Bolivian Attacks C.I.A.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31761, 19 August 1968, Page 17

Bolivian Attacks C.I.A.

(N.ZPA-Reuter—Copyright)

LIMA, August 18. The former Bolivian Minister, Antonio Arguedas, said in Lima yesterday that his handing over of “Che” Guevara s diary to the Cuban Government was an act of rebellion against the “blackmail, outrages, and vileness” of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr Arguedas, who rocked the Government when he fled from Bolivia, and admitted he had delivered the late guerrilla leader's diary to the Havana regime last month, told a press conference in Lima, before returning to La Paz, that a copy of the diary was given to him by a C.I.A. agent

The agent whom he identified as Hugo Murray, security director of the United States Agency for International Development in Bolivia, gave him the copy, he alleged, to be used to put the “Cuban revolution and Commander Fidel Castro in disrepute." Mr Arguedas said he was voluntarily returning to Bolivia “to place himself at the disposal of the tribunals -at justice.” “I have no regrets or fears, as I have not betrayed my country,” he said. “It is my duty to Inform my people of the stupid machinations of the United States Intelligence Service.”

The C.LA., he said, had posted Murray to “keep an eye on him” when he became a Government Minister. He admitted he had worked for the agency. “But, tired of their blackmail, outrages, and vileness, I decided to rebel, and as a first measure, I handed the diary of Commander Ernest ‘Che’ Guevara

to the Havana Government," he said. Mr Arguedas, who has admitted he was a Marxist and a supporter of the Cuban revolution, said the C.IA. was attempting to discredit him because he was aware of their “nefarious activities” in Latin America.

C.LA. agents had threatened to promote a revolution in Bolivia, and assassinate all his family, before offering him a blank cheque for his silence on the agency’s activities, Mr Arguedas said. It also wanted him to work for an infiltrated agent in a Leftist Latin American Government, he said —but did not elaborate.

Mr Arguedas was hauled away by security officials when he returned to La Paz today. There is no immediate indication of his whereabouts, but he is believed to have been taken either to the Ministry of the Interior or to police headquarters.