impressed by her “excellent qualities” that he handled her personally.
In March 1964, she completed extensive espionage training and was
assigned the code name tania.
Selected for an assignment in Bolivia, where her background
would be useful for penetrating the influential German émigré com-
munity, Bunke first returned briefly to Europe to familiarize herself
with her new identity as Haydée Bidel González. Cuban officials
decided, however, that this cover contained too many inconsistencies
and therefore devised a new persona, Laura Gutiérrez Bauer, neces-
sitating a second trip to Europe to confirm the biographical details.
In La Paz, posing as an unmarried ethnologist of independent means,
Bunke had no difficulty establishing a circle of valuable contacts as
well as obtaining a Bolivian residency permit in January 1965. Her
plan to secure citizenship was furthered later that year through a
calculated marriage with a Bolivian engineering student (her actual
lover, dating from her training period in Cuba, was Ulíses Estrada,
Piñeiro’s officer for African and Asian affairs). In early 1966, show-
ing emotional strain despite her unflagging revolutionary commit-
ment, she received a one-month counterintelligence refresher course
in Brazil from an experienced Cuban officer code-named mercy.
Later that spring, Bunke journeyed to Prague to visit Guevara, then
recovering from his failed adventure in the Congo but also preparing
for a new expedition in South America. Mostly by default, Bolivia
was selected as the site of his next guerrilla offensive, and Bunke
received a new set of codes along with instructions to continue her
deep cover work. After arriving in Bolivia and setting up a camp at
Ñancahuazú, Guevara dispatched Bunke on two missions to Argen-
tina to help mobilize the local guerrilla movement. Her desire to be
closer to actual combat, thereby forfeiting her valuable undercover
status, provoked harsh words from Guevara. Nevertheless by late
March 1967, she and two other noncombatants had become part of
his small military force.
Bunke’s fate was decided by a peasant collaborator who had been
turned following his capture by the Bolivian army. On 31 August,
with his assistance, Bolivian soldiers ambushed Bunke and nine
fellow guerrillas as they were fording the Río Grande at Vado del
Yeso. Her body was found several days later and buried in nearby
Vallegrande; in 1998, her remains were transferred to Cuba and60 • BUNKE, TAMARA