If Lyndon Baines Johnson had looked like Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and vice-versa, would the history of the last 45 years have been different? It is not just a superficial question, writes Deaglán de Bréadún.
Walk down a fashionable street in any western city. There's a fair chance you will meet a young man or woman wearing a t-shirt with Che Guevara's image. There's no chance whatever it will be LBJ's heavily-lined, lived-in physiognomy.
If you had the rare temerity to stop the t-shirt wearer to ask, "Who was Lyndon Johnson?" you would probably get a look of ignorance shading into alarm. T-Shirt Man might even be looking around for the bourgeois police. On the other hand he might think you were talking about the reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson rather than the hapless US president who got stuck in the Vietnam quagmire.
Ask him what he knows about Che Guevara and the response will be more promising. Yes, yes, Che, leader of the Cuban Revolution with whatsisname, Castro. And why are you wearing his image on your chest? Because he was a rebel, man, he wanted to change the world.
If he has seen the acclaimed new film, The Motorcyle Diaries, about Che's youthful tour of South America on a battered motorbike, the young fashionista will know a little more. Like the fact that his hero was born in Argentina, his family were middle-class, he was a student doctor who suffered from asthma and that he played rugby but couldn't dance.
And of course he was handsome. But we all knew that already. Had he outlived his youthful good looks, like Brigitte Bardot or Marlon Brando, Che probably wouldn't be on any posters anywhere. Along with Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Jim Morrison of The Doors and even our own Michael Collins, his early death ironically preserved his appeal. The youth of the Sixties rallied to Che's image in a way that they never could to LBJ with his jowly, mashed-potato features. It was by no means the only reason the anti-war movement was so big, there were many other factors, but it helped.
However Che has his critics, who highlight aspects of his career that get glossed over or explained away by admirers, generally an intolerant lot. He was very ruthless and his memoirs of the Cuban guerrilla war contain numerous accounts of executions by the rebel army. "The execution of anti-social individuals . . . was, unfortunately, not infrequent," he recalled. He also described the "symbolic execution" of three youths who were blindfolded and subjected to the anguish of a simulated firing-squad. Even one of his greatest fans, Andrew Sinclair, wrote in a book on Che that he "advocated and used tactics that were sometimes dubious or inhuman".
That famous image of Che is based on a photograph taken by Alberto Korda during a funeral in March, 1960. Guevara's biographer Jon Lee Anderson writes: "Korda focused and was stunned by the expression on Che's face. It was one of absolute implacability." At this time, Che was in charge of the La Cabana fortress where some of the lesser functionaries of the oppressive Batista regime were held. Prisoners were executed on his orders - perhaps as many as 500. Implacable was the word and implacable was the man.
His admirers would protest that this was a revolution and, in the words of Mao Zedong, "a revolution is not a tea-party". And it is true that summary executions were part of the foundation of this state also.
It is fairly safe to assume that Che would dismiss the concerns of organisations like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch about last year's fast-track trials in Cuba whereby long sentences were handed down to some 75 non-violent dissidents, including the prominent poet and correspondent, Raul Rivero, who won the UNESCO award for press freedom this year. There was a further crackdown earlier this year that received very little attention compared to events in the US-controlled part of Cuba at Guantanamo Bay, which have also been condemned by human rights groups.
Che came to a sorry end when he tried exporting the revolution to Bolivia.
But he died with dignity, by all accounts, telling his executioner, "Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man." The man may be dead, but the image still lives.
As well as The Motorcycle Diaries, at least two more two films about his life are said to be on the way. One wonders how they will deal with his darker side.
Some readers may have mixed feelings about the fact that Che's great-grandparents were Irish.
His father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, was a son of Ana Isabel Lynch, whose own parents had sailed to Argentina from Co. Galway at around the time of the Famine.
Presumably they were native Irish-speakers, too. During Ireland's successful campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council four years ago, an optimistic diplomat from the Department of Foreign Affairs lobbied one of his Cuban counterparts for a vote.
Having outlined the reasons for supporting the Irish candidacy, the ambassador concluded with a flourish:
"And don't forget, Your Excellency, Che Guevara's grandmother was a Lynch."