The Cold War also had a "Mexican front" and its consequences are still felt
Thesis
The commemoration of the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, among other things, the celebration of the end of a long and dangerous struggle between the two Axis superpowers winning in 1945 and also recognition of the triumph of "real capitalism" over "real socialism." And what of "real" means that none of the two systems was that their theory should have been accounted for, although the distortion of socialism was the most terrible. The end of the Cold War reduced the risk of a nuclear holocaust, but the world seems to have improved much since then.
The memory of what happened 20 years ago in the German capital would seem a relatively alien because our country never became the scene of a collision between the East and West. At the beginning of this conflict was already Mexico firmly planted within the U.S. sphere of influence and has remained there since. However, this conflict concerns us because it was indirect but decisive in our political process and the reverberations from the US-USSR crash still being felt.
For example, the Dirty War and the campaign of fear that characterized the elections of 2006 are explained, among other reasons, because the area where it was then a clash between left and right reactivated and mechanisms prejudices dating from the time in the atmosphere of the Cold War engulfed Mexico since the late 1940 to early 1990. Mexican
Front
Fear mutual destruction in case of direct conflict, did the United States and the USSR only transform its Cold War hot in certain areas of the underdeveloped world and always within limits, they never used their nuclear weapons (although there was a possibility) not directly but their armies clashed with the other allies.
Mexico, but was part of the peripheral world wide, was never important theater of East-West conflict and was saved from terrible experiences as local conflicts turned into tests of strength between Washington and Moscow, as happened in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Afghanistan and Central America, to name a few notable examples.
In Mexico, the rivalry "Bloque Capital" - "Socialist Block" was a matter directly and systematically involving just a handful of foreign actors. The embassies of the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe and Cuba had more staff than was justified to meet the little trade and contacts with Mexico. For its part, the American embassy, \u200b\u200band its network of consulates, always had a large staff and explicable in terms of the neighborhood and the exchange of goods and people between the south and north of Rio Bravo, but Washington also set up in Mexico a huge apparatus to monitor and act not only in relation to Soviet Cuban agents and Eastern Europe, but to keep in touch with the Mexican intelligence apparatus and monitor the activities of the Mexican left, from the General Lazaro Cardenas and Vicente Lombardo Toledano to the Mexican Communist Party members through personalities movements and publications with more or less progressive attitudes and nationalists. Who wants to take a quick look at the Cold War in Mexico, we can help go to books like Michael Scott and Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico. Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (University of Kansas, 2008).
Roots Reading the American archives, especially the Department of State makes it clear that at the start of the Cold War, the U.S. Embassy wanted the successor of Avila Camacho were a people you trust: the foreign secretary, Ezequiel Padilla. The possibility that eventually the Interior Minister, Michael German, whoever came to the presidency was poorly received by U.S. Ambassador George Messersmith because he suspected German relations with the left and the corruption of character, and since then recognized. The suspicion was based on the support of CTM Lombardo Toledano and Cardenas, both as the embassy, \u200b\u200blinked to the Soviet-German's candidacy.
Fully aware of the position of U.S. Ambassador, German, as the official candidate, his emissaries sought to ensure that their anti-diplomat and his sympathy for America was so genuine and background as anyone else. As German took office, Lombardo maneuvered to drive the CTM and leave entirely in the hands of the perfect example of opportunism that was Fidel Velazquez. The Cardenas was removed from the corridors of power, the left was watched and harassed. In return, German was received with unprecedented enthusiasm by Harry S. Truman in Washington. Then again U.S. oil companies using 'contracts risk ". A relative harmony reigned then in Washington-Mexico relationship.
German's successor was not the General Miguel Henriquez Guzman of new suspect in the eyes of the U.S. embassy in sympathy with the left and the Cardenas-but Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (ARC). That did not stop ARC was subjected to American pressure by his inclination to support certain SOEs rather than private investment. It was also made known to ARC that Washington did not like their hesitation against a Guatemala that wanted a greater degree of independence and development of agricultural policies not unlike those that had followed the Mexican Revolution.
the end, Mexico was just helplessly as the last shreds of the Good Neighbor is carried between the legs of horses in the United States intervention in southern Suchiate against the legitimate government of Jacobo Arbenz. Adolfo Lopez Mateos (ALM) had to walk on the razor's edge because in 1960 the Cold War was even more strongly to the Mexican border as a result of the shift to the left of the Cuban Revolution. ALM hit hard at the left-destruction of the valley, imprisonment of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the murder of Ruben Jaramillo and his family, but that did not stop Washington look bad its nationalization electronic and forced him to have to juggle to say "yes, but not" and "no, but" in relation to the principle of nonintervention in the Cuban case.
Gustavo Diaz Ordaz
his anti-earned at the end of October 1968 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, he congratulated on the successful organization of the Olympics, not said a word in connection with the slaughter of students on 2 October at the Plaza of Three Cultures and the argument given for good Mexican official that 68 had been a Communist conspiracy and provocation despite internal reports that the CIA does not support this version. Luis Echeverría
much irritated the U.S. government, Third World rhetoric, but, as noted in his 1975 book on former CIA agent Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (Bantam Books) - was also Echeverría LITEMPO 14, an informant of U.S. intelligence since his time as Secretary of the Interior. The Cold War, like many others, was an ideal spot to act on several tracks. The Nicaraguan Revolution led to Jose Lopez Portillo to Mexico to play the role of "middle power" supported by its oil, but the harshness of Ronald Reagan and the 1982 economic crisis made such efforts end in disaster.
In the penultimate year of the Cold War, the PRI and the Mexican right, with the explicit support of U.S. Ambassador Charles Pilliod, staged successfully in 1988 to defend the electoral fraud that had prevented Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, head of a very left moderate rise to power and that, in contrast, is affirmed as President Carlos Salinas and neoliberalism. Salinas became the architect of a free trade agreement with the United States linked as never before, our economy in the U.S..
In conclusion
Cold War concerns us directly because they also fought in the Mexican front, and did much Mexico shape the second half of the twentieth century. At 20 years away still living with its legacy.
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