Early political office
In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a villa in Tarará to recover from a violent asthma attack. He started the Tarará Group that formed plans for Cuba's social, political, and economic development. Che began to write Guerrilla Warfare. When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba, Guevara told her he was involved with another woman, and they agreed to divorce, which was finalized on 22 May.
On 27 January, Guevara made a significant speech where he talked about "the social ideas of the rebel army". He declared that the main concern of the new government was "the social justice that land redistribution brings about". In February, the government proclaimed Guevara "a Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in the triumph. In May, the agrarian reform law, crafted by Guevara, went into effect, limiting the size of farms to 1,000 acres (400 ha). Holdings over this were expropriated by the government, redistributed to peasants in 67-acre (270,000 m2) parcels or held as state-run communes. The law stipulated that foreigners could not own sugar-plantations.
On 2 June, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of 26 July movement with whom he had been living since 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida. A civil ceremony was held at La Cabaña military fortress. Guevara would have five children from his two marriages.
Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, and Greece), Singapore and Hong Kong. Sending Guevara away allowed Castro to distance himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled the US and some members of Castro's 26 July Movement. While in Jakarta, Guevara visited Indonesian president Sukarno to discuss the revolution of 1945–1949 in Indonesia and establish trade relations. The two bonded, as Sukarno was attracted to Guevara's energy and relaxed approach; moreover they shared revolutionary leftist aspirations against Western imperialism. Guevara spent 15–27 July in Japan, participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba's trade relations. He refused to visit and lay a wreath at Japan's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating soldiers lost during World War II, remarking that Japanese "imperialists" had "killed millions of Asians". Instead, Guevara visited Hiroshima, where the Americans had detonated an atomic bomb. Despite his denunciation of Imperial Japan, Guevara considered President Truman a "macabre clown" for the bombings, and after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum he sent a postcard to Cuba stating, "In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima."
Upon Guevara's return to Cuba in September, it became evident Castro had more power. The government had seized land in accordance with the agrarian law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low-interest "bonds", a step which put the US on alert. The affected wealthy cattlemen of Camagüey mounted a campaign against land redistribution and enlisted disaffected rebel leader Huber Matos, who along with the anti-communist wing of the 26 July Movement, joined them in denouncing "communist encroachment". Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo offered assistance to the "Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean" which was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force, composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, and right-wing mercenaries, was plotting to topple Castro's regime.
Guevara acquired the additional position of Finance Minister, as well as President of the National Bank. These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as "virtual czar" of the economy. As a consequence of heading the central bank, it became Guevara's duty to sign the currency. He signed the bills "Che". It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in finance, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about. Guevara's long time friend Ricardo Rojo remarked that "the day he signed Che on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred."
International threats were heightened when, in March 1960, massive explosions ripped through the French freighter La Coubre carrying Belgian munitions from Antwerp, and docked in Havana Harbor. The blasts killed 76 people and injured hundreds, with Guevara personally providing first aid to victims. Castro accused the CIA of "an act of terrorism" and held a state funeral for the victims. At the memorial service Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as Guerrillero Heroico.
Perceived threats prompted Castro to eliminate more "counter-revolutionaries" and utilize Guevara to accelerate land reform. The National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established to administer the new law. INRA became the most important governing body in Cuba, with Guevara at its head. Under Guevara, INRA established its own 100,000-person militia, to help the government seize control of land, supervise its distribution, and set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included 480,000 acres (190,000 ha) owned by American corporations. In retaliation, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower reduced US imports of Cuban sugar (Cuba's main crop), which led Guevara on 10 July 1960 to address 100,000 workers in front of the Presidential Palace, to denounce US "economic aggression". Time Magazine reporters who met with Guevara described him as "guid(ing) Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor".
Guevara stressed the need for improvement in literacy. Before 1959 the literacy rate was 60-76%, with limited rural educational access and lack of instructors determining factors. The government at Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education" and mobilized 100,000 volunteers into "literacy brigades", sent into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate guajiros (peasants). Unlike many of Guevara's economic initiatives, this was "a remarkable success". By the completion of the Cuban literacy campaign, 707,212 adults had been taught to read and write, raising the literacy rate to 96%.
Guevara was concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this the new regime introduced affirmative action to the universities. While announcing this commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the University of Las Villas that the days when education was "a privilege of the white middle class" had ended. "The University" he said, "must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant." If it did not, he warned, the people were going to break down its doors "and paint the University the colors they like."
