The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties 9781478007104

Citation preview

The Last Good Neighbor

American Encounters/ Global Interactions a series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Penny Von Eschen

The series aims to stimulate critical perspectives and fresh interpretive frameworks for scholarship on the history of the imposing global presence of the United States. Its primary concerns include the deployment and contestation of power, the construction and deconstruction of cultural and po­ liti­ cal borders, the fluid meaning of intercultural encounters, and the complex interplay between the global and the local. American Encounters seeks to strengthen dialogue and collaboration between historians of US international relations and area studies specialists. The series encourages scholarship based on multi-­archive historical research. At the same time, it supports a recognition of the repre­ sen­ ta­ tional character of all stories about the past and promotes critical inquiry into issues of subjectivity and narrative. In the pro­cess, American Encounters strives to understand the context in which meanings related to nations, cultures, and po­ liti­ cal economy are continually produced, challenged, and reshaped.

The Last Good Neighbor MEXICO IN THE GLOBAL SIXTIES

Eric Zolov

Duke University Press ​Durham and London ​2020

© 2020 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­ic ­a on acid-­free paper ∞ Designed by Aimee C. Harrison Typeset in SangBleu Empire, SangBleu Republic, and SangBleu Sunrise by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Zolov, Eric, author. Title: The last good neighbor : Mexico in the global sixties / Eric Zolov. Other titles: Mexico in the global sixties Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2020. | Series: American encounters/ global interactions | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2019033255 (print) | lccn 2019033256 (ebook) isbn

9781478005438 (hardcover)

isbn

9781478006206 (paperback)

isbn

9781478007104 (ebook)

Subjects: lcsh : Mexico—Foreign relations—1946–1970. | Cold War. | Mexico—Foreign relations—United States. | United States—Foreign relations— Mexico. | Mexico—Foreign relations—Soviet Union. | Soviet Union—Foreign relations—Mexico. Classification: lcc f 1235 .z 64 2020 (print) | lcc f 1235 (ebook) | ddc

327.72009/046—dc23

lc

record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033255

lc

ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033256

Cover art: Photograph of LBJ’s spring 1966 trip of Mexico City. Courtesy of White House Photo Office Collection, LBJ Presidential Library.

To the G-­Z Clan, Hailey, Domino, and Beardy included

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of Abbreviations  ix Acknowl­edgments  xiii Introduction: Mexico in the Global Sixties  1

1 

  2   3 4  

5 

Mexico’s “Restless” Left and the Resurrection of Lázaro Cárdenas  21

“Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”: The 1959 Soviet Exhibition and Peaceful Coexistence in Mexico  55

Mexico’s New Internationalism: Regional Leadership amid the Tumult of the Cuban Revolution  80

The “Spirit of Bandung” in Mexican National Politics  108

The “Preferred Revolution”: Confronting the Crisis of Mexican Neutralism  140

6   7  8

New Left Splits: The Implosion of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional  162

Apex of Internationalism: Pursuing a Global Pivot  197

The Last Good Neighbor  246

Epilogue: Into the Global 1970s  285 Notes 299 Bibliography 373 Index 389

List of Abbreviations

aapso

Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization

abp

Avery Brundage Papers

agn

Archivo General de la Nación (General National Archives)

alm

Adolfo López Mateos

ap

Associated Press

ara

Agency for Research Analy­sis

Bancomext

Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (National Bank for External Trade)

canacintra

Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación (National Chamber of Transformation Industries)

cci

Central Campesina Independiente (In­de­pen­dent Campesino

cem

Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos (Circle of Mexican Studies)

Center) cfp

Carlos Fuentes Papers

cia

Central Intelligence Agency

cmp

Comité Mexicano por la Paz (Mexican Peace Committee)

cnc

Confederación Nacional Campesina (National Campesino Confederation)

comecon

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, Soviet Union

conasupo

Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (National Corporation for Popu­lar Subsistence)

concamin

Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (Industrial Chambers

ctal

Confederación de los Trabajadores de América Latina

Confederation) (Confederation of Latin American Workers)

ctm

Confederación de Trabajadores de México (Confederation of Mexican Workers)

dfs dips

Dirección Federal de Seguridad (Federal Security Directorate)

( dgips )

Dirección General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (General Directorate of Social and Po­liti­cal Investigations)

ecla

Economic Commission for Latin Amer­ic ­a

eec

Eu­ro­pean Economic Community

far

Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (Rebel Armed Forces, Guatemala)

fep

Frente Electoral del Pueblo (­People’s Electoral Front)

fbi

Federal Bureau of Investigation

fln

Frente de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Front, Venezuela)

frap

Frente de Acción Popu­lar (Popu­lar Action Front, Chile)

fidel

Frente Izquierda de Liberación (Leftwing Liberation Front, Uruguay)

gatt

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

gpra

Gouvernement Provisionel de la République Algérienne

g -77

Group of 77

imf

International Monetary Fund

inah

Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National

inba

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Fine Arts Institute)

ioc

International Olympic Committee

ird

Information Research Department

isi

Import Substitution Industrialization

(Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic)

Institute of Anthropology and History)

jfkl

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

kgb

Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State

lafta

Latin American ­Free Trade Agreement

Security, Soviet Union) lbj

Library

mar

Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library Movimiento de Acción Revolucionario (Revolutionary Action Movement)

mln

Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (Movement of National Liberation)

nafta

North American ­Free Trade Agreement

nam

Non-­Aligned Movement

nara

National Archives and Rec­ords Administration

nato

North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization

nieo

New International Economic Order

x   —   List of Abbreviations

oas

Organ­ization of American States

ociaa

Office of the Coordinator of Inter-­American Affairs

olas

Organización Latinoamericana de Solidaridad (Organ­ization of Latin American Solidarity)

opec ospaaal

Organ­ization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Organ­ization in Solidarity with the ­Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin Amer­i­ca

pan

Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party)

pcm

Partido Comunista Mexicano (Communist Party of Mexico)

pipsa

Productora e Importadora de Papel, Sociedad Anónima (Corporation for the Production and Importâtion of Paper)

plo pocm

Palestine Liberation Organ­ization Partido Obrero Campesino Mexicano (Mexican Worker-­Peasant Party)

pp

Partido Popu­lar (Popu­lar Party)

pps

Partido Popu­lar Socialista (Popu­lar Socialist Party, Mexico)

prc ­People’s pri

Republic of China

Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party)

psp

Partido Socialista Popu­lar (Popu­lar Socialist Party, Cuba)

rg

Rec­ord Group

salt

Strategic Arms Limitations Talks

sre

Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

stfrm

Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la República

tass

Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskovo Soyuza (Telegraph Agency of

Mexicana (Union of Railroad Workers of the Mexican Republic) the Soviet Union) tgp

Taller de Gráfica Popu­lar (Popu­lar Graphic Workshop)

tna

The National Archives (­Great Britain)

uar

United Arab Republic (Egypt)

ugocm

Unión General de Obreros y Campesinos Mexicanos (General

un

United Nations

Union of Mexican Workers and Campesinos) unam

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

unctad

United Nations Conference on Trade and Economic Development

unesco

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organ­ization List of Abbreviations   —   xi

upi

United Press International

usia

US Information Agency

ussr

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union)

uom

Universidad Obrera de México (Workers’ University of Mexico)

wpc

World Peace Council

xii   —   List of Abbreviations

Acknowl­edgments

­ here is surely no greater plea­sure when finishing a book than sitting down T to write the acknowl­edgments. Not only does this act signal the end of a long proj­ect, but it offers the chance to give appreciation to the numerous friends, ­family, colleagues, and public servants who have enabled one to get to this point of closure. And while the disadvantage of a proj­ect such as this one is that it went on far longer than anticipated, the upside is that it has given me the opportunity to meet many new colleagues working on interrelated topics. The pro­cess of sharing with and learning from o ­ thers whose interests overlap with my own has been among the most gratifying aspects of this other­wise very long haul. The research origins of this book date to a yearlong sabbatical in 2001–2 supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Fulbright García-­Robles. This support allowed me to spend many months poring through archives in the United States and Mexico at a moment when the downfall of the ruling party (pri ) led to unpre­ce­ dented access to secret police documents that ­were formerly off limits. It was an exciting moment to be in Mexico’s Archivo General de la Nación (agn ), and I am forever appreciative of the support and insights shared by the archivists ­there and Ángeles Magdalena, especially, about how to access and situate ­these new materials. Shortly a ­ fter, Gilbert Joseph co-­ organized with Daniela Spenser and o ­ thers an international conference in Mexico City on Latin Amer­i­ca in the Cold War, which resulted in the impor­tant collection In from the Cold: Latin Amer­i­ca’s New Encounter with the Cold War (2008). Gil’s invitation to participate in the conference and contribute a chapter to the book helped set in motion the intellectual and investigative trajectory for what I knew would be called—­even then, or

so it seems—­“The Last Good Neighbor.” Over many years and across vari­ ous proj­ects, Gil has been a generous interlocutor whose collegiality and professional support are a model for ­others to follow. The conceptual framework of the proj­ect evolved considerably following a 2005 research grant from the Mellon Foundation for “New Directions in Scholarly Research.” That funding allowed me to venture to the National Archives in Kew Gardens, E ­ ngland, a cross-­Atlantic excursion that at the time seemed quite the novelty for a modern Latin Americanist to take. Gaining a Eu­ro­pean perspective on Mexican politics and foreign relations was more enlightening than I could have i­ magined and truly encouraged a “new direction” in my scholarship. Throughout this period, I was teaching at Franklin and Marshall College, and I am grateful for the research and sabbatical support extended to me. I had many wonderful colleagues at f & m , foremost among whom was Van Gosse, whose writings on the New Left and commitment to po­liti­cal activism continue to influence and inspire. The research assistance of Sarah Beckhart, an undergraduate at f & m who is now completing her doctoral studies at Columbia University, proved invaluable. I am deeply appreciative of her transcription of several interviews (with often way too shoddy sound quality) and location of materials from the Mexican press that have made it into chapter 2 of the book. Stony Brook University has been my institutional home since 2011, and I feel privileged to be surrounded by many brilliant yet intellectually generous colleagues. I wish especially to thank Michael Barnhart for reading and commenting on several chapters of the book. His knowledge and insights into diplomatic history pushed me to clarify and sharpen key aspects of the argument. Brooke Larson read an initial draft of the introduction and provided very helpful comments. Paul Gootenberg’s threats and cajoling pushed me to rethink the time frame of the book, which in the end proved a wise decision. Paul Firbas in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Lit­er­a­ture graciously hosted me during a visit to Prince­ton University to consult the Carlos Fuentes Papers. A Stony Brook Faculty in the Arts, Humanities and Lettered Social Sciences ( fahss ) research grant in the summer of 2015 provided funding to spend several weeks in the archives of Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre ). This, too, was a new direction for me and the experience proved transformative at a key moment in the evolution of the proj­ect. In 2017–18 a Faculty Research Fellowship provided the necessary release from teaching, which allowed me to fi­nally get over the hump and begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. The reference and ill staff at Melville Library ­were im­mensely gracious and xiv   —   Acknowl­edgments

efficient in helping me locate materials and track down errant citations during copy editing. I have also benefited im­mensely from our stellar gradu­ate student cohort. A Directed Readings course in 2014 on “The Global Sixties” with Ashley Black, David Yee, and Emmanuel Pardo helped lay the conceptual framework for key ideas that ­later took more concrete form. Ashley provided generous feedback on several e ­ arlier chapter drafts, and I am especially appreciative of our ongoing intellectual and pedagogical discussions. The lively conversations and feedback on a draft of the book manuscript in my 2019 gradu­ate seminar on “The Global Sixties” were tremendously helpful, as have been my ongoing conversations about humor, ­music, and aesthetic practices with Matías Hermosilla and Giovanni Bello. A par­tic­u­lar note of thanks goes to David Yee, who took time out from his dissertation investigations in Mexico City to track down random requests I sent his way. Thanks also to María-­Clara Torres, who transcribed my interview with Enrique Semo, and to Zaira Barajas for locating and assembling in legible order the statistics on foreign trade. Several of the chapters from the book have benefited from stimulating feedback provided at vari­ous stages by audiences at workshops, conference panels, and numerous invited talks over the years. I am appreciative of the many invitations I have received across a wide variety of settings, both in the United States and abroad. In par­tic­u­lar, I would like to thank Renata Keller and Christy Thornton for commenting on drafts of chapters  1 and 4, respectively, at two dif­fer­ent sessions of New York University’s Cold War History Workshop. Additional comments by David Reid, Tim Naftali, and Barbara Weinstein at ­those seminars ­were very helpful. A special note of thanks to Barbara, who generously offered me use of her New York University office during my transition year between f & m and Stony Brook, at a time when having a space to think and write was beyond value. I also wish to thank Jaime Pensado for his friendship and collegiality over the years and for his invitations on several occasions to contribute to the productive intellectual dialogue regarding Mexico and Latin America in the 1960s that has unfolded at Notre Dame over time. In 2015 I had the chance to pre­sent a version of chapter 3 at the beloved Washington Area Seminar of Latin American Historians (hosted that year by the University of Mary­land). Feedback from John Tutino, Matt Karush, Daniel Richter, and ­others on a version of chapter  3 was enormously encouraging and helpful. Luis Herrán provided insightful feedback on e ­ arlier versions of chapters 4 and 5, and our conversations about the field of the global sixties over the years have been truly enlightening. Acknowl­edgments   —   xv

I am deeply appreciative of Mark Wasserman and John Coatsworth, each of whom read the entire draft manuscript. Mark’s piercing yet constructive criticisms (I expected no less!) pushed me to clarify the larger ideas and what was at stake, while John encouraged me to think of the broader historical trajectory of Mexico’s pursuit of balancing. John’s friendship dates to my time as his student at the University of Chicago, and the influence of his sharp, cut-­to-­the-­bone logic continues to have a lasting impact on me to this day. Although he is no longer with us, I thought often of the late Friedrich Katz, another advisor from my days at Chicago, as I was researching and writing this book. Friedrich’s way of seeing the world, and of Mexico’s central place in it, directly influenced me as a student and beyond. I hope the final product is one he, too, would have appreciated. Another se­nior colleague to whom I owe a ­great debt of appreciation is Mary Kay Vaughan, whose professional and intellectual support over the years has been a constant. I cannot imagine arriving at this point without the friendship and spirited intellectual engagement of Elisa Servín, someone who has been a continuous source of encouragement as I wrestled with the narrative and conceptual par­ameters of this proj­ect. Similarly, Vania Markarian has been a tremendous friend and a sounding board for ideas; her insights and research into po­liti­cal culture in Uruguay during the global sixties continue to influence me in numerous ways. I also wish to express my sincere appreciation to Soledad Loaeza, who responded warmly to my initial queries and provided generous feedback on parts of the manuscript, in par­tic­ul­ar chapter 6. Our luncheon forays during her estancias in New York City have been a plea­sure. Fi­nally, my research trips to Mexico City would not have been the same without the lasting friendships of John Mraz, Pacho Paredes, Federico Rubli, and Pablo Yankelevich. A special note of gracias to John for sharing with me the Hermanos Mayo photo of protests against Lyndon Johnson, which he showed in a pre­sen­ta­tion at Stony Brook and which appears in chapter 8. Also in Mexico, my recent acquaintance with Vanni Pettinà has sparked an impor­tant and wonderful dialogue. I am deeply indebted to his research and writings, and for bringing to light vari­ous Soviet documents that have radically transformed our understanding of Mexican-­ Soviet relations in the first half of the 1960s. The manuscript benefited tremendously from the diligent and engaged reading it received from two outside reviewers. Each provided insightful comments and suggestions that encouraged me to clarify arguments and remain attentive to certain themes and actors to which I had failed to give adequate due. I especially wish to thank Patrick Iber for graciously sharing xvi   —   Acknowl­edgments

with me his trove of documents linking Lázaro Cárdenas to the Tricontinental Conference, some of which I have incorporated into chapter  8. Many ­others, too numerous to mention or even recall, have provided insights and passed along tidbits of information over the years, and I wish to extend my sincere thanks to all of them. Thank you in that regard to Andra Chastain for sharing with me her data on the Mexico City metro, as well as to Lincoln Cushing, Paul Gillingham, Luis González-­Reimann, and Andrew Paxman for their sustained friendship and hospitality. My ­family and friends stateside have been a tremendous support over ­these years. You are too numerous to list but thank you for your continued inquiries (“How is your book coming along?”), patient listening, and never waning enthusiasm. It has truly meant a lot to me. The chance to talk sixties culture and cinema with my ­brother Jason is always a treat, while getting ­free passes to hear sounds from the era locally at Forest Hills Stadium courtesy of my ­brother Andrew has been awesome. Without playing ­music, moreover, it would be hard to imagine keeping my sanity throughout this pro­cess. While it lasted, a weekly open mic night at the Red Pipe Café (where many a manuscript chapter was revised) brought together a group of fun-­loving musicians dedicated to quality folk ­music. And in the final year of writing, I was fortunate to connect with an incredibly talented group of musicians hosted by David Bowler, which provided a creative outlet far more relaxing than writing. My good friends Scott Latzky and Scott McDonald have been a pillar of emotional support and font for inspired distraction over ­these years. Without their friendship, I ­don’t know how I might have successfully moved forward to completion on this endeavor. Fi­nally, I wish to thank the more recent friendships and support of our community h ­ ere in Forest Hills. To every­one who has shown an interest in the proj­ect and provided encouragement along the way, a sincere thank you. The late Valerie Millholland at Duke University Press was an early champion of this book before I even understood where it was headed. Her steadfast belief in building up the Latin American cata­log at Duke helped transform the field, and it is an honor to be counted among t­ hose whose proj­ects she championed. Her baton was passed on to the equally steadfast editorial leadership of Gisela Fosado. Gisela’s kindness of spirit and reassurances along the way helped calm nerves and keep me focused on finishing. I wish also to thank the excellent production/editorial team at dup who have shepherded this book into print and David Prout for his work on the index. In the time it has taken me to write this book I have been blessed not only with the birth but, alas, the coming-­of-­age of three wondrous c ­ hildren: Sascha, Chloe, and Naomi. I’d like to think that I ­didn’t miss out on too Acknowl­edgments   —   xvii

much of their childhood; hopefully, from their perspective, the same holds true. Aside from assuming their dad is forever ­running to his office and arriving late for afterschool pickup, I do hope I’ve been able to impart several invaluable lessons along the way: that writing is hard (even for grown-­ups), an office can be messy (but not your room), and books, including this one, still ­matter. Fi­nally, none of this won­der much less sense of accomplishment would be remotely conceivable without the love, support, and insights of my partner, Terri. Writing a book in a ­house­hold with three young c ­ hildren directly supports the scientific research that the gendered division of h ­ ouse­hold ­labor is far from even. Terri has kept our ship of state upright and headed in the proper direction in spite of my periodic travels, professional obligations, and sundry distractions—­not to mention my hoarding of ­every spare moment to work on the manuscript. Equally appreciated is her intellectual encouragement and keen copyeditor’s eye, which has helped sharpen my prose and strap down t­ hose dangling modifiers. And now that I’m fi­nally done, I promise to get to that long checklist of ­things I’ve pledged to do. (Any idea where I put that list?)

xviii   —   Acknowl­edgments

Introduction

Mexico in the Global Sixties

This is a book about Mexican internationalism during a pivotal moment in the global Cold War, when the possibilities for a reconfiguration of geo­ politi­cal alignments and revolutionary transformations in global capitalism seemed real, if not imminent. It explores the ways in which Mexico’s leadership leveraged the nation’s Good Neighbor strategic relationship with the United States to take advantage of an international environment rendered newly competitive by the advent of decolonialization and the appeal of socialist models of development. More fundamentally, it inserts Mexico into a larger conversation taking place among scholars who are conducting research into Cold War po­liti­cal culture, social mobilization, and diplomacy from a transnational perspective.1 At the same time, The Last Good Neighbor seeks to move away from a singular focus on repression—­the axiomatic point of reference for virtually all scholars of Mexico in this ­period—to take into fuller account the question of aspiration. It thus directly contributes to the complex cartographical proj­ect referred to as the “global sixties,” an emergent field of research that centers peripheral actors as agents of historical transformation and as the progenitors of noncapitalist imaginaries. Visions of a global reordering did not turn out the way many anticipated, yet new ways of being in the world nevertheless came about, not only among individuals but also in the order of nations.

Mostly, this book focuses on the first half of the global sixties (1958–66), a period marked by the optimism of “coexistence” and a vision of solidarity among developing nations as they sought through institutional means to redefine the rules of global trade and development. In that re­spect, it largely (though not exclusively) focuses on the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos (1958–64), for it was during his watch that the postwar, Cold War order first came u ­ nder siege, and it was he who laid the groundwork for Mexico’s far more radical internationalist stance ­ under President Luis Echeverría in the 1970s. Mexican internationalism had been an integral component of the nation’s identity since the 1920s, but it was u ­ nder López Mateos that Mexicans truly came to recognize themselves as coveted players on the global stage. His presidency also coincides with the evolution and subsequent collapse of a “New Left.” For a brief period, this New Left—­whose orga­nizational nucleus was located in a broad oppositional movement, the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln , Movement of National Liberation)—­found agreement around a collective set of values, practices, and heroes. By 1962, however, under­lying fissures had come to the fore and the consensus on how to achieve peace, emancipation, and liberation—­keywords of the global 1960s—­was rapidly collapsing. In retrospect, the Tricontinental Conference hosted by Cuba in 1966 marked the climax and signaled a turning point of the global sixties. By then, the “Spirit of Bandung”—an idea rooted in the conference of former colonial nations at Bandung, Indonesia (1955), that gave impetus to a “Third World” collective imaginary—­had shattered against the ideological nails of the Sino-­Soviet split and the real­ity of competing geopo­liti­cal positions.2 The second half of the global sixties (dealt with briefly in chapter 8 and in the epilogue) was characterized by a proliferation of splinterings, as the Left was torn asunder by competing visions of utopia and how to get ­there. While 1968 was a year that culminated in rupture and most obviously aligns Mexico within ongoing discussions of a “global ’68,” this is not a book that ­will spend much time on the student movement of 1968. It is impor­tant that we break f­ ree of this par­tic­ul­ ar historiographic focal point. We must move, as the title of a recent collection aptly puts it, “beyond 1968.” Only by ­doing so ­will we allow ourselves to see and explore alternative historical narratives and to reconceptualize how we approach the relationship between state and society in this critical “long de­cade” (ca. 1958–73). Although 1968, of course, constituted a decisive year, it was mostly ­because the global student protests fleetingly channeled ­these extant strands of dissent into a seemingly cohesive uprising, before being 2   —   Introduction

crushed by governmental forces or, just as often, dissolving in the face of ideological and cultural entropy. The fragmentations that resulted from this combination of repression and disillusionment carried over into new countercultural alignments and po­liti­cal imaginaries that bore scant resemblance to ­those at the start of the de­cade. This book seeks to contribute to this historiographical shift underway, to guide our attention back to the question of origins and si­mul­ta­neously to widen our frame of analy­sis in order to accommodate a vantage point that is intrinsically global.3 Three intersecting narrative arcs and levels of analy­sis establish the core framework of this book. The first is a national-­level story about the relationship between Mexican foreign policy making and left-­wing po­liti­ cal mobilization. As a rising midtier country with a relatively stable po­ liti­cal system (governed by the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional [pri , Institutional Revolutionary Party]), an expanding industrial base, and an ambitious president who coveted the global stage, Mexico was uniquely situated to play a pivotal role within a Cold War playing field that appeared newly malleable. Dramatic transformations in regional and international geopolitics beginning in the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s created a win­dow of opportunity for Mexico to establish new diplomatic alliances and pursue new trading partners in a g ­ rand strategy aimed at counterbalancing—­though not dislodging—­the preponderant influence of the United States. I identify this strategy of counterbalancing as Mexico’s “global pivot.” Although in economic terms the results ­were disappointing, by the mid-1960s Mexico was widely regarded as having acquired a level of global stature that elevated it into being a nation of consequence. Previous histories of Mexico in the 1960s have downplayed this internationalism, addressed it separately from the sphere of domestic politics, or focused singularly on Mexico’s relationship with revolutionary Cuba as a substitute for the ­whole. Unfortunately, López Mateos kept no diary during his presidency and left no memoir. Upon stepping down he immediately succumbed to the debilitating effects of multiple aneurysms and became an invalid; he died at the age of sixty in 1969. What we know about his intentions as well as frustrations, therefore, must be gleaned from the documentary rec­ord—­rich but nevertheless ­limited, in the case of Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre , Secretariat of Foreign Affairs or Ministry of Foreign Relations)—­and the voices of t­ hose who surrounded him, both his supporters and critics.4 General histories of Mexico, for instance, tend to dismiss the seriousness of intent (much less outcome) by President López Mateos to transform Mexico’s role in the global order. Enrique Krauze, in his widely popu­lar text, Mexico: Biography of Power, deals Introduction   —   3

with this internationalism only cursorily before summing up the period by stating with anodyne appreciation how López Mateos was “Mexico’s ambassador to the world.”5 Vari­ous texts examine the history of Mexican foreign relations, including efforts to diversify the nation’s diplomatic and economic relations during the 1960s. But while t­ hese examinations establish an impor­tant bedrock for any analy­sis of Mexican foreign policy in this period, they overwhelmingly retain a US-­centered frame of reference and lack the benefit of access to new archival research that allows one to investigate not only outcome but also motives and intent. Moreover, written by specialists in international relations, ­these studies lack a wider conceptual framework that might encompass the role not only of ideology and culture but of the contestation of global imaginaries that characterized the period.6 More common is to find the question of internationalism conflated with Mexican support for the Cuban Revolution. While studies in this vein successfully integrate the international with the domestic sphere of politics and ideology, t­ hese interpretations nevertheless fail to take into account a larger global picture, one that transcends the centrality of Fidel Castro per se. Thus, they largely reduce the idea of foreign policy making to a po­liti­cal calculation aimed at appeasing left-­wing domestic critics.7 My argument is aligned with a more recent set of writings that reexamine Mexico and Latin Amer­i­ca’s engagement with the Soviet Union and with the po­liti­cal energies set in motion by the post-­Bandung movements.8 By allowing ourselves to pull away from the question of Cuba, we see how López Mateos sought to leverage Mexico’s strategic potential to prop up the forces of nonalignment and shape the dispute initiated by peripheral actors to reform the rules of global capitalism. Mexico’s geopo­liti­cal ambitions ­were genuine; they ­were not simply part of a strategy by the ruling party (pri ) to co-­opt and contain a domestic Left energized by the Cuban Revolution. Indeed, I argue how in key re­spects left-­wing po­liti­cal mobilization and presidential aspirations for a new global order not only coincided but ­were mutually constitutive. The early 1960s in Mexico was characterized by the emergence of a far-­ reaching left-­wing social movement, the mln . As an outcrop of the Soviet-­ backed World Peace Council (wpc ), the mln had direct links to an agenda aimed at widening the scope of “fellow travelers” who might support the ideological positions of the Communist Party. But the mln was also energized by the revolutionary tumult unleashed by the Cuban Revolution and guided (initially) by the leadership of former Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40). Moreover, it was a movement s­ haped by the spirit of 4   —   Introduction

Bandung and thus characterized by the competing ideological strands that defined the Left during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In short, the mln was a movement whose po­liti­cal roots and ideological influences ­were si­ mul­ta­neously local, regional, and international. Previous historical interpretations have regarded this moment of po­liti­cal effervescence and of the reemergence of Lázaro Cárdenas, in par­tic­u­lar, as a direct threat to López Mateos and to the legitimacy of the ruling pri . Indeed, vari­ous domestic and foreign observers at the time spoke in dire terms and with increasing alarm at the possibility of Cárdenas leading a new revolution or of forming an opposition party that would challenge the pri ’s mono­poly on power. In ­either case, the po­liti­cal stability of the nation and the impact of US strategic relations with Mexico ­were assumed to be at stake.9 This book, however, offers a very dif­f er­ent interpretation of both Cárdenas and the neo-­cardenista movement that coalesced into the mln . For one, rather than viewing Cárdenas as a threat to the system, he emerges in this narrative as a trusted diplomatic interlocutory, someone who facilitated early aspects of the regime’s internationalist aspirations and a stabilizing force domestically—an “elder revolutionary statesman” capable of containing the fractious forces of left-­wing dissatisfaction. Indeed, Cárdenas was in constant communication with López Mateos and repeatedly deferred to his authority, knowing full well that the inherent stability of the system depended on unqualified re­spect for the office of the presidency. At the same time, he became a con­ve­nient lightning rod for the media’s attacks on the Left and thus helped deflect criticism away from the president, whose positions on Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the forces of nonalignment generated unease among vari­ous sectors of the population. Second, while the mln clearly played the role of antagonist to López Mateos, it was also an ally. Notably, virtually all of the central tenets of the mln ’s domestic and international program directly coincided with the stated goals of López Mateos and the platform of the pri . As Jaime Pensado has underscored, the objectives of the mln ­were fundamentally reformist, “revolutionary” but with a small “r.”10 ­There ­were, to be sure, revolutionary actors—­those with a capital “r ”—­embedded within the movement, and ­these actors did gain ascendency as the mln collapsed as a po­liti­cal force ­after 1963. But what ­others have missed in their analyses of this period is the fact that López Mateos sought to harness the energies of the mln in direct support of his internationalist agenda—­a “global pivot” away from economic reliance and diplomatic subordination to the United States. Paradoxically, the wellspring of popu­lar support for this pivot t­ oward global engagement derived less from the ­middle classes, which had benefited most from the increasingly close Introduction   —   5

ties with the United States, than the left-­wing co­ali­tion that was mobilizing around Lázaro Cárdenas. In short, the president needed the support of the mln , at least initially, to deepen his po­liti­cal base and make evident to relevant US actors that his actions on the global stage had broad domestic support. Thus, while López Mateos contained and repressed vari­ous aspects and actors related to the mln , he si­mul­ta­neously cultivated and shielded ­others, such as the young novelist and highly influential intellectual Carlos Fuentes, who served as a key interlocutor between the regime and social movements in opposition. Indeed, support from the intelligent­sia formed the nexus point of the pri ’s po­liti­cal hegemony. The breakdown of the close, if oftentimes fraught, relationship between left-­wing intellectuals ­under López Mateos and his successor, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, set the stage for the vio­lence that culminated in the massacre of students in 1968 and confirms Roderic Camp’s analy­sis of the centrality of intellectuals to Mexican po­liti­cal stability in this period. “If the po­liti­cal leadership attempts to govern without the tacit support of at least a portion of the intellectual community,” Camp writes, “it ­will increasingly resort to the use of force.”11 But at the same time, I demonstrate how left-­wing discourse was impacted, on the one hand, by the charged debates over revolutionary theory and compromiso (po­liti­cal commitment) and, on the other, by irreverent attacks on social and po­liti­ cal norms linked to the dissemination of countercultural aesthetics and interpretative stances emanating from the cap­i­tal­ist West. Thus the ­causes for the fragmentation of the Left, which had direct ramifications for the integrity of the mln as an opposition movement, ­were not only po­liti­cal but epistemological as well. At a second level of narrative and analy­sis, this book is situated within a regional and, more so, bilateral framework of US-­Mexico relations. Any examination of Mexican domestic and international politics in this period inevitably requires that we ­factor in the influence of the United States. Yet it is equally impor­tant that we transcend a singular focus on that influence. In an impor­tant ­earlier study regarding the impact of the Cuban Revolution on Mexican domestic politics, Olga Pellicer de Brody argued that the economic leverage exercised by the United States “placed in doubt the notion that Mexico was capable of acting with complete in­de­pen­dence in the international sphere.”12 While that was certainly true if one focuses on “complete,” Pellicer de Brody’s definitive statement occludes the fact that Mexico during the period of López Mateos pursued an in­de­pen­dent foreign policy, one that significantly extended beyond that of support for revolutionary Cuba. What Mexico’s goals ­were and how the United States 6   —   Introduction

confronted the real­ity of a subordinate, strategic ally intent on pushing against the unstated par­ameters of “in­de­pen­dence” are among the central questions explored in this book. They dovetail, as well, with a new wave of research that has begun to address geopolitics from a Latin American perspective during this period. As Tanya Harmer and ­others have argued, we must seek to escape the vortex of a “historiographic Monroe Doctrine,” the notion that hemispheric relations can be understood solely or even primarily within an analytical rubric of US dominance and that Latin American agency exists only in relationship to the United States.13 To be certain, this vortex is particularly acute when discussing Mexico. The US-­Mexico border was and remains the only meeting point in which a First World and Third World nation are conjoined. In an era defined by Soviet ideological competition and the contentious politics of decolonization, Mexico’s relationship with the United States assumed a new level of significance, both strategically as well as symbolically. By the early 1960s Mexico had become a geopo­liti­cal battleground. Mexico was the strategic and ideological lynchpin of the Pan-­American alliance, and its diplomatic policies carried weight. As Michael J. Dziedzic writes, “Mexico was prized as a geopo­liti­cal fulcrum” critical to the dominance (and perceived security) of the United States regionally and beyond.14 This battleground was defined far more broadly than Mexico’s defense of revolutionary Cuba, though to be certain that ele­ment encapsulated US frustrations and fears. Indeed, we must move beyond a singular focus on the impact of the Cuban Revolution in our discussion not only of Mexico but of Latin Amer­ic ­ a more broadly in this era. Without question, the influence of Fidel Castro was paradigmatic. Yet the attention garnered by the Cuban Revolution has obscured competing story lines and has tended to render an overly reductionist analytical framework for interpreting Mexican domestic and international politics. Inevitably, Castro, los barbudos (namesake for the “bearded” revolutionaries), and the ideological influence of the Cuban Revolution are central ­factors to this book, but they do not stand for the ­whole of external influences nor the Left’s proj­ect of “emancipation.” By looking past the Cuban Revolution, this book seeks to gain a broader perspective not only of the multitudinous, transnational forces that ­shaped Mexican po­liti­cal subjectivities but, equally impor­tant, to acknowledge Mexican diplomatic aspirations to engage—­and not simply co-­opt for domestic purposes—­key ele­ ments of what Vijay Prashad denotes as the “Third World proj­ect.”15 The bigger picture I show is one that reflected Washington’s concern that President López Mateos, through his aggressive search for alternative trading partners, open identification with (while not formally joining) Introduction   —   7

the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ), and evident determination to lay the groundwork for a new international economic order, constituted a g ­ rand strategy aimed at abetting a “diffusion of power” at US expense.16 Paradoxically, however, President López Mateos’s drive to diversify Mexico’s relations and his aspirations for a more just world order depended on and ultimately reinforced the country’s strategic partnership with the United States. The straitjacket of proximity to the United States—­the predominant source of capital investment, loans, markets, and tourism—­became the driving force b ­ ehind the country’s newfound internationalism. Indeed, the two tendencies ­ were deeply intertwined. Hence, the closer López Mateos seemed to draw to the United States, as reflected in a series of highly successful reciprocal presidential visits and other acts of cultural diplomacy, the more emboldened he felt to challenge the constraints of US hegemony. This paradox was undergirded and enabled by the strategic discourse of the Good Neighbor, a diplomatic framework dating from the 1930s premised on “mutual re­spect.” Most authors who examine the Good Neighbor Policy emphasize its historical specificity tied to the presidency of Franklin Roo­se­velt or, at best, its definitive rupture following the overthrow, orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency (cia ), of President Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala (1954). A noted historian of the subject, for instance, argues that a ­ fter the intervention in Guatemala, “the voice of the Good Neighbor was no longer heard in the land.”17 Other recent studies on Latin Amer­i­ca in the Cold War similarly take as a given the irrelevance of the Good Neighbor in the wake of the Cuban Revolution and further US intervention in the region.18 Yet the Good Neighbor sustained an afterlife in Mexico that was unique to US relations with Latin Amer­i­ca more generally. Moreover, the symbolic language of the Good Neighbor became the discursive thread that wed the two nations together in a mutually symbiotic yet oftentimes fraught geopo­liti­cal arrangement, a “marriage of con­ ve­nience,” as one prominent study ­later put it.19 Several reasons help explain the staying power of the discourse of the Good Neighbor. It is perhaps not insignificant that the first use of the term dates to the document that codified the existence of a l­egal boundary between the two nations, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). In establishing a formal end to the Mexican-­American War, the treaty declared in its preamble that “the two ­Peoples should live, as good Neighbours.”20 While the phrase no doubt preexisted as a clichéd popu­lar expression, its integration into this founding document of US-­Mexican relations nevertheless underscores its essential qualities as a point of diplomatic refer8   —   Introduction

ence into the f­ uture, not only for the bilateral relationship but as a building block of Pan-­Americanism itself. A second reason is that as the stated policy ­under President Roo­se­velt, the Good Neighbor directly shielded Mexico from intervention following President Lázaro Cárdenas’s expropriation of US oil companies in 1938. The expropriation proved a supreme test of the princi­ple of nonintervention that formed the bedrock promise of Roo­se­velt’s policy and cemented in the mind-­set of Mexicans across the po­liti­cal spectrum a standard against which to mea­sure trust in US aims and objectives. Fi­nally, ­there was the unusual degree of attention given to Mexico through US cultural diplomacy during World War II, the apex of the Good Neighbor Policy. Alongside Brazil, Mexico was one of only two Latin American nations to join the allied war effort in a military capacity, and the two countries became famously celebrated in popu­lar culture as trustworthy strategic partners. The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-­American Affairs (ociaa )—­the institution responsible for leading the cultural diplomatic offensive ­under the Good Neighbor—­gave special recognition to Mexican repre­sen­ta­tion in film, ­music, and other forms of propaganda.21 This war­time attention helped cement in the popu­lar imaginaries of both the US and Mexican publics a sense of exclusivity of purpose and friendship, one that carried over into the postwar period even more so than in other national contexts. Elsewhere, po­liti­cal polarization contributed to a more rapid dissipation of Good Neighbor sentiment. The special feelings conveyed by Americans for Mexico were amply revealed when in May 1947 one million p ­ eople lined the streets of Broadway in New York City to participate in a ticker-tape parade marking the arrival of recently elected president Miguel Alemán (1946–52). As the New York Times reported, “pretty girls . . . ​shrilled ‘Viva!’ from offices and from factory win­ dows,” while “home-­wending New Yorkers paused at the curbs to cheer, applaud and call ‘Viva Aleman!’ and ‘Viva Mexico!’ ”22 In cheering President Alemán, Americans ­were at one level celebrating the recent defeat of fascism, in which Mexico had played its own, not insignificant part.23 Yet more broadly, with the war over, Americans ­were ­eager to demonstrate that Mexico and the United States would remain the best of Good Neighbors.24 This invocation of the discourse of the Good Neighbor carried over well in the 1960s as the two nations derived strategic benefit in their mutual reaffirmation of friendship in a world of rapidly mutating po­liti­cal sentiment. At the same time, however, Mexico’s foreign policy pronouncements and professed interest in establishing new diplomatic alignments produced tremendous consternation and tactical handwringing within the State Department. Washington diplomats and analysts strug­gled to decipher the logic of Introduction   —   9

the ruling party’s revolutionary nationalism and of President López Mateos’s internationalist aspirations in an era of geopo­liti­cal uncertainty. The Good Neighbor framework, I argue, proved resilient enough to accommodate Mexican in­de­pen­dence; each government mined for their respective (yet not necessarily overlapping) strategic rationale the inherent value in sustaining the idea of Good Neighborliness long ­after the phrase had fallen out of fashion elsewhere in the Amer­i­cas. If, as o ­ thers have demonstrated, Washington found advantage in having Mexico sustain diplomatic ties with Cuba, ­there was a broader opportunity gained by policy makers in allowing for a semblance of Mexican foreign policy autonomy more generally: to demonstrate the credibility of mutual re­spect, the princi­ple at the heart of the Good Neighbor promise. During the succeeding presidency of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–70), Mexico’s relative retreat from the global stage all but assured that “in­de­pen­dence” remained a policy denoted by quotation marks. Indeed, by 1966, following the US invasion of the Dominican Republic and a deepening military commitment in Vietnam, Mexico had become, as the title of this book suggests, the “last Good Neighbor.” By that point in time the logic of revolutionary nationalism had been cracked, the par­ameters of geopo­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence had become more clearly defined, and the contours of a strategic symbiosis ­were now explic­itly acknowledged. Nevertheless, by forging a nationalist identity that was intertwined with a defense of the rights of peripheral nations, López Mateos had established a trajectory that would be difficult to contain and which, following the interregnum of Díaz Ordaz, would reemerge as official policy in the 1970s and 1980s. How this tran­spired within the framework of a deepening strategic partnership with the United States constitutes the central story of this book. The final level of narrative and analy­sis is one that situates my argument squarely within the wider conceptual framework of the global sixties. This emergent field reflects the merger of two distinctive phrasings that came together relatively recently to constitute the broader rubric of a global sixties historiographic agenda. The first of ­these is the long 1960s, a term first used by Arthur Marwick in his effort to periodize cultural transformations across Western Eu­rope and the United States that appeared to share interlinking c ­ auses and outcomes.25 The fact that Marwick’s phrase has subsequently been embraced by many other scholars analyzing this period in countries far afield from t­hose he originally discussed has led to a historiographic consensus that dramatic cultural changes occurred si­mul­ta­neously across a wide range of countries during the approximate period 1958–73. A central component of the global sixties agenda there10   —   Introduction

fore is to understand the transnational connections, at both the structural and individualist level, that can account for this synchrony. The second phrase, global Cold War, comes from Odd Westad.26 Westad broke with the historiographic argument that the Cold War came to the Third World and instead showed how anticolonialist nationalism in Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca was integral to the form and trajectory of the Cold War itself. Among other contributions, The Global Cold War decentralized and variegated our understanding of the Cold War. Westad’s book shifted the definition away from that of a b ­ attle between the Soviet Union and the United States for control “over” nations on the periphery to one that regarded the Third World as constitutive to the b ­ attle itself, and thus allowed us to recognize the agency and significance of Third World actors. Like Marwick’s phrasing, the “global Cold War” has also been widely embraced by scholars working on Cold War diplomacy from a Third World perspective across a variety of contexts. The concept of a global sixties integrates the periodization and attention to cultural practices established by Marwick with the global diplomatic and ideological approach to the Cold War introduced by Westad. As Martin Klimke and Mary Nolan write in the introduction to their monumental collection on the subject, the mapping proj­ect of the global sixties aims to “reconstruct the multidirectional South-­South networks and flows of ideas, activists, and repertoires of protest and explore the two-­way exchanges between the South and the North in both its communist and demo­cratic cap­i­tal­ist forms.” It involves a broad-­minded investigation of “the va­ri­e­ties of internationalism promoted by the Soviets, the US, China, and the Third World that existed alongside of and often in tension with national protest movements and transnational ties.”27 While we should recognize the “long sixties” and “global Cold War” as subsets rather than synonyms for “global sixties,” collectively they share an under­lying epistemological premise: national actors, po­liti­cal institutions, and cultural practices are all embedded in transnational pro­cesses. The nation-­state is innately porous and became ever more so in the Cold War era. In sum, we must comprehend the embeddedness of global currents within local histories. The analytical integration of the axis of geopolitics with that of po­liti­ cal culture/aesthetics constitutes the essence of the global sixties agenda. Therefore, while geopolitics is a central focus of analy­sis in The Last Good Neighbor, I also place the role of intellectuals and the ideological contestation over po­liti­cal and cultural signifiers at the heart of my discussion. Despite their apparent unity of purpose, by the early 1960s the Mexican Introduction   —   11

Left was characterized by profound divisions that ­were at once ideological as well as epistemological. Such divisions began to define left-­wing movements across the globe at the end of the 1950s, as the Soviet Union proved determined to retain its revolutionary authority on a rapidly transmuting world stage. ­These divisions became the basis internationally for what was to be called a “New Left,” one demarcated from an “Old Left” as much by its arguments about the location of revolutionary agency as by the incorporation of new aesthetic sensibilities and cultural practices. For this New Left, the “­labour metaphysic,” as C. Wright Mills aptly put it, was no longer sacrosanct.28 Peasants, intellectuals, and rebellious youth all assumed leading roles. The epistemological reordering of Marxist theory and praxis, ­shaped initially by the anticolonialist movements in Africa and Asia, further impacted by the revolution in Cuba, and influenced by the antipatriarchal revolt of the beatniks and rock ’n’ roll, was suffused by a critical reexamination of artistic expression ­under existing socialism. In returning to the earliest writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, intellectuals within this emergent New Left sought to recover Marxism’s original humanism, a philosophical understanding of ­human beings as creative agents of but also in history. This “return to man,” as E.  P. Thompson framed the critique in 1957, shortly a ­ fter Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalinism, encapsulated the intellectual basis for what became known as “socialist humanism.”29 The question of how one could be both “humanist” (­free to think) and “socialist” (committed to collective action) became one of the central debates that contributed to the fragmentation not only of the Mexican Left but globally, and underscores the importance of approaching the New Left not as a singular but as a plural, a “movement of movements,” in Van Gosse’s rich phrasing.30 Three impor­tant turning points in Mexico’s post-1946 period set the stage for where The Last Good Neighbor begins in 1958. The first was the presidential elections of 1952, which ­were the first since 1940 to be openly contested by a national opposition movement. Led by the ex-­revolutionary general Miguel Henríquez Guzmán, the henriquistas, as they ­were called, freely appropriated the image of Cárdenas in their po­liti­cal propaganda and “assured followers that the ex-­president supported Henríquez Guzmán’s candidacy,” a position Cárdenas himself did ­little explic­itly to contradict.31 As a populist unaffiliated with any of the official parties, Henríquez Guzmán not only represented the promise of a return to the Cárdenas era and thus “the recuperation of worker and peasant conquests” but he also garnered support across the po­liti­cal spectrum (including among disaffected conservatives) as a credible “no” vote to the official pri party desig12   —   Introduction

nate, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines.32 The subsequent defeat of Henríquez Guzmán through a combination of fraud and repression left a significant mark on a younger generation coming of po­liti­cal age. For a young Carlos Monsiváis (just fourteen years old), destined to become one of his generation’s most insightful and influential New Left writers, the defeat of the henriquistas, as he ­later reflected, “represented my entry into skepticism and disenchantment” with the ruling pri .33 Nostalgia for the socialist policies of former president Cárdenas was used by another charismatic figure who also ran in the 1952 elections and who would remain a central player in Mexican politics into the early 1960s, Vicente Lombardo Toledano. He was the candidate of the Partido Popu­lar (pp , Popu­lar Party), a nationalist party formed by him in 1948 (following his expulsion as leader of the government-­led Confederación de Trabajadores de México [ctm, Confederation of Mexican Workers]). The pp had made significant inroads especially among agricultural workers, urban intellectuals, and rural school teachers in opposition to the new direction of the ruling party. By the mid-1950s, the pp had ­adopted an explic­itly Marxist-­ oriented line but its strategic vision was to support a progressive state “in permanent ­battle with reactionary cap­i­tal­ists and landowners at home and imperialism abroad.”34 Through his travels to the Soviet Union and Communist China, and with the help of his fiercely loyal supporters, Lombardo Toledano crafted an image of himself as a heroic, larger-­than-­life personality ready to do ­battle against the forces of cap­i­tal­ist imperialism, and thus as a stand-in for the absent Lázaro Cárdenas.35 Yet his leadership of the pp was as a domineering caudillo figure who imposed his authority from above. Moreover, he appeared to have few qualms about entering into self-­serving negotiations with the ruling pri (such as throwing his party’s support to the official candidate in 1958 and 1964). Although the party remained popu­lar among rural supporters, by the late 1950s Lombardo Toledano provoked deep cynicism, especially among a younger generation of independent-­minded, left-­wing intellectuals.36 The second turning point was the US-­backed coup d’état against Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz in June 1954. Cárdenas had privately defended Guatemala’s demo­cratic revolution, praising President Juan José Arévalo (1944–50) in a private letter as an “example for the oppressed nations.”37 When Arévalo’s successor, Jacobo Árbenz, came u ­ nder assault in the Organ­ization of American States (oas ) and faced the threat of a US invasion, Cárdenas conveyed to Guatemala’s foreign minister his “personal friendship and sympathy” for Guatemala’s revolutionary goals and solidarity in defense of the besieged nation’s sovereignty.38 Despite Washington’s Introduction   —   13

disavowal of any role in the army rebellion that ousted Árbenz, the presumption (­later proven true) of US involvement was invoked by the Left to question the sincerity of the decades-­old Good Neighbor pledge of nonintervention. In an action meant to highlight the symbolic death of the Good Neighbor, a young Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (the twenty-­year-­old son of former president Lázaro Cárdenas), accompanied by students of a recently formed group, Consejo Nacional Estudiantil de Solidaridad con el Pueblo de Guatemala (National Student Council in Solidarity with the P ­ eople of Guatemala), laid a wreath in front of the US Embassy in Mexico City, “in memory of the Good Neighbor Policy.”39 The overthrow of Arbenz was a formative moment in the po­liti­cal evolution of students and intellectuals, one that set the stage for a mistrust among the Left of further US invocations of Good Neighbor sentiment. A third turning point occurred two years l­ater when Lázaro Cárdenas accepted the Stalin Peace Prize in a ceremony or­ga­nized by the Movimiento Mexicano por la Paz (Mexican Movement for Peace), the national branch of the wpc . It was the first time in nearly a de­cade that Cárdenas had appeared in a significant way on the public stage. For a generation of youth who had only known of Cárdenas the legend, the chance to lay eyes on him in person was epic.40 Cárdenas was unmoved by critics who used his ac­cep­tance of the prize as proof of his Communist leanings; nor was he concerned with the award’s ill-­fated timing. In a connection openly mocked in some quarters of the Mexican press, the prize was bestowed in the wake of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had just repudiated Joseph Stalin.41 For Cárdenas, the prize ceremony offered an opportunity to denounce the downfall of the Good Neighbor and to praise Mexico’s noninterventionist traditions. The jam-­ packed auditorium underscored the continued mystique of a heroic figure who was no longer a vis­i­ble feature on Mexico’s other­wise crowded po­liti­cal landscape. As an article in Excélsior described the chaotic scene: “The multitude surpassed by several times the occupancy limit; each seat contained up to three ­people; dozens of men and ­women hung from the curtains and walls of the amphitheater. And stretching from the doors to the street to the main hall, a compact mass—­ex­pec­tant, enthusiastic—­continued to strug­gle to get in.”42 Cárdenas’s ac­cep­tance speech was brief and lacked any specificity to recent events, in Guatemala or elsewhere. Its theme was that of peace, a term that would emerge as perhaps the most contested trope of the global sixties. “At the pre­sent hour ­there is not a single nation that does not desire peace and work ­toward its consolidation,” the former president stated. 14   —   Introduction

The crowd’s ovation lasted nearly five minutes yet Cárdenas, faithful to his moniker, the “Sphinx of Jiquilpán” (a reference to the town of his birth in Michoacán), maintained a presence of absolute inscrutability. “Not a single muscle on his face moved, his lips ­were immobile, he never smiled,”43 a reporter noted. Leaving the theater, he needed to wade through a dense, adulatory throng before reaching his waiting car. Clearly, Cárdenas’s moral authority remained supreme within the context of a Mexican Left that was fragmented and unsettled. As explored in chapter 1, “Mexico’s ‘Restless’ Left and the Resurrection of Lázaro Cárdenas,” he was the only leader who had the capacity to unite the disparate factions across the Left and thus to act as a bridge, not only between generations but between an “Old” Left—­nationalist yet openly identified with Soviet internationalism—­and a “New” Left in formation. Throughout the 1940s and for most of the 1950s, Cárdenas had chosen to remain in the shadows of domestic po­liti­cal machinations. He had been determined to stay out of the public realm—­away from the reach of supporters as well as detractors. Indeed, his self-­restraint played an essential role in constructing a po­liti­cal culture of presidentialism, a term used to denote that whoever sat in the presidential chair reigned supreme during his six-­year term in office (sexenio). Meanwhile, anti-­Communism served as a con­ve­ nient domestic cover for the repression and marginalization from po­liti­ cal decision-­making not only of the left-­wing forces associated with ex-­ president Cárdenas but also of other vocal critics of the pri ’s increasing authoritarianism.44 By the mid-1950s a deepening web of domestic spying emanated from the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (dfs , Federal Security Directorate), created by President Miguel Alemán in 1947, and the Dirección General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (dgips [dips], Department of Po­liti­cal and Social Investigationes), an intelligence agency dating to the early postrevolutionary period. The two institutions competed with one another and often overlapped in their surveillance activities. Writing about the dfs , Sergio Aguayo Quezada notes how the range of activities that came ­under the spy agency’s purview was inherently expansive. “The subjects of this vigilance ­were leftists, u ­ nionized workers (oil workers, railway workers), some foreigners, critical journalists, políticos who upset ­those in power, and members of the pri who de­cided to join the opposition in pursuit of their own po­liti­cal self-­interest,” he writes.45 All of this contributed to what a US Embassy report described as the “crushing centralism of the Mexican po­liti­cal system,” one that had brought po­ liti­cal stability yet did so by squashing demo­cratic dissent and po­liti­cal alternatives.46 Introduction   —   15

In late 1958 Cárdenas embarked on a several-­month journey that took him to the United States, Western Eu­rope, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan to “see for himself,” as he l­ater put it, the comparative nature of lived socialism versus capitalism. This journey, also explored in chapter 1, signaled a new desire on his part for international engagement at a critical juncture in the Cold War. But his intentions ­were scarcely oppositional. Indeed, his conversations with Khrushchev helped pave the way for closer Soviet-­Mexican ties, and he made a quick retreat to his home in Michoacán upon his return to Mexico. His travels abroad, however, coincided with the unfolding of two paradigmatic events, one national and the other international: the violent crackdown by the pri of a strug­gle by breakaway ­unions and independent-­minded workers and the triumph of los barbudos in Cuba. Both events spurred an impor­tant conversation among a new generation of left-­wing intellectuals—­what the State Department described as a “wave of restlessness”—­regarding the significance of what it meant to be “on the left” at this historical moment, both in the context of Mexican revolutionary nationalism and more universally. The United States was not alone in regarding Mexico with strategic interest. Beginning in the mid- to late 1950s, the Soviet Union also looked to Mexico as a key component of a broader effort to normalize Soviet diplomatic, cultural, and trade relations throughout Latin Amer­i­ca. Chapter 2, “ ‘Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!,’ ” focuses on the rapid intensification of Soviet-­Mexican relations during the high point of Khrushchev’s strategy of Peaceful Coexistence, a period that coincided with the respite of a brief Cold War détente. Soviet Rus­sia could claim its own distinctive relationship with Mexico, as nations whose revolutions ­were practically coterminous and whose postrevolutionary states mirrored one another in impor­tant re­spects. In fact, the Partido Comunista Mexicano (pcm , Mexican Communist Party) was the oldest in the hemi­sphere, though it was also among the weakest. As Barry Carr writes, the 1950s “­were an almost complete disaster” for the pcm , which was harassed by government security agents, plagued by internecine ideological disputes (exacerbated by the 1956 denunciations of Stalin), and disadvantaged in competition against the pri and pp .47 “Indeed, I have served in no country where [the] Communist danger was less,” the British ambassador would note at the start of 1958.48 Yet both in Mexico and globally, the Soviet Union had positioned itself as the ideological counterpoint to the “imperialism” of Western capitalism. In that role, the international Communist movement spearheaded (if not necessarily controlled) by the Soviet Union served si­mul­ta­neously as threat and foil for Mexico’s ruling party—­Communists and fellow travelers 16   —   Introduction

­were labeled by the media as exóticos (exotic, that is, outside the nationalist body politic). Yet despite the pcm ’s practical irrelevance to the l­ abor movement (in comparison with Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil, for instance) and an official discourse of anti-­Communism, the Soviet Union nevertheless retained a strong cultural influence on Mexican national consciousness. Mexico’s two most prominent living muralists, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, w ­ ere pcm members (despite Rivera’s on-­again, ­off-­again relationship with the party) and vocal supporters of Soviet socialist advances, but more broadly speaking many Mexicans had come to regard the Soviet Union with a certain awe and re­spect. Soviet postwar industrial and technological prowess—­epitomized by the launch of the world’s first satellite into space in 1957—­suggested to many, not only in Mexico but globally, that socialism was indeed the wave of the ­future. Mexico came to embrace on its own terms an expansionist Soviet politics, but this engagement reflected a more generalized, concerted effort to fortify ties with other nations as potential balancers to ­counter the disproportionate economic, cultural, and po­liti­cal influence exerted by the United States. Chapter 3, “Mexico’s New Internationalism,” sets the stage for Mexico’s global pivot and positions this ambitious foreign policy against the need to harness the Left, on the one hand, and uphold the framework of the Good Neighbor, on the other, all within the tumultuous context of the Cuban Revolution. Indeed, a strategy of diversification provided a po­ liti­cal win­dow of opportunity not only for the Soviet Union—­eager to establish a place of diplomatic respectability and influence at the doorstep of the United States—­but West Eu­ro­pean nations and Japan as well, which likewise ­were ­eager to claim an economic stake in the so-­called Mexican Miracle. Exemplifying this view was the urgent, final summation in the fall of 1960 by Britain’s ambassador to Mexico, who argued that now was the “ideal moment” to deepen Anglo-­Mexican ties in order to “associate ourselves with the tremendous growth of the Mexican economy.” Mexico, he argued, merited the highest attention as part of a broader British strategy ­toward Latin Amer­i­ca. If the pre­sent opportunity was squandered, he warned, “in ten years’ time the rich openings now available to us ­will have been snapped up by our rivals in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere and we ­shall once again be out in the cold.”49 However, 1960 was also a pivotal year in the embrace, transformation, and contestation over the values of emancipation, solidarity, and nonalign­ ment. Chapter 4, “The ‘Spirit of Bandung’ in Mexican National Politics,” examines how ­these themes had resonance not only for the Mexican Left but within government circles as well. This chapter examines the pivotal Introduction   —   17

role played by Cárdenas during this year of confrontational politics, when the initial hope for a “peaceful coexistence” intersected with the ardor of revolutionary nationalism. Cárdenas was si­mul­ta­neously an instigator of left-­wing revolt yet also a stabilizer, one whose position was essential to López Mateos’s ability to harness the forces of the Left in support of his domestic and international agenda. A key component of that agenda was López Mateos’s embrace of the politics of nonalignment, a geopo­ liti­ cal proposal conjured by leading postcolonial personalities, and one that was viewed with optimism within Mexico yet apprehension by the United States. By the start of 1962, concerns about Latin Amer­i­ca’s potential “drift ­toward neutralism” had reached the highest echelons of strategic policy discussion within the Western alliance. The declaration by López Mateos that Mexico, while not “neutral,” was nevertheless “in­de­pen­dent” had become a reflection of a wider trend. Moreover, as the keystone of the entire Pan-­American alliance, curtailing Mexican regional and global ambitions became of paramount importance to the United States. These themes are explored in chapter 5, “The ‘Preferred Revolution,’ ” which focuses on President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Mexico City in the summer of 1962 and Washington’s strategic calculation to c ­ ouple Mexico ideologically to the recently launched Alliance for Pro­gress. The visit solidified Good Neighbor sentiment by washing away residual fears and frustrations on both sides that had built up around responses to the Cuban Revolution. But at the same time, it emboldened López Mateos to take a more active role in the post-­Bandung order taking shape, in par­tic­ul­ar around efforts to formulate a “new economic order” that would give greater weight to the financial demands of developing nations. Before getting to that discussion, however, chapter 6, “New Left Splits,” backtracks chronologically in order to focus on the internal politics of the Left and the collapse of the mln as a ­viable opposition force. The novelist and public intellectual Carlos Fuentes plays a central role in this narrative as an interlocutor. Fuentes sought to mediate not only the competing ideological stances within the mln but between the mln and López Mateos, as well as between Mexico and the United States. By the summer of 1962, however, what the caricaturist Jorge Carreño depicted as the “drama of the left” had come into the open. This drama had local po­ liti­cal ­causes, but it was also driven by global ideological f­ actors related to the Sino-­Soviet split. At the same time, the divisions between an “Old” and “New” Left ­were further exacerbated by an epistemological split within the New Left itself over the question of revolutionary subjectivity, a split I conceptualize as between a “vanguardist” and “cosmopolitan” Left. 18   —   Introduction

Returning to the theme of the global pivot, chapter 7, “Apex of Internationalism,” examines the climactic final two years of the López Mateos government (1962–64), the period of his most sustained activism on the global stage. The era marked the apex of nam as a coherent force for global transformation—­signaled by the success of the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Economic Development (unctad ) and the second nam conference held in Cairo—­but it also heralded nam ’s pending demise. Competing ideological tendencies within the “Third World proj­ect” ­were aggravated by the centripetal pull of the Sino-­Soviet split; meanwhile, divergent economic interests among developing nations belied the vision of innate solidarity. The chapter explores how Yugo­slavian president Josip Broz Tito made an all-­out effort to save nam by bringing in Mexican (and Latin American) support. At the same moment, French president Charles de Gaulle also openly wooed Mexico (and Latin Amer­i­ca) as central to his own strategic calculus to chisel away at US-­Soviet bi­polar­ity in order to foment a multipolar landscape. Mexico was, in the eyes of the British, a sought-­after “debutante” on the world stage, and a nation whose newfound in­de­pen­dence and clear desire to be at the center of global affairs tested the limits of Washington’s tolerance as never before. The final chapter, “The Last Good Neighbor,” addresses a central question: why, at the pinnacle of Mexico’s global pivot, did President Díaz Ordaz (1964–70) turn away from the activist foreign policy of his pre­de­ces­ sor? The answer, I argue, lies not only in differences of temperament but in transformations in the global order that increased the risks and diminished the potential benefits of continuing the activist foreign policy set in motion ­under López Mateos. Instead, Díaz Ordaz capitalized on Mexico’s unique alliance with the United States, exemplified by the surprise visit of President Lyndon B. Johnson to Mexico City in the spring of 1966. The turn away from a progressive agenda abroad, however, coincided with a series of confrontations between Díaz Ordaz and the nation’s left-­wing intelligent­sia. For the first time in the nation’s postrevolutionary period, the key linkage between the intelligent­sia and the presidency was ruptured, thus laying the groundwork for the breakdown of legitimacy that culminated in the 1968 protests and brutal government response. In an epilogue I reflect on the implications of Díaz Ordaz’s retreat from an activist agenda in the context of 1968 and discuss the revitalization of internationalism u ­ nder his successor, Luis Echeverría (1970–76). By the early 1970s the geopo­liti­cal order was again in dramatic flux: US-­Soviet détente, the entry of the ­People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the United Nations, an oil embargo by the Organ­ization of the Petroleum Exporting Introduction   —   19

Countries (opec ), and myriad other ­factors all pointed not only to the emergence of a multipolar world but a rejuvenated perception among peripheral nations that a new global order could be formed through collective action. Echeverría was determined to insert Mexico within the vanguard of ­these efforts and did so explic­itly by building upon the strategic rationale and institutional legacies inherited from López Mateos. In ­doing so, moreover, he used a progressive internationalism to rebuild the pri ’s internal alliances with the nation’s intelligent­sia and thus reconstitute a key nexus at the heart of the ruling party’s hegemony. ­There are multiple pos­si­ble entry points for researching and writing about the global sixties. This book, using Mexico as a portal, represents one such possibility. It seeks to offer not only a revisionist interpretation of Mexican po­liti­cal culture and international dynamics during a critical moment of the global sixties but also a meaningful contribution to the collective cartographic proj­ect that is already well underway.

20   —   Introduction

Chapter One

Mexico’s “Restless” Left and the Resurrection of Lázaro Cárdenas

In July 1958, as Mexicans went to the polls to elect a new president, US ambassador Robert Hill cabled Washington: “Country is tranquil.” 1 The foretold election of former minister of ­labor Adolfo López Mateos held ­little surprise for e ­ ither the electorate or foreign observers. From all appearances, the machinery of the ruling party was exceptionally well oiled, and a smooth transition was to be anticipated. From 1910 to 1920 Mexico experienced a violent revolution that uprooted the nation’s social, po­liti­cal, and cultural foundations. In 1929, following a de­cade of reconstruction that had nevertheless failed to establish a framework for po­liti­cal stability, the president at the time launched a unique proposal: the creation of a party of national unity whose institutional channels would prove fluid enough to accommodate a wide spectrum of po­liti­cal actors. Over the next several de­cades, this party—­renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (pri ) in 1946—­succeeded in promoting a populist form of politics relatively inoculated from the disruptive ideological swings that characterized other regimes in the region. With a broad industrial base producing goods for local consumption, a solid ­middle class with a stake in po­liti­cal stability, and a ruling party that had managed to monopolize po­liti­cal authority while still granting the perception of demo­cratic pluralism, Mexico appeared, as the British

ambassador succinctly noted at the start of 1958, “a quiet country in a turbulent world.”2 The quiet did not last. Less than a week a ­ fter the elections, unpre­ce­ dented wildcat strikes erupted across several key sectors of the economy. Out­going president Adolfo Ruiz Cortines proscribed “the holding of meetings, demonstrations or other acts that might disturb peace and order,” but the directive did l­ ittle to stop a cascading wave of dissent across u ­ nionized ­labor—­a “free-­for-­all” in the language of the British Embassy.3 Challenges to government control over ­union leadership spread through the strategic railroad, oil, telegraph, and teacher ­unions. “Everywhere, the prestige of older leaders and of ­union structures is cracking,” the center-­left newsmagazine Siempre! editorialized; the old order was “tumbling down and coming undone.”4 On one level, the nationwide strikes threatened to unravel the corporatist arrangement undergirding one-­party rule itself. But the strikes unfolded within a wider global context in which a dif­fer­ent set of “old ­orders” was also coming undone. Dramatic transformations occurring beyond the nation’s borders ­were insinuating themselves into debates over the role of Mexico in the world and the f­ uture of the nation’s revolutionary proj­ect. Across Africa and Asia, the old order of Eu­ro­pean imperialist rule was succumbing to a groundswell of anticolonialist strug­gle that was crystalizing into an emergent “Third World” identity. In Latin Amer­i­ca, protests against US support for dictatorial governments in Central Amer­ic ­ a and the Caribbean—­encapsulated by the backlash against Vice President Nixon during his so-­called good ­will tour in the spring of 1958 and reflected in the outpouring of support for the Cuban revolutionaries as they fought against Fulgencio Batista—­ revealed the frayed credibility of the Good Neighbor. At stake was the capacity of the United States to hold sway over the Pan-­American idea itself, and thus to maintain its sphere-­of-­influence politics in the Western hemi­sphere. At the same time, the foundations of a left-­wing po­liti­cal proj­ect, one rooted in the historical claim of the Soviet Union to serve as a paragon of Communist society, had become subject to withering criticism by an incipient “New Left” led by Western Marxist intellectuals. Seismic transformations in global, regional, and local politics ­were underway; the world order was being reshuffled. By accident as well as by design, Mexico was poised to move from outlier to epicenter. This chapter sets up this transitional moment in Mexican politics and society within a local, regional, and global context. Since the 1930s, Mexico’s governing elites had been characterized by a fundamental tension, one rooted in the compromise between competing po­liti­cal orientations and 22   —   Chapter One

channeled upward through the ruling party. This tension—­what Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez labels an “ideological dispute” between ­those who favored greater versus less state involvement in the economy and social institutions—­increased during the 1950s, as the government turned more favorably in the direction of private capital.5 Indeed, the se­lection of López Mateos aimed to diminish this tension. The former minister of l­abor was not explic­itly aligned with ­either of the two ideological “camps” and over the previous six years he had succeeded in maintaining the peace between ­labor and capital. He was a po­liti­cal figure, notes Hernández Rodríguez, who “incited neither public support nor widespread sympathy among the elite.”6 Yet upon accepting the nomination of the ruling party, López Mateos immediately indicated that his government would pursue a course of greater state involvement in infrastructure, industry, and education, among other facets. Moreover, during the course of his campaign—in an election that was predetermined given the po­liti­cal mono­poly of the ruling party—­López Mateos underscored that while he regarded private capital as an “indispensable” component of economic development, he promised nevertheless to prioritize state intervention as a catalyst for growth.7 As vari­ous authors have indicated, this was a critical juncture for Mexico’s po­ liti­ cal economy. Additional sources of finance capital and technology ­were needed to deepen the nation’s import substitution industrialization (isi) capabilities. This in turn required both greater access to foreign loans and investment but also to expanded markets for Mexican commodity exports.8 More so than any previous postrevolutionary president, moreover, López Mateos proved anxious to counterbalance the preponderant financial and commercial influence of the United States on the country’s economic sovereignty. Upon assuming office, he quickly revealed an eagerness to take advantage of the postwar economic recovery of Western Eu­rope and Japan, on the one hand, and post-­Stalinist overtures ­toward the developing world by the Soviet Union, on the other, to broaden Mexico’s nexus of diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations. His attempt to effect a “global pivot” reflected a concerted effort to enhance Mexico’s sovereignty of action domestically, with re­spect to shielding the autonomy of the state from US influence over economic decision-­ making, and internationally, as Mexico aligned itself with new po­liti­cal actors and movements whose strategic goals often directly conflicted with ­those of the United States. While in an impor­tant sense this pivot built upon a historical trajectory dating to the late nineteenth ­century, López Mateos pursued a grander geopo­liti­cal strategy, one in which he sought to leverage the country’s rising international stature to lead as a Cold War Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   23

interlocutor and “matured revolutionary” voice on the pressing issues of decolonization, nuclear weapons, and social justice for developing (“Third World”) nations.9 Paradoxically, however, to accomplish this global pivot he would need not only to reaffirm Mexico’s Good Neighbor alliance with the United States—­the lifeblood of capital and diplomatic support for the regime—­but to harness the po­liti­cal influence of the figure most identified with the “statist” wing of the ruling party and Mexico’s nationalist re­sis­ tance to US domination, former president (and ex-­revolutionary general) Lázaro Cárdenas. The Plenipotentiary Travels of Lázaro Cárdenas At age sixty-­three, Lázaro Cárdenas directly incarnated the socialist and anti-­imperialist princi­ples of the Mexican Revolution. During his presidency from 1934 to 1940, he had implemented large-­scale land reform and in 1938 famously expropriated US and British oil companies ­after they refused to concede to demands by or­ga­nized ­labor. Although his legacy was also a consolidation of the one-­party, authoritarian system, his moral and ideological relevancy continued to loom large on the Mexican scene. Thus, as Mexico’s po­liti­cal elite and international dignitaries gathered in late 1958 to witness the inauguration of President López Mateos, the non-­ presence of Cárdenas was glaring. Given his standing as a founding member of the ruling party, an impor­ tant power broker b ­ ehind the scenes, and, as Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom aptly, if hyperbolically, described, “the spiritual head of the extreme leftists,” his omission begged interpretation. Rubottom took it as a hopeful signal that López Mateos “intends to take a firmer stand against the Communists.”10 Historian Soledad Loaeza, however, has suggested that Cárdenas absented himself from the inaugural ceremonies to show dis­plea­sure at out­going president Ruiz Cortines, who had failed to bring him into the decision-­making pro­cess that established López Mateos as the pri ’s official candidate.11 Neither of t­ hese interpretations, however, takes into account where Cárdenas was instead of attending the inaugural. In fact, two months e ­ arlier Cárdenas had left Mexico on a four-­month trip that would take him across fourteen countries, including the United States, Western and Eastern Eu­rope, the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Japan.12 It was the first time he had ever left Mexico, save for a trip to a US border city in his youth. The timing of his global tour provided an opportunity to re­unite with his son, Cuauhtémoc, who had just wrapped up a year of technical studies in France. More importantly, it was a chance to 24   —   Chapter One

see for himself the socialist and cap­i­tal­ist worlds of which he had spoken so much yet never encountered in person. Surveying New York City from atop the Empire State Building on the first leg of his journey, he marveled at what “­ human technology had constructed, concentrating h ­ ere their economic power, the product of international financial organ­ization.” For Cárdenas, however, the relationship between capital accumulation, material pro­gress, and ­labor power was always uppermost. It was “the sweat and blood of ­peoples from this and other continents” who had built the city, he wrote in his diary. Capitalism had entrenched a power dynamic that relegated the vast majority of the world “to live precariously.”13 But if Cárdenas went to observe up close economic and cultural features of socie­ties created by capitalism and Communism alike, he also traveled in the capacity of an unofficial plenipotentiary representing Mexico’s newly elected president. Cárdenas crossed the Atlantic by boat, accompanied by his wife, Amalia, and a small yet well-­connected entourage of po­liti­cal figures. On board the Liberté Cárdenas reached out to Yugo­slavia’s out­going economic attaché to Mexico (coincidentally also on board); they discussed the importance of deepening Mexican relations with Yugo­slavia and laid plans for a visit by Cárdenas during his tour abroad.14 This type of exchange would become an integral aspect of Cárdenas’s travels, and his communications with Mexican diplomatic representatives overseas revealed the significance attached to his visit by the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre) and incoming president, López Mateos, who provided Cárdenas with a subsidy of $30,000 “for expenses related to his travels.”15 ­After touring vari­ous parts of Western Eu­rope, the group flew to Moscow, heart of the Soviet empire. It was a land that held a utopian place in the socialist imaginary of Cárdenas. Yet this was also a pivotal moment in the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was newly positioning itself as a “peaceful” ideological competitor with the United States—­battling not simply for the hearts and minds of the decolonizing world but to proj­ect the Soviet Union as a ­viable trading partner and paradigm of an alternative socialist modernity for the Third World writ large.16 As he noted in his journal en route to Moscow, “If the United States trades with the very same Soviet Union,” why must Mexico “sacrifice its economy, its development” by limiting the horizons of its economic relations with the Communist countries?17 Indeed, his extensive visit to the Soviet Union (carried out over two dif­fer­ent legs of his travels abroad) played an impor­tant role in facilitating, for mutually reinforcing reasons, the cultivation of a diplomatic, economic, and cultural relationship between Mexico and the Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   25

Soviet Union that had not existed since the heady, postrevolutionary days of the 1920s.18 Cárdenas was the highest-­level Mexican government official ever to visit the Soviet Union and, despite arriving in an unofficial capacity, was nevertheless received as an honored guest of state. As a fervent supporter of the World Peace Council (a Soviet-­front organ­ization devoted to nuclear disarmament and socialist ­causes) and a recent recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize, Cárdenas’s socialist credentials and renown preceded him. The two countries also shared deep-­standing connections, as revolutionary socie­ ties that had developed in tandem with one another. The Soviet p ­ eople, as an article in the Communist newspaper Izvestia noted, held “a profound sympathy ­toward Mexico.”19 But the extent of his reception pointed to an embrace that went beyond celebrating Cárdenas as simply another idealized emblem of Soviet internationalism and historical linkage between the two countries. The Soviet Union was in the pro­cess of embarking upon the most concerted effort since the 1930s to court the allegiance of Latin Americans.20 Rather than focus on expanding the po­liti­cal influence of local Communist Parties, however, the Kremlin’s goal was to pre­sent the Soviet Union as a responsible trading partner and strategic balancer as nations across Latin Amer­i­ca sought a means to wiggle f­ ree of the prevailing influence of the United States. As a glowing article in Izvestia commented, Cárdenas’s visit marked “an impor­tant event that ­will reinforce feelings of mutual understanding between the Soviet and Mexican ­peoples.”21 Mexican Embassy officials felt exactly the same way. ­Here was a unique opportunity to lay the groundwork for a new kind of diplomatic relationship between the two countries. In fact, other countries in Latin Amer­i­ca ­were already moving quickly to take advantage of Soviet overtures. For instance, shortly before Cárdenas’s arrival, Mexican ambassador Alfonso de Rosenzweig-­Díaz informed his superiors of a “new and more extensive” trade deal recently signed by Argentina. The USSR was providing Argentina with a credit line of 400 million rubles ­toward the purchase of Soviet crude oil and equipment to further exploration of Argentine oil production, paid for by food exports.22 It was an agreement that would, in the words of Argentina’s trade negotiator, allow the country “si­mul­ta­neously to receive heavy equipment, augment its own national production, and not spend foreign currency.”23 Argentina was not alone in reaching new deals. The governor of Pernambuco, Brazil, had recently traveled to Moscow to explore the possibility of greater trade relations—­despite the fact that Brazil and the Soviet Union did not even have official diplomatic ties.24 Moreover, Uruguay, Peru, and other Latin 26   —   Chapter One

American countries ­were all similarly pursuing the possibility of trade relations, as they sought to take advantage of an ambitious drive by the USSR to expand its relations in the hemi­sphere.25 Thus it was not simply propaganda when a Soviet publication stated that throughout Latin Amer­ i­ca, “­every day an increase in mutually advantageous trade with the Soviet Union and nations in the socialist camp becomes more pronounced.”26 Mexico’s economic attaché in Moscow, Ernesto Madero, wrote enthusiastically about Cárdenas’s visit. Throughout his time in Rus­sia, he conveyed to his superiors in Mexico City, Cárdenas had conducted himself with tremendous “prudence, straightforwardness, and dignity.”27 In an indication that Mexico’s sre had advance notice about Cárdenas’s travel plans, Madero underscored that he was e ­ ager for the opportunity to “recommence conversations that took place [in Cárdenas’s] home in Mexico on the eve of his trip to Eu­rope and that had been cut short” by his travels.28 Moreover, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev clearly took Cárdenas’s presence as an indication that he represented the incoming Mexican government, a perception that Mexican Embassy officials did l­ittle to dissuade. Thus, for example, during a luncheon speech hosted by the president of the recently renamed Lenin Peace Prize Committee, Cárdenas argued that it was essential to find the pathway t­oward peace, one that would come about through closer cultural and diplomatic exchange. Cárdenas invoked the Soviet diplomatic leitmotif of “peaceful coexistence” as he made note of the new indications of a fruitful dialogue across the Cold War divide. “We must insist that peaceful coexistence among nations is pos­si­ble, in­ de­pen­dent of the character of nations’ economic and social systems,” he remarked.29 ­Eager to make use of the speech, a Mexican official in Sta­lin­ grad urgently requested of Madero that a translation be made into En­glish and that copies be sent to international news agencies for distribution.30 From the start, the elder revolutionary viewed his voyage as a fact-­ finding opportunity to learn about dif­f er­ent systems of economic development, and to judge for himself the true nature of Communism as a po­liti­cal system. “In viewing the dif­fer­ent forms of development throughout the world,” he wrote on his final day in Czecho­slo­va­kia, “I do not see anything inhuman in any one of them.” Each country, he observed, “works to better feed its population and enrich its art, culture, and economic situation.”31 The next leg of his journey took the group via car through Austria and Italy. His son, Cuauhtémoc—­“experienced with the road and a very good guide”—­took control of the wheel.32 Arriving back in France on New Year’s Day 1959, they learned the news that Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled the island and the revolutionaries of the 26th of July Movement had Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   27

entered Havana. “Hopefully the sociopo­liti­cal program of the new regime ­will justify the blood expended,” Cárdenas wrote with cautious optimism in his journal, “and ­won’t end up being simply a change of the p ­ eople in power.”33 Shortly ­after, Cuauhtémoc and his ­mother returned to Mexico, while the elder Cárdenas continued on his travels. He returned to the Soviet Union, where he met with se­nior members of the World Peace Council, and ­later toured the tombs of Lenin and Stalin. He marveled at the collective reverence for the nation’s heroic found­ers, noting the “thousands of ­people filing by, men, ­women and c ­ hildren.”34 ­After a stopover in Siberia, he arrived in China, where he was personally welcomed by Chairman Mao Zedong. Cárdenas arrived at the climax of Mao’s “­Great Leap Forward,” a modernization strategy that aimed to surpass Britain in industrial production by wrenching the productive capacities of a collectivized peasantry. The outcome would prove disastrous, resulting in mass starvation and po­liti­cal turmoil. He also arrived in the context of a “psychological rift” between Mao and Khrushchev, at once ideological and geopo­liti­cal, one that “persisted and intensified.”35 Cárdenas, however, was seemingly oblivious to ­these issues, and content to experience—on official Chinese terms—­a peasant majority country in the midst of revolutionary transformation. Thus for Cárdenas, the Chinese Revolution was “the same as ours.”36 ­Later, in a visit to one of the newly created peasant communes, a backbone of the ­Great Leap Forward, Cárdenas remarked to the press that it was “proof of what a ­people can accomplish, when the l­ abor force is or­ga­nized.”37 While the diplomatic costs of recognizing mainland China at the expense of Taiwan remained too high, Cárdenas’s voyage to China and his subsequent travels to Japan nevertheless helped set the stage for an ambitious outreach to the region by President López Mateos in the coming years (see chapter 7). Cárdenas’s Return and the Triumph of Los Barbudos Cárdenas’s return to Mexico in February 1959 was an event marked by g ­ reat expectation and cele­bration. The press had dutifully reported on his travels and now “thousands of p ­ eople awaited him” as he crossed the border on his final leg back from the United States.38 At the railway station in San Luis Potosí he was greeted with “musical groups, conjuntos, mariachis, and the deafening whistles from locomotives that went on for several minutes in tribute.”39 Yet, Cárdenas abruptly canceled plans for a massive reception in Mexico City’s Zócalo (central square). During his time abroad, the country’s ­labor movement had mobilized to a degree unseen since the days of 28   —   Chapter One

Cárdenas’s own po­liti­cal rule when the government had been openly allied with striking l­abor. He now expressed concern about upstaging President López Mateos, whose po­liti­cal footing was still somewhat tenuous. ­There “would be no speeches,” he stated to the Mexican press, “in order to avoid the kind of reception that might be confused with making a po­liti­cal statement.”40 Instead, he met privately with the president to share with him his observations about the countries he had visited.41 Outside of Cárdenas’s ­limited journal entry, t­here is unfortunately nothing in the documentary rec­ord that reveals the substance of their conversation. Yet his decision not to hold a rally upon his return coupled with his meeting with López Mateos point to a self-­conscious effort to collaborate with rather than thwart the new president. Indeed, shortly ­after this meeting, Cárdenas confided in his journal that all of Mexico’s former presidents, including himself, should “leave the country” so that the new president “can complete, without the presence of external factions,” his constitutional duties.42 If Cárdenas’s public stance remained muted, the impact of his travels abroad was nevertheless profound. For one, his expectations of pro­gress ­under communism had been confirmed. The Communist countries provided demonstrable proof that a socialist re­distribution of wealth was a superior system to capitalism. Second, his travels occurred in the context of a robust anticolonialism across Africa, Asia, and the ­Middle East. Mexicans, he believed, naturally identified with the motivating forces and aspirations of that movement and ­were obliged to lend it support. Fi­nally, the United States lurked as a force of reaction that threatened to impede the course of history as newly emerging nation-­states sought to establish control over their own destinies. In an extended entry in his journal that waxed philosophical about his experiences, Cárdenas described an “anguish that has detained my spirit” in thinking about the prospects of change for f­uture generations in Latin Amer­i­ca, ­those faced “with a neighbor that ­doesn’t change its international politics.”43 “But when I saw ­peoples of other continents socially or­ga­nized,” he continued, “that’s when I believed that ­there is hope for the ­peoples of our continent to be redeemed from economic oppression to become totally f­ ree nations.” Significantly, although the Cuban Revolution was still only weeks old, Cárdenas expressed in his journal: “Cuba, with its Revolution in the Sierra Maestra headed by Doctor F. Castro, is that hope.”44 The Cuban Revolution in fact would greatly complicate López Mateos’s ambitions to embark upon a global pivot. In that regard, Cárdenas, as the uncontested “spiritual head” of Mexico’s fractious Left, as Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom labeled him, would prove to be an encumbrance but also potentially an asset. Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   29

Mexico was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the new revolutionary regime in Cuba.45 Quick recognition conformed with Mexico’s “Estrada Doctrine,” which was the cornerstone of Mexican foreign policy and emerged out of the nation’s own revolutionary experience. U ­ nder the doctrine, recognition was granted to new governments irrespective of their po­liti­cal orientation, thus affirming the right to popu­ lar sovereignty, including through revolutionary transformation. But beyond that princi­ple, perhaps more so than any other country, Mexicans could claim a special identification with the Cuban revolutionaries. As José Natividad Rosales wrote in the center-­left newsweekly, Siempre!, two weeks ­after Castro’s forces entered Havana: “It was our revolutionary pa­ tria that first gave encouragement to Cuba’s strug­gle, that contributed to Cuba’s lessons, that permitted its territory to become the trampoline from which the intrepid barbones [i.e., barbudos or bearded ones] embarked on their historic mission. Mexico was the nest in which their ideas matured; our countryside . . . ​allowed for the training of their first fighters and we lived alongside, as ­brothers—­our ­brothers—­the strug­gle of the insurrectionists of the Sierra Maestra.”46 The connection with Mexico, however, went beyond providing the guerrilleros a haven from which to plot their movement. In their strug­gle against dictatorship, the Cuban revolutionaries bore a resemblance to Mexico’s own revolutionary ­battles, nearly fifty years ­earlier. As one veteran of Mexico’s revolution wrote in a tele­gram to President López Mateos the day ­after Batista fled, Mexico should immediately recognize the new Cuban government ­because it was “inspired in princi­ples kindred to ­those that sparked our own strug­gles for freedom.”47 Revolutionary Cuba indeed became a mirror into which Mexicans old and young gazed, though not with common eyes. For President López Mateos, los barbudos would soon become unwanted revolutionaries. Domestically, the revolution directly contributed to the expansion, both numerically and ideologically, of a movement in solidarity with the wildcat mobilizations led by defiant l­ abor leaders begun the previous summer. At a moment when many on the Left ­were already talking in terms of the “death” of the Mexican Revolution, the romance of a vibrant revolutionary proj­ect so close to Mexico (both geo­graph­i­cally and emotionally) posed an immediate cause for concern.48 Moreover, the rapid deterioration in relations between Washington and Cuba generated new levels of anti-­Americanism within Mexico precisely at a moment when López Mateos sought to deepen bilateral relations as a necessary objective to his broader geopo­liti­cal strategy of diversification. Fi­nally, Castro’s radicalization introduced an unanticipated Cold War dynamic into the region, 30   —   Chapter One

one that threatened to upstage López Mateos at a moment when he was ­eager to assert Mexican leadership, both within the Pan-­American system and globally. An indication of ­these official concerns could be found in the government-­ influenced press, where pro-­Cuba sentiment was far less generous in its enthusiasm than one might have assumed given popu­lar interpretations of Mexico’s “special relationship” with the revolutionaries. For instance, barely two weeks passed before Excélsior (the nation’s leading newspaper) was denouncing Castro as the “caudillo of the Sierra Maestra” whose florid words of demo­cratic promise belied a real­ity of vengeance “in which t­ here is no other law than that of rancor and no cause beyond that of power.”49 Referencing the revolutionary tribunals, in which scores of police officials and other former agents of the Batista regime ­were publicly tried and executed, Excélsior editorialized that Cuba was living through a “fratricidal war without pre­ce­dent . . . ​a horrible nightmare.”50 Such commentary, however, appeared to do l­ ittle to alter public perceptions of the revolutionaries as anything short of heroic. In mid-­February, a group of thirteen guerri­ lleros arrived in Mexico City at the start of a ten-­nation tour to promote the ideals of the Cuban Revolution and “to explain the rationale ­behind the current executions.”51 Exiting the plane in Mexico City, they ­were greeted by “hundreds of curious onlookers,” including many airport personnel, who “let loose a collective cheer: ‘Viva Cuba.’ ”52 It was a palpable sign of approval and solidarity that encapsulated a sentiment, widely shared especially among the young, that the Cuban Revolution represented a sense of defiance against old systems, as well as the possibilities of renewal.53 Significantly, what the public saw—or at least, the news-­minded public of the nation’s capital—­was a spectacle unlike anything previously witnessed. ­These ­were a far cry from the Mexican revolutionaries of popu­lar imaginary, whose broad sombreros and well-­groomed mustaches constituted the iconic repre­sen­ta­tions of national lore. As a reporter for Excél­ sior described with some astonishment, it was not only the makeshift uniforms that captured one’s attention but their “extremely long hair, beards, and mustaches.” “When they comb their hair it reaches their shoulders,” the reporter continued, “while their beards reach to their chest and their mustaches cover their cheeks.”54 It was a visage that began “in disorder, as a last resort, from a lack of time,” as Jean-­Paul Sartre would ­later write during his visit to revolutionary Cuba.55 Historically, the or­ga­nized Left was clean-­shaven and, generally speaking, well dressed. The “uniform” of leftist politicians, intellectuals, and l­ abor leaders consisted of a dress shirt and, just as often, suit and tie. Preparing for revolutionary transformation Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   31

required self-­discipline, one reflected in a formal, “conservative” aesthetic self-­ presentation—an aesthetic, it should be noted, epitomized by the dress code of Lázaro Cárdenas. Located in the context of a broader questioning of established orthodoxies, the bearded guerrilleros would come to symbolize a revolt against something larger—­another old order, not simply that of Batista but of conformity to a paternalistic ethos, one deeply ingrained in socialist and cap­i­tal­ist systems alike. By the late 1950s facial hair and a disheveled appearance among a coterie of young men in industrialized socie­ties ­were becoming symbols of a parallel generational revolt. On the one hand, it was a revolt rooted in re­sis­tance to the modern “time-­work” ethos. On the other hand, it reflected an engagement with iconoclastic narrative and aesthetic practices linked to new forms of mass popu­lar culture, especially in ­music and film. New strategies of social and po­liti­cal protest ­were emerging. While the larger implications of this generational revolt ­were still several years away, the visual repre­sen­ta­tion projected by los barbudos was already beginning to intersect with an emergent critique from within the Left. It was a critique generated in par­tic­u­lar by a new generation of youth alienated by the formal Left’s po­liti­cal authoritarianism and its tendency ­toward a sanctimonious paternalism. A bohemian defiance of social norms would soon merge with an ideological disregard for traditional forms of left-­wing organ­ization. Together, this convergence would help render a novel and, for many, utterly liberating form of revolutionary politics. ­After 1958, in Mexico as elsewhere, the heroic imagery of bearded revolutionaries—­irreverent bohemians, yet po­liti­cally disciplined at the same time—­insinuated itself into the discourse of left-­wing politics. A “New” Left was in formation, one characterized by the emergence of a cultural politics that questioned, and at times openly ridiculed, the patriarchal-­ populist discourse that defined an “Old” Left style of politics. Castro and his guerrilleros, as historian Van Gosse has fittingly described, ­were the po­liti­cal response to t­hose who viewed youth as aimless; h ­ ere ­were the rebels with a cause.56 A “Wave of Restlessness” and the Threat of an Untethered Intelligent­sia While the triumph of the barbudos was celebrated by the Mexican Left—­ though viewed more warily by the government-­ dominated media—­ the Cuban Revolution was not immediately recognized as heralding a dramatic transformation in po­liti­cal or ideological values. Nor was it yet relevant 32   —   Chapter One

to Mexico’s domestic mobilizations. Instead, the focus of the Left’s attention remained closer to home: nurturing and defending an in­de­pen­ dent syndicalism, pushing for the fulfillment of land re­distribution, and demanding the right to f­ree speech and assembly. Barely two weeks ­after the del­e­ga­tion from Cuba visited, workers of the largest of the railway ­unions, the Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la República Mexicana (stfrm , Union of Railroad Workers of the Mexican Republic), led a successful strike against the government-­owned railway system for an increase in wages and benefits. It was the first real test of authority and power by the new demo­cratically elected u ­ nion leadership, u ­ nder the direction of a member of a Communist-­affiliated splinter party, Demetrio Vallejo, and its success galvanized workers and leftist intellectuals around the country. Vallejo had come to prominence the previous summer as a result of the massive wave of strikes across vari­ous sectors. He now embodied the power and symbolism of an activist, worker-­led movement from below: demo­cratic in its politics, constitutionalist in its princi­ples, and revolutionary—­not by force of arms but through the collective power of the strike—in its actions. ­Under Vallejo’s direction, the stfrm launched a nationwide work stoppage on February 25, which was quickly settled by the government in the ­union’s f­ avor. Although acknowledging that the concessions ­were “small in comparison with the ­union demands,” the US Embassy still felt the government had “fumbled a good opportunity for a showdown” with Vallejo and his close collaborator (and also former member of the Communist Party), Valentín Campa, the two main leaders of the ­union.57 Then, in a tactical move that would prove strategically fatal, Vallejo announced a second general strike scheduled for the Easter holiday weekend at the end of March, one of the busiest travel dates of the year. The proposed action was aimed at supporting other railway workers affiliated with non-­ stfrm ­unions whose own leadership was mired in the pro­cess of negotiating separate agreements with the government. Robert Alegre argues that it was the grassroots that pushed the leadership to announce this second strike, but t­ here is ­little question that Vallejo and Campa overplayed their hand. The timing was a grave miscalculation that “incon­ve­nienced ­people of all classes” (coming on the holiday weekend) and shifted the remnants of public sentiment from support of the workers onto the side of the government.58 Three days into the strike, President López Mateos issued o ­ rders to the military to take over stfrm headquarters and arrest the u ­ nion leadership. Thousands of railway workers ­were summarily fired; scores ­were beaten and imprisoned. A de facto state of siege settled over Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   33

Mexico City, as well as the provincial capitals of Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Veracruz.59 Images of the military r­ unning the nation’s railway and telegraph systems coupled with progovernment newspaper headlines announcing that Communists ­were ­behind the strike conveyed a sense of the nation ­under attack from within. Soon a ­ fter, letters ­were discovered purportedly sent from the Soviet Union to vari­ous “known Mexican Communists” encouraging ­labor agitation. The government played up the revelation and promptly expelled two Soviet diplomats, Captain Nikolai Aksenov (a military attaché) and Nikolai Remisov (the embassy’s second secretary).60 Given the fact that Mexico was si­ mul­ ta­ neously pursuing greater diplomatic and economic ties with the Soviet Union, this choice of tactics may seem contradictory. Yet the Soviet Union was long accustomed to playing the role of domestic scapegoat in Latin Amer­i­ca and both countries likely recognized that the removal of two relatively low-­ranking diplomats was a tolerable price to pay, one that would contain further harm to relations.61 By midspring, the hard-­fought demo­cratic opening in ­labor politics had been snuffed out. In its place, the Left had a collection of jailed martyrs—­ “political prisoners,” as they ­were soon indelibly characterized—­around which to rally. Still, the repression marked an impor­tant turning point for Mexico’s one-­party system. Although the crackdown resolved the short-­ term prob­lem of workers’ protest, a larger crisis of confidence was at stake. Long-­standing mechanisms used to bind the left-­wing intelligent­sia to the regime ­were losing their impact in the context of rapidly shifting po­liti­cal, cultural, and ideological norms. The Left that now coalesced around Vallejo, Campa, and other imprisoned ­union activists was a more diverse and in­de­pen­dent Left, one increasingly cynical t­oward familiar po­liti­cal and cultural icons. The latter included figures such as Vicente Lombardo Toledano, leader of the Partido Popu­lar (pp ) and the person who most explic­itly sought to sustain the mantle of cardenismo (i.e., support for the policies of Lázaro Cárdenas). But it also reflected a mistrust more broadly of a formulaic Marxism and the smug self-­assurance of the Mexican Communist Party (pcm , Partido Comunista Mexicano) and its splinter affiliates, such as the Partido Obrero Campesino Mexicano (pocm , Mexican Worker-­Peasant Party). An ideological vacuum had opened that allowed for new figures and ideas to emerge. As a confidential report by the US Embassy noted at the end of January 1959, a new generation of “liberal and leftist writers, intellectuals, and pseudo-­intellectuals” had attached themselves to the “wave of restlessness” heralded by the l­ abor insurgency. For now, t­ hese intellectual dis34   —   Chapter One

senters had not “as yet found a vehicle of po­liti­cal expression.” Nevertheless, they posed a “potential danger to cordial US-­Mexican relations.”62 A “restless” cohort was forging a new language of dissent via outlets that fell outside the traditional par­ameters of state control.63 The vehicle that best captured this new spirit of “restlessness” and the threat of an untethered Left was the monthly newsmagazine el espectador (the spectator). Launched in May 1959, the magazine operated through a six-­person, rotating editorial collective composed of representatives of this new generation of intellectuals: Víctor Flores Olea, Carlos Fuentes, Enrique González Pedrero, Francisco López Cámara, Jaime García Terrés, and Luis Villoro. All ­were unconnected to the party politics of the pcm , pocm , or the pp . Indeed, the deliberate lowercase spelling of the magazine can be interpreted as an implicit critique of the monumentalism refracted through the official institutions of the state, on the one hand, and of the traditional leftist parties, on the other.64 The challenge posed by el espectador was not ideological per se—­members of the collective also wrote for other officially sanctioned outlets, such as the magazine Siempre!—­but rather the fact of its in­de­pen­dence from government patronage. Its very existence, in other words, represented a breach in the nexus between the state and the intelligent­sia, a relationship that had been cultivated since the 1920s and one that served an essential role in reproducing the ideological legitimacy of the ruling party. Born “in moments of crisis,” as the opening editorial announced, el espectador aimed to provide a forum for intellectuals to work through the imperatives of the day, and to forge a new po­liti­cal and cultural identity of the Left. “The Mexican Left must be reborn and achieve a new unity,” the editorial intoned, one “that meets the new historical exigency of Mexican democracy.”65 A central focus of attention for the collective was the awakening of the nation’s in­de­pen­dent ­labor movement. This demanded a renovation of the Left, to “stop being a left from above” and become “a left from below.”66 Enrique González Pedrero similarly expressed that a unique opportunity had opened for a new generation of intellectuals to collaborate with the “popu­lar sectors,” to rejuvenate the revolutionary proj­ect of the state, which “continues to claim the mantle of being revolutionary even when its content has ceased to be so.”67 Notably, nearly all the contributors to el espectador ­were ­under thirty years old and had come of age during the conservative, postwar era. In arguing that the Mexican Revolution had become emptied of its radicalism and stripped of its demo­cratic promise, the newsmagazine thus exposed a gap in ideas as well as leadership. Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   35

The questions of who and what constituted the Left ­were central ele­ ments to the editorials and essays contained in el espectador. For instance, an editorial written in el espectador’s second issue titled “The Means and the Ends” noted that the Marxist Left was in a pro­cess of radical reformulation, and the prob­lems of the Left—­“theoretical and practical”—­were still to be resolved.68 The writings in general reflected an awareness of a larger conversation transpiring on the left globally in the wake of the Twentieth Soviet Congress in 1956, when the world came to learn of the horrors of Stalinism. At the same time, the line of questioning reflected knowledge of new forms of revolutionary consciousness and methodologies connected to anticolonialist movements and to the recent triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Still, significantly t­ here was an outright rejection of vio­lence as a useful strategy for the Mexican left to embrace. To propose a second revolution, wrote Luis Villoro, would amount to “utopianism” (al­ guna mente utópica).69 This was a point seconded by Jaime García Terrés, another (somewhat older) member of the editorial collective, who pointedly remarked in the inaugural issue: “The only medicine for a sickened democracy rests upon clean, sincere, and well-­founded open debate. To us, that is what definitively ­matters most.”70 The turn to vio­lence would soon emerge as a core position demarcating the “New” from an “Old” Left, while at the same time the New Left would also be defined by its irreverence for established social and cultural hierarchies. Indeed, ­these twin ele­ments—­vio­lence and irreverence—­would come to constitute the New Left’s “twin sensibilities,” points on a spectrum that would remain in tension with one another throughout the 1960s, in Mexico and globally (see chapter 6). Although much of the writing in el espectador was quite earnest, at the same time the magazine provided an impor­tant forum for a nascent, wry aesthetic sensibility to take shape. A prominent example of this was the section titled “Diccionario Político,” which humorously redefined commonly used terms such as cacique (“­people destined to become ambassadors”), communist (“Anglicism”), democracy (“archaic phrase in disuse”), and patria (“word whose use is restricted to that of the Acad­emy. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Copyright”). In another iteration of the Diccionario, entirely new words ­were created based on the po­liti­cal slang word dedo (fin­ger), a term that signified the direct appointment (i.e., “fingering”) of a po­liti­cal successor and thus epitomized the absence of the demo­cratic pro­cess in Mexico.71 Po­liti­cal humor, of course, had a long and celebrated history in Mexico, and to some extent the po­liti­cal culture of el espectador was simply following in that tradition. But at the same time, the 36   —   Chapter One

interplay of reverence (in the earnest interrogation of Marxist princi­ples) and irreverence (in the playful subversiveness of monumentalist tropes from the national imaginary) that tran­spired across the pages of el especta­ dor reflected a wider shift taking place across the po­liti­cal culture of the Left in Mexico.72 By the mid-1960s, this irreverent heterodoxy would fall ­under the disciplinary gaze of a po­liti­cal Left that demanded compromiso (po­liti­cal commitment). This divide became a key fault line that came to define the epistemological tensions within the New Left itself. In sum, the magazine, writes Gabriel Careaga, “attempted to create in that moment a new left,” one that was “undogmatic, cultured, committed to end the complacence and superficiality of the old lefts, which substituted a rhe­toric of clichés, dogmas, and regrets for an analy­sis of real­ity.”73 Despite being crude in its production values and appearing monthly rather than weekly, as with other newsmagazines such as Siempre! or Mañana, distribution of el espectador quickly reached nearly ten thousand copies per month, many of which ­were sold by subscription.74 This new outlet helped to catalyze a broader context of po­liti­cal ferment and reflected the cultural experimentation that could be found on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (unam , National Autonomous University of Mexico), where new student magazines and cine clubs ­were coming into being. A new po­liti­cal ethos was in rapid formation, one that si­mul­ta­neously merged an emergent epistemological critique of what it meant to be “on the left” with an exuberant sensation of new, postcolonial modalities and solidarities coming into existence. Notably, the first two issues of el espectador carried only scant mention of the Cuban Revolution. Instead, the magazine focused its coverage on the fallout from the recent ­labor unrest, including an interview from prison with Demetrio Vallejo, and a sharpened critique of Mexico’s lack of due pro­cess. (The latter was epitomized by the notorious “law of social dissolution,” which allowed the government to arrest suspected dissidents at ­will.) One of el espectador’s only references to Cuba was an unsigned news item in the June 1959 issue commenting on the recent agrarian reform law announced by Fidel Castro. The May 17 act placed a cap on landholding and led to the expropriation of some twelve thousand properties, including many owned by US citizens. The brief article criticized US demands for compensation, though did so, significantly, by referencing a more progressive period of US–­Latin Amer­i­ca relations, that of the Good Neighbor. “Apparently,” the author noted with evident sarcasm but also a lament, “the policy of Roo­se­velt has been forgotten.”75 ­After quoting Cárdenas’s words announcing Mexico’s own agrarian reform in 1938 Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   37

(at the height of the Good Neighbor), the article concluded: “That is how the Mexican Revolution used to speak. This is how the Cuban Revolution speaks now. Only a person who is blind or acting in bad faith can deny that the strug­gle is one and the same.”76 It was the first time that former president Lázaro Cárdenas’s name had been publicly invoked in reference to the Cuban Revolution. A month ­ later, the two would become inseparably linked. Lázaro Cárdenas Resurrected That July, seven months a ­fter Castro’s triumph, Cárdenas made good on an invitation from Fidel Castro to commemorate the triumph of the revolution. His trip to Havana marked a critical juncture not only for the Mexico-­Cuba relationship but in the transformation of Lázaro Cárdenas from a behind-­the-­scenes influence on the po­liti­cal direction of the regime into de facto leader of Mexico’s “restless” youth and thus a pivotal player once more in Mexican domestic politics. Yet if the visit directly inserted Cárdenas—­and by extension, Mexico—­into Cuba’s revolutionary conflict, through his actions and words, both privately and in public, Cárdenas went out of his way to demonstrate that he intended to act not as a disruptor but as a bridge—­ideologically between the generations, and po­liti­cally between Mexico and a world in revolutionary upheaval. This was evident even before leaving for Cuba, when he met privately at length with López Mateos. He subsequently traveled on a plane “full of Mexicans,” one which included a large national press corps. All of this suggests at least a semiofficial endorsement of Cárdenas’s trip to the island.77 Over the course of the next two days, Cárdenas interacted with an assemblage of high-­ranking revolutionaries, whose olive-­green uniforms and unruly beards stood in marked contrast to the elder Cárdenas’s own white linen suit and dark tie—­“what my dad always wore for formal occasions,” his son ­later recalled (see figure 1.1).78 For ­those paying attention to such details, it was a visual indicator of an aesthetic rift, already opening wide, between an “Old” Left wed to a par­tic­u­lar vision and praxis of revolutionary socialism and a “New” Left heading into unchartered territory. The day a ­ fter arriving, Cárdenas and his son ­were given seats of honor on the main tribunal. Seated between them was Fidel Castro himself.79 They faced “an undulating ­human sea,” as Tad Szulc wrote in the New York Times, that included thousands of peasants who had benefited from the recently proclaimed agrarian reform, their machetes and sombreros de palma (straw hats) announcing their presence.80 When the time came 38   —   Chapter One

Figure 1.1 Lázaro Cárdenas (far left) in a white linen suit—­“what [he] always wore for formal occasions”—­alongside a fatigue-­clad and bearded Fidel Castro at the podium to commemorate the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. Vis­i­ble ­behind Castro is Rolando Cubela, soon imprisoned for his efforts to overthrow Castro. At Cubela’s left is Efigenio Ameijeras, chief of police and vice minister of the Armed Forces. Source: Bettmann/corbis , Havana, July 28, 1959.

for the elder Cárdenas to speak, he used the opportunity to denounce the Cold War as creating a pretext to interfere with national sovereignty. Each time developing countries “take a step on the path ­toward their economic and po­liti­cal liberation,” Cárdenas decried, no doubt with the recent overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz uppermost in his mind, “they are accused of participating in the Cold War.”81 The most memorable aspect of Cárdenas’s speech, however, was his explicit comparison of the Cuban and Mexican revolutions. “Agrarian reform in Mexico received the most virulent attacks from the enemies of anti-­feudal strug­gle,” he told the vast crowd.82 Cuba, in attempting to implement its own agrarian reform, was likewise experiencing a “defamation that has contributed Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   39

to the creation of a black legend” against the revolutionary government. Shifting to the first-­ person plural, he conflated his own ideological ­position with that of the Mexican nation: “We Mexicans know well that revolutions are not imported or exported. . . . ​We re­spect the integrity of emancipation movements in other countries,” he declared, “as we have asked for re­spect for the Mexican Revolution.”83 Writing in Siem­ pre!, Jacobo Zabludovsky, a young journalist who a de­cade ­later would become Mexico’s preeminent tele­vi­sion news personality, suggested the speech had represented “the strongest moral support received by Fidel Castro throughout Latin Amer­i­ca since the start of his movement.”84 Another more seasoned Mexican journalist traveling with Cárdenas, José Alvarado, succinctly captured the significance of Cárdenas’s remarks. He “has just delivered to the Cuban Revolution the heartfelt embrace [abrazo] of the Mexican Revolution,” which, he added, “has an enormous impact for the entire continent.”85 The speech indeed sealed the fate of Mexico–­Cuba relations and raised the stakes of accommodating US demands to isolate the island’s political leadership. Cárdenas’s actions, however, clearly took into consideration Mexican foreign policy traditions and objectives. Mexico, as Ashley Black argues, had been indirectly “activist” t­ oward the Ca­rib­bean since the 1940s, deploying a generous stance t­ oward po­liti­cal exiles as a central component of a strategy aimed at advancing Mexican positions within regional organ­ izations. The upheaval ushered in by Fidel Castro was a byproduct of this strategy and López Mateos was quite likely willing if not e ­ ager to dispatch Cárdenas to play a mediating role. In fact, Cárdenas met with the newly appointed US ambassador, Philip Bonsal, who was pleased to note how the former president “spoke favorably of the pre­sent state of US-­Mexican relations” and “expressed appropriately anti-­ Communist sentiments.” Indeed, during his speech the previous day, Cárdenas had framed his defense of the Cuban Revolution in terms of the Good Neighbor Policy, a policy of “mutual re­spect” carried out by “the g ­ reat citizen of North Amer­i­ca,” President Franklin Roo­se­velt. It was a policy, Cárdenas underscored, that “bore witness to and represented a historical commitment” for Latin Americans.86 Cárdenas’s stance was clearly ­shaped by his own collaborative relationship with Roo­se­velt during the period leading up to World War II, and in his conversation with Ambassador Bonsal he reiterated “that it was essential that the p ­ eoples of Latin Amer­i­ca have the closest and most cooperative relations with the United States, especially in view of the critical state of world affairs.”87 In a report to the State Department, Bonsal downplayed Cárdenas’s interest in the Cuban revolutionar40   —   Chapter One

ies, dismissing his evident enthusiasm as that of “an el­derly revolutionary [who] is inclined to take a fatherly attitude t­oward the foibles, excesses, and ­mistakes of his younger contemporaries ­here.”88 But if Cárdenas acted in the role of an intermediary, he was nevertheless invigorated by what he saw and heard in Cuba. Writing in the August issue of el espectador, which featured on its cover the iconic photo of a buttoned-­ down Cárdenas alongside the bearded Fidel Castro, Jaime García Terrés heralded Cárdenas’s speech as signaling a profound shift in Mexico’s po­liti­cal landscape. Following “so many years of pure bureaucracy, of a sterile and mechanized politics,” he wrote, ­here was the “voice of a man who, conscious of his national importance, has something to say.”89 It was a sentiment invoked in the coming weeks and months, with an air of hope and expectation as Cárdenas assumed a more out­spoken role in defense not only of the Cuban Revolution but of “national sovereignty” more generally. “The Cárdenas of the last several weeks,” an anonymous member of the editorial collective wrote in the fall issue of el espectador, “has been the Cárdenas who is loyal to the ideology of the Revolution and who invokes in all Mexicans loyalty to that same ideology.” Now “once again, we have heard a voice that proposes, that insists upon a maximum program to unite and motivate the mobilization of all of the demo­cratic and progressive forces in Mexico.”90 At a moment when the Mexican Left was noticeably absent a leader with mass appeal, Cárdenas seemed to reappear as if by divine ­will. As a playfully irreverent cartoon in el espectador succinctly captured, he had figuratively risen from the dead (see figure 1.2). Although ­others have attributed Cárdenas’s return to prominence as a direct impact of his trip to Cuba, the circumstances appear to be more complex.91 Clearly, the visit made an impor­tant impression but it was one of affirmation: that an agrarian reform pro­cess was vital; that Cuba had the right to sovereignty; that peaceful resolution was “the best solution to the prob­lems” between the United States and Cuba.92 Still, nearly two months passed before Cárdenas entered public debate, thus suggesting that he still understood his role as one of dutiful re­spect to López Mateos.93 Arguably, he was not looking to meddle in Mexican politics but was pushed into ­doing so by the social forces in revolt. One influential group in that re­spect was the Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos (cem , Circle of Mexican Studies). Launched in the fall of 1954, the cem hosted academic conferences and produced a journal critical of the strategy of capital accumulation that characterized postwar Mexican economic development, the strategy that formed the basis for what foreign Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   41

Figure 1.2 A playful reference to Lázaro Cárdenas’s vocal defense of the imprisoned railway workers and his appearance alongside Fidel Castro the previous July appeared in the fall issue of el especta­ dor. The magazine’s cover included the text “La Resurrección de Lázaro.” Source: el espectador 1, nos. 6–7 (October–­ November 1959): 6.

observers increasingly championed as the “Mexican Miracle.” Although Marxist in orientation—­the State Department described it as a “Marxist Think Tank”—­the eclectic membership of the cem suggested an effort to distance itself from the pull of any par­tic­u­lar po­liti­cal orientation.94 This was reflected in the journal’s Declaration of Princi­ples, in which the founding members pronounced that the cem would not be used “as a platform for any party or faction.”95 Since late July 1959, Jorge Tamayo, a key participant in the cem and a friend of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, had been seeking a meeting with the se­nior Cárdenas. Intelligence surveillance reports filed by the Division Federal de Seguridad (dfs , Division of Federal Security) reveal that Tamayo wanted to inform the elder Cárdenas of cem proj­ects, including the formation of a Peace Initiative Committee (this would lay the basis for a proposed Mexico City conference linked to the World Peace Council discussed in chapter  4) and the creation of a Po­liti­cal Prisoners Defense Committee. Lázaro Cárdenas, however, was repeatedly “unavailable.”96 When Cárdenas fi­nally agreed to a meeting in late August, Tamayo asked him to speak at a solidarity gathering co-­organized with an affiliated group, Amigos de Cuba.97 Cárdenas tentatively accepted the invitation, but a week l­ ater had still not fully committed, much to the frustration 42   —   Chapter One

of the organizers.98 When he fi­nally agreed, word quickly spread through the press and radio. But on the day of the gathering in mid-­September the doors to the theater ­were found shuttered; some three hundred ­people gathered around, many “distributing pro-­Castro and anti-­Somoza pamphlets.” Cárdenas, “like many of the other personalities who ­were expected to attend,” had stayed away.99 A second influence came from the crushed ­labor movement. The body of an arrested railway worker had recently been found beaten by the side of the road in northern Mexico. One in­de­pen­dent source accused the regime of sliding t­oward “a climate of terrorism.”100 It was in this context that a group of wives of jailed workers asked Cárdenas to transmit a message to López Mateos asking for the release of their husbands. They also pressed him to meet with their imprisoned spouses directly; the next day Cárdenas did so, noting the workers’ “admirable attitude.”101 Less than two weeks l­ater, in early October, he accepted an invitation to speak as the featured guest for the tenth anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, or­ga­nized by the Mexican Society for Friendship with People’s China and hosted by Lombardo Toledano’s Workers’ Univer­ sity.102 Cárdenas lauded the Chinese Revolution but further used the occasion to denounce “noisy anticommunist propaganda” that served as a pretext to “cover up an oligarchy that only seeks to increase its privileges.” With evident reference to the recent workers’ movement in Mexico, he warned that “any attempt to support the pro­gress of Mexico on the basis of repression and vio­lence, or to create a climate of intolerable persecution is doomed to fail.”103 Three days l­ater, members of the cem met to discuss the printing of fifty thousand copies of the speech.104 Paul Kennedy, writing for the New York Times, described Cárdenas’s recent actions as a “jolt” to the Mexican po­liti­cal system. The former president, Kennedy noted, had “stirred anew the po­liti­cal pot that has been simmering [in Mexico] for the last few weeks.”105 By mid-­October, a new activist synergy could be felt, one whose root ­causes appeared, at least to po­liti­cal observers, to be located in the revolutionary rhe­toric (and actions) of Fidel Castro, on the one hand, and the po­liti­cal resurrection of Lázaro Cárdenas, on the other. President López Mateos now moved to contain the Cuban Revolution from further contaminating Mexico’s body politic, and to subordinate Cárdenas to presidential authority. Po­liti­cal meetings in support of Cuba ­were broken up, pro-­Cuba organ­izations ­were infiltrated by state security agents, and selective acts of repression ­were used to send a clear message of the narrow limits for government tolerance. Meanwhile, the government-­dominated Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   43

press continued to follow a decidedly anti-­Castro bent in an effort to shape public opinion against the revolutionaries. Numerous articles decried Castro as a ruthless jefe máximo who was destroying the island’s economy and leading the nation down the path ­toward Communist rule.106 In a notable example that implicitly referenced Cárdenas’s favorable comparison of Cuba and Mexico, the weekly newsmagazine Jueves de Excélsior asserted (apparently, without irony) that unlike the Mexican Revolution, the Cuban Revolution was “a disor­ ga­ nized movement, without any plan whatso107 ever.” A British report noted that Cárdenas’s recent actions “ha[d] caused considerable embarrassment” to the ruling party “and to President López Mateos in par­tic­u­lar.” In response, the report noted, the press began publishing articles and editorial cartoons “ridiculing [Cárdenas] in a way that would previously have been unthinkable.” By mid-fall, the British Embassy reported that the president was “annoyed and increasingly angry” with Cárdenas and “his latest phase as the self-­styled champion of revolution and the liberator of the oppressed.” After r­ unning through the vari­ous scenarios of how Cárdenas might be contained, the British ambassador wryly noted: “It ­will be a mea­sure of President López’ stature to see what steps are fi­nally taken to bell the cat.”108 An excellent example of ­these efforts to deflate the aura of Cárdenas was a cover illustration by the well-­known po­liti­cal cartoonist Rafael Freyre.109 Titled “Camaradas” (literally, “comrades” or “buddies”), the image established a visual foundation for the conservative critique of Cárdenas that was developing throughout the fall of 1959 and that characterized attacks on Cárdenas throughout the early 1960s. In the image, each figure embodies the other’s revolutionary spirit—­ mariachi and rumba convey Cuba and Mexico’s respective cultural “essence.” Yet the illustration introduces a semiotics that not only disparages the relationship between the two figures (and nations) but subverts the heroic stature of Cárdenas as respected elder statesman. Castro ­belts out mariachi while Cárdenas rumbas blithely; they are not “in rhythm” despite their insistence on performing together. Moreover, in “becoming Cuban,” Cárdenas is transfigured racially (he becomes darker) as well as professionally (he is no longer a statesman but a mere musical performer). Dressed in the frilly accoutrements of the rumbero (rumba performer) with its associations of tropical licentiousness, he is stripped of the masculine grandeur of revolutionary leadership. His emasculation is completed by the implication of a homoerotic relationship, one in which Castro is the hombre (from ­behind) and Cárdenas, bent slightly over, is the mujer.110 Fi­nally, coded as Afro-­Cuban, Cárdenas is shed of his racial identifica44   —   Chapter One

Figure 1.3 “Camaradas” by Rafael Freyre depicts Lázaro Cárdenas with a lack of deference that was highly uncharacteristic and reflected conservatives’ fears and frustrations generated by his return to the po­liti­cal limelight. Source: Jueves de Excélsior, August 13, 1959.

tion as a “true Mexican.” No longer mestizo, he becomes, in the viewer’s imaginary, a foreigner. In the midst of this domestic ferment, López Mateos prepared for a state visit to the United States and Canada, the first set of travels of his relatively young presidency and a trip that would play a critical role in shoring up Mexico’s relations to the North even as he fathomed a broader pivot to countries in the South, East, and West. On the face of it, an increasingly untethered, disaffected, and ideologically fractious co­ali­tion made up of students, intellectuals, and left-­wing activists coalescing around the leadership of Cárdenas thus posed a direct challenge to López Mateos’s young regime. But it was also an opportunity. As the president certainly knew, Cárdenas “the cat” could also be useful in herding the mice (so to speak). Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   45

The Strategic Utility of the Good Neighbor In the summer of 1958, shortly a ­ fter the presidential election of Adolfo López Mateos, former US ambassador to Mexico George Messersmith wrote to the newly appointed assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, Roy Rubottom, from his retirement in Cuernavaca, Mexico. During his many years in the Foreign Ser­vice, Messersmith had played an impor­tant role as architect of the Good Neighbor and he remained committed to the princi­ple of respeto mutuo. He was also aware of the latent forces of anti-­American nationalism and the contradictory social dynamics that ­were contained within the ruling pri . In the fluid, unsettled geopo­ liti­cal environment of the late 1950s, Messersmith conveyed to Rubottom a prescient observation about Mexico’s rising international ambitions. Mexico, he noted, was no longer “the black sheep of the f­ amily” in Latin Amer­i­ca; the government was imbued with “a new sense of power and initiative.” Yet without the necessary diplomatic attention and sensitivity to Mexican ambitions, he cautioned, the country might “do tremendous harm in the hemi­sphere situation and increase out [sic] prob­lems in other parts of the world.”111 Messersmith’s concerns ­were shared by Rubottom. “Our stake in Mexico is one of the few largest we have in any part of the world,” he wrote in September 1958.112 Arguing that the bilateral relationship was “complicated and sensitive,” Rubbotton considered it a “top priority” to invite López Mateos to the United States as soon as pos­si­ble ­after his inauguration. Making good on that advice, in September 1959 López Mateos prepared for his first official visit to the United States. The trip offered a key opportunity for both sides to celebrate their distinctive strategic partnership, one premised on a Good Neighbor sensibility that was increasingly out of sync elsewhere in the region. “The fact that t­here are no tensions or prob­lems in our relations with Mexico,” Rubottom wrote in a memo two weeks prior to López Mateos’s visit, “and that no substantive issues ­will be discussed or dealt with in the final communiqué ­will tend to downgrade the press treatment of the visit.”113 To address this concern, Rubottom directed State Department officials to contact “the three Washington papers to urge them to give special treatment to López Mateos on the day of his arrival and in the Sunday society pages. . . . ​I have in mind such ­things as a color picture on the front page of the [Washington] Post . . . ​[and] editorial comment—­possibly in Spanish as well as En­glish.”114 Indeed, as the British observed, US officials hoped to establish a “sharp contrast” between the visit by López Mateos and that recently concluded by Soviet premier 46   —   Chapter One

Khrushchev.115 The latter visit, while an impor­tant mea­sure of the potential for a thaw in Cold War saber rattling, had nevertheless been marked by drama and histrionics (see chapter 2).116 H ­ ere was a chance to underscore the dif­fer­ent treatment accorded friends versus adversaries and to highlight, albeit implicitly, that Washington supported revolutionary socie­ties so long as they ­were closely allied with the United States. López Mateos, however, intended to use the visit for his own purposes as well. As Britain’s ambassador to Mexico astutely noted, López Mateos hoped to “emulate Mexico’s ­great President in the second half of the nineteenth ­century, Porfirio Díaz, and do all he can to lessen Mexican dependence on the United States by encouraging trade with Eu­rope and the investment of Eu­ro­pean capital.”117 Three-­quarters of Mexican trade was destined for US markets, but the recovery of Western Eu­rope, the emergence of new markets in Asia, and ­eager bidding by the Soviet Union for new kinds of economic and cultural relations created a historic opportunity to diversify.118 Paradoxically in order to effect this global pivot, López Mateos needed to strengthen Mexico’s relationship with the United States. Bilateral ties ­were too intertwined and the potential levers of US influence too far-reaching to attempt other­wise. At the same time, however, any appearance of subordination to the United States at this delicate juncture—­ domestically, with the resurgence of a neo-­cardenismo, and internationally, with the Cuban Revolution rapidly becoming identified with a global alignment of anticolonialist forces—­could likely undermine his po­liti­cal authority. Indeed, López Mateos nearly postponed the trip altogether in order to avoid being perceived in Mexico as unduly subservient to Washington, “the blue-­eyed boy of Latin Amer­i­ca,” as the British ambassador sardonically put it.119 But the timing of his visit provided an opportunity to address the General Assembly of the United Nations, the first time a Mexican president had done so since President Miguel Alemán spoke at the birth of the organ­ization immediately following World War II.120 In fact, López Mateos would use that platform and o ­ thers during his visit to proj­ect a “new Mexico,” one less beholden to the United States and more assertive in its hemispheric and global leadership aspirations. A key component of this strategy was the unfurling of a broad tourism initiative targeting US media markets. Courting American travelers not only brought essential capital; it further spurred development of the nation’s infrastructure, especially ­hotels, roads, and consumer ser­vices. Up to that point, the vast majority of tourists ­were border crossers; needed ­were travelers willing to venture into the heart of Mexico, especially the capital. A steady stream of travelers would also help transform Mexico’s reputation Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   47

from that of a backward country, inward looking and po­liti­cally unpredictable, into a place of modern culture, commerce, and politics. As a strategic plan articulated, Mexico should be known as a place of “modern ideas.”121 According to data accumulated by Mexico’s newly established Ministry of Tourism, more than one hundred positive articles on Mexico had been published in US newspapers and magazines since the start of 1959.122 With a bud­get of $700,000, the ministry was preparing to launch an all-­out media blitz for 1960. It would include advertising in twenty-­two national magazines and fifty regional and city newspapers across eigh­teen dif­f er­ent states.123 Mexico should be known not simply as a place to vacation but as a place of “­future conventions, congresses, and e ­ very class of international gathering by scientific, cultural, and other organ­izations,” the plan stated.124 Notably, the campaign coincided with a first ever tour that fall by Mexico’s newly acclaimed Ballet Folklórico, directed by Amalia Hernández, with per­for­mances in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.125 In the coming years, this use of state-­sponsored culture, epitomized by the Ballet Folklórico, formed an integral part of a broader strategic effort to elevate Mexico’s international stature and diversify the nation’s diplomatic and economic relations.126 Mexico’s Star Rises ­ haped by a context of Cold War anxiety, on the one hand, and signs S of renewed anti-­Americanism, on the other, López Mateos’s trip in the fall of 1959 was interpreted by Washington and the media, quite literally, as a visit from a close friend. Time magazine described it as one of the “pleasant ­things” facing President Dwight  D. Eisenhower and “perhaps the most satisfying event of the week.”127 Recalling his repression of dissident workers the previous spring, Newsweek called López Mateos “a dedicated anti-­Communist from south of the border” who “strikes a pose of moderate thinking.”128 In contrast with the coincident arrival by Argentina’s minister of economy and l­ abor, whose country was wracked by ­labor strikes, spiraling inflation, and mounting po­liti­cal instability, López Mateos was heralded as a leader who “comes with hand outstretched for friendliness, not money.”129 “We are proud to call you our friends,” President Eisenhower said as he greeted Mexico’s president on the tarmac at Washington’s National Airport at the start of his visit, “and we hope that you feel the same way t­oward us.”130 A front-­ page photo­graph in the New York Times neatly encapsulated the messages of humility and trust sought to be conveyed by the United States 48   —   Chapter One

at this delicate moment in US–­Latin Amer­ic ­ a relations: A smiling president López Mateos and his wife rode in the front seat of the presidential car “so that the Mexican president might stand and wave to welcoming crowds,” while Eisenhower was shown “rid[ing] in back.”131 Some seventy thousand spectators cheered the Mexican president as his motorcade wound its way back to the White House, a prelude of still more elaborate cele­brations to come.132 President Eisenhower was clearly e ­ ager to proclaim the unique US-­ Mexico partnership. Aside from the obvious economic aspects, the harmonious state of bilateral relations demonstrated to the rest of Latin Amer­ic ­a (and to the US public) that the Good Neighbor was still, as Senate majority leader Lyndon  B. Johnson had publicly expressed during an e ­ arlier visit to Mexico City, “the [Latin American] policy of our President and our nation.”133 Yet calling attention to the discourse of the Good Neighbor served a dual strategic purpose for Mexico as well. On the one hand, “good neighborliness” underwrote an increasing flow of revenue from tourism and investors. On the other hand, repeated references to the Good Neighbor provided an added layer of defense against US intervention in Mexican affairs. Thus it was no surprise that “friendship” was a recurring trope throughout the visit. For example, the word Amistad was emblazoned on the outside of the Mexican airplane that took López Mateos to the United States, and imprinted across the press kits distributed by Mexico to US reporters. “From beginning to end,” an article in Time noted optimistically, “the theme of the trip is the same as the name of his airplane.”134 With mounting evidence of anti-­Americanism across Latin Amer­i­ca, Eisenhower was clearly anxious to shower López Mateos in gestures of goodwill. For instance, he traveled with his wife and d ­ aughter by yacht down the Potomac River to Mount Vernon where he dined with President Eisenhower for an “unpre­ce­dented” four nights in a row.135 Eisenhower also gifted him a new Ford Falcon (López Mateos was fond of race cars). In a telling comment, Mexico’s leading newspaper, Excélsior, noted López Mateos “showed himself off like a sports hero, and was treated as such.” Reporting on his reception in Chicago, the newspaper commented: ‘Vive Mecsicou!’ [sic] went the cheers,” adding with wry affection, “Terrible Spanish, but shouted with ­great enthusiasm.”136 Afterward, in New York City, he was greeted with a ticker-tape parade and five marching bands; some 250,000 p ­ eople cheered him up and down Broadway. Just as significantly, the thorny topics of Lázaro Cárdenas and Cuba, both of which had been widely reported on by the press, ­were kept out of private discussions.137 At this delicate juncture in Pan-­American relations, Washington Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   49

could ill afford conflict with its closest, most strategically impor­tant Good Neighbor. The climax of his visit, however, was a speech at the United Nations. The international organ­ization was about to enter its most transformative period, as newly in­de­pen­dent states in Africa and Asia clamored for their right to be heard in a rapidly expanding community of nations. For ­these new entities, the un provided not only repre­sen­ta­tion but the possibility of a reordering of global priorities. López Mateos’s address thus provided an opportunity to establish a leadership role precisely at the moment when an emergent “Third World” was coming into formation. Speaking to the assembled delegates, he underscored how the Mexican Revolution was the “first successful one of this ­century” and the first to merge the revolutionary pursuit of individual freedom with “an atmosphere of social justice.”138 Some may have interpreted the remark as a riposte to the Soviet Union, where “individual freedom” had been sacrificed at the altar of “social justice,” and perhaps also as a warning to Cuba’s own revolutionary leadership. But more fundamentally, his address aimed to position Mexico as a matured revolutionary model, one with much to offer the rest of Latin Amer­ i­ca as well as the newly decolonizing nations.139 It is impor­tant to recognize the wider geopo­liti­cal as well as discursive context of his speech. Several weeks e ­ arlier, Khrushchev had stood at the same podium and boldly asserted his government would seek “complete disarmament” in the interest of peace. López Mateos now directly engaged the semantics of “peace,” a term that si­mul­ta­neously referenced Khrushchev’s proposal of “peaceful coexistence” (the Soviet leader’s central challenge to the cap­i­tal­ist West), the imperative of nuclear disarmament, the longing of countries recently emerging from (and still struggling against) colonial rule, and the wider notion that a lasting peace could only come about through a fairer global re­distribution of wealth. In fact, all t­ hese ideas constituted core princi­ples that emerged from the conference of newly decolonized nations in Bandung, Indonesia, only four years ­earlier. “We all want peace and we must be sincerely determined to attain it and to consolidate it by peaceful means,” López Mateos stated before the General Assembly. Although he recognized that “the question of world disarmament far transcends the action of the small or medium Powers,” he insisted on the relevancy of t­ hose lesser powers to the pursuit of peace. “Though they may lack the argument of force,” he asserted, “they should take up the arms of persuasion and, within their own borders and so far as they are able, promote the social, economic and po­liti­cal conditions necessary for peace.”140 By addressing the discourse 50   —   Chapter One

of “peace” in its vari­ous registers, López Mateos thus sought to insert Mexico directly into the arguments that constituted the core of Cold War debates and lay the basis for an alignment of interests between Mexico and the newly decolonizing nations. Significantly, López Mateos also ­adopted a rhetorical stance that positioned Mexico as the principal defender of Cuban sovereignty. In this way, he hoped to assert his moral credibility over the social forces that had begun to mobilize around Lázaro Cárdenas and si­mul­ta­neously to harness the disruptive force of the Cuban Revolution to his po­liti­cal advantage. Following an address to the Organ­ization of American States (oas ), for instance, when asked ­whether he considered Fidel Castro a threat to “the other non-­communist countries,” López Mateos responded: “We do not consider [Castro] to be a communist government.”141 Speaking to the Pan American Society, López Mateos underscored that Mexicans “can well understand” the phenomena of social upheaval “­because that was the very significance of the [Mexican] Revolution begun in 1910.”142 But his most controversial comment came following an address to the National Press Club, when, during the question-and-answer period, he stated with unusual frankness that “for Mexico, as for the majority of the countries in Latin Amer­i­ca, the principal prob­lem is the United States.” He wanted to underscore the difficulties Latin Amer­i­ca faced with regard to economic development, and went on to note that “this is a prob­lem that is diminished each day.” Nevertheless, his extrapolated remark that “the United States is Latin Amer­i­ca’s biggest prob­lem” circulated widely in Mexico and was embraced by the Left as a hopeful indication of a more robust critique of US economic and foreign policy by the new administration.143 In an indication of how his rhe­toric resonated with the “restless” intelligent­sia, Carlos Fuentes, writing in el espectador, lauded the president’s remarks. A “new language” was in play, he stated optimistically.144 Víctor Flores Olea, also writing in el espectador, pointed out that López Mateos’s proclamations “created a certain nostalgia for many Mexicans,” a longing for an era of revolutionary sincerity not experienced since Cárdenas’s presidency in the late 1930s.145 López Mateos would indeed seek to channel that “nostalgia” for a renewal of revolutionary purpose, in par­tic­u­lar by redirecting Mexico’s focus outward, to a world in dramatic transformation. Confident that Mexico’s star was on the rise, López Mateos skillfully leveraged the Good Neighbor diplomatic framework to his po­liti­cal advantage. He did so by si­mul­ta­neously charming US audiences with repeated gestures of Mexican “friendship” while asserting in symbolic yet po­liti­cally Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   51

significant ways Mexican sovereignty and his own aspiring role as a Cold War interlocutor. The fact that his (at times, critical) remarks provoked a positive rather than negative response in the US press underscored the distinctiveness of the bilateral partnership and its strategic importance to US-­Latin American relations more broadly. For instance, the New York Times spoke of the “frank” comments of López Mateos as reflecting “arguments . . . ​between friends.” “This is the sort of relationship we want ideally to establish with our demo­cratic ‘Good Neighbors’ in the hemi­sphere,” the paper editorialized.146 Such positive sentiment and the successful tie-in with tourism that López Mateos hoped to solidify was ­later encapsulated in a letter sent to the president by an American who had recently visited Mexico. The writer noted that at seventy-­one years old, he had long desired to travel south of the border, “but lack of time, money and courage” had kept him away. He had anticipated the trip “would require [a] lot of courage, some courtesy and considerable cash.” Reflective of the success of the Good Neighbor discourse that had become practically synonymous with Mexico, the writer was thrilled to discover that “it takes l­ittle or no courage, [and] not as much cash as I thought,” before concluding, “but we should go well stocked with courtesy if we are to be as good neighbors as you are.”147 By the following summer, the radicalization of the Cuban Revolution would test the limits of Good Neighbor tolerance while situating López Mateos precariously between competing domestic and geo­ po­liti­cal forces. For now, however, adroit diplomacy during his trip to the United States that fall had established three primary goals. First, he had endeared himself to Americans and US policymakers. Second, he established Mexico’s credibility as an international player. And third, he had aligned himself with the social forces that had mobilized in defense of revolutionary Cuba. His return to Mexico was declared a national holiday, with masses of workers and well-­wishers (many clearly or­ga­nized by the ruling party) filling the streets and plazas to welcome him back. López Mateos had “consolidated the international prestige of Mexico,” editorialized the newspaper Excélsior, and “tacitly converted” the nation into a “leader of the Hispanoamerican countries.”148 In a rhetorical flourish meant to underscore his nationalist credentials, López Mateos prominently declared, “The flag which crosses my breast returns clean.”149 A member of López Mateos’s inner circle anxiously conveyed to the US Embassy staff that the remark was “made for local consumption in order to answer his critics,” but a larger point was at stake: López Mateos had discovered the utility of the Good Neighbor framework.150 “For the first time in Mexican history,” 52   —   Chapter One

a British Embassy report noted, “a Mexican President has been received and been seen discussing world affairs on terms of complete equality with an American President” and other high-­ranking officials. He “has certainly increased his stature at home and consolidated his influence on the Party,” the report concluded.151 Conclusion Two weeks a ­ fter returning from abroad López Mateos fi­nally granted Cárdenas a meeting, a ­ fter having denied the latter’s repeated requests all fall “on the grounds that he [was] much too busy.”152 Cárdenas immediately congratulated López Mateos on the “statements made during his visit” to the United States, noting with plea­sure the remarks in defense of Latin American sovereignty and that “the Cuban government is not communist.”153 But the heart of discussion was Cárdenas’s concern about the imprisoned railway workers and the deeper question of the roots of social protest. “If the president, the cabinet ministers, and the nation’s governors, in touring the country, could truly listen to the complaints of the p ­ eople,” he lectured the president, “so much injustice could be remedied and the country could avoid prob­lems that might other­wise end in vio­lence.” It was advice drawn from Cárdenas’s own style of governance, which involved “listening tours” of workers’ and peasants’ complaints. “The po­liti­cal and moral prob­lem facing the Mexican ­people,” he continued, “is that they do not have an opportunity to be heard.”154 But López Mateos was unmoved. “I understood that the president regarded the case of the railway workers as having roots distinct from the conflict itself,” Cárdenas recorded in his journal with resignation, “and I ­didn’t insist.” At the same time, he recognized the ways in which repression against the railway workers played into the US-­Mexico calculus in a way that benefited Mexico. The crackdown, he mused, “was designed to provide an ‘anticommunist’ veneer for foreign observers [i.e., the United States] and it certainly worked.”155 Having made his strongest defense yet of the jailed railway workers, Cárdenas put the issue to rest; for now, t­ here was nothing more to be done, “­until the next presidential term.”156 It was a clear indication that Cárdenas accepted his po­liti­cal subordination to the president, despite his disagreements. Barely a month ­after López Mateos’s triumphant trip to the United States, Mexicans learned that their country would host a Soviet trade fair and visit by a high-­ranking Soviet entourage. It is quite likely that Cárdenas’s travels to the Soviet Union a year e ­ arlier played a role in this Mexico’s “Restless” Left   —   53

arrangement, at the very least by signaling an atmosphere of a new diplomatic opening. State Department analysts viewed the Soviet overture as a bold effort to encroach upon the US sphere of influence, but Mexico was scarcely a victim of Communist expansionism. López Mateos clearly welcomed (and most likely invited) the Soviet presence. Subsequent events reflected an ambitious intent to pry open the space of détente to Mexican advantage.

