All about Masetti

Rolando Pérez Betancourt

MASETTI is known, as is his attempt to open a guerrilla front in the Salta region of Argentina, in 1963, as the vanguard of the Guerrilla Army of the People, to be headed by Che. Some things are known but not everything and there were always questions about its tragic end, as well as others, which now, for the first time, are clarified in Jorge Ricardo Masetti, el comandante Segundo, a book of 300-plus pages in length, by Conchita Dumois and Gabriel Molina, recently released by the Capitán San Luis Publishing House.

Conchita Dumois, Masetti's widow and a History and Political Science scholar, died before the book came off the presses. Gabriel Molina is an experienced journalist and writer, honored with the National Prize for Journalism for his life-long contributions to the field and the author of Diario de Girón and Bahía de Cochinos, el mayor error de Kennedy.

Both authors had the good fortune to know and work with Masetti, from the early days of Prensa Latina, which allowed them to gauge the personality of the Argentine who first came to Cuba with the idea of going up into the Sierra Maestra to interview Fidel and who bid farewell to the country a few years later, to become a guerrilla fighter, following the example of the Cuban Revolution, at a time when many in Latin America saw no other route to change beyond armed struggle.

Given the content and the way it is recounted, El comandante Segundo is one of those books that grabs you and won't let go. Anyone who thinks this might be a glorification of the man is mistaken. The book reveals a detailed investigation, with much first-hand testimony and opinions from participants in events - which do not always concur in their points of view or analyses. It contains an exhaustive, revealing bibliography, documents from a variety of sources, including correspondence between Masetti and his wife, the first reconstruction of the guerrilla effort: the preparations in Cuba, the arrival of the group in Argentina via Bolivia, life during the campaign, betrayals, and the fighters' final hours.

"During the following months, around April, 1964," the narration states, "everything was finished. Dependence on the outside for food, total isolation and the conditions of the terrain became a mortal trap. Nothing was ever again heard from Segundo or his one companion. Masetti disappeared thinking about the essence of life, which he was always able to embrace, this essence he perceived and which struck his soul like a bolt of lightning during his last hours as a revolutionary man."

Among the testimonies which Conchita Dumois and Gabriel Molina recount, appear two of an exceptional nature, offered by the only Cubans who survived those days in Salta, now Army General Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, and Captain Alberto Castellano.

The narrative does not proceed in chronological order, but rather begins with the kidnapping of Masetti by the Costa Rican National Guard, in 1960, when he and a group of journalists including Molina, attended a OAS Conference of Foreign Ministers, during which the United States government again tried to isolate Cuba. The first attempt in this body had taken place in August of 1959.

Although the book concludes with the guerrilla effort in Salta, one of its virtues lies in the interrelationship it establishes between the Argentine journalist, Cuba and the rest of the world during the early years of the Revolution.

Multiple events are recounted: the friendship between Che and Masetti, the two meeting during midnight hours; Playa Girón, with Masetti participating as a journalist; The Missile Crisis, Nikita, the Mangosta plan –– Kennedy's vengeful effort to finish off the Revolution; the blossoming of national liberation movements; CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel with the help of the mafia; Algeria and its leaders providing Masetti support; García Márquez reminiscing about his days as a Prensa Latina correspondent in New York; Peronist politics; journalistic trends in the Cuban press at the time and even the nefarious sectarianism which Masetti faced within Prensa Latina, expressed by a group of provocateurs who were later, thankfully, uncovered.

Historical memory - sometimes filed away, all but forgotten - revelations and objective analysis of an heroic effort, about which something was known, but not everything, make Jorge Ricardo Masetti, el comandante Segundo required reading.

GRANMA