Ismael Moreno Pino

His great-grandfather was Raymundo Cámara Luján, a prominent businessman, while his great-granduncle was Agustín Vales Castillo, an industrialist who served as Mayor of Mérida between 1902 and 1908.

Alfredo and Nicolás Cámara Vales who served as Governor of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, respectively, were his great-uncles.

He was also related to Eusebio Escalante, the industrialist responsible for developing the henequen industry in Yucatán, José María Ponce, the founder of the Cervecería Yucatán brewery, Carlos Peón, governor of Yucatán, and Alfredo Pino Cámara, the Supreme Court Justice.

In the arts, Hortensia Cámara Vales and Pablo Castellanos León, his great-uncles, were a couple of concert pianists; Castellanos León, a virtuoso, was educated in the conservatoire de Paris under Antoine François Marmontel.

His son, Pablo Castellanos Cámara, also became a virtuoso pianist, having studied at the Paris and Berlin Conservatories under Alfred Cortot and Edwin Fischer.

Meanwhile, Fernando Cámara Barbachano, another cousin, was a distinguished anthropologist and museum director.

As the grandson of Pino Suárez, he is also a direct line descendant of Pedro Sáinz de Baranda, a founding father who, after fighting the Battle of Trafalgar as a Spanish naval officer, founded the Mexican Navy during the Mexican War of Independence; later in his career, he served as Governor of Yucatán and is widely regarded for having introduced the Industrial Revolution to the country.

Other prominent members of the Sáinz de Baranda family include the brothers Pedro Baranda and Joaquín Baranda, as well as Pedro Sainz de Baranda (politician) who served as mayor of Madrid during the Napoleonic invasion of Iberia.

Notably, his maternal grandfather, José María Pino Suárez was a leader in the Mexican Revolution and served as Vice-President of Mexico from 1911 until his assassination in 1913 during the Ten Tragic Days.

He was educated at the American School Foundation, studied Law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and he obtained a Master of Science in Foreign Service degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

His maternal grandparents were José María Pino Suárez, Vice President of Mexico between 1911 and his assassination in 1913, and María Cámara Vales, recipient of the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor, one of the highest civil honors that a Mexican citizen can receive.

Ismael Moreno Pino (15 February 1927 – 15 August 2013) was a Mexican lawyer, diplomat, scholar and author who served as Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador of Mexico and is widely recognized as a prominent multilateralist and expert in inter-American relations.

He was born in Mérida, Yucatán on February 15, 1927, the only son of Aída Pino Cámara and Ramón Moreno.

Educated at the American School, he received his Law degree from the National University of Mexico in 1950, writing a thesis on "the role of the consular corps in the national economic recovery plan", a copy of which can still be obtained in the U.S. Library of Congress.

He continued his studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., obtaining bachelor's and master's degrees in Foreign Service.

His roommate at Georgetown was Frank V. Ortiz, who would later serve as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina and Peru.

He joined the Foreign Office in 1952 and worked closely with intellectuals such as Jorge Castañeda and Octavio Paz, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990.

A protégé of Manuel Tello, then the Foreign Secretary, Moreno Pino joined the Foreign Office in 1952 and the Diplomatic Service in 1955, after passing the necessary examinations.

Originally, he was hired as a legal advisor to the Mexican delegation to the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.

Serving as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs and later as Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs, he actively participated in shaping Mexico's response to significant geopolitical events during the Cold War such as the Cuban Revolution (1959), the Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961), and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

This was exacerbated after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959, providing no easy solutions for Mexican foreign policy: "wholehearted support for the Cuban Revolution would create an unsustainable tension with the United States, the business community and the Catholic Church; meanwhile, wholehearted support for the United States would provoke an unsustainable tension with the revolutionary government of Cuba, the Mexican intelligentsia and other left-wing sectors which could become radicalized. The Mexican political system entrusted this delicate mission to the Foreign Ministry headed at that time by Manuel Tello, Foreign Secretary, and José Gorostiza, Deputy Foreign Secretary and, next to them, a noteworthy cadre of career diplomats educated in a tradition that [dates back] to the times when the proverb 'a Texan might beat a Mexican in a fight, but he is lost if he tries to argue with him' was minted."

In 1960, succeeding the latter, he served as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs.

Notably, his involvement in the Punta del Este conference (1962), which decided against expelling Cuba from the Organization of American States, showcased Mexico's commitment to non-interventionism based on the Estrada Doctrine.

He served as Ambassador of Mexico between 1964 and 1992, representing his country in Germany, Kingdom of the Netherlands, various Latin American countries, as well as in international organizations such as the OAS in Washington, D.C. and the UN offices in New York and Geneva, Switzerland.

Additionally, he was a member of the administrative council of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Between 1964 and 1965, he served as Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs.

In 1964, President Adolfo López Mateos appointed him to the rank of Ambassador of Mexico.

As a non-aligned country in a Cold War context, Mexico was treading a fine line between the Western Bloc, led by the United States, and the Warsaw Pact countries, led by the USSR.

In 1965, Moreno Pino assumed the role of Mexican Ambassador to Chile.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967), which established Latin America and the Caribbean as the first nuclear-weapon-free zone in a populated part of the Earth.

During his seven-year tenure, he experienced significant political events, including the 1970 Chilean presidential election and the subsequent challenges faced by Salvador Allende's government in a country where international tensions between the Soviet bloc and the capitalist bloc were at their peak.

Even in this context, Moreno Pino maintained close diplomatic relations between Mexico and Chile.

Additionally, he held the position of dean of the diplomatic corps, representing the Ambassadors of other countries before the Chilean government and witnessing many of the events that led to the overthrow of Allende in the 1973 coup d'état.

Collaborating closely with Alfonso García Robles, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, their efforts were recognized by U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time, for their historical significance in preventing nuclear proliferation and halting the arms race.

He was born in Mérida, Yucatán, into the Pino-Cámara family.

In 1982, President José López Portillo appointed him an Eminent Ambassador (Embajador Eminente), a special honor reserved for only ten Ambassadors who have rendered distinguished service to the Republic in foreign policy matters; his expertise and guidance were highly valued by numerous Mexican administrations, including multiple Presidents and Foreign Secretaries.

Returning to Mexico, he worked in the Bureau for International Organization Affairs, collaborating closely with Octavio Paz, who would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990, and with Jorge Castañeda, who would serve as Foreign Secretary.

As a writer, he is especially remembered for his work Diplomacy:Theoretical and Practical Aspects (1996), a major treatise in its field which has educated generations of diplomats.

Their ancestry can be traced back to the early 13th century and they gained recognition in Spain, Portugal, and Yucatán where family members have held positions as knights, explorers, conquerors, aristocrats, landowners, and industrialists.

He descends from the de la Cámara lineage, a distinguished landowning family which settled in the Yucatán peninsula in the 16th century.