54   —   Chapter One

Chapter Two

“Luniks   and Sputniks in Chapultepec!” THE 1959 SOVIET EXHIBITION AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE IN MEXICO

In describing the summer and fall of 1959, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali identify the moment as “one of the g ­ reat pivots” of the twentieth ­century. A decompression in international tensions and the unilateral reduction in Soviet armed forces seemed to hold out the prospect of a diplomatic resolution to the Cold War.1 Indeed, in midsummer of 1959, at precisely the moment Lázaro Cárdenas was in Havana quoting Franklin Roo­se­velt in defense of the Cuban Revolution, Vice President Richard Nixon was in Moscow. There he opened the American National Exhibition, a six-­week-­ long, elaborately staged display of US technical, consumerist, and cultural achievements.2 It was a curious juxtaposition that pointed to an impor­tant yet ultimately fleeting moment in the global Cold War: when the possibility of “coexistence” between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed within reach, and the emergent Third World hoped to evade being sucked into the vortex of Cold War wrangling. Mexico took advantage of this geopo­liti­cal opening by embracing Soviet overtures in what became a mutual, if ultimately frustrated, attempt to deepen the two countries’ economic and diplomatic relations. As Héctor Cárdenas writes, the Soviet Union encountered in Mexico “fertile ground”

for Soviet ambitions to expand trading partnerships across Latin Amer­i­ca.3 An internal Soviet report on the prospects of diplomatic and economic relations boasted of a “clear craving” among the Latin American countries for “cooperation with the socialist camp” and a “firm foundation for a mutual trade exchange.”4 Mexico was e ­ ager, for a number of reasons, to participate in this trend. For the first time since the tumultuous 1920s when Mexican and Soviet revolutionary affinities appeared (briefly) to coincide, Mexico’s ruling establishment assiduously pursued a policy of direct economic, cultural, and po­liti­cal engagement with the Soviet Bloc. This chapter explores vari­ous aspects of the Soviet diplomatic offensive in Mexico during the period 1958–1961. This approach aimed to woo Mexico (alongside other Latin American countries) t­oward envisioning the Soviet Union as a legitimate counterforce—as a ­viable economic and diplomatic partner that could enable Latin Amer­ic ­ a to pursue its development goals ­free of dependence on the United States. Soviet official policy of peaceful coexistence, moreover, coincided with López Mateos’s own objectives, not only geopolitically—as a validation of the right of nation-­ states to “coexist” irrespective of ideology—­but domestically as well, as he sought to redirect the breakaway left-­wing forces that had mobilized around the Cuban Revolution and Lázaro Cárdenas back into the fold of Mexico’s own “revolutionary” regime. Peaceful Coexistence In an article published in the October  1959 issue of Foreign Affairs, the bedrock journal of US foreign policy, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sought to allay fears of Soviet duplicity while challenging the West to pit capitalism against Communism in a “peaceful competition” for adherents across the globe. “Precisely b ­ ecause we want to rid mankind of war,” he wrote, “we urge the Western powers to peaceful and lofty competition. We say to all: Let us prove to each other the advantages of one’s own system not with fists, not by war, but by peaceful economic competition in conditions of peaceful coexistence.”5 In addition to serving as a power­ful propaganda device—by definition, the Soviet position was inherently in the pursuit of “peace”—­peaceful coexistence helped deflect criticism away from recent Soviet intervention in Eastern Eu­rope and position communism as a ­viable competitor to capitalism. Indeed, the proposal to coexist was accompanied by a flurry of domestic and economic reforms designed to showcase the Soviet system as an attractive alternative to the cap­i­tal­ ist West and thus pry apart the Western alliance. Soviet modernity would 56   —   Chapter Two

“win ­people for Communism abroad,” writes Odd Westad, and proj­ect the USSR in the vanguard of a “­future international socialist community.”6 The showcase for peaceful coexistence was the Soviet Exhibition of Science, Technology and Culture, a counterpart to the American National Exhibition on display in Moscow, and which premiered concurrently at the New York Coliseum in the summer of 1959. More than one million p ­ eople flocked to experience what the New York Times described as a pre­sen­ta­tion that “proj­ects a glistening Soviet f­ uture, but strains some facts of Soviet real­ity.”7 As an official Soviet program guide spelled out, the exhibition aimed to provide the visitor with “an introduction to the tempestuous advance of the Soviet Union.”8 ­These traveling “cultural and technical exhibitions” ­were the capstones of a series of diplomatic and cultural exchanges that ­were initiated between the Western powers and the Soviet Union beginning in the mid-1950s and reflected an effort by both sides to redirect the Cold War from the military battlefield to that of ideas.9 When an impromptu argument ensued in Moscow between Nixon and Khrushchev regarding the standards of cap­i­tal­ist comfort and ingenuity versus that of Communism, it was an encounter immediately baptized by the Western international press as the “Kitchen Debate.” The fact that the term debate was used pointed to the shift in public sentiment—as well as in diplomatic tone—­from fear of a new military confrontation to the hope that through dialogue and cultural exchange the world might yet be saved from nuclear conflagration. Unquestionably, the high point of peaceful coexistence was the nearly two-­week-­long trip to the United States by Khrushchev in September 1959. It was a tour filled with grandiose speeches, staged spectacle, and impromptu politicking, all of which left both sides feeling optimistic t­ oward the possibilities of consolidating a pro­cess of détente and resolving the simmering conflict over Berlin.10 The Soviet Union had unilaterally reduced its troop strength by nearly 2.5 million soldiers and t­ here was more to come, as Khrushchev was ­eager to convey both publicly and in private to President Eisenhower. “We believe that our socialist system is better than yours [and] you think that your system is better than ours,” he noted pointedly in welcoming remarks at an official White House dinner in his honor. “What are we to do? Should we extend the controversy over whose system is better to a fight between us on the battlefield? Would it not be better to let history ­settle the issue?”11 Shortly ­after, standing at the podium of the United Nations, Khrushchev unveiled a Soviet proposal for “general and complete disarmament” by 1963—­not only of nuclear weapons but of all means of waging war.12 Despite its fanciful aspects, Khrushchev was genuinely anxious about the economic toll that armament was having on “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   57

the Soviet economy. In the coming months, he would again unilaterally reduce Soviet forces by another 1.2 million troops, totaling approximately one-­third of the Soviet army.13 The appeal of peaceful coexistence as a nonarmed competition “between states with dif­f er­ent social and economic systems,” coupled with imagery of his cross-­country tour of the United States and dramatic proposal for disarmament, helped confirm Khrushchev’s reputation, as Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov write, as “a messenger of world peace and disarmament.”14 Observing from Mexico, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, whose pro-­ Soviet sympathies ­ were well known, praised Khrushchev’s “clear and sincere language” while asserting the Soviet leader had, once and for all, dispensed of the “communist phantasm.”15 Perhaps a better indication of the optimism generated by peaceful coexistence came from the editorial collective of el espectador, Mexico’s most impor­tant forum for the incipient New Left and whose writers ­were far less generous in their regard of Soviet Communism. The newsmagazine optimistically pronounced “the end of the Cold War.”16 Khrushchev wrapped up his visit to the United States feeling “emboldened,” as Fursenko and Naftali write, in his position as leader of the global Communist movement.17 Less than two days ­after his return to Moscow, he triumphantly arrived in Beijing full of praise for President Eisenhower and confident that the Soviet strategy of peaceful coexistence would align the Communist camp in a united front capable of splitting the cap­i­tal­ist West. Yet when Khrushchev proclaimed a toast in the presence of Mao Zedong—­ “Long live Soviet-­American friendship!”—it marked the beginning of the end of the Sino-­Soviet alliance. As Zubok and Pleshakov write, the visit soon “degenerated into a screaming match” between the two Communist leaders.18 While under­lying territorial and economic disputes contributed to this clash, the larger issue at stake was ideological.19 Within a few years, “peaceful coexistence” became a discursive wedge that split the Soviet-­Chinese alliance and laid bare a stark divide in revolutionary strategy and epistemology—­between ­those who believed, with Mao, that Western imperialism was a force to b ­ attle head-on, and ­those who held stock in the Soviet position that Socialist modernity promised a peaceful conquest of the West through attrition. The Soviet Cultural Offensive in Mexico While Khrushchev was captivating a global audience during his tour of the United States, the Rus­sian Piatnitiskiy Folk Choir was wending its way across central Mexico. The choir was part of a broader Soviet cultural of58   —   Chapter Two

fensive that included classical m ­ usic per­for­mances, a Rus­sian film festival, and other activities. For instance, that November Soviet composers Dmitri Kabalevsky and Dmitri Shostakovich, along with other musicians and the conductor Alexander Gauk, performed what the British Embassy described as “two excellent concerts” at the Bellas Artes cultural hall in Mexico City as part of a Soviet Musical Festival or­ga­nized by the government.20 Also that fall, two Soviet film festivals opened—­one in the capital and another at Acapulco—­with a large party of stars from the film Destiny of Man (dir. Sergei Bondarchuk), recent winner of the ­Grand Prize at the First Moscow International Film Festival, in attendance. Summarizing the flurry of cultural activities, a British report labeled the offensive “a pretty formidable effort” aimed at “the soft underbelly of North Amer­i­ca.”21 Mexico was clearly a coveted diplomatic target for the Soviet Union, but many Mexicans ­were also ­eager to play the role of willing host. As the Rus­sian folk choir headed t­ oward Guadalajara, a bastion of Mexican Catholicism hardly predisposed to Communism, US consul ­Robert Martindale warned his superiors that the “populace, of course, lacks any understanding of Soviet methods and is duck soup for Soviet propaganda.”22 Soviet “methods” in this instance involved an incorporation of “local dances and song,” a wise strategy of cultural diplomacy to be sure and one that reportedly “brought down the ­house” (much to Martindale’s chagrin).23 Frustrated and concerned by the implications of the Mexican response to the choir, Martindale chose to blame the public’s “unsophisticated provincialism”—by which he evidently meant their readiness to be awed by a well-­choreographed Soviet recital—as an explanation for the positive reception. The festival, he complained to his superiors at the State Department, was “an almost perfect propaganda per­for­mance.”24 When the choir next performed in Tamaulipas, in the northeastern part of the country and an area more influenced by US border culture, four thousand ­people packed a local theater to watch a show that included “the interpretation to perfection” of the traditional Mexican dance “La Negra,” replete with Soviet dancers in “typical Mexican costumes.”25 It was a clever gesture of recognition that underscored a shared sense of historical connectedness between Mexican and Soviet revolutionary cultures. The public’s rapturous acclaim evidently contrasted markedly to that given the skating extravaganza Holiday on Ice not long before. “At the risk of being taken for a Red and investigated,” a local reviewer wrote with muted sarcasm, “our judgment concerning the Mexican public’s reaction to the Rus­sian spectacle is that they preferred it to the Holiday on Ice [show]; may the Pentagon forgive us.”26 One review clearly does not capture the wider public “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   59

response, yet the comment nevertheless reflected a sentiment generating understandable alarm within the State Department. Many Mexicans across a wide geo­graph­i­cal, eco­nom­ical, and educational range appeared open to Soviet advances while mistrustful of US economic and geopo­liti­cal motives. Historically, Mexico’s relationship to the Soviet Union was complex and often contradictory. On the one hand, Mexican nationalist discourse was saturated with a Marxist (materialist), internationalist ethos. This was especially manifest, for instance, in a state-­sponsored muralist and graphics art program, one imbued with an epistemology of anti-­imperialist, anticapitalist strug­gle. In highlighting this self-­evident coincidence between the two revolutionary socie­ties, in late 1955, muralist (and Communist Party member) David Alfaro Siqueiros crowed to the press following a visit to the USSR that Mexican art was “the center of all discussion” and that con­temporary Rus­sian art was “almost identical to that of Mexico.”27 US Embassy staff ­were quick to dismiss the significance of his boast, yet Siqueiros’s comments no doubt invoked in many citizens a sense of pride. For many Mexicans the Soviet Union had indeed acquired a place of re­ spect: as a peasant society that, similar to their own historical trajectory, had overthrown a small ruling class and strug­gled to make itself anew. On the other hand, a vociferous anti-­ Communism was deeply ingrained across the nation’s body politic. This was especially true for the provinces, where practicing Catholicism remained strongest. Since the 1920s, when it found itself literally at war with a postrevolutionary state bent on the complete secularization of society, the Church was a strident critic of the Marxist materialist ethic at home and of the Soviet system abroad. During the 1950s, such criticism was po­liti­cally useful to the ruling party (pri ), as the regime sought to implement policies favoring foreign investment and capital accumulation. Virtually all non-­state-­ sanctioned protests became identified in the press as rojo (red, as in Communist) while protest sympathizers ­were assigned the accusatory moniker rojillo (the equivalent of “fellow traveler”) or, just as often, comunistoid, roughly translated as “communist-­ like.” As Elisa Servín has written, “anti-­communist discourse of the early Cold War was transformed into an alibi used to legitimize government authoritarianism directed against in­ de­ pen­ dent l­abor ­ unions, social leaders, and popu­ lar movements.”28 This saturation of the mass media with anti-­Communist language also clearly resonated among many Mexicans, who ­were predisposed by religious belief to regard Communism as antithetical to religious values and a threat to their way of life. 60   —   Chapter Two

Despite this conservative bent, evidence suggested that Mexican attitudes ­were becoming more tolerant t­ oward the Soviet Union. A 1956 poll conducted by the US Information Agency (usia ), for instance, revealed Mexicans held “equally favorable opinions of both Socialism and Capitalism.” Significantly, the poll found that “better-­educated respondents in the upper economic groups” ­were more inclined to accept negative statements about capitalism.29 In summing up the challenges facing US diplomats, a State Department analy­sis described Mexican po­liti­cal culture as deeply permeated by anticapitalist thought and thereby susceptible to the appeal of Soviet positions on global conflicts and economic development. “Widespread Marxist concepts, communist infiltration of most institutions and an almost universal hyper-­sensitivity regarding ‘colonialism’ and imperialism which manifests itself as super-­nationalism make for suspicion of the US and a general tolerance of the USSR and its satellites,” the report concluded.30 The situation had dangerous implications not only for Mexican domestic and international policies but for US–­Latin Amer­i­ca relations more broadly.31 ­Because of its geo­graph­i­cal location and ideological affinities, Mexico was an obvious and ideal objective for Soviet diplomatic expansion in Latin Amer­i­ca. Mexico, a secret State Department analy­sis asserted some nine months prior to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, was poised to become “the nerve center for [Soviet] operations throughout the area.”32 Equally alarming was the fact that for Mexicans across the po­liti­cal spectrum, life in the Soviet Union had begun to take on a “peculiar fascination.”33 One telling example was the rock ’n’ roll group Los Sputniks. Although their repertoire was mostly Spanish-­language covers (refritos) of US hits, such as “Susy Q,” the band’s choice of name—­which may have been suggested or even imposed on them by their Mexican recording com­pany, Orfeón—­openly identified the group (and their fans) with a competing proj­ect of communist modernity. If this was true for the mostly apo­liti­cal rebeldes sin causa (rebels without a cause) fans of Mexican rock, it was even more so for t­ hose youth already inclined t­ oward protest politics. This was the case, for instance, for the young student activist Carlos Sevilla, who attended the Soviet film festival in Mexico City in the fall of 1959. “It was the honeymoon period for [us] and the Soviet Union,” Sevilla would ­later recall.34 By the mid-1960s the Left would splinter along lines that correlated in large part to the perceived relevancy of the Soviet Union as the guiding force of global revolutionary strug­gle. But in that brief interlude, when peaceful coexistence appeared conceivable and the Soviet display of technological prowess suggested indisputable proof of a socialist alternative to cap­i­tal­ist modernization, an eagerness to accept the “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   61

possibility of a Soviet-­led utopia once again loomed large. “We all began to believe that that was where the ‘new men’ ­were,” Sevilla reflected.35 Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec! Asked by a New York Times reporter where the Soviet exhibit would go next following its display at the New York Coliseum, the Soviet director general, Aleksei N. Manzhulo, responded coyly, “Anything is pos­si­ble. We have many invitations to many dif­fer­ent countries.”36 One of t­ hose invitations, it turned out, was Mexico. Who initiated the request and when it was first made have been difficult to pin down with total certainty. What is clear, however, is that the United States was not brought into the conversation. The British reported at the time that Mexico “of course, did not” ask for the exhibition, but this appears to have been mere conjecture.37 The earliest reference of Mexican interest dates from August  20, 1959—­ just ten days a ­ fter the closure in New York City. In a memorandum to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico’s foreign minister, Manuel Tello, authorized the duty-­free import of “objects that ­will be displayed . . . ​as well as the corresponding visas for Soviet citizens,” a clear reference to an agreed-­upon invitation.38 Still, in an indication that the sre recognized the potentially explosive impact of the news, no public announcement was made ­until barely a week before the exhibition was to open. Further drama was added when it was announced that Soviet first deputy premier (vice president of the Council of Ministers) Anastas Mikoyan, Khrushchev’s right-­hand man and the second most influential po­liti­cal figure in the Soviet Union, would accompany the exhibition.39 Mikoyan was the highest-­ranking Soviet official ever to set foot in Latin Amer­i­ca and, as the New York Times reported, his designation heralded an impor­tant juncture in the “Soviet drive for greater influence and trade” with the region.40 An upbeat article in the Soviet newspaper, Pravda, published to coincide with Mikoyan’s arrival, optimistically declared that “Springtime Has Arrived in Latin Amer­ic ­ a.” The article highlighted vari­ous connections that showed a “growing desire [in Latin Amer­ i­ca] to get to know the Soviet Union and the Socialist world.”41 Although the British reported that Mikoyan had “invited himself,” ­there is no reason to assume his presence was unwelcome. Indeed, historian Nicola Miller suggests President López Mateos directly requested his presence.42 In any case, the visit was mutually self-­serving. For Mexico, the international attention bestowed by the staging of the exhibition would elevate the country’s global prestige on the heels of the president’s recent address at the 62   —   Chapter Two

United Nations. For the Soviet Union, the exhibition and Mikoyan’s visit promised to normalize relations in Latin Amer­ic ­ a at a moment when vari­ ous countries throughout the region ­were ­eager to redefine their place in global affairs.43 Anastas Mikoyan arrived with a full entourage on November 18. Accompanying him ­were his son, Sergei (who subsequently established a ­career as a Latin American specialist); his wife, Eleonora; vari­ous high-­ranking diplomats, including the vice minister of commercial relations (Sergei Borisov) and undersecretary for Latin Amer­i­can affairs (S. R. Striganov); numerous officials representing dif­fer­ent Soviet industries; and a bevy of media correspondents. The latter included a film team assigned to document Mikoyan’s travels.44 Mexico City’s recently modernized international airport was “utterly jammed with ­people” hoping to catch a glimpse of the Soviet second-­in-­command, while an “outsized army” of Mexican journalists besieged the visitors amid cries of “Long Live the Soviet Unión!”45 That same eve­ning Mikoyan met with Mexico’s foreign minister, Manuel Tello, where they spoke, according to a very favorable report in Mañana magazine, “about diverse ­matters, especially disarmament and colonialism.”46 Tello was arguably Mexico’s most experienced and influential diplomat. This was his second term as foreign minister (the first had been ­under President Miguel Alemán, 1946–52), and in the interim (1952–58) he had served as ambassador to the United States. In the 1930s, he had represented Mexico at the League of Nations. He was an internationalist who firmly stood by the princi­ple of state sovereignty over domestic and foreign affairs. Tello also understood well the complex workings of the US Congress and the tools by which Washington exercised power.47 When López Mateos appointed him, he did so with the evident belief that Tello could help navigate Mexico t­oward the president’s ambitious global objectives without unduly compromising the diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties undergirding Good Neighbor relations. Indeed, over the next five years, Tello would become the princi­pal architect of the global pivot enacted ­under López Mateos while also offering counsel regarding the limits to Mexican in­de­pen­dence. The following day began with the placing of a floral wreath at Mexico’s Monumento a la Independencia (Monument to In­de­pen­dence), “In tribute of the Profound Re­spect of the Soviet P ­ eople to the National Heroes in the Strug­gle for the Liberty and In­de­pen­dence of Mexico.”48 It was an impor­ tant symbolic gesture not uncommon to visiting heads of state. (Vice President Richard Nixon previously laid such a wreath during his visit in 1955.) But in this instance, the act established a significant pre­ce­dent as well: in “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   63

subsequent years, e ­ very Soviet del­e­ga­tion would make a pilgrimage to the monument to mark re­spect for Mexican in­de­pen­dence. Mikoyan next had an hour-­long meeting with Mexico’s secretary of commerce and industry, Raúl Salinas Lozano. This tran­spired in the com­pany of the Soviet Union’s vice minister for foreign commerce, the Soviet ambassador, and the commercial attaché of the Soviet Embassy. The presence of numerous impor­ tant representatives of Soviet industry underscored the goal of pursuing economic opportunities with Mexico, and Salinas Lozano would help facilitate meetings of equal importance throughout Mikoyan’s stay. As Vanni Pettinà discusses, Soviet economic analysts had identified key points of coincidence with recommendations of the Economic Commission for Latin Amer­i­ca (ecla ), whose statist theories of economic development had become widely influential among government elites across Latin Amer­i­ca.49 The conversation initiated what Pettinà describes as an ongoing dialogue between Mexican and Soviet officials that focused, over the succeeding months, on “speeding up bilateral trade through means of a treaty.”50 The diplomatic climax of the day, however, was Mikoyan’s address to the Mexican Senate. In remarks that ­were “repeatedly interrupted by applause,” Mikoyan underscored the peaceful intent of Soviet policy while highlighting the historical ties that bound Mexico and the Soviet Union together.51 “Freedom and in­ de­ pen­ dence do not triumph on their own accord,” he stated a ­ fter recounting the common challenges faced by the Mexican and Rus­sian revolutions, but “one must fight for them and obtain them following ­great effort and sacrifice.” From t­here he pivoted to the prob­lems facing Latin Amer­i­ca, “prob­lems of industrialization, of the raising of standards of living, of the establishment of a fair correlation between the value of exports and the costs of imports.” In all t­ hese questions, he remarked, “Our hearts and our sentiments are with you.”52 No doubt purposefully invoking a central phrase from López Mateos’s speech to the United Nations that fall, that “peace must be based on the princi­ple of general security,” he reminded his audience of the central tenet of peaceful coexistence: “We Soviets know perfectly well that t­ here are ideological and social differences between the socialist and cap­i­tal­ist systems. We are absolutely convinced that, despite ­these differences, countries with dif­fer­ ent social systems can and must live in peace.”53 “Peace,” marveled a Mexican reporter assigned to cover Mikoyan, “is the obsession of Mikoyan.”54 A packed reception that eve­ning at the Soviet Embassy found Mikoyan surrounded by diplomatic, po­liti­cal, and cultural luminaries. The list of invitees included, as an article in Pravda glowingly described, “numerous members of the Mexican government, distinguished personalities, repre64   —   Chapter Two

Figure 2.1 Soviet deputy premier Anastas Mikoyan, the highest-­ranking official ­after Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, donned a sombrero during a reception in his honor at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City on November 19, 1959. To his immediate right is Nikolai Leonov, KGB agent and Mikoyan’s interpreter. At the far left of the image is Mexico’s most renowned director and screen writer, Emilio (“El Indio”) Fernández. Source: “Embajada de la urss , Recepción,” no. 14.160, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

sentatives of financial circles, and intellectuals.”55 While the historian Celeste González de Bustamante has argued that press coverage of Mikoyan was “respectful but cool,” his speech to Congress and the diplomatic flair he exhibited at the reception ­were supreme per­for­mances that played exceptionally well, even in the other­wise conservative media.56 ­There ­were numerous toasts with tequila—­“It’s better than whisky,” Mikoyan remarked—­ and lessons on “how to roll tacos, eat chicharrón [and] splash salsa picante on a tortilla,” all of which Mikoyan evidently passed with flying colors, according to a practically adoring article in Excélsior, a paper not generally known for its pro-­Soviet positions.57 A photo­graph in the weekly newsmagazine Mañana captured Mikoyan donning “a charro sombrero” while standing next to a beaming Emilio (“El Indio”) Fernández, the country’s “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   65

most impor­tant film director. With his neatly trimmed mustache, Mikoyan could very well have passed as Mexican—­“muy moreno,” a reporter noted approvingly (see figure 2.1).58 One person, however, was noticeably absent from the festivities: Lázaro Cárdenas. Given his recent travels to the Soviet Union and elevated public profile following his trip to Cuba that summer, Cárdenas’s silence throughout the period of Mikoyan’s visit provides further evidence of a willingness to subordinate himself to the authority of López Mateos. In fact, the two did meet but in private, at Cárdenas’s home.59 If Cárdenas had proven to be an “annoyance,” as the British Embassy had put it ­earlier that fall (see chapter 1), he was now demonstrating his support for the geopo­liti­cal pivot López Mateos was undertaking—­precisely by staying out of sight. The next day was the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, a day reserved for nationalist exclamations. Mexican authorities ­were careful to keep Mikoyan and his entourage a safe distance from the festivities, sending them outside the capital on an all-­day excursion to visit Teotihuacan, the country’s most renowned archaeological site. President López Mateos would invest more heavi­ly in cultural programming than any presidency since the 1920s, and over the next several years he transformed the capital with the addition of new monumentalist structures that showcased the arts and the nation’s archaeological heritage. Mikoyan’s trip to Teotihuacan came at the start of that site’s transformation; the following year, u ­ nder the auspices of Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (inah , National Institute of Anthropology and History), Teotihuacan would undergo a major archaeological excavation. By the mid-1960s, the pre-Columbian site would become one of the nation’s premier tourist destinations, a signifier of the country’s indigenous roots as the country experienced a pro­cess of sustained urban modernization. With the visit by Mikoyan, however, Teotihuacan also acquired new status as a diplomatic rite of passage for foreign dignitaries. The famed “Sun and Moon Pyramids” became a practically obligatory excursion for visiting heads of state—an opportunity to showcase Mexico’s deep historical rootedness while si­mul­ta­neously providing a rugged photogenic backdrop that played well in the foreign media. The following day, the Soviet Exhibition opened at the Auditorio Nacional (National Auditorium). A modern structure recently designed by Mexican architects Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Gonzalo Ramírez del Sordo, the auditorium was situated proximate to the neighborhood of Polanco, one of Mexico City’s wealthiest districts, at the southern edge of Chapultepec Park. In contrast with the more modest exterior display used for the Soviet Exhibition at the New York Coliseum, which had featured two lone US and 66   —   Chapter Two

Soviet flags hanging side by side, the perimeter of the Auditorio was transformed into a propagandistic spectacle of Soviet revolutionary accomplishments. A red banner enveloped the exterior of the building, accompanied by the flags of Rus­sia, the fifteen Socialist Republics, and that of Mexico.60 Large slogans proclaimed the elimination of unemployment, ­free access to medical and educational ser­vices for all, “and the general lack of interest in money in a country where every­body had enough.”61 Across the city, stickers announcing the exhibition ­ were attached, guerrilla-­ marketing 62 style, “to trams and buses.” This was all part of a last-­minute advertising blitz that included press announcements, the placement of hundreds of posters in “show-­windows, in the city buses and tramways,” and nearly seven hundred spots on Mexican radio.63 A quarter-­page newspaper advertisement enticingly referenced the two most widely known Soviet space advances: “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!” Visitors ­were promised a front-­row seat to Soviet technology that was “discovering the secrets of the cosmos” (and beating the US in the Cold War space race game), along with other modern scientific achievements such as “atomic reactors” and “ultrasound machines.”64 Even Excélsior, resolutely anti-­Communist and a staunch supporter of the United States in the Cold War, could not help but get caught up in the exhibition fervor. “­There is indeed much that we can learn from Soviet advances,” a lead editorial suggested.65 As Mexican soldiers held back e ­ ager crowds jostling for a better view, Mikoyan and López Mateos pronounced the official opening of the exhibition (see figures 2.2 and 2.3). “Your country was one of the first oppressed countries to cast off the colonial yoke,” Mikoyan declared in an extended address to a crowd mixed with government officials, business leaders, and ordinary citizens. With this exhibition, he exclaimed, Mexicans would acquire “a correct image of Soviet man” and come to learn first­hand how the Soviet Union was determined to “win the peaceful economic competition with the United States of Amer­i­ca.” The exposition, he assured the crowd, would demonstrate the “unquestionable superiority of the socialist economic system.”66 In his own welcoming remarks, President López Mateos noted how the scientific and cultural fair would allow his countrymen “to take notice of [Soviet] advances” and further “the deepening of relations” between Mexico and the Soviet Bloc.67 ­Later that after­noon Mikoyan made his most concerted pitch to square Mexican and Soviet revolutionary thinking at a luncheon sponsored by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación (canacintra , National Chamber of Transformation Industry), a leading industrial group. Speaking for over an hour before an audience of more than one hundred “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   67

Figure 2.2 Scores of ­people crowded together to catch a glimpse of Anastas Mikoyan and President Adolfo López Mateos as they prepared to inaugurate the Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City on November 21, 1959. Note the wide range of participants, which included ­children, the el­derly, rural mi­grants (the presence of the cowboy hat likely indicated a person from the countryside), and the educated (with the clutched newspapers). Source: “Exposición Soviética Inauguración,” no. 14.157 (primer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

Mexican businessmen, Mikoyan sought to establish a rapport at the expense of Mexico’s closest trading partner and neighbor. In a speech laced with wisecracks regarding the failings of the United States, Mikoyan brazenly asserted that t­here was “tremendous overlap between [Mexican] revolutionary thinking and communist thought.” President López Mateos “with his socialist ideas could be a member of the Communist party,” he remarked to a somewhat stunned audience. “Thank God ­there are no g ­ reat differences between us,” he added, noting that upon setting foot in Mexico “he became a member” of the ruling party.68 The mainstream press leapt upon the comments as crude and inappropriate. As the headline in Excélsior noted: “Mikoyan Attacked the United States and Declared Himself a Member of the pri .”69 It is not clear ­whether the remark was impromptu or had been carefully prepared in advance. 68   —   Chapter Two

Figure 2.3 Soviet Vice Deputy Anastas Mikoyan (left) marches alongside President Adolfo López Mateos (center) and Mexico’s secretary of industry and commerce, Raúl Salinas Lozano (right), on their way to the ribbon-­cutting ceremony to inaugurate the Soviet Exhibition on November 21, 1959. Source: “Exposición Soviética Inauguración,” no. 14.157 (primer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

Cárdenas’s travels to the Soviet Union and private meeting with Khrushchev less than a year before may have been taken as a sign of a pending realignment in Mexican geopolitics. Or Mikoyan may have simply felt emboldened by the effusive government reception that greeted him at each stage of his visit. Certainly, in one regard, it was an evident miscalculation. As the British Embassy l­ater remarked, Mikoyan had come across as “patronizing and presumptuous” and the aftermath was an “increasingly derisive press.”70 Yet viewed in another way, his comment likely bolstered the socialist credentials of López Mateos and the ruling party. Mikoyan’s presence and the broader spectacle of Soviet cultural diplomacy thus pointed to the utility of a new, special relationship that might be forged between the two countries. By welcoming Soviet overtures, Mexico provided a platform for the legitimization of post-­Stalinist diplomacy at the border of the United States—­and the gateway to Latin Amer­i­ca. In return, López Mateos “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   69

was able to proj­ect a nationalist confidence that embraced the full spectrum of Mexico’s domestic politics while asserting the nation’s sovereignty of action in world affairs. The Soviet Exhibition lasted just over three weeks and, as British and US diplomats had feared, clearly gave a tremendous boost to Soviet prestige. Although the quarters ­were cramped and translators in short supply, a deluge of daily visitors confirmed its success from the Soviet perspective. Some forty to fifty thousand ­people attended daily, including from “many regions across the country as well as by foreigners.”71 As a British summary noted: “The steady stream of humanity, shop girls, peasants, taxi ­drivers, engineers, industrial workers and ­whole families which ebbed and flowed around the exhibits, particularly around the Sputniks and the industrial models, was . . . ​clear proof of the curiosity which the Exhibition had aroused, coming as it did from a world of which Mexicans had previously known very ­little.”72 While ­there ­were spectacular ele­ments, such as the Lunik and Sputnik spacecrafts (see figure 2.4) and plenty of emphasis on po­liti­cal and cultural values, also noticeable was the strong focus on technology and industry. This was presented not simply from a propagandistic vantage point (which was mostly the emphasis with the show in New York City) but rather with the objective of luring industrialists to take note of potential ave­nues for trade. For instance, the exhibition included examples of metal-­cutting machines, agricultural and road-­building vehicles, and oil exploration equipment, among many other “new exhibits” that ­were of interest “from the commercial point of view,” as an internal Soviet report l­ater noted.73 Still, numerous shortcomings hindered the exhibition’s full potential. The most glaring was a “quite insufficient” number of Russian-­Spanish translators. This contributed to the larger issue of a staff that became overwhelmed; several specialists simply “did not arrive.” Moreover, despite the abundant amount of lit­er­a­ture distributed, public demand “exceeded our possibilities by 2 or 3 times,” a Soviet report concluded. Such deficiencies no doubt reflected in part the short advance time and thus suggested how both sides kept the exhibition ­under wraps ­until the last moment.74 As with the set-up in New York City, loose-­leaf notebooks scattered around the exhibition provided the public an opportunity to rec­ord their impressions.75 Mexico has “a g ­ reat sympathy” for the USSR, wrote one person, explaining how the two countries shared the same experience of passing “through a period of revolution before attaining po­liti­cal freedom and stability.”76 Another wrote that they “admire[d] the Soviet Union b ­ ecause it has made more pro­gress in the recent past than any other country in the 70   —   Chapter Two

Figure 2.4 A view inside the Soviet Exhibition on November 22, 1959, opening day for the general public. The photo shows replicas of the Lunik and Sputnik space satellites (suspended) and the monumentalized “Soviet Man” sculpture at the base of the staircase. Clothing pre­sen­ta­tion (note the cowboy hats in the background and sharp dress of many of the men) and other aspects in the image reveal a diversity of class, gender, and generation. With collaboration from Mexican authorities, following the exhibition the cia secretly disassembled the Lunik to examine its contents. Source: “Exposición Soviética Inauguración,” no. 14.157 (primer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

world.” By contrast, another commented, Mexico was “unable to make rapid pro­gress . . . ​­because it is ­under the complete economic domination of the United States.”77 The low admission price allowed many visitors to make repeated trips. One visitor noted it was “the third time I have attended this Exposition” and they wished to “take this opportunity to express my admiration for the Soviet Union.”78 A student from Mexico’s Instituto Politécnico Nacional (National Polytechnic Institute), a bastion of antigovernment activists, wrote on behalf of “Mexican students” who now “know your wish for peace”; you can “be confident that the youth of the world w ­ ill support you.”79 Another person who had traveled from “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   71

Michoacán, a state several hours’ drive from the capital, wrote simply: “Mexico stands by you. Long live Mexico! Long live the Soviet Union!”80 Still, public response was not uniformly pro-­Soviet. US Embassy staff, for instance, pointed out that comments critical of the Soviet Union ­were apparently torn out.81 One embassy attendee remarked that she had “overheard some derogatory remarks . . . ​regarding slave ­labor, secret police, ­etc.”82 Anti-­Communist protesters had also arranged to scatter stickers throughout the exhibition proclaiming, “This product was manufactured by slave workers.”83 Such anecdotal indications of anti-­Communist hostility, however, stood in stark contrast to the positive overall response. Mexicans, noted the US Embassy, had become aware of the Soviet Union “in a tangible manner which had never existed before; the Soviet Union therefore took on a new real­ity.”84 Soviet modernity was bona fide and, if its consumer products ­were substandard in comparison with t­ hose of the United States, Soviet pro­gress merited re­spect and admiration. The exhibition had received a “correct evaluation” by the press, noted an internal Soviet document, and had helped catapult the Soviet Union as “the most popu­ lar country for Mexicans.”85 Such unmitigated optimism was not entirely fanciful. “By means of the exposition,” the US Embassy concluded ominously, “the Soviets definitely established a bridge-­head in Mexico which they never had before.”86 Glowing Soviet assessments and equally dire conclusions reached by Washington, however, missed a significant critique emanating from within the Left that lurked just below the surface of the spectacle of popu­lar affirmation. For a small but significant group of intellectuals, not only was true demo­cratic socialism ­under Soviet rule unattainable; it was no longer desirable. Despite Khrushchev’s repudiation of the ideological excesses of Stalinism, it was the repression of a popu­lar uprising against Soviet rule in Hungary and the continued exaltation of socialist realism in the arts that underscored the system’s proclivities ­toward crushing rather than uplifting the h ­ uman spirit. Indeed, as Patrick Iber notes, invocation of a “new humanism” had emerged as the defining ele­ment characterizing the split between an “Old” and “New” Left. This skepticism came through in a critical review of the Soviet exposition by Víctor Rico Galán, one of Mexico’s most prolific left-­wing intellectuals. “I felt a strange, oppressive feeling growing in me,” he wrote in Siempre!, “one that broke out in a dumbfounded, almost involuntary questioning: This is what we call socialism?” Socialism, he added, had been presented as if it ­were “an unending pro­cess that lacked feeling.” Artistic creation, he continued, must convey ­ human potential while acting as a mirror for expressing the contradictions of ­human experi72   —   Chapter Two

ence, not simply the wished-upon utopias of an i­ magined socialist realism: “The center of Socialism is man and so long as man is living in depressed, uncomfortable and ugly housing, ­there is no such ­thing as Socialism, even though Sputniks and Luniks may cruise the celestial realm. Although the chefs who cook up Socialism speak from a memorized ­recipe, and say that art is only a ‘superstructure,’ without art t­ here is no Socialism.”87 Rico Galán’s assessment in fact went deeper than simply a critique of what was on display at the exhibition. Although Soviet modernity might compete with the cap­i­tal­ist West as a model for economic development, Soviet society remained mired in bureaucratic entanglements; gone was its revolutionary soul. For many on the left, even t­ hose of an older generation (such as Rico Galán), Soviet modernization revealed a vacuum of humanistic purpose. It was a vacuum rapidly being filled by the radical impulse linked to the Spirit of Bandung and, closer to home, of revolutionary Cuba. Indeed, Fidel Castro was actively articulating a new kind of socialist humanism in which the “heroic guerrilla” formed part of a larger revolutionary proj­ect, one that retained a distinctive role for the individual as a historical agent. “The Soviet Union and Mexico Are ­Going along Similar Paths” The day ­after the inauguration, Mikoyan embarked on a four-­day tour of northern Mexico. His first stop was the Altos Hornos metallurgy plant—­ “the pride of the Mexican p ­ eople,” in the words of a Soviet journalist covering Mikoyan—­located in the small industrial city of Monclova. Built in 1942 through a collaboration of foreign and domestic capital and government support, Altos Hornos reflected most prominently the government’s shift ­under President Manuel Ávila Camacho ­toward a strategy of substitution for imports through the development of Mexico’s own industrial sector. During a luncheon hosted by Pascual Gutiérrez Roldán, director of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the state-­run oil com­pany, Gutiérrez Roldán remarked to Mikoyan that “if at some point the Soviet Union ­were to build in Mexico a [steel] plant like you are ­doing in India,” in evident reference to the Soviet-­financed factory recently completed in 1956, the Soviets would see for themselves how Mexicans “know how to work and have a high level of expertise.”88 It was an invitation Mikoyan was only too glad to hear, and he invited Gutiérrez Roldán to send Pemex workers to the Soviet Union to “inspect Rus­sian installations.”89 From Monclova, Mikoyan continued to the city of Monterrey, where he toured the Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, a steel foundry established at the turn of the ­century and the oldest in Latin Amer­i­ca. Appearing on local tele­vi­sion, Mikoyan explained “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   73

that the idea for his visit came from Gutiérrez Roldán, who had wanted him to see the “center of heavy Mexican industry.”90 That same after­noon Mikoyan was guest of honor at a banquet sponsored by Pemex in which more than 150 “prominent businessmen” ­were in attendance.91 The lavish affair reflected the most explicit linkage between the exhibition and Soviet ambitions for greater economic relations with Mexico. Mikoyan’s tour to northern Mexico also provided vari­ous opportunities to promote the theme of shared historical purpose. In an interview on Monterrey tele­vi­sion, for instance, he commented that unlike other countries where the word revolution is feared—an oblique reference to the United States—in the Soviet Union as in Mexico revolution had a positive meaning. “I am convinced that Mexicans appreciate their revolution,” he remarked in a comment that reinforced the pri ’s own nationalist messaging.92 In another example, during his visit to the ejido (communal farm holding) of San Nicolás de los Garza outside Monterrey—­one of the many state-­distributed peasant landholdings that ­were a direct product of Mexico’s 1910 revolution—­Mikoyan suggested that the Soviet collectives (Kol­ khoz) and the Mexican ejido both shared the common theme of “peasants try[ing] to seek happiness by working together.” Thus, he concluded, “we are ­going along similar paths.”93 From Monterrey he flew to the state of Tabasco, where he reviewed Pemex installations at Ciudad Pemex and Poza Rica. Returning to the capital, he was given a tour of the Azcapotzalco oil refinery on the outskirts of the city and of a textile factory. At a final luncheon hosted by the Asociación Nacional de Importadores y Exportadores de la República Mexicana (anierm , National Import and Export Association of Mexico), Mikoyan laid out his strongest case yet for the mutually beneficial possibility of trade relations. Noting that current trade between the two countries was “small and inadequate,” he urged Mexican businessmen to pursue “new ways, new clients.” While acknowledging that the United States was clearly Mexico’s dominant trade partner, he argued that this should not preclude “trade with other countries.” “­There are quite a few commodities in which Mexico could trade with the Soviet Union,” Mikoyan noted with considerable optimism.94 Shortly ­after, López Mateos dispatched Manuel Moreno Sánchez, a high-­ranking member of the pri , to the Soviet Union as his direct emissary to build on the momentum from Mikoyan’s visit. By the following summer, the sale to Mexico of 100 tractors and 340 Moskvich cars signaled a drive ­toward forging a broader trade agreement. Yet as Vanni Pettinà writes, this initial optimism “was replaced by frustration.”95 Although 74   —   Chapter Two

Soviet exports to Mexico nominally increased, a year a ­ fter Mikoyan’s visit the total volume of trade between Mexico and the Soviet Bloc remained “infinitesimal.”96 Nearly two years l­ ater, the results ­were virtually the same. As the British Embassy in Mexico City concluded, “Commercially the answer is clear: the impact [of Mikoyan’s visit] has so far been practically nil.”97 In April 1962 the Soviets reached out again to Mexico. A version of the Soviet Exhibition was scheduled to open in Rio de Janeiro that spring, and the Soviets proposed sending a high-­ranking trade del­e­ga­tion to Mexico “for a few days . . . ​with the goal of establishing contacts with interested companies and organ­izations.” Raúl Salinas Lozano, Mexico’s secretary of commerce and industry, leapt at the offer. At the last minute, however, the Soviets needed to cancel; the head of the del­e­ga­tion, N. S. Patolichev, the minister of foreign commerce, needed to return to the Soviet Union.98 In an interview shortly afterward between the Mexican correspondent for the Soviet news agency, Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskovo Soyuza (tass , Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union), and Alfredo Perera Mena, editor of Comercio Exterior, the official publication of the Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext, National Bank for External Trade), Perera Mena lamented the continued dominance by the United States over Mexican foreign trade. Establishing a broad commercial agreement with the Soviet Union, he indicated, risked a “deeply malevolent reaction” from Washington; trade relations would need to proceed gradually and with caution.99 Despite mutual interest, the path ­toward a trade agreement was rocky as well as risky. Vanni Pettinà accounts for the succeeding frustration in terms of what he calls “macro” and “micro” f­ actors. The former included the leverage wielded by US-­led financial instruments to delimit Mexican trade diversification with, for all intents and purposes, the e ­ nemy. Microfactors, however, ­were equally significant. Pettinà notes how po­liti­ cal divisions within Mexico’s ruling party—­“the undeniable anticommunism among certain po­liti­cal and government sectors”—­si­mul­ta­neously acted as “an internal brake” on pro­gress with re­spect to trade.100 He also points out that the hyperbole of Mexican-­Soviet friendship produced a set of “naïve” assumptions about Mexicans’ desire and capacity to disavow the country’s fundamental alliance with the United States.101 By 1963, Soviet-­Mexican trade had already fallen by half (see figure  2.5). Commercial relations would continue on a more or less downward spiral, with some fluctuation, ­until the 1970s when, ­under President Luis Echeverría and a notably dif­fer­ent context of détente, a formal trade “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   75

0 00 ,0 0 0, 00

0

$8 0, 0 0, 00

0

0, 00

0

0, 00

0

0, 00

0

$7 0, 00 $6 0, 00 $5 0, 00

Pesos (MX)

$4 0, 00

0, 00

0

$3 0, 00 0, 00

0, 00

0

$2 0, 00 $1

0 1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

Figure 2.5 Mexican exports to the Soviet Union. Source: Héctor Cárdenas, Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia (Mexico: sre /Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), appendix 4.

agreement was fi­nally reached. In short, for the duration of the 1960s the strategy of pursuing greater economic diversification with the Soviet Bloc failed. Cultural and diplomatic relations, however, ­were an entirely dif­fer­ent matter. By 1959, the Mexican-­Russian Cultural Institute in Mexico City (prominently located on the Paseo de la Reforma) featured a sizeable library replete with books in Rus­sian, Spanish, and En­glish. The center, similar to cultural institutes overseen by the usia , offered Russian-­language classes and provided film screenings and lectures. In addition to the main building in Mexico City, ­there ­were Soviet branches in Morelia, Monterrey, and Guadalajara; other institutes ­were being considered for Tijuana and Sonora. Moreover, Soviet-­produced magazines including New Times and Soviet Union ­were available in Spanish “on sale at many of the newsstands in the business district of Mexico City.”102 Indeed, in the period following Mikoyan’s visit, the cultural diplomacy offensive building since the late 1950s became a virtual deluge. In Janu76   —   Chapter Two

ary  1960, Rus­sia’s ambassador to Mexico, Vladimir Bazikin, announced that t­ here would be “a marked increase in cultural exchanges” between the countries.103 In short course, Mexicans ­were exposed to a broad and sustained exposure to Rus­sian and Soviet Bloc cultural programming, ranging from classical per­for­mances and the Bolshoi Ballet to Soviet films and lit­er­a­ture in translation. The British Embassy noted that ­after 1961, Soviet films ­were regularly shown on Mexican tele­vi­sion, and Soviet newsreels appeared in Mexico City cinemas “to a far greater extent than ever before.”104 An analy­sis by Soviet officials in late 1961 concluded that while conditions ­were less favorable to reaching a broad trade agreement (due to the “dominance of North American capital”), Mexican public opinion nevertheless was “open to expanding [relations] to a certain extent, above all through cultural and artistic exchanges.”105 Two years ­after Mikoyan’s visit, the steady “stream of visitors and del­e­ga­tions from ­behind the Iron Curtain” had become so common, Britain’s ambassador remarked, that “they no longer arouse much curiosity.”106 Other countries of the Soviet Bloc also engaged in an active cultural diplomacy with Mexico. This was especially the case with Czecho­slo­va­kia and Poland, which sent overlapping exhibitions of artistic works, classical and folk ­music per­for­mances, and diverse cultural festivals. ­These cultural experiences would fundamentally redefine Mexico’s official and everyday relationship with the Soviet Union.107 In an indication of the broad ac­ cep­tance of a new normal unfolding, in July 1961 a Soviet “good ­will del­ e­ga­tion” visited Mexico. Repeating a gesture established by Mikoyan in 1959, they laid a wreath at the Monument to In­de­pen­dence, whose towering presence in the heart of the capital symbolized the nation’s proud defense of national sovereignty (see figure 2.6). Woven into the wreath was the hammer and sickle accompanied by the text buena voluntad (good ­will). In its sly appropriation of the discourse of Pan-­Americanism, the symbolism was obvious: the United States was not the only Good Neighbor available.108 The Cuban Revolution Complicates Every­thing From Mexico, the Soviet exhibit was scheduled to travel to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but a cryptic note published in the Mexican press a day before the exhibit opened in Mexico City suggested a pos­si­ble diversion: “Quizás viaje a la Habana” (Maybe it ­will travel next to Havana).109 Mikoyan was still in Mexico when he instructed Aleksandr Alekseev, the Soviet intelligence officer recently assigned to Cuba, to draw up a secret proposal, one that “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   77

Figure 2.6 In late July 1961, part of a sizeable visiting Soviet del­e­ga­tion lays a wreath at the base of the Monument to In­de­pen­dence. It reads: “To the Heroes of In­de­pen­dence, from the Soviet Delegation on a mission of Good ­Will.” Source: “Llegada de la Delegación Soviética de Buena Voluntad,” no. 15.949, ­Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

included a significant aid package and a willingness to procure arms for the regime.110 Castro was reticent to reveal any po­liti­cal inclination ­toward the Soviet Union, but suggested that the exhibition, along with Mikoyan, could travel to Cuba ­under the guise of the new cultural diplomacy of the Cold War.111 The decision turned out to be a critical turning point for the ­future Soviet-­Cuban relationship. “Yes, he [Castro] is a genuine revolutionary,” Mikoyan cabled back to Moscow excitedly from Havana. “Completely like us. I felt as though I had returned to my childhood!”112 For the Soviets, ­here was a chance to respond to growing Chinese attacks by cozying up to a cohort of revolutionaries that embodied the anticolonial spirit of Bandung while solidifying a hemispheric presence. Yet Khrushchev’s bet on Castro threatened to undermine the parallel strategic objective of expanding Soviet trade and diplomatic ties to Latin Amer­i­ca. As Moscow became increasingly enmeshed with the fate of the Cuban Revolution, the effort to market a more moderate image of Soviet geopolitics fell by the 78   —   Chapter Two

wayside. Tellingly, although López Mateos had accepted “in princi­ple” an invitation to visit the Soviet Union in the spring of 1961, he soon rescinded the offer.113 No Latin American head of state (with the obvious exception of Fidel Castro) would visit Moscow for another de­cade. Conclusion In a final act of Cold War espionage before the Soviet exhibition shipped off for Havana, the cia took advantage of operating on friendly turf to covertly examine the contents of the Lunik spacecraft. The spy agency had determined that the Lunik at the exhibition was not simply a mock-up, as might have been expected, but rather “a production item” that would likely reveal key data about Soviet rocket capabilities.114 Therefore, cia operatives diverted the spacecraft as it was being moved from the exhibition arena to a ware­house, and brought the cargo to a separate, shielded location. Working feverishly throughout the night, they systematically disassembled, photographed, and reassembled the spacecraft’s vari­ous components. The operation delivered valuable intelligence, but equally significant was the “fine cooperation” established between cia covert operators and Mexican intelligence.115 Paradoxically, such collaboration deepened in correlation to Mexico’s expanding internationalist ambitions, as concerns over domestic po­liti­cal stability entwined with US fears of expanding Soviet-­Cuban influence. Mexico City became “a battleground,” as Jefferson Morley writes, “a labyrinth of espionage, a city of intrigue like Vienna or Casablanca” with competing spies “angling for advantage.”116 In late 1959 a secret strategic assessment by the State Department asserted ominously that Mexico had become “the epicenter of a multipronged Soviet propaganda offensive, the largest of its type ever witnessed in a Latin American country.”117 This “offensive,” however, was not the sole design of the Soviet Union, for it si­mul­ta­neously served President López Mateos’s interlinked domestic and geopo­liti­cal goals: to demonstrate to the left-­wing forces mobilizing around Lázaro Cárdenas that Mexico was in­de­pen­dent enough to choose its friends, while projecting Mexico as a relevant Cold War actor. Yet the revolutionary pro­cess unfolding concurrently in Cuba continued to raise the stakes of what “revolution” meant both globally—in the context of post-­Bandung decolonization strug­gles—­and locally, as a “restless” Left denounced the demise of Mexico’s own revolutionary proj­ect. By the summer of 1960, it appeared to many that Mexico, too, was newly vulnerable to the radical undertow in play. “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”   —   79

Chapter Three

Mexico’s New Internationalism REGIONAL LEADERSHIP AMID THE TUMULT OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION

In early 1960, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (sre ) gave “extensive circulation” to an exhaustive compilation of Adolfo López Mateos’s speeches, press conferences, and newspaper reportage related to his travels to the United States and Canada, aptly titled La nueva política internacional de México. Its cover prominently featured the text: “Mexico, leader of dignity and of continental solidarity.”1 In an editorial preface, Antonio Luna Arroyo, an advisor to the president and coordinator of the collection, sought to capture the significance of Mexico’s newly assertive internationalist position, the tone of which had been established during the president’s travels that fall. “We are living in decisive years,” Arroyo wrote, “and are witnessing a fundamental change in relations between the Amer­i­cas and worldwide.”2 The Soviet Union’s argument in ­favor of peaceful coexistence; Cold War tensions over Berlin; the rise of anticolonial nationalism in Africa, Asia, and the M ­ iddle East; nascent efforts to assert a “neutralist” position in the Cold War: all of this presented Mexico, whose revolutionary nationalism was grounded in the princi­ples of po­liti­cal democracy, defense of sovereignty, and economic

justice, an opportunity to play a more assertive role in hemispheric and global affairs. Flush with his twin diplomatic successes that fall, at the start of 1960 President López Mateos left Mexico on an intensive three-­week tour of South Amer­i­ca, one that would take him to Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru.3 It was the longest period of absence ever by the nation’s leadership and heralded the start of the most ambitious foreign policy agenda of any Mexican president to date. The stated purpose of the tour was to finalize aspects of a Latin American F ­ ree Trade Agreement, but ­there was a larger motive as well.4 The trip provided an extended platform for the president to articulate a “New International Politics,” one that exalted him as a hemispheric leader and showcased Mexico as a paragon of revolutionary pro­gress. This chapter explores the national, bilateral, and regional ramifications of Mexico’s new internationalism in the context of the radicalization of the Cuban Revolution. The first section follows President López Mateos on his tour to South Amer­i­ca, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on the language and symbolism utilized to establish a claim to hemispheric leadership in the face of fierce competition, not only from Fidel Castro but from Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek as well. Meanwhile, in Mexico the left-­wing intelligent­sia that had coalesced around the magazine el espectador called out the hy­poc­risy of a progressive internationalism coupled with domestic repression. Still, the symbolic language of a new internationalism clearly resonated with this intelligent­sia. The next section discusses a key moment in López Mateos’s efforts to bind what I term an “untethered Left” to his regime through the launching of a new po­liti­cal journal, Política. Meanwhile, by the summer of 1960 US-­Cuba relations ­were at a crisis point, with dramatic implications for Mexican domestic politics and bilateral relations with the United States. In the third section I contextualize what became arguably the most recited phrase and the hallmark of President López Mateos’s term in office, that his government stood “at the extreme left within the Constitution.” The speech from which this statement was extracted, coupled with other remarks and policy positions, ­were all part of a broader strategy of harnessing the popu­lar mobilization engendered by the Cuban Revolution in support of the president’s own internationalist agenda—to “steal its clothes,” as a British analy­sis aptly put it.5 It was a strategy, however, that threatened to rupture the carefully laid foundation of Good Neighbor relations with the United States, a diplomatic bond upon which a broader strategy of global diversification paradoxically depended. Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   81

A New International Politics for Mexico When López Mateos announced to the Mexican public in late 1959 his intention to tour Latin Amer­i­ca, he explic­itly disavowed any pretension of “heading a movement” or seeking to promote an “organ­ization of blocs.”6 Such language was a clear reference to the rise of Third World leaders such as Indonesian president Sukarno or General Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the United Arab Republic (uar , Egypt), whose efforts to forge a new po­liti­cal order following the meeting of decolonized nations in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 ­were becoming manifest in new racial and regionalized alignments of interests. Bandung, as Christopher Lee writes, had “set the stage for a new historical agency, to envision and make the world anew,” and while López Mateos would soon seek to engage the forces set in motion by that gathering—in par­tic­u­lar, that of the Non-­Aligned Movement (see chapter 4)—­for now, the question of where Mexico positioned itself within this emerging postcolonial alignment was still very much in flux.7 Indeed, a central fault line throughout the global sixties concerned the extent to which Latin Amer­i­ca resembled the new nations in Africa, Asia, and the ­Middle East or ­whether, as a region that boasted a vibrant m ­ iddle class and had achieved its own po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence more than one hundred years e ­ arlier, it was closer in affinity to the nations of Western Eu­ rope and the United States. Expressions of solidarity with an emergent “Third World” tran­spired, moreover, within the context of a hemispheric-­ wide strug­ gle to rearticulate the meaning and purposefulness of Pan-­ Americanism at a moment of not only a profound shift in geopolitics but a resurgence of anti-­Americanism. In the early 1960s, Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil each sought to proj­ect their own national proj­ects as progressive models for Latin American development, as well as that of the Third World, even as their respective po­liti­cal leadership jostled with one another for ascendency over the Pan-­American idea itself. In sharp contrast to the hostile response Vice President Richard Nixon had faced two years ­earlier, the public reception for Mexico’s president was astonishing. At his first stop in Caracas, Venezuela, scene of the infamous attack on Nixon’s motorcade, some 150,000 p ­ eople converged on the airport and another 80,000 lined the streets of the capital.8 In Rio de Janeiro, upward of 300,000 p ­ eople came out to cheer him.9 Everywhere, the press reported enthusiastically on his speeches and praised Mexican culture and po­liti­cal maturity. The choice to visit countries recently returned to democracy (Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina) while avoiding the Ca­ rib­bean and Central Amer­i­ca—­and, most notably, Cuba—­highlighted the 82   —   Chapter Three

fact that Mexico alone among the Latin American republics had sustained an uninterrupted constitutional rule.10 In each of the nations visited, López Mateos held up the example of the Mexican Revolution as an “authentically popu­lar” movement, one that laid the foundations for a progressive yet demo­cratic form of government. ­These ideas ­were not new; they built upon a projection of Mexican regional leadership dating to the 1930s.11 Similar to the 1930s, a new global order was in the making. Yet this time vari­ous nations in Latin Amer­i­ca ­were determined to shape the contours, both ideologically and geopo­liti­cally, of that emerging order. The exaltation of the Mexican Revolution by López Mateos came to be described by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry as the “Mexican Demo­cratic Thesis.”12 Three intertwined components constituted this “thesis.” The first was that Mexico successfully combined institutional democracy with “social justice.” As López Mateos proclaimed before the Brazilian Congress, Mexico was an “integral democracy” in that it combined “formal democracy” with social and economic democracy. This included the “claim to our natu­ral resources, distribution of land, workers’ rights, social security: institutions, in short, that guarantee to e ­very citizen employment that amply channels one’s ­human energies and allows for the just participation in economic and spiritual goods.”13 The integration of ­these twin values thus validated Mexico’s leadership aspirations and established the country as a model for other nations seeking to navigate the fraught developmental politics of the pre­sent global moment. The second component was a vigorous defense of po­liti­cal and economic sovereignty. Throughout his travels, López Mateos repeatedly drew upon Mexico’s historical defense of national sovereignty and adherence to the founding charter of the Organ­ization of American States (oas ). ­Every nation, as he proclaimed in a speech to the Argentine Congress, “must resolve its own prob­lems in conformity with its historical temperament and its par­tic­u­lar circumstances, openly exercising in that re­spect a right to sovereignty.”14 Given the context of increasing conflict between the United States and Cuba, such language reaffirmed Mexico’s position, articulated during his visit to the United States the previous fall, that the Cuban Revolution be permitted to run its own course without the threat of intervention. Fi­nally, the thesis positioned Mexico as a Cold War interlocutor. On multiple occasions throughout his tour of Latin Amer­i­ca, for instance, López Mateos directly quoted from his speech to the United Nations to underscore Mexico’s commitment to global disarmament, while insisting on the need among the world’s powers to pursue “coexistence”—­the catchphrase of Soviet diplomacy but also a maxim for the nations that had gathered in Bandung and one already morph­ing into a Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   83

somewhat dif­f er­ent iteration, that of po­liti­cal “neutralism” (see chapter 4). In what amounted to a summation of the Mexican Thesis, López Mateos stated at one point in his travels: “­Whether in Amer­i­ca or throughout the world, mankind searches for tranquility, harmony and justice. In order to satisfy ­those yearnings, it is necessary to follow a congruous path, one that is progressive and reflects an integration of local, national, continental, and global concerns; one in which we carry forth our efforts to bring about peace and international cooperation.”15 Although h ­ ere López Mateos was speaking in the abstract, it was nevertheless a clear articulation of a ­grand strategy he intended to pursue. Détente and the reconfiguration of global politics following Bandung had created an opening for Mexico to lead, both regionally and internationally. A historic opportunity was seemingly at hand: to break the grip of tutelage held by the United States over Latin Amer­i­ca and to forge an opening for peripheral nations to influence the course of international affairs. Throughout his travels he spoke of the importance of a Latin American–­ oriented Pan-­Americanism, one that relegated the United States to that of a critical ally but not explic­itly of Latin Amer­i­ca. For instance, when asked during his press conference in Venezuela ­whether US policy posed an “obstacle to the development” of Latin Amer­i­ca, he responded, “sharply and positively” according to the official transcript, “Why, if we do not allow them?”16 Indeed, López Mateos stressed the Latin American roots of Pan-­Americanism, ­going so far as to propose the replacement of “Pan-­ Americanism,” a term directly linked with US paternalism, with that of “Latinamericanism.” Perhaps the clearest articulation of this semantic shift, and a reflection of how López Mateos envisioned a more assertive role within a new global politics engendered by decolonization, came when he stated: “We do not propose [Latinamericanism] as an aggressive bloc against anything or anyone, but we propose this as the integration of our Latin American personality in the concert [that constitutes] the countries of the world.”17 Fidel Castro’s own rapidly evolving critique of Pan-­ Americanism, however, amounted to a counternarrative to that articulated by López Mateos, in which state-­led cap­i­tal­ist modernization, demo­cratic pro­gress, and hemispheric solidarity ­were epitomized by the Mexican success story. The climax of his travels was the signing of the Treaty of Montevideo, which established a Latin American F ­ ree Trade Agreement (lafta ). Despite being an aspirational goal of long standing among Latin American governments, the treaty fell short of creating a genuine economic common market. The idea of a common market was long championed by 84   —   Chapter Three

the UN-­based Economic Commission for Latin Amer­i­ca (ecla ), a body known for its dependentista (de­pen­dency) critique of US trade dominance and its support of Latin American industrialization. Yet as one US economist wrote at the time, in contrast to the recently formed Eu­ro­pean Economic Community (eec )—­a Cold War priority that received financial and po­liti­cal support from Washington—­similar efforts to forge closer Latin American economic cooperation lacked the “blessings of the United States government.”18 Washington still fundamentally distrusted Raúl Prebisch (who headed ecla ) and continued to resist the “statist” bent of Latin American development strategies that posed obstacles to greater foreign investment.19 As key Latin American nations worked to hammer out the basis for a common market agreement in 1959, the US insisted on the creation of a “free-­trade area” sanctioned by the International Monetary Fund (imf ) rather than an ecla -­approved “common market”—­what Thomas Mann, US assistant secretary of state for economic affairs, derided as “closed regionalism.”20 As Edgar Dosman concludes, lafta was “an anti-­climax” following years of hopes for a regional economic cooperation that would lay the basis for a stronger, more autonomous po­liti­cal affiliation as well.21 Thus, while symbolically impor­tant, the agreement nevertheless had l­ittle economic, much less po­liti­cal, clout. As it soon became evident, lafta could neither negotiate better terms of trade with the United States nor defend Latin American access to Western Eu­ro­pean markets in the eec .22 The State Department viewed López Mateos’s tour with a cautious optimism that reflected a preference for the revolutionary nationalism of a po­liti­cally stable, self-­identified Good Neighbor to that of the po­liti­cally unstable, out­spoken critic found in Fidel Castro. Calling López Mateos a “continental figure,” US ambassador to Mexico Robert Hill told the Mexican press that the United States gave its full support to López Mateos and wished him complete success.23 President Eisenhower sent a personal note congratulating the president on his “historic visit” to South Amer­ic ­a and “noble efforts” to bring about “greater unity” among the republics.24 Indeed, with the hemispheric situation rapidly deteriorating, Washington would soon recognize the extent to which it truly needed Mexico as a reliable interlocutor of Pan-­Americanism. As an article in the New York Times noted shortly ­after López Mateos’s return, “circumstances have placed Mexico in a pivotal position . . . ​to leave an imprint on hemispheric history.” With Argentina roiled by the aftermath of Peronism and Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek about to leave office—­ceding “his role as a spokesman for Latin Amer­i­ca”—­Mexico, the Times asserted, was poised Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   85

to play “a major and useful role in mediating between Latin Amer­i­ca and the United States.”25 Back home, public reaction may have been less supportive than the government-­backed press would have led one to believe. Reporting from Guadalajara, a bellwether of middle-­class conservatism, US consul Robert Martindale pointed out that the cost of the trip “appears to escape no one.” Instead of “pride in an internationally acclaimed president, as anticipated,” the public’s reaction was one of “cynicism” and open criticism related to the expenditures involved.26 This latent middle-­class wariness foreshadowed a conservative encumbrance López Mateos would face as he used his presidential pulpit to argue for a new international order alongside the emergent “nonaligned” nations. At the same time, for the po­liti­cal Left the results of the president’s trip highlighted a mounting contradiction between the display of a progressive internationalism abroad and the repression of left-­ wing activists at home. As a bold editorial in el espectador—­the unmediated forum for the incipient New Left—­put it succinctly: “Why in international aspects can we be revolutionaries, but not in internal aspects?”27 In a fundamental sense, this contradiction spoke to the heart of the prob­ lem facing López Mateos as he sought to mobilize the public in support of a “new international politics.” The ­middle classes, although nationalist, ­were religiously and po­liti­cally conservative. In the coming years, they proved the most skeptical of pursuing relations with the emergent Third World, much less the Soviet Union, and constituted the strongest basis of support for deepening ties with the United States. The po­liti­cal Left, on the other hand, shared in the goal of re­orienting Mexico’s foreign policy away from the United States and, more fundamentally, of using Mexico’s rising influence to reshape global institutions in f­ avor of peripheral nations. Yet at the same time, the “restless” intelligent­sia that had found an intellectual home in el espectador was a potentially destabilizing po­liti­cal force that repeatedly exposed the authoritarian practices ­behind the pri ’s rhe­toric. López Mateos needed to harness this emboldened intelligent­sia to the regime, but at the same time the pace of international events threatened to undermine the posture of Good Neighborly sentiment upon which the stability of the Mexican economy—­and thus the edifice of progressive internationalism—­depended. Efforts to Harness the Left In an article from early March 1960 that tried to make sense of the growing prob­lem of rebeldismo sin causa (rebellion without a cause), a label directly linked to the James Dean film (Rebel without a Cause [1955]) and 86   —   Chapter Three

intertwined with the rise of Mexican rock ’n’ roll, Oswaldo Díaz Ruanova argued that Mexican youth ­were “nostalgic for rebellion, for a strug­gle, for the revolution that [the younger generation] had not lived.” Fidel Castro, he explained, elicited widespread support among youth precisely b ­ ecause he “represented rebellion triumphant, that which has descended, with wild beards and ­battle uniforms still intact, from the top of the mountain, the Sierra Maestra to be exact.” H ­ ere was, “in essence, the drama of our generation.”28 Renata Keller writes of a “lukewarm” response to the Cuban Revolution on the part of the López Mateos administration, as the Mexican president lent rhetorical support for the revolutionaries while si­mul­ ta­neously repressing the most vocal ele­ments mobilizing in Castro’s defense.29 Yet overlooked in her analy­sis is the central role ­those same forces would play in lending crucial po­liti­cal support for the president’s internationalist ambitions. The challenge faced by López Mateos was how to harness the Left in support of his presidency even as he sought to contain the forces of cardenismo. As we have seen, the locus of the untethered Left was in the in­de­pen­ dent newsmagazine el espectador. While one should not overstate the role of el espectador or its impact within the wider “restless” Left that López Mateos confronted, the fact that the magazine attracted some of the most significant intellectuals of a new generation, writers who regarded themselves as on the left but not of the Left in a formal party sense, posed a dual challenge to the legitimacy of the president and the system of one-­party rule more generally. Historically, the ideological influence of Mexico’s ruling party was sustained precisely through the state’s self-­interested subsidizing of the Left, even when—­and more importantly, necessarily when—­ the Left engaged in open criticism of the regime. Octavio Paz would l­ater denounce the pri as a “philanthropic ogre,” a label Paz used to identify the extent to which the regime’s sponsorship of cultural and intellectual criticism constituted a foundation of the government’s authoritarianism.30 Thus the po­liti­cal significance of el espectador went far beyond the fact of its publication. What mattered was that the government had lost influence over key members of the intelligent­sia. The Left per se was not a prob­lem—­ indeed, properly tethered to the regime, the Left was a necessary actor—­ but the in­de­pen­dence emblematic of the intellectuals or­ga­nized around el espectador was, and something needed to be done to reign them in. One of the most impor­tant events of this historical juncture was the launching in May  1960 of the bimonthly newsmagazine Política. During the first several years of its existence, Política became the most influential left-­wing newsmagazine throughout Mexico and, I would argue, a key Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   87

venue for harnessing the Left to the regime. Política was the result of a collaboration between Manuel Marcué Pardiñas and Jorge Carrión, left-­wing intellectuals and fierce loyalists of Vicente Lombardo Toledano, leader of the Partido Popu­lar (pp ). Although Carrión was listed as se­nior editor, throughout the next seven years of the magazine’s existence Política remained closely identified with Marcué Pardiñas, both in the public’s mind as well as that of state security agents, who kept a careful watch on his ­doings. Política, moreover, was openly aligned with the Cuban regime, which not only supplied the magazine with news and photographic content via Prensa Latina—­the Cuban news agency that was formed in early 1959 and credited directly on the magazine’s masthead—­but, as gathered from numerous sources, provided a financial subsidy to the magazine, all of which indicated that it was clearly regarded by Cuba as a strategic investment.31 From the start, the sleek pre­sen­ta­tion, robust coverage of domestic and international events, and strident “anti-­ yanqui” discourse of Política distinguished it from the well-­funded, nationalist (yet steadfastly pro-­ American) Siempre!, on the one hand, as well as the rustic yet free-­ wheeling spirit of el espectador, on the other. Política set out to be a serious journal of the Left. Its mission, as indicated in its opening editorial, was to reclaim the field of “politics” from the misuse it suffered in everyday usage and to apply the term to “the scientific study of social structures with the goal of transforming them and advocating for improved stages of ­human coexistence [convivencia humana].”32 In the ensuing years, Política positioned itself as the most consistent voice in defense of revolutionary Cuba and an increasingly radical forum for expressing criticism of the failings of Mexico’s own revolutionary proj­ect. Indeed, ­every historian who has examined this period highlights the antagonistic relationship between Política and the López Mateos regime to underscore the role that the magazine served as a mobilizing force on the left. Patrick Iber, for instance, writes that Política “almost immediately provoked the ire of the government.”33 Similarly, in her analy­sis of the impact of Política, Renata Keller argues that the magazine “exposed the dirtiest secrets of Mexican politics and dared its readers to do the same.”34 Although ­there is much truth to ­these arguments, missing is a recognition that ­until around mid-1963, Política functioned as an erstwhile ally of the regime, a petulant and per­sis­tent critic, to be sure, yet nevertheless one that continued to regard the presidency with reverence and to offer its support, especially, to the goals of diplomatic and economic diversification pursued by López Mateos.35 88   —   Chapter Three

Unlike the “restless intellectuals” who made up the rotating editorial collective of el espectador, Marcué Pardiñas was a known entity. Moreover, as an out­spoken loyalist of Lombardo Toledano, he not only benefited from the latter’s po­liti­cal patronage; he knew how to navigate within the acceptable po­liti­cal discourse of opposition politics, even as Política clearly meant to test t­ hose bound­aries. An impor­tant reflection of this willingness to adhere to certain po­liti­cal norms was the fact that throughout its first three years, the covers of Política remained respectful, at times even deferential, in their depictions of López Mateos. This tone was established with the very first issue, timed to coincide with May Day, which featured an overblown photo­graph of the president, looking thoughtful and presidential, superimposed over masses of workers in the background. The caption read, as if an earnest plea, “Straighten Out and Normalize Relations between the Government and the Workers’ Movement.” Such re­spect for the office of the presidency and invocation of a monumentalist perspective reinforced an image of the president as supreme leader. Moreover, while the cover illustrations for the newsmagazines Siempre! and Jueves de Excélsior, each highly influential among left-­and right-­of-­center publics, respectively, deployed po­liti­cal caricature and thus opened opportunities for a playful ambiguity, the covers of Política almost exclusively used photography and, more often, photomontage.36 This approach conveyed a realistic aesthetic—­a po­liti­cal seriousness that underscored the magazine’s broader mission to “restore politics” in pursuit of an avowed socialist agenda. Significantly, Política was also the first newsmagazine to establish an explic­itly global perspective, as revealed through the magazine’s subtitle, “Fifteen Days of Mexico and the World.” The fact that the magazine received material from the Cuban news ser­vice, Prensa Latina, clearly contributed to a Third Worldist outlook that championed the politics of anticolonial liberation. At the same time, however, this emphasis on global affairs coincided with the progressive internationalism of López Mateos and reinforced a discursive framework that elevated Mexico’s stature as a global actor. To be certain, on vari­ ous occasions Marcué Pardiñas publicly accused the government (but not the president) of stymieing production by restricting the supply of paper (held through a state mono­poly). In addition, Marcué Pardiñas and other se­nior staff members ­were routinely placed ­under government surveillance. By ­these (well-­known) methods, the regime deployed the full range of its gate-­keeping apparatus to corral the magazine and its editorial leadership into overarching conformity with the government’s politics.37 Still, the fact that López Mateos provided Política with the use of government-­subsidized printing facilities (Talleres Gráficos de México) Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   89

reinforces the notion that the regime was not only well aware of Política’s launch but worked to ensure its success. According to British reports, the newsmagazine even received a direct subsidy from the regime.38 Indeed, Marcué Pardiñas unabashedly proclaimed his friendship with López Mateos, of whom he spoke positively years l­ ater as “a refined man, a bohemian, a person interested in Cuba and her [revolutionary] ambitions.”39 A month ­after Política’s inaugural issue, security forces violently shut down el espectador. While no government document has surfaced to account for this act, the timing suggests that the creation of Política was meant to ensure that an alternative, government-­sanctioned forum was made available in advance. In contrast to the decentralized structure of el espectador (which operated through a rotating editorial collective), Política promised to be po­liti­cally (and gen­er­at­ion­ally) more “mature.”40 One reflection of this was a strict editorial hierarchy ­under the control of Marcué Pardiñas. Similarly, as opposed to the self-­conscious questioning of what it meant to be “on the left” that characterized el espectador—­and the critique of monumentalism that was reflected through the magazine’s use of irreverent humor (see chapter 2)—­the editorial posture of Política was fundamentally aligned with official nationalist discourse, even as the magazine pushed the tenets of that discourse further to the left than any other news outlet. Thus, while both magazines prominently featured articles on Cuba—in its penultimate issue, el espectador published an exclusive interview with Che Guevara—­only el espectador appeared to make room for discussion of what the “New Left” meant in the evolving global context. In sum, the youthful, nondoctrinaire, low-­budget el espectador proved too much of a threat to the regime. The launch of Política thus helped corral the intellectual Left ­toward a journalistic outlet more readily subject to government oversight. Immediately, most of the writers previously affiliated with el espectador migrated to the offices of Política. Indeed, over the next two years Política became the most significant vehicle for critical reportage on Mexican domestic politics and a fierce advocate for anticolonialist movements. It also became the media home for the left-­wing movement that was coalescing around Lázaro Cárdenas and that, in mid-1961, would take formal shape as the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) (see chapter 4). Yet despite mounting divergences with government actions, highlighted by fierce critiques following the assassination of peasant leader Rubén Jaramillo and his ­family in early 1962 and the visit to Mexico by President John F. Kennedy, Política remained respectful of presidential authority. More significantly, the magazine helped direct the forces of cardenismo in support 90   —   Chapter Three

of Mexico’s new foreign policy orientation, one in which defense of the Cuban Revolution had become a requisite—if inconvenient—­position for López Mateos to accommodate.41 “Stealing the Clothes” of Cardenismo On March  4, 1960, a French freighter carry­ing a shipment of Belgian weapons destined for Cuba exploded in the Havana harbor, killing upward of one hundred ­people. In his public eulogy for the victims of La Coubre, Castro directly addressed the question of sovereignty that had been at the heart of López Mateos’s public defense of Cuba up to that point: “In the first place what right does any government have to interfere with the efforts of another government in defense of its sovereignty? What right has any government to try to assume the guardianship of any country in the world? What right has any government to try to prevent Cuba from getting weapons, weapons which all governments get for the defense of their sovereignty and dignity?”42 ­After systematically disputing all other hypotheses for the explosion, Castro laid direct blame on the United States, thus opening wider the rift in Pan-­Americanism. ­Whether or not the cia was in fact responsible (a claim never resolved), the explosion marked a turning point, for it underscored the vulnerability of the Cuban Revolution in the face of US animosity. As Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali write, “Castro’s conviction that Washington was responsible eliminated his reluctance to request military assistance directly from Moscow.”43 The explosion set off “a chain of events,” they write, that would bind the Cubans and Soviets ever more deeply together in strategic alliance. Two days ­later, Aleksandr Alekseev, the Soviet Union’s principal contact on the island, conveyed to Castro a secret, orally transmitted message from Khrushchev expressing his “sympathy and fellow-­feeling” with the “revolutionary government” and “optimism” with Cuban pro­gress.44 Shortly ­after, Khrushchev sent Castro a letter “offering both advice and weapons”; it closed with an invitation to visit Moscow.45 Up ­until then, Khrushchev had been cautious in his overtures to Castro, concerned that any overt indication of deepening ties might upset diplomatic relations with the United States and the broader pursuit of peaceful coexistence. Yet recent Chinese attacks on the Soviet’s “theoretical mono­poly on the interpretation of Marxism-­Leninism,” coupled with Mikoyan’s passionate endorsement of the Cuban Revolution a few months ­earlier, had convinced Khrushchev to use the drama surrounding recent events to extend an open hand of friendship and military protection to the revolutionary upstart.46 Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   91

The explosion of La Coubre and the subsequent strategic alliance rapidly developing between Cuba and the Soviet Union marked a critical juncture not only geopo­liti­cally but regionally as well as locally. At stake for López Mateos was not only a rhetorical defense of Latinamericanism, and therefore a strategy of keeping the Cuban Revolution within the par­ameters of a Pan-­American conversation, but also the definition and credibility of Mexico’s revolutionary princi­ples as the nation prepared to commemorate its own fiftieth anniversary of the 1910 revolution (see below). In a brash move designed to outpace the pro-­Cuban forces that had mobilized around Lázaro Cárdenas, López Mateos de­cided to tack further left on Cuba. It was a move that became among the most consequential of his term in office, and a necessary one if he aimed to tether the forces of cardenismo to his presidency. That June, Cuban president Osvaldo Dorticós received an official welcome to Mexico City in what became an ostentatiously staged state visit.47 A ­lawyer and former head of the Cuban Bar Association, Dorticós was a prominent member of the Partido Socialista Popu­lar (psp , Popu­lar Socialist Party), Cuba’s Communist Party, and he had played a key role in drafting the 1959 agrarian reform law. His replacement of the non-­Communist Manuel Urrutia Lleó as president of Cuba the previous July was widely interpreted to indicate a closer collaboration between Fidel Castro (officially, prime minister) and Cuban Communists.48 Mexico was the final stop of a multination tour of Latin Amer­i­ca by Dorticós, and while Mexican government officials ­were reportedly “not too ­eager” to play host, ­here was an opportunity for López Mateos to lay claim to the left-­wing forces mobilizing around Lázaro Cárdenas.49 The sheer scale of the official reception for the Cuban leader stunned the po­liti­cal Left and foreign observers alike. In preparation for his arrival, state offices closed at midday to “enable government servants to get to the airport on time,” where a crowd of upward of fifteen thousand p ­ eople overwhelmed that of a smaller group waving pro-­Castro and anti-­US banners (see figure 3.1).50 A quarter-­page announcement appeared in the conservative newspaper Excélsior, signed by leading intellectuals (including several former writers for el espectador): “The p ­ eople of Mexico, more than at any other point in their history, stand alongside the ­people of Cuba ­because we recognize in their Revolution the same objectives as our Revolution of 1910: the affirmation and defense of national sovereignty, the break-up of land holdings and a better distribution of wealth, protection for the working classes, and a more rational use of natu­ral resources.”51 In an explicit endorsement of the regime’s openness to Dorticós, numerous 92   —   Chapter Three

Figure 3.1 A diverse crowd, including many state workers encouraged to attend, heralds the arrival of Cuban president Osvaldo Dorticós at Mexico City’s international airport on June 8, 1960. Source: “Llegada del pte. de Cuba Osvaldo Dorticós,” no. 14.778, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

left-­wing organ­izations sent congratulatory tele­grams directly to López Mateos, including one from the Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos (cem ), the group that had played an impor­tant role in pressing Lázaro Cárdenas into action the previous fall and whose membership included vari­ous writers for Política.52 The reception for Dorticós, however, must be recognized as one component of a wider effort emanating from within the pri to define not only the relevance of Mexico’s own radical traditions in light of the radicalism of the Cuban Revolution but to substantiate the revolutionary character of President López Mateos himself. To the “Extreme Left of the Constitution” Two weeks ­after Dorticós returned to Cuba, the president of the pri , Alfonso Corona de Rosal, stated during a speech at a po­liti­cal banquet that the “position of [the López Mateos government] is truly and authentically Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   93

revolutionary; it represents a judicious [atinada] leftism in confronting the prob­lems Mexico ­faces.”53 The inherent ambiguity of the phrase izqui­ erda atinada and subsequent efforts by dif­fer­ent ruling party officials to clarify its meaning set off a weeklong debate in the editorial pages of the mainstream press as to the “true nature” of the pre­sent administration. The debate was capped on July 1, during a public address by López Mateos in which he famously declared that his regime stood “at the extreme left within the Constitution.”54 López Mateos’s statement immediately generated enormous excitement as well as consternation within and beyond Mexico. Scores of tele­grams congratulating him poured in from around the country. In a theme reiterated by numerous letter writers, one veteran of the Mexican Revolution noted that Mexico’s founding f­ athers ­were “the first leftists.”55 Another letter, written on behalf of a small business o ­ wners association in Tamaulipas, repeated this sentiment in a passionate defense of Mexico’s national character: “Our Founding F ­ ather, Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, was an extreme leftist regarding his ideas about colonialism, and he consolidated our territorial and po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence; [José María Morelos, who succeeded him] gave shape to ­those ideas with the famous Constitution of ­Apatzingán; then, the ­great Indian [Benito Juárez] confirmed a leftist position with the world famous Laws of Reform, and ­these provided the foundation and impulse for the social ferment that produced our victorious mexican revolution , which found inspiration in this leftist philosophy.”56 The assessment readily conflated historical periods and personalities, yet notably also equated “leftism” with dif­fer­ent iterations of po­liti­cal in­de­pen­ dence—­first from Spain, then the Catholic Church, before culminating in the Mexican Revolution. It was the latter that represented the final, complete in­de­pen­dence of Mexico, that which allowed the country to set the terms of its own national destiny. Other letter writers situated Mexico’s “leftist philosophy” within the secular trajectory of the Enlightenment. Mexico’s leftism was “born from France’s leftist liberalism,” one letter argued, “and has become an American demo ­c ratic fortress, for it is the spirit of Democracy that is the antithesis of international communism.”57 This interpretation of Mexican liberalism as a bastion against “international communism” was in fact a tenet that coursed through right-­wing movements in Mexico, such as that headed by Jorge Prieto Laurens, and provides an impor­tant portal into the complex ideological fabric that constituted Mexican nationalism.58 Similarly, another letter sent by an organ­ization of private agricultural producers praised the president’s “clear leftist sentiment.” Mexican law and insti94   —   Chapter Three

tutions, the authors reassured, would prevail against the threat “of e ­ very foreign ideological influence on our own nationality.”59 Notably, each of ­these letters incorporated language that directly reflected an official discourse of unidad nacional (national unity), a widely disseminated corpus of visual and written texts generated during this period that reaffirmed Mexican revolutionary nationalism as a defense against “foreign ideological influences.” B ­ ecause Mexico’s nationalist ideology was si­mul­ta­neously liberal (rooted in a radical secularism), popu­lar Catholic (reflected in reverence for the Virgin of Guadalupe), and progressive (emanating out of the social reformism of the nation’s revolutionary proj­ect), all Mexicans, regardless of their po­liti­cal orientation, could stake a claim to the country’s Constitution of 1917. In an impor­tant indication of how official media ­were policing the bound­aries of po­liti­cal discourse—­keeping the president’s “leftism” distinctive from the leftism emanating from Cuba—on the same day Excélsior reported on López Mateos’s speech, the newspaper editorialized that Castro’s regime amounted to “a satellite of Moscow” and was a “serious danger for all of the Hemi­sphere.”60 The po­liti­cal risks of courting the Left over Cuba became ever more manifest in the tumultuous days that followed. On July 6, the United States ended its purchase of all Cuban sugar in retaliation for Castro’s nationalization of foreign oil companies. (The companies had balked at the demand to refine Soviet crude oil.) In response, Soviet premier Khrushchev pledged not only to acquire the sugar dropped by the United States but on July 9 he served notice that the Soviet Union would, in effect, extend a nuclear umbrella over Cuba. The Pentagon should not “dare to start intervention against Cuba,” Khrushchev warned.61 Several days ­later, the military commitment was formalized in an agreement signed with Raúl Castro (on an official state visit to the Kremlin), whereby the Soviets pledged to use “all means not to consent to an armed United States intervention against the Cuban republic.”62 The pact appeared to violate the spirit though arguably not the letter of the Rio Treaty (1947), the bedrock post­war agreement that established the princi­ple of inter-­American, collective self-­defense against an “armed attack by any State against an American State.”63 As a sovereign nation, Cuba had invited the military support of a non-­American state and, in any event, the threat to other American states was implied, not actualized. Khrushchev’s rhe­toric and the formalizing of a military alliance nevertheless set in motion an urgent meeting of the oas that August to address the situation. The escalating dynamic between Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States thus placed Mexico in a precarious position and threatened to dictate the terms of López Mateos’s larger agenda. Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   95

The day ­after the US cut off Cuban sugar imports, the highest-­ranking congressional member of the pri , Emilio Sánchez Piedras, stated his support for Cuba in public remarks before an assembled group of legislators: In this critical moment for our s­ ister Republic of Cuba, when it appears that our neighbor to the North has closed the doors of friendship and comprehension in the face of the yearnings of the Cuban p ­ eople to live in freedom and with economic in­de­pen­dence, we, the representatives of the ­people of Mexico, reiterate to the ­people of Cuba our solidarity and state once again that we are convinced of their right to live with social justice and in economic freedom and that hope, peace, and mutual friendship ­will prevail upon this continent.64 Sánchez Piedras had evidently been authorized to “add a sentence about Mexican sympathy for the Cuban Revolution,” yet the tone of his remarks suggested the difficulties López Mateos faced even within his own party.65 Indeed, British reports noted that López Mateos was “genuinely taken aback” by the statement and “horrified by the reactions” that ensued in the US press.66 The following day, in response to a US reporter’s question concerning the remark, the pri ’s leader of the Senate, Manuel Moreno Sánchez (a close friend of López Mateos who was emerging as the president’s plenipotentiary to the socialist world and had recently returned from leading a parliamentary del­e­ga­tion to Moscow), stated: “I repeat that I second Congressman Sánchez Piedras’s remarks. This is not about telling the United States ­whether or not they have a right to do what t­ hey’re d ­ oing. It’s about how as men [hombres] and as Mexicans we state that the ­people of Mexico have not forgotten their ­humble origins, have not forgotten that they come from a Revolution, and have not forgotten that they, too, have faced similar crises in their history.”67 President López Mateos had sought to use official support for Cuba as a way of channeling the newly energized forces of the Mexican Left into support for his government. Yet what began as a strategy to “swamp the left” and thus to harness the forces of progressivism in support of López Mateos’s emergent global pivot had also stoked a latent anti-­Americanism that now spilled into the streets.68 As an article in the Miami-­based Dia­ rio de las Américas noted, “­There appears to be in the making the first significant anti-­North American movement to occur in this country since the expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938.”69 Moreover, rumors had begun to circulate that Lázaro Cárdenas was considering forming an opposition po­liti­cal party, in what would amount to an open rebuke of his professed loyalty to López Mateos. A British report warned that the former 96   —   Chapter Three

president could “rally tremendous support, especially in the countryside, and possibly even break up the pri ” if he chose to do so.70 On both sides of the border, fears, suspicions, and accusations mounted that the Good Neighbor framework was at risk of coming apart. Good Neighbor Betrayed The drama of unfolding events soon crystallized in a series of pro-­Cuba demonstrations in the nation’s capital. The first and most explosive of ­these protests began in front of the US Embassy and ended in the Zócalo (main public square), where several thousand students, teachers, intellectuals, and activists rallied to show their “support for the Legislative power for its declarations in ­favor of Cuba” and to protest US “intervention” in Mexican affairs.71 Despite the demonstrators’ stated support for the government’s position, the city’s riot squad (granaderos) responded to the assemblage with excessive force. Noteworthy was the fact that the government-­backed press justified the repression by highlighting the anti-­American overtones of the march, especially “the ranting against the United States” by student leader Carlos Ortiz Tejeda. His efforts to burn a US flag ­were thwarted by an agent from Mexico’s internal security forces, the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (dfs ), who reportedly “snatched [it] away . . . ​before he could set it on fire.”72 Pursued by granaderos, one group of protesters managed to shatter the win­dows and dump a bucket of red paint into the lobby of the nearby ­Hotel Majestic, a popu­lar tourist location. For Americans, it was an ominous sign that events in Mexico ­were spinning out of control. Several days ­later, a second, much larger demonstration tran­spired. This time the organizers chose the symbolically significant Monumento a la Revolución (Monument to the Revolution) as their starting point, before again emptying into the Zócalo (see figure 3.2). Although ­there ­were “insults hurled at the United States and against Mexican officials,” a massive display of force dissuaded protesters from wreaking havoc as they had previously.73 Significantly, protesters directly incorporated the key phrase from López Mateos’s speech two weeks ­earlier, and carried signs that read, “Extreme Left Means Support for Cuba.”74 From the perspective of many in the United States, the elision of the position between protesters and the president underscored the confusing and fundamentally threatening stance of Amer­i­ca’s erstwhile ally. Shortly a ­ fter, the Chicago Tribune featured a series of articles on Mexico by Clay Gowran, u ­ nder the header “Shocking Eye Witness Account on Reds in Mexico!” A full-­ page announcement promoting the series Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   97

Figure 3.2 The second of two massive marches by pro-­Cuban demonstrators, which traversed from the Monument to the Revolution to the Zócalo on July 15, 1960. Although newspaper reports noted the burning of an effigy of Gen. Luis Cueto Ramírez (Chief of Police), t­ here was no mention of the burning of this effigy of ­Uncle Sam. Source: “Y mitin en el Zócalo, pro-­Cuba contra los granaderos,” no. 14.882, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

noted that Gowran witnessed “the humiliating spectacle” of Mexican police defending the perimeter of the US Embassy, and sought answers to the “hemming and hawing” that had become “the characteristic of the pre­sent Mexican administration.”75 A feature article in the Saturday Eve­ ning Post, whose front page featured a photo­graph of student leader Ortiz Tejeda attempting to burn the US flag, captured the shift in narrative. With the provocative title “­Will Mexico Go ‘Castro’?” the article asked: “Could it be true that our friends south of the border down this way might be drifting t­oward Castroism?”76 For many readers, the question at this stage could scarcely be construed as rhetorical. Ultimately, the article concluded, President López Mateos was determined not to let the pro-­ Cuban forces get the upper hand. But t­here was much at stake on both sides of the border in the expression of a mounting anti-­Americanism. Net income from tourism alone amounted to approximately $1 million 98   —   Chapter Three

per day and had been steadily increasingly over the past five years.77 As a US Embassy internal economic report for Mexico warned, a “belief in Mexican stability appears to have been shaken, and more foreign investors are asking searching questions about Mexico’s long term po­liti­cal and economic outlook.”78 The protests gave credence to deeply seated fears and ste­reo­types in the United States about po­liti­cal vio­lence that belied the attractive veneer of a “new” Mexico. Although the US Embassy tried to reassure visitors and investors, numerous “requests from individual citizens and organ­ izations” poured in “regarding the safety of American investments and, especially, American tourists in Mexico.”79 The shock of events comes through clearly in the numerous letters sent directly to López Mateos as well as to the State Department throughout this period of tumult. One letter writer from Pennsylvania queried the Mexican president: “As tourists, would it be safe for us to go to your country? ­We’re ­eager to see it, have all the necessary papers, ­etc., but ­we’re afraid to go to Mexico ­unless we are guaranteed safe conduct.”80 James Fuson of Decatur, Illinois, wrote that he had been planning a f­ amily vacation to Mexico but was “very much disturbed by the newspaper, tele­vi­sion and radio reports of the trou­ble you have been having due to the Leftist Movement and also the Cuban situation.” In a clear indication that something profound had shifted in the way many Americans perceived their relationship with Mexico, Fuson stated plainly: “We certainly do not wish to come if we are not wanted.”81 Other letters ­were openly hostile and reflected a sense of betrayal rooted in popu­lar cultural repre­sen­ta­tions of the “duplicitous Mexican.” As one writer stated: I do not know how much aid we may be giving your country at the pre­sent time, but I am writing to my representatives in Congress to request that no further assistance of any kind be given you. I do not want one centavo of my tax money to go to such an ungrateful nation. Now, please do not get me wrong. I do not advocate requiring you to get down on your knees to us. But I do think you should refrain from embracing our sworn enemies. You are making [the Soviet newspaper] Pravda and [the Cuban newspaper] Revolución very happy. It appears that I s­ hall have to spend my ­future vacations in Canada where our friends are.82 Such sentiments of fear and outrage, moreover, ­were not ­limited to Americans. They ­were shared by many Mexicans as well. In fact, the visit by Dorticós and subsequent utterances at the highest levels of the government Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   99

had exposed deep ideological fault lines that lay just beneath the surface of “national unity.” Many Mexicans viscerally feared the destabilizing influence of ideological contamination from revolutionary Cuba and the possibility of estrangement from the United States. To the Left’s cries of “¡Cuba sí, Yanquis no!” ­these conservative voices, which spanned the class spectrum, replied with the popu­lar slogan disseminated by the Catholic Church, “¡Cristianismo sí, Comunismo no!”83 Placards appearing in win­dows announced, “This home is Catholic and does not accept e ­ ither Communist or Protestant propaganda.”84 Throughout that summer and fall, President López Mateos received scores of letters from across the nation expressing concern that the country was drifting ­toward Communism and away from its Good Neighbor partnership with the United States. For many Mexicans, the upheavals of the summer appeared closely linked to broader transformations in cultural values that threatened patriarchal hierarchy in the home and re­spect for authority more generally.85 Significantly, however, t­ hese letters tended to direct their ire on o ­ thers and not the president. For instance, one letter writer criticized Sánchez Piedras’s speech as a “demagogic discourse” that gravely threatened Mexico’s “prestige and equanimity.”86 Another called him “crude and vulgar.”87 One letter described Sánchez Piedras as “the favorite” (el consentido) of Lázaro Cárdenas, “who is at the head of all of this.”88 The notion that Cárdenas was “at the head of it all” was also indicative of how the former president had transformed himself into a useful po­liti­cal lightning rod, readily available to absorb attacks by conservatives that might other­wise have targeted the president directly. Exemplifying this, another letter writer asserted that Cárdenas and his “communist companions” received a subsidy from Fidel Castro, “as well as the necessary weapons to undo this government and place themselves in a position to attack the United States at any moment.”89 Nearly all of ­these letters, moreover, conveyed a common concern that Mexico was at risk of sacrificing the deeply rooted (if also fraught) ties of amistad with the United States for a sentimentalist solidarity with Cuba. “It is time,” one writer stated, “to clarify the situation once and for all. . . . ​ Which side is Mexico on, that of Communism or that of Democracy?”90 In a final example, a letter sent by a group of citizens from Tlaxcala, a state directly to the east of Mexico City, made evident reference to the significance of Good Neighborly sentiment as a deeply intertwined aspect of Mexican identity. Neatly summing up the concern by ­those not on the self-­defined left, they wrote: “We are friends to our friends, and Good to our neighbors.”91 100   —   Chapter Three

“The Duty of the Revolutionary . . .” In late August, Latin American foreign ministers met in San José, Costa Rica, to debate an oas resolution repudiating the Soviet pledge to defend Cuba militarily. Mexico used the meeting to pursue two contradictory positions, hence reflecting the government’s delicate balancing act: mend ties with the United States yet mobilize the public in defense of Mexican revolutionary princi­ples. Foreign Minister Manuel Tello, whom the State Department ­earlier derided as one of the leading “romantics” of the administration, made it clear in behind-­the-­scenes discussions with the United States that Mexico was “prepared to vote for a strong resolution against the Soviet Union.”92 Si­mul­ta­neously, the pri announced a massive meeting of support for the government on the same day as the scheduled vote. Between 300,000 and 500,000 ­people participated—­many, though likely not all, with direct ties to government-­supported ­labor unions—to “show the solidarity and support of the p ­ eople” for President López Mateos and the progressive path he was pursuing.93 Excélsior characterized the gathering as “the largest crowd ever assembled in the Zócalo.” It was a “repudiation of the instigators of recent unrest,” the paper added.94 The final oas document, known as the “Declaration of San José,” specifically addressed Khrushchev’s boastful claim of nuclear defense, though it did so without mentioning Cuba directly. Any intervention “or the threat of intervention, even when conditional, by an extra-­continental power in the affairs of the American republics” was unacceptable, the resolution stated, and endangering of inter-­American solidarity and security. Mexico, as promised, ultimately voted in ­favor of the resolution, but Tello insisted on adding a rejoinder into the rec­ord. Mexico’s vote, it stated, “in no way” represented a direct “condemnation or a threat against Cuba, whose aspirations for economic improvement and social justice have the fullest support of the Government and the ­people of Mexico.”95 Fidel Castro wasted no time in replying to the Declaration of San José with his own “Declaration of Havana.” This historic speech quickly overshadowed in significance, at least for the Left, the diplomatic implications of the oas vote as well as Mexico’s nominal defense of Cuban sovereignty. Before a massive “General Assembly of the P ­ eople” of more than one million ­people, Castro unleashed a verbal assault against the historical ravages of “Yanqui imperialism” and defended the “­free and absolute self-­ determination” of the Cuban Revolution. “The spontaneous help offered by the Soviet Union to Cuba in the event our country is attacked by the imperialist military forces,” Castro thundered, “could never be considered Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   101

as an act of intrusion.” Rather, it “constitutes an evident act of solidarity.” In a prelude to the trope of “revolutionary duty” (el deber revolucionario) that would shortly become a hallmark of what I l­ater discuss as the vanguardist component of the New Left, Castro pronounced: “It is the duty of peasants, workers, intellectuals, Negroes, Indians, young and old, and ­women, to fight for their economic, po­liti­cal and social claims; the duty of oppressed and exploited nations to fight for their liberation; the duty of each nation to make common cause with all the oppressed, colonized, exploited or attacked p ­ eoples, regardless of their location in the world or the geo­graph­i­cal distance that may separate them. All the p ­ eoples of the world are ­brothers!”96 Thousands of copies of Castro’s declaration ­were distributed by the Cuban Embassy to students at Mexico’s public universities (unam , National Polytechnic Institute, National Teachers’ College), who pored over the speech with collective enthusiasm.97 The speech was also widely distributed through the Universidad Obrera de México (uom , Workers’ University of Mexico), an institution directly affiliated with Lombardo Toledano’s Partido Popu­lar (pp ), and via the continent­wide trade u ­ nion he headed, the Confederación de los Trabajadores de América Latina (ctal , an affiliate of the World Federation of Trade Unions). Activists from the pp ­were “instructed to make the Declaration known everywhere.”98 In the postwar period, Lombardo Toledano forcefully maneuvered to assert his leadership as legitimate heir to the cardenista co­ali­tion. Through the pp (founded by him in 1948), Lombardo Toledano had come to assume the role of a loyal opposition figure, and during the 1940s–50s his po­liti­cal party absorbed many of the disaffected intellectual Left into its ranks. The Cuban Revolution and the return of Cárdenas to po­liti­cal prominence, however, threatened to render Lombardo Toledano and his pp less relevant to the po­liti­cal calculus of the ruling pri , and thus less useful as a stabilizing force in Mexican politics. But Lombardo Toledano had no intent to cede po­liti­cal ground. He now looked to hitch the pp explic­itly to the Cuban Revolution and the global ideological conflict between socialism and capitalism. Following the announcement of the oas resolution against Cuba, the pp added the appellate “Socialista” to become the Partido Popu­lar Socialista (pps , Popu­lar Socialist Party).99 Able to count influential intellectuals such as Marcué Pardiñas within its ranks, the pps succeeded in drawing to the party a new generation of activists, many of whom ­were lower-­class youth and teachers from the provinces. Indeed, by the mid-1960s, as the New Left splintered, the armed vanguardist ele­ment within Mexico would count among its members numerous pps adherents (see chapter 6). 102   —   Chapter Three

Monumentalizing the Revolution and the Good Neighbor The fall of 1960 marked the coincidence of the 50th  anniversary of the Mexican Revolution (1910–60), the 100th  anniversary of the triumph of liberalism ­under President Benito Juárez (La Reforma, 1860–1960), and the 150th anniversary of in­de­pen­dence from Spain (1810–1960). For López Mateos, this “­triple commemorative significance” provided a unique opportunity to reaffirm the historical specificity of Mexico’s own national proj­ect. The Mexican Revolution, he stressed in his annual address to the nation that September, was “a true revolution” whose achievements ­were a model for other revolutionary experiences, yet “few or perhaps none ­others” had succeeded in their objectives as had Mexico.100 ­Those who criticized the revolution as having stalled or died ­were p ­ eople who “do not accept any notion of order or re­spect for norms.”101 The theme of Mexican exceptionalism was reiterated by Siempre!, which urged in an editorial that Mexicans should celebrate fifty years of revolution “as a repre­sen­ta­tion of their very state of being.” In clear allusion to the drift ­toward Communist alignment in Cuba, Siempre! added that Mexico’s revolutionary experience evolved “not as an imitation—­whether imposed or freely chosen—of foreign models.”102 As the date for the start of commemorations approached, foreign nations sought to take diplomatic advantage in a manner not seen since centennial cele­brations during the reign of Porfirio Díaz. As in 1910, h ­ ere was a timely opportunity for foreign governments to pursue a courtship with Mexican public opinion. The British ambassador, attuned to the shifting orientation of Mexican foreign policy, implored the Foreign Office to take the anniversary cele­brations seriously. The cele­brations ­were a “sufficiently rare event to warrant a special effort on our part.” Noting that other Eu­ro­pean countries, “including Rus­sia [and] not to speak of the United States,” ­were likely to send “very imposing del­e­ga­tions,” he urged that Britain “cannot afford to lag ­behind.”103 Looking ahead to the commemorations, Assistant Secretary of State Rubottom regarded them as an “opportunity to express our re­spect for Mexican in­de­pen­dence.” The US should “take all practical advantage,” he urged Secretary of State Christian Herter.104 One of the ways the United States sought to demonstrate its unmatched “re­spect” for this milestone was by issuing a commemorative postage stamp dedicated to Mexican in­de­pen­dence. Scheduled for dual release in Mexico and the United States, the “practically identical stamp” featured a radiating image of Mexico’s famous Bell of Dolores rung by ­Father Miguel Hidalgo, and that heralded the start Mexican in­de­pen­dence in 1810. A press statement Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   103

underscored that the stamp was designed to reflect “the inspired efforts of the two ­peoples” and the “creative statesmanship” that, over the previous fifty years since the Mexican Revolution of 1910, had brought the countries closer together in a “relationship of uncommon understanding and re­spect.”105 Another idea was a bit more ambitious: the donation of a statue of Miguel Hidalgo. This proposal had been introduced the previous spring (prior to the upheavals that summer) by US Senator Thomas H. Kuchel Sr. of California, to remind p ­ eople, as he noted in remarks to Congress, “of the common bond that unites us with our g ­ reat good neighbor to the south.”106 At the time, the State Department considered the proposal “most opportune and desirable” and urged Congress to fund it as soon as pos­si­ble.107 One US citizen, upon learning of the idea, went so far as to suggest that the statue should be “of heroic proportions [such] as is the Statue of Liberty.”108 Initially, Mexico also welcomed the proposal. Juan Gallardo Moreno, Mexico’s economic attaché in Washington, urged his superiors to have López Mateos send a note of thanks to Senator Kuchel, which “would have a significant impact on the proposal.”109 As the idea came ­under closer scrutiny, however, Mexico’s official position shifted. Indeed, the fated trajectory of the statue brought to the surface the complexities, bilaterally as well as locally, of pursuing Good Neighbor diplomacy in an era of fraught geopolitics. The proposal encountered its first roadblock with Mexico City’s appointed mayor, Ernesto Uruchurtu. A power­ful po­liti­cal actor within the pri , Uruchurtu indicated that Hidalgo was “already honored” by a monument in the capital. He also feared the donation would invite a surfeit of proposals from other countries similarly e ­ ager to court Mexican f­avor.110 Although it is not entirely clear from the documentary rec­ord, what occurred next most likely reflected direct intervention from ­either the president or a high-­ranking official within the sre , for Uruchurtu suggested a counterproposal to US Ambassador Hill: a “modest statue” of Abraham Lincoln as an “excellent substitute” for that of Hidalgo.111 Lincoln was widely revered in Mexico, both for his liberation of the slaves and especially for his solidarity with Mexico’s besieged liberal president Benito Juárez during the French intervention (1861–67). Lincoln, in short, worked much better than Hidalgo to represent Good Neighborly sentiment. By late June 1960, as tensions over Cuba reached a fever pitch, the State Department urged Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to pass a bill authorizing funds of $150,000 to commission the statue.112 Days ­after the anti-­American protests in Mexico City that August, the State Department sent a follow-up letter to Senator Kuchel urging him to sup104   —   Chapter Three

port the new proposal. Abraham Lincoln, the State Department intoned, shared with Benito Juárez “a common concern for Mexican in­de­pen­dence when it was crucially threatened.”113 But locating an appropriate place for the statue in Mexico City introduced a dif­fer­ent set of challenges. Uruchurtu initially selected a site in a working-­ class neighborhood proximate to the Zócalo. But the location seemingly implied an attempt to marginalize the donation and in the context of an escalating anti-­ Americanism, the wisdom of placing a symbol of US strength and perseverance in an area prone to protests perhaps became a ­matter of concern. In any event, the US Embassy appeared to have ­little direct control over the site, and Ambassador Hill was pleased when the mayor indicated that a dif­fer­ent option had been found eight blocks south of the Zócalo, in an area “flanked by modern buildings.” By then, however, the recent demonstrations appeared to unsettle this choice as well. For the monument to succeed as an enduring symbol of Good Neighborly relations, it was imperative that the surrounding community claim owner­ship over it. The site soon shifted once again to the eco­nom­ically prosperous neighborhood of Polanco, a place deemed by Ambassador Hill as “more desirable than previous locations” and “in [an] excellent section” of the city.114 A small parcel of land would be made available to develop a park around the statue, while Polanco’s middle-­and upper-­class residents would presumably be more disposed to safeguard the monument from anti-­American vandalism. As the logistics ­were coming together, however, the proposal hit a third and final roadblock: time had run out. On August 25, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations abruptly dropped the bill.115 For the moment at least, the proposal would need to wait. Conclusion The nationalist pageantry tied to the commemorative cele­brations in the fall of 1960 showcased Mexico as a po­liti­cally mature, eco­nom­ically vibrant nation primed to assert a larger international presence. An American businessman on hand for the events described a “sense of tensity that has not been evident in Mexico for many years.” ­There was “something in the air that one felt,” he wrote in a letter to Edwin Vallon, acting director of the Office of Ca­rib­bean and Mexican Affairs at the State Department, an anti-­American mood that he believed was linked to Mexico’s “bid for leadership . . . ​not only in hemispheric affairs but in world affairs.”116 For Mexico’s activist Left, spurred to defense of the Cuban Revolution yet cynical of the pri ’s self-­congratulatory rhe­toric, the mood was less celebratory. Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   105

“­There ­were speeches lit by the fires of civic light and reverence for the dead, as in the best times of any Ramses,” an editorial in Política noted with dripping sarcasm, “and foreign diplomats, lots of foreign diplomats.”117 For López Mateos, the challenge was to wed the activist Left who read Política and looked to Lázaro Cárdenas for moral leadership to his administration’s strategic agenda. An impor­tant turning point came ten days a ­ fter the commemorations when President López Mateos unexpectedly announced the nationalization of the electricity industry. Although technically the pro­cess was far less dramatic than the expropriation of the oil companies in 1938, and the economic stakes for foreign investors ­were nowhere near as significant, the action was framed by the administration as the end point in a trilogy of the recovery of national resources: land, oil, electricity.118 This official narrative was appropriately reflected on the cover of the next issue of Política, which foregrounded a profile of López Mateos against that of Lázaro Cárdenas over the caption “many remember the month of March 1938.”119 In its editorial from the same issue, Política praised the announcement as an impor­ tant yet ultimately ­limited recuperation of lost ground ­after “22  years of anti-­nationalist regression.”120 Nevertheless, the depiction of López Mateos inheriting the mantle of revolutionary nationalism underscored the ideological utility of Política for the regime. It also linked López Mateos’s leadership to that of Cárdenas in a manner that was clearly in the president’s interest. And yet, at the same time, the image of Cárdenas loomed larger. López Mateos appeared overshadowed by the former president, whose moral authority was uncontested. It was Cárdenas who remained the progenitor and mentor of the nation’s revolutionary objectives (see figure 3.3). While the Left praised the nationalization and pushed the administration ­toward bolder action, key sectors within the business community viewed the act as further evidence of a slide ­toward state control over the economy. Days ­after the conclusion of events marking the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution, the nation’s three leading business organ­izations sponsored a full-­page editorial in Mexico’s leading newspapers ­under the provocative header “¿Por cuál camino, señor Presidente?” (Which way ­will you go, Mr. President?). ­After listing vari­ous examples of recent state intervention in the economy and “rumors” of ­future actions, the editorial asked: “Are we on a path ­toward state socialism, one paved by increasing interventionism [in the economy]?” Although the question, one of many boldly posed by the editorial, was clearly sensationalistic, in its very succinctness the editorial laid bare the ideological crossroads at which Mexico now found itself.121 106   —   Chapter Three

Figure 3.3 During the president’s State of the Union (Informe) address on September 1, Adolfo López Mateos announced the nationalization of the largest remaining private electrical com­pany, Mexican Light and Power Com­pany. This act helped establish a narrative identifying López Mateos with Lázaro Cárdenas, who expropriated foreign oil companies in 1938. It was a perspective that Política embraced, though accompanied by the demand that more needed to be accomplished. Source: Política, October 1, 1960.

