Raúl Héctor Castro

Raul Hector Castro (born June 12, 1916) is a Mexican-born American politician. He has served in both elected and non-elected public offices, including United States Ambassador and the 14th Governor of Arizona. He was the first Mexican American to be elected governor of Arizona. At the age of 95, he is the oldest living United States governor, since October 10, 2011 after the death of Washington Governor Albert Rosellini at the age of 101.

Castro lived in his native Mexico until 1926, when he moved to the U.S. state of Arizona and later became a United States citizen. Through gruelling physical labor and self-denial, he saved enough to enter Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, from which he graduated in 1939. He worked for five years for the U.S. State Department as a foreign service clerk at Agua Prieta, a border city in his native Sonora, but he never forgot his dream of becoming a lawyer. Accepted by the University of Arizona Law College, Castro earned his Juris Doctor degree and was admitted to the Arizona Bar in 1949. After practicing law in Tucson for two years, he became deputy Pima County attorney. In 1954 he was elected county attorney and served in that capacity until 1958, when he became a Pima County Superior Court Judge. His national stature grew over the years, and President Lyndon Johnson appointed Castro as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador in 1964. After four years there, he served as Ambassador to Bolivia until the end of 1969.

Returning to Tucson, Arizona in 1969 to specialize in international law, Castro continued to rise to the top in Arizona Democratic politics. Seeking state office for the first time in 1974, he was elected governor, ending eight years of Republican control. In 1977, after two years as governor, President Jimmy Carter selected him to be ambassador to Argentina.

In 2007, his Alma Mater now known as Northern Arizona University named the home of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in his honor. He also competed in track and boxing for the school and was inducted into the Northern Arizona University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988.

References

• Goff, John S. (1983). Arizona Biographical Dictionary. Cave Creek, Ariz.: Black Mountain Press. OCLC 10740532. 
• Interview with R.H. Castro for the newspaper Clarín of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20 December 1998 concerning the Beagle conflict: Clarín.

Links

• The Raul Castro Collection at the University of Arizona UAiR Collection