Dec. 17, 1964 - Maj. Ernesto Che Guevara, Cuba’s leading expert on guerrilla warfare, left New York by air today on a trip to Algeria.
The move stirred speculation that Cubans might support the rebel movement in the Congo.
Guevara, who had been attending sessions of the U.N. General Assembly, departed aboard a special Britannia aircraft of Cubana de Avicion, giving only Newfoundland as his next destination. After takeoff, Havana radio announced he was headed for Algeria.
Speculation among officials in Washington on the purpose of his trip was based partly on a Cuban Government pledge of “militant support” to the Congolese rebels following the United States-Belgian mission to rescue white hostages in Stanleyville last month.
One line of reasoning is that, while arms and equipment are being rushed to the Congolese rebels through the Sudan from Algeria, the United Arab Republic, and apparently the Soviet Union, the rebel forces urgently need expertise not only from the Algerians but also from the Cubans both in guerrilla techniques and in the use of the modern weapons being provided.
This may be the role assigned to the Cuban guerrilla and military experts who have considerable experience with Soviet arms. The equipment being flown to the Congo rebels from Algeria and the United Arab Republic is said to be of Soviet origin.
Some officials in Washington thought, however, that Guevara’s trip might be intended to allow consultations between two friendly revolutionary regimes on the problems of their relations with the Soviet Union and Communist China in the light of the change in leadership in Moscow. Both Algeria and Cuba have maintained a noncommittal attitude over the Soviet‐Chinese feud.
In this connection, officials noted that Carlos Rafael Rodriquez, president of the Cuban Agrarian Reform Institute and a leading Cuban economist, had flown to Peking from Moscow last Saturday.
Rodriguez, who was believed to have sought to arrange for the signing of the long-delayed Soviet-Cuban economic agreement for 1965, met in Moscow only with Yuri Andropov, a Central Committee official in charge of relations with foreign Communist parties.
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