UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Narcomundo: How Narcotraficantes Gained Control of Northern Mexico and Beyond, 1945- 1985 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dg0820s Author Hernandez, Carlos Armando Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Narcomundo: How Narcotraficantes Gained Control of Northern Mexico and Beyond, 1945-1985 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Carlos Armando Hernández 2015 © Copyright by Carlos Armando Hernández 2015 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Narcomundo: How Narcotraficantes Gained Control of Northern Mexico and Beyond, 1945-1985 by Carlos Armando Hernández Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor James W. Wilkie, Chair Mexico’s official history does not properly address the Drug Wars and its effect on the nation as well as the U.S. – Mexico border region, including criminal spillover between the two countries especially since 1911. Drawing from evidence gathered at Mexico’s National Archives – specifically declassified documents from Mexico’s secret police files – contemporary news accounts from Tijuana, Mexico City, and California, as well as court cases and long ignored political biographies, I trace the historical origins of the Drug Wars in Northern Mexico extending into Mexico City; a history of drugs, dissidence, and violence. In my view, the problem of drugs in Mexico must be examined in Three Phases, two of which – Phase One and Two – I take up in the volume. The First Phase is from 1911-1945. The Second Phase is from 1945-1985. The Third Phase, since 1985, covers the rise of what I refer to as turf wars between competing drug trafficking organizations ii for the control of specific corridors vital for the production and distribution of drugs into the United States. The First Phase goes back to the year 1911 when General and later Governor Esteban Cantú arrived to defend the Northern Territory of Baja California against incursions from Southern California by the Flores Magón brothers during the start of the Mexican Revolution. This was also a period where the role of vice tourism in Tijuana and Mexicali profited from the Prohibition Era in the United States (1920-1933), setting the foundations for a drug trafficking model– developed for Baja Norte by Governor Cantú. This cross-border smuggling model was later refined in Baja under General and then Governor Abelardo L. Rodríguez (1921-1930), who then took the model to Mexico when he joined President Ortiz as a Secretary of Defense (1932) and Economy (1932) before he became Interim President of Mexico (1932-1934). The model has held to this day. The Second Phase encompasses Mexico’s official start on the War on Drugs from 1945 to 1985 and coincides not surprisingly with the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s. In this Second Phase I analyze the consolidation and metamorphoses of Drug Trafficking Organizations in Mexico’s War on Drugs up to 1960. Thus, I explore the connection between East-Coast based Mafia and its incursion and eventual control of the drug trade and organized crime in the West Coast as well as eventually the transborder region. I also analyze the early eradication campaigns carried out by Mexican authorities first on their Baja regional level and subsequently at the national level. I also examine links between “Bugsy” Siegel and his alleged control of the drug trade in Southern California, which stretched easily to Tijuana. iii This volume also investigates the War on Drugs and a “hidden dirty-war” against dissidence and peasants in rural Mexico, a span that ranged from 1965 to 1985. Under the pretext of eradicating drug production by narcocultivadores or narcogrowers, Mexican authorities also launched an offensive against dissident groups interested in readdressing the land issue in rural Mexico, effectively eradicating dissidence, but not drugs. The search for the source of drugs soon involved the CIA-Contra-Drug Trafficking connection from the Mexican perspective. By the early 1980s, The Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía had begun to explore the link between the CIA-Contra-Drug Trafficking, and he hypothesized that it needed the complicity of corrupt Mexican and law enforcement officials. In addition to his, Buendía also uncovered the participation of other state actors, such as the Mexico Secret Police (DFS) and the CIA. Buendía was murdered in 1984. The drug issues came together in the 1985 abduction in Guadalajara and torture- murder of DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. To unwind this complicated issue, I analyze the official and unofficial versions about this major transnational crisis. The Third Phase in my analysis begins, then, with the grisly murder of “Kiki” by Drug Warriors, which threw down the gauntlet to the United States. The Mexican Government came under great pressure to take drastic action to help U.S. agents that had flocked to Mexico to find the killers. In this volume I only offer a brief sketch of issues that need full research of this Third Phase since 1985. My on-going investigations call for a follow-up volume to cover the complex rise of full-scale “turf wars” between drug lords, and between the drug lords iv and the military/police. This research will lead us into President Calderón’s so-called “War on Drug Lords,” which in reality had already gotten underway. In the Epilogue of this volume, I articulate questions that address both the recent and drug history of the region. The analysis I raise presents a deep historical analysis of Mexico up to 1985. It also provides a starting point for future scholarship to be placed in its proper historical context, thus utilizing my historical scholarship as developed in this work as a launching point in order to place Mexico’s long-standing major problem: Public Order and Safety, the disorder of which threatens the very being of what is called the “Mexican Nation System of Government.” v The dissertation of Carlos Armando Hernández is approved. Juan Gómez-Quiñones Fernando M. Torres-Gil James W. Wilkie, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 vi DEDICATION To my two Julitas: Julia Irene my best friend and life partner, thank you for your unwavering and unconditional support, love, and encouragement while I investigated and wrote my dissertation for the last six years. Julieta Paz, thank you for the incredible gift of fatherhood, the opportunity to see the world through your eyes and providing me with the inspiration to complete my dissertation. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. xii VITA ................................................................................................................................. xv PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS: ................................................................. xvi Introduction: Contraband and Betrayal ............................................................................... 1 Research Questions and Impetus for My Work .............................................................. 2 My Intended Contribution to the Field ........................................................................... 9 Organization and Structure of the Investigation ........................................................... 15 Chapter 1: From the Tijuana Border Revolution to the Onset of the World’s Cold War, 1910-1945 ......................................................................................................................... 19 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 19 Background: Tijuana-San Diego During Pre-Contact and Colonial Periods ................ 21 Independence Period ..................................................................................................... 22 The Mexican Revolution at the Border: The Magonista Incursions ............................. 25 Historiography of the Magonista Rebellion ................................................................. 29 Esteban Cantú: Baja Revenue and Illicit Enrichment ................................................... 31 Abelardo L. Rodríguez (ALR) ...................................................................................... 43 Prohibition and Vice Tourism in the Transborder Region ............................................ 48 Political and Economic Consolidation after the Revolution, 1920-1940 ..................... 51 Sinophobic Aggression in Baja California, 1928-1940 ................................................ 55 Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra and Mexico’s Legislative Start on the War on Drugs ....... 70 La Cosa Nostra in the Transborder Region .................................................................. 78 Chapter Summary ......................................................................................................... 80 Chapter 2: The Emergence of Proto Drug Trafficking Organizations, 1945-1960 .......... 84 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 84 Political transformation and the consolidation of the “Dictadura Perfecta.” ............... 87 The Mexican Miracle and Statist Development ...........................................................