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“To Assault With The Truth”: The Revitalization of Conservative Militancy in Mexico During the Global Sixties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Jaime M. Pensado
Jaime M. Pensado*
Affiliation:
University of Notre DameNotre Dame, Indiana
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Extract

On July 26, 1961, a mob of approximately 500 students affiliated with an anti-castrista group called “Mariano” gathered at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. After splashing the Cuban and Soviet embassies with red paint, they headed toward the School of Economics with the intent to burn an effigy of Fidel Castro. The activists timed their act to coincide with the inaugural celebration of the Mexican- Cuban Institute of Cultural Relations José Martí; the event itself was scheduled on the eighth anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack that sparked the Cuban Revolution. The anti-Castro protestors denounced the proceedings with chants and signs that read “A direct threat to Mexico.” Warning other students about the “the red hand” manipulated by the “despot Fidel,” the group condemned the entire July 26 Revolutionary Movement, calling it a continental menace that, if allowed to succeed, would introduce “communist tyranny to all Latin America.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , January 2014 , pp. 489 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2014 

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References

1. Research for this project was made possible by the generous support from The Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. I would also like to thank Ramón Solórzano, Tori Langland, the anonymous readers for The Americas, and especially Eric Zolov for their insightful comments, patience, and editorial suggestions.

1. “Actos pro y en contra de Fidel Castro,” Excelsior, July 27, 1961; U.S. Department of State, Washington, Mexico-Internal Affairs [hereafter DSDW, M-IA], 1960-1963, Desp. 134, August 4, 1961; Archivo de la Dirección General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales [hereafter DIPS], ““““MURO,”Vol. 2851, exp. 3.

2. “El rector Chávez se ha definido,” Puño, March-April 1963.

3. Ramón Ramírez (1913-1973) belonged to the second generation of Spanish exiles who immigrated to Mexico from Franco's Spain. He taught economics at UNAM in the 1960s, where he published one of the most influential books of this period on the Cuban Revolution, Cuba: Despertar de America (Mexico: Escuela Nacional de Economía, 1961). Eight years later he wrote the most detailed account to date of the 1968 student movement, El movimiento estudiantil de Mexico: julio/diciembre de 1968 (Mexico: Era, 1969).

4. “Protesta por la expulsión de la UNAM de dos alumnos que hicieron un mitin,” Excelsior, August 17, 1961.

5. See for example “¿Qué está ocurriendo en la universidad?” Excelsior, August 20, 1961; and “Derrota,” El Universal, November 29. 1961.

6. “Nace una nueva organización estudiantil y anuncia que combatirá la traición comunista,” El Heraldo (Chihuahua), March 9, 1962.

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17. Dussel, , “A Note on Liberation Theology,” p. 280.Google Scholar

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20. McLeod, The Religious Crisis.

21. See for example McGirr, Suburban Warriors; Andrew, The Other Side of the Sixties.

22. On the distribution of the “texto único” by the secular state in 1960 and the conservative movements that emerged in response, see Lever, Lorena Villa, Los libros de texto gratuitos: la disputa por la educación en Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1988);Google Scholar and Loaeza, Soledad, Clases medias y política en México: la querella escolar, 1959–1963 (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar On El Yunque, see Delgado, Alvaro, Elyunque: la ultraderecha en el poder (Mexico: Plaza Janés, 2003);Google Scholar and Ortiz, Irene, “Building the City of God: Mexico’s Ultra-Right Yunque,” NACLA 41:1 (January-February, 2008), pp. 26–29.Google Scholar

23. On Puebla, see Delgado, Alfonso Yáñez, La manipulación de la fe:fúas contra carolinos en la universidad poblana (Puebla: BUAP, 1996).Google Scholar For a comprehensive study of the “fascist” TECOS, see Romero, Laura, “El movimiento fascista en Guadalajara,” in Perspectivas de los movimientos sociales en la región centro-occidente, Jaime Tamayo, ed. (Mexico: Línea, 1986).Google Scholar See also Anderson, Scott and Anderson, Jon Lee, Inside the League: The Shocking Exposé of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986);Google Scholar and Uribe, “La ultraderecha en Mexico.” The most detailed study of MURO is Ruiz, Edgar González, MURO, memorias y testimonios, 1961–2002(Puebla: BUAP, 2004).Google Scholar

24. See for example Niblo, Stephen, Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1999);Google Scholar and the collection of chapters in Joseph, Gilbert et al., eds., Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico Since 1940 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, p. 29.Google Scholar

26. “Nuevo grupo estudiantil universitario,” Excélsior, March 22, 1962; “Luchar contra el comunismo," Atisbos, April 9, 1962; "¿Qué es el MURO?” Puño, October-November 1962.

