Gustavo Díaz Ordaz

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Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
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 (12 March 1911 in San Andrés Chalchícomula, Puebla, Mexico – 15 July 1979) served as the President of Mexico from 1964 to 1970. After Ordaz Mexicans did not elect a president who had previously been elected to an office until the presidential election of Vicente Fox in 2000.

Contents 1 Political career 2 Presidential term 3 Quotations 4 References

[edit] Political career

His father, Ramón Díaz Ordaz Redonet, worked as an accountant, while his mother, Sabina Bolaños Cacho de D.O., worked as a school teacher. His great-grandfather, José María Díaz Ordaz, a lawyer and a general, served as the Governor of Oaxaca. Díaz Ordaz graduated from the University of Puebla on 8 February 1937 with a law degree. He became a professor at the 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 served as a senator for the same state from 1946–1952. He served as the Secretary of Government in the cabinet of president Adolfo López Mateos from 1958–1964. On 1 December 1963, he became 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 won the presidential election on 8 September 1964. In 1977 he served as the first Ambassador to Spain in 40 years, but several months later he resigned, following protests, on health grounds. He died in Mexico City on 15 July 1979.

[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 50 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.

Preceded by Adolfo López Mateos

President of Mexico 1964–1970

Succeeded by Luis Echeverría Álvarez