An outspoken left-wing critical of the Somoza dictatorship, he was director of the University of El Salvador before being thrown into jail and forced abroad into exile.
During this time he travelled to Chile, where during his nine month stay he undertook academic investigation into Chilean agriculture and produced Reforma agraria chilena (UES, San Salvador, 1970).
At the beginning of 1978 he was named vice president of Latin American Studies in the Political Sciences faculty at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Along with the Salvadoran intellectuals, Rafael Guidos Béjar and Ernesto Richter he contributed to a more specific Central American field of study and chaired debates on agrarian sociology and theory of the state.
He was appointed president of the External Commission of the Frente Democrático Revolucionario and was involved in important diplomatic work in favor of the Salvadoran insurgency in Mexico and the rest of Latin America and Europe.
He then became a director in Costa Rica, and during his administration he worked extensively with many noted Central American intellectuals, and was active all over El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.