do so would be to turn his back on a Quebec population he considered to have been betrayed by the Mackenzie King government. Trudeau reflected on his opposition to conscription and his doubts about the war in his 1993 Memoirs: "So there was a war? Tough... if you were a French Canadian in Montreal in the early 1940s, you did not automatically believe that this was a just war... we tended to think of this war as a settling of scores among the superpowers."

After the war, Trudeau went abroad to continue his studies, first with a master's degree in political economy at Harvard University's Graduate School of Public Administration. Next, he studied in Paris, France in 1947 at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, and finally working towards his doctorate at the London School of Economics, although he did not finish his thesis.

Trudeau was interested in Marxist ideas in the 1940s and his Harvard dissertation was on the topic of Communism and Christianity. At Harvard Trudeau found himself profoundly challenged as he discovered that his "... legal training was deficient, [and] his knowledge of economics was pathetic." Thanks to the great intellectual migration away from Europe's fascism, Harvard had become a major intellectual centre in which Trudeau profoundly changed. Despite this, Trudeau found himself an outsider - a French Catholic living for the first time outside of Quebec in the predominantly Protestant American Harvard University. This isolation deepened finally into despair and led to his decision to continue his Harvard studies abroad.

In 1947 he travelled to Paris to continue his dissertation work. Over a five week period he attended many lectures and became a follower of personalism after being influenced most notably by Emmanuel Mounier. The Harvard dissertation remained undone when Trudeau entered a doctoral program to study under the renowned socialist economist Harold Laski in the London School of Economics. This cemented Trudeau's belief that Keynesian economics and social science were essential to the creation of the "good life" in democratic society.

Early career

From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Trudeau was primarily based in Montreal and was seen by many as an intellectual. In 1949, he was an active supporter of workers in the Asbestos Strike. In 1956, he edited an important book on the subject, La grève de l'amiante, which argued that the strike was a seminal event in Quebec's history, marking the beginning of resistance to the conservative, francophone clerical establishment and anglophone business class that had long ruled the province. Throughout the 1950s, Trudeau was a leading figure in the opposition to the repressive rule of Premier of Quebec Maurice Duplessis as the founder and editor of Cité Libre, a dissident journal that helped provide the intellectual basis for the Quiet Revolution.

From 1949 to 1951 Trudeau worked briefly in Ottawa, in the Privy Council Office of the Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent as an economic policy advisor. He wrote in his memoirs that he found this period very useful later on, when he entered politics, and that senior civil servant Norman Robertson tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to stay on.

His socialist values and his close ties with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) intellectuals (including Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, Michael Kelway Oliver and Charles Taylor) led to his support and membership in that federal social democratic party throughout the 1950s. Despite these connections, when Trudeau entered federal politics in the 1960s he decided to join the Liberal Party rather than the CCF, now the New Democratic Party (NDP). This is attributed to a few factors: (1) he felt the NDP could not achieve power, because of Tommy Douglas's inability to attract Quebec voters, (2) Trudeau expressed doubts about the centralizing policies of Canada's socialists (he favoured a more decentralized approach), and (3) there were "real differences" between his approach and the NDP's "two nations" approach to the Canadian constitution and the role of Quebec within Canada.

In his memoirs, published in 1993, Trudeau wrote that during the 1950s, he wanted to teach at the Université de Montréal, but was blacklisted three times from doing so by Maurice Duplessis, then premier of Quebec. He was offered a position at Queen's University teaching political science by James Corry, who later became principal of Queen's, but turned it down because he preferred to teach in Quebec. During the 1950s, he was blacklisted by the United States and prevented from entering that country because of a visit to a conference in Moscow, and because he subscribed to a number of leftist publications. Trudeau later appealed the ban and it was rescinded.

Law professor, enters politics

An associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal from 1961 to 1965, Trudeau's views evolved towards a liberal position in favour of individual rights counter to the state and made him an opponent of Quebec nationalism. In economic theory he was influenced by professors Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith while he was at Harvard. Trudeau criticized the Liberal Party of Lester Pearson when it supported arming Bomarc missiles in Canada with nuclear warheads. Nevertheless, he was persuaded to join the party in 1965, together with his friends Gérard Pelletier and Jean Marchand. These "three wise men" ran successfully for the Liberals in the 1965 election. Trudeau himself was elected in the safe Liberal riding of Mount Royal, in western Montreal, succeeding House Speaker Alan Macnaughton. He would hold this seat until his retirement from politics in 1984, winning each election with large majorities.

Upon arrival in Ottawa, Trudeau was appointed as Prime Minister Lester Pearson's parliamentary secretary, and spent much of the next year traveling the world, representing Canada at international meetings and events, including the United Nations. In 1967, he was appointed to Pearson's cabinet as Minister of Justice.

Justice minister and leadership candidate

As Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau was responsible for introducing the landmark Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69, an omnibus bill whose provisions included, among other things, the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults, the legalization of contraception, abortion and lotteries, new gun ownership restrictions as well as the authorization of breathalyzer tests on suspected drunk drivers. Trudeau famously defended the decriminalization of homosexual acts segment of the bill by telling reporters that "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation", adding that "what's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code". Trudeau also liberalized divorce laws, and clashed with Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Sr. during constitutional negotiations.

At the end of Canada's centennial year in 1967, Prime Minister Pearson announced his intention to step down, and Trudeau entered the race for the Liberal leadership. His energetic campaign attracted the attention of the news media and mobilized and inspired many youths, who saw Trudeau as a symbol of generational change (he was 48). Going into the leadership convention, Trudeau was the front-runner, and was clearly the favourite candidate with the Canadian public. Many within the Liberal Party still had deep doubts about him, though. Having joined the party only in 1965, he was still considered an outsider. Many saw him as too radical and outspoken a figure. Some of his views, particularly those on divorce, abortion, and homosexuality, were opposed by the substantial conservative wing of the party. Nevertheless, at the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Trudeau was elected leader of the party on the fourth ballot, with the support of 51% of the delegates, defeating some prominent, long-serving Liberals including Paul Martin Sr., Robert Winters and Paul Hellyer. Trudeau was sworn in as Liberal leader and Prime Minister two weeks later on April 20.

Prime Minister

Trudeau soon called an election, for June 25 (see Canadian federal election, 1968). His election campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania" (a term coined by journalist Lubor J. Zink), which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths. An iconic moment that influenced the election occurred on its eve, during the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, when rioting Quebec separatists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where Trudeau was seated. Rejecting the pleas of his aides that he take cover, Trudeau stayed in his seat, facing the rioters, without any sign of fear. The image of the young politician showing such courage impressed the Canadian people, and he handily won the election the next day.

Just Society

As Prime Minister, Trudeau espoused participatory democracy as a means of making Canada a "Just Society". He defended vigorously the newly implemented universal health care and regional development programs as means of making society more just. He also implemented many procedural reforms, to make Parliament and the Liberal caucus meetings run more efficiently, and substantially expanded the size and role of the prime minister's office. Trudeau presented a determined public stance during the crisis, answering the question of how far he would go to stop the terrorists with "Just watch me". Five of the FLQ terrorists were flown to Cuba in 1970 as part of a deal in exchange for James Cross's life, but all members were eventually arrested. The five flown to Cuba were jailed after they returned to Canada years later.

Bilingualism

Trudeau's first years would be most remembered for the passage of his implementation of official bilingualism. Long a goal of Trudeau, this legislation requires all Federal services to be offered in French and English. The measures were very controversial at the time in English Canada, but would be successfully passed and implemented.

World affairs

Trudeau was the first world leader to meet John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono on their 'tour for world peace'. Lennon said, after talking with Trudeau for 50 minutes, that Trudeau was "a beautiful person" and that "if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace."

In foreign affairs, Trudeau kept Canada firmly in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but often pursued an independent path in international relations. He established Canadian diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, before the United States did, and went on an official visit to Beijing. He was known to be a friend of Fidel Castro and Cuba. A mobster said that in 1974 he was hired by New York State mafia members to kill Trudeau, hoping to bait Castro up to a funeral, where they would kill him. The plan was apparently later rejected.

1972 election

In the election of 1972, Trudeau's Liberal Party won with a minority government, with the New Democratic Party holding the balance of power. This government would move to the left, including the creation of Petro-Canada.

1974 election

In May 1974, the House of Commons passed a motion of no confidence in the Trudeau government, defeating its budget bill. Trudeau wrote in his memoirs that he had in fact engineered his own downfall, since he was confident he would win the resulting election. The election of 1974 saw Trudeau and the Liberals re-elected with a majority government with 141 of the 264 seats. In September 1975, Finance Minister, John Turner resigned. Trudeau later (in October 1975) instituted wage and price controls, something which he had mocked Progressive Conservative Party leader Robert Stanfield for proposing during the election campaign a year earlier.

G7

Canada joined the G7 group of major economic powers in 1976, after being left out of the first set of meetings. Trudeau wrote in his memoirs that U.S. President Gerald Ford arranged this, and expressed sincere appreciation.

Republicanism?

Trudeau's outward actions during his premiership led many to believe he harboured republican notions; it was even rumoured by Paul Martin, Sr., that the Queen was worried the Crown "had little meaning for him." This may have had to do with the erasure of royal symbols, his documented antics around the Monarch, such as his sliding down Buckingham Palace banisters, and his famous pirouette behind the Queen, captured on film in 1977. He also glaringly breached protocol in 1978 when he vacationed in Morocco, instead of being in Canada to attend the Queen's arrival and departure. However, he was accused of instant monarchism, as well as opportunism during a period of personal unpopularity in the 1970s, when he invited Elizabeth II to attend the second Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), at Ottawa 1973. The invitation, and acceptance of it, started the tradition of Elizabeth attending Commonwealth conferences, no matter the location. Also, in 1976, after Robert Bourassa, then Premier of Quebec, begged Trudeau to invite the Queen to the Olympics in Montreal, Trudeau, after obliging him, became annoyed when Bourassa later became unsettled about how unpopular the move might be. He commented directly on the Monarchy in 1967, when he, by then a Cabinet minister, stated "I wouldn't lift a finger to get rid of the monarchy.... I think the monarchy, by and large, has done more good than harm to Canada." Ultimately, he experimented with the Crown more than any previous politician, and then entrenched the role of the Crown in Canada when he orchestrated the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 (see below).

Declining popularity

A worsening economy, burgeoning national debt, and growing public antipathy towards Trudeau's perceived arrogance caused his poll numbers to fall rapidly. Trudeau delayed the election as long as he could, but was forced to call one in 1979.

Defeat and opposition

In the election of 1979, Trudeau's government was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives, led by Joe Clark, who formed a minority government. Trudeau announced his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader; however, before a leadership convention could be held, Clark's government was defeated in the Canadian House of Commons by a Motion of Non-Confidence, in mid-December, 1979. The Liberal Party persuaded Trudeau to stay on as leader and fight the election. Trudeau defeated Clark in the February 1980 election, and won a majority government.

Return to power

The Liberal victory in 1980 highlighted a sharp geographical divide in the country: the party had won no seats west of Manitoba. Trudeau had to resort to having Senators appointed to Cabinet to ensure representation from all regions. The introduction of the National Energy Program (NEP) created a firestorm of protest in the Western provinces and increased what many termed "Western alienation".

A series of difficult budgets by long-time loyalist Allan MacEachen in the early 1980s did not improve Trudeau's economic reputation. However, after tough bargaining on both sides, Trudeau did reach a revenue-sharing agreement on energy with Alberta premier Peter Lougheed in 1982. Trudeau promised a new constitutional agreement with Quebec should it decide to stay in Canada, and the "No" side (that is, No to sovereignty) ended up receiving around 60% of the vote.