In the ensuing months a broad-­based left-­wing movement or­ga­nized around defense of the Cuban Revolution and a critique of the “death” of the Mexican Revolution cohered b ­ ehind the po­liti­cal leadership of former president Lázaro Cárdenas. An “ideological b ­ attle for Mexico” was about to enter full swing, as a New York Times article worriedly stated at the start of 1961.122 From the perspective of Washington and the US public more broadly, at stake in this brewing “­battle” was not only Mexico’s domestic stability but, equally impor­tant, the country’s allegiance to US leadership in the Cold War. In a very short period, the perception of President López Mateos in the United States would shift from being a darling of the Pan-­ American ideal to an unpredictable, overly ambitious, and potentially destabilizing leader whose global agenda seemed increasingly at odds with that of Washington.

Mexico’s New Internationalism   —   107

Chapter Four

The “Spirit of Bandung” in Mexican National Politics

If 1959 brimmed with optimistic possibility that the Soviet Union and the United States might indeed learn to coexist, 1960 was a harsh wake-up call, a year that revealed the tenuousness of Cold War détente and the disruptive momentum of Third World revolutionary nationalism. When the Soviet premier returned to the un General Assembly in the fall of 1960, a year ­after his triumphant tour of the United States, it was clear the distance the world had traveled in that short, intervening period. The proposed summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower had collapsed; a Soviet-­Cuban strategic alliance had come into the open; and the movement for po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence that began in Asia and had coursed through the M ­ iddle East now reached Africa. In 1960 sixteen new African states joined the United Nations. Meanwhile, a raging civil war in the Congo exposed the vulnerabilities of the new postcolonial order to the ideological and military rivalries of the Cold War. Khrushchev’s brash decision to travel without escort to Harlem, where he was photographed in an embrace with Fidel Castro, coupled with his shoe-­pounding antics during a un debate over decolonization would render a set of enduring images that confronted the rhe­toric of peaceful coexistence with the real­ity of a rapidly mutating global scene.1 Also pre­sent at the General Assembly that fall ­were the leading figures of what would shortly denominate itself a “movement of non-­aligned na-

tions.” Huddled at the un mission of the government of Yugo­slavia, ­these leaders took stock of their potential collective influence. They proposed a resolution calling upon the two superpowers “to renew their contacts interrupted recently,” a reference to the scuttled peace talks in Paris of the previous spring. The resolution became entangled in un po­liti­cal wrangling and was eventually withdrawn, but the coming together of this nascent caucus of independent-­minded heads of state nevertheless marked another impor­tant turning point in the Cold War.2 Yugo­slavia shared ­little in common culturally or historically with the newly decolonizing nations of Africa and Asia, yet the country’s leader, Josip Broz Tito, regarded his own nation’s strug­gle for po­liti­cal sovereignty in the shadow of the Soviet Union as analogous with that of other, newly in­de­pen­dent nations battling similar geopo­liti­cal circumstances. Their efforts to forge a third space—­a “neutral” or “nonaligned” co­ali­tion that embodied the princi­ple of coexistence and advocated for a development agenda absent the ideological trappings of Cold War divisions—­resonated widely across Latin Amer­i­ca. As Vanni Pettinà concludes, nonalignment addressed “the urge to hasten the creation of a fairer international context for Third World countries’ development aspirations.”3 Building off of the landmark conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, this chapter explores the impact of the “Spirit of Bandung” on Mexican domestic and international politics. Bandung’s central themes—­Third World solidarity, geopo­liti­cal “neutralism,” and a restructuring of the global economy to ­favor developing economies—­appealed not only to the Mexican Left but to state actors as well. Indeed, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry (sre ) closely followed Bandung’s impact on global politics and lent support to vari­ous efforts by newly decolonized and other, less p ­ owerful nations in their mutual desire to reshape the postwar order. ­After discussing some of ­these official efforts to engage the Spirit of Bandung, the chapter focuses on the significance and impact of a continent-­wide conference—­suitably baptized a “Latin American Bandung”—­held in Mexico City in March 1961. Hosted by Lázaro Cárdenas, the conference revealed emergent tensions between an “Old” and “New” Left and set the stage for the launching of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) in August 1961, a movement that represented the most significant agglutination of left-­wing forces to mobilize in Mexico in at least a de­cade. Most authors have focused on the ways in which the 1961 conference and the subsequent formation of the mln posed a direct threat to the po­liti­cal authority of President López Mateos. Yet the internationalist thrust of the mln coincided with the regime’s own geopo­liti­cal aspirations. The chapter thus sets up a discussion, The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   109

explored in greater length in subsequent chapters, to show how López Mateos sought to bandwagon with the post-­Bandung ethos while testing the strategic tolerance of the Good Neighbor. In the Spirit of Bandung In April 1955, twenty-­nine African and Asian nations came together for a week in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss an anticolonialist agenda whose principal aim was to carve a path for in­de­pen­dent development that would transcend the b ­ itter ideological divide of the Cold War. As Hal Brands writes, “Bandung symbolized re­sis­tance” to the new, postwar order established by the division of the Eu­ro­pean world at Yalta, “a denial that the cold war applied to the world at large.”4 Reporting on the conference, Mexican diplomats revealed a keen interest in the significance of Bandung and its implications for the new geopo­liti­cal order. Mexico had recently coassigned its ambassador to Japan, Manuel Maples Arce (an avant-­garde poet and founder of the short-­lived Stridentist Movement in the 1920s), to serve as diplomatic representative to Indonesia, and his detailed report from the conference is illuminating. Maples Arce described the assemblage of statespersons as “most dissimilar” yet whose po­liti­cal eclecticism was marked by a unifying affinity of interests. The collective population encompassed by ­those in attendance, he marveled, “represented almost three-­fifths of total humanity.”5 Mexico’s economic attaché to the Philippines similarly expressed in glowing terms how the conference represented “a step forward in the current, fraught international situation,” an obvious reference to the tense climate of the emergent Cold War. It was a meeting, he wrote, that “without doubt” would be of ­great help to the cause of the United Nations—­a point whose implications ­were obvious for all less-­empowered nations that regarded the new international organ­ization as an impor­tant safeguard against domination by larger powers.6 Over the course of the next several years, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry followed the reverberations from Bandung with tremendous interest, not out of fear but rather out of possibility. Bandung heralded an opportunity for Mexican leadership to establish common cause with other nations whose locations, historical trajectories, and economic positions within the global economy appeared to have much in common with those of Mexico. Bandung, however, contained two intertwined yet ultimately divergent ideological currents that evolved in an unstable alliance over the next several years. Lorenz Lüthi aptly describes t­hese trajectories as “often conflated siblings” whose subsequent transformation into “vicious 110   —   Chapter Four

rivals for allegiance in the emerging global south” came to define the mid1960s.7 The first of t­ hese currents, as noted above, reflected the determination to forge a third space between the Communist and cap­it­ al­ist camps, a “neutral” position that asserted the right of nation-­states to “coexist” irrespective of po­ liti­ cal ideologies. “Nonalignment,” formalized by the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ) in 1961, incarnated the princi­ple that ­every state had the right to determine its own po­liti­cal and geopo­liti­cal orientation.8 As a “statist” current, it thus derived its legitimacy from and in turn validated the legitimacy of the United Nations as the supreme arbiter of interstate conflicts. The second current coursing through the gathering at Bandung was that of a militant anticolonialism, a sentiment embodied by the princi­ple of Third World solidarity.9 In 1958 this current coalesced with the launching of the Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization (aapso ), a body headquartered in Cairo and whose membership was constituted mostly by revolutionary organ­izations and other non-­state actors. Disputes between nam and aapso over the efficacy and pace of po­liti­cal militancy would generate one of the most impor­tant fault lines within the post-­Bandung movement. Most notably, whereas nam regarded the United Nations as a means for empowerment, by contrast aapso came to view the international body as a tool of the dominant powers, one that gave lip ser­vice to but ultimately marginalized the demands of Third World actors. For militant groups, this disenfranchisement was epitomized by the seating of Taiwan over Communist China, and by the un ’ s inability to halt the war in Vietnam. By the mid-1960s, ­these “clashing trajectories,” as Lüthi terms it, became the defining feature of an ideological competition for influence within the newly constituted Third World, a strug­gle that directly contributed to the collapse of a unified approach to global prob­lems and that ultimately destroyed the collective Spirit of Bandung (see chapter 8).10 From early on in his presidency, President López Mateos showed an eagerness to engage with the intertwined trajectories of Bandung. Visits by state-­level del­eg ­ a­tions from emergent “neutralist” powers, including the United Arab Republic, Yugo­slavia, Indonesia, and India all resulted in a series of agreements that set up f­ uture diplomatic exchanges and trade relationships. At the same time, Mexico sent high-­ranking members of the pri on extensive goodwill missions to Asia and Africa. ­ These visits mirrored, albeit on a lower scale, the internationalist outreach of the anticolonialist leaders themselves, whose high-­profile, globe-­trotting excursions across the ­Middle East, Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin Amer­ic ­ a during this period collectively aimed to cultivate diplomatic ties, convey solidarity, The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   111

and build support for the formation of a neutralist bloc of like-­minded nations.11 Indeed, during the course of López Mateos’s term in office, the sre established diplomatic relations with ten new countries, and elevated the rank of all its missions abroad to the ambassadorial level.12 The collective impact of this engagement resulted not only in concrete results (in par­ tic­ul­ar with regard to cultural exhibitions) but, more importantly, it sent a power­ful message throughout the body politic that Mexico, too, shared a historical commonality of re­sis­tance to colonialism and an intrinsic vulnerability in the shadow of empire. Several examples from this period, despite being somewhat fragmentary, adequately reveal the extent of state-level engagement by Mexico. The first is from the fall of 1960 when Mexico’s sre learned about a meeting in Cairo of the All-­African ­Peoples’ Conference (aapc ), a militant group that promoted anticolonialism and African solidarity. Acting evidently on the direct request from the president himself, Foreign Minister Manuel Tello instructed his diplomatic corps to investigate the possibility of “sending a Mexican friendship [fraternal] del­e­ga­tion made up of representatives” of the ruling pri and official l­abor organizers.13 A second example dates from shortly a ­ fter when, beginning in early 1961, the Foreign Ministry monitored plans for a “Casablanca Conference” to be held the following summer, also in Cairo. The so-­called Casablanca Group, as the body came to be called, was ultimately a failed effort to establish a pan-­ African organ­ization based on a collective politics of anticolonial emancipation, continental unity, and regional defense. Reporting on the meeting, Mexico’s ambassador to the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Alejandro Carrillo, described in a seven-­page dispatch how it represented “the most significant po­liti­cal event of Africa’s con­temporary history.” In a portion of his report highlighted by the sre , Carrillo summarized the objective of the Cairo meeting as that of “forging a unity of action among countries of the [African] continent with the objective of safeguarding their sovereignty and national integrity, as well as contributing to the basis of world peace, while adopting an international position of non-­alignment ­toward the major contesting blocs.” If successful, Carrillo concluded, the outcome would be “a new regional organ­ization,” one that transcended Cold War divisions while amplifying “the ideals and statutes of the Organ­ization of the United Nations.”14 Significantly, Carrillo was a close friend of Cárdenas; he had accompanied Cárdenas on a portion of his Eu­ro­pean travels two years ­earlier (see chapter  1). The fact that Carrillo had been assigned by Tello to one of the most significant diplomatic positions of the post-­Bandung moment (given Cairo’s headquarters for aapso , among other ­factors) high112   —   Chapter Four

lights the po­liti­cal significance of the cardenista wing to López Mateos’s foreign policy objectives. A final example, this time much closer to home and with a longer documentary trail, further underscores the receptivity of the sre to the post-­ Bandung reverberations. In late December  1959, nearly a year a ­ fter the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Cuban foreign minister Raúl Roa approached his Mexican counterpart with a unique proposal: to cosponsor a two-­week International Conference of Underdeveloped Nations hosted by Cuba the following summer. The proposed conference would be or­ga­ nized around challenges of economic development but the “central objective,” as Roa explained in his invitation, was the “drafting of a letter of economic rights of nations” to be presented at the un General Assembly in the fall of 1960. Roa further indicated that his government intended to extend the invitation to Asian and African nations whose participation, he wrote, “would contribute, without doubt, to fortify the proposal [of the conference] and ensure its success.”15 It was a bold proposition that effectively sought to extend the reach of aapso to Latin Amer­i­ca—­the first of many subsequent efforts—­with Havana as a new epicenter. As the Spanish Foreign Ministry reported, if realized the conference “would create a neutralist bloc [within Latin Amer­i­ca] alongside the Afro-­Asian nations that would operate outside of the Organ­ization of American States and, for that ­matter, outside of the influence of the [US] Department of State.”16 An article published in the Brazilian press stated bluntly that the proposed conference amounted to nothing less than a “Ca­rib­bean Bandung.”17 Mexican foreign minister Manuel Tello showed interest in the conference, although he declined the offer to co-­organize. Mexico, he responded to Roa, would “gladly help out with the international gathering, given [his country’s] shared interest in the central themes” to be discussed. The one criterion cited by Tello for Mexico’s participation, however, was that ­there was sufficient repre­sen­ta­tion by other Latin American governments.18 But in the increasingly polarized climate of pro-­and anti-­Cuban viewpoints that had emerged by the spring of 1960, the prospects of getting Latin American backing ­were indeed scant. A high-­ranking official in the Brazilian government, whose support was crucial for the success of the conference, argued that Cuba barely had the “po­liti­cal maturity” to govern itself much less host an international event of this magnitude. Although Brazil was also receptive to the themes of nonalignment and Third World solidarity and had its own geopo­liti­cal motives in steering Latin Amer­i­ca in that direction (see below), in a private conversation with Mexico’s ambassador to Brazil the official scoffed at how Cuba was The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   113

seeking to become the “savior of nations suffering from the oppression of economic underdevelopment.”19 It was a comment that reflected Brazilian concerns—­shared in large part by Mexico—­that Fidel Castro was seeking to hijack the mantle of Pan-­American leadership and thereby dictate the terms of what Latin American collaboration within the Spirit of Bandung might in fact look like. With ­limited Latin American support and fierce US opposition, the conference was effectively doomed.20 Although un Secretary-­General Dag Hammarskjöld had indicated a willingness to lend technical assistance and un auspices for the conference, according to a Mexican diplomat, “a certain improper [indebida] pressure . . . ​whose origin is not difficult to discern” forced a withdrawal of un backing.21 For the United States, the stakes in preventing the conference from proceeding ­were clearly significant. This was reflected in a purportedly secret memorandum sent to the US diplomatic corps throughout the region. The directive instructed ambassadors to warn that “all pending requests for financial and technical assistance” would be reviewed “in the light of the attitude ­adopted t­ owards the Habana conference.” Implicitly invoking the Monroe Doctrine, the memorandum further instructed that all Asian and African ambassadors accredited to Latin American countries be advised “in a tactful manner” that their participation would be regarded as “undue interference” in hemispheric affairs.22 The fact that the memorandum was l­ ater denounced by the State Department as an “unscrupulous forgery”—­Cuba was the presumed beneficiary, if not necessarily the culprit—­did ­little to ­counter the obvious implication that Washington was determined to thwart the initiative.23 Mexico’s initial enthusiasm, however, suggested a readiness to situate the princi­ples of Bandung within a Latin American framework. At the same time, ­there was a fundamental hesitancy to lend Mexican backing to a Cuban initiative absent the guarantee of greater regional support. When that support failed to materialize, it gave Mexico a con­ve­nient diplomatic exit. As an internal sre report concluded, the conference “was destined to complete failure.”24 Still, Mexico’s inclination to support the conference reflected a clear gravitation ­toward the post-­Bandung proj­ect. At the same time, it indicated an interest to exert a moderating influence on that proj­ect. Impor­ tant insight into President López Mateos’s thinking in this regard can be gleaned from an extensive interview conducted in January 1961 by Richard Rovere on behalf of the Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace.25 The Car­ne­gie proj­ect—­“Pro­gress ­Toward World Order”—­aimed to solicit the perspective of vari­ous international statesmen regarding the status of 114   —   Chapter Four

global affairs by asking them to focus on the “kind of world the leaders want to create,” the “steps that should be taken to create this world,” and the “principal obstacles that lie in the way.” Rovere, a former Communist who became an anti-­Communist liberal, was sent by the Car­ne­gie Endowment to converse with López Mateos about a wide range of topics, including Cuba, nuclear disarmament, and international summitry. The most impor­tant section of his report, however, was dedicated to the subject of “neutralism” and Mexico’s relationship to the movement that had taken form nearly six years ­earlier in Bandung. Over three days, Rovere repeatedly asked López Mateos to clarify Mexico’s position in the Cold War. Much to Rovere’s frustration, he failed to offer clear-­cut reassurance that his country sided squarely with the United States, indicating only that Mexico “was in line with a growing tendency in world affairs.”26 López Mateos went on to compare his country with India, Indonesia, Egypt, and Yugoslavia—­nations openly championing the cause of nonalignment. When asked if he would “describe Mexico as a neutralist power,” López Mateos responded that Mexico was “more than neutral.”27 Pushed to clarify his meaning, López Mateos introduced the phrase in­ de­pen­dent to describe Mexico’s foreign policy position. As a less po­liti­ cally loaded term, in­de­pen­dent reflected, on the one hand, an effort to steer clear of open identification with the convening bloc of nonaligned nations whose nascent co­ali­tion had recently come into the open at the United Nations several months e ­ arlier. On the other hand, however, in­de­pen­dent was vague enough to allow Mexico—­and other Latin American nations, such as Brazil, which similarly a ­ dopted the term in this same period—to stake out positions critical of the United States without overtly crossing a line of implicit strategic alliance with other powers. Mexico’s foreign policy, López Mateos conveyed to Rovere, would be defined as staking out a position of “moral authority in the search for settlements.”28 As Yugo­slavian president Josip Broz Tito prepared to host the first conference of nonaligned nations that fall, López Mateos’s obvious aspirations to join this embryonic movement ran headlong against Washington’s equally obvious determination to contain the Spirit of Bandung from spreading to Latin Amer­i­ca. Visualizing Nonalignment The vibrant, polemical caricature tradition of Mexican magazine covers provides a unique, albeit mediated opportunity to access public opinion and popu­lar sentiment with re­spect to the Cold War. Positioned side by side on newsstand kiosks, in the 1960s Mexico’s urban street corners The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   115

­ ecame brightly colored zones of po­liti­cal debate. In a fundamental sense, b the range of positions represented by t­ hese covers encompassed the contentious geopo­liti­cal landscape faced by Mexican foreign policymakers as they sought to navigate a path of po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence while reaffirming the ties of a Good Neighbor partnership that ­were crucial to the nation’s economic prosperity. Of the vari­ous illustrated magazines, the covers of Siempre! most closely reflected the internationalist objectives of López Mateos and the sentiments of the left-­wing co­ali­tion he needed to support his progressive foreign policy agenda.29 ­Until his untimely death in 1960, t­ hese ­were drawn by the editorial cartoonist Antonio Arias Bernal (“El Brigadier”), whose covers for Mañana during the 1940s established him as one of the nation’s leading caricaturists of his era.30 In the last year of his life, Arias Bernal designed several remarkable images that deployed a cynical, wry perspective expressive of his disenchantment equally with the Soviet Union and the United States. Neither power, through the eyes of Arias Bernal, was willing to engage truly in a politics favoring peace. Arias Bernal repeatedly depicted both superpowers as corrupt, complicit, and hypocritical in their peace-­making protestations; ­there is no favoring, even implicitly, of one over the other in claiming a moral high ground. One cover from May 1959, for instance, depicts a smug U ­ ncle Sam tipping his hat to an equally smug Khrushchev as they offer mutual apology for having slain the dove of peace, which lay bleeding between them: “Perdón, yo fui/¡No, no, no, fui yo!” (I’m sorry, it was me; No, no, no, it was me!), reads the caption (see figure 4.1).31 Another cover, from August 1959, shows a jovial Vice President Nixon—at the time, in Moscow to open the American National E ­ xhibition—on a hunting expedition with an equally exuberant Khrushchev, as each offers the other an opportunity to take first shot at the peace dove they have jointly flushed from the undergrowth; “Cortesía” (Courtesy), reads the caption.32 The cover of the issue from September  1959, which followed Khrushchev’s successful tour of the United States and would have landed on newsstands just prior to the arrival of Anastas Mikoyan in Mexico City to inaugurate the Soviet Exhibition of Science, Technology and Culture (see chapter  2), featured President Eisenhower and Khrushchev playing a friendly game of poker; each is smiling, relaxed, and looking satiated, with their shirt collars unbuttoned and ties loosened. Each also has extra cards conspicuously stuffed up their respective sleeves. In the visual narrative of the image, both are cheaters.33 The option of nonalignment thus emerged not only as a rebuke to this collusion among nuclear powers but as an optimistic statement of empowerment from the periphery. 116   —   Chapter Four

Figure 4.1 One of a series of cynical portraits by cartoonist Arias Bernal depicting a collaborative relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union to thwart the peace pro­ cess and foment the Cold War. Source: Siempre!, May 27, 1959.

The unexpected death of Arias Bernal at age forty-­seven in late summer of 1960 created an opportunity for a rising young caricaturist, Jorge Carreño, to fill his shoes.34 In many ways, over the next de­cade Carreñ­o’s ideologically charged yet oftentimes po­liti­cally ambiguous cover art became the defining feature of Siempre!35 Significantly, one of his first covers was published in the fall of 1960 in the context of a nonaligned co­ali­tion of nations bursting onto the scene at the un General Assembly, as discussed in the opening to this chapter. In this image (see figure 4.2), Carreño uses the meta­phor of a seesaw to depict the impact of ­these nations and their ability to turn the ­tables on the geopo­liti­cal “playground” dominated by Cold War bullies. Continuing in the visual narrative of Soviet-­US collusion initiated by Arias Bernal, Eisenhower and Khrushchev are thrust aloft, their ­faces aghast in surprise and annoyance. The cause of their frustration is found at the other end of the seesaw: the collective weight of the leading figures of this nonaligned league, Nasser (United Arab Republic), Tito (Yugo­slavia), Sukarno (Indonesia), and The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   117

Figure 4.2 This cover illustration by Jorge Carreño depicts the leading figures ­behind the emergent “neutralist bloc” as they hoist aloft Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev, startled by the disruption to their implicit partnership in stacking the rules of the geopo­liti­cal game. The timing of the cartoon coincided with the meeting of the un General Assembly in the fall of 1960, when ­these figures first conspired to introduce a mea­sure (subsequently defeated) to bring the Soviet Union and the United States back to direct discussions over resolving Cold War differences. Source: Siempre!, October 26, 1960.

Nehru (India). In contrast to the mutual exasperation expressed by the two superpowers, t­ hese figures are depicted in a dignified manner, suggesting a harmonious alignment in which they are firmly in control of the game.36 While offering only partial insight into public sentiment and popu­lar opinion, t­ hese and similar images by Arias Bernal and Carreño during this period provide useful evidence of widespread criticism of Cold War rivalry and evince shifting norms in f­ avor of the princi­ple of nonalignment. A Latin American Bandung In March  1961, a four-­day Latin American Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation, and Peace convened in Mexico City. The event drew together some 2,500 delegates from across the Amer­i­cas 118   —   Chapter Four

(including the United States) as well as a smaller number from Eu­rope, Asia, and Africa. In a fundamental sense the gathering achieved a central objective of the thwarted conference in Cuba discussed e ­ arlier, namely the extension of the Spirit of Bandung to Latin Amer­i­ca. In a reflection of how the two leading Communist nations ­were already openly vying for influence within that ethos, separate messages of greetings ­were sent from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Across Mexico, local committees recruited scores of students, professors, workers, and peasant groups who trekked to Mexico City for the occasion. Kept from entering due to overcrowding, many followed the proceedings by loudspeaker outside the building. Lázaro Cárdenas, who played a key role as conference host, placed so much personal stake in the successful realization of the gathering that he sold a piece of f­ amily property to underwrite the cost of the proceedings.37 When queried by a reporter if the conference marked a “Latin American Bandung,” the former president concurred and added that the “only difference” was that the Mexican version lacked official participation by heads of state.38 In recent years, vari­ous historians have examined the conference as a foundational moment that consolidated the leadership role of Lázaro Cárdenas over a fractious Left and positioned Cárdenas in direct opposition to the government of President López Mateos.39 ­These interpretations have focused on several notable ele­ments to underscore how the regime was antagonistic to the conference’s goals and organizers: the existence of a government-­imposed media “blackout” on coverage of events by the mainstream press, surveillance by government security agents, and incidents of government-­sponsored harassment aimed at disrupting the conference proceedings. While ­there is ­little question the regime sought to contain the impact of the conference, missing from this interpretation is a somewhat obvious yet overlooked real­ity: the conference themes of nuclear disarmament, po­liti­cal and economic sovereignty, and solidarity with other developing nations all coincided with the stated policy objectives of López Mateos. ­There is a second and related point to underscore as well. A heterogeneous, nationwide left-­wing movement had turned to Lázaro Cárdenas and he alone was uniquely positioned to bind together ­these divergent Lefts—­constellations of an “Old” and “New” Left whose epistemological worldviews ­were increasingly in conflict. Although counterintuitive, this coalescence ­behind Cárdenas was beneficial to the regime in a key re­spect: Cárdenas’s moral authority could channel this movement in support of López Mateos. Indeed, we need to reexamine both the conference The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   119

and the subsequent role played by Cárdenas in that light. ­Doing so reveals multiple ways in which Cárdenas appears less as an antiregime antagonist than a cohesive agent and po­liti­cal interlocutor, whose direct ties to the ruling party ultimately positioned him as a stabilizing force in a context of increasing domestic polarization. Both in orga­nizational re­spects and ideologically, the conference had a direct linkage to the World Peace Council (wpc ), a connection that led critics to denounce the gathering as rojo (i.e., communist). The wpc originated in the spring of 1949 with the convening in Paris of the World Congress of Partisans for Peace. This epochal gathering was semi-­transparently or­ga­ nized and funded by the Soviet Union as part of an ideological strategy, as a British intelligence document noted, to deploy the “catchword of ‘peace’ ” in order to persuade “ordinary p ­ eople in all the countries of the world . . . ​ that peace was a Communist mono­poly [and thus] to induce them to support the policies of the Soviet Union.”40 As Patrick Iber describes, by the late 1950s the wpc had morphed from a relatively small body of “luminaries . . . ​ [and] ­great minds” committed to the cause of eliminating nuclear weapons into a decentralized, global movement, one that merged the Soviet idiom of “peace” with support of movements for “national liberation.”41 Indeed, it was through the wpc that the Soviet Union was able to insinuate itself into aapso and thus gain access—­having been purposefully excluded from participating at Bandung—to the emergent Third World movement.42 When Lázaro Cárdenas agreed to join the international governing body of the wpc in late 1959, his global stature elevated the role of Mexico within the Soviet front organ­ization. This thus became a significant ­factor for ­later choosing Mexico to stage the conference. ­There was a second, local organ­ization, however, that was also instrumental in bringing the 1961 conference to fruition, the Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos (cem ). As discussed e ­ arlier (see chapter  1), the cem began in 1954 as a kind of left-­wing “think tank” whose stated goal was to establish a forum for critical intellectual discourse in­de­pen­dent of any “specific party activism.”43 Among the more than one hundred founding members of the cem ­were major academic and intellectual figures, including Pablo González Casanova, Elí de Gortari, Jesús Silva Herzog, and Leopoldo Zea (the latter two served in diplomatic capacities within the Mexican government). Jorge Carrión and Manuel Marcué Pardiñas, both loyalists of Vicente Lombardo Toledano and key personalities b ­ ehind the launching of the left-­wing magazine Política, ­were also among the founding members (see chapter  3). No doubt the youn­gest signatory was twenty-­year-­old Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of the former president.44 120   —   Chapter Four

Although the cem had no explicit affiliation with the World Peace Council, at least two of its members (Alonso Aguilar Monteverde and Jorge Tamayo) had worked with the Mexican branch of the wpc from its earliest organ­izing efforts in Mexico. The first public connection between the two organ­izations, however, occurred in the spring of 1960 when Enrique Cabrera, a prominent cardiologist and one of the cem ’s most se­nior members, traveled alongside Tamayo to the international meeting of the wpc in Stockholm, Sweden, where he accepted the council’s Medalla de Oro (Gold Medal) on behalf of the cem .45 Significantly in his ac­cep­tance speech, Cabrera noted how the award situated the domestic focus of the cem within an “international framework.” Citing the trajectory of solidarity conferences dating to Bandung, Cabrera made the case—­perhaps as much to his audience in Stockholm as back home—­that the cem , too, must embrace this wider framework as central to its mission. “Why should it be a surprise that the cem , therefore, is concerned about the destiny of other countries and the prob­lems of world peace?” he stated in his remarks.46 Not long ­after, in the summer of 1960, Jorge Tamayo and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas sought to persuade Lázaro Cárdenas to lend his name to a Comité de la Paz (Peace Committee) they had created within the cem . The objective was to plan a conference on “peace and liberation” with support from the World Peace Council.47 By late summer 1960, as it became clear that the proposed Cuban “Conference of Underdeveloped Nations” had collapsed, this core group within the cem forged ahead in their planning for a “Congreso Latino­ americano de la Paz” to take place the following year in Mexico City.48 An essential point to underscore is that the discourse of peaceful coexistence, which was the hallmark of the wpc and its most explicit link to Soviet policy, was a prominent component of the call for participation in the Mexico City conference. This was evident, for instance, in the formal circular distributed in advance of the conference signed by Lázaro Cárdenas, Alberto T. Casella (an Argentine engineering professor), and Domingo Vellasco (a Brazilian journalist and legislator), the three copresidents of the organ­izing committee. For example, the text established that “in diverse parts of the world” the “common denominator” is the “conquest of a permanent peace,” one presently threatened by the “destructive power of modern arms.” Cited repeatedly throughout the call for participants was the operative phrase of the wpc : “peaceful coexistence.”49 This discourse was also reproduced in a series of fliers designed by the graphic arts collective Taller de Gráfica Popu­lar (tgp) that ­were likely plastered on public walls in advance of the conference. ­There ­were at least eight dif­fer­ent versions of the flier, each with identical text that stated, in The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   121

part, that Mexico’s graphic artists ­were “convinced that artistic creation is only pos­si­ble in a world of peace and friendship among nations.” The accompanying images ­were based on the traditional woodcut technique that was the hallmark of the tgp , a group that reached its apogee u ­ nder the Cárdenas administration and that by the 1960s would come to symbolize an ­earlier, “Old Left” graphic art aesthetic. The peasantry was a common motif, such as in one image that showed a man and ­woman manually sowing a field with a pair of oxen. Another depicted the transformation of armaments into tractors. Notably, virtually e ­ very image featured multiple peace doves, by then the iconic symbol of the wpc , and whose initial design was made by Pablo Picasso for the founding conference in Paris.50 Given his prominent role as conference host, many of ­these tgp images featured depictions of Lázaro Cárdenas. In one, he is shown front-­center looking vigilant, determined, and proud. In the background, smoke plumes from Mexico’s nationalized oil refineries share the frame alongside an outline of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Mexican flag; a flock of peace doves flutters across ­these intersecting forms.51 In another image that formed part of the call for participants, he is depicted severing the chains of subordination that encircle the perimeter of Latin Amer­i­ca—­only Cuba flies the flag of in­de­pen­dence. A padlock bears the inscription “USA” (see figure 4.3). Once more, multiple doves of peace fly across the frame. None of t­hese images made any reference to the role of vio­lence or to the newly emergent po­liti­cal forces symbolized by the emancipation of Cuba. Rather, it was Lázaro Cárdenas, not Fidel Castro, who was depicted as leading the continental strug­gle.52 The only repre­sen­ta­tion of a revolutionary stance through force of arms was one that showed Mexicans defending their sovereignty from invasion in 1914, the last time the US directly intervened in the national territory. Of related significance was the fact that e ­ very image featuring Cárdenas depicted him wearing a suit and tie. This was, in many re­spects, the trademark “uniform” of the Left and one that still prevailed within the Communist Party. As René Avilés Fabila, a young recruit drawn to the Communist Party in 1960, recalled, “­there was still the habit of putting on a suit and tie on the slightest pretext.”53 It was a style of dress, however, that was gradually becoming denoted as “old,” not least ­because it conveyed the signifiers of a specific kind of revolutionary discipline: paternalistic, orderly, and Eurocentric but also urban and educated—­the antithesis of representing the New Left motor of revolutionary consciousness, that of youth and the peasantry.54 In fact, the prevailing influence of the wpc could not contain a mounting conflict between the ideological impulses of an “Old” Left, rooted in 122   —   Chapter Four

Figure 4.3 This image accompanied the official invitation to the Latin American Conference on National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation and Peace that was distributed by the organ­izing committee in Sinaloa. Note the formal dress of Lázaro Cárdenas and the ample incorporation of peace doves, the iconic ­symbol of the World Peace Council. Cuba alone stands unencumbered by chains. Source: dips , box 1980, exp. 36, agn .

the praxis of working-­class solidarity and the discourse of peaceful coexistence, and an emergent “New” Left inspired by the urgency of a revolutionary imperative and in which Cuba became a proxy for Latin American identification with anticolonial movements elsewhere. In the wake of the Cuban Revolution, the terms peace and coexistence ­were becoming increasingly contested and marginalized by the more radical demands of “liberation” and “emancipation.” Recognizing the semantic friction between the discourse of “coexistence” (linked to the wpc but similarly claimed by the emergent nonaligned movement) and “emancipation” (the organ­ izing motif of aapso and b ­ attle cry of the Cuban revolutionaries) is critical to understanding the conflicts embedded not only in the rift between an “Old” and “New” Left, but within the Spirit of Bandung that carried into The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   123

the 1960s. Thus, just below the surface of a harmonious pre­sen­ta­tion of unity the conference contained competing visions of revolutionary epistemology and action. The organizers clearly sought to transcend t­ hese tensions by emulating the model of the Popu­lar Front during World War II, in which a diversity of forces on the left had agreed to disagree in the spirit of collective re­sis­tance to fascism. This came through, for example, in the official invitation, which emphasized that the conference was “open to all organ­ izations, movements and public sectors.” ­After citing the cause of global peace, the invitation then pivoted to the imperatives of the “exercise of sovereignty” and “economic emancipation,” aspirations that, the text underscored, had been fully realized by the p ­ eople of Cuba.55 Similarly, a full-­page announcement in Política underscored that the gathering would focus on “the necessity of peace” but would also defend the “example of the Cuban Revolution.”56 The expectation of a revolutionary-­inspired politics of “emancipation” was clearly in ascendance.57 So, too, was the exuberance of youth. In a photo from the conference, for instance, one glimpses gestures of irreverence ­toward the paternalistic ethos that suffused left-­wing po­liti­cal discourse and practices up to that point, an irreverence that was shaping youth’s aesthetic choices and postures of rebellion (see figure 4.4). The fact that t­ hese youth, moreover, eschewed the dress code of the “professional Left” further indicated that a paradigmatic shift in norms and attitudes, one with profound influence in the coming years, was afoot (see chapter 6). The push for a more radical politics came especially from the large Cuban del­e­ga­tion, whose purported conspiracies ­were revealed in conversations overheard by Mexican security agents. Although one needs to assume a degree of self-­serving exaggeration alongside ele­ments of an anti-­Communist paranoia in the agents’ surveillance, two reports are nonetheless revealing.58 The first—­a conversation overheard between Vilma Espín, wife of Raúl Castro (she led the Cuban del­e­ga­tion); Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén; and the wife of the imprisoned Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (who had been arrested the previous summer)—­has an ele­ment of veracity that reflected transformations in left-­wing thought, arguments, and strategy. Espín spoke of the need to encourage po­liti­cal activists to “take over prominent positions” within their respective organ­izations, unified by “their hatred of imperialism and their sympathy for the Cuban revolution.” In competing with one another for po­liti­cal influence, she argued, ­these vari­ous fidelista groups would multiply and thus “chip away” (crear picas) at other existing organ­izations, deriving to the benefit of the Cuban 124   —   Chapter Four

Figure 4.4 The high spirits of youth on display during the Latin American Conference on National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation and Peace, March 1961. Note the juxtaposition of casually dressed youth versus elders in suit and tie, accompanied by the former’s ecstatic exuberance in contrast to the latter’s stoic seriousness. Source: “Inauguración de la Conferencia Latinoamericana,” no. 15.624, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

Revolution and thus the global Communist movement.59 A second, more fanciful report indicated that Cárdenas had signed on to a “Secret Accord” whose goal was to initiate “sabotage on an ongoing, widespread scale, throughout Latin Amer­i­ca, against factories, private property, and North American imperialist interests.”60 Although far less credible in terms of its identification of Cárdenas with revolutionary vio­lence, the report nevertheless indicated how the argument in f­avor of “coexistence” was now being openly challenged by that of “emancipation.” Lázaro Cárdenas, Interlocutor Without question, Lázaro Cárdenas emerged from the conference with greater po­liti­cal legitimacy and moral authority than at any period since his presidency in the late 1930s. At dif­fer­ent moments he was publicly lauded as “the ­great Latin American statesman,” “the hope of Latin Amer­i­ca,” and, The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   125

in reference to the heroic leader identified with emancipation against Spanish colonialism, “the Bolívar of our time.” Summing up the impact of events, Mexican intelligence operatives stated that Cárdenas had become “the indisputable and unquestioned figure” whose leadership presence “has assumed gigantic proportions.”61 Other historians have focused on this aspect to argue how Cárdenas used his power for po­liti­cal leverage against the regime of López Mateos, in par­tic­u­lar in defense of Cuba, but also to highlight the threat he posed to Mexico’s po­liti­cal stability—as the one figure capable of uniting the disparate forces across the Left. What ­these interpretations overlook, however, is the fact that Cárdenas, in his assumed role as “elder revolutionary statesman,” sought strenuously to hold together the competing strands of an increasingly discordant Left. When examined more closely, we come to see that Cárdenas served two intertwined roles during the conference and in its immediate aftermath: as a preacher of moderation against the rising tide of radicalism, and as the sole interlocutor capable of channeling the energies of this fracturing Left in support of the regime. As a voice of moderation, Cárdenas sought to reconcile the competing ideological strands of left-­wing discourse in evidence at the conference. For instance, in his opening remarks he acknowledged the link between Latin Amer­i­ca and Bandung by affirming how the pre­sent gathering was an act of solidarity with the “nations that ­were barely developed,” ­those who “constitute the majority of humanity.” He went on, however, to distinguish between the vio­lence of revolution (an “internal concern”) and the vio­lence of war (a “concern among nations”) while highlighting that he was not preaching (predicar) vio­lence, “only explaining” its rationale. Latin Amer­i­ca’s prob­lems, he argued, ­were best resolved through the po­liti­cal organ­ization of ­those who “fight for democracy,” a fight that is understood as “an expression of the ­will of the citizenry.”62 His moderating influence could also be seen in the conference’s final declaration, which reflected a clear effort to subordinate the politics of “liberation” to more traditional stances of the po­liti­cal Left. Hence, the declaration emphasized the urgency of “an agreement on world disarmament” and “securing peaceful coexistence among nations and divergent regimes” as “premises that ­will guarantee peace and national sovereignty.” To be certain, the final declaration also singled out the United States as “the leading force that is blocking the development of Latin Amer­i­ca.” Yet Latin Amer­i­ca’s “liberation” was dependent upon the success of strug­gles for “in­de­pen­dence” globally.63 Thus while naming the “defeat of imperialism” as the attendees’ ultimate goal, the proposed strategy for achieving this end was far more conven126   —   Chapter Four

tional: only “an in­de­pen­dent foreign policy”—­implicitly, a reference to that pursued by López Mateos—­would enable countries to attain their economic sovereignty. In fact, in vari­ous re­spects one finds an explicit overlap between positions enumerated in the final declaration and the so-­called Mexican Thesis, the foreign policy stance that constituted the cornerstone of López Mateos’s proclaimed new international politics (see chapter  3). For instance, ­there was a clear echo of López Mateos’s use of the term Latina­ mericanism as a substitute for “Pan-­Americanism,” a switch that semantically deemphasized the role of the United States over Latin American affairs and reaffirmed the aspirations of American governments to create autonomous regional frameworks. Hence, the final conference document similarly proclaimed “a Latinamericanism that liberates” in opposition to “a Pan-­Americanism that oppresses” as the foundation for establishing “peace in the hemi­sphere and in the world.” In another example, one of the conference resolutions directly mirrored the regime’s own foreign policy agenda: “To adopt effective mea­sures that ­will tend t­ oward the diversification of foreign commerce of ­every Latin American country, and to establish, as appropriate, diplomatic and commercial relations with the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, other socialist countries, and neutral nations such as India, Indonesia, the United Arab Republic, and ­those ­others whose economic and po­liti­cal importance is steadily increasing.”64 At the same time, in an impor­tant example of Cárdenas’s efforts to collaborate with López Mateos by serving as an intermediary, at one point he stated to delegates that “the pre­sent government [of López Mateos] is pushing aside Yanqui imperialism” through its efforts to “nationaliz[e] the princi­pal sources of production” in the country.65 This overlap between the positions of conference delegates and the official positions of the López Mateos regime was noted by Horacio Quiñones, a prominent po­liti­cal commentator who, in addition to frequent articles in the media, published a weekly news bulletin distributed on a subscription basis to po­liti­cal and economic elites, Buro de Investigación Política. Reporting on the conference for a local newspaper in Morelia, Michoacán, Quiñones noted that the “themes tackled by the Conference are neither new nor extraneous to the practice of Mexican international politics.” Indeed, what struck Quiñones as more remarkable was the fact that a gathering of such “extraordinary repre­ sen­ ta­ tion” had proposed “­theses that ­were parallel, if not identical, to ­those upheld by Mexico officially.”66 It was a coincidence also noted by Enrique Lumen, a journalist and Spanish Civil War exile who was “considered a close friend of López The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   127

Mateos,” according to an internal security document. Writing in the mainstream newsmagazine Hoy, Lumen point out how López Mateos shared in the goals of peace that ­were presented at the conference and that the president had pledged to do “as much as pos­si­ble to bring about [peace] in the world.”67 In fact, according to surveillance reports, at vari­ous moments in private discussions with delegates from Argentina, Cuba, and Venezuela (countries whose delegates ­were considered by security agents as among the most radicalized of ­those in attendance), Cárdenas “was unsparing in his praise for the government of López Mateos” and “extolled the work of his government.”68 In short, Lázaro Cárdenas emerged from the 1961 conference as a larger-­ than-­life figure who alone was capable of subordinating a fragmenting Left to his moral leadership. As the writer René Avilés Fabila ­later reflected, “he was our symbol . . . ​he was the máximo, the idol of e ­ very adolescent who thought about a better nation.”69 This became abundantly clear a ­little more than a month l­ater when Cuba came u ­ nder attack during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Across Mexico, street mobilizations and violent protests erupted. One of the more notorious incidents was the ransacking of the Instituto Cultural México-­Norteamericano in Morelia, Michoacán, the home state of Cárdenas. This usia -­funded institute had symbolized the aspirations of mutual re­spect and cultural exchange that constituted the essence of Good Neighbor relations. The multiple incidents of vio­lence thus pointed to an irrevocable tear in the fabric of that relationship brought about by the plot to overthrow Fidel Castro. Cárdenas’s own actions in the immediate aftermath of the invasion lent legitimacy to ­those clashes and to the voices of protesters, not only in Michoacán but around the country. ­After issuing a statement in support of the mobilizations in solidarity with Cuba, Cárdenas told the press that he intended to leave for the island as soon as pos­si­ble to stand alongside the revolutionary regime in its hour of trial. In that regard as well, his conduct served as an example: hundreds of ­people signed up to fight in Cuba, many of them recruited through the so-­ called Pancho Villa Brigades. ­These “brigades” (which never in fact served) ­were or­ga­nized directly by Lombardo Toledano and his Partido Popu­lar Socialista (pps ) and in no small part represented an effort to proj­ect the relevancy of the pps (and, by direct extension, of Lombardo Toledano) in the context of a shift in grassroots po­liti­cal sentiment ­toward Cárdenas. (The deeper implications of this po­liti­cal rivalry are explored in chapter 6.) Indeed, the mobilizations and incidents of violent protest in support of Cuba dealt another serious blow to Mexico’s public image in the United States and solidified—or resuscitated from an ­earlier era—­the reputation 128   —   Chapter Four

of Cárdenas, as a typically alarmist news article in the US press from that summer characterized, as “violently anti-­American.”70 Thus if Cárdenas posed a potential threat to the authority of the Mexican president, he was also proving himself to be a useful ally. This became abundantly clear the day a ­ fter the Bay of Pigs invasion, when Cárdenas spoke to a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands who had assembled outside the government palace in Mexico City’s central Zócalo to demonstrate their solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. The speaker system failed and Cárdenas was forced instead to use a megaphone. “He asked for calm and solidarity with the regime of López Mateos,” Avilés Fabila ­later reflected.71 The image of an entire square full of young ­people seated in utter silence so as not to miss a single word spoke volumes about the influence Cárdenas exerted at that moment. He alone could act as a cohesive force upon the Left and guide the outrage of youth ­toward constructive support for the international policies of López Mateos. A few days ­later, the cem sent President López Mateos a letter praising the regime’s “po­ liti­cal and diplomatic support for the Cuban Revolutionary government.”72 During the summer of 1961, the polarization of domestic politics in Mexico reached a crescendo. The Cuban Revolution clearly played a central part in this polarization but it should not be interpreted as standing for the ­whole. Manifestations of revolutionary optimism coupled with frustrated rage by the Left, on the one hand, and anx­i­eties concerning the breakdown of patriarchal order that ­were linked to genuine fears about the march of Cuban-­style Communism by the Right, on the other, ­were two sides of the same coin whose opposing positions ­were encapsulated in the competing rallying cries of “Cuba sí, yanquis no!” and “Cristianismo sí, comunismo no!” that characterized protesters’ opposing ideological stances. The f­ uture stability of Mexico’s “revolutionary unity” lay in the balance. It was a juncture, moreover, that coincided with a regional crossroads for Pan-­Americanism and a wider transformation in geopolitics, one that opened new possibilities for Mexico to make common cause with other actors seeking to break through the logjam of Cold War ideological dictates. For many, the question concerned not only the f­ uture direction of Mexican domestic politics—­“¿Por cuál camino, Señor Presidente?” as business leaders had publicly put the question to López Mateos the previous fall (see chapter 3)—­but the nature of Mexico’s allegiance to the United States. To be certain, President López Mateos was neither steering the country ­toward the path of outright socialism nor plotting to undermine the Western alliance. But the argument in f­ avor of socialism was in ascendance, as The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   129

was the appeal of new geopo­liti­cal affiliations. In order to pivot globally in pursuit of alternative trade and diplomatic alliances, López Mateos needed the support of Mexico’s increasingly polarized citizenry. At stake was the capacity of Mexico’s one-­party system to maintain po­liti­cal consensus. Recognizing the danger of the situation, on June 7 the president gave a major speech to the national press that was broadcast live. Mexicans, he noted, ­were living in a period of “generalized anxiety brought about by international tensions.” The ideological reverberations of that unease had insinuated themselves into national life; he appealed for calm and national unity. Both the Right and the Left contained ele­ments of “extreme and antagonistic ‘isms’ ” that ­were equally culpable and whose “slogans and passions” threatened “national peace and the well-­being of the majority.” To ensure public order—­and to reassure US travelers and investors—­the president sent a warning that his government would suppress “any demagogic individuals or groups from the right and the left” when ­either acted outside the law.73 In the days and weeks that followed, the national press—­ steeped in the laudatory tradition of presidentialism and self-­censorship—­ gave wide coverage to the speech’s central theme of unidad nacional. As an editorial in Siempre! stated, “The time has arrived for us to ponder what it means to be Mexican.”74 Moreover, in a clear indication that President López Mateos intended to reach a foreign as well as domestic audience, two million English-­language copies of his remarks ­were distributed to business and civic leaders in the United States.75 On the face of it, the speech could easily be read as a semi-­veiled threat against the Left. Thomas Mann, who had recently been appointed as the new US ambassador to Mexico and regarded the containment of Mexico’s leftward drift as his central mission (see chapter  5), saw the promise of “strong action” as likely to “lessen leftist activity with a concomitant reduction of rightist reaction.”76 However, ­there is a dif­f er­ent reading as well: to see the speech as an invitation to collaborate with the government. This was especially true for the movement of the Left but, in many re­spects, it was an invitation to the Right as well. That August, ­these antagonistic forces coalesced into two opposing po­liti­cal organ­izations, the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) and the Frente Cívico Mexicano de Afirmación Revolucionaria (Frente Cívico), respectively. Although to outside observers the formation of t­ hese incompatible co­ali­tions further dramatized the precarious state of Mexican politics, from another perspective it pointed ­toward the possibility of channeling public opinion in support of López Mateos as he pursued the competing objectives of asserting Mexican in­de­ pen­dence within the strategic framework of the Good Neighbor. 130   —   Chapter Four

Between Nonalignment and In­de­pen­dence This mounting polarization of domestic politics tran­spired, on the one hand, against the backdrop of the signing that August of the Charter of Punta del Este, which formalized the Alliance for Pro­gress, on the one hand, and efforts by the leading personalities from the so-­called neutralist bloc to convene a conference that September in Belgrade, Yugo­slavia, on the other. The potential participation of Latin American countries, especially Brazil and Mexico, at the Belgrade conference became a benchmark against which to mea­sure the ability of the United States to retain its strategic influence over Latin Amer­i­ca in the face of mounting assertions of po­liti­cal in­de­pen­ dence. Brazilian president Jânio Quadros, who had revealed a mix of “keen interest and hesitation” to the invitation by Tito, sent an observer to the preparatory meeting in Cairo ­earlier that summer.77 In ­doing so, he indicated that Brazil was prepared to buck traditional constraints of the Pan-­ American alliance. With Cuba already committed to attending and Brazil leaning in that direction, Cuban foreign minister Raúl Roa personally lobbied López Mateos also to send a del­e­ga­tion.78 If Latin Amer­i­ca’s two largest economies ­were to participate at Belgrade in any official capacity, it would signal the diminished exceptionalism of the Pan-­American alliance within the emergent postwar geopo­liti­cal order. Yet Mexican and Brazilian participation would also balance out the more strident voices within the post-­Bandung movement. Indeed, British diplomats (along with Tito) regarded broader Latin American participation as a necessary force to dilute the ideological impact of the Cubans.79 As invitations went out and plans for the conference accelerated over the summer, Mexico and Brazil both weighed the anticipated po­liti­cal, diplomatic, and economic costs and benefits of taking such a bold step. In an extensive essay in Foreign Affairs published on the eve of the conference, Quadros laid out the case for why Brazil would not be pressured to toe the US line on nonalignment. While Brazil shared the “common ideals of life and organ­ization” associated with “the Western bloc,” the president wrote, at the same time his country’s own strug­gles for economic emancipation aligned Brazil with the emergent nations of Asia and Africa in “the duty of forming a single front in the b ­ attle against underdevelopment and all forms of oppression.”80 It was the clearest articulation of an argument to establish a common Latin American position with re­spect to the post-­ Bandung movement. Referencing his own in­ de­ pen­ dent foreign policy, Quadros boldly asserted that Brazil was not a member “of any bloc, not even of the Neutralist bloc,” and therefore “preserve[d] our absolute freedom to The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   131

make our own decisions.”81 His article thus unquestionably thrust Brazil into the limelight of Latin American leadership. Yet by d ­ oing so, Quadros also sought to encourage other Latin American governments to join forces, as was made clear in behind-­the-­scenes correspondence with Mexico and other nations in the hemi­sphere.82 Ultimately, however, the anticipated costs, both diplomatically and eco­nom­ically, of such a brazen po­liti­cal rebuke of Washington proved too consequential for Mexico to bear. As Vanni Pettinà has shown, US ambassador Mann had e ­ arlier “purposefully slowed down” distribution of a $90 million Export-­Import Bank loan as an explicit signal of Washington’s disapproval regarding Mexican participation at Belgrade; by midsummer a “sudden chill” was discernible in further Mexican requests for aid. Moreover, the negative consequences of a disruption in tourism and investment ­were still being felt following the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs protests. On August 18, barely two weeks before the start of the conference, the sre communicated that López Mateos would not attend. Still, doubt remained as to ­whether or not Mexico would send an observer. Fi­nally, mere days before the start of the conference, diplomats confirmed that the government would not join in any official capacity, thereby “putting an end to the prospect of Mexican participation.”83 Meanwhile, the unexpected resignation of President Quadros less than a week before the gathering threw Brazilian repre­sen­ta­tion into utter confusion.84 In the end, the Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-­ Aligned Countries that convened in Belgrade, Yugo­slavia, from September 1–6, 1961, brought together twenty-­four countries from Africa and Asia yet only one from Latin Amer­i­ca—­Cuba.85 The gathering laid the po­liti­cal foundations for the creation of the so-called Non-­Aligned Movement (nam), which rapidly evolved into a formal voting bloc within the United Nations and a power­ful lobbying force for the economic interests of peripheral states. Mexico’s abstention, Pettinà concludes, reflected a belief that “it was more advantageous for the country to avoid a conference with such uncertain po­liti­cal implications than to participate in it.”86 Still, just days ­after the conference ended Mexico’s newly appointed ambassador to Yugo­slavia extended an official invitation to Tito to visit Mexico, thus indicating an unmistakable interest in establishing a direct, diplomatic channel to the movement’s key figurehead. Moreover, Mexico’s abstention clearly increased its allure as a sought-­after player within nam , a fact amply revealed in the coming months. Indeed, President López Mateos recognized the potential for Mexican leadership alongside, if not necessarily part of, the rapidly expanding co­ali­tion that had formed at Belgrade. Within a year’s 132   —   Chapter Four

time, an effort to bolster the geopo­liti­cal potential of nam as a balancing force, one that placed the interests of peripheral nations at the forefront of global considerations, would emerge as a central foreign policy objective of his presidency and an integral component to his global pivot. For the mln , the newly formed opposition movement backed by Cárdenas, Belgrade was a watershed moment. Sent by Política to report on the conference, Carlos Fuentes encapsulated the sentiment of optimism and opportunity heralded by non­alignment. “Thanks to the spirit of unity displayed at Bandung,” he wrote glowingly, an inexorable movement for liberation had ensued across the globe. Although still characterized by military and economic weakness, this movement nevertheless constituted “a moral force.” Significantly, Fuentes’s phrasing directly echoed that of Mexico’s ambassador to Egypt, Alejandro Carrillo, who similarly noted in a dispatch to the sre how Belgrade constituted “a g ­ reat moral force, which can intervene decisively to loosen the tension among the two blocs.”87 For Fuentes, however, moral force alone was insufficient to “bring about peace” (asegu­ rar la paz). Invoking the language and strategic positions that had recently been articulated at the Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation, and Peace convened in Mexico City the previous March, positions that now constituted the objectives of the recently formed mln (of which Fuentes was an enthusiastic member), Fuentes argued that it was necessary to “multiply the fronts of liberation in Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca, and to initiate forms of cooperation and mutual support among the underdeveloped nations.”88 Fuentes was already positioning himself as an ideological interlocutor between the dif­fer­ent “Lefts” and the administration, and his language h ­ ere further reflected that balancing act (see chapter 6). Hence, while si­mul­ta­neously celebrating the “tangible spirit” at Belgrade to find “a negotiated solution” to the Cold War, at the same time he argued that it was necessary to “deny, through revolutionary means, the cap­i­tal­ist world of its colonial assumptions.”89 For Fuentes, this required a strategy based on collective strength, solidarity, and Third World leadership. If the nonaligned countries wished to move from a position of “moral force” to that of po­liti­cal influence, he concluded, they would need to pre­sent a common front for economic in­de­pen­dence: defense of higher commodity prices, diversification of domestic industries, and pursuit of multiple trading relationships. Only in this way could they “bring about economic in­de­pen­dence.” Minus the endorsement of revolutionary upheaval, Fuentes’s arguments—as a founding member of the mln , he ably represented the position of Mexico’s left-­wing forces—­were in fact closely aligned with official Mexican foreign policy. The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   133

On the opening day of the conference in Belgrade, President López Mateos stood before the Mexican Congress to pre­sent his annual State of the Nation address (Informe). Notably, his speech lacked any explicit reference to the events in Yugo­slavia, yet the context of a nonaligned movement in formation was impossible to ignore. Reaching the section on foreign policy, the president reiterated his position, articulated at the start of his trip to Latin Amer­i­ca nearly two years ­earlier, that Mexico “belongs to no cold war bloc,” a statement evidently made with Belgrade in mind. He also established rhetorical distance from any explicit military alliance with the United States.90 Still, he was careful to eschew the language of neutralism, which he knew was a dangerous line to cross. “We are not neutral,” he pronounced, but rather “in­de­pen­dent.” The turn of phrase, first floated in his conversations with Rovere of the Car­ne­gie Endowment more than six months ­earlier, had now become Mexico’s official foreign policy stance. It would be used repeatedly in the coming months to emphasize sovereignty of action while avoiding an explicit identification with the politics of “nonalignment.”91 In obvious reference to the United States, López Mateos added that he hoped that “friendly nations” would accept this new definition of Mexican foreign policy, one that embodied “the highest expressions of the nation’s dignity.” The right to choose with whom to partner was essential to Mexican development, he argued. “That concept is congruent” he underscored, “with the urgent task of building a strong Mexico for ourselves and for humanity.”92 As a statement of national sovereignty it was not dissimilar to ­earlier expressions, but coming at a moment when national development objectives coincided with a potential opportunity to reshape the geopo­liti­cal order, it was a profound expression of a newfound confidence and po­liti­cal intent. Two months ­after Belgrade, Indian prime minister Nehru, accompanied by his wife, Indira Gandhi, and his foreign minister arrived in Mexico City for an official state visit. Nehru addressed the Mexican Congress, met with students at the national university (unam )—­already a creative hotbed of New Left activism—­and was treated to a charreada (rodeo), where his austere dress generated a somewhat odd juxtaposition against the symbolism of an armed mariachi escort (see figure  4.6). The effusive state welcome provided an opportunity for López Mateos to demonstrate his newly minted “in­de­pen­dence” credentials at relatively low po­liti­cal cost, while also signaling a clear interest in the proj­ect of nam . Widely recognized as the most moderate among the nam leadership, Nehru uniquely symbolized the aspirations of the newly in­de­pen­dent nations to reimagine international relations within a framework of coexistence. In that re­spect, his 134   —   Chapter Four

Figure 4.5 Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, accompanied by his daughter (Indira Gandhi) and foreign minister, during his official state visit to Mexico just ­after the meeting of nonaligned nations in Belgrade in the fall of 1961. Nehru addressed members of Congress and was treated to a charreada (Mexican-­style rodeo), among other aspects of his visit. Source: “Llegada de Jawaharlal Nehru,” no. 16.263, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

visit raised no outright alarms in Washington (where he had also recently traveled following Belgrade), although his lavish reception reaffirmed US Ambassador Thomas Mann’s suspicions of Mexican “neutralist” leanings (see chapter 5). On the cover of the issue of Siempre! that coincided with Nehru’s arrival in Mexico, Jorge Carreño uncharacteristically depicted the Indian leader in a dignified, noncaricatured way. Showing him as an se­ nior statesman, he painted Nehru dressed in the traditional achkan jacket (“Nehru jacket”), and donning the all-­white, sailor-­like side cap that had become the symbol of Indian in­de­pen­dence (“Gandhi cap”). Atop his head stood a white dove of peace, in whose mouth rested a travel satchel tied to the end of a stick, a symbol of Nehru’s own peripatetic missions of peace.93 Nehru’s visit paid high po­liti­cal dividends for López Mateos with the Left. A glowing editorial in Política—by that point, the de facto news organ The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   135

of the mln —­remarked how Nehru was received as “an honored guest.” ­After commenting on the two leaders’ public remarks, the editorial went on to praise the “noble, humanist dialogue” that López Mateos sustained with the Indian leader and noted that their statements “coincide[d], in substance, with the declarations at Belgrade.” Still more generously, Política underscored that Nehru’s statements with re­spect to the recent conference on nonalignment directly reflected the “approach a ­ dopted by President López Mateos.” This geopo­liti­cal stance, Política underscored, was a position that “has the support of all of Mexico, except for the forces of reaction who are ever attendant to the influence of imperialism.”94 Making the Revolutionary ­Family Whole Again Shortly afterward, on December  7, López Mateos made a surprise announcement that one newspaper compared to the dropping of an atomic bomb in the center of the nation’s domestic politics. All seven living ex-­ presidents had been invited to “collaborate administratively” with his government.95 ­There was ­little need to gloss over the fact that the invitation was aimed at two former presidents in par­tic­u­lar: Lázaro Cárdenas and Miguel Alemán, unofficial heads of the mln and Frente Cívico, respectively. Cárdenas became director of the Rio Balsas Commission, a post previously offered to him by the president on several occasions over the past two years. Alemán, once known as “Mr. Amigo” in the United States for his anti-­communist stance and openness to US investment, became minister of tourism.96 The directive, which Política characterized in a lead editorial as “a po­liti­cally astute move,” had three impor­tant implications.97 The first is that it subordinated the po­liti­cal forces of the Left (Lázaro Cárdenas) and the Right (Miguel Alemán) to the authority of López Mateos. This cleared a path for the president to govern without the embarrassment of needing to share the limelight or respond to disruptive pronouncements on domestic and international affairs by ­either figure, though most notably that of Cárdenas. Política acknowledged as much through its cover design montage that reflected on the announcement. In the center was an image of López Mateos, looking firm, in control, and directly responding to the gaze of the reader; he is flanked by Lázaro Cárdenas (over the president’s left shoulder) and Miguel Alemán (over his right). The caption read, “la reacción [Alemán], la promesa [López Mateos], y el progreso [Cárdenas].”98 Excélsior, Mexico’s leading conservative newspaper, wrote that the decision demonstrated that López Mateos had “taken command.”99 The image of the ex-­presidents coming together in a show of national unity, 136   —   Chapter Four

in which the competing ideological factions within the ruling party appeared to unite in their display of unconditional support for the office of the presidency, was meant to reassure domestic and foreign observers alike that the Mexican president was, indeed, still all-power­ful. In its visual repre­sen­ta­tion, it was the clearest pos­si­ble manifestation of the discourse of “unidad nacional” that had been assiduously pronounced by the president since assuming office. The revolutionary f­ amily, seemingly torn asunder during the past year and a half, was once again made ­whole. A second implication was that López Mateos felt confident that the Left could be directly harnessed to his regime without the interlocutory role of Cárdenas. Not only had the government instituted progressive domestic policies but, perhaps more importantly, with re­spect to foreign policy—­ such as on Cuba and more recently with the reception for Nehru—­the regime was demonstrating an aggressive assertion of in­de­pen­dent leadership. The recent editorial endorsement by Política and supportive statements from key intellectuals such as Carlos Fuentes no doubt encouraged López Mateos to believe he could count upon the support of the Left without the need of a mediating (and potentially, undermining) agent. Cárdenas himself made this connection explic­itly to López Mateos in a meeting just prior to the announcement of his incorporation into the government. Referring to the recently formed mln , an organ­ization that appeared capable of uniting the Left in a broad, “popu­lar front” pressure group, Cárdenas counseled López Mateos that “it is not the e ­ nemy of your administration.” Rather, he pointed out, “it ­will be useful to you” in preserving Mexican in­ de­pen­dence from the “intrigue of the anti-­revolutionary” forces that ­were aligned with the “high-­ranking clergy in Mexico and abroad.”100 A final, related implication was that the announcement removed Cárdenas from the public stage at the apex of his influence. Although he would continue to profess his support for the mln , Cárdenas’s po­liti­cal leverage was diminished and his moral authority compromised. While on the one hand, the unification of the Left u ­ nder the rubric of the mln suggested the possibility of co-­optation through government patronage, on the other hand the mln ’ s territorial reach (it rapidly established chapters across the country) indicated how its potential po­liti­cal impact was greater than anything seen since the opposition co­ali­tion that had mobilized ­behind General Miguel Henríquez Guzmán in 1952. And yet, in short order, the ideologically and gen­ er­ a­ tion­ ally diverse Left over which Cárdenas had briefly held sway quickly came unraveled. Absent his direct guidance, the mln proved vulnerable to ideological divisions from within and, despite The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   137

a personal pledge from López Mateos to leave the group alone “so long as they acted . . . ​within the Constitution,” the vigilant wrath of government repression from without.101 Indeed, Cárdenas’s decision to enter the administration effectively squelched the potential of a nation­wide in­de­pen­dent, left-­wing movement with genuine possibilities of influencing the direction of Mexico’s demo­cratic trajectory. If a central aim of López Mateos was to undermine the ability of the mln to impact the next presidential elections, he could certainly claim success (see chapter 6). In the months to follow, the collapse of the mln abetted a new generation of youth emboldened by the call to arms and increasingly cynical ­toward the capacity of the pri to follow through on its rhe­toric of revolutionary transformation. Cárdenas had acted as a stabilizing ele­ment so long as he remained outside the administration, in the role of loyal critic. He alone seemed capable of holding together the mounting divisions between and within the competing factions on the Left. Removed from that role, not only did the mln quickly splinter but Cárdenas, in subordinating himself to the ruling party, relinquished his stature as a credible leader for an in­de­pen­dent Left. Thus in 1968, when students mobilized by the tens of thousands in the nation’s capital to demand re­spect for po­liti­cal democ­ratization and solidarity with Third World c ­ auses (in diluted form, the same princi­ples articulated in the founding documents of the mln ), both the mln and Cárdenas alike had become irrelevant to their cause (see chapter 8). Conclusion The skillful containment of Lázaro Cárdenas sent a clear message to the United States that López Mateos was indeed in charge. But while removing Cárdenas from the domestic front was reassuring to investors, the consolidation of presidential authority also emboldened López Mateos. Kept from participating at Belgrade, he proved determined to participate in the geopo­ liti­ cal argument for nonalignment and a concomitant movement to reform the global cap­i­tal­ist order. ­These actions became intertwined with a broader foreign policy agenda to diversify Mexican diplomatic and economic relations. Taken together, they reveal a clear intent to insinuate Mexico directly within the Spirit of Bandung in ways that proved equally if not more disconcerting to Washington. Mexico’s economy still depended on the continued flow of US foreign investment, dollars delivered by US tourists, and the promise of US-­ backed loans, all of which ­were contingent upon the shifting reputation 138   —   Chapter Four

of Mexico as a “stable” as well as “friendly” good neighbor. The inherent leverage exercised by the denial of such funding—­whether ­because of negative publicity regarding the country’s po­liti­cal situation, or as a tactic to induce “correct” be­hav­ior geopolitically—­was considerable. Yet the risk of provoking a nationalist backlash through the perceived undermining of Mexican sovereignty was also substantial. In short, while Washington could impede a geopo­liti­cal re­orientation that was deemed too in­de­pen­ dent, how and where that line was defined became the subject of intense internal policy debate within the State Department, as discussed in the next chapter.

The “Spirit of Bandung”   —   139

Chapter Five

The “Preferred Revolution” CONFRONTING THE CRISIS OF MEXICAN NEUTRALISM

The transition from a Republican to a Demo­ cratic president in January 1961 held out the promise of a renewal in diplomatic and economic attention ­toward Latin Amer­i­ca, reigniting a spirit of positive action that had lain dormant since the 1940s. In his inaugural address, John F. Kennedy pledged a “new alliance for pro­gress” with “our s­ ister republics south of the border . . . ​our neighbors.” Young, Catholic, and full of visionary promise, Kennedy raised expectations across the region that the United States would address Latin Amer­ ic ­a’s pressing development concerns while upholding Franklin Roo­se­velt’s princi­ple of “mutual re­spect,” the cornerstone of the original Good Neighbor Policy. It was a tenet that many rightfully perceived had been cast aside during the Eisenhower period. At the same time, Kennedy’s remarks contained a thinly veiled warning to the Soviet Union and an implicit defense of the distinctiveness of Pan-­ Americanism from that of other emerging regionalisms tied to the so-­called Spirit of Bandung. The hemi­sphere, he reaffirmed, would “remain the master of its own ­house.”1 Kennedy’s promise to focus on Latin American social and economic needs coupled with his rhetorical gesture of inclusiveness met with widespread praise in Mexico and across the region.2 José Páges Llergo, editor of

Siempre!, noted that among the magazine’s “overwhelmingly leftist” staff, Kennedy’s inauguration had raised expectations of the possibilities for real change in US policy t­ oward Latin Amer­i­ca. “Kennedy has one foot in the past and one in the pre­sent generation,” Páges Llergo stated to a US Information Agency (usia) official. “He is a bridge.”3 Less than two months ­later, Kennedy famously announced his plan for an Alianza Para Progreso (Alliance for Pro­gress) before an assembled Latin American diplomatic corps in Washington, DC. Despite an initial pledge of $20 billion in public and private support to foster Latin American social and economic reform, the grammatical error—it should have been Alianza Para el Progreso—­metaphorically foreshadowed the missteps and po­liti­cal obstacles to come. No doubt the most damning of t­ hese missteps was the failed attempt, barely a month ­later, to overthrow Fidel Castro. The cia -­backed Bay of Pigs invasion shattered any initial suspension of disbelief among the Left and immediately shuttered the win­dow of opportunity created by Kennedy’s inauguration, one that might have other­wise remained open long enough to forge a broader po­liti­cal dialogue concerning the Cuban Revolution. Yet for Latin America’s m ­ iddle classes, especially, Kennedy’s unapologetic defense of “liberty” and “freedom” ­ were bold statements that resonated widely, especially when coupled with his pledge of economic investment. As Edgar Dosman writes, “most Latins [sic] wanted to believe that a new period had begun, and they ­were prepared to give [Kennedy] a second chance.”4 This chapter backtracks to the period 1960–62 to examine more closely Washington’s perspective on Mexican “neutralism” in the context of a shift from the Eisenhower to Kennedy administrations. A decisive f­ actor in this shift was the appointment of Thomas Mann as US ambassador to Mexico. A broad strategic thinker, Mann viewed the appeal of neutralism as secondary only to the spread of “Castroism.” As ambassador, he unsuccessfully fought to leverage a coveted visit by President Kennedy to induce a change in Mexican domestic and international politics. Yet Kennedy was as ­eager as López Mateos, albeit for competing reasons, to celebrate the distinctiveness of their Good Neighbor partnership, and his state visit in June  1962  in turn established a new logic to the countries’ bilateral relationship. As Renata Keller demonstrates, the US accommodated itself to Mexico’s diplomatic support for Cuba while recognizing the utility of an open channel to the Castro regime.5 But ­there was something more at stake as well. With Kennedy’s visit, Mexico emerged as a platform for the United States to highlight the endurance of a Good Neighbor relationship that was ­under siege across the Amer­i­cas. At the same time, Kennedy’s emphasis on The “Preferred Revolution”   —   141

“mutual re­spect” provided the geopo­liti­cal latitude necessary for López Mateos to pursue, with renewed vigor, not only new diplomatic and trading partners but a strategy that leveraged Mexico’s rising prestige to reshape the international order in ­favor of peripheral nations. The Dispute over Mexico The Kennedy transition initiated an intense discussion within the State Department concerning the status of the US strategic relationship with Mexico. In a series of exchanges, Edward Cale, a se­nior counselor at the US Embassy in Mexico City who had taken over as interim ambassador following Kennedy’s inauguration, and Thomas Mann, assistant secretary of state for inter-­American affairs and fingered to become the next US ambassador to Mexico, sought to come to grips with what they perceived as the diminished bargaining power the United States had with re­spect to Mexico across a range of domestic, bilateral, and international issues.6 At one point, articulating the position that became his signature policy argument upon his arrival in Mexico City that May, Mann wrote that “perhaps officials have concluded that we need Mexico’s friendship more than Mexico needs ours.”7 Over two de­cades of diplomatic experience across Latin Amer­ i­ ca had ­ shaped a consistent set of beliefs for Mann: Latin American nationalism was inherently anti-­American and the defense of US economic and military interests was paramount. Still, Mann had served during the heyday of the Good Neighbor Policy and recognized the strategic success of Roo­se­velt’s basic policy approach. Mann had straightforward advice for Kennedy’s incoming secretary of state, Dean Rusk: use the power of diplomacy to induce a shift in Mexican policy. It was necessary, Mann underscored, “to remove any doubt in Mexico’s mind that we need and desire Mexico’s friendship more than Mexico needs and desires ours.” One impor­tant example of US leverage was that provided by high-­level state visits, epitomized by the attention showered upon López Mateos by President Eisenhower during his travels to the United States in 1959 (see chapter 1). Kennedy, he urged, should resist the impulse to travel to Mexico anytime soon. Once officials had adequately assimilated this message and adjusted their policies accordingly, only then “can [we] hope to achieve some of our own objectives in Mexico.”8 Mann’s argument represented a radical departure in diplomatic philosophy with regard to Mexico. For more than a de­cade, the goal of strengthening bilateral relations rested on a strategy of listening to Mexican needs while avoiding any stoking of nationalist “sensitivities.” The under­lying 142   —   Chapter Five

premise of bilateral ties was to reassure Mexico of US good intentions. “We should never relent in our effort to overcome this feeling [of ill ­will] and win her over completely to our side,” Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom Jr. had stated in late 1958, in what amounted to a summation of US policy on the eve of President López Mateos’s own inauguration.9 That premise was now about to change. In an extensive, secret policy memorandum sent by Cale to Mann in early February 1961 titled “The Tactical ­Handling of Relations with Mexico,” Cale framed with remarkable transparency the basis of the concern he shared with Mann: “The United States cannot count on Mexico’s support in facing the major prob­lems posed by Soviet-­Communist expansion.” The “over-­all score” in bilateral relations, the memorandum established, was not “mutually acceptable and satisfying.” Mexican obstinacy in support of Cuba was an obvious irritant, but it was merely indicative of a larger apprehension regarding Mexico’s foreign policy ambitions. This had become especially apparent in voting patterns at the United Nations, which reflected “an in­de­pen­dent course of cool indifference” to US positions and undermined US ability to proj­ect its “strength and purposefulness” in the Amer­i­cas.10 Cale similarly advised scrapping an early visit by President Kennedy to Mexico, “even though high level decisions may have been already been reached.”11 Mann agreed ­wholeheartedly. López Mateos needed to be reminded that a commitment to being Good Neighbors required reciprocity as well as mutual re­spect. The confirmation of Thomas Mann as ambassador to Mexico in May 1961 set in motion perhaps the most remarkable attempt to re­orient US policy ­toward Mexico since the 1930s, when the nationalization of US properties nearly caused a break in relations.12 Mann was from Texas, bilingual, and experienced in Latin American politics.13 As one of the few holdovers from the Eisenhower administration, his positions ­were out of sync with the more flexible approach of “engagement” ­toward the Third World that would define the early years of the new Demo­cratic administration.14 In the opinion of Richard Goodwin, President Kennedy’s young point man in charge of the Alliance for Pro­gress, Mann was “a colonialist by mentality,” someone who believed Latin Americans needed “to be shown who is boss.”15 Yet a more recent historical assessment argues that, while a committed anti-­Communist, Mann was also a believer in the strategic value of the Good Neighbor. In fact, he was among the few lone voices to argue against the Bay of Pigs invasion, rightfully envisaging it as doomed to fail and liable to bring fateful consequences for US credibility across the region. His Texan roots, sympathy for the Good Neighbor, and deep foreign policy experience in Latin Amer­i­ca more The “Preferred Revolution”   —   143

generally all made him a strong candidate for this key ambassadorship, despite misgivings of younger “New Frontiersmen” like Goodwin. Indeed, Mann emerged as the administration’s most forceful advocate of a just resolution to the Chamizal and salinity disputes, twin border issues that ­were nationalist rallying cries across Mexico (see chapter  7).16 But Mann was also determined to use the full diplomatic and economic leverage available to him to contain Mexico’s flirtation with the forces of nonalignment and to push for an investment climate more hospitable to US interests. In fact, Mann’s concerns and frustrations with Mexico’s newfound “in­de­pen­ dence” provide strong evidence that President López Mateos’s pursuit of a more equitable vision of international relations—­one less constrained by the ideological straitjacket of the Cold War—­was producing a mea­sur­able shift in geopolitics. Beginning in the summer of 1961, a vigorous policy debate over how to ­handle bilateral relations erupted across State Department agencies. This debate centered on a document titled “Guidelines of U.S. Policy ­toward Mexico,” drafted by Mel Osborne, head of Mexican affairs, and which reached Mann’s desk at the embassy just prior to his first extensive discussion with foreign minister Manuel Tello. Mann had only contempt for Tello, whom he described as holding an “Alice in Wonderland” approach to the “dangers which the Sino-­Soviet Bloc pre­sents to the ­whole inter-­American system.”17 Over the next several weeks, and working directly with Edward Cale while evidently cutting Osborne out of the pro­ cess, Mann undertook a radical revision of the guidelines. Whereas in the original draft, the opening objective was to convince Mexico of US “sympathy for and identification with” Mexican aspirations, following Mann’s revisions this was restated to read: “The gradual achievement of an understanding that US-­Mexican cooperation must be fully reciprocal.” Mann’s rewrite outlined what Mexico had “the right to expect” from the United States. This included a liberalization of trade policies, support for commodity price stabilization, and an “enlarged aid program on generous terms” to help relocate peasantry so that productive land could be further consolidated to “increase agricultural production.” In return, the United States required greater awareness of and actions in response to “the danger of which communist subversion posed for Mexican sovereignty,” a government more demonstrably prepared “to assume a responsible role in international affairs in defense and in furtherance of western values,” an economic climate that included “fair and non-­discriminatory treatment of U.S. investments,” and development policies aimed at creating “a more equitable distribution” of income (a policy objective that seemed to 144   —   Chapter Five

reflect the recent announcement of the Alliance for Pro­gress). Mann’s revisions did retain the original opening statement of maintaining a policy of “sympathy” for Mexican requests for financial and technical assistance, but this was now placed further down and included the proviso that “each solicitation” must be mea­sured against the restated objectives. If pro­gress cannot be discerned, the guidelines now read, the appropriate response was to adopt “a dilatory tactic, without saying so, ­until such time as the Government of Mexico begins to appreciate the value of reciprocity.”18 On July 17 Mann followed up with a lengthy memorandum discussing Mexican domestic and foreign policy and US-­Mexico relations, which he sent to Secretary of State Rusk. Mann’s views ­toward Mexico ­were not entirely unsympathetic. Indeed, he established at the outset the need to recognize the tremendous developmental challenges the country faced: “This task [of stimulating economic growth] is of such magnitude that Mexico needs, in addition to better mobilization [of] its own resources, liberal treatment [of] Mexican exports, all the private foreign investment it can obtain, continued high tourism receipts, the continuation of the bracero program [which brought Mexican laborers into the United States] and loans from US and other capital exporting nations.” He added that it “would of course be counter-­productive” to force Mexico to “change its po­liti­cal and economic orientation” in exchange for US financial assistance. At the same time, he argued that economic and diplomatic bargaining power should be used to cajole Mexico t­oward a more explicit alignment with US strategic priorities. The first results of Mann’s new tactics came that summer. Deploying a “dilatory tactic” on an urgent loan request as he had prescribed, US leverage successfully dissuaded Mexico from sending a representative to the first meeting of nonaligned nations in Belgrade, Yugo­slavia (see chapter 4). Mann had acknowledged that it might be necessary to “accept divergencies” with re­spect to Mexican foreign policy positions. But he also admonished that a red line needed to be drawn when it came to nonalignment. Any flexibility on the part of the United States must “exclude [a] neutralist policy” by Mexico.19 Seeking to Arrest Mexico’s Neutralist Sympathies Debate over how best to contain Mexico’s evident flirtation with the forces of neutralism constituted the heart of policy discussions that unfolded over the succeeding weeks and into the fall in the wake of Belgrade. Robert Woodward, a se­nior official in the State Department’s Agency for Research The “Preferred Revolution”   —   145

Analy­sis (ara ), endorsed Mann’s approach. “Mexico is following basically a neutralist course,” he asserted in a secret memorandum to the deputy undersecretary for po­liti­cal affairs, an “attitude” that was “prejudicial to our own foreign policy objectives.”20 At the same time, the question of ­whether or not it was strategically wise to draw a “red line” on neutralism—as Mann advocated—­was hotly debated. “Are you certain that as a ­matter of policy we should be so categoric in moving to cut off US funds and support should Mexico go neutralist or uncommitted?” another analyst queried Robert Sayre, the newly appointed head of the Office of Mexican Affairs at the State Department. “We can live with a neutralist Mexico, I should think,” he wrote, arguing that any effort to coerce Mexico to declare its sole allegiance to the United States “would only push Mexico farther away and reduce our opportunities of working with and perhaps influencing her more favorably over time.”21 Many within the State Department also criticized Mann’s bullying approach. One official at the Ca­rib­bean and Mexico Division summarized the perspective of his area specialists: “Basically, we find the paper [guidelines] extremely negative and almost entirely lacking in any accommodation” to the new philosophy proposed by the Alliance for Pro­gress. “We are especially struck by the contrast between this version of the paper and an ­earlier version, which we found quite acceptable,” he wrote. Capturing the high stakes in the shift in strategic approach, he concluded, “We have had no explanation of the reasons for the change from a proposed ‘friendly’ policy to a proposed ‘get-­tough’ policy, and, at the Division level, we do not find the change acceptable.”22 By the fall of 1961, although the policy guidelines continued to undergo departmental revisions, Mann’s imprint was nevertheless firmly established. Gone from the original was the conciliatory language of a need to take into consideration Mexico’s history and national sensitivities. The opening objective now stated succinctly, “US-­Mexican cooperation must be a two way street” with “each solicitation” from Mexico “examine[d] with ­great care” in order to establish that it meets that objective.23 Concerning the question of foreign policy, the US would show restraint in confronting Mexican “in­de­pen­dence”—­a term now universally used—­but tolerance of that in­de­pen­dence excluded signs of a pos­si­ble alignment with the neutralist forces. Evidently, the United States could accommodate socialist democracy in Western Eu­rope and would find ways to work with moderate Third World nationalists such as Nehru, but the possibility of a Latin American government following in ­those patterns was unacceptable: “If the Mexican Government should begin to align itself with the ‘uncommitted states’ of Africa, Asia, and the ­Middle East or with other countries of 146   —   Chapter Five

Latin Amer­i­ca or adopt a neutralist attitude, neither of which would be in keeping with Mexico’s commitments ­under the un and oas Charters and the Rio Treaty, we should carefully consider what pressures we can bring to bear to arrest such a trend including withholding governmental assistance and credits to Mexico.”24 In a subsequent dispatch written ­after the visit by India’s leader to Mexico, Mann wrote how t­ here was “a ­little of Nehru” in López Mateos’s international ambitions—­a comment hardly delivered in praise. From Mann’s perspective, an open embrace of nonalignment would potentially unravel the fabric of the Pan-­American alliance itself. Mann pressed Secretary of State Rusk to arrest any further entanglements in the direction of neutralism. If not, he queried unrhetorically, would that not in effect “give Mexico [a] ­free hand to consolidate a Latin American bloc committed to [the] Mexican thesis?”25 In fact, alarm about the appeal of nonalignment politics was not ­limited to Mexico. Apprehension about a wider trend across Latin Amer­i­ca now reached the highest levels within the Western alliance. NATO Gets Involved In the wake of Belgrade, the United States convened an ad hoc “Expert Working Group” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization (nato ), the postwar military alliance designed to contain Soviet expansionism. The task of the working group was to examine the impact of recent geopo­liti­ cal transformations on the solidity of the Western hemispheric alliance.26 Secretary of State Dean Rusk implored nato officials that the meetings be “kept quite confidential” and handled with the “greatest discretion.”27 The po­liti­cal repercussions would be devastating if news ­were to leak that nato was treating Latin Amer­i­ca as integral to its security assumptions. In fact, the working group was hardly unique, although given the historical characterization of Latin Amer­i­ca as a US sphere of influence, it was noteworthy. As Evanthis Hatzivassiliou writes, the formation of vari­ous “expert groups” within nato during the late 1950s reflected “the West’s attempt to react to incoming bad news” from outside the established par­ameters of Eu­ro­pean geography.28 Still, soliciting strategic input from the fifteen members of the Eu­ro­pean security body (which also included Canada) reflected well-­placed US fears that the Cuban Revolution and the Spirit of Bandung ­were chiseling away at the foundational pillars of postwar Pan-­Americanism. Three areas in par­tic­u­lar discussed by the ad hoc group are especially relevant to consider. The first concerned the nature of “Castroism,” both The “Preferred Revolution”   —   147

in terms of its structural ­causes as well as its ideological appeal across the region. While ­there was a consensus among nato members that enthusiasm for the Cuban Revolution represented “only the extreme example of a general malaise,” ­there was disagreement regarding the nature of that malaise and the significance of the Cuban Revolution in fomenting it.29 The Canadians, for instance, openly acknowledged the appeal of Cuba’s “Marxist experiment,” a position that came to reflect Canadian re­sis­tance to US policy in the region more broadly during the 1960s and 1970s.30 It was at Canada’s insistence, for instance, that a section of the final report was devoted to an analy­sis of “anti-­Yankeeism” as a central ­factor in the appeal of revolutionary sentiment, an addition resisted by the US and British representatives although supported by the French. Indeed, despite US efforts to forge a united nato front in opposition to Fidel Castro, the American position increasingly stood at odds from its nato allies, all of whom continued to maintain diplomatic ties and engage in trade and other cultural relations with Cuba throughout the 1960s in spite of US efforts to isolate the regime. A second focus of discussion dealt with the issue of neutralism. H ­ ere, even more so than with other topics, significant divergences from the US position emerged among nato members. Unsurprisingly, given French president Charles de Gaulle’s own geopo­liti­cal ambitions to break apart Cold War bi­polar­ity, France’s delegates argued that it was only natu­ral for Latin American countries to pursue a path of in­de­pen­dence from the United States, one that would “render them more autonomous, freer in their movements and choices.”31 Canada’s position likewise reflected resentment ­toward US domination over hemispheric affairs. Its delegate ventured that nato powers “might have to resign themselves to the appearance of Left-­Wing neutral governments” across Latin Amer­i­ca in the foreseeable f­ uture.32 Summing up, the Canadian contribution to the report stated that the West “may thus have to accept and live with states adopting radically dif­f er­ent po­liti­cal structures and committed to the nationalisation of foreign investments or to non-­alignment in world affairs.”33 The British concurred, ­going so far as to argue that the real­ity of an “ ‘in­de­pen­dent’ foreign policy on the Brazilian pattern may be the best that the West can hope for in Latin Amer­i­ca.”34 It was a surprisingly fatalist perspective. Nonalignment was perceived by multiple actors within nato as a centripetal force whose geopo­liti­cal impact could be managed but not likely halted. Hence, the final report of the ad hoc group concluded that nato policy ­toward Latin Amer­i­ca should be to keep “if pos­si­ble all, but at any rate the major, Latin American Governments broadly on the side of the West.”35 Notably, 148   —   Chapter Five

however, a British statement suggesting the likelihood that Latin Amer­ic ­a would evolve “into a po­liti­cal patchwork over the next 10 years with some countries firmly pro-­Western, a few pro-­Communist and some halfway between” did not make it into the final draft.36 It was impor­tant, the British representative had argued, not to take “too tragically” the tendency ­toward foreign policy in­de­pen­dence.37 A final area of discussion dealt with US efforts to mobilize nato support for the nascent Alliance for Pro­gress. Although this US initiative has traditionally been viewed through the lens of US–­Latin Amer­ic ­ a relations, conversations within the Latin American expert group clearly indicate other­wise. In fact, Washington regarded “a highly cooperative attitude on the part of ­free countries outside the American continents” as key to the success of the Alliance for Pro­gress.38 In a final, highly secret document presented at a ministerial meeting in late 1961, nato members stressed that the situation in Latin Amer­i­ca represented a “threat to the vital interests of the ­free world” and therefore was of concern to all members.39 Summarizing the situation, the British ambassador to France noted how the level of “anti-­American feeling and other f­ actors in Latin Amer­i­ca” had created a situation where it was necessary to “invit[e] the Eu­ro­pe­ans to come to their assistance to redress the balance in the New World.”40 This internationalizing of the Alliance for Pro­gress reflected the high stakes placed by the United States in the program’s success. Yet if the British ­were among the most inclined to lend support, limits on their potential financial commitment reflected a wider, Eu­ro­pean prob­lem. Despite agreement on the goals of the Alliance for Pro­gress, by the following year the British made it clear that other Commonwealth commitments precluded “extending large-­scale aid” to Latin Amer­i­ca, a situation that befell other participating nato members as well.41 In fact, less than a year a ­ fter the launch of the Alliance for Pro­gress, its initial momentum had already stalled. ­There ­were many reasons for the rapid demise of what had been such a promising initiative. In the United States, domestic po­liti­cal re­sis­tance ­toward policies that smacked of “statism” was reflected in the Hickenlooper Amendment, which cut off foreign assistance to governments whose policies ­were considered discriminatory ­toward US investments or trade. At the same time, most Latin American elites ­were scarcely inclined to implement the progressive taxation and land reform goals that constituted key ele­ments of the Alliance for Pro­ gress promise. This re­sis­tance to reform was encapsulated by a se­nior official in Britain’s Foreign Office who remarked that the “current joke [is] ‘alianza sí—­progreso no.’ ” Latin American governments, he noted, ­were The “Preferred Revolution”   —   149

“only too glad to accept what­ever money they could get u ­ nder the umbrella of the Alliance,” but they ­were “not prepared to fulfill their half of the contract by introducing the social and economic reforms which their countries urgently needed if they ­were to pro­gress.” Despite the obvious crisis, however, the Alliance for Pro­gress was “still the only h ­ orse in the field.” As he concluded on a somewhat ominous note: “As ­things are at the moment, it is far from certain ­whether it ­will finish the course.”42 Marshaling the Mexican Revolution in Support of the Alliance for Pro­gress By late 1961, Mann’s efforts to hold out a visit by President Kennedy in exchange for a more explicit commitment to the Western alliance was losing s­way.43 In November 1961, Demo­cratic senate majority leader Mike Mans­ field impressed upon Kennedy that a visit to Mexico was of the “highe­st importance” and would “raise [the] prestige of both countries in [the] western hemi­sphere.”44 Overriding Mann’s objections, Mansfield’s letter set in motion plans that would culminate in the mass spectacle of Kennedy’s trip to Mexico City in June 1962. Mann, in turn, pivoted and sought ways to leverage the encounter to the advantage of the United States. He drew up a list of suggested topics for discussion between the two leaders, central among which was the need to address the “incompatibility of [an] attitude of neutralism with Mexico’s commitments in [the] inter-­ American system.”45 Mann had consistently argued that it was against US interests to bestow prestige gratuitously on Mexican officials without an adequate compensation in return, especially in the form of a stronger verbal endorsement of US policies in the Cold War. With a hand in shaping the final draft of the briefing book that Kennedy would read prior to his trip, Mann now underscored how the United States faced a fundamental dilemma: Mexico would seek to utilize the visit to show that the US approved of its domestic and foreign policies. It would be “almost impossible for the United States to avoid conveying that impression without destroying the value of the visit itself,” he wrote in a draft paper.46 Significantly, Mann had also sought to insert a strong statement critiquing Mexican “neutralism,” but the statement was replaced by a far more tempered interpretation: “Mexico insists, however, that it is not neutral in its basic commitment to the Western Christian civilization and its fundamental ideals and to the inter-­American system.”47 Not only ­ were Mann’s admonitions cast aside but Kennedy would, for the first time ever, give a full-­throated endorsement of Mexico’s 150   —   Chapter Five

revolutionary-­based institutions. It was a diplomatic g ­ amble whose aim was to tether Mexico directly to the Alliance for Pro­gress and, in so d ­ oing, seek to contain Mexico’s own internationalist ambitions. As momentum for the visit intensified, the State Department scrambled to ensure Kennedy would not come up short by comparison with receptions accorded to other foreign dignitaries. It was essential that the US-­ Mexico relationship outshine all o ­ thers. For instance, when the possibility was suggested that Kennedy should visit Monterrey instead of Mexico City (which was considered more susceptible to left-­wing protests), embassy officials noted that “a visit to other than Mexico City would make us look bad by comparison with the recent visit of Nehru to Mexico City or the 1960 visit by [Cuban president] Dorticos,” for which the government had “pulled out all stops.”48 Richard Goodwin praised the “heroic effort” made by usia officials to prime the population for the president’s visit by distributing thousands of copies of Kennedy’s most famous publications, translated into Spanish and made “available on newsstands throughout the city in the weeks preceding the visit.”49 But interest in showcasing the distinctiveness of the US-­Mexico relationship cut both ways. Thus for its part, the Mexican government prepared to go “all out to bring in crowds.” Public schools would be canceled, government workers given a day off, “truckloads of campesinos” would be bused into the capital, and some five hundred bands would “line [the] route,” ready to serenade the presidential entourage upon arrival.50 Fearing the wrath of security forces, many left-­wing activists in the capital went into hiding or wisely chose to take “short vacations” in the provinces, as police intelligence reports wryly noted. O ­ thers ­were preemptively rounded up.51 But concerns by ­either government that crowd size and enthusiasm needed an official subsidy turned out to be misguided. In the end, the extent of genuine enthrallment for President Kennedy was not only unanticipated; it was unpre­ce­dented. More than one million ­people turned out to cheer President Kennedy as he traversed Mexico City’s principal thoroughfares, far beyond anything the government might have been capable of coordinating. A US Embassy report described scenes of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans “often waiting many hours” simply for a chance to glimpse Kennedy on his designated parade route. ­These ­were “qualities not susceptible of being ‘or­ga­nized,’ ” the embassy noted. Rather, they suggested the existence of a more deeply abiding “friendliness and re­spect” for the United States among the “mass of the Mexican ­people,” a depth of feeling far beyond what was previously assumed.52 Writing from Guadalajara, the US consul general described reactions of “astonishment and delight,” and The “Preferred Revolution”   —   151

wrote that never had he “witnessed abroad such elation” ­toward a presidential visit.53 Although ­these reports need to be recognized for their self-­ congratulatory tone, ­there is nevertheless an accuracy in their assessment of the public’s widespread approval and enthusiasm. As one Mexican writer summed up, “For three days Mexicans found ourselves engulfed in feelings very strange to us.” She continued, “We found ourselves feeling that we trusted him—­trusted him!—­a gringo, and the most power­ful one of all, no less.”54 President López Mateos was reportedly “staggered by the magnitude and spontaneity” of popu­lar response.55 It was a clear indication that the bilateral relationship was not only more enduring than po­liti­cal observers had believed, but more strategically useful—to both sides—as well. President Kennedy’s unanticipated popularity in Mexico reflected several forces in play. ­There was, of course, his Catholicism in a country that was deeply religious, if officially secular. When Mexican papal delegate Luigi Raimondi suggested to the planning committee that Kennedy attend Mass, Ambassador Mann immediately backed the idea. If Kennedy accepted communion at the Basilica, Mexico’s holiest of Catholic shrines, Mann astutely predicted it would “be one of if not [the] brightest high light of [the] visit as far as masses of Mexican ­people are concerned.”56 He was correct. More than 250,000 ­people “from all walks of life” crammed into the Basilica’s esplanade and surrounding streets to witness Kennedy’s religious consecration; with precise choreography, a thousand white doves ­were released from the towers as church bells rang out.57 Another ­factor was President Kennedy’s youth and the cosmopolitan charm he and his wife, Jacqueline (who accompanied him), radiated. President López Mateos, who purposefully projected his own bohemian youthfulness to the Mexican populace, was in fact seven years older than Kennedy, a difference in age that was discernible. And while Kennedy himself was clumsy with foreign languages, his wife’s fa­cil­i­ty with Spanish (which she used throughout her visit) helped validate her husband’s re­spect for cultural difference, and thus earned him accolades from the Mexican public. The president’s innate po­liti­cal instincts ­were also on display, especially his adeptness at formulating gestures of populist inclusion. For instance, on several occasions he wandered deep into the waiting crowds to shake hands and initiate greetings (see figure 5.1). Another gesture favorably commented upon by the press was the fact that he rode unshielded in an open car, at times side by side with President López Mateos (see figure 5.2). Taken together, ­these and other symbolic acts had a profound impact, as an editorial in Siempre! noted. “This luminous exchange,” Páges Llergo, the magazine’s 152   —   Chapter Five

Figure 5.1 President John F. Kennedy (bottom, left-­hand frame) wades into the crowds on a densely packed, working-­class street in Mexico City. Note the majority of onlookers are young men and that their ­faces show an expression of excitement. Other images from the crowd show the odd sombrero, perhaps suggesting ­those bused in from the provinces, as well as ­middle and working classes. Source: “President John F. Kennedy Visits Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City,” June 29, 1962, ST-300-22-62, jfkl .

editor, wrote, “brought the two countries closer together than have twenty years of diplomatic negotiations.”58 Although Política cynically compared the “apotheosis and popu­lar enthusiasm” for the Kennedys with that staged by Catholic conservatives in advance of the invasionary forces led by Austrian archduke Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, nearly one hundred years ­earlier to the day, and to the “pyrotechnical show of the fiestas of the Centennial [of 1910]” when “no one anticipated the first flame of the Revolution,” the historical comparisons ­were markedly off base.59 The outburst of anti-­Americanism that had climaxed the previous summer in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion did not stand for the ­whole; nationalism and anti-­Americanism ­were not everywhere synonymous. Clearly, popu­lar support for the Kennedys indicated a broad willingness to align Mexico with US strategic interests and The “Preferred Revolution”   —   153

Figure 5.2 President John F. Kennedy rides in an open-­air car in central Mexico City. Source: “President John F. Kennedy’s Motorcade in Mexico City,” June 29, 1962, kn -22532, jfkl .

cultural values, so long as the princi­ple of mutual re­spect was upheld. As one writer for Siempre! gleefully noted: “Soviet Marxist enthusiasts discovered their utter separation from the masses.”60 Despite the author’s clear anti-­Left bias, in this instance the point was on target. The support of the “masses” for President Kennedy was genuine. The “Preferred Revolution” Beyond his Catholicism, youthful charm, and keen po­liti­cal instincts, President Kennedy’s success was rooted in his capacity to embody the spirit of the Good Neighbor. Speaking from the tarmac upon arrival in Mexico City, Kennedy quoted from Franklin Roo­se­velt’s speech during from the latter’s visit to Monterrey nearly twenty years ­earlier. Both nations, Roo­ se­velt had preached, “firmly adhere to that of mutual re­spect.” Indeed, the messages of “mutual re­spect” and Good Neighborly ties became recurring themes on display throughout the visit. “We remain Good Neighbors 154   —   Chapter Five

t­ oday,” Kennedy stated pointedly during remarks at an official luncheon, in an obvious effort to foreclose any discussion to the contrary.61 An editorial in Siempre! affirmed that Kennedy was motivated by the same “­great spirit of sincere friendship, of an evident desire to collaborate” that characterized President Roo­se­velt.62 Significantly, rather than place a wreath at the Monument to In­de­pen­dence, which was customary, Kennedy instead chose the Monument to the Revolution, an enormous architectural structure that symbolized not only the triumph of the revolution but the solidity of the ruling pri charged with fulfilling the revolution’s promises. It was a signal of re­spect for Mexico’s po­liti­cal system that no US president had done before, and one carefully vetted in advance for its potential po­liti­cal impact.63 One Mexican writer called it a “significant gesture” that demonstrated a new willingness to “become identified . . . ​with the revolutionary claims of 1910.”64 Kennedy’s endorsement of the Mexican Revolution was in fact carefully calculated to marshal Mexican support for the Alliance for Pro­gress. As an internal memorandum argued, Mexico’s achievements could be showcased as a “model for the successful implementation of the Alliance for Pro­gress.” The nation could “well become the bridgehead,” the document concluded, to promote not only a “model” of what the alliance aimed to achieve but the truest reflection of Good Neighbor ties.65 Similar to the revolutionary 1930s, when forging a strategic alliance to confront the rise of fascism in Eu­rope subordinated other concerns, Kennedy chose to ratify the regime’s progressive policies in the interest of solidifying a vital partnership at a moment of perceived grave peril to the bond of Pan-Americanism. President López Mateos grabbed hold of Kennedy’s validation to reaffirm Mexico’s hemispheric leadership and his own legitimacy in carry­ing out the revolution’s promises. At a luncheon for Kennedy held at the National Palace, López Mateos applauded the notion that the Mexican Revolution was “now fi­nally understood in the United States.” In a clear indication that he accepted the proposed diplomatic bargain, he went on to herald the clarity of “revolutionary thought” of the Alliance for Pro­gress, one that “coincides in its entirety with that of our recent Mexican history.”66 As the final communiqué issued by the two presidents summarized, “the fundamental goal of the Mexican Revolution is the same as that of the Alliance for Pro­gress—­social justice and economic pro­gress within the framework of individual freedom and po­liti­cal liberty.”67 Indeed, with his explicit certification of the pri ’ s revolutionary achievements, Kennedy’s visit promulgated a new diplomatic language with re­spect to Mexico, one which built upon and deepened the existing Good Neighbor framework. The “Preferred Revolution”   —   155

This affirmation of Mexico’s revolutionary experience comes through clearly in the usia film, Pro­gress through Freedom, based on Kennedy’s trip and ­later used to promote the alliance. The language of a “common heritage” binding the hemi­sphere together—­thus, distinguishing the Amer­i­cas from other postcolonial regions—­was central to alliance rhe­toric, and the film similarly identified Mexico and the United States as “both c ­ hildren of revolution.” Strikingly, however, while the film’s narrator used phrases such as “spirit of revolution” and “bloodshed and heroism” in describing the rise of modern Mexico, such phrases ­were linked not to the Mexican Revolution of 1910 but rather to the nation’s strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence against Spain more than a c ­ entury e ­ arlier. Not only ­were Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa left completely unmentioned; so, too, was the nationalist Constitution of 1917, itself a beacon of influence for other twentieth-­century revolutionary proj­ects, including in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Cuba. Instead, by conflating the 1810 and 1910 experiences (and supplanting the latter by the former), Pro­gress through Freedom showcased a “spirit of revolution” that united the two countries yet was safely rooted in the distant past.68 Thus, the film si­mul­ta­neously conveyed an image of the Mexican Revolution that occluded its own radical trajectory while endorsing it as an example of the “peaceful evolution” upon which the alliance was premised. In sum, Kennedy’s visit created a historic turning point in the US-­ Mexico relationship, one that consolidated the strategic framework of the Good Neighbor at a critical juncture in hemispheric relations. In material terms, the visit resulted in a $20 million agricultural credit loan for small farmers ­under the auspices of the Alliance for Pro­gress, though this was far less than what other nations such as Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile ­were receiving at the time.69 But more significantly, the visit generated an emotional connection between Mexicans and the United States—or, to be certain, perhaps more to Kennedy himself—­that would prove long-­lasting and resilient. Coupled with a promise to quickly address the Chamizal border dispute and the prob­lem of cross-­border salinity that was ruining northern farmlands, middle-­class Mexicans, especially, revealed a new willingness to give credence to US leadership. Indeed, public adoration for Kennedy—­ which grew exponentially with his assassination just over a year l­ ater—­laid the basis for a sentimentalist, pro-­US constituency, one that carried over to President Lyndon B. Johnson when he visited Mexico in 1966 (see chapter 8). It was a sentimentality that proved to be a power­ful counterforce to the “anti-­yanqui” mobilizations conjured by the left. Mexico’s regime eagerly cultivated this popu­lar adulation. For instance, the government released a commemorative stamp to mark the “historical 156   —   Chapter Five

occurrence” of Kennedy’s visit, and subsequent to his death named a housing proj­ect in Mexico City, built in part with Alliance for Pro­gress funds, ­after him.70 Writing directly to Kennedy shortly ­after his return to Washington, Ambassador Mann expressed optimism that Mexican politicians would now make “a new appraisal” of the “domestic advantages to them of being friendly to the United States.”71 Indeed, the visit had revealed a latent force of public sentiment indicating that the Good Neighbor relationship trumped all o ­ thers. But t­ here was a strategic calculation on Mexico’s part in this as well. “A ­simple quid pro quo,” Carlos Fuentes aptly summarized in an article for Siempre! “In exchange for full-­hearted support by Mexico for the Alliance for Pro­gress,” he wrote, “Kennedy consecrated the po­ liti­cal, economic, and social positions of the current Mexican regime, a government viewed by vari­ous financial and industrial circles as ‘socialist leaning’ [socializante].”72 Yet Fuentes underestimated the deeper po­liti­cal significance for Mexico of this new pact. For Kennedy’s visit emboldened President López Mateos precisely in the manner initially feared by Mann. Rather than reigning in his internationalist ambitions, Kennedy’s full-­ throated endorsement of the pri indeed liberated López Mateos to pursue a more active role on the world stage. Organ­izing a Critique of the Global Cap­i­tal­ist Order Just days ­after Kennedy returned to the United States, Mexico sent an official del­e­ga­tion to a meeting in Cairo of “countries that do not belong to any economic bloc,” as the official invitation stated.73 The Cairo Conference on the Prob­lems of Economic Development was convened by the leading figures of nonalignment and reflected the first such gathering following the Belgrade Conference of 1961. Whereas no Latin American country—­with the exception of Cuba—­had attended nam ’ s founding conference, this time four countries from the region (Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba) actively participated; four more sent observers (Chile, Ec­ua­dor, Uruguay, Venezuela). In addition to Yugo­slavia, the gathering brought together a total of thirty-­six countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca. In that regard, the event marked the “first joint initiative of countries from all three regional groups” and thus heralded a pivotal shift in global solidarity that laid the groundwork for a fundamental challenge to the international economic order.74 If Mexico’s alignment with the Alliance for Pro­gress was viewed by the Kennedy administration as critical to its success, Mexican participation in Cairo similarly provided the weight of po­liti­cal legitimacy necessary to ensure a positive outcome to this nam -­inspired proj­ect. The “Preferred Revolution”   —   157

Mexico’s attendance reflected several ­factors of the global moment. First was the fact that Brazil was also attending. A regional rivalry for leadership between the two countries, apparent by the late 1950s and made all the more pressing with the advent of the Cuban Revolution, made it imperative that Mexico not be diminished by the Brazilian shadow. ­There is still much to explore regarding the axis of solidarity and competition between Mexico and Brazil in this period, but from what we have seen in previous episodes of engagement both regionally and internationally, Mexican officials ­were deeply cognizant of the risks at being edged aside in stature by Brazilian economic and diplomatic prowess.75 Second was that the Cairo conference promised to focus on economic barriers to development rather than the geopo­liti­cal question of nonalignment per se. The un had already declared that the 1960s would be the “De­cade of Development,” a commitment that President Kennedy himself promoted in his address to the international body. In that re­spect, Mexico’s participation in the discussions taking place in Cairo fell squarely within the par­ameters of “development,” albeit on a global rather than regional scale. Indicative of the stakes placed by López Mateos and Foreign Minister Tello t­ oward the conference outcome, Mexico’s del­e­ga­tion was led by Octaviano Campos Salas, a trained economist and man­ag­er of the Bank of Mexico. (Shortly ­after, Campos Salas was appointed minister of industry and commerce.) At the same time, the sre urged caution that the del­e­ga­tion stick to the issue of economic development and steer clear of any efforts to link Mexico to trends that might be interpreted as challenging the duty-­bound relationship embodied by the Good Neighbor. Thus Tello gave clear instructions to avoid any votes that might be construed that Mexico “has accepted to become part” of the “un-­committed” bloc.76 Campos Salas and the other delegates, Tello underscored, needed to adhere to the message that Mexico’s foreign policy “is not one of neutralism, but rather in­de­pen­dence.”77 Clarification that Mexico’s foreign policy was now officially “in­ de­ pen­ dent” (rather than “neutral”) nevertheless proved ambiguous enough that it enabled Mexico to probe the bound­aries of a shifting geopo­liti­cal order, one in which a co­ali­tion of like-­positioned nations dependent on commodity exports and capital goods imports felt newly invigorated to push for fundamental transformation in the global terms of trade. Moreover, the fact that seven Latin American countries had chosen to attend a conference whose goals represented a transregional critique of cap­i­tal­ist trade relations was a clear snub to the US “gesture of reaching out” through the Alliance for Pro­gress.78 Fearing the likelihood that the Cuban del­e­ga­tion might use the conference to attack the alliance, President 158   —   Chapter Five

Kennedy directly appealed to López Mateos to ensure that Mexico play a moderating role in the discussions. In an implicit acknowl­edgment of Mexico’s stake in the conference outcome, Kennedy suggested that Cuban attacks could be fended off not in “defense of the United States but of the Alliance.”79 Foreign Minister Tello’s instructions to Campos Salas regarding how and when Mexico should vote on par­tic­u­lar issues delineated the delicate balancing act Mexico needed to traverse. This extended beyond the question of Cuba and the alliance per se to any include any pledges of geopo­ liti­cal solidarity that might gratuitously raise flags within the State Department. Hence, the Mexican del­e­ga­tion was given authorization to vote in ­favor of accepting Cuba into the group since the conference “lies outside of the Interamerican sphere.” But if a vote ­were taken with re­spect to Communist China, Campos Salas was instructed not to endorse such an invitation based on the argument that Mexico maintained official diplomatic relations solely with the nationalist regime in Taiwan. (This remained the case with ­every other country in Latin Amer­i­ca with the exception of Cuba.) In a last-­minute, urgent dispatch Tello stressed the imperative to “defend the Alliance for Pro­gress and make an effort to avoid endorsing any resolution critical of economic cooperation between the United States and Latin Amer­i­ca.”80 ­Here thus was an opportunity for Mexico to demonstrate its leadership as a moderate yet relevant global actor. In the end, Mexico brought unique credibility to the conference in Cairo. As a revolutionary society that had created a po­liti­cally stable social structure grounded in a mixed economic development approach, Mexico could speak to multiple points of view regarding the competing roles of private and state capital investment. Addressing the delegates, Campos Salas noted that Mexico “eagerly accepted” the invitation b ­ ecause it found on the agenda “a long list of prob­lems that have emerged as profound concerns.” ­After highlighting the vari­ous progressive policy recommendations that ­were ­under discussion, such as the elimination of import tariffs and “other obstacles to trade” between the developing and developed world, Campos Salas followed through on his directions from Tello. Mexico “jointly with practically e ­ very government on the American Continent” was a signatory of the Carta de Punta del Este, he noted. He went on to praise the Alliance for Pro­gress as a program that “seeks to eliminate misery, ignorance, and sickness among member states.” But he called attention to the fact that the alliance addressed development needs not through a transformation in trade relations but rather through “a substantial contribution of external funding.”81 Although Campos Salas praised the importance of access to such funds, he also critiqued the structural rules of the The “Preferred Revolution”   —   159

game that placed countries that relied on primary product exports at an inherent disadvantage in the world trading system. Still, it was a tempered critique and one that reflected Mexico’s aspirations to serve as a hemispheric as well as global interlocutor. Notably, the outcome of the conference reflected an effort to reform rather than overthrow the cap­i­tal­ist trading system. The core demand among the developing nations who constituted the majority in Cairo was to find redress to “international f­ actors beyond their control,” ­factors that skewed the global terms of trade to the disadvantage of commodity-­exporting nations.82 It was a position that built upon princi­ples established first in Bandung (1955) and ­later in Belgrade (1961). Yet by committing to work through the un while steadfastly avoiding the language of “imperialism,” the final document reflected a position that the industrialized, cap­i­tal­ ist West could ultimately engage, if not necessarily contain.83 Indeed, the State Department was relieved to find that the concluding declaration was “devoid of po­liti­cal invective” and viewed it as constructive and positive.84 Washington’s cautious endorsement, however, belied the conference’s true impact. As Edgar Dosman writes, the meeting in Cairo “heralded a change in power relations.”85 A key outcome was a proposal submitted to the un for a general vote to host a subsequent global conference on economic trade and development. Over the next year and a half, the “Group of 77” (g -77)—­a reference to the majority un member states that voted in support of this global conference—­became a lobbying body that sought to use the un as a forum to legitimize demands for a more just economic order.86 Raúl Prebisch, who had recently resigned in disgust from his advisory role in the Alliance for Pro­gress, had attended the conference in Cairo as an observer. He was now recruited to take charge of what Dosman fittingly describes as “a global version of ecla in its diagnosis of structural inequity and global transformation.”87 For Mexico, membership in the g -77 thus created an opportunity not only to shape the terms of an emerging critique of international trade and development but to bolster the reformist trajectory within the Spirit of Bandung. Conclusion In his annual Informe (State of the Union address) in September  1962, President López Mateos highlighted a remark made by Kennedy from his recent visit, that the Alliance for Pro­gress and the Mexican Revolution shared the same “fundamental goal” (meta fundamental). Mexico’s president was cognizant of the global arguments concerning development and 160   —   Chapter Five

underdevelopment that transcended the hemi­sphere and the manner in which t­hose arguments had rapidly become embroiled in Cold War geopolitics. ­After acknowledging that Mexico shared an “impassioned sympathy” with the recently in­de­pen­dent nations in Africa and Asia, he concluded with the statement, “We are not, nor ­will we be impartial or neutral.” It was a phrasing that he would repeat no less than four times in the concluding moments of his speech to Congress. On the one hand, the wording appeared to take a step back from Mann’s “red line” with re­spect to Mexican participation in the Non-­Aligned Movement. Mexico, López Mateos had asserted, was “not neutral.” Yet t­ here was an inherent ambiguity to his choice of words that left room for an opposite interpretation. Mexico, he had asserted, would not remain “impartial” but rather would commit itself to addressing world concerns. Thus, he went on to speak of Mexico’s right to be “in­de­pen­dent and realistic” and of the nation’s moral obligation to ­those countries that “confront the same or similar prob­lems” as Mexicans experienced.88 By the end of 1962, Mexico had begun to assert an activist foreign policy that aimed si­mul­ta­neously to diversify the country’s economic and diplomatic relations while propelling Mexico into the vanguard of the emergent Third World proj­ect. Moreover, the country was not alone in this regard among Latin American nations. As the nato experts panel had foreseen, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and o ­ thers in the region ­were also seeking to take advantage of what the authors of a new collection describe as “an alternative geopo­liti­cal space and vision.”89 Before turning to this new burst of Mexican internationalism, however, we must first return to a discussion of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional and consider how its trajectory following the incorporation of Lázaro Cárdenas into the government (discussed at the end of chapter 4) was s­ haped by and came to reflect internal divisions whose origins ­were at once local yet also global.

