[NYTr] Gusano CIA Operative to Auction Off Lock of Che's Hair

Tue Sep 4 00:02:39 EDT 2007

Herald Sun (Australia) - Sep 4, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22360082-5002700,00.html

Former CIA worker [sic!] to auction Che Guevara's hair

By staff writers

A FORMER CIA operative plans to auction a lock of Argentinian
revolutionary Che Guevara's hair.

Gustavo Villoldo, who helped capture Guevara in Bolivia, plans to
auction the hair and items kept in a scrapbook including a map used to
track down Guevara and photos of his body since the mission 40 years
ago, Associated Press reported.

"It's time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone
else," Mr Villoldo said.

Dallas heritage auctioneer Tom Slater said it was hard to predict how
much the collection would make on the market.

"We cannot recall ever having seen artifacts relating to Che's dramatic
career and death appearing on the auction market, and we expect this
offering to excite broad bidder interest," Mr Slater said. 

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UPI via ImediNews - Sep 3, 2007 11:32 pm ET
http://www.imedinews.ge/en/news_read/61923

Che Guevara's hair up for auction

 DALLAS, Sept. 3 (UPI) — The man who led the mission to capture Ernesto
Che Guevara is auctioning numerous items, including a lock of the
iconic figure's hair, in Dallas.

Gustavo Villoldo, 71, who led the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission to
stop Che from duplicating the Cuban communist revolution in Bolivia, is
selling a scrapbook full of artifacts related to Fidel Castro's former
right hand man, including a lock of Che's hair, the map used by the
CIA-Bolivian team to hunt down Che and his allies, intercepted
communications between Che and his band of rebels, photographs of the
leader sprawled dead and shirtless in a laundry room sink, samples of
Che's fingerprints and other items, the Miami Herald reported Monday.

It's time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone
else, said Villoldo, who is auctioning off the scrapbook at Heritage
Auctions in Dallas on Oct. 25 and 26.

"We cannot recall ever having seen artifacts relating to Che's dramatic
career and death appearing on the auction market, and we expect this
offering to excite broad bidder interest," said Tom Slater, director of
the Americana Department for Heritage.

Copyright © 2007 by United Press International

                              ***

AP via Google - Sep 3, 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5grp9kE_vAIQPjSNi4eVdz3KCeJzQ

Lock of Che Guevara's Hair to Be Sold

MIAMI (AP) — A former CIA operative and Cuban exile plans to auction
what he says is a lock of Che Guevara's hair, snipped before the
Argentinian revolutionary and friend of Fidel Castro was buried in 1967.

Gustavo Villoldo, 71, was involved in Guevara's capture in the jungles
of Bolivia, according to unclassified U.S. records and other documents.
He plans to auction the hair and other items kept in a scrapbook since
the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission 40 years ago.

"It's time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone
else," said Villoldo, also a veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba.

The scrapbook also holds a map used to track down Guevara in Bolivia,
photos of Guevara's body, intercepted messages between Guevara and his
rebels and a set of Guevara's fingerprints taken before his burial.

It's hard to predict how much the collection will net at auction
because there is nothing comparable on the market, said Tom Slater,
director of the Americana department at Heritage Auctions of Dallas,
which will put the collection on the block Oct. 25-26.

"We cannot recall ever having seen artifacts relating to Che's dramatic
career and death appearing on the auction market, and we expect this
offering to excite broad bidder interest," Slater said.

The Cuban government announced in 1995 that its anthropologists had
uncovered Guevara's remains from Bolivia, and re-interred them in Cuba
without doing DNA testing. Villoldo and other exiles and experts say
the body is still in Bolivia. 