Ernesto "Che" Guevara, b.  June 14, 1928, d.  Oct.  9, 1967, was a Latin-American guerrilla leader who helped Fidel CASTRO achieve his revolution in Cuba.  Argentinian by birth, he was trained as a doctor before becoming involved in agitation against the dictator Juan Peron.  He went to Guatemala, where he joined the leftist regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in 1953. After Arbenz was overthrown (1954), Guevara met Fidel CASTRO in Mexico and joined his revolutionary cadre.  From 1956 until the taking of Havana on Jan.  1, 1959, he fought as a member of the Castro army and helped shape its strategy.

Guevara held several important posts in the Castro regime, including that of minister of industry (1961-65).  He took more interest, however, in revolutionary warfare to spread communism in Latin America.  In 1965 he dropped from public view;  he had gone to Bolivia to train a guerrilla force.  In 1967 his group was destroyed by Bolivian forces near Santa Cruz, and Guevara was captured and executed.  His writings include Guerrilla Warfare (1961) and Guerrilla Warfare:  A Method (1966).