Aarón Sáenz Garza and family aboard ship in 1922

Aarón Sáenz Garza (1 June 1891 – 26 February 1983) was a Mexican politician.

Biography

He was born in

Monterrey Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is ancho ...

Nuevo León Nuevo León () is a state in the northeast region of Mexico. The state was named after the New Kingdom of León, an administrative territory from the Viceroyalty of New Spain, itself was named after the historic Spanish Kingdom of León. With ...

. Sáenz Garza served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs during Calles' time as president. During his tenure, he continuously defended the Calles Administration's decision to cut oil to the United States when US Secretary of State Frank Kellog tried to bargain for a deal. He soon became

Governor of Nuevo León The Mexican state of Nuevo León has been governed by more than a hundred individuals in its history, who have had various titles and degrees of responsibility depending on the prevailing political regime of the time. Under the current regime, e ...

and maintained close ties with Calles; as governor, he even sat with Calles when he questioned the assassin of President-elect Alvaro Obregon in 1928. It was also announced that Calles had plans to nominate him as the Chairman of the National Revolutionary Party.

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese f ...

Pascual Ortiz Rubio Pascual Ortiz Rubio (; 10 March 1877 – 4 November 1963) was a first Mexican President of Mexico from 1930 to 1932. He was one of three Mexican presidents to serve out the six-year term (1928–1934) of assassinated president-elect Álvaro ...

appointed him

Secretary of Public Education The Mexican Secretariat of Public Education ( in Spanish ''Secretaría de Educación Pública'', ''SEP'') is a federal government authority with cabinet representation and the responsibility for overseeing the development and implementation of ...

in February 1930. By 1934, Saenz had been dubbed as the "Shadow of Calles" and was named Governor of Mexico's Federal District by Mexican President

Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the Me ...

. Cardenas and the Mexican Congress, however, soon turned on both Calles and Saenz and condemned their continued persecution against Catholics in the country. After leaving office in 1935, Saenz established a sugar corporation and quickly revolutionized sugar production in the country.Aarón Sáenz; Mexico's revolutionary capitalist, James C. Hefley, pg. 93 He was also known as the "king of Mexican sugar", founding a dynasty which survives until this date, led by his son Aaron Saenz Couret and grandson Aaron Saenz Hirschfeld, at the head of the leading sugar company in Mexico. At one point, he held a virtual monopoly of Mexico's sugar industry. His monopoly, however, was brought down during the administration of Mexican president

Adolfo Ruiz Cortines Adolfo Tomás Ruiz Cortines (; 30 December 1889 – 3 December 1973) was a Mexican politician who served as President of Mexico from 1952 to 1958, after winning the disputed 1952 elections as the candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolut ...

by 1953. Saenz was married to Margarita Couret, with whom he had eight sons. He died on 26 February 1983.

Businesses

For some time they all managed varied branches of the family's businesses, most of which have ceased to exist or passed into others' ownership. Most notable among these were: *

Mexicana de Aviación Compañía Mexicana de Aviación, S.A. de C.V. (usually shortened to Mexicana de Aviación or simply Mexicana) was Mexico's oldest airline and one of the oldest continuously single-branded airlines (after KLM, Avianca and QANTAS). It was ...

(Now bankrupt) *Sugar mills *Seguros Atlas—merged with Seguros Comercial America in the 90's and afterwards sold to France's

AXA Axa S.A. (styled as ''AXA'' or GIG in the Middle East) is a French multinational insurance company. The head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. It also provides investment management and other financial services. The Ax ...

*Banca Confía—nationalized in 1982, only to be re privatized by

Carlos Salinas de Gortari Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician who served as 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he wo ...

's administration and passing into the hands of Jorge Lankenau's insurance group, later to be merged with Banamex and acquired by

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Ba ...

during President

Ernesto Zedillo Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was 61st president of Mexico from 1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from t ...

's administration.

Legacy

Aarón Sáenz was related to Raul Saenz, a prominent Mexican businessman in Chihuahua state, as well as

Moises Saenz Moises or Moisés is a male name common among people of Iberian origin. It is the Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog equivalent of the name Moses. ;Places * Doctor Moisés Bertoni, a village in the Caazapá department of Paraguay * Moises Padilla ...

, a prominent Mexican educator and diplomat.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saenz Garza, Aaron 1891 births 1983 deaths Governors of Nuevo León Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico) Institutional Revolutionary Party politicians 20th-century Mexican businesspeople Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico) Mexican people of Spanish-Jewish descent Mexican Protestants Mexican Secretaries of Foreign Affairs Mexican Secretaries of Education Politicians from Monterrey