Tamara Bunke

Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider was born on November 19, 1937, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.^[2][3][4] Her mother Nadia^[a] Bunke (née Bider) was a Jewish communist from Russia, and her father Erich Bunke was a German communist.^[4][6] In 1935, before Bunke was born, her parents fled from Germany and resettled in Argentina after they faced persecution from the Nazis.^[3][6] Originally, her parents wanted to flee to the Soviet Union, but, according to her mother, the paperwork was too slow.^[6]

Once in Argentina, Bunke's parents secured positions as teachers and joined the Communist Party of Argentina.^[2][3] However, when Juan Perón came to power and outlawed the communist party, they had to keep their left-wing political activity secret.^[3] Her mother Nadia described how both of her children—Bunke and Bunke's brother, Olaf—"grew up in a communist environment".^[6] The family kept in touch with acquaintances in Germany who sent letters with updates about the Nazi regime, and Bunke's parents joined an antifascist group of fellow German immigrants living in Argentina.^[7] In 1952, after the end of World War II, the family relocated to East Germany (GDR), and they eventually settled in Stalinstadt.^[3][8]

From a young age, Bunke was actively involved in political and cultural organizations in the GDR.^[9] At fourteen, Bunke joined the Free German Youth, and, at eighteen, she signed up for the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.^[4][9] As a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, she attended the World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna, Prague, Moscow and Havana.^[10] She also studied philosophy at Humboldt University in East Berlin.^[11]

Bunke was fluent in English, Spanish, French, and German,^[4][12] and she worked as a German–Spanish interpreter whenever Latin American delegations visited the GDR.^[9] She was interested in the ongoing revolutionary struggles in Latin America, including the events of the Cuban Revolution and the war in Sierra Maestra in 1959.^[3][9] She supported the liberation of the Cuban people, and she wanted to join them in their struggle against US imperialism.^[9]

After the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro dispatched emissaries to other socialist countries to garner international support. In 1960, Che Guevara was sent to Leipzig, East Germany as part of a Cuban trade delegation, and Bunke was assigned as his interpreter.^[9][13] She also served as an interpreter for the ballerina Alicia Alonso of the Cuban National Ballet.^[3][14] In 1961, she received an invitation from Alonso to travel to Cuba.^[3][9]

According to Bunke, she "became directly involved in revolutionary activities" and "grassroots organizations" shortly after arriving in Cuba.^[16] She worked as a German translator with the Cuban Ministry of Education,^[3][17] volunteered to teach in the countryside,^[3][13] and participated in the Cuban literacy campaign.^[18] She built homes and schools with Guevara.^[13] She helped plan the International Student Union conference in Havana^[11] and joined several organizations, including the Cuban Institute for Friendship Among People (ICAP), the Asociación de Jóvenes Rebeldes (later known as the Union of Young Communists [es]), and the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC).^[3][19] Through her involvement in the FMC, she became close with Vilma Espín, a Cuban revolutionary and politician.^[17] Bunke also joined the People's Defense Militia and met other Latin American revolutionaries, including Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca, founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. She expressed solidarity with the Nicaraguan struggle and shared her desire to join the insurgency in Nicaragua.^[20][21] In addition to her political and volunteer work, Bunke pursued a journalism degree at the University of Havana^[3][11] and performed Latin American folk music on the piano, guitar, and accordion for audiences in Havana.^[11]

Based on Bunke's personal and political background, Guevara recommended her as a fit for a deep undercover role in an unidentified country.^[22] Ultimately, Guevara's goal was to spark revolutionary uprisings throughout Latin America.^[13][23] Bunke was one of three candidates evaluated for the role, and she was eventually chosen by the Cuban revolutionary Ulises Estrada,^[24] whose real name is Dámaso José Lescaille Tabares.^[25] Decades later, Estrada would go on to write a biography about Bunke's life, using first-hand knowledge, documents from Cuban security services, autobiographical notes from Bunke, and letters from her mother, Nadia.^[26][27]

