His death was confirmed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Saturday. Mr. Echeverría served as president from 1970 to 1976 at the height of Mexico’s one-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled almost unchallenged from 1929 to 2000. In 2006, Mr. Echeverría was charged with genocide in connection with the 1968 massacre of Tlatelolco students in Mexico City, days before the start of the Summer Olympics. He spent three years under house arrest until a judge ordered his release in 2009, citing a lack of evidence.

Luis Echeverría leaves the prosecutor’s office in 2002 in Mexico City, where he faced genocide charges in connection with the 1968 massacre of student protesters.

          Photo: MARCO UGARTE/Associated Press

Mr. Echeverría gained international prominence as a leading voice of developing countries that sought alternatives to the Cold War rivalry between Washington and Moscow. Mexico was seen at the time as a beacon of political stability in a region suffering from social unrest, frequent military coups and guerrilla movements. He promoted left-wing policies at home and abroad, but his tenure as president was marked by a crackdown on Marxist rebels, students and opposition groups. “Echeverria presided over one of the darkest moments in recent Mexican history,” said Soledad Loaeza, a political scientist at El Colegio de México, who was 20 when Mr. Trump was elected. Echeverria took over. Hundreds went missing during his presidency. Cold War turmoil intensified in Mexico during his tenure. Eugenio Garza Sada, a leading industrialist from the northern city of Monterrey, was killed in a kidnapping attempt by a communist guerrilla group in 1973. As president, Mr. Echeverría exercised almost absolute power. He controlled Congress and the Supreme Court, while the ruling party faced only token political opposition. Mr. Echeverría has ruthlessly suppressed opponents while spouting leftist rhetoric not heard since the 1930s, when President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry, Ms. Loaeza said. Mr. Echeverría implemented protectionist policies that resulted in rapid industrialization, boosting economic growth. However, high public spending and rising public debt led to a disastrous devaluation of the currency after more than two decades of economic stability.

In 1974, Mexican President Luis Echeverría greeted US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Latin American Foreign Ministers Conference in Mexico City.

          Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mr. Echeverría was known for his verbosity, long speeches and oratorical skills. Mexican historian Daniel Cosío Villegas described Mr. Echeverría as an outspoken leader who masterfully used words and long speeches as a government tool. “He was a preacher,” Mr. Cosío Villegas wrote in a 1975 book. Many analysts say Mr. López Obrador, Mexico’s current president, shares similar rhetoric and is also a strong advocate of an active state role in the economy. Mr. Echeverría was often on the road to remote rural areas, a practice adopted by Mr. López Obrador. “They are both left-wing populists,” said Roger Bartra, a historian and sociologist. “López Obrador Sees Echeverria Years as Golden Age of State Spending and State Control”. Mr. López Obrador began his political career at the end of Mr. López Obrador. Echeverria’s government and several politicians who served with Mr. Echeverria have also worked in the López Obrador administration. Mr. Echeverría was born in 1922 in Mexico City. A lawyer by training, he cut his political teeth when he joined the PRI at the age of 24. Tall and lean, he rose through the ranks of the party in several administrations, earning a reputation as a disciplined and efficient bureaucrat. In 1964, then-President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz appointed him minister of the interior, a key position that often led to the presidency. As minister, he oversaw national security when soldiers and paramilitary paramilitary agents opened fire on a student rally in Tlatelolco Square in 1968. Official records show 44 people were killed, according to research by the nonprofit US National Security Archives. Student organizations and news reports at the time estimated between 150 and 300 deaths. Mr. Echeverría denied ordering the killings. The repression continued under the presidency of Mr. Echeverría. He won the 1970 election after being chosen by Mr. Díaz Ordaz as the candidate of the ruling party.

Soldiers are seen on the streets near the Olympic stadium before the opening ceremony of the Mexico City Olympics in October 1968.

          Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, 532 people disappeared at the hands of state forces in the 1970s. The commission recorded 275 extrajudicial executions. Most of them were left-wing students, activists and farmers organized into illegal groups in the lawless state of Guerrero in southern Mexico. Agents under government control killed at least 12 people and injured many more in a 1971 demonstration, according to official records. The incident was depicted in “Roma,” the 2018 Oscar-winning film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron. Mr. Echeverría denied ordering the attack. In 2005, a judge dropped genocide charges in connection with the 1971 attack, citing a lack of evidence. Despite Mr. Echeverria’s repressive policies, many intellectuals, including the prominent writer Carlos Fuentes, were pleased with his anti-American rhetoric and his personal relationship with leftist Latin American leaders such as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Cuba’s Fidel Castro . “Mexican intellectuals supported him very much. They believed the choice in the 1970s was between the PRI and the kind of right-wing military dictatorships that ravaged the continent at the time,” Ms Loaeza said. He was also known for his attacks on independent media. In July 1976, just five months before he left office, Mr. Echeverría orchestrated the ouster of Julio Scherer, a government critic and then managing editor of Excelsior, one of Mexico’s leading newspapers at the time. The move would become one of Mr. Echeverría’s lasting contributions to Mexico: Mr. Scherer went on to found the weekly Proceso, one of the most influential news outlets in the country. Write to Juan Montes at [email protected] Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8