Word: aleman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...call him the Calvin Coolidge of Mexican politics. His early career as a major in revolutionary armies, then as a government clerk with a passion for statistics, was honorable but undistinguished. His rise began in 1937 when he became Miguel Alemán's trusted aide. He followed Aleman right up the steps through the governorship of their native state of Veracruz and the Ministry of Interior to the presidency. But he is more than a protege of Alemán (who is twelve years his junior). Mexicans think that Ruiz Cortines, with his addiction to statistics, knows...
...successful rise of Pemex, the government oil monopoly. Recently, when his government raised a monument to Pemex in Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, the pedestal bore not only the famous 1938 expropriation decree of President Lazaro Cardenas, but quotations from a 1936 pro-expropriation speech by Aleman, then the youthful governor of Veracruz. Last week, in the final month of his presidential term, President Aleman flew to the Gulf Coast jungles to inspect Pemex' new Tenixtepec field, the country's biggest strike since Mexico took over its oil industry...
Pemex itself, ridden with politics and labor trouble when Aleman came to power, is now a going business operation. In the opinion of one oldtime Mexico City oilman, it "stands out like a 20,000-ft. mountain when compared with other Mexican government operations." Over the past six years, as Pemex has ended its anti-U.S. policy and sent technicians north of the border for advanced training, production has increased an average of 15% annually, is now almost double what it was the year before expropriation. Two big refineries have been built at Reynosa and Salamanca, three other refining...
Clean Hands. Much credit for Pemex' transformation belongs to hard-driving Antonio Bermudez, the millionaire whisky distiller from Chihuahua whom Aleman. drafted to boss the show in 1946. Apparently contemplating retirement last week, Bermudez said: "I have handled over 9 billion pesos, and have the right to say my conscience and my hands are clean." Many Mexicans, convinced that only Bermudez keeps Pemex from ruin by political grafters and grifters. hope that he will be asked to stay on. In Bermudez' office sits a life-size bust of President-elect Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, but all Bermudez says...
...were not for outgoing President Aleman, Ruiz Cortines might still be preparing statistical reports. Thirteen years ago, Aleman took Cortines on as an aide and factotum. As Aleman moved up- from the governorship of Veracruz to the Ministry of the Interior and to the presidential palace-his right-hand man moved right behind him. Will Ruiz Cortines be strong enough to go his own honest way now? His friends think so. He will continue Mexico's program of strenuous industrial expansion, they say, but with more orderly planning, "more austerity, more social justice, a more equitable distribution of wealth...