In a press conference, he revealed to national and international media the statements of Debray to his lawyer, affirming Guevara's presence at the head of the guerrilla band and describing the group and its activities. Reports stated that Debray first made the statement to military authorities and that his lawyer then revealed them to the press. Guevara heard Ovando's statement on his radio, including his claim that the Bolivian Army faced perfectly trained guerrillas, among them Viet Cong commanders who had defeated the best U.S. troops. The general based his remarks, said Guevara, on statements by Debray, "who apparently has spoken more than is necessary, although we cannot know the implications of this, nor the circumstances in which he said what he has said."
In July, the artist Giro Roberto Bustos also told the press that Guevara was in Bolivia and made sketches from memory of various individuals in the band, including Guevara. In addition, he stated that Debray had helped indoctrinate its members, something the Frenchman hotly denied. These developments forced CIA headquarters to revise its view that Guevara was dead. Back in May, when Henderson went to Washington, he had a talk with Desmond Fitzgerald, director of the CIA's clandestine operations, who, according to Henderson, said it could not be Guevara causing the problems in Bolivia because he had been killed in the Dominican Republic and buried in an unmarked grave.
Also in May Rostow told Johnson that Washington had received the "first credible report" (emphasis in original) that Guevara was "alive and operating in South America" but added: "We need more evidence before concluding that Guevara is operational—and not dead, as the intelligence community, with the passage of time, has been more and more inclined to believe." In late June, however, after the capture of Debray and Bustos, Rostow told the president that the CIA then believed that Guevara had been with the guerrillas in Bolivia. Nevertheless, as late as July the defense attache's office at the embassy added to the impression of Guevara's demise. It forwarded to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) an informer's report saying that following a "run-in" with Castro, Guevara had been shot in Cuba in the presence of Castro and some "henchmen."
The embassy's political section entered the discussion on July 12 and, after weeks of wrestling with all of the information it could lay hold of, wrote a two-page study entitled "Is 'Che' Guevara in Bolivia?" The answer: "We're not sure," as the chief of the section put it. Bolivian observers who said that Guevara was there had not known him before, so their testimony was questionable, as the writers pointed out. In addition, Ovando, who also maintained that Guevara was in Bolivia, had an ulterior motive: The presence of the formidable guerrilla leader helped explain why the armed forces had such difficulty in putting an end to the insurgency. "The government," the political section said, "is reportedly pressuring 'witnesses' to claim they have seen Guevara with the guerrillas.
Top Priority: Field Intelligence
