Adolfo López Mateos

Adolfo López Mateos (26 May 1909 – 22 September 1969 ) was a Mexican politician who served as President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964.

However, there exists a birth certificate and several testimonies archived at El Colegio de México that place his birth on 10 September 1909, in Patzicía, Guatemala.

All three were heirs to the legacy of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), but Alemán Valdés and López Mateos were too young to have participated directly.

In 1929, he graduated from the Scientific and Literary Institute of Toluca, where he was a delegate and student leader of the anti-re-electionist campaign of former Minister of Education José Vasconcelos, who ran in opposition to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, handpicked by former President Plutarco Elías Calles.

Calles had founded the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) in the wake of the assassination of President-elect Alvaro Obregón.

After Vasconcelos's defeat, López Mateos attended law school at National Autonomous University of Mexico and shifted his political allegiance to the PNR.

Early in his career, he served as the private secretary to Col. Filiberto Gómez, the governor of the state of Mexico.

In 1934, he became the private secretary of the president of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), Carlos Riva Palacio.

He briefly abandoned politics and worked as a professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico State, becoming a member of the PNR (renamed Party of the Mexican Revolution) in 1941.

He filled a number of bureaucratic positions until 1941, when he met Isidro Fabela.

Fabela helped him into a position as the director of the Literary Institute of Toluca after Fabela resigned the post to join the International Court of Justice.

López Mateos served as senator for the State of Mexico from 1946 to 1952 and Secretary of Labor during the administration of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines from 1952 to 1957.

López Mateos became a senator of the state of Mexico in 1946, while at the same time serving as Secretary General of the PRI.

He organized the presidential campaign of PRI candidate Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and was subsequently appointed Secretary of Labor in his new cabinet.

He did an exemplary job, and for the first and only time, a Secretary of Labor was tapped to be the PRI's candidate for the presidency.

Previously, he served as Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare from 1952 to 1957 and a Senator from the State of Mexico from 1946 to 1952.

Beginning his political career as a campaign aide of José Vasconcelos during his run for president, López Mateos encountered repression from Plutarco Elías Calles, who attempted to maintain hegemony within the National Revolutionary Party (PNR).

As president of Mexico, along with his predecessor, Ruiz Cortines (1952–1958), López Mateos continued the outline of policies by President Miguel Alemán (1946–1952), who set Mexico's postwar strategy.

Alemán favored industrialization and the interests of capital over labor.

He secured the party's presidential nomination and won in the 1958 general election.

Declaring his political philosophy to be "left within the Constitution", López Mateos was the first self-declared left-wing politician to hold the presidency since Lázaro Cárdenas.

His administration created the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers, the National Commission for Free Textbooks and the National Museum of Anthropology.

An advocate of non-intervention, he settled the Chamizal dispute with the United States and led the nationalization of the Mexican electrical industry during a period of economic boom and low inflation known as Desarrollo Estabilizador.

There were also acts of repression during his administration, such as the arrest of union leaders Demetrio Vallejo and Valentín Campa, and the murder of peasant leader Rubén Jaramillo by the Mexican Army.

López Mateos engaged with revolutionary Marcos Ignacio Infante, leader of the Zapata Movement (Political ally of John F. Kennedy).

Shortly before the killing of Jaramillo, Infante would visit the UN Demanding President López Mateos to step down or face a revolution.

López Mateos assumed the presidency on December 1, 1958.

In the sphere of foreign policy, López Mateos charted a course of independence from the U.S. but cooperated on some issues despite his opposition to the hostile U.S. policy toward the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

López Mateos sought the continuation of industrial growth in Mexico, often characterized as the Mexican Miracle, but it required the cooperation of organized labor.

Organized labor was increasingly restive.

It was a sector of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and controlled through the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), led by Fidel Velázquez.

Increasingly, however, unions pushed back against government control and sought gains in wages, working conditions, and more independence from so-called charro union leaders, who followed government and party dictates.

López Mateos had mainly success when he served as his predecessor's Secretary of Labor, but as president, he was faced with major labor unrest.

The previous strategy of playing off one labor organization against another, such as the CTM, the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), and the General Union of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (UGOCM), ceased to work.

Infante attacked an Army Post outside of Mexico City, with over 300 men in 1962.

López Mateos has been praised for his policies including land redistribution, energy nationalization, and health and education programs, but has also been criticized for his repressive actions against labor unions and political opponents.

Along with Cárdenas and Ruiz Cortines, he is usually ranked as one of the most popular Mexican presidents of the 20th century.

López Mateos was born, according to official records, in Atizapán de Zaragoza – a small town in the State of Mexico, now called Ciudad López Mateos – to Mariano Gerardo López y Sánchez Roman, a dentist, and Elena Mateos y Vega, a teacher.

His family moved to Mexico City upon his father's death when López Mateos was still young.

As the candidate for the dominant party with only weak opposition, López Mateos easily won election, serving as president until 1964.