Diálogos Series

Miguel Alemán and His Generation

Ryan M. Alexander

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780826357403
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Mexican History
• Index: History

The 1946 Mexican presidential election signaled the ascent of a new generation of cosmopolitan civilian government officials, led by the magnetic lawyer Miguel Alemán. Supporters hailed them as modernizing visionaries whose policies laid the foundation for unprecedented economic growth, while critics decried the administration's toleration of rampant corruption, hostility to organized labor, and indifference to the rural poor. Setting aside these extremes of opinion in favor of a more balanced analysis, Sons of the Mexican Revolution traces the socialization of this ruling generation's members, from their earliest education through their rise to national prominence. Using a wide array of new archival sources, the author demonstrates that the transformative political decisions made by these men represented both their collective values as a generation and their effort to adapt those values to the realities of the Cold War.

CHAPTER ONE

Coming of Age in Revolutionary Mexico City

THE NUCLEUS OF THE ALEMÁN GENERATION FORMED IN THE NATIONAL Preparatory School and the National University’s law school during the 1920s, a quarter century before its members came to power. The men who later formed Alemán’s political inner circle first met in these schools, and their early associations had a significant influence on their political careers.¹ More than any other factor, their formative experiences in Mexico City’s elite institutions of higher education distinguished them from their military predecessors. While many of the students came from the provinces, often from families that suffered considerable hardship during the revolution,² in school they lived a remarkably different existence. During their time in Mexico City, they not only gained exposure to new ideas and ideologies, but also got a taste of a different way of life, one that was urban, cosmopolitan, middle-class in character, and devoid of both the rural strife of the revolution and many of the ongoing problems in the capital.

The image of Alemán and his generation as establishment political leaders later in the century conveys the sense that they had little actual experience with the revolution. For many, the mention of Alemán and his inner circle conjures an image of privilege and excess rather than one of revolutionary sacrifice. Yet most of the young men in Alemán’s cohort had direct connections to the revolution, and they certainly did not begin their lives in the fortunate conditions they would later enjoy. In the capital, these relatively poor students witnessed a transformation of the revolution, from the devastating chaos of violence and death that characterized the 1910s to the constructive movement to address exigent social questions that took shape in the following decade. As politically active students, they participated in this moment of radical change at its epicenter. Being in Mexico City took them away from the grim circumstances of the provinces, exposing them to a capital city pulsing with optimism—the heart of a country that had just begun to rebuild and reform.³ This allowed them to envision their country’s future, and their own, in a fundamentally new way.

The combination of academic training and exposure to this atmosphere of political reformism set them apart from all previous academic and ruling generations. Unlike their military forebears, they experienced an eclectic set of intellectual influences that gave them a more worldly perspective. Unlike their academic predecessors, such as the celebrated Generation of 1915 (especially its “Siete Sabios,” or Seven Sages, several of whom served as professors of Alemán and his classmates), they had a distinctly pragmatic orientation that served their political ambitions well. By the end of the decade, as they graduated and moved into their early careers, they had resolved to take control of the mechanisms of government, rather than merely to criticize them, as many of their professors had done.⁴ Their political awakening came gradually and through various activities. Student publications, academic congresses, and literary clubs were among the most common.⁵ The capstone came in 1929, first with a series of strikes that succeeded in persuading President Emilio Portes Gil to grant the National University full autonomy and rename it the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, then with participation in the presidential campaign of former education minister José Vasconcelos. His campaign, which many of the students hoped would resuscitate a revolution dying at the hands of a self-interested clique of political opportunists,⁶ ended in failure. Yet while it permanently embittered Vasconcelos, it ultimately drew many of the former students into lifelong political activism.⁷

The friendships these students formed in school were every bit as important as their political and intellectual activities. Most came to preparatory school in their late teens and left university by their late twenties. As young students, they devoted a good deal of time to social activity, especially dating. Their myriad social pursuits, which contributed to strong bonds of friendship, complemented their growing political and intellectual engagement and bolstered their formation as a generation. Many of their day-to-day activities revolved around what might best be described as a set of masculine rituals, such as drinking and pursuing young women,⁸ which resulted in shared bonds of camaraderie. The intellectual and political pursuits of this generation were thus bound up in social activities typical of students. A night at a dance hall, for instance, might result in an hours-long conversation on the walk home about a new literary inspiration or plans for an upcoming issue of a student publication.⁹ Both types of activity were important: one for defining the collective ethos of the group, the other for bringing its members closer together.

