"See You Later Alligator" is my first fictional work by William F. Buckley, and being familiar with its author's political views, I was prepared to dislike it. To the contrary, I rather enjoyed it. Far from being the right-wing anticommunist screed that I'd feared, it was clever and imaginative. In fact, I felt like the author was having a great deal of fun in writing it.

The novel takes place during John Kennedy's presidency, specifically in the months prior to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Bay of Pigs debacle has already taken place, and the Soviet Union is secretly transporting nuclear weapons to Cuba. The protagonist Blackford Oakes, a CIA-trained field operative, has been chosen by Kennedy to try to ease tensions with Cuba. Che Guevara, with whom he negotiates, is concerned that Fidel Castro is allowing Cuba to fall into the orbit of the USSR, and sees a chance to avoid that possibility. He suggests that in return for a US promise not to invade Cuba and a normalization of trade, that Cuba would not establish a military alliance with the Soviet Union and would reconsider its policy of aiding revolutions throughout Latin America. Castro, in contrast, sees the negotiations as a way to delay an expected invasion from the US, in order to allow the Soviet missiles to be installed and armed.

The cat- and- mouse game between Oakes and Guevara provide most of the novel's interest, along with the divergent perspectives of Guevara and Castro. Kennedy himself is portrayed occasionally in the novel, in ways not very complimentary; here Buckley's political perspective shines through. In contrast, Guevara is painted as a complex, interesting character, although of course one entirely untrustworthy and ultimately, murderous. The novel's plot includes a love interest, a harrowing escape, betrayal, courage, and retribution. When Guevara has been captured in Bolivia, years later, Oakes makes no effort to stop him from being killed -- a bit of retribution for Che's having killed Oakes' lover years earlier

Buckley's afterword specifies the sources he used in construction his portraits of Castro and Che; for the latter, he relied in part on an account by Richard Goodwin [a staff member in JFK's administration] in the New Yorker. As for the fictional negotiations between Oakes and Che, they are well- based in fact, i.e., discussion between Che and Goodwin in Uruguay in 1961. When news of the Che - Goodwin discussion leaked, Goldwater called on JFK to fire Goodwin, and Kennedy subsequently demoted him. Years later, Goodwin reflected that any sort of deal with Castro would have been politically impossible.

Accounts of the discussion between Che and Goodwin, along with political commentary, are available on the internet :

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/154814
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/05/opinion/president-kennedy-s-plan-for-peace-wi...
https://midnightwriternews.com/che-guevara-richard-goodwin-and-the-almost-peace-... ( )