The “Preferred Revolution”   —   161

Chapter Six

New Left Splits THE IMPLOSION OF THE MOVIMIENTO DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL

Between the summer of 1961 and the fall of 1963, the or­ga­nized Left, whose success was embodied in the formation of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ), suffered a stunning collapse. Although the mln formally existed into 1966, by 1964 the movement had lost its unifying identity and with it any chance of influencing the direction of Mexican national politics. In fact, already by the summer of 1962, despite outward signs of coherency around key issues such as support for Cuba, solidarity with anticolonialist movements, and demand for the realization of Mexico’s demo­cratic socialist princi­p les, the mln was on a trajectory ­toward dissolution. Most scholars have attributed this collapse to the repressive apparatus of the Mexican state. To be sure, the government’s elaborate surveillance network and powers at the federal, state, and local levels (though not always in a coordinated manner) ­were used to disrupt, suppress, and undermine the collective forces that had begun to mobilize in earnest through the orga­nizational rationale of the mln during this period. But state repression alone does not fully account for the inability of the mln to solidify as a broad front organ­ization, one capable of achieving a far-­reaching democ­ratization of the po­liti­cal system and the empowerment of rural and working-­class groups in­de­ pen­dent of the ruling party.

This chapter explores the collapse of the mln as a ­viable left-­wing ­ roj­ect. The first section focuses on the pivotal figure of Carlos Fuentes, p whose biography provides a unique portal for understanding both his distinctive interlocutory role and the centrality of the intelligent­sia to the internationalist agenda of López Mateos. The second section explores the implosion of the mln beginning in the summer of 1962, barely a year a ­ fter the movement’s founding. Building upon what a writer at the time labeled the “drama of the left,” I explore three divisive fissures—­over po­liti­cal leadership, ideological orientation, and revolutionary “consciousness”—­ through a narrative that traces the mln ’s rise and fall within a global context. The most significant consequence of this implosion, covered in the final section of the chapter, was that it undermined the mln ’s ability to influence the se­lection of a presidential successor to López Mateos, whose choice of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz—­the interior minister and an ardent anti-­ Communist—­was among the worst pos­si­ble outcomes for the Left. While a fragmented Left provided President López Mateos room to maneuver in his choice of a conservative presidential successor, paradoxically, the collapse of the mln also coincided with the most activist period of President López Mateos’s presidency (the topic of chapter 7). The fact that the turn ­toward a high-­profile internationalism occurred in spite of the Left’s weakness thus requires us to rethink the deeply held assumption that Mexican internationalism was primarily a response to domestic po­liti­cal pressures.1 Carlos Fuentes, Left-­Wing Interlocutor Carlos Fuentes, whose gift of prose and relationships across a wide spectrum positioned him as an ideal interlocutor, emerges as a central character in this complex narrative. In many re­spects, Fuentes aptly epitomized the “restless” intellectual feared by the State Department (see chapter 1). The same age as Che Guevara (both ­were born in 1928), Fuentes was passionate in his defense of revolutionary Cuba and the new global politics of anticolonialism. At the same time, he was equally disdainful of the opportunism displayed by Vicente Lombardo Toledano, leader of the Partido Popu­lar Socialista (pps ), the puritanical politics of the Partido Comunista Mexicano (pcm ), and the corrupt paternalism of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (pri ). Notably, however, he was a fervent admirer of Lázaro Cárdenas and a passionate, idealistic defender of the newly formed mln . Fuentes fully committed himself to the broad, Popu­lar Front ethos of the mln . He hailed the mln ’s capacity to revitalize the socialist humanist New Left Splits   —   163

roots of the Mexican Revolution and to subsume ideological differences in support of a robust defense of nationalist princi­ples: economic sovereignty, po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence, agrarian reform, workers’ rights, and international solidarity. The mln , as he explained in a letter to Carl Brandt, his literary agent in the United States, was a “movement of all the left forces in Mexico” whose majority was constituted by “non-­party ­people such as me.” Fuentes may have optimistically exaggerated the role of “non-­party” participants, but his belief that the “in­de­pen­dent Left” constituted the core of the mln is what gave him the greatest hope for the movement’s f­ uture. At last ­there existed a demo­cratically constituted movement that would not only exert po­liti­cal influence but establish a moral stance capable of upending the predominance of an ideologically driven, entrenched party system. As he explained in confidence to Brandt in a passionate defense of mln positions: We have condemned the Soviet [nuclear] tests last fall [1961] and overridden the Communists in this. We have proposed the neutralist position for Mexico in international affairs, and also overridden them [i.e., the pcm ]. . . . ​We are reaching the moment when we ­will be able to create an In­de­pen­dent socialist party, based on what we call the ­theses of the third world, of the underdeveloped world: in other words, the Communists ­will no longer have the rhetorical owner­ship of certain issues. What we are fighting for is a greater in­de­pen­dence and diversification of Mexican po­liti­cal life, with a truly in­de­pen­dent, rational and useful left-­wing party, based on nationalistic propositions.2 Fuentes’s use of the pronoun we reflected his own idealistic commitment to the mln as a true collectivity (“a movement of all the left forces in Mexico”). At the same time, his statement that the mln would evolve into an “in­de­pen­dent socialist party” pointed to the aspiration, no doubt felt by many, that the mln would compete in or, at the very least, directly influence the 1964 electoral cycle and thereby transform Mexico’s po­liti­cal landscape. Implicit in this assumption, moreover, was that the mln would not only force a demo­cratic reckoning for the pri but would displace both the authoritarian (caudillo-­style) politics of the pps and the sectarian pcm with a new movement-­based party, one whose platform and membership ­were truly “in­de­pen­dent.” This belief in the possibility of a new form of politics, one freed of Cold War ideology and left-­wing sectarianism, mirrored the early spirit of the post-­Bandung moment and echoed the geopo­ liti­cal stance of the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ). In fact, Fuentes was in Belgrade for the founding of nam in September 1961 (see chapter 4) and 164   —   Chapter Six

ardently believed in not only the possibility but the necessity for underdeveloped nations to forge an in­de­pen­dent course in the international arena. “Perhaps I am very naive,” he continued in his letter to Brandt, in an effort to explain his po­liti­cal views, “but I do believe that, in the long run, if permitted to do so, the underdeveloped countries ­will evolve their own democratic-­socialist institutions, without paying allegiance to the Soviet Union or to the USA.”3 Like many of his peers within the “restless” Left, Fuentes’s po­liti­cal consciousness was forged in the context of de-Stalinization and the search among Marxist-­oriented intellectuals for a pathway ­toward a demo­cratic form of socialism. In 1955 he cofounded with Emmanuel Carballo the Re­ vista Mexicana de Literatura, a journal that aimed to break ­free of the nationalist paradigm of Mexican culture and to establish itself as a forum for the new humanism that was a hallmark of the critique of the (Old) Left.4 Around that same time, in a letter to his close friend and intellectual confidant, Víctor Flores Olea, Fuentes wrote that it had become clear to him that “the strug­gle of our time, more than economic or military, is the development of a strug­gle that is spiritual.” The recent workers’ uprising in Hungary, violently suppressed by Soviet troops, underscored for Fuentes the “enormous hope for a ­free socialism,” an “au­then­tic” socialism that obviously was no longer pos­si­ble ­under Soviet Communism.5 Most importantly, as a novelist whose first major work, Where the Air Is Clear (1958), broke with many of the formal rules of modernist fiction—it helped launch the “boom” in Latin American lit­er­a­ture of the 1960s—­Fuentes ardently defended what he regarded as the “princi­ple of absolute freedom for the writer and artist.”6 This conviction became one of the most contentious fault lines within the Left in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. A short time ­after expressing his yearning for a new, “more au­then­tic” socialism, Fuentes helped launch el espectador, a forum that channeled the socialist humanist perspective longed for by Fuentes and o ­ thers of his cohort (see chapter 1). Despite being short-­lived, Fuentes used el espectador to perfect his voice as a po­liti­cal essayist and emergent public intellectual, even as he gained international renown separately for his fiction writing. In July  1960, Fuentes was a guest of honor at the second commemoration of the Cuban Revolution, and his time spent on the island during this peak moment of revolutionary expectations left a lasting mark on him both personally and intellectually.7 Over the next several years his articles in support of the right to armed strug­gle and the inevitability of Third World/anticolonialist revolutionary transformation closely matched Fidel Castro’s own articulations on ­these topics. Mexico and Cuba alike had New Left Splits   —   165

demonstrated, he wrote at one point, that “only revolution, not aspirins or good wishes, can destroy feudalism.” This would be accomplished with “weapons in hand.”8 Yet Fuentes also rejected the epistemological current within the New Left that demanded the subordination of ­individual ­beliefs to the imperative of collective revolutionary strug­gle. Indeed, he soon found himself awkwardly straddling the twin components of an emergent New Left sensibility: that of a “vanguard” Left reverential in its embrace of Marxist materialism and principled in its espousal of revolutionary vio­lence, and that of a “cosmopolitan” Left that rejected ideological conformity and believed in the irreverent freedom of the artist.9 Although highly critical of the ruling party’s repression of domestic critics, Fuentes nevertheless played the role of cheerleader for the regime’s international policies. He was especially supportive of the global pivot aimed at diversifying Mexico’s diplomatic and economic relationships with re­ spect to the United States. Indeed, from his first essays penned in el espectador, Fuentes embodied the kind of critical intellectual support sought a ­ fter by López Mateos. Moreover, he became an impor­tant liaison between the regime and the cardenista Left. This was reflected, for instance, in his praise of the administration’s principled stance ­toward Cuba and more broadly in his support for Mexican leadership in Latin Amer­i­ca, at the United Nations, and in the regime’s alignment with Third World actors.10 It was not uncommon for left-­wing intellectuals to have access to the administration, but Fuentes’s contacts ­were notable. His f­ ather was a c ­ areer diplomat and the younger Fuentes, too, had direct ties to the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre ) that predated his rise as a public figure. In 1954 he was hired by the sre as an assistant director for public relations, where his job was to review and write synopses of articles from impor­tant Mexican publications for dissemination to foreign diplomatic posts. Not long ­after, in 1957, he was appointed director of the sre ’s newly created Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales (Department of Cultural Affairs), a position he held ­until late 1960.11 He was also enlisted as a speechwriter for the sre , although the extent to which this occurred is not entirely clear. One prominent example, however, was a speech he wrote for Mexico’s ­ambassador to the United Nations, Luis Padilla Nervo, in the fall of 1961. This was one of the most conflictive and po­liti­cally significant moments in un history to date and Padilla Nervo’s address was a rousing defense of the princi­ples of revolutionary emancipation, national sovereignty, and Third World solidarity. Mexico, he proclaimed, always stood “in support of the legitimate yearnings for liberation by dependent nations.” ­After noting how 166   —   Chapter Six

he had “intentionally” chosen to address the General Assembly on the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, Padilla Nervo declared that the revolution had demonstrated that “a ­people unafraid to live, to live as they wish, without fear of ­dying, ­will always triumph.” Mexico’s un ambassador was a Cárdenas loyalist known for his “yankeefobia,” and his ardent defense of sovereignty that day no doubt came naturally.12 Still, the speech clearly channeled Fuentes’s vision of Mexico’s role as a global actor, a vision obviously endorsed by President López Mateos and Foreign Minister Manuel Tello. “My presence ­here, on this 20th of November,” Padilla Nervo proclaimed, “is a tribute to all of t­ hose who fight for the emancipation of their nations and to secure re­spect for h ­ uman dignity.”13 Although the documentary rec­ord reveals l­ittle about the fuller extent of Fuentes’s connections to the regime, his contributions as a speechwriter for the sre reveal a level of intimacy that creates a much more nuanced picture than that generally assumed, one in which the government and left-­wing activists ­were set in confrontational opposition to one another. Rather, we need to reckon with the key role played by the intelligent­sia in also legitimizing López Mateos as his regime charted a course of progressive internationalism. Fuentes’s role as an interlocutor, moreover, extended to bilateral relations. Somewhat ironically, given his reputation within the State Department, Fuentes had long regarded himself as a friend and admirer of the United States. Having spent the first part of his youth in Washington, DC, where his f­ ather was a diplomat assigned to the Mexican Embassy, Fuentes grew up speaking and dreaming in En­glish. It was only ­later, when his ­father was reassigned to Chile, that the young Fuentes began to embrace Spanish; he was already a teenager when he arrived in Mexico to live permanently.14 As he ­later reflected, Fuentes saw the United States as “a nation of boundless energy, imagination, and the ­will to confront and solve ­great social issues of the times.”15 Significantly, he came of age in the 1930s and thus, in a fundamental sense, was also a child of President Franklin Roo­se­velt’s Good Neighbor Policy. Indeed, he would ­later recall that his earliest moment of po­liti­cal awakening occurred when Mexico nationalized US and British oil companies in 1938. As newspaper headlines denounced the “Communist” government of President Lázaro Cárdenas, the young Fuentes (attending school in Washington, DC) became acutely aware, for the first time, of his Mexican, outsider identity. When Roo­se­velt famously resisted the demands of Standard Oil to intervene and instead forced the oil companies (and other claimants) to reach an accommodation with Mexico, this experience, too, profoundly s­haped Fuentes’s perspective. Throughout his adult life, Fuentes continued to hold firm to the doctrine of mutual re­spect, a tenet that should structure not only New Left Splits   —   167

US-­Mexico relations but ­those throughout the hemi­sphere. Roo­se­velt, he ­later wrote, “taught us to believe that the first ­thing was for the United States to show that it was capable of living up to its ideals.”16 By the time of the formation of the mln , however, Fuentes had begun to denounce US claims of leadership in Latin Amer­i­ca. In one notable example, at a meeting of hemispheric intellectuals that took place in Santiago, Chile, in January 1962, he publicly clashed with Frank Tannenbaum, one of the deans of Latin American history in the United States and himself a onetime confidant of Lázaro Cárdenas. Tannenbaum, too, had directly experienced the Good Neighbor Policy, but now, a generation older than Fuentes, he symbolized for the Latin American left a position deeply out of touch with the new po­liti­cal order ushered in by the Cuban Revolution. “The interests of the United States are not t­ hose of Latin Amer­i­ca,” Fuentes declared succinctly to Tannenbaum.17 Their confrontation—­a vitriolic shouting match that left Tannenbaum visibly shaken—­crystallized a “disconnect” (desencuentro), as Elisa Servín describes it, between not only competing visions of Pan-­Americanism but the relationship of the Left to national development.18 Moreover, it encapsulated a mounting cynicism felt among Latin American intellectuals ­toward the Alliance for Pro­gress as it became increasingly evident that containing, if not rolling back, the Cuban Revolution was the initiative’s primary objective. By 1962 Fuentes had become arguably the most prolific and widely known writer on the Left within Mexico and perhaps throughout the hemi­ sphere. Although other intellectuals ­were highly vis­i­ble within their respective intellectual circles, ­because of translations of his work into En­glish only Fuentes truly reached a global audience.19 Fuentes was determined to use this clout to assert himself as a mediator and intellectual go-­between for the vari­ous realms that ­were colliding against one another at this halfway mark of the López Mateos administration: the state of Good Neighbor relations with the United States; conflicts within the Left over competing pursuits of “peaceful coexistence,” “national liberation,” and “nonalignment”; and in the cultural/philosophical realm, where demands for a purified Marxism ­were beginning to chafe against a more freewheeling cosmopolitanism. “On Gringos and Latinos” In late 1960, as Fuentes was finishing his second novel (The Good Conscience [1961]), his literary agent in the United States, Carl Brandt, found him a commission with the mass-­circulation travel journal Holiday to write a general interest story on con­temporary Mexico. With its playful, modernist 168   —   Chapter Six

design and sophisticated writing, Holiday represented the new, leisure-­ oriented postwar generation of Americans.20 The editors were laying the groundwork for a special issue on Mexico slated for publication in October  1962, and, although they could not have known it at the time, its publication would appear in the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy’s enormously successful visit to Mexico that July (see chapter 5). Fuentes was excited about the commission, seeing it as an ideal opportunity to expound his views about the growing disconnect between Latin Amer­i­ca and the United States to a mass, educated audience. “How candid can one get?” he eagerly queried Brandt.21 Fuentes’s initial draft was titled “On ‘Gringos’ and ‘Latinos’: A Mexican Dialogue.” It was a clunky piece, one he would l­ater acknowledge should have been written in Spanish, “where I can h ­ andle shading, nuance and sentiment in a way I cannot do in En­glish.”22 Structured in the form of a semi-­contrived dialogue between Fuentes (writing in the first person), a “visiting British professor,” and a Mexico City taxicab driver, the article amounted to a polemical defense of revolution and the imperative of historical memory. Fuentes used the taxi driver’s perspective to convey a popu­lar sense of nationalist pride driven by victimhood. “I hear the grin­ gos took away your thirteen colonies the same way they took Texas away from us,” the driver says to his passenger at one point. Throughout, the unapologetic use of the term gringo was deployed by Fuentes to convey a critique of Americans as full of hubris while ignorant of the impact of their actions. Continuing in the vein of a constructed dialogue, Fuentes laid bare his larger point for a US audience: “The victimizer forgets easily; the victim does not.” The prob­lem was not simply that of a power­ful nation and a weaker one, he concluded, recounting the vari­ous invasions of Mexico by the United States and efforts to influence Mexican affairs. What “hurts [the Mexican] even more,” Fuentes wrote, is that “the gringo ­will not brood with him and remember that ­there has been such a past.”23 Fuentes coursed through a comparative history of the two countries and the significance of their respective revolutions before arriving at his main theme: Americans needed to comprehend and not to fear the explosion of revolutionary ferment in Latin Amer­i­ca. “Revolutions ­aren’t tea-­parties,” Fuentes responded in answer to a polemical query by his semifictitious British interlocutor, as he paraphrased, no doubt self-­consciously, what became one of the most recited lines of Mao Zedong ­later in the 1960s.24 “From Spartacus to Castro, not forgetting the Protestant, En­glish, French, Mexican and Rus­sian revolutions,” Fuentes pontificated in a g ­ rand historical mode of analy­sis, “the anachronistic per­sis­tence of an old structure has been paid New Left Splits   —   169

with blood.” The pre­sent day was filled with revolutionary turmoil and to deny this, ­whether philosophically or materially, was to stand in the way of history’s inexorable transformation. “I’m appealing to the North American ­people,” Fuentes conveyed t­ oward the end of the essay, in response to his interlocutor and in an explicit acknowl­edgment of Fuentes’s true intent. “For in spite of all we have said, can you doubt the immensity of the good ­will and sympathy the gringos, as a ­people, have in Latin Amer­i­ca?” Thus Fuentes ended on a note that explic­itly invoked the central premise of the Good Neighbor, that of mutual re­spect, while implicitly challenging the Kennedy administration to adjust this revered princi­ple in line with a new era of revolutionary transformation: “We only hope that we, in our turn, ­shall be respected when we take dif­fer­ent roads ­because we are essentially dif­fer­ent.” The essay’s awkward structure and pedantic tone did not go over well at Holiday. An editor at the magazine criticized the draft as inaccessible (“confusing and fussy”) and not especially fun to read. Fuentes was encouraged by Holiday to employ “his enormous gifts as a novelist” rather than using the strategy of “a lecturer, angrily haranguing the reader.”25 By the time the essay was published in the October 1962 issue, it would undergo a complete rewrite that better conformed to Holiday’s expectations. Fuentes stripped his piece of its sharp polemics and adjusted its tone to deliver more a plea for cultural understanding than a warning of nationalist uprising. The warning part, however, along with the substance of Fuente’s original, more didactic arguments, did find their way into print via a separate essay, titled “The Argument of Latin Amer­ic ­ a: Words for the North Americans,” first published in Spanish on the eve of President Kennedy’s visit to Mexico and l­ ater republished in En­glish in the Marxist journal Monthly Review (see below). In tone and style, the two essays reflected Fuentes’s own balancing act to reconcile the moderate versus more radical forces encompassed by the mln . The more strident “Argument of Latin Amer­i­ca” essay, moreover, was directly influenced by an event in the spring of 1962 that pitted the Mexican author against US ambassador Thomas Mann. Their conflict derived in large part from Fuentes’s membership in the mln but it also reflected a deeper strug­gle to define the relevance of the Good Neighbor relationship in the era of the Cuban Revolution. The Debate That Never Happened In the spring of 1962 Fuentes received an invitation from nbc News to debate “the virtues and failings” of the Alliance for Pro­gress on national tele­vi­sion with Richard Goodwin, President Kennedy’s young, newly 170   —   Chapter Six

appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-­American affairs.26 Although Goodwin had agreed to the debate, Ambassador Mann, who considered himself the gatekeeper to bilateral diplomacy, had evidently not been consulted. As an articulate, youthful, and charming intellectual critic—at a moment when the figure of the public intellectual was in vogue in the United States as well—­Fuentes was certain to make a strong impression on the US viewing public. Yet for Goodwin, the opportunity to engage a left-­wing critique—as he had recently attempted with his off-­the-­record encounter with Che Guevara at the Punta del Este Conference the previous August—­formed an impor­tant component to a strategy of disarming the Left’s advocacy of revolutionary vio­lence. The ensuing confrontation over nbc ’s invitation in turn revealed a b ­ attle not only between Mann and Fuentes but between Mann, a holdover from the Eisenhower period, and Goodwin, Kennedy’s newly entrusted point man on Latin Amer­ic ­ a, over the direction of US policy ­toward the region more broadly. Fuentes was e ­ ager to debate Goodwin. ­Here was an opportunity to explain and defend the Cuban Revolution and its wider implications for Latin Amer­ i­ ca while appealing to the emotional promise of the Good Neighbor. Both arguments came naturally to Fuentes and, given his prominence not only within the Mexican Left but internationally, the potential stakes of the debate ­were high for every­one. For Mann, putting Fuentes on par with Goodwin would legitimize Fuentes—­and, by extension, the mln —as a voice of consequence at a critical juncture in the United States’ relationship with Mexico and the hemi­sphere. Moreover, it would potentially undermine Mann’s authority to influence Latin American policy while elevating that of Goodwin, who had Kennedy’s ear. As the date of the debate approached, Fuentes anxiously awaited word from the US Embassy in Mexico City regarding his visa. “[I am] on the verge of a ner­vous breakdown,” he expressed at one point to his literary agent Carl Brandt, “sleeping only two or three hours for the previous days, reading up, organ­izing my notes and living exclusively for the program.”27 In preparing his remarks, Fuentes intended to cite from The So­cio­log­ i­cal Imagination by Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills, an avatar of the New Left in the United States whose recent death that March was deeply mourned in Mexico.28 Fuentes had chosen a quote by Mills on the “iron cycle of history,” and he hoped to push his US audience to grapple with the ways that Latin Amer­i­ca was “trapped for centuries in poverty, tradition, disease and ignorance.” Although the essence of Fuentes’s critique was structuralist, the heart of his proposition was that Americans tended to transfer their own historical experiences unto o ­ thers, even when New Left Splits   —   171

that of other countries was “so dissimilar in origin, a ­ ctual real­ity and ­future perspectives.” This position was consistent with how Fuentes saw his role as a communicator of Latin American frustrations and an interpreter of Cuba’s revolutionary convulsions. Regarding the recently announced Alliance for Pro­gress, Fuentes intended to argue that it would at best freeze in place fundamental inequalities and prolong the inevitable revolutions to come. At worst, this thwarting of revolutionary intent—­which Fuentes regarded as almost a universal across Latin Amer­ic ­ a—­would make the impending po­liti­cal explosions more rabidly anti-­American.29 Fuentes never got his chance to debate Goodwin. One day before the event was scheduled, he learned that his visa had been denied. Mann had certified to his superiors that Fuentes was undeniably a member of the Communist Party (evidently based on his affiliation with Lazaro Cárdenas and his support for the mln ) and therefore legally subject to exclusion ­ under the McCarren-­ Walter Immigration Act.30 Fuentes’s literary agent Carl Brandt soon afterward explained to Fuentes, “A large part of the [State] Department feels that while you pose as an in­de­pen­dent Left Wing individual, you are in fact a hard-­core member of the party [i.e., pcm ].”31 In an emotional response, Fuentes articulated to Brandt the rationale for why the charge against him was ludicrous: “I am not, have never been and never hope to be (­unless forced by your State Department, g ­ reat God!) a member of the cp [Communist Party].” “The party has done nothing but commit errors in Mexico,” he continued. It has “no hold on the working class or the peasants, no hold on students or even Marxist intellectuals.”32 Aside from ­these broad criticisms of the pcm , more importantly Fuentes underscored the fact that he was “totally at variance with the general cultural theories derived from Marx: I am a novelist, an artist, and I cannot accept the tenets of ‘socialist realism.’ ”33 Mann’s misguided accusation underscored a larger dilemma that characterized the fate of many intellectuals on the left during the Cold War. Although Fuentes was disdainful of the pcm , he was nevertheless equally scornful of getting recruited into the politics of anti-­Communism. “Now, what I ­will never do is declare myself an anti-­Communist,” he continued in his letter to Brandt. “This is a ­matter of personal morality for us, and hard for a north American to understand. . . . ​I, nor any honest Latin American intellectual, can to day play the anti-­communist game.”34 As Patrick Iber has written, the politics of the Cold War created a Catch-22 for the independent-­minded artist and intellectual: no m ­ atter the intrinsic value of one’s perspective, an individual became inextricably linked to the ideological origins of the competing “fronts” they represented. Thus, despite 172   —   Chapter Six

its local origins, nationalist platform, and coincidence at numerous points with official Mexican policy, the mln could not shake its association with the Soviet-­backed World Peace Council in the eye of nonmembers. It was a charge frequently used to attack the mln and now deployed by Mann against Fuentes as well.35 The denial of the visa, however, transformed Fuentes into a cause célèbre on the eve of Kennedy’s visit and further added to his stature, both at home and abroad. Notably his defenders spanned the ideological spectrum, thereby mirroring the diverse publics Fuentes had managed to speak to through his vari­ous writings. For instance, one group that ­rose to his defense was the Mexican chapter of “Demo­crats Abroad,” an organ­ization made up of US residents who supported the Demo­cratic Party and worked to improve bilateral relations. A statement by the group sent to Arthur Schlesinger  Jr., special assistant to the president and an influential voice within the administration on Latin American affairs, expressed support for “the highly respected and brilliant Mexican novelist.”36 Similarly, the New York Times published two letters in support of Fuentes, including one by Frank Tannenbaum, who, as noted ­earlier, had recently had his own altercation with Fuentes. Tannenbaum criticized the wider impact of the McCarren-­Walter Act and similarly referred to Fuentes as a “brilliant and widely respected” novelist with “many friends and admirers all over Latin Amer­i­ca.”37 An editorial in Siempre! by Páges Llergo, the magazine’s po­liti­cally connected editor, lashed out at Mann for “clumsily sabotaging the possibility of improved comprehension between our nations.”38 Meanwhile, Siempre!, which prided itself on providing a forum for vari­ous points of view, eagerly played up the conflict in dramatic fashion. On April 7, the day the debate was to be held, Fuentes sent a letter to Goodwin via Brandt with the proposal that the two hold their debate on the “­free pages” of Siempre! Páges Llergo “­will not refuse his visa for your ideas,” Fuentes wrote with evident sarcasm.39 In his letter (subsequently reprinted in Siempre!), Fuentes lamented the lost opportunity to debate; both he and Goodwin, he wrote, had “looked forward, I am sure, to a fruitful if hard-­fought discussion.” Yet he also taunted Goodwin: “­Aren’t you a member of the youthful ‘New Frontier’? ­Aren’t you part of Mr. Kennedy’s Liberal and audacious entourage? Why d ­ on’t you dare listen to the ideas of Latin American revolutionaries? Are you afraid of contagion or only of [the] truth?” Brandt had also sought without success to coax Goodwin into a public dialogue.40 In fact, the scandal quite likely cost Goodwin po­liti­cally. Soon a ­ fter, he lost his privileged access to Kennedy on Latin New Left Splits   —   173

American affairs. A power strug­gle was underway at the State Department and Mann was clearly ascendant.41 Two weeks ­later, Fuentes wrote an extended essay for Siempre! that put into prose form his debate position. “El Argumento de América Latina: Palabras a los Norteamericanos” (The Argument of Latin Amer­i­ca: Words for the North Americans) situated Fuentes as an impassioned defender of the Latin American—­and by extension, Third World—­revolutionary proj­ect. He openly deployed the language of what can be labeled the vanguardist New Left, with its Marxist interpretation of historical power dynamics and the validation of revolutionary transformation through force of arms.42 In a reflection of the position he had e ­ arlier articulated in Chile during his confrontation with Tannenbaum, he wrote disparagingly of the possibility of any partnership with the United States. The sole recourse for Latin Americans was to “trust only in themselves, in their capacity to destroy, by themselves, the old feudal structure and replace it with a radically new society, from which they can build for themselves.”43 When an En­glish translation subsequently was published in Monthly Review, an impor­tant Marxist forum for New Left thinkers, an editorial preface framed the essay in this way: “­After you have read the text below, you ­will understand why both the State Department and the mass media are so anxious to keep the views of a leading Latin American intellectual from the American public.”44 The En­glish translation of “El Argumento” and the article for Holiday, “Latinos vs. Gringos,” ­were published almost si­mul­ta­neously in the fall of 1962, not long a ­ fter Kennedy’s highly successful trip to Mexico that summer (see chapter 5). While the former was written in a furious explosion of po­liti­cal frustration, the latter had under­gone more than six months of careful reformulation and editing.45 Their differences in mood and emphasis revealed the mounting contradictions in Fuentes’s own efforts to serve as an interlocutor across increasingly fractured and widening constituencies among the Left. The drama of Fuentes’s confrontation with Mann, moreover, directly coincided with another drama unfolding within the Left. The po­liti­cal proj­ect represented by the mln , one that Fuentes had supported in body and soul, was rapidly coming undone. The “Drama of the Left” Several weeks a ­ fter Fuentes’s confrontation with Mann and only a week before the arrival of President Kennedy, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Mexico’s most vis­i­ble left-­wing po­liti­cal leader ­after Lázaro Cárdenas, announced that all members of his Partido Popu­lar Socialista ­(pps ) were pro174   —   Chapter Six

hibited henceforth from participating in the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ). Lombardo Toledano also denounced the Left’s leading newsweekly, Política, a magazine that served as the unofficial vehicle of the mln and whose journalist staff—­including its se­nior editor, Manuel Marcué Pardiñas—­was composed of many prominent members of the pps . Lombardo Toledano’s draconian directive came in response to a seemingly minor yet po­liti­cally significant action: the se­lection by the mln leadership of a del­e­ga­tion to attend the World Conference on Disarmament and Peace scheduled for Moscow that July. Lombardo Toledano took umbrage that he had not been consulted and that the del­e­ga­tion would travel ­under mln (rather than pps ) auspices. (In response, he designated a separate pps del­eg ­ a­tion.) His petulant decision reflected the exposure of one of several fissures that would, over the course of the coming year, split the collective spirit of the mln . It was the beginning of what José Natividad Rosales, writing in Siempre!, described as the “drama de la izquierda.”46 The first of ­these fissures was po­liti­cal and exposed under­lying conflicts between personalities and over the direction of leadership. Perhaps the most consequential of t­hese conflicts was between Lázaro Cárdenas and Lombardo Toledano. As Daniela Spenser writes in a recent biography, Lombardo Toledano practiced “an aristocratic understanding of left-­wing po­liti­cal conduct,” one in which the leader knew best. That interpretation was not only antithetical to the decentralized orga­nizational structure and demo­cratic ethos of the mln ; for Lombardo Toledano t­ here could be “no other left-­wing [movement] than his alone.”47 With Cárdenas’s blessing, the mln now threatened to supplant the relevancy of the pps as a movement that could unify the country’s vari­ous “Marxist currents”—­the same vision of a unifying po­liti­cal movement that had motivated Lombardo Toledano when he formed his Partido Popu­lar in 1948.48 Although the two started as allies in the 1930s, Cárdenas’s antipathy t­ oward Lombardo Toledano came into the open during the Latin American Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation, and Peace held in Mexico City in early 1961, the event that laid the basis for the founding of the mln (see chapter 4). Police surveillance during the conference noted Cárdenas’s repeated disparagement of Lombardo Toledano and his efforts to marginalize the pps leader from decision-­making. For instance, when shouts against Lombardo Toledano arose spontaneously at vari­ous moments during the conference, one report noted how Cárdenas’s expression revealed “a tinge of satisfaction, an internal plea­sure that, in spite of his obligations, he could not hide. Even his eyes gave away his satisfaction.”49 Cárdenas had been instrumental in enabling the mln to come into existence, and his po­liti­cal New Left Splits   —   175

connections played an enormous role in unifying an other­wise fractious Left within a shared po­liti­cal platform. This was the same stated goal of Lombardo Toledano, only through his pps . Although Cárdenas never proclaimed himself the movement’s official leader, his presence throughout the mln ’s founding period provided the necessary ideological glue that held its divergent ele­ments together. Yet once Cárdenas agreed to join the cabinet of President López Mateos, the movement became vulnerable to po­liti­cal infighting, as figures from the established Left, first Lombardo Toledano but then o ­ thers, sought to manipulate the organ­izing potential of the mln for their own po­liti­cal gain. A central ­factor in this po­liti­cal infighting concerned the possibility of the mln developing into an outright opposition party. By statute, the mln was purposefully established as a coalition—an opposition move­ ment but not a po­liti­cal party. Members ­were ­free to retain their respective party affiliations but the mln would neither endorse par­tic­u­lar candidates nor seek to transform itself into a formal electoral platform. As Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of Lázaro Cárdenas and an impor­tant po­liti­cal actor in his own right, emphasized in a defense of the mln in the spring of 1962, the organ­ization’s strength was in its po­liti­cal ecumenism. “The mln does not keep out e ­ ither Catholics or Protestants, liberals or demo­crats, socialists or communists,” he wrote. It is, rather, the “sum of all of every­one in the national strug­gle for liberation, social justice, and peace.”50 Yet if the organ­ization’s guiding princi­ple was that it would channel the collective demands for a more demo­cratic, socially progressive revolutionary proj­ ect, in po­liti­cal terms the true mea­sure of success would be reflected in its ability to influence the choice of pri candidates, locally, regionally and, especially, at the presidential level. Internal debate over ­whether the mln should remain a “movement” or become a po­liti­cal “party” became increasingly contentious as the 1964 election cycle grew nearer. By ordering his pps followers to withdraw from the mln , Lombardo Toledano thus was attempting to reassert his own po­liti­cal relevance at a critical juncture for the Left and thereby preclude the possibility of the mln transforming itself into something of greater po­liti­cal consequence.51 A cover illustration in July  1962 by Jorge Carreño, lead caricaturist for Siempre!, vividly captured this po­liti­cal fissure exposed by Lombardo Toledano’s abrupt announcement. As was common to editorial depictions at the time, Carreño freely deployed both highly gendered and infantilizing tropes as key components of his narration. In this instance, ­these components ­were overlaid with repre­sen­ta­tions of graphic vio­lence and voyeurism, whose sum total conveys an image of despair, mockery, 176   —   Chapter Six

Figure 6.1 Jorge Carreñ­o’s critical depiction of the Left devouring itself in a bout of infantilism. ­Here a red-­haired (read: Soviet) child embodying Vicente Lombardo Toledano’s Partido Popu­lar Socialista (pps ) saws off a leg, while another child embodying the nascent Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) looks to assist. Peering over the fence are the (left to right) Partido Comunista (pc ), Partido Revolucionario Institucional (pri ), and Partido Acción Nacional (pan ). Source: Siempre!, July 25, 1962.

and a metacritique of the po­liti­cal “immaturity” of the Left set within the logic of Mexican electoral politics (see figure 6.1). In the narrative frame established by Carreño, two boy toddlers (labeled “pps ” and “mln ”) disassemble a nude female mannequin whose broad, straw sombrero carries the text “Izquierda Mexicana.” Meanwhile three other boy toddlers—­ labeled “pc [Partido Comunista],” “pri ,” and “pan ” (Partido Acción Nacional [National Action Party], the conservative party associated with the Catholic Church)—­peer over a wooden fence in evident amusement. The two ­children are systematically destroying the mannequin, though it is the action of the pps child—­depicted severing the female’s leg with a saw—­ that draws the viewer’s attention. The explic­itly gendered dimension to the image, including its openly voy­ eur­ is­ tic components—­ the c ­hildren positioned ­behind the fence and the viewer mutually gaze upon a nude body being dismembered—­tacitly identify the reader of Siempre! and thus of po­liti­cal actors in the public sphere more broadly as male. The manneNew Left Splits   —   177

quin representing the Left is voluptuous, red-­ haired, green-­ eyed, and light-­skinned. Practically every­thing about her, save the text on her straw hat (“Mexican Left”), signifies a body enticingly “exotic,” if not necessarily “foreign.” Feminized in this way, she embodies the “collective Left”: incapable of translating beauty into action, passively exposed, vulnerable to the unsupervised machinations of c ­ hildren at play. While the polemics ripping apart this collective proj­ect come across to the outside observer (peering in from over the fence, or on the newsstand) as childish antics without excuse, the vio­lence of the imagery suggests that, for Carreño, the Left’s self-­destruction was no joke at all. Left unstated, moreover, was that Lázaro Cárdenas is the missing adult in the picture, the one figure who might have other­wise provided supervision ­were he still available to do so. A second fissure revealed by the “drama of the left” was ideological. This was intertwined with the shifting terrain of left-­wing po­liti­cal strug­gle globally. Although intellectually and culturally the mln was deeply rooted in Mexico’s own revolutionary proj­ect, the birth of the mln was intrinsically linked to the World Peace Council (wpc ), the Soviet front organ­ization to which Lázaro Cárdenas and other key players belonged (see chapter 4). Due to the influence of the wpc , the organ­izing rationale of the mln was rooted in the socialist aspirations of an “Old Left,” which was tied to the politics of (Soviet-­inspired) peaceful coexistence. At the same time, however, the mln evolved in the context of the formulation of a “New Left,” one ­shaped especially by the advent of the Cuban Revolution. In contrast to the Old Left formulation that the motor force of revolutionary action resided in the or­ga­nized working classes and mass social mobilization, the New Left came to be defined by an ideological belief in the validity and, more contentiously so, the necessity of armed insurrection as the strategy for sociopo­liti­cal renewal. This New Left was also s­ haped by the wider field of anticolonialism in Africa and Asia, whose po­liti­cal energies first cohered at Bandung in 1955. The Spirit of Bandung was evolving along two overlapping yet increasingly contentious orga­nizational positions embodied, on the one hand, by the Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization (aapso ) and, on the other, the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ). At vari­ous junctures, the Soviet Union sought to harness t­ hese conflictive ideological trajectories to its foreign policy of peaceful coexistence—­the phrase most closely identified with Soviet affinities—­but by 1962 the Soviet Union found itself battling for geopo­liti­cal influence with the P ­ eople’s Republic of China (prc ) as well. The more radical stance of the prc —­which openly belittled “peaceful coexistence” as a capitulation to the cap­i­tal­ist West—­and the ensuing “Sino-­ Soviet split” laid bare not simply the competition for global Communist 178   —   Chapter Six

leadership but an epistemological divide over revolutionary theory, praxis, and end points. ­These overlapping yet ultimately contentious revolutionary proj­ects thus pitted not only an “Old” Left against a “New” Left but cultivated competing ideological strands and geopo­liti­cal alliances within the New Left itself. An early indication of this fissure appeared in commemorations for the second-­year anniversary of Política, the premier journal of the Left and a semiofficial mouthpiece for the mln . In that issue (May 1962), Marcué Pardiñas, the magazine’s editor, reaffirmed Política’s mission as a “news journal of the lefts, for the lefts, and put together by the lefts.”52 But in the same issue, Víctor Flores Olea, a close friend of Carlos Fuentes, launched a critique of the magazine that signaled a deeper divide. He pointed to the frequent deployment of adjectives such as reaccionario, imperialista, and oscurantista in editorials and other essays. Such language, he argued, had become a proxy for careful analy­sis. “­Every time in Política an adjective is used to substitute for an argument, e ­ very time indignation prevails over reason,” Flores Olea wrote, “I cannot help but think that the left runs the risk of falling inversely into the same failings for which we criticize the journalism of the right: mystification, the irrational use of language, gratuitous statements.”53 Flores Olea’s critique was published just before the brutal assassination of peasant leader Rubén Jaramillo, who was gunned down along with his wife, c ­ hildren, and h ­ ouse­keeper, an act Política denounced as a “crime of the regime.”54 As Luis Prieto, an activist with the mln recalled, “when they killed Jaramillo and all of his ­family, it revealed the monstrosity of [President López Mateos].”55 The fact that Jaramillo’s killing came barely a month before the arrival of Kennedy further entrenched a narrative among certain actors on the Left that the ruling party had acted in direct collaboration with the United States. As the mln fanned out during 1961–62  in its effort to catalyze a grassroots civic engagement with peasant organ­izations, workers, and student groups, state surveillance intensified, and direct experiences of repression multiplied.56 ­These events, coupled with the continued incarceration of l­abor leaders from the 1959 strikes and of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, confirmed for many within the mln the intransigence and moral decrepitude of the ruling party—­and thus of the need to fight fire with fire. Internationally, relations with Cuba became another defining ele­ment that was influencing the tone and ideological polarization within the mln , in both the sense of solidarity with Cuba and the influence of the Cuban experience itself. Although Mexico’s government abstained from the vote to expel Cuba from the Organ­ization of American States (oas ) during the New Left Splits   —   179

Punta del Este meeting of oas chancellors in January 1962, Mexico’s foreign minister, Manuel Tello, had provided the key phrasing that set the juridical stage for the vote. ­There was, he argued, a “radical incompatibility” between the existence of a Marxist-­Leninist government (formally declared as such by Fidel Castro shortly ­after the Bay of Pigs invasion) and membership in the oas .57 For many on the left, Tello’s role in laying the groundwork for Cuba’s expulsion and the break in diplomatic relations across the hemi­sphere (Mexico and Canada remained the lone exceptions) was unpardonable. Following the vote, Fidel Castro famously proclaimed his “Second Declaration of Havana,” a four-­hour denunciation of the oas and the Alliance for Pro­gress thundered before a crowd of more than one million ­people in Havana’s Revolutionary Square. The speech subsequently circulated in pamphlet form throughout Latin Amer­i­ca, and its profound influence was captured in perhaps the most important singular phrase uttered by Castro during the entire revolutionary period: “The duty of the revolutionary is to make the revolution.” The notion of deber (duty) carried a heavy sense of moral obligation as it directly challenged individuals to act upon their po­liti­cal consciousness through concrete exploits. As Jorge Castañeda l­ ater articulated, Castro had elevated what had formerly been a tactic of vio­ lence into “the strategic premise” (his emphasis) of revolutionary transformation. “Deber,” moreover, necessitated a self-­purging of ideological impurities, a commitment that carried over into the realm of po­liti­cal discourse and cultural practices.58 The reformist language of the mln had initially worked to contain the impact of the Cuban Revolution in Mexico, by situating the Left’s relationship to Cuba as one of “solidarity” and embracing the idiom of “constitutional strug­gle” with re­spect to domestic organ­izing.59 But increasingly, that containment was becoming more difficult to sustain. The argument for vio­lence was gathering force. Writing in June 1962—as vari­ous members of the mln ­were preemptively detained by police or went into hiding in the context of President Kennedy’s visit—­ José Natividad Rosales denounced the emergence of “ultra-­leftists” who, he feared, “are pushing the country ­toward a foolhardy vio­lence.”60 This ideological fissure was further accentuated by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. In a revealing example of how Carlos Fuentes consciously positioned himself as an interlocutor between the competing lefts, he praised Soviet premier Khrushchev for his withdrawal of the missiles, seeing this as “a concrete act that validates the Soviet’s policy of peace and coexistence.” At the same time, Fuentes lauded López Mateos for his “pacifist” stance, a reference both to the Mexican president’s foreign policy 180   —   Chapter Six

agenda in support of nuclear disarmament and to pronouncements during his recent tour of Asia (see chapter 7).61 Notably, Fuentes’s essay appeared in Siempre! and not in Política. By then, the latter had become a forum for the “ultra” Left and increasingly abandoned by more moderate intellectual writers. Indeed, the magazine’s editor, Marcué Pardiñas, regarded the inability of the Left to mobilize in broad defense of Cuba during the Missile Crisis as a fundamental sign of the mln ’s failure and weakness. In a provocative editorial that could be read as a direct taunt aimed at Fuentes and the collaborationist position he represented, Marcué Pardiñas denounced the Left as “infantile” for its continued support of a “bourgeois” Mexican regime beholden to US “imperialism.” Even more significantly, he mocked what he described as the “dogmatic incantation of the thesis of peaceful coexistence, of the slow and inexorable development of socie­ties ­toward socialism.”62 On the face of it, Marcué Pardiñas’s attack against the “thesis of peaceful coexistence” and his impatience with the “slow pace” of revolutionary transformation encapsulated a New Left critique of Soviet leadership and revolutionary praxis that aligned with Communist China. But he was also invested in playing down that critique while holding up the example of Khrushchev’s alliance with Cuba as a testament to the true commitment of the Soviet Union to revolutionary upheaval. To be sure, Cuba’s own contradictory stances seemed to blur the bound­aries between the Soviet and Chinese positions. As Robert Adams of the US Embassy in Mexico City succinctly articulated, “Castro stands with Khrushchev but talks like Mao.”63 In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this split became even more pronounced. Soon it would have a profound impact on Communist parties throughout Latin Amer­i­ca. As Jeremy Friedman writes, the image of a “small, heroic island . . . ​willing to risk annihilation in the cause of socialism” only to be “betrayed by the cowards in the Kremlin” became a useful wedge to divide the Communist movement, for it “seemed to distill into its purest form every­thing the Chinese had been saying about the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence and its consequences for world revolution.”64 Compromise, in other words, became equated with defeatism. In February 1963, a visiting Chinese trade del­e­ga­tion sought to insinuate itself into this ideological debate taking place within the mln . According to vari­ous reports, Esther Chapa, a professor at the unam , longtime member of the pcm , and founder of the Mexico-­China Friendship Society (1957), arranged a meeting between the Chinese delegates and the pcm . Chapa’s organ­ization, as Matthew Rothwell notes, “dedicated itself to promoting the Chinese Revolution as a model for Mexico,” with its focus on New Left Splits   —   181

“protracted ­people’s war” and study of Mao Zedong thought.65 It was an approach that not only divided the pcm but appealed to vari­ous followers of the pps who, as Rothwell notes, increasingly came to regard “armed strug­ gle as an immediately pos­si­ble and desirable path for creating a socialist state in Mexico.”66 Chapa parlayed a Chinese offer to the pcm : support the Chinese line against the Soviet Union and China would provide additional money to the Communist Party. According to surveillance reports, pcm leadership rejected the offer and instead used it to negotiate more aid from the Soviet Union, although “some less prominent leaders and many of the rank and file members ­were siding with Peiping [i.e., the prc ].”67 Indeed, Chapa’s proposal set in motion an internal ideological strug­gle as pcm cells began to debate openly ­whether to follow the Soviet or Chinese “line” in international policy, a situation replicated throughout Latin Amer­i­ca.68 Vanguardism and Cosmopolitanism In the summer of 1962, Chilean playwright and cineaste Alejandro Jodorowsky staged an avant-­garde per­for­mance in Mexico City called La Ópera del Orden. Among other iconoclastic affronts, the show included “a nun dancing the twist with abandon.”69 Although only a very small audience actually witnessed the event—­the first function was private and the second was quickly censored by the government—­news of the per­for­mance spread quickly and, as Mary Kay Vaughan writes, youth soon “flocked to his productions.”70 It was the start of what Jodorowsky baptized a Movimiento Pánico whose goal, as he articulated in a manifesto, was to inculcate “euphoria, humor, and terror.”71 Jodorowsky’s work quickly became another impor­tant ­factor in the incipient countercultural scene—­later denominated as La Onda—­taking form on university campuses and prepara­ torias (high schools), and whose points of reference ­were being articulated by a young generation of novelists, artists, and budding rock musicians. This scene, too, was part of the New Left, but in its search for new spiritual “truths” and a “new language” that might adequately capture the perspective of youth in a world of fresh aesthetic possibilities and ways of being young, the emergent counterculture was fundamentally at odds with the certainties of a Marxist interpretation of social real­ity.72 This countercultural stance introduced a third fissure within the New Left itself, one that transcended the orga­nizational relevance of the mln per se. It was a divide that became increasingly manifest in the form of two conflicting epistemological sensibilities, what I label vanguardist and cosmopolitan. In a fundamental sense, this conflict was over the role of 182   —   Chapter Six

individual expression in relationship to the cultivation of a revolutionary consciousness. For the vanguard intellectual, exemplified by Marcué Pardiñas, the individual (as writer, artist, musician) had an obligation, un deber, to subordinate creative expression to the collective proj­ect of emancipation. To “commit oneself” (comprometerse) was a reflection of one’s “true” revolutionary consciousness and the basis for becoming “New Men” (and ­women). The sensibility of the vanguard intellectual, therefore, was characterized by a devout seriousness and reverence for the socialist cause. As Jean Franco poignantly expressed, “Building a new society required discipline, not irony; hard work, not a freewheeling bohemian style.”73 This need to purify oneself of bourgeois (i.e., cap­i­tal­ist) values and, by extension, to restore the nation through a cleansing of the body politic was embedded within the discourse of “national liberation”—­a key sentiment that formed the semantic basis of the mln itself. During the early 1960s, this vanguard sensibility continued to harden as it fused with and was ­shaped by anticolonialist writings, such as ­those by Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara, and the Cultural Revolution in China, among other ideological currents. By contrast, the cosmopolitan intellectual was one who defended the freedom of individual expression above all e ­ lse, while still retaining an under­lying belief in the moral princi­ple of revolutionary social justice. Although Carlos Fuentes was hardly a member of the countercultural scene (though he was close friends with several influential actors), his defense of the writer’s right to be f­ ree of ideological control—to retain “some room for heresy,” as he ­later characterized his position—­aptly reflected the cosmopolitan sensibility I am describing.74 Yet while cosmopolitanism could be as radical as vanguardism in taking aim at bourgeois values, it also laid bare the hy­poc­risy and authoritarianism ­behind “nationalist purity” as well. Thus whereas vanguardism was premised on a reverential re­spect for “the nation” and “national culture,” cosmopolitanism was characterized by irreverence and the shock effect of new aesthetic choices in ­music, fashion, and language.75 Two individuals deeply emblematic of this cosmopolitan New Left sensibility in Mexico ­were the young writers José Agustín and Carlos Monsiváis, both of whom would soon become key figures of the literary countercultural scene. In 1961, in an act of youthful rebellion against his parents, José Agustín married his would-be girlfriend (Margarita Dalton) so that the two could legally travel to Cuba (they ­were both underage). Agustín joined the national literacy campaign then underway and connected with the new, state-­sponsored Casa de las Américas, an institution that would come to play a central role in defining the meaning of revoluNew Left Splits   —   183

tionary culture and intellectual commitment (compromiso) in the 1960s. He formed a theater group and traveled across the island, teaching, lecturing, and becoming enamored with the idea of the Cuban Revolution. Years ­later, Agustín recalled “an attraction to Fidel that was almost mystical.”76 Yet he also became an unabashed fan of foreign rock ­music and through his writings and other artistic ventures, he helped legitimize the development of Mexico’s own, native rock movement (which many intellectuals on the left decried as “cultural imperialism”).77 Carlos Monsiváis had taken part in the Left’s po­liti­cal strug­gles during the 1950s and was a familiar, if somewhat eccentric, writer known by the reading publics of Política and Siempre! In his formative years, he had handed out fliers for the World Peace Council and marched in defense of po­liti­cal prisoners.78 He l­ater described Rubén Jaramillo (the campesino leader assassinated in the spring of 1962) as “the definition of a hero.”79 But like José Agustín, his cultural and po­liti­cal influences also included the Beatniks and the “rise of a North American new left.” In that (other) New Left sensibility, he had come to understand the radical potential for a complete transformation of social relations and, given his veiled homo­ sexuality, of sexual relations as well. By late 1962 Monsiváis began to openly question the cultural foundations of a “nationalist Left,” or what he mockingly derided as a ­future “Aztec paradise.” The monumental task for the Left, he argued, was to “unravel ourselves from a nationalism that is dead weight.” It was necessary to invigorate not only the culture of the Left but national culture more generally. This could only be accomplished via an engagement with rather than a distancing from foreign ideas and aesthetic influences, especially ­those emanating from the cap­i­tal­ist West. Monsiváis’s iconoclasm built upon a stance articulated by the artist José Luis Cuevas, who a few years ­earlier provocatively wrote that Mexico lived culturally sheltered b ­ ehind a cortina de nopal. Cuevas’s irreverent phrase—­ “Cactus Curtain”—­was clearly meant to mimic that of the “Iron Curtain,” and he accused the Left (and Mexican nationalists in general) of having become enraptured by a tautological cele­bration of cultural values that amounted to collective navel gazing. (“¡Como México, no hay dos!” was a familiar, well-­worn aphorism that reaffirmed the idiosyncratic singularity of Mexican cultural identity.) Monsiváis, in his own implicit swipe at the vanguardist assertion that only “committed” intellectuals ­were truly revolutionary, asserted that the only task he “wish[ed] to commit myself to” was the destruction of a culture based on “pamphlets and fliers” and the “perennial, puerile denunciation of Wall Street.” In its place, he argued, it was necessary to formulate a new, more creative left-­wing culture, one 184   —   Chapter Six

that was grounded in a structuralist critique of economic and p ­ o­liti­cal inequalities but that was, at the same time, culturally eclectic and, above all, irreverent. “The most urgent task facing Mexican intellectuals t­ hese years,” he urged, was to “create and fortify in our country a critical perspective and a sense of humor.”80 It was a brazen epistemological salvo against the Mexican (vanguardist) New Left but one with globally relevance as well.81 The notion that the Left should be capable of poking fun at itself was a philosophy particularly championed by the young, influential caricaturist Eduardo del Río, better known by his penname, “Rius.” Rius had joined Mexico’s Communist Party (pcm ) in 1961 and, like ­others of his generation, was an enthusiastic champion of the Cuban Revolution. By the mid-1960s, Rius had become a ­house­hold name not only through his lyrical yet biting po­liti­cal cartoons in Siempre! and Política but also his longer-­form po­liti­ cal caricature. In 1964 he began a biweekly historieta (comic book), Los Supermachos, which presented a hilarious, po­liti­cally inflected critique of Mexican society set in a fictionalized rural village. It was the first effort, perhaps anywhere in the Amer­i­cas, to appropriate a form of mass popu­lar culture (the comic book) that other­wise epitomized for many on the Left the pernicious values of “cultural imperialism.” As he l­ater reflected with typical sarcasm, “I did it without asking permission of the party [pcm ] nor our esteemed f­ather [al padrecito] Stalin.”82 In 1966 he created the most consequential pro-­ Cuban book since C. Wright Mills’s account, Listen Yankee! (1960), titled Cuba para principiantes (Cuba for Beginners). It was a didactic, nonfictionalized graphic comic that presented the historical roots of the Cuban Revolution—­but with a healthy dose of textual irreverence. Tellingly, despite worldwide circulation, the book was never distributed in Cuba. In fact, from early on, Rius had already noted “­there was not the slightest possibility of creating humor” on the island; by the late 1960s he had grown disillusioned with Fidel Castro.83 Despite remaining an ardent leftist, his penmanship nevertheless left no aspect of social, po­liti­cal, ideological, or cultural mores sacrosanct. In their iconoclasm, figures such as Jodorowsky, Agustín, Monsiváis, Cuevas, Rius, and o ­ thers all embodied a cosmopolitan sensibility within the New Left. Even the journalist Elena Poniatowska, whose interviews and biographical essays on renowned cultural and po­liti­cal figures fell across the Mexican landscape (and beyond), arguably fits into this general analy­ sis. As a ­woman, Poniatowska had to fight harder than her male colleagues to be heard, much less taken seriously. Yet she learned to use the expectation of feminine docility and elite class background to her advantage. By New Left Splits   —   185

the mid-1960s, Poniatowska had gained an ac­cep­tance and re­spect among her younger, almost entirely male, rebel cohort as she broke down journalist bound­aries and explored new (as well as more familiar) subjects from a fresh perspective.84 On the one hand, this cosmopolitan sensibility thus allowed room for the cele­bration of a revolutionary rebirth projected by Cuba and a sharp critique of the corrupt authoritarianism of the pri . But on the other hand, it was a heterodox sensibility s­ haped by an engagement with transnational aesthetic and consumptive practices linked to new ­expressions found in cinema, lit­er­a­ture, ­music, and fashion.85 In style and practice, it was the antithesis of revolutionary discipline and reverence. Although this deeper epistemological fissure was perhaps less obviously manifest at this stage, it nevertheless contributed to the escalating internal fragmentation of the mln , just as the urgency to influence the choice of presidential successor drew nearer. Lázaro Cárdenas and Presidential Futurism The definitive figure b ­ ehind the scene of this evolving “drama of the left” was Lázaro Cárdenas. Cárdenas had brought the mln together, and the ­future of the movement, its ability not only to cohere po­liti­cally but to have a meaningful impact on the se­lection of the successor to López Mateos, was still largely dependent on his po­liti­cal standing in relationship to the administration. In August 1962, President López Mateos made a surprising move that many observers interpreted as signaling a pos­si­ble inclination ­toward the cardenista line. He invited Cárdenas to inaugurate a massive hydroelectric proj­ect at Cupatitzio (in Cárdenas’s home state of Michoacán) but notably had not included ex-­president Miguel Alemán, unofficial leader of the Frente Cívico, the conservative movement that had formed in direct response to the mln . The US Embassy interpreted the move as an “affront” to Alemán and one that would “lend renewed prestige to Cárdenas.”86 Writing in Siempre!, Carlos Fuentes celebrated the symbolism of the act by noting that it meant an “apparent rejection of alemanismo” in the presidential succession.87 Víctor Flores Olea in Política likewise called it a “transcendent gesture,” one that, given the pre­sent environment of electoral “futurism” (i.e., speculation as to potential presidential candidates), was unlikely to have been “improvised” but rather “carefully calibrated.”88 The act was no doubt calculated as a signal to the Left that, in the wake of the visit by President Kennedy, the cardenista position had not been sacrificed by López Mateos in some “deal” with the United States (as some accused). Moreover, their joint appearance occurred in the con186   —   Chapter Six

text of preparations for the president’s first overseas trip to Asia, where he was scheduled to visit two of the major countries involved with the Non-­ Aligned Movement (Indonesia and India) as well as Japan (see chapter 7). The agenda for the president’s travels abroad incorporated key components of the mln ’s program: economic diversification, support for nonalignment, and the promotion of “world peace.” By signaling to the Left that he was favoring Cárdenas, López Mateos hoped to mobilize the Left in support of that agenda and therefore neutralize the possibility of dissent at home. Indeed, López Mateos counted on Cárdenas to contain the impact of the mln on domestic politics; a po­ liti­cally weakened Cárdenas was of l­ittle use. Therefore signals such as that sent by Cupatitzio ­were designed to show that Cárdenas still held sway within the administration (and thus, over the possibility of a successor), all of which enhanced his ability to influence the internal dynamics of the mln . The most impor­tant aspect of ­those dynamics concerned the debate over transforming the mln into an outright po­liti­cal party. In a notable revelation, according to a conversation picked up by Mexican intelligence during a meeting of the pcm , Cárdenas had promised López Mateos to keep the mln from causing “any prob­lem” in the upcoming elections.89 While it is pos­si­ble that Communist Party members ­were simply lamenting Cárdenas’s evident collaboration with the regime, the accusation was shortly confirmed. In January 1963, the mln created a new “prob­lem” for the administration: the launch of the Central Campesina Independiente (cci , In­de­pen­ dent Campesino Center), a national peasant organ­ization that would potentially undercut the government’s own Confederación Nacional Campesino (cnc , National Campesino Confederation). Analy­sis at the time and subsequently has emphasized the threat posed to the po­liti­cal system by the cci and, moreover, the explicit support given by Cárdenas to the new peasant organ­ization. Indeed, Cárdenas addressed the founding conference of the cci to raucous applause and, in that manner, publicly identified himself with this mln initiative.90 Yet British reports indicate that López Mateos was well aware of the proposal to create the cci and, initially at least, regarded it as a potentially useful option that would not necessarily undermine the ruling party’s control over the peasantry, so long as Cárdenas was able to assert his influence over the tone and direction that the cci was to take. According to t­hese reports, Cárdenas “alleged to have guaranteed” that the cci “would not attack the President himself or the Government” and that it would “limit itself to acting as a ginger group”—­that is, a form of loyal opposition—to the left of the cnc . In fact, the Mexican po­liti­cal landscape was replete with such “ginger groups”; their existence provided New Left Splits   —   187

the necessary veneer of a demo­cratic po­liti­cal system. The British noted that this was a common “technique for establishing a hold over a left-­wing group” in Mexico and that the president had agreed to support the cci . In fact, the government reportedly was prepared to provide a “regular subsidy” to a key po­liti­cal leader of the new peasant organ­ization, Braulio Maldonado, “­under ­these conditions,” that is, of having Cárdenas act as a check on the cci ’s ­future direction. Maldonado was a renegade member of the pri , a former governor of Baja California who had lent considerable support, morally and po­liti­cally, to rural activists in northwestern Mexico. Despite his po­liti­cal ambitions, as a member of the ruling party most observers assumed he was nominally ­under party control. Maldonado, however, was pushed aside almost immediately by more radical leaders tied to the pcm . ­These figures quickly succeeded in capturing the direction of the cci , leaving both Cárdenas and Maldonado with ­little direct influence over the organ­ization. President López Mateos reportedly felt “double crossed” by Cárdenas b ­ ecause of what happened within the cci and encouraged the press to unleash a barrage of criticism against him.91 Still, Cárdenas continued to serve the strategic interests of López Mateos. Perhaps the main way he did so was as a po­liti­cal lightning rod that drew the ire of public attacks against the cci and the mln . A cover illustration by the conservative cartoonist Rafael Freyre for Jueves de Excélsior reflected this renewed level of public invective hurled at Cárdenas and clearly sanctioned by López Mateos. In one notable image (see figure 6.2) we see a total transfiguration of Cárdenas: he has become literally a foreigner, unrecognizable even to ­those who should know him best (the campesinos): “Este no es Tata Lázaro, me lo han cambiado” (That’s not “Tata” [­brother] Lázaro, they have changed him). Brainwashed by his embrace of foreign ideologies—­signified by the Cuban cigar and hammer and sickle—­ Cárdenas is depicted as no longer in control of his own body; he walks as if in a stupor. Meanwhile, his scruffy beard and evident paunch point to a complete undermining of re­spect for him as a heroic much less monumental figure. Indeed, as the British noted, the “vio­lence of the attacks” against Cárdenas was almost unpre­ce­dented and dealt him a “further loss of prestige and influence.”92 Even figures with long-­standing revolutionary credentials such as Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, onetime intellectual liaison to the Zapatistas during the Mexican Revolution, lambasted Cárdenas for his support of the cci as an example of “native [criollo] communism, subsidized by Soviet totalitarianism.” This support was “absolutely incompatible with the obligations bestowed upon [Cárdenas] as a collaborator of the government.”93 Yet Cárdenas’s transformation in the hands of Freyre 188   —   Chapter Six

Figure 6.2 Rafael Freyre’s conservative critique of Lázaro Cárdenas following the latter’s endorsement of the new, left-­wing peasant movement, Central Campesina Independiente (cci ), an organ­ization directly linked to the mln and ele­ ments of the Communist Party. Unshaven, paunchy, and “Castro-­like” (note the Soviet embossed cigars in his pocket), Cárdenas is depicted as if in a trance. Source: Jueves de Excélsior, May 2, 1963.

reflected a deeper truth: the ideological currents once subordinated to his moral authority within the mln now threatened to subsume him. Although Freyre depicted him as “brainwashed,” Cárdenas was in fact increasingly marginal to the direction and orga­nizational coherence of the mln as its po­liti­cal, ideological, and epistemological fissures had become steadfastly vis­ib ­ le. By the spring of 1963, the Left had irrevocably split, with hardliner vanguardists now openly proposing insurrectionary vio­lence as a means to achieve socialism. Not only was Cárdenas losing guidance over the mln but Lombardo Toledano was also losing influence over the pps .94 Writing in Política, Jorge Carrión, one of the mln ’s founding members and himself a dissident member of the pps , criticized the Left for its “masochism” in the face of repeated examples of government repression. It was no longer useful to maintain a “patient fatalism,” he wrote. It was time for the Left to New Left Splits   —   189

“define its nature” and clarify its goal: “the conquest of power, the sooner the better and by what­ever methods work so long as the objective and subjective conditions allow.”95 In a further reflection of Cárdenas’s diminished sway, in April 1963 vari­ous figures associated with the mln announced the creation of a new po­liti­cal party, the Frente Electoral del Pueblo (fep , ­People’s Electoral Front), whose aim was to participate in the 1964 presidential elections. Although the leadership of the mln sought to clarify that the fep was not an official appendage of the mln (since the formation of a po­liti­cal party ­violated mln precepts), in the public eye and to many on the Left as well, the affiliation was hard to dispute.96 When the government denied the fep official registration, based on the claim that it fell short of generating the required number of signatures, the ruling closed off a pos­ si­ble route for demo­cratic participation and provided further argument for the recourse to vio­lence.97 “Revealing” the Successor to López Mateos In April 1963, the US Embassy identified nine likely candidates as potential successors to López Mateos. Significantly, three of the nine ­were regarded as cardenistas and one in par­tic­u­lar, Alejandro Carrillo, was viewed, by the embassy at least, as a strong possibility. Carrillo had been the ambassador to the United Arab Republic (1959–61) and played an impor­tant role encouraging an alignment with post-­Bandung internationalist forces. He was considered by the US Embassy a “close friend and advisor” to the president and a “loyal follower” of Cárdenas (he had accompanied the latter on his Eu­ro­pean tour in 1958–59).98 The embassy clearly believed that the se­lection of the next candidate marked a crucial turning point for Mexico. Mexicans, according to one analy­sis, had grown weary of the polarization between alemanismo and cardenismo, a conflict that suggested López Mateos was leading through “indecisiveness” by “playing both ends against the m ­ iddle.”99 By the summer, however, the tide had clearly turned away from the pro-­ cardenista forces. Carrillo’s chances, according to US reports, had “faded the fastest.” The presumption now was that a conservative would be chosen, ­either Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (minister of the interior and the figure directly responsible for domestic surveillance and repression) or Mexico’s finance minister, Antonio Ortiz Mena (the figure most associated with keeping the economy on a steady course).100 Only one candidate, according to the embassy, Alfredo del Mazo, remained in the r­ unning “as an outside possibility for the leftist-­Cárdenas camp.”101 In a final effort to threaten López Mateos with the wrath of the collective Left, Marcué Pardiñas pre190   —   Chapter Six

emptively declared—­using a bold cover of Política with a photo of Díaz Ordaz awash in red—­“¡No será presidente!” (He ­will not become president!). The choice of López Mateos’s anti-­communist minister of the interior would lead, Marcué Pardiñas editorialized, to “civil war.” It was urgent for the Left to proj­ect a unified front, to declare an “open veto” that López Mateos would have to recognize.102 But the threat was hollow. ­There was no unified Left and López Mateos, as well as Díaz Ordaz, ­were determined to demonstrate the regime’s resolve. A few days l­ater, Mexico City police violently suppressed a gathering of one to two hundred members of the cci , pcm , pps , and mln who had gathered to protest, once again, in support of Mexico’s po­liti­cal prisoners. It was not the first time the police had acted with impunity—­a similar attempt at a meeting the week before had also been violently dispersed—­but the vehemence of the repression and subsequent analy­sis by the secret police indicated a definitive shift in thought and action by the regime. For one, the repression produced a direct conflict with Marcué Pardiñas, who, as editor of Política, was perhaps the most publicly identified figure ­after Cárdenas himself with the mln . Marcué Pardiñas considered himself a friend of the president, and despite the fact that Política had faced pressures from the regime at dif­fer­ent moments, most notably through a restriction on access to paper, the weekly magazine had continued to publish nearly uninterrupted for more than two years. Moreover, despite the fact that Política regarded itself as an opposition press, not u ­ ntil the publication of its cover opposing the potential nomination of Díaz Ordaz did the magazine definitively cross a line of understood journalistic norms.103 On the day of the protests, Marcué Pardiñas, along with several other intellectuals publicly identified with the radical wing of the mln (including Jorge Carrión, Jorge Tamayo, and Víctor Rico Galán), ­were arrested by the police. Following his release from jail, Marcué Pardiñas lashed out directly at López Mateos, using language that was considered so harsh that the Dirección de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (dips , Department of Po­liti­cal and Social Investigations), a branch of Mexico’s secret police, and the US Embassy both quoted him verbatim in their reports.104 Second, as another dips report highlighted, the Left was so utterly divided by “deepening ideological debates as a result of the fight between Rus­sia and China” that an anticipated backlash to the police action never materialized.105 Hence, a memorandum prepared for Díaz Ordaz two weeks ­later noted reassuringly that public reaction “has barely taken on any momentum, much less one that was anticipated.” Comparing events to “similar previous occasions” when massive demonstrations ­were hastily mobilized New Left Splits   —   191

in response to government actions, this time the Left had “not been able to encounter the same propitious climate that existed in years past.” Indeed, one dips report even suggested that repressive force constituted “an unnecessary excess” given the generalized fragmentation of the Left and the fact that ­there was no true threat to public order (“lo del principio de autoridad”).106 Third and relatedly, internal analyses ridiculed the influence of Marcué Pardiñas and other “extremist” intellectuals who continued to write for Política. The only t­ hing they ­were able to offer was “the hope of a Cuban-­ style revolution.”107 The magazine, another dips report noted astutely, “was falling into an empty hole.” The power of the social forces associated with the mln “had been practically neutralized with re­spect to their po­ liti­cal influence.”108 That point, placed in a memorandum prepared by the president’s office specifically for Díaz Ordaz’s eyes, neatly encapsulated the failure of the Left to establish a common front within the mln . President López Mateos continued to cultivate support among the left-­wing intelligent­sia, but notably he had already turned his attention (and subsidies) ­toward more cosmopolitan proj­ects. A shining example of this was the president’s intervention to rescue a well-­regarded weekly supplement, México en la Cultura, published for years by the newspaper Novedades and abruptly terminated in late 1961. The supplement had been edited by Fernando Benítez, a renowned intellectual whose leftist leanings had put him into direct conflict with the newspaper’s conservative publisher. Ejected by Novedades, Benítez quickly found a new publishing home with Siempre! and the supplement was rebaptized La Cultura en México. Critical to its early survival was a direct financial subsidy provided by López Mateos, who, according to US Embassy reports, considered himself “a close personal friend” of Benítez and expressed “deep regret” that the supplement was terminated by Nove­ dades.109 Benítez, in turn, was effusive in his praise of López Mateos.110 The reconstitution of La Cultura en México thus provided a key nexus of support between the president and the cosmopolitan left-­wing intelligent­sia, even as repression against ele­ments of the vanguardist Left accelerated. Less than two weeks a ­ fter the arrest of Marcué Pardiñas and o ­ thers from the editorial board of Política, approximately one thousand delegates from across the country descended on Mexico City to convene the first national conference of the mln , almost exactly two years since the movement’s founding. ­There was l­ittle to celebrate, however, and it was clear to all that the congress represented a crossroads if not an end point for the movement itself. Addressing the gathering, Lázaro Cárdenas “deplored 192   —   Chapter Six

the dissensions existing in the Mexican left” and sought to reaffirm the position that the mln should not formally enter the po­liti­cal arena.111 Two factions had emerged within the conference, one that sought to hitch the mln to what the US Embassy described as the “faltering bandwagon” of the fep (whose electoral status was still officially pending) and another that sought to align the mln in support of pps candidates (the party of Lombardo Toledano). In the end, what was left of Cárdenas’s influence prevailed; both options ­were rejected, and the mln confirmed a position established the previous spring that it would not put forward any candidates nor give official support to any par­tic­u­lar party or candidate.112 But the divisions clearly revealed the limitations of the mln as a unified front. Not only had the organ­ization failed to cohere po­liti­cally but the strategic disagreement over its very purpose—­whether it should transform itself into a po­liti­cal party or remain an organ­izing rubric for the vari­ous factions on the left—­remained in dispute. Although Cárdenas still retained a high moral stature, his inability to bridge the divide between po­liti­cal factions, which had been the hallmark of his Popu­lar Front approach since reappearing on the po­liti­cal scene in 1959, pointed to a new real­ity. The vision of a unified Left, one which represented Mexico’s peasantry and working classes and advocated for a progressive internationalism in Mexican foreign policy had, for all intents and purposes, collapsed. The final nail in the coffin would come shortly afterward. On November 4, 1963, Mexico’s minister of the interior, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, was officially “revealed” as López Mateos’s pick to succeed him in the 1964 presidential elections. Given the pri’s mono­poly on power, no one doubted the likelihood that he would become the next president. As a British report summarized, the Left “had never been thus ignored.” It was “left gasping and frustrated, and shown up for the divided and in­effec­tive rabble that it is.”113 A cover illustration for Siempre! by Jorge Carreño shortly ­after the announcement encapsulated the significance of the se­ lection. Díaz Ordaz, dressed as Santa Claus, is shown solemnly delivering a wind-up toy granadero (riot policeman) armed with a tear-­gas ­rifle to a bruised and somewhat bewildered-­looking adolescent whose red-­and white-­striped T-­shirt identifies him as the “Izquierda Delirante” (Delirious Left). In his pocket hangs a slingshot, as if to further mock the futility of the “armed Left” as it pretended to do ­battle against a hardened state apparatus.114 At one level, the se­lection of Díaz Ordaz, as Carreñ­o’s caricature reflected, could clearly be interpreted as a rebuke to the increasing militarization of the Left. Yet if Mexico’s own internal police reports doubted the efficacy of the armed Left (an analy­sis largely seconded by US and British New Left Splits   —   193

reports), why then did López Mateos feel the need to choose someone so closely identified with public order and security? Moreover, if, as I have argued, the president continued to pursue an internationalist agenda despite the implosion of the mln , why would he choose a figure with ­little experience, knowledge, or interest in international affairs (other than bilateral relations) as his successor? Why not instead take the opportunity to nominate a cardenista candidate committed to the pursuit of a global pivot internationally? To be certain, concerns about ­future domestic stability ranked high. Just two weeks before the se­lection of Díaz Ordaz was announced, Mexicans learned that their country had been selected to host the 1968 Summer Olympic Games. Clearly a “law and order” candidate would serve this challenge well. Still, it is also impor­tant to keep in mind that, while the Left derided Díaz Ordaz as a rabid anti-­Communist, foreign observers identified him as a “moderate” who was expected to pursue policies initiated ­under López Mateos related to “social pro­gress and social justice.”115 Indeed, following his nomination, Ambassador Mann cautioned that it would be “premature to predict any basic changes in Mexican po­liti­cal, social or foreign policies” despite the general “euphoria” expressed, especially by business leaders and Americans in Mexico, that a “pro-­communist candidate was not selected.”116 But for the broad spectrum of left-­wing actors that spanned the range of vanguardist-­cosmopolitan politics, the choice of Díaz Ordaz established an unpardonable breach. As a letter to Política summed up, the se­lection clarified the “complete divorce” between the government and the nation’s progressive forces. President López Mateos had “tricked every­one” with his left-­wing postures, the writer lamented. The era of po­liti­cal collaboration was over.117 Although it took another eight months before Lázaro Cárdenas publicly endorsed Díaz Ordaz (on the eve of the elections), when he did so he urged what remained of the mln to employ a “prudent vote” (voto razonado) in ­favor of the ruling party’s candidate. His position became yet another note of betrayal and a further sign of his rapidly diminishing prestige.118 Conclusion Just ­after the presidential election in July 1964, Carlos Fuentes, accompanied by several other prominent left-­wing intellectuals, openly broke with Política in a statement that made manifest the fissure that distinguished the cosmopolitan from the vanguard Left. Writing in Siempre!, the intellec194   —   Chapter Six

tuals accused Política of having veered from its original premise of establishing itself as “an organ of expression for the diverse sectors of the left” in an “agglutinating spirit.” They accused Marcué Pardiñas of enabling “a sectarian, leftist terrorism,” one that subordinated objective analy­sis of domestic and international politics to the blind belief in a unified Communist movement from which any discrepancy was cause for claims of ­reactionary collaboration.119 The writers provided vari­ous examples, such as editorials attacking the Non-­Aligned Movement and accusations that the López Mateos administration had formed an “imperialist” alliance with the United States. In a blistering response published in Política, Marcué Pardiñas mocked Fuentes and the other signers for their lack of ideological purity. Notably, he faulted them for being partisans of New Left thinkers such as C. Wright Mills. Such thinkers ­were “eclectic” in their ideological position, whereas Política, he stated proudly, remained “faithful to the formula established by Marx.” In a significant revelation of how the geopo­liti­cal stance of “neutralism” had become politicized as well, Marcué Pardiñas defended the magazine’s criticisms of nonalignment. “Política does not accept, as do ­these five [intellectuals], the notion that becoming a part of the ‘Third World’ and ‘not aligning’ with any par­tic­u­lar ‘bloc’ is the optimal path t­ oward achieving the ‘eventual development of a socialist democracy.’ ” Only support for a working-­class vanguard would bring about true socialist victory.120 As Carlo Coccioli, an Italian journalist who frequently wrote for both Siempre! and Política during this period, noted, the publication of the letter by Fuentes and the ­others signaled “an enunciation of style—of po­liti­cal and moral style.”121 What Coccioli described at the time as a difference in “style” in fact signaled an epistemological divide between ­those who insisted on preserving the right to dissent and t­ hose who believed in the subordination of dissent to structural analy­sis. Política’s increasingly sectarian approach to politics failed to sustain the spirit of irreverence—­“some room for heresy,” in Fuentes’s fitting phrase—­that had characterized el espectador and which a younger generation of writers, such as José Agustín, Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, and o ­ thers now fully channeled. ­These “rebel writers” now migrated from Política to La Cultura en México, and by the mid-1960s Benítez’s supplement achieved a cultural influence that equaled the early po­liti­cal influence of Política in the heady days ­after the Cuban Revolution. La Cultura en México became the “Política” of the (other) New Left and, as Jorge Volpi writes, established itself as among the most impor­tant “bastions of f­ree intellectual and cultural expression of that generation.”122 New Left Splits   —   195

On September 23, 1965, a l­ittle over a year a ­ fter the presidential election of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, twenty so-­called fanáticos led an assault on a Mexican military barracks in Ciudad Madera in the northern state of Chihuahua. The attack replicated in key re­spects Castro’s own failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, Cuba, in 1953 and, like that event, this too was a colossal failure militarily. Nevertheless, in po­liti­cal terms the attack signaled the preparedness of sectors within the Left to put into action the rhe­toric of “revolutionary duty” that had circulated since Fidel Castro’s Second Declaration of Havana and which, following the election of Diáz Ordaz, was embraced with renewed urgency and rationale. The fact that the attack was carried out by individuals aligned with the pps suggested not only the inability of Lombardo Toledano to reign in his supporters but the ways in which the Soviet stance of peaceful coexistence and collaboration with the nationalist bourgeoisie (which the pps officially upheld) was increasingly difficult to sustain in light of revolutionary rhe­toric emboldened by the call to arms. As Alexander Aviña writes, the pps had become a “seedbed” for a vanguardist strand of New Left intellectuals and insurrectionists.123 Although the September 23 attempted uprising was thwarted by the military and violently suppressed, the perceived heroism of its actors would grow larger in the years to come. Indeed, the date became a foundational moment which the vanguardist Left, in its appeal to the moral duty to take up arms, held up as an example of obligation realized.124

196   —   Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Apex of Internationalism PURSUING A GLOBAL PIVOT

Introducing French president General Charles de Gaulle to the Mexican Congress in March 1964, representative Alfredo Ruiseco Avellaneda of the ruling party (pri ) proudly proclaimed that Mexico had become “an in­de­ pen­dent voice . . . ​a fighting voice [de combatiente], not simply a supporting one [de comparsa],” in the global “debate over peace.”1 It was not an idle boast. By the end of President López Mateos’s six-­year term in office, Mexico had established an international reputation not only as an active player but, moreover, as a coveted partner within a rapidly shifting geopo­liti­cal landscape. Mexican efforts to reshape regional and international juridical systems with re­spect to asylum, trade, and governance had constituted an integral component of the country’s postrevolutionary national identity since the early 1920s.2 But a ­ fter climaxing in the context of World War II and its immediate aftermath, ­those efforts ground to a halt with the onset of the Cold War.3 In the late 1950s, however, a new opening for Mexican aspirations presented itself as the neat bifurcation of global politics began to break down. By 1964, Mexican internationalism once more became an integral feature of the country’s reputation abroad and an impor­tant ­factor in national politics. This chapter explores the two-­year period between October  1962, when López Mateos set off for a nearly month-­long trip to parts of Asia,

and October 1964, when a high-­level Mexican observer del­e­ga­tion attended the second meeting of the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ) in Cairo. It was a period marked by episodes of dramatic po­liti­cal upheaval abroad, high-­ stakes geopo­liti­cal conflict and realignments, and an unpre­ce­dented effort by developing countries, spurred by nam , to reform the global cap­it­al­ist trading system. Writing about this moment, historian Robert Rakove describes a “diffusion of power” in which the United States found itself struggling to forge new alliances while holding together existing ones.4 Cold War alignments ­were shifting and the Global South was pushing against and being pulled by the centripetal forces of competing power centers. Yet if the period revealed the po­liti­cal relevancy of a newly constituted Third World, that proj­ect was also entering a crossroads. The unifying logic of a movement catalyzed in Indonesia in 1955 was fragmenting. Already by late 1963, ideological polarization, regional competition for leadership, and ramifications of the Sino-­Soviet split laid bare inner contradictions to the once unifying concept of the Spirit of Bandung. President López Mateos not only sought to take advantage of this diffusion of power; he actively engendered it. As US ambassador Thomas Mann worriedly described the situation in the spring of 1963, Mexico was pursuing a path that was “essentially neutralist in the East-­West strug­gle.” Mann fumed at a geopo­liti­cal stance motivated by what he described as “narrow, nationalistic, selfish Mexican interests.”5 A central paradox of Mexico’s newfound internationalism, however, was that it occurred in concert with a strengthening of diplomatic relations with the United States. In a fundamental sense, the two reinforced one another. This became clear, for instance, in the scramble by Mann to resolve two key border disputes and in the succession of bilateral, presidential summits.6 During the Cuban Missile Crisis and following the assassination of President Kennedy, López Mateos privately reiterated the message that “when the chips ­were ­really down, Mexico would be unequivocally” on the side of the United States.7 Yet outside of singular moments of international crisis, Mexico actively pursued a robust foreign policy, one that remained attentive to key strategic concerns of the United States yet nevertheless sought to foster a more fluid geopo­liti­cal order defined by multipolarity and the attenuation of US diplomatic, economic, and cultural influence. US Embassy officials periodically reassured their superiors that Mexico was too dependent on the United States to cause real trou­ble, and that any assertions of “in­de­pen­dence”—­a term always placed in quotation marks by US diplomats—­were largely for domestic consumption. But a gnawing, under­lying concern nevertheless could be sensed throughout the diplomatic correspondence in this period: 198   —   Chapter Seven

Mexican aims ­were not entirely legible, and the consequences of Mexican internationalism ­were potentially far-­reaching. A Mission of Peace On October 3, 1962, President López Mateos embarked on a twenty-­one-­ day, six-­nation trip to Asia. It was the first time a sitting Mexican president had ever traveled outside the hemi­sphere. Nearly seventy ­people accompanied him in what the US ambassador to Indonesia described as an “out-­ sized entourage,” one that included the president’s wife and d ­ aughter; se­nior government officials; leaders from the nation’s textile, steel, and banking sectors; and a massive press corps. The latter incorporated the editorial directors of seven major newspapers; vari­ous print, tele­vi­sion, and radio commentators; and two of the nation’s most renowned caricaturists. Collectively, this far-­ flung assemblage represented enormous po­ liti­ cal, economic, and cultural clout across Mexican society.8 A key objective of the trip was reflected in the vast numbers of economic advisors and heads of chambers of commerce who accompanied the president. Quotas imposed on Mexican commodity exports of lead, zinc, and cotton to the United States spurred an effort to pursue alternative markets in a part of the world that seemed on the cusp of industrial modernization. An official publication expressed the hope, for instance, that Indonesia would become “the most impor­tant country in Asia a ­ fter Japan with whom Mexico ­will maintain commercial relations.”9 Mexican textile exports to Indonesia had in fact more than doubled to 225 million pesos since the establishment of a commercial agreement in 1961, and expectations for ­future exports included vari­ous products from Mexico’s significant import substitution industrialization (isi ) sector, such as pumping equipment, automobile batteries, dies for printmaking, and cotton textiles.10 Exports to Japan—of which 91  ­percent ­were cotton—­had also nearly doubled since 1958, leading López Mateos to herald Japan’s “industrial surge” as “a stimulating example” for Mexico.11 But outside Japan, trade with the region was compromised by a lack of complementarity as well as challenges to transport. India, for instance, already had a strong textile industry and was seeking to build (with US funds) a steel foundry, thus enabling the country to produce many of the same light manufacturing goods and industrial inputs that Mexico might other­wise supply.12 In an acknowl­edgment of this real­ity, an official publication admitted that the trade relationship with India was characterized by “its reduced diversification.”13 Trade with the Philippines, which consisted largely of Mexican exports of cotton, cacao, Apex of Internationalism   —   199

India

Yugoslavia

Indonesia

USSR

Japan

$10,000,000,000 $1,000,000,000 $100,000,000

Pesos (MX)

$10,000,000 $1,000,000 $100,000 $10,000 $1,000

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

Figure 7.1 Mexican Foreign Trade. Source: Dirección General de Estadística, ­Anuario estadístico del comercio exterior de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos ­[1957–1967] (Mexico: Dirección General de Estadística), archived at Instituto ­Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, http://­www​.­inegi​.­org​.­mx​/­.

and lead, was l­ imited by “geo­graph­i­cal ­factors,” a common challenge more generally.14 ­These realities ­were reflected in a confidential follow-up report prepared by a group of Mexican businessmen and leaders of chambers of commerce who had accompanied the president. The trip, they concluded, had been “a severe disappointment.” Outside the expectation of improved trade with Japan, t­ here was “­little possibility of trade with the Philippines and India” while “serious difficulties” faced the expansion of commercial relations with Indonesia.15 If economic diversification was critical to the success of Mexico’s global pivot, neither trade with the Soviet Union nor access to Asian markets indicated much room for optimism (see figure 7.1). A second, equally ambitious objective inspiring the president’s tour of Asia was a public affirmation of Mexico’s identification with the central tenets of nam . It had been just over a year since the founding conference in Belgrade, and in that period nam had successfully established itself as an entity of consequence. While the Kennedy administration had chosen a path of engagement rather than open conflict with nam , the fear of existing US allies “slouching ­toward neutralism,” as Robert Rakove puts it, became an overarching concern, and nowhere more so than with regard to Latin Amer­i­ca.16 In 1961 US ambassador Thomas Mann had used financial pressure to dissuade Mexico from attending the Belgrade conference, and described outright affiliation with nam by Mexico or any other Latin 200   —   Chapter Seven

American country as a “red line” that, if crossed, should trigger a massive diplomatic retaliation (see chapter  5). Cognizant of the high po­liti­ cal (and economic) costs of crossing that line, López Mateos had stayed clear of the conference in Belgrade but not without evident reluctance to become more involved—­and an eagerness to see nam succeed. Indeed, for nations such as Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and ­others, all of which expressed support for nam in this period, “nonalignment” was rapidly evolving into a po­liti­cally attractive clique in defense of developing nations’ interests. From the US perspective, however, joining nam amounted to a violation of the strategic commitments contained in the Rio Treaty of 1947 and inscribed in the spirit and letter of the Charter of the Organ­ization of American States, an alliance premised on regional exclusivity and Pan-­American unity. Absent a collective Latin American effort to challenge the interpretation of ­those commitments, López Mateos embarked upon a strategy of diplomatic normalization. To be certain, López Mateos and other se­nior officials clearly viewed nam not in conflict with but rather complementary to—­and thus reinforcing of—­the princi­ples of sovereignty, solidarity, and social justice that formed the basis for Mexican nationalism and a Latin American interpretation of Pan-­Americanism. nam ’s success, in other words, would provide an additional safeguard for Latin American interests. The three issues central to nam ’s agenda—­amelioration of Cold War tensions through nuclear disarmament, defense of the po­liti­cal sovereignty of newly in­de­pen­dent nations, and reform of the global cap­i­tal­ist system—­were all central to President López Mateos’s own international positions. His trip to Asia, therefore, should be recognized as integral to a broader geopo­liti­cal strategy designed to support the success of nonalignment by identifying Mexico with nam positions while officially remaining apart from nam ’s institutional membership. At the same time, López Mateos sought to use Mexico’s newfound international clout to broaden the par­ameters of nam , to make it less of a bloc and more of a lobbying force, one that might incorporate “aligned” yet progressive, nonnuclear powers. To that end, he jockeyed for prestige with nam ’s leading figures and inserted Mexico’s own diplomatic voice on issues of Third World concern. By d ­ oing so, moreover, he hoped to use Mexico to moderate an increasingly divisive conversation unfolding within nam , one that was beginning to reveal signs of ideological division generated by the Sino-­Soviet split, with its accompanying rhe­toric of ­doing ­battle against “neo­co­lo­nial­ism” and “imperialism.” ­These new watchwords of the global sixties ­were competing with e ­ arlier terms such as peaceful coexistence, neutralism, and even Apex of Internationalism   —   201

nonalignment itself, all of which had once provided a certain ideological coherency to this trajectory born from Bandung. Thus, as the stakes of nonalignment intensified, so too did the po­liti­cal significance of the semantics associated with the movement. The heightened sensitivity to language was revealed during an impromptu interview conducted by US reporters in the Los Angeles airport when the president, en route to Asia, allegedly referred to Mexico’s foreign policy as one of “neutralism.” An extensive follow-up analy­sis by the US embassy found it “difficult to believe” and “almost impossible” that the president would have used the term neutral—­a frequent synonym for nonalignment—to describe Mexico’s foreign policy, given the “care with which he has distinguished” between neutral and in­de­pen­dent. Recognizing the repercussions of the slippage and its potential to upstage his larger objectives in Asia, López Mateos staged a midair press conference with the Mexican press corps to “set the rec­ord straight.”17 This was immediately followed up, shortly a ­ fter landing, in remarks during his opening address in New Delhi, in which he once more clarified Mexico’s position. “In the case of Mexico,” he stated, “the expression ‘in­de­pen­dent foreign policy’ does not signify e ­ ither ‘neutralism’ or the desire or aspiration to form or associate with a third bloc.”18 As he traveled throughout the region that had given rise to the very concepts of neutralism and nonalignment, López Mateos studiously avoided using ­these terms while nevertheless cloaking his own speeches in language other­wise integral to that of the nam agenda. In fact, the most repeated word used by López Mateos during his travels was not in­de­pen­dent but peace, and the trip itself was heralded by the Mexican press and in official publications as a “mission of peace.” Despite its anodyne quality, however, peace had become a malleable concept loaded with divergent po­liti­cal implications. For instance, when linked to the concept of coexistence, a phrase incorporated into the founding charters at Bandung (1955) and Belgrade (1961), peace denoted the aspiration of absolute re­spect for the po­liti­cal sovereignty of nations irrespective of ideological positions. At the same time, when invoked by the Soviet Union as peaceful coexistence, it referred to the right of nations to choose freely between adherence to the cap­it­ al­ist versus socialist blocs. The World Peace Council, a Soviet front movement with adherents throughout Latin Amer­i­ca, used the term to reference the danger of military confrontation and, especially, of nuclear conflagration. In that re­spect, peace was linked explic­itly not only to nuclear disarmament but as a way to define the United States and its nato allies as aggressor nations. Significantly, peace was also used within 202   —   Chapter Seven

to refer to the challenges of overcoming economic underdevelopment. In this sense, the word referenced the broader objective of achieving a more equitable re­distribution of global resources. For instance, during his travels López Mateos spoke of how Mexico and India are both “struggling to raise the economic and social levels of their countries; as such, they are working t­ oward achieving peace.”19 In his embrace of peace, López Mateos thus aimed to insinuate Mexico within the Non-­Aligned Movement through a key discursive trope while si­mul­ta­neously maintaining a formal, if not necessarily discrete, distance from institutional affiliation with the movement itself. Addressing the Indonesian Parliament in Jakarta, López Mateos held up Mexico as a coconspirator in the movement of anticolonial solidarity that was born in Bandung. “Do you not find evident similarities between the strug­gles of the Indonesian and Mexican p ­ eoples?” he asked ­after describing Mexico’s own strug­gles for po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence and economic sovereignty.20 An official compilation from the president’s Asia travels described in glowing terms an enormous public reception for the Mexican president. “Not even the Bandung Conference awakened such enthusiasm,” a local doctor was quoted as proclaiming.21 The US Embassy in Jakarta chose to downplay the visit, indicating that the speeches contained ­little more than “predictable platitudes [regarding] revolutionary backgrounds, common ideals, aspirations.” More significantly, according to the official, was what López Mateos “did not say”: ­there was no explicit endorsement of nam itself.22 Yet the flirtation was not inconsequential. López Mateos had used the visit to assert a distinctive Mexican claim on the movement, positioning Mexico as a “mature” anticolonial voice. In fact, this effort to bolster moderate influences within nam coincided with US interests. As Eric Gettig argues, by 1964—­with nam beginning to splinter and competing forces hoping to convene a second “Bandung” conference—­support for moderate Third World actors emerged as a central component of US strategy (see chapter 8).23 At the same time, however, the United States sought to contain the influence of nam by limiting its geopo­liti­cal reach. Although López Mateos had s­ topped short of open affiliation, his efforts to align Mexico ideologically with the ethos and goals of nonalignment helped forge a path for other nations in Latin Amer­i­ca to do the same. Indeed, as discussed below, bringing in more “moderate voices” from Latin Amer­ic ­a was precisely the intent of Tito, who, by 1963, also feared the ideological influence of the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions as a threat to nam ’s essentially reformist objectives. nam

Apex of Internationalism   —   203

The imperative of peace through nuclear disarmament was confirmed by President Kennedy’s public revelation on October 22 that Soviet offensive nuclear missiles had been introduced into Cuba. Kennedy’s announcement reached López Mateos in Manila, just as he was embarking on the final leg of his journey back to Mexico. Although it remains in dispute ­whether López Mateos or his minister of the interior, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (who had remained in Mexico), took the leading role in coordinating Mexico’s response to the crisis, by the time López Mateos arrived home Mexico had agreed to support an oas resolution condemning the presence of the missiles.24 In a sense, the timing could not have been better. A massive welcoming ceremony for the president centered on the theme of peace—­the new leitmotif of his internationalism—­had already been programmed. The precarious state of global affairs lent further credibility to his urgings for a peaceful resolution to the Cold War and for nuclear disarmament. In a speech to the massive, assembled crowd that had been conjured to welcome him back, López Mateos deployed the word peace no less than eleven times. He proclaimed, for instance, that Mexicans ­were not only “lovers of peace” (partidarios de la paz) but “on the side of peace” and in ­favor of “complete disarmament.”25 Significantly, according to the US Embassy, the speech had been altered only slightly to accommodate the recent turn of events in Cuba, with the hasty addition of a final reference to the “grave Ca­rib­bean crisis.” An enormous banner, likely printed in anticipation of his return and thus without taking into prior account the nuclear crisis then unfolding, officially celebrated the president’s leadership and his efforts to position Mexico in the global vanguard: “[We applaud you] Mr.  President . . . ​For being an outstanding representative of Mexico. For your maturity as an international statesman. For your defense of peace, democracy, and social justice.”26 Writing in Siempre!, Carlos Fuentes captured the raised expectations for many on the left who regarded the president’s trip as a bold assertion of Mexico into global debates over the direction of the Cold War and in support of the development demands of Third World nations. “For ­those of us who, over many years,” he wrote, “have insisted in the viability of breaking Mexico f­ ree of its traditional isolation in the face of the United States and re­orienting the country ­toward its natu­ral community of support, that of the underdeveloped nations, we can only applaud both the letter and the spirit of the president’s travels to the Orient.”27 The trip and the president’s rhetorical alignment with nam further raised expectations of a cardenista successor to López Mateos, a possibility underscored by the fact that Alejandro Carrillo, a prominent cardenista and ambassador to Egypt, had accompanied the president on his Asian tour.28 204   —   Chapter Seven

An impor­tant outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis was that it spurred direct action by Mexico on the issue of nuclear disarmament. Mexico was already a member of the so-­called Committee of 18, a group of nations meeting within the framework of the United Nations to “forge a constructive environment” in pursuit of an agreement to end nuclear testing.29 The crisis that fall had placed in stark relief the high stakes not only globally but for Mexico specifically, since by being adjacent to the United States the country would obviously suffer directly from the fallout of any nuclear conflict.30 ­Eager to assume a more active leadership position, in early 1963 Mexico initiated the formation of a regional association of five Latin American nations (Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Ec­ua­dor) to push for the creation of a “nuclear-­free zone” in Latin Amer­i­ca. Not insignificantly, each of ­these countries had also sought a more open identification with nam and faced pressure against d ­ oing so by the United States.31 Their idea built upon an initiative first circulated by Poland’s foreign minister, Adam Rapacki, to create a nuclear-­free zone in Eu­rope, a proposal endorsed by Mexican foreign minister Manuel Tello the previous spring during a state visit to Mexico by a Polish del­e­ga­tion. Although the Rapacki Plan failed to garner sufficient Eu­ro­pean support, it established a diplomatic rationale for a state visit by López Mateos to Poland in March 1963 (see below) and was the direct precursor for a Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of Latin Amer­i­ca. This initiative sought to commit e ­ very Latin American country to “not fabricate, receive, stock, or test nuclear arms or nuclear objects.”32 With Mexico taking the lead, the proposal quickly gained diplomatic momentum both regionally and at the United Nations. In fall 1963 a Declaration for the Denuclearization of Latin Amer­i­ca was submitted by eleven Latin American nations to the un General Assembly, where it was ­adopted unanimously.33 The proposed resolution came in the wake of a watershed moment. Two months ­earlier, the Soviet Union and the United States had signed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty barring testing in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space. Momentum seemed to be building for not only broader nuclear disarmament but a general relaxation of Cold War tensions. In his address to the un assembly on the day the resolution was introduced, Alfonso García Robles, Mexico’s subsecretary of foreign relations, evoked the moral authority of a nation that had faced the prospect of nuclear fallout firsthand and had now emerged as an energetic advocate for disarmament. “We wish that no part of Latin Amer­i­ca ever becomes a theater for nuclear arms testing, in any form whatsoever,” he declared.34 Mexico City was designated the seat for ongoing Apex of Internationalism   —   205

treaty negotiations, and while it would take another four years for the declaration to become fully implemented, from that point onward nuclear disarmament became an integral and credible component of Mexico’s foreign policy identity.35 “A Debutante on the International Stage” Just months ­later, in the spring of 1963, López Mateos embarked once again on a high-­profile travel itinerary, this time to Eu­rope. As Britain’s ambassador to Mexico Peter Garran wrote, the ambitious nature of the trip represented “debutante Mexico’s most determined attempt so far to come out into international society.”36 It was a curious choice of phrase, both for its feminizing of Mexican internationalism and for its implicit critique of Mexican diplomacy as showy and inexperienced. López Mateos had snubbed an invitation to include Britain in his travel plans—­ the queen was not available to provide a formal state reception—­and in part, one suspects, the wryness of the remark reflected this decision.37 But it also diverged directly with the Mexican media’s depictions of the president’s travels. For instance, a cover illustration by Jorge Carreño for Siempre!, timed to coincide with the president’s travels the previous fall, had depicted López Mateos as a virile and gallant conquistador (see figure 7.2).38 With fears of direct nuclear conflict still fresh on the world’s list of concerns, the theme of peace once more became an organ­izing rubric to the president’s travels. This was revealed from the moment of departure when, in a carefully choreographed pre­sen­ta­tion, López Mateos was handed a white dove set inside a cage painted in the national colors as he approached his plane on the tarmac. Reading from a script, a schoolgirl beseeched him to guard carefully this “symbol of peace” that had been delivered “with total affection by the Mexican p ­ eople.” “The p ­ eople are confident that you ­will fight ceaselessly for this universally expressed desire,” she read.39 The po­liti­cal symbolism was especially impor­tant, as the peace dove was widely associated with the Soviet-­backed World Peace Congress and had become a key emblem of the pro-­peace Left. The integration of the peace dove as a discursive trope of the president’s Eu­ro­pean tour in fact reflected the beginning of a concerted effort by López Mateos to appropriate from the Left this central po­liti­cal symbol and identify it more explic­itly with his own “mission of peace.” To be certain, the cause of nuclear disarmament was passionately invoked by the president throughout his travels. For instance, in a speech 206   —   Chapter Seven

Figure 7.2 President Adolfo López Mateos, dressed as a gallant conquistador, gazes with pride (and lasciviousness) at his “Asian conquests” (Indonesia, India, Japan, and the Philippines) following travels in the fall of 1962. The artist, Jorge Carreño, may have been poking fun at the president’s widely rumored sexual exploits. Source: Siempre!, October 31, 1962.

in Belgrade, Yugo­slavia, the president affirmed that Mexico “could not be neutral” when it came to the question of nuclear weapons: “Prohibition against nuclear arms and testing and a rationally planned disarmament are, in our judgment, requisites for the durable peace that ­every nation longs for.”40 But ­there was another definition of peace that López Mateos likewise invoked in the context of his travels: the right of nations to coexist without ideological prejudice or fear of retribution. In this way, López Mateos hoped to use the example of Mexican diplomacy to transcend Cold War divisions while si­mul­ta­neously expanding Mexico’s own international partnerships. In a reflective assessment, US ambassador Thomas Mann informed the State Department that López Mateos perceived that he had attained “sufficient stature” to act as an “honest broker between East and West.” Mann now feared the president would test the limits of in­de­pen­dence thereby compromising US influence not only with re­spect to Mexico but globally.41 Apex of Internationalism   —   207

For Mexican officialdom, this final diplomatic journey into the “most impor­ tant zone in the world” marked a definitive rupture from what one group of authors has described as a “notable isolationist tendency” that had defined Mexico’s relationship with re­spect to Eu­ro­pean affairs through the 1950s.42 As such, it represented the climax of an effort initiated three years ­earlier to effect a global pivot away from de­pen­dency on the United States. Whereas a central theme of the president’s travels to Asia had been the commonality of historical experience—­Mexican solidarity with the anticolonial strug­gle born at Bandung—­the emphasis during his travels to Eu­rope focused on the right among nations to choose without hindrance their diplomatic and trading partners. This position conformed to Mexico’s traditional re­spect for sovereignty, an argument enshrined in former president Benito Juárez’s famous maxim (“Peace is re­spect for the rights of ­others”) and which was the hallmark of the country’s “new internationalism.” The decision, for instance, to include Yugo­slavia and Poland on the president’s travel itinerary was understood by foreign diplomats as a clear signal of Mexican intent to roam freely across the Cold War divide. Still, as with Mexico’s decision to identify with yet not formally join nam (“we cannot remain neutral” was a line often invoked by López Mateos), this open assertion of in­de­pen­dence aimed to probe yet not to violate the unstated demarcation that located Mexico within the Western Hemispheric alliance. As a report from the British Embassy indicated, the inclusion of Yugo­slavia and Poland amounted to “a gesture of in­de­pen­ dence and impartiality” yet s­ topped short of openly provoking the United States. Including a trip to Moscow, the report noted, would clearly have crossed the line.43 This echoed an interpretation by Política, which critiqued the president’s “cautious se­lection” of Poland and Yugo­slavia while still praising t­ hese as “ideal socialist countries” from which the president could “launch an initial exploration” of the possibilities for trade with the Communist Bloc.44 As an editorial in Yugo­slavia’s leading (and similarly named) newspaper, Politika, put it, Mexico’s journey represented “a new, decisive step in the development of an in­de­pen­dent outlook in Mexican foreign relations.”45 In an extensive interview, López Mateos went on to describe Mexico and Yugo­slavia as “in­de­pen­dent countries,” both of which strug­gled “actively to achieve peace” and whose positions coincided on many “basic international prob­lems.”46 While López Mateos sought to carve out a space for Mexican leadership alongside yet not necessarily within nam , Yugo­slavian president Josip Broz Tito aimed to draw Mexico more closely into the movement. Indeed, Tito regarded López Mateos as a crucial linkage to broader Latin American par208   —   Chapter Seven

ticipation in nam and thus an essential f­ actor in the consolidation of nam as a dynamic geopo­liti­cal force. For instance, during López Mateos’s visit to Yugo­slavia Tito repeatedly referred to Mexico as a “collaborator” and openly flattered the Mexican president, referring to him at one point as a statesman whose actions in support of peace had led to Mexico’s “rising global prestige.”47 Writing from the British Embassy in Mexico City, Peter Garran pointed out an obvious connection that had worked to cement the close personal ties evidently developing between Mexico and Yugo­slavia: both existed in the shadow of empires and strug­gled to obtain a “degree of in­de­pen­dence.” As Garran summarized, López Mateos saw “much the same relations [of Tito] to Soviet Rus­sia as he feels himself to be in relation to the United States.”48 During a rousing speech in Belgrade, López Mateos staked out an activist, internationalist position for Mexico that aligned the country with the princi­ples of nam while stopping short of outright affiliation. He called for a “new order of international relations,” one that included the “liquidation” of colonialism and the “overcoming of a state of hunger and misery.” Not only must national sovereignty be utterly respected, he proclaimed, but greater diversity and equal access to global commerce must be created, with economic aid that is “real and without dismal conditions placed upon the economic development of weaker nations.” The moment called for Mexico’s “firm and positive attitude,” a position, he argued, that was “similar or very near” to that stated by Yugo­slavia.49 López Mateos sought to steer the forces of nonalignment and of the Third World proj­ect more broadly into the institutional channels of the United Nations, where juridical arguments could help contain the vitriol of anticolonialist rage. At the same time, Tito regarded Mexico as an essential actor—­a moderate force but also a gateway to greater Latin American participation—­needed to ground nam at this critical juncture in the movement’s brief history. It was a mutually beneficial dance yet one that raised the expectations of Mexican participation in ways that could not ultimately be met. A similar set of diplomatic circumstances was transpiring in relationship to the second Communist country chosen by López Mateos for inclusion in his Eu­ro­pean agenda, Poland. Mexico and Poland had grown closer from their yearlong collaboration within the nuclear disarmament Group of 18 and, as noted e ­ arlier, Mexico had ­adopted the Polish proposal for a nuclear-­free zone onto the Latin American context. The reputation of López Mateos as a peacemaker thus preceded his arrival and laid the groundwork for a welcoming cele­bration by tens of thousands of ­people, an outburst of support described by the Mexican press as “one of the Apex of Internationalism   —   209

most spontaneously enthusiastic” receptions accorded a Western visitor to Poland.50 In welcoming remarks, Polish president Aleksander Zawadski praised Mexico’s national heroes and the “similarity in their strug­gle and that of our own fighters for in­de­pen­dence.” While the theme of nuclear disarmament played an impor­ tant role in their discussions and public pronouncements, both sides sought to use the visit as an opportunity to shore up their respective interpretations of peaceful coexistence. President López Mateos was wary of endorsing the Polish use of this phrase—­ which served to gloss over Soviet interventionism—­but at the same time, he was ­eager to use the visit to align himself with the princi­ple of “coexistence,” namely the right of all states to establish diplomatic and trade relations without prejudice across ideological bound­aries. In similar fashion as his embracement of “nonalignment,” López Mateos sought to reinvigorate “peaceful coexistence” by decoupling it from Soviet politics while si­mul­ta­neously demonstrating how Mexican “in­de­pen­dence” incarnated the phrase’s loftiest goals. For Poland, however, the visit was an impor­tant opportunity to associate Mexican prestige with official Soviet policy at a moment when the Soviet brand was u ­ nder siege, as a result of not only the Cuban Missile Crisis but the widening ideological attacks led by the Chinese. Significantly, Mexico’s foreign minister, Manuel Tello, who had accompanied the president on his Eu­ro­pean trip, resisted inclusion of the phrase peaceful coexistence in the final communiqué, likely viewing it as an implicit endorsement of Soviet propaganda.51 Yet in another reflection of the diplomatic give-­and-­take that characterized how countries across the Cold War divide aimed to leverage the visit for their respective foreign policy ends, a version of the phrase was subsequently incorporated. Thus, the two presidents endorsed the view that countries “with dif­fer­ent po­liti­ cal systems should base relations on peaceful collaboration [una colabo­ ración pacífica].”52 ­These closely navigated diplomatic acts, furthermore, need to be put into a larger context of Mexican-­Soviet relations. At the very same moment López Mateos was skirting the westernmost periphery of the Soviet Bloc, a Mexican parliamentary del­e­ga­tion was en route to Moscow on a “peace mission” timed to coincide with May Day festivities. It was not the first time that a parliamentary group had visited. In fact, ­there had already been several such exchanges (see chapter 2). Yet this time, the visit had broader implications for Mexican foreign policy. In Moscow, the group presented a Congressional declaration in support of “world peace,” a reflection of the ramping up of official Mexican efforts to stake its own claim on this theme of traditional significance for the Left. Leaving Moscow, the group 210   —   Chapter Seven

split up as they visited vari­ous Eu­ro­pean capitals to disseminate the Mexican proclamation. While one part of the del­e­ga­tion visited nato allies, another traveled to Poland, Czecho­slo­va­kia, and Yugo­slavia, where they stressed “the profound similarity” of Mexico’s viewpoint with t­ hese Soviet Bloc countries. Their actions ­were timed to follow the high-­profile travels of López Mateos and underscored what the US Embassy in Mexico derisively characterized as the country’s ambitions to play “a star role in a rapprochement between East and West.”53 But as the embassy also recognized, taken as a ­whole such interactions formed part of a broader strategic effort to use soft power diplomacy to insinuate Mexico within a wider geopo­ liti­cal nexus of relations. As an analy­sis by Robert Adams in the embassy concluded, the logic of this outreach was part of a wider effort to “ ‘balance’ off [Mexico’s] relationship [with the United States] by asserting its ‘in­de­pen­dence’ in foreign affairs and by attempting to develop closer commercial and cultural relations with neutralist and Soviet Bloc nations.”54 By steering clear of actions that would have openly provoked a direct US response, for instance by joining nam or scheduling a presidential visit to Moscow, Mexico was able to diversify its relations and elevate its global stature as a Cold War interlocutor at relatively low cost. ­These ­were not simply actions designed to co-­opt Mexico’s domestic Left, although they helped channel support from the fragmenting ele­ments of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional at a delicate moment in the country’s po­liti­cal transition (see chapter 6). Rather, the actions reflected an astute melding of left-­wing discourse—­the appeal for “world peace”—­and internationalist aspirations in an effort to take advantage of a fluid geopo­liti­cal moment in which middle-­state powers such as Mexico perceived an opportunity to reshape the international order to their advantage. A key, parallel objective of López Mateos’s travels was to use Mexican po­liti­cal and economic clout to negotiate entry into Eu­ro­pean markets, as well as to attract new sources of credit and direct foreign investment. The formation in 1957 of a Eu­ro­pean Economic Community (eec ) threatened to give preference to commodity exports from former Eu­ro­pean colonies in Africa. This created the prospect that Mexican—­and Latin American goods more generally—­would be priced out of key Eu­ro­pean nations. “African countries have become serious rivals of Mexico in the export of primary goods to Eu­rope,” declared Héctor Barona, president of the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación (canacintra ), an industry group that supported state protection of local goods production, on the eve of the president’s trip. It was a clear example of how the fight for market access was creating new lines of division within the Third World. ­These diviApex of Internationalism   —   211

sions threatened not only to fracture the notion of “South-­South solidarity” but to undermine efforts by more moderate countries such as Mexico to steel against the more radical politics emanating, especially, from ele­ments affiliated with the Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization (aapso ), a movement premised on a racialized, geo­graph­i­cally based, anticolonialist solidarity. By the spring of 1963, aapso and nam had entered what the US State Department termed a “race” to see which group could successfully stage a second world meeting and thereby lay claim to leadership over the Third World proj­ect. The push for Latin American access to the common market of the eec thus became one aspect of a broader effort within nam to establish a more equitable cap­i­tal­ist playing field. This essentially reformist vision was contained within the g -77 proposal for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (unctad ) to be convened in Geneva the following year, an event that Mexican officials regarded as potentially transformative (see below). Latin American access to Western Eu­ro­pean markets became a continuous theme in López Mateos’s conversations with ministers and heads of state in France, the Netherlands, and West Germany, each of which ­were founding members of the eec . A mea­sure of his success came when France’s minister of foreign affairs, Maurice Couve de Murville, stated his agreement with the princi­ple that Western Eu­ro­pean countries needed to support the development needs of “the least favored nations” and to “dispel certain doubts” regarding the establishment of the eec . Specifically, it was impor­tant, he noted, to cultivate a more collaborative relationship with the newly formed Latin American f­ree trade zone (see chapter  3).55 Similar commitments of support ­were reached with Holland and West Germany. For instance, the German joint communiqué included language pledging support for “a liberal trade policy” and a commitment to allow Latin American access to the “economic expansion that ­will result from the Eu­ro­pean Common Market.”56 Leading bank officials in Mexico hailed López Mateos’s “direct dialogue” with Eu­ro­pean leaders, and held out hope that the president’s conversations—­and ­those of leading economic advisors who accompanied him—­would lead to the opening of new market access throughout Western Eu­rope.57 Thus Juan Sánchez-­Navarro, president of the Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (concamin , Industrial Chambers Confederation), one of the nation’s oldest employer associations, described the trip’s outcome as “the last act of a new Mexican trade policy that is ­going to have a major impact on our economic life.”58 In addition, the pursuit of new sources of direct foreign investment also raised expectations that an economic realignment away from the United 212   —   Chapter Seven

States was pos­si­ble. An agreement with Holland, for instance, led to the announcement that the Dutch would construct a shipyard in Mazatlán and deliver “one barge a year” for Mexico’s state oil com­pany, Pemex.59 The most potentially significant outcome of the trip, however, was the announcement of an agreement with France to provide a credit line of US$150 million. It was the largest figure yet extended to Mexico from a non-­US source. The loan reflected French president Charles de Gaulle’s own budding strategy to mobilize Mexican support for French positions in Eu­rope and internationally. As the British ambassador to France remarked, de Gaulle had his sights on Mexico as “bridge-­head for an expansion of French influence in Latin Amer­i­ca.”60 This objective was realized the following year when de Gaulle made a historic visit to the region, beginning with Mexico (see below). By then, France had broken the West’s diplomatic embargo of Communist China and was preparing to exit nato in dramatic fashion, all part of a broader strategic g ­ amble to create a “Third Way” that would reconfigure the Cold War battlefield in Eu­rope and position France, rather than Germany (and ­Great Britain), as the key decision maker on the continent. Thus, like Tito working on behalf of the Non-­Aligned Movement and Polish president Zawadski on behalf of the Soviet Bloc, de Gaulle, too, had his own geopo­liti­cal motivations to court López Mateos. “Bienvenido, Apóstol de la Paz” The welcoming reception for the president upon his return to Mexico was an enormous spectacle even more theatric than that which followed his trip to Asia. Stepping off the tarmac, he was greeted by a twenty-­one-­ cannon military salute and the cacophony of multiple mariachi bands. Railway cars outfitted with “an assemblage of beautiful young ladies dressed in railway uniforms,” staged to reproduce the visage of the heroic adelita—­the loyal camp follower of revolutionary lore—­lined the president’s route to the Zócalo, where upward of one million ­people waited to greet him. Church bells from the National Cathedral clamored in accompaniment to “musical melodies, songs, and cheers,” filling the central square. Gigantic, multicolored balloons festooned with the message “Bienvenido, Apóstol de la Paz” (Welcome, Missionary of Peace) competed with a torrent of confetti that “blocked out the sun.” On the far side of the Zócalo opposite the presidential palace, an enormous banner covered the entirety of the famed Monte de Piedad building. In a clear reference to the rapidly shifting winds of Cold War politics, the banner Apex of Internationalism   —   213

