Provisional President Emilio Portes Gil discusses Mexican revolutionary politics, 1928-1930 : an oral history study.

Abstract

Emilio Portes Gil entered the service of the Mexican Revolution at an early age and served in a variety of governmental posts from 1914 until 19 28 when he was elected as Provisional President of Mexico. His administration covered a period of fourteen months. During this time he was confronted with important internal problems concerning agrarian reform, labor, Church-state relations, military insurrection, and university autonomy. The study includes a survey of the revolutionary background of the Portes Gil administration as well as a description of the measures employed in dealing with internal problems. It also includes a chapter composed of selected oral history text based on tape-recorded interviews with Portes Gil by James W. Wilkie and Edna Monzon de Wilkie. This oral history material has been translated from Spanish to English and annotation has been supplied for the purpose of making the text more easily understood by non-specialists with an interest in twentieth century political history. An introductory chapter describes the nature of oral history and discusses the methodology employed by the in their interviews with elites. The study represents a combination of political history, biography, and autobiography; also, it constitutes a case study of presidential politics in a developing country. Emphasis is placed on description rather than analysis, with the primary objective to make available for English-language readers or researchers a document that relates how a former Mexican President viewed his presidential service when questioned by an oral historian approximately thirty-five years after leaving office.