Nov. 3, 1998
Contact: Dan Heuchert
(804) 924-7676


UNIVERSITY RECEIVES PEACE LAUREATEÕS PERSONAL LIBRARY

	Juanita Garcia Robles, widow of nuclear disarmament advocate and
1982 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Alfonso Garcia Robles of Mexico, will
be honored in a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 4, recognizing her gift of her
late husbandÕs 1,100-volume library to the University of Virginia.
	The ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. in the lobby of Alderman
Library, where a new exhibit honoring Alfonso Garcia RoblesÕ
distinguished diplomatic career will be displayed. The exhibit consists
of documents, articles and photos, with a particular emphasis on the
peace prize.
	The entire Garcia Robles collection will be permanently housed
at the UniversityÕs Law Library, where it will augment an extensive
collection of national and international security materials.
	ÒThe Robles collection strengthens a number of areas of
importance to the Law School Library -- international studies, nuclear
disarmament and governance and politics in Latin America,Ó said Law
Librarian Larry B. Wenger. ÒThe breadth of sources is equally broad,
from major writers in Latin America to conference studies and H.G. Wells
and Harold Laski.
	ÒThe collection has another, perhaps less obvious strength:
it shows us how a Nobel Prize winner developed the ideas and conclusions
which were the basis for his work, writings and success.Ó
	Alfonso Garcia Robles, who died in 1991, shared the 1982 Nobel
Peace Prize with Swedish diplomat Alva Myrdal, who was also active in
nuclear disarmament issues. The crowning achievement of Garcia
RoblesÕ career was the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which created a
nuclear free zone in Latin America. The treaty, originally proposed by
then-Mexican President Adolfo 
Lopez Mateos in the wake of the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis, sought to
preclude Latin America from becoming a nuclear battleground. Garcia
Robles led four years of negotiations to bring the 
proposal to reality. In the end, 22 Latin America nations were
signatories, with Cuba being the 
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lone notable abstainer.
	As MexicoÕs permanent representative to the United
NationsÕ Geneva-based Committee on Disarmament, Garcia Robles
participated in 1978 and 1982 special disarmament sessions of the United
Nations. He was among those entrusted with crafting the ÒFinal
DocumentÓ of the 1978 session, which coordinated the various views
and proposals into one document, which was later adopted by the
assembly.
	ÒFor over two decades he led nearly every Mexican delegation
to international disarmament negotiations, and was widely viewed as one
of the most effective authorities in the field,Ó said John L. Redick,
a lecturer on nuclear disarmament issues in the Department of Government
and Foreign Affairs who was instrumental in arranging the donation of
the Garcia Robles collection.
	Garcia Robles, born in Zamora, Mexico in 1911, studied law
before entering his countryÕs foreign service in 1939. He drafted the
Mexican position on the Law of the Sea negotiations in the late 1950s,
then served as ambassador to Brazil from 1962 until 1964, when he began
six years as state secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From
1971 to 1975, he was MexicoÕs permanent representative to the U.N.,
and served as MexicoÕs Foreign Minister from 1965 to 1967.
	As a U.Va. graduate student in the late 1960s, Redick first met
Garcia Robles while working on his doctoral dissertation, which examined
the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Garcia Robles provided Redick with thousands
of pages of original documents, with the stipulation that they be turned
over to the University of Virginia Library upon completion of his
dissertation, which was published in 1970.
	Redick, now executive director of the Charlottesville-Albemarle
Community Foundation, remained in close contact with Alfonso and Juanita
Garcia Robles, the latter respected in her own right and recently
involved in mediating the dispute in the Mexican state of Chiapas. She
first broached the possibility of donating her husbandÕs archives to
U.Va. during RedickÕs 1997 visit to Mexico City to commemorate the
30th anniversary of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Earlier this year, after
learning of the UniversityÕs plans to host this weekÕs Nobel Peace
Laureates Conference, she formally offered the collection.
	The majority of the approximately 55 boxes of material shipped
to the law library earlier this month focuses on disarmament issues;
other items relate to Garcia RoblesÕ participation in the Law of the
Sea talks, the United Nations and the Inter-American system, according
to Redick. The material will be particularly helpful to students of
international law, and in the departments of History and Government and
Foreign Affairs.
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	Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at
924-7550. Law Librarian Larry Wenger can be reached at (804) 924-0384.
John Redick may be reached at (804) 296-0045.