27. On the “Cuban-Soviet mafia” associated with the cardenistas, see Medrano, Lilia Estela Romo, Un relato biográfico: Ignacio Chávez, rector de la UNAM (Mexico: El Colegio Nacional, 1997).Google Scholar

28. Loaeza, Soledad, “Mexico in the Fifties: Women and Church in Holy Alliance,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 33:3/4 (2005), pp. 148.Google Scholar See also Garcia, Emilio Coral, “The Mexico City Middle Class, 19401970: Between Tradition, the State, and the United States” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 2011.Google Scholar

29. Ruiz, González, MURO, p. 27.Google Scholar

30. “Nuevo grupo estudiantil universitario,” Excelsior, March 22, 1962. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this article are mine.

31. A list of additional individuals close to the Church and the private sector who supported MURO can be found in the Archivo de la Dirección Federal de Seguridad [hereafter ADFS], UNAM, Exp. 63-1-163, L-19, H-255-56; UNAM, Exp. 63-1-63, L-19, H-255-256; UNAM, and Exp. 63-1-63, L-19, H-255-258; González Ruiz, MURO; Price, Hugo Salinas, Mis años con Elektra (Mexico: Diana, 2000), pp. 122–125;Google Scholar and Gudiño, Hugo Sánchez, Génesis, desarrollo y consolidación de los grupos estudiantiles de choque en la UNAM, 1930–1990 (Mexico: UNAM, 2006), p. 223.Google Scholar

32. “Mons. Miranda da la voz de alerta,” Excélsior, October 15, 1963; “Aplauden el llamado de Mons. Miranda contra rojos ocultos,” Últimas Noticias, October 15,1963; “Previene el MURO contra los falsos,” Atisbos, October 16, 1963; and Castellanos, Ricardo Fuentes, “Catolicismo militante,” Atisbos, December 12, 1963.Google Scholar

33. The entire letter was later published in “Los pistoleros de la parroquia,” in Diálogo: Revista de Estudiantes 1:1, July-August 1964, in the Fondo Reservado del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas del Archivo Histórico de la UNAM [hereafter FRIIB], Vol. 5, Exp. 300.

34. “El primado contra el MURO,” in Política, October 1, 1964; Gómez, Emilio Abreu, “El arzobispo, el MURO y la ley,” in Política, October 15, 1964;Google Scholar ADFS, “MURO,” Exp. 15–13–77, L–l, H–31.

35. Another key supporter of MURO representing this group was Alfredo Ríos Camarena, the right-hand man of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz’s personal secretary, Joaquin Cisneros. See ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-966, L-38, H-80.

36. ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-63, L-19, H-255-258; AwDFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-63, L-19, H-255-258; and UNAM, Exp. 63-1-966, L-38, H-79. For a comprehensive study of the connections between panistas, alemanistas, and MURO, see Gonzalez Ruiz, MURO.

37. ADFS, “Panorama Político de la UNAM,” Exp. 63-1-68, L-58, H-139-186; ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-64, L-25, H-53; and ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-65, L-27, H-290.

38. ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-70, L-61, H-201. For a comparative case, see Goebel, Michael, “A Movement from Right to Left in Argentine Nationalism? The Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista and Tacuara as Stages of Militancy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 26:3 (2007), pp. 356–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. “MURO utiliza la religión,” Crucero, October 4, 1964; “Vuelven los gangsters,” Novedades, March 11, 1965.

40. “Culpan al embajador de Castro,” El Sol de México, March 14, 1965; AGN, Fondo Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, 1965, No. 203.

41. “La policía identifica al autor del atentado,” El Día, July 9, 1965.

42. Ruiz, Gonzalez, MURO, pp. 277, 370;Google Scholar Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, pp. 221–222.Google Scholar

43. “Ofrecen pruebas,” El Sol de Mexico, September 2, 1965.

