Against the Wall

The Claim
A Cuban farmer refused to work under the Castro government. Revolutionary icon Che Guevara presided over four-minute (or two-minute, or one-minute) trial after which the farmer was stood against a wall and shot by a firing squad. The photograph was awarded the 1960 Pulitzer Prize in photography. “You will never see this picture on a T shirt.” “Wake up America! This is how socialism treat[s] land owners and business owners.”

The Lie
The photograph was made in January 17, 1959 by Andrew Lopez of United Press International, in the first weeks after the Cuban revolution. It did win the 1960 Pulitzer Prize in photography, one of a sequence of four made in Matanzas, Cuba. However, the man receiving last rites before his execution is not a farmer. He is Jose “Pepe Caliente” Rodriguez, a corporal in the repressive regime of Fulgencio Batista, just overthrown. According to UPI’s account at the time, a two-hour tribunal in San Severino fortress in Matanzas convicted Rodriguez in the murder of two brothers. Che Guevara is not mentioned. Rodriguez was then taken to the courtyard below. “When I saw him marching down the stairs,” said the photographer, “I went in front of him and into this huge, open air, dungeon-like area. I started to make pictures. When Pepe Caliente fell to his knees as a priest held up a cross for him to kiss, the scene was one that will be hard to forget. I honestly felt like crying … While all this was going on, the firing squad in the background impatiently was waiting for this scene to end so they could perform their duty.”