Bunke chose "Tania" as her nom de guerre in honor of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan who used the same alias.^[28] In his biography of Bunke, Estrada wrote that he and another "compañero"—or comrade, in Cuban Spanish—helped her develop cover stories, allowing her to walk away from her current volunteer work and enter the world of an undercover agent.^[29] Between 1963 and 1964, Estrada helped train Bunke in Havana, showing her techniques she would need in the field, including how to covertly follow and surveil a target, conduct countersurveillance, and use dead drops.^[30] She also received technical training in encrypting and transmitting secret messages and practical military training in weaponry and explosives.^[13][31] During this period, Bunke and Estrada developed a romantic relationship.^[32]

On April 9, 1964, Bunke used the cover identity Haydée Bidel Gonzalés to travel to Prague in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, where she received instruction from Czechoslovak State Security (StB) on a farm outside of the city.^[13][34]. When she completed this phase of her training, she pretended to be an Argentine woman named Marta Iriarte persona and traveled through Western Europe to gather information and build another fake identity, Vittoria Pancini. Her Pancini identity was an Italian–German cover that she ultimately used to return to Latin America.^[35] She later met with Guevara, Estrada, and several other Cuban guerrillas, who revealed that the operation she was preparing for would take place in Bolivia.^[36]

In October 1964, Bunke adopted the fake identity Laura Gutiérrez Bauer and arrived in Bolivia as an undercover agent in Guevara's final revolutionary campaign. Her mission was to infiltrate Bolivia's political and military elite to gather intelligence on the country's power structures.^[13] Posing as a right-wing Argentine folklore expert, Bunke quickly gained access to high society in La Paz.^[37][38] She befriended high-ranking officials, including General Alfredo Ovando, head of the Bolivian army, and ultimately won the admiration of President René Barrientos, even accompanying him on a holiday to Peru.^[13]

To solidify her cover, Bunke pursued her interest in Bolivian folk music, joining the country's Department of Folklore in the Ministry of Education and building one of the most comprehensive collections of Bolivian music.^[13][39] She also married a young Bolivian man in a marriage of convenience, securing citizenship and blending further into Bolivian society.^[3][13][38] Through her connections, Bunke gathered valuable intelligence on the Bolivian military and reported back to Guevara and the Cuban Intelligence Directorate.^[13][26]

In late 1966, Bunke's role shifted from intelligence gathering to prepare for the arrival of Guevara's guerrilla forces in Bolivia.^[4][40][41] According to the testimony of a guerrilla codenamed "Pombo" (whose real name was Harry Villegas^[42]), Bunke welcomed new guerrillas and transported them to a ranch in Ñancahuazú, because there was a shortage of "trustworthy compañeros" in La Paz.^[43] Later, the activist Loyola Guzmán said that Bunke had taken on this role in order to help the urban network in La Paz, which was overwhelmed by the tasks Guevara had assigned them.^[44] Pombo stated that Guevara was surprised to see Bunke at the camp when he returned in March 1967.^[45] According to Pombo, Guevara did not want her involved in direct guerrilla actions, and he criticized her for not continuing her espionage work.^[3][45] Soon after his arrival, Guevara made arrangements for Bunke and several others—the journalists Ciro Bustos and Régis Debray, who Bunke had personally escorted to the Ñancahuazú camp^[46]—to leave the camp, because there were reports that the Bolivian army was aware of the guerrillas' presence.^[45]

On March 23, 1967, before Bunke could be evacuated from the area, the guerrillas engaged in armed combat with the Bolivian army, killing 7 members of the army and capturing several others.^[47][48] The prisoners were released after being given an "explanation of the [guerrilla] movement's ideals".^[47] At this point, Guevara still considered Bunke to be a "visitor" at the camp.^[49] Unbeknownst to Guevara at the time,^[50] the Bolivian army had interrogated three Bolivian guerrilla deserters and found the location of the guerrilla movement's safe house in Camiri.^[46][51] Bunke had parked her jeep at that safe house before hiking on foot to the Ñancahuazú base, and, since then, she had been unable to return to her vehicle. Inside her jeep, the authorities had found documentation that blew her cover, including the location of her apartment in La Paz.^[46][51] Meanwhile, the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was monitoring the Bolivian army's counterguerrilla efforts and exploring ways to provide military aid.^[52]