Figure 7.3 Government-­orchestrated welcome reception on April 8, 1963, for President Adolfo López Mateos upon his return from travels to vari­ous Eu­ro­ pean capitals. Note the two large banners in the background. The one on the left celebrates López Mateos for his “unshakable adherence to the ideology of Mexico, his inalterable serenity in the face of confusion and uncertainty . . . ​and for his internationalist interpretation of the Mexican Revolution.” Cut off from the left side of the photo is another banner that reads, “­Every day, more in­de­pen­dent.” The banner in the center shows the president releasing a white dove of peace, hailing him as the “champion of peace and of popu­lar education.” Source: “alm por jira a Europa y concentración Zócalo,” no. 17.836, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

congratulated the president for his “unshakable serenity in the face of confusion and uncertainty.” It further praised him for his “internationalist interpretation” of the Mexican Revolution, succinctly encapsulated by the words “Peace, democracy, social justice.” Significantly, for the first time, peace doves ­were directly incorporated into the visual repertoire of official propaganda. One prominent banner depicted an image of the president releasing a dove of peace above the heads of three ­children—­figuratively, the same dove that had been presented to him by the ­little schoolgirl upon his departure several weeks e ­ arlier. The banner read, “Champion of Peace and of Popu­lar Education” (see figure 7.3). 214   —   Chapter Seven

The imagery suggested not only a benevolent paternalistic relationship—­ the president as ­father figure—­but the appropriation of a central trope of left-­wing po­liti­cal discourse. At the end of his speech, scores of white doves, “symbols of peace,” as the papers noted, flew above the “thousands of heads” who filled the square. By openly identifying his administration with the peace dove, López Mateos was thus signaling to the Left that he endorsed key ele­ments of their peace agenda. But si­mul­ta­neously, through the act of appropriation, the meaning of the symbol was resemanticized as well. It now became closely identified with the progressive internationalism of the ruling party. As Enrique Semo, a member of the Communist Party at the time, ­later reflected, López Mateos “stole the principal flag of the Left” and in that way “won over many p ­ eople [on the Left].”61 The president’s travels imbued the regime with a renewed sense of internationalist pride and purpose. In an address to Congress following the president’s return, the ruling party’s leading legislative figure, Manuel Moreno Sánchez—­himself a presidential hopeful—­thundered that Mexico “is no longer provincial.” Mexico was now “a full-­fledged country seated at the global t­ able.” The nation had become a formidable actor not only in the Amer­i­cas but globally: “Nothing can take place in the Amer­i­cas without us; nothing can be planned in Africa without us; nothing can be thought of or planned in Eu­rope or in Asia without thinking about Mexico,” he pronounced.62 The notion that Mexico had acquired a newfound global stature and, with it, the confidence to defend its interests and t­hose of other developing nations resonated widely across Mexican society and reflected a fundamental shift in po­liti­cal culture. As the left-­wing critic Víctor Rico Galán wrote in Siempre!, the president’s travels amounted to “an in­de­pen­dence tour,” one that had created a “deep imprint on the nation’s conscience.”63 Paradoxically, however, Mexican internationalism was indebted to the strengthening of a strategic relationship with the United States. The solidity of the Good Neighbor, in other words, directly emboldened Mexico to stake out a more in­de­pen­dent foreign policy. The question for US diplomats was how truly in­de­pen­dent that policy would seek to be. Despite the fact that no major realignments had occurred, the wooing of Mexico by major figures within the Non-­Aligned Movement, the Soviet Union, and even by de Gaulle (nato ’s most rebellious member) now greatly worried US officials. The danger, as Robert Adams of the US Embassy in Mexico City wrote, was that Mexican “officialdom,” as he put it, would begin to “believe their own propaganda” and become consumed by the “heady stuff . . . ​[of] their self-­assumed role of mediator.” As a shift in Apex of Internationalism   —   215

po­liti­cal culture takes hold, he warned, the use of the term in­de­pen­dent could assume new meaning: Mexican public opinion might support a shift away from explicit allegiance to the Western bloc. Nevertheless, he sought to reassure his superiors by noting that any attempt to implement such a shift would necessarily be contained by certain, under­lying realities: “Mexico is, of course, an ‘aligned’ nation—it is aligned with the United States and other hemi­sphere nations in the Rio Treaty and in the Organ­ization of American States, and it is eco­nom­ically aligned with the United States through its heavy dependence on its trade with us, as well as on its tourist receipts, investments and loans from us.”64 Adams’s concerns echoed ­those of Robert Sayre in the Mexican Division of the Department of State, who wrote in a memorandum to Ambassador Mann that statements made by López Mateos in Yugo­slavia and Poland appeared to signal a “more definite ‘non-­aligned’ or ‘neutralist’ policy.” Sayre went so far as to suggest that the president’s remarks in Poland regarding the right of Mexico to ally with countries of “dif­fer­ent economic and po­liti­cal systems” was an “implied repudiation [of the] ‘incompatibility’ doctrine” Mexico had introduced at Punta del Este the previous year, a position that was successfully used to isolate Cuba.65 Not only had López Mateos lent credibility to the position of nonalignment, thereby opening the door wider for potential adherents from Latin Amer­i­ca and diluting the geopo­liti­cal distinctiveness of Pan-­ Americanism. Just as perilously, he had helped legitimize Communism as an equally valid po­liti­cal system while reaffirming the Soviet argument of peaceful coexistence. It was imperative, Sayre wrote, to “arrest [the] apparent shift in foreign policy ­toward full nonaligned status and in domestic policy ­towards the left.”66 The ensuing debate over how to contain Mexican internationalism once more revealed not only divisions within the State Department but the inherent risks involved in using heavy-­handed tactics that could backfire. The options available to the United States, in short, ­were contained by the same logic of the Good Neighbor that was enabling López Mateos to pursue a foreign policy of greater autonomy. In the “Spirit of Chamizal” Thomas Mann had been in his post exactly two years, and the tone and analy­sis of his reply to Sayre’s memorandum reflected his own continued frustrations at grasping the po­liti­cal logic of Mexican politics. His experience thus far confirmed to him that it was essential to tow a firm line in order to check Mexican ambitions. Mann began his response by noting that the “tourist and casual visitor” was aware only of “the color, the gaiety, the 216   —   Chapter Seven

traditional Mexican politeness and hospitality” and other positive aspects that had become the hallmarks of Mexico’s successful tourism industry. Of course, ­these same aspects ­were key visual and semantic components of the Good Neighbor framework that undergirded the strategic alliance between the two countries. For Mann, however, the very success of this discourse had created “a certain degree of complacency” among not only the general public but diplomats as well. Washington, he urged, needed to wake up to the real­ity of Mexican geopo­liti­cal ambitions and the potential for a dramatic shift to the left in the event of a cardenista successor to López Mateos. By lavishing “extravagant and indiscriminate praise” on Mexican officials and the country’s nationalist policies, the United States had abetted Mexico’s global aspirations at US expense. Washington, he argued, had inadvertently conveyed a message that it was acceptable for Mexicans to remain “spectators in the strug­gle for the survival of Western values.”67 Implicit in Mann’s critique (which echoed that of Sayre and ­others) was that Mexico had taken advantage of the diplomatic leeway embedded in the Good Neighbor premise of mutual re­spect. López Mateos, in short, appeared to be staking out an assertion of sovereignty that threatened to move beyond “in­de­pen­dence” to in­de­pen­dence. Mann’s imprint on a new policy response was evident in a secret twenty-­ one-­page “Proposed Plan of Action” formulated to address bilateral relations in the context of Mexico’s upcoming presidential elections. Of seven listed objectives, the first identified the se­lection of a pri candidate who was “less equivocal than López Mateos about Mexico’s commitment to the West in the Cold War.”68 But the Plan of Action also called for a quick resolution to two pressing bilateral issues: the Chamizal border dispute, whose resolution had been agreed to in princi­ple by President Kennedy during his visit a year ­earlier; and cleaning up salinity from the Colorado River, a vexing environmental and po­liti­cal prob­lem that loomed ever larger over the bilateral relationship. Indeed, if on the one hand Mann’s urgent focus on ­these two disputes reflected a concern that failure to resolve them might play into the hands of the Left in the lead-up to the se­lection of a presidential candidate, it also was indicative of a basic geopo­liti­cal real­ ity: Mexico had accumulated newfound bargaining power by engaging in nonaligned politics. The centrality of the Good Neighbor as the strategic nexus between the two nations was unquestioned. Yet it was a relationship that needed to be fortified and leveraged to US advantage. On July 18, 1963, a historic agreement to return the contested “Chamizal” to Mexico was announced to tremendous fanfare. The Chamizal was a disputed section of the border encompassing 630 acres, land that had Apex of Internationalism   —   217

originally belonged to Mexico but l­ater shifted onto the US side when the Rio Grande had changed course in 1867, less than twenty years a ­ fter the border was demarcated by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). In 1911 an ad hoc North American arbitration committee had awarded the strip to Mexico, but the United States refused to accept the ruling, thereby allowing what the British ambassador described as “an ‘eggshell’ of territory in the heart of downtown El Paso” to fester.69 Mann recognized the diplomatic importance of securing a Chamizal agreement and worked tirelessly, as one author has put it, to reach a settlement “palatable to his fellow Texans.”70 With the announcement of an accord, each side sought to leverage the resolution in support of their respective diplomatic objectives. For the United States, the agreement exemplified the Kennedy administration’s commitment to be a hemispheric Good Neighbor, with Mexico cast in the starring role. In Mexico, however, the resolution was heralded as confirmation of López Mateos’s internationalist orientation. Editorials praised the treaty as an example of the “triumph of law and reason” and a “contribution to world peace.”71 Thus, while the agreement reinforced the Good Neighbor, it also added po­liti­cal clout to López Mateos’s insistence that “friendly negotiations” could resolve international disputes.72 A dif­fer­ent yet more po­liti­cally vexing issue concerned salinity of the Colorado River. In the fall of 1961 farmers in Mexico’s northern Mexicali Valley discovered with alarm that high salinity content in the municipal ­water supply was to blame for withering crops and rapidly deteriorating soil conditions. Government technicians soon discovered that the culprit was a newly created canal in southern Arizona that was emptying ­water into the Gila River, the final tributary to the Colorado River before it crossed into Mexico. The canal was built to channel ­water from sixty-­ seven newly excavated wells across the Wellton-­Mohawk Valley that had been dug in an effort to drain the saline groundwater from the region’s soil. That ­water was now pouring directly into northern Mexico.73 “So suddenly, without any notice, without any warning, without even the State Department knowing anything about this,” recalled Mexico’s ambassador to the United States at the time, Antonio Carrillo Flores, “the salinity jumped from 800 parts per million to over 3,000 per million.”74 Mann uncharacteristically pointed out that “the facts in this issue” favored Mexico. If López Mateos ­were to bring his nation’s case to the World Court or another international venue, such as the oas or un , Mann noted, the outcome would not be favorable to the United States. Not only would the United States be attacked “on l­egal and moral grounds,” 218   —   Chapter Seven

but the suit would likely energize forces “normally friendly to us” in the context of the Mexican presidential elections. “It could in fact convince López Mateos that he should chose [sic] a successor who is antagonistic to the United States and who therefore ­will be sufficiently ‘tough’ with us to achieve a solution,” Mann wrote. If a positive outcome was not found quickly, he warned, “we are waist deep in a crisis situation.”75 As David Reid argues, the ruling party “un-­muzzled” the pro-­cardenista Central Campesina Independiente (cci ) and other left-­wing groups already protesting the salinity issue in an effort to further force Washington to the bargaining ­table. Within a few months, the State Department would indeed provide adequate assurances to López Mateos that the salinity prob­lem “would be resolved in its ­favor.”76 By late summer of 1963, three distinctive yet overlapping trends defined Mexico’s geopo­liti­cal horizons. First was López Mateos’s internationalist ambitions. We have seen how he used the diplomatic momentum of his extended global travels in a concerted effort to influence the direction of the Cold War, principally by encouraging a shift t­ oward multipolarity and in support of denuclearization. In turn, he leveraged this newfound prestige to seek out new markets for Mexican exports and sources of finance capital, in an effort to wean the country’s economic de­pen­ dency away from the United States. Second was the evolution of the Non-­ Aligned Movement, which was reaching its peak of influence. This was marked by nam ’s role as catalyst of the forthcoming unctad conference slated for the spring of 1964. Yet nam was also about to enter a crossroads marked by a crisis of self-­definition and leadership, attributed in large part to the ideological maelstrom brought on by the Sino-­Soviet split. Fi­nally, ­there was the trajectory of the Good Neighbor relationship itself, which López Mateos had skillfully used to proj­ect Mexico as an in­de­pen­ dent actor in this rapidly shifting global environment. State Department officials ­were divided over how to respond to Mexico’s assertions of in­ de­pen­dence, but t­here was a general, if tenuous, consensus that López Mateos seemed to be driven more by domestic po­liti­cal considerations—­ the need to appease the cardenista Left ­running up to the appointment of a presidential successor, and his own aspirations to receive the Nobel Peace Prize—­than a determination to truly realign Mexican geopolitics away from the US orbit.77 Nevertheless, the president’s words and deeds had propelled Mexico forward as a coveted actor in this complex geopo­ liti­cal matrix. As summer changed to fall, the wooing of Mexico intensified. Meanwhile, both the domestic and international environments grew increasingly complex. Apex of Internationalism   —   219

Tito’s Latin American Overtures That fall, Yugo­slavian president Josip Broz Tito initiated an intensive effort to incorporate Latin Amer­i­ca directly into the proj­ect of nonalignment and thereby stave off an impending crisis. An under­lying schism, pre­sent since nam ’s origins at Bandung, threatened to implode the proj­ect of Third Worldism from within. On one side of this divide was the argument in ­favor of coexistence, embodied by Tito and by India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, both of whom fought to sustain the princi­ple of nonalignment as a moral stance. This position looked to the United Nations to advance a diplomatic and economic agenda reflective of the growing force of Third World collective action. Tito and Nehru ­were especially ­eager to convene a second meeting of nam at this critical juncture in order to consolidate the evident success of coexistence—­reflected in the recent Test Ban Treaty, most notably—­and lead the push for reform of the global trading system. On the other side was the argument in f­avor of a militant solidarity, propelled by the intensification of an ideological critique of coexistence by China. ­These forces had channeled their energies through aapso , whose base was in Cairo—­ a situation that placed Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser somewhere in the ­middle of this divide. Despite dual membership in nam , Sukarno and certain other postcolonial leaders ­were now pushing to convene a “Second Bandung” whose ultimate goal was not reform of global institutions but their overthrow. Tito needed the support of the last corner of the Third World that remained “uncommitted” and thus, potentially, nonaligned. Only in this way could nam succeed in fighting back against the rising tide of revolutionary militancy. In late September 1963, Tito embarked on a monthlong trip that would take him to Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico. By that point, Cuba’s status as the lone Latin American member of nam had become a major source of irritation to Tito. The island’s formal alliance with the Soviet Union coupled with Castro’s advocacy of revolutionary insurrection undermined the central moral appeal of nam and the movement’s credibility. Equally impor­tant, Tito needed to incorporate moderate, mixed-­economy states to give the movement greater leverage as it sought to influence global trade relations. As the New York Times observed, each of the countries visited by Tito touted a foreign policy that was “generally labeled ‘in­de­pen­dent’ ” and “in spirit . . . ​not far removed from Yugo­slavia’s nonalignment.”78 Each had also flirted with the idea of participating in nam ’s founding conference in Belgrade—­Brazil had initially gone the farthest in seeking to shape the movement at its ­earlier stage and Bolivia was now also ­eager to embrace 220   —   Chapter Seven

the ethos of nonalignment.79 Certainly from Tito’s perspective, all four countries ­were ­viable and potentially influential candidates to woo in support of a proposed second nam conference sometime in 1964. However, the optimism of 1961 had become supplanted by a growing sense of despair as much of the region was ensnared in the debilitating forces of po­liti­cal polarization. This became abundantly clear during his first stop in Brazil, where a precoup environment led to the cancellation of planned visits to the country’s two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and Tito’s confinement to the desolate capital outpost of Brasília, located nearly six hundred miles inland. Across the region, conservative forces within the military and economic elites closely allied with the United States ­were ascendant. Many viewed the visit by Tito with alarm. In Chile, his arrival came in the context of a divisive electoral campaign in which the cia tipped the scales away from the presidential candidacy of Salvador Allende. One exception was Bolivia, where Tito received a warm embrace by the country’s nationalist president, Víctor Paz Estenssoro, who had long regarded the Yugo­slavia leader as a role model.80 Yet for conservative editorialists in the region, the visit signaled an ominous loosening of geopo­liti­cal ties. José M. Orlando, correspondent for the Associated Press (ap ) in Chile, editorialized that Tito’s tour “­will introduce into this hemi­sphere two novel, transcendent po­liti­cal concepts: neutralism and an ‘in­de­pen­dent’ communism as bases for international peaceful coexistence.”81 At stake was the sanctity of the Pan-­American idea itself. As an editorial in the Costa Rican newspaper La Nación warned, Tito’s visit would culminate in “the disintegration of the American regional system.”82 Following Tito’s somewhat rocky welcome in Latin Amer­i­ca, his nearly two-­week sojourn in Mexico—­the longest and most substantive of his tour—no doubt came as a reprieve. While Yugo­slavia’s leader was e ­ ager to bring Mexico directly into the nam co­ali­tion, López Mateos was just as ­eager to align himself with the princi­ples and geopo­liti­cal goals of nonalignment. “We have immediately found a common language and now it is pos­si­ble to deepen our collaboration,” López Mateos stated in an interview with the Yugo­slavian newspaper Borba several months e ­ arlier.83 To welcome Tito, Mexico’s government or­ ga­nized a grandiose reception patterned on ­those that had been accorded to previous high-­profile international visitors such as Cuban president Osvaldo Dorticós (1960), Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1961), and US president John  F. Kennedy (1962). Each instance shared a similar strategic logic: guests ­were showered in an overwhelming display of “Mexican hospitality” that inoculated the regime from right-­and left-­wing Apex of Internationalism   —   221

critics alike. For Tito, a crowd estimated at 750,000 was marshaled to line the route leading from the airport to Los Pinos, the official presidential residency of López Mateos. Government employees filled the central Zócalo, where an enormous banner linked the ­faces of the two leaders together, united by the word Paz.84 A New York Times reporter described a “warm, at times tumultuous, welcome” for the Yugo­slavian president.85 To be sure, while protesters ­were kept at bay, his presence did not go uncontested. For instance, Foreign Minister Manuel Tello received more than one hundred messages from “a diversity of ­people”—­the majority clearly or­ga­nized by the ultra-­Catholic Sinarquista movement—­denouncing Tito as “The Henchman” (El verdugo). “It sickens me to know that he is ­going to live on our homeland soil,” one typical letter writer expressed on the eve of Tito’s visit.86 Yet as in the past, the Ministry of the Interior made certain that protesters did not mar his reception. Mexico as experienced by Tito and his entourage was a model of po­liti­cal diversity, robust economic development, and a unifying nationalism grounded in shared cultural points of reference. He toured the Mayan ruins at Uxmal in the Yucatán Peninsula and traversed the restored archaeological site at Teotihuacan, even ascending the famed pyramids of the Sun and Moon (see figure 7.4). In Mexico City, he visited the campus of the unam ; attended a special per­for­mance of the Ballet Folklórico, the country’s most famous cultural calling card; got a sneak preview of the soon-­to-be-inaugurated Museum of Anthropology; and attended a charro festival, among other sight­seeing opportunities. Indeed, his visit provided a chance for the regime to showcase many key aspects of the “folkloric-­cosmopolitan” imagery that undergirded the nation’s tourism industry and which had emerged as a central marketing component for the country’s bid to host the 1968 Summer Olympics (­under review at that very same moment).87 He l­ ater traveled to Guadalajara, where he laid a wreath at the Monument to Benito Juárez, whose words about “re­spect for the rights of o ­ thers” ­were the guiding princi­ple for Mexico’s own version of nonalignment, and toured vari­ous housing complexes. His journey concluded with a six-­night stay in Acapulco, where he was hosted at the Casa Pemex, owned by Mexico’s state-­run oil com­pany.88 From their private and public remarks, it was abundantly evident how the two countries agreed upon the under­lying objective of deepening the credibility of the Non-­Aligned Movement. López Mateos, for instance, spoke of how the two countries ­were engaged in a “parallel pro­cess,” one whose objectives included “a conscious and responsible search for inter222   —   Chapter Seven

Figure 7.4 Yugo­slavian president Josip Broz Tito (center) on a trip to the pre-­ Hispanic archaeological site of Teotihuacan on October 7, 1963, during his extended visit to Mexico. Source: “Visita del Pres. de Yugo­slavia, Mariscal Tito,” no. 18.430, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

national peace, one that ­will guarantee the fruit of our pursuits.”89 This common perspective derived from their analogous geopo­liti­cal location in the shadow of g ­ reat powers. Mexico’s president, for instance, noted how both countries ­were characterized by their “vulnerable positions,” a similarity that bestowed upon them a shared interpretation on the significance of in­de­pen­dence and the imperative of finding peaceful solutions to international prob­lems.90 Both leaders sought to use the visit to bolster their respective reputations as international actors. For instance, their joint communiqué praised the “valuable personal contribution” of López Mateos “to the cause of serving peace,” singling out Mexico’s proposal for “nuclear-­free zones.” At the same time, the communiqué gave po­liti­cal cover to Tito with re­spect to his leadership in nam by reaffirming solidarity with anticolonialist movements of national liberation and support for the “right of primary good exporting nations” to receive “fair prices” and support for industrialization.91 Yet their most consequential point of agreement Apex of Internationalism   —   223

had to do with the composition of the Non-­Aligned Movement itself: to “redefine along bases that ­were broader and more elastic the concept of ‘non aligned’ ” as a criteria for admission.92 Only in this way could Latin Amer­i­ca be brought more explic­itly into nam ’s fold and thus be used to contain challenges from the radical wing represented by aapso and Indonesian president Sukarno, who had recently emerged as a fierce partisan of the Chinese position. Tito recognized that the concept of “nonalignment” had become problematic. If a litmus test ­were applied, the movement faced the risk of becoming less relevant on the global stage. López Mateos suggested to him that a second nam conference could be more inclusive, “wider, at the highest level, to accommodate all of t­ hose [nations] that fight for peace, which is to say, not only the non-­aligned countries.”93 Tito agreed that a less stringent criterion for membership would open the way for Latin American participation. The moment was propitious to take advantage of a rapidly increasing number of states in the world “that are oriented ­toward that po­liti­cal stance [una política pacífica],” that is, favoring peace. More to the point, the term nonalignment, he wrote in a letter to López Mateos shortly a ­ fter his visit, had outlasted its original purpose. Ideas emanating from nam now garnered international support, “transforming themselves each and ­every day into an extensive, power­ful movement in support of peace and peaceful collaboration.”94 Writing from his ambassadorial post in India, Octavio Paz conveyed that he was hearing something similar. The “main objective” of a subsequent nam conference, Paz relayed, should be to convene “an open group, prone t­ oward attenuating tension between the two blocs.”95 By early 1964, Bolivia had committed to send an observer to a forthcoming conference and “it [was] very pos­si­ble” that Chile and Brazil would do so as well. From Belgrade, Tito was anxious to learn of Mexico’s outlook.96 As Mexico’s ambassador to Yugo­slavia indicated, Tito’s government “­will not let up in seeking to gain the presence of Latin American countries.”97 Tito recognized the po­liti­cal difficulties in bringing Latin Amer­ic ­ a into the fold, not least b ­ ecause “nonalignment” was equated, from the US perspective, as a breach in the Pan-­American compact. He had ­little interest in directly antagonizing Washington, and indeed his trip to Latin Amer­ic ­a culminated in an extensive visit—­the longest of his entire itinerary—to the United States, which included an official state welcome in the capital. But he also understood that it was in US interests to contain the rising tide of radicalism that threatened the more moderate nam proj­ect. The Yugo­ slavian leader clearly regarded Mexico as an ideal interlocutory power in 224   —   Chapter Seven

that re­spect. As a country whose economy and history ­were deeply s­ haped by that of its power­ful neighbor, Mexico had strong motivations to seek a more in­de­pen­dent course in the world, similar to Yugo­slavia. If Mexico could be brought closer into a co­ali­tion, this would not only help stabilize nam in geopo­liti­cal terms but legitimize the princi­ples and goals to which nam aspired. At the same time, a more nebulous redefinition of nonalignment as “peace-­loving” might make it easier for o ­ thers in the region to join forces. Yet a series of global events now accelerated the stakes in the race between the forces of moderation and radicalism. The po­liti­cal princi­ple of coexistence was rapidly losing influence. Seismic Shifts in Domestic and International Politics The days and weeks following Tito’s highly successful visit to Mexico in the fall of 1963 proved to be a roller coaster of po­liti­cal emotions for Mexicans and the world. Two days ­after Tito left Mexico, the nation learned that it would host the XIX Olympiad (Summer Olympic Games) in October 1968. Mexico had competed against Argentina (Buenos Aires), France (Lyons), and the United States (Detroit), and the outcome stunned international observers, who had assumed the winner would be e ­ ither Detroit or Lyons. Internal rec­ords by the International Olympic Committee (ioc ) indicated that López Mateos’s diplomatic engagement across the Cold War divide had played an impor­tant role in the se­lection.98 Another ­factor had also worked in Mexico’s f­ avor: the Soviet Union retained eight votes on the ioc and all of t­hese went to Mexico.99 While it would have been unlikely for the Soviets to have thrown ­these votes ­toward nato -­allied France, clearly Mexico’s embrace of Khrushchev’s diplomatic overtures directly influenced Soviet support. As Mexicans pro­cessed the implications of the honor, one obvious takeaway was that the vote amounted to an affirmation by the ioc of Mexican internationalism. The slogan and organ­izing motif that soon emerged from the Mexican Olympic Committee was none other than “Todo es pos­si­ble en la paz” (Every­thing is pos­ si­ble in peace). A visual complement to the slogan was a specially commissioned peace dove—to compete with the one “done by Picasso,” as the planning committee head made clear to spell out.100 The dove designed for the Olympics was less dimensional than that disseminated by the World Peace Council—no discernible features, such as feathers or eyes, ­were rendered vis­ib ­ le—­and at the same time more shapely, with curved, fluid lines. The overall effect was a complete transcendence from the po­liti­ cal signifiers of the wpc version. The sum impact of this visual campaign Apex of Internationalism   —   225

was an effort to depoliticize the discourse of peace and thus inoculate it against the infiltration of Cold War politics.101 The second event came a few weeks ­later when, on November 4, In­ terior Minister Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was “revealed” as the presidential candidate of the ruling party. Given the mono­poly over politics by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the nomination effectively sealed his victory in the elections scheduled for the following July. Díaz Ordaz was not only relatively conservative in po­liti­cal and economic mind-­set, but he had scant experience with international affairs; he had crossed the border only once, traveling to the United States some two de­cades before.102 While the choice of Díaz Ordaz can be read as a decision to pull back from a robust internationalism at an increasingly delicate global moment, more likely it reflected confidence by López Mateos that the momentum of internationalism set in motion by his administration was unstoppable. In fact, the fifteen months that remained in office would go down as among the most active internationally of López Mateos’s entire term. Still, an event barely two and a half weeks a ­ fter the announcement of Díaz Ordaz directly altered not only the calculus of how far Mexico would pursue the line of in­de­pen­dence but the form and substance of the Good Neighbor relationship upon which that autonomy of action was inextricably entwined. On November 22 the world learned the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Worse still, the assassin—­Lee Harvey Oswald—­had recently been in Mexico where he had tried to secure a visa to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union. Further information, kept secret from the public, indicated that Oswald had received a cash payment in Mexico and thus pointed to the possibility of a vast Cuban-­Soviet conspiracy. If the president of the United States had been directly targeted by a foreign government, the dangers of all-­out war seemed real. As Renata Keller concludes, both the US and Mexican officials “­were more interested in maintaining peace than solving the mystery” of Kennedy’s murder.103 Meanwhile, Kennedy’s death generated an enormous outpouring of sympathy in Mexico and contributed to a deepening of sentiment in support of the strategic alliance between the two countries. Quite likely, the event also influenced López Mateos’s calculations with re­spect to Mexican participation in the upcoming second conference of the Non-­Aligned Movement; now was not the moment to test the limits of the bilateral relationship but rather to serve as a stabilizing ally. The rapid transfer of power to Lyndon Johnson further helped consolidate and reaffirm that alliance. Johnson was equally qualified, if not 226   —   Chapter Seven

more so than Kennedy, to convey the sincerity of US friendship t­oward ­Mexico.104 A de­cade ­earlier, while still a senator from Texas, Johnson had introduced a bill to return the Chamizal. He had also honeymooned in Mexico and met López Mateos twice—­once immediately following the latter’s election in 1958 and a second time when the Mexican president traveled to the United States in the fall of 1959. Cognizant of the centrality of this strategic axis, Johnson had barely assumed the reins of the presidency when he scheduled a meeting with López Mateos in February 1964. Intelligence briefings for Johnson stressed that US-­ Mexico ties ­ were “now at an all-­time high” and it was impor­tant to send a strong symbolic message that Johnson would continue in the vein of Good Neighborly relations built up ­under Kennedy. “A warm Texas handshake and abrazo when you greet López Mateos at Los Angeles would symbolize the continuance of that relationship,” a secret internal memorandum by Secretary of State Dean Rusk suggested. It was crucial at this delicate juncture to stress that the two countries could “work out in the ‘spirit of El Chamizal’ ” any prob­lems that might emerge. Despite pursuing an “ ‘in­de­pen­dent’ foreign policy,” Rusk indicated, when it came to “fundamental issues” the United States “usually found [López Mateos] understanding and willing to be helpful.”105 A new concern related to Communist China. Just days before López Mateos’s meeting with President Johnson, French president Charles de Gaulle upended the geopo­liti­cal landscape by extending diplomatic recognition to the ­People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was the first significant break in a de facto diplomatic blockade that had shut the PRC out of the United Nations. US Embassy officials in Mexico City had recently expressed concern about Mexican “acquiescence” to activities by Chinese government representatives. Over the past year, for instance, the New China News Agency had established a media foothold in the country and t­ here was an increase in PRC cultural activities (see figure 7.5).106 Of perhaps greater significance was the impact of a recent PRC trade fair in Mexico City, presided over by Mexico’s minister of commerce, Raúl Salinas Lozano, and which the PRC strategically hoped would set the stage for a normalization of trade relations (see figure 7.6). As Fredy González notes, the fair was advertised as far away as Chile and was not only the first Latin American exhibition or­ga­ nized by the PRC outside Cuba but also its largest.107 Indeed, recent Mexican sales of wheat and cotton to the PRC revealed a “marked change” in the government’s “po­liti­cal policy t­ oward Communist China,” as a US Embassy report indicated. Trade between Mexico and the PRC was determined by the embassy to be “both successful and profitable.” This included Mexican Apex of Internationalism   —   227

Figure 7.5 Senator Manuel Moreno Sánchez (center), a high-­ranking Congressional figure for the ruling party and President Adolfo López Mateos’s diplomatic plenipotentiary, at a cultural dinner hosted by the ­People’s Republic of China on February 12, 1964. Source: “Cena a los artistas de la China Popu­lar,” no. 18.857, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

state-­subsidized sales of “low-­grade” cotton and more than 300,000 metric tons of wheat provided by the state food agency, Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (conasupo , National Com­pany of Popu­lar Subsistences). In both cases, the sales produced a profit for Mexico and fell ­under a broader strategic initiative to export up to 440,000 metric tons of wheat to Eu­ro­pean and Asian markets. While the embassy concluded that ­there was ­little indication a “basic change has taken place,” at the same time it recognized that policy ­toward China reflected a broader effort to diversify Mexican economic and diplomatic relations. Such efforts might provide “the excuse for further visits by Communist Chinese representatives to Mexico.”108 Asked directly by Johnson ­whether Mexico would be influenced by de Gaulle’s decision to recognize the PRC, López Mateos insisted “emphatically that it would not.”109 228   —   Chapter Seven

Figure 7.6 Mexico City residents explore a trade exposition brought to Mexico City by the ­People’s Republic of China on December 4–5, 1963. A descriptive placard on the wall reads in part: “[Before 1949] China had almost no heavy industry. . . . ​Following the founding of New China [i.e., Communist China] . . . ​by utilizing its own efforts and ­after more than 10 years of strug­gle, [China ­today] has created an appreciably strong, multifaceted heavy industry sector.” The exposition was part of a concerted effort by the prc to deepen economic, cultural, and ultimately diplomatic relations with Mexico and other Latin American governments. Source: “Exposición China,” no. 18.638, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

De Gaulle’s Charm Offensive A month l­ater, during March 1964 and on the eve of the first meeting of unctad in Geneva, French president Charles de Gaulle made a four-­day visit to Mexico City. Despite impor­tant parallels to Tito’s trip the previous fall, de Gaulle had no interest in sightseeing. “He is coming to work and not to play,” the British ambassador to Mexico, Peter Garran, indicated.110 Yet like Tito, de Gaulle, too, sought, as Garran noted, “to woo Mexico.” Both Tito and de Gaulle regarded López Mateos as a key strategic partner whose support could be harnessed t­ oward a shared geopo­liti­cal objective: Apex of Internationalism   —   229

loosening the straitjacket of Cold War bi­polar­ity.111 Both appealed to López Mateos’s self-­definition of Mexico as an “in­de­pen­dent” country, emboldened to use its newfound stature in the pursuit of international peace. Each as well hoped to take advantage of anti-­American sentiment and the perception of an attenuation of US influence, regionally as well as globally. Still, an impor­tant difference separated ­these two overlapping proj­ects, for each was premised on a discrete paradigm of global action and influence. The appeal of nonalignment rested on a model of collective action among peripheral states, ­ those sidelined from decision-­ making by the industrialized nations. In contrast, de Gaulle embodied a model whereby “medium powers” deployed their sovereignty of action to directly influence the contours of global politics.112 De Gaulle, moreover, offered the example of how one could confront the United States geopo­liti­cally while si­mul­ta­neously remaining a committed ally within the Western alliance. Whereas Tito and the sequence of other figures who had visited Mexico contributed to the sense among Mexicans that they ­were part of an emergent Third World collective, the visit by de Gaulle provided sustenance for an alternative belief: that Mexico was on a trajectory t­oward equal partnership, an industrializing player in a fluid global environment in which diplomatic choices carried real world impact. Moreover, with de Gaulle’s visit, Mexicans could envision, if only fleetingly, what a true balance of power might look like. Preparations for de Gaulle’s visit began months in advance and included a level of diplomatic planning, calculated pageantry, and media collaboration matched only by President Kennedy’s arrival two years ­earlier. By the time he arrived, the city was “festooned with decorations, banners and slogans” showering him in welcome, and linking the two leaders in a visual display of amity and equality.113 In what had become a familiar public ritual, schools, trade u ­ nion workers, and government employees in the capital ­were given the day off to celebrate his arrival and to fill the public square. More significantly, de Gaulle was accorded an honor that broke with all previous protocol: he addressed a crowd some 250,000 strong directly from the cramped quarters of the presidential balcony overlooking the Zócalo (see figure 7.8). No other foreign leader had ever been invited to share this small yet highly sanctified po­liti­cal space. It was a symbolic gesture that elevated de Gaulle’s (and France’s) stature as a counterforce to the United States. Britain’s newly appointed ambassador, Nicholas Cheetham, expressed a palpable sense of awe as he described de Gaulle’s “emotional harangue, delivered in perfectly comprehensible Spanish” from the presidential balcony. It was a “tremendous tour de force,” he added, one that 230   —   Chapter Seven

Figure 7.7 The Zócalo upon Charles de Gaulle’s arrival from the perspective of the presidential palace where he spoke, on March 16, 1964. The pri -­affiliated ­labor ­unions and the military (front) filled the square while ­giant dignified portraits of the two presidents hung facing the presidential palace, alongside banners in French and Spanish welcoming de Gaulle to Mexico. Source: “Llegada de Presidentes: Francia,” no. 18.954 (primer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

was “greeted with ­great enthusiasm” by the adoring crowd and in the press.114 Addressing the Mexican Congress the following day, de Gaulle described an “organic” relationship of “mutual attraction” that united the two countries, one based not only on shared “Latin” cultural roots but development goals as well. He highlighted the large credit line France had recently extended to Mexico, calling it a “first act” of French commitment ­toward the “American continent,” one that heralded “the start of a new ­direction.” Without specifically mentioning his proposal for a Third Way—­ the ­formation of a geopo­liti­cal alliance whose purpose was to undermine the dominance exercised by the United States and the Soviet Union—de Gaulle nevertheless spoke of France’s ambitions to bring about “balance and world peace.” Despite Mexico’s “natu­ral” and “fruitful” relationship with “her most impor­tant neighbor to the North,” he boldly ventured that the country’s interests required a closer relationship “­toward the Eu­ro­pean Apex of Internationalism   —   231

Figure 7.8 President Charles de Gaulle (background with outstretched arm) squeezed onto the presidential balcony to address the crowd below, on March 16, 1964. It was the first time a foreign dignitary had ever spoken from this sanctified location. In the foreground, also with outstretched arm, is President Adolfo López Mateos. Source: 18.956 (primer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

countries and, above all, if I may dare to say it, t­oward mine.”115 Traveling to the campus of the national university (unam ), he was greeted by a throng of some fifty thousand students. They “cheered wildly,” as a report from the Los Angeles Times wrote, when he spoke of “a world in transformation,” one in which Mexico was “master of its own fate.” To thunderous applause, de Gaulle encapsulated the strategic proposal France was delivering to Mexico: “If the soul of Mexico and that of France feel the necessity of living closer to one another, what can be the weight of such an association of the f­ uture?”116 But the gap between de Gaulle’s boast of French grandeur and the real­ity of French limits on foreign assistance was significant. France was already struggling to channel aid to the country’s former colonies in Africa, and de Gaulle was determined to build up the France’s military into a force in­de­pen­dent of nato . As a British analy­sis summarized, France did not have the “necessary resources” to offer the 232   —   Chapter Seven

kind of “massive economic assistance in trade and aid” that his presence implicitly promised.117 Ultimately, de Gaulle’s objective was to loosen the sphere-­of-­influence grip held by the United States over Latin Amer­i­ca in order to build support for his vision of a more fluid, multipolar world. It was a ­grand strategy shared by Mexico as well. In a private conversation with López Mateos, de Gaulle spelled out that he wanted to “define” (precisar) French-­Mexican po­liti­cal relations. “It is not necessary to sign a treaty,” he offered, clearly cognizant of the potential pitfalls for Mexico; “an agreement [acuerdo] ­will suffice.” He floated the idea of a “Latin American–­European Organ­ ization,” with France and Mexico leading the way by example through their “po­liti­cal contacts.” López Mateos was quick to respond to de Gaulle’s audacious proposal: “I regard this not only as desirable but necessary.” The French leader was clearly hoping to harness expressions of Latin American in­de­pen­dence to French po­liti­cal aims. It then became necessary to address the elephant in the room. “We are friends, and always have been, and we ­will continue to do so,” de Gaulle reassured his Mexican counterpart regarding France’s relationship with the United States. In obvious reference to de Gaulle’s recent recognition of Communist China, and no doubt foreshadowing his country’s pending exit from nato , de Gaulle affirmed “the organ­ization of the alliance” might change, “but not the alliance itself.” But then he pursued a logic that he felt certain would resonate with López Mateos and thus lay the basis for a new alliance of interests, one that rested upon what de Gaulle believed was a shared interpretation of Mexican and Latin American aspirations. The Third World is developing its personality and asserting its ­will not to be dependent on ­others, above all on the United States. The facts are known: the United States does not accept that a country from the ­Free World can establish its own po­liti­cal orientation [su propia política]; this is unfortunate, as it is necessary for them to accept it. I d ­ on’t know how long it ­will take for them to accept it, but e ­ very country ­will have its own orientation [política]. ­These ­will be good but they ­will not be the same as that of the United States. Mexico, too, López Mateos affirmed, would continue to pursue a policy similar to that of France: “We are friends of the United States and we ­will stand with them in the event of a conflict; but we are in control of our own po­liti­cal orientation.”118 But if de Gaulle was correct in identifying a convergence of geopo­liti­cal interests between the two countries (in the fall, he would take this argument directly to other South American nations as Apex of Internationalism   —   233

well), his economic tools ­were ­limited and his timing was off. As Soledad Loaeza concludes, the end result was a “disconnect” that, in a fundamental sense, underscored the “suffocating weight of geography.”119 At that point, Mexico had gone further than other countries in the region in seeking to leverage diplomacy to shape international relations in the way de Gaulle himself was advocating.120 Other leaders had similarly felt the pull of nam but only López Mateos had traveled widely, and across the Cold War divide. Yet López Mateos also held back from making diplomatic choices that would have truly upended Cold War alignments, such as by traveling to Moscow or establishing diplomatic relations with China. The pursuit of a truly in­de­pen­dent foreign policy, one that used the full diplomatic weight of the nation to induce a breakdown in the Cold War order, entailed po­liti­cal costs that ­were simply too high to bear. At the same time, however, Mexico pursued the model of collective action encouraged by Tito, in par­tic­u­lar by embracing the United Nations as the sole legitimate forum through which the developing nations must assert their voices and pursue a strategy based on strength in numbers. This became particularly manifest as Mexico assumed a leading role in the organ­ization and subsequent trajectory of the first ever international conference on global trade and development. An Unpre­ce­dented Global Conversation On March 23, just days a ­ fter de Gaulle ended his stay in Mexico, the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (unctad ) opened in Geneva, Switzerland. With more than four thousand delegates representing some 119 countries, numerous nongovernmental organ­izations, and ample coverage by the media, the gathering was, writes Edgar Dosman, “the largest international event ever held.”121 The conceptual origins for the conference ­were directly linked to the Non-­Aligned Movement, whose members and affiliates had first launched the idea at a meeting in Cairo in the summer of 1962 (see chapter 5). Yet the economic proposals that formed the heart of discussions predated nam . Many had emerged from the wellspring of the Economic Commission for Latin Amer­ ic ­a (ecla ), a Latin Amer­i­ca–­based economic policy group located within the United Nations whose founder and intellectual visionary was the Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch. Prebisch had initially been an enthusiastic supporter of the Alliance for Pro­gress, in which he played an impor­tant role in vetting country proposals. But he quickly became disillusioned with the inherent po­liti­cal contradictions wrapped up in alliance funding for 234   —   Chapter Seven

Latin Amer­i­ca. ­After a Polish exile and ally at the United Nations, Wladek Malinowski, pitched the idea of an international conference to Prebisch as a “global version of ecla ,” he agreed to take the organ­izing reins.122 Prebisch’s developmentalist clout combined with the fact that the event tran­spired u ­ nder the auspices of the United Nations (the direct imprint of nam quickly receded into the background) transformed unctad into an epochal event not to be missed. By early spring of 1964 t­ here was widespread anticipation that it would be a gathering of potential consequence, despite lukewarm support from developed nations—­ all of whom felt obliged nonetheless to get on board. Significantly, it represented the first time that the United Nations had truly been mobilized in defense of Third World interests. ­There was a palpable sense that a new global economic order was within reach. Even Che Guevara, “in a well-­tailored pin-­striped suit,” saw fit to make an appearance.123 Mexico was represented at the conference by Raúl Salinas Lozano, secretary of industry and commerce, who announced that he came “full of optimism.”124 A new “general consensus” had been established among “all of the developing nations,” he stated, concerning “the ­causes of our prob­lems” as well as “the distinctive means to attack them.”125 Making specific mention of Yugo­slavia, he proclaimed that the countries in attendance “make up a single ­family” united by “the shared misfortune” of underdevelopment and “the common hope” of “a glimpse of a new era.”126 Although he ­stopped short of using the term Third World explic­itly, Salinas Lozano nevertheless positioned Mexico within the po­liti­cal proj­ect of Third Worldism. Referencing the critique of global capitalism encompassed by the vast majority of delegates in attendance, he stated, “It is the voice and position of two-­thirds of the world, and it cannot be tuned out by the remaining third.”127 Significantly, Salinas Lozano directly responded to the US position, whose del­e­ga­tion was led by undersecretary of state George W. Ball, which argued that the developing world needed to focus on domestic policies rather than “structural” forces. Mexico had followed the basic rules of the game, Salinas Lozano reminded the delegates, yet still found itself locked in a cycle of underdevelopment. “Despite the fact that we have fulfilled ­these basic requirements,” he stated, citing a litany of Mexican policy reforms, “we still find that the possibilities for our development are blocked and lack the necessary comprehension of the industrialized countries, what­ever their economic or po­liti­cal makeup.”128 It was a m ­ atter not simply of just demands, moreover, but of global peace. So long as the divide between developed and developing nations persisted, world peace would prove “unstable.”129 ­Toward the end Apex of Internationalism   —   235

of the conference, another Mexican delegate spoke still more passionately in his denunciation of the current global order. Manuel Moreno Sánchez—­Mexico’s highest-­ranking senator and a figure closely identified with the regime’s broadest internationalist aspirations—­demanded that the gathering “must insist on changing the pre­sent order, or better put, the current disorder of ­things, and create a system, a New Order of global commerce.”130 Judged by their numbers and rankings, it was clear the importance attached to the conference by the López Mateos administration. In the end, the three-­month-­long gathering produced two significant outcomes. The first was the establishment of unctad as a discrete body that would operate within the United Nations but retain its own orga­ nizational structure. unctad rapidly evolved into a platform for developing nations to demand a global trade mechanism to compensate for what Prebisch, in his ­earlier analy­sis of Latin American underdevelopment, had famously described as an “obvious disequilibrium”: the inherent disadvantage faced by exporters of raw materials due to shifting terms of trade. Only in this manner could export-­led growth adequately ensure stable development policies. The second outcome was the formalization of the Group of 77 (g -77) as a collection of developing nations that encompassed Asia, Africa, Latin Amer­i­ca, and Yugo­slavia. Twenty nations from Latin America signed the founding documents. For the first time, as the Mexican journalist René Arteaga wrote not long afterward, less developed countries “came together with the goal of presenting a singular front in defense of their common interests.”131 The g -77 would in turn use its clout to act in tandem within the larger mission of unctad . Yet if the meeting in Geneva heralded a paradigm shift in ideas and collective action, at the same time it exacerbated a rift coursing through what Vijay Prashad identifies as the Third World “proj­ect.” For one, the gathering revealed the very unevenness of development within the Third World. ­There ­were obvious limits to South-­South economic solidarity; national development needs and regional strategies ­were not necessarily in sync. Second, unctad ’s proposals to address underdevelopment ­were essentially reformist. Although the organization would ­later evolve ­toward a more explic­itly radical critique in the early 1970s, the under­ lying premise was that the global cap­i­tal­ist order needed to be fixed, not overthrown altogether. This, however, created a further opening for adherents of China and Cuba to articulate a fundamentally dif­fer­ent vision of a new global order, one in which socialism, not capitalism, needed to prevail (see chapter 8). 236   —   Chapter Seven

Staking a US Claim on Mexican Soil Spring 1964 heralded a further series of transformations that, in rapid succession, impacted the fate of the Non-­Aligned Movement and heralded a shift in bilateral relations and the trajectory of US–­Latin Amer­i­ca relations more broadly. The first was the military overthrow of Brazilian president João Goulart on April 1. While the military had intervened throughout the region on numerous prior occasions, this time would prove distinct as it ushered in the first of a subsequent wave of long-­term takeover of politics by the military. Goulart had been awarded Mexico’s highest honor, the Aztec Ea­gle, two years ­earlier and he was regarded by López Mateos as a close ally in the region. Brazil’s own internationalist ambitions dovetailed with and helped spur ­those of Mexico, even while the two leaders competed with one another to become regional and global figures of consequence. Although the military in Brazil would prove in l­ ater years to sustain and, in many re­spects, deepen an in­de­pen­dent foreign policy, with the overthrow of Goulart not only Mexico but Tito as well lost a key ally.132 It is uncertain ­whether Goulart would have attended the next meeting of nam had he remained in office—­the polarization during Tito’s visit underscored the challenges in ­doing so—­but his overthrow undermined the potential for any significant shift in Latin Amer­i­ca’s status. Less than a month ­later, a second major tragedy befell nam . On April  27 the ailing Indian leader and nam cofounder, Jawaharlal Nehru, died. His visit to Mexico in 1961 played an impor­tant role in orienting Mexican foreign policy in the direction of nonalignment and, alongside Tito, he was considered a voice of moderation. This was especially true in the aftermath of the Chinese attack on India’s border in the fall of 1962, an event that became emblematic of the emergent Sino-­Soviet split and drove a wedge directly through the heart not only of nam (with Indonesia coming out in support of China) but of Third World solidarity as well. ­These twin blows to the Non-­Aligned Movement coincided with the resignation of the secretary of foreign relations, Manuel Tello, the architect of Mexico’s new international politics. His resignation was a formality given the upcoming turnover in presidential leadership and was not unexpected. Nevertheless, it signaled the denouement of the most sustained effort by Mexico since the late 1930s to use the power of the state to effect a global realignment in politics. Tello’s departure also coincided with the appointment of a new US ambassador to Mexico, Fulton Freeman, a “cigar-­smoking, trombone-­playing ­career minister of the foreign ser­vice.”133 Although fluent in Spanish (he was from California), he appeared to have Apex of Internationalism   —   237

l­ittle prior knowledge of Mexican po­liti­cal culture and immediately made several diplomatic faux pas.134 Freeman’s arrival marked the departure of Thomas Mann, who had been reassigned by President Johnson as assistant secretary of state for inter-­American affairs and cocoordinator of the Alliance for Pro­gress. Mann had been a skeptic of the Alliance for Pro­gress from the start, and placing him in charge of this program at its moment of greatest vulnerability, following not only the death of Kennedy but the rise of military politics in the region, did not bode well for supporters of US developmental assistance. As ambassador to Mexico, Mann had been a transformational figure. He inspired the ire of the Left—­most famously perhaps in his denial of a visa to Carlos Fuentes in 1962 (see chapter  6)—­but he had also recognized the importance of resolving the Chamizal and salinity border disputes. Overall, he would be remembered as having played a critical role in laying the foundation for positive relations that lasted for the remainder of the de­cade.135 An event that epitomized this consolidation of Good Neighbor relations occurred on June 20, 1964, when, before an audience of six hundred invited guests, Ambassador Freeman dedicated a new US Embassy along a prominent section on the Avenida Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City. The inauguration signified the advent of a new era in bilateral relations and encapsulated the strategic significance of Mexico in the mid1960s. It was the second-­largest US Embassy in the world, surpassed only by that in London. Speaking in Spanish, Freeman dedicated the building to the “everlasting friendship” between the two countries. “Our patient search for solutions to our common prob­lems,” he continued, “has been rewarded.”136 Constructed nearly entirely from marble, the building’s modernist design combined a functionalist architecture of clean lines and pure white spaces with false arches and an open patio meant to mimic a Spanish courtyard. An article in the Mexico City newspaper Excélsior called it an “ultramodern building,” while another described it as “an exceptional beauty” (see figure 7.9).137 But the symbolism of the new structure clearly told a much broader story. At the start of the de­cade, the United States feared the significance of the outsized Soviet Embassy—at that point, the largest in Latin Amer­i­ca—­and vari­ous indications of Soviet encroachment. With the inauguration of the new embassy, the United States was now symbolically asserting its “rightful place” as the dominant power within Mexico. Moreover, in sharing the stage with Mexico’s new acting foreign minister, José Gorostiza, the event sent a clear and resounding message that the Mexico-­ US partnership was more than simply transactional; it was a mutually beneficial strategic partnership. It was fitting in many 238   —   Chapter Seven

Figure 7.9 The inauguration of the new US Embassy on June 20, 1964, on Avenida Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, the capital’s majestic boulevard. Constructed in white marble with a combination of modernist and Spanish design ele­ments, the embassy was intended as a bold statement of the Good Neighbor strategic partnership. Source: “Inauguración del nuevo edificio de Reforma,” no. 19.276, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

ways that the opening of the embassy coincided with the waning days of the presidency of López Mateos. The proximity of the United States was both the major force propelling Mexico to diversify its international relations and the foundation upon which this global pivot could be enacted. It was clearly a double-­edged anchor, one that si­mul­ta­neously liberated yet tethered Mexico and thus defined the characteristics of “in­de­pen­dence” throughout the era of López Mateos. Less than a month ­later, that period came to an end with the election of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. The outcome was preordained and the combination of a fractured and demoralized left-­wing movement (Lázaro Cárdenas infamously gave a full-­throated endorsement of Díaz Ordaz just prior to the election), in conjunction with a well-­organized surveillance by the military and security forces collectively ensured a quiet, uneventful vote. Díaz Apex of Internationalism   —   239

Ordaz was considered by US intelligence agencies as a “moderate in the Mexican po­liti­cal spectrum” and a man whose ­career was “concentrated in internal security and domestic po­liti­cal affairs.” In fact, it was presumed that he would likely continue the “ ‘in­de­pen­dent’ foreign policy” of López Mateos, as a State Department intelligence estimate put it.138 What immediately changed, however, was a shift in tone. This was revealed in a private conversation between Díaz Ordaz and Lyndon Johnson that fall (notably, prior to the ­actual transfer of power in Mexico). Pressed on the question of Mexican support for Cuba, Díaz Ordaz returned to the example of the missile crisis of 1962. “In a showdown,” he stressed, Mexico’s interests “would be parallel” to that of the United States. But at the same time, he pointed out that “­there was considerable advantage” to allowing a “divergence” of interests when the stakes ­were relatively smaller. While this might create a degree of “discomfiture,” as he put it, in the bilateral relationship, the larger strategic benefits made it worthwhile. Mexico could provide an example for the region: Latin Amer­i­ca “did in fact enjoy in­de­pen­dence.”139 By articulating his country’s position in this way, Díaz Ordaz thus revealed the unspoken logic of the pivotal role Mexico played in sustaining the perceptions as well as practices of the Good Neighbor Policy to mutual strategic advantage. Cairo, 1964: Crossroads of Nonalignment From October 5 to 10, 1964, the Non-­Aligned Movement convened its second international conference, this time in Cairo. In contrast to the founding conference three years ­earlier, nine Latin American states sent observers, including Mexico. This significant presence—­the “halls of Cairo bustled with observers from the Western Hemi­sphere,” Rakove writes—­signaled an impor­tant shift, both with re­spect to US influence but also to the trajectory and significance of nam itself.140 In the intervening period a more porous geopo­liti­cal set of realities had emerged. Assertions of “in­de­pen­ dence” in foreign policy had become a diplomatic norm. In the case of Mexico, a transformation in po­liti­cal culture had been s­ haped by President López Mateos’s sustained internationalism. Yet as preparations for the conference developed throughout the spring and summer of 1964, Mexican officials vacillated in their decision ­whether to participate and, if so, in what capacity. For Tito, the presence of a Latin American “bloc” was crucial to his vision of stabilizing nam against the radical tide that threatened to topple and take over the movement. nam and the broader Third World proj­ect were entering a critical crossroads. 240   —   Chapter Seven

Tito’s travels across Latin Amer­i­ca the previous year had left a profound influence and further convinced him of the necessity of Latin American participation in nam . In May, following a conversation with the Yugo­ slavian ambassador to India, Octavio Paz sent a memo to the sre conveying that Tito regarded “collaboration with the countries of our continent as essential.” Tito, he noted, would seek to accommodate “our ties to the Interamerican system.” Yugo­slavia’s ambassador had reiterated to Paz that Tito sought to amplify the criteria of the conference such that it could incorporate nations “that maintain an international policy orientation that is in­de­pen­dent, if not exactly ‘nonaligned,’ ” a position that mirrored his private communications with López Mateos. This would allow not only for more Latin American participation but also that of certain traditionally neutral Eu­ro­pean countries, such as Switzerland and Finland.141 Tito’s position influenced the outcome of the preparatory conference in Colombo that May, which established criteria flexible enough to incorporate even ­those countries with foreign military bases and or­ga­nized in a regional military collective, so long as t­ hese security arrangements had not emerged explic­itly “within the framework of the conflict between the major powers.”142 Ultimately, as Mexico’s ambassador in Egypt reported, the preparatory conference “gave a broad interpretation that permitted the widening” of the composition of the Cairo conference.143 Still, by late summer of 1964 Mexico had not officially confirmed its attendance. When a newspaper report in early August indicated that López Mateos had “declined an invitation” to attend, the sre released a correction: “In fact, no official invitation for the conference has yet been received.” In the event Mexico did receive such an invitation, the press release continued, “it is likely that Mexico would be represented in the capacity of an observer.”144 Although somewhat oblique, the announcement nonetheless was the first official indication that López Mateos intended to participate. Several days ­later, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry learned that Argentina and Bolivia had confirmed attendance in the role of observers. Their decision, which joined that of Chile and Brazil, quite likely made it easier for Mexico to accept.145 Three weeks before the start of the conference, the sre informed the organizers that Senator Manuel Moreno Sánchez would head a del­eg ­ a­tion to represent Mexico.146 It was the last significant internationalist act of the López Mateos regime. It also marked Mexico’s last official engagement with the Non-­Aligned Movement ­until the activist period of Luis Echeverría in the 1970s (see the epilogue).147 The meeting in Cairo heralded a critical juncture for the f­ uture not only of nam but, as Eric Gettig writes, “over the direction for the Third World Apex of Internationalism   —   241

proj­ect.”148 From one perspective, the 1964 meeting underscored the movement’s tremendous success. In only three years, nam had established itself as a globally recognized presence, one that had both institutional influence and symbolic significance. The perception of nam ’s vitality and its potential as a geopo­liti­cal balancing actor in world politics was directly reflected in the number of participants, which had more than doubled since the initial gathering in Belgrade, including numerous observer nations. More impor­tant ­were the concrete achievements for which nam could reasonably take due credit. ­These included the push for a nuclear test ban treaty and introduction of nuclear-­free zones, support for the cause of decolonization, and the establishment of a un framework for global debate over the terms of economic trade and development. Highlighting ­these successes, in his opening address to the conference Nasser contested the critique suggested by some that nam had “exhausted its role” and was no longer necessary.149 Tito, too, underscored the successful role of nam in reshaping “the relationship of forces” and thus forging a space in which peripheral actors no longer had to accept being in “a subordinate position.”150 Both of ­these founding leaders forcefully argued for the continued relevancy of nam . Yet in the content and tone of their remarks ­there was an implicit acknowl­edgment that a ­battle had erupted within the movement itself over the definition, purpose, and objectives of nonalignment, both as an idea and as a po­liti­cal force in global politics. From another perspective, therefore, the meeting at Cairo revealed a profound crisis of identity and direction. As Mark Atwood writes, the assassination of President Kennedy a year ­earlier marked the end of an “experiment in toleration for nonalignment,” one compounded by growing concerns over the influence of Communist China (PRC) and the encroaching horizon of Vietnam.151 Moreover, with the recent death of Indian prime minister Nehru, nam lost not only one of its original found­ers but the leader who most directly embodied the ideal of “peaceful coexistence” and who espoused (along with Tito) the argument that ideological moderation must be a cornerstone of nam identity. With Nehru gone, leadership within Asia passed to Sukarno. Over the preceding year, however, Sukarno had under­ gone a dramatic transformation, one that reflected a shifting po­liti­cal calculus, both within Indonesia and regionally. By the fall of 1964, Sukarno had become the primary conduit within nam for a radical position based upon a racialized-­geographical identity construct and open alignment with the PRC. Fi­nally, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which signaled the formal entry of US combat forces into Vietnam and had passed on the eve of the Cairo meeting, established a new delineation between “imperialist” and 242   —   Chapter Seven

“anti-­imperialist” alignments. As Rakove writes, the meeting in Cairo thus became a “clash between two increasingly incompatible t­ heses about nonalignment” in a confrontation that boiled down to a fundamental question: “Was the Non-­Aligned Movement to be a moral force between the blocs or an anticolonial alliance?”152 Apart from the loss of leadership, a central ­factor in this confrontation was the rise of China, both as a power broker in Asia and Africa and as an ideological agent now openly in competition with the Soviet Union.153 In Asia, China proved ­eager to assert itself as a regional player—­for instance, by instigating a border war with India and backing Indonesia in its claims against Malaysia—­actions that helped sow discord around the very ideal of Third World unity as the building block of nam . Moreover, locked out of the United Nations, China was intent on building Third World support in ­favor of the PRC against Taiwan, and if that failed, to lead an effort to wreck the diplomatic structure of the un altogether. At Cairo, Sukarno became the primary advocate for Chinese efforts to harness the power of Third World activism ­toward a more radical agenda. This became abundantly clear in his address to the conference when he mocked détente and thereby invoked the central Chinese critique of Soviet foreign policy—­that peaceful coexistence amounted to a reactionary accommodation with imperialism. The Soviet Union and the United States “­will continue to co-­ exist peacefully, and with increasing ease,” he stated. “I think we should compliment them on their achievement. Long live peaceful co-­existence between Moscow and Washington! I do not think they are in need of us at this pre­sent juncture!”154 In his sarcastic “toast,” Sukarno thus openly questioned what had once been the guiding princi­ple and goal of nam itself. In its place, Sukarno articulated a new, more radical direction for the movement, one that established a division between “imperialism” and “anti-­imperialism.” ­Doing so, he questioned the very premise of the economic reformism represented by unctad and the legitimacy of the United Nations itself as the forum for Third World diplomacy. We must understand that economic development ­will bring benefits to our ­people only when we have torn up by their roots all the institutions, all the links that make us subservient in any way, in any fashion, to the old order of domination. . . . ​No, ­sisters and ­brothers, we cannot develop eco­nom­ically, nor socially, nor culturally, ­until we have removed ­these forces of domination. . . . ​­There ­will be peaceful co-­existence between us, the developing countries, and the imperialist states only when we can face them with equal strength. And that equal strength we can Apex of Internationalism   —   243

obtain only through solidarity among us. Let t­ here be no ­mistake about that! We have no alternative to solidarity.155 As Brazil’s recently appointed ambassador to the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Sérgio Armando Frazão, who was pre­sent as an observer for the nam conference, remarked, the radical shift in discourse made Tito seem like “a rancid conservative.”156 Sukarno’s articulation of the need to “uproot” institutions that kept the developing world “subservient” ­later materialized in early 1966 with the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba (see chapter 8). In sum, the meeting in Cairo felt impregnated less by the optimism of a fundamental shift in global power than the impending fragmentation of the Third World as a coherent proj­ect, one or­ga­nized around a shared sense of princi­ples and goals, of engagement and agency.157 The choice of Moreno Sánchez to lead Mexico’s del­e­ga­tion also signaled the end of an era. As the US Embassy noted, the senator had “burned his bridges” po­liti­cally by coming out against Díaz Ordaz; his po­liti­cal ­career during the forthcoming sexenio (six-­year presidential term) was effectively over.158 Moreno Sánchez’s speech was a vigorous cele­bration and impassioned articulation of Mexican internationalism u ­ nder López Mateos. Another member of the del­e­ga­tion told the sre that Moreno Sánchez “brilliantly presented” Mexico’s foreign policy. The speech, he noted with some hyperbole, was “one of the most impor­tant at the conference and undoubtedly the most significant made by any of the Latin American observers.”159 Certainly the most successful aspect was his ability to channel the central vision of the López Mateos presidency: that Mexico was destined to play the role of Cold War mediator and advocate for peripheral states. The conference themes, declared Moreno Sánchez to the gathering, are not “unknown to my country.”160 Many of the goals pursued by nam , he boasted, are “parallel to ­those for which we long.” He went on to point out that Mexico had not only received heads of state from the movement—­ here, he made a point of listing Cuban president Osvaldo Dorticós first—­ but that López Mateos “has undertaken extended travels outside of Mexico.” Moreover, Mexico had sent diplomatic and cultural emissaries across “all of the continents” and in par­tic­u­lar to “the newly formed countries” that had recently fought their way to in­de­pen­dence. In multiple ways, he continued, Mexico’s foreign policy coincided with the princi­ples of nam ’s agenda, both geopo­liti­cally and morally. Mexico practiced a policy of “in­ de­pen­dence in our international orientation” and pursued an “unwavering effort in pursuit of peace,” a fact demonstrated by the proposal to establish a Latin American nuclear-­free zone. Using language that further aligned 244   —   Chapter Seven

Mexico with nam ’s original criteria for membership, he highlighted the fact that Mexico had refused to allow foreign military bases on its soil or to join an outright military alliance. “All of this demonstrates that we have been advocates [partidarios]” of nonalignment and the princi­ples of nam “­here spoken about and defined.” Yet in highlighting the recent settlement of a long-­standing border dispute with the United States, he also implicitly defended the United States against the radical rebuke of US policies. Citing the example of the Chamizal agreement, he noted that “it confirms that ­there is no conflict between nations that cannot be negotiated, nor any prob­lem that cannot be resolved peacefully, so long as one re­spects the legitimate rights of each side and maintains a true ­will to resolve them.” His speech amounted to a swan song for the López Mateos administration and, perhaps in a deeper sense, for what the Non-­Aligned Movement itself aspired to achieve. Conclusion Four days ­after the conference ended, Soviet premier Khrushchev was ousted. His style of leadership had become erratic, and his risk-­taking provocations to the international system—­epitomized by the Cuban Missile Crisis—­had set the Soviet Union back in its rivalry with China for global leadership of the Socialist camp. Although Cold War conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States persisted, ­there was indeed much truth to Sukarno’s sarcastic toast. Paradoxically, a degree of relaxation in tensions between the superpowers had undermined a central organ­izing rationale for nonalignment. This created an opening for new claims to be made upon the unifying potential of Third World solidarity, centered around the reductionist princi­ple of a racialized revolutionary agency. The win­dow of opportunity generated by a par­tic­u­lar conjuncture of the Cold War—­one that coincided with the strongest position of Mexico’s economy since the revolution—­would again close, as the rising tide of radicalism made global and domestic politics newly unstable. Meanwhile, despite the fears of Thomas Mann and o ­ thers in the State Department, López Mateos’s internationalism had rendered Mexico’s strategic partnership with the United States stronger, not weaker. It was a real­ity borne out ­under Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, whose guidance of Mexico during the tumultuous midpoint of the global sixties proved just how resilient the Good Neighbor truly was.

Apex of Internationalism   —   245

Chapter Eight

The Last Good Neighbor

In September 1966, Mexico inaugurated a stunning new building to ­house its burgeoning Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre , Secretariat of Foreign Affairs or Foreign Ministry). Designed by the renowned Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and u ­ nder construction since 1963, the building was a cornerstone addition to the recently constructed massive public housing complex Nonoalco-­Tlatelolco. With its sleek, high-­ modernist design emulating that of the United Nations, the new building unmistakably symbolized Mexican aspirations to be a consequential force of global diplomacy. Although US officials had spent the previous six years wrestling with the implications of Mexico’s global pivot, the attendance of a high-­level US del­e­ga­tion, led by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, reflected something more than a begrudging accommodation to Mexico’s new international stature. It pointed to the utility of that reputation to the strategic partnership itself. As the British ambassador to Mexico, Nicholas Cheetham, keenly observed, the success of bilateral relations had become premised on a “sophisticated ‘agreement to differ.’ ”1 In a region characterized by po­liti­cal crisis, economic uncertainty, and an ascendant anti-­Americanism, Mexico had emerged as Washington’s most resilient Good Neighbor. Summing up the essence of this newfound strategic logic, Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz told Secretary Rusk in a private meeting following the inauguration of the new Foreign Ministry, “The only pos­si­ble cloud that could affect the relations between the

two countries would come into being if ­either failed to show re­spect for the other.”2 This chapter focuses on 1966 not only as the high-­water mark of the Good Neighbor relationship but as a turning point of the global sixties. Following the second meeting of the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ) in Cairo in 1964, the prospects of nam ’s ability to act as a moderating force on the world stage essentially collapsed. Expectations for peaceful coexistence among nations of competing ideologies became ever dimmer as US intervention in Vietnam and the Cultural Revolution in China coincided to herald a new phase in the fight against global capitalism and Western “imperialism.” Epitomizing this shift was the Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina (First Conference in Solidarity with the P ­ eoples of Africa, Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca), better known as the Tricontinental Conference, held in Havana in January 1966. It was an event that laid bare the self-­evident break between an Old Left tethered to Soviet revolutionary strategy of mass po­liti­cal mobilization and a New Left inspired by the Cuban (and Chinese) call to armed insurrection. At the same time, the Tricontinental Conference coincided with the eruption of a cleavage within the New Left, between that of a disciplined, heroic Left ready for guerrilla action (vanguardist Left) and a free-­spirited, irreverent Left disparaging of revolutionary sanctimoniousness (cosmopolitan Left). The call to hacer la revolución (make the revolution) that encapsulated the sentiment of the Tricontinental Conference resonated with certain sectors of Mexican youth embittered by the conservative turn of President Díaz Ordaz, but so too did the cultural rebellion that was rewriting the rules of protest in an altogether dif­fer­ent way. Foreshadowing what would soon transpire during the student-­led protests in the summer and fall of 1968, Carlos Fuentes described in a letter from abroad shortly ­after the Tricontinental Conference how in London and New York “young ­people have taken power.” It was not po­liti­cal power, he underscored, but a “social, cultural” transformation, “the power of rhythm, of their bodies.”3 Mexico’s Foreign Policy “Truisms” Barely two months into his term as president, Díaz Ordaz called upon the new US ambassador, Fulton Freeman, to clarify the state of Mexico’s relationship with Washington. Mexico, Díaz Ordaz stated, would “never be a supine friend ‘on its knees’ ” if confronted by “the dominating ­will” of the United States, in e ­ither domestic or international ­matters. However, he added, “when vital issues [are] involved,” when world peace was threatened, The Last Good Neighbor   —   247

Mexico “would follow [the] US lead implicitly.”4 It was a forthright statement that encapsulated the under­lying logic of mutual expectations that had come to define the Good Neighbor framework. By 1966 Mexico had acquired a sovereignty of action matched only by the period ­under President Lázaro Cárdenas in the late 1930s, when the country nationalized foreign oil companies and supported the Republican forces fighting against General Francisco Franco in Spain. Yet Mexican sovereignty was contingent on support for US security interests. The question, of course, was how the stakes of ­those security interests ­were ultimately defined. When, short of outright war, was “world peace” threatened? What did it mean to follow the US lead “implicitly” rather than outright? Mexican policy ­toward Cuba stood as a prime example of this newfound logic, but t­ here would be further tests as the United States became directly involved in waging war against a peasant army in Vietnam and demonstrated a readiness to resort to military solutions in Latin Amer­ic ­ a as well. Four months into the new administration, the US Embassy reported optimistically that notable differences distinguished the new administration’s foreign policy from the “world junketeering” of López Mateos.5 One early indication had been the appointment of Mexico’s former ambassador to the United States, Antonio Carrillo Flores, as the new foreign minister. In contrast to his pre­de­ces­sor, Carrillo Flores was widely expected to follow a more mea­sured foreign policy better aligned with US interests. He seemed to lack the “endemic anti-­Americanism so common in Mexican politicians,” Ambassador Freeman opined, and heralded a shift t­oward a more stable bilateral relationship. The embassy’s assessment concluded that while “central truisms” would continue to define Mexican foreign policy—­defense of the princi­ple of national sovereignty, opposition to any form of intervention, insistence on negotiated rather than military solutions to conflict—­a new status quo had been reached. Freeman suggested that one could now “safely predict an essential continuity” from one Mexican administration to the next.6 It was a remarkable acknowl­edgment of a new diplomatic understanding, one that Ambassador Freeman, for his part, interpreted as liberating. Knowing ­these “truisms” would allow Washington to safely predict Mexican actions, he reasoned, thereby removing much of the guesswork and hand-­wringing from the bilateral relationship. One could expect “differences in tone and style,” he wrote, but the guarantee of an under­lying strategic partnership was now legible. Moreover, he pointed out the utility of allowing for Mexico to publicly disagree with the United States over foreign policy ­matters. Such confrontations ­were “an impor­tant ele­ment in 248   —   Chapter Eight

maintaining the image of an ‘in­de­pen­dent’ ” foreign policy, a stance that has “wide popu­lar appeal.”7 Official Mexican positions expressing “in­de­ pen­dence” might pose an irritant to bilateral relations, but it was impor­tant to view ­these disagreements within a wider strategic framework: as concessions that strengthened the ruling party’s grip on power and thus underwrote po­liti­cal stability on the border. Although Freeman did not say so explic­itly, such flexibility lent credence to the US pledge of mutual re­spect, the axiomatic cornerstone of Good Neighbor diplomacy. As the credibility of the Good Neighbor was undermined by US actions elsewhere in the region, granting Mexico room to confront the United States was not only a necessary concession to bilateral relations; it emerged as a central component of a strategy to sustain the legitimacy of the Good Neighbor itself. The first significant test of this newfound logic came soon ­after this assessment, when the United States unexpectedly invaded the Dominican Republic. The circumstances leading to the invasion ­were complex. A coup on April 24 by ju­nior officers in the Dominican military had set the stage for the return of Juan Bosch, a progressive, demo­cratically elected leader who had been ousted in 1963 but was still considered by his supporters as the island’s legitimate president. The commander of the pro-­Bosch forces, Francisco Caamaño Deño, had enough of a resemblance to Fidel Castro, in that he was a strong orator and fearless leader, to alarm US officials. So, too, did the small number of Communist organ­izations that sought to take advantage of the military’s fracture. Fearing “a second Cuba” if the rebels ­were to seize control, on April 28 President Lyndon B. Johnson dispatched twenty-­two thousand marines to the island u ­ nder the pretext of “saving American lives.”8 Despite securing retroactive ­legal authority for the intervention u ­ nder the collective security clause of the Rio Treaty—­Brazil and several Central Amer­i­ca countries would subsequently send a token contingent of soldiers to bolster US marines—it was impossible to whitewash the fact that this was the first overt violation of the noninterventionist pledge of the Good Neighbor since President Franklin D. Roo­se­velt had withdrawn the last of US forces from Haiti more than thirty years e ­ arlier. Within days, capitals across Latin Amer­i­ca and worldwide witnessed scenes of violent, anti-­American protests (see figure 8.1). In a letter published in the New York Times, Carlos Fuentes denounced the intervention as “unequivocally brutal and unlawful” and compared it to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The “patient, long-­sighted work of Franklin Roo­se­velt and John Kennedy,” he warned, had been “torn to shreds” by President Johnson’s actions.9 Writing from Mexico City, British ambassador Nicholas Cheetham regarded the invasion as a consequential event, The Last Good Neighbor   —   249

Figure 8.1 University students and members of the Central Campesina Independiente, the agrarian arm of the rapidly disintegrating Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, gather at the Mexico City monument to President Benito Juárez, Mexico’s heroic nineteenth-­century defender against French imperialism, to protest US intervention in the Dominican Republic on May 11, 1965. The banner in the center featuring a visage of Abraham Lincoln reads, “Lincoln has died. Johnson killed him in the Dominican Republic.” Source: “Protesta contra intervención eeuu ,” no. 20.467, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

one that “shattered [the] relative calm” of domestic politics. Students in the capital burned the US flag and effigies of U ­ ncle Sam, while in Puebla and Guadalajara protests turned into riots as cars with US license plates ­were singled out for destruction.10 Yet while Cheetham compared the “intensity of the emotions . . . ​aroused” to the situation faced by López Mateos in the summer of 1960—­when US-­Cuba relations ­were coming to a head—­ the difference in government response was striking. In contrast to the events of 1960, when López Mateos galvanized public support in defense of Cuban sovereignty as a tactic for harnessing the Left to the administration’s internationalist objectives (see chapter 3), this time the government’s response was far more muted. To be certain, the news hit President Díaz Ordaz, as Soledad Loaeza describes it, like a “strong punch in the face.”11 Foreign Minister Carrillo Flores immediately condemned the intervention as a violation of the oas charter. Yet the US Embassy reported with evident relief that the government had 250   —   Chapter Eight

“refrained from launching a propaganda broadside” similar to the previous administration’s response with Cuba. This was especially notable since the timing of the intervention had occurred only days before the cele­bration of May Day and Cinco de Mayo, annual events that “provided excellent opportunities,” as Ambassador Freeman noted, for mobilizing public support against US actions.12 The only significant public rebuke came during a pre­sen­ta­tion by President Díaz Ordaz at the convening of the eleventh meeting of the Economic Commission for Latin Amer­i­ca (ecla ) in Mexico City. “The ­people and government of Mexico are united in their conviction that it falls to the Dominicans, and only to the Dominicans, to determine their form of government and more broadly their f­uture,” the president stated, “without any interference, direct or indirect, open or hidden, that originates from outside.”13 Foreign minister Antonio Carrillo Flores l­ater reflected that the US government clearly understood the significance of Díaz Ordaz’s remarks.14 Mexico needed to oppose the intervention as a ­matter of princi­ple but would not agitate beyond a reiteration of that position. In a telling assessment, several months ­later—­even as US troops still patrolled the streets of Santo Domingo—­Freeman crowed that bilateral relations ­were “only slightly affected” by the invasion, despite the “basic discrepancy” with US actions.15 Indeed, when Díaz Ordaz gave his first State of the Union (Informe) address that September, t­ here was far less attention given to foreign relations in general than u ­ nder López Mateos. Although the president reiterated Mexico’s opposition both to the intervention and to a US proposal to establish an oas “Inter-­American Peace Force” on the island, Freeman noted positively the absence of any “comment on [the] general world situation or such trou­ble spots as Viet-­Nam.”16 The abrupt turnaround from the flashy internationalism pursued by López Mateos was dramatic and needs explanation. In stark contrast to his globe-­trotting pre­de­ces­sor, Díaz Ordaz would travel abroad only twice during his entire period in office and never leave the hemi­sphere.17 How can we account for this parochial use of the presidency to influence foreign affairs? Why, given the opportunities noted by Ambassador Freeman in the wake of the invasion of the Dominican Republic, did Díaz Ordaz fail to take advantage early on to mobilize Mexican youth and the Left in support of his regime? Relatedly, given the patent violation of the Good Neighbor pledge of nonintervention, why did Mexico not seek to lead a more robust defense of Dominican sovereignty, as López Mateos had with re­spect to Cuba? Moreover, ­after years of positioning Mexico as a de ­facto leader within the Non-­Aligned Movement, why did Díaz Ordaz fail to speak out more vociferously against the escalation of US forces in The Last Good Neighbor   —   251

Vietnam? In short, why did Díaz Ordaz appear to retreat from following through on the global pivot initiated by his predecessor—­a retreat that occurred precisely at the pinnacle of Mexico’s international stature? As a US assessment noted, nearly two years into his administration Díaz Ordaz “has been less inclined than [his] pre­de­ces­sor to proj­ect Mexico’s image on the world scene, and ­there has also been less tendency to flirt with the so-­called Third World.”18 An intersection of ­factors helps account for this seeming about-­face in Mexican posture. A basic explanation derives from Díaz Ordaz’s personality and character, which influenced his leadership style. Early US Embassy reports described him as “a man of prudence” with a “disinclination to ‘rock the boat.’ ”19 He lacked, as another report put it, a “flamboyant sense of the dramatic.”20 Moreover, he had never accepted the idea that the president should be a global traveler, and despite having served directly ­under López Mateos he “confessed his inexperience in foreign affairs and his trepidation in h ­ andling them.”21 As Enrique Krauze encapsulates in his biographical sketch, “The pleasures of the roads of the world ­were not for him.”22 Ironically, at a moment when Mexico’s international star was rising, López Mateos had chosen as a successor one of the least globally inclined leaders the nation had ever had. A second f­ actor was the fragmentation of a unified left-­wing movement. As detailed in chapter 6, the rapid collapse of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) had multiple c ­ auses, and by the start of Díaz Ordaz’s administration the dissolution was complete. To be certain, throughout the country ­there ­were numerous manifestations of left-­wing organ­izing (and more radical actions), but gone was the coherency of a movement that had congealed, if briefly, in the context of the Cuban Revolution. ­Under Díaz Ordaz, the mln could no longer act as an effective pressure force on the regime. A New Left was fully ascendant, but it was a New Left split not only ideologically between Trotskyists, Maoists, and pro-­Cuban Guevarists but between ­those bent t­oward revolutionary discipline and t­hose who embraced the language and practices of the emergent counterculture as their weapons of assault. The Left, in short, had become po­liti­cally disempowered as a result of its fragmentation. A telling example of this loss of power comes from early 1965, when Manuel Marcué Pardiñas, editor of Política—at an e ­ arlier moment, the leading newsmagazine for a broad spectrum of writers on the left—­was unceremoniously rebuffed by Díaz Ordaz.23 It was a sign not only of Marcué Pardiñas’s own diminished stature—­ key intellectuals such as Carlos Monsiváis and Carlos Fuentes had recently broken publicly with the magazine—­but a clear reflection of the dramatic loss of influence the Left in 252   —   Chapter Eight

general now had with the government. By this point, Lázaro Cárdenas had thrown his weight ­behind the new regime, evidenced above all by his public silence following the invasion of the Dominican Republic.24 In short, by the summer of 1965 the Left had lost its influence not only on public opinion but also with the regime. If the global pivot was indebted at least in part to the sway of a unified Left or­ga­nized around the personality (and po­liti­cal shield) of Lázaro Cárdenas, that influence had essentially evaporated. A third f­actor was that in 1966 the “diffusion of power,” which only a short time e ­ arlier had emerged as an opportunity to reshape geopolitics in a manner more favorable to developing nations, now appeared dangerous and destabilizing. The Third World proj­ect, which, for a brief period, had coalesced around the Non-­Aligned Movement as a ­viable counterweight to the major Cold War powers, was failing. The costs of rescuing it by lending Mexico’s moderate voice to the mix now outweighed the benefits of steering clear altogether. As Blanca Torres writes, “Reaching out to the non-­ aligned nations, something that gave the foreign policy of Adolfo López Mateos a certain ‘universalist’ character, practically dis­appeared.”25 Even if he ­were so inclined, the raging competition between Soviet and Chinese positions over influence in the Third World left scant room for Díaz Ordaz to assert his leadership within a movement that by 1966 had marginalized the forces of moderation. An alternative explanation for why Díaz Ordaz demonstrated restraint in foreign policy during his presidency was that he felt threatened by the implications of a return to US militarism. Coupled with support for military coups in Latin Amer­i­ca, the recourse to force u ­ nder President Johnson indicated a new readiness by the United States to arrest any signs of drift from the US geopo­liti­cal orbit. The potential of new interventions, writes Soledad Loaeza, “hung like the sword of Damocles,” leading Díaz Ordaz to “act with caution” in his relations with the United States to avoid any pretext for intervention in Mexico as well.26 This interpretation, however, overlooks the centrality of Mexico’s Good Neighbor relationship to US strategy in the region and an appreciation for how cautious Washington was in upholding that relationship. It also seems to discount repeated assurances from within the State Department and the US military regarding the preparedness of the Mexican military and the overall po­liti­cal stability of the regime. Thus, a memorandum issued by Secretary of State Dean Rusk in the spring of 1966 instructed that “scrupulous attention” be given to Mexico’s “extreme sensitivity on sovereign equality.” It was essential “to avoid any appearance of subservience to the United States,” he underscored.27 In short, the United States The Last Good Neighbor   —   253

had ­little to gain and much to sacrifice by bullying Mexico at this delicate international juncture. A Mirage of Tricontinentalist Unity In the December  1965 issue of Política, a special four-­ page insert announced the forthcoming Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina, an event that was already being referred to as the Tricontinental Conference. A central visual component of the insert was a full-­page artistic rendering that encapsulated an ethos of revolutionary solidarity in which Latin Amer­i­ca, as the text by Youssef El Sebaì declared, was fi­nally prepared to “join hands” with the p ­ eoples of Asia and Africa, to do “­battle against imperialism, colonialism, and neo­ co­lo­nial­ism throughout the world.”28 In the image we see a steely, heavi­ly bearded young man, eyes fixed on the horizon as he advances t­ oward the viewer and across the vast landscape of Latin Amer­i­ca, which forms the announcement’s backdrop (see figure 8.2). Dressed in loose fatigues, his shirt opened at the collar, and equipped with only an antiquated ­rifle and small backpack, the figure is depicted as marching along on an undetermined yet heroic path—to end in e ­ ither certain victory or martyrdom. In its aesthetics, the illustration foreshadowed key ele­ments of the iconic repre­sen­ta­ tion of the “heroic guerrilla” that would circulate globally almost exactly two years l­ ater, following the death of Che Guevara in the fall of 1967. The image conveyed a clear message: solidarity was an ethical duty—­el deber revolucionario (revolutionary duty) in Castro’s evocative phrase—­expected of the young. But it was a duty demanded especially of the educated, ­those whose privileged status required the repayment of a moral “debt” to society delivered by armed strug­gle. The convocation of the Tricontinental Conference now confirmed Latin Amer­i­ca as a vital epicenter of a global strug­gle in which the fate of all three so-­called continents of the Third World—­Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca—­was interconnected. Discussion of the Tricontinental Conference is generally told ­either as a Cuban story, one that puts Castro at the head of a Latin American revolutionary axis, or as a colorful appendage of the global Cold War, the embodiment of a late-1960s form of revolutionary politics.29 Both versions render an assumption that the vision of revolutionary solidarity linking Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca was born from the Cuban conference sui generis. But the origins of “tricontinentalism” extend far beyond Cuba. They reach back to the founding event in Bandung in 1955 and course through the trajectory of solidarity movements that emerged from that gathering 254   —   Chapter Eight

Figure 8.2 A full-­page announcement for the “First Solidarity Conference of the ­Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca” (Tricontinental Conference) scheduled for Havana, Cuba, on January 6–12, 1966. The image ­here of a rugged, solitary, bearded male fighter presaged the trope of the “heroic guerrilla” that emerged following the death of Che Guevara a ­little more than a year ­later. Source: Política, December 1, 1965 (insert).

and that were ultimately ­shaped by the fraught politics of the Sino-­Soviet split.30 Moreover, Mexico and, in par­tic­ul­ar, Lázaro Cárdenas played key yet overlooked roles in the genealogy of the conference. Cárdenas, in fact, not only was an intellectual progenitor for the conference but emerged as a bridge between the solidarity movement’s competing ideological players. In the end the Tricontinental Conference marked a crossroads of the global Left, one that set the stage for, yet ironically failed to anticipate, the nature of global student revolt that erupted in 1968. Disentangling ­these complex origins requires an understanding of the intersection of three historical forces at work. The first was the push immediately ­after the 1955 conference in Bandung to extend the Spirit of Bandung beyond Asia and Africa into Latin Amer­ i­ ca, an impulse that gathered speed and direction following the Cuban Revolution. As we have seen, ­there ­were two main orga­nizational bodies generated by the Ban­ dung Conference, the Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization (aapso ), The Last Good Neighbor   —   255

established in 1958, and the Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ), formed in 1961. Each pursued Latin American participation as a strategy of widening their respective orga­nizational and ideological reach. Yet while both shared the premise of solidarity as the essential moral and programmatic force needed to achieve a more just world, their strategic approaches and ultimately their goals differed greatly. Whereas aapso proclaimed a politics of solidarity defined by racial and geo­graph­i­cal affiliation, nam defended the rights of all subordinate states to have a voice of relevance within the postwar order. Jeffrey Byrne aptly describes this emergent divide in terms of competing interpretations over viewing the Third World as a place versus a proj­ect.31 Hence, aapso ’s membership was constituted mostly by nonstate actors (e.g., revolutionary organ­izations, po­liti­cal parties), and its ethos was that of revolutionary emancipation. nam ’s orga­nizational politics, by contrast, was premised on shared geopo­liti­cal interests and its membership, in turn, privileged heads of state over nonstate actors (though the latter at times participated as observers).32 Thus, it was via aapso , with its premise of transnational solidarity based on anti-­imperialist strug­gle (rather than geopo­liti­cal balancing), that the idea of a “tricontinent conference” first took shape and the forum through which po­liti­cal discussion and planning ensued. By the time the Tricontinental Conference came to fruition, however, aapso ’s ethos favored wrecking rather than reforming the international order, and it was this new ethos that predominated at Havana. A second force at work shaping the origins and trajectory of the Tricontinental Conference was the divisions generated by the Sino-­Soviet split. Despite being excluded from the original meeting in Bandung (a reflection of the organizers’ efforts to steer clear of the emergent Cold War divide), the Soviet Union quickly maneuvered to insinuate itself within aapso via participation of World Peace Council (wpc ) representatives in aapso gatherings. Launched in 1949, the wpc was a Soviet-­ backed solidarity organ­ization whose geo­graph­i­cal reach and support of broad-­based co­ali­ tion politics overlapped in key re­spects with aapso ’s early aspirations. As tensions mounted between the Soviets and the Chinese, the Soviet Union sought to leverage its wpc presence within aapso to counteract the growing influence of the PRC, whose geo­graph­ic ­ al affinities with aapso ’s racialized identity politics placed the Chinese at an inherent advantage. By 1960 Latin Amer­i­ca had emerged as a key battleground between the Soviet Union and China with re­spect to the orga­nizational composition and expanding rationale of aapso . The wpc had roots in Latin Amer­i­ca dating to the council’s origins, and the region’s Communist parties remained firmly oriented ­toward the Soviet Union; China was still a shallow ideological 256   —   Chapter Eight

presence. From the Soviets’ perspective, if aapso could expand itself to incorporate Latin Amer­i­ca, Soviet underrepre­sen­ta­tion across Africa and Asia could be amply compensated. Thus, the push to convene a tricontinent conference, both in its own right and as the vehicle for transforming aapso into a “tricontinental” organ­ization that officially incorporated Latin Amer­i­ca, emerged as a key component of Soviet strategy to counterbalance the rise of Chinese influence within aapso and over the “solidarity movement” more generally. The third historical force that gave rise to the Tricontinental Conference was Lázaro Cárdenas himself and the role that Mexico had played in defending the cause of global solidarity ­under López Mateos. As we have seen, Cárdenas was active in the wpc and played a central role in the convening of the Latin American Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation, and Peace in Mexico City in March 1961 (see chapter  4). While the majority of participants at that event ­were from Latin Amer­i­ca, tele­grams of support poured in from leaders and organ­izations across Asia and Africa. Consistent with the orga­nizational ethos cultivated by aapso , participants also represented a multitude of po­liti­cal movements, most of which ­were unaffiliated with national governments. The conference proved a significant impetus for the wpc to step up its push to incorporate Latin Amer­i­ca directly into aapso , and soon wpc representatives ­were championing the idea of a global conference with Asian, African, and Latin American participants. As Cárdenas himself ­later noted, the idea for a tricontinental conference “was born in the bosom” of the conference in Mexico City in 1961.33 In April  1961, just one month a ­ fter the gathering in Mexico City, the topic of aapso ’s relationship to Latin Amer­i­ca appeared on the agenda of the organization’s Executive Council. An e ­ arlier proposal to expand aapso to include Latin Amer­i­ca had met with re­sis­tance and this time, according to US intelligence, a wpc representative presented the idea of organ­izing a “Tri-­Continent Conference, intended as the first step in a broad anti-­ imperialist front of Africans, Asians and Latin Americans.”34 The motion was approved. However, as the Mexico City conference had failed to establish a permanent Secretariat, eight months ­later at aapso ’s Executive Committee meeting in Gaza, a resolution was approved to “coordinate the national movements on the three continents.” By then, vari­ous Latin American countries had established “national liberation movements”—­the mln in Mexico was among the most successful—­and aapso supported a mea­sure to “reach a shared agreement” with t­hese respective groups in ­future planning.35 According to a cia analy­sis, however, Soviet insistence The Last Good Neighbor   —   257

on wpc sponsorship of the proposed conference “met with sharp Chinese re­sis­tance” and a final vote on the proposal was put off.36 Support for the conference was rapidly becoming a litmus test of loyalty along the Sino-­ Soviet divide, one that threatened to expose an emerging fissure within the global solidarity movement. In short time, Sino-­Soviet conflict over the ideological direction and control of aapso was playing itself out precisely over the role of Latin Amer­i­ca and sponsorship of a tricontinent conference. ­These divisions came into the open at aapso ’s third international conference held in Tanzania (Tanganyika) in February 1963 when wpc representatives battled to expand aapso to include Latin Amer­i­ca, a proposal “strongly opposed by the Chinese Communists.”37 Looking to keep aapso from being torn asunder, the exiled Moroccan left-­wing po­liti­cal figure Mehdi Ben Barka successfully negotiated a compromise. Ben Barka had risen as a prominent leader within aapso and in the years since the launching of the organ­ ization, as a State Department analy­sis pointed out, he had become ­adept at “finding compromises for Sino-­Soviet imbroglios.” He now proposed that “all previously suggested sponsoring organ­izations”—­namely, the wpc and aapso itself—­withdraw their support to make way for a distinctive conference preparatory committee, “­free from all outside patronage and influence.” Such a committee, he proposed, would be constituted by representatives of eigh­teen countries, with six from each “continent.”38 Ben Barka’s proposal was nearly derailed, however, by “violent arguments” that broke out ­after the Chinese asserted that Latin American representatives on the committee would not be ­free of wpc (i.e., Soviet) influence. In the end, the conflict was resolved by reaching two further decisions. First, Ben Barka, who was trusted by both sides, would serve as aapso ’s interlocutor with the Latin American representatives. This was intended to reassure the Chinese that the wpc would not prevail in unduly influencing the organ­izing committee. Second, the proposed site for the conference would be Havana, Cuba, a decision “welcomed with joy” by all sides. The se­lection of Cuba was significant and pointed to the ways Castro, too, sought to bridge the Sino-­Soviet divide. For while openly aligned with the Soviet Union, Cuba was also the lone country in Latin Amer­i­ca to have established diplomatic relations with mainland China (though ­others, including Mexico, had trade relations). Moreover, in Castro’s avowed support for armed revolutionary strug­gle and in his virulent denunciations of the United States, he served as a de facto advocate for Chinese revolutionary positions. Indeed, as a cia analy­sis of the meeting at Tanzania concluded, the compromise over the proposed conference ap258   —   Chapter Eight

peared to be “weighted in f­ avor of the Chinese.” For now, at least, the wpc was effectively “eliminated from three-­continent planning.” Meanwhile Cuba, a strategic ally of the Soviet Union yet whose voice on international ­matters was more closely aligned with the Chinese position, was assigned “a key spot.” Cárdenas, the cia predicted, would find himself “boxed into a position of having ­either to cooperate with Castro on conference preparations or openly to oppose him.”39 In fact, Cárdenas—­who had remained actively engaged in drumming up support for the concept of a tricontinental conference—­was feeling “boxed in,” yet the cia ’s analy­sis failed to consider a third option, namely that Cárdenas would withdraw from planning altogether. Cárdenas’s sense of entrapment derived from the fact that his vision of Latin Amer­i­ca’s insertion within the global solidarity movement was being hijacked by the po­liti­cal machinations of the Sino-­Soviet split. The Old Left of Popu­lar Front co­ali­tions he had championed and that for a brief moment seemed pos­si­ble in the evolution of ideologically eclectic “movements of national liberation” was no longer the vanguard of revolutionary politics. In a letter to Youssef El Sebai, head of aapso , three months ­after the meeting in Tanzania, Cárdenas insisted on the need first to hold a second Latin American sovereignty conference, based on the one he had convened in Mexico City. It was imperative, he wrote, to first establish “a permanent continental organism, one representative of Latin Amer­i­ca’s anti-­imperialist forces, that ­will coordinate and give impulse to the common strug­gle across the hemi­sphere.” The six Latin American representatives who would serve on the planning committee for the Tricontinental Conference would then be selected directly from this “continental organism,” one that was “capable of coordinating and consolidating actions” and thus able to forge a “unity of ideas and emancipatory proposals” to take to the conference.40 Yet by then, Mexico’s own mln was in utter disarray—­a “movement” in name only. Despite an effort made in the summer of 1963 to convene a second Latin American conference, the possibilities ­were as remote as ever. Cárdenas’s last archived correspondence with any of the conveners of the Tricontinental Conference dates from the fall of 1963.41 In a journal entry from late 1963, Cárdenas included a brief reflection about the state of conference planning that provides impor­tant, if ­limited, insight into his state of mind. “The Tricontinental Conference should be convened by po­liti­cal parties, social, and cultural organ­izations that are accountable to each country,” he wrote, in evident disapproval of the fractious ideological dispute raging within aapso , adding that it was impor­tant to include “countries from other continents, including [­those] socialist, cap­i­tal­ist, and communist.”42 The Last Good Neighbor   —   259

Meanwhile, preparations for the Tricontinental Conference ­were overshadowed by another momentous event that loomed within aapso : the staging of a second Bandung-­style conference in Algeria, scheduled for June 1965. As the jockeying for positions geared up, Bandung II, as it became known, pitted the Soviet and Chinese against one another in what was emerging as an epochal strug­gle for ideological ascendancy and global leadership within the Third World proj­ect. At the last minute, the conference was derailed by a military coup against Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella.43 For months, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry had kept close tabs on planning for Bandung II and, ­under Díaz Ordaz’s leadership, the government had l­ittle desire to participate even as an observer. In that regard, a message from Mexico’s ambassador to Finland must have been somewhat reassuring. The local press, he noted, had commented on how the low turnout for an e ­ arlier ministerial planning meeting “proves that t­ hose countries have no desire to become involved—­nor even take a position—in the face of the Soviet-­Chinese conflict, as they consider that conflict as external to their interests.”44 Despite frantic efforts within aapso to reschedule the conference for the fall, the coup against Ben Bella (China’s strongest ally in Africa) coupled with a second coup in late September against Indonesian president Sukarno (China’s strongest ally in Asia) dealt unsustainable blows not only to the prospects of a Bandung II but to China’s po­liti­cal influence more generally. “By the end of 1965,” Jeremy Friedman writes, “the prc ’s foreign policy, such as it was, had collapsed.”45 The drama that ultimately culminated in the failure to convene a “second Bandung” pointed not only to the high stakes of the Sino-­Soviet dispute but also to the inability of aapso to serve as a forum for sustaining the spirit of collective action that had emerged from the original meeting in Bandung exactly one de­cade ­earlier. By that point, as a State Department analy­sis somewhat cynically described, aapso had become l­ ittle more than “a mixed bag of revolutionaries, ruling po­liti­cal parties, communists and radicals, all of whom view[ed] the organ­ization as an elastic propaganda forum” from which to disseminate “their own pet ­causes.”46 The unexpected collapse of Bandung II, however, now heightened the potential impact of the forthcoming Tricontinental Conference scheduled for Cuba. Havana, Epicenter of the Global Solidarity Movement At a preliminary stage, the Tricontinental Conference had been conceived as a way of bringing Latin Amer­i­ca into the aapso fold, but with the disintegration of Bandung II the conference took on an entirely new and unan260   —   Chapter Eight

ticipated significance: as the last bastion of revolutionary solidarity. Following the plan put forth by Ben Barka, in 1965 six representatives from each of the three “continents” met in separate planning sessions, first in Ghana and then in Cairo, with Ben Barka himself serving as the chair of the Preparatory Committee.47 Ben Barka had his work cut out for him. Despite efforts to keep ideological divisions at bay, a “furor over invitations” erupted when it became apparent that the pro-­Soviet Latin American representatives on the preparatory committee favored inviting established Communist parties and related front groups, whereas the Asian and African representatives pushed for an alternative list “of the pro-­Chinese splinter groups.”48 Once more, Ben Barka succeeded in reaching a compromise: countries with competing po­liti­cal organ­izations would form “national solidarity committees” to send as delegates. At the same time, to avoid further dispute, the question of ­whether the Tricontinental Conference would form the basis for a new aapso (incorporating Latin Amer­i­ca permanently), evolve as a Latin American adjunct of aapso , or take shape as something new altogether was left purposefully undecided.49 Then, in late October, as final preparations for the conference ­were taking place, Ben Barka was kidnapped in Paris; his body was never found. With Ben Barka gone, the Tricontinental Conference was further severed from aapso and would thus take on a life of its own—­independent of Soviet and Chinese politics alike. As a Soviet ally whose revolutionary ethos more closely aligned with China, Cuba was uniquely positioned to host the conference. Given Soviet influence over finalizing the agenda, a cia analy­sis suggested that the radical overtones ­were “clearly designed to take the wind out of the Chinese sails.” In fact, the analy­sis continued, “it may superficially sound even a bit ‘Chinese.’ ”50 Ironically, while the Soviet Union continued to hold greater po­liti­cal sway over the Latin American Left (whose parties ­were mostly funded by the Soviets), the Chinese, despite their sudden turn of geopo­liti­cal misfortune, w ­ ere nevertheless winning the ideological argument, not only across Latin Amer­i­ca but globally. Whereas only a few years ­earlier, the Soviet Union had held a virtual mono­poly over the ideological direction of Communist parties throughout Latin Amer­i­ca, that degree of control and influence was rapidly crumbling. Of course, the foco strategy of guerrilla warfare promoted by the Soviet Union’s erstwhile client, Cuba, had already directly contributed to this rupture.51 But equally impor­tant was the frontal attack on “peaceful coexistence” led by China’s meteoric rise within the global solidarity community, which, in spite of China’s diminished geopo­liti­cal influence, “had succeeded in changing the The Last Good Neighbor   —   261

nature of the debate.”52 Thus despite the fact that Cuba was a Soviet ally, as the outcome of the Tricontinental Conference would demonstrate, the tail was clearly wagging the dog when it came to revolutionary rhe­toric and strategy. The Tricontinental Conference was the largest of any previous solidarity gathering. Nearly 700 combined delegates, observers, and invited guests convened from around the world, including 165 delegates representing 27 countries from Latin Amer­ic ­ a. A US Senate report described it as “prob­ably the most power­ful gathering of pro-­Communist, anti-­American forces in the history of the Western Hemi­sphere.”53 The size and scope of the nearly two-­week-­long assemblage (in the end, January 3–15), however, masked rampant tensions and fierce infighting between the Soviet and Chinese positions. The Soviet del­e­ga­tion (headed by Sharaf Rashidov) insisted the platform “should be one for unity and not for division,” but the general tone of the conference clearly was more supportive of Chinese—­ and, ­needless to say, Cuban—­revolutionary strategy. In his speech to the gathering, the head of China’s del­ e­ ga­ tion (Wu Hseuh-­ Chien) brazenly criticized the Soviets for “allying” with “Yankee imperialism.” The Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence had allowed for “tranquility on the Western front,” which permitted US troops to roam freely “from Western Germany to South Vietnam.” In remarks that may have been unscripted but nevertheless reflected the necessity of a shift in Soviet tactics to ward off this Chinese rhetorical assault, Rashidov “affirmed Soviet support for ‘­peoples’ wars and the armed strug­gle of oppressed ­peoples.” Rashidov even implicitly acknowledged the Chinese position by stating, “­There cannot be any peaceful co-­existence between the oppressed ­peoples and their oppressors.”54 Ultimately, Rashidov was able to push through a resolution over Chinese objections that included the phrase peaceful coexistence and to beat back Chinese efforts to condemn the United Nations as “an instrument of US imperialism.”55 But despite outward perceptions of revolutionary unity, the gathering was far from harmonious. According to a British report, arguments over questions of global revolutionary strategy and confrontation with the cap­i­tal­ist countries “­were so b ­ itter and protracted” that the closing ceremony was postponed several times and ultimately held five days ­later than originally planned.56 In fact, such was the ideological rancor between del­e­ga­tions that at one point, according to an Egyptian participant, Fidel Castro ordered the closing of the airport to prevent delegates from leaving the conference before the final resolutions had been voted on.57 These disputes ­ ­ were exacerbated by discussions over the ­ future of aapso , which reflected the fact that the conference itself was a pawn in 262   —   Chapter Eight

a larger, ongoing ­battle. Fearful of China’s mounting ideological influence within aapso , the Soviets proposed to dissolve this older solidarity organ­ization altogether and fold it into a new tricontinental organ­ization located in Cairo. China, however, succeeded in fighting against this proposal. Ironically, they ­were aided in their insistence by Castro himself, whose own goal was to establish the Tricontinental as a distinctive body headquartered in Cuba. The debate continued up ­until the very last day of the conference when the Soviets, “unwilling to disappoint her Cuban ally,” threw their support b ­ ehind the idea for the Tricontinental to emerge as a separate organ­ization.58 China was thus able to claim at least a partial victory by saving aapso from being absorbed into a body over which the Soviets would likely predominate. This put a definitive end to six years of strug­gle within aapso over the question of geo­graph­i­cal expansion and allowed Cuba to become the locus for a new, supranational vision of global solidarity, one that ultimately supplanted in significance that of aapso . That spring, Cuba launched a new institutional body, the Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina (ospaaal , Organ­ ization in Solidarity with the ­ Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin Amer­i­ca), which, through its poster art and its journal, appropriately titled Tricontinental, fostered a new vanguard ideology of “tricontinentalism.” Despite the fractured ideological infrastructure upon which the delegates had convened, the Tricontinental Conference nevertheless succeeded in naturalizing the concept that Latin Amer­i­ca, too, constituted an integral part of the militant strug­gle transpiring across Africa, Asia, and the ­Middle East, and si­mul­ta­neously propelled Cuba to the helm of that strug­gle.59 Mexican Participation at the Tricontinental Conference Mexicans would participate in the Tricontinental Conference, but much had changed since the heady days of the Mexico City solidarity conference of 1961. Most notably, ­there was the question of Lázaro Cárdenas and what role, if any, he might play. The cover of the December 1965 issue of Política, which contained editorials and other materials promoting the conference, included Cárdenas as part of a photographic tryptic. He shared the cover with Ghanaian in­de­pen­dence leader and founding member of the Organ­ization of African Unity, Kwame Nkrumah (deposed by his military barely two months l­ater), and the North Viet­nam­ese po­liti­cal leader and military strategist, Ho Chi Minh. Reverent photo­graphs of the three figures arranged side by side framed a text that read “Conferencia de los 3 continentes.” Under­neath their images a caption read, “A common strug­ The Last Good Neighbor   —   263

gle against an ­enemy who is also shared.”60 By including Cárdenas on the cover, Política not only conveyed an impression of his endorsement of the conference but implied his likely participation as well. Cárdenas no doubt experienced a sense of deep regret at not attending. ­After all, as Patrick Iber concludes, from 1961 to 1963  Cárdenas had been “the most forceful advocate” for the concept of a Tricontinental Conference.61 Indeed, a journal entry that coincided with the start of the gathering includes a lengthy statement evidently written with the explicit intent of being read in Havana. But it was never sent and, outside of his private journal, never disseminated. Cárdenas’s message praised the conference as an event of consequence and directly connected the gathering with the sovereignty conference of 1961, noting how the “objectives” of the ­earlier conference—­“the defense of freedom, sovereignty, and world peace”—­ were being carried forward by the meeting in Cuba. Without openly naming the United States, t­ here was l­ittle ­mistake in his language as to which forces Cárdenas identified as responsible for the world’s wars and social ills. Solidarity was necessary, he wrote, to combat “the force which disseminates death and annihilation by the most inhuman means, with napalm and toxic gasses in Vietnam, and that flagrantly intervenes in Santo Domingo, the Congo, Laos, Malaysia, and other regions across the three continents.”62 In stark contrast to his speech in Havana in the summer of 1959, when he quoted President Franklin Roo­se­velt on the importance of the Good Neighbor Policy and denounced the notion that revolutions could be “exported,” ­here Cárdenas deployed language that not only echoed that of the most radical ele­ments within the solidarity movement but suggested a newfound antipathy ­toward the United States in the context of Vietnam and other interventions. P ­ eoples of the “three continents,” he wrote, ­were openly engaged in a strug­gle against “a common ­enemy, which is imperialism.”63 In reading this extensive pre­sen­ta­tion, one regains a sense of Cárdenas’s intense empathy with movements of emancipation as well as an implicit frustration with his own inability to join the cause. Yet Cárdenas left few clues as to why he ultimately chose not to participate in the Tricontinental Conference. One oblique explanatory note appeared in the same entry of his journal: “The organ­ization for the Tricontinental Conference did not conform to that which was agreed upon in the Latin American Conference celebrated in Mexico in 1961.”64 By this, he was clearly referring to the collapse of a united front within the Left and the rise of a more militarist politics that sought to efface the possibilities of peaceful coexistence. The concept of “movements of national liberation” within a broad Popu­lar 264   —   Chapter Eight

Front–­style politics had failed.65 Frustrated by his inability to mediate the fractious po­liti­cal divide, Cárdenas had chosen to place domestic stability over global strug­gle. Indeed, even his son, Cuauhtémoc, a cofounder of the mln , was con­ve­niently abroad in Eu­rope throughout the entirety of the conference, a decision quite likely made at the request of the elder Cárdenas.66 Tellingly, in the days following events in Havana, Cárdenas’s journal is filled not with commentary about what tran­spired—­a consequential meeting, to be sure—­nor any mention of the launching of a continent-­ wide Organización Latinoamericana de Solidaridad (olas , Organ­ization of Latin American Solidarity), nor even of the Mexican government’s principled stance against an oas vote condemning the conference, but rather discussion of his work with the Rio Balsas commission. He had resumed the stance that he himself had e ­ arlier established as the prerequisite for regime stability: become a loyal subordinate of the president in power.67 Mexico’s del­ e­ ga­ tion was officially represented at the Tricontinental Conference by the mln , but by then this group was ­little more than a rump organ­ization described disparagingly by the US Embassy as “conspicuously inactive and undisciplined.”68 Leading the del­e­ga­tion was Heberto Castillo, an early supporter of the mln and a cardenista loyalist whose own positions now uneasily straddled an Old/New Left divide. For instance, a proclamation drawn up by the Mexican preparatory committee and published ­under Castillo’s name contained language clearly reminiscent of 1961, when the cardenista Left was harnessed as an ally of the progressive internationalism of the Mexican government. It included an appeal to the Díaz Ordaz administration to support the Tricontinental Conference “morally and materially” b ­ ecause its outcome “accorded with Mexico’s genuine national interests.”69 In his speech to the conference delegates in Havana, however, Castillo vowed that Mexicans ­were ready to “fight to the death” with “weapons in hand” to liberate their country.70 This ethos of emancipation through vio­lence—­embodied in the image of the lone (male) guerrilla soldier discussed at the beginning of the chapter—­eclipsed the significance of Old Left participants such as Salvador Allende (with whom Lázaro Cárdenas would have certainly made an alliance) and signaled the ascendance of a new discourse of “revolutionary duty” against which it was difficult to argue. Reporting on the conference for Siempre! (which had ample reporters on the ground and dedicated much space to events over several issues), Alberto Domingo noted that the gathering was not about “declarations but profound commitments. Not about actions that ­will fall through, but obligations carried through now.”71 The renowned left-­wing caricaturist known by his pen name, Rius, whose editorial cartoons ­were The Last Good Neighbor   —   265

still a regular feature in Política and Siempre!, likened the Tricontinental Conference’s ethical defense of vio­lence with that of the Talmud: “Eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth,” he wrote. Although Rius would soon become disillusioned with Fidel Castro following the latter’s defense of the Soviet intervention of Czecho­slo­va­kia in 1968, at this high-­water mark of the Cuban Revolution Rius lauded the general tone of the gathering. He concluded his reportage by making a historical reference that he knew would resonate with Mexican readers: “Planes continue to fall from the sky in Vietnam thanks to the incredible heroism of a tiny nation that is d ­ oing the same ­thing that [Benito] Juárez did in his day: demand peace with arms in hand.”72 Indeed, the conference clarified the nature of an Old Left/New Left split by legitimizing the call to arms—­el deber revolucionario—as a po­ liti­cal necessity and ethical duty. Despite the many signs of ideological fractiousness, the overall message endorsing action over words (and clandestinity over above­ground po­liti­cal organ­izing) carried the day. Across Mexico, ­there ­were already vari­ous indications of New Left–­inspired vio­ lence (most famously, in the failed attack on a military base in Chihuahua the previous fall). In the wake of the Tricontinental Conference, recourse to vio­lence by ele­ments on the left increased and clearly echoed Castro’s command—­seconded by Mao and exemplified by Ho Chi Minh—to “make the revolution.” A Bilateral Spring In 1961, bilateral relations with the United States ­were at a nadir point. Fears of anti-­American protests dissuaded tourists from visiting Mexico, and many openly questioned how the country could be a “good neighbor” if the government insisted on maintaining diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro. Cárdenas’s vocal and increasingly vis­i­ble presence seemed to reflect President López Mateos’s willingness to kowtow to left-­wing pressures. Combined with a steady flow of news about Soviet diplomatic inroads, ­there was no shortage of articles in the popu­lar press that openly questioned Mexico’s trustworthiness and po­liti­cal stability. As a full-­page announcement for an investigative series in the Chicago Tribune provocatively stated in 1961, “Is the Iron Curtain about to descend along the 1,600 miles of our southern border?” (see chapter 3).73 Five years l­ ater, the perception and real­ity of the bilateral relationship had transformed dramatically. Not only had Cárdenas receded into the po­liti­cal background but the left-­wing movement (mln ) that had briefly 266   —   Chapter Eight

coalesced around his leadership had collapsed. In contrast to the scrutiny brought about by the 1961 conference, this time ­there was scant concern in the US media or within diplomatic circles that Mexico was again vulnerable to a Cárdenas-­led “communist takeover.” Moreover, whereas in 1961 the logic of Mexico’s revolutionary nationalism had come across as cryptic and, in many ways, anti-­American, by the start of 1966 the US public and Washington alike had reached a fuller understanding and accommodation to that logic. ­There was an additional f­actor: investment in tourism promotion initiated u ­ nder López Mateos was paying rich dividends. Mexico had spent heavi­ly on advertising in US magazines and newspapers, and the official tourism slogan, “So close yet so far,” was now openly identified with travel to Mexico. State-­sponsored cultural institutions such as the Ballet Folklórico and the newly opened Museum of Anthropology constituted key visual motifs of ­these advertisements, which beckoned travelers to enjoy Mexico’s “modernity” and “hospitality.”74 This campaign, moreover, was given a boost by the news that Mexico would host the 1968 Summer Olympics. Coupled with the ease of air travel, multiple forces ­were colluding to produce an unpre­ce­dented flood of tourism into the country. Indeed, during the spring of 1966 a new, reassuring narrative that defined Mexico as the “last Good Neighbor” was taking hold. For the first time since the late 1920s, when Americans embraced the country’s postrevolutionary cultural re­nais­sance, ­there was truly a new “vogue of ­things Mexican.”75 Epitomizing this new vogue was the launching of “Mexico Week” in Boston, Mas­sa­chu­setts, in mid-­April 1966. Or­ga­nized by the World Affairs Council, the focus on Mexico incorporated scores of activities and events held across diverse venues in the city. ­These ranged from an outdoor piñata party for c ­ hildren to art and archaeological exhibitions, musical events, a film series, and numerous seminars on topics such as Mexico’s “Expanding Economy,” Mexico as an “Investment Experience,” and “American-­ Mexican Relations” all led by area academics.76 Former president López Mateos, recently appointed to head the Mexican Olympic Committee, was slated to be a guest of honor (illness likely prevented his attendance), while Hugo Margain, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, was a roaming presence. An official declaration established Dolores Hidalgo (“birthplace of Mexican liberty”) and Lexington, Mas­sa­chu­setts (“birthplace of American liberty”), as ­sister cities. Throughout the week, public mariachi performances—­described in promotional materials as “Mexico’s famous strolling minstrels”—­took place across the Boston Common and at other sites. As Ernest Henderson, president of the World Affairs Council and The Last Good Neighbor   —   267

program chairman, explained in a letter promoting the events, the objective was not only to showcase “the joy and friendliness which characterizes our key Latin neighbor” but to underscore the importance of Mexico as a strategic partner at this “critical juncture in hemispheric relations.”77 That “Mexico Week” was held in a city lacking a Mexican American population spoke to the fact that the targeted audience was not the emerging Chicano po­liti­cal presence in the West and Southwest but rather members of the white ­middle classes and East Coast po­liti­cal elites whose cultural, financial, and po­liti­cal support for Mexico helped determine US policy ­toward the region. Another example epitomizing the shift in national perceptions t­ oward Mexico was a one-­hour tele­vi­sion special broadcast by cbs News, “Mexico: A Lesson in Latin.” The program had originally been filmed two years ­earlier, and its broadcast was meant to coincide with the inauguration of Díaz Ordaz. But a series of dramatic world events in the fall of 1964—­the deposing of Soviet premier Khrushchev, the explosion by the Chinese of a nuclear bomb, presidential elections in the United States—­ conspired to delay its release.78 When it was fi­nally shown in April 1966, the central message that Mexico had “lessons to teach” the United States about Latin Amer­i­ca was arguably more apt than ever. By then, the largest economy in South Amer­i­ca (Brazil) was ­under military rule, and numerous regimes across the region ­were showing signs of a debilitating polarization. (Argentina would succumb to a military coup shortly thereafter.) This po­liti­cal tumult was exacerbated in no small part by the rhe­ toric and raised expectations (for both the Right and the Left) emanating from the recently convened Tricontinental Conference. In contrast, a central “lesson” conveyed by the cbs program was that Mexico’s revolution had produced a stable foundation for the country’s po­liti­cal and economic development. Octavio Paz, by then a somewhat familiar name to US viewers as an essayist and poet (he was also ambassador to India), defended the logic of Mexico’s one-­party system, describing it as “a microcosmos of Mexican real­ity.” The ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional, he explained, was “a total party, but not totalitarian. Every­body in some way belongs to this party.” ­There ­were other “lessons” as well, such as the fact that Mexico’s new ­middle class—­“which the Revolution has produced”—­masked an “other Mexico” constituted by the rural and urban poor. The country, in other words, faced development issues common to Latin Amer­i­ca, but the government’s progressive efforts to address ­those issues (in housing, health, and education) ­were a roadmap for ­others to follow. All of ­these “lessons” ­were themes consecrated dur268   —   Chapter Eight

ing President John F. Kennedy’s visit in 1962, which tied Mexico to the Alliance for Pro­gress. Although left unstated, a central message conveyed by the program was that the US-­Mexico relationship itself constituted an impor­tant “lesson” for the region to follow. Washington had come to re­spect the Mexican po­ liti­cal system, to give it room to breathe and to mature on its own terms. It was a system, the narrator intoned (overlooking examples of repression and protest), “best suited to their history and experience.” In the program’s final moments, the narrator held up Mexico’s revolutionary experience—­ and the accommodation of the United States more recently to that experience—as a model for the region: “We may hope that change in Latin Amer­ i­ca, which all sides agree is coming, may be rapid and peaceful rather than sudden and violent. But if men do take up arms to war on injustice, many Latin Americans hope we ­will not be automatically unsympathetic. For if we are, they believe, we ­will have turned our backs on Mexican history . . . ​ and on our own.”79 cbs News received hundreds of letters of “appreciation and praise” for the program, an indication of its resonance among viewers at that par­tic­u­lar moment. A smaller number of ­people criticized the feature, including one letter writer who lambasted the network for giving airtime to the “self-­confessed communist, Carlos Fuentes.”80 (Fuentes was quoted in the program denouncing the US for having a Latin American policy run by “corporations.”) Shortly ­after it was shown in the United States, Mexican ambassador Margain requested a copy for dissemination on Telesistema, the mono­poly, progovernment tele­vi­sion network.81 He regarded it as a valuable asset worthy of incorporating into the government’s own domestic propaganda arsenal. A final example from that spring that encapsulated US efforts to showcase the distinctiveness of the Good Neighbor was a proposal to pre­sent Mexico with a monument of Abraham Lincoln. The idea, as we have seen, originated six years ­earlier in the context of a scramble to distinguish the US relationship during commemoration ceremonies for Mexico’s 150th anniversary of in­de­pen­dence from Spain and the nation’s 50th anniversary of its revolution (see chapter 3). That initial rush of monument diplomacy fell through, but the central idea—­the donation of a statue that would link the two nations in a singular way—­had been sustained by its supporters in the US Congress. ­After traveling along a somewhat convoluted path it was transformed, quite unexpectedly, into arguably the single most significant act of diplomacy between the two countries during the Johnson presidency. Certainly, its dedication marked the apex of the Good Neighbor relationship. The Last Good Neighbor   —   269

A Singular Act of Monument Diplomacy On August 4, 1964, President Johnson signed into law a bill that had easily passed both h ­ ouses of Congress authorizing the secretary of state to “procure a statue of Lincoln for pre­sen­ta­tion to Mexico . . . ​as a gesture of friendship and good ­will for the Mexican p ­ eople.”82 The embassy suggested April  15, 1965, as the most propitious date for the dedication, as this was the centennial of Lincoln’s death. Yet a clause in the bill stated that the Commission of Fine Arts needed first to evaluate the most suitable artistic terms for the sculpture and, in January 1965, the commission concluded that while an original would be preferred, the extant sculpture Lincoln the Man by Augustus Saint-­Gaudens (located in Chicago) was the most appropriate model. The State Department agreed, noting the Saint-­ Gaudens was “so obviously a superior sculpture” that any effort to surpass it would be impractical. In an impassioned critique of this decision, the Senate coauthors of the bill appealed to Secretary Rusk to allow for an original rather than a replica. From the House of Representatives, a young Donald Rumsfeld echoed his colleagues’ appeal. “For ­people as art conscious as the Mexicans,” Rumsfeld wrote in a letter to Rusk, “it would certainly seem that an original would be far more appropriate.” Despite learning that the original mold had been destroyed by fire, the State Department refused to cede ground and instead authorized Felix de Weldon to make a replica of the original Saint-­Gaudens sculpture.83 A new goal of April 15, 1966, was now set for the dedication. The date still coincided with Lincoln’s death (101  years), and by prior agreement Mexico City’s regent, Ernesto Uruchurtu, had agreed to announce a change of the name of the park where the statue would rest to Parque Lincoln.84 President Johnson’s wife, “Lady Bird” Johnson, accompanied by their two ­daughters, would head a US del­eg ­ a­tion that included the original sponsors of the bill and other Congressmen. Ambassador Fulton Freeman was slated to have the honors of unveiling the statue, while from the Mexican side Foreign Minister Carrillo Flores (“an authority on Abraham Lincoln”) and Uruchurtu ­were both scheduled to speak. Seeking to take full advantage of the event, the US Information Agency (usia ) prepared to go all out with “extensive newspaper, tele­vi­sion, radio and motion picture coverage.” This included plans to produce a documentary short about the unveiling for ­later distribution. Meanwhile, Mexico’s leading newspaper, Excélsior, was preparing a Sunday supplement dedicated to Lincoln; usia planned to purchase ten thousand copies for dissemination throughout the country.85 With l­ ittle competition for diplomatic attention, US-­Mexico relations 270   —   Chapter Eight

would be in the spotlight for a brief moment, and Mexico, already a land of many statues, would unveil yet another. Two days before the dedication, however, a bombshell announcement caught the press, public, and foreign diplomats alike off-­guard: President Johnson himself would travel to Mexico for the dedication. The last-­ minute nature of the decision coupled with the fact that this was Johnson’s first trip abroad as president spoke to the fundamental shift in US-­Mexico relations that had occurred since Kennedy’s visit four years ­earlier. Then, Ambassador Thomas Mann had sought to use Kennedy as a bargaining chip to rein in Mexico’s internationalist ambitions. This time, not only ­were ­there “no major issues to be discussed”—­neither Cuba nor the recent intervention in the Dominican Republic ­were suggested as topics of conversation—­but the point of the visit, as a last-­minute memorandum prepared by Secretary of State Rusk for Johnson noted, was solely to “highlight our friendly relations” and “our ability to resolve our prob­lems amicably with a close neighbor.”86 Moreover, whereas in 1962 President López Mateos leveraged the visit to buttress his global pivot, this time Díaz Ordaz regarded the United States as a strategic anchor in a turbulent world. The war in Vietnam, China’s Cultural Revolution, and the intensification of support for guerrilla warfare across Latin Amer­i­ca all pointed to a hazardous new geopo­liti­cal landscape. In 1962 Ambassador Mann had sought to deploy US diplomatic weight in order to check the global ambitions of López Mateos. By 1966 ­those concerns had shifted considerably. Mexican “in­de­pen­dence” was now accepted by Washington as the price to pay for a broader strategic loyalty. Johnson’s dedication of the Lincoln statue was intended to showcase that a dif­fer­ent kind of relationship was pos­si­ble between the United States and Latin Amer­ic ­ a. The invasion of the Dominican Republic, support for military solutions to po­liti­cal mobilization (such as in Brazil), and an apparent retreat from Alliance for Pro­gress goals more generally had all contributed to a renewed perception across Latin Amer­i­ca of the United States as a bullying force on the side of entrenched conservative interests. But more profoundly, Latin Amer­ic ­ a was experiencing a polarization of attitudes ­toward the United States not witnessed since the late 1920s. Mexico’s exceptionalism to this polarization was underscored in a cia analy­sis that determined that, a year a ­ fter the US invasion of the Dominican Republic, Mexico was the safest place in Latin Amer­i­ca for President Johnson to visit.87 As an editorial in Siempre! astutely put it, Mexico was “the only country that could guarantee a friendly reception” for Johnson. It was the last bastion of hope to “restore, at least to a certain degree, the trust and The Last Good Neighbor   —   271

friendship of Latin Americans for North Americans.”88 The editorial concluded somewhat wryly but quite accurately that, in coming to Mexico, Johnson was in fact speaking to Latin Amer­i­ca. As a figure far removed from the interventionism that marked twentieth-­ century relations, Lincoln was the perfect choice to signify the continuity of Good Neighbor politics. Mexicans considered him a comrade in arms, someone who identified with the strug­gles of President Benito Juárez—­ Lincoln’s con­temporary—to defend the republic against the forces of reaction, both domestic and foreign. Juárez and Lincoln, President Díaz Ordaz pronounced upon Johnson’s arrival, ­were both “guides for our nations.”89 But t­ here was another aspect of Lincoln not widely known in the United States yet celebrated by Mexicans: as a young Congressman, he had denounced the US war against Mexico. His was an “almost solitary voice,” Siempre! editorialized, yet one which “spoke out in support of re­spect for our sovereignty and self-­determination.”90 As a reader’s letter to Siempre! put it, Lincoln was not the typical “image of the ‘gringo’ or of the ‘ugly American.’ . . . ​Lincoln could not be a representative of the current interventionist and abusive invader of the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Cuba, ­etc.”91 Without recognizing the full historical dimensions of the gift, Lincoln was, in fact, the perfect symbol around which Mexicans of all po­liti­cal stripes could potentially rally.92 Johnson’s visit took Mexicans by complete surprise, as did the magnitude of popu­lar response. While the government, as usual, had successfully mobilized thousands of cheering citizens on short notice, t­hese crowds ­were joined spontaneously by tens of thousands of ­others, notably middle-­ class, white-­collar professionals. Even critics of the government ­were forced to acknowledge “the sizeable number of p ­ eople” who lined the several miles of roadway from the airport to the Zócalo to witness his entry into the capital. Arriving at nightfall and traveling in an open-­air car with President Díaz Ordaz by his side, Johnson waved enthusiastically at the throng, described by a writer for Siempre!, “with shouts of exclamation on their lips and signs of content in their eyes.”93 Mexican officials put the number of spectators at more than two million, but even if this figure was “an undoubted exaggeration,” as the British Embassy noted, the sheer size of the crowd was undeniable.94 Within a m ­ atter of hours the city had been covered in ­giant portraits of Johnson and banners professing US-­Mexico friendship.95 Víctor Rico Galán, a writer for Política whose arrest on charges of revolutionary sedition by the government the following fall provoked outrage and underscored the confrontational position of the intellectual Left vis-­à-­vis the new government, described his shocked amazement at “the 272   —   Chapter Eight

delirious crowds” who converged to greet Johnson. ­Were ­these ­“Mexicans or Martians?” he wondered with sardonic frustration.96 Similarly, Alberto Domingo, a frequent commentator for Siempre! who had recently attended the Tricontinental Conference, expressed exasperation at how the masses that turned out for Johnson (“leader of an aggressive and unrestrained nation”) appeared to be the same that turned out for Charles de Gaulle (“classic Eu­ro­pean strong man”) and who cheered Osvaldo Dorticós (“representative of the first Socialist country in the Amer­i­cas”).97 Domingo might have also included Kennedy as the “man who tried to overthrow Castro,” but the larger point was clear: Mexicans of all classes, though perhaps especially t­hose of the ­middle classes, ­were ­eager to celebrate the bilateral friendship as one among many. Johnson’s visit—­alongside t­ hose of other global figures beginning in the late 1950s—­ reflected an affirmation of Mexico’s international stature. It thus amounted to “an homage to Mexico itself,” as one editorial incisively put it, an affirmation of the country’s in­ de­pen­dence and sovereignty—in the context of a visit from the one leader who potentially posed the biggest threat to that sovereignty.98 In contrast to President Kennedy’s multiday trip, Johnson’s was a lightning visit. It lasted barely twenty-­four hours and centered on a single speech he gave at the dedication. Adding diplomatic heft, Johnson arrived with what the British described as an “imposing entourage” that included, among ­others, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Lincoln Gordon (ambassador to Brazil during the period of the coup d’état and newly appointed assistant secretary of state for inter-­American affairs), and Thomas Mann (now in charge of the Alliance for Pro­gress). The unveiling of the Lincoln statue thus was transformed into a major diplomatic encounter (see figures  8.3 and 8.4).99 Johnson used his address to reinvigorate the promise and spirit of the Alliance for Pro­gress, a program that for many had “lost its way” following the death of Kennedy and had become overshadowed by the readiness to back military over po­liti­cal solutions to Latin American underdevelopment.100 He reiterated the central premise of the Alliance for Pro­gress as “a vast social revolution touching the lives of millions of ­people on two continents” and vowed to fight “­those who tenaciously or selfishly cling to special privileges from the past.” He also highlighted the importance of re­spect for sovereignty that was the basis of the Good Neighbor pledge, and what allegedly set Western hemispheric relations apart from other geopo­liti­cal spheres of influence. All nations had a “natu­ral right” to “in­de­pen­dence and sovereignty,” he stated, incorporating Juárez’s well-­ known dictum that “re­spect for the rights of o ­ thers is peace.” (Lady Bird, who was given The Last Good Neighbor   —   273

Figure 8.3 President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson (in white hat, profile), along with President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (obscured) and numerous high-­ranking US and Mexican officials watch as the statue of “Lincoln, el Libertador” is unveiled in the newly dedicated Parque Lincoln in the upper-­class neighborhood of Polanco in Mexico City on April 15, 1966. Note the crowds observing from the balconies in the background. Source: “Inauguración del monumento a Lincoln,” no. 21.809 (tercer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

the honor of the a ­ ctual unveiling, also invoked Juárez’s phrase in her short speech.) In contrast to President Kennedy, who had never been to Mexico prior to his visit in June  1962, President Johnson could genuinely claim a personal affinity with the country and ­people. He had honeymooned in Mexico City in 1934 and, as a Texan, had close, daily ties with p ­ eople of Mexican American heritage. “All my life I have known and lived with and worked alongside the sons and the d ­ aughters of Mexico,” he asserted proudly ­toward the end of his speech. “May we always be good neighbors,” he concluded before adding, “And may we always be good amigos.”101 Diplomatic and media analy­sis uniformly praised the visit as a tremendous success whose impact would reverberate far beyond that of US-­ Mexico relations. While it cannot be known how the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 274   —   Chapter Eight

Figure 8.4 President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (left side of plaque), President Lyndon B. Johnson (right side of plaque), Lady Bird Johnson, Ambassador Fulton Freeman, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and other officials moments ­after the unveiling of the statue of Lincoln. Source: “Descubrimento de la placa por el Pte Díaz Ordaz,” no. 21.809 (tercer sobre), Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn .

statue alone would have been reported by the US media absent the surprise visit by Johnson, the New York Times, for one, called Johnson’s speech “a major statement of United States policy ­toward Latin Amer­i­ca” and included an enormous photo­graph, three columns wide, of the dedication ceremony on the front page.102 Taking note of the speech’s “liberal tone, and lack of anti-­Cuban sabre-­rattling,” Britain’s ambassador to Mexico, Nicholas Cheetham, regarded it as a direct effort to reset the clock on Pan-­American relations. “Altogether it was a remarkable effort of diplomacy from the invader of Santo Domingo,” he remarked.103 Echoing that opinion, Robert Peerpoint of cbs News commented in a live news broadcast that Johnson “sounded a l­ittle, in fact, as if he ­were apologizing for what had happened in the Dominican Republic.”104 “If he r­eally meant what he said, ­today,” Peerpoint continued, “this could be the beginning of ­great popularity in the Western Hemi­sphere for President Johnson.”105 Indeed, flush with The Last Good Neighbor   —   275

­ xcitement, Johnson offered an offhand remark to the press upon his ree turn that was striking in its lack of perspective yet utterly revealing of the utility of Mexico as the last Good Neighbor: “Who said we could not go to Latin Amer­i­ca? Who said the Dominican Republic disgraced us?”106 Johnson’s exuberance, however, naïvely substituted the distinctiveness of the bilateral relationship for the ­whole. Regardless, the visit had a profound effect on Johnson as well as US-­ Mexico relations. The president, who had left Washington “out of sorts,” returned “invigorated by the friendliness of his reception,” and ever more cognizant of the centrality of Mexico to US strategic interests.107 In a follow-up letter to Díaz Ordaz, Johnson wrote: “I am in my home now, refreshed and encouraged by one of the most memorable receptions ever accorded me in all my years in public life. . . . ​I cannot express adequately, Mr. President, the depth of my own emotions over this outpouring of sentiment from your ­people.”108 Matching the enthusiasm of the crowds was an outpouring of popu­lar feedback. This came in the form of hundreds of tele­grams, letters, and even original poems and corridos (folk ballads) sent in response to his visit. Not one, noted a US Embassy official, was “insulting or unfriendly.”109 In one notable example, an acrostic poem used the first letter of the president’s name to spell out laudatory cheers. For Johnson’s m ­ iddle initial (B), the poem read: “B [for buen] = Good Neighbor, illustrious, noble, and honorable president.”110 In another example, the US consulate in Guadalajara submitted a letter signed by a “­humble Mexican” and accompanied by a corrido that the consul deemed so remarkable that he felt it “may be worthy of bringing to [the president’s] attention.” Most corridos, he pointed out, “com[e] from the h ­ umble ­people” and thereby tend to be anti-­American. This one, however, “reflects the closer relations between Mexico and the United States.” It went in part: El nos vino ha traer aliento Y también su protección Siempre vive muy contento Es querido en su nación . . . Es un hombre protector No tiene comparación Persona de mucho honor De muy limpia desición [sic] . . . Toda la nación contenta Todos con mucha atención 276   —   Chapter Eight

Todo el mundo se dio cuenta Por radio y televisión Es un Hombre Competente Con el estamos unidos Viva Señor Presidente Con Usted comprometidos.111 He came to bring us encouragement and also his protection. He always lives most contentedly and is beloved in his nation. He is a protective man without comparison. A very honorable person without a hint of corruption. The ­whole country is happy with every­one tuning in The w ­ hole world took note by radio and tele­vi­sion He is the Competent Man and with him we stand united Long live Mr. President to you we are committed. Still, not every­one was charmed. In what some clearly interpreted as a dig, the cover of Siempre! that coincided with Johnson’s arrival featured an image of Charles de Gaulle painting graffiti on a wall in Paris. The message (written in En­glish) read, “Yankees Go Home.” The cover in fact alluded to de Gaulle’s recent moves t­ oward withdrawal of France from nato , but one reader, apparently ignorant of this broader geopo­ liti­ cal reference, lauded Jorge Carreñ­o’s caricature and the magazine’s decision to publish it. “­You’re not ­going to make me believe that the cover was mere coincidence,” he expressed in a letter to the editor. Carreño, he proposed, was ­either capable of drawing “very fast” or Páges Llergo (editor of Siempre!) was tipped off in advance of Johnson’s hastily arranged visit. In e ­ ither case, the letter writer was pleased. “When the North American president arrived,” he wrote, “someone was shouting from the newsstands: ‘Yankees go home!”112 Another indication that anti-­ American sentiment resided outside the perimeter of the cheering crowds was reflected in reaction to The Last Good Neighbor   —   277

a short documentary made by the usia titled A Day in April. The fifteen-­ minute film revolved around the trope of “springtime renewal” to convey a visual paean both to Mexico, a land “in the glow of spring,” and to the solidity of a Good Neighbor relationship epitomized by the gifting of a statue of Abraham Lincoln, “a ­simple gesture by two nations to the memory of a singular man.”113 The usia was ­eager to distribute the film widely and arranged for Columbia Pictures to screen it in commercial theaters throughout the country. But Mexican officials ­were concerned the film might serve as a rallying point for students and left-­wing agitators protesting “against Viet Nam bombings,” and Mexico’s Institute of Cinematography curtailed distribution. In the end, it was shown to smaller, “private audiences” at regional usia centers and made available only to community organ­izations. Still, the State Department held out hope for broader screenings both in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin Amer­i­ca.114 Rupture with the Intelligent­sia From the perspective of 1966, Mexico stood apart from the region’s po­liti­ cal instability, but the relative calm was deceptive. In the capital, a massive strike by young doctors during the presidential transition indicated a dif­fer­ent level of middle-­class discontent, while in the state of Michoacán student-­led protests had triggered intervention by the military in an ominous harbinger that the government was fully prepared to use force to assert its authority over the university system. ­There ­were also indications that the revolutionary ethos propagated by the Tricontinental Conference was having an impact. Government security agents filed a steady stream of real and ­imagined plots, which added to the president’s own mounting fears that Mexico was a target of “communist agents.” During his conversation with Secretary Rusk at the inauguration of the new sre building the following September, a year ­after a failed attack by militants on an army barracks in Chihuahua and in the context of intensifying signs of left-­wing radicalization, Díaz Ordaz requested new forms of military support. It was a clear sign, noted Ambassador Freeman, of the president’s “concern with a pos­si­ble threat from the extreme left.”115 All ­these po­liti­cal aspects, amply documented by other histories of the period, reveal cracks in the façade of the pri ’s“revolutionary unity” that ­were subsequently laid bare by the student-­led protests of 1968.116 But 1966 also marked an impor­tant transformation in a fundamental pillar of the pri system of legitimization. Dating to the 1920s, the state had carefully cultivated a close relationship with the nation’s writers, art278   —   Chapter Eight

ists, musicians, and playwrights, using lavish subsidies and other forms of support to wed the intelligent­sia to the ruling party. It was a relationship that persisted in spite of episodes of repression and a hardening of authoritarianism. In fact, u ­ nder President López Mateos the rapport between the regime and the intelligent­sia deepened, despite the fact that the government jailed high-­profile dissenters (including the muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros), assassinated the peasant leader Rubén Jaramillo, and was responsible for other crimes that led to collective accusations of the “death” of the Mexican Revolution. López Mateos had poured money and po­liti­cal support into the arts and culture, earning him widespread praise among young writers and paint­ers. In a well-­known incident discussed e ­ arlier, he directly intervened to lend financial support and po­liti­cal cover for the launching of La Cultura en México, a supplement published by Siempre! that became the most significant forum for the cosmopolitan Left throughout the 1960s (see chapter  6). Such acts helped cement a bond between key members of the intelligent­sia and the regime, support in turn used by López Mateos to advance his domestic and foreign policy objectives. The intellectual Left often criticized the policies of the president but never the president himself. That fundamental separation, however, dissolved u ­ nder Díaz Ordaz. Several ­factors account for this rupture. For one, t­here was an obvious mistrust and resentment ­toward Díaz Ordaz even before he became president. As the former minister of the interior, Díaz Ordaz was widely identified by the Left as the regime’s henchman, the man directly responsible for carry­ing out and devising ways to repress po­liti­cal dissent ­under President López Mateos. The fact that he was the least favored candidate by the Left predetermined his chances of support by the nation’s young intelligent­sia. At the same time, López Mateos had been a gifted orator whose ascendance to the presidency coincided with the emergence of new forms of po­liti­cal speech making linked to the anticolonialist impulse emanating out of Bandung and the Cuban Revolution. López Mateos readily assimilated that language, and his fa­cil­i­ty with it served him well in his efforts to harness the Left to his progressive internationalism, despite si­ mul­ta­neously ordering repression domestically. By contrast, Díaz Ordaz lacked López Mateos’s charm, rhetorical skills, and cosmopolitan spirit. Foreign observers frequently commented on his “lack of personal magnetism” and his inability to connect with a crowd.117 ­After watching the new president give his first State of the Union address (Informe) in the fall of 1965, Canada’s ambassador to Mexico likened his per­for­mance to that of “a calculating machine endowed with speech.” Comparing him to his pre­de­ The Last Good Neighbor   —   279

ces­sor, he noted: “Mr. López Mateos may not have had the crowd-­holding appeal of a Fidel Castro or Juan Perón, but he did have a reasonable mea­ sure of the personal skills needed by a man holding high po­liti­cal office. When he stood in front of a crowd smiling and waving his arms, ­there was a natu­ral impulse to cheer. Unfortunately, when Mr. Díaz Ordaz makes the same traditional gestures he resembles a wooden frog puppet animated by strings. He is totally lacking in charisma.”118 This critical character flaw in an age that demanded vibrant, bold leadership ultimately made his choice as successor perhaps the single biggest ­mistake executed by López Mateos. Another more impor­tant ­factor that accounts for the rupture was Díaz Ordaz’s failure to follow through in an equally dramatic fashion on the global pivot initiated u ­ nder López Mateos. Although he criticized the US intervention in the Dominican Republic, this position reflected the fact that Mexican defense of Latin American sovereignty had become an an­ ticipated aspect of the nation’s international character. At the same time, López Mateos had raised the bar of nonintervention—in his out­spoken defense of Cuba but more broadly in his open flirtation with nam . Díaz Ordaz failed to meet that bar, not only with regard to the Dominican Republic but, more importantly, with re­spect to Vietnam. In a certain sense, hosting the Olympics became a substitute for high-­profile internationalism; the world would come to Mexico rather than the other way around. But Díaz Ordaz also refrained from the active engagement of his pre­de­ ces­sor and appeared to show l­ittle interest in using the potential power of Mexican diplomacy, e ­ ither to defend the princi­ple of national sovereignty or to influence global debates. His retreat thus confirmed accusations from the Left that he was ­eager to subsume Mexico’s geopo­liti­cal interests to ­those of the United States.119 A final, decisive f­ actor was Díaz Ordaz’s confrontation with what Deborah Cohn has called the state’s “cosmopolitan infrastructure.”120 Shortly ­after Díaz Ordaz’s inauguration, his personal secretary and gatekeeper, Emilio Martínez Manatou, sought to cozy up to the widely respected intellectual Fernando Benítez by offering, “generously yet delicately, support” for an extensive proj­ect researching the nation’s indigenous ­peoples. Somewhat older than the once “restless” intellectuals around him, Benítez was nevertheless regarded as a mentor and close friend to figures such as Carlos Fuentes, Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, and ­others. In 1962 Benítez became editor of the new weekly supplement La Cultura en México, whose launch was directly indebted to the support of López Mateos. Manatou’s solicitation was thus an obvious bid to bring Benítez in as a liaison between the regime and the intelligent­sia. “He asked that I 280   —   Chapter Eight

serve as a linkage between him and the intellectuals,” Benítez conveyed in a letter to Carlos Fuentes. “He told me that he wishes to hear them out and to solve their prob­lems.”121 Benítez, however, turned down the offer to collaborate. A few months l­ater, Díaz Ordaz directly confronted the cultural power of the intelligent­sia when he ousted the editorial director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica (fce ). The fce was an influential, government-­subsidized publishing ­house that had recently courted controversy by publishing a translation of C. Wright Mills’s widely influential book on the Cuban Revolution, Listen, Yankee, as well as Oscar Lewis’s ethnographic exposé of urban poverty in Mexico, Los hijos de Sánchez, a text that critiqued the official narrative of pro­gress and “caused a furor among cultural nationalists.”122 On his direct ­orders, Díaz Ordaz forced out the press’s long-­standing director, Arnaldo Orfila Reynal, and replaced him with Salvador Azuela, son of the famed Mexican novelist Mariano Azuela, whose nationalist loyalties ­were viewed as safe. (In response, Orfila Reynal launched a new press, Siglo XXI, that attracted the support of some two hundred intellectuals, “the best,” as Benítez boasted to Fuentes.123) Shortly afterward, chaos at the unam led to the forced resignation of the university’s progressive rector, Ignacio Chávez, and the removal of Jaime García Terrés as general director of cultural programming, a position he had used to encourage a freewheeling environment for cultural innovation and experimentation.124 ­These confrontations ­were compounded by ­others, and by the summer of 1966 intellectuals’ mistrust had crystalized into an open and profound cynicism. In a letter sent from abroad, where he would live in a form of self-­imposed exile throughout the Díaz Ordaz years, Carlos Fuentes denounced a rupture that was well in evidence. Writing to his close friend and former collaborator at el espectador, Víctor Flores Olea, Fuentes asked: “And tomorrow? What ­will it be, the inba [National Fine Arts Institute], the supplement to Siempre [La Cultura en Mexico], Siglo XXI? I believe a logic can be discerned: climax and death rattle of our System, presently secure in the support of its conformist ­middle class yet well aware of the exhaustion of its rhetorical formulas and fearful that the intellectuals (in the broadest sense) ­will generate a new, truer form of dissent through the structures of communication [las estructuras medias].”125 By 1966, however, not only did broad ele­ments of the intelligent­sia express open contempt for the president, but ideological consensus within the Left had shattered as well. ­There had always been lively (even violent) disagreements among the Left, which is precisely why the brief success of the mln came about as a revelation. But ­these ­battles now encountered a new phase, one marked not simply by divisions between ­those who The Last Good Neighbor   —   281

­ spoused an older-­line, Leninist concept of mass-­based forms of po­liti­cal e activism and t­ hose who advocated for armed insurrection but over competing revolutionary attitudes. For ­those inspired by the Tricontinental Conference’s call to arms, revolution required harsh ideological discipline and the suppression of consumptive modes deemed antithetical to the strug­gle for collective emancipation. It was necessary, as Che Guevara had articulated in a widely disseminated essay published in the Uruguayan journal Marcha in the spring of 1965, to “eradicate” the “vestiges” of bourgeois consciousness and neo­co­lo­nial­ism in order to give birth to “new” men and ­women.126 While some youth followed Che’s directive to find discipline, by the mid-1960s a new language of dissent—to borrow the key phrase from Jeremy Suri—­was also in circulation, one that lent itself to the grafting of global pop cultural references onto local contexts of rebellion.127 ­These two stances ­were epistemologically antithetical to one another. Whereas the former required the purging of cap­i­tal­ist markers of consumption, the latter encouraged the appropriation of t­hose same markers in a distinctive formulation of a revolutionary mindset. The tense coexistence among ­these competing points on a spectrum of New Left sensibilities became a defining feature of the period g ­ oing forward.128 As Benítez wrote in a letter to Fuentes, at this delicate turning point, when the ideological forces of left-­wing and right-­wing nationalism ­were equally ascendant, it was the responsibility of intellectuals more than ever to uphold “the fragile possibility of demystification.”129 A defining moment that exemplified this growing divide within the New Left in Mexico was the publication in late 1965 of a seminal essay by Carlos Monsiváis in La Cultura en México. Although Monsiváis had been an early contributor to Política, his mode of analy­sis had never been a particularly good fit for that magazine’s rigidly defined notion of politics. Monsiváis was a gay man (though not openly so) in the midst of a revolutionary moment that demanded virility. His unabashed enthrallment with English-­ language cinema, m ­ usic, and comic books no doubt enhanced whisperings among certain sectors of the Left regarding his “antisocial” sexual proclivities. In a purposefully assertive statement of his embrace of “imperialist” influences, Monsiváis’s essay included vari­ous images of him in dif­fer­ent poses, including one against a backdrop that prominently featured posters of the Beatles and Alfred E. Neuman (the iconic figure of Mad Magazine). He denounced the disciplinary gaze of a New Left that practiced “sexual McCarthyism” and that sought to ban rock ’n’ roll from the purified “state of grace” of a f­ uture revolutionary imaginary. “­Isn’t it time for the left to stop nourishing itself on clichés?” he asked provocatively.130 Published 282   —   Chapter Eight

less than a week before the opening of the Tricontinental Conference, the mocking tone and cultural critique of his essay ­were unacceptable for the self-­styled vanguardists. At the unam , Benítez recounted how radical ele­ ments “shouted death threats at him.” One is left to won­der if the word puto (a derogative slang for gays) was not also thrown into the mix. “He wanted to recant,” Benítez told Fuentes, “to flee to the United States and stop being mixed up in politics.”131 Benítez successfully urged him to stay. In describing the episode to Fuentes, Benítez wrote: “We are swimming against a malicious tide of mediocrity and selected cannibalisms.”132 Thus, 1966 would climax the Good Neighbor in more ways than one. Lacking the magnetism of his pre­de­ces­sor and loathed by key figures across the intellectual Left, those who had once lent their support (despite strong criticisms) to the regime, Díaz Ordaz failed to harness the intelligent­sia precisely at the moment when the “cosmopolitan” Left felt emboldened. For the first time, we begin to see deepening cracks in a cultural consensus that had previously sustained the Left’s support for the ideological proj­ ect of the ruling party: irony, contempt, and antipatriarchal cultural rebellion ­were rapidly whittling away at the symbolic infrastructure of the pri ’s hegemony. The “Revolutionary F ­ amily,” at the head of which sat the sacrosanct presidential ­father figure, was teetering. Two years ­later, young ­people’s disdain for the president and the systems of repre­sen­ta­tion that sustained the pri would burst into the open. Carlos Fuentes had been abroad for more than a year where he experienced the sensation of a youth-­led cultural rebellion unfolding si­mul­ta­ neously in Western Eu­rope and the United States. “­There is a new opening [una nueva apertura], a reenvisioning of t­hings: it’s in the air, one feels it,” Fuentes conveyed in the spring of 1966 to José Luis Cuevas, the artist provocateur and a figure singularly identified with a critique of Mexican nationalist mythologies.133 Fuentes’s interpretation of a profound shift taking place across continents was prescient. London and New York, he wrote soon afterward in a letter to Luis Guillermo Piazza, an Argentine novelist and critic residing in Mexico, ­were “sixties cities” (ciudades sesentas). Paris struck Fuentes as mired in a self-­aggrandizing gaze in which the authority of the old guard (“los viejos”) still held sway. Yet the ground ­there, too, was rapidly shifting. “The new ways are coming,” he prophesized, and “the young are arriving.”134 Ironically, the Tricontinental Conference failed to anticipate the revolutionary upheaval of the largely nonviolent, student-­led protest movements of 1968, not only in Mexico but across the globe. Despite the predictions of Che Guevara, guerrilla warfare came not in the form of armed ambush The Last Good Neighbor   —   283

but rather in the subversion of social norms and the transgression of public space. Still, an ethos of solidarity permeated student protest movements everywhere. It was an ethos whose roots originated in the Spirit of Ban­ dung, one that questioned the prevailing order and demanded a world made anew. Left-­wing students in Mexico understood themselves as part of a global movement, one that linked the solidarity of anti-­imperialist strug­gle within the new praxis of countercultural dissent.135 In 1968 the global sixties had reached a turning point but certainly not an end.

284   —   Chapter Eight

Epilogue

Into the Global 1970s

In the spring of 1968, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz received a letter from Josip Broz Tito urging Mexico to participate in a preparatory conference, tentatively scheduled for Ethiopia that fall, to formulate the agenda for a third meeting of the Non-­Aligned Movement. Tito hoped to coax Díaz Ordaz into lending Mexico’s international prestige to provide a needed dose of legitimacy to a movement that had fallen precipitously in stature since its founding in 1961. nam had proved utterly incapable of halting US intervention in Vietnam and the war was exerting a radicalizing influence on member states. The one concrete result of nam , the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, had failed to produce any alteration in the terms of global trade in ­favor of lesser-­developed nations. A second meeting of unctad convened in New Delhi, India, in early 1968 produced more frustration than optimism.1 Mexico had sent a small del­e­ ga­tion to unctad II but it paled in comparison to that in attendance four years ­earlier. As one author assessed, nonalignment needed to “undergo a revitalization that [was] nowhere in sight.”2 Tito’s appeal to Mexico was directly part of that revitalization. Over a four-­month period at the start of the year, he had traveled to India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Japan, Iran, and other nam -­affiliated countries in Asia and Africa in an all-­out effort to drum up support for a

third conference. Nearly four years had passed since the second meeting of nam in Cairo, and without a subsequent meeting ­there was concern that nam would become, as Tito heard leaders on his recent journey lament, “a lost cause.”3 At a moment when nam was floundering, Tito’s outreach to Díaz Ordaz was loaded with geopo­liti­cal significance. But Tito’s assumptions about Mexican internationalism, while not entirely mistaken, ­were nevertheless misplaced. Díaz Ordaz had ­little desire to follow through on the foreign policy activism of his pre­de­ces­sor and even less motivation to expend any of Mexico’s newfound diplomatic capital propping up the faltering project of nonalignment. From a geopo­liti­cal perspective, Díaz Ordaz’s isolationism made perfect sense. The win­dow of opportunity that had characterized the early 1960s had now shut, and nam ’s goal of breaking through the logjam of Cold War bi­polar­ity appeared to have failed. So, too, had de Gaulle’s strategic ­gamble to forge a “third way.” If anything, the world was even more polarized than at the start of the de­cade. During the course of the next several months, multiple countries, including Mexico, would face the challenges of student-­led revolts that struck at the core sentiment of national ­union. Meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution unleashed by Mao Zedong was sending ideological shockwaves across the continent and beyond.4 In Latin Amer­i­ca, the ascendency of the military had marginalized, imprisoned, and killed demo­cratic actors in country ­after country; ­those nations that remained u ­ nder civilian rule, such as Uruguay and Chile, revealed signs of increasing po­liti­cal conflict. The stakes of invoking Mexican “in­de­pen­ dence” to bolster the credibility of the fragmenting Third World proj­ect, in short, had shifted. So, too, had the goal of economic diversification. Despite some notable examples, such as securing a French contract to build Mexico City’s new metro system, overall ­there had been only a modest reduction in the concentration of trade with the United States. Summing up the economic outcome of t­ hese efforts, Blanca Torres concludes that “the results ­were thin.”5 President López Mateos’s ­grand strategy of a global pivot appeared to have failed. The unpre­ce­dented effort represented by the Movimiento de Liberación National to bring together disparate factions on the left and to hold the regime accountable to the nation’s socialist and demo­cratic princi­ ples had also failed. The disintegration of the mln ­after 1963 prevented the Left from being able to exert a demo­cratizing influence at a decisive moment of the ruling party’s transformation. López Mateos had put into place impor­tant institutional reforms, most notably one that increased the percentage of congressional seats available to minority parties, yet the 286   —   Epilogue

mln ’s

inability to capitalize on ­these modifications allowed the pri to retain its virtual mono­poly on power.6 When the student movement erupted in the summer of 1968, it was thus a movement absent a party structure. Its anti-­institutionalist form would prove to be both its greatest strength, making it impossible to co-­opt, and also its greatest weakness. Lacking the protection of a legally recognized party or of a leading personality (Lázaro Cárdenas and Vicente Lombardo Toledano notably both denounced the movement, while the younger Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas never vocalized support for the students), the young protesters ­were left discredited by the media and increasingly vulnerable to the forces of state repression. The student movement broke out less than two weeks ­after Díaz Ordaz rejected Tito’s invitation. To be certain, the young protesters marching in the streets in 1968 ­were barely teen­agers when Tito had visited the country in the fall of 1963, at the peak of nam ’s popularity, and likely felt l­ ittle connection with the aging Yugo­slavian leader and his waning influence. Yet the decision by Díaz Ordaz not to participate in the preparatory meeting for the nam conference signified a broader retreat from an internationalist, outward-­looking foreign policy and defense of postcolonial sovereignty that was palpable to the student protesters. This retreat exacerbated a rupture in the alliance between the government and the intelligent­sia, one that had long served to mediate dissent. Stepping into this vacuum of intellectual leadership on the left ­were new figures far less reverent of presidential authority than ­earlier generations had been. A New Left had risen, one that was less ideologically tolerant yet also less conformist. While most students did not follow Che Guevara’s explicit call to take up arms against their own government (some, ­later on, would do so), when marchers held up his image and renamed a university auditorium a ­ fter the iconic revolutionary, they ­were signaling an identity with Che as an emblem of Third World solidarity. It was the same po­liti­cal sentiment and call to action born at the conference of newly decolonized nations held at Bandung in 1955, a sentiment that had coursed its way through the formation of aapso in 1958, nam in 1961, and most recently climaxed in the convening of the Tricontinental Conference in 1966. In their identification with Che, Mexican youth ­were thus rejecting the government’s implicit argument that the Olympics heralded Mexico’s official exit from the Third World—­that the Spirit of Bandung was no longer pertinent to national consciousness. President Díaz Ordaz became the personalized target of the students’ collective loathing, a concrete symbol not only of the regime’s domestic authoritarianism but of the failure to wield Mexico’s diplomatic clout in Epilogue   —   287

defense of Vietnam and Third World issues more generally. The government, in turn, sought to use the students’ embrace of Che to make the case that “foreign ideologies” ­ were influencing the movement. Student leaders then urged marchers to drop references to the globally celebrated guerrillero and embrace instead emblems of their own nation’s strug­ gle, such as Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Rubén Jaramillo, Demetrio Vallejo, and o ­ thers. Still, the government could not suppress the larger ethos of a movement that saw itself as upholding Mexico’s true spirit of internationalism—­not the gloss of internationalism reflected in the world coming to Mexico for the Olympics but of Mexico’s call to be a leader in a world transformed. Ironically, student protesters bore identities that ­were very much ­shaped by the modernist forces that had brought the Olympics to Mexico. This was revealed in their consumption of foreign rock m ­ usic, the introduction of transliterated English-­language slang, and the donning of new clothing styles, such as the mini­skirt and blue jeans. The youths’ embrace of this other set of “foreign ideologies”—­consumptive values that ­were directly encouraged by the regime’s mixed cap­i­tal­ist development strategy—­ helped channel a repertoire of protest that was truly revolutionary within the context of Mexican politics. For most students, however, the essence of rebellion was not passing out leaflets or marching but staying out late and, for ­women, ­going around unchaperoned. Thus unlike in France or Germany, where utopian proposals to “abolish work” s­ haped protest discourse, or in the United States, where drugs played an impor­tant role in the forging of communal bonds of dissent, in Mexico student protest stances ­were comparatively mild. Yet in Mexico, the lack of obedience to one’s parents (especially one’s ­father) became in itself a revolutionary act, one with wider societal reverberations. Young p ­ eople, especially from the ­middle classes, ­were in defiance of the patriarchal values—­las buenas costumbres—­that or­ga­nized social life not only within the ­family but between the government and its citizenry. Hence a supreme revolutionary act was the open contempt shown by students t­ oward President Díaz Ordaz, the f­ather figure writ large. Posters of the president with his visage distorted by caricature, impertinent protest chants, and flippant rewritings of popu­lar revolutionary-­era corridos mocking Díaz Ordaz all revealed an unpre­ce­dented lack of re­spect for presidential authority. Such displays of irreverence ­were fundamentally revolutionary in their implications. A new “language of dissent” circulated in Mexico, one that revealed the possibilities for a democ­ratization of po­liti­cal values and, beyond that, the demystification of national culture.7 288   —   Epilogue

But revolutionary acts ­were not the same as revolutionary ends, and the regime retained a mono­poly on vio­lence—­one that it soon chose to employ. On October 2, less than two weeks before the opening of the Olympic Games, the government set up conditions that led to the massacre of scores of students and bystanders and put a definitive end to the movement. ­There was much tragic irony to the fact that the carnage occurred in the Plaza de la Tres Culturas (Plaza of the Three Cultures), a physical space that linked together pre-­Hispanic ruins, a colonial-­era church, and two recently inaugurated structures, the massive middle-­class housing complex known as Nonoalco-­Tlatelolco and the Ministry of Foreign Relations building. The former was built to accommodate the new, upwardly mobile ­middle classes, whose ­children ­were among ­those now protesting government authority, while the latter was the proud embodiment of Mexico’s vaunted internationalist reputation as a “peacemaker.” A month ­after the massacre, Joaquín Bernal, Mexico’s ambassador to Ethiopia, sent an update to Mexico’s foreign minister, Antonio Carrillo Flores, regarding plans for the third nam summit. The stream of correspondence within the Foreign Ministry regarding nam , one that included a far more sympathetic outlook than that indicated by Díaz Ordaz, points to a deeper continuity with the trajectory established ­under the previous administration, and merits further research.8 Pro­gress had been slow, Bernal conveyed, as Ethiopia had accomplished “absolutely nothing” to lay the groundwork for the preparatory meeting. The country’s resources ­were paltry and its infrastructure weak. Moreover, both Algeria (which had ­earlier hoped to host the failed Bandung II conference in June 1965) and the Congo ­were also angling for the spotlight.9 Nonalignment was mutating as new countries, mostly in postcolonial Africa, ­were rapidly transforming a movement that lacked coherency and whose po­liti­cal leadership was being contested. In the end, forty-­eight countries accepted Tito’s invitation to participate in the preparatory meeting, which was fi­nally held in July 1969. The fact that eight observer delegates hailed from Latin Amer­i­ca, an unpre­ ce­dented participation that included several countries u ­ nder military rule, also calls for further investigation and underscores the complexities of Latin American foreign policy in this period.10 When the third meeting of nam convened in Lusaka, Zambia, on September 8–10, 1970, the tone of the movement had changed dramatically. Fierce opposition to the United States and support for the strug­gle in Vietnam predominated. At the same time, ­there was an intensified politicization around the status of Israel and militant support for the Palestinian Liberation Organ­ization (plo ), a group whose origins in 1964 ­were directly tied to the Spirit of Bandung. Begun Epilogue   —   289

in the early 1960s as a moderate movement whose princi­pal aim was to forge an in­de­pen­dent geopo­liti­cal space for developing nations outside the Cold War framework, nam had morphed into an anti-­Western alliance bent upon overturning the global cap­i­tal­ist order. President Díaz Ordaz distanced himself from the anti-­imperialist rhe­toric that characterized the new nam ethos. But a dif­fer­ent geopo­liti­cal order was in formation, and the baton of the global pivot put down by Díaz Ordaz was about to be picked up anew. “Mexico Can No Longer Be a Passive Spectator” In July 1970 Mexicans went to the polls to elect their next president. The out­going minister of the interior, Luis Echeverría, a man ­later blamed for the vio­lence of 1968, was the ruling party’s official candidate. The outcome, as was the case with ­every presidential election since at least 1940, was preordained. But it was the lowest turnout in the nation’s history and the most dismal showing for the Partido Revolucionario Institucional in de­cades.11 Echeverría had kept a low profile ­under President Díaz Ordaz, yet as a candidate and upon assuming office he shook off his “anonymity,” as Enrique Krauze writes, to reveal a charismatic populist personality, one capable of connecting with the working classes and peasantry. Even more surprising was his ability to speak the language of the intelligent­sia’s Marxist critique of global capitalism and structural inequalities. Echeverría would use t­hese abilities to harness the Left once again in support of an internationalist foreign policy, as had López Mateos before him. In this way, he not only sought to fulfill the promise of a global pivot truncated by Díaz Ordaz but, more importantly, he cemented a culture of internationalism as an inextricable component of Mexican national identity and a core facet of the ruling party’s hegemony. Echeverría’s presidency coincided with a new set of realities that opened up an unpre­ce­dented opportunity for peripheral actors to leave their mark on the global order. The multipolar world that López Mateos had sought to engender, albeit in his somewhat cautious way, suddenly came into fruition. The possibility to fulfill the g ­ rand strategy of a true global pivot away from the United States seemed genuinely attainable. Carlos Fuentes, one of numerous intellectuals who accepted positions within the government in varying capacities during the Echeverría period, conveyed this sense of optimism in a personal letter to the president from his new post as ambassador to France. “We live in a world that is irreversibly multipolar,” he wrote in the spring of 1973. “And for the first time since [Lázaro] Cárdenas, 290   —   Epilogue

Mexico can count upon a positive sphere [ámbito positivo] for asserting itself internationally. It is even more positive ­today than in 1938 for ­today we are no longer acting alone [Ya no tenemos por qué estar aislados].”12 Eche­ verría ­wholeheartedly agreed. By midway through his presidency he had already embarked on the most internationalist agenda taken by any Mexican president to date—or since. Mexico, he famously declared early in his presidency, “can no longer be a passive spectator of history [espectador in­ erte de la historia].”13 The “positive sphere” referred to by Fuentes was based on vari­ous key transformations in the global environment. In the fall of 1971, the P ­ eople’s Republic of China (PRC) fi­nally gained ac­cep­tance as the legitimate representative in the United Nations, replacing Taiwan on the un Security Council. Mao’s nearly decade-­long strug­gle to wreck the international system was over. This set the stage for the dramatic visit by President Nixon to mainland China in February 1972. Although it would take another seven years before diplomatic relations ­were formally established, the about-­face in policy, for both nations, had profound implications for the global order. ­These events ­were followed closely by the emergence of new rounds of talks between the United States and the Soviet Union, which ­were marked by Nixon’s visit to Moscow in May 1972 and capped by the joint ratification shortly thereafter of the first Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (salt ), a nuclear arms reduction agreement. Détente, coupled with West Eu­ro­ pean efforts to normalize relations with the Eastern Bloc (Ostpolitik), sent an unmistakable signal that the Cold War was definitively winding down. (The fact that it had a ­later resurgence was less obvious in the context of the time.) A true “peaceful coexistence,” now inclusive of China, seemed to be the way forward. At the same time, Nixon’s decision to decouple the US dollar from the gold standard (the “collapse of Bretton Woods”), itself a reflection of the economic drain caused by the war in Vietnam, connected with the resurgence of Japan and Western Eu­rope as industrial power centers all suggested that the “diffusion of power” predicted by Walt Rostow ­earlier in the 1960s was now real­ity. The winnowing of US hegemonic influence was further compounded by the resurgence of opec , the oil producers’ cartel that had largely lain dormant since its founding in 1960. In 1973 opec enforced an embargo on exports to the United States and other nations supportive of Israel. The cutoff in supplies sparked a general spike in global oil prices and revealed a new leverage by oil-­producing nations across the ­Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca. For Mexico, the discovery of additional oil reserves meant that for the first time the nation became a net exporter of petroleum, a situation that held out the prospect Epilogue   —   291

of increased geopo­liti­cal influence more broadly.14 Meanwhile, throughout Latin Amer­ic ­ a the establishment of new po­liti­cal alignments, not all to the right, suggested a resurgent Latin Amer­i­ca “united in its pluralism,” as Mexico’s Secretaría de la Presidencia (Office of the Presidency) pointedly described.15 Among the most significant of t­ hese alignments ­were the election of a socialist president in Chile, the entrenchment of a left-­wing military regime in Peru, and the piecemeal reestablishment of diplomatic ties with Cuba. In conjunction with ­these transformations, the previously amorphous concept of the Third World had concretized. The Third World became recognized as both a mind-­set (proj­ect) and a position (place) from which to enact policy on a global scale, despite numerous internal contradictions and points of conflict. In contrast to the posture u ­ nder Díaz Ordaz, President Echeverría explic­itly embraced an identity of Mexico as a Third World nation. In turn, “solidarity” replaced “in­de­pen­dence” as the new catchphrase used by the regime in its articulation of Mexico’s strategic re­orientation in world affairs. A version of an alternative global f­ uture first envisioned in the early 1960s seemed ever more plausible. It was a world in which peripheral nations had the power of numbers to change the rules of the game and, for Latin Amer­i­ca especially, where the United States could no longer dictate the terms of allegiance. Like López Mateos before him, Echeverría used an appearance before the United Nations during his first year in office to proj­ect an image of Mexico as a responsible yet forthright global citizen. ­After citing the numerous ways Mexico had contributed to improving the international environment, such as the Tlatelolco Treaty banning nuclear weapons from Latin Amer­ i­ca, he underscored the “radical change in the po­liti­cal structure of the world” that had tran­spired over the past two de­cades. That era of po­liti­cal decolonization, he pronounced, must be “followed by another of economic ‘decolonization.’ ”16 Barely a few months ­later, Echeverría unveiled a bold proposal aimed at mobilizing the world ­behind Mexican leadership to address this second “decolonization.” The choice of location (Santiago, Chile) and venue (unctad III) for this announcement spoke to rapidly shifting geopo­liti­cal currents, and Echeverría’s determination to move with them. Picking up where López Mateos had left off—­and more than compensating for the disregard of unctad II by Díaz Ordaz—­Echeverría presented what he called a “Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States.” The proposal collated and more clearly articulated vari­ous princi­ples which had been presented at ­earlier global forums, dating as far back as Bandung, and which found form in the Declaration of Cairo in 1962. ­These related to values such as absolute sovereignty over natu­ral resources, states’ rights to 292   —   Epilogue

police the role of multinational corporations, and the urgency to redress a global trading system that inherently disadvantaged exporters of raw materials. “The solidarity we demand is a condition of survival,” he urged in his address in Santiago.17 In turn, Echeverría directly linked Mexico with the unctad -­sponsored proposal to establish a New International Economic Order (nieo ) and elevated the passing of the Mexican-­sponsored Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States in the United Nations as the defining foreign policy objective of his presidency.18 Notably, in his praise of Echeverría’s bold assertion of Mexican leadership, Manuel Tello, former secretary of foreign relations ­under López Mateos, pointed to the fundamental “continuity that has existed in the strug­gle to reach the goals we have set for ourselves.”19 In short, the ­grand strategy of a global pivot begun ­under Tello was once again Mexico’s transcendent foreign policy objective. The strategic framework of the Good Neighbor survived, though its credibility was stretched thinner than ever. President Nixon had already ­violated the maxim of “mutual re­spect” when he unilaterally shut down the border in the summer of 1969 in an effort to halt the flow of marijuana and heroin into the United States. As Blanca Torres writes, a sexenio marked by “faith that good ­will was enough to sustain Good Neighbor relations among friends” ended in “disillusionment.”20 Then, in an effort to prop up the faltering US economy, in August 1971 Nixon imposed a 10 ­percent tariff on all foreign imports and refused to offer a dispensation to its two closest trading partners, Mexico and Canada.21 Indeed, the era of reciprocal tickertape celebratory welcomes was over, but the logic of a strategic symbiosis was not. ­Others have noted the close collaboration between Echeverría and the Nixon/Ford administrations, with regard to not only internal security issues and drug trafficking but the broader regional framework of challenges to US dominance. Tanya Harmer, for instance, writes that Eche­ verría may have been “willing to play the game of being on board” with re­spect to Salvador Allende, but in private conversations with Nixon he agreed that the Chilean model was dangerous.22 Similarly, though from a reverse perspective, Christy Thornton shows that Henry Kissinger pushed ­behind the scenes to support Echeverría’s charter as a tactic to keep him within the US orbit. Despite his public rhe­toric, Kissinger argued, Eche­ verría could be used to “temper the most radical demands emanating from Latin Amer­i­ca and the Third World.”23 In fact, President Ford surprised Mexican officials when he announced during a press conference that he saw “­great merit” in the charter.24 (­Needless to say, the United States ­later voted against ratification in the United Nations.) This reformulation Epilogue   —   293

of US strategy represented an about-­face from the “two-­way street” stance ­under Ambassador Thomas Mann in the early 1960s yet, unsurprisingly, was accompanied with a strong dose of language that championed the distinctiveness of the bilateral relationship. Thus Ford referred to Mexico as “our long-­time friend and good neighbor” and underscored how the two nations ­were “inextricably linked—by historical ties, by geo­graph­i­cal position, and most of all by our mutual desire to be good neighbors.”25 Without question, this is a rich and still largely underexplored realm for further investigation. Forthcoming research promises to reveal novel interpretations that ­will help deepen our understanding of both US and Mexican goals and limitations within a global conceptual framework.26 By the end of his presidency, Echeverría undertook twelve separate international journeys encompassing visits to thirty-­seven countries across Latin Amer­i­ca, Africa, Asia, Western Eu­rope, and the Soviet Bloc. He became not only the first Mexican president to visit Cuba but the first as well to visit Moscow and China. As with López Mateos, Echeverría’s goals ­were threefold: to diversify Mexico’s economic relations, to elevate Mexico’s stature as a mediator of regional and global conflicts, and to defend the interests of peripheral nations. Indeed, he carved out new trade alliances and established new channels for capital, technology transfer, and markets in the most ambitious attempt ever in Mexico’s history to break f­ree of de­pen­dency on the United States. To cite two noteworthy examples, in Moscow he signed a wide-­reaching economic agreement that led to Mexico’s entry (as an “observer”) into the Soviet Bloc trading agreement, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (comecon ) , and in Brussels, he negotiated Mexico’s participation as a “Most Favored Nation” within the Eu­ro­pean Economic Community (eec ). In addition, ­there ­were numerous bilateral agreements signed to promote diverse economic and cultural exchanges. Ultimately, however, while the destination for exports, in par­tic­u­ lar, shifted slightly away from the United States, the overall result of efforts at economic diversification proved “less pleasing than one hoped for.”27 Mexican dependence on the US market proved too consequential; the ties to US financial capital proved too entrenched. More fundamentally, for a number of reasons, the all-in ­gamble of reforming global capitalism failed. Meanwhile, the vaunted “miracle” of stabilized economic growth that had characterized the Mexican economy for more than a de­cade and had provided the foundation upon which to assert global leadership was rapidly crumbling.28 Echeverría’s “apertura hacia el exterior” was the direct analogue of his “apertura democrática,” which aimed to heal the wounds of mistrust that 294   —   Epilogue

dangerously separated the party from the populace. Immediately ­after assuming office, he released scores of prisoners from the 1968 student movement, lowered the voting age to eigh­teen, did away with the infamous law of “social dissolution,” and allowed for a broader democ­ratization of the press. To be certain, t­ hese high-­profile gestures—­which included bringing vari­ous public intellectuals into his administration, dramatically increasing the bud­get for higher education, granting new prestige to national cinema, and l­ater accepting numerous left-­wing exiles from military regimes throughout the Southern Cone—­occluded other forms of state-­sponsored vio­ lence, most notably that of the 1971 halcones’ (government-­trained paramilitaries, literally “falcons”) attack on student protesters and the ascendency more generally of a guerra sucia (dirty war) in the countryside. Nevertheless, his direct appeal to the intelligent­sia sought to repair the po­liti­cal breach created by his pre­de­ces­sor and thereby restore the “revolutionary” credibility of the pri . In this he was at least partly successful. Carlos Fuentes, for one, described himself as a “friend and collaborator” of Echeverría and became one of the president’s most vocal defenders. In a letter sent to Echeverría ­toward the end of his presidency, Fuentes wrote: “Along with many other men of my generation, I made the moral and po­ liti­cal bet that your government signified the turn which our country urgently required. I believe that I have won that bet.”29 Ironically, however, the support of many of ­these “men of letters” came at a moment when, as Jean Franco notes, the cultural currency—­and thus, po­liti­cal influence—of the public intellectual was in decline. New forms of defining, representing, and protesting the body politic ­were ascendant.30 Although Echeverría may have succeeded in tethering an element of the left-­wing intelligent­sia once again to the regime, their ideological coherency was as disparate as ever, and their rhetorical command over youth in general would never recover the stature it once had in the 1960s. Still, Echeverría accomplished something fundamental and long-­lasting. By building upon the institutional and ideological currents put into place by López Mateos, he remobilized grassroots left-­wing support for a policy of internationalism and wed that mobilization to the ruling party. During the 1970s and into the 1980s, Mexican foreign policy pushed further than it ever had against the accepted Cold War strategic perimeter laid down by the United States, most boldly during the era of revolutionary insurrection in Central Amer­i­ca. This return to an activist foreign policy, one that openly aligned Mexico with Third World c ­ auses and strug­gles became a central ­factor in sustaining the ideological appeal of the ruling party, despite mounting social opposition, for nearly thirty more years. Epilogue   —   295

The Last Good Neighbor has tried to show how the Cold War did not delimit Mexico’s options or subordinate the country’s leadership to the geopo­liti­ cal agenda of the United States but rather the opposite. By taking advantage of the global imaginary fostered by the Spirit of Bandung, of episodes of détente, and of the emergence of new geopo­liti­cal centers of power in Western Eu­rope and Asia, Mexican leadership actively participated in the formation of a multipolar world, one that liberated peripheral actors from remaining bound to the historical moorings of colonial and neo­co­lo­nial metropoles. The nation’s rapidly expanding economy, its vaunted po­liti­cal unity, its revolutionary clout, and, perhaps most significantly, its strategic proximity to the United States all enhanced Mexico’s stature on the international stage and increased its desirability as a strategic ally. By the mid1960s, Mexico had become an actor of potential consequence and a coveted player in the world drama that was unfolding. Seen from this perspective, the relative isolationism of the latter part of the 1960s appears more as a temporary deviation rather than a strategic reversal. In any event, the period of Díaz Ordaz was readily subsumed by the full-on internationalism u ­ nder Echeverría, which established the trajectory for Mexican foreign policy activism from the 1970s through the end of the Cold War. I have also tried to show how a distinctive bilateral framework si­mul­ta­ neously curtailed Mexico’s drive to find “balancers” and to make common cause with other peripheral actors yet at the same time enabled the realization of ­those very same ambitions. On the one hand, the language of the Good Neighbor served to remind Mexicans of the unique po­liti­cal partnership they shared with the United States. On the other hand, however, the premise of “mutual re­spect” at the heart of the Good Neighbor promise was deployed as a shield by succeeding Mexican leadership to deflect US interference in Mexican affairs, both domestically and internationally. Despite private pledges of strategic commitment, Mexico’s professed fealty to the United States was often self-­serving and thus never quite transparent. Fi­nally, I have also argued how, paradoxically, the Left’s passionate defense of the intersecting princi­ples of sovereignty and solidarity became a critical asset used by succeeding regimes in support of a strategy of internationalism. The very fractiousness of the Left meant that it posed ­little real threat to the pri ’s dominance over politics; yet at the same time by aligning an official discourse of “revolutionary unity” with the nationalist and internationalist demands made by the Left, the pri achieved two, overlapping goals: the party was able to sustain a degree of ideological legitimacy domestically, in spite of repression and economic hardship; and, equally impor­tant, the pri was able to use the Left to demonstrate the 296   —   Epilogue

depth of domestic support for internationalist positions that openly defied US strategic objectives. By the 1990s, the end of the Cold War, the formal economic integration of the US and Mexican economies via the North American ­Free Trade Agreement (nafta ) , and the collapse of an alternative imaginary to the global cap­i­tal­ist order all seemingly spelled the end to Mexico’s possibilities of a global pivot. Capitalism had emerged triumphant, and as regional economic trading blocs formed across the globe, the options for balancing, much less transforming, the world economic order became ever more remote. We ­were all North Americans now. Today, geopo­ ­ liti­ cal patterns are once again shifting. The economic dominance of China, in par­tic­u­lar, points ­toward a new form of multipolarity that once again holds out the prospect of a new global pivot, however illusory that may prove in real­ity. This beckoning comes, ironically, at the precise moment when the framework of the Good Neighbor appears to have been tossed definitively into the dustbin of history. The Trump administration has demonstrated ­limited interest in upholding any commitment to “mutual re­spect,” much less deploying the semantics of Good Neighborliness. At the same time, the Mexican administration of President Andrés López Obrador represents a return to certain key princi­ples that ­were articulated by the neo-­cardenista Left and that had been sidelined by more than two de­cades of neoliberal integration with the United States: namely, re­spect for national sovereignty, defense of international law, and the right to envision alternative development ­futures. Mexican national identity is still profoundly s­haped by the historical memory of US intervention and a yearning to balance against the preponderance of influence exerted by the United States over ­every aspect of the country’s economy and society. It is a yearning motivated not only by ideological predisposition but by the goal of survival as a nation. Geo­graph­ic ­ al destiny may yet determine Mexico’s geopo­liti­cal calculus, but the lessons of the past remain relevant.

Epilogue   —   297

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

Introduction 1 Latin Americanists are just beginning to enter this conversation. See the new collection by Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War. For a pathbreaking survey of research beyond Latin Amer­i­ca, see the essays in Chen et al., The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties. 2 Prashad, Darker Nations, 45–46. 3 See Pensado and Ochoa, México beyond 1968; L. Walker, Waking from the Dream. The historiography on the 1968 student movement is vast and continues to grow. In En­glish, relevant works include Draper, 1968 Mexico; Flaherty, ­Hotel Mexico; Carey, Plaza of Sacrifices; Pensado, Rebel Mexico; Zolov, Refried Elvis. 4 His minister of foreign relations, Manuel Tello Barraud, likewise left no written memoir. But in his vari­ous published writings he was forthright about his intentions to steer Mexico ­toward a broader internationalism ­under President López Mateos’s direction. 5 Krauze, Mexico, 658. Krauze devotes only four paragraphs to the internationalism of López Mateos. 6 Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México; Garza Elizondo, Fundamentos y prioridades de la política exterior de México; Pi-­Suñer, Riguzzi, and Ruano, Historia de las relaciones internacionales de México, 1821–2010; Torres, México y el mundo; Torres, “Estrategias y tácticas mexicanas en la conducción de sus relaciones con Estados Unidos (1945–1970)”; Covarrubias, “La política exterior.” 7 The classic study h ­ ere is Pellicer de Brody, México y la revolución cubana. For analyses that are more multifaceted yet adhere to the same fundamental line of interpretation, see Keller, “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption”; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War; White, Creating a Third World; A. Schmidt, “The Po­liti­cal and Economic Reverberations of the Cuban Revolution in Mexico.”

8 See Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War; Pettinà, “Global Horizons”; Pettinà, “Beyond US Hegemony.” 9 The wpc and the mln have gained the renewed attention of scholars in recent years. See especially Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, which establishes a global perspective; and Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, which provides ­great detail on the mln though does so within a framework that largely overlooks the global context beyond that of Cuba and the United States. A thorough analy­ sis of the mln focusing on Mexican internal dynamics is found in Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política. For ­earlier discussions of the mln see Arguedas, “El movimiento de liberación nacional”; Garza, “Factionalism in the Mexican Left”; Maciel, El movimiento de liberación nacional; Semo, “El cardenismo”; Servín, “Algunas ramas de un árbol frondoso.” An impor­ tant recent book that discusses the global context of the wpc is Goedde, The Politics of Peace. 10 Pensado, Rebel Mexico. 11 Camp, Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth-­Century Mexico, 32. 12 Pellicer de Brody, México y la revolución cubana, 51. ­Unless other­wise noted, all translations are mine. 13 Harmer’s succinct encapsulation of the prob­lem first appeared during comments at the conference “Latin Amer­i­ca in a Global Context” at the University of Bern in 2014, and the remark has circulated more widely. See also Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the Inter-­American Cold War; Pettinà, “Beyond US Hegemony.” Hal Brands’s Latin Amer­i­ca’s Cold War similarly seeks to widen the frame of analy­sis and restore greater agency to Latin American actors though does so largely within the framework of the Soviet-­Cuban axis. An impor­tant e ­ arlier effort to position Mexican foreign policy within a global context is Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México. A comprehensive summary analy­sis is contained in Torres, México y el mundo. For new directions in Mexican historiography on the subject, see the recent dossier coordinated by Rodríguez Kuri, “México: Guerra Fría e historia política.” 14 Dziedzic, “Mexico and US G ­ rand Strategy,” 64. Emphasis in original. 15 Prashad, The Darker Nations, xv. 16 The phrase diffusion of power was used by President Johnson’s national security advisor, Walt Rostow, in 1963. Quoted in Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 136. 17 Wood, The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy, 209. 18 Garrard-­Burnett et al., Beyond the Ea­gle’s Shadow, for instance, makes no reference to the Good Neighbor; Brands, Latin Amer­i­ca’s Cold War, mentions the Good Neighbor only briefly in the context of the 1930s–1940s; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, also makes no reference to the Good Neighbor. 19 Weintraub, A Marriage of Con­ve­nience. Notably, Weintraub fails to identify the Good Neighbor anywhere in his analy­sis. 20 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), in Holden and Zolov, Latin Amer­ic­ a and the United States, 33. Brian Loveman similarly identifies the early use of the phrase good neighbor with US relations ­toward Mexico but erroneously states that its first use was in an address to Congress by President James Buchanan 300   —   Notes to Introduction

in 1859, thus overlooking its ­earlier placement within the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo itself. Loveman, No Higher Law, 115. 21 Perhaps most noteworthy was that Mexico, Brazil, and the United States ­were exclusively celebrated in the ociaa -­subsidized feature-­length Walt Disney film The Three Caballeros (1944) as “birds of a feather.” 22 Meyer Berger, “Aleman Cheered by Million; Confetti Showers Motorcade,” New York Times, May 3, 1947, 1. It was the first time that a sitting Mexican president had ever set foot on US soil. 23 Mexico contributed manpower (through the bracero l­ abor agreement), strategic minerals (at below market value), intelligence sharing, and ultimately a fighter squadron that participated in the Pacific theater. See M. Paz, Strategy, Security, and Spies; Niblo, War, Diplomacy, and Development. 24 See Moreno, Yankee ­Don’t Go Home! 25 Marwick, The Sixties, 8. 26 Westad, The Global Cold War. 27 Klimke and Nolan, “Introduction,” 1. For a historiographic overview, see Zolov, “Latin Amer­i­ca in the Global Sixties,” and the essays assembled in the same special issue of The Amer­i­cas. See also Christiansen and Scarlett, The Third World in the Global 1960s. For a focus on culture, see Chaplin and Mooney, The Global 1960s; Brown and Lison, The Global Sixties in Sound and Vision. A foundational effort to integrate geopolitics and sociocultural upheaval within this similar time frame is Suri, Power and Protest. 28 Mills, “Letter to the New Left,” 8. 29 Thompson, “Socialist Humanism,” 109. 30 Gosse, Rethinking the New Left, 5. For discussion of this debate in the Latin American context, see Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom; Gilman, Entre la pluma y el fusil; Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City. 31 Servín, Ruptura y oposición, 267. 32 Servín, Ruptura y oposición, 294. 33 Monsiváis, Autobiografía, 21. 34 Carr, Marxism and Communism, 199. 35 Carr, Marxism and Communism, 197–201; Spenser, En combate; Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.” Lombardo Toledano was central to the creation of the official ctm ­labor movement during the Cárdenas era and led the ctm ­until he was marginalized from power during the conservative re­orientation of the pri . In addition to launching the Partido Popu­lar in 1949, he helped found and became leader of the left-­wing continental trade movement, the Confederación de los Trabajadores de América Latina (ctal , Confederation of Latin American Workers). Both platforms ­were used by Lombardo Toledano to proj­ect himself as the person best positioned to recapture the socialist mandate formerly advocated by the pri ­under Cárdenas. 36 Carr, “The Fate of the Vanguard ­under a Revolutionary State”; Spenser, En combate. 37 Quoted in Buchenau, “Por una Guerra Fría mas templada,” 129. 38 Buchenau, “Por una Guerra Fría mas templada,” 134. 39 Editorial, Problemas de Latinoamérica 1, no. 2 (July 16, 1954): 27; C. Cárdenas, Sobre mis pasos, 23–32. Notes to Introduction   —   301

40 See Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, chap. 5. At that stage, Cárdenas was not formally part of the wpc though other prominent Mexican leftists ­were, including Lombardo Toledano and Heriberto Jara (who in 1950 had received one of the first Stalin Peace Prizes awarded). The conferring of the prize was clearly used to align Cárdenas with the Soviet-­front organ­ization. 41 Arias Bernal, “Tardío,” Excélsior, February 27, 1956, 7a . The Soviet Twentieth Congress was held on February 14–26, 1956. Some of the language from this paragraph borrows from Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.” 42 Manuel Becerra Acosta Jr., “ ‘No hay país que no busque la paz,’ declara Cárdenas,” Excélsior, February 27, 1956, 1a . 43 Acosta, “ ‘No hay país que no busque la paz,’ declara Cárdenas.” 44 Buchenau, “Por una Guerra fría más templada,” 132–33; Servín, “Propaganda y Guerra Fría”; Gillingham and Smith, Dictablanda; Gillingham, Lettieri and Smith, Journalism, Satire and Censorship in Mexico. On “presidentialism,” see Mraz, “­Today, Tomorrow, and Always”; Zolov, “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s.” 45 Aguayo Quezada, La charola, 71. See also Padilla and Walker, “Dossier: Spy Reports”; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 24–25; Raat, “US Intelligence Operations and Covert Action in Mexico, 1900–1947.” In the archives, dips is also written as dgips but for consistency the term dips ­will be used throughout the manuscript when citing this material. 46 William Hudson to Department of State, January 10, 1955, Rec­ord Group (hereafter rg ) 59, 712.00/1–1055, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration, College Park, Mary­land (hereafter nara ). 47 Carr, Marxism and Communism, 190. 48 “Mexico: Annual Review for 1957,” February 10, 1958, Foreign Office (hereafter fo ) 371/132209, National Archives, Kew Gardens, United Kingdom (hereafter tna ). 49 Sir Andrew Noble (UK Embassy) to fo , October 4, 1960, fo  371/48385, tna . Chapter One: Mexico’s “Restless” Left and the Resurrection of Lázaro Cárdenas 1 Robert Hill to John Foster Dulles, cable, July 4, 1958, rg  59, Library Microfilm (hereafter lm ) 116, reel 1, nara ; Ruth Mason Hughes to Department of State, cable, July 7, 1958, 712.00/7-758, nara . Hughes’s cable also describes “elaborate precautions” taken to safeguard the elections, including “fully equipped riot squads” stationed in vari­ous parts of the capital. 2 “Mexico: Annual Review for 1957,” February 10, 1958, fo  371/132209, tna . The lit­er­a­ture on the Mexican Revolution and po­liti­cal system is expansive, both in Spanish and in En­glish. A foundational work on the Mexican Revolution is Knight, The Mexican Revolution. An impor­tant scholarly assessment of the evolution and functioning of the po­liti­cal system ­after the revolution is Gillingham and Smith, Dictablanda. An accessible narrative approach is Krauze, Mexico. 302   —   Notes to Introduction

3 R. G. Leddy to Department of State, July 12, 1958, 712.00/7–1258, nara ; “Trade Unions, ­Labor Situation, Strikes,” September 4, 1958, fo  371/132239, tna . 4 “Nuevo sindicalismo en gestión,” Siempre!, August 6, 1958. 5 Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez, “La política,” 236. For a classic analy­sis of the po­liti­cal ramifications of this ideological dispute in the late 1940s to early 1950s, see Servín, Ruptura y oposición. 6 Hernández Rodríguez, “La política,” 236. ­These “camps” ­were broken down into left-­wing supporters of President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) and conservative followers of President Miguel Alemán (1946–52). 7 Hernández Rodríguez, “La política,” 223–38. 8 Classic texts include Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development, 211–18; Reyna, “Redefining the Authoritarian Regime.” 9 For a discussion of Mexico’s “decades-­long history” of action regionally in support of alternative economic schema, see Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?” 10 Rubottom to Johnson, November 11, 1958, Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 7, nara . 11 Loaeza, Clases medias y políticas en México, 197n23. 12 Cárdenas and his wife left Mexico City on October 12 and arrived, via train, in New York City on October 16. They left by boat for Eu­rope on October 18. 13 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 57. 14 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 61. 15 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 99. Cárdenas ­later returned the money to López Mateos, noting that he had not needed to spend it ­because of the hospitality he received. Cárdenas indicated that the amount was in dollars, not pesos. 16 Westad, The Global Cold War; Gorsuch and Koenker, The Socialist Sixties. 17 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 64. 18 Spenser, The Impossible Triangle; Richardson, Mexico through Rus­sian Eyes. 19 L. Kamynin, “¡Bienvendio, Lázaro Cárdenas!,” Izvestia, November 25, 1958, leg. 13, exp. 3, Soviet Embassy Correspondence, Archivo Histórico Genaro Estrada, Secretaría Relaciones Exteriores (hereafter sre ). Cárdenas was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in February 1956. Shortly ­after, as part of his de-­Stalinization efforts, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev renamed the prize to honor Lenin instead. For a description of the prize ceremony, see Zolov, “Between Bohemianism and a Revolutionary Rebirth,” 270–71; Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 79, 154–56. 20 Rupprecht, Soviet Internationalism ­after Stalin. 21 Kamynin, “¡Bienvendio, Lázaro Cárdenas!” 22 Alfonzo de Rosenzweig-­Díaz to sre , October 29, 1958, Mexican Embassy USSR, leg. 15, exp. 1, sre . 23 R. Molochkova, “América Latina busca nuevos mercados,” Trud [Organo del Comité Central de los Sindicatos Soviéticos], March 7, 1959, leg. 15, exp. 1, Soviet Embassy Correspondence, sre . 24 “Huéspedes brasileños en Moscú,” Izvestia, January 9, 1959; Ernesto Madero to sre , January 20, 1959, leg. 15, exp. 1, Soviet Embassy Correspondence, sre ; Rupprecht, “Socialist High Modernity and Global Stagnation.” Notes to Chapter One   —   303

25 Pettinà, “Mexican-­Soviet Relations, 1958–1964.” 26 Molochkova, “América Latina busca nuevos mercados.” For a brief discussion of trade relations in this period, see Blasier, The ­Giant’s Rival, 28–29. 27 Ernesto Madero to sre , “Estancia en la urss del Sr. Gral. Lázaro Cárdenas,” December 7, 1958, leg. 13, exp. 3, Soviet Embassy Correspondence, sre . 28 Madero to sre , “Estancia en la urss .” 29 “Texto del discurso pronunciado por el Señor General Lázaro Cárdenas, durante el almuerzo que le ofreció el academico D. V. Skobeltsin . . . ,” November 29, 1958, leg. 13, exp. 3, Soviet Embassy Correspondence, sre . 30 Madero to sre , “Estancia en la urss .” 31 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 68. See also “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations,” November 13, 1959, fo  371/39567, tna . 32 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 70. Curiously, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas fails to mention any aspect of this monumental trip in his memoir, Sobre mis pasos. 33 C. Cárdenas, Sobre mis pasos, 75. 34 C. Cárdenas, Sobre mis pasos, 82. 35 Chen, Mao’s China and the Cold War, 72, 75. 36 “Las revoluciones china y mexicana iguales: Cárdenas,” Excélsior, January 21, 1959, 1a . This was a similar perspective articulated by Lombardo Toledano following his trip to Communist China in 1949. See Rothwell, Transpacific Revolutionaries, chap. 2. 37 “Visitó Cárdenas otra comuna China,” Excélsior, January 27, 1959, 1a . Ironically, the failure of China’s ­Great Leap Forward offered a potential economic opportunity for Mexico through the sale of grains, as discussed in chapter 7. 38 “Habla Cárdenas de su viaje, al volver al país,” Excélsior, February 12, 1959, 1a . 39 “Rehuye Cárdenas todo recibimiento,” Excélsior, February 14, 1959, 1a . 40 “Recepción a Cárdenas, pero sin discursos,” Excélsior, February 12, 1959, 1a ; “Rehuye Cárdenas todo recibimiento.” See also Hill to Dulles, February 11, 1959, rg  59, 712.00/2-1159, nara . 41 Cárdenas, Apuntes, 92–93. 42 Cárdenas, Apuntes, 107. Cárdenas was writing in the aftermath of the crushing of the railroad workers’ strike. Although he disparaged news reports claiming an “international conspiracy” ­behind the strike, he accepted that López Mateos was the unquestioned leader of the nation. 43 Cárdenas, Apuntes, 90–91. 44 Cárdenas, Apuntes, 90–91. 45 “México reconoció ayer al gobierno cubano del President M. Urrutia,” Excél­ sior, January 6, 1959, 1a . Venezuela, Ec­ua­dor, Bolivia, and Honduras did so as well. The US recognized Cuba on January 7, 1959. 46 José Natividad Rosales, “Nuestra revolución: Inspiración cubana?,” Siempre!, January 14, 1959, 5. The centrality of Mexico is amply discussed in the lit­er­ a­ture. For an analy­sis of the role that asylum played, see Black, “Politics of Asylum.” On Che Guevara in Mexico, see Zolov, “Between Bohemianism and a Revolutionary Rebirth.” 47 Alfonso Guerra (Mexico City), January 2, 1959, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 559.1/2, Archivo General de la Nación (hereafter agn ). 304   —   Notes to Chapter One

48 A classic assembly of articles on the “death” of the Mexican revolution is gathered in Ross, Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? 49 Editorial, “La democracia y los hechos,” Excélsior, January 13, 1959, 6a ; Editorial, “Los dioses de la venganza,” Excélsior, January 14, 1959, 6a . For analy­ sis of the relationship between the government and the press, see B. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–­1976. 50 Editorial, “Los dioses de la venganza.” See also Chase, “The ­Trials.” 51 “Guerrilleros de Cuba llegan hoy,” Excélsior, February 12, 1959, 4a ; “Llegan a explicar su lucha diez castristas,” Excélsior, February 13, 1959, 1a . From Mexico the group continued to Panama City, Bogotá, Cali, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and Caracas. See Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 51–53. 52 “Llegan a explicar su lucha diez castristas.” 53 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 51–52. 54 “Llegan a explicar su lucha diez castristas.” 55 Sartre, Sartre on Cuba, 109–10. 56 Gosse, Where the Boys Are, chaps. 2–3. 57 Alberto Mayio, March 2, 1959, 812.261/3-259, nara . Vallejo and Campa ­were both former members of the pcm and leaders within the Partido Obrero Campesino Mexicano (pocm ), a splinter group that broke from the pcm in 1951, ironically as a critique of the pcm ’s continued “popu­lar front” support for the ruling pri . (Campa cofounded the pocm .) For a comprehensive discussion of the railway movement, see Alegre, Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico. Alegre argues that while “members of the pcm and pocm held leadership positions within the stfrm  . . . ​­these organizers constituted a decidedly small minority of the movement” (193). See also Carr, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-­Century Mexico, chap. 6. 58 Alegre, Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico, 188–89; Semo, México, un pueblo en la historia, 57–58. 59 On the aftermath of the crackdown, see, for example, “Arrest of Communists in Monterrey Consular District,” April 8, 1959, rg  59, 712.001/4-859, nara ; “Police Raid Communists in Guadalajara: rr Strike Aftermath,” April 9, 1959, rg  59, 712.001/4-959, nara ; Alegre, Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico. 60 H. Cárdenas, Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia, 224; K. Schmidt, Communism in Mexico, 164. The raids ­were against the offices of the pp and the pocm . 61 A similar point is made by H. Cárdenas, Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia, 230. 62 “Potential Role of Intellectuals in Mexican Politics,” January 30, 1959, rg  56, lm  116, no. 9, nara . 63 The phrase language of dissent is borrowed ­here from Suri, Power and Pro­ test, 3. 64 The title was likely an oblique reference to the eight-­volume collection of essays, poems, and criticism of the same name published by the Spanish phi­ los­o­pher José Ortega y Gassett ­earlier in the ­century. 65 “Presentación,” el espectador 1, no. 1 (May 1959): 3. 66 “Presentación,” 3. Notes to Chapter One   —   305

67 Enrique González Pedrero, “Crisis de la izquierda,” el espectador 1, no. 1 (May 1959): 15. 68 Editorial, “El fin y los medios,” el espectador 1, no. 2 (June 1959): 3. 69 Luis Villoro, “Crisis de desarrollo,” el espectador 1, no. 3 (July 1959): 32 70 Jaime García Torrés, “Libertad de opinión,” el espectador 1, no. 1 (May 1959): 24. García Terrés was thirty-­five years old. 71 In this new section, one could laugh darkly at (largely untranslatable) terms such as Dedocracia (“régimen social y político privativo de México”), Au­ todedismo (“Razón de Estado”), and Gerontodedía (“Antigua Régimen”). See “Diccionario Político” in the June and July 1959 issues of el espectador. Soledad Loaeza argues that the “fingering” of candidate López Mateos by Ruiz Cortines represented the first true dedazo. Loaeza, Clases medias y política en México, 197. The dedazo would become a central trope used by a new generation of po­liti­cal cartoonists in this period. 72 This was most apparent through the rise of a new generation of cartoonists, such as Abel Quezada, Eduardo del Río (“Rius”), and Jorge Carreño, whose creative risk-­taking, self-­deprecation, and irreverent disregard for traditional po­liti­cal norms heralded a departure from previous traditions—­both with re­ spect to caricature and as well as left-­wing discourse—­and posed a separate, unique challenge for the government in its efforts to keep the intelligent­sia within the confines of the po­liti­cal system. See Zolov, “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s”; Camp, “The Cartoons of Abel Quezada”; Pensado, Rebel Mexico, 170–72. Guillermo Hurtado argues, correctly I believe, that the writers of el especta­ dor “criticized the used up [gastada] rhe­toric of Revolution with the intent to reconstruct it as a moral and social ideal, not to destroy it by means of skeptical or nihilistic satire.” Hurtado, “Un antecedente de El Espectador,” 25. 73 Careaga, Los intelectuales y la política en México, 71; see also Pensado, Rebel Mexico, 152–54. 74 Jesús Silva Herzog, founder and director of the influential journal Cua­ dernos Americanos and a member of the cem , lent the editorial collective 25,000 pesos—­enough to publish the first two issues. They met in the café El Carmel, owned by the f­ ather of the young literary scholar Margo Glantz and located in the cosmopolitan Zona Rosa district. Julio Aguilar, “ ‘El Espectador,’ tribuna juvenil,” El Universal, November 21, 2008, http://­www​.­eluniversal​.­com​ .­mx​/­cultura​/­58012​.­html. See also Hurtado, “Un antecedente de El Espectador,” 18. Jaime Pensado lists Manuel Marcué Pardiñas as a cofounder of the magazine and asserts a connection between el espectador and the Talleres Gráficos de México, but I have found no evidence of this. Marcué Pardiñas, who a year ­later launched Política, was openly a member of the Partido Popu­lar and a loyalist of Lombardo Toledano, thus making any connection to el espectador suspect. Pensado also states that the first issue was published in July 1959 but in fact it was May. See Pensado, Rebel Mexico, 152–53. 75 “Cuba: La reforma agraria,” el espectador 1, no. 3 (July 1959): 15. 76 “Cuba: La reforma agraria,” 15. 77 C. Cárdenas, Sobre mis pasos, 39. ­There is no mention in Cárdenas’s diary about meeting with López Mateos, but Keller notes from the US documents 306   —   Notes to Chapter One

78 79 80 81

82 83

84 85 86

87 88

89 90 91 92 93

94

95

that he “spent five hours” with the president the night prior. Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 54. Interview with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Notre Dame University, March 6, 2013. The interview was conducted with Jaime Pensado. C. Cárdenas, Sobre mis pasos, 39; interview with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Notre Dame University, March 6, 2013. Tad Szulc, “Gay Cubans Hail Castro’s Triumph,” New York Times, July 27, 1959, 3. Lázaro Cárdenas, “Discurso con motivo del VI aniversario de la iniciación del Movimiento Revolucionario ‘26 de Julio,’ ” in L. Cárdenas, México y Cuba, 499. Szulc, “Gay Cubans Hail.” L. Cárdenas, “Discurso con motivo,” 497. During his travels abroad, Cárdenas also openly compared the Chinese and Mexican revolutions, stating: “We believe that the Chinese revolution is the same as our own.” “Las revoluciones china y mexicana iguales: Cárdenas,” Excélsior, January 21, 1959, 1a . Jacobo Zabludovsky, “No se engañe México: Con una idolotría sin pre­ce­ dente en la América,” Siempre!, August 5, 1959, 15. José Alvarado, “Cárdenas va a la Habana; Nixon visita Moscú,” Siempre!, August 12, 1959, 15. Paraphrasing Franklin Roo­se­velt, Cárdenas lauded the former president’s belief that Latin Amer­i­ca had the “right and the capacity to live freely and in­de­pen­dently, without intervention or even informal advice.” L. Cárdenas, “Discurso con motivo,” 498. Bonsal to Department of State, August 4, 1959, rg  59, 812.41/8-459, nara . Bonsal to Department of State, August 4, 1959. Bonsal had been US ambassador to Bolivia during the 1952 revolution and played an impor­tant role in mediating between the expectations of the leftist Bolivian regime and the United States. His transfer to Cuba almost immediately ­after the triumph of Fidel Castro was intended to send a sign that the US would seek to cooperate with the new regime. See Welch, Response to Revolution, 29. Jaime García Terrés, “Un poco de aire fresco,” el espectador 1, no. 4 (August 1959): 32. “Cárdenas: Fidelidad al ideario de la revolución,” el espectador 1, no. 6–7 (October–­November 1959): 6. Keller, “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption.” L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 113. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas ­later recalled that following the trip to Cuba his ­father went back to his “regular duties.” Interview with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Notre Dame University, March 6, 2013. According to a journal entry, he returned to Michoacán and spent time studying the prob­lems of forestry. US Embassy (Mexico City), “Joint Weekly No. 38,” September 25, 1959, 712.00(w)/9-2559, nara . For discussion of the “Mexican Miracle,” see Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development, 41–69. “Declaración de Principios,” Cuadernos del Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos 1 (December 1954): 1. The cem published a journal (Cuadernos del Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos) and sponsored vari­ous conferences, mostly on po­liti­cal Notes to Chapter One   —   307

economy. For a more detailed discussion, see Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 124–28. 96 Dirección Federal de Seguridad (dfs ), August 1, 1959, exp. 30-76-59, hoja 27, leg. 2, agn . 97 dfs , August 22, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 124, leg. 1, agn . 98 dfs , August 24, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 126, leg. 1, agn . 99 “Joint Weekly,” September 16–22, 1959, 712.00(w)/9-2559, nara ; dfs , September 19, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 178, leg. 1, agn ; dfs , September 24, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 186, leg. 1, agn ; dfs , September 25, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 189, leg. 1, agn . Luis Somoza Debayle carried on the ­family’s dynasty of dictatorial rule as president of Nicaragua following his ­father’s death in 1956. 100 “Advertencia,” Temas Políticos y Sociales: Carta Semanal de Información Con­ fidencial 2, no. 75 (October 11, 1959): 1, gallery 3, “López Mateos,” 704/211, agn . The laborer was Ramón Guerra Montemayor, who was arrested on August 31 and “dis­appeared”; his body was found on September 2. Enrique Krauze writes: “They threw his body across a railroad track, first putting lipstick on him and painting his nails red as a mark of his po­liti­cal affiliation and presumably as an attempt to suggest that the murder had been a crime of passion among homosexuals.” Krauze, Mexico, 636. 101 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 114. The entry (dated September 14) is evidently out of sequence in his journal, as diplomatic reports note that he met with the railway workers on September 27. 102 The Friendship Society was formed in 1957 and had facilitated Cárdenas’s ­earlier travel to China. See Rothwell, Transpacific Revolutionaries, 35–39. Rothwell notes that the society was founded by activists of the Partido Popu­ lar and by the late 1950s had become “the main conduit for Chinese propaganda entering Mexico” (36). 103 “Texto completo del discurso del General Cárdenas,” Excélsior, October 5, 1959, 1a . 104 dfs , October 7, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 216, leg. 1, agn . 105 Paul Kennedy, “Cárdenas Jolts Mexican Politics,” New York Times, October 18, 1959, 24. 106 For a summary of press reports and editorials, see US Embassy (Mexico City) to Department of State, “Press Continues Vehement Censor of Cuba’s Fidel Castro,” December 31, 1959, rg  59, 712.00(w), nara . 107 “Momento político,” Jueves de Excélsior, July 30, 1959, 1. 108 Sir Andrew Noble, “Report on the Activities of Ex-­President Cárdenas,” October 16, 1959, fo  371/139563, tna . This was not the first time Cárdenas had been publicly attacked or denounced for his alleged Communism, but the fact that this critique was occurring within the mainstream press, rather than from isolated ele­ments on the right, was new. 109 Freyre was one of the country’s most highly regarded illustrators and, for nearly two de­cades, the principal caricaturist for Excélsior. He was also an ardent anti-­Communist who during the early 1950s “worked feverishly” against the leftist government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. See León, Dic­ cionario Enciclopédico de México, 665–66. 308   —   Notes to Chapter One

110 This interpretation is indebted to a discussion with Jorge Olivares and Luis Millones following a pre­sen­ta­tion at Colby College in October 2005. Looking at Cuba in this period, Jennifer Lambe argues that the association of Communism and homo­sexuality was a strategic trope used by conservatives to “out” Raúl Castro, whose Communism was alleged but not in the open. Lambe, “The Communist Closet.” 111 Messersmith to Rubottom, December 12, 1958, Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 7, Subject Files, 1957–59, entry 1135, nara . Messersmith was ambassador to Mexico (1942–46) and briefly to Argentina following the election of Juan Perón in 1946 before retiring from the Foreign Ser­vice in 1947. He died in Mexico in 1960. 112 “Visits by Heads of State or Heads of Government during 1959,” September 12, 1958, Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 7, nara . 113 Rubottom to Phillips, “Visit of President López Mateos,” September 30, 1959, Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 14, nara . 114 Rubottom to Phillips, “Visit of President López Mateos.” 115 British Embassy (Mexico City), September 18, 1959, fo  371/139568, tna . 116 For a colorful description of Khrushchev’s trip to the United States, see Taubman, Khrushchev, chap. 15. 117 “Commercial Relations between Mexico and UK,” January 4, 1958, fo  371/132226, tna . 118 In fact, ­there ­were already indications of economic diversification. Since the start of López Mateos’s presidency, the US share of Mexican imports had declined by 4 ­percent. Some of this shift was accounted for by a rise in exports to Germany (from 4.9 to 6.1 ­percent) and to Japan (0.6 to 1.3 ­percent). “Mexico Shatters Patterns of Trade: Seeks to Break Away from De­pen­dency on U.S.,” New York Times, January 14, 1960, 49. 119 British Embassy (Mexico City), September 18, 1959, fo  371/139568, tna . 120 President Alemán addressed the assembly on May 3, 1947. See Memoria de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Sept. 1946–­Aug. 1947, 30. I thank Ashley Black for digging up this reference. 121 “Fact Sheet: Mexican Government Tourist Department,” September 1959, rg  59, lm  116, no. 5, nara . 122 Departamento de Turismo, “Proyecto de plan de actividades para 1960,” October 30, 1959, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 548/62, agn . See also “Fact Sheet: Mexican Government Tourist Department.” 123 “Presupuesto de publicaciones (1960),” October 20, 1959, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 548/10, agn . The highest number of proposed advertisement insertions was for the New Yorker, indicating a desire to attract the savvier traveler with more disposable income. The next highest number (twelve) was for Travel Magazine. National Geographic had a lower number (six) but absorbed the largest portion of the overall bud­get (nearly $52,000), again indicating a desire to target an upper-­income, more “worldly” traveler. 124 “Presupuesto de publicaciones (1960).” 125 Significantly, ­these per­for­mances ­were coordinated through the sre . In February 1960 a new Division of Cultural Affairs was created within the Foreign Ministry, headed by Leopoldo Zea, a noted essayist, phi­los­o­pher, Notes to Chapter One   —   309

126

127 128 129

130

131 132 133

134

135 136

137 138

139

and member of the cem . Carlos Fuentes was also hired to work for the new program (see chapter 6). The division, however, did not have a separate bud­get and found itself competing with a preexisting, parallel organ­ization within the sre , the Organismo de Promoción Internacional de Cultura (Body for the Promotion of International Culture). See “Relaciones culturales,” Política, November 15, 1961, 88. For US reaction to this new division, see “New Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales,” February 18, 1960, rg  59, box 1514, nara . The strategic use of culture to promote Mexican diplomatic aims has a longer history. See Kiddle, Mexico’s Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cárdenas Era, chapter 6. “The Presidency: Return to the Job,” Time, October 19, 1959, 27. “vip s from the South: For Love and Money,” Newsweek, October 12, 1959, 65. “vip s from the South.” López Mateos told President Eisenhower during their meeting at Camp David, “We ­don’t need any loans or help now.” Instead, he focused on the issue of declining commodity prices (especially cotton, zinc, and lead) and fears that the US Congress was poised to raise tariffs and impose new import quotas. Eisenhower vowed he “would not approve any recommended increase in tariff[s]” and to veto if necessary any tariff legislation passed by Congress. “Mexico (Camp David),” Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 14, “Mexico: July–­December, 1959,” nara . E. W. Kenworthy, “Mexico’s President Arrives in U. S. for State Visit,” New York Times, October 10, 1959, 1. The official pronouncement by Eisenhower differs slightly from that reported in the New York Times (quoted in the text). According to the Department of State Bulletin, Eisenhower stated: “We are proud to call you our friend. And we devoutly hope that you feel in that same fashion ­toward us.” “Presidents of Mexico and United States Reaffirm Ties of Friendship,” Department of State Bulletin, November 2, 1959, 625. Kenworthy, “Mexico’s President Arrives.” Kenworthy, “Mexico’s President Arrives.” “Press Conference of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Acapulco, Mexico, November 23, 1958,” Subject File, “Travel-­Mexico Trip, 1958,” Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, TX (hereafter lbj Library). “The Amer­i­cas: Bienvenido,” Time, October 19, 1959, 48. It was also the proposed name given for the dam that would soon be built across the Rio Grande bridging the US-­Mexico border and dedicated in a final meeting between Eisenhower and López Mateos. “Good Neighbors: Man Who Came to Dinner,” Newsweek, October 26, 1959, 39. “La multitud gritaba ‘¡Vive Mecsicou!,’ ” Excélsior, October 12, 1959, 1a ; see also “Chicago Honors Mexican Leader,” New York Times, October 14, 1959, 21. “Mexico (Camp David).” “Address by Mr. Adolfo López Mateos, President of the United States of Mexico, United Nations General Assembly,” October 14, 1959, 14th Session, 828th Plenary Meeting, a /pv .828. This framing of Mexico was in fact part of a longer historical tradition, dating to the 1930s if not ­earlier. See Kiddle, Mexico’s Relations with Latin

310   —   Notes to Chapter One

140 141

142 143

1 44 145 146 147 148 149 150

151 152

153 154 155 156

Amer­i­ca during the Cárdenas Era; Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?” “Address by Mr. Adolfo López Mateos”; Goedde, The Politics of Peace, chapters 2–3. “Acosado a preguntas, alm habló de Franco, Castro, Krushchev y Estados Unidos,” Excélsior, October 13, 1959, 1a . For the full transcript, see López Mateos, Mis convicciones revolucionarios en materia obrera y campesina, 36–39. López Mateos, “A la sociedad Panamericana en la cena del Waldorf Astoria (14 October 1954),” in Pensamiento en acción, 145. Carlos Denegri, “Raund por raund, en el tablado de los Inquisidores,” Excélsior, October 13, 1959, 2a ; Carlos Fuentes, “La visita de López Mateos a los Estados Unidos: Un nuevo lenguaje,” el espectador 1, no. 6–7 (October–­ November 1959): 7–9. Fuentes, “La visita de López Mateos a los Estados Unidos,” 9. Víctor Flores Olea, “Por un lenguaje directo,” el espectador 1, nos. 6–7 (October–­November 1959): 39. Editorial, “Visitors from Mexico,” New York Times, October 14, 1959, 42. Harry Marsh (Van Buren, Alaska), December 14, 1959, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 548/30, agn . Editorial, “Balance de la gira,” Excélsior, October 19, 1959, 6a . “Texto del saludo del presidente al pueblo,” Excélsior, October 20, 1959, 1a . “Semi-­Official Document Concerned with the October 1959 Visit of President Adolfo López Mateos to the United States and Canada,” January 19, 1960, rg  59, box 1513, nara . British Embassy (Mexico City), October 23, 1959, fo  371/139568, tna . See also the summary dispatch from October 29, 1959, fo  371/139568, tna . López Mateos had refused repeated requests for a meeting that summer and fall, “on the grounds that he [was] much too busy.” See Noble, “Report on the Activities of Ex-­President Cárdenas,” October 16, 1959, fo  371/139563, tna . L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 119. L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 121. L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 121. L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 123. Chapter Two: “Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!”

1 Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 241. 2 José Alvarado, “Cárdenas va a la Habana; Nixon visita Moscú,” Siempre!, August 12, 1959, 15. The US exhibition in Moscow ran from July 25 to September 4. See Kushner, “Exhibiting Art at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959.” 3 H. Cárdenas, Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia, 223. By 1960 the Latin American countries that already had established trade relationships or ­were in the pro­cess of exploring them included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Uruguay. Notes to Chapter Two   —   311

4 “Soviet Report, ‘Economic Cooperation between Latin Amer­i­ca and the Countries of the Socialist Camp,’ ” 1960, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Archive of the Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences, f. 1798, op. 1, d. 88, ll. 124–36, obtained for Cold War International History Proj­ect (cwihp ) by Vanni Pettinà and translated by Gary Goldberg, http://­digitalarchive​ .­wilsoncenter​.­org​/d ­ ocument​/1­ 22358. 5 Khrushchev, “On Peaceful Coexistence,” 17. 6 Westad, The Global Cold War, 71, 69. For a detailed study see also Goedde, The Politics of Peace. 7 Max Frankel, “Soviet’s Hopes on View,” New York Times, June 30, 1959, 17; Lawrence O’Kane, “Soviet Fair Ends,” New York Times, August 11, 1959, 1. The exhibition ran from June 29 to August 10. President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, and other po­liti­cal dignitaries ­were in attendance for the inaugural ceremonies. 8 USSR Exhibition: New York, 1959 (New York: n.p., 1959), 1. 9 Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War, chap. 3. 10 For detailed and colorful descriptions, see Taubman, Khrushchev, 419–39; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 229–39. 11 “N. S. Khrushchev’s Speech at White House Dinner,” September 15, 1959, in Khrushchev, Khrushchev in Amer­i­ca, 15; Taubman, Khrushchev, 379; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 238. 12 “This means that land armies, navies and air forces would cease to exist, general staffs and war ministries would be abolished, military training establishments would be closed. Tens of millions of men would return to peaceful constructive ­labor.” “Speech by N. S. Khrushchev at the Session of the un General Assembly,” September 18, 1959, in Khrushchev, Khrushchev in Amer­ i­ca, 68. 13 Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 256. 14 USSR Exhibition, 1; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 200. 15 Vicente Lombardo Toledano, “Frutas de la visita de Kruschev a E.U.: El verdadero carácter del comunismo,” Siempre!, October 14, 1959, 21. 16 “La nueva perspectiva,” el espectador 1, no. 5 (September 1959): 3. 17 Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 239. 18 Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 201–2; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 241. 19 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 42–44. 20 “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations,” November 13, 1959, fo  371/39567, tna . Quote is from the handwritten “Minutes” on the cover of the report. 21 “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations.” 22 Martindale to Department of State, September 1, 1959, 712.00/9-159, nara . 23 Martindale to Department of State, October 2, 1959, 712.00/10-259, nara . The dance troupe was formally known as the Piatnitskiy Folk Choir. 24 Martindale to Department of State, October 2, 1959. 25 Martindale to Department of State, October 6, 1959, 712.00/10-659, nara . The troupe no doubt enhanced its appeal by paying meaningful tribute to similar traditional dances and costumes incorporated into Mexico’s own 312   —   Notes to Chapter Two

26

27

28 29 30 31 32

33 34

35

recently launched Ballet Folklórico, which coincidentally was also on tour in the United States for the first time that same fall. Martindale to Department of State, October 2, 1959. Holiday on Ice was first performed in Mexico City in 1947. ­Earlier in 1959 the show traveled to the Soviet Union, where it performed for eight weeks to a capacity ­house of eighty thousand. “Moscow Run Ends for ‘Holiday on Ice,’ ” Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1959, f 4. “Press Conference of David Alfaro Siqueiros,” December 5, 1955, 712.001/12555, nara . William Richardson writes that Soviet citizens, too, would assimilate an “intuitive sympathy” for Mexicans and their heroic strug­gle for sovereign development. Richardson, Mexico through Rus­sian Eyes, 1806– 1940, 220. Mexico was the first country in the Amer­i­cas to exchange ambassadors with revolutionary Rus­sia and in the 1950s was one of only three Latin American countries (along with Argentina and Uruguay) that maintained diplomatic relations. See also Rupprecht, Soviet Internationalism ­after Stalin. Ironically, his remarks came on the eve of an artistic rupture with the socialist realist aesthetic inherent to the Mexican muralist movement. For an insightful discussion of this moment in Mexican artistic life, see Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Paint­er, chaps. 6–7. See also Coffey, How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture; Smith, The Power and Politics of Art in Postrevo­ lutionary Mexico. Servín, “Propaganda y Guerra Fría,” 12. Jack McDermott, “Annual usis Assessment Report,” November 18, 1957, rg  469, box 63, nara . “Mexico: Soviet Bloc” (secret), April 2, 1958, rg  59, box 6, nara . See also K. Schmidt, Communism in Mexico. Pettinà, “Mexican-­Soviet Relations, 1958–1964”; Sewell, “A Perfect (Free-­ Market) World?” “Mexico: Soviet Bloc” (secret), April 2, 1958. The embassy worked in conjunction with Poland (twenty officials) and Czecho­slo­va­kia (thirty-­five officials) “as bases of operations.” A few years ­later, a secret intelligence estimate indicated that “no less than 60 [of 175 total diplomats assigned to the Soviet Embassy] are engaged in intelligence work.” “Position Paper: Soviet, Satellite, and Cuban Intelligence Activities in Mexico,” June 26, 1962, National Security Files (nsf ) , box 237, “President Trip to Mexico,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, MA (hereafter jfkl ); “Statistical Data on Communist Propaganda Activities in Latin Amer­i­ca (1958),” rg  59, box 1, nara . Héctor Cárdenas, a Mexican diplomat to the Soviet Union, ­later wrote how the embassy “maintained a personnel workforce whose numbers bore no relationship to the level of exchange with the country.” H. Cárdenas, Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia, 228. “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations,” November 13, 1959, fo  371/39567, tna . Interview with Carlos E. Sevilla, Mexico City, April 19, 2002. For a discussion of Los Sputniks, see Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Paint­er, 162; on refritos and rock ­music in the period, see Zolov, Refried Elvis, chaps. 1–2. Interview with Carlos E. Sevilla, Mexico City, April 19, 2002. Notes to Chapter Two   —   313

36 Lawrence O’Kane, “Soviet Fair Ends; Million Visited It,” New York Times, August 11, 1959, 1. 37 “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations,” November 13, 1959. 38 Rosenzweig to sre , “Exposición Soviética,” November 4, 1959, III-2289-39, sre . 39 “Anastas Mikoyan arribará mañana,” Excélsior, November 17, 1959, 1. 40 Harry Schwartz, “Soviet Drive Is Seen,” November 14, 1959, New York Times, 33. 41 V. Chichkov, “A América Latina ha llegado la primavera,” Pravda, November 18, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . The Times report also cited the article in Pravda. 42 “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations”; “Mikoyan to Open a Fair in Mexico,” New York Times, November 14, 1959, 33; Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin Amer­ic­ a, 181. Miller, however, does not provide any specific evidence to back her claim. Mexican officials evidently learned about Mikoyan’s attendance as early as November 2, though ­there is no clear indication as to who initiated the invitation. “De Alba [Ginebra] to Mexico City,” November 2, 1959, “Visita Mikoyan,” XIV-458-4, sre . 43 Reeves, “Extracting the Ea­gle’s Talons,” 12. 44 For a complete list of his entourage, see “Lista de las personas que vienen acompañado al Señor A. I. Mikoyan,” “Visita Mikoyan,” XIV-458-4, sre ; “Anastas Mikoyan arribará mañana”; “Documental sobre la visita del señor A. I. Mikoyan a México,” Ernesto Madero to sre , January 14, 1960, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . The film was called A. I. en México and was ­later shown in Soviet movie theaters. 45 L. Kaminin, “Viva! exclaman los mexicanos,” Izvestia, November 20, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . 46 “Mikoyan en México,” Mañana, November 28, 1959, 8. 47 Tello, México, 195–96. 48 “A. I. Mikoyan en México,” Izvestia, November 21, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . 49 Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 807–10. 50 Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 828. 51 Paul Kennedy, “Mikoyan in Call on Mexican Chief,” New York Times, November 20, 1959, 16. The British report noted that Mikoyan “evidently enjoyed himself im­mensely ­here [in the Senate], indulging in an interminable discourse about peace, co-­existence, disarmament and friendship.” Noble to Foreign Office, “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico.” 52 “Amistad y colaborar para el bien de la paz universal (Discurso A. I. Mikoyan),” Pravda, November 21, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . 53 “Confía Mikoyan en que al fin habrá desarme,” Excélsior, November 20, 1959, 13. 54 “Confía Mikoyan en que al fin habrá desarme,”12. 55 V. Borovski, “En el hospitalario México,” Pravda, November 20, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . 56 González de Bustamante, “Muy buenas noches,” 101. González de Bustamante’s focus is on tele­vi­sion rather than print media. 314   —   Notes to Chapter Two

57 “Confía Mikoyan en que al fin habrá desarme”; “Mikoyan en México,” Ma­ ñana, November 28, 1959, 9. 58 “Mikoyan en México.” Fernández directed canonical films of Mexico’s “Golden Age,” including Flor Silvestre (1943), María Candelaria (1944), Río Escondido (1947), and Salón México (1950). During the 1960s he shifted to acting and appeared in numerous Hollywood films alongside actors such as Richard Burton and Marlon Brando. 59 The British noted that Cárdenas sent a “last minute message” to Mikoyan, which must have been an invitation to see him at his home. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas recalls Mikoyan arriving “with a translator that came with him” and that “they ­were talking for a while.” Interview with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Notre Dame University, March 6, 2013. But the British also noted that “for a man who had been officially received in Moscow [Cárdenas] played a very insignificant part in the proceedings” surrounding Mikoyan’s welcome. “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico.” General Heriberto Jara, a Cárdenas confident and recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize himself in 1950, was pre­sent at the reception. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas also recalls ­going to the exhibition. 60 “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico.” 61 “The Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City,” January 8, 1960, fo  371/148388, tna ; “Técnicos mexicanos en la exposición rusa,” Excélsior, November 17, 1959, 8a . 62 “The Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City,” January 8, 1960, fo  371/148388, tna . 63 “Report on the Work of the Soviet Exhibition in Mexico Year 1959,” History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Rus­sian State Archive of the Economy, f. 635, op. 1, d. 392, ll. 1–12, obtained and translated for cwihp by Vanni Pettinà, http://­digitalarchive​.­wilsoncenter​.­org​/­document​/1­ 22362. 64 Advertisement, Excélsior, November 17, 1959, 15. The “Lunik” referenced a spacecraft from the Soviet Luna program. That September, the Luna 2 became the first manmade object to successfully reach the surface of the moon. Sputnik, launched in 1957, was the world’s first successful satellite to orbit the Earth. 65 Editorial, “Realidad y propaganda,” Excélsior, November 19, 1959. 66 “A. I. Mikoyan’s Speech at Opening of Soviet Exhibition in Mexican Capital,” Alfonso de Rosenzweig to Tello, November 27, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . Rosenzweig was Mexico’s ambassador in Moscow. He included this official transcript in the En­glish version, noting that ­there was ­little purpose in translating back into Spanish. 67 López Mateos, “Ante la exposición soviética de ciencia, técnica y cultura (21 noviembre 1959),” in Pensamiento en acción 1: 174. 68 “Mikoyan atacó a EE.UU., y se declaró miembro del pri ,” Excélsior, November 22, 1959, 1; “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico,” December 9, 1959, fo  371/39567. canacintra was founded in 1941 and collaborated with government policies favoring import substitution industrialization (isi ). 69 “Mikoyan atacó a EE.UU.” 70 “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico.” 71 V. Borovski, “Los mexicanos se admiran, los mexicanos dan las gracias,” Pravda, December 2, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . The Notes to Chapter Two   —   315

72 73 74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

87

88 89 90 91 92

Soviet director of the Exhibition, A. Shelnov, reported to his superiors that “at least one million ­people” had visited. Cited in Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 822. “The Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City,” January 8, 1960, fo  371/148388, tna . “Report on the Work of the Soviet Exhibition in Mexico Year 1959.” “Report on the Work of the Soviet Exhibition in Mexico Year 1959.” The report notes that costs could have been reduced had Soviet organizers arrived with “sufficient time in advance and not 2–3 weeks before its opening.” The exhibition in New York City similarly featured an opportunity for visitor comments. Homer Bigart, “Visitors to Soviet Fair Offer Pungent Views,” New York Times, July 6, 1959, 1. “Soviet Technical, Scientific and Cultural Exposition (Paula Flores),” December 16, 1959, rg  59, lm  116, reel 14, nara . “Soviet Technical, Scientific and Cultural Exposition (Paula Flores).” “Soviet Technical, Scientific and Cultural Exposition (Paula Flores).” Borovski, “Los mexicanos se admiran.” Borovski, “Los mexicanos se admiran.” H. Gerald Smith, report, December 16, 1959, 812.191-­m e /12-1659, nara . “Soviet Technical, Scientific and Cultural Exposition (Paula Flores).” See also Smith, report, December 16, 1959. “The Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City.” Smith, report, December 16, 1959. “Report on the Work of the Soviet Exhibition in Mexico Year 1959.” Smith, report, December 16, 1959; “The Soviet Exhibition in Mexico City.” General admission was set at one peso (about fifteen cents in 1959 prices) but students accompanied by teachers ­were admitted ­free. Other items not part of the New York City and Ottawa versions included agricultural machinery; photographic equipment; tele­vi­sion sets; the full-­size models of Soviet cosmic rockets, including the Sputniks; and a “scale model of the first atomic icebreaker.” Twenty projection rooms showed a continuous run of documentary and feature films, while visitors could purchase books, rec­ords, watches, cameras, popu­lar art, as well as “typical Rus­sian food” and drink. Some one hundred Rus­sians traveled to Mexico as interpreters, journalists, and liaisons with business organ­izations. Víctor Rico Galán, “La exposición rusa: ¿Eso es el socialismo?,” Siempre!, December 16, 1959, 7. Ironically, Galán’s comment was seconded by an official at the US Embassy who noted that the “weakest aspect of the entire exhibit was in the arts. . . . ​Every­body knows, of course, that Rus­sian painting is bad, but frankly I did not know that it is this bad.” Sam Southwell, December 16, 1959, 812.191-­m e /12-1659, nara ; see also Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom. “Estancia de A. I. Mikoyan en México,” Pravda, November 25, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . “Reported Rus­sian Offer to Mexico,” The Times, November 26, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . “Estancia de A. I. Mikoyan en México.” William Knepper, report, December 3, 1959, 712.00/12-359, nara . “Estancia de A. I. Mikoyan en México.”