44. ADFS, MURO, Exp. 11-4-69, L-83, H-197; and MURO, Exp. 11-4-69, L-84, H43.

45. ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-68, L-58, H-180. See also Lucha, Comité de, “Exigimos la renuncia del director,” Impresos Sueltos del Movimiento Estudiantil Mexicano 1968, Olivera, Luis, ed. (Mexico, UNAM, [1968] 1992), no. 128, p. 32.Google Scholar

46. See for example ADFS, MURO, Exp. 63-1-68, L-58, H-180; MURO, Exp. 11-4-68, L-28, H-299; and MURO, Exp. 11-4-68, L-27, H-99; “Que los estudiantes señalen a los comunistas,” El Dia, August 16, 1968; and Ramírez, , El movimiento estudiantil, pp. 208, 263-270, and 320-321.Google Scholar

47. Ramírez, , El movimiento estudiantil, pp. 156–157, 208, 212–213, and 249–250.Google Scholar

48. Anderson, Scott and Anderson, Lee, Inside the League, pp. 71–81.Google Scholar

49. See for example ADFS, MURO, Exp. 15-13-77, L-l, H-30; ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 100-19-1-964, L-8, H-249; and DIPS, MURO, Vol. 2851, Exp.3; and “Extrema derecha, ratones y dinosaurios,” Puño, July-August 1966.

50. ADFS, UNS, Exp. 48-68-65, L-l, H-44; Ruiz, González, MURO, pp. 224.Google Scholar

51. Servín, Elisa, “Propaganda y guerra fría: la campaña anticomunista en la prensa mexicana del medio siglo,” Signos Históricos 11 (January-June, 2004), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

52. See for example the interviews of former muristas in Ruiz, Gonzalez, MURO, pp. 172–175.Google Scholar

53. ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-63, L-23, H-262.

54. “Memorandum sobre las corrientes derechistas,” in ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-66, L-38, H-76-85.

55. See for example Monzalvo, Pablo, “La juventud tratada como caso perdido,” Verdad 44, December 1965, pp. 26–27;Google Scholar and Hernández, A. Peña, “¿Que tanto traen con el Dr. Ignacio Chávez?” Verdad 36, June 1964, pp. 35–37.Google Scholar

56. On the conflicts between Carlos A. Cruz Morales and Juan González Jáuregui, see González Ruiz, MURO; and Romo Medrano, Un relato biográfico.

57. It is worth highlighting that the gallo, or rooster, was the same logo once used by the Union Nacional Sinarquista. Jorge Siegrist had been a sympathizer of the Sinarquistas and an influential conservative student leader in the 1940s and 1950s with close ties to the PAN. For additional details on Siegrist, see Ruiz, González, MURO, pp. 300–308.Google Scholar

58. Price, Hugo Salinas, Mis años con Elektra (Mexico: Diana, 2000), pp. 89–125.Google Scholar

59. El Gallo Universitario 1, March 1964.

60. Ibid. See also “La mafia de la universidad,” Atisbos, May 25, 1962.

61. See also the headlines cited in Medrano, Romo, Un relato biográfico, pp. 255–309.Google Scholar

62. Ibid.

63. As others have pointed out, a connection between homosexuality and communism also took place in the United States during the 1950s. See for example Johnson, David, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

64. “El Gallo hace su presentación,” El Gallo Universitario 1, March 1964, p. 4.

65. Another publication by MURO that survived through the 1960s thanks to the financial support it received from Atisbo was Brecha Universitaria.

66. Zolov, “Expanding our Conceptual Horizons.”

67. Puño, as cited in González Ruiz, MURO, 141.

68. ¿Con que somos negativos?” Puño 3, July 1963. See also “Extrema derecha, ratones y dinosaurios,” Puño, July-August, 1966.

69. For a list of the principal figures who wrote in Puño, see Ruiz, González, MURO, pp. 133–144.Google Scholar

70. “¿Qué es el MURO?” Puño, October-November 1962.

71. “Comité directivo,” Puño, March 1962; and “¿Con que somos negativos?” Puño, July 1963.

