Quietly and alone, President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines made the one vital decision every Mexican President must make before his term expires—who was to be his successor. Last week from the presidential mansion, Los Pinos, the word was out: Ruiz Cortines' blessing went to his hardworking Labor Minister, Adolfo Lopez Mateos, 47, a moderate leftist who could be counted on to push ahead with Mexico's maturing democracy and its fast-developing free economy.
As soon as headlines proclaimed the news that Lopez Mateos would be the candidate of the government's all-powerful Party of Revolutionary Institutions (P.R.I.), hordes of well-wishers and job-seekers swarmed around him. Afterward he slumped into a green leather chair, popped a digestion pill into his mouth, smoked a Strong Delicados cigarette, joked: "Dios! Who wants to be a candidate!"
Jury of Three. The choice of Lopez Mateos came as something of a surprise. Three other Cabinet Ministers—rightists in the P.R.I.—were considered the leading contenders. But in choosing his successor, Middle-of-the-Roader Ruiz Cortines listened long to ex-Presidents Lazaro Cardenas and Miguel Aleman, who control the left and right wings of the P.R.I. Leftist Cardenas, with his millions of farm and labor backers, was clearly the more persuasive—and he vetoed the frontrunners. Lopez Mateos, not committed to left or right, was acceptable to all three President-makers.
Son of an impecunious orthodontist, Lopez Mateos was born in Atizapán de Zaragoza in Mexico state. While getting his law degree at night school, he worked his way teaching history and literature at a normal school. He started in politics in 1929 as a Socialist, switched easily to the government party when its chief offered to make him his secretary. He rose to Senator in 1946, managed Ruiz Cortines' campaign for the presidency in 1952.
Mortgage & Fiat. As Labor Minister Lopez Mateos often worked a seven-day week. His. ministry handled 13,382 labor disputes; only 13 developed into strikes. Both labor and management call him a square shooter, approve his candidacy. He also helped write the successful Mexican-U.S. agreement on control of border-jumping "wetbacks," and might well express his admiration for Mexico's northern neighbor were it not that by local tradition such sentiments are political suicide.
Slender, wavy-haired and handsome, Lopez Mateos will have especial appear in next July's election, when women vote for a President for the first time. He lives with his wife and 15-year-old daughter in a still unfinished modern house with a $13,600 mortgage on it. He is up at 5 a.m. —"I never sleep more than five hours a night"—for a breakfast of black coffee, meat and fruit, drives himself to work in his Fiat. Because he has stuck so closely to his office, he is not well known to most Mexicans. Not until next week, when P.R.I, delegates and spectators jam Mexico City's giant bull ring to hear him accept the nomination, will a sizable crowd of Mexicans see their next President.