Ismael Moreno Pino (15 February 1927 – 15 August 2013) was a Mexican lawyer, diplomat, and author instrumental in negotiating the Tlatelolco Treaty, which established Latin America as the first inhabited region in the planet free of nuclear weapons. He worked alongside Alfonso García Robles, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for their joint efforts. Ambassador of Mexico between 1964 and 1992, he represented his country in Germany, the Netherlands, several Latin American states, and before international organizations, including the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. Additionally, he served on the administrative council of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. His maternal grandfather was José María Pino Suárez, Vice President of Mexico from 1911 until his assassination in 1913 during the Ten Tragic Days, remembered as a martyr in the struggle for democracy and social justice during the Mexican Revolution.
Born in Mérida, Yucatán, into the Pino–Cámara family, he was educated at the American School Foundation in Mexico City. He earned a Law degree from the UNAM and later obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in International Relations from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1951, working closely with intellectuals such as Octavio Paz. During the early 1960s, he served as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs and Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs, helping shape Mexico's position on major Cold War events, such as the Cuban Revolution and the Missile Crisis. During his tenure in Chile as ambassador and dean of the diplomatic corps, he observed the historic 1970 presidential election and the difficulties that confronted Salvador Allende which ultimately led to the 1973 coup. As ambassador to West Germany, he played a pivotal role in the historic decision to extend diplomatic recognition to East Germany in January 1973, making Mexico one of the first countries in the Americas to do so, nearly two years before the United States followed suit under the Ford Administration. This move aligned with Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, strengthening Mexico's autonomous foreign policy during the Cold War.
In 1982, President José López Portillo conferred upon him the title of embajador eminente, a distinction legally reserved for only ten career ambassadors in recognition of their exceptional service. In 1990, he was knighted by Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands and his work also earned him numerous honors from other foreign governments, including those of Brazil, Chile, Germany, Japan, Peru, the Republic of China, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. Upon his retirement in 1992, he was recognized as the senior-most diplomat, or doyen, of the Mexican Foreign Service. Among his publications, his book Diplomacy: Theoretical and Practical Aspects became a seminal reference for generations of Latin American diplomats.
Family origins
He was born in Mérida, Yucatán on 15 February 1927, the only son of Aída Pino Cámara and Ramón Moreno. His maternal grandparents were José María Pino Suárez, Vice President of Mexico from 1911 until his assassination in 1913, and María Cámara Vales, recipient of the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor, one of the highest civil honors that a Mexican citizen can receive.
He descends from the de la Cámara lineage, a distinguished landowning family which settled in the Yucatán peninsula in the 16th century. Their ancestry can be traced back to the early 13th century and they gained recognition in Spain, Portugal, and Yucatán where family members have held positions as knights, explorers, conquerors, aristocrats, landowners, and industrialists. His great-grandfather was Raymundo Cámara Luján, a prominent businessman, while his great-granduncle was Agustín Vales Castillo, an industrialist who served as Mayor of Mérida between 1902 and 1908. Alfredo and Nicolás Cámara Vales who served as Governor of Quintana Roo and Yucatán, respectively, were his great-uncles. He was also related to Eusebio Escalante, the industrialist responsible for developing the henequen industry in Yucatán, José María Ponce, the founder of the Cervecería Yucatán brewery, Carlos Peón, governor of Yucatán, and Alfredo Pino Cámara, the Supreme Court Justice.
In the arts, Hortensia Cámara Vales and Pablo Castellanos León, his great-uncles, were a couple of concert pianists; Castellanos León, a virtuoso, was educated in the conservatoire de Paris under Antoine François Marmontel. His son, Pablo Castellanos Cámara, also became a virtuoso pianist, having studied at the Paris and Berlin Conservatories under Alfred Cortot and Edwin Fischer. Meanwhile, Fernando Cámara Barbachano, another cousin, was a distinguished anthropologist and museum director.
As the grandson of Pino Suárez, he is also a direct line descendant of Pedro Sáinz de Baranda, a founding father who, after fighting the Battle of Trafalgar as a Spanish naval officer, founded the Mexican Navy during the Mexican War of Independence; later in his career, he served as Governor of Yucatán and is widely regarded for having introduced the Industrial Revolution to the country. Other prominent members of the Sáinz de Baranda family include the brothers and Joaquín Baranda, as well as who served as mayor of Madrid during the Napoleonic invasion of Iberia.