72. On the visual rhetoric of political cartoons in Mexico, with particular attention to leftist caricaturists during the 1960s and their efforts in raising social and political consciousness, see Zolov, Eric, “Jorge Car-reño’s Graphic Satire and the Politics of Presidentialism in Mexico during the 1960s,” Estudios Interdiscipti-narios de America Latina y el Caribe 17:1 (January-June, 2006), pp. 13–38;Google Scholar Hinds, Harold E. Jr. and Tatuni, Charles M., Not Just for Children: The Mexican Comic Book in the Late 1960s and 1970s (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), pp. 69–110;Google Scholar and Agnew, Bob, “¡Viva la Revolución! Los Agachados and the World-view of Eduardo del Rio (Rius),” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 23 (2004), pp. 1–20.Google Scholar

73. See for example Ruiz, González, MURO, 277.Google Scholar For a detailed look at Poniatowska’s journalistic career prior to the writing of her influential La Noche de Tlatelolco (1971), including the important role she played in connection with the publications Excélsior, Siempre! and La Cultura en México, see Schuessler, Michael K., Elena Poniatowska: An Intimate Biography (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2007).Google Scholar

74. See for example Puño, October-November 1962; and Cobos, Josefina King, Memorias de Radio UNAM, 1937–2007(Mexico: UNAM, 2007), pp. 39–65.Google Scholar

75. “Ultima hora,” in Puño, October-November 1962.

76. Originally published in English in 1961 and translated into Spanish by the Fondo de Cultura in 1964, Los Hijos de Sánchez exposed the shortcomings of Mexico’s economic miracle as evident in the poor living conditions of Mexico City’s slums. For a detailed discussion, see Cohn, Deborah, “The Mexican Intelligentsia, 1950-1968: Cosmopolitanism, National Identity, and the State,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexi-canos 21:1 (Winter 2006), pp. 156–176.Google Scholar

77. “Denuncia el MURO la administración de la UNAM,” El Sol de Mexico, November 21, 1965.

78. Puño, October, 1962. See also “La invasión roja vuelve a las andadas,” Puño, May-June 1962. The assault that muristas are referring to here took place on August 14, 1960, when a group of university students tried (unsuccessfully) to blow up the statue of Miguel Alemán with dynamite. See ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 631-60, L-ll, H-88-90.

79. “El Dr. Chávez, cómplice de las novatadas,” Puño, February-March 1964; “El terror chavista cosechó violencia,” Puño, May 1966.

80. “La invasión roja vuelve a las andadas,” Puño, May-June 1962.

81. Ruiz, González, MUKO, pp. 198–99.Google Scholar

82. Ibid., pp. 43–45, 198, 393, and 406.

83. “Manifestación silenciosa de unos universitarios,” La Prensa, July 23, 1962. On MURO references to Carlos Fuentes, see Ruiz, González, MURO, pp. 61–2, 117, and 198.Google Scholar

84. MURO, “Unidad nacional sí, comunismo no,” no date, DIPS, Vol. 2925, Exp. 8(A), No. 194.

85. See for example “¡Usted será el responsable!” Excelsior, March 16, 1963; “Denuncia el MURO una ofensiva roja,” Excelsior, May 14, 1963; and “Declaraciones,” Atisbos, May 14, 1963.

86. On the conservative wings of the PAN during this period, see Blancarte, Roberto, Historia de la Iglesia Católica en México, 1929–1982 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992).Google Scholar

87. Meyer, Jean, “El movimiento estudiantil en América Latina,” Sociológica 23:68 (September-December 2008), pp. 179–195.Google Scholar

88. “Traición a la universidad,” and “Los rojos inician ahora la expulsión de los maestros,” Puño, June-July 1964.

89. See for example “Sólo inmoralidad, corrupción y la semilla del Marxismo,” Puño, June-July 1964; and “Abajo el neo-chavismo,” Puño, May 1966.

90. For a brief discussion of Antonio Prohias’s anticommunist cartoons, see Redrawing the Nation: National Identity in Latin/o American Comics, Hector Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Poblete, eds. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), pp. 82–84.

91. On the different interpretations of the wearing of miniskirts inside the university during the 1960s, see the testimonies in Poniatowska, Elena, Massacre in Mexico, Lane, Helen R., trans. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992);Google Scholar and Mantecón, Alvaro Vázquez, ed., Memorial del 68 (Mexico: UNAM, 2007).Google Scholar

92. Power, , Right-Wing Women in Chile, p. 11.Google Scholar

93. See for example Cousins, “General Ongania and the Argentine [Military] Revolution of the Right”; and Cámara, Francisco López, La cultura del 68: Reich y Marcuse (Mexico: UNAM, 1989).Google Scholar

94. Lomnitz, Claudio, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), p. 131.Google Scholar

95. See for example “La invasión roja,” Puño, May-June 1962; “El Dr. Chávez, cómplice de las novatadas”; and Alejandra, “A las universitarias,” Puño, February-March 1964.

