7 Che Guevara 7

became well known in the West for his opposition to all

forms of imperialism and neocolonialism and for his

attacks on U.S. foreign policy. He served as chief of the

Industrial Department of the National Institute of

Agrarian Reform, president of the National Bank of Cuba,

and minister of industry.

During the early 1960s, he defined Cuba’s policies

and his own views in many speeches and writings, notably

El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (1965; Man and Socialism

in Cuba, 1967)—an examination of Cuba’s new brand of

Communism—and a highly influential manual, La guerra

de guerrillas (1960; Guerrilla Warfare, 1961). After April of

1965 Guevara dropped out of public life. His movements

and whereabouts for the next two years remained secret.

It was later learned that he had spent some time in what

is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo with other

Cuban guerrilla fighters, helping to organize the Patrice

Lumumba Battalion, which fought in the civil war there.

In the autumn of 1966 Guevara went to Bolivia, incog-

nito, to create and lead a guerrilla group in the region of

Santa Cruz. On Oct. 8, 1967, the group was almost anni-

hilated by a special detachment of the Bolivian army.

Guevara, who was wounded in the attack, was captured

and shot.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

(b. Jan. 15, 1929, Atlanta, Ga., U.S.—d. April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tenn.)

B

aptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the

most influential social activists of the 20th century.

He led the civil rights movement in the United States from

the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His

leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in

ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the