Guido di Tella | |
---|---|
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina | |
In office January 31, 1991 – December 10, 1999 |
|
President | Carlos Menem |
Preceded by | Domingo Cavallo |
Succeeded by | Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini |
Personal details | |
Born | June 12, 1931 Buenos Aires |
Died | December 31, 2001 Buenos Aires |
(aged 70)
Nationality | Argentine |
Spouse(s) | Nelly Ruvira |
Alma mater |
University of Buenos Aires Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Guido di Tella (June 12, 1931 – December 31, 2001) was an Argentine businessman, academic and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Relations between 1991 and 1999.
Guido José Mario Di Tella was born in Buenos Aires, 1931. His father, Torcuato di Tella, was an Italian Argentine immigrant who had become a prominent local industrialist, producing industrial machinery and home appliances through the Siam di Tella establishment. Guido lost his father at age 17, and per his wishes, the young man pursued an engineering degree at the University of Buenos Aires with the intention of later managing the family industrial firm (an employer of 5,000). He also took an interest in politics, becoming a co-founder of the Christian Democratic Party of Argentina in 1954. Graduating in 1955, he was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a PhD in Economics in 1959. He married Nelly Ruvira, and they had five children.
Returning to Argentina he co-founded -with his older brother Torcuato- the Torcuato di Tella Institute, an educational and cultural foundation; by then, Guido Di Tella had become a vocal Peronist (a supporter of the exiled, populist former President Juan Perón). Such a progression was unusual among young Argentines of a privileged background; Di Tella, however, came to believe that class-driven prejudices against the mostly working-class Peronists had to be set aside if Argentina was once again, in his words, to become a "serious country." Teaching at his alma mater and at the Argentine Catholic University, he also helped spur the Di Tella Institute into becoming a leading sponsor of the local vanguard movement in the arts during the 1960s. His ongoing support of Perón led to his brief expulsion from Argentina in the early 1970s, when he was made a visiting fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford University.