96. “Ofensiva,” El Universal, March 5, 1966.

97. MURO was not alone in its violent disapproval of melenudos during the 1960s. Sec for example Evans, Sara M., “Sons, Daughters, and Patriarchy: Gender and the 1968 Generation,” American Historical Review 114:2 (April 2009), p. 335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98. “Ofensiva,” El Universal, March 5, 1966; “Hoy se iniciará la caza de melenudos,” El Heraldo de México, March 7, 1966.

99. Alejandra, , “A las universitarias,” Puño, February-March 1964.Google Scholar

100. In 1960, David Alfaro Siqueiros was sentenced to prison under the law of social dissolution for having publicly insulted President Adolfo López Mateos (1958-1964) and for having led a march to protest the arrests of dozens of striking workers and teachers. He remained in prison until 1964. See White, D. Anthony, Siqueiros: Biography of a Revolutionary Artist (Charleston, S.C.: BookSurge, 2008), pp. 358–436.Google Scholar

101. “Manifesto del Grupo Nuevo Cine,” Nuevo Cine 1, 1961,p. 1. On Mexico’s new cinematic movement during the 1960s, see Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, pp. 174–179.Google Scholar

102. Besides Viridiana, the films attacked by MURO included Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954), Kawalerowicz’s, Jerzy Mother Joan of the Angels (1961),Google Scholar Resnais’s, Alain Hiroshima mon amour (1959),Google Scholar Bergman’s, Ingmar Secrets of Women (1952),Google Scholar Ophuls’s, Max La Ronde (1951),Google Scholar Gutiérrez Alea’s, Tomás Muerte de un burócrata (1966),Google Scholar and Jodorowsky’s, Alejandro Vanda y Lis (1968).Google Scholar See “Sigue la pornografia. Pronto gozaremos hasta de night clubs,” Puño, May-June 1962; “El Caso Viridiana,” Novedades, April 28, 1962; and Carlos Monsiváis, “Derechistas en la UNAM,” Política, May 1,1962. On MURO attacks against Alfaro Siqueiros, see ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-67, L-49, H-135; Política, August 1-15, 1967; and White, Siqueiros, p. 409.

103. “El yerno del rector: el responsable,” Puño, May-June 1962. The letter was originally published in Novedades, April 28, 1962. On the life of Jaime Garcia Terrés and his participation in Revista de la Universidad de México, see Michael, Christopher Domínguez, “Jaime García Terrés y la cultura liberal,” in Letras Libres (June 2004).Google Scholar

104. “Comité Directivo Universitario Contra la Pornografía Cinematográfica,” Atisbos, April 28, 1962.

105. “Compañero, escucha,” Puño, February-March 1964; ADFS, UNAM, Exp. 63-1-65, L-31, H-200; UNAM, Exp. 63-1-64, L-25, H-56; Paolo, Po, 41 o el muchacho que soñaba en fantasmas (casi una novela) (Mexico: Costa-Amie, 1964).Google Scholar

106. Ruiz, González, MURO, p. 136.Google Scholar On Andrés Valdespino’s anticommunism, see Pia, Rafael, ed. Marxismo y revolución: escenas del debate cubano en los sesenta(Havana: Instituto Cultural del Libro, 2006), p. 41.Google Scholar On the bombing attack on El Dia, see “La policía identifica al autor del atentado,” El Día, July 9, 1965.

