Adolfo Aguilar Zinser

About the Adolfo Aguilar Zinser

Adolfo Aguilar Zinserwas a Mexican scholar, diplomat and politician who served as a National Security Advisor to President Vicente Fox and as a UN Security Council Ambassador in the midst of the US invasion of Iraq.

Born in Mexico City into an upper-class family, Adolfo Aguilar was the son of Adolfo Aguilar y Quevedo a criminal lawyer and Carmen Zinser, a philanthropist. He was also the great-grandson of Miguel Angel de Quevedo El apostol del arboland completed a master’s degree in international and public affairs at Harvard Kennedy Schoolin 1994 and served until 1997. From 1997 to 2000 he served in the Senate, representing the Green Ecological Party of Mexicoon July 2, 2000, Aguilar served as the transition team’s advisor on international affairs. After taking office, Fox appointed Aguilar his national security advisor.

In January 2002, Fox appointed Aguilar Mexico’s permanent representative to the United Nations. His term coincided with Mexico’s election to the Security Council and, in accordance with the Security Council’s rules of procedure, he served as its president for two one-month terms.

Following a speech to students at Mexico City’s Ibero-American University on November 11, 2003, in which Aguilar claimed that the political and intellectual class of the United States sees Mexico as “a country whose position is that of a back yard”and that Washington was interested in only “a relationship of convenience and subordination” and “a weekend fling”and hosted a weekly current-affairs show on television. He died in a car accident near his summer chalet in Tepoztlan, Morelos, on June 5, 2005, at the age of 55.

In the run-up to the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War he was the subject of an episode of the BBC series 10 Days to War, in which he was played by Tom Conti.