In his inaugural address on December 1, 1976, to an alarmed and disquieted nation, fifty-six- year-old President José Lόpez Portillo y Pacheco made a dramatic plea for unity. “Let us never forget our parents lived here, we are here, and our children will live here…A few of the rich, who export capital, and a few of the poor, who export their labor, may leave, but the rest of us are staying and we can make our country a hell or a land where life is good. It is in our hands.“

Not since the fury and turmoil of the revolutionary years had the presidential succession been enveloped in such public loss of hope and surrender to despair. Three devaluations in as many months had distressed the entire nation; seemingly arbitrary government expropriations of vast areas of rich agricultural lands further embittered property owners; hundreds of Mexicans responded to the crisis by sending abroad millions of dollars frantically withdrawn from the banks.