Real
name ERNESTO GUEVARA (1928-67), Latin American guerrilla
leader and revolutionary theorist, who became a hero to
the New Left radicals of the 1960s. Born into a middle-class
family in Rosario, Argentina, Guevara received a medical
degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1953. Convinced
that revolution was the only remedy for Latin America's
social inequities, in 1954 he went to Mexico, where he joined
exiled Cuban revolutionaries under Fidel Castro. In the
late 1950s, he played an important role in Castro's guerrilla
war against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and
when Castro came to power, he served as Cuba's minister
of industry (1961-65).