Alemán in School

Born in 1903 to a humble family that ran a small grocery, Miguel Alemán Valdés spent most of his first two decades in the tropical outpost of Sayula, Veracruz. Both of his parents, Miguel Alemán González and Tomasa Valdés de Alemán, had been married and divorced once before, and his father’s previous relationship had given him a half-brother, Antonio. The youngest sibling, Carlos, would arrive some years later. Miguel’s childhood bridged the waning years of the Porfiriato and the early stages of the revolution, the cause for which his father would ultimately lay down his life. From 1910 onward, he saw less and less of his father as the elder Alemán became drawn into nearly constant revolutionary struggle.¹⁰ Thus, out of necessity, Miguel became accustomed to his father’s prolonged absences and grew into his role as the household’s proxy male authority.

To make ends meet the family relied on a number of means, including subsidies from family members and patronage from Alemán González’s military associates. The boys worked in various occupations, ranging from mining to cattle ranching to office work, to contribute their share, while Tomasa made soap from beef suet. Miguel also pursued side jobs to stash away enough to see his father. At various points he sold milk, trinkets, or cigarettes, and he even smuggled stolen bullets to his father’s battalion.¹¹ On one such mission, he was forced to rely on a military guard arranged by his father for safe conduct between Mexico City, where he lived as a student by the early 1920s, and his father’s unit in Tampico. The decision for Miguel to enter school rather than follow in the footsteps of his father, whom he regarded as his personal hero, was made at the elder Alemán’s behest.¹²

Miguel originally came to the capital to study, as his father had wished, in 1920. The National Preparatory School, the most selective in the country, held a level of prestige comparable to Phillips Andover or Exeter Academy in the United States, and Alemán owed much of his fortune in attending the school to his father and to widened access to higher education afforded by the revolution. While he failed to distinguish himself in the classroom, he quickly aligned himself with a group of energetic students who defined themselves as a distinct generation in Mexican scholastic life. For the majority of his time at prep school, he lived in the centrally located Colonia Santa María la Ribera in the house of fellow students Oscar and Carlos Soto Maynez. The Soto family had been prominent in Chihuahua, but ultimately fled the encroaching Division of the North, the legendary revolutionary army commanded by Pancho Villa, as it swept through northern Mexico. After initially relocating to Eagle Pass, Texas, the family ended up in Mexico City. Carlos Soto Maynez recalled Alemán being very poor, certainly too penniless to pay rent.¹³ Victoria Soto de Córdoba, a sister of the Soto brothers, nonetheless remembered Alemán’s four years in their house fondly. Both recounted the trying conditions: there were twelve living in the house, and all shared a single bathtub with an external heater. She recalled that Alemán functioned as the virtual head of his family since his father was frequently absent and his brother Antonio had died young. At the same time, he became a part of the Soto family, operating much like another sibling of the two brothers and their sisters. He frequently spent evenings dancing with the family, he occasionally joined the two brothers in playing pranks on the younger sisters, and he once even took the blame for Victoria when she snuck out instead of completing house chores.¹⁴

Integration into the Soto family anchored Alemán during those years when his father was away and his family was divided by geography. The Soto brothers and Alemán remained friends for the rest of their lives. Oscar ascended to the governorship of Chihuahua toward the end of Alemán’s presidential term, and Carlos accompanied Alemán on trips to Europe and South America on official and personal business long after his presidency.¹⁵ During their student years in the early 1920s, a number of other lifelong colleagues, including Raúl López Sánchez, Manuel Ramírez Vázquez, and Alfonso Noriega, all lived on the same street and studied together.

Alemán’s father, who had been absent for much of his childhood because of his revolutionary pursuits across the country, corresponded with his son by writing letters from various parts of the republic. The correspondence reveals a closeness that the two maintained in spite of the long bouts of separation. General Alemán, known to his revolutionary comrades as “El Hule” (the rubber tree),¹⁶ attempted to send Miguel money whenever possible. One letter from 1920 came with fifty pesos (about twenty-five US dollars¹⁷), to be split between Miguel and his brother, Carlos, so they could buy school supplies.¹⁸ Others came with a promise of future payments.¹⁹ Money rarely arrived, since the general often found himself in debt.²⁰

The senior Alemán insisted that his son push himself in school. In another letter from 1920, the general alluded to an incident that Miguel had previously relayed, in which a fellow student had stolen his answers in an arithmetic class. Warning his son that he would encounter such cheaters throughout his life, he encouraged him not to let it deter his studies or morale. He also promised to send Miguel’s mother enough money to provide the young Alemán with huampole or some other medicine to reinvigorate his health, which had become somewhat shaky.²¹ By 1925 the general’s correspondence took an apologetic tone. His letters arrived less frequently, and usually without money. In one he wrote that he had run into a flooded arroyo (a wash or creekbed) and damaged roads while moving horses and cars across the Nayarit countryside. He ended the letter by promising that his commission was coming soon, hinting that money would follow.²² His letters, which expressed optimism and melancholy in equal measure, say much about Alemán’s family life after he had moved from his hometown of Sayula to Mexico City.

