Showcasing the 'land of tomorrow': Mexico and the 1968 olympics

Americas

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 159-188

  Zolov, Eric ^a  

^a FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949832952     PISSN: 00031615     EISSN: 15336247     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tam.2004.0195     Document Type: Review

References (84)

1. Raúl Alvarez Garín, La estrela de Tlatelolco: Una reconstrución histórica del movimiento estudiantil del 68 (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1998)
2. Julio Scherer García & Carlos Monsiváis, Parte de Guerra: Tlatelolco 1968 (Mexico City: Nuevo Siglo/Aguilar, 1999)
3. Carlos Montemayor, Rehacer la historia: Análisis de los nuevos documentas del 2 de octubre de 1968 en Tlatelolco (Mexico City: Planeta, 2000)
4. Jorge Volpi, La imaginación y el poder: Una historia intelectual de 1968 (Mexico: Era, 1998)
5. Eric Zolov, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)
6. For critical interpretations of how 1968 evolved as a trope of heroic resistance to state repression in Mexican memory see Lessie Jo Frazier and Deborah Cohen, "Defining the Space of Mexico '68: Heroic Masculinity in the Prison and 'Women' in the Streets," Hispanic American Historical Review 83:4 (November 2003), pp. 617-60
7. and Vania Markarian, "El movimiento estudiantil mexicano de 1968: Treinta años de debates públicos," Anuario de Espacios Urbanos (2001), pp. 239-64
8. For a new work treating the 1968 Olympics within the historiography of black protest see Amy Bass, Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002)
9. Volpi, La Imaginación y el poder is one of the few works to treat this important aspect of the decade
10. See for example Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, "Hacia México 68: Pedro Ramírez Vázquez y el proyecto olímpico," Secuencia 56 (May-August 2003), pp. 37-73
11. Rodríguez Kuri, "El otro 68."
12. Rodríguez Kuri, "Hacia México 68," p. 53
13. See Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)
14. Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, "1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario," Journal of Latin American Studies 28:1 (February 1996), pp. 75-104
15. "Hacia México 68," p. 68
16. Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and 'Nation Building' in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)
17. See also Eric Zolov, "Discovering a Land 'Mysterious and Obvious'" in Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, eds., Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Popular Culture in Mexico Since 1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 234-72
18. Kevin Witherspoon, "Protest at the Pyramid: the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the Politicization of the Olympic Games" (Ph.D. Diss., Florida State University, 2003)
19. Following the Berlin crisis of 1961, the U.S. and France responded by denying visas for East German athletes to participate in the 1962 hockey and skiing championships. Richard Espy, The Politics of the Olympic Games (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 76-82
20. Terrance W. McGarry, "The Real Nitty-Gritty on the 1968 Olympics," The News (Mexico City), 26 September 1966, p. 21. Located in ABC, Box 139, "Newspaper Clippings, 1961-69."
21. Enrique Krauze writes: "In economic matters, Diaz Ordaz had always shown great responsibility.... Under López Mateos, he had opposed Mexico's bid for the Olympic Games, expressing doubts about the cost to Mexico or the benefits it would supposedly bring to the country" (Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810-1996, translated by Hank Heifetz [New York: Harper Collins, 1997], pp. 680-81)
22. Quoted in McGarry, "Real Nitty-Gritty."
23. Pete Waldmeir, "Mexico Lagging on Olympics; Detroit Told it Has Chance," Detroit News, 13 January 1965. Located in ABC, Box 178, "Press Department, 1968."
24. See also Kevin Witherspoon, "Thin Air and Lofty Dreams: The Altitude Controversy and the 1968 Olympics," Paper presented at the American Historical Association, Washington, D.C. (January 2004)
25. Comité Organizador de los Décimonovenes Jueges Olímpicos, Mexico 68, vol. 1 (Mexico City: Olympic Committee of the Games of the XIX Olympiad, 1969), p. 14
26. Waldmeir, "Mexico Lagging."
27. Zolov, "Discovering a Land 'Mysterious and Obvious,'" p. 235. A broader context for this controversy was the mounting dispute over the very nature of Mexico City's urban planning, epitomized by the political wrangling (then heating up) over a proposed subway system
28. See Diane Davis, Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), chapter 5
29. McGarry, "Real Nitty-Gritty." López Mateos suffered from migraine headaches throughout his presidency. An operation in July, 1966 revealed he had seven cerebral aneurysms. Although he survived, over the next three years he gradually lost control over his body and consciousness. He died on September 22, 1969, "ignorant of the silence and pain of his country" and the outcome of the Olympic Games he had so avidly pursued
30. (Krauze, Biography of Power, p. 664.)
31. For a discussion of the stadium politics see Claudia Fernández and Andrew Paxman, El tigre: Emilio Azcárraga y su imperio Televisa (Mexico: Grijalbo, 2000)
32. Avery Brundage to Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, 24 July 1966, ABC, Box 178, "Organizing Committee, 1966."
