Time Magazine hails Che Guevara among its “Heroes and Icons of the Century!” (despite Che’s plans to incinerate Time magazine)

“If the nuclear missiles had remained in Cuba we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of Atomic victims.”(Che Guevara, 1962.)

“On the 48th anniversary of his death Time Magazine ran yet another encomium to mass-murderer and terrorist Ernesto Guevara, better known as “Che.” “How Che Guevara Didn’t Let Asthma Affect His Ambitions,” ran the Time headline.

In fact, regarding their Che-worship Time seems to have mellowed a bit with the passage of time. In 1999, for instance, when Time magazine hailed “The 100 Most Important People of the Century,” Che Guevara was among them, which at first glance seems reasonable. The term “important,” after all, can be construed as morally-neutral.

But Time placed Che in its “Heroes and Icons” category of the Century’s Most Important People, alongside Anne Frank, Andrei Sakharov, Rosa Parks and Mother Theresa.