Sorry this took so long...and now for Che

Che has left the building:

After April 1965 Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. He was not seen in public after his return to Havana on March 14 from a three-month tour during which he visited the People's Republic of China, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania. Guevara's whereabouts were the great mystery of 1965 in Cuba, as he was regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the relative failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara's pro-Chinese Communist tendencies as the Sino-Soviet split grew more pronounced, and to serious differences between Guevara and the Cuban leadership regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line. It may also be that Fidel had grown increasingly wary of Che Guevara's popularity and considered him a potential threat. Castro's explanations for Che's disappearance have always been suspect (see below) and many found it surprising that Che never announced his intentions publicly, but only through an undated letter to Castro.

According to Western observers of the Cuban situation, the fact that Guevara was opposed to Soviet conditions and recommendations that Castro seemed obliged to accept might have been the reason for his disappearance.

Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara's fate, Castro stated on June 16, 1965 that the people would be informed about Guevara when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Numerous rumors about his disappearance spread both inside and outside Cuba. On October 3 of that year, Castro revealed an undated letter[11] purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier in which Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but stated his intention to leave Cuba to fight abroad for the cause of the revolution. He explained that "other nations of the world are calling for the help of my modest efforts" and that he had therefore decided to go and fight as a guerrilla "on new battlefields". In the letter Guevara announced his resignation from all his positions in the government, in the party, and in the Army, and renounced his Cuban citizenship, which had been granted to him in 1959 in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the revolution.

He was in the Congos Silly:

In 1965, Guevara was assisted for a time in the former Belgian Congo by guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who helped Lumumba supporters lead a revolt that was suppressed in November of that same year by the Congolese army and a large group of white mercenaries. Guevara dismissed Kabila as insignificant. "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour," Guevara wrote.[12]

Che teaching guerrilla tactics to Congolese forces. His plan was to use the liberated zone on the western shores of Lake Tanganyika as a training ground for the Congolese and fighters from other liberation movements. To his left is Santiago Terry (codename: "Aly"), to his right, Angel Felipe Hernández ("Sitaini").
Guevara was 37 at the time and had no formal military training. His asthma prevented him from entering military service in Argentina, a fact of which he was proud, given his opposition to the government. He had the experiences of the Cuban revolution, including his successful march on Santa Clara, which was central to Batista finally being overthrown by Castro's forces.
CIA advisors working with the Congolese army were able to monitor Guevara's communications, arrange to ambush the rebels and the Cubans whenever they attempted to attack, and interdict Guevara's supply lines. Guevara's aim was to export the Cuban Revolution by teaching local Simba fighters in communist ideology and strategies of guerrilla warfare. The incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces are cited by Che in his Congo Diaries as the key reasons for the revolt's failure. Later that same year, ill, suffering from his asthma and frustrated after seven months of hardship, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors (six of Guevara's column had died). At one point, Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba, standing alone and fighting until the end in Congo as a revolutionary example, but after much back and forth, and after being persuaded by his comrades in arms, he left Congo.

Because Fidel Castro had made public Che's "farewell letter" to him in which he wrote that he was severing all ties with Cuba in order to devote himself to revolutionary activities in other parts of the world, Guevara felt that he could not return to Cuba for "moral reasons", and he spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar-es-Salaam, Prague and the GDR. Castro continued to importune him to return to Cuba, but Guevara only agreed to do so when it was understood that he would be there on a strictly temporary basis for the few months needed to prepare a new revolutionary effort somewhere in Latin America, and that his presence on the island would be cloaked in the tightest secrecy.

Tomorrow: We'll conclude the week long exhibit on Che with his trip to Bolivia, his capture and execution and maybe even a little on how a cult was formed around this international man of mystery.