Patriation of the Constitution

Trudeau had attempted patriation of the Constitution earlier in his career, but always ran into a combined force of provincial Premiers on the issue of an amending formula. After he threatened to go to London alone, a Supreme Court decision led Trudeau to meet with the Premiers one more time. Further, officials in the United Kingdom indicated that the British parliament was under no obligation to fulfill any request for legal changes made by Trudeau, particularly if Canadian convention was not being followed. Trudeau reached an agreement with nine of the Premiers, with the notable exception of Lévesque. Quebec's refusal to agree to the new constitution became a source of continued acrimony between the federal and Quebec governments. Even so, the patriation was achieved; the Constitution Act, 1982 was proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth on April 17, 1982. Following this, Trudeau commented in his memoirs "I always said it was thanks to three women that we were eventually able to reform our Constitution. The Queen, who was favourable, Margaret Thatcher, who undertook to do everything that our Parliament asked of her, and Jean Wadds, who represented the interests of Canada so well in London... The Queen favoured my attempt to reform the Constitution. I was always impressed not only by the grace she displayed in public at all times, but by the wisdom she showed in private conversation." After three children were born they separated in 1977 and were finally divorced in 1980. Their three children are: Justin (b. December 25, 1971), Alexandre (Sacha) (b. December 25, 1973), and Michel (October 2, 1975 – 13 November 1998).

When his divorce was finalised in 1984, Trudeau became the first Prime Minister to become a single parent as the result of divorce. In 1991, Trudeau became a father again, with Deborah Coyne. This was his first and only daughter, named Sarah.

Death

Pierre Elliott Trudeau died on September 28, 2000, and was buried in the Trudeau family crypt, St-Rémi-de-Napierville Cemetery, Saint-Rémi, Quebec. He lay in state to allow Canadians to pay their last respects. During the state funeral, Justin delivered an emotional yet articulate eulogy that led to widespread speculation in the media that a career in politics was in his future. (Justin was elected to the House of Commons in late 2008). Several world politicians paid their respects to Trudeau by attending the funeral.

Spirituality

Trudeau was a Roman Catholic and attended church throughout his life. While mostly private about his beliefs, he made it clear that he was a believer, stating, in an interview with the United Church Observer in 1971: “I believe in life after death, I believe in God and I’m a Christian.” Trudeau maintained, however, that he preferred to impose constraints on himself rather than have them imposed from the outside. In this sense, he believed he was more like a Protestant than a Catholic of the era in which he was schooled.

Michael W. Higgins, President of St. Thomas University, has researched Trudeau’s spirituality and finds that it incorporated elements of three Catholic traditions. The first of these was the Jesuits who provided his education up to the college level. Trudeau frequently displayed the logic and love of argument consistent with that tradition. A second great spiritual influence in Trudeau’s life was Dominican. According to Michel Gorges, Rector of the College Dominicain philosophie et théologie, Trudeau “considered himself a lay Dominican.” He studied philosophy under Dominican Father Louis-Marie Régis and remained close to him throughout his life, regarding Régis as “spiritual director and friend.” Another skein in Trudeau’s spirituality was a contemplative aspect acquired from his association with the Benedictine tradition. According to Higgins, Trudeau was convinced of the centrality of meditation in a life fully-lived. He took retreats at Saint-Benoit-Du-Lac, Quebec and regularly attended Hours and the Eucharist at Montreal’s Benedictine community.

Although never publicly theological in the way of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, nor evangelical, in the way of Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush, Trudeau’s spirituality, according to Higgins, "suffused, anchored, and directed his inner life. In no small part, it defined him.” However, the passage of time has only slightly softened the strong antipathy he inspired among his opponents. Trudeau's charisma and confidence as Prime Minister, and his championing of the Canadian identity are often cited as reasons for his popularity. His strong personality, contempt for his opponents and distaste for compromise on many issues have made him, as historian Michael Bliss puts it, "one of the most admired and most disliked of all Canadian prime ministers." "He haunts us still," biographers Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson wrote in 1990. Trudeau's electoral successes were matched in the 20th century only by those of Mackenzie King. In all, Trudeau is undoubtedly one of the most dominant and transformative figures in Canadian political history.

Trudeau's most enduring legacy may lie in his contribution to Canadian nationalism, and of pride in Canada in and for itself rather than as a derivative of the British Commonwealth. His role in this effort, and his related battles with Quebec on behalf of Canadian unity, cemented his political position when in office despite the controversies he faced—and remain the most remembered aspect of his tenure afterward.

Some consider Trudeau's economic policies to have been a weak point. Inflation and unemployment marred much of his prime ministership. When Trudeau took office in 1968 Canada had a debt of $18 billion (24% of GDP) which was largely left over from World War II; when he left office in 1984, that debt stood at $200 billion (46% of GDP), an increase of 83% in real terms. However, these trends were present in most western countries at the time, including the United States.

Though his popularity had fallen in English Canada at the time of his retirement in 1984, public opinion later became more sympathetic to him, particularly in comparison to his successor, Brian Mulroney.

Pierre Trudeau is today seen in very high regard on the Canadian political scene. Many politicians still use the term "taking a walk in the snow, " a throw-away line Trudeau used to describe his decision to leave office in 1984. Other popular Trudeauisms frequently used are "just watch me", the "Trudeau Salute", and "Fuddle Duddle".

Constitutional legacy

One of Trudeau's most enduring legacies is the 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution, including a domestic amending formula and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is seen as advancing civil rights and liberties and, notwithstanding clause aside, has become a cornerstone of Canadian values for most Canadians. It also represented the final step in Trudeau's liberal vision of a fully independent and nationalist Canada based on fundamental human rights and the protection of individual freedoms as well as those of linguistic and cultural minorities. Court challenges based on the Charter of Rights have been used to advance the cause of women's equality, re-establish French school boards in provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, and to mandate the adoption of same-sex marriage all across Canada. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, has clarified issues of aboriginal and equality rights, including establishing the previously denied aboriginal rights of Métis. Section 15, dealing with equality rights, has been used to remedy societal discrimination against minority groups. The coupling of the direct and indirect influences of the Charter has meant that it has grown to influence every aspect of Canadian life, and the override (notwithstanding clause) of the Charter has been infrequently used.

Canadian conservatives claim the Constitution has resulted in too much judicial activism on the part of the courts in Canada. It is also heavily criticized by Quebec Nationalists, who resent that the Constitution was never ratified by any Quebec government and does not recognize a constitutional veto for Quebec.

Bilingualism

Bilingualism is one of Trudeau's most lasting accomplishments, having been fully integrated into the Federal government's services, documents, and broadcasting (not, however, in provincial governments, except for Ontario and New Brunswick). While official bilingualism has settled some of the grievances Francophones had towards the federal government, many Francophones had hoped that Canadians would be able to function in the official language of their choice no matter where in the country they were.

However, Trudeau's ambitions in this arena have been overstated: Trudeau once said that he regretted the use of the term "bilingualism", because it appeared to demand that all Canadians speak two languages. In fact, Trudeau's vision was to see Canada as a bilingual confederation in which all cultures would have a place. In this way, his conception broadened beyond simply the relationship of Quebec to Canada.

Cultural legacy

Few outside the museum community recall the tremendous efforts Trudeau made, in the last years of his tenure, to see to it that the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Civilization finally had proper homes in the national capital. The Trudeau government also implemented programs which mandated Canadian content in film, and broadcasting, and gave substantial subsidies to develop the Canadian media and cultural industries. Though the policies remain controversial, Canadian media industries have become stronger since Trudeau's arrival.

Furthermore, his cultural legacy can be found in Canada's strong ties to multiculturalism.

Legacy with respect to western Canada

Trudeau's posthumous reputation in the Western Provinces is notably less favourable than it is in the rest of English-speaking Canada. He is often regarded as the "father of Western alienation." The reasons for this are various. Some of them are ideological. Some Canadians disapproved of official bilingualism and many other of Trudeau's policies, which they saw as moving the country away from its historic traditions and attachments, and markedly toward the political left. Such feelings were perhaps strongest in the West. Other reasons for western alienation are more plainly regional in nature. To many westerners, Trudeau's policies seemed to favour other parts of the country, especially Ontario and Quebec, at their expense. Outstanding among such policies was the National Energy Program, which was seen as unfairly depriving western provinces of the full economic benefit from their oil and gas resources, in order to pay for nationwide social programs, and make regional transfer payments to poorer parts of the country. Sentiments of this kind were especially strong in oil-rich Alberta where unemployment rose from 4% to 10% following passage of the NEP. Estimates have placed Alberta's losses between $50 billion and $100 billion because of the NEP.

More particularly, two incidents involving Trudeau are remembered as having fostered Western alienation, and as emblematic of it. During a visit to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on July 17, 1969, Trudeau met with a group of farmers who were protesting that the federal government was not doing more to market their wheat. The widely-remembered perception is that Trudeau dismissed the protestors' concerns with "Why should I sell your wheat?" — in reality, however, the media never adequately reported the fact that he asked the question rhetorically and then proceeded to answer it himself. Years later, on a train trip through Salmon Arm, British Columbia, he "gave the finger" to a group of protesters through the carriage window — less widely remembered is that the protestors were shouting anti-French slogans at the train.

Legacy with respect to Quebec

Trudeau's legacy in Quebec is mixed. Many credit his actions during the October Crisis as crucial in terminating the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) as a force in Quebec, and ensuring that the campaign for Quebec separatism took a democratic and peaceful route. However, his imposition of the War Measures Act—which received majority support at the time—is remembered by some in Quebec and elsewhere as an attack on democracy. Trudeau is also credited by many for the defeat of the 1980 Quebec referendum.

At the federal level, Trudeau faced almost no strong political opposition in Quebec during his time as Prime Minister. For instance, his Liberal party captured 74 out of 75 Quebec seats in the 1980 federal election. Provincially, though, Quebecers twice elected the pro-sovereignty Parti Québécois. Moreover, there were not then any pro-sovereignty federal parties such as the Bloc Québécois. Since the signing of the Constitutional Act of Canada in 1982, the Liberal Party of Canada has never succeeded in winning a majority of seats in Quebec. Trudeau is disliked by many Québécois, particularly in the news media, the academic and political establishments. While his reputation has grown in English Canada since his retirement in 1984, it has not improved in Quebec.

High-Commissioner Lord Moran's assessment of Trudeau

In the British tradition, ambassadors leaving their posts emptied their hearts in a last letter to the Foreign Office. In 1984, before returning to London after three years in Canada, the British High Commissioner, Lord Moran (John Wilson), career diplomat, was no exception to this rule. This is what Lord Moran wrote about Pierre Trudeau:

Although I like him personally and he has been kind to us, it has, I am sure, been a disadvantage that Mr. Trudeau has been Prime Minister throughout my time in Canada because with some reason, he has not been greatly respected or trusted in London. He has never entirely shaken off his past as a well-to-do hippie and draft dodger. His views on East/West relations have been particularly suspect. Many of my colleagues here admire him. I cannot say I do. He is an odd fish and his own worst enemy, and on the whole I think his influence on Canada in the past sixteen years has been detrimental. But what he minded most about was keeping Quebec in Canada and his finest hours were the ruthless and effective stamping-out of terrorism in Quebec in 1970 and the winning there of the referendum on sovereignty/association ten years later. For the present, separatism in Quebec is at a low ebb. Mr. Trudeau has maintained that only by an increase in Ottawa's powers could Canada develop as a strong state. He treated provincial premiers with contempt and provincial governments as if they were town councils. But I think few Canadians share his extreme centralising stance. Most believe that Canada's diversity and geographical spread need a federal system and a division of powers, with each level treating the other, as seldom happened in Mr. Trudeau's time, with courtesy, respect and understanding. Mr. Turner, for one, takes this view.

