Photo by neftali77 via 123RF

"Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead."

These were his words as he surrendered himself to a group of US-trained Bolivian forces. The beret-wearing guerrilla leader, who spearheaded firing squads after the Communist victory in Cuba, would suddenly relinquish his government post and departed Cuba two and a half years ago to expand the revolution in Africa and South America. But the missions, including the plan to stir an uprising in Bolivia, were doomed to fail. Guevara was captured and carried by soldiers to a one-room schoolhouse in La Higuera on October 8, 1967.

The Washington Post reported that Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban American CIA operative disguised as a Bolivian military officer, located the guerrilla icon inside the schoolhouse the next day. Guevara was covered in dirt and sported an unkempt hair and ravaged clothing. The US government wanted him alive to question him, yet the Bolivian leaders decided to execute Guevara out of fear that a public trial will generate compassion.

Rodriguez had mixed emotions about Guevara's arrest as he felt sorry for the man who assassinated many of his countrymen. In a "60 Minutes" interview, he would recall Guevara's final moments before his execution as he narrated: "I looked at him straight in the face, and I just told him. . . . He looked straight to me and said: ‘It’s better this way. I should have never been captured alive."

Rodriguez would order a soldier to shoot below the neck in order to fit well with the official story that he was killed in action.