Ismael Moreno Pino
Ismael Moreno Pino (15 February 1927 – 15 August 2013) was a Mexican lawyer, senior diplomat and author who served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador of Mexico. Born in Mérida, Yucatán into a socially prominent family that had had a distinguished participation in Liberal politics during most of the 19th century and early 20th century, his grandparents were María Cámara Vales, recipient of the 1969 Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor, and José María Pino Suárez, the lawyer and statesman who served as Vice President of Mexico between 1911 and his assassination in 1913, during the  early years of the Mexican Revolution. Educated at the American School Foundation in Mexico City, he received his law degree from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Afterwards, he continued his studies at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., earning a Bachelor of Science (BS) and a Master of Science (MS) in Foreign Service. A career diplomat, he was appointed to the rank of Ambassador in 1964, representing his country before various international organizations and countries such as: Germany, The Kingdom of the Netherlands, Chile, Peru, the United Nations in New York, the  Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., and the European Offices of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. It is worth noting that during the seven years that he held office as Ambassador to Chile, he witnessed the rise of Salvador Allende and the lead up to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Between 1990 and 1992, he served as a foreign policy adviser to President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He remained politically independent throughout his career, refusing to ever join any political party. In the Foreign Office, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations (1961–1964) and was  Under-Secretary of State for Multilateral Affairs (1964–1965). During his career, he played an important role in the disarmament conference which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Tlatelolco (1969) which prohibited nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, serving as a delegate in the OPANAL conferences and collaborating closely with Alfonso García Robles, who in 1982 won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. In 1982, President José López Portillo appointed him to the lifetime rank of Eminent Ambassador of Mexico ("embajador eminente"), a special honour reserved by law for a maximum of ten diplomats who are  considered to have rendered a particularly distinguished contribution to Mexico's Foreign Policy. Prior to retiring in 1992, he had the distinction of ranking as the most senior ambassador in Mexico's Foreign Service. The author of several treatises on international relations and international law, he is nowadays particularly remembered for his authorship of "Diplomacy" (1998) which has educated generations of diplomats in Latin America. Family. He was born in a house in the Paseo de Montejo in Merida, Yucatan, on 15 February 1927, the only son of Ramón Moreno Sánchez and Aida Pino Cámara. His maternal grandparents were María  Cámara Vales, recipient of the Belisario Domínguez Medal, and José María Pino Suárez a lawyer and statesman who served as governor, cabinet secretary and Vice President of Mexico. Through his mother, Moreno Pino is a descendant of the Cámara family, a distinguished patrician family. Among his great-uncles are Nicolás Cámara Vales, who was a former Governor of Yucatán and Alfredo Cámara Vales, who was a former Governor of Quintana Roo. Likewise, his great-uncle was Agustín Vales Castillo, industrialist, banker, and political leader of Mérida during the henequen boom. Moreno Pino is also a descendant of Joaquín Baranda, a  long-serving cabinet minister (1882–1901), who was Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Education. He also descends from Joaquín Casasús, a lawyer, banker and economist who, in addition to being the richest man in Mexico in the early 20th century, was president of the Mexican Academy of the Language and served as the Mexican Ambassador to the United States in the early 20th century. Among his most remote ancestors, is Pedro Sainz de Baranda y Gorriti, who served as Mayor of Madrid during the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and was responsible for organizing the city's defenses. Likewise, he is  a descendant of Pedro Sáinz de Baranda y Borreiro, a Spanish industrialist, politician and naval officer who, having fought in the Battle of Trafalgar and the Siege of San Juan de Ulúa, is widely credited as the founder of the Mexican Navy; he is also believed to have introduced the Industrial Revolution to the country. Moreno Pino is also a descendant of Pedro Moreno González Hermosillo, another hero of the Mexican War of Independence. Education. A graduate of the American School Foundation in Mexico City, he went on to study at the Faculty of Law at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de  México, receiving a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree in 1950, with the thesis ""el cuerpo consular mexicano al servicio del plan nacional de recuperación económica"" (the role of the consular corps in the national economic recovery plan). He subsequently became a fully qualified lawyer. He completed his education at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he earned both a Bachelor of Science (BS) and a Master of Science (MS) in Foreign Service. Career. Between 1945 and 1950, during his law studies, he was a law clerk for Chief Justice Anastacio López Sánchez of the  National Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico. He joined the Foreign Office in 1951 and the Foreign Service in 1955, after passing the necessary examinations. Originally, he was hired as a legal advisor to the Mexican delegation to the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. Returning to Mexico, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs (1952–58) and, succeeding Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, he was Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (1960–64). Between 1964 and 1965, he served as Under-Secretary of State for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights. During his  time heading the Office of International Organization Affairs, he was a delegate at the Ministerial Conference of the OAS held