Intellectual contributions

Trudeau made a number of contributions throughout his career to the intellectual discourse of Canadian politics. Trudeau was a strong advocate for a federalist model of government in Canada, developing and promoting his ideas in response and contrast to strengthening Quebec nationalist movements, for instance the social and political atmosphere created during Maurice Duplessis' time in power. Federalism in this context can be defined as “a particular way of sharing political power among different peoples within a state…Those who believe in federalism hold that different peoples do not need states of their own in order to enjoy self-determination. Peoples…may agree to share a single state while retaining substantial degrees of self-government over matters essential to their identity as peoples”. As a social democrat, Trudeau sought to combine and harmonize his theories on social democracy with those of federalism so that both could find effective expression in Canada. He noted the ostensible conflict between socialism, with its usually strong centralist government model, and federalism, which expounded a division and cooperation of power by both federal and provincial levels of government. In particular, Trudeau states that socialists,

rather than water down…their socialism, must constantly seek ways of adapting it to a bicultural society governed under a federal constitution. And since the future of Canadian federalism lies clearly in the direction of co-operation, the wise socialist will turn his thoughts in that direction, keeping in mind the importance of establishing buffer zones of joint sovereignty and co-operative zones of joint administration between the two levels of government

Trudeau pointed out that in sociological terms, Canada is inherently a federalist society, forming unique regional identities and priorities, and therefore a federalist model of spending and jurisdictional powers is most appropriate. He argues, “in the age of the mass society, it is no small advantage to foster the creation of quasi-sovereign communities at the provincial level, where power is that much less remote from the people.”

Unfortunately, Trudeau’s idealistic plans for a cooperative Canadian federalist state were resisted and hindered as a result of his narrowness on ideas of identity and socio-cultural pluralism: “While the idea of a ‘nation’ in the sociological sense is acknowledged by Trudeau, he considers the allegiance which it generates—emotive and particularistic—to be contrary to the idea of cohesion between humans, and as such creating fertile ground for the internal fragmentation of states and a permanent state of conflict”. This position garnered significant criticism for Trudeau, in particular from Quebec and First Nations peoples on the basis that his theories denied their rights to nationhood.

He was styled "The Right Honourable" for life on his appointment as Prime Minister on April 20, 1968.

Trudeau was made a Companion of Honour in 1984.

He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada (post-nominal "CC") on June 24, 1985. He was granted arms, crest, and supporters by the Canadian Heraldic Authority on December 7, 1994.

Other honours include: The Canadian news agency Canadian Press named Trudeau "Newsmaker of the Year" a record ten times, including every year from 1968 to 1975, and two more times in 1978 and 2000. In 1999, CP also named Trudeau "Newsmaker of the 20th Century." Trudeau declined to give CP an interview on that occasion, but said in a letter that he was "surprised and pleased." In many informal and unscientific polls conducted by Canadian Internet sites, users also widely agreed with the honour.

In 1983–84, he was awarded the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, for negotiating the reduction of nuclear weapons and Cold War tension in several countries.

The Pierre Elliott Trudeau High School in Markham, Ontario is named in his honour.

Collège Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau in Winnipeg, Manitoba is also named in his honour.

The Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) in Montreal, Quebec was named in his honour, effective January 1, 2004.

In 2004, viewers of the CBC series The Greatest Canadian voted Trudeau the third greatest Canadian.

The government of British Columbia named a peak in the Cariboo Mountains Mount Pierre Elliott Trudeau, on June 10, 2006. The peak is located in the Premier Range, which has many peaks named for British Columbian premiers and Canadian prime ministers. Trudeau was awarded a 2nd dan black belt in judo by the Takahashi School of Martial Arts in Ottawa.

Trudeau was ranked #5 of the first 20 Prime Ministers of Canada (through Jean Chrétien in a survey of Canadian historians. The survey was used in the book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders by J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer.

Honorary degrees

Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 1974. Keio University in Tokyo, Japan in 1976 (LL.D) Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1968 University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1968 University of Macau in Macau, China in 1987 (LL.D) University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario in 1974

University of Notre Dame du Lac in Notre Dame, Indiana in 1982

Order of Canada Citation

Trudeau was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada on June 24, 1985. His citation reads:

Lawyer, professor, author and defender of human rights this statesman served as Prime Minister of Canada for fifteen years. Lending substance to the phrase "the style is the man," he has imparted, both in his and on the world stage, his quintessentially personal philosophy of modern politics.

Trudeau in film

Through hours of archival footage and interviews with Trudeau himself, the recent documentary Memoirs details the story of a man who used intelligence and charisma to bring together a country that was very nearly torn apart.

Trudeau's life is depicted in two CBC Television mini-series. The first one, Trudeau (with Colm Feore in the title role), depicts his years as Prime Minister. Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making (with Stéphane Demers as the young Pierre, and Tobie Pelletier as him in later years) portrays his earlier life.

The 1999 documentary film explores the impact of Trudeau's vision of Canadian bilingualism through interviews with eight young Canadians.

He was the co-subject along with René Lévesque in the Donald Brittain-directed documentary mini-seriesThe Champions.

Trudeau in music

Trudeau is name-checked in the song "Wilted Rose" by the Vanity Project (a side project band featuring former Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page). The lyrics says "like Pierre Trudeau's walk out in the snow."

A homage to Trudeau is "Song for a Father" by Jian Ghomeshi (of Moxy Fruvous Fame) which chronicles the life of the politician.

Works by Trudeau

Memoirs. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1993. ISBN 0-7710-8588-5

Towards a just society: the Trudeau years, with Thomas S. Axworthy, (eds.) Markham, Ont.: Viking, 1990.

The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada's Foreign Policy 1968–1984, with Ivan Head

Two innocents in Red China. (Deux innocents en Chine rouge), with Jacques Hébert 1960.

Against the Current: Selected Writings, 1939–1996. (À contre-courant: textes choisis, 1939–1996). Gerard Pelletier (ed)

The Essential Trudeau. Ron Graham, (ed.) Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1998. ISBN 0-7710-8591-5

The asbestos strike. (Grève de l'amiante)'', translated by James Boake 1974

Pierre Trudeau Speaks Out on Meech Lake. Donald J. Johnston, (ed). Toronto: General Paperbacks, 1990. ISBN 0-7736-7244-3

Approaches to politics. Introd. by Ramsay Cook. Prefatory note by Jacques Hébert. Translated by I. M. Owen. from the French Cheminements de la politique. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970. ISBN 0-19-540176-X

Underwater Man, with Joe Macinnis and Joseph B. Macinnis.

Federalism and the French Canadians. Introd. by John T. Saywell. 1968

Conversation with Canadians. Foreword by Ivan L. Head. Toronto, Buffalo: University of Toronto Press 1972. ISBN 0-8020-1888-2

The best of Trudeau. Toronto: Modern Canadian Library. 1972 ISBN 0-919364-08-X

Lifting the shadow of war. C. David Crenna, editor. Edmonton: Hurtig, c1987. ISBN 0-88830-300-9

Human rights, federalism and minorities. (Les droits de l'homme, le fédéralisme et les minorités), with Allan Gotlieb and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs

See also

Death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau

History of the Quebec independence movement

List of Canadian federal general elections

Politics of Canada

Prime Minister nicknaming in Quebec

Timeline of Canadian history

List of Prime Ministers of Canada

Footnotes

Further reading

Bergeron, Gérard. Notre miroir à deux faces: Trudeau-Lévesque. Montreal: Québec/Amérique, c1985. ISBN 2-89-037239-1

Bliss, Michael. Right Honourable Men: the descent of Canadian politics from Macdonald to Mulroney, 1994.

Bothwell, Robert and Granatstein, J.L. Pirouette : Pierre Trudeau and Canadian foreign policy, 1990. ISBN 0802057802

Bowering, George. Egotists and Autocrats: the Prime Ministers of Canada, 1999.

Burelle, André. Pierre Elliott Trudeau: l'intellectuel et le politique, Montréal: Fides, 2005, 480 pages. ISBN 276212669X

Butler, Rick, Jean-Guy Carrier, eds. The Trudeau decade. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1979.

Butson, Thomas G. Pierre Elliott Trudeau. New York: Chelsea House, c1986. ISBN 0-87-754445-X

Clarkson, Stephen; McCall, Christina. Trudeau and our times. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1990–c1994. 2 v. ISBN 0-77-105414-9 ISBN 0-77-105417-3

Cohen, Andrew, J. L. Granatstein, eds. Trudeau's Shadow: the life and legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1999.

Couture, Claude. Paddling with the Current: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Étienne Parent, liberalism and nationalism in Canada. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, c1998. Issued also in French: La loyauté d'un laïc. ISBN 1417593067 ISBN 0888643136

Donaldson, Gordon (journalist). The Prime Ministers of Canada, 1997.

English, John. Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau Volume One: 1919-1968 (2006); Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau Volume Two: 1968-2000 (2009); Knopf Canada, ISBN 0676975216 ISBN 978-0676975215

Ferguson, Will. Bastards and Boneheads: Canada's Glorious Leaders, Past and Present, 1999.

Griffiths, Linda. Maggie & Pierre: a fantasy of love, politics and the media: a play. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1980. ISBN 0889221820

Gwyn, Richard. The Northern Magus: Pierre Trudeau and Canadians. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1980. ISBN 0771037325

Hillmer, Norman and Granatstein, J.L. Prime Ministers: Rating Canada's Leaders, 1999. ISBN 0-00-200027-X.

Laforest, Guy. Trudeau and the end of a Canadian dream. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, c1995. ISBN 0773513000 ISBN 0773513221

Lotz, Jim. Prime Ministers of Canada, 1987.

McDonald, Kenneth. His pride, our fall: recovering from the Trudeau revolution. Toronto: Key Porter Books, c1995. ISBN 155013714X

McIlroy, Thad, ed. A Rose is a rose: a tribute to Pierre Elliott Trudeau in cartoons and quotas. Toronto: Doubleday, 1984. ISBN 038519787X ISBN 0385197888

Nemni, Max and Nemni, Monique. . Toronto: Douglas Gibson Books, 2006. ISBN 0771067496 (Based on private papers and diaries of Pierre Trudeau which he gave the authors in 1995)

Peterson, Roy. Drawn & quartered: the Trudeau years. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1984.

Radwanski, George. Trudeau. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co., 1978. ISBN 0800878973

Ricci, Nino. Extraordinary Canadians Pierre Elliott Trudeau (2009)

Sawatsky, John. The Insiders: Government, Business, and the Lobbyists, 1987.

Simpson, Jeffrey. Discipline of power: the Conservative interlude and the Liberal restoration. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984. ISBN 0920510248

Stewart, Walter. Shrug: Trudeau in power. Toronto: New Press, 1971. ISBN 0887700810

Southam, Nancy. Pierre, McClelland & Stewart, September 19, 2006, 408 pages ISBN 978-0-7710-8168-2

Simard, François-Xavier. Le vrai visage de Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Montréal: Les Intouchables, April 19, 2006 ISBN 2-89549-217-4

Vastel, Michel. The outsider: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, c1990. 266 pages. Translation of: Trudeau, le Québécois. ISBN 0771591004

Walters, Eric. Voyageur, Toronto: Penguin Groups 2008

Zink, Lubor J. Trudeaucracy. Toronto: Toronto Sun Publishing Ltd., 1972. 150 pages. ISBN 1301459780

Archival videos of Trudeau

External links

canadahistory.com biography

CBC Digital Archives—Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Philosopher and Prime Minister

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:1919 births Category:2000 deaths Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:Alumni of Sciences Po Category:Canadian Queen's Counsel Category:Canadian legal scholars Category:Canadian memoirists Category:Canadian diarists Category:Canadian political writers Category:Canadian Roman Catholics Category:Companions of the Order of Canada Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada Category:Leaders of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons Category:Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Quebec Category:Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Category:Canadian anti-communists Category:Cold War leaders Category:People from Montreal Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Prime Ministers of Canada Category:Deaths from prostate cancer Category:Academics in Quebec Category:Lawyers in Quebec Category:Université de Montréal alumni Category:Cancer deaths in Quebec Category:October Crisis Category:National Historic Persons of Canada Category:Canadian Newsmakers of the Year

Honorific-prefix	His Excellency
Name	Nelson Mandela
Honorific-suffix	OM AC CC GCStJ QC GColIH RSerafO BR NPk MRCSI
Caption	Mandela in 2008
Alt	Nelson Mandela on his 90th birthday in 2008.
Office	President of South Africa
Deputy	Thabo MbekiFrederik Willem de Klerk
Term start	10 May 1994
Term end	14 June 1999
Predecessor	Frederik Willem de KlerkAs State President of South Africa
Successor	Thabo Mbeki
Office2	19th Secretary General of Non-Aligned Movement
Term start2	2 September 1998
Term end2	14 June 1999
Predecessor2	Andrés Pastrana Arango
Successor2	Thabo Mbeki
Birth date	July 18, 1918
Birth place	Mvezo, Union of South Africa
Birthname	Rolihlahla Mandela
Party	African National Congress
Nationality	South African
Spouse	Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1944–1957)Winnie Madikizela (1957–1996)Graça Machel (1998–present)
Residence	Houghton Estate, South Africa
Religion	Methodism
Alma mater	University of Fort HareUniversity of London External SystemUniversity of South AfricaUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Signature	Nelson Mandela Signature.svg
Signature alt	Signature of Nelson Mandela
Website	Mandela Foundation

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; born 18 July 1918) served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as uTata Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan.

Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Early life

, pp. 16, 17]] Nelson Mandela belongs to a cadet branch of the Thembu dynasty, which reigns in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's Cape Province. He was born in Mvezo, a small village located in the district of Umtata, the Transkei capital. His patrilineal great-grandfather Ngubengcuka (who died in 1832), ruled as the Inkosi Enkhulu, or king, of the Thembu people. One of the king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. However, because he was only the Inkosi's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan (the so-called "Left-Hand House"), the descendants of his branch of the royal family were not eligible to succeed to the Thembu throne.

Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, served as chief of the town of Mvezo. However, upon alienating the colonial authorities, they deprived Mphakanyiswa of his position, and moved his family to Qunu. Despite this, Mphakanyiswa remained a member of the Inkosi's Privy Council, and served an instrumental role in Jongintaba Dalindyebo's ascension to the Thembu throne. Dalindyebo would later return the favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Mphakanyiswa's death. Mandela's father had four wives, with whom he fathered thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). His given name Rolihlahla means "to pull a branch of a tree", or more colloquially, "troublemaker".

When Mandela was nine, his father died of tuberculosis, and the regent, Jongintaba, became his guardian. Mandela completed his Junior Certificate in two years, instead of the usual three. At nineteen, he took an interest in boxing and running at the school. Later in his life, while in prison, Mandela studied for a Bachelor of Laws from the University of London External Programme.

Shortly after leaving Fort Hare, Jongintaba announced to Mandela and Justice (the regent's son and heir to the throne) that he had arranged marriages for both of them. The young men, displeased by the arrangement, elected to relocate to Johannesburg. Upon his arrival, Mandela initially found employment as a guard at a mine. However, the employer quickly terminated Mandela after learning that he was the Regent's runaway ward. Mandela later started work as an articled clerk at a Johannesburg law firm, Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, through connections with his friend and mentor, realtor Walter Sisulu.

Political activity

After the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, which supported the apartheid policy of racial segregation, Mandela began actively participating in politics. He led prominently in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People, whose adoption of the Freedom Charter provided the fundamental basis of the anti-apartheid cause. During this time, Mandela and fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo operated the law firm of Mandela and Tambo, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who lacked attorney representation.

Mahatma Gandhi influenced Mandela's approach, and subsequently the methods of succeeding generations of South African anti-apartheid activists. (Mandela later took part in the 29–30 January 2007 conference in New Delhi marking the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's introduction of satyagraha (non-violent resistance) in South Africa).

Initially committed to nonviolent resistance, Mandela and 150 others were arrested on 5 December 1956 and charged with treason. The marathon Treason Trial of 1956–1961 followed, with all defendants receiving acquittals. From 1952–1959, a new class of black activists known as the Africanists disrupted ANC activities in the townships, demanding more drastic steps against the National Party regime. The ANC leadership under Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu felt not only that the Africanists were moving too fast but also that they challenged their leadership. In 2003 Blade Nzimande, the SACP General Secretary, revealed that Walter Sisulu, the ANC Secretary-General, secretly joined the SACP in 1955 which meant all five Secretaries General were SACP and thus explains why Sisulu relegated the ANC from a dominant role to one of five equals.

In 1959, the ANC lost its most militant support when most of the Africanists, with financial support from Ghana and significant political support from the Transvaal-based Basotho, broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under the direction of Robert Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo.

Armed anti-apartheid activities

In 1961, Mandela became leader of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated Spear of the Nation, and also abbreviated MK), which he co-founded. He coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerrilla war if the sabotage failed to end apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group. Mandela said of Wolfie: "His knowledge of warfare and his first hand battle experience were extremely helpful to me."

Later, mostly in the 1980s, MK waged a guerrilla war against the apartheid regime in which many civilians became casualties.

Up until July 2008, Mandela and ANC party members were barred from entering the United States — except the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan — without a special waiver from the US Secretary of State, because of their South African apartheid regime era designation as terrorists.

Arrest and Rivonia trial

On 5 August 1962 Mandela was arrested after living on the run for seventeen months, and was imprisoned in the Johannesburg Fort. The arrest was made possible because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tipped off the security police as to Mandela's whereabouts and disguise. Three days later, the charges of leading workers to strike in 1961 and leaving the country illegally were read to him during a court appearance. On 25 October 1962, Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. Two years later on 11 June 1964, a verdict had been reached concerning his previous engagement in the African National Congress (ANC).

While Mandela was imprisoned, police arrested prominent ANC leaders on 11 July 1963, at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Mandela was brought in, and at the Rivonia Trial they were charged by the chief prosecutor Dr. Percy Yutar with the capital crimes of sabotage (which Mandela admitted) and crimes which were equivalent to treason, but easier for the government to prove. The second charge accused the defendants of plotting a foreign invasion of South Africa, which Mandela denied. His statement described how the ANC had used peaceful means to resist apartheid for years until the Sharpeville Massacre. That event coupled with the referendum establishing the Republic of South Africa and the declaration of a state of emergency along with the banning of the ANC made it clear to Mandela and his compatriots that their only choice was to resist through acts of sabotage and that doing otherwise would have been tantamount to unconditional surrender. He closed his statement with these words: "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Harold Hanson was brought in at the end of the case to plead mitigation. All except Rusty Bernstein were found guilty, but they escaped the gallows and were sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors. He was subsequently nominated for the position of Chancellor of the University of London in the 1981 election, but lost to Princess Anne. secret agent Gordon Winter describes his involvement in a plot to rescue Mandela from prison in 1969: this plot was infiltrated by Winter on behalf of South African intelligence, who wanted Mandela to escape so they could shoot him during recapture. The plot was foiled by British Intelligence. However, National Party minister Kobie Coetsee says that the move was to enable discreet contact between them and the South African government. Coetsee and other ministers had advised Botha against this, saying that Mandela would never commit his organisation to giving up the armed struggle in exchange for personal freedom. Mandela indeed spurned the offer, releasing a statement via his daughter Zindzi saying "What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."

The first meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came in November 1985 when Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in Volks Hospital in Cape Town where Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made. In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990.

Mandela was visited several times by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, while at Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor prison. Mandela had this to say about the visits: "to me personally, and those who shared the experience of being political prisoners, the Red Cross was a beacon of humanity within the dark inhumane world of political imprisonment."

Release

on July 27, 1991, in Matanzas, Cuba. Their combined anti-apartheid speeches from the event were published as the book How Far We Slaves Have Come! ]]

On 2 February 1990, State President F.W. de Klerk reversed the ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison. Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl on 11 February 1990. The event was broadcast live all over the world.

On the day of his release, Mandela made a speech to the nation. He declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with the country's white minority, but made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not yet over when he said "our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe) was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement would be created soon, so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle."

He also said his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority and give them the right to vote in both national and local elections.

In 1991, the ANC held its first national conference in South Africa after its unbanning, electing Mandela as President of the organisation. His old friend and colleague Oliver Tambo, who had led the organisation in exile during Mandela's imprisonment, became National Chairperson.

Mandela's leadership through the negotiations, as well as his relationship with President F.W. de Klerk, was recognised when they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. However, the relationship was sometimes strained, particularly so in a sharp exchange in 1991 when he furiously referred to De Klerk as the head of "an illegitimate, discredited, minority regime". The talks broke down following the Boipatong massacre in June 1992 when Mandela took the ANC out of the negotiations, accusing De Klerk's government of complicity in the killings. However, talks resumed following the Bisho massacre in September 1992, when the spectre of violent confrontation made it clear that negotiations were the only way forward. Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as 'presidential' even though he was not yet president of the country at that time. Mandela said "tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. ...Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us". While some riots did follow the assassination, the negotiators were galvanised into action, and soon agreed that democratic elections should take place on 27 April 1994, just over a year after Hani's assassination. As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.

After assuming the presidency, one of Mandela's trademarks was his use of Batik shirts, known as "Madiba shirts", even on formal occasions. In South Africa's first post-apartheid military operation, Mandela ordered troops into Lesotho in September 1998 to protect the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili. This came after a disputed election prompted fierce opposition threatening the unstable government. Commentators and critics including AIDS activists such as Edwin Cameron have criticised Mandela for his government's ineffectiveness in stemming the AIDS crisis. After his retirement, Mandela admitted that he may have failed his country by not paying more attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mandela has since spoken out on several occasions against the AIDS epidemic.

Lockerbie trial

President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi's Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George H.W. Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, as did President François Mitterrand of France and King Juan Carlos I of Spain. In November 1994 – six months after his election as president – Mandela formally proposed that South Africa should be the venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

However, British Prime Minister John Major flatly rejected the idea saying the British government did not have confidence in foreign courts. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the 1997 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned:

"No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge."

A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scots law, and President Mandela began negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999. At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was found not guilty, but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's initial appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. }}

Megrahi was subsequently moved to Greenock jail and out of solitary confinement. In August 2009 Megrahi, suffering from cancer and expected to have only 3 months left to live, was released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya. The Nelson Mandela Foundation expressed its support for the decision to release Megrahi in a letter sent to the Scottish Government on behalf of Mandela.

Marriage and family

Mandela has been married three times, has fathered six children, has twenty grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren. He is grandfather to Chief Mandla Mandela.

First marriage

Mandela's first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase who, like Mandela, was also from what later became the Transkei area of South Africa, although they actually met in Johannesburg. The couple broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah's Witness, a religion which requires political neutrality. Evelyn Mase died in 2004. The couple had two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) (1946–1969) and Makgatho Mandela (1950–2005), and two daughters, both named Makaziwe Mandela (known as Maki; born 1947 and 1953). Their first daughter died aged nine months, and they named their second daughter in her honour. All their children were educated at the United World College of Waterford Kamhlaba. Thembi was killed in a car crash in 1969 at the age of twenty-five, while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, and Mandela was not allowed to attend the funeral. Makgatho died of AIDS in 2005, aged 54.

Second marriage

Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. They had two daughters, Zenani (Zeni), born 4 February 1958, and Zindziswa (Zindzi) Mandela-Hlongwane, born 1960.

Mandela still languished in prison when his daughter Zenani was married to Prince Thumbumuzi Dlamini in 1973, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland. Although she had vivid memories of her father, from the age of four up until sixteen, South African authorities did not permit her to visit him. The Dlamini couple live and run a business in Boston. One of their sons, Prince Cedza Dlamini (born 1976), educated in the United States, has followed in his grandfather's footsteps as an international advocate for human rights and humanitarian aid.

Third marriage

Mandela was remarried, on his 80th birthday in 1998, to Graça Machel née Simbine, widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and ANC ally who was killed in an air crash 12 years earlier. The wedding followed months of international negotiations to set the unprecedented bride-price to be remitted to Machel's clan. Said negotiations were conducted on Mandela's behalf by his traditional sovereign, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo. The paramount chief's grandfather was the regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo, who had arranged a marriage for Mandela, which he eluded by fleeing to Johannesburg in 1940.

Retirement

Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 75 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term and retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.

After his retirement as President, Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations. He has expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History movement of which the ONE Campaign is a part. The Nelson Mandela Invitational charity golf tournament, hosted by Gary Player, has raised over twenty million rand for children's charities since its inception in 2000. This annual special event has become South Africa's most successful charitable sports gathering and benefits both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Gary Player Foundation equally for various children's causes around the world.

Mandela is a vocal supporter of SOS Children's Villages, the world's largest organisation dedicated to raising orphaned and abandoned children. Mandela appeared in a televised advertisement for the 2006 Winter Olympics, and was quoted for the International Olympic Committee's Celebrate Humanity campaign:

Health

In July 2001 Mandela was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. He was treated with a seven-week course of radiation. In 2003 Mandela's death was incorrectly announced by CNN when his pre-written obituary (along with those of several other famous figures) was inadvertently published on CNN's web site due to a fault in password protection. In 2007 a fringe right-wing group distributed hoax email and SMS messages claiming that the authorities had covered up Mandela's death and that white South Africans would be massacred after his funeral. Mandela was on holiday in Mozambique at the time.

In June 2004, at age 85, Mandela announced that he would be retiring from public life. His health had been declining, and he wanted to enjoy more time with his family. Mandela said that he did not intend to hide away totally from the public, but wanted to be in a position "of calling you to ask whether I would be welcome, rather than being called upon to do things and participate in events. My appeal therefore is: Don't call me, I will call you." Since 2003, he has appeared in public less often and has been less vocal on topical issues.

Mandela's 90th birthday was marked across the country on 18 July 2008, with the main celebrations held at his home town of Qunu. A concert in his honour was also held in Hyde Park, London. In a speech to mark his birthday, Mandela called for the rich people to help poor people across the world.

Elders

On 18 July 2007, Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu convened a group of world leaders in Johannesburg to contribute their wisdom and independent leadership to address the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday.

Archbishop Tutu serves as the chair of The Elders. The founding members of this group also include Graça Machel, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus.

"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken", Mandela commented. "Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."

AIDS engagement

Since his retirement, one of Mandela's primary commitments has been to the fight against AIDS. He gave the closing address at the XIII International AIDS Conference in 2000, in Durban, South Africa. In 2003, he had already lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number. In July 2004, he flew to Bangkok to speak at the XV International AIDS Conference. His son, Makgatho Mandela, died of AIDS on 6 January 2005. Mandela's AIDS activism is chronicled in Stephanie Nolen's book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa.

Criticism of U.S. and UK foreign policy

Nelson Mandela had strongly opposed the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo and called it an attempt by the world's powerful nations to police the entire world. In 2002 and 2003, Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the administration of U.S. president George W. Bush in a number of speeches. Criticising the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, "It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations." Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq only if it is ordered by the UN. Mandela also insinuated that the United States may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan on the issue of the war. "Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals [sic] were white".

He urged the people of the U.S. to join massive protests against Bush and called on world leaders, especially those with vetoes in the UN Security Council, to oppose him. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust." He attacked the United States for its record on human rights and for dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II. "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care."

Ismail Ayob controversy

Ismail Ayob was a trusted friend and personal attorney of Mandela for over 30 years. In May 2005, Ayob was asked by Mandela to stop selling prints signed by Mandela and to account for the proceeds of their sale. This bitter dispute led to an extensive application to the High Court of South Africa by Mandela that year. Ayob denied any wrongdoing, and claimed that he was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by Mandela's advisors, in particular, lawyer George Bizos.

In 2005, and 2006 Ayob, his wife, and son were subjected to a verbal attack by Mandela's advisors. The dispute was widely reported in the media, with Ayob being portrayed in a negative light, culminating in the action by Mandela to the High Court. There were public meetings at which Mandela associates attacked Ayob and there were calls for Ayob and his family to be ostracised by society. The defence of Ismail and Zamila Ayob (his wife, and a fellow respondent) included documents signed by Mandela and witnessed by his secretaries, that, they claimed, refuted many of the allegations made by Nelson Mandela and his advisors.

The dispute again made headlines in February 2007 when, during a hearing in the Johannesburg High Court, Ayob promised to pay R700 000 to Mandela, which Ayob had transferred into trusts for Mandela's children, and apologised, although he later claimed that he was the victim of a "vendetta", by Mandela. Some media commentators expressed sympathy for Ayob's position, pointing out that Mandela's iconic status would make it difficult for Ayob to be treated fairly. Ayob later resigned from the Trust. In 2006, the two remaining trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust launched an application against Ayob for disbursing money from the trust without their consent. Ayob claimed that this money was paid to the South African Revenue Service, to Mandela's children and grandchildren, to Mandela himself, and to an accounting company for four years of accounting work. It was alleged that Ayob made defamatory remarks about Mandela in his affidavit, for which the court order stated that Ayob should apologise. It was pointed out that these remarks, which centred on Nelson Mandela holding foreign bank accounts and not paying tax on these, had not originated from Ayob's affidavit but from Nelson Mandela's and George Bizos's own affidavits.

Blood Diamond controversy

In a The New Republic article in December 2006, Nelson Mandela was criticised for a number of positive comments he had made about the diamond industry. There were concerns that this would benefit suppliers of blood diamonds. In a letter to Edward Zwick, the director of the motion picture Blood Diamond, Mandela had noted that:

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The New Republic article claims that this comment, as well as various pro-diamond-industry initiatives and statements during his life and during his time as a president of South Africa, were influenced by both his friendship with Harry Oppenheimer, former chairman of De Beers, as well as an outlook for 'narrow national interests' of South Africa (which is a major diamond producer).

Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe who has led the country since independence in 1980, has been widely criticised internationally for the 1980s fighting which killed about 3000 people as well as corruption, incompetent administration, political oppression and cronyism that has ultimately led to the economic collapse of the country.

Despite their common background as national liberators, Mandela and Mugabe were seldom seen as close. Mandela criticised Mugabe in 2000, referring to African leaders who had liberated their countries but had then overstayed their welcome. In his retirement, Mandela spoke out less often on Zimbabwe and other international and domestic issues, sometimes leading to criticism for not using his influence to greater effect to persuade Mugabe to moderate his policies. His lawyer George Bizos revealed that Mandela has been advised on medical grounds to avoid engaging in stressful activity such as political controversy. Nonetheless, in 2007, Mandela attempted to persuade Mugabe to leave office "sooner than later", with "a modicum of dignity", before he was hounded out like Augusto Pinochet. Mugabe did not respond to this approach. In June 2008, at the height of the crisis over the Zimbabwean presidential election, Mandela condemned the "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe.

Acclaim

commemorative stamp]]

According to an article in Newsweek magazine, "Mandela rightly occupies an untouched place in the South African imagination. He's the national liberator, the saviour, its Washington and Lincoln rolled into one".

In November 2009, the United Nations General Assembly announced that Mandela's birthday, 18 July, is to be known as "Mandela Day" to mark his contribution to world freedom.

Orders and decorations

Mandela has received many South African, foreign and international honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 (which was shared with Frederik Willem de Klerk), the Order of Merit from, and creation as a Baliff Grand Cross of the Order of St. John by, Queen Elizabeth II and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush. In July 2004, the city of Johannesburg bestowed its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the freedom of the city at a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto.

As an example of his popular foreign acclaim, during his tour of Canada in 1998, 45,000 school children greeted him with adulation at a speaking engagement in the SkyDome in the city of Toronto. In 2001, he was the first living person to be made an honorary Canadian citizen (the only previous recipient, Raoul Wallenberg, was awarded honorary citizenship posthumously). While in Canada, he was also made an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the few foreigners to receive the honour.

In 1990 he received the Bharat Ratna Award from the government of India and also received the last ever Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union. In 1992 he was awarded the Atatürk Peace Award by Turkey. He refused the award citing human rights violations committed by Turkey at the time, but later accepted the award in 1999. In 1992 he received of Nishan-e-Pakistan, the highest civil service award of Pakistan.

Musical tributes

Many artists have dedicated songs to Mandela. One of the most popular was from The Specials who recorded the song "Free Nelson Mandela" in 1983. Stevie Wonder dedicated his 1985 Oscar for the song "I Just Called to Say I Love You" to Mandela, resulting in his music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. In 1985, Youssou N'Dour's album Nelson Mandela was the Senegalese artist's first United States release.

In 1988, the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at London's Wembley Stadium was a focal point of the anti-apartheid movement, with many musicians voicing their support for Mandela. Jerry Dammers, the author of Nelson Mandela, was one of the organisers. Hugh Masekela, in exile in the UK, sang "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)" in 1987. Brenda Fassie's 1989 song "Black President", a tribute to Mandela, was hugely popular even though it was banned in South Africa. Nigerian reggae musician Majek Fashek released the single, "Free Mandela", in 1992, making him one of many Nigerian recording artists who had released songs related to the anti-apartheid movement and to Mandela himself.

In 1990, Hong Kong rock band Beyond released a popular Cantonese song, "Days of Glory". The anti-apartheid song featured lyrics referring to Mandela's heroic struggle for racial equality. The group Ladysmith Black Mambazo accompanied Mandela to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway in 1993, and performed for his inauguration in 1994. In 2003, Mandela lent his weight to the 46664 campaign against AIDS, named after his prison number. Many prominent musicians performed in concerts as part of this campaign.

A summary of Mandela's life story is featured in the 2006 music video "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback. Raffi's song "Turn This World Around" is based on a speech given by Mandela where he explained the world needs to be "turned around, for the children". A tribute concert for Mandela's 90th birthday took place in Hyde Park, London on 27 June 2008.

Musician Ampie du Preez and cricketer AB de Villiers wrote a song called "Madibaland" in honor of Mandela. It is featured as the 4th and 14th tracks on their album, "Maak Jou Drome Waar".

Published biographies

Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, was published in 1994, an extended version of No Easy Walk to Freedom, published by Heinemann in 1965. Mandela had begun work on it secretly while in prison. In that book Mandela did not reveal anything about the alleged complicity of F. W. de Klerk in the violence of the eighties and nineties, or the role of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela in that bloodshed. However, he later co-operated with his friend, journalist Anthony Sampson who discussed those issues in . Another detail that Mandela omitted was the allegedly fraudulent book, Goodbye Bafana. Its author, Robben Island warder James Gregory, claimed to have been Mandela's confidant in prison and published details of the prisoner's family affairs.

Cinema and television

The film Mandela and De Klerk told the story of Mandela's release from prison. Mandela was played by Sidney Poitier. Goodbye Bafana, a feature film that focuses on Mandela's life, had its world premiere at the Berlin film festival on 11 February 2007. The film starred Dennis Haysbert as Mandela and chronicled Mandela's relationship with prison guard James Gregory.

On the American television series The Cosby Show Cliff and Claire Huxtable's grandchildren were named Nelson and Winnie in honour of Mandela and his then wife Winnie.

In the final scene of the 1992 movie Malcolm X, Mandela – recently released after 27 years of political imprisonment – appears as a schoolteacher in a Soweto classroom. He recites a portion of one of Malcolm X's most famous speeches, including the following sentence: "We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence..." The famous final phrase of that sentence is "by any means necessary." Mandela informed director Spike Lee that he could not utter the phrase on camera fearing that the apartheid government would use it against him if he did. Lee obliged, and the final seconds of the film feature black-and-white footage of Malcolm X himself delivering the phrase. that spotlights the role of the 1995 Rugby World Cup win in post-apartheid South Africa. Carlin sold the film rights to Morgan Freeman. The film, entitled Invictus, was directed by Clint Eastwood, and featured Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Pienaar.

Statues and civic tributes

On 30 April 2001, Nelson Mandela Gardens in Millenium Square, Leeds was officially opened and Nelson Mandela was awarded the freedom of the city and awarded a commemorative 'golden owl' (the heraldic symbol of Leeds). In a speech outside Leeds Civic Hall in front of 5000 people, mistakenly Mandela famously thanked 'the people of Liverpool for their generosity'.

On 31 March 2004, Sandton Square in Johannesburg was renamed Nelson Mandela Square, after a 6-metre statue of Nelson Mandela was installed on the square to honour the famous South African statesman.