Education
Educated at the American School, he received his Law degree from the National University of Mexico in 1950, writing a thesis on "the role of the consular corps in the national economic recovery plan", a copy of which can still be obtained in the U.S. Library of Congress.WorldCat
He continued his studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., obtaining bachelor's and master's degrees in Foreign Service. His roommate at Georgetown was Frank V. Ortiz, who would later serve as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina and Peru.
Diplomatic career Early career: the Foreign Ministry and Mexico's response to the Cold War A protégé of Manuel Tello, then the Foreign Secretary, Moreno Pino joined the Foreign Office in 1951 and the Diplomatic 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 worked in the Bureau for International Organization Affairs, collaborating closely with Octavio Paz, who would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990, and with Jorge Castañeda, who would serve as Foreign Secretary. In 1960, succeeding the latter, he served as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs. Between 1964 and 1965, he served as Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs. In 1964, President Adolfo López Mateos appointed him to the rank of Ambassador of Mexico.
As a non-aligned country in a Cold War context, Mexico was treading a fine line between the Western Bloc, led by the United States, and the Warsaw Pact countries, led by the USSR. This was exacerbated after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959, providing no easy solutions for Mexican foreign policy: "wholehearted support for the Cuban Revolution would create an unsustainable tension with the United States, the business community and the Catholic Church; meanwhile, wholehearted support for the United States would provoke an unsustainable tension with the revolutionary government of Cuba, the Mexican intelligentsia and other left-wing sectors which could become radicalized. The Mexican political system entrusted this delicate mission to the Foreign Ministry headed at that time by Manuel Tello, Foreign Secretary, and José Gorostiza, Deputy Foreign Secretary and, next to them, a noteworthy cadre of career diplomats educated in a tradition that [dates back] to the times when the proverb 'a Texan might beat a Mexican in a fight, but he is lost if he tries to argue with him' was minted."
Moreno Pino actively participated in shaping Mexico's response to the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). Indeed, Moreno Pino was one of the key Mexican delegates in the Punta del Este meeting (1962) held after the Cuban Revolution, during which it was decided, contrary to the express wishes of the United States, not to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States (OAS). During the meeting, Secretary Tello declared that Cuba's communist ideology was incompatible with OAS membership (pleasing the US); nevertheless, Mexico argued that the OAS Charter had no provision for the expulsion of a member state (pleasing Cuba). Mexico also advocated for non-interventionism, as established in the Estrada Doctrine.
During these crises, Mexico successfully maintained close relations both with the United States and Cuba. In June 1962, President John F. Kennedy carried out a state visit to Mexico and Moreno Pino was invited to act as interpreter. During the visit, Kennedy "recognized that the fundamental goals of the Mexican Revolution were the same as those of the Alliance for Progress: social justice and economic progress in a framework of individual and political liberty." On the other hand, Fidel Castro extended his recognition "to Mexico, to the Mexican government that has maintained the strongest position, we can say that it inspires us with respect, that with the Mexican government we are willing to talk and discuss, and... we are willing to commit ourselves to maintaining a policy subject to norms, inviolable norms of respect for the sovereignty of each country and of not interfering in the internal affairs of any country."
Another sensitive issue at the time was the representation of China in the United Nations; this issue was particularly delicate because China had a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. After the Chinese Communist Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong had established the People's Republic of China (PRC) while Chiang Kai-shek and his followers took refuge in Taiwan, continuing the regime of the Republic of China. During the first two decades of the Cold War, the latter was known as "Nationalist China", while the former was known as "Communist China" (Two Chinas). Despite Mao's triumph, most Western countries, including Mexico, continued to recognize "Nationalist China". During these years, the question of which of the two had the right to be China's legitimate representative before the UN was one of the biggest headaches for multilateral diplomacy. Between 1949 and 1971, Taiwan continued to represent China in the United Nations to the chagrin of the Soviet bloc.
In December 1961, while serving as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, responsible for supervising Mexico's relations with the United Nations, Moreno Pino persuaded Secretary Tello to instruct Ambassador Luis Padilla Nervo, then Mexico's Permanent Representative to the UN, to vote in favor of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1668, which, proposed by the United States, established that any proposal that tried to change the representation of China in the UN required a supermajority of votes in the UN General Assembly. This resolution delayed the accession of Communist China to the UN for a decade, until, in 1971, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 was passed, recognizing the PRC as "China's sole legitimate representative to the United Nations."
Negotiation of the Treaty of Tlatelolco: denuclearization in Latin America After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it became obvious to Latin American and Caribbean countries that they had to protect themselves in the case of a nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.