“Che” Guevara became Castro's chief lieutenant soon after the rebel invasion of Cuba in 1956. He proved to be a resourceful guerrilla leader and was soon one of Castro's closest and most trusted friends. As president of the national bank after the fall (Jan., 1959) of Fulgencio Batista he was instrumental in cutting Cuba's traditional economic ties with the United States and in directing the flow of trade to the Communist bloc. He served (1961-65) as minister of industry.
At heart a revolutionary rather than an administrator, he left Cuba in 1965 to foster revolutionary activity in other countries. In 1967, while directing a guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded in a clash with government troops, captured, and executed. He wrote Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Man and Socialism in Cuba (1967), and Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1968).