33. Manuel Seyde, "'Una Olimpiada no Onerosa para el País y Ningún Gasto sin una Plena Justificación Social,' Dijo Ramírez Vázquez en su Discurso Ayer," Excelsiór, 4 November 1966. Located in ABC, Box 139, "Newspaper Clippings." Two months later Mexico City's once all-powerful mayor, Ernesto Uruchurtu, was forced to resign. While Uruchurtu's demise was already underway by that point, his opposition to plans for a costly subway system and accelerated urban development in general had brought him into direct conflict with Resident Díaz Ordaz. By simultaneously designating replacements for López Mateos and Uruchurtu (Alfonso Corona del Rosal, a long-time ally of Diaz Ordaz, became the new Regent) President Díaz Ordaz was able to regain control of the debate over planning for the Olympics
34. (See Davis, Urban Leviathan, p. 172.)
35. Rodríguez Kuri, "Hácia Mexico 68," p. 39. Rodríguez Kuri's chart showing comparative Olympiad financing is extremely useful
36. See also Joseph L. Arbena, "Hosting the Summer Olympic Games: Mexico City, 1968," in Joseph L. Arbena and David G. LaFrance, eds., Sport in Latin America and the Caribbean (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003), pp. 133-43
37. "Mexico City's Olympic Feats," Fortune (March 1968), p. 149. The remark was repeated on several occasions in the U.S. press
38. Avery Brundage to Ramírez Vázquez, 1 November 1966
39. Comité Organizador, México 68, vol. 2, p. 275
40. Rodríguez Kuri, "El Otro 68"
41. Rodríguez Kuri, "Hácia México 68," p. 54
42. Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, "Mexico's Cultural Olympics," Americas (October 1968), pp. 15-19
43. Frank Riley, "Of Poets and Pole Vaulters," Saturday Review, 9 March 1968, p. 58
44. Comité Organizador, México 68, vol. 1, p. 106
45. Eric Zolov, "Toward an Analytical Framework for Assessing the Impact of the 1968 Student Movement on U.S.-Mexican Relations," Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 9:2 (December 2003), pp. 41-68
46. "Humanismo Olímpico," Excélsior, 5 November 1966. Located in ABC, Box 139, "Mexico: Newspaper Clippings."
47. Sergio Rivera Conde, "El Diseño en la XIX Olimpiada. Entrevista al arquitecto Pedro Ramírez Vázquez," Creación y culture 1:1 (July-August 1999), p. 33
48. Comité Organizador, México 68, vol. 4, p. 732
49. The drawings were done by Mexico's well-known caricaturist, Abel Quezada, specifically recruited for the campaign. For an English translation of the speech in which Juárez's famous statement appears see Benito Juárez, "The Triumph of the Republic" in Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson, eds., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 270-72
50. Rivera Conde, "El Diseño en la XIX Olimpiada," p. 28
51. Arthur Solin, "Mexico 68: Graphics for the XIX Olympiad," Print (May/June, 1968), p. 3
52. See Rivera Conde, "El Diseno en la XIX Olimpiada," p. 28
53. Tim Rohan, "Games Plan," Wallpaper (September 2000), p. 158
54. Lance Wyman, 16 October 2001 (email communication with author)
55. Allen Rankin, "Bom to Dance," Reader's Digest (October 1963), p. 235
56. Rivera Conde, "El Diseño en la XIX Olimpiad," p. 35
57. For a discussion of how gender was a key element of tourist marketing in the 1940s see Alex Saragoza, "The Selling of Mexico: Tourism and the State, 1929-1952" in Joseph, et. al., eds., Fragments of a Golden Age, pp. 91-115
58. Avery Brundage, "Personal Diary of the Olympics," ABC, Box 84, p. 18
59. "Memorandum," Pedro Ramírez Vázquez to Luis Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda, 19 September 1966, COI, Gallery 7, Box 41, Folder 114, AGN
60. Bass, Not the Triumph but the Struggle, pp. 106-7
61. John Leinbaugh to Avery Brundage, 16 December 1969. ABC, Box 178, "Organizing Committee, 1969-70."
62. For two excellent treatments of Cuban poster art see Lincoln Cushing, ¡Revolućion! Cuban Poster Art (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003)
63. and David Kunzle, ed., Che Guevara: Icon, Myth and Message (Los Angeles: University of California Ress/Fowler Art Museum, 1997)
64. "Brain Storming," 9 May 1968, COI, Gallery 7, Box 26, Folder 41, AGN
65. For images see Comité Organizador, Mexico 68, vol. 4, pp. 306-57
66. "A Well-Designed Warm-Up for the Olympics," Life, 17 May 1968, p. 57
67. Salázar, "Wonderland of Color."
68. Riley, "Of Poets and Pole Vaulters," p. 60
69. Pan Dodd Eimon, "Olympic-Sized Fiesta," The American City (August 1968), p. 4
70. Christopher Rand, "Letter from Mexico," New Yorker, 29 June 1968, p. 68
71. David Butwin, "The Games, the Boycott, the Problems," Saturday Review, 22 June 1968, p. 39
72. "¡Vengámos, Gringos!," Sports Illustrated, 17 June 1968, p. 69. Emphasis in original
73. George B. Leonard, "A Different Journey on the Eve of the Olympics," Look, 3 September 1968, pp. 42-44. Emphasis in original
74. "¡Vengamos Gringos!," p. 75
75. Volpi, La imaginación y el poder, pp. 23-8
76. For a recent analysis of the origins of the movement see Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, "Los primeros días. Una explicación de los orígenes inmediatos del movimiento estudiantil de 1968," Historia Mexicana 80:1 (2003), pp. 179-228
77. Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico, transl. by Helen R. Lane (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), pp. 52-3
78. "Tough Action on Threat to Olympics," U.S. News & World Report, 30 September 1968, p. 8
79. Wyman was evidently unaware of this at the time and only learned of the students' use of his images in 1985, when he gave a lecture at the National University (UNAM). See Rohan, "Games Plan," p. 158
80. Salazar, "Wonderland of Color," p. 8
81. Monis Rosenberg, "At Olympic Time, Mexicans Worry about Manana," Washington Post, 13 October 1968, p. H1
82. White House Memorandum, "Student Disturbances in Mexico City," William G. Bowlder to LBJ (Secret), 31 July 1968, National Security Archives, Washington, D.C
83. Kahn, "Sporting Scene," p. 221
84. New York Times, 13 October 1968, p. 1