Francisco Fernández Ordóñez

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Francisco Fernández Ordóñez (1930-1992) was a Spanish politician who became Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Felipe González from 1985 until shortly before his death from a terminal illness in 1992. He studied law in Madrid and at Harvard University in the United States before joining the Ministry of Economics in 1959, becoming their assistant secreatry in 1973 and President of the National Institute of Industry in 1974, but resigned the same year for political reasons. He then founded the tiny Social Democratic Party. In 1977, his party joined the larger Democratic Center Union (UCD), led by Adolfo Suárez, serving under him as the Economy Minister from 1977 until 1980, and then as the Minister of Justice, in which position he legalized divorce. In 1982 he resigned his post, and from the UCD, in protest over a case of police torture, creating the small, new Democratic Action Party. He then joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), becoming one of its deputies in the Cortes Generales when it won the general election of October 28, 1982. he was made President of the External Bank of Spain until 1986 and was made later Minister for Foreign Affairs.