Gustavo Díaz Ordaz

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Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
Image:Gustavodiazordaz.JPG <small/>
66th President of Mexico
In office December 1, 1964 – November 30, 1970
Preceded by	Adolfo López Mateos
Succeeded by	Luis Echeverría

Born	March 12, 1911 Ciudad Serdán, Puebla
Died	July 15, 1979 Mexico City
Political party	Institutional Revolutionary Party
Spouse	Guadalupe Borja

Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños Cacho (March 12, 1911 – July 15, 1979) was President of Mexico from 1964 to 1970. He was the last president before the election of Vicente Fox in 2000 to become president after being elected to a previous office.

1 Political career
2 Presidential term
3 Quotations
4 References

[edit] Political career

Díaz Ordaz was born in Ciudad Serdán (then known as San Andrés Chalchícomula) in the state of Puebla. His father, Ramón Díaz Ordaz Redonet, was an accountant, while his mother, Sabina Bolaños Cacho de D.O., was a school teacher. His great-grandfather, José María Díaz Ordaz, a lawyer and a general, had served as the Governor of Oaxaca. Díaz Ordaz graduated from the University of Puebla on February 8, 1937 with a law degree and became a professor at that university, and served as vice rector from 1940–1941. In 1943, he became a federal deputy for the first district of the state of Puebla, and from 1946–1952, served as a senator for the same state. Following that term, he served as the Secretary of Government in the cabinet of president Adolfo López Mateos from 1958–1964. On December 1, 1963, he was named the candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The 1965 yearbook of Encyclopedia Britannica declared that despite facing only token opposition, Diaz campaigned as if he were the underdog. He was declared winner of the presidential election on September 8, 1964. In 1977 he was named the first Ambassador to Spain in 40 years, but several months later he resigned, following protests, on health grounds. On July 15, 1979, he died in Mexico City.

[edit] Presidential term

As president, Díaz Ordaz was known for his authoritarian manner of rule over his cabinet and the country in general. His strictness was evident in his handling of a number of protests during his term, in which railroad workers, teachers, and doctors were fired for taking industrial action. When university students in Mexico City protested the government's actions around the time of the 1968 Summer Olympics, Díaz Ordaz oversaw the occupation of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the arrest of several students, in which many protesters were killed in Tlatelolco in downtown Mexico City, 1968. In fact, the Tlatelolco killings were more of a massacre; the Mexican army fired ruthlessly at the unarmed students as well as many other people who let the students take shelter inside their homes. It is estimated that around 500 were killed, many more were arrested and sent to military prisons without a trial, some people were kept there for several years.The crackdown would eventually be denounced by his successors, and ordinary Mexicans view the assault of unarmed students as an atrocity. The stain of Tlatelolco would remain on PRI rule for many years.

Díaz Ordaz was praised for his handling of the Mexican economy, keeping it stable, growing and prosperous by preventing the devaluation of the peso and warding off inflation; during his mandate, the Mexican gold peso was one of the most reliable forms of bullion in the world. He also worked for agricultural reforms and improved the lot of Mexican farmers through irrigation projects and rural industrialization. He also enacted Mexico's Labor Law as it currently stands, and began work on the Mexico City Metro.

[edit] Quotations

¡De lo que más orgulloso de esos seis años, es el año de 1968, porque me permitió salvar a mi país! ("What I am most proud of those six years, is the year of 1968, because it allowed me to save my country.")

[edit] References

(Spanish) Concise Biography
(Spanish) Biography on Monografias.com
Camp, Roderic A. Mexican Political Biographies. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona, 1982.
Smith, Peter H., "Mexico Since 1946: Dynamics of an Authoritarian Regime," in Bethell, Leslie, ed., Mexico Since Independence. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press. 1991.