La guerra sucia (dirty war) in Mexico was a period of military and political upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. One of the seminal events during this time was the Tlatelolco Massacre. On the night of 2 October 1968 the Mexican army confronted student protesters in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, killing and wounding hundreds. Eye witnesses blamed President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz’s security forces for the violence, while the government pointed toward Communist agitators and other extremists among the protesters. Luís Echeverría Álvarez was Díaz Ordaz’s minister of the interior at the time, and was seen by many as being primarily responsible for the Tlatelolco Massacre.

In 1970 Echeverría won the Mexican presidency as the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate. While he liberalized many of Mexico’s economic and international policies—he increased public spending and developed closer ties with the socialist governments of Chile and Cuba—Echeverría remained adamant not to allow any left-leaning groups to develop within Mexico. His administration's anti-left program was demonstrated on 10 June 1971 when a right wing paramilitary group known as Los Halcones was allowed to openly attack a group of peaceful marchers in Mexico City. The incident became known as la matanza del Jueves de Corpus or El Halconazo. Although Echeverría claimed his innocence, it was later determined that many of the Halcones were on the payroll of the government. Not wanting another Tlatelolco incident during his administration, Echeverría was resolute that university student, staff, and faculty groups be monitored and controlled during his term in office. It fell to Capitán Luis de la Barreda Moreno and his Dirección Federal de Seguridad agents to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the various leftist organizations.

The Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) was a government security agency created in 1947 during the presidency of Miguel Alemán. Organizationally part of the Secretaria de Gobernación, the DFS was assigned the duty of preserving the internal stability of Mexico against all forms subversion and terrorist threats. The DFS traced its immediate origins as a government agency to the Departamento de Investigación Política y Social (1942). Its lineage also included the Oficina de Información Política (1938) and the Departamento Confidencial (1929). However, its ultimate foundation could be found in President Venustiano Carranza’s Sección Primera, which was formed during the Revolution in 1918 and assigned the task of performing espionage on the enemy camp. In 1985 the DFS closed its doors and was replaced by the Dirección General de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional.

Works Referenced:

Aguayo, Sergio. México, D.F.: Grijalbo; Hoja Editorial; Hechos Confiables, 2001.

Carpenter, Victoria. 2005. Tlatelolco 1968 in Contemporary Mexican Literature Introduction. 24 (4), 476–480.

Mabry, Donald J. College Staton: Texas A&M University Press, 1982.

Schmidt, Samuel. Trans. and ed. Dan A. Cothran. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Valdez, Jesús Vargas. "Student Movement of 1968." Ed. by Michael S. Werner. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

Vázquez-Gómez, Juana. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997