Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 112
pact. The power of ownership-by-rote of such important assets gave Chile a sort of
suzerainty in the mining regions of Bolivia. Even in the decade of World War I, Bolivian
authorities had to accept counsel from the Chilean embassy to settle significant labor
disputes in the mines. I remember my 1950’s childhood history and government classes
still dwelled on the fear of Chile’s expansionist policies. This sentiment was used by the
socialist government of the time to deflect the sufferings of the people and rally them
behind their leadership.
By the end of World War I, in an effort that preserved Bolivia’s territorial integrity and
perhaps its survival as a sovereign nation, Mr. Patino had bought a good part of all
Bolivian tin mines, including those owned by his powerful Chilean rivals. He
accomplished this in a secretive game of international stock trading legerdemain.
Ultimately he acquired control of tin mines in the Malaysian Straits and tin smelters in
Europe, thus becoming the true Tin King. He was the only person powerful enough to
bring about the signature of the International Tin Agreement among the major producers
and consumers of the world, which, by establishing a stockpile, was able to moderate
the wild swings in price that had previously buffeted both the producers and consumers
of this mineral. He convinced everyone to set the floor price based on Bolivia’s mining
costs. This move saved the Bolivian tin industry, whose extraction costs were
significantly higher than the Malaysian Strait’s. In the absence of this pact, Bolivian tin
production would have disappeared just as its rubber and quinine production did a
generation before. Thus Mr. Patino, in two different but equally significant ways was the
savior of his beloved Bolivia. To preserve the value of its own strategic tin reserve, the
United States government finally joined this organization under President Gerald Ford,
thus validating the wisdom of Mr. Patino’s initiative.
As an employee of Mr. Fricke’s mining store, Mr. Patino had grown to know many
virtues displayed by this German trader. When he was in need of, and able to pay for,
he preferred to purchase German technology and supplies. Despite his early admiration
for the German character, before the middle of the 20 th Century’s second decade, Mr.
Patino had made Paris his headquarters. First German Kaiser Wilhelm II before World
War I, and then Fuehrer Adolph Hitler before World War II, courted and lobbied him in
high-pressure efforts to secure a source of tin for their military industries, to no avail.
A twist of fortune gave me the opportunity to be more familiar with Simon Patino. My
mother and his daughters had been acquainted with each other as pre-teens. From
about 1914 to early 1925, my mother’s father served as a diplomatic officer in the
Bolivian legation, first in Switzerland and then in France, working closely with Mr.
Patino, who was the “Plenipontentiary Envoy” (Ambassador). Through this relationship
my mother developed a friendship with his three daughters, about her age, and through
them she learned much about Mr. Patino as a family man. In 1967 I was honored to
meet one of his daughters, Mrs. Graciela Patino Ortiz Linares, during one of her rare
visits to Cochabamba. During a private dinner at my parent’s home, the reminiscing of
their childhood years and the answers to the probing questions I made, gave me an
Autobiography.doc 112 of 239