Lino Gutiérrez, the United States Ambassador to Argentina between 2003 and 2006, died Saturday in Alexandria, Virginia, (a suburb of Washington DC) at the age of 74.
Cuban-born Gutiérrez had a long and distinguished career in the US Foreign Service. He served as ambassador in Nicaragua as well as Argentina, among many other postings, as well as holding an important position in the US State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
His time in Argentina coincided with the Néstor Kirchner presidency but in those early years (described from the US Embassy as “ordinary people doing extraordinary things”) Kirchnerism was still far distant from the disrepute and rejection it subsequently triggered as the new government led Argentina from the 2001-2002 meltdown into the global commodity boom.
The basic relationship was thus smooth and solid enough until the last months of his mission following Kirchner’s churlish treatment of then-US president George W. Bush at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata in November 2005 – Gutiérrez could focus on other aspects, giving priority to coordinating the fight against terrorism and drug-trafficking with the national government and adding substance to Argentina’s democracy – vibrant and resilient institutions, an active and committed civil society and a free, strong and independent press.
Gutiérrez’s parents took the decision to flee Cuba in 1959 following the Juicio de los Aviadores (the retrial and conviction of Cuban Air Force officers following their acquittal by a revolutionary tribunal). Their first stop was Colombia, Calí specifically, but they soon settled down in Alabama where Lino’s father became a mathematics professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, which was later to be the ambassador’s alma mater.
Gutiérrez was a lifelong unconditional fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide basketball team but his baseball loyalties were far less local – the Los Angeles Dodgers whom he had already started to follow fervently during his first nine years in Havana.
Ambassador Gutiérrez is survived by his beloved wife Miriam Messina (born in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic), his three daughters Alicia Dunlap, Diana Cosgrove (both married to a James) and Susana and his six dear grandchildren Nico, Isa, Silvia, JJ, Luca and Hugo.
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