The memorandum explains the directions that the Mexican president gave to the Mexican delegation. The president’s instructions were to modify the text of the NPT in order to increase support for the treaty, act as a bridge among dissenting opinions in Latin America, and prevent disruptions to the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

This memorandum is a compendium of comments about the Treaty of Tlatelolco made by different delegations at the UN. It includes statements by the delegates from the United States, Brazil, Ireland, Ethiopia, Austria, Italy, Pakistan, El Salvador, Mauritania, Iraq, Greece, Spain, Tanzania, Zambia, the Netherlands, Argentina, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Canada, Jordan, Ecuador, Guyana, Colombia, Malta, Panama, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Peru, in that order.

Alfonso Garcia Robles explained Mexico’s position toward the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the Mexican delegation’s position toward the NPT draft, and a comparison between the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the NPT draft. He explained that the Mexican delegation favored the NPT draft but wanted to make minor language modifications and include an explicit reference to the UN Charter’s articles on the use of force, especially Articles 2 (IV) and 26. Garcia Robles also explained why he thought the Treaty of Tlatelolco was “superior” to the NPT draft as a response to nuclear risks. He argued that the regional treaty better addressed nuclear threats than the NPT draft because it included more constraints on nuclear powers, a more precise definition of a nuclear weapon, and a more institutionalized system of controls.

Alfonso Garcia Robles explained how the Mexican delegation tried to gather the support of the Latin American countries for the NPT draft. These countries prepared and presented modifications to the NPT text, and the United States and the Soviet Union accepted some of these proposals. Garcia Robles reported that the Argentinian and Brazilian representatives said they recognized the value of the NPT but would not support it if it kept its clause prohibiting peaceful nuclear explosions. The Ambassador also reported the Soviet positive reactions toward the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Garcia Robles recounted the skepticism of some delegations toward the NPT. He recommended not to sign the NPT in 1968 unless the Soviet Union signed Protocol II of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which includes negative security assurances.

Alfonso Garcia Robles announced the success of the negotiations drafting the Treaty of Tlatelolco and its opening for signatures. He recounted the expressions of support and admiration for the treaty from different authorities, especially from U Thant, the UN Secretary-General, who hoped the Treaty of Tlatelolco would serve as an example and an impetus for similar efforts. He also explained that the Treaty of Tlatelolco managed to balance two fundamental goals: preventing the proliferation of nuclear arsenals and guaranteeing access to peaceful uses of nuclear technologies.

Alfonso Garcia Robles used his address to describe the progress in the negotiations of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. For him, this treaty included the most ambitious definition of nuclear weapons compared to existing nuclear governance texts. Another innovation was the reliance on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguard system to monitor compliance. Garcia Robles also explained that Latin American delegations were almost in consensus about the Treaty of Tlatelolco text except for a couple of issues. Countries did not agree on defining the territory where the treaty would apply and when it would enter into force. The Ambassador also took this opportunity to explain the Latin American efforts to obtain negative security assurances from China. Moreover, he reminded delegates that the success of the NPT would depend on balancing obligations for nuclear and non-nuclear-weapon states. Mexican representatives argued that it was necessary to include more ambitious disarmament goals in the draft of the NPT. However, they rejected proposals to condition the approval of the NPT on the existence of concrete steps toward disarmament

The president of the Mexican delegation to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Alfonso Garcia Robles, explained why the Latin American nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) would represent the most ambitious regional project to address nuclear perils. He explained the security implications of the agreement, especially in terms of nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament, and negative security assurances. He also clarified that the Latin American project would benefit signatories economically. He argued that Latin American governments would not have to waste the resources necessary to engage in nuclear arms races if the region were denuclearized. Moreover, he explained that Mexico’s final aim was to achieve general and complete disarmament; thus, Mexican authorities saw the NPT as a means and not a goal on its own.

Juan José Hernández-Arregui (1913-1974), the Argentinian author of the Spanish book published originally in 1963 in Buenos Aires from which the excerpt here has been translated into English, was a journalist from a very young age, an intellectual, and an official. Having received his PhD in 1944, he from 1945 worked principally as a history and economics professor, and had a cultural program in the State Radio.

At the time, in 1946, a career army officer, Juan Perón (1895-1974), who in 1943-1945 had served as secretary of labor and social security and as minister of war in a military-led government, became Argentine’s president. He and his wife Eva were very popular especially among the poor for his social policies and approach to the working classes, and he worked closely inter alia with the General Confederation of Labor to promote economic independence. In 1955, a military coup forced him into exile, first in Venezuela and finally in Spain. (He would serve as president again from 1973 until his death in 1974). Although he was in exile and his party was outlawed, his broad brand of nationalism—leftist-statist with strong right-wing populist elements—remained deeply influential in Argentina.

Hernández-Arregui was a case in point. Though fired from academic posts after the coup, he remained the director of the Instituto de Historia de la Universidad Nacional de la Plata, retained his radio program—and was able to militate for Perón. In well-read newspaper texts, he soon called for Perón’s return. And his books—at that time most importantly Imperialismo y cultura (1957) and La formación de la conciencia nacional (1960) besides ¿Qué es el ser nacional? [What is the National Being?] (1963) which is excerpted text gere—made him a leading protagonist of el peronismo revolucionario, revolutionary (i.e. leftist) Peronism. Peronism defined itself and was seen as a very much Argentinian ideology, not unlike earlier nationalisms in South America’s second-largest country.

At the same time, as other nationalist ideologies since the 19th century, it and related nationalisms developed within global context. In the event, a key context was the rising tide of decolonization in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, as Michael Goebel’s “Von der hispanidad zum Panarabismus: globale Verflechtungen in Argentiniens Nationalismen” (2011) has shown. Sure, the Cuban revolution exerted a considerable pull especially on leftist Peronists as it did on other in Latin America and beyond. But the Algerian War of Independence greatly interested Argentines, too. And perhaps most influential as a model to think with was the anti-imperialist leftist-statist nationalist Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970; r. from 1954), as the text here shows.

The Soviet embassy in Mexico requests diplomatic identification cards for the Minister-Counselor of the USSR Embassy in Mexico Dmitri A. Diakonov and his wife Veronika Diakonova.

In this press release, the Mexican Solicitor General describes the criminal activity of the nineteen Revolutionary Action Movement (MAR) members arrested for the assault and robbery of a cashier from the Commerce Bank of Morelia at the Three Stars bus terminal. He swears to continue the investigation with the goal of arresting all MAR members as well as others trained in North Korea or recruited from abroad.