Due to escalating tensions in the area, Guevara decided to abandon the camp and incorporate Bunke and the other visitors into the main guerrilla column, which he led directly.^[53] He held a meeting with all of the guerrillas, including Bunke, and officially named their movement the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (ELN).^[49] At this point, Guevara may have given Bunke an M1 rifle^[4][40][53] or a pistol.^[54] Between March 31 and mid April, Bunke injured her leg and began to suffer from a fever and a painful chigoe flea infestation.^[13][55][56] Seeing her deteriorating health, Guevara grouped her in the rearguard with Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez (nom de guerre: Joaquín) and 15 other guerrillas, 4 of whom were also sick.^[53][56] The other visitors Bunke had originally brought to the camp (Bustos and Debray) left the guerrillas.^[46] Joaquín's column split off from Guevara's group and generally stayed in the area called Bella Vista in the Serranía de Incahuasi [es]. Bunke remained with them from April 17 to August. According to Estrada, her duties in Joaquín's group included monitoring radio broadcasts and encrypting messages. She also sewed clothes and was put in charge of distributing food amongst the guerrillas.^[50]

Soon after Bunke's death, the United States' CIA invented "sexual scandals" to discredit her,^[82] pushing a narrative that she was Guevara's lover and diminishing her contributions to the Bolivian campaign.^[41][82][83] The CIA also invented a story that Bunke was a triple agent for the Soviet KGB, East German Stasi, and Cuban intelligence.^[1][84] In later interviews, former CIA agents admitted to providing a journalist named Daniel James with materials and background from Guevara's Bolivian Diaries in order to spread these fabrications.^[1][84] James published these claims in The Observer in 1969,^[13][84] and he also included them in a book about Guevara.^[13]

When José Friedl Zapata repeated these claims in his book Tania, the Woman Che Guevara Loved (1997), Bunke's mother, Nadia, sued Friedl Zapata's German publisher, arguing that the book was defamatory.^[5][85] Friedl Zapata's book repeated a debunked rumor from Günter Männel [de]—a former Stasi intelligence officer who defected to West Germany in 1961 and later worked with the CIA—that Bunke had an affair with Guevara while training in Prague, though records show they were never there at the same time.^[26][86] Männel also claimed that Bunke was specifically recruited by the Stasi to spy on Guevara, but journalist Christine Toomey writes in The Sunday Times that this claim can be "dismissed", based on her investigative reporting.^[13] In an interview with Junge Welt in 1998, Nadia said that GDR security services did not have any documents belonging to her daughter.^[85][87] Nadia also personally traveled to Moscow and obtained a statement from the press office of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, affirming that her daughter never worked for the KGB.^[5][13][88] Ultimately, Nadia's lawsuit was successful, and the courts deemed Friedl Zapata's book defamatory and banned it from being sold in Germany.^[5][13][89]

Other claims circulated about Bunke that were later discredited: for example, in a biography about Guevara, Jorge Castañeda Gutman published a rumor that Bunke was pregnant when she died.^[90] However, this rumor was discredited in 2017 when a doctor named Moisés Abraham Baptista revealed that he had conducted an autopsy on Bunke after her body was retrieved by the Bolivian army. Abraham Baptista affirmed that Bunke was not pregnant.^[90] Historian Richard Gott writes that Bunke was also accused of betraying her comrades, after her jeep was discovered by the Bolivian authorities in Camiri.^[51] However, Gott notes that three guerrilla deserters had already been apprehended beforehand and "the damage had been done ... long before the army found her jeep".^[51]