in Punta del Este in 1962, during which the decision was taken, after the Cuban Revolution and contrary to the wishes of the United States, not to expel Cuba from the OAS. During the ministerial conference, the role of Mexico was crucial in advocating for non-interventionism, according to the Estrada Doctrine. In 1964, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz named him to the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, becoming, at the time of his appointment, the youngest ambassador in the  foreign service. In 1965, he presented his letters credence to President Eduardo Frei Montalva at the La Moneda Palace in Santiago de Chile. In 1970, he was witness to the ascension of Salvador Allende to the presidency, and he left Chile in 1972, only months before the 1973 Chilean coup d'état which overthrew Allende. During this period, he served on two occasions as the dean of the diplomatic corps in absentia of the Apostolic Nuncio. It was in this role that he received increased pressure to visit and congratulate Allende for his victory in the 1970 Chilean presidential election, in  representation of the entire diplomatic corps. Moreno Pino wanted to avoid congratulating the socialist candidate until his victory was official, so as not to appear to be unduly intervening in Chilean politics or in the electoral process. However, as the Christian Democrats, the governing party, increasingly showed their will to avoid new electoral phases, and after certain Ambassadors (mostly from Warsaw Pact countries) bypassed him and congratulated Allende directly, Moreno Pino took the decision to visit Allende and congratulate him in person so as to in order to avoid a loss of his authority as dean. After Allende was sworn  in, Moreno Pino once again found himself in a delicate position, as he had to offer a gala dinner which is traditionally offered by the diplomatic corps for the new president of the republic. However, due to the Marxist ideology of Allende (disapproving of bourgeoisie entertainment) and the lack of enthusiasm that several western nations had regarding his accession, "he had to carry out complex maneuvers to ensure that the event was carried out." In 1972, Luis Echeverria carried out a prolonged visit to Chile during which he was hosted by Ambassador Moreno Pino and his family in the ambassadorial  residence. During the visit, Echeverria communicated to Moreno Pino that he had taken the decision to name him as Ambassador in the Federal Republic of Germany, where Moreno Pino would be responsible, amongst other things, for handing over the Olympics (held in Mexico City in 1968) to Germany, which was set to host the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich. After his initial posting in Santiago, Moreno Pino served in Bonn, Washington, D.C., Geneva, Caracas, Lima, The Hague and briefly in Santo Domingo. In 1990, he was recalled to Mexico in order to act as a senior foreign policy adviser  to president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. During the course of his career, he developed into one of the most eminent policy experts in the Foreign Office on western hemisphere affairs. He was a key advisor and actively participated on the drafting of the amendments which were carried out to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) under the Buenos Aires Protocol (1967), the San José Protocol (1975) and in the Cartagena de Indias Protocol (1985). Throughout his career, he was a delegate in over fifty international conferences on various issues ranging from disarmament to reciprocal assistance; on many occasions , he served as a delegate in the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He was the secretary general of the Mexican Delegation to the First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, held in Geneva, Switzerland, between February and April 1958. The conference was important in establishing the modern legal framework of the law of the sea. He was also a lecturer of international law at Georgetown University, the Mexico City College, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and Instituto Matias Romero. In August 2013, José Antonio Meade, the foreign secretary, informed that Ambassador Moreno Pino had died . After giving his condolences to his family, he declared that Moreno Pino had contributed during his career to strengthen the good name of Mexican diplomacy. Writings: major books. Moreno Pino wrote numerous hemerographic and bibliographic publications. Among the latter, the following stand out: José Luis Siqueiros Prieto, commenting on "Diplomacy: Theoretical and Practical Aspects" opined that: Similarly, commenting on "Law and Diplomacy in Inter-American Relations", Bernardo Sepúlveda Amor stated that: Personal life. In February 1963, Moreno Pino married Mercedes González de Hermosillo y Quirós, the eldest daughter of Airforce General Bernardo González de Hermosillo y Ríos, a pioneer of  aviation in Mexico and a founding member of the Airforce College ("Escuela Militar de Aviación"). The couple had three children. U.S. State Department diplomatic cables. On Sunday, 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by its diplomatic missions around the world. The leaked documents are dated between December 1966 and February 2010, and contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials. In a Cold War context, Moreno Pino is mentioned in several of these as a senior figure in the foreign policy  establishment of a key non aligned country. One leaked U.S. Department of State cable described Moreno Pino, as "gracious, friendly and discreet" and noted that, having graduated from the American School and Georgetown, he "displays a favorable attitude to the US" even though he was "a Mexican nationalist who is sensitive to his country's image and interest." Another leaked document sent by the US Embassy in Mexico to the Secretary of State describes a day-long foreign policy briefing held on 13 May 1976 for President Echeverría at the Los Pinos Presidential Residence. The document mentions that "one after  another, senior officials delivered major policy papers on their respective bailiwicks", going on to note that Moreno Pino's presentation was "among the more noteworthy." Foreign honors. Throughout his diplomatic career, Moreno Pino was awarded several honors from foreign nations, including Germany, The Netherlands, The Republic of China, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Yugoslavia: