Your claim to our administration is derived from your multiple distinctions earned by your ability and character as lawyer, as diplomat, as professor and as author. In each of these realms you have served with great distinction leaving your special mark of brilliance and originality. Your sense of mission has kept you engaged in many of the crucial problems of our time, and you have been vigorous and articulate in supporting what you believe is right. Your interest and devotion in seeking true understanding and cooperation between and among nations has served to rank you among the leading statesmen not only of Mexico and the Western Hemisphere, but of the world.

We salute you as an eminent citizen of our neighbor republic and as an outstanding contributor to inter-Americanism and internationalism. For your service to the academic community, to good government, and to the cause of international harmony we are proud to welcome you into the family of Southern Methodist University, as a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.