316   —   Notes to Chapter Two

93 “Mr. Mikoyan’s Visit to Mexico.” 94 “For Mutually Profitable Trade Based on Equality: Speech by A. I. Mikoyan at a Banquet Given by the National Import and Export Association of Mexico,” Pravda, November 30, 1959, “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre . 95 Pettinà, “Mexican-­Soviet Relations”; see also “Soviet Report, ‘Economic Cooperation between Latin Amer­i­ca and the Countries of the Socialist Camp,’ ” 1960. 96 “Mexico: Country Briefing Book,” December 1, 1960, rg  59, box 8, nara . 97 “British Embassy (Mexico City),” September 27, 1961, fo  371/156318, tna . The report further stated, “In spite of Mr. Mikoyan’s pains, Soviet exports have only risen from 0.17 per cent of the total exports to Mexico in 1958 to 0.22 per cent in 1960. Mexican trade with the Soviet bloc, apart from China, has shown a negligible rise from 0.09% of total Mexican trade in 1955 to 0.189% in 1960.” 98 “Visita delegación rusa, comercio (1962),” III-2876-8, sre . 99 “tass Correspondent in Mexico A. A. Pavlenko, Memorandum of Conversation with Alfredo Perera Mena,” June 27, 1962, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Rus­sian State Archive of the Economy, f. 365, op. 2, d. 340, ll. 88–90, obtained and translated for cwihp by Vanni Pettinà, http://­ digitalarchive​.­wilsoncenter​.­org​/­document​/­122361. 100 Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 840. 101 Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 845. 102 “Mexican/Soviet Union Relations,” November 13, 1959, fo  371/39567, tna . Che Guevara had borrowed books from the Institute during his stay in Mexico in 1955–56. 103 David Hildyard to Foreign Office, September 27, 1961, fo  371/156318, tna . 104 Hildyard to Foreign Office, September 27, 1961. 105 Quoted in Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 830. 106 Hildyard to Foreign Office, September 27, 1961. 107 Following a cultural agreement signed with Mexico in March 1960, Yugo­ slavia’s national folk ballet performed for a season at Bellas Artes, the first of many such exchanges. “Even the Bulgarians, who are equally [with Hungarians] unrepresented ­here [diplomatically] are staging a display of Bulgarian folk art in Mexico City this month,” noted a British Embassy official. By contrast, Mexico “refused to allow a visit by the Peking Opera and all other attempts at cultural or po­liti­cal contacts by the Chinese [PRC].” Curiously, an exception was made in the granting of visas to two Chinese representatives who attended the Sovereignty Conference convened by Lázaro Cárdenas in March 1961 (see chapter 4). Hildyard to Foreign Office, September 27, 1961. 108 The visiting officials met with López Mateos and Manuel Tello to discuss signing a broad trade agreement. López Mateos also informed the delegates that he would not visit Moscow the following spring as initially suggested but that he would send in his place his secretary of commerce and industry, Raúl Salinas Lozano. Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 829. 109 “Quizás viaje a la Habana,” Excélsior, November 19, 1959, 8a . An article in the New York Times noted Mikoyan was returning to the Soviet Union, thus “ending speculation” ­whether he would travel to Cuba with the exhibition. “Mikoyan Leaves Mexico for Home,” New York Times, November 29, 1959, Notes to Chapter Two   —   317

110

111 112 113 114 115 116 117

27. For a discussion of the exhibition in Havana, see Gonçalves, “Sputnik Premiers in Havana.” Alekseev arrived in Havana on October 1 and was still trying to ascertain the revolutionary direction of the new regime. He was subsequently granted a visa to enter Mexico to attend the Soviet exhibition. When he returned to Cuba, however, the Soviet authorities requested an extension on his visa so that he might return to Mexico for five days beginning on December 5, but this request was denied by the Mexican authorities. For the exchange of communication, see materials in “Exposición Soviética,” III-2289-39, sre ; see also Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 29–34; J. Castañeda, Compañero, 174-75. Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered, 148; Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 36. Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 39. Pettinà, “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán!,” 825. Finer, “The Kidnapping of the Lunik,” 34. I wish to thank Joel Carpenter for first bringing this report to my attention and for his insights. Finer, “The Kidnapping of the Lunik,” 39. Morley, Our Man in Mexico, 88. “Regional Operations Plan for Latin Amer­i­ca,” December 3, 1959, 611.12/12359, nara . Chapter Three: Mexico’s New Internationalism

1 First quote comes from “Semi-­Official Document Concerned . . . ,” January 19, 1960, rg  59, box 1513, nara ; López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 21. The assembled materials ­were printed as mini-books and formed part of a larger series that was ­later assembled in a multi-­volume set, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno. Rather than include the title of each publication, in the notes that follow I provide the volume and series number for identification. 2 Antonio Luna Arroyo, preface to López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 21, 4. The original Spanish reads, “[V]ivimos años decisivos y estamos en presencia de un serio cambio en las relaciones americanas y ecuménicas.” It seems unlikely that he is referring to the Church and is therefore using “ecumenical” in the sense of “universal” or “global.” This series continued throughout López Mateos’s presidency and provides comprehensive documentation of his remarks and speeches, domestically and internationally. 3 A planned stop in Bolivia was canceled at the last moment due to inclement weather and a last-­minute po­liti­cal rift. 4 The agreement was signed by Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay. 5 Hildyard to Foreign Office, August 19, 1960, fo  371/148380, tna . 6 “Ante la federación de los trabajadores al servicio del estado,” in López Mateos, Pensamiento en acción, 1: 211; Rodrigo de Llano, “México en su nuevo papel de hermano mayor continental,” Excélsior, October 10, 1959, 1a . 318   —   Notes to Chapter Two

7 Christopher Lee, “Between a Moment and an Era: The Origins and Afterlives of Bandung,” in Lee, Making a World ­after Empire, 15. 8 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 24, 85. Nixon traversed several of the same countries visited by López Mateos. On the backlash to Nixon, see McPherson, Yankee No!, chap. 1. 9 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 25, 83, 99. 10 Mexican muralist and Communist Party member David Alfaro Siqueiros was in Cuba and Venezuela just before the president arrived. His public taunts of López Mateos for being “afraid” to visit Cuba and for failing to achieve what Castro had accomplished crossed the line of re­spect for the presidency and helps account for his subsequent arrest and imprisonment on charges of “social dissolution” the following August. See Stein, Siqueiros, 257–62; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 53–54. 11 Kiddle, Mexico’s Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cárdenas Era. 12 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 24, pp. 31–32. 13 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 25, 22. 14 “Discurso pronunciado . . . ​en el Congreso de la Nación, Buenos Aires, enero de 1960,” in López Mateos, López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 3, no. 26, 68. 15 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 24, 31–32. 16 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 24, 52. The comment also caught the attention of the US State Department. 17 “Durante cincuenta minutos Adolfo López Mateos se enfrentó a la prensa,” in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, no. 25, 14. For ­earlier references to “Latinamericanism” as an alternative to Pan-­ Americanism, see Kiddle, Mexico’s Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cárdenas Era. In Making Art Panamerican, Claire Fox traces the cultural roots of Latin Americanism, what she describes as a “continental consciousness” (6). 18 Feder, “Some Reflections on Latin Amer­i­ca’s ‘Common Market,’ ” 434; Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 747; Reyes, “Política interna y política exterior en México desde 1950 hasta 1964,” 151–52; Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 333–36. The original signatories of the Treaty of Montevideo ­were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. U ­ nder the terms of the treaty, other Latin American countries ­were invited to join as well. 19 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 337–42. 20 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 343. The treaty signed in Montevideo precluded state tariffs on imported goods and thus conformed (over a proposed extended implementation period) with General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (gatt ) princi­ples. 21 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 345; Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?” 22 Covarrubias, “La política exterior,” 297–300. Covarrubias adds: “The resurgence of nationalism and rivalries among Latin American states contributed as well to create a climate of mistrust that worked against integration” (300). Notes to Chapter Three   —   319

23 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia de un gobierno, vol. 2, 72. 24 Hill to Herter, February 5, 1960, rg  59, box 1513, nara . This language reflected the proposed note drawn up by Hill for Eisenhower’s signature and subsequently revised by the State Department. In an effort to rectify the negative imagery associated with anti-­American hostilities directed at Nixon and to underscore the Republican Party’s commitment to Good Neighborly sentiment on the eve of presidential elections in the United States, that spring Eisenhower embarked on a farewell tour to many of the same countries recently visited by López Mateos. His trip was also timed to ­counter complaints that the US had focused on Eu­rope at Latin Amer­i­ca’s expense and thus aimed “to provide a dramatic stimulus” for a renewal of ties. See “President’s Trip to Latin Amer­i­ca, February–­March, 1960,” February 4, 1960, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, vol. 5, American Republics, doc. 74, “Instruction from the Department of State to All Diplomatic Posts in Latin Amer­i­ca.” 25 Karl Meyer, “A Mexican Enters the World Scene,” New York Times, February 9, 1960, 12. ­Under President Jânio Quadros, Kubitschek’s successor, Brazil would assert an even more forceful role as a Cold War intermediary. See Krepp, “Latin Amer­i­ca’s Role in the Global Order.” 26 Martindale to Department of State, January 26, 1960, rg  59, box 1513, nara . 27 “Las dos caras del gobierno,” el espectador 1, no. 8 (April 1960): 3. 28 Oswaldo Díaz Ruanova, “Una juventud con la nostalgia del heroismo,” Siem­ pre!, March 2, 1960, 22–23. 29 Keller, “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption.” 30 O. Paz, “The Philanthropic Ogre,” in Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. 31 Multiple sources indicate that the magazine received significant funding from Cuba. In response to the question of Cuban financial support for Política, Enrique Semo remarked: “Of course! Whoever ­didn’t understand or have knowledge of that was very naïve.” Interview with Enrique Semo, Mexico City, June 9, 2017. On Prensa Latina, see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, chap. 2; Keller, “Testing the Limits of Censorship?”; Domínguez, Los años precursores; B. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 125–26. 32 Editorial, “Nuestro Compromiso,” Política, May 1, 1960, 2. 33 Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 167. 34 Keller, “Testing the Limits of Censorship?” For a more nuanced view that situates the magazine within the broader spectrum of state-­press relations, see B. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 124. See also “Alianzas efímeras,” a recent analy­sis by Beatriz Urías Horcasitas that examines the magazine within the context of Mexican intellectual diversity. 35 Enrique Semo, a former member of the Communist Party, recalled that Marcué Pardiñas “considered himself an intermediary between the pri and the in­de­pen­dent left.” Interview with Enrique Semo, Mexico City, June 9, 2017. 36 Zolov, “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s.” This aesthetic re­spect for “presidentialism” was famously ruptured by Política in mid-1963 when it published a 320   —   Notes to Chapter Three

37

38 39 40

41

42

43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52

cover featuring a photo­graph of the pri nominee Gustavo Díaz Ordaz ­under the caption “¡No será presidente!” (see chapters 6 and 8). For mechanisms of government control and surveillance, see B. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society; Keller, “Testing the Limits of Censorship?” T. C. Barker (Mexico City) to Foreign Office, February 11, 1963, fo  371/168272, tna . Interview with Manuel Marcué Pardiñas, quoted in Perzabal, De las memo­ rias de Manuel Marcué Pardiñas, 65. Indeed, whereas Marcué Pardiñas was forty-­four and his closest associate at the journal, Jorge Carrión, was forty-­seven, the average age of the editorial collective of el espectador was thirty-­three. Fidel Castro himself was also thirty-­three in 1959. Benjamin Smith writes that Marcué Pardiñas immediately “started to break the unspoken rules of the game,” but in his analy­sis of the magazine Smith jumps quickly to the ­later rupture with presidentialism heralded by the attack on López Mateos’s nomination of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz to succeed him as president. B. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 125–26. “Speech by Fidel Castro at Funeral of Victims of Mar. 4 Ship Explosion in Havana,” March 5, 1960, Castro Speech Database, http://­lanic​.u ­ texas​.­edu​ /­project​/­castro​/­db​/­1960​/­19600307​-­1​.­html. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 301. Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 44. Alekseev was a spy with the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (kgb , Committee for State Security). Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 301–2; Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca, 75. Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 232. “Gobierno mexicano invita al pueblo para recibir a Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado,” Diario de las Américas, June 4, 1960, a 1. Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 21–22. Urrutia ­later sought po­liti­cal asylum in Mexico. Alberto M. Vazquez (US Embassy, Mexico City), “Pressure of the Mexican Left on the Administration,” August 11, 1960, rg  59, box 2327, nara . “Dorticós Visit to Mexico,” June 22, 1960, fo  371/148414, tna . “Los universitarios mexicanos con la Revolución cubana,” Excélsior, June 14, 1960, a 18. Among the signatories ­were Dr. Jesús Silva Herzog, Carlos Mariscal, Víctor Flores Olea, Pablo González Casanova, Antonio Castro Leal, Eli de Gortari, Miguel León-­Portilla, Eduardo Lizalde, Luis Villoro, Heberto Castillo, and Alberto Dallal. “Memorandum,” June 13, 1960, exp. 30-72-60, hoja 134, legajo 2, Departamento de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales, agn . While in Mexico, Dorticós met with Lázaro Cárdenas and Jorge Tamayo, of the Circle of Mexican Studies. See “Memorandum: Cuban Subversive Activities in Mexico,” July 18, 1961, Special Assistant on Communism Papers, rg  59, box 11, “Misc. Reports & Materials on Communism, 1959–1961 [first of two folders],” nara ; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War. Notes to Chapter Three   —   321

53 “La postura de México es de Izquierda, dicen dos líderes políticos,” Excélsior, June 25, 1960, a 1. 54 “Dentro de la Constitución mi gobierno es de extrema izquierda,” Excélsior, July 2, 1960, a 1. 55 C. Pastor Muñoz, August 24, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 709/47, agn . 56 Octavio García (president, Unión de Comerciantes de Reynosa), Jesús Díaz (secretary), and Rogelio Dávila Villagómez (trea­surer), July 20, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 709/47, agn . 57 García, Díaz, and Dávila Villagómez, July 20, 1960. 58 Herrán Ávila, “The Other ‘New Man’ ”; Herrán Ávila, “Anticommunism, the Extreme Right, and the Politics of Enmity in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, 1946–1972”; Prieto, Ramos, and Rueda, Un México a traves de los Prieto. 59 Unsigned letter from the Comité Ejecutivo de la Federación Mexicana de Organizaciones Agrícolas, July 4, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 709/47, agn . This same group ­later challenged the mln to distance itself from Fidel Castro, their “Antilles idol.” “Piden al llamado Movimiento de Liberación se quite la áscara,” Excélsior, December 5, 1961, a 1. 60 “Agresividad desenfrenada,” Excélsior, July 1, 1960, a 6. 61 Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 52. 62 Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 54. 63 “The Rio Treaty,” in Holden and Zolov, Latin Amer­i­ca and the United States, 180. 64 “Declara el presidente de la permanente: México está con Cuba,” Excélsior, July 7, 1960, a 1. 65 Hildyard to Foreign Office, August 19, 1960, fo  371/148380, tna . 66 Hildyard to Foreign Office, August 19, 1960. 67 “Moreno Sánchez también está en ­favor de Cuba,” Excélsior, July 9, 1960, a 1. 68 Whereas US diplomats regarded the regaling of Dorticós as a sign of betrayal, the British ambassador noted that “it was far easier to swamp the left than to oppose it.” “Dorticos Visit to Mexico,” June 22, 1960, fo  371/148414, tna . 69 “Por el pueblo cubano hay profundo afecto en México,” Diario de las Améri­ cas, July 13, 1960, a 1. 70 Hildyard to Foreign Office, August 19, 1960. 71 “Disperó la policía anoche una manifestación en la Plaza de Armas,” Excél­ sior, July 13, 1960, a 1. Excélsior claimed 600–1,000 protesters while Diario de las Américas put the number at 5,000. “Manifestación hostil contra E. U. en México,” Diario de las Américas, July 14, 1960, a 1. Keller states ­there ­were 4,000 ­people. Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 67. 72 “Disperó la policía anoche una manifestación en la Plaza de Armas.” A report in Diario de las Américas stated that the flag was in fact burned (“Manifestación hostil contra E. U. en México”). According to a story in the US press, the flag had been stolen from an “international display of banners at the memorial to the Niños Heroes.” Milton MacKaye, “­Will Mexico Go ‘Castro’?,” Saturday Eve­ning Post, October 29, 1960, 77–78. 73 “Gritos y ‘quema’ en la manifestación,” El Universal, July 16, 1960, 1. For a detailed description of events, see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 65–69. 322   —   Notes to Chapter Three

74 “Gritos y ‘quema’ en la manifestación.” 75 “The Red Drive in Mexico,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/713, agn . 76 MacKaye, “­Will Mexico Go ‘Castro’?,” 25. 77 MacKaye, “­Will Mexico Go ‘Castro’?,” 78. 78 “Monthly Economic Summary, Mexico (July 1960),” August 16, 1960, rg  59, box 2325, nara . 79 “Safety of American Investments and Tourists in Mexico,” July 15, 1960, Mexico Papers, rg  59, box 6, nara . 80 Mrs. William L. Henry, letter to president, July 12, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 81 James E. Fuscon, letter to president, July 8, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 82 J. Alvin Queen, letter to president, July 9, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 83 Pensado, “ ‘To Assault with the Truth’ ”; Herrán Ávila, “The Other ‘New Man.’ ” 84 Pacheco, “¡Cristianismo sí, Comunismo no!”; Loaeza, Clases medias y política en México. 85 See also Zolov, Refried Elvis, chap. 1. 86 Ricardo Cantú Leal (Monterrey), tele­gram to president, September 20, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 87 José Robles (Mexico City), letter to president, September 21, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 88 Author unknown (Mexico City), letter to president, September 21, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 89 Alberto Pérez (Mexico City), letter to president, May 15, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704.11/13, agn . 90 Author unknown (Mexico City), letter to president, September 21, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/452, agn . 91 Authors unknown (Tlaxcala), letter to president, July 25, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 709/47, agn . 92 Memorandum of Conversation (meeting of foreign ministers), August 16, 1960, rg  59, box 5, nara . 93 “Gigantesca concentración obrera de apoyo al régimen el domingo 28,” Ex­ célsior, August 16, 1960, a 1. For the full-­page announcement by the pri , see “Al pueblo de México,” Excélsior, August 22, 1960, a 11. 94 “México no cederá ante las presiones internas o externas,” Excélsior, August 29, 1960, a 1. 95 “Declaration of San José; August 28, 1960,” Seventh Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, San José, Costa Rica, August 22–29, 1960, The Avalon Proj­ect: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, http://­ avalon​.l­ aw​.y ­ ale​.­edu​/­20th​_­century​/­intam13.asp; “Seventh Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs,” rg  59, box 5, nara ; Memorandum of Conversation (secret), September 17, 1960, rg  59, m   1855, reel 11, nara . The final vote was 19–10 with Cuba leaving early and the Dominican Republic not in attendance. Notes to Chapter Three   —   323

96 “The Havana Declaration,” September 2, 1960, Castro Speech Data Base, http://­lanic​.u ­ texas​.­edu​/­project​/­castro​/­db​/1­ 960​/­19600902​-­2.html; Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a ­Gamble,” 56–60. 97 “Memorandum: Cuban Subversive Activities in Mexico,” July 18, 1961, rg  59, box 11, nara . One person ­later reflected on the passionate response of students to the Cuban Revolution, which included “getting together to read the First Declaration of Havana.” Cited in Zolov, “¡Cuba Sí, Yanquis No!,” 222. In a further act of defiance, Cuba formally broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established relations with the ­People’s Republic of China (PRC). See Cheng, “Sino-­Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime, 1959–1966.” 98 “Memorandum: Cuban Subversive Activities in Mexico.” 99 “Se transforma el pp para hacerse francamente marxista y leninista,” Excél­ sior, August 28, 1960, 1. 100 López Mateos, Seis Informes de gobierno, 147, 152, 153. 101 López Mateos, Seis Informes de gobierno, 147, 149. 102 “Y México encontró su camino,” Siempre!, November 23, 1960, 16. 103 British Embassy (Mexico City) to Foreign Office, November 10, 1959, fo  371/139603, tna . Britain’s Foreign Office was concerned that attention to Mexico might offend Argentina; scrawled in the margins of the report was the query: “Are ­there any other 150ths coming up?” ­There was even speculation that Soviet premier Khrushchev and Fidel Castro might arrive, though uninvited. See, for example, Hildyard to Foreign Office, November 10, 1960, fo  371/148389, tna . 104 Rubottom to Herter, “Special Diplomatic Mission to the Mexican In­ de­pen­dence Cele­brations,” March 8, 1960, rg  59, lm  116, reel 21, nara . Christian Herter replaced John Foster Dulles, who died of cancer in April 1959. 105 Rubottom to Herter, “Press Release on Mexican In­de­pen­dence Cele­bration,” June 3, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara . The stamp was issued on September 16, Mexican In­de­pen­dence Day. 106 Thomas Kuchel, “A Monument to Mexican In­de­pen­dence,” January 14, 1960, Congressional Rec­ord (Senate), 509. The idea originated with the City Council of Los Angeles in August 1959. See Walter Peterson (city clerk) to Herter (State Department), August 20, 1959, rg  59, lm  116, no. 21, nara . It was subsequently introduced in January 1960 with broad cosponsorship in the Senate by Thomas Kuchel (d -­CA) and by Harry Sheppard (d -­CA) in the House of Representatives. 107 William B. Macomber Jr. to Senator Kuchel, April 14, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara ; William B. Macomber Jr. to J. W. Fulbright, April 14, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara . 108 Beverley Moeller to Representative Charles M. Teague, January 20, 1960 (attachment to May 4, 1960), rg  59, box 7, nara . 109 Juan Gallardo Moreno to Don José Gorostiza, January 25, 1960, III-2296-29, sre . 110 Hill to Herter, April 29, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara .

324   —   Notes to Chapter Three

111 Hill to Herter, April 29, 1960. 112 William B. Macomber Jr. to J. W. Fulbright, June 30, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara ; William B. Macomber Jr. to Maurice Stans, June 23, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara ; “Cost Estimates for a Statue,” June 24, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara . 113 “Statement on Proposed Amendments” (enclosure), William B. Macomber Jr. to Senator Thomas Kuchel, August 12, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara . 114 Hill to Herter, July 18, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara ; Hill to Herter, June 30, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara ; Hill to Herter, August 29, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara . 115 Dillor to US Embassy (Mexico), August 29, 1960, rg  59, box 2336, nara ; “Relations between Mexican and United States Parliamentarians,” September 26, 1960, rg  59, box 9, nara . The State Department nevertheless recommended that “the general ­matter of a gift” be further explored in the first interparliamentary conference between US and Mexican legislators scheduled for early 1961. 116 C. D. Hicks (Missouri) to Edwin Vallon (State Department), September 23, 1960, rg  59, m   1855, reel 11, nara . 117 “Dos conmemoraciones,” Política, October 1, 1960, 15. See also “Fiestas o exequias?,” Política, November 15, 1960, 4. In a reflection of the regime’s po­liti­cal use of its mono­poly over the supply of paper, Política apologized to its readers for the delay in publication ­because the government paper agency, Productora e Importadora de Papel, S. A. ( pipsa , Producer and Importer of Paper Corporation), “systematically refuses to sell it [to us]” (se niegue sistemáticamente a venderlo), “A nuestros lectores,” Política, November 15, 1960, n.p. 118 Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez points out how, unlike the nationalization of oil companies in 1938, details of the planned expropriation of the electric companies ­were shared well in advance with all parties, including the US government, “without protests or mistrust [recelos].” Hernández Rodríguez, “La política,” 238. 119 Política, October 1, 1960. 120 Editorial, “Acto positivo y plausible,” Política, October 1, 1960, 4. 121 Pellicer de Brody explains that “the arguments utilized [in the letter] ­were obviously alarmist and had ­little correspondence to the economic mea­sures taken by the new regime.” Pellicer de Brody, México y la revolución cubana, 71. This echoes a statement by Antonio Carillo Flores, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, who told Juan Sánchez Navarro (author of the letter and a leading industrialist) that he “should learn to distinguish form from content.” Quoted in Krauze, Mexico, 661. A book published by the left-­wing economist Adolfo López Romero, ¿Cuál es el rumbo, Señor Presidente?, picked up on the themes raised by the editorial. 122 Paul P. Kennedy, “Cubans Step Up Drive in Mexico,” New York Times, January 1, 1961, 16. This theme was ­later dissected systematically in La batalla ideológica en México, a book published by the left-­wing intellectual Alberto Bremauntz.

Notes to Chapter Three   —   325

Chapter Four: The “Spirit of Bandung” in Mexican National Politics 1 Taubman, Khrushchev, 474–79; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 318–20; Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 90–94; Chiriboga, “1960: Su herencia internacional.” 2 The leaders who met ­were Josip Broz Tito (Yugo­slavia), Gamal Abdel Nasser (United Arab Republics [Egypt]), Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), and Sukarno (Indonesia). Willets, Non-­Aligned Movement, 12. 3 Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 744. “Neutralism” also had a deeper historical tradition in Latin Amer­i­ca; during World War I seven nations remained neutral (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela). Argentina remained neutral during World War II ­until the defeat of Germany. 4 Brands, The Specter of Neutralism, 3. 5 Maples Arce to sre , April 20, 1955, “Bandung (1955),” III-2189-1, sre . 6 Carlos Gutiérrez-­Macías to sre , May 6, 1955, “Bandung (1955),” III-2189-1, sre . Brazil also had a representative at Bandung. See Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” 7 Lüthi, “Non-­Alignment, 1946–1965,” 202. See also the essays in Mi=ković, Fischer-­Tiné, and Bo=kovska, The Non-­Aligned Movement and the Cold War. 8 Power, Neutralism and Disengagement, 8. Principles of the Panchsheel Treaty (1954) between China and India—­which codified “mutual re­spect” and “peaceful coexistence”—were also central to the final Bandung declaration and thus intertwined with neutralism. Secretary of State Allen Dulles famously maligned neutralism as “immoral.” Neutralism, he stated, “pretends that a nation can best gain safety for itself by being indifferent to the fate of ­others.” Quoted in Willetts, Non-­Aligned Movement, 20. 9 Lee, “Introduction,” in Making a World ­after Empire, 12. 10 Lüthi, “Non-­Alignment, 1946–1965,” 202; Prashad, The Darker Nations; Berger, “­After the Third World?”; Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. 11 See Lüthi, “Non-­Alignment, 1946–1965,” 209–10. 12 Covarrubias, “La política exterior,” 274. 13 Tello to Director General del Servicio Diplomático, October 10, 1960, “Conferencia Pueblos Africanos (1961),” III-2769-16, sre ; Carrillo to sre , March 22, 1961, “Conferencia Pueblos Africanos (1961),” III-2769-16, sre . The aapc was initiated by President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in 1958. See Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, chap. 2. 14 Carrillo to sre , January 28, 1961, “Conferencia Casablanca (Cumbre Africana, 1961),” XII-757-4, sre . 15 Roa to sre , December 28, 1959, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre . Further discussion of the conference can be found in Gettig, “Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Proj­ect, 1959–1967.” 16 The quote comes from a document sent by Spain’s ambassador on May 2, 1960, cited in Sánchez, Zona de guerra, 39. 17 Antonio Gómez Robledo to sre , March 8, 1960, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre . By then, Brazil, which saw the conference as competing with

326   —   Notes to Chapter Four

18

19 20 21 22

23

24 25

26

27

28

29

Kubitschek’s own ambitions for Latin American leadership, had already formally declined the invitation (on February 2). See Gettig, “Cuba, the United States.” Tello to Roa, January 12, 1960, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre ; “Memorandum para información del Señor President,” January 12, 1960, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre . López Mateos arrived in Caracas on January 14. Gómez Robledo to sre , March 8, 1960. In addition to Mexico, Venezuela and Panama also ­were willing to support the conference “in princi­ple.” See Gettig, “Cuba, the United States.” Eduardo Espinosa y Prieto to sre , May 16, 1960, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre . C. Douglas Dillon to All Diplomatic Posts/American Republics (secret), February 5, 1960, “Conferencia Cuba (1960),” XII-606-8, sre . A photocopy of this document was located in the archives of the sre . E. W. Kenworthy, “Faked U. S. Memo on Cuba Reported,” New York Times, September 3, 1960, 4. I wish to thank Eric Gettig for bringing the fact of forgery to my attention. Espinosa y Prieto to sre , May 16, 1960. The report and interview ­were forwarded to the State Department, which is where the rec­ord was found. In the end, the endowment found that it could not adequately complete the proposed interviews with international statesmen in sufficient time to finalize the proj­ect. See Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, Report on the Fiftieth Anniversary Program of the Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, 12. Rovere wrote for The Nation and l­ ater the New Yorker, Harper’s, and other progressive journalism outlets. See Andy Logan, “Obituary: Richard Rovere,” New Yorker, December 10, 1979, 218. Richard H. Rovere, “Report on Interviews with Adolfo López Mateos,” January 30, 1961, rg  59, box 10, nara . Rovere met in the presence of the president and his secretary of foreign relations, Manuel Tello. Alfonso de Rosenzweig-­Díaz, former Mexican ambassador to the Soviet Union (1953–56) and currently director general of the Office of ­Legal Affairs at the sre , interpreted. See also Sampaio, “Latin Amer­i­ca and Neutralism.” Rovere, “Report on Interviews with Adolfo López Mateos.” The draft report, which had numerous penciled-in corrections, was hand-­marked “Very Confidential.” The report was passed on to Thomas Mann on March 1, as Mann was preparing for his confirmation hearings to become the next US ambassador to Mexico. Rovere, “Report on Interviews with Adolfo López Mateos.” This was not a new position per se but one that Mexico could establish with greater diplomatic credibility and influence. Ashley Black shows how the sre sought to elevate “moral authority” through a defense of nonintervention and po­liti­cal asylum as a strategy for enhancing Mexico’s geopo­liti­cal position during the 1940s–1950s. Black, “The Politics of Asylum.” As a “serious” magazine devoted to domestic and international politics, Política almost always used photomontage rather than caricature for its covers. Notes to Chapter Four   —   327

30 Arias Bernal (1913–60) was from Aguascalientes, Mexico. In 1952 he received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University and was awarded the “Maria Moors Cabot” prize for caricature. See “Historia de la caricatura en México: Exposición-­Homenaje a Antonio Arias Bernal en Aguascalientes,” Plural 180 (September 1986): 92–93; Zolov, “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s.” 31 Arias Bernal, cover, Siempre!, May 27, 1959. 32 Arias Bernal, cover, Siempre!, August 29, 1959. 33 Arias Bernal, cover, Siempre!, September 16, 1959. 34 “1ra ausencia en 24 años,” Siempre!, August 3, 1960, 7. 35 Zolov, “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s.” 36 Jorge Carreño, cover, Siempre!, October 26, 1960. 37 Interview with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Notre Dame University, March 6, 2016. This sale has never appeared in official documents. It was revealed only in the interview with C. Cárdenas. Patrick Iber discusses the importance of financing and L. Cárdenas’s strict refusal to receive external support. Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 164. 38 Horacio Quiñones, “Trascendencia de la Conferencia Latinoamericana,” La voz de Michoacán, March 5, 1961, 4. For a detailed discussion of the conference and its aftermath see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 87–98. 39 See, for example, Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War. 40 “The Rec­ord of the World Peace Council,” November 1951, fo  975/54, tna . 41 Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 50. As Iber has amply revealed, throughout the 1950s leading Latin American intellectuals and l­ abor leaders signed onto the wpc and thereby played a key role in legitimizing the movement as a po­liti­cal organ­ization in­de­pen­dent of the Communist Party, despite relative transparency of financial and logistical connections to the Soviet Union. See also Goedde, The Politics of Peace, 41–50. 42 “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965, rg  59, box 1551, nara . 43 “Declaración de principios,” Cuadernos del Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos 1 (December 1954): 1; “Joint Weekly No. 38,” September 25, 1959, rg  59, lm  116, reel 1, nara . 44 “Acta constitutiva,” Cuadernos del Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos 1 (December 1954): 3–5. One author has written that, at its peak, the cem counted some four hundred members. See Gastón Martínez Rivera, “Alonso Águilar, una vida de lucha por una patria unida, libre y soberana,” Siempre!, December 29, 2012. See also Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 124–28. 45 Enrique Cabrera, “Paz y liberación nacional,” Política, May 1, 1960, 32–33. 46 Cabrera, “Paz y liberación nacional.” 47 “Memorandum,” August 22, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 124, leg. 1, dfs , agn ; “Memorandum,” October 13, 1959, exp. 30-72-59, hoja 238, leg. 1, dfs , agn ; Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 157. 48 “Memorandum,” November 16, 1960, exp. 30-72-60, hoja 237, leg. 2, dfs , agn . 49 “Convocatoria,” caja 1980, exp. 36, dips , agn . 328   —   Notes to Chapter Four

50 For images see Taller Gráfica Popu­lar, sheets 0427–0490, Bancroft Library, Berkeley. Picasso had designed the lithograph of a dove (he l­ ater sardonically referred to it as an “appropriated pigeon”) a few months before the conference, intending it simply as an emblem of peace. Reportedly, the French surrealist poet and member of the Communist Party Louis Aragon saw the dove on a wall in Picasso’s studio and requested to use it in promoting the forthcoming peace conference. Picasso obliged and a poster including the lithograph was plastered on walls throughout the city. See Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 50; Goedde, Politics of Peace, 43–44; “Flight of the Dove,” Time, September 17, 1951. 51 Taller de Gráfica Popu­lar, sheets 0427–0490, Bancroft Library, Berkeley. 52 “Convocatoria.” 53 Avilés Fabila, Memorias de un comunista, 31. 54 As Enrique Semo, a member of the pcm at the time, recalled, the suit and tie “represented formality . . . ​[and] a certain rejection of [association with] the countryside, the peasantry. . . . ​It represented the ‘urban left.’ The peasantry never used a suit jacket.” Interview with Enrique Semo, Mexico City, June 9, 2017. 55 “Convocatoria.” 56 “Conferencia Latinoamericana por la Soberanía Nacional, la Emancipación Económica y la Paz,” Política, January 1, 1961, 1. 57 “Convocatoria.” 58 For a discussion of the uses and limitations of Mexican surveillance files, see the dossier assembled by Padilla and Walker, “Dossier: Spy Reports.” 59 “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961, caja 1475, exp. 41, dips , agn . 60 “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961. 61 “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961. 62 “Discurso del General Cárdenas,” caja 1475, exp. 43, dips , agn . 63 “Declaración final,” caja 1475, exp. 44, dips , agn . 64 “Declaración final.” 65 “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961. This was an evident reference to a new law requiring 51 ­percent local capital control for businesses strategic to policies of import substitution industrialization (isi ) and the recent nationalization of the electricity industry. 66 Quiñones, “Trascendencia de la Conferencia Latinoamericana,” 4. Buro de Investigación Política (bip ) offered its ser­vices for $1,000 pesos per year. This delivered to the subscriber “an informed summary of news content from 50 nationwide newspapers, 10 national magazines, 7 foreign magazines, and 18 specialized journals.” bip , October 8, 1962, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/40, agn . 67 “La ‘Conferencia Interamericana . . .’ vista por la prensa de los Estados Unidos,” caja 1475, exp. 17, dips , agn . At the same time, Lumen differentiated a peace “that emanates from social justice” from the “deliberate peace” (paz intencionada) of Cárdenas. The publication of this article as well as that by Quiñones suggests that the “wall of silence” that kept reporting about the conference out of the public eye was perhaps more porous than previously assumed. For a detailed discussion of press Notes to Chapter Four   —   329

68 69 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85 86 87 88 89 90

91

censorship and surveillance of the conference, see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 87–98. “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961, caja 1475, exp. 41, dips , agn . Avilés Fabila, Memorias de un comunista, 22. “Reds at U.S. Border Plot World Rule,” Nation’s Business, June 1961, 50. Cárdenas was prevented by López Mateos from ­going to Cuba. For further discussion about Mexican responses to the Bay of Pigs see Zolov, “¡Cuba Sí, Yanquis No!”; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 98–105. Avilés Fabila, Memorias de un comunista, 23. Letter to president, April 22, 1961, exp. 30-72-61, hoja 138, leg. 3, dfs , agn . “Reprimerá el gobierno todo exceso, de Izquierda o de Derecha: Texto íntegro del mensaje de alm ,” Excélsior, June 8, 1961, 1. “Un llamado a Usted,” Siempre!, June 14, 1961, 16. “Difundirán en eu el discurso de alm ,” Excélsior, June 27, 1961, 1. The group responsible was the International Good Neighbor Council. Mann to Rusk, June 9, 1961, and June 14, 1961, rg  59, box 2993, nara . Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” Hershberg, “ ‘High-­Spirited Confusion’ ”; Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 751–52. Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” See also chapter 5. Quadros, “Brazil’s New Foreign Policy,” 22. Quadros, “Brazil’s New Foreign Policy,” 26. Hershberg, “ ‘High-­Spirited Confusion’ ”; Pettinà, “Global Horizons”; Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 756. Technically Brazil was represented at Belgrade through its Swiss ambassador as an observer. See Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order”; Hershberg, “ ‘High-­Spirited Confusion,’ ” 383. President Quadros abruptly resigned on August 25, throwing the Brazilian po­liti­cal situation into tumult. Quadros had extended a personal invitation to Che Guevara (pre­sent for the recent Alliance for Pro­gress conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay) to visit Brazil and just days before his resignation had presented Guevara with a national medal of honor. His resignation may have resulted from military disgust with that act. See J. Brown, Cuba’s Revolutionary World, 239–43. Krepp indicates that Bolivia and Ec­ua­dor ­were pre­sent, though clearly as observers. Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 757. Cited in Pettinà, “Global Horizons,” 753. Carlos Fuentes, “De Bandung a Belgrado,” Política, September 15, 1961, 18–19. Fuentes, “De Bandung a Belgrado,” 19. Mexico’s constitution prohibited any entry into its territory by foreign troops and thus remained a holdout among the Latin American countries to have no formal bilateral military agreement with the United States. Mexico was, however, party to the collective security agreement known as the Rio Pact (1947). López Mateos, “Tercer Informe: Septiembre 1 de 1961,” in Seis Informes de gobierno, 227, 230. López Mateos had used the prescheduled Informe as the official pretext for why he could not attend the conference in Belgrade.

330   —   Notes to Chapter Four

92 López Mateos, “Tercer Informe,” 231. 93 Jorge Carreño, cover, Siempre!, November 22, 1961. 94 Editorial, “Nehru, López Mateos y la paz,” Política, November 15, 1961, 4–5. Nehru was in the United States from November 5 to 14 prior to arriving in Mexico. 95 “President López Mateos Drafts Mexico’s Seven Living ex-­Presidents into Government Ser­vice,” Universal Gráfico, December 13, 1961, rg  59, box 1514, nara . The newspaper editorialized that “if an atomic bomb had exploded in Mexico, it could not have caused greater commotion in po­liti­cal circles than that caused by the President’s action.” The seven presidents ­were Roque González Garza (who served briefly from January to June 1915), Emilio Portes Gil (1928–30), Pascual Ortiz Rubio (1930–32), Abelardo Rodríguez (1932–34), Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40), Miguel Alemán (1946–52), and Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952–58). 96 “President López Mateos Drafts.” López Mateos stated that the proposal had originated from a year ­earlier, when for the first time the former presidents had appeared together during the cele­brations for Mexico’s 150 years of in­de­ pen­dence. But Cárdenas indicates in his diary that the proposal came out of a meeting he had with López Mateos on November 29, approximately a week before the announcement. L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 253. 97 “El momento política de México,” Política, December 15, 1961, 2. 98 Cover, Política, December 15, 1961. 99 “El símbolo de los siete,” Excélsior, December 6, 1961, 6. 100 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 255. 101 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 255. See also Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 105–19. Chapter Five: The “Preferred Revolution” 1 “Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy,” January 20, 1961, jfkl , https://­www​.j­ fklibrary​.­org​/­archives​/­other​-­resources​/­john​-f­ ​-k ­ ennedy​ -­speeches​/­inaugural​-­address​-­19610120. 2 Upon hearing Kennedy’s words, Raúl Prebisch, founder and leader of the un Economic Commission on Latin Amer­i­ca (ecla ), remarked that a “gigantic victory” had been achieved for progressive positions on development. See Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 358–59. 3 “The U.S. Image through Mexican Eyes: Some Informal Analyses by Opinion Leaders,” February 7, 1961, rg  306, box 5, nara . See also the lead editorial in Siempre!, “Kennedy, esperanza de un mundo nuevo,” February 1, 1961, 16–17; Goodwin, Remembering Amer­ic­ a, 157–58. The United States Information Ser­vice (usis ) was the name used overseas for the United States Information Agency (usia ). Since the latter term is more commonly known, for con­ve­ nience sake I ­will use that term throughout the text. 4 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 360. 5 Keller, “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption.” 6 Cale was an experienced Latin American diplomat and previously director of the Office of Regional American Affairs (1954–56). Curiously, Melville Osborne, officer in charge of Mexican affairs, appears to have been kept out Notes to Chapter Five   —   331

of the loop of Cale’s correspondence with Mann. In a letter that spring to Eugene McAuliffe (first secretary, US Embassy in Mexico), Osborne complained that he had repeatedly sought to ascertain the embassy’s opinion on US-­Mexico power dynamics since the previous fall but that the embassy had not “yet reported what it thinks,” which was clearly not the case. Melville Osborne to Eugene McAuliffe, May 10, 1961, rg  59, box 9, nara . 7 Mann to Cale, n.d. [January 19, 1961?], rg  59, box 3, nara . This letter was in response to two previous letters sent to Mann by Cale regarding the latter’s concerns about Mexico and in light of the upcoming conference of the World Peace Council. 8 Mann to Rusk, “Proposal That You Attend the Meeting of the ‘Comité International de l’Organisation Scientifique,’ ” February 1, 1961, rg  59, box 3, nara . The memorandum referred to a forthcoming international science conference sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organ­ization (unesco ), scheduled to be held at the same time as the “Peace Conference.” 9 Rubottom to Johnson, November 11, 1958, Rubottom Papers, rg  59, box 7, nara . 10 Cale to Mann, “The Tactical ­Handling of Relations with Mexico (Secret),” February 14, 1961, rg  59, box 9, nara . See also “U.S. Mission to the United Nations,” June 22, 1962, Arthur M. Schlesinger Papers/White House Files (hereafter Schlesinger Papers), box 41, jfkl . 11 Cale to Mann, “The Tactical ­Handling of Relations with Mexico (Secret).” At the same time, Vice President Johnson’s advisor drew up an extensive, five-­page, single-­spaced memorandum arguing why it was not in US interests for Johnson to accept an invitation by López Mateos for a spring meeting in Monterrey: “To go into the meeting at this time, ­under prevailing conditions and situations, would be to repeat the ­mistake Eisenhower made in g ­ oing to Paris [to meet Khrushchev].” hb [unidentified] to vice president, “Trip to Mexico, US-­Mexico Relations,” February 23, 1961, Subject Files, box 68, lbj Library. 12 Mann arrived in Mexico City on May 8. 13 LaFeber, “Thomas C. Mann and the Devolution of Latin American Policy,” 174. 14 Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World. Goodwin relates that when an “Alliance for Pro­gress” was being secretly discussed, Mann “sat in wordless acquiescence as we condemned and prepared to overturn the policies he had so faithfully administered [­under Eisenhower].” Goodwin, Remembering Amer­i­ca, 151. See also LaFeber, “Thomas C. Mann and the Devolution of Latin American Policy.” 15 Goodwin, Remembering Amer­ic­ a, 245. 16 Allcock, “Becoming ‘Mr. Latin Amer­ic ­ a.’ ” See also chapter 7. 17 Edwin Vallon (Office of Ca­rib­bean and Mexican Affairs [cma ]) to Wymberly Coerr (Agency for Research Analy­sis [ara ] ), June 7, 1961, Mexico Papers, rg  59, box 9, nara ; Coerr (ara ) to secretary of state, June 15, 1961, Mexico Papers, rg  59, box 9, nara . For a description of the meeting from the Mexican perspective, see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 131–32. 332   —   Notes to Chapter Five

18 This redraft is contained as an attachment to a letter from Eugene McAuliffe (first secretary of the embassy) to Robert Sayre (officer in charge of Mexican affairs, State Department), “Guidelines of U.S. Policy ­Toward Mexico (Secret),” July 6, 1961, rg  59, box 11, nara . At this point, it appears that Mel Osborne, who had initiated this policy guideline, had been replaced by Sayre as head of Mexican affairs. 19 Mann to Rusk (secret; 2 parts), July 17, 1961, rg  59, box 2329, nara . 20 Robert Woodward (ara ) to deputy undersecretary for po­liti­cal affairs (secret), July 31, 1961, rg  59, m   1855, reel 11, nara . 21 Robert A. Hurwitch to Sayre, August 8, 1961, rg  59, box 11, nara . 22 Ralph Visbal to Johnston (secret), August 11, 1961, contained in the letter from John W. Johnston to Daniel Braddock (ara ), August 15, 1961, rg  59, box 9, nara . The document continued to receive critical feedback throughout the fall and winter. For example, the Policy and Planning Staff (s / p ) found its tone “querelous” [sic] and “not quite dignified enough for such an impor­tant paper,” before recommending that it be reworked. Howard Wriggins (s / p ) to John Hoover (ara ), “Mexican Paper,” October 23, 1961, rg  59, box 11, nara . See also William Turnage (Rural Electrification Administration [rea ] ) to Sayre (cma ), “Mexico: Guidelines of U.S. Policy,” February 20, 1962, rg  59, box 11, nara ; Robert Adams to Sayre (secret), February 23, 1962, rg  59, box 11, nara . 23 “Guidelines of U.S. Policy and Operations in Mexico (Secret),” September 15, 1961, rg  59, box 9, nara . This version of the Guidelines clearly had under­ gone additional revisions from that of July 6. 24 “Guidelines of U.S. Policy and Operations in Mexico (Secret)” (revised). 25 Mann to Rusk, December 6, 1961, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . 26 Rusk had originally proposed the idea for a Latin American expert group at the Oslo Ministerial Meeting in May 1961. The group met in Paris (November 15–17) with all nato countries represented except Portugal, Greece, and Luxembourg; Turkey sent an observer. Draft reports ­were produced only by the UK, US, France, Italy, and (“at the last moment”) Canada, though the UK representative noted that the British, French, and US representatives ­were the most engaged in discussions and drafting of the final report. The US representative was Milton Barall, deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin American economic affairs and an architect of the Alliance for Pro­gress. See A. A. Hankey (Foreign Office), “British Minutes of Meeting,” November 27, 1961, fo  371/155761, tna ; Peter Murray (UK del­eg ­ a­tion to nato ) to P. E. Ramsbotham (Foreign Office), July 19, 1961, fo  371/155759, tna . 27 Murray to Ramsbotham, July 19, 1961; Dirk Uipko Stikker (secretary general of nato ) to permanent representatives, nato (secret), September 21, 1961, fo  371/155759, tna ; memorandum, North Atlantic Council, “Proposal for an Ad Hoc Meeting of an Expert Group on Latin Amer­i­ca” (secret), September 27, 1961, fo  371/155759, tna . 28 Hatzivassiliou, “Out-­of-­Area: nato Perceptions of the Third World, 1957–1967,” 85. Hatzivassiliou writes that the creation of ­these ad hoc groups came in response to the “perceived transfer of Cold War antagonism” to non-­ European theaters. The first group formed was to discuss the ­Middle East Notes to Chapter Five   —   333

(1957) following the Suez crisis; next, the Far East (1958) following the ascent of revolutionary China; ­after that, Africa (1959) in anticipation of pending decolonization; fi­nally, Latin Amer­i­ca (1961) in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. 29 Hankey, “British Minutes of Meeting,” fo  371/155761, tna . 30 “Communist Influence in Latin Amer­ic ­ a” (Canadian draft), n.d., fo  371/155760, tna . The Canadian draft is contained in the same folder as the British draft, which is dated October 1961. See also Rodríguez Rodríguez, “Canada and the Cuban Revolution.” 31 “La Situation en Amérique Latine: Première Partie” (French draft), November 21, 1961, fo  371/155761, tna . 32 Hankey, “British Minutes of Meeting.” 33 Report by the Ad Hoc Group of Experts, “The Situation in Latin Amer­ic ­ a; Part I: Conclusions and Suggestions (Secret),” April 6, 1962, fo  371/162000, tna . 34 Edmonds, “Report by the N.A.T.O. Experts Group on Latin Amer­i­ca,” April 26, 1962, fo  371/162000, tna . 35 Report by the Ad Hoc Group of Experts, “The Situation in Latin Amer­ic ­ a; Part I.” 36 “nato Expert Working Group on Latin Amer­i­ca (U.K. Draft), Part I: General (Secret),” March 1962, fo  371/162000, tna ; Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar to Sir Norman Brook, November 30, 1961, fo  371/155774, tna . 37 “N.A.T.O. Ministerial Meeting, Paris, December 14–15, 1962: Latin Amer­i­ca (Secret),” fo  371/162001, tna . The urgency to address the appeal of neutralism reached a crescendo the following year with the launching of the Non-­ Aligned Movement. Reflecting this, in 1962 another nato subgroup was formed. The Atlantic Policy Advisory Group (apag ) discussed the “prob­lems of neutralism” at its first meeting in the summer of 1962, focusing on the “new and emotional” versions of neutralism that ­were emerging in Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer­i­ca. As Hatzivassiliou writes, the experts committee established that the West needed to accept neutralism while seeking to draw a clear-­cut line between the “communist bloc countries and neutral countries” and keeping the dividing line between “Western-­committed and neutral states as blurred and fluid as pos­si­ble.” Hatzivassiliou, “Out-­of-­ Area,” 84. 38 “nato Ministerial Meeting (Paris), Brief No. 6 (Secret),” December 13–15, 1961, fo  371/155761, tna . 39 “nato Ministerial Meeting (Paris), Brief No. 6 (Secret).” The expert group continued to meet periodically through at least early 1963. 40 John B. S. Pedler (British Embassy, Paris) to R. H. G. Edmonds (Foreign Office), May 17, 1962, fo  371/162000, tna ; “N.A.T.O. Ministerial Meeting (Paris), Brief No. 9 (Secret),” December 13–15, 1962, and “Report by the Group of Experts on Latin Amer­i­ca; Annex to Brief No. 8 (Secret),” fo  371/162001, tna . Curiously, despite the fact that nato involvement was to be kept secret, the British contribution to the final report offered that Eu­ro­pean support would keep the Alliance for Pro­gress from “wearing the appearance of an exclusively United States plan,” a position that might other­ 334   —   Notes to Chapter Five

41

42

43

44 45

46

47

48

wise play into the hands of critics. UK Draft, “The Situation in Latin Amer­ i­ca: Part I,” October 1961, fo  371/155760, tna . “N.A.T.O. Ministerial Meeting (Paris), December 13–15, 1962: Latin Amer­i­ca (Secret).” The extent of any financial support is difficult to assess, though Italy ­later indicated that it had contributed 800 million lira. “Memorandum: North Atlantic Council,” February 23, 1963, fo  371/167720, tna . British and other Eu­ro­pean countries did become directly involved in police training and anti-­Communist propaganda. In one example, the British ­were exploring the idea of disseminating “­simple, badly printed and cheaply produced” anti-­Communist lit­er­a­ture using a cartoon format that could be distributed to the “Andean masses” in Ec­ua­dor, Peru, and Bolivia. Leslie Boas (British Embassy, Caracas) to Sir Donald Hopson (ird ) (secret), January 16, 1961, fo  1110/1431, tna . See this same set of documents for extensive reports on Information Research Department ( ird ) work in Mexico and Latin Amer­i­ca. See also “nato : Experts Committee on Latin Amer­i­ca,” February 16, 1963, fo  371/167720, tna . Edmonds, “Report by the nato Expert Working Group on Latin Amer­ i­ca,” April 26, 1962, fo  371/162000, tna . For discussion of the Alliance for Pro­gress within the context of the Cuban Revolution see Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World, chap. 7. Rabe notably has only scant mention of Mexico in his treatment. Rusk to Mann, “Presidential Visit,” April 9, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl ; Sayre, “President’s Visit to Mexico,” May 16, 1962, Mexico Papers, rg  59, box 10, nara . Note contained in message from Mann to Rusk (secret), November 22, 1961, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 141, jfkl . Mann to Rusk (secret), November 22, 1961, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . See also Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 132–33. Keller further situates Mann’s efforts to leverage a visit by Kennedy to Mexico’s anticipated vote against an oas resolution on Cuba in January 1962. Keller notes that Mann’s conversations with López Mateos and Tello helped produce the Mexican statement that ­there was a “radical incompatibility” between membership in the oas and Marxist-­Leninism, a position that established the l­ egal argument for the subsequent expulsion of Cuba from the oas . Schlesinger Jr. to Edwin Martin, “Mexico Scope Paper,” May 17, 1962, Schlesinger Papers, box 41, jfkl . Mann’s draft of the Scope Paper was included with Schlesinger’s memorandum, which Schlesinger had marked up considerably. “The President’s Trip to Mexico, June 29–­July 1, 1962: Briefing Book (Secret),” nsf , Trips and Conferences, box 237, jfkl ( originally located at National Security Archive [nsa ]). The initial draft of the paper included a statement that the US position should be to dissuade Mexico from “its increasingly ‘in­de­pen­dent’ position which is beginning to have earmarks of neutralism.” See “Mexico Scope Paper.” John Crimmins (cma ) to Woodward (ara ), “Pos­si­ble Meeting of Presidents Kennedy and López Mateos (Secret),” November 24, 1961, Mexico Papers, rg  59, box 11, nara . Notes to Chapter Five   —   335

49 Mann to Rusk, “From Goodwin (Secret),” June 5, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . The books w ­ ere Profiles in Courage (1956), The Strategy of Peace (1960), and To Turn the Tide (1961). 50 Mann to Rusk, “From Goodwin (Secret).” 51 “Memorandum: Partido Comunista Mexicana,” June 13, 1962, box 2936, dips , agn ; Mann to Rusk, “Presidential Visit (Secret),” April 27, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . See also Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 134–35. 52 Adams (Mexico City) to Department of State, “Implications of President Kennedy’s Visit to Mexico,” September 13, 1962, nsf , Mexico General, box 236, jfkl . 53 A. B. Horn Jr. (Guadalajara) to Department of State, July 10, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . 54 Dulce Maria del Paso, “The Kennedy Sensation,” Mexico This Month, August 1962, 6. 55 Richard Harris (Col. usaf , air attaché), July 25, 1962, President’s Office Files, box 122, jfkl . 56 Mann to Rusk, April 27, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl ; Mann to Rusk, May 31, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . 57 US Embassy (Mexico City) to Department of State, September 13, 1962, nsf , Mexico General, box 236, jfkl ; “Mexico surge ante Kennedy como alucinante revelación,” Siempre!, July 11, 1962, 11. 58 Editorial, “El derrumbe de un mito,” Siempre!, July 11, 1962, 24. 59 Editorial, “¿A qué vino Kennedy?,” Política, July 1, 1962, 3; see also “Kennedy, enemigo de Cuba, jamás será amigo de México,” Política, July 1, 1962, 4. 60 Iñigo Laviada, “La misa y las masas,” Siempre!, July 18, 1962, 13. 61 “[Luncheon] Address of the President . . . ,” June 29, 1962, nsf , Mexico General, box 236, jfkl . 62 Editorial, “Kennedy: El hombre y el presidente,” Siempre!, July 4, 1962, 25. 63 US Embassy (Mexico City) to Rusk (secret), June 5, 1962, nsf , Mexico Cables, box 237, jfkl . 64 “Mexico surge ante Kennedy como alucinante revelación,” Siempre!, July 11, 1962, 11. 65 “Memorandum on the President’s State Visit to Mexico,” June 4, 1962, President’s Office Files, box 122, jfkl . 66 “Address by Lic. Adolfo López Mateos . . . ​at National Palace Luncheon,” US Embassy (Mexico City) to State Department, September 13, 1962, nsf , Mexico General, box 236, jfkl . 67 US Embassy (Mexico City) to State Department, “Joint Communiqué,” June 30, 1962, rg  59, m   1855, reel 11, nara . 68 Pro­gress through Freedom: The President’s Trip to Mexico, 1962: 29 June–1 July (Dir. Leo Seltzer), President’s Office Files, usg -01-­j , jfkl ; Richard Phillips (Bureau of Inter-­American Affairs) to Andrew Hatcher (White House), “Mexican Documentary Film on the President’s Visit,” June 25, 1962, 8, Mexico General, Box 64. 69 Mexico ultimately received approximately $80 million in Alliance for Pro­g­ ress aid funding, with 40 ­percent dedicated to urban housing proj­ects. Most of this money, however, was not distributed ­until 1966–67. See Yee, “Divided 336   —   Notes to Chapter Five

70

71

72

73 74 75

76 77 78

79 80

Landscapes in the Mexican Metropolis,” chapter 3. For po­liti­cal purposes, Mexico ironically was less willing than other nations to embrace Alliance for Pro­gress funding and was among the few countries in Latin Amer­ic ­ a not to accept Peace Corps volunteers. Letter from Rafael Murillo Vidal (Director General de Correos) to Kenneth O’Donnell (special assist. to president), July [nd] 1962, wh , box 975, tr   27, jfkl . The stamp was issued by Mexico on June 29, 1962. Mann to Kennedy, July 10, 1962, nsf , box 236, jfkl . The visit may have also boosted tourism. As the general man­ag­er of the ­Hotel Guardiola noted in a personal letter to Kennedy, the visit “has eradicated the fear in many citizens of the United States that it is dangerous to visit Mexico.” W. S. Jones to President Kennedy, July 1, 1962, wh , box 975, tr   27, jfkl . See also Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 136–37. Carlos Fuentes, “¿Qué hará López Mateos con su fuerza?,” Siempre!, August 1, 1962, 22. Similarly, Iñigo Laviada argued that López Mateos now “enjoys a strength and prestige superior to that of his pre­de­ces­sors.” Laviada, “La misa y las masas,” 13. In a lengthy analy­sis of “­causes, tactics, consequences and remedies” to Mexican “discrimination” sent by Mann shortly ­after Kennedy’s trip, the ambassador argued that “our objective should be to mobilize United States economic power in both the private and public sectors, so that our economic power, like our military power, ­will be a threat in being” and thus bring about desired policy outcomes. Mann to Department of State, “Mexican Discrimination against U.S. Investment,” September 28, 1962, Schlesinger Papers, wh , box 41, jfkl . Mann also sought to stamp out the interpretation, started by United Press International (upi ) reporter Jaime Plenn, that Kennedy had “surrendered” to Mexico’s hands-­off policy ­toward Cuba. See Mann to Department of State, “Presidential Visit,” July 6, 1962, nsf , box 236, jfkl . Ismael Moreno to Secretario General del Consejo Superior Ejecutivo, May 11, 1962, XII-758-10, “Conferencia Cairo (1962),” sre . Toye and Toye, The un and Global Po­liti­cal Economy, 187. The United States had grown concerned about the possibility of an “axis” between the two countries. A memorandum for Kennedy in preparation of his visit to Mexico sought to address this concern: “­There is . . . ​­little evidence that Brazil and Mexico are acting in concert although they do tend to take the same position on vari­ous international questions at issue between East and West.” “Paper for President’s Visit on Mexico-­Brazil Axis,” June 6, 1962, rg  59, box 1514, nara . Tello, “Pliego de instrucciones confidenciales,” June 27, 1962, XII-758-10, “Conferencia Cairo (1962),” sre . Tello, “Pliego de instrucciones confidenciales.” Toye and Toye, The un and Global Po­liti­cal Economy, 187. Cuba constituted the eighth Latin American country but it was not a signatory to the Charter of Punta del Este and thus not included in the Alliance for Pro­gress. “Memorandum of Conversation: Salinity and Other Prob­lems,” June 30, 1962, nsf , box 236, jfkl . Tello to Campos Salas, July 5, 1962, XII-758-10, “Conferencia Cairo (1962),” sre . Notes to Chapter Five   —   337

81 “Discurso pronunciado por el Lic. Octaviano Campos Salas.” 82 “Cairo Declaration of Developing Countries,” United Nations Economic and Social Council, Economic Commission for Africa, Standing Committee on Trade; First Session, Addis Ababa, September 12–22, 1962. 83 Geldart and Lyon, “The Group of 77”; Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 380–82. 84 Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 88. 85 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 381; see also Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?” 86 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 391; Geldart and Lyon, “The Group of 77.” 87 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 383. In June, Prebisch abruptly resigned as head of the panel of experts, a body charged with vetting country development plans u ­ nder the Alliance for Pro­gress. His frustration came in response to evidence that the State Department was prioritizing “po­liti­cal stability” over economic needs. This became clear, for instance, following a military coup against Argentine president Arturo Frondizi in March 1962, when massive financial assistance was hastily granted to the generals. See Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 366–72. 88 López Mateos, “Cuatro Informe (1 September 1962),” in Seis Informes de gobierno, 331–32. 89 Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, “Between Nationalism and Internationalism,” in Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War. Chapter Six: New Left Splits 1 This argument was first established by Pellicer de Brody, México y la revo­ lución cubana. More recently, Renata Keller built upon and deepened this interpretation in Mexico’s Cold War and it remains a standard interpretation throughout the lit­er­a­ture. 2 Carlos Fuentes to Carl Brandt, May 10, 1962, box 89, folder 34, Carlos Fuentes Papers (hereafter cfp ), Prince­ton University, Special Collections, Prince­ton, NJ. ­Here and in subsequent transcriptions of Fuentes’s letters I have made minor corrections to his spelling to make it easier to read. Fuentes wrote quite fluently in En­glish but his spelling had frequent minor errors. Small errors in syntax I have left in the original. 3 Fuentes to Brandt, May 10, 1962. Following suppression of the railway workers’ strike in 1959, the pocm —­a splinter group led by Valentín Campa and Demetrio Vallejo, both heroes of the railway movement—­collapsed, with the majority returning to the pcm and a smaller group entering the pps . The breakup of the railway strike also resulted in a revamping of the pcm leadership in an effort to “depersonalize” the role of general secretary, which had been held for two de­cades by the Stalinist leader Dionisio Encina. See Carr, Marxism and Communism, 219–23. 4 Pozas Horcasitas, “La Revista Mexicana de Literatura,” 67; Cohn, “The Mexican Intelligent­sia, 1950–1968.” 338   —   Notes to Chapter Five

5 Fuentes to Flores Olea, February 19, 1957, box 104, folder 2, cfp . See also Flores Olea, “La crisis del stalinismo.” 6 Fuentes to Brandt, March 15, 1963, box 89, folder 34, cfp . 7 Fuentes finished his novel La muerte de Artemio Cruz in Cuba. He kept his badge from the July 26 event, which was l­ ater archived in box 47, folder 12, cfp . 8 Fuentes, “The Argument of Latin Amer­i­ca,” 496, 492. 9 One indication of his self-­awareness of ­these dif­fer­ent “Lefts” and his own role as an interlocutor was how he chose to represent himself visually in his bio photo for Mexico’s two most impor­tant left-­wing forums, Política and Siempre! His photo for Política depicts Fuentes dressed formally, in suit and tie, with a stern gaze. The image was an evident effort to position himself as a “serious,” “disciplined” writer on the left. In his photo for the ideologically eclectic magazine Siempre!, he appears in an open-­collared shirt, smiling directly at the viewer, in front of a shelf lined with books. The image intentionally conveyed that of a bohemian intellectual, one who submits to no one’s disciplinary structure other than his own. 10 See, for example, Carlos Fuentes, “Está naciendo un mundo libre . . . ​Pero nada tiene que ver con el de EE.UU.,” Siempre!, August 10, 1960, 24. 11 “Proyecto de servicio informativo cultural para las misiones diplomáticas mexicanas,” box 47, folder 5, cfp ; Fuentes to sre , December 23, 1960, box 115, folder 26, cfp . The Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales was led by the intellectual Leopoldo Zea. Fuentes resigned from the sre in December when he left to spend three weeks in Cuba; ­there he began his master­piece novel, La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962). Fuentes was also a “­great friend and school buddy” of Manuel Tello Macías, son of Foreign Minister Manuel Tello, and ­later briefly foreign secretary ­under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Fuentes to Brandt, January 5, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Roderic Camp places Fuentes as working at the sre only ­until 1959 but evidence from Fuentes’s personal papers suggests he stayed on longer. Camp, Mexican Po­liti­cal Biographies, 248. Fuentes’s ­father was a ­career diplomat and a former ambassador to Italy. 12 I thank Soledad Loaeza for pointing this out to me. Padilla Nervo, she conveyed, had been denounced by conservatives and even accused of being a member of the pcm at one point. Communication from Soledad Loaeza, January 10, 2018. Nervo was the secretary of foreign relations ­under the previous government and regarded as a cardenista. 13 “Speech Written by Carlos Fuentes for Foreign Secretary Luis Padilla,” box 48, folder 2, cfp . It was not the first time Fuentes had served as Padilla’s speechwriter; he had ­earlier written a speech for him in 1958 and an award speech for a recipient of the Águila Azteca, Mexico’s highest honor bestowed on foreigners. See other items in box 47, folder 6, cfp . 14 Fuentes, “How I Started to Write,” in Myself with ­Others, 9–13. 15 Fuentes, “How I Started to Write,” 6. 16 Fuentes, “How I Started to Write,” 6–7. 17 The quote is actually a paraphrasing by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier of what tran­spired as conveyed by him to the Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska. Notes to Chapter Six   —   339

“Presencia de América Latina en Santiago de Chile: Una entrevista de Elena Poniatowska con Alejo Carpentier,” La Cultura en México, March 7, 1962, 7. The debate between Fuentes and Tannenbaum spilled over into the pages of Siempre! See the letters and essays published between the two during April and May 1962. 18 Servín, “Frank Tannenbaum entre América Latina y Estados Unidos en la Guerra Fría,” 73. 19 The poet and essayist Octavio Paz was also world renowned. During this period, Paz was ambassador to India and remained in the diplomatic corps ­until his abrupt resignation following the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco. Yet Paz was never a polemical writer like Fuentes and ­others of that cohort, and his diplomatic posting, in any event, would have hindered any public remarks. Two other notable writers of the boom, Julio Cortázar (Argentina) and Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), ­were not known in En­glish and had yet to publish the novels that would ­later make them world famous. 20 Popp, The Holiday Makers, chap. 2. Holiday was a publication of Curtis Publication Com­pany, the largest and most impor­tant magazine publisher in the United States. Fuentes had two literary agents to promote his work in translation. For his essays and nonfictional material, he was represented by the young literary agent Carl Brandt at Brandt and Brandt, a ­family firm founded in 1913 that included many of the most notable authors of the day. In 1960 Brandt was twenty-­five years old and while several years younger than Fuentes (thirty-­two), their epistolary relationship throughout the 1960s reveals a unique camaraderie and link back to the cultural and social world that Fuentes had experienced in the formative years of his youth growing up in the United States. For his fictional writings, Fuentes was represented by Ivan Obolensky, a Wall Street analyst and publisher whose ­family background included Rus­sian royalty and US real estate wealth. Obolensky, who was a de­cade older than Fuentes, was aloof to the young writer’s rising fame whereas Brandt was ­eager to position Fuentes as a leading voice who could explain Mexico’s and Latin Amer­i­ca’s conflictive relationship to US readers. 21 Fuentes to Brandt, January 9, 1961, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Holiday ­later de­ cided that they would like Fuentes to write a biographical piece on Lázaro Cárdenas as a vehicle for explaining Mexico’s revolutionary heritage. Despite the timeliness and Fuentes’s clear passion for the topic, Fuentes declined the request. “Tracking down General Cárdenas, travelling to several points of Mexico and reading up on such a difficult subject is not worth what they offer,” he wrote to Brandt, somewhat inexplicably. Fuentes to Brandt, December 5, 1961, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Fuentes had in fact already traveled around the country with Cárdenas and published in Siempre! and other forums about his return to the po­liti­cal spotlight. For descriptions of ­these travels and publications, see Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 162; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 90. 22 Fuentes to Brandt, May 10, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . 23 Fuentes, “On ‘Gringos’ and ‘Latinos’: A Mexican Dialogue (Draft Manuscript for Holiday magazine),” box 47, folder 11, cfp . 340   —   Notes to Chapter Six

24 “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or ­doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of vio­lence by which one class overthrows another.” Tsetung, Quotations from Chairman Mao, 11. 25 [Unnamed] to Carl Brandt, May 2, 1962, box 109, folder 4, cfp . The critique continued: “Mr. Fuentes is assuming that all of our readers are familiar with Hegel, for example, and the kind of capitalism unleashed [sic] by him and Kant.” 26 Richard Weatherhead, “Barring Fuentes Protested” (letter to editor), New York Times, April 25, 1962, 38. Goodwin played a central role in conceptualizing and promoting the Alliance for Pro­gress. See Goodwin, Remembering Amer­ic­ a, esp. chaps. 7–8. Curiously, the idea for a public debate apparently originated from Eugene Burdick, coauthor of a widely popu­lar critique of US Cold War strategy in Southeast Asia, The Ugly American (1951). It is not clear from the rec­ord if Burdick and Fuentes ever met directly, though Burdick no doubt learned of Fuentes while he was in Mexico City on assignment for Holiday. Burdick may have appreciated Fuentes as a cosmopolitan intellectual whose critique of US arrogance and cultural hubris was similar to Burdick’s own perspective. See Mann to Rusk (secret), March 30, 1962, nsf , box 141, nara . For background on Burdick, see Chris Smith, “Intellectual Action Hero: The Po­liti­cal Fictions of Eugene Burdick,” California Magazine, summer 2010, http://­alumni​.­berkeley​.­edu​/c ­ alifornia​-­magazine​/­summer​-­2010​ -­shelf​-­life​/­intellectual​-­action​-­hero. 27 Fuentes to Brandt, April 6, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Fuentes urged Brandt to use his contacts at the State Department and other sources to influence the decision in ­favor of his visa application. Fuentes to Brandt, January 5, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Fuentes also suggested Brandt speak with Tad Szulc of the New York Times, Henry Raymont (upi ), Robert Wool (editor of Show), and Manuel Tello Macías, son of Mexico’s foreign minister, who was currently serving as Mexico’s alternate delegate to the oas (Fuentes and Tello Macías had attended school together). Mann ­later remarked, “I never believed in giving Communist ele­ments respectability.” In a reflection of Mann’s own willful ignorance of Mexican intellectual currents, he was at an utter loss when he later sought to recollect the name of Fuentes during an oral history interview. “I wish I could think of the name of a fellow who received some publicity and notoriety, who was invited up to speak ­here in the States, speaks about five languages.” Interview with Thomas C. Mann, November 4, 1968, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 28 Editorial, “Mills: Un renacentista,” Política, April 1, 1962, 2; Servín, “La experiencia mexicana de C. Wright Mills.” 29 [Notes for pre­sen­ta­tion], box 48, folder 3, cfp . By then, Mills was on the fbi and cia watch lists, and his recent publication, Listen, Yankee, describing revolutionary Cuba, had become a runaway best seller. Fuentes, in fact, played an instrumental role in getting Listen, Yankee translated into Spanish. Two years ­earlier Mills had delivered a series of lectures at the unam , and el espectador published a conversation with him in one of the magazine’s final Notes to Chapter Six   —   341

30

31 32

33 34

35

36 37

38

39

issues. See “Diez Ideas de Wright Mills,” el espectador, April 1960, 22; Servín, “La experiencia mexicana de C. Wright Mills.” Mann to Rusk, March 29, 1962, nsf , box 141, jfkl . ­There is no reference in the documentary rec­ord to any actions or reactions taken by President López Mateos or anyone in his administration to the proposed debate and subsequent denial of the visa. Brandt to Fuentes, May 2, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Fuentes to Brandt, May 10, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Roderic Camp lists Fuentes as joining the pcm in 1952 and “resigning” in 1962. Camp, Mexi­ can Po­liti­cal Biographies, 248. Camp derives his reference from Daniel de Guzmán, who writes, without citation, that in the 1950s Fuentes’s “ardent desire for social justice . . . ​led him to the Communist Party” (Carlos Fuentes, 17). This is the only reference I have ever located of Fuentes having any direct affiliation with the pcm ; no other evidence has surfaced to support this claim. I find it exceptionally hard to believe Fuentes had ever been a member of the party, especially during that particularly sectarian period. Fuentes to Brandt, May 10, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . Fuentes to Brandt, May 10, 1962. In 1966 Fuentes did get inadvertently lured into supporting the anti-­Communist camp through his contributions to Mundo Nuevo, a cia -­sponsored magazine produced by the Congress of Cultural Freedom. See Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 198–201. See, for instance, the exchange between former presidents Emilio Portes Gil and Lázaro Cárdenas in Política, October 1 and October 15, 1962; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 109–10. Eugene Frankel (president, “Demo­crats Abroad, Mexico Chapter”) to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., May 15, 1962, rg  59, box 11, nara . Frank Tannenbaum, “Visa Policy Assailed” (letter to editor), New York Times, May 1, 1962, 36. Mann in fact shared Tannenbaum’s concern, though not in the case of Fuentes. That same April, Mann expressed that he was “appalled by the number of cases involving prominent p ­ eople who are basically anti-­ Communist and friendly, at least to US po­liti­cal doctrines, who have been rebuffed” in visa applications, largely “­because of Mexico’s internal po­liti­ cal history.” Mann’s concern was triggered following a conversation with the Mexican minister of industry and commerce, Raúl Salinas Lozano, whose wife had been refused a visa; Mann noted that Salinas Lozano himself would be ineligible u ­ nder current US law. But he held firm in his belief that Fuentes was “unfriendly” to the US and a dues-­paying member of the Communist Party and therefore ineligible. Mann to Rusk, April 27, 1962, nsf , box 141, jfkl . Editorial, “El camino no es ese, Mr. Mann,” Siempre!, April 18, 1962, 19. Another writer for Siempre!, José Natividad Rosales, was also denied a visa. Rosales was to travel on assignment for Siempre! to report from the United States on the debate. Tannenbaum’s letter to the New York Times was translated into Spanish and reprinted in Siempre! ­under the headline “Alentadora, viril carta.” See “Tannenbaum, en defensa de Carlos Fuentes,” Siempre!, May 16, 1962, 2. “An Open Letter to Mr. Richard N. Goodwin from Carlos Fuentes,” April 7, 1962, box 48, folder 3, cfp . This was subsequently published in translation

342   —   Notes to Chapter Six

as “Carta abierta a Richard N. Goodwin, subsecretario de eu ,” Siempre!, April 18, 1962, 6–7. 40 Brandt to Fuentes, June 1, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . 41 Brandt ­later wrote to Fuentes: “­There is a rumor around to the effect that Ambassador Mann told the State Department that if you ­were allowed in, he would resign. I have no idea how much truth ­there may be in this, but ­there is no doubt that you have a real ­enemy ­there.” By then Goodwin had been transferred to the Peace Corps. Brandt, in informing Fuentes, added, “Apparently he [Goodwin] is in considerable disgrace.” Brandt to Fuentes, July 27, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . It is not clear if the Fuentes affaire had anything directly to do with this transfer, nor does Goodwin mention the incident in his memoir. As Mann’s stature in Washington ­rose, Fuentes ­later wrote to Brandt (referring to a cover story on Mann in Time magazine): “ ‘Mr. Latin Amer­ic ­ a’! I’ll be damned! Our only hope is ­he’ll drown in the Panama Canal.” Fuentes to Brandt, January 18, 1963, box 89, folder 34, cfp . 42 Carlos Fuentes, “El argumento de América Latina: Palabra a los norteamericanos,” Siempre!, April 25, 1962, 20–23. Notably, much of the intellectual didacticism and even ­whole sentences that Fuentes used in his initial draft of “On ‘Gringos’ and ‘Latinos’ ” found their way into this essay. In place of a bohemian bio photo for Siempre!, his image this time showed Fuentes in suit and tie, unsmiling and looking resolute. 43 Fuentes, “The Argument of Latin Amer­i­ca,” 495–96. Quotes are from the En­ glish translation. 44 Editorial note in Fuentes, “The Argument of Latin Amer­ic ­ a,” 487. The essay was ­later distributed by the pro-­Cuban solidarity organ­ization Fair Play for Cuba (Toronto) in pamphlet form. Brandt had sought out Harper’s and the New York Times Magazine to publish the letter to no avail. Brandt to Fuentes, April 9, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . For a discussion of Fair Play for Cuba, see Gosse, Where the Boys Are. 45 ­After an initial draft, where he had “tried to be brutally honest,” Fuentes stripped the piece of its sharp polemics and adjusted the tone. The final version reflected more a plea for cultural understanding than a warning of nationalist uprising. Significantly, although the title changed from “On ‘Gringos’ and ‘Latinos’: A Mexican Dialogue” to “Latinos vs. Gringos: Some Hard Truths We Should Know about the Mexicans,” the word gringo remained. The essay appeared in the “Party of One” series that was a semiregular feature in Holiday. Fuentes to Brandt, March 20, 1962, box 89, folder 34, cfp . 46 José Natividad Rosales, “Mexico vive el drama de la izquierda intelectual,” Siempre!, June 13, 1962, 28–29. Lombardo Toledano’s central point of contention was that the Comité Mexicano por la Paz (cmp , Mexican Committee for Peace), an organ­ization dating from the 1950s and tied to the wpc , had effectively been absorbed by the mln , thereby sidelining the pps from having a say over delegates to the forthcoming peace conference in Moscow. But the accusation was clearly used as a pretext for Lombardo Toledano to break with the mln . US Embassy to Department of State, June 25, 1962, rg  59, box 512, nara ; Maciel, El movimiento de liberación nacional, 143–44; Beltrán Notes to Chapter Six   —   343

Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 223–28; Urías Horcasitas, “Alianzas efímeras.” 47 Spenser, En combate, 364, 409. 48 For a discussion of the formation of the pp and Lombardo Toledano, see Carr, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-­Century Mexico, 195–98; Spenser En combate, 243–51. 49 This was in evidence during the conference when “in vari­ous opportunities” Lombardo Toledano was verbally attacked and “booed” (consignas de abu­ chear); notably, this appeared to originate from teacher activists and railway workers who no doubt recalled with bitterness Lombardo Toledano’s oblique endorsement of a crackdown on the strikers two years ­earlier. “Memorandum,” March 9, 1961, box 1475, exp. 41, dips , agn . 50 Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, “Carta de Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas a Blanco Moheno,” Siempre!, May 2, 1962, 7. 51 Spenser, En combate, 408–12. 52 Editorial, “Dos años de Política,” Política, May 1, 1962, 11. 53 Víctor Flores Olea, “Una impertinencia mexicana,” Política, May 1, 1962, 20. Flores Olea took special aim at an editorial in the previous issue that had tagged Brazilian president João Goulart as Kennedy’s “ambassador.” For the editorial in question, see “Después de Goulart, Kennedy,” Política, April 15, 1962, 4. 54 Editorial, “Un crimen del regimen,” Política, June 1, 1962, 4–5. For discussion of Jaramillo’s po­liti­cal strug­gles and conflicts with the regime see Padilla, Rural Re­sis­tance in the Land of Zapata. 55 Interview with Luis Prieto, Mexico City, April 25, 2002. 56 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 108–9; Matías García, “Fojar a partir del examen creador de nuestra historia.” 57 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 133. 58 J. Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed, 72. 59 Jaime Pensado characterizes the mln as defined by a small “r” versus the larger “R” of (violent) revolutionary strug­gle. See Pensado, Rebel Mexico, chap. 6. 60 Natividad Rosales, “Mexico vive el drama de la izquierda intelectual,” 28. 61 Carlos Fuentes, “Mexico, ante la crisis: López Mateos mediador?,” Siempre!, November 7, 1962, 24–25. 62 “El oportunismo, enferdedad de la izquierda decrépita,” Política, December 15, 1962, 4. 63 Robert Adams to Department of State, August 16, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara . 64 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 96. 65 Rothwell, Transpacific Revolutionaries, 34. 66 Rothwell, Transpacific Revolutionaries, 35. 67 Adams to Department of State, “Sino-­Soviet Rivalry in Latin Amer­ic ­ a,” February 12, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara . 68 Adams to Department of State, “Continued Reflections of the Sino-­Soviet Dispute,” April 19, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara . In August, a leading member of the pcm was overheard commenting that “he ­wasn’t so stupid as to give up the support of more than 80 thousand followers from t­ hose po­liti­cal organ­ 344   —   Notes to Chapter Six

izations [mln , fep , cci ] in exchange for the support of ‘los pepinos’ [i.e., pro-­China activists] whose numbers barely reached 20 thousand nationwide.” “Memorandum,” August 21, 1963, box 2900, exp. 10, dips , agn . 69 Alicia Rocha, “La ópera del orden,” Siempre!, July 18, 1962, 59. 70 Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Paint­er, 167. 71 Cuauhtémoc Medina, “Recovering Panic,” in Debroise, La era de la discrep­ ancia, 98. The Chilean-­born Jodorowsky, who was thirty-­three at the time, had worked in theater in Chile and France (he was a collaborator with Marcel Marceau) before coming to Mexico in 1960, where he emulated Beckett’s “Theater of the Absurd” and Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty.” Building off this, he created the idea of “Teatro Pánico.” 72 Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Paint­er, 166–68; Pensado, Rebel Mexico, 167–70; Zolov, Refried Elvis; Bartra, “Memorias de la contracultural.” 73 Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City, 91. 74 Quoted in Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 201. 75 Mexico was, of course, hardly alone in this regard. Across Latin Amer­i­ca, by the mid- to late 1960s vibrant countercultural scenes ­were flourishing, accompanied by attendant splits within the Left. See, for instance, Markarian, Uruguay, 1968; Dunn, Contracultura; Barr-­Melej, Psychedelic Chile; Manzano, The Age of Youth in Argentina. 76 John Kirk, “The Development of an Ondero,” in Car­ter and Schmidt, José Agustín, 14. Agustín was sixteen and Dalton was eigh­teen; she was the one who proposed they get married so that she could go to Cuba. Margarita was the ­sister of Roqué Dalton, the Communist poet–­guerrilla leader from El Salvador. See Agustín, Diario de un brigadista. Margarita Dalton remained in Cuba and enrolled at the university; Agustín intended to do so as well but ­family concerns brought him back to Mexico. The marriage did not last. For a discussion about the question of revolutionary compromismo, see Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom; Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City; Gilman, Entre la pluma y el fusil. 77 Zolov, Refried Elvis, 213–17. 78 Monsiváis, Autobiografía, 21–33. 79 Carlos Monsiváis, “Con un nuevo fracaso Carlos Monsiváis ayuda a resquebrajar la mascara funeraria del mexicano,” La Cultura en México, December 29, 1965, 4. Fragments of his subsequently published autobiography are taken directly from this article. The quotes that follow are all from this article. 80 Monsiváis, “Con un nuevo fracaso,” 4–7. The article included a series of photo­graphs featuring Monsiváis in a turtleneck sweater with large, oversized black-­framed glasses; he looks the role of the beat poet. Purposefully, he is shown posing in front of posters of Alfred E. Neuman (Mad Magazine) and the Beatles, signifying his embrace not only of youth culture but of foreign youth values and the importance of self-­deprecating humor. 81 By direct coincidence, at this same moment Allen Ginsberg, who had been an early, ardent defender of the Cuban Revolution, was expelled from the island for having described on state radio an erotic dream featuring Che Guevara. Heroic masculinity had ­little patience for homoerotica. See Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 201. Notes to Chapter Six   —   345

82 Rius, Mis confusiones, 328. 83 Rius, Mis confusiones, 181. Rius had been offered the job of directing the Cuban humor magazine Palante by Che Guevara himself. He noted that Cuba for Beginners “was published in many countries but never in Cuba.” Rius, Mis confusiones, 390. The “For Beginners” template led to numerous other didactic graphic treatises on a variety of topics. For a discussion of his role in the pcm , see Rius, Mis confusiones, 325–29. Castro’s endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Czecho­slo­va­kia was a turning point. Much ­later Rius wrote a follow-up graphic novel titled Lástima de Cuba: El grandioso fracaso de los hermanos Castro (1993), which was an ardent critique of the Castros’ authoritarianism. 84 ­After starting off writing for the society pages in Excélsior, by the late 1950s Poniatowska was conducting interviews with politicians, artists, and cultural figures. In 1958 she became interested in the subject of the striking workers, many of whom ­were jailed in Lecumberri Prison, and soon ­after was impacted by the Cuban Revolution. In 1961 she published a collection of interviews with famous po­liti­cal and cultural figures (Palabras cruzadas), including Lázaro Cárdenas and Diego Rivera. By then she was also writing regularly in Siempre! and, less frequently, in Política. See Poniatowska, “How I Started Writing Chronicles and Why I Never ­Stopped.” In describing her relationship to her interview subjects, she explains how she “was docile, and I ­will continue being docile.” Jörgensen, The Writing of Elena Poniatowska, 26. 85 Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.” For a discussion of “cultural heterodoxy” within the Left, see Barr-­Melej, Psychedelic Chile. 86 Robert Adams (Mexico City) to Department of State, September 12, 1962, rg  59, box 2335, nara . 87 Carlos Fuentes, “Un frente de Cupatitzio,” Siempre!, August 29, 1962, 18. 88 Víctor Flores Olea, “Cupatitzio y la izquierda,” Política, August 15, 1962, 9. 89 “Partido Comunista Mexicano,” February 28, 1963, box 2900, exp. 4, dips , agn . 90 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 112–17; Colmenero, “El Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, la Central Campesina Independiente y Cárdenas.” 91 T. C. Barker (Mexico City) to Foreign Office, February 11, 1963, fo  371/168272, tna . For the perspective of the pcm , see Christlieb, El es­ partaquismo en México, 42–46. See also Carr, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-­Century Mexico, 227–28. 92 Barker to Foreign Office, February 11, 1963; Colmenero, “El Movimiento de Liberación Nacional.” 93 Quoted in Colmenero, “El Movimiento de Liberación Nacional,” 25. 94 Garza, “Factionalism in the Mexican Left”; Editorial, “El oportunismo, enfermedad de la Izquierda decrépita,” Política, December 15, 1962, 4–5. 95 Jorge Carrión, “Masoquismo y fatalismo de la Izquierda,” Política, March 1, 1963, 8. 96 Recent electoral reforms granted minority status of five seats in Congress if a party received a minimum of 2.5 ­percent of the national vote; for each additional 0.5 ­percent of the vote a party could gain an additional seat, up to a total of twenty. 346   —   Notes to Chapter Six

97 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 150–56; Garza, “Factionalism in the Mexican Left.” 98 Adams to Department of State (secret), April 26, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 99 Adams to Department of State, April 26, 1963. 100 Adams to Department of State, July 30, 1963, rg  59, box 3983, nara ; Adams to Sayre, June 21, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 101 Adams to Sayre, June 21, 1963; see also Adams to Department of State, July 30, 1963. Alfredo del Mazo was Secretario de Recursos Hidráulicos (Minister for ­Water Resources). 102 Manuel Marcué Pardiñas, “Provocación a la Guerra Civil?,” Política, August 15, 1963, n.p.; José Felipe Pardiñas, “Díaz Ordaz no será presidente!,” Política, August 15, 1963, n.p. 103 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 148–49; Keller, “Testing the Limits of Censorship?,” 224. 104 Marcué Pardiñas reportedly responded crudely to a police demand to get off the street: “Chingue usted a su madre, aquí no hay democracia. Chinguen a su madre todos, usted y el gobierno” (Go fuck yourself, h ­ ere ­there is no democracy. Go fuck all of yourselves, you and the government!). This rant led to his being beaten and dragged by police into a patrol car. Although subsequently released, he denounced López Mateos for governing Mexico as a “virtual dictatorship” and belittled the president’s well-­known aspirations to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. See “Mitin Pro Presos Políticos,” August 19, 1963, box 2900, exp. 10, dips , agn ; Adams to Department of State, August 22, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara ; “Comentarios a las noticias de hoy,” August 19, 1963, box 2900, exp. 10, dips , agn . 105 “Comentarios a las noticias de hoy.” 106 [No title], August 27, 1963, box 2900, exp. 10, dips , agn . 107 [No title], August 27, 1963. 108 “Comentarios a las noticias de hoy.” 109 Adams to Department of State, “Mexican Communist Journalist Discharged by Novedades Assisted by President López Mateos,” February 28, 1962, rg  59, box 2993, nara . The embassy report noted that López Mateos became enraged by an article critical of the regime published by Benítez in Política shortly afterward and “is said to have directed that the government subsidy” to La Cultura en México be “terminated immediately.” ­There is no further substantiation or follow-up regarding this alleged cutoff. See also Volpi, La imaginación y el poder, 50–52. 110 Writing in Siempre! for the inaugural issue of the supplement, Benítez stated: “We must say that the first person to come to our assistance disinterestedly, with no other purpose than that of continuing our interrupted cultural work, was the President of the Republic.” Quoted in Adams to Department of State, “Mexican Communist Journalist Discharged by Novedades.” 111 Joseph Montllor (Mexico City) to Department of State, October 9, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 112 Montllor to Department of State, October 15, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara ; Montllor to Department of State, October 25, 1963, rg  59, box 3691, nara . 113 Peter Garran (Mexico City) to R. A. Butler (Foreign Office), “Mexico: Annual Review for 1963,” January 6, 1964, fo  371/174152, tna . Notes to Chapter Six   —   347

114 Jorge Carreño, cover, Siempre!, December 25, 1963. For a discussion of the terminology used to describe the Left, see Coccioli, “Mexico’s Wobbling Left.” 115 Garran to Butler, “Mexico: Annual Review for 1963.” As a State Department analy­sis from that summer pointed out, López Mateos regarded himself as an “innovator” in the mold of Lazaro Cárdenas and would most likely select a “consolidator,” both to preserve his achievements and to avoid being overshadowed. Adams to Department of State, July 30, 1963, rg  59, box 3983, nara . Ironically, Díaz Ordaz expressed disappointment in becoming saddled with the burden of seeing through the massive commitment required by the Olympiad. See Zolov, “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow’ ”; Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World. 116 Mann to Rusk (secret), November 5, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 117 Letter to Editor, “alm y la Izquierda,” Política, January 1, 1964, 2. 118 See, for example, “Implicaciones del voto razonado de Lázaro Cárdenas en pro de Díaz Ordaz,” Política, June 15, 1964, n.p. This was likely written by Marcué Pardiñas. 119 Fernando Benítez, Víctor Flores Olea, Carlos Fuentes, Enrique Gonzales Pedrero, and Francisco López Cámara, “Cinco intelectuales explican por qué han dejado de escribir en ‘Política.’ ” This was published originally in Siempre!, August 5, 1964, and was republished in Política, August 15, 1964, 19. Further analy­sis of the split can be found in Cabrera López, Una inquietud de amanecer, 78–83. 120 “El ‘Cuarto Mundo’ de los cinco: Oportunismo y enajenación,” Política, August 15, 1964, 20–24; Víctor Rico Galán, “Pero . . . ​¿Qué entienden los intelectuales por periodismo?,” Siempre!, August 12, 1964, 25. 121 Coccioli, “Mexico’s Wobbling Left,” 113. 122 Volpi, La imaginación y el poder, 50. Volpi’s book provides a detailed intellectual history and discussion of the significance of La Cultura en México for the 1960s. See also Cohn, “The Mexican Intelligent­sia.” For an in-­depth analy­sis, see Cabrera López, Una inquietud de amanecer, chap. 2. Although of a slightly older generation, Benítez’s writings on Mexican indigenous culture became guidebooks for youth seeking out indigenous practices (including hallucinogenic drugs) during the 1960s and 1970s. See Zolov, Refried Elvis, 138–41. 123 Aviña, Specters of Revolution, 74. The assault was carried out ­under the leadership of Professor Arturo Gámiz García and Doctor Pablo Gómez Ramírez, both po­liti­cal militants of the pps and local leaders of the Unión General de Obreros y Campesinos Mexicanos (ugocm , General Union of Mexican Workers and Peasants), the l­ abor arm of the pps . 124 In September 1966, the Liga Leninista Espartaco, a Communist splinter group formed in 1960 that attracted vari­ous youthful renegades from the pcm , announced that “the only means pos­si­ble in Mexico is that of revolution, of the armed vio­lence of the proletariat.” Christlieb, El espartaquismo en México, 187. That same year a group of Mexican students studying at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow formed the armed Movimiento de Acción Revolucionario (mar , Revolutionary Action Movement) and 348   —   Notes to Chapter Six

subsequently received training in North ­Korea before returning with dashed hopes of launching a guerrilla uprising. See Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 226–27. In 1973 the armed movement “23rd of September Communist League,” better known by its abbreviation Liga23s , was established in Guadalajara, taking its namesake and inspiration from the 1965 Madera attack. See Adela Cedillo, “The 23rd of September Communist League’s Foco Experiment in the Sierra Baja Tarahumara (1973–1975),” in Pensado and Ochoa, México beyond 1968; Aviña, Specters of Revolution. Chapter Seven: Apex of Internationalism 1 “Discurso pronunciado por el Señor Diputado Alfredo Ruiseco Avellaneda, en la sesión solemne celebrada por la Comisión Permanente del Congreso de la Unión, en honor del Señor Pres. Charles de Gaulle, 17 March 1964,” III2892-8 (Bis), “Visita De Gaulle (1963),” folder 2, sre . 2 Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?”; Black, “The Politics of Asylum.” 3 Brazil and Mexico ­were the only nations in Latin Amer­ic ­ a to participate militarily in World War II. At the end of the war, Mexico hosted the Conference of Chapultepec, which laid the foundations for the emergent postwar order in the hemi­sphere. The onset of the Cold War, however, delimited Mexican leadership options, and the newly formed Organ­ization of American States quickly became subordinated to US strategic objectives. See Loaeza, “La política intervencionista de Manuel Ávila Camacho”; Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México, 37–44; Torres, México y el mundo. 4 The phrase diffusion of power comes from the analy­sis by presidential advisor Walt Rostow in September 1963. Quoted in Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 136. 5 Mann to Rusk, April 16, 1963, rg  59, box 3985, nara . 6 Mexican and US intelligence agencies openly collaborated in the sharing of information and conveyed an unabashed collegiality at the highest levels. See Morley, Our Man in Mexico; Keller, Mexico’s Cold War. 7 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 140. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz would repeat the quote practically verbatim ­after he became president. 8 US Embassy (Djakarta) to Department of State, “Mexican President’s Visit,” October 24, 1962, rg  59, box 1513, nara . The newspapers represented ­were Novedades, Excélsior, El Universal, Ovaciones, La Prensa, Mañana, and El Nacional. The press corps also included a correspondent from the left-­wing (and pps -­affiliated) newspaper El Día, although no one from ­either Política or Siempre! was invited. The two caricaturists ­were Abel Quezada and Rafael Freyre. Alejandro Carrillo, former Mexican ambassador to the United Arab Republic and a cardenista who was identified by US officials as a potential presidential candidate for the 1964 elections, was also part of the junket. See López Mateos, Presencia de México en Asia, 19–22. 9 López Mateos, Presencia de México en Asia, 99. 10 López Mateos, Presencia de México en Asia, 99; Yáñez, Proyección universal de México, 137–38. Notes to Chapter Seven   —   349

11 López Mateos, Presencia de México en Asia, 142. 12 Republican opposition to Kennedy’s proposed funding for the foundry eventually led India to withdraw its application in November 1963. See Kux, India and the United States, 188–89, 215–17. My appreciation to Michael Barnhart for bringing this citation to my attention. 13 Kux, India and the United States, 128. 14 Kux, India and the United States, 166. 15 US Embassy to Department of State, January 15, 1963, rg  59, box 1513, nara . 16 Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 216. 17 Adams to Department of State, “President López Mateos’ Los Angeles Press Interview,” October 11, 1962, rg  59, box 1513, nara . More likely, the term had been introduced by Alejandro Carrillo, who had acted as the president’s interpreter and may have used the term “­either by accident or intentionally,” as Adams indicated. 18 Quoted in Adams to Department of State, “President López Mateos’ Los Angeles Press Interview.” 19 Yáñez, Proyección universal de México, 65; Goedde, The Politics of Peace. 20 Yáñez, Proyección universal de México, 119. 21 Yáñez, Proyección universal de México, 123. 22 US Embassy (Djakarta) to Department of State, “Mexican President’s Visit,” October 24, 1962, rg  59, box 1513, nara . 23 Gettig, “  ‘Trou­ble Ahead in Afro-­Asia.’  ” 24 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 137–38. Mexico insisted that its position was based on evidence that technically the missiles ­were “offensive” rather than “defensive” (the latter would have been regarded as legitimate by Mexico). Years ­later, Ambassador Mann recalled that López Mateos and Tello (who was traveling with him) ­were reached by the undersecretary of state, Edwin Martin, “by long distance telephone in the airplane. And we got their support for that [oas meeting of foreign ministers].” Interview with Thomas Mann, November 4, 1968, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 25 Yáñez, Proyección universal de México, 188–89; US Embassy to Department of State, “Implications of López Mateos’ Remarks upon his Return from the Far East,” October 31, 1962, rg  59, box 1513, nara . 26 Text appears in the photo “Llegada del pte. López Mateos du su viaje por Oriente,” October 24, 1962, no. 17.305, Hermanos Mayo Collection, Fototeca, agn . 27 Carlos Fuentes, “México, ante la crisis: López Mateos mediador?,” Siempre!, November 7, 1962, 25. 28 López Mateos had sought to leverage the crisis to proj­ect an image of a unified “revolutionary f­ amily” by requesting that each of the ex-­presidents (who ­were now official members of his cabinet) join him on the presidential balcony as he addressed the crowd. Cárdenas, however, refused. In a tense conversation with former president Ruiz Cortines one day e ­ arlier, Cárdenas stated he had no intention of signaling with his presence an implicit endorsement of the US blockade against Cuba, a maneuver that he considered illegal and menacing of Cuban sovereignty. The rift was kept quiet and Cárdenas’s absence was overshadowed by the president’s 350   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

29

30 31 32

33

34

35

36 37

38

address, but it was a telling reminder of the Left’s nonnegotiable defense of “absolute re­spect for sovereignty.” L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 291–94. Still, Cárdenas’s criticisms evidently carried weight. In his address to the crowd, López Mateos left out any mention of Mexico’s support for the oas vote against Cuba from October 22, a point the US Embassy interpreted as seeking to avoid provoking “leftist ele­ments” within the party. US Embassy to Department of State, “Implications of López Mateos’ Remarks.” Cárdenas’s failure to appear on the presidential balcony in a show of “revolutionary unity” during a time of international crisis may have underscored for López Mateos the dangers of entrusting the reins of government to a cardenista successor. López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 53. Members of the committee ­were Canada, France, G ­ reat Britain, Italy, United States, Bulgaria, Czecho­slo­va­kia, Poland, Romania, Soviet Union (the original ten), plus Brazil, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, and the uar (Egypt). Keller, “The Latin American Missile Crisis.” See the chapters in Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War. García Robles, “La desnuclearización de la América Latina,” 324; Epstein, “The Making of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.” On April 29, 1963, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Ec­ua­dor released a “Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of Latin Amer­i­ca.” Brazil and Argentina, believed to be pursuing their own nuclear weapons plan, “play[ed] for time” by slowing down the treaty discussions. Epstein, “The Making of the Treaty of Tlatelolco,” 166. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ec­ua­dor, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay ­were the sponsoring nations. The assembly voted in ­favor 91–0 with 15 abstentions. García Robles, “La desnuclearización de la América Latina,” 326. As Epstein writes, “From the beginning, [García Robles] emerged as the leader of the entire proj­ect and soon came to be known as the ‘­Father of Tlatelolco.’ ” For his efforts, he ­later received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. See Epstein, “The Making of the Treaty of Tlatelolco,” 158. For detail on how the treaty came into effect from an insider’s viewpoint, see Epstein, “The Making of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.” While the treaty may have helped to deescalate potential ­future Cold War conflicts, at the same time it had ­little bearing on Brazilian and Argentine nuclear ambitions during the 1970s and 1980s. See “Nuclear Weapons Programs,” accessed January 8, 2019, https://­www​.­globalsecurity​.­org​/­wmd​/­world​/­brazil​/­nuke​.­htm. Peter Garran (Mexico City) to Foreign Office, May 7, 1963, fo  371/168294, tna . The remark came in response to what was generally interpreted as a diplomatic faux pas by López Mateos while visiting West Berlin, when he turned his back ­toward the Soviet-­built wall. The gesture was interpreted by many as denying the real­ity of a divided city. The image also helped pop­u­lar­ize the wry aphorism that would ­later circulate regarding López Mateos, whose philandering was common knowledge: Notes to Chapter Seven   —   351

“¿Hoy qué me toca, viajes o viejas?” (What’s on my agenda ­today, travels or trysts?). 39 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 58. 40 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 103–4. 41 Mann to Rusk, March 26, 1963, rg  59, box 3983, nara . 42 First quote is from Antonio Luna Arroyo, “Introducción,” in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 43; second quote is from Pi-­Suñer, Riguzzi, and Ruano, Historia de las relaciones internacionales de México, 349. The president’s trip was originally slated to last nearly a month, surpassing the time he spent in Asia. His itinerary was originally to include ­Great Britain, Belgium, and Italy (eight countries total), plus “the possibility” of Egypt, Lebanon, and Israel. Egypt (uar ) was the axis point for Third World anticolonialism and the gateway to Africa, thus a visit ­there would have been highly significant. In the end, he settled on a two-­week journey focusing on a smaller assortment of Eu­ro­pean countries. “8 paises en 27 días, recorrerá López Mateos,” Ultimas Noticias, February 26, 1963, cited in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 174. 43 Garran to Foreign Office, May 7, 1963, fo  371/168294, tna . 44 Editorial, “El viaje del Presidente,” Política, March 1, 1963, 4. 45 Quoted in “Califica Yugo­slavia el viaje de alm como muestra de independencia,” Excélsior, March 1, 1963, cited in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 171. 46 Interview with Djuka Julius, Latin American correspondent for Politika (Belgrade), cited in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 53. 47 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 94–98. 48 Garran to Foreign Office, May 7, 1963. 49 López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 103–4. 50 El Universal, April 2, 1963, cited in López Mateos, Documentos para la histo­ ria, Vol. 6, no. 102, 114. 51 “Comunicado Conjunto de México y Polonia,” in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 123. The British ambassador to Mexico, Sir Peter Garran, wrote that Tello was uncomfortable with the inclusion of “co-­ existence.” Garran to Foreign Office, May 7, 1963. 52 “Comunicado Conjunto de México y Polonia.” 53 Adams to Department of State, May 31, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 54 Adams to Department of State, April 16, 1963, rg  59, box 3984, nara . 55 “El Mercado Común europeo no va en contra de los intereses de la América Latina,” El Día, March 28, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la histo­ ria, Vol. 6, no. 102, 81–82. 56 “Declaración Conjunta de México y Alemania . . . ,” April 7, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 149. 57 “Beneficios a la economía,” El Universal, April 4, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 982–83. 58 “Los posibles resultados del viaje presidencial,” El Nacional, March 15, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 236. Sánchez-­ Navarro was a cofounder of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional 352   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

59 60

61 62

63 64

65 66 67 68

69

70 71

(pan ) and the vice president of Grupo Modelo, the country’s leading beer conglomerate. “Mayor intercambio con Holanda sobre bases de libre comercio,” April 4, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 137. Pierson Dixon (Paris) to Foreign Office, April 6, 1963, fo  371/168294, tna . Dixon noted dryly the irony of de Gaulle’s aspirations given “the unhappy experiences of Napoleon III,” who launched an invasion of Mexico in the mid-­nineteenth ­century. The agreement was negotiated the previous summer but publicly announced during López Mateos’s trip to France. Interview with Enrique Semo, Mexico City, June 9, 2017. “México ya no es una provincial, sino una parte activa del mundo,” El Na­ cional, April 20, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 1072–73. Víctor Rico Galán, “El viaje de la independencia,” Siempre!, April 17, 1963, in López Mateos, Documentos para la historia, Vol. 6, no. 102, 1338–39. Adams to Department of State, April 25, 1963, rg  59, box 3983, nara . Mann was concerned that López Mateos was using his international travels “to our detriment.” Mann to Department of State, April 10, 1963, rg  59, box 3983, nara . For a discussion of the “incompatibility” phrase, see Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 133. Sayre to US Embassy (Mexico City), April 12, 1963, Schlesinger Papers, box 41, jfkl . Mann to Rusk, April 16, 1963, rg  59, box 3985, nara . “Proposed Plan of Action from August 1963 to July 1964” (secret), August 1, 1963, Schlesinger Papers, box 41, jfkl . Mann’s remarks about Mexico initiated an internal debate within the State Department with numerous actors openly questioning his judgment and tone. For instance, Arturo Morales-­ Carrión, deputy assistant of state for inter-­American affairs and a confidant of Kennedy’s on policy ­toward Latin Amer­i­ca, blasted Mann’s “undercurrent of self-­righteousness.” Morales-­Carrión to Martin, April 24, 1963, Schlesinger Papers, box 41, jfkl . Similarly, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., also a Kennedy confidant, asked: “Does not the author of the cable [i.e., Mann] understand that the ‘incompatibility’ doctrine applies only to the Western Hemi­ sphere?” More care was needed, he cautioned, before “we begin a policy of cracking down on Mexico.” Schlesinger Jr. to Ralph Dungan, April 30, 1963, Schlesinger Papers, box 41, jfkl . Peter Garran to R. A. Butler (Foreign Office), “Mexico: Annual Review for 1963,” January 6, 1964, fo  371/174152, tna ; Niemeyer, “Personal Diplomacy,” 160–62. The announcement was made by joint agreement to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Benito Juárez. For a useful historical discussion about the Chamizal, see the official page of the Chamizal National Memorial at the National Park Ser­vice website, https://­www​.­nps​.­gov​/­cham​ /­index​.­htm. Niemeyer, “Personal Diplomacy,” 162. Robert Adams to Department of State, “Mexican Reaction to the Announcement of the Proposed Chamizal Settlement,” July 29, 1963, nsf , box 141, jfkl . Notes to Chapter Seven   —   353

72 Adams to Department of State, “Mexican Reaction to the Announcement of the Proposed Chamizal Settlement.” 73 Reid, “Salt in the Wound,” 1–4. 74 Interview with Antonio Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 75 Mann to Rusk, August 21, 1963, nsf , box 141, jfkl . 76 Reid, “Salt in the Wound,” 189. This was a clear example of how López Mateos regarded the formation of the cci as a useful “ginger party” (in the words of the British Embassy; see chap. 6). An agreement was reached at the end of 1965 whereby the US built a canal to redirect ­water from the wells away from the river. 77 US Embassy officials repeatedly cited the notion that left-­wing ele­ments ­were pushing the idea of the Nobel Peace Prize as a way of getting the president to back their agenda, but lobbying in support of the prize extended beyond left-­wing circles. By the summer of 1963 the president’s aspirations had become an open secret and one used by his supporters and detractors alike in weighing in on their respective support for his agenda domestically and internationally. See “Tele­grama circular,” February 7, 1963, box 2965, dips , agn ; Adams to Department of State, August 6, 1963, rg  59, box 3989, nara . In the official nomination submitted by Isadora Fabela, a member of The Hague’s Court of Arbitration, López Mateos was described as a “pacifist and humanitarian” whose “many actions to create a more peaceful world” had “done much to prevent war.” In the end, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize jointly to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Socie­ties, in a clear indication of the need to distance “peace” from Cold War politics altogether. López Mateos was nominated again the following year, but the 1964 prize went to Martin Luther King Jr. See “The Nobel Prize,” accessed June 23, 2019, https://­www​.­nobelprize​.­org​ /­nomination​/­redirector​/­?redir=archive/. 78 “Tito in Latin Amer­i­ca,” New York Times, September 20, 1963, 31. Tito originally planned to include Uruguay and Costa Rica. “Memorandum para acuerdo presidencial,” May 30, 1963, Visita Tito, Primera Parte, III-2861-35, sre . 79 Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War. 80 A Bolivian journalist remarked, “Paz loved Tito. He wanted to be a Latin American Tito, to play both sides of the Cold War.” Quoted in Field, From Development to Dictatorship, 11. 81 “Tito divulgará neutralismo y comunismo independiente en gira latinoamericana,” Diario de Costa Rica, September 7, 1963, contained in Agustín Leñero (Costa Rica) to sre , September 10, 1963, Visita Tito, Primera Parte, III-286135, sre . 82 “Pa­norama desalentador,” La Nación, September 10, 1963, contained in Leñero to sre , September 10, 1963. 83 “Texto de la entrevista concedía por el presidente [alm ] . . . ​al periódico yugo­slavo Borba, 24 August 1963,” Visita Tito, Primera Parte, III-2861-35, sre . The sre requested that the full transcript of the interview be distributed to all embassies for media dissemination. 354   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

84 See “Llegada del Mariscal Tito, pres. Yugo­slavo . . . ,” no. 18.413, Hermanos Mayo Collection, agn . 85 “Mexico City Acclaims Tito, Arriving on Amer­i­cas Tour,” New York Times, October 5, 1963, 7. 86 Cecilio Vásques to Tello, September 26, 1963, in Tello to Díaz Ordaz, September 30, 1963, Visita Tito, Primera Parte, III-2861-35, sre . 87 Zolov, “Discovering a Land ‘Mysterious and Obvious’ ”; L. Castañeda, Spec­ tacular Mexico; Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World, chap. 1. 88 “Boletín de Prensa, 1 October 1963,” Visita Tito, Segunda Parte, III-28621, sre . The days in Acapulco ­were designated as “vacations” in his official travel itinerary. 89 “Proyecto discurso Sr. Presidente,” Visita Tito, Segunda Parte, [nd], III-2862-1, sre . 90 “Proyecto discurso Sr. Presidente,” Visita Tito, Segunda Parte, [nd], III-2862-1, sre . 91 “Declaración Conjunta” (primer borrador), Visita Tito, Primera Parte, III-2861-35, sre . The leaders also committed themselves to push the United Nations to adopt “a formal pact” binding ­every member state to agree to the “princi­ple of non-­intervention.” “Proyecto discurso Sr. Presidente.” 92 Quoted from the Times of India and included in a dispatch from Octavio Paz (Mexican Embassy, India) to sre , December 24, 1963, “Conferencia No-­ Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . 93 López Mateos to Josip Broz Tito, March 9, 1964, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . 94 Josip Broz Tito to López Mateos, December 28, 1963, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . In addition to dropping the term nonalignment, Tito also substituted the word collaboration for the Soviet-­ inflected term coexistence (i.e., “peaceful collaboration”). 95 Octavio Paz (India) to sre , December 20, 1963, “Conferencia No-­ Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-29761, sre . 96 Tito (tele­gram, Belgrade) to sre (sin firma), January 25, 1964, “Conferencia No-­Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . 97 Sánchez Juárez (Belgrade) to sre , January 24, 1964, “Conferencia No-­ Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-29761, sre . 98 Guido Von Mengden (general secretary, German noc [ National Olympic Committee]), “ioc Meetings, 1959–1963: Aftermath of Sport and Politics from Baden-­Baden,” box 79, reel 44, Avery Brundage Papers (hereafter abp ), Penn State University, University Park. 99 “The Rus­sian bloc had 8 votes to cast and they all went to Mexico,” said an unidentified member of the US del­e­ga­tion at Baden-­Baden. “We know that for sure.” “Mexico City Awarded ’68 Games,” box 139, “Mexico: Newspaper Clippings,” abp . Witherspoon’s definitive study of the bid notes that the Soviets “assured” Mexico that the bloc’s votes would go to them. Witherspoon, Before the Eyes of the World, 44. 100 Sergio Rivera Conde, “El diseño en la XIX Olimpiada: Entrevista al arquitecto Pedro Ramírez Vázquez,” Creación y culture 1, no. 1 (July–­August 1999): 33. Notes to Chapter Seven   —   355

101 Zolov, “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow,’ ” 171; L. Castañeda, Spectacular Mexico. 102 Díaz Ordaz attended a convention of the State Bar of Texas in Fort Worth in 1944. Niemeyer, “Personal Diplomacy,” 164. 103 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 143–47 (quote on 147). 104 Niemeyer, “Personal Diplomacy,” 163. 105 Rusk to Johnson, “Your Meeting with President López Mateos,” February 18, 1964, nsf , box 61, lbj Library. 106 On the New China News Agency in Mexico, see González, Paisanos Chinos, 147–48. 107 Fredy González writes that the decision to host the fair “split the cabinet” of López Mateos, with Foreign Minister Manuel Tello and Interior Minister Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opposed. Secretary of Industry and Commerce Raúl Salinas Lozano was in support, seeing an opening for Mexico to “enter the large Chinese market” (Paisanos Chinos, 122). In contrast to the high-­profile venue provided to the Soviet trade fair in 1959, the prc was given an abandoned tobacco factory some distance away from the historic center of the city. The prc spent $400,000 to refurbish the building “to look like Beijing’s Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City” (123). The fair remained open for thirty-­one days and drew some 230,000 ­people (130). For a detailed discussion of the trade fair, see González, Paisanos Chinos, 121–32. 108 Adams to Department of State, December 11, 1963, rg  286, box 88, nara . 109 “Meeting between President Johnson and President López Mateos” (secret), February 21, 1964, rg  59, box 2473, nara . Fredy González attributes Mexico’s re­sis­tance to recognition of the prc to the “tireless effort” by the diplomatic corps of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and intense lobbying by Chinese Mexicans who opposed the prc . González, Paisanos Chinos, 106. 110 Garran (Mexico City) to J. O. Rennie (Foreign Office), February 25, 1964, fo  371/173687, tna . 111 Garran to Rennie, February 25, 1964. 112 In her discussion of de Gaulle’s visit to Mexico, Soledad Loaeza describes Mexico and France as sharing the characteristic of being “medium-­powered nations” with the capacity to influence international politics, though for Mexico this influence was “in a regional context” whereas for France it was “in a global context.” Loaeza, “La visita del General de Gaulle a México,” 312. 113 N. J. A. Cheetham (Mexico City) to Foreign Office, March 20, 1964, “Visit of General de Gaulle to Mexico,” fo  371/174173, tna . In the months leading up to his arrival, stores catering to the ­middle and upper classes posted displays of French “decorations and goods.” More dramatically, in an “impressive and emotional ceremony” three Mexican flags captured by the forces of Napoleon III a ­century before ­were returned to the nation. Security preparations ­were also elaborate. ­These included efforts by undercover agents to investigate groups potentially antagonistic to French policies, including Algerian-­born Frenchmen and Taiwanese nationalists living in Mexico as well as US veterans “affected by the psychosis of war” (i.e., post-­traumatic stress disorder) who might have “the idea of an attempt on his life [un atentado].” See the description of police duties in the unmarked document, box 2851, exp. 1, dips , agn . 356   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

114 Cheetham to Foreign Office, March 20, 1964. See also the press reports clipped from US media in “Visita De Gaulle,” folder 1, III-2892-8, sre . 115 “Discurso pronunciado por el Gen. de Gaulle ante el Congreso de la Unión,” Visita De Gaulle (1964), folder 2, III-2892-8 (Bis), sre . 116 “50,000 Students Mob De Gaulle in Welcome,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1964, in “Visita De Gaulle,” folder 4, III-2893-1, sre . See also “Discurso pronunciado por el Gen dg en la unam , 18 March 1964,” “Visita De Gaulle,” folder 4, III-2893-1, sre . Not insignificantly, de Gaulle’s speech at the unam coincided with the anniversary of Mexico’s nationalization of US and British oil companies in 1938. 117 Cheetham to Foreign Office, March 20, 1964. Similar sentiment was expressed by the British in the fall, following de Gaulle’s “marathon tour” of South Amer­i­ca. See the analy­sis in Pierson Dixon to Gordon Walker, “President De Gaulle’s Tour of Latin Amer­i­ca,” November 5, 1964, fo  371/173687, tna . ­There ­were two ways in par­tic­u­lar that López Mateos sought French support. One was to lobby for equal access of Latin American commodities within the Eu­ro­pean Economic Community. France, he urged, “could be the initiator” of a conversation to include Latin Amer­i­ca in the eec . The second was French financial support for Latin American development, for instance, by participating in the recently formed Inter-­American Development Bank or through the creation of a “Eu­ro­pean trust fund.” “Extracto de la conversacion sostenida . . . ,” March 17, 1964, Visita De Gaulle, folder 6, III-2894-1, sre . 118 “Extracto de la conversación sostenida . . . ,” March 17, 1964. 119 Loaeza, “La visita del General de Gaulle a México,” 313. 120 Garret Martin, “Conclusion: A Gaullist ­Grand Strategy?,” in Nuenlist, Locher, and Martin, Globalizing de Gaulle, 301. See also Dixon to Walker, “President De Gaulle’s Tour of Latin Amer­i­ca.” 121 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 398. 122 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 383. Malinowski was a former Polish Socialist who fled Poland ­after the Communist takeover. He became an “­adept un insider” and an early ally of Prebisch. Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 253. 123 Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 398. 124 Salinas Lozano had also accompanied López Mateos on his trips to Asia and Eu­rope. 125 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 24–25. 126 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 25. 127 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 25. 128 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 29. 129 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 29. 130 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 54. He ­later explained the tone of his remarks by noting that “not being a diplomat nor an economist but a politician, I ­don’t know any other language than that which I used. . . . ​I mean, it’s the same that I employ during Senate deliberations in my country.” Arteaga, México en la unctad , 56. For Mexico’s role historically in support of ­these debates, see Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?” Notes to Chapter Seven   —   357

131 Arteaga, México en la unctad , 61. While the contours of this group first emerged in Cairo two years ­earlier, with the conclusion of the unctad conference the g -­77 now took on concrete institutional identity. Arteaga was a po­liti­cal exile originally from El Salvador who became a journalist in Mexico. 132 For the in­de­pen­dent role of Brazil’s military, see Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the Inter-­American Cold War; McSherry, Predatory States; Krepp, “Latin Amer­ic ­ a’s Role in the Global Order.” 133 Niemeyer, “Personal Diplomacy,” 162. 134 As the British noted with some astonishment, Freeman immediately set off a firestorm when he proclaimed that the overthrow of Goulart was “an encouraging one for Western democracy” and hoped it would “not be too long before Cuba might be similarly reclaimed.” Thomas C. Barker to Patricia M. Hutchinson (Foreign Office), May 5, 1964, fo  371/174160, tna . 135 Allcock, “Becoming ‘Mr. Latin Amer­i­ca.’  ” 136 Miguel Ángel Álvarez, “Inauguración oficial del ultramoderno edificio de la Embajada estadunidense,” Excélsior, June 21, 1964, 13. Ground was broken for the building in July 1960. “Se edifice ya la Embajada de E.U.,” El Universal, July 17, 1960, 5. 137 “Inauguración oficial del ultramoderno edificio,” 1; Jesús M. Lozano, “Su cimentación flotante, un alarde de ingenieria,” Excélsior, June 24, 1964, 1. The building was designed by the Mexican architect Nicolás Mariscal Barroso working for the Austin, Texas, firm Southwestern Architects and Engineers. It cost US$6.3 million to build, not including purchase of the land. In February 1962, a massive fire destroyed a key section of the building during its early construction. See US Embassy to Department of State, “Joint Weekly No. 26,” June 27, 1964, rg  59, box 2472, nara . At the inauguration, acting foreign relations secretary Gorostiza and newly appointed ambassador Freeman jointly pulled aside a curtain to reveal a plaque that read, “To the Continued Friendship of the ­Peoples of Mexico and the United States of Amer­i­ca.” See also the British report about the event, where the British ambassador remarked on “the most ghastly speech” made by Senator McClellan (d -­AK), who headed the US del­e­ga­ tion. N. J. A. Cheetham to R. M. K. Slater (Foreign Office), June 24, 1964, fo 371/174160, tna . 138 “United States Del­eg ­ a­tion to the Inauguration of the President of the United Mexican States,” December 24, 1964, rg  59, box 2475, nara . 139 Memorandum of Conversation, “Mexican-­Cuban Relations (Part II),” November 12, 1964, CO-­Mexico: “Díaz-­Ordaz visit, 1964,” nsf , lbj Library. Originally located in “President Johnson’s Conversation with President-­elect Díaz Ordaz,” November 23, 1964, nsa . 140 Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 222. Rakove uses the observation to underscore the limits of Latin American sovereignty, as they ­were reduced to observer status. But the opposite could just as ­easily be established. In 1961 three Latin American states had sent observers (Brazil, Ec­ua­dor, and Bolivia); in 1964 nine states had observers (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela). In 1961 twenty-­eight states attended the founding confer358   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

141

142

143

144

145 146

147

148

ence; in 1964 that number had grown to fifty-­seven, largely from Africa. See Christman, Neither East nor West. Octavio Paz, “Memorandum para información del Señor Presidente,” May 1964, 25, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . Nasser feared a diminution of Arab influence if the conference ­were opened to broader participation, while Nehru feared giving a pretext to Pakistan to join. Paz closed his message by referring to the proposed conference simply as “the proposed Conference of Nations of the ‘non aligned,’ ‘not committed’ or that ‘fight for peace,’ ” adding that “the exact title” of the conference had not yet been defined, nor had the list of invitees. Jorge Castañeda to sre , May 15, 1964, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . Inclusion would be extended to countries that maintain “an in­de­pen­dent foreign policy based on coexistence between differing social and po­liti­cal regimes and which have practiced non-­alignment, or that the country has demonstrated an attitude that would support such a policy [manifieste una actitud que confirme tal política]” (emphasis mine). Castañeda noted that Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines ­were all not invited ­because they formed part of Cold War military alliances, yet he pointed out that the clause about military bases “remained a bit vague” since ­there was an invitation to the entire membership of the Organ­ization of African Unity despite the fact that the Francophone nations retained French military bases and had not demonstrated an especially “in­de­pen­dent” foreign policy stance. Castañeda to sre , May 15, 1964. In the end, however, Tito’s argument in ­favor of diluting the terminology for inclusion was overridden. It would not extend to ­every country “that practices a policy of peace,” an idea originally proposed by López Mateos during Tito’s visit to Mexico. In 1962 Castañeda replaced Carrillo as ambassador to Egypt, where he served ­until 1965. “México no asistirá a la conferencia neutralista,” Novedades, August 5, 1964, and “Boletín de Prensa,” August 10, 1964, both in “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . See also “Memorandum para acuerdo presidencial,” June 10, 1964, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . Significantly, Brazil’s military government sent an observer. See Krepp, “Latin Amer­i­ca’s Role the the Global Order.” sre to Embassy (uar ), September 11, 1964, “Conferencia No Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . The note indicated that Moreno Sánchez would be accompanied by Ernesto Madero (subdirector general del servicio diplomático), although a press release on September 22 indicated that Moreno Sánchez would be accompanied by Manuel Tello (technically no longer secretary of foreign relations). It seems unlikely that Tello attended. José Sánchez Gavito (encargado de negocios) was pre­sent. Mexico did not attend the third conference of nonaligned nations in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1970 but did attend the fourth conference in Algiers, Algeria, in 1973. Gettig, “ ‘Trou­ble Ahead in Afro-­Asia,’ ” 129. Notes to Chapter Seven   —   359

149 “Opening Address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic,” in Christman, Neither East nor West, 71. 150 “Address by President Josip Broz Tito of Yugo­slavia,” in Christman, Neither East nor West, 89, 88. 151 Mark Atwood Lawrence, “The Rise and Fall of Nonalignment,” in McMahon, The Cold War in the Third World, 148; Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World. 152 Rakove, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, 223. 153 At the start of the year, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai embarked on a fifty-­ three-­day, ten-­country tour of Africa, part of a “major Chinese effort to compete in Africa with the Soviets and Americans.” The tour also aimed to build support for the prc to replace Taiwan at the un . Gettig, “ ‘Trou­ble Ahead in Afro-­Asia,’  ” 129. 154 “Excerpt from Address by President Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia,” in Christman, Neither East nor West, 101. 155 “Excerpt from Address by President Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia,” 103–4. 156 Quoted in Krepp, “Latin Amer­i­ca’s Role in the Global Order.” 157 Gettig, “ ‘Trou­ble Ahead in Afro-­Asia,’ ” 134–35. 158 Adams to Department of State, “Mexican Politics: A Time of Jockeying Revisited,” January 31, 1964, rg  59, box 2469, nara . 159 José Sánchez Gavito (encargado de negocios) to sre , October 10, 1964, “Conferencia No-­Comprometidos (Cairo, 1964),” III-2976-1, sre . 160 Speech by Moreno Sánchez, quoted in Sánchez Gavito to sre , October 10, 1964. Chapter Eight: The Last Good Neighbor 1 Sir Nicholas Cheetham (Mexico City) to Michael Stewart (Foreign Office), “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico,” May 9, 1966, fo  371/184923, tna . 2 “Mexico-­U.S. Relations (Part 1 of 6),” September 30, 1966, rg  59, box 2478, nara . 3 Carlos Fuentes to Luis Guillermo Piazza, April 22, 1966, box 120, folder 14, cfp . 4 Wallace Stuart (Po­liti­cal Affairs) to Department of State, February 17, 1965, nsf , box 58, doc. 829, lbj Library. 5 Freeman to Department of State, “Díaz Ordaz ­after Four Months: A Po­liti­cal Assessment,” April 8, 1965, rg  59, box 2476, nara . 6 Freeman to Department of State, “The Díaz Ordaz Administration ­after Twenty Months,” August 19, 1966, rg  59, box 2476, nara . Carrillo Flores knew President Johnson well and was considered by the press corps as “one of the closest friends [Johnson] had in the diplomatic corps” a ­ fter Kennedy was killed. Interview with Antonio Carrillo Flores, July 26, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 7 Freeman to Department of State, “Díaz Ordaz ­after Four Months.” 8 McPherson, Yankee No!, 131–43. 9 Carlos Fuentes, “Mexican Novelist Assails Intervention,” New York Times, May 29, 1965, 26. 360   —   Notes to Chapter Seven

10 Cheetham to Stewart (Foreign Office), “President Díaz Ordaz: The First Six Months,” July 5, 1965, fo  371/179501, tna ; Wright, Latin Amer­i­ca in the Era of the Cuban Revolution, 69–71. 11 Loaeza, “Gustavo Díaz Ordaz,” 137. 12 US Embassy to Department of State, “Joint Weekly,” May 8, 1965, rg  59, box 2472, nara . 13 Díaz Ordaz, “Discurso pronunciado . . . ​al inaugurar los trabajos del undécimo período de sesiones de la Comisión Económica para la América Latina, 6 mayo de 1965,” in Díaz Ordaz, Pensamiento político de Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, 64. 14 Interview with Antonio Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 15 Freeman to Department of State, “Politico-­Economic Assessment,” July 3, 1965, rg  59, box 2473, nara . Foreign Minister Carrillo Flores ­later remarked that Mexico remained “firm in our opposition [to the intervention], without ever uttering harsh words against the U.S., but opposing in the Organ­ization of American States practically ­every mea­sure that was proposed.” Interview with Antonio Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 16 US Embassy to Department of State, September 2, 1965, rg  59, Box 2476, nara . Whereas foreign affairs received eight pages, the doctors’ strike from the previous January received eleven pages. 17 Díaz Ordaz traveled to Guatemala (1965) and the United States (1967). In early 1966 he received an official invitation to visit Britain, yet despite the “strongest official hints” that he would do so, he did not. “I am still at a loss to account for this volte-­face,” the British ambassador conveyed, “for had Her Majesty’s invitation become publicly known, it would have delighted all Mexicans and provided the best pos­si­ble augury for Anglo-­Mexican relations in ­future years.” Cheetham to Foreign Office, January 17, 1966, fo  371/184919, tna . 18 Freeman to Department of State, “The Díaz Ordaz Administration a ­ fter Twenty Months.” 19 Freeman to Department of State, “The Díaz Ordaz Administration a ­ fter Twenty Months.” 20 Freeman to Department of State, “Díaz Ordaz ­after Four Months.” 21 Freeman to Department of State, “Díaz Ordaz ­after Four Months.” 22 Krauze, Mexico, 677. 23 Freeman to Department of State, “Díaz Ordaz ­after Four Months.” The magazine lumbered on but faced increasing challenges, as the regime ­limited its supply of paper and made other efforts to thwart production. See Keller, “Testing the Limits of Censorship?”; Urías Horcasitas, “Alianzas efímeras.” See also Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 248–52. 24 Not one reference to the intervention or subsequent protests appears in Lázaro Cárdenas’s journal, published ­under the title Apuntes. This stands in marked contrast to extensive journal entries related to Cuba in 1960 and 1961. 25 Torres, México y el mundo, 171. Notes to Chapter Eight   —   361

26 Loaeza, “Gustavo Díaz Ordaz,” 134, 119. Loaeza notes that following the publication of a highly critical article in U.S. News and World Report suggesting Mexico was prone to a “communist take-­over,” Díaz Ordaz “panicked” about the possibility of a US intervention (138). 27 Rusk to Johnson, “Memorandum for the President: Your Visit to Mexico,” n.d., nsf , folder “Mexico: President Johnson’s Visit,” lbj Library. 28 Youssef El Sebai, “Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina,” Política, December 1, 1965, D (insert). 29 Odd Westad (The Global Cold War, 190) mentions the conference only once, in the context of discussion of Cuba, and gets the date wrong, placing it in 1967; Jonathan Brown (Cuba’s Revolutionary World, 97) gets basic facts wrong (such as claiming that Lázaro Cárdenas “circulated through the crowds”) and gives primary credit to Castro; and Keller (Mexico’s Cold War, 182–90) provides an excellent accounting of Mexican and Soviet participation but fails to acknowledge the conference’s deeper historical roots. Impor­ tant exceptions include Iber (Neither Peace nor Freedom, 171–72), Prashad (The Darker Nations, 105–15), Young, “Disseminating the Tricontinental,” and the recent work by Anne Garland Mahler, From the Tricontinental to the Global South. See also León Rosabal, “Revolutionary Diplomacy and the Third World.” 30 Garland Mahler makes a case for extending the historical roots of “tricontinentalism” to the 1920s, if not ­earlier. See Garland Mahler, From the Tricon­ tinental to the Global South, chap. 1. 31 Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 262–63. 32 The Gouvernement Provisionel de la République Algérienne (gpra , Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic) successfully gained full participatory rights at the founding conference in Belgrade in 1961, a year before Algerian in­de­pen­dence was officially recognized, “unlike the other nineteen revolutionary movements that attended only as observers.” But this was an exception to the rule and reflected Algeria’s impor­tant standing within the post-­Bandung movement. See Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 108–9. 33 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 405. 34 “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965, rg  59, box 1551, nara . The first proposal was made at the second aapso conference in Guinea in 1960. Around the same time, at the international meeting of the World Peace Council in Stockholm, the wpc proposed the idea of creating an international conference u ­ nder the auspices of aapso . “It is difficult to determine who originated [the idea of extending activities into Latin Amer­ic ­ a] and when; most sources trace it to the World Peace Council’s representatives attending an aapso meeting in Bandung in April 1961.” Radio F ­ ree Eu­rope/Radio Liberty Research Institute (rfe / rl ), “Three Continents in Havana,” January 5, 1966, box 14, folder 1, report 178, 4, Open Society Archives (Budapest), www​ .­osaarchivum​.­org. 35 “Memorandum para información del Señor Presidente,” January 22, 1962, “Conferencia Latinoamericana por la soberanía . . . ,” folder III-2769-1, sre . See also Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 258. Cárdenas intended to push for a coordinating body to oversee the dif­fer­ent national liberation movements in 362   —   Notes to Chapter Eight

Latin Amer­i­ca at a follow-up meeting to the 1961 Mexico City conference, but a second gathering never tran­spired. 36 cia , “Working Paper: The Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization, 1961–1962,” November 27, 1962, cia -­r dp   78-00915r 001400270002-5, cia crest Database (hereafter cia crest ), nara . 37 “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965. A letter from J. D. Bernal, chairman of the wpc , to Lázaro Cárdenas on the eve of the aapso conference underscored the importance the wpc (and thus, the Soviets) placed on being “represented by a good del­e­ga­tion” with the goal of “setting up a very broad preparatory committee.” See Bernal to Cárdenas, December 14, 1962, Lázaro Cárdenas del Río Papers (hereafter lcr ), “Consejo Mundial de la Paz—­III,” roll 23 (pt. 1), agn . I wish to thank Patrick Iber for sharing with me his research notes and sources on Cárdenas and the Tricontinental, from which this and subsequent citations to the lcr Papers come. 38 cia , “Working Paper: The Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ization, 1961–1962,” November 27, 1962. Ben Barka was the leader of the banned Moroccan left-­wing party, Union Nationale des Forces Populaires. Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella gave shelter to Ben Barka during this period. See Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 216. 39 “The Third Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Conference (Secret),” n.d., cia -­r dp 78-00915r 001400380004-1, cia crest , nara . 40 Cárdenas to Youssef El Sebai, April 23, 1963, lcr , “Organización por la Solidaridad de los Pueblos Afroasiáticos, 1961–1967,” roll 25 (pt. 3), agn . Patrick Iber reaches a similar conclusion. Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 172. 41 Cárdenas’s final recorded correspondence was with Ghana’s president, Kwame Nkrumah, on October 26, 1963; he again reiterated the necessity of convening a second Latin American conference from which a “permanent organism” that was “truly representative of the anti-­imperialist forces” would emerge. See Cárdenas to Nkrumah, October 26, 1963, lcr , “Conferencia Latinoamericana y Tricontinental—2,” roll 24 (pt. 2), agn ; Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 171–72. 42 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 404–5. 43 The coup against Ben Bella threw the location of the conference in doubt and, given his prior tilt ­toward China, critically weakened China’s position within aapso . For a detailed discussion of the Algerian context leading up to the coup, see Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, chap. 5. 44 Luis Gómez Luna (Helsinki) to sre , November 8, 1965, “Conferencia Afro-­ Asiatica (1964),” 1/342.1(53.1)/32462, sre . 45 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 145. 46 “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965. 47 Representatives from the six Latin American countries serving on the preparatory committee (Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Cuba, Guatemala, and Mexico) ­were scheduled to arrive in Ghana. The groups representing ­these countries ­were Frente de Acción Popu­lar (frap , Popu­lar Action Front) of Chile, Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (far , Rebel Armed Forces) of Guatemala, Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ) of Mexico, Frente Izquierda de Liberación Notes to Chapter Eight   —   363

(fidel , Leftwing Liberation Front) of Uruguay, and Frente de Liberación Nacional (fln , National Liberal Front) of Venezuela. In the end, only Venezuela and Cuba showed up. The reason for Mexico’s absence was unclear, although according to a State Department analy­sis the mln would “reportedly . . . ​ be represented at ­future meetings.” “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965. 48 “Tri-­Continent Conference, Havana,” December 10, 1965. 49 “Afro-­Asian-­Latin American ­Peoples’ Solidarity Conference,” November 8, 1965, cia -­r dp   78-03061a 000300050004-1, cia crest , nara . The next plenary meeting of aapso ’s Executive Council was scheduled for Peking in 1967. 50 “Three Continents in Havana.” 51 In Latin Amer­i­ca, this had already tran­spired at a secret congress of the Latin American Communist Parties, which convened in Havana to discuss the central issue facing the Communist Party at that time: was the use of vio­lence a legitimate means of advancing the revolutionary position of the party? By allowing Cuba to set the terms of Communist Party strategy in Latin Amer­ic ­ a, the Soviets essentially ceded control to Castro in an effort to keep Chinese influence at bay. See Spenser, “The Ca­rib­bean Crisis,” 100. 52 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 146. 53 Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, The Tricontinental Conference of African, Asian, and Latin American ­Peoples (89th Congress, 2nd Session), June 1966, 1. 54 H.F.T. Smith to Foreign Office, “The Tricontinental Conference in Havana, 4–15 January [1966],” fo  1110/2115, tna . See also Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 185–86. 55 Smith to Foreign Office, “The Tricontinental Conference in Havana.” 56 Smith to Foreign Office, “The Tricontinental Conference in Havana.” 57 Musi Saad El-­Din, “Plain Talk,” Al-­Ahram: Weekly On-­Line (Cairo), November 1–7, 2007, http://­weekly​.­ahram​.­org​.­eg​/­2007​/­869​/­cu3​.­htm. 58 Smith to Foreign Office, “The Tricontinental Conference in Havana.” 59 Young, “Disseminating the Tricontinental”; Cushing, Revolución! 60 Cover, Política, December 15, 1965. 61 Iber, Neither Peace nor Freedom, 171. 62 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 496. 63 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 497. 64 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 494. 65 Patrick Iber comes to a similar conclusion. See Iber, Neither Peace nor Free­ dom, 172. 66 L. Cárdenas, Apuntes, 491. 67 Cárdenas established this princi­ple when he sent former president Plutarco Elías Calles into exile. The Tricontinental Conference generated tremendous concern within Latin Amer­i­ca. On February 2 an oas resolution was ­adopted denouncing the conference as a violation of the un General Assembly Declaration on nonintervention. Significantly, Mexico abstained, as did Chile, which was represented at the Tricontinental Conference by Salvador Allende, a figure of national po­liti­cal significance. A special oas Consultative Committee on Security submitted a follow-up report denouncing the confer364   —   Notes to Chapter Eight

ence as “a declaration of war against democracy.” Cited in Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 189. Cárdenas received a personal note from Haydée Santamaría, the Cuban head of the Casa de las Américas, informing him of the launch of olas , but his response was curt and gave no indication of any interest much less inclination of pos­si­ble participation. Cárdenas to Santamaría, June 18, 1967, lcr , “Conferencia Latinoamericana y Tricontinental, 1962–1967,” roll 24 (pt. 2), agn . 68 “Principal Officers Conference (January 11–14),” March 24, 1965, rg  59, box 157, nara . ­Others in the del­eg ­ a­tion included figures of past and ­future renown, notably Ramón Danzós Palomino, presidential candidate of the Frente Electoral del Pueblo (fep ); Othón Salazar (Revolutionary Teachers’ Movement); Filomeno Mata (journalist); Víctor Rico Galán (journalist); Gen. Heriberto Jara (close associate of Lázaro Cárdenas); Alberto Bremauntz (professor at Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo); and Jorge Carrión (pps ), a figure closely tied to Política. See Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 184. According to Miguel Ángel Beltrán Villegas, ­others in the del­e­ga­tion included Salvador Bohórquez (ugocm ), Armando Castillejos, María Antonieta Rascón (Frente Único de Estudiantes Revolucionarios), and Manuel Mesa (Comité Mexicano por la Paz). For a further discussion of Mexico’s participation, see Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 271–77. 69 “Por la solidaridad entre los pueblos que luchan contra la explotación y contra la amenaza del imperialismo y por la paz mundial,” Política, December 15, 1965, 58. This committee was constituted by Heberto Castillo (president), Armando Castillejos, Manuel Terrazas, Jorge Carrión, Guillermo Calderón, Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, Adela Salazar, and Norma Carrasco. 70 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War, 184. For Castillo’s participation at the Tricontinental Conference, his subsequent role in the formation of olas , and his views on vio­lence, see Heberto Castillo, “Lucha contra el imperialismo,” in Castillo, Libertad bajo protesta, 169–86; Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 275–76. The po­liti­cal caricaturist Rius l­ ater wrote about Castillo: “Heterodox all of his life, he always fought against the orthodoxy of the Mexican left.” Rius, Mis confusiones, 237. 71 Alberto Domingo, “Cuba, enero 15: El mundo, campo de batalla,” Siempre!, February 2, 1966, 15. 72 Rius, “La Tricontinental: Primera llamada a los de arriba,” Siempre!, February 9, 1966, 41. For his ­later disillusionment, see Rius, Mis confusiones, 387–90. 73 “The Red Drive in Mexico,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1960, gallery 3, “Adolfo López Mateos,” 704/713, agn . 74 Zolov, “Discovering a Land ‘Mysterious and Obvious.’ ” 75 The phrase is from Delpar, The Enormous Vogue of ­Things Mexican. See also Tenorio-­Trillo, “The Cosmopolitan Mexican Summer, 1920–1949.” 76 Endicott Peabody spent ten days in Mexico in early March drumming up government support for the events. See World Affairs Council, “Mexico Week,” March 22, 1966, Personal Papers of Endicott Peabody, box 19, “Mexico (1),” jfkl ; and “Program: Mexico Week in Mas­sa­chu­setts (April 17–23),” Notes to Chapter Eight   —   365

Personal Papers of Endicott Peabody, box 19, “Mexico (2),” jfkl . Peabody was the former governor of Mas­sa­chu­setts (1963–1965). In 1966 he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate. 77 World Affairs Council, “Program, Mexico Week in Mas­sa­chu­setts,” April 17–23, 1966, Personal Papers of Endicott Peabody, box 19, “Mexico (2),” jfkl . Ernest Henderson Sr. was president of the World Affairs Council of Boston and chairman of “Mexico Week in Mas­sa­chu­setts.” 78 John F. Beck (Jack) to Fuentes, October 23, 1964, box 94, folder 2, cfp . Beck produced and wrote the script with Charles Kuralt. 79 “cbs Reports: ‘Mexico: A Lesson in Latin,’ ” broadcast over the cbs Tele­vi­sion Network, April 26, 1966, produced and written by Jack Beck, Film and Motion Picture Division, mp   16789, Library of Congress. 80 Beck to Fuentes, May 12, 1966, box 94, folder 2, cfp . 81 Beck to Fuentes, May 12, 1966; Beck to Carlos Fuentes, March 7, 1969, box 94, folder 2, cfp . 82 “Pre­sen­ta­tion of Monument to Mexico,” February 26, 1964, 88th Congress, 2nd Session (Senate), report 880, 1, 4. The bill had been amended slightly to reflect the passage of time as originally it was intended to mark Mexico’s 100/150th anniversary cele­brations (see chapter 3). President Johnson signed the finalized bill on August 4. Mexico’s foreign secretary, Antonio Carrillo Flores, ­later indicated that it was at his suggestion that a statue of Lincoln be substituted for that of Hidalgo. Interview with Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 83 Thomas Kuchel and Everett McKinley Dirksen to Dean Rusk, July 30, 1965, rg  59, box 342, nara ; Donald Rumsfeld to Rusk, August 4, 1965, rg  59, box 342, nara ; Gordon, “Lincoln and Juárez,” 76. Curiously, in 1960 the Commission of Fine Arts had “strongly urge[d] that an original, and not a replica of an existing monument be sent to Mexico, if pos­si­ble.” See David Finley (chairman of the Commission on Fine Arts) to William Wieland (Office of Ca­rib­bean and Mexican Affairs), July 1, 1960, rg  59, box 7, nara . As Kuchel and Dirksen pointed out, a replica of the Saint-­Gaudens sculpture had already been donated to Britain in 1920 and, moreover, a fire in 1942 had destroyed the original molds. Both aspects had been overlooked in the commission’s report. 84 Wallace Stuart (Mexico City) to Department of State, March 5, 1965, rg  59, box 369, nara . The park was officially called “Parque Luis G. Urbina,” named for a nineteenth-­century poet and journalist, and less formally known as “Parque Polanco.” It was located just inside the upper-­class neighborhood of Polanco not far from the newly opened Museum of Anthropology. 85 Albert Harkness (Mexico City) to Department of State, March 4, 1966, rg  59, box 342, nara . 86 Dean Rusk, “Memorandum for the President,” n.d., in “Mexico, President Johnson’s Visit Briefing Book,” April 14–16, 1966, nsf , “International Meetings and Travel,” lbj Library. 87 cia , “Security Conditions in Mexico—­and Elsewhere in Latin Amer­ic ­ a” (secret), May 18, 1966, nsf , box 59, doc. 96a, lbj Library. 88 “Sólo entre libres florece la amistad,” Siempre!, April 27, 1966, 16–17. 366   —   Notes to Chapter Eight

89 [no author], “El signo de Lincoln,” Siempre!, April 27, 1966, 8. Leonard Gordon writes that “a very unhistorical legend” about correspondence between Lincoln and Juárez became part of the mystification of the dedication ceremony. Gordon, “Lincoln and Juárez,” 75. 90 “Lincoln,” Siempre!, April 20, 1966, 16. 91 Rigoberto Hernández Herbet, “Juárez en Washington,” Siempre!, September 14, 1966, 5. The author pointed out that a campaign was underway to donate a statue of Benito Juárez in Washington, DC, which he applauded. The Juárez statue was dedicated in January 1969. Carrillo Flores ­later stated that the idea for the reciprocal exchange of statues came from him. Interview with Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 92 An editorial cartoon by the left-­wing illustrator Rius depicted ­Uncle Sam lugging a bust of Lincoln wrapped in a ribbon. The cartoon incorporated Lincoln’s famous phrase (translated into Spanish): “You can deceive all of the ­people part of the time and you can deceive part of the ­people all of the time, but you cannot deceive all of the ­people all of the time.” A figure with a sombrero labeled “Mexico” stands astride the statue with the caption “A pre­sent? ­Won’t this annoy Johnson?” Siempre!, April 20, 1966, 11. 93 Alberto Domingo, “La hora de la autocrítica,” Siempre!, April 27, 1966, 19. 94 Cheetham to Stewart, “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico,” May 9, 1966, fo  371/184923, tna . 95 Cheetham to Stewart, “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico.” 96 Víctor Rico Galán, “México, el país más raro en el Mundo,” Siempre!, April 27, 1966, 23. 97 Domingo, “La hora de la autocrítica,” 19. 98 “Sólo entre libres florece la amistad.” 99 Cheetham to Stewart, “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico.” 100 Eduardo Frei Montalva, “The Alliance That Lost Its Way.” This article was published shortly ­after Johnson’s visit. Frei Montalva was president of Chile (1964–1970) and a leading recipient of Alliance for Pro­gress funding. The title subsequently was used by Jerome Levinson and Juan de Onís for their pivotal work, The Alliance That Lost Its Way. 101 “Texts of Johnson Speech in Mexico City and Joint Statement: Mr. Johnson’s Address,” New York Times, April 16, 1966, a 6. Johnson pledged to hold a summit of Latin American heads of state, which was l­ ater convened in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in April 1967. For background on Johnson’s ties with Mexico, see Pycior, lbj and Mexican Americans. Foreign Minister Antonio Carrillo Flores ­later remarked that Johnson “was more interested in Mexico than any other president I think in the history of the United States.” Interview with Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. 102 Henry Giniger, “President ­Favors Hemi­sphere Drive for Social Equity,” New York Times, April 16, 1966, a 1. 103 Cheetham to Stewart, “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico.” 104 “Visit to Mexico” (cbs raw news footage, 20 min., b &w ), Audiovisual Collections, mp   560, reel 4, lbj Library. 105 “Visit to Mexico.” Notes to Chapter Eight   —   367

106 John Pomfret, “President Is Elated by His Reception in Mexico,” New York Times, April 16, 1966, a 7. 107 Cheetham to Stewart, “President Johnson’s Visit to Mexico.” 108 Lyndon Johnson to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, April 16, 1966, Ex [Executive] Tr [Trip] 84, box 24, lbj Library. 109 Lewis R. Murray Jr. (Mexico City) to Bill Moyers (special assistant to the president), April 21, 1966, Ex Tr 84, box 24, lbj Library. 110 David Martin del Campo (Mexico City), “Lyndon B. Johnson, acróstico, con motivo de su visita a nuestra patria,” April 13, 1966, Ex Tr 84, box 24, lbj Library. The Spanish read, “Buen vecino, egregio, noble y digno presidente.” 111 US Consul (Guadalajara) to Department of State, May 26, 1966, “Corrido in Honor of President Lyndon B. Johnson,” Gen CO [General Country] 190, box 55, LBJ Library. ­There ­were many corridos also written to President Kennedy, but ­these followed his assassination. See Dickey, The Kennedy Corridos. 112 Letter to Editor, “O lo menos de Gaulle,” Siempre!, May 4, 1966, 69. De Gaulle had intimated for several years France’s dissatisfaction with nato and in March gave Johnson what Carolyne Davidson calls a “handwritten eviction notice” to vacate France of all “foreign troops,” which in effect meant US forces. Davidson, “Dealing with de Gaulle” in Nuenlist, Locher, Martin, Glo­ balizing de Gaulle, 124–25. See also James Reston, “Washington: De Gaulle’s Bill of Divorce,” New York Times, March 9, 1966, 40. Notably, Siempre! chose not to point out the French connection to the story. 113 A Day in April (dir. Walter de Hoog, 15 min., color), Audiovisual Collection, mp   195, lbj Library. 114 Leonard H. Marks (usia ) to Johnson, July 7, 1966, Ex Tr 84, box 24, lbj Library. The US Embassy arranged for “live coverage of dedication ceremonies” carried by Telesistema and “seven repeater stations.” Within a day, the embassy proposed to make available a videotape of the ceremonies to stations throughout the country. Interviews with Mrs. Johnson, Dean Rusk, and Lincoln Gordon ­were all requested by local tele­vi­sion stations. US Embassy to secretary of state, April 6, 1966, rg  59, box 342, nara . 115 Freeman to Department of State, “Increasing Awareness of Díaz Ordaz of Communist Threat,” November 18, 1966, rg  59, box 2478, nara . See also Zolov, “­Toward an Analytical Framework.” 116 Keller, Mexico’s Cold War; Castellanos, México armado. 117 Quote is from H. F. Feaver, Canadian Embassy (Mexico City), to undersecretary of state for external affairs, Ottawa, Canada, “President’s Annual Address to the Nation,” September 7, 1965, fo  371/179501, tna . 118 Feaver, “President’s Annual Address to the Nation.” 119 In addition to repairing relations with Guatemala (ruptured ­under López Mateos), finalizing the Treaty of Tlatelolco became Díaz Ordaz’s main foreign policy focus. He sent only a token body to the second unctad conference (February–­March 1968) and declined to participate in any capacity in a proposed third nam conference (see the epilogue). Regarding Vietnam, Foreign Minister Carrillo Flores ­later remarked: “We thought that the only wise ­thing to do was to be ­silent on this prob­lem [Vietnam] and to express 368   —   Notes to Chapter Eight

120 121

122 123

124 125

126

127 128 129 130

131 132

133

134 135

whenever we could that we hoped that the settlement would be achieved without condemning openly the United States even if, in our hearts, in our minds, we have always believed that this involvement in Vietnam was a g ­ reat ­mistake and is a ­great m ­ istake.” Interview with Carrillo Flores, July 24, 1970, Oral History Collection, lbj Library. Cohn, “The Mexican Intelligent­sia, 1950–1968,” 175. Fernando Benítez to Fuentes, March 27, [1965], box 89, folder 11, cfp . The year is not indicated on the letter, but the context and relationship to other correspondence in the file indicates that it is clearly from 1965. Cohn, “The Mexican Intelligent­sia, 1950–1968,” 176. “In one month we collected more than two million pesos and are ­doing impor­tant work at what was formally Elena [Poniatowska’s] ­house.” Benítez to Fuentes, December 29, 1965, box 89, folder 11, cfp . Pensado, Rebel Mexico, 164–65. Fuentes to Flores Olea, May 14, 1966, box 104, folder 2, cfp . For a discussion of cultural transformations at the unam , see Cohn, “The Mexican Intelligent­sia, 1950–1968,” 178–79; Pensado, Rebel Mexico, chap. 6. Che Guevara, “Socialism and Man in Cuba,” March 12, 1965, Marxists Internet Archive, https://­www​.­marxists​.­org​/­archive​/­guevara​/­1965​/­03​/­man​ -­socialism​.­htm. Margaret Randall writes, “For my generation it was an iconic text.” Randall, Che on My Mind, 26. Suri, Power and Protest, 3. Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.” Benítez to Fuentes, May 29, 1966, box 89, folder 11, cfp . Carlos Monsiváis, “Con un nuevo fracaso, Carlos Monsiváis ayuda a resquebrajar la mascara funeraría del mexicano,” La Cultura en México, December 29, 1965, 4. Benítez to Fuentes, May 29, 1966. Benítez to Fuentes, May 29, 1966. Monsiváis had recently returned from a semester as a visiting scholar at Harvard University, where he was exposed to the emergent currents of countercultural revolt and the student protest movement. See Egan, Carlos Monsiváis, 14–15. Fuentes (Paris) to José Luis Cuevas, April 12, 1966, box 99, folder 12, cfp . Cuevas authored the essay “Cactus Curtain” (1956), which launched a broadside against state-­sponsored muralism; he was at the center of controversies within the artistic world. See Zolov, Refried Elvis; Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Paint­er. Fuentes to Piazza, April 22, 1966, box 120, folder 14, cfp . Not all students by any means supported the Left. See Herrán Ávila, “The Other ‘New Man’ ”; Pensado, “ ‘To Assault with the Truth.’ ” On the New Left spectrum of protest practices, see Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.” Epilogue

1 Arteaga, México y la unctad ; Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 424–27. 2 Rubinstein, Yugo­slavia and the Nonaligned World, 331. Notes to Epilogue   —   369

3 Rubinstein, Yugo­slavia and the Nonaligned World, 330. 4 Wolin, The Wind from the East; Slobodian, Foreign Front; Elbaum, Revolu­ tion in the Air. 5 Torres, México y el mundo, 168. Total trade shifted by about 10 ­percent away from the United States. In early 1967, Mexico secured an initial French loan of nearly 500 million francs from a consortium of French banks to help finance the French-­built rolling stock for the subway; by 1968 this amount had increased to 630 million francs (US$130 million). I wish to thank Andra Chastain for ­these figures and her communications about the metro. 6 On the denouement of the mln , see Beltrán Villegas, Un decenio de agitación política, 262–80; for po­liti­cal reforms u ­ nder López Mateos, see Hernández Rodríguez, “La política,” 260–64. 7 Suri, Power and Protest, chap. 3. On challenges to patriarchal authority in 1968, see Pensado, Rebel Mexico; Zolov, Refried Elvis; Carey, Plaza of Sacrifices. 8 See also Zolov, “Non-­Alignment and Student Protest in 1968 Mexico.” 9 Ambassador Joaquín Bernal (Ethiopia) to Carrillo Flores, November 4, 1968, “Conferencia de Paises No Alineados (1968),” III-59000-13, sre . 10 The participant countries ­were Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Argentina, and Peru. See Field, Krepp, and Pettinà, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War, for the beginnings of this discussion. 11 In 1958 the pri received 90.4 ­percent of the vote; in 1964, 87.6 ­percent; and in 1970, 79.8 ­percent. The conservative opposition party, pan , saw its percentage of the vote increase to 13.8 ­percent in 1970. In the capital, electoral participation declined from 64.5 ­percent in 1967 (a congressional election year) to 59.7 ­percent in 1970. See Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exte­ rior de México, 206–7. 12 Fuentes to Echeverría, March 6, 1973, box 100, folder 24, cfp . 13 This line is repeated often in official commemorations of his presidency. Quoted ­here from “Prólogo” in Echeverría, Documentos de la gira, 12. For a useful analy­sis from the US perspective, see Shapira, Mexican Foreign Policy ­under Echeverría. 14 Mexico retained an observer status within opec . President Echeverría rationalized this status based on the notion that Mexico failed to meet opec ’s criteria that revenue derived from oil exports must meet a certain threshold, but ­others have suggested that Mexico’s restraint in joining the cartel was a concession to the United States. See “Prólogo,” Documentos de la gira, 21; Shapira, Mexican Foreign Policy ­under Echeverría, 75. 15 Echeverría, “Prólogo,” Documentos de la gira, 23. 16 Prior to this point, only Miguel Alemán and López Mateos had addressed the un Assembly. See “Address by Mr. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, President of the United Mexican States,” United Nations General Assembly, October 5, 1971, http://­www​.u ­ n​.­org​/g ­ a​/­search​/­view​_­doc​.­asp​?­symbol​=­A​/­PV​.­1952. 17 Cited in Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?,” 403. 18 The charter was passed overwhelmingly by the un but with “abstention” and/or “no” votes by ten Eu­ro­pean nations, the United States, and Japan. In certain cases, ­these included countries that Echeverría had personally lobbied during his travels. 370   —   Notes to Epilogue

19 Tello, La política exterior de México, 9. 20 Torres, México y el mundo, 195. 21 Ojeda, Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México, 219. The timing was coupled with the US withdrawal from Bretton Woods. 22 Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the Inter-­American Cold War, 168. 23 Thornton, “A Mexican International Economic Order?,” 407. 24 “Conferencia Conjunta de prensa,” October 21, 1974, in Echeverría ante la prensa y el mundo, 15. 25 John Herbers, “Mexico’s New Oil for World Sale, Echeverría Says,” New York Times, October 22, 1974, 1. Ford noted in his remarks that Mexico was the first country outside the United States that he chose to visit. 26 See, for instance, forthcoming works by Christy Thornton, Vanni Pettinà, and Aileen Teage, all of whom are advancing monographs on Mexican foreign policy in the 1970s. 27 Ojeda, Alcances y limites de la política exterior de México, 237. The Lomé Agreement gave privileged access to former Eu­ro­pean colonies, effectively canceling out any advantage negotiated by Echeverría. See also Pi-­Suñer, Riguzzi, and Ruano, Historia de las relaciones internacionales de México, 1821–2010, 374. 28 The best study is L. Walker, Waking from the Dream. 29 Fuentes to Echeverría, June 24, 1976, box 100, folder 24, cfp . 30 Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City, esp. chap 7.

Notes to Epilogue   —   371

This page intentionally left blank

Bibliography

Archives and Research Libraries Mexico Archivo General de la Nación (agn ), Mexico City Colección Hermanos Mayo Dirección Federal de Seguridad (dfs ) Dirección General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (dips ) Rama de Presidentes (Gallery 3) Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre ), Mexico City United Kingdom The National Archives (tna ), Kew Gardens Foreign Office United States Avery Brundage Papers (avp ), Penn State University, University Park, PA Bancroft Library, Special Collections, Berkeley, CA Cold War International History Proj­ect (cwihp ), Washington, DC John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (jfkl ), Boston, MA Arthur M. Schlesinger Personal Papers Endicott Peabody Personal Papers National Security Files Oral History Collection President’s Office Files White House Files Library of Congress, Washington, DC Film and Motion Picture Division Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library (lbj Library), Austin, TX

Audiovisual Collection Country Files National Security Files Oral History Collection Presidential Appointment Files Subject Files National Archives and Rec­ords Administration (nara ), College, Park, MD cia crest Database Rec­ord Group 59 (rg 59) National Security Archive (nsa ), George Washington University, Washington, DC Prince­ton University, Special Collections, Prince­ton, NJ Carlos Fuentes Papers (cfp ) Secondary Sources and Collected Primary Documents Aguayo Quezada, Sergio. La charola: Una historia de los servicios de inteligencia en México. Mexico City: Grijalbo, 2001. Agustín, José. Diario de un brigadista, Cuba 1961. Buenos Aires: Lumen, 2011. Alegre, Robert. Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico: Gender, Class, and Memory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Allcock, Thomas. “Becoming ‘Mr. Latin Amer­ic ­ a’: Thomas C. Mann Reconsidered.” Diplomatic History 38, no. 5 (2014): 1017–45. Arguedas, Ledda. “El movimiento de liberación nacional: Una experiencia de la izquierda mexicana en los sesentas.” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 39, no. 1 (1977): 229–49. Arteaga, René. México en la unctad . Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1973. Avilés Fabila, René. Memorias de un comunista: Maquinuscrito encontrado en un basurero en Perisur. Mexico City: Ediciones Gernika, 1991. Aviña, Alexander. Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexi­ can Countryside. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Barr-­Melej, Patrick. Psychedelic Chile: Youth, Counterculture, and Politics on the Road to Socialism and Dictatorship. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Bartra, Roger. “Memorias de la contracultural.” Letras Libres, November 2007, 34–37. Beltrán Villegas, Miguel Ángel. Un decenio de agitación política: México, la revolu­ ción cubana y el Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, mln (1958–1968). Caracas: Fundación Editorial El Perro y la Rana, 2009. Berger, Mark. “­After the Third World? History, Destiny and the Fate of Third Worldism.” Third World Quarterly 25, no. 1 (2004): 9–39. Black, Ashley. “The Politics of Asylum: Cold War Revolutionaries, H ­ uman Rights, and Mexican Foreign Policy, 1944–1961.” PhD diss., Stony Brook University, 2017. Blasier, Cole. The G ­ iant’s Rival: The USSR and Latin Amer­i­ca. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987. Brands, H. W. The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947–1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. 374   —   Bibliography

Brands, Hal. Latin Amer­i­ca’s Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Bremauntz, Alberto. La batalla ideológica en México. Mexico City: Ediciones Jurídico Sociales, 1962. Brown, Jonathan. Cuba’s Revolutionary World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Brown, Timothy Scott, and Andrew Lison, eds. The Global Sixties in Sound and Vi­ sion: Media, Counterculture, Revolt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Buchenau, Jürgen. “Por una Guerra Fría más templada: México entre el cambio revolucionario y la reacción estadounidense en Guatemala y Cuba.” In Espejos de la Guerra Fría: México, América Central y el Caribe, edited by Daniela Spenser, 119–49. Mexico City: Miguel Ángel Porrúa Editores/sre /cieses , 2004. Byrne, Jeffrey. Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Cabrera López, Patricia. Una inquietud de amanecer: Literatura y política en México, 1962–1987. Mexico City: Plaza y Valdez/unam , 2006. Camp, Roderic. “The Cartoons of Abel Quezada.” In Journalism, Satire and Censor­ ship in Mexico, edited by Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri, and Benjamin Smith, 203–­20. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Camp, Roderic. Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth-­Century Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. Camp, Roderic. Mexican Po­liti­cal Biographies, 1935–1993. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc. Sobre mis pasos. Mexico City: Aguilar, 2010. Cárdenas, Héctor. Historia de las relaciones entre México y Rusia. Mexico City: sre / Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993. Cárdenas, Lázaro. Apuntes, 1957–1966. Vol. 3 of Obras. Mexico City: unam , 1973. Cárdenas, Lázaro. México y Cuba: Dos pueblos unidos en la historia. Vol. 2. Mexico City: Centro de Investigación Científica Jorge L. Tamayo, 1982. Careaga, Gabriela. Los intelectuales y la política en México. Mexico City: Editorial Extemporaneos, [1971] 1974. Carey, Elaine. Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace. Report on the Fiftieth Anniversary Program of the Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace. New York: Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, 1961. Carr, Barry. “The Fate of the Vanguard u ­ nder a Revolutionary State: Marxism’s Contribution to the Construction of the G ­ reat Arch.” In Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, edited by Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, 336–­52. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. Carr, Barry. Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-­Century Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. Carrillo Flores, Antonio. “Reflexiones y testimonio acerca de la política exterior y la diplomacia mexicanas.” In Política exterior de México: 175 años de historia, 11–35. Mexico City: sre , 1989. Bibliography   —   375

Car­ter, June C., and Donald Schmidt, eds. José Agustín: Onda and Beyond. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986. Castañeda, Jorge G. Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. Translated by Marina Castañeda. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Castañeda, Jorge G. Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left a ­ fter the Cold War. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Castañeda, Luis. Spectacular Mexico: Design, Propaganda, and the 1968 Olympics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Castellanos, Laura. México armado: 1943–1981. Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2007. Castillo, Heberto. Libertad bajo protesta: Historia de un proceso. Mexico City: Federación Editorial Mexicana, 1973. Cedillo, Adela. “The 23rd of September Communist League’s Foco Experiment in the Sierra Baja Tarahumara (1973–1975).” In México beyond 1968: Revolutionar­ ies, Radicals, and Repression during the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies, edited by Jaime Pensado and Enrique Ochoa, 92–112. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018. Chaplin, Tamara, and Jadwiga Pieper Mooney, eds. The Global 1960s: Convention, Contest, and Counterculture. New York: Routledge, 2017. Chase, Michelle. “The ­Trials: Vio­lence and Justice in the Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.” In A C ­ entury of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Vio­ lence during Latin Amer­i­ca’s Long Cold War, edited by Greg Grandin and Gilbert Joseph, 163–98. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. Chen, Jian. Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Chen, Jian, Martin Klimke, Masha Kirasirova, Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young, and Joanna Waley-­Cohen, eds. The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties: Between Protest and Nation-­Building. New York: Routledge, 2018. Cheng, Yinghong. “Sino-­Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime, 1959–1966.” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 3 (2007): 78–114. Chiriboga, Juan. “1960: Su herencia internacional.” Foro Internacional 1, no. 3 (January–­March 1961): 360–79. Christiansen, Samantha, and Zachary Scarlett, eds. The Third World in the Global 1960s. New York: Berghahn, 2015. Christlieb, Paulina Fernández. El espartaquismo en México. Mexico City: El Caballito, 1978. Christman, Henry, ed. Neither East nor West: The Basic Documents of Non-­ Alignment. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1973. Coccioli, Carlo. “Mexico’s Wobbling Left.” Atlas (February 1965): 113–­14. Coffey, Mary. How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Cohn, Deborah. “The Mexican Intelligent­sia, 1950–1968: Cosmopolitanism, National Identity, and the State.” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 21, no. 1 (winter 2005): 141–82. Colmenero, Sergio. “El Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, la Central Campesina Independiente y Cárdenas.” Estudios Políticos 1, no. 1 (April–­June 1975): 11–28. 376   —   Bibliography

Covarrubias, Ana. “La política exterior: En busca del equilibrio.” In Adolfo López Mateos: Una vida dedicada a la política, edited by Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez, 273–­306. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2015. Cushing, Lincoln. Revolución! Cuban Poster Art. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. de Guzmán, Daniel. Carlos Fuentes. New York: Twayne, 1972. Debroise, Olivier, ed. La era de la discrepancia/The Age of Discrepancies: Arte y cultura visual en México, 1968–1997. Mexico City: unam , 2007. Delpar, Helen. The Enormous Vogue of ­Things Mexican: Cultural Relations between the United States and Mexico, 1920–1935. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995. Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo. Pensamiento político de Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. Mexico City: Acción Nacional de Estudios de las Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 1965. Dickey, Dan. The Kennedy Corridos: A Study of the Ballads of a Mexican Ameri­ can Hero. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas, 1979. Domínguez, Diana, ed. Los años precursores: Memorias de Prensa Latina (1959– 1962). Havana: Prensa Latina, 2009; ebook, 2014. https://­en​.­calameo​.­com​/r­ ead​ /­00334561751654a213ae4. Dosman, Edgar. The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901–1986. Montreal: McGill-­ Queen’s University Press, 2008. Draper, Susana. 1968 Mexico: Constellations of Freedom and Democracy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Dunn, Christopher. Contracultura: Alternative Arts and Social Transformation in Authoritarian Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Dziedzic, Michael J. “Mexico and US G ­ rand Strategy: The Geo-­strategic Linchpin to Security and Prosperity.” In Strategy and Security in U.S.-­Mexican Relations beyond the Cold War, edited by John Bailey and Sergio Aguayo Quezada, 63–86. San Diego: Center for US-­Mexican Studies/ucsd , 1996. Echeverría, Luis. Documentos de la gira. Mexico City: Secretaría de la Presidencia, 1976. Echeverría, Luis. Echeverría ante la prensa y el mundo: 10 testimonios. Mexico City: Secretaría de la Presidencia, 1976. Egan, Linda. Carlos Monsiváis: Culture and Chronicle in Con­temporary Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001. Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. New York: Verso, 2002. Epstein, William. “The Making of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.” Journal of the History of International Law 3, no. 2 (2001): 153–79. Farber, Samuel. The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Feder, Ernest. “Some Reflections on Latin Amer­i­ca’s ‘Common Market.’ ” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 20, no. 4 (July 1961): 433–41. Field, Thomas C., Jr. From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Pro­gress in the Kennedy Era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. Field, Thomas C., Jr., Stella Krepp, and Vanni Pettinà, eds. Latin Amer­ic­ a and the Global Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Bibliography   —   377

Finer, Sydney Wesley. “The Kidnapping of the Lunik.” Studies in Intelligence 11, no. 1 (winter 1967): 33–­39. Flaherty, George. ­Hotel Mexico: Dwelling on the ’68 Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016. Flores Olea, Víctor. “La crisis del stalinismo.” Cuadernos Americanos 5–6 (1962): 80–108. Fox, Claire. Making Art Panamerican: Cultural Policy and the Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. Franco, Jean. The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin Amer­i­ca in the Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Frei Montalva, Eduardo. “The Alliance That Lost Its Way.” Foreign Affairs 45, no. 3 (1967): 437–48. Friedman, Jeremy. Shadow Cold War: The Sino-­Soviet Competition for the Third World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Fuentes, Carlos. “The Argument of Latin Amer­i­ca: Words for the North Americans.” Monthly Review 14, no. 9 (January 1963): 487–502. Fuentes, Carlos. “Latinos vs. Gringos: Some Hard Truths We Should Know about the Mexicans.” Holiday (October 1962): 13–19. Fuentes, Carlos. Myself with ­Others: Selected Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990. Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. “One Hell of a G ­ amble”: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. García Robles, Alfonso. “La desnuclearización de la América Latina.” Foro Interna­ cional 6, nos. 2/3 (October/December 1965–­January/March 1966): 323–40. Garland Mahler, Anne. From the Tricontinental to the Global South: Race, Radi­ calism, and Transnational Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Garrard-­Burnett, ­Virginia, Mark A. Lawrence, and Julio E. Moreno, eds. Beyond the Ea­gle’s Shadow: New Histories of Latin Amer­i­ca’s Cold War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013. Garza, David T. “Factionalism in the Mexican Left: The Frustration of the mln .” Western Po­liti­cal Quarterly 17, no. 3 (September 1964): 447–60. Garza Elizondo, Humberto, ed. Fundamentos y prioridades de la política exterior de México. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1986. Geldart, Carol, and Peter Lyon. “The Group of 77: A Perspective View.” Interna­ tional Affairs 57, no. 1 (winter 1980/81): 79–101. Gettig, Eric. “Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Proj­ ect, 1959–1967.” In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Global Cold War, edited by Thomas Field Jr., Stella Krepp, and Vanni Pettinà. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming. Gettig, Eric. “ ‘Trou­ble Ahead in Afro-­Asia’: The United States, the Second Bandung Conference, and the Strug­gle for the Third World, 1964–1965.” Diplomatic His­ tory 39, no. 1 (2015): 126–56. Gillingham, Paul, and Benjamin Smith, eds. Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Cul­ ture in Mexico, 1938–1968. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. 378   —   Bibliography

Gilman, Claudia. Entre la pluma y el fusil: Debates y dilemas del escritor revoluciona­ rio en América Latina. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2003. Goedde, Petra. The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Gonçalves, João Felipe. “Sputnik Premiers in Havana: A Historical Ethnography of the 1960 Soviet Exposition.” In The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World, edited by Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane P. Koenker, 84–117. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. González, Fredy. Paisanos Chinos: Transpacific Politics among Chinese Immigrants in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017. González de Bustamante, Celeste. “Muy Buenas Noches”: Mexico, Tele­vi­sion, and the Cold War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012. Goodwin, Richard. Remembering Amer­i­ca: A Voice from the Sixties. New York: Open Road Media, 2014. Gordon, Leonard. “Lincoln and Juárez: A Brief Reassessment of Their Relationship.” Hispanic American Historical Review 48, no. 1 (February 1968): 75–80. Gorsuch, Anne, and Diane Koenker, eds. The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Gosse, Van. Rethinking the New Left: An Interpretative History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Gosse, Van. Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War and the Making of a New Left. New York: Verso, 1993. Hansen, Roger D. The Politics of Mexican Development. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971. Harmer, Tanya. Allende’s Chile and the Inter-­American Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis. “Out-­of-­Area: nato Perceptions of the Third World, 1957–1967.” Cold War History 13, no. 1 (2013): 67–88. Hernández Rodríguez, Rogelio. “La política: Los desafíos al proyecto de nación.” In Adolfo López Mateos: Una vida dedicada a la política, edited by Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez, 221–72. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2015. Herrán Ávila, Luis. “Anticommunism, the Extreme Right, and the Politics of Enmity in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, 1946–1972.” PhD diss., New School for Social Research, 2016. Herrán Ávila, Luis. “The Other ‘New Man’: Conservative Nationalism and Right-­Wing Youth in 1970s Monterrey.” In México beyond 1968: Revolution­ aries, Radicals, and State Repression during the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies, edited by Jaime Pensado and Enrique Ochoa, 195–214. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018. Hershberg, James. “ ‘High-­Spirited Confusion’: Brazil, the 1961 Belgrade Non-­Aligned Conference, and the Limits of an ‘In­de­pen­dent’ Foreign Policy during the High Cold War.” Cold War History 7, no. 3 (August 2007): 373–88. Holden, Robert, and Eric Zolov, eds. Latin Amer­i­ca and the United States: A Docu­ mentary History. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Hurtado, Guillermo. “Un antecedente de El Espectador: Críticas a la Revolución mexicana en 1959.” Literatura mexicana 21, no. 2 (2010): 15–25. Bibliography   —   379

Iber, Patrick. “Managing Mexico’s Cold War: Vicente Lombardo Toledano and the Uses of Po­liti­cal Intelligence.” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19, no. 1 (2013): 11–19. Iber, Patrick. Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin Amer­i­ca. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Isserman, Maurice. If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Jörgensen, Beth. The Writing of Elena Poniatowska: Engaging Dialogues. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Joseph, Gilbert, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, eds. Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. Joseph, Gilbert, and Daniela Spenser, eds. In from the Cold: Latin Amer­i­ca’s New Encounter with the Cold War. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Keller, Renata. “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption: Mexico’s Lukewarm Defense of Castro, 1959–1969.” Latin American Research Review 47, no. 2 (2012): 100–119. Keller, Renata. “The Latin American Missile Crisis.” Diplomatic History 39, no. 2 (2015): 195–222. Keller, Renata. Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Keller, Renata. “Testing the Limits of Censorship? Política Magazine and the ‘Perfect Dictatorship,’ 1960–1967.” In Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico, edited by Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri, and Benjamin T. Smith, 221–36. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Knight, Alan. The Mexican Revolution. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev in Amer­i­ca. New York: Crosscurrents Press, 1960. Khrushchev, Nikita S. “On Peaceful Coexistence.” Foreign Affairs 38, no. 1 (October 1959): 1–18. Kiddle, Amelia. Mexico’s Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cárdenas Era. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016. Klimke, Martin. The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the Global Sixties. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2010. Klimke, Martin, and Mary Nolan. “Introduction.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties, edited by Jian Chen et al., 1–9. New York: Routledge, 2018. Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power; A History of Modern Mexico, 1810– 1996. Translated by Hank Heifetz. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998. Krepp, Stella. “Latin Amer­i­ca’s Role in the Global Order: Brazil and Non-­ Alignment, 1961–1964.” In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Third World, edited by Thomas Field Jr., Stella Krepp, and Vanni Pettinà. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming. Kushner, Marilyn S. “Exhibiting Art at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959: Domestic Politics and Cultural Diplomacy.” Journal of Cold War Studies 4, no. 1 (winter 2002): 6–26. Kux, Dennis. India and the United States: Estranged Democracies, 1941–1991. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1992. 380   —   Bibliography

LaFeber, Walter. “Thomas C. Mann and the Devolution of Latin American Policy: From the Good Neighbor to Military Intervention.” In ­Behind the Throne: Ser­ vants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898–1968, edited by Thomas J. McCormick and Walter LaFeber, 166–203. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. Lambe, Jennifer. “The Communist Closet: Secrecy, Sexuality, and Ideology in the Cuban Cold War.” Paper presented at the conference “Transnational Revolutionaries: Ideas and Practices of the Right in Latin Amer­i­ca’s Cold War,” Columbia University, November 9–10, 2018. Lawrence, Mark Atwood. “The Rise and Fall of Nonalignment.” In The Cold War in the Third World, edited by Robert McMahon, 139–55. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Lederer, William J., and Eugene, Burdick. The Ugly American. New York: W. W. Norton, [1958] 1999. Lee, Christopher, ed. Making a World a ­ fter Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Po­liti­cal Afterlives. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. León, Andres, ed. Diccionario Enciclopédico de México. Vol. 1. Mexico City: Sector de Orientación Pedagógica, 1995. León Rosabal, Blanca Mar. “Revolutionary Diplomacy and the Third World: Historicizing the Tricontinental Conference from the Cuban Archives.” Paper presented at the conference “The Cuban Revolution at 60,” New York University, March 7–8, 2019. Leonov, Nikolai. “Soviet Intelligence in Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cold War.” Estu­ dios Públicos 73 (summer 1999): 2–32. Levinson, Jerome, and Juan de Onís. The Alliance That Lost Its Way: A Critical Report on the Alliance for Pro­gress. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1970. Loaeza, Soledad. Clases medias y política en México. 3rd ed. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 2012. Loaeza, Soledad. “Gustavo Díaz Ordaz: El colapso del milagro mexicano.” In Una historia contemporánea de México: Actores, vol. 2, edited by Lorenzo Meyer and Ilán Bizberg, 117–55. Mexico City: Océano Press, 2005. Loaeza, Soledad. “La política intervencionista de Manuel Ávila Camacho: El caso de Argentina en 1945.” Foro Internacional 56, no. 4 (2016): 851–902. Loaeza, Soledad. “La visita del general de Gaulle a México: El desencuentro francomexicano.” Foro Internacional 31, no. 2 (October–­December 1990): 294–313. López Mateos, Adolfo. Documentos para la historia de un gobierno. Vols. 1–6. Mexico City: Editorial La Justicia, 1960–64. López Mateos, Adolfo. Pensamiento en acción. Vol. 1. Mexico City: Editorial La Justicia, 1961. López Mateos, Adolfo. Presencia de México en Asia: Visita del Presidente de la República Mexicana, licenciado Adolfo López Mateos, a India, Japón, Indonesia y Filipinas. Mexico City: Manuel Casas Carbajal, 1962. López Mateos, Adolfo. Seis Informes de gobierno. Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos, 1964. López Romero, Adolfo. ¿Cuál es el rumbo, Señor Presidente? Los problemas políticos y económicos más importantes del presente gobierno. Mexico City: Editorial Costa-­Amic, 1961. Loveman, Brian. No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemi­ sphere since 1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Bibliography   —   381

Lüthi, Lorenz M. “Non-­Alignment, 1946–1965: Its Establishment and Strug­gle against Afro-­Asianism.” Humanity 7, no. 2 (summer 2016): 201–23. Maciel, Carlos. El movimiento de liberación nacional: Vicisitudes y aspiraciones. Sinaloa: Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, 1990. Manzano, Valeria. The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Marchesi, Aldo. Latin Amer­i­ca’s Radical Left: Rebellion and Cold War in the Global 1960s. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Markarian, Vania. Uruguay, 1968: Student Activism from Global Counterculture to Molotov Cocktails. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016. Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1958–1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Matías García, Rubén. “Fojar a partir del examen creador de nuestra historia: Las aportaciones de Alonso Águilar Monteverde al Marxismo en México, 1944– 1979.” Master’s thesis, unam , 2016. McPherson, Alan. Yankee No! Anti-­Americanism in U.S.-­Latin American Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. McSherry, Patrice. Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin Amer­ic­ a. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Miller, Nicola. Soviet Relations with Latin Amer­i­ca. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Mills, C. Wright. “Letter to the New Left.” New Left Review 5 (September–­ October 1960): 18–23. Mills, C. Wright. Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba. New York: Ballantine Books, 1960. Mi=ković, Nata=a, Harald Fischer-­Tiné, and Nada Bo=kovska, eds. The Non-­Aligned Movement and the Cold War: Delhi-­Bandung-­Belgrade. New York: Routledge, 2014. Monsiváis, Carlos. Autobiografía. Mexico City: Empresas Editoriales, 1966. Moreno, Julio. Yankee D ­ on’t Go Home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920–1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Morley, Jefferson. Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the cia . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008. Mraz, John. “­Today, Tomorrow, and Always: The Golden Age of Illustrated Magazines in Mexico, 1937–1960.” In Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Popu­ lar Culture in Mexico since 1940, edited by Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, 116–57. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. Niblo, Stephen. War, Diplomacy, and Development: The United States and Mexico, 1938–1954. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1995. Niemeyer, E. V., Jr. “Personal Diplomacy: Lyndon B. Johnson and Mexico, 1963– 1968.” Southwestern Historical Society 90, no. 2 (October 1986): 159–86. Nuenlist, Christian, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin, eds. Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958–1969. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. Ojeda, Mario. Alcances y límites de la política exterior de México. 3rd ed. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 2011. 382   —   Bibliography

Pacheco, María Martha. “¡Cristianismo sí, Comunismo no! Anticomunismo eclecsiástico en México.” Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México 24 (July–­December 2002): 143–70. Padilla, Tanalís. Rural Re­sis­tance in the Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax-­Priísta, 1940–­1962. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Padilla, Tanalís, and Louise Walker, eds. “Dossier: Spy Reports: Content, Methodology, and Historiography in Mexico’s Secret Police Archive.” Journal of Latin American Studies 19, no. 1 (2013): 1–10. Paz, María Emiliana. Strategy, Security, and Spies: Mexico and the U.S. as Allies in World War II. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1997. Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. Translated by Lysander Kemp. New York: Grove, 1985. Pellicer de Brody, Olga. México y la revolución cubana. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1972. Pensado, Jaime. Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Po­liti­cal Culture during the Long Sixties. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. Pensado, Jaime. “ ‘To Assault with the Truth’: The Revitalization of Conservative Militancy in Mexico during the Global Sixties.” The Amer­i­cas 70, no. 3 (January 2014): 489–522. Pensado, Jaime, and Enrique C. Ochoa, eds. México beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and State Repression during the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018. Perzabal, Carlos. De las memorias de Manuel Marcué Pardiñas. Mexico City: Editorial Rino, 1997. Pettinà, Vanni. “Beyond US Hegemony: The Shaping of the Cold War in Latin Amer­i­ca.” Culture and History Digital Journal 4, no. 1 (June 2015): 1–4. Pettinà, Vanni. “¡Bienvenido Mr. Mikoyán! Tacos y tractors a la sombra del acercamiento soviético-­mexicano, 1958–1964.” Historia Mexicana 66, no. 2 (2016): 793–852. Pettinà, Vanni. “Global Horizons: Mexico, the Third World, and the Non-­Aligned Movement at the Time of the 1961 Belgrade Conference.” International History Review (December 2015): 741–64. Pettinà, Vanni. “Mexican-­Soviet Relations, 1958–1964: The Limits of Engagement.” cwihp e-­Dossier, no. 65 (September 3, 2015). Pi-­Suñer, Antonia, Paolo Riguzzi, and Lorena Ruano, eds. Historia de las relaciones internacionales de México, 1821–2010. Vol. 5, Europa. Mexico City: sre , 2011. Poniatowska, Elena. “How I Started Writing Chronicles and Why I Never S ­ topped.” In The Con­temporary Mexican Chronicle: Theoretical Perspectives on the Liminal Genre, edited by Ignacio Corona and Beth Jörgensen, 37–45. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Poniatowska, Elena. Palabras cruzadas. Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1961. Popp, Richard. The Holiday Makers: Magazines, Advertising, and Mass Tourism in Postwar Amer­ic­ a. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012. Power, Paul F. Neutralism and Disengagement. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964. Bibliography   —   383

Pozas Horcasitas, Ricardo. “La Revista Mexicana de Literatura: Territorio de una nueva élite intelectual (1955–1965).” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 24, no. 1 (winter 2008): 53–78. Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A P ­ eople’s History of the Third World. New York: New Press, 2008. Prieto, Luis R., Guillermo Ramos, and Salvador Rueda, eds. Un México a través de los Prieto: Cien años de opinión y participación política. Jiquilpán de Juárez, Michoacán: Centro de Estudios de la Revolución Mexicana “Lázaro Cárdenas,” 1987. Pycior, Julie Leininger. lbj and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Quadros, Jânio. “Brazil’s New Foreign Policy.” Foreign Affairs (October 1961): 19–27. Raat, W. Dirk. “US Intelligence Operations and Covert Action in Mexico, 1900– 1947.” Journal of Con­temporary History 22, no. 4 (1987): 615–38. Rabe, Stephen G. The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Con­ fronts Communist Revolution in Latin Amer­i­ca. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Rakove, Robert. Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Randall, Margaret. Che on My Mind. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Reeves, Michelle. “Extracting the Ea­gle’s Talons: The Soviet Union in Cold War Latin Amer­i­ca.” PhD diss., University of Texas, Austin, 2014. Reid, David. “Salt in the Wound: The Colorado River Salinity Crisis, the Cold War, and the Mexican State, 1961–1974.” PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2017. Reyes, Mauricio. “Política interna y política exterior en México desde 1950 hasta 1964.” In Fundamentos y prioridades de la política exterior de México, edited by Humberto Garza Elizondo, 135–66. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1986. Reyna, José Luis. “Redefining the Authoritarian Regime.” In Authoritarianism in Mexico, edited by José Luis Reyna and Richard S. Weinert, 155–71. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of H ­ uman Issues, 1977. Richardson, William Harrison. Mexico through Rus­sian Eyes, 1806–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988. Richmond, Yale. Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2003. Rius (Eduardo del Río). Lástima de Cuba: El grandioso fracaso de los hermanos Cas­ tro. Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1993. Rius (Eduardo del Río). Mis confusiones: Memorias desmemoridas. Mexico City: Grijalbo, 2014. Rodríguez Kuri, Ariel. “México: Guerra Fría e historia política.” Special issue, Histo­ ria Mexicana 66, no. 2 (October–­December 2016): 645–52. Rodríguez Rodríguez, Raúl. “Canada and the Cuban Revolution: Defining the Rules of Engagement, 1959–1962.” Canadian Foreign Policy 16, no. 1 (spring 2010): 63–80. Ross, Stanley, ed. Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. Rothwell, Matthew. Transpacific Revolutionaries: The Chinese Revolution in Latin Amer­ic­ a. New York: Routledge, 2013. 384   —   Bibliography

Rubinstein, Alvin. Yugo­slavia and the Nonaligned World. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1970. Rupprecht, Tobias. “Socialist High Modernity and Global Stagnation: A Shared History of Brazil and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.” Journal of Global History 6, no. 3 (November 2011): 505–28. Rupprecht, Tobias. Soviet Internationalism a ­ fter Stalin: Interaction and Exchange between the USSR and Latin Amer­i­ca during the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Sampaio, Nelson de Sousa. “Latin Amer­i­ca and Neutralism.” Annals of the American Acad­emy of Po­liti­cal and Social Science 362, no. 1 (November 1965): 62–70. Sánchez, Manuel de Paz. Zona de guerra: España y la revolución cubana (1960– 1962). Canary Islands, Spain: Litografía Romero, 2001. Sartre, Jean-­Paul. Sartre on Cuba. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974. Scherer García, Julio, and Carlos Monsiváis. Parte de Guerra: Tlatelolco 1968. Mexico City: Nuevo Siglo, 1999. Schmidt, Arthur. “The Po­liti­cal and Economic Reverberations of the Cuban Revolution in Mexico.” History Compass 6, no. 4 (2008): 1140–63. Schmidt, Karl. Communism in Mexico: A Study in Po­liti­cal Frustration. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. Memoria de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, September 1946–­August 1947. Mexico City: sre , 1947. Semo, Ilán. “El cardenismo: Gramática del sobreviviente.” Historia y Grafía 3 (1994): 77–95. Semo, Ilán, ed. México, un pueblo en la historia. Vol. 6, El ocaso de los mitos (1958– 1968). Mexico City: Alianza Editorial Mexicana, 1989. Servín, Elisa. “Algunas ramas de un árbol frondoso: El cardenismo a mediados del siglo XX.” Historias 69 (January–­April 2008): 81–96. Servín, Elisa. “La experiencia mexicana de C. Wright Mills.” Historia Mexicana, no. 277 (July–­September 2020): forthcoming. Servín, Elisa. “Frank Tannenbaum entre América Latina y Estados Unidos en la Guerra Fría.” A Contracorriente 13, no. 3 (fall 2016): 50–76. Servín, Elisa. “Propaganda y Guerra Fría: La campaña anticomunista en la prensa mexicana del medio siglo.” Signos Históricos, no. 11 (January–­June 2004): 9–39. Servín, Elisa. Ruptura y oposición: El movimiento henriquista, 1945–1954. Mexico City: Cal y Arena, 2001. Sewell, Bevan. “A Perfect (Free-­Market) World? Economics, the Eisenhower Administration, and the Soviet Economic Offensive in Latin Amer­i­ca.” Diplo­ matic History 32, no. 5 (2008): 841–68. Shapira, Yoram. Mexican Foreign Policy u ­ nder Echeverría. London: sage , 1978. Slobodian, Quinn. Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties Germany. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Smith, Benjamin. The Mexican Press and Society, 1940–1976: Stories from the News­ room, Stories from the Street. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Smith, Stephanie. The Power and Politics of Art in Postrevolutionary Mexico. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Bibliography   —   385

Spenser, Daniela. En combate: La vida de Lombardo Toledano. Mexico City: Penguin Random House, 2017. Spenser, Daniela. “The Ca­rib­bean Crisis: Catalyst for Soviet Projection in Latin Amer­i­ca.” In In from the Cold: Latin Amer­i­ca’s New Encounter with the Cold War, edited by Gilbert Joseph and Daniela Spenser, 77–111. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Spenser, Daniela. The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Rus­sia, and the United States in the 1920s. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Stein, Philip. Siqueiros: His Life and Works. New York: International Publishers, 1994. Suri, Jeremy. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Tello, Manuel. México: Una posición internacional. Mexico City: Cuadernos de Joaquín Mortíz, 1972. Tello, Manuel. La política exterior de México (1970–1974). Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1975. Tenorio-­Trillo, Mauricio. “The Cosmopolitan Mexican Summer, 1920–1949.” Latin American Research Review 32, no. 3 (1997): 224–42. Thompson, E. P. “Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines.” New Reasoner 1 (summer 1957): 105–43. Thornton, Christy. “A Mexican International Economic Order? Tracing the Hidden Roots of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States.” Humanity 9, no. 3 (winter 2018): 389–421. Torres, Blanca. “Estrategias y tácticas mexicanas en la conducción de sus relaciones con Estados Unidos (1945–1970).” Foro Internacional 50, nos. 3–4 (2010): 662–88. Torres, Blanca. México y el mundo: Historia de sus relaciones exteriores. Vol. 7. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 2010. Toye, John, and Richard Toye. The un and Global Po­liti­cal Economy: Trade, Fi­ nance, and Development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Tse-tung, Mao. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972. Urías Horcasitas, Beatriz. “Alianzas efímeras: Izquierdas y nacionalismo revolucionario en la revista Política. Quince días de México y del mundo (1960–1962).” Historia Mexicana 68, no. 3 (January–­March 2019): 1205–52. Vaughan, Mary Kay. Portrait of a Young Paint­er: Pepe Zúñiga and Mexico City’s Rebel Generation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Volpi, Jorge. La imaginación y el poder: Una historia intelectual de 1968. Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1998. Walker, Louise. Waking from the Dream: Mexico’s M ­ iddle Classes a ­ fter 1968. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Walker, William III. “Mixing the Sweet with the Sour: Kennedy, Johnson, and Latin Amer­i­ca.” In The Diplomacy of the Crucial De­cade: American Foreign Relations during the 1960s, edited by Diane B. Kunz, 42–79. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. 386   —   Bibliography

Weintraub, Sidney. A Marriage of Con­ve­nience: Relations between Mexico and the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Welch, Richard, Jr. Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolu­ tion, 1959–1961. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Mak­ ing of Our Times. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. White, Christopher. Creating a Third World: Mexico, Cuba, and the United States during the Castro Era. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. Willets, Peter. The Non-­Aligned Movement: The Origins of a Third World Alliance. New York: Nichols, 1978. Witherspoon, Kevin. Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Wolin, Richard. The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolu­ tion, and the Legacy of the 1960s. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2010. Wood, Bryce. The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. Wright, Thomas C. Latin Amer­i­ca in the Era of the Cuban Revolution. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. Yáñez, Agustín. Proyección universal de México: Crónica del viaje realizado por el Presidente de México Lic. Adolfo López Mateos a India, Japón, Indonesia y Filipi­ nas, el año 1962. Mexico City: Lito Offset Torres, 1963. Yee, David. “Divided Landscapes in the Mexican Metropolis: Housing and Segregation in Mexico City, 1940–1976.” PhD diss., Stony Brook University, 2019. Young, Robert. “Disseminating the Tricontinental.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties: Between Protest and Nation-­Building, edited by Jian Chen, Martin Klimke, Masha Kirasirova, Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young, and Joanna Waley-­Cohen, 517–47. New York: Routledge, 2018. Zolov, Eric. “Between Bohemianism and a Revolutionary Rebirth: Che Guevara in Mexico.” In Che’s Travels: The Making of a Revolutionary in 1950s Latin Amer­ic­ a, edited by Paulo Drinot, 245–82. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. Zolov, Eric. “¡Cuba Sí, Yanquis No!: The Sacking of the Instituto Cultural México-­ Norteamericano in Morelia, Michoacán, 1961.” In In from the Cold: Latin Amer­ i­ca’s New Encounter with the Cold War, edited by Gilbert Joseph and Daniela Spenser, 214–52. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Zolov, “Discovering a Land ‘Mysterious and Obvious’: The Renarrativizing of Postrevolutionary Mexico.” In Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico Since 1940, edited by Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, 234–72. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. Zolov, Eric. “Expanding Our Conceptual Horizons: The Shift from an Old to a New Left in Latin Amer­i­ca.” A Contracorriente 5, no. 2 (winter 2008): 47–73. Zolov, Eric. “The Graphic Satire of Mexico’s Jorge Carreño and the Politics of Presidentialism during the 1960s.” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina 17, no. 1 (2006): 13–38. Zolov, Eric. “Latin Amer­i­ca in the Global Sixties.” Special Issue, The Amer­i­cas 70, no. 3 (January 2014): 349–62. Bibliography   —   387

Zolov, Eric. “Non-­Alignment and Student Protest in 1968 Mexico.” In 1968 in Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca, edited by A. James McAdams and Anthony Monta. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming. Zolov, Eric. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Zolov, Eric. “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow’: Mexico and the 1968 Olympics.” The Amer­ic­ as 61, no. 2 (October 2004): 159–88. Zolov, Eric. “­Toward an Analytical Framework for Assessing the Impact of the 1968 Student Movement on U.S.-­Mexican Relations.” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 9, no. 2 (December 2003): 41–68. Zubok, Vladislav, and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

388   —   Bibliography

Index

Page number followed by f indicate illustrations. Adams, Robert, 181, 211, 215–16 Afro-­Asian ­Peoples’ Solidarity Organ­ ization (aapso ), 111–13; Non-­Aligned Movement and, 21, 178, 212, 220; Soviet Union and, 120, 258; Tricontinental Conference and, 255–56; World Peace Council and, 256–58, 362n34, 363n37 agrarian reform, 37–41, 92, 164 Aguayo Quezada, Sergio, 15 Aguilar Monteverde, Alonso, 121 Agustín, José, 183–84, 195, 345n76 Aksenov, Nikolai, 34 Alegre, Robert, 33 Alekseev, Aleksandr, 77–78, 91, 318n110 Alemán, Miguel, 9, 15, 303n6, 331n95; Frente Cívico and, 136, 186; as minister of tourism, 136; Tello and, 63; un address by, 47 Algeria, 260, 289, 356n113, 359n147, 362n32 All-­African ­Peoples’ Conference (aapc ), 112, 326n13 Allende, Salvador, 265, 292, 293, 364n67 Alliance for Pro­gress, 131; Dominican Republic and, 271; Fuentes on, 170–72; Kennedy and, 140–41,

155–57, 269; Mann and, 143, 145–46, 238, 273, 332n14; Mexican aid from, 156, 336n69; nato and, 149–50 Alvarado, José, 40 Ameijeiras, Efigenio, 39f American National Exhibition (Moscow, 1959), 55, 57, 116, 311n2 Amigos de Cuba, 42–43 Apatzingán, Constitution of, 94 Aragon, Louis, 329n50 Árbenz, Jacobo, 8, 13; Freyre and, 308n109; overthrow of, 14, 39 Arévalo, Juan José, 13–14 Argentina, 48, 85; López Mateos’s visit to, 82–84; Nixon’s visit to, 82; Soviet Union and, 26, 313n27; during World War II, 326n3 Arias Bernal, Antonio “El Brigadier,” 116–18, 117f, 328n30 Artaud, Antonin, 345n71 Arteaga, René, 236, 357n130 Asociación Nacional de Importadores y Exportadores de la República Mexicana (anierm ), 74 Atlantic Policy Advisory Group (apag ), 334n37 Atwood, Mark, 242 Ávila Camacho, Manuel, 73

Avilés Fabila, René, 122, 128, 129 Aviña, Alexander, 196 Azuela, Salvador, 281 Ball, George W., 235 Ballet Folklórico de México, 48, 222, 313n25 Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext), 75 Bandung, Indonesia, conference (1955), 50, 82, 109–11, 255–56, 279, 287; ­Brazil at, 326n6; Mexico at, 110 Bandung, Spirit of, 2–5, 108–15, 140, 287–90, 296 Bandung II conference (1965), 260–61, 289 Barall, Milton, 333n26 barbudos (“bearded ones”), 7, 30–32 Barona, Héctor, 211 Batista, Fulgencio, 22, 27, 30 Bay of Pigs invasion (1961), 128, 132, 143, 180; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 129, 330n70 Bazikin, Vladimir, 77 Beckett, Samuel, 345n71 Ben Barka, Mehdi, 258, 261, 363n38 Ben Bella, Ahmed, 260, 363n38, 363n43 Benítez, Fernando, 192, 280–83, 347nn109–10 Black, Ashley, 40, 327n28 Bolivia, 156, 161, 307n88; denuclearization and, 205, 351n32; Non-­Aligned Movement and, 157, 161, 201, 220–21, 224 Bolshoi Ballet, 77 Bondarchuk, Sergei, 59 Bonsal, Philip, 40–41, 307n88 Borisov, Sergei, 63 Bosch, Juan, 249 bracero program, 145, 301n23 Brands, Hal, 110 Brandt, Carl, 164–65, 168–69, 171–73, 340nn20–21, 341n27, 343n41 Brazil, 85, 161; Alliance for Pro­gress in, 156; during Cold War, 320n25; Communist Party of, 17; Cuba and, 113–14; López Mateos’s visit to, 390   —   Index

82–84; Nixon’s visit to, 82; Non-­ Aligned Movement and, 131–32, 201; Tito’s visit to, 220–21; during World War II, 9 Bremauntz, Alberto, 325n122 Bulgaria, 317n107 Burdick, Eugene, 341n26 Byrne, Jeffrey, 256 Caamaño Deñó, Francisco, 249 Cabrera, Enrique, 121 “Cactus Curtain,” 184, 369n135 Cairo Declaration (1962), 292–93. See also Group of 77 Cale, Edward, 142–44, 331n6 Calles, Plutarco Elías, 364n67 Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación (canacintra ), 67–68, 211, 315n68 Camp, Roderic, 6, 339n11, 342n32 Campa, Valentín, 33, 34, 305n57, 338n3 Campos Salas, Octaviano, 158–59 Canada, 99, 293, 351n29; Cuban Revolution and, 148, 180; López Mateos’s trip to, 45, 80; nato Experts Group and, 147–48, 333n26; oas and, 180 Carballo, Emmanuel, 165 Cárdenas, Amalia, 25, 42 Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 14, 28, 287; cem and, 120, 121; Eu­ro­pean tour of, 24–28; mln and, 121, 176, 265; Soviet Exhibition of 1959 and, 315n59; Tricontinental Conference and, 265 Cárdenas, Héctor, 55–56, 313n32 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 32, 186–90; Bay of Pigs invasion and, 128, 129; cartoons of, 41, 42f, 44–45, 45f, 188, 189f; Chinese Revolution and, 28, 43, 307n83, 308n102; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 350n28; Cuban Revolution and, 27–29, 37–41, 39f; Franco and, 248; Henríquez Guzmán and, 12; “Latin American Bandung” conference and, 109, 119–22, 123f, 125–29, 175; Lombardo Toledano and, 175–76; López Mateos and, 5–6, 25, 27, 29,

40–41, 66, 79, 107f, 125–29, 188, 303n15, 331n96, 350n28; on Mexican Revolution, 107; mln and, 4–5, 90, 137–38, 175–76, 187–90, 192–93; nickname of, 15; Nkrumah and, 363n41; Política and, 90–91, 264; railroad workers and, 28–29, 43, 53, 308n101; on R ­ oo­se­velt, 40, 307n86; Soviet Exhibition of 1959 and, 53–54, 66, 315n59; Stalin Peace Prize of, 14, 26; Tricontinental Conference and, 257, 259, 264; US view of, 25, 129; “voto razonado” of, 194; world tour of, 24–29; wpc and, 120 cardenismo, 34, 47, 87, 90–93, 190 Careaga, Gabriel, 37 Car­ne­gie Endowment for International Peace, 114–15 Carpentier, Alejo, 339n17 Carr, Barry, 16 Carreño, Jorge, 18, 117–18, 118f, 193, 306n72; on López Mateos, 206, 207f; on mln fissure, 176–78, 177f; on Nehru’s Mexican visit, 135 Carrillo, Alejandro, 112–13, 133, 350n17, 359n143; as presidential candidate, 190, 204, 349n8 Carrillo Flores, Antonio, 218, 248, 270, 289; Johnson and, 360n6, 366n82; on oas , 250–51, 361n15; on Vietnam War, 368n119 Carrión, Jorge, 191; Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos and, 120; Política and, 88, 189 Casablanca Group, 112 Casella, Alberto T., 121 Castañeda, Jorge, 180, 359n142 Castillo, Heberto, 265, 365n70 Castro, Fidel, 4, 98, 141, 147–48, 324n103; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 29, 38–41, 39f, 44, 45f; del Río on, 346n83; Khrushchev and, 78, 91, 95, 108, 181; López Mateos and, 81; Mao and, 181; on national sovereignty, 91; Pan-­Americanism of, 84, 114, 180; socialist humanism of, 73 Castro, Raúl, 95, 309n110

Catholic Church, 60, 95, 100, 129, 152; Partido Acción Nacional and, 177; Sinarquista movement and, 222 censorship, 36, 90, 130, 281, 330n67 Central Campesina Independiente (cci ), 187–88, 188–89, 189f, 354n76 Central Intelligence Agency (cia ), 8, 71, 79, 91, 257–59; on Allende, 221; Bay of Pigs and, 141; Fuentes and, 342n34; on Johnson’s Mexican trip, 271; on C. Wright Mills, 341n29 Chamizal border dispute, 144, 156, 217–18, 227, 238, 245, 353n69 Chapa, Esther, 181–82 Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, 293 Chastain, Andra, 370n5 Chávez, Ignacio, 281 Cheetham, Nicolas, 230–31, 246–47, 275 Chile, 161, 201, 221, 286; Allende and, 265, 292, 293, 364n67; Alliance for Pro­gress in, 156, 367n100; Communist Party of, 17; Frente de Acción Popu­lar of, 363n47; Fuentes and, 167, 168, 174; Tricontinental Conference and, 363n47, 364n67; during World War I, 326n3 China, 28, 268; aapso and, 258; Lázaro Cárdenas’s tour of, 24; Cultural Revolution of, 183, 271, 286; de Gaulle’s recognition of, 227, 228; Khrushchev’s trip to, 58; Mexican trade fair of, 227, 229f, 356n107; Nixon’s visit to, 291; pcm and, 181–82; on peaceful coexistence, 176–77, 220, 262; revolution of, 43; Sukarno and, 243; Taiwan and, 111, 291. See also Sino-­Soviet split Círculo de Estudios Mexicanos (cem ), 41–42, 93, 328n44; Comité de la Paz of, 121; formation of, 120; “Latin American Bandung” conference and, 120–21; wpc and, 121 Coccioli, Carlo, 195 coexistence. See peaceful coexistence Cohn, Deborah, 280 Index   —   391

Cold War, 30–31; Berlin crises during, 57; global, 11; Iber on, 172–73. See also peaceful coexistence Colorado River, salinity of, 144, 156, 217–19, 238 Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (conasupo ), 228 Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (concamin ), 212 Confederación de los Trabajadores de América Latina (ctal ), 102, 301n35. See also Lombardo Toledano, Vicente Confederación de Trabajadores de México (ctm ), 13, 301n35 Confederación Nacional Campesino (cnc ), 187 Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-­Aligned Countries (Belgrade, 1961), 132–36. See also Non-­Aligned Movement Conference on the Prob­lems of Economic Development (Cairo, 1962), 157–60. See also Cairo Declaration Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina (Havana, 1966). See Tricontinental Conference Congress of Cultural Freedom, 342n34 Consejo Nacional Estudiantil de Solidaridad con el Pueblo de Guatemala, 14 Corona del Rosal, Alfonso, 93–94 corridos (folk ballads), 276, 288, 368n111 Cortázar, Julio, 340n19 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (comecon ), 294 counterculture, 3, 6, 182–83, 186, 252, 284, 345n75, 369n132 Couve de Murville, Maurice, 212 Covarrubias, Ana, 319n22 Cuadernos Americanos (magazine), 306n74 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 180–81, 198, 205, 350n28 Cuban Revolution, 4, 77–79; agrarian reform ­after, 37–41, 92; Lázaro 392   —   Index

Cárdenas and, 27–29, 37–41, 39f; Fuentes and, 163; López Mateos and, 6–7, 30–31, 38, 43–44, 50–51, 95–97; Mexican Revolution and, 29–31; Mexican workers’ protest of, 32–38; Sartre on, 31 Cubela, Rolando, 39f Cuevas, José Luis, 184, 283, 369n135 Cultura en México, La (magazine), 195, 279–82; López Mateos’s support for, 192, 347nn109–10 cultural imperialism, 184, 185 Cupatitzio hydroelectric proj­ect, 186, 187 Czecho­slo­va­kia, 77, 211, 313n32; denuclearization of, 351n29; Lázaro Cárdenas’s trip to, 27; Soviet invasion of, 266, 346n83 Dalton, Margarita, 183, 345n76 Davidson, Carolyne, 368n112 Day in April (usia film), 278 Dean, James, 61, 86–87 decolonization, 29, 80–81, 108–9 de Gaulle, Charles, 19, 213, 273; Dixon on, 353n60; Mexican visit of, 197, 229–34, 231f, 232f, 356nn112–13; nato and, 148, 215, 233, 277, 368n112; on nonalignment, 286; recognition of China by, 227, 228; “Third Way” of, 213, 231, 276; unam speech of, 232, 357n116 de Guzmán, Daniel, 342n32 del Mazo, Alfredo, 190 del Río, Eduardo “Rius,” 185, 306n72, 367n92; on Castillo, 365n70; on Castro, 346n83; on Tricontinental Conference, 265–66 Demo­cratic Republic of the Congo, 108, 264, 289 Demo­crats Abroad (organ­ization), 173 Departamento General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales. See Dirección de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales Destiny of Man (Soviet film), 59 Díaz, Porfirio, 47, 103

Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 10, 19, 163, 190–94; Ciudad Madera barracks attack and, 196, 278; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 204; election of, 196, 226; intelligent­sia and, 6, 19, 278–81, 283, 287; Johnson and, 272, 274f, 275f, 276; López Mateos and, 279–80; Marcué Pardiñas and, 252–53; Non-­ Aligned Movement and, 285–90; Olympics and, 288; Tricontinental Conference and, 247, 265; US relations and, 239–40, 246–47, 250–53, 271 Díaz Ruanova, Oswaldo, 87 Díaz Soto y Gama, Antonio, 188 Dirección de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (dips ), 15, 191 Dirección Federal de Seguridad (dfs ), 15, 42 Dirksen, Everett McKinley, 366n83 Dixon, Pierson, 353n60 Domingo, Alberto, 265, 273 Dominican Republic, 10, 249–51, 250f, 271 Dorticós, Osvaldo, 92–93, 93f, 99–100, 151, 221, 273, 321n52, 322n68; British ambassador on, 322n68; Circle of Mexican Studies and, 321n52; Moreno Sánchez and, 244 Dosman, Edgar, 85, 141, 160 Dulles, Allen, 326n8 Dziedzic, Michael J., 7 Echeverría, Luis, 2, 19–20, 241, 290–95; intelligent­sia and, 20, 295; Soviet trade agreement of, 75–76 Economic Commission for Latin Amer­ i­ca (ecla ), 64, 85, 234–35, 251. See also Prebisch, Raúl Egypt, 82, 111, 112, 115, 285, 351n29, 352n42. See also United Arab Republic Eisenhower, Dwight D., 57–58; Latin American tour of, 320n24; López Mateos and, 48–50, 85, 310nn129–30 Elsebai, Yusef, 254 Encina, Dionisio, 338n3

Engels, Friedrich, 12 espectador, el (magazine), 35–37, 86–87, 321n40; on Lázaro Cárdenas, 41, 42f; on Cold War, 58; on Cuban Revolution, 37–38; “diccionario polítco” in, 36–37, 306n71; distribution of, 37; Excélsior and, 92; Fuentes and, 165; Guevara interview of, 90; on López Mateos, 51, 81; Política and, 88–90; shutdown of, 90; Siempre! and, 35, 37 Espín, Vilma, 124–25 Estrada Doctrine, 30 Eu­ro­pean Economic Community (eec ), 85, 211, 212, 294, 357n117, 371n27 Excélsior, 31, 136, 270; el espectador and, 92; on López Mateos’s US visit, 49, 52; Poniatowska at, 346n84; on Soviet Exhibition of 1959, 67 exceptionalism, Mexican, 103, 271 Fabela, Isadora, 354n77 Fanon, Frantz, 183 Fernández, Emilio “El Indio,” 65f, 65–66, 315n58 Flores Olea, Víctor, 165, 281; el especta­ dor and, 35, 51; Política and, 179, 186 Ford, Gerald, 293–94 France, 24, 27, 94, 345n71, 351n29, 353n60, 356n12; Fuentes and, 283, 290; ­grand strategy of, 213, 277, 368n112; Mexican economic relations with, 17, 212, 286, 357n117, 370n5; nato Experts Group and, 148–49, 333n26; Olympic Games and, 225; student protests in, 283, 288 Franco, Jean, 183, 295 Franco Bahamonde, Francisco, 248 Frazão, Sérgio Armando, 244 Freeman, Fulton, 237–38, 247–49, 251, 270 ­free speech. See press freedom Frei Montalva, Eduardo, 367n100 Frente Cívico Mexicano de Afirmación Revolucionaria, 130, 136, 186. See also Alemán, Miguel Frente de Acción Popu­lar (frap ) (Chile), 363n47 Index   —   393

Frente de Liberación Nacional (fln ) (Venezuela), 364n47 Frente Electoral del Pueblo (fep ), 190, 193, 344n68, 365n68 Frente Izquierda de Liberación (fidel ) (Uruguay), 363n47 Frente Popu­lar. See Popu­lar Front Freyre, Rafael, 44–45, 45f, 188–89, 189f, 308n109, 349n8 Friedman, Jeremy, 181, 260 Frondizi, Arturo, 338n87 Fuentes, Carlos, 6, 157, 163–74, 338nn2–3; on Alemán, 186; on Alliance for Pro­ gress, 170–72; Brandt and, 164–65, 168–69, 171, 340nn20–21, 341n27, 343n41; Burdick and, 341n26; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 51, 167, 172, 340n21; Communist Party and, 269, 342n32, 342n37; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 180–81; Cuban Revolution and, 163, 165–66, 168–69, 174, 341n29; Díaz Ordaz and, 281; Echeverría and, 290–91, 295; at el espectador, 35, 51, 165–66, 195; Flores Olea and, 165, 281; on ­free speech, 183; Mann and, 170–74, 238; C. Wright Mills and, 171, 195, 341n29; mln and, 18, 163–68, 171; on nonalignment, 133, 137, 164–65; Paz and, 340n19; Política and, 181, 194–95, 252, 339n9; Roo­se­velt and, 167–68, 249–50; Siempre! and, 173–74, 181, 186, 195, 204, 339n9; sre and, 166–67, 309n125, 339n11, 339n13; Tannenbaum and, 168, 173, 174, 339n17, 342nn37–38; on youth movement, 247, 283 Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (far ) (Guatemala), 363n47 Fulbright, J. William, 104 Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, 73 Fursenko, Aleksandr, 55, 58, 91 Fuson, James, 99 Galán, Víctor Rico, 72–73, 191, 215, 272, 316n87, 365n68 Gallardo Moreno, Juan, 104 394   —   Index

Gámiz García, Arturo, 348n123. See also 23rd of September Communist League Gandhi, Indira, 134 García Márquez, Gabriel, 340n19 García Robles, Alfonso, 205, 351n34 García Terrés, Jaime, 36, 281; on Lázaro Cárdenas, 41; at el espectador, 35 Garland Mahler, Anne, 362n30 Garran, Peter, 206, 209, 229 Gauk, Alexander, 59 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (gatt ), 319n20 Germany, 213, 326n6; Berlin Crisis and, 57, 80; López Mateos’s visit to, 212, 315n37; Mexican economic relations with, 17, 212, 309n118; student protests in 1968 and, 288; Vietnam War and, 262 Gettig, Eric, 203, 241–42 Ghanna, 261, 326n13, 363n47 Ginsberg, Allen, 345n81 Gómez Ramírez, Pablo, 348n123 González, Fredy, 227, 356n109 González Casanova, Pablo, 120 González de Bustamante, Celeste, 65 González Pedrero, Enrique, 35, 348n119 Good Neighbor Policy: anti-­ Americanism in Mexico and, 97–100, 128, 249–50, 277–78; Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and, 14; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 37, 40, 167, 264; “death” of, 8, 14, 37, 297; distinctiveness to Mexico of, 9, 49, 51–52, 240, 246, 249, 296; Eisenhower and, 22, 48–49, 103–5, 140; Ford and, 294; Fuentes and, 167, 170–71, 249; Johnson and, 49, 227, 238, 240, 249–53, 269–78; Kennedy and, 141–42, 154–56, 218; Mann and, 142–43, 293–94; Nixon and, 293; origins of, 8, 140, 167, 249; Soviet appropriation of, 77, 78; as strategic discourse, 8–10, 46–47, 217, 249, 296; Trump and, 297 Goodwin, Richard, 143, 144, 151, 170–74 Gordon, Leonard, 367n90 Gordon, Lincoln, 273

Gortari, Elí de, 120 Gosse, Van, 12, 32 Goulart, João, 237, 344n53, 358n134 Gowran, Clay, 97–98 ­Great Britain, 28, 213, 366n83; denuclearization and, 351n29; Mexican diplomatic relations with, 103, 206, 324n103, 352n42, 361n17; Mexican economic relations with, 17, 47 Group of 77 (g -­77), 160, 212, 236, 292–93. See also United Nations Conference on Trade and Economic Development Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 8, 218, 300n20 Guatemala, 156; Díaz Ordaz and, 361n17, 368n119; far of, 363n47; Freyre on, 308n109; US intervention in, 8, 13–14, 39 Guerra Montemayor, Ramón, 43, 308n100 Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” 183, 282, 283, 287–88, 317n102; death of, 254; del Río and, 346n83; el espectador interview of, 90; Goodwin and, 171; as “heroic guerrilla,” 73, 247, 254, 255f; Quadros and, 330n84; at unctad , 235 Guillén, Nicolás, 124 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 242–43 Gutiérrez Roldán, Pascual, 73–74 Haiti, 249, 351n33 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 114 Harmer, Tanya, 7, 293 Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis, 147, 333n28, 334n37 Havana Declaration: of 1960, 101–2, 324n97; of 1962, 180, 196, 254 Henderson, Ernest, 267, 366n77 Henríquez Guzmán, Miguel, 12–13, 137 Hernández, Amalia, 48. See also Ballet Folklórico de México Hernández Rodríguez, Rogelio, 23, 325n118 Herter, Christian, 103 Hickenlooper Amendment, 149 Hill, Robert C., 21, 84, 104–5

Ho Chi Minh, 263, 266 Holiday (magazine), 168–70, 174 Holiday on Ice tour, 59, 313n26 homo­sexuality, 44, 184, 282–83, 309n110 humanism, socialist, 12, 72–73, 163–66, 183 Hungary, 72, 249, 317n107 Iber, Patrick, 72, 88; on Cold War politics, 172–73; on wpc , 120 import substitution industrialization (isi ), 23, 199, 315n68, 329n65. See also Economic Commission for Latin Amer­ic ­ a “incompatibility doctrine,” 150, 180, 216, 335n45, 353n68 India, 111, 187, 200f, 202, 285. See also Nehru, Jawaharlal Indonesia, 111, 187; Bandung conference of 1965 and, 220, 260; López Mateos’s visit to, 199–203; Mexican trade with, 200f; Sukarno’s alignment with China and, 242–43. See also Bandung conference of 1955 Instituto Cultural México-­ Norteamericano, 128 Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (inah ), 66 Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 71, 102 Inter-­American Development Bank, 357n117 International Conference of Underdeveloped Nations (Havana, 1960), 113–14 International Good Neighbor Council, 330n75 International Monetary Fund (imf ), 85 Israel, 289, 291, 352n42 Italy, 17, 27, 352n42; denuclearization and, 351n29; Fuentes and, 339n11; nato Experts Group and, 333n26, 335n41 Japan, 16, 17, 23, 24, 28, 291, 370n18; Mexican trade with, 199, 200f, 207f, 309n118; nonalignment and, 285 Jara, Heriberto, 302n40, 315n59, 365n68 Index   —   395

Jaramillo, Rubén, 184, 279, 288, 344n54; assassination of, 90, 179 Jodorowsky, Alejandro, 182, 185, 345n71 Johnson, Lyndon B., 226–27; Carrillo Flores and, 360n6, 366n82; Díaz Ordaz and, 240, 253; Dominican Republic invasion of, 249–51; López Mateos and, 227, 228; Mexican trip of, 19, 49, 156, 270–78, 274–75f; nonalignment and, 226, 242 Juárez, Benito, 94, 103, 208, 222, 266; Lincoln and, 104–5, 272, 367n89; protest at monument to, 250f; statue of, 367n91 Jueves de Excélsior (magazine), 44, 45f; on Lázaro Cárdenas, 189f; Política and, 89. See also Freyre, Rafael Kabalevsky, Dmitri, 59 Keller, Renata, 87, 88, 141, 338n1 Kennedy, John F., 140–43; assassination of, 226, 360n6, 368n11; Chamizal border dispute and, 217, 218; Mann and, 271; Mexican visit of, 18, 90, 151–57, 153f, 154f, 169, 221–22, 269, 337nn71–72; nonalignment and, 242, 350n12 Kennedy, Paul, 43 Khrushchev, Nikita, 12, 14, 225, 268, 324n103; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 27; Castro and, 78, 91, 95, 108, 181; China trip by, 58; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 180–81; Nixon and, 57, 116; on peaceful coexistence, 16, 50, 56–58; post-­Stalinist reforms of, 72; US visit by, 46–47, 57–58, 108 Kissinger, Henry, 293 Klimke, Martin, 11 Krauze, Enrique, 3–4, 252, 290, 308n100 Kubitschek, Juscelino, 81, 85–86 Kuchel, Thomas H., 104–5, 366n83 Lambe, Jennifer, 309n110 Latin American Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation, and Peace (Mexico City, 1961), 109, 118–29, 175, 329n67; 396   —   Index

financing of, 119, 328n37; follow-up conference of, 257, 259, 362n35; López Mateos and, 119, 126–28; origins of, 42, 119–21; promotional materials for, 121–24, 123f; Tricontinental Conference and, 255, 257–58, 264; youth participation in, 124, 125f, 129 Latin American ­Free Trade Agreement (lafta ), 81, 84–85, 319n20. See also Montevideo Treaty Laviada, Iñigo, 337n72 Lee, Christopher, 82 Lenin Peace Prize, 27, 303n19. See also Stalin Peace Prize Leonov, Nikolai, 65f Levinson, Jerome, 367n100 Lewis, Oscar, 281 Liga Leninista Espartaco, 348n124 Lincoln, Abraham, 278; Juárez and, 104–5, 272, 367n90; monument to, 104–5, 269–74, 274–75f, 366nn82–83; student protests and, 250f Loaeza, Soledad, 24, 250–51, 253, 339n12, 356n112 Lombardo Toledano, Vicente, 13, 34; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 175–76; ­career of, 301n35; on Khrushchev, 58; Marcué Pardiñas and, 89, 175; on mln , 174–75; “Pancho Villa Brigades” of, 128; Política and, 88; pp and, 13, 34, 88, 102, 175, 301n35; Workers’ University and, 43 Lomé Agreement, 371n27 López Cámara, Francisco, 35 López Mateos, Adolfo, 63, 247–54, 279–80; Asian tour of, 199–203; Bandung conference and, 111–12; Belgrade conference and, 134; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 5–6, 24, 25, 27, 29, 40–41, 53, 66, 79, 107f, 125–29, 188, 303n15, 331n96, 350n28; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 180–81, 198, 350n28; Cuban Revolution and, 6–7, 30–31, 38, 43–44, 50–51, 95–97; death of, 3; de Gaulle’s visit with, 229–34, 232f; Eisenhower and, 48–50, 85, 310nn129–30; election

of, 21, 23, 196, 226; Eu­ro­pean tour of, 206–13; intelligent­sia and, 6, 34–35, 81, 86–87, 163, 167, 192, 279, 306n72; internationalism of, 81–86, 89, 219, 222–23, 226, 250; Johnson and, 227, 228; Kubitschek and, 81, 85–86; Mexican Revolution and, 50, 51, 83, 92; mln and, 137–38, 162, 163; Nehru’s Mexican visit and, 135–36; Nobel Peace Prize and, 219, 347n104, 354n77; Non-­Aligned Movement and, 82, 115, 131–33, 187, 200–203, 208–11, 221–25, 240–45; Política and, 88–89; railway workers’ strike and, 33–34, 53; Rusk and, 246–47, 253; Siempre! and, 206, 207f; Siqueiros and, 279, 319n10; South American tour of, 81, 83–86; at Soviet Exhibition of 1959, 67–70, 69f; Soviet Union and, 53–54; tourism industry and, 47–49, 52, 98–99, 267; un address by, 50–51, 64, 83–84; US view of, 7–8, 107, 239–40; US visit of, 45–54 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 297 Loveman, Brian, 300n20 Lumen, Enrique, 127–28, 329n67 Luna Arroyo, Antonio, 80 Lunik spacecraft, 67, 70, 71f, 73, 79, 315n64 Lüthi, Lorenz, 110–11 Madero, Ernesto, 27, 359n146 Mad Magazine, 282, 345n80 Maldonado, Braulio, 188 Malinowski, Wladek, 235 Mann, Thomas, 85, 130, 132, 135, 141–47, 157; Alliance for Pro­gress and, 143, 145–46, 238, 273, 332n14; on Chamizal border dispute, 217–18; on Communism, 341n27, 342n37; Ford and, 294; Fuentes and, 170–74, 238; Kennedy and, 271; on Mexican elections, 217, 219; Schlesinger on, 353n68 Mansfield, Mike, 150 Manzhulo, Aleksei N., 62 Mao Zedong, 169, 266, 291, 341n24; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 28; Cultural

Revolution of, 183, 271, 286; “­Great Leap Forward” of, 28; Khrushchev and, 58; Mexican Communists and, 181–82 Maples Arce, Manuel, 110 Marcué Pardiñas, Manuel, 88, 179, 306n74, 321n41; arrest of, 192; cem and, 120; on Cuban Missile Crisis, 181; Díaz Ordaz and, 252–53; Lombardo Toledano and, 89, 175; López Mateos and, 90, 190–91, 347n104; on peaceful coexistence, 181; Semo on, 320n35; as vanguard intellectual, 183 Margain, Hugo, 267, 269 Mariscal Barroso, Nicolás, 358n137 Martindale, Robert, 59, 86 Martínez Manatou, Emilio, 280 Marwick, Arthur, 10 Maximilian, archduke of Austria, 153, 353n60, 356n113 McAuliffe, Eugene, 332n6, 333n18 McCarran-­Walter Immigration Act, 172, 173, 342n37 McCarthyism, 282 Messersmith, George, 46, 309n111 Mexican-­American War (1846–48), 8, 218, 300n20 “Mexican Demo­cratic Thesis,” 83–84, 127, 147 Mexican Revolution, 213; agrarian reform ­after, 37–39, 164; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 107; Cuban Revolution and, 29–31; López Mateos and, 50, 83, 92; nostalgia for, 86–87 Mexican-­Russian Cultural Institute (Mexico City), 76 Mexican Society for Friendship with ­People’s China, 43, 308n102 Mexico: A Lesson in Latin (tv special, 1966), 268–69 México en la Cultura. See Cultura en México, La “Mexico Week” (1966), 267–68 Mikoyan, Anastas, 62–69, 65f, 69f, 73–75, 77–78, 91 Mikoyan, Sergei, 63 Miller, Nicola, 62 Index   —   397

Millones, Luis, 309n110 Mills, C. Wright, 12, 171, 185, 195, 281, 341n29 Moncada Barracks attack (1953), 27, 39, 196 Monroe Doctrine, 7, 114 Monsiváis, Carlos, 13; “cosmopolitan” left and, 183–85, 195, 280, 345n80; at Harvard, 369n132; homo­sexuality of, 184, 282–83, 309n110; “vanguardist” left and, 252, 282–83 Montevideo Treaty (1960), 84, 318n4, 319n18, 319n20. See also Latin American F ­ ree Trade Agreement Monthly Review, 170, 174 “monument diplomacy,” 104–5, 270–78, 274–75f Monument to In­de­pen­dence, 63, 77, 78f, 155 Monument to the Revolution, 97, 98f, 155 Morales-­Carrión, Arturo, 353n68 Morelos, José María, 94 Moreno Sánchez, Manuel, 74, 96, 215, 228f, 236, 241, 244, 359n146 Morley, Jefferson, 79 Movimiento de Acción Revolucionario (mar ), 348n124 Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (mln ), 2; Belgrade conference and, 133, 136; Cárdenas and, 4–5, 90, 137–38, 175–76; decline of, 252, 259, 286–87; establishment of, 109; first national conference of, 192–93; Frente Cívico and, 130; Frente Electoral del Pueblo and, 190, 192–93, 344n68, 365n68; Fuentes and, 18, 163–68, 171; Lombardo Toledano and, 175; López Mateos and, 137–38, 162, 163; Política and, 179; as po­liti­cal party, 187, 190, 193; pps and, 175–78, 177f; repression of, 15, 138, 162–63, 166, 179, 189–92, 279; transformation into po­liti­cal party, 187, 190, 193; Tricontinental Conference and, 265, 363n47; wpc and, 119–22, 123f, 173, 178 Movimiento Mexicano por la Paz, 14, 42, 121 398   —   Index

“Movimiento Pánico,” 182. See also Jodorowsky, Alejandro muralism, 17, 60, 313n27, 369n133 Museum of Anthropology, 222, 238, 366n84 Naftali, Timothy, 55, 58, 91 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 82, 117, 118f, 220, 242, 326n2, 359n141 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 118f, 134–35, 135f, 137, 146–47, 151, 221; death of, 237; on peaceful coexistence, 220; Sukarno and, 242 Netherlands, 212–13 neutralism, 18, 84, 109, 115, 134, 141, 145–48, 150, 158, 200–202, 326n3, 334n37, 335n47; Dulles on, 326n8; Marcué Pardiñas on, 195; nato and, 148–49 New International Economic Order (nieo ), 293 New Left, 2, 36; Cuban Revolution and, 32, 38, 102, 123, 247, 252, 266; dress code of, 32, 38, 122, 124, 288, 329n54, 339n9; Fuentes and, 163–68, 174, 339n9; C. Wright Mills and, 12, 171, 195; Monsiváis and, 13, 184–85; as “movement of movements,” 12; “new humanism” and, 72, 182; Old Left vs., 12, 15, 36, 72, 122–24, 178, 247, 266; “reverence” vs. “irreverence” in, 6, 32, 36–37, 41, 90, 124, 166, 183–86, 195, 247, 288, 306n72; “sensibility” of, 12, 36, 166, 182–86; vanguardist vs. cosmopolitan, 18, 166, 168, 182–86, 192–96, 247 Nixon, Richard, 55, 291; Khrushchev and, 57, 116; Latin American tour of, 63, 82–83; trade tariffs and, 293 Nkrumah, Kwame, 263, 326n2, 326n13; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 363n41 Nolan, Mary, 11 Non-­Aligned Movement (nam ), 8, 19, 108–9, 131–36, 200–205, 240–41; aapso and, 21, 178, 212, 220; as anti-­Western alliance, 290; Belgrade

conference and, 132–36; Bolivia and, 157, 161, 201, 202–21, 224, 241, 330n85, 354n80, 358n140, 370n10; Brazil and, 131–32, 237, 241, 244, 330n84, 358n140, 359n145, 370n10; Chile and, 157, 161, 201, 220–21, 224, 241, 358n140, 370n10; composition of, 224, 359n141; de Gaulle and, 286; Díaz-­Ordaz and, 285–87; Ec­ua­dor and, 157, 330n85, 358n140; failure of, 243–44, 247; Fuentes and, 133, 164–65; Jamaica and, 358n149, 370n10; López Mateos and, 82, 115, 131–34, 187, 200–203, 208–11, 221–25, 240–45; nato and, 147–49, 334n37; Peru and, 201, 370n10; princi­ples of, 111, 133, 243; Third World proj­ect and, 253; Tricontinental Conference and, 255–56; unctad and, 234–36; Uruguay and, 358n140. See also Third Worldism Nonoalco-­Tlatelolco housing complex, 246, 289 North American ­Free Trade Agreement (nafta ), 297 North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization (nato ), 147–50, 334n37; de Gaulle on, 233, 277, 368n112; Experts Group of, 147–49, 161, 334n37, 334n40 nuclear weapons, 205, 291; Committee of 18 and, 205, 351n29; Khrushchev on, 57–58; López Mateos on, 50–51; Rapaki Plan and, 205; test ban treaty on, 205, 220, 242; Tlatelolco Treaty on, 205–6, 292, 351nn32–35, 368n119. See also Cuban Missile Crisis Obolensky, Ivan, 340n20 Office of Regional American Affairs, 331n6 Office of the Coordinator of Inter-­ American Affairs (ociaa ), 9, 301n21 Olivares, Jorge, 309n110 Olympic Games (1968), 222, 225, 267, 288–89 Onda, La, 182. See also counterculture Orfila Reynal, Arnaldo, 281

Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina (ospaaal ), 263 Organización Latinoamericana de Solidaridad (olas ), 265 Organ­ization of African Unity (oas ), 263, 359n142 Organ­ization of American States (oas ), 13, 83, 101; Carrillo Flores on, 361n15; Charter of, 201; Cuban expulsion from, 179–80; Dominican Republic intervention and, 251; López Mateos’s speech at, 51; nonaligned countries and, 113. See also Havana Declaration; Punta del Este Conference Organ­ization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec ), 19–20, 291, 370n14 Orlando, José M., 221 Ortega y Gasset, José, 305n64 Ortiz Mena, Antonio, 190 Ortiz Tejeda, Carlos, 97–98 Osborne, Melville, 144, 331n6, 333n18 Padilla Nervo, Luis, 166–67, 339nn12–13 Páges Llergo, José, 140–41, 152–53, 173, 277 Palestinian Liberation Organ­ization (plo ), 289–90 Pan-­Africanism, 112. See also Nkrumah, Kwame Pan-­Americanism, 7, 9, 18, 22, 31, 49–50, 77, 85, 107, 129, 131, 155, 201; anti-­Americanism and, 82, 91, 168, 275; Castro and, 84, 114; Kennedy on, 140; Latinamericanism vs., 84, 92, 127; nonalignment and, 147, 216, 221, 224 Panchsheel (“coexistence”), 326n8 Partido Acción Nacional (pan ), 177, 352n58, 370n11 Partido Comunista Mexicano (pcm ), 16–17, 163, 348n124; Chinese influence on, 181–82; Fuentes and, 163–64, 172–73, 269, 342n32; stfrm and, 305n57 Index   —   399

Partido Obrero Campesino Mexicano (pocm ), 34, 305n57 Partido Popu­lar (pp ), 13, 88, 175, 301n35; cardenismo and, 34; Communist Party and, 16; founding of, 102; Universidad Obrera de México and, 102 Partido Popu­lar Socialista (pps ), 102, 128, 163, 348n123; mln and, 174–78, 177f Partido Revolucionario Institucional (pri ), 3, 15, 21, 163, 283, 290, 370n11; anti-­Americanism within, 46; anti-­ Communism of, 60; Díaz Ordaz and, 226; el espectador on, 36–37; López Mateos and, 3–6, 21, 23, 136–37, 279, 350n28; Mikoyan on, 74; Octavio Paz on, 87; “presidentialism” and, 15, 89, 130, 320n36, 321n41 Patolichev, N. S., 75 Patrice Lumumba University (Moscow), 348n124 Paz, Octavio, 241, 340n19; on pri , 87; Tito and, 224, 354n80 Paz Estenssoro, Víctor, 221 Peabody, Endicott, 365n76 Peace Corps, 337n69, 343n41 peace dove, 116, 122, 123f, 135, 329n50; Kennedy’s Mexican visit and, 152; López Mateos and, 206, 214f, 214–15; Olympics use of, 225. See also World Peace Council peaceful coexistence, 56–58, 201–2; China on, 178–79, 220, 262; emancipation vs., 123–24; Marcué Pardiñas on, 181; Nehru on, 220; Panchsheel and, 326n8. See also Sino-­Soviet split Pellicer de Brody, Olga, 6, 325n121, 338n1 Pensado, Jaime, 5, 306n74 Perera Mena, Alfredo, 75 Peru, 26–27, 81, 292, 318n4, 319n18; anti-­Communist propaganda of, 335n41; nonalignment of, 201, 370n10 Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex): Dutch investment in, 213; nationalization of oil companies and, 325n116, 357n116; 400   —   Index

and, 291, 370n14; Soviet Union and, 73–74; Tito’s visit to, 222 Pettinà, Vanni, 64, 74, 75, 109, 132 Piazza, Luis Guillermo, 283 Picasso, Pablo, 122, 225, 329n50 Pierpoint, Robert, 275 Plen, Jaime, 337n72 Pleshakovrapa, Constantine, 58 Poland, 77, 313n32, 357n122; López ­Mateos’s visit to, 208–10, 216; Mexican congressional del­eg ­ a­tion to, 211; Rapacki Plan and, 205, 351n29 Política (magazine), 107f, 124, 181; covers of, 320n36, 327n29; creation of, 87–91, 306n74; Cuban financial support for, 320n31; el espectador versus, 87–89, 321n40; Fuentes and, 194, 252, 339n9; Lombardo Toledano and, 175; mln and, 179; on Nehru’s Mexican visit, 135–37; paper supplier of, 325n117; “presidentialism” and, 89, 90, 320n36, 321n41; on Tricontinental Conference, 254, 264 Poniatowska, Elena, 185–86, 195, 339n17, 346n84 Popu­lar Front, 124, 163, 193, 259, 264–65 Prashad, Vijay, 7, 236 Prebisch, Raúl, 85, 160, 331n2; resignation of, 338n87; unctad and, 234–36. See also Economic Commission for Latin Amer­i­ca Prensa Latina news agency, 88, 89 press freedom, 36, 90, 130, 281, 325n117, 329n67, 330n67 Prieto, Luis, 179 Pro­gress through Freedom (usia film), 156 Punta del Este Conference (Uruguay, 1962), 131, 171, 179–80, 216, 330n84, 337n78, 367n101 opec

Quadros, Jânio, 131–32, 320n25; resignation of, 330n84 Quezada, Abel, 306n72, 349n8 Quiñones, Horacio, 127, 329n66

railway workers. See Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la República Mexicana Raimondi, Luigi, 152 Rakove, Robert, 198, 200, 240, 243, 358n140 Ramírez del Sordo, Gonzalo, 66 Ramírez Vásquez, Pedro, 66, 246 Rapacki, Adam, 205 Rashidov, Sharaf, 262 rebeldismo sin causa, 61, 86–87 Reid, David, 219 Remisov, Nikolai, 34 Revista Mexicana de Literatura, 165 Richardson, William, 313n27 Rico Galán, Víctor, 215; arrest of, 191, 272; on Johnson’s Mexican visit, 272–73; on Soviet socialism, 72–73, 316n87; Tricontinental Conference and, 365n68 Rio Balsas Commission, 136, 265 Rio de Janeiro Treaty (1947), 95, 147, 201, 216, 249, 330n90 “Rius.” See del Río, Eduardo Rivera, Diego, 17, 346n84 Roa, Raúl, 113 rock ­music, 12, 61, 87, 182, 184, 282, 288 Roo­se­velt, Franklin, 8–9, 37, 140; Lázaro Cárdenas on, 40, 307n86; Fuentes and, 167–68; Haiti and, 249. See also Good Neighbor Policy Rosales, José Natividad, 30, 175, 180, 342n38, 344n60 Rosenzweig-­Díaz, Alfonso de, 26, 315n66, 327n26 Rostow, Walt, 291, 349n4 Rothwell, Matthew, 181–82 Rovere, Richard H., 114–15, 327nn25–28 Rubottom, Roy, 24, 29, 46, 103, 143 Ruiseco Avellaneda, Alfredo, 197 Ruiz Cortines, Adolfo, 13, 22, 24, 306n71, 331n95, 350n28 Rumsfeld, Donald, 270 Rusk, Dean, 142, 145, 147, 246, 270–71, 333n26; Díaz Ordaz and, 246–47, 253;

Johnson and, 273; López Mateos and, 227; Rumsfeld and, 270 Rus­sian Piatnitiskiy Folk Choir, 58–60 Saint-­Gaudens, Augustus, 270, 366n83 Salinas Lozano, Raúl, 357n124; at Chinese trade fair, 227, 356n107; Mann on, 342n37; McCarran-­Walter Immigration Act and, 342n37; Soviet trade and, 64, 69f, 75, 317n108; at unctad , 235 Sánchez-­Navarro, Juan, 212, 325n121 Sánchez Piedras, Emilio, 96, 100 San José Declaration (1960), 101, 324n97 Santamaría, Haydée, 365n67 Sartre, Jean-­Paul, 31 Sayre, Robert, 216, 333n18 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 173, 335n46, 353n68 Sebai, Youssef El, 259 Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (sre ), 3, 25, 27, 63; Cairo Conference and, 158–59; Division of Cultural Affairs and, 309n125, 339n11; Fuentes and, 166–67, 309n125, 339n11, 339n13; global pivot and, 63, 293; López Mateos and, 112; new building of, 246; La nueva política internacional de México of, 80, 210; Soviet relations with, 62–63, 294, 317n108; “Spirit of Bandung” and, 109–13, 132–33, 359n146 Semo, Enrique, 215, 320n35, 329n54 Servín, Elisa, 60, 168 Sevilla, Carlos, 61–62 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 59 Siempre! (magazine), 22, 30, 130, 181; covers of, 116–18, 117f, 118f, 176–78, 177f, 193, 206, 207f; el espectador and, 35, 37; Fuentes and, 173–74, 204, 339n9; on Mexican exceptionalism, 103; on Nehru’s Mexican visit, 135; Política and, 88, 89. See also Cultura en México Siglo XXI press, 281, 369n123 Silva Herzog, Jesús, 120, 306n74 Index   —   401

Sinarquista movement, 222 Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la República Mexicana (stfrm ), 33–34, 53, 305n57; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 28–29, 43, 53, 308n101 Sino-­Soviet split, 2, 18, 19, 58, 178–79, 198, 201, 219, 237, 247; Partido Comunista Mexicano and, 181–82, 344n68; Tricontinental Conference and, 254–63 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 17, 60, 124, 279; arrest of, 179, 319n10 Smith, Benjamin, 321n41 socialist humanism, 12, 72–73, 163–66, 183 Somoza Debayle, Luis, 43, 308n99 Soviet Exhibition (Mexico City, 1959), 53–56, 62–63, 66–73, 316nn86–87; anti-­Communist protests at, 72; opening of, 66–68, 68f, 69f, 71f; Rico Galán on, 72–73. See also Mikoyan, Anastas Soviet Exhibition (Rio de Janeiro, 1962), 75 Soviet Exhibition of Science, Technology and Culture (New York, 1959), 57 Soviet Union (ussr ), 120, 258; Lázaro Cárdenas’s visit to, 24–26, 53–54; China split with, 28, 178–79, 182, 198, 219; cultural exchanges of, 58–62, 76–77; Czecho­slo­va­kia and, 266, 346n83; Hungary and, 72, 249; Mexican embassy of, 238, 313n32; Mexican trade with, 26, 75–76, 76f, 200f, 294, 317n97, 317n108; Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with, 205, 220; Strategic Arms Limitations Talks with, 291. See also Sino-­Soviet split Spenser, Daniela, 175 Sputniks (rock band), 61 Sputnik spacecraft, 70, 71f, 73, 315n64 Sri Lanka, 77 Stalinism, 36, 72; Khrushchev’s critique of, 12, 14, 16 Stalin Peace Prize, 14, 26, 302n40, 303n19, 315n59. See also Lenin Prize 402   —   Index

Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (salt ), 291 Stridentist Movement, 110 Striganov, S. R., 63 student movement of 1968 (Mexico), 2–3, 6, 138, 247, 255, 278, 283–89, 295, 299n3 Sukarno, 82, 117, 118f, 220, 224, 326n2; China and, 243–44; coup against, 260; radicalization of, 242 Suri, Jeremi, 282 Szulc, Tad, 38, 341n27 Taiwan, 28, 159, 243, 356n109, 356n113, 360n153; Cuba and, 324n97; as un member, 111, 291 Taller de Gráfica Popu­lar (tgp ), 121–22 Talleres Gráficos de México, 89–90, 306n74 Tamayo, Jorge, 42–43, 121, 191, 321n52 Tannenbaum, Frank, 168, 173, 174, 342nn37–38 Tanzania, 258–59 Tello Baurraud, Manuel, 101, 113, 158, 167, 327n26, 352n51, 359n146; aapc and, 112; Alliance for Pro­gress and, 159; ­career of, 63, 237, 293, 299n4; China Trade Exposition and, 356n107; Cuban Missile Crisis and, 350n24; Cuba’s expulsion from oas and, 180, 335n45; Mann and, 144; nuclear weapons and, 205; Soviet Exhibition of 1959 and, 62, 63; on Tito’s visit, 222 Tello Macías, Manuel, 339n11, 341n27 Teotihuacan, 66, 222, 223f “Third Way,” 213, 231, 286. See also de Gaulle, Charles Third Worldism, 2, 22, 50, 89, 220, 233–36; Mexican student movement of 1968 and, 287; Pan-­Americanism and, 82; as “place” vs. “proj­ect,” 256, 292; as “proj­ect,” 7, 19, 161, 241–43, 253. See also Non-­Aligned Movement Thompson, E. P., 12 Thornton, Christy, 293

Tito, Josip Broz, 19, 108, 220–25; Belgrade conference of, 131–36; Díaz Ordaz and, 285–87; Goulart and, 237; Mexican visit of, 221–24, 229; on nonalignment, 208–9, 224–25, 240–41, 285–89; Octavio Paz and, 354n80; at Teotihuacan, 223; on United Nations, 234; US visit of, 224–25 Tlatelolco housing complex, 246, 289 Tlatelolco massacre (1968), 289, 340n19 Tlatelolco Treaty (1968), 205–6, 292, 351nn32–35, 368n119 Torres, Blanca, 253, 286, 293 tourism industry, 8, 66, 97, 132, 138–39, 217; Alemán and, 136; Ballet Folklórico de México and, 48, 222, 313n25; López Mateos and, 47–49, 52, 98–99, 267; Mann and, 145, 216–17; Summer Olympics and, 222, 267 Tricontinental Conference (Havana, 1966), 2, 244, 247, 254–63; Mexican participation at, 263–66; origins of, 362n34; poster for, 255f 26th of July Movement, 27, 39 23rd of September Communist League (Liga23s), 349n124; origins of, 196, 278 Ugly American, The (Burdick and ­Lederer), 272, 341n26 Unión General de Obreros y Campesinos (ugocm ), 348n123 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (ussr ). See Soviet Union United Arab Republic (uar ), 111, 112, 127, 244, 349n8; Nasser and, 82, 117, 118f, 220, 242, 326n2, 359n141. See also Nasser, Gamal Abdel United Kingdom. See ­Great Britain United Nations, 246, 293; Africa and, 108; China and, 19, 227, 243, 262, 291; Cuba Conference of Underdeveloped Nations and, 113–14; denuclearization and, 205; Echeverría and, 292–93; Khrushchev and, 57; López Mateos and, 47, 50, 63, 64, 83, 143, 166, 209; Non-­Aligned Movement

and, 110–12, 115, 132, 220, 355n91; Taiwan and, 111, 291; Tito and, 234 United Nations Conference on Trade and Economic Development (unctad ): of 1964, 19, 212, 219, 229, 234–36, 243–44; of 1968, 285; of 1971, 292–93 United States Information Agency (usia ), 61, 76, 128, 141, 151, 270, 278, 331n3; films of, 156, 278; usis and, 331n3 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (unam ), 37, 281, 283, 369n125; de Gaulle at, 232, 357n116; C. Wright Mills at, 341n29; Nehru at, 134; Tito at, 134 Universidad Obrera de México (uom ), 102 Urías Horcasitas, Beatriz, 320n34 Urrutia Lleó, Manuel, 92, 321n48 Uruchurtu, Ernesto, 104–5, 270 Uruguay, 286, 319n20; Communist Party of, 17; fidel of, 363n47; Punta del Este Conference, 131, 171, 179–80, 216, 330n84, 367n101; Soviet Union and, 26–27, 313n27 Vallejo, Demetrio, 33, 34, 37, 288, 305n57, 338n3 Vallon, Edwin, 104–5 Vaughan, Mary Kay, 182 Vellasco, Domingos, 121 Venezuela, 128, 156, 304n45, 319n10; Cairo Conference and, 157; Cuba Conference of Underdeveloped Nations and, 327n20; fin of, 364n47; López Mateos’s visit to, 81–84; Nixon’s visit to, 82; Non-­Aligned Movement and, 358n140; Siqueiros and, 319n10; Tricontinental Conference and, 363n47; during World War I, 326n3 Vietnam War, 10, 247–48, 272, 291; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 264; Carrillo Flores on, 368n119; China and, 262; del Río and, 266; Díaz Ordaz and, 2, 251, 271, 280, 287–88, 368n119; Gulf Index   —   403

Vietnam War (continued) of Tonkin Resolution and, 242–43; Non-­Aligned Movement and, 242, 285, 289; United Nations and, 111 Villa, Pancho, 128, 156, 288 Villoro, Luis, 35, 36 Virgin of Guadalupe, 95, 152 Volpi, Jorge, 195, 348n122 Westad, Odd Arne, 11, 57 Woodward, Robert, 145–46 World Affairs Council, 267, 365n76 World Conference on Disarmament and Peace (Moscow, 1962), 175 World Peace Council (wpc ), 4–5, 26, 202, 328n41; aapso and, 256–58, 362n34, 363n37; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 14, 120, 257, 302n40, 363n37; cem and, 42, 121; dove logo of, 122, 225; “Latin American Bandung” conference and, 120–22; Lombardo Toledano and, 302n40, 343n46; mln and, 173, 178, 343n46; origins of, 120, 256 World War I, 326n3

404   —   Index

World War II, 9, 326n3, 349n3 Wu Hsueh-­Chien, 262 Yalta conference (1945), 110 Yugo­slavia, 109, 111, 115, 220–25, 235, 236, 241; Belgrade Conference in, 131–34, 145; Cairo Conference and, 157; Lázaro Cárdenas and, 25; folk ballet of, 317n107; López Mateos’s visit to, 206–9, 216; Mexican congressional del­e­ga­tion to, 211; Mexican trade with, 25, 200f Zabludovsky, Jacobo, 40 Zapata, Emiliano, 156, 288 Zawadski, Aleksander, 210, 213 Zea, Leopoldo, 120, 309n125, 339n11 Zhou Enlai, 119, 360n153 Zócalo, 105; Lázaro Cárdenas in, 28, 129; Cuban protests in, 97–98, 98f, 129; “Declaration of San José” and, 101; de Gaulle’s reception in, 230–31, 231f, 232f; Johnson’s reception in, 272; López Mateos and, 204, 213–15, 214f, 350n28; Tito’s reception in, 222 Zubok, Vladislav, 58

This page intentionally left blank

This page intentionally left blank