Despite these frequent separations and the persistent lack of resources, Alemán grew up in a tightly knit family and regularly felt his father’s presence, even in times of absence. His father’s connections also proved beneficial to his budding legal career. In 1925, as Alemán entered law school, he was placed under the tutelage of Carlos M. Jiménez, a civil judge in Mexico City. Alemán’s placement in his office began with Gen. Arturo Campillo Seyde, who recommended him to sub-chief of the Federal District’s Office of Internal Affairs and penal judge Guillermo Schulz, who then saw to it that Jiménez employ Alemán. Seyde, who noted to Schulz that he was recommending the young Alemán as a favor to his longtime friend, General Alemán, was personally assured by Jiménez that he would employ Miguel.²³ It appears, thus, that Miguel’s placement in a first-year law school practicum came as a direct result of his father’s personal network. In this case General Alemán’s high military rank provided valuable connections to both the judicial system and to the municipal government of the capital.

The elder Alemán’s career briefly stabilized during his son’s law school years, especially in comparison to the years when Miguel attended prep school. But in 1927, while serving as a deputy in the state congress, General Alemán joined the rebellion headed by Gens. Arnulfo Gómez and Francisco Serrano. The Gómez-Serrano movement opposed the recent constitutional amendments allowing for non-consecutive reelection to the presidency, which would ultimately pave the way for former president Álvaro Obregón to run in 1928. Total prohibition on reelection had been one of the cornerstones of both the revolutionary movement of 1910 and the Constitution of 1917. Thus, the movement was based on an issue that many people saw as an egregious violation of the revolution. Their movement was put down with relative ease, but Alemán almost immediately attached himself to a subsequent rebellion, that of Gen. José Gonzalo Escobar.

Escobar’s followers had the lofty ambition to destroy the political machine of former president Plutarco Elías Calles. They regarded Calles as the mastermind behind Obregón’s political resurgence and correctly identified him as the dominant figure in national politics. The Escobar Rebellion, despite the questionable behaviors of its leaders (among them a succession of bank robberies), attracted a far greater following than Gómez and Serrano had been able to assemble. President Emilio Portes Gil put his estimate of the Escobar movement’s membership as high as thirty thousand men, and Escobar himself claimed territorial control of massive areas ranging from several states in the far north to Oaxaca to Veracruz.²⁴ The rebellion, in addition to being the last major challenge to the dominant political establishment during the 1920s, also provided General Alemán a degree of stature he had not previously known.

As a follower of the Gómez-Serrano revolt, Alemán had become the chief of the movement’s political party in Veracruz,²⁵ and one prominent outlet of the party, the Pro-Arnulfo R. Gómez Centro Antireeleccionista Panuquense, proposed him as its gubernatorial candidate.²⁶ By that time he had become one of his state’s most vocal supporters of the effort to topple the national power structure. In a publication intended for nationwide distribution, General Alemán, who signed the document as “Chief of Operations of the State,” pleaded for a rejection of the “triumvirate” of Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Adolfo de la Huerta, accusing them of using Bolshevik-style terror tactics to establish their authority.²⁷

Meanwhile, Miguel, who had a reputation for a disciplined work ethic and an introverted personality, rarely joined in the weekend trips that many of the students took together, nor was he known for indulging in excessive drinking.²⁸ Perhaps his unusually reserved behavior sprung from a constant and justifiable preoccupation with his father’s military activities. Undoubtedly it arose, at least partially, out of his perso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction From College Boys to Cadillac Revolutionaries
• Chapter One Coming of Age in Revolutionary Mexico City
• Chapter Two Entering the Establishment
• Chapter Three Alemán’s Revolution
• Chapter Four Toward a Better Good Neighbor Policy
• Chapter Five Away from Alemanismo
• Conclusion Of Myths and Miracles
• Epilogue Alemán after Alemanismo
• Appendix Members of the Alemán Generation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index