8X10 B&W Glossy vintage photograph signed in white ink and inscribed to Jim Wiggins in 1974 signing it boldly by Luis Echeverria. A light crease to the top right area of the photograph, otherwise excellent.(1922-2022) Luis Echeverría Ãlvarez was a Mexican lawyer, academic, and politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who served as the 57th president of Mexico from 1970 to 1976. Previously, he was Secretary of the Interior from 1963 to 1969. At the time of his death in 2022, he was his country's oldest living former head of state.His tenure as Secretary of the Interior during the Díaz Ordaz administration was marked by an increase in political repression. Dissident journalists, politicians, and activists were subjected to censorship, arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings. This culminated with the Tlatelolco massacre of 2 October 1968, which ruptured the Mexican student movement; Díaz Ordaz, Echeverría, and Secretary of Defense Marcelino Garcia Barragán have been considered as the intellectual authors of the massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed protestors were killed by the Mexican Army. The following year, Díaz Ordaz appointed Echeverría as his designated successor to the presidency, and he won in the 1970 general election.Echeverría was one of the most high-profile presidents in Mexico's post-war history; he attempted to become a leader of the so-called "Third World", countries unaligned with the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He offered political asylum to Hortensia Bussi and other refugees of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile, established diplomatic relations and a close collaboration with the People's Republic of China after visiting Beijing and meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, and tried to use Mao's influence among Asian and African nations in an ultimately failed attempt to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. Echeverría strained relations with Israel (and American Jews) after supporting a UN resolution that condemned Zionism.Domestically, Echeverría led the country during a period of significant economic growth, with the Mexican economy aided by high oil prices, and growing at a yearly rate of 6.1%. He aggressively promoted the development of infrastructure projects such as new maritime ports in Lázaro Cárdenas and Ciudad Madero. His presidency was also characterized by authoritarian methods (the first documented instances of death flights in Latin America occurred in Mexico under Echeverría), the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre against student protesters, the Dirty War against leftist dissent in the country (despite Echeverría adopting a left-populist rhetoric), and the economic crisis that occurred in Mexico near the end of his term. In 2006, he was indicted and ordered under house arrest for his role in the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi massacres, but the charges against him were dismissed in 2009.This lot came from the Jim Wiggins collection we purchased in July 2022. Jim Wiggins accumulated the most unique and valuable autograph collection over a period of 70-plus years. He obtained his collection either in person or by writing to persons of fame and notoriety. Comes with a full Letter of Authenticity from Todd Mueller Authentics.