Adolfo López Mateos (26 May 1909 – 22 September 1969) was President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Life

López Mateos was born in Atizapán de Zaragoza , a small town in the state of México, though at a young age his family moved to Mexico City upon his father's death. In 1929 he graduated from the Scientific and Literary Institute of Toluca , where he was a delegate and student leader of the Socialist Labor Party. That year he supported the presidential campaign of José Vasconcelos, an opposition candidate, against Pascual Ortiz Rubio. He and his friends were attacked by gunmen supporting Ortiz, and López Mateos was forced to flee to Guatemala until 1930. He returned to Mexico after the pressure had diminished, and went into politics. He received a law degree from the National School of Law in 1934, and married Eva Sámano Bishop in 1937. A skilled speaker, he worked as an orator for the presidential campaign of Miguel Alemán Valdés from 1931 to 1934, and filled a number of bureacratic positions from then until 1941, when he met Isidro Fabela . Fabela helped him into a position as the director of the Literary Institute of Toluca from 1944 to 1946, and that year López became senator for the state of Mexico after Fabela resigned the post to join the International Court of Justice. He served until 1952, when he became the Secretary of Labor under president Adolfo Ruiz Cortines. In 1958, he was elected president of Mexico, and served until 1964. Plauged with migraines during his adult life, he was diagnosed with several cerebral aneurysms and, after several years in a coma, he died in 1969.

Presidential term

López Mateos considered himself a leftist, but not a communist. Well liked by the Mexican people for his oratory skills and dedication to the poor, he was also known for his efforts in land redistribution to peasants, nationalization of foreign phone and electric companies, devotion to public health, and promotion of education and literacy. In fact, he promoted an 11-year plan to improve education and by the end of his presidency, education had become the largest part of the Mexican budget. In foreign policy, López Mateos maintained good relations with the United States, remaining relatively neutral between the U.S. and Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. López Mateos also worked with U.S. president John F. Kennedy to resolve the Chamizal territorial dispute, which resulted when the Rio Grande changed course and left 600 acres (2.4 km²) of what had been Mexican territory in Texas. The two heads of state met in 1962 and agreed to redirect the river back to its original path, as it had been when the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed.

References

• Biography at Mexico Connect
• Biography at Historical Text Archive
• Biography (Spanish)
• Camp, Roderic A. Mexican Political Biographies. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona, 1982.