Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡusˈtaβo ˈði.as oɾˈðas]; 12 March 1911 – 15 July 1979) was a Mexican politician and member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Díaz Ordaz was born in San Andrés Chalchicomula, and obtained a law degree from the University of Puebla in 1937 where he later became its vice-rector.

[2] Díaz Ordaz joined the campaign of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines for the 1952 election and subsequently worked for the Secretariat of the Interior under Ángel Carvajal Bernal.

He became the secretary following López Mateos' victory in the 1958 election, and exercised de facto executive power during the absences of the president, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

However, for a decade he served in the political machine of President Porfirio Díaz, becoming the jefe político and police administrator of San Andrés Chilchicomula.

[20] He won the presidential election on 5 July 1964,[21] with 88.8% of the popular vote, while his main opponent, José González Torres of the National Action Party garnered only 10.9%.

[24] Also at the inauguration were former presidents Emilio Portes Gil, Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Lázaro Cárdenas, Miguel Alemán Valdés, and Adolfo Ruiz Cortines.

His strictness was evident in his handling of a number of protests during his term, in which railroad workers, teachers, and doctors were fired for taking industrial action.

Medics of the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers, especially residents and interns, had organized a strike to demand better working conditions and an increased salary.

The crackdown would eventually be denounced by Díaz Ordaz's successors, and ordinary Mexicans view the assault on unarmed students as an atrocity.

Every year, on the anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre, the statue of Díaz Ordaz in Zapopan, Jalisco, is vandalized by having a bucket of red paint splattered on it.

The president of the PRI, Carlos Madrazo, made such an attempt by proposing inner-party elections in order to strengthen the party's base.

[32] In Díaz Ordaz's honor, President Nixon hosted the first White House state dinner to be held outside Washington, D.C., at San Diego's Hotel del Coronado on 3 September 1970.

[33] Mexico also embraced the doctrine of nonintervention, and Díaz Ordaz condemned the US invasion of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

[34] On 12 October 1969, Díaz Ordaz chose his Secretary of the Interior, Luis Echeverría, as his successor, the seventh successive such selection by a sitting president without incident.

[35] He also considered Antonio Rocha Cordero, governor of the state of San Luis Potosí and former Attorney General, who was eliminated owing to his age (58), and Jesús Reyes Heroles, who was disqualified because a parent had been born outside Mexico, in this case Spain, which was prohibited by Article 82 of the Constitution.

[36] After his term expired, Díaz Ordaz and his family vanished completely from the public eye; he was occasionally mentioned in newspapers (usually in a derogatory manner), he seldom gave interviews, and he was usually spotted only when voting in elections.

In 1977, a break from that obscurity came as he was appointed as the first Mexican Ambassador to Spain in 38 years, relations between the two countries having previously been broken by the triumph of Falangism in the Spanish Civil War.

[37][38] Popular discontent led to a catchphrase: "Al pueblo de España no le manden esa araña" ("To the people of Spain, do not send that spider").

"[39] He died on July 15, 1979, aged 68 of colorectal cancer, at home in his bed in Mexico City, with his physician and children Gustavo, Guadalupe, and Ramón all present.