Dec. 13, 1964 | Che Guevara on Face the Nation

Dec. 13, 1964 - Ernesto Che Guevara, one of Premier Fidel Castro’s top aides, declared today that in the Americas “the road to the liberation of peoples, which will be the road to Socialism, will go through bullets in almost all countries.”
The bearded, 36-year-old Minister of Industry, puffing on a cigar, his olive-green fatigue shirt open at the neck, addressed a nationwide CBS television audience on “Face the Nation.” He said he could make the prophecy with confidence “that you will see it” fulfilled.
In an additional half-hour interview that was filmed but not broadcast, Guevara asserted that the Castro regime was “not sending arms to anybody.”
“However, we have helped some of our Latin-American companions to acquire some military knowledge,” he continued. “We have never attacked anyone, but when there are people fighting for their freedom, it would not be moral for us not to assist them. We have much enthusiasm for the freedom fighters in Venezuela. We have taught some of them to acquire military knowledge.”
Guevara spoke in Spanish. His remarks were translated by Pedro Alvarez Tabio, first secretary of the Cuban mission to the U.N. He was interviewed by a panel including Paul Niven and Richard Hottelet of CBS and Tad Szulc of the New York Times.
Speaking about Latin America generally, Guevara asserted: “Revolutions are created by the oppressive conditions that Latin-American countries exercise against their peoples. There comes rebellion, and afterward new Cubas will emerge. We are not the ones who create revolutions. It is the imperialist system and its allies who create revolution.
“Revolutionary conditions do exist in Latin America. They are fighting in Venezuela, in Colombia, and in Guatemala. I can promise you that elsewhere there will be fights.”

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