left the matter entirely in your capable hands. Have you got something else for me, Colonel?”
“That will be all, thank you, Colonel.”
Colonel Harris returned to his office, repeated the essentials of the conversation to Master Sergeant Wilson, and suggested that Wilson ask his buddy, the Assistant Administrative Officer (Housing & Medical Services) of the United States Information Agency, which was also housed in the Embassy Chancellery, if he had any ideas where the two Army officers might be found.
An hour later, Master Sergeant Wilson told him that Lowell and Lunsford were in the Círculo Militar.
[ SEVEN ]
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 2 January 1965 1110 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #9.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
By Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, and in consideration of the fact that SUBJECT holds Argentinian citizenship by birth, the following information is furnished:
1. (Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Former Argentine President Juan D. PERÓN arrived in Rio de Janeiro at 1307 GMT aboard scheduled Iberia Airlines Flight 909. PERÓN and party of eight (8) Argentine nationals were detained by Brazilian Air Force at direction of Brazilian government.
2. (Reliability Scale Three) (From CIA Rio) PERÓN and party intend to travel by air to Montevideo, Uruguay. PERÓN does not have visa required for such travel.
3. (Reliability Scale Two) (From CIA Rio) It is intention of Brazilian government to deny PERÓN permission to enter Brazil. PERÓN does not possess the required visa.
4. (Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Buenos Aires) Argentine government has reinforced border crossing points with Army officers under orders to deny PERÓN entrance to Argentina. Surreptitious entry, however, is believed possible.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
VIII
[ ONE ]
Círculo Militar
Plaza San Martín
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1440 3 January 1965
Lieutenant Colonel Lowell and Major Lunsford, both now dressed in seersucker suits—Lowell had considered proper dress, decided against uniforms, and against too much informality, as open-collar polo shirts might have been—walked through a smaller gate in the huge gates of the Círculo Militar toward the Buick.
The driver saw them coming and got quickly out of the car and opened the door for them. He tried to take a small leather bag from Lowell’s hand, but Lowell declined, saying, “I’ll just put it in the back with me. And before we go to Campo de Mayo, I have to stop at the Plaza Hotel for a minute.”
“Of course, sir.”
The bag contained a change of linen and toilet articles. “What’s that for?” Lunsford had asked when he saw him packing the bag.
“Polo, for your general edification, my dear major, is a sport in which the riders sweat as much as their mounts. The ponies are replaced at least once each chukker; the players are not. I am desperately going to need a shower and a change of undies when the Argentines are through with me. If not hospitalization.”
“You’re not any good at polo?”
“When I was a young man, I thought I was a very good polo player,” Lowell said, “and so did Barbara Bellmon’s father. My skill kept me from simonizing a lot of tanks and armored cars, which is how the other enlisted men of the United States Constabulary spent their time. I had a four-goal handicap.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re rated, one to ten, on your skill. Ten is top. Four guys on a team. You add up the handicaps and get, say, a five- or six-, or maybe even a ten- or twelve-goal handicap team. I thought I was pretty hot stuff with my four-goal handicap. And then, at Ramapo Valley, in New York, I played my first game against an Argentine team. They trotted happily onto the field with forty goals between them. Everybody had a ten-goal handicap.”
“You played any lately, mi coronel?” Lunsford asked, chuckling.
“Indeed I have. And I have been rated again, and now I am a one-goal -handicap player, which I think reflects their opinion of me as a very nice fellow, rather than my skill on the field.”
He paused and then added. “Before we go out there, I want to go to the hotel to see if someone canceled my reservations.”
“Can’t you call?”
“I would like to know, if they’re canceled, who did it,” Lowell said.
When the Buick pulled out of the parking area reserved for guests of the Círculo Militar, a black Ford Falcon followed it. They moved about halfway around the wide avenue that circles Plaza San Martin,