Jesús Reyes Heroles

Jesús Reyes Heroles (3 April 1921 – 19 March 1985) was a Mexican politician, jurist, historian and academic affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The party acknowledges him as one of its leading ideologues.

Early life Jesús Reyes Heroles was born in Tuxpan, Veracruz, in 1921, to Jesús Reyes Martínez and Juana Heroles Lombera. In 1939 he gained admission to the law school of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and joined the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM), the forerunner of the later PRI. He graduated from the UNAM in 1944 and pursued studies in Argentina the following year. Between 1946 and 1963 he taught at both the UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). At the end of his term in Congress he was appointed director-general of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), where he remained throughout the presidential term of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–1970). During his time at PEMEX he oversaw the creation of the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP). He was president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party from 1972 to 1975 and director-general of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) from 1975 to 1976.

Under Miguel de la Madrid, López Portillo's successor, Reyes Heroles served as secretary of public education from 1982 to 1985.

Family Reyes Heroles was married to Gloria González Garza, the daughter of . Their children were Jesús Federico Reyes Heroles (1952–2024), director-general of PEMEX, secretary of energy and ambassador to the United States, and (born 1955), a noted writer and political commentator whose publications include Orfandad. El padre y el político, a biography of his father.