The True Story of Che Guevara tells how Ernesto Che Guevera, the revolutionary guerilla leader, became the cultural icon he is today. This two-hour special separates the man from the myth with an unprecedented look into Che's extraordinary life. From his comfortable upbringing in Argentina, to his fateful meeting with Fidel Castro. from the battlefields of Cuban revolution to his failed campaign in the Congo and eventual assassination sanctioned by the CIA in the mountain jungles of Bolivia.

When Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara met his untimely death amid the wilds of the Bolivian jungle in October 1967, he proclaimed: "Shoot, coward, you’re only going to kill a man." The Argentine doctor turned Marxist revolutionary would become a potent symbol of rebellion, liberation and resistance to western imperialism. Following his brutal execution, idealistic young people all over South America chanted "¡No lo vamos a olvidar!" (We won't let him be forgotten) His ideas would influence the political outlook of successive generations, while his iconic visage would adorn countless student bedroom walls for years to come. This documentary comprehensively examines the life, mysterious death and enduring legacy of an iconoclastic rebel. Born in 1928 into a middle class Argentine family, Ernesto Guevara suffered from chronic asthma, and consumed poetry, fiction, philosophy and political literature with a voracious appetite. He trained as a doctor, but soon embarked upon a motorcycle trip around South America which would change him profoundly. The widespread poverty and oppression he witnessed firsthand - coupled with a passion for Marxist literature - convinced Guevara that Latin America could only find the solution to its inequality and disenfranchisement in armed revolution. In July 1953, the newly qualified doctor journeyed through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador. At the end of 1953 he arrived in Guatemala, where leftist President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman headed an elected populist government bent on effecting wealth distribution through land reform. Dazzled by the possibilities he saw in the country, he explained: "In Guatemala…I will perfect myself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary." In 1954, when Arbenz was overthrown by a CIA sponsored coup, Guevara became more confident in his assertion that the USA was an imperialist and greedy country that would attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress socioeconomic inequality in Latin America. In September 1954, he arrived in Mexico City and made contact with Fidel Castro and the exiles who would eventually orchestrate the Cuban Revolution. Che played an enormous role in the guerrilla campaign against Fulgencio Batista, the US backed Cuban dictator. He became a leader amongst the rebels; he and his fellow insurgents would succeed in launching the first and only victorious socialist revolution in the Americas. In Castro’s new regime, Che was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress Prison. He later became an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, president of the National Bank of Cuba and Minister of Industries. He played a key role in crafting Cuban socialism, and became one of the country’s most prominent figures. In 1965, Che travelled to the Congo, aiming to export the Cuban Revolution by instructing local Simba fighters in communist ideology and guerrilla strategies. He later journeyed to Bolivia, where he trained the Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia (Bolivian National Liberation Army). His plans would never come to fruition. In October 1967, he was captured and killed by Bolivian government forces. Speculation regarding possible US involvement in his mysterious death only added to the symbolic potency of the fallen revolutionary. Che’s legacy has been enduring. However, this legacy has often been oversimplified to the point of inaccuracy. Ariel Dorfman comments that: "Gone is the generous Che who tended wounded enemy soldiers, gone is the vulnerable warrior who wanted to curtail his love of life lest it make him less effective in combat and gone also is the darker, more turbulent Che who signed orders to execute prisoners in Cuban jails without a fair trial." Dorfman goes on to opine that: "The humanity that worships Che has by and large turned away from just about everything he believed in." At a time when Che’s iconic image has become yet another commodity in an age of capitalism and undiminished American imperialism, this documentary affords an even handed and thorough treatment to a complex and incredible life.