Nearly unknown, even in México, Bosques outwitted Spanish fascists, the Gestapo and even Japanese spies as he successfully whisked tens of thousands – Spanish Republicans, entire Jewish communities, British agents, Resistance leaders and many others – from certain death in Nazi Occupied Vichy France. Casablanca was only a Hollywood version of one very small piece of a complex dangerous operation largely organized and run by Bosques from his Mexican consular office.
Bosques – who would later play an essential role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis – was interviewed about his diplomatic career when he was approaching his 100th birthday. Until Editorial Mazatlán made this translation by Richard Grabman (who also wrote the accompanying essay on Bosques and Mexican diplomacy before and during World War II) nothing was available in English on this forgotten World War II and human rights hero outside of some dusty archives.
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