Ethel Kennedy has learned to stop worrying and love Che Guevara. The 92-year-old Kennedy clan matriarch’s late husband Robert and brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, may have faced off against a Russia-aligned Cuba in the infamous 1962 Missile Crisis — but that didn’t stop her from putting the face of the communist nation’s revolutionary hero …
Ethel Kennedy has learned to stop worrying and love Che Guevara.
The 92-year-old Kennedy clan matriarch’s late husband Robert and brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, may have faced off against a Russia-aligned Cuba in the infamous 1962 Missile Crisis — but that didn’t stop her from putting the face of the communist nation’s revolutionary hero on a mantle at her Palm Beach home, The Post has learned.
In fact, her family says she’s been a fan of Guevara for years — and makes no apology about it.
“My mom loves Che Guevara. Her dog is named Che,” her son, Robert Kennedy Jr., told The Post. “My mom has a subversive streak.”
Ethel Kennedy’s status as comrade to the late Cuban revolution hero was outed inadvertently when her granddaughter, Mariah Kennedy Cuomo — one of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daughters — posted a picture to Twitter of the family celebrating the nonagenarian’s birthday at her Florida home.
In the background, was a framed picture of the late Guevara on a mantle. After the April 11 image was posted, Kennedy Cuomo apparently got red in the face and scrubbed it from the internet.
But a source shared it with The Post, and Robert Kennedy Jr. admitted his mom was not only a fan of Guevara, but also a fan of JFK’s biggest nemesis.
“She had a very good relationship with [Fidel] Castro,” Robert Kennedy Jr. said. He said she met the late dictator several times in Cuba and claimed she once persuaded him to release political prisoners.
During an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in 2002, Fidel Castro “dined next to Ethel Kennedy while Cubans and Americans and even a few Soviet military guys danced exuberantly” in Havana’s Revolutionary Palace, the Boston Globe reported at the time.
The love of Che seems to clash with the ardent anti-communist views of both former President Kennedy and her husband, RFK, who was gunned down in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, as he campaigned for president.
JFK sought to overthrow Cuba’s Communist regime during the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.
But RFK Jr. said emissaries to his uncle were working right before the president’s Nov. 22, 1963 assassination to work out a detente with Castro. He said JFK didn’t want Cuba to become a platform for the Soviet Union.
Guevara was a top aide and confidante to Castro before he was killed in 1967 in Bolivia, while leading an attempt to overthrow the government there. He has gone on to become an icon to American leftists and the famous photo of him has become a popular t-shirt fad.