107. While there is no evidence that Diaz Ordaz directly financed this group of provocateurs, multiple sources point to one of his most loyal supporters, Leopoldo Celis Sánchez, the governor of Sinaloa. See for example Medrano, Romo, Un relato biogràfico, pp. 379–424;Google Scholar Ontiveros, Rivas, La izquierda estudiantil, pp. 451–500;Google Scholar and Lama, Ignacio Chávez de la, La madre de todas las “huelgas”: la UNAM en 1966 (Monterrey: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2011).Google Scholar

108. See for example “A los estudiantes,” May 9,1966, in AH-UNAM, Fondo Reservado, Vol. 8, Exp. 456.

109. Puño was of higher quality than most leftist student newspapers. Although it cost only 20 cents, it was practically distributed for free throughout the UNAM campus and its preparatorias. See Ruiz, González, MURO, p. 133.Google Scholar

110. On the 1966 student strike, see Segovia, Rafael, “Mexican Politics and the University Crisis,” in Political Power in Latin America: Seven Confrontations, Fagen, Richard and Cornelius, Wayne, eds. (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970);Google Scholar Ontiveros, Rivas, La izquierda estudiantil, pp. 451–500;Google Scholar and Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, pp. 193–197.Google Scholar

111. See for example the letters of support received by the presidential office in the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Fondo Presidencial Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Vols. 501 and 502.

112. “Declaraciones en torno a la ocupación de CU,” El Día, September 20, 1968. See also Kuri, Ariel Rodriguez, “El lado oscuro de la luna: el momento conservador en 1968,” in Conservadurismo y derechas en la historia de México, Pani, Erika, ed. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econòmica, 2009), pp. 512–559;Google Scholar and Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, pp. 201–234.Google Scholar

113. See for example the chronological entries in Ramírez, El movimiento estudiantil.

114. “¡México ha sido profanado!” August 1968, in Olivera, , Impresos Sueltos 904, p. 209.Google Scholar See also “Frente Universitario Mexicano,” Excélsior, August 21, 1968.

115. As part of the “democratic aperture,” Echeverría also increased the government’s budget for education, loosened state censorship of the press, opened more democratic space in the labor movement, and allowed independent unions to organize strikes.

116. ADFS, GUIA, Exp. 11-4-77, L-431, H-18-20.

117. ADFS, GUIA, Exp. 11-4-73, L-247, H-294.

118. On the proliferation of Mexico’s dirty war in the 1970s, see the collection of essays in Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico: Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964–1982, Fernando Herrera Calderón and Adela Cedillo, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2012).

119. Monsiváis, Carlos, “La nación de unos cuantos y las esperanzas románticas: Notas sobre la historia del término ‘cultura nacional’ en México,” in En torno a la cultura nacional, Camín, Héctor Aguilar, ed. (Mexico: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1976), p. 208.Google Scholar

120. See among others Niebla, Gilberto Guevara, La libertad nunca se olvida: memoria del 68 (Mexico: Cal y Arena, 2004).Google Scholar

121. It is difficult to determine a precise number of young people who actually joined MURO. In 1966 a government report calculated the total number of muristas enrolled throughout the university at approximately 100. Nonetheless, Edgar González Ruiz emphasizes that the readership and sympathizers of Puño reached between 5,000 and 10,000. See ADFS, MURO, Exp. 15-13-77, L-l, H-29; and Ruiz, González, MURO, p. 183.Google Scholar

122. Carlos Mastretta, as cited in Ruiz, González, MURO, pp. 169–172.Google Scholar

123. See for example DSDW, M-IA, 1960-1963, “The Attitude of Many Latin American Intellectuals Toward the United States,” Desp. 75, July 18, 1960; DSDW, M-IA, 1960-1963, “Request for Information on How to Organize an Anti-Communist Movement,” Desp. 42, February 28, 1961; and DSDW, M-IA, 1960-1963, Desp. 1480, June 20, 1961.

124. By contrast, Laura Romero in her study of the TECOS in Guadalajara notes that the CIA became a key player in the expansion of conservative private universities, such as the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. See Romero, “El movimiento fascista,” p. 42.

125. This is not to suggest that the CIA did not have close connections with Mexican politicians and influential members of the private sector. For a detailed study of the CIA connections within the presidential administrations of López Mateos, Díaz Ordaz, and Luis Echeverría, see Morley, Jefferson, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008).Google Scholar

126. Price, Salinas, Mis años con Elektra, pp. 89–125.Google Scholar

127. On the conservative literature published in support of Diaz Ordaz in the aftermath of the Tlatelolco massacre, see Pensado, , Rebel Mexico, pp. 201–234.Google Scholar

128. Ibid.

129. Ibid., pp. 201-234; Zolov, Eric, “Protest and Counterculture in the 1968 Student Movement in Mexico,” in Student Protest. The Sixties and After, DeGroot, Gerard J., ed. (New York: Longman, 1998), p. 83.Google Scholar