On 29 August 2007, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Parliament Square in London by Richard Attenborough, Ken Livingstone, Wendy Woods (widow of Donald Woods), and Gordon Brown. The campaign to erect the statue was started in 2000 by the late Donald Woods, a South African journalist driven into exile because of his anti-apartheid activities. Mandela stated that it represented not just him, but all those who have resisted oppression, especially those in South Africa. He added: "The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered." An earlier London statue resides on the South Bank of The Thames, dating from 1985.

On 27 August 2008, a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled at Groot Drakenstein Correctional Centre between Paarl and Franshhoek on the R301 road, near Cape Town. Formerly known as Victor Verster, this was where Mandela spent the last few years of his 27 years in jail in relative comfort, as he and other ANC stalwarts negotiated with the apartheid government on the terms of his release and the nature of the new South Africa. It stands on the very spot where Mandela took his first steps as a free man. Just outside the prison gates – the culmination of the Long Walk to Freedom – the title of Mandela's autobiography.

After 1989's Loma Prieta Earthquake demolished the Cypress Street Viaduct portion of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, California, the city renamed the street-level boulevard that replaced it Mandela Parkway in his honour.

In Leicester, England there is a Nelson Mandela Park with the slogan "South Africa belongs to all those who live there, Black and White". It is opposite Leicester Tigers ground Welford Road.

Nelson Mandela Day

Mandela Day on 18 July is an annual international day adopted by the United Nations. Individuals, communities and organisations are asked to donate 67 minutes to doing something for others, commemorating the 67 years that Nelson Mandela gave to the struggle for social justice.

Other

In 2004, zoologists Brent E. Hendrixson and Jason E. Bond named a South African species of trapdoor spider in the family Ctenizidae as Stasimopus mandelai, "honouring Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and one of the great moral leaders of our time."

See also

Free Nelson Mandela

List of black Nobel Laureates

References

Further reading

External links

Nelson Mandela – Biography at Nobelprize.org

Nelson Mandela Foundation

Nelson Mandela Children's Fund

Nelson Mandela Children's Fund (Canada)

Time 100 profile

Mandela: An Audio History

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation Documentary & Soundtrack

The Elders

The Art of Nelson Mandela

CBC Digital Archives – Nelson Mandela: Prisoner, president, peacemaker

Nelson Mandela: A Hero's Way - slideshow by Life magazine

Martin Meredith: Nelson Mandela: A Biography - Interview May 2010

Nelson Mandela Day

Nelson Mandela Day - official site

|- |years=1998–1999}}

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Name	Che Guevara
Caption	"Guerrillero Heroico" Che Guevara at the La Coubre memorial service.Taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960.
Birth date	June 14, 1928 National Liberation Army (Bolivia)
Religion	None (atheism)
Spouse	Hilda Gadea (1955-1959)Aleida March (from 1959)
Children	Hilda (1956-1995), Aleida (born 1960), Camilo (born 1962), Celia (born 1963), Ernesto (born 1965)
Signature	CheGuevaraSignature.svg
Website

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (; June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, since his death, Guevara's stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global insignia within popular culture.

As a medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was transformed by the endemic poverty he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region's ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and travelled to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included instituting agrarian reform as minister of industries, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was declared "the most famous photograph in the world."

Early life

Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928 In lieu of his parents' surnames, his legal name (Ernesto Guevara) will sometimes appear with de la Serna, or Lynch accompanying it. In reference to Che's "restless" nature, his father declared "the first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels." Very early on in life Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an "affinity for the poor." Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy. His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.

Though suffering crippling bouts of acute asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, soccer, golf, and shooting; while also becoming an "untiring" cyclist. He was an avid rugby union player, and played at fly-half for the University of Buenos Aires First XV. His rugby playing earned him the nickname "Fuser"—a contraction of El Furibundo (raging) and his mother's surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman. He could also recite Rudyard Kipling's "If—" and José Hernández's "Martín Fierro" from memory. Additionally, he enjoyed the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H.G. Wells, and Robert Frost.

As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers Horacio Quiroga, Ciro Alegría, Jorge Icaza, Rubén Darío, and Miguel Asturias.

Years later, a February 13, 1958, declassified CIA 'biographical and personality report' would make note of Guevara’s wide range of academic interests and intellect, describing him as "quite well read" while adding that "Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino."

Motorcycle journey

In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His "hunger to explore the world" led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that would fundamentally change the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition in 1950 was a 4,500 kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small motor. This was followed in 1951 by a nine month 8,000 kilometer (5,000 mi) continental motorcycle trek through most of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from studies to embark with his friend Alberto Granado, with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River.

. The red arrows correspond to air travel.]] (left) aboard their "Mambo-Tango" wooden raft on the Amazon River in June of 1952. The raft was a gift from the lepers whom they had treated.]]

In Chile, Guevara found himself enraged by the working conditions of the miners in Anaconda's Chuquicamata copper mine; and moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who didn't even own a blanket, describing them as "the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation." Additionally, on the way to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, he was struck by the crushing poverty of the remote rural areas, where peasant farmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords. Later on his journey, Guevara was especially impressed by the camaraderie among those living in a Leper Colony, stating "The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people." and was adapted into a 2004 award-winning film of the same name.

In total, the journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and to Miami, before returning home to Buenos Aires. By trip's end, he came to view Latin America not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy. His conception of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common 'Latino' heritage was a theme that prominently recurred during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June 1953, making him officially "Dr. Ernesto Guevara."

Guevara later remarked that through his travels of Latin America, he came in "close contact with poverty, hunger and disease" along with the "inability to treat a child because of lack of money" and "stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment" that leads a father to "accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident." It was these experiences which Guevara cites as convincing him that in order to "help these people", he needed to leave the realm of medicine, and consider the political arena of armed struggle. This affirmed indignation carried the "head hunting tone" that he adopted in order to frighten his more Conservative relatives, and ends with Guevara swearing on an image of the then recently deceased Joseph Stalin, not to rest until these "octopuses have been vanquished." Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala where President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the latifundia system. To accomplish this, President Arbenz had enacted a major land reform program, where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be expropriated and redistributed to landless peasants. The biggest land owner, and one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Arbenz government had already taken more than 225,000 uncultivated acres. Pleased with the road the nation was heading down, Guevara decided to settle down in Guatemala so as to "perfect himself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary."

In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well-connected politically as a member of the left-leaning Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular Revolutionary Alliance). She introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the Arbenz government. Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine diminutive interjection che, a vocative casual speech filler used to call attention or ascertain comprehension, similarly to both "bro" or the Canadian phrase "eh".

Guevara's attempts to obtain a medical internship were unsuccessful and his economic situation was often precarious. On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons was sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Arbenz Government and arrived in Puerto Barrios. As a result, the U.S. CIA sponsored an army which invaded the country and installed the right-wing dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas. After Hilda Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the Argentine consulate, where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to Mexico. He married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955.

The overthrow of the Arbenz regime cemented Guevara's view of the United States as an imperialist power that would oppose and attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. In speaking about the coup Guevara stated:

Guevara's conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened. Gadea wrote later, "It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this."

Mexico City and preparation

at Chichén Itzá on their honeymoon trip]]

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital. In addition he gave lectures on medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and worked as a news photographer for Latina News Agency. His first wife Hilda notes in her memoir My Life with Che, that for a while, Guevara considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by the poverty around him. In one instance, Hilda describes Guevara's obsession with an elderly washerwoman whom he was treating, remarking that he saw her as "representative of the most forgotten and exploited class." Hilda later found a poem that Che had dedicated to the old woman, containing "a promise to fight for a better world, for a better life for all the poor and exploited." Despite their "contrasting personalities", from this point on Che and Fidel began to foster what dual biographer Simon Reid-Henry deems a "revolutionary friendship that would change the world", as a result of their coinciding commitment to anti-imperialism.

By this point in Guevara’s life, he deemed that U.S.-controlled conglomerates installed and supported repressive regimes around the world. In this vein, he considered Batista a "U.S. puppet whose strings needed cutting." Although he planned to be the group's combat medic, Guevara participated in the military training with the members of the Movement. The key portion of training involved learning hit and run tactics of guerrilla warfare. Guevara and the others underwent arduous 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through the dense undergrowth, learning and perfecting the procedures of ambush and quick retreat. From the start Guevara was Alberto Bayo's "prize student" among those in training, scoring the highest on all of the tests given. At the end of the course, he was called "the best guerrilla of them all" by their instructor, General Bayo.

Cuban Revolution

Invasion, warfare and Santa Clara

, Cuba, November 1958]]

The first step in Castro's revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Attacked by Batista's military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards. Guevara wrote that it was during this bloody confrontation that he laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, finalizing his symbolic transition from physician to combatant.

Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they received support from the urban guerrilla network of Frank País, the 26th of July Movement, and local campesinos. With the group withdrawn to the Sierra, the world wondered whether Castro was alive or dead until early 1957 when the interview by Herbert Matthews appeared in The New York Times. The article presented a lasting, almost mythical image for Castro and the guerrillas. Guevara was not present for the interview, but in the coming months he began to realize the importance of the media in their struggle. Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing walnut-sized cysts on his body, Guevara considered these "the most painful days of the war."

As the war continued, Guevara became an integral part of the rebel army and "convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience." The man who three years later would be dubbed by Time Magazine: "Castro's brain", at this point was promoted by Fidel Castro to Comandante (commander) of a second army column. As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness. During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.

In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel's position for attack by the Cuban air force. Such information also allowed Batista's army to burn the homes of rebel-friendly peasants. His scientific notations and matter-of-fact description, suggested to one biographer a "remarkable detachment to violence" by that point in the war. His commanding officer Fidel Castro described Guevara as intelligent, daring, and an exemplary leader who "had great moral authority over his troops." Castro further remarked that Guevara took too many risks, even having a "tendency toward foolhardiness." Guevara's teenage lieutenant, Joel Iglesias, recounts such actions in his diary, noting that Guevara's behavior in combat even brought admiration from the enemy. On one occasion Iglesias recounts the time he had been wounded in battle, stating "Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didn't dare fire at him ... later they told me he made a great impression on them when they saw him run out with his pistol stuck in his belt, ignoring the danger, they didn't dare shoot."

Guevara was instrumental in creating the clandestine radio station Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio) in February 1958, which broadcast news to the Cuban people with statements by the 26th of July movement, and provided radiotelephone communication between the growing number of rebel columns across the island. Guevara had apparently been inspired to create the station by observing the effectiveness of CIA supplied radio in Guatemala in ousting the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.

In late July 1958, Guevara played a critical role in the Battle of Las Mercedes by using his column to halt a force of 1,500 men called up by Batista's General Cantillo in a plan to encircle and destroy Castro's forces. Years later, Major Larry Bockman of the United States Marine Corps would analyze and describe Che's tactical appreciation of this battle as "brilliant." During this time Guevara also became an "expert" at leading hit and run tactics against Batista’s army, and then fading back into the countryside before the army could counterattack.

As the war extended, Guevara led a new column of fighters dispatched westward for the final push towards Havana. Travelling by foot, Guevara embarked on a difficult 7 week march only travelling at night to avoid ambush, and often not eating for several days. In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of "brilliant tactical victories" that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara. In the six weeks leading up to the Battle of Santa Clara there were times when his men were completely surrounded, outgunned, and overrun. Che's eventual victory despite being outnumbered 10:1, remains in the view of some observers a "remarkable tour de force in modern warfare."

