Prior to this he was considered a leading figure in Mexican monetary policy, one of the so-called Siete Sabios de México (Seven Sages of Mexico).

Gómez Morín was born in the old mining town of Batopilas in the state of Chihuahua on 27 February 1897.

His father Manuel Gómez Castillo (of Spanish origin) died at age 24, shortly after his son was born.

By 1913, mother and child left León and moved to Mexico City where Manuel entered the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and finished high school.

He married Lidia Torres Fuentes in 1924, with whom he had four children: Juan Manuel, Gabriela, Mauricio and Margarita.

With the exception of a few years he laboured in the Secretary of Finance and as rector of the UNAM, he always lived as a lawyer and in 1927 he was legal representative to the Soviet Embassy.

On September 15, 1939, Gómez Morín founded the National Action Party of Mexico along with Roberto Cossío y Cosío, Juan Landerreche Obregón, Daniel Kuri Breña, Juan José Páramo Castro, Bernardo Ponce, Francisco Fernández Cueto, Carlos Ramírez Zetina and Enrique Manuel Loaeza Garay.