University of Arizona

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Raul Castro Papers

Black & white photo of Governor Castro with President Jimmy Carter, the two men are smiling at one another

Raul Hector Castro was born in Mexico but raised in Douglas, Arizona. While serving as a Spanish professor at the University of Arizona, he began his law career which eventually led to his appointment by Lyndon B. Johnson as the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador and then Bolivia. Castro served as the 14th governor of Arizona from 1975 to 1977 but resigned when Jimmy Carter offered him the ambassadorship to Argentina. He resigned in 1980 to resume his law practice which focused on international and immigration law.

The Raul H. Castro Papers document his career in public service from his election as a Pima County judge in 1958 through three U.S. ambassadorships (El Salvador 1964-1968, Bolivia 1968-1969, and Argentina 1977-1980) as well as the governorship of Arizona (1974-1977). The collection also contains material highlighting his education and sports activities at Arizona State Teacher's College (now Northern Arizona University), his legal education at the University of Arizona, his private law practice, his family life, and his personal and business interests. The collection is organized into eleven series (one series, Photographic Material, is subdivided into four subseries). The collection contains correspondence, news clippings, subject files, governor files, law practice files, photographic material, audiovisual material, objects, and scrapbooks.