, January 1, 1959]]

Radio Rebelde broadcast the first reports that Guevara's column had taken Santa Clara on New Year's Eve 1958. This contradicted reports by the heavily controlled national news media, which had at one stage reported Guevara's death during the fighting. At 3 am on January 1, 1959, upon learning that his generals were negotiating a separate peace with Guevara, Fulgencio Batista boarded a plane in Havana and fled for the Dominican Republic, along with an amassed "fortune of more than $ 300,000,000 through graft and payoffs." The following day on January 2, Guevara entered Havana to take final control of the capital. Fidel Castro took 6 more days to arrive, as he stopped to rally support in several large cities on his way to rolling victoriously into Havana on January 8, 1959. In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a summer villa in Tarara to recover from a violent asthma attack. While there he started the Tarara Group, a group that debated and formed the new plans for Cuba's social, political, and economic development. In addition, Che began to write his book Guerrilla Warfare while resting at Tarara. When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce, which was finalized on May 22. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida. Guevara had children from both his marriages, and one illegitimate child, as follows: With Hilda Gadea (married August 18, 1955; divorced May 22, 1959), Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea, born February 15, 1956 in Mexico City; died August 21, 1995 in Havana, Cuba; with Aleida March (married June 2, 1959), Aleida Guevara March, born November 24, 1960 in Havana, Cuba, Camilo Guevara March, born May 20, 1962 in Havana, Cuba, Celia Guevara March, born June 14, 1963 in Havana, Cuba, and Ernesto Guevara March, born February 24, 1965 in Havana, Cuba; and with Lilia Rosa López (extramarital), Omar Pérez, born March 19, 1964 in Havana, Cuba.

La Cabaña, land reform, and literacy

, Cuban President Manuel Urrutia, and Guevara (January 1959)]]

The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials who had been responsible for the worst of the repression. During the rebellion against Batista's dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, introduced into the liberated territories the 19th century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra). This law included the death penalty for extremely serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to those it considered war criminals, captured and tried after the revolution. According to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, this latter extension was supported by the majority of the population, and followed the same procedure as those in the Nuremberg Trials held by the Allies after World War II.

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959). Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals. Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process. Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as happened twenty years earlier in the anti-Machado rebellion. Biographers note that in January 1959, the Cuban public was in a "lynching mood", and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process. With 20,000 Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista's collaborators, and many of the war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities, | width = 30% | align = right }}

Although the exact numbers differ, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 164. Conflicting views exist of Guevara's delight towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could. What is acknowledged by all sides is that Guevara had become a "hardened" man, who had no qualms about the death penalty or summary and collective trials. If the only way to "defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments."

Along with ensuring "revolutionary justice", the other key early platform of Guevara's was establishing agrarian land reform. Almost immediately after the success of the revolution on January 27, 1959, Che Guevara made one of his most significant speeches where he talked about "the social ideas of the rebel army." During this speech, he declared that the main concern of the new Cuban government was "the social justice that land redistribution brings about." A few months later on May 17, 1959, the Agrarian Reform Law called on and crafted by Che Guevara went into effect, limiting the size of all farms to . Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in parcels or held as state run communes. The law also stipulated that sugar plantations could not be owned by foreigners. Sending Guevara from Havana allowed Castro to appear to be distancing himself from Che and his Marxist sympathies, that troubled both the United States and some of Castro's July 26 Movement members. He spent 12 days in Japan (July 15–27), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba's trade relations with that nation. During the visit, Guevara refused to stop and lay a wreath at Japan's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating soldiers lost during World War II, remarking that the Japanese "imperialists" had "killed millions of Asians." In its place, Guevara stated that he would instead visit Hiroshima, where the American military had detonated an atom-bomb 14 years earlier. and after visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Memorial Museum, Che sent back a postcard to Cuba stating "In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima."

Upon returning to Cuba in September 1959, it was evident that Castro now had more political power. The government had begun land seizures included in the agrarian reform law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low interest "bonds", which put the U.S. on alert. At this point the affected wealthy cattlemen of Camagüey mounted a campaign against the land redistributions, and enlisted the newly disaffected rebel leader Huber Matos, who along with the anti-Communist wing of the 26th of July Movement, joined them in denouncing the "Communist encroachment." During this time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was offering assistance to the "Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean" who was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, but also of Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, were plotting to topple Castro's new regime. It was at the memorial service that Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as Guerrillero Heroico.

These perceived threats prompted Castro to further eliminate "counter-revolutionaries", and utilize Guevara to now drastically increase the speed of land reform. To implement this plan, a new government agency the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) was established to administer the new Agrarian Reform law, and quickly became the most important governing body in the nation with Guevara serving as its head as minister of industries. Under Guevara's command, INRA established its own 100,000 person militia, used first to help the government seize control of the expropriated land and supervise its distribution, and later to set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included owned by U.S. corporations.

Along with land reform, one of the primary areas that Guevara stressed needed national improvement was in the area of literacy. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60-76 %, with educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors the main determining factor. As a result, the Cuban government at Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education", and sent "literacy brigades" out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominately illiterate Guajiros (peasants) to read and write. Unlike many of Guevara's later economic initiatives, this campaign was "a remarkable success." | width = 30% | align = right }}

Accompanying literacy, Guevara was also concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this, the new regime introduced affirmative action to the universities. While announcing this new commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the University of Las Villas that the days when education was "a privilege of the white middle class" had ended. "The University" he said, "must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant." If it didn’t, he warned, the people would break down its doors "and paint the University the colors they like." It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about.

philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in March 1960. In addition to Spanish, Guevara was fluent in French.]]

Guevara's first desired economic goal, which coincided with his aversion for wealth, was to see a nation-wide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He viewed capitalism as a "contest among wolves" where "one can only win at the cost of others," and thus desired to see the creation of a "new man and woman." A primary goal of Guevara's thus became to reform "individual consciousness" and values to produce better workers and citizens. He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run. Such agreements helped Cuba's economy to a certain degree but had also the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met Tamara Bunke (later known as "Tania"), who was assigned as his interpreter, and would years later join and be killed with him in Bolivia.

Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful. Guevara's program of "moral incentives" for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism. In reference to the collective failings of Guevara's vision, reporter I.F. Stone who interviewed Che twice during this time, remarked that he was "Galahad not Robespierre", while opining that "in a sense he was, like some early saint, taking refuge in the desert. Only there could the purity of the faith be safeguarded from the unregenerate revisionism of human nature."

On April 17, 1961, 1,400 U.S. trained Cuban exiles invaded the island during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Guevara did not play a key role in the fighting, as one day before the invasion a warship carrying Marines faked an invasion off the West Coast of Pinar Del Rio and drew forces commanded by Guevara to that region, but historians give him a share of credit for the victory as he was director of instruction for Cuba’s armed forces at the time.

In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note of "gratitude" to U.S. President John F. Kennedy through Richard N. Goodwin, a young secretary of the White House. It read "Thanks for Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it's stronger than ever." In response to U.S. Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presenting the Alliance for Progress for ratification by the meeting, Guevara antagonistically attacked the United States claim of being a "democracy", stating that such a system was not compatible with "financial oligarchy, discrimination against blacks, and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan." Guevara continued, speaking out against the "persecution" that in his view "drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, and sent the Rosenbergs to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world."

Guevara, who was practically the architect of the Soviet-Cuban relationship, then played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. During an interview with the British Communist newspaper The Daily Worker a few weeks after the crisis, Guevara still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal, stated that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off. Sam Russell, the British correspondent who spoke to Guevara at the time came away with "mixed feelings", calling him "a warm character" and "clearly a man of great intelligence", but "crackers from the way he went on about the missiles."

International diplomacy

displaying those countries lived in or visited by Che Guevara in red. The three nations where he engaged in armed revolution are signified in green.]]

By December 1964, Che Guevara had emerged as a "revolutionary statesman of world stature" and thus traveled to New York City as head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the United Nations. Guevara then denounced the United States policy towards their black population, stating:

An indignant Guevara ended his speech by reciting the Second Declaration of Havana, decreeing Latin America a "family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries." The first from Molly Gonzales who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and later during his address by Guillermo Novo with a timer-initiated bazooka that was fired off target from a boat in the East River at the United Nations Headquarters. Afterwards, Guevara commented on both incidents stating that "it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun", while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had "given the whole thing more flavor." to associates of Malcolm X. Malcolm X expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara "one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now" while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom.

On December 17, Guevara left for Paris and embarked on a three-month tour that included the People's Republic of China, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and Prague. While in Ireland, Guevara embraced his own Irish heritage, celebrating Saint Patrick's Day in Limerick City. He wrote to his father on this visit, humorously stating "I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the television [station] came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that, I didn't say much."

During this voyage, he wrote a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a Uruguayan weekly, which was later re-titled Socialism and Man in Cuba. Outlined in the treatise was Guevara's summons for the creation of a new consciousness, status of work, and role of the individual. He also laid out the reasoning behind his anti-capitalist sentiments, stating:

Guevara ended the essay by declaring that "the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love" and beckoning on all revolutionaries to "strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into acts that serve as examples", thus becoming "a moving force." He specified the moral duty of the socialist countries, accusing them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of imperialism. Having criticized the Soviet Union (the primary financial backer of Cuba) in such a public manner, he returned to Cuba on March 14 to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

stance on the Sino-Soviet split. In November 1960, he was received in Communist China by Chairman Mao Zedong with an official ceremony in the Government palace.]]

Two weeks later, in 1965 Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara's pro-Chinese Communist stance on the Sino-Soviet split, and to serious differences between Guevara and the pragmatic Castro regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line.

The coincidence of Guevara's views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation's economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution, Guevara had been considered by many an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba which was frequently compared to China's "Great Leap Forward." Castro became weary of Guevara's opposition to Soviet conditions and recommendations; measures that Castro saw as necessary, but which Guevara described as corrupt and "pre-monopolist." Both Guevara and Castro were supportive publicly on the idea of a united front.

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis and what Guevara perceived as a Soviet betrayal when Nikita Khrushchev withdrew the missiles from Cuban territory, Guevara had grown more skeptical of the Soviet Union. As revealed in his last speech in Algiers, he had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create "many Vietnams."

Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara's fate, Castro stated on June 16, 1965 that the people would be informed when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Still, rumors spread both inside and outside Cuba. On October 3, Castro revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier: in it, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the government and party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship. Guevara's movements continued to be a closely guarded secret for the next two years.

Congo

, 1965.]]

In early 1965, Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. According to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism's weak link and therefore had enormous revolutionary potential. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had fraternal relations with Che dating back to his 1959 visit, saw Guevara's plans to fight in the Congo as "unwise" and warned that he would become a "Tarzan" figure, doomed to failure. Despite the warning, Guevara traveled to the Congo while using the alias Ramón Benítez. Guevara led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo Crisis. Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in the Congo on April 24, 1965 and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward. They collaborated for a time with guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had previously helped supporters of the overthrown Patrice Lumumba lead an unsuccessful revolt months earlier. As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his "murder should be a lesson for all of us." Guevara, with limited knowledge of Swahili and the local languages was assigned a teenage interpreter Freddy Ilanga. Over the course of seven months Ilanga grew to "admire the hard-working Guevara", who according to Mr. Ilanga, "showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites." Guevara soon became disillusioned with the discipline of Kabila's troops and later dismissed him, stating "nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour."

As an additional obstacle, white South African mercenaries, led by Mike Hoare in concert with Cuban exiles and the CIA, worked with the Congo National Army to thwart Guevara in the mountains near the village of Fizi on Lake Tanganyika. They were able to monitor his communications, and so pre-empted his attacks and interdicted his supply lines. Despite the fact that Guevara sought to conceal his presence in the Congo, the U.S. government was aware of his location and activities: The National Security Agency was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the , a floating listening post that continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off Dar es Salaam for that purpose.

Trans-Oceanic shortwave receiver are (seated from the left) Rogelio Oliva, José María Martínez Tamayo (known as "Mbili" in the Congo and "Ricardo" in Bolivia), and Guevara. Standing behind them is Roberto Sánchez ("Lawton" in Cuba and "Changa" in the Congo).]]

Guevara's aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt's failure. Later that year on November 20, 1965, in ill health with dysentery, suffering from acute asthma, and disheartened after seven months of frustrations, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors (Six members of his 12-man column had died). At one point Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba, and fighting in Congo alone until his death, as a revolutionary example; after being urged by his comrades and pressed by two emissaries sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa. In speaking about his experience in the Congo months later, Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because: "The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The leaders are corrupt. In a word... there was nothing to do." A few weeks later, when writing the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, he began: "This is the history of a failure."

Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had made public Guevara's "farewell letter"—a letter intended to only be revealed in the case of his death—wherein he severed all ties in order to devote himself to revolution throughout the world. As a result, Guevara spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar es Salaam and Prague. During this time he compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience, and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy and the other on economics. He then visited several Western European countries to test his new false identity papers, created by Cuban Intelligence for his later travels to South America. As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba to visit Castro, as well as to see his wife and to write a last letter to his five children to be read upon his death, which ended with him instructing them:

Bolivia

In late 1966, Guevara's location was still not public knowledge, although representatives of Mozambique's independence movement, the FRELIMO, reported that they met with Guevara in late 1966 or early 1967 in Dar es Salaam regarding his offer to aid in their revolutionary project, which they ultimately rejected. In a speech at the 1967 International Workers' Day rally in Havana, the Acting Minister of the armed forces, Major Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was "serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America".

Before he departed for Bolivia, Guevara altered his appearance by shaving off his beard and part of the top of his head as well as dying it grey so he would be unrecognizable as Che Guevara. On November 3, 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz, Bolivia on a flight from Montevideo, Uruguay under the false name Adolfo Mena González, and posed as a Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States.

shortly before his death (1967)]]

Guevara's first base camp was located in the montane dry forest in the remote Ñancahuazú region. Training at the camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be hazardous and little was accomplished in the way of building a guerrilla army. Former Stasi operative Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known by her nom de guerre "Tania", who had been installed as his primary agent in La Paz, was reportedly also working for the KGB and in several Western sources she is inferred to have unwittingly served Soviet interests by leading Bolivian authorities to Guevara's trail.

Guevara's guerrilla force, numbering about 50 and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia; "National Liberation Army of Bolivia"), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian army regulars in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region. As a result of Guevara’s units winning several skirmishes against Bolivian troops in the spring and summer of 1967, the Bolivian government began to overestimate the true size of the guerrilla force. But in September, the Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups in a violent battle, reportedly killing one of the leaders.

in Bolivia]]

Researchers hypothesize that Guevara's plan for fomenting revolution in Bolivia failed, for an array of reasons:

He had expected to deal only with the Bolivian military, who were poorly trained and equipped, and was unaware that the U.S. government had sent a team of the CIA's Special Activities Division commandos and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army would also be trained, advised, and supplied by U.S. Army Special Forces including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara's guerrillas. Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents which he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia's Communist Party, under the leadership of Mario Monje, which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana. In Guevara's own diary captured after his death, he wrote about the Communist Party of Bolivia, which he characterized as "distrustful, disloyal and stupid."

He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty; thus the guerrillas were unable to communicate with and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.

In addition, Guevara's known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo. This tendency had existed in Cuba, but had been kept in check by the timely interventions and guidance of Fidel Castro.

The end result was that Guevara was unable to attract inhabitants of the local area to join his militia during the 11 months he attempted recruitment. Near the end of the venture Guevara wrote in his diary that "the peasants do not give us any help, and are turning into informers."

Capture and execution

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban exile turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia. In addition, the 2007 documentary My Enemy's Enemy, directed by Kevin Macdonald, alleges that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie aka "The Butcher of Lyon", advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara's eventual capture.

On October 7, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine. They encircled the area with 1,800 soldiers, and Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca's account: that a twice wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, shouted "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead."

.]]

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera on the night of October 7. For the next day-and-a-half, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and would only speak quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, helicopter pilot Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking "dreadful". According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that "Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke." De Guzman states that he "took pity" and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, with Guevara then smiling and thanking him. Later on the night of October 8, Guevara, despite having his hands tied, kicked Bolivian Officer Espinosa into the wall, after the officer entered the schoolhouse in order to snatch Guevara's pipe from his mouth as a souvenir. In another instance of defiance, Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche shortly before his execution. The executioner was Mario Terán, a half-drunken sergeant in the Bolivian army who had requested to shoot Che on the basis of the fact that three of his friends from B Company, all named "Mario", had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara's band of guerrillas. Gary Prado, the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara is so there would be no possibility that Guevara would escape from prison, and also so there would be no drama in regard to a trial.

Moments before Guevara was executed he was asked by a Bolivian soldier if he was thinking about his own immortality. "No", he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution." When Sergeant Terán entered the hut, Che Guevara then told his executioner, "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!" Terán hesitated, then opened fire with his semiautomatic rifle, hitting Guevara in the arms and legs. Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest at 1:10 pm, according to Rodríguez.

Post-execution, remains and memorial

in the laundry house of the Vallegrande hospital. (photo by Freddy Alborta) ]]

After his execution, Guevara's body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby Vallegrande, where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta. As hundreds of local residents filed past the body, many of them considered Guevara's corpse to represent a "Christ-like" visage, with some of them even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics. Such comparisons were further extended when two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, English art critic John Berger observed that they resembled two famous paintings: Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Andrea Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ. There were also four correspondents present when Guevara's body arrived in Vallegrande, including Bjorn Kumm of the Swedish Aftonbladet, who described the scene in an November 11, 1967, exclusive for The New Republic.

A declassified memorandum dated October 11, 1967 to United States President Lyndon B. Johnson from his National Security Advisor, Walt Whitman Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara "stupid" but "understandable from a Bolivian standpoint." After the execution, Rodríguez took several of Guevara's personal items, including a Rolex GMT Master wristwatch which he continued to wear many years later, often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight, are on display at the CIA. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were preserved in formaldehyde to be sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. (His fingerprints were on file with the Argentine police.) They were later sent to Cuba.

, in Havana, Cuba. Aside the Ministry of the Interior building where Guevara once worked, is a 5 story steel outline of his face. Under the image is Guevara's motto, the Spanish phrase: "Hasta la Victoria Siempre" (English: Until the Everlasting Victory Always).]]

On October 15, Fidel Castro acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout the island. On October 18, Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución and spoke about Guevara's character as a revolutionary. Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy thusly:

French intellectual Régis Debray, who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison, in August 1968, where he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara's capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara's band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were "victims of the forest" and thus "eaten by the jungle." Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara's men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an "illness" which caused their hands and feet to swell into "mounds of flesh" to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands.

in Santa Clara, Cuba.]]

Removed when Guevara was captured was his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he authored about a young Communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears. His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia with the first entry on November 7, 1966 shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated October 7, 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara's decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because of the fact that the guerrilla group had learned Quechua, unaware that the local language was actually Tupí-Guaraní. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.

The Bolivian Diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world. There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias "Braulio"), Harry Villegas Tamayo ("Pombo"), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez ("Rolando")—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events. In July 2008, the Bolivian government of Evo Morales unveiled Guevara's formerly sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event, Bolivia's vice minister of culture, Pablo Groux, expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year. Meanwhile, in August 2009, anthropologists working for Bolivia's Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed five of Guevara's fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of Teoponte.

Legacy

Over forty years after his execution, Che's life and legacy still remain a contentious issue. The contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of unending duality.

As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a new man driven by moral rather than material incentives, Guevara evolved into a quintessential icon of leftist-inspired movements. An array of notable individuals have viewed Che Guevara as a hero; for example, Nelson Mandela referred to him as "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom" Others who expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene who remarked that Che "represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure", and Susan Sontag who expounded that "(Che's) goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself." In the black community, philosopher Frantz Fanon professed Guevara to be "the world symbol of the possibilities of one man", while Black Panther Party head Stokely Carmichael eulogized that "Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us." Praise has been reflected throughout the political spectrum, with the anarcho-capitalist / libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard extolling Guevara as a "heroic figure", lamenting after his death that "more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, (Che) was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution", while journalist Christopher Hitchens commented that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do—fought and died for his beliefs." Guevara remains a beloved national hero to many in Cuba, where his image adorns the $3 Cuban Peso and school children begin each morning by pledging "We will be like Che." In his native homeland of Argentina, where high schools bear his name, numerous Che museums dot the country, which in 2008 unveiled a bronze statue of him in his birth city of Rosario. Additionally, Guevara has been sanctified by some Bolivian campesinos as "Saint Ernesto", to whom they pray for assistance.

Conversely, Jacobo Machover, an exiled opposition author, dismisses the hero-worshipping and portrays him as a ruthless executioner. Detractors have theorized that in much of Latin America, Che-inspired revolutions had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism and internecine conflict for many years. In an assessment of Guevara, British historian Hugh Thomas opines that Che was a "brave, sincere and determined man who was also obstinate, narrow, and dogmatic." At the end of his life, according to Thomas, "he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake", while "his influence over Castro for good or evil" grew after his death, as Fidel took up many of his views. In Thomas' assessment "as in the case of Martí, or Lawrence of Arabia, failure has brightened, not dimmed the legend."

Despite his polarized status, a high-contrast monochrome graphic of his face, created in 1968 by Irish artist Jim Fizpatrick, has become one of the world's most universally merchandized and objectified images, found on an endless array of items, including t-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and bikinis, ironically contributing to the consumer culture Guevara despised. Yet, he still remains a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.

Timeline

Archival media

Video footage

Guevara interviewed in 1964 on a visit to Dublin, Ireland, (2:53), English translation, from RTÉ Libraries and Archives, Video Clip

Guevara reciting a poem, (1:00), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend - Kultur Video 2001, Video Clip

Guevara showing support for Fidel Castro, (0:22), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend - Kultur Video 2001, Video Clip

Guevara speaking about labor, (0:28), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend - Kultur Video 2001, Video Clip

Guevara speaking about the Bay of Pigs, (0:17), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend - Kultur Video 2001, Video Clip

Guevara speaking against imperialism, (1:20), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend - Kultur Video 2001, Video Clip

Audio recording

Guevara interviewed on ABC's Issues and Answers, (23:53), English translation, narrated by Lisa Howard, March 24, 1964, Audio clip

List of works

Originally written in Spanish by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, later translated into English A New Society: Reflections for Today's World, Ocean Press, 1996, ISBN 1-875284-06-0 Back on the Road: A Journey Through Latin America, Grove Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8021-3942-6 Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism, Pathfinder Press, 1991, ISBN 0-87348-643-9 Che Guevara on Global Justice, Ocean Press (AU), 2002, ISBN 1-876175-45-1 Che Guevara: Radical Writings on Guerrilla Warfare, Politics and Revolution, Filiquarian Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-59986-999-3 Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution, Ocean Press, 2003, ISBN 1-876175-69-9 Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1980, ISBN 0-87348-602-1 Che Guevara Talks to Young People, Pathfinder, 2000, ISBN 0-87348-911-X Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2008, ISBN 1-920888-93-4 Colonialism is Doomed, Ministry of External Relations: Republic of Cuba, 1964, ASIN B0010AAN1K Critical Notes on Political Economy: A Revolutionary Humanist Approach to Marxist Economics, Ocean Press, 2008, ISBN 1-876175-55-9 Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956–58, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1996, ISBN 0-87348-824-5 Guerrilla Warfare: Authorized Edition, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1-920888-28-4 Latin America: Awakening of a Continent, Ocean Press, 2005, ISBN 1-876175-73-7 Marx & Engels: An Introduction, Ocean Press, 2007, ISBN 1-920888-92-6 Our America And Theirs: Kennedy And The Alliance For Progress, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1-876175-81-8 Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War: Authorized Edition, Ocean Press, 2005, ISBN 1-920888-33-0 Self Portrait Che Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2004, ISBN 1-876175-82-6 Socialism and Man in Cuba, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1989, ISBN 0-87348-577-7 The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, Grove Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8021-3834-9 The Argentine, Ocean Press (AU), 2008, ISBN 1-920888-93-4 The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, Pathfinder Press, 1994, ISBN 0-87348-766-4 The Great Debate on Political Economy, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1-876175-54-0 The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America, London: Verso, 1996, ISBN 1-85702-399-4 The Secret Papers of a Revolutionary: The Diary of Che Guevara, American Reprint Co, 1975, ASIN B0007GW08W To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's "Cold War" Against Cuba Doesn't End, Pathfinder, 1993, ISBN 0-87348-633-1