Lic. Miguel Aleman

MR AMIGO 1964

 
 
 
 

Lic. Miguel Aleman the 46th President of Mexico. Alemán was born in Sayula in the state of Veracruz as the son of General Miguel Alemán González and Tomasa Valdés Ledezma. As a child, he was not permitted to attend school in his home town, due to his father's political beliefs (he was a former revolutionary general), but he did study in other areas instead. He attended the National Preparatory School in Mexico City from 1920–1925, and then went to the National School of Law until 1928, completing his law degree with his thesis on occupational diseases and accidents among workers. As a successful attorney, his first practice was in representing miners suffering from silicosis. He won two notable legal victories in defending workers against corporations. The first was in securing compensation for dependents of railroad workers who were killed in revolutionary battles; the second was to gain indemnities for miners injured at work. These victories gained him great favor with Mexico's labor unions.

Representing the Party of the Mexican Revolution (an earlier name of the party later known as the PRI), he served as Senator from the state of Veracruz from 1934 to 1936. When Manlio Favio Altamirano, the governor-elect of Veracruz, was assassinated, Aleman accepted appointment as Governor of Veracruz from 1936 to 1939. From 1940 to 1945, he served as Secretary of the Interior under Manuel Ávila Camacho after directing his presidential campaign. Alemán ran for President in 1946 as candidate of the PRI, and was the winner of the elections held on July 7 of that year, defeating former foreign minister Ezequiel Padilla to become the first non-military candidate to win the presidency of Mexico. He was inaugurated as President of the Republic on 1 December 1946 and served until 1952.

In 1961, Miguel Aleman was named president of the national tourist commission, and was influential in bringing the 1968 Summer Olympics to Mexico. In addition, he was the first president of the Mr. Amigo Association in 1964, which celebrates the bi-national friendliness between the United States and Mexico in the Charro Days and Sombrero Festival celebrations held in Matamoros, Tamaulipas and Brownsville, Texas.