WILL THEY SHOOT REGIS DEBRAY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000300320006-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: August 1, 1967
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

;Sanitized - A
By OLIVIER TODD
CPYRGHT
Translated from LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, Paris
.CPYRGHT
.y ravoreu reaoing, ny i-iael Castro and Che Guevara, and his imprisonment has
guerrilla activities. Debray's book, Revolution daps la Revolution?' is_ rennrtPd-
Born to wealth and privilege, Regis Debray'the vountr French ohilnsnnher_rPvnlu_
de Gaulle, the Archbishop of Paris and Bertrand Russell. As described by Olivier
T
odd ur raris's leftist rvouvel vaservateur, Debray's life story reads like that
- . - -- ?. .
-1 -
parr
N VIETNAM, in Greece, in the Sudan-here
and-there, all over the globe today-young peo-
ple are being imprisoned and tortured, are dying
in silence. Now, unexpectedly, in Latin America,
a continent whose revolutions are ordinarily
laughing matters for French chansonniers, the
arrest of a young professor in Bolivia-a country
of whose existence Europeans in general are
barely aware-has suddenly acquired symbolic
dimensions.
How did Regis Debray, a twenty-six-year-old
professor of philosophy, get involved with Bo-
livian rebels? What is his background? Why has
there been intercession on his behalf by the Pope,
unofficially, and officially by General de Gaulle?
And why has so much animosity been displayed
by his captor, the Bolivian General Barrientos,
who has alternated promises of justice with
threats of the firing squad in a country that does
not practice capital punishment? The answer.
can be found in the conclusion to Debray's icily
brilliant book, Rcvoltition daps Ia Revolution?
["Revolution Within the Revolution?"].
When Comrade "Che" Guevara resumed the work
of the insurrection, he assumed on the interna-
tional level the consequences of the line of action
that was formed by Fidel Castro, leader of the
Cuban revolution. . . . Should Che Guevara re-
appear, it would not be too risky to say that he
would be the indisputable political and military
chief of a guerrilla movement.
The Boliviannational security service-under,
the guidance of members of its branches for
American affairs and members of the Central In- /
telligence Agency-is convinced, wrongly, that
Regis Debray is one of the few who knows the
whereabouts of Che Guevara, the man who sym-
bolizes South America's struggle against the
United States in the eyes of Washington. The
Americans have carefully read Debray's book
(200,000 copies were printed in Havana) which
spells out Castro's strategy. This strategy pre-
.supposes a unified command for both political
and military affairs under the leadership of the
guerrillas. If Regis Debray is being held incom-
sties/Augur gattized -Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000300320006-1
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