the publishing house was Jacques Rogozinski, who led the privatizations as head of the Office for Divestiture of Public Enterprises during the government of Salinas de Gortari, the period during which Slim bought Telmex. Rogozinski objected to the phrase that said, “Even though Slim did not put in the highest bid, a consortium led by his Grupo Carso won the auction,” and managed to get the publishing house to remove it from the following edition.
“Despite everything, we’re selling that book at Sanborns. It sold 700 copies at 349 pesos,” said Slim.
“You’ve never blocked a book?”
“Well, yes, there was just one time when we didn’t sell one.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t remember his name, but the author told us that if we didn’t do this or that, he was going to stand outside Sanborns to sell it himself, just to attract publicity. So we sold it for a while, just to get him off our back.”
“Do you mean the journalist Rafael Loret de Mola?”
“How do you know?”
“Well, because he publicly denounced it in the 1990s.”
“Yes, it was a sort of pressure we weren’t keen on, but he’s a good guy; he’s a bit weird and all, but a good guy.”
In addition to being a reader, seller and even occasional publisher of books, Slim might soon become the author of his own biography. The first time I interviewed him, one of the things he clarified was that he was writing a book about his life and family too, and that in that task he was being helped by his nephew Roberto Slim Seade, “a kind of personal secretary,” son of his late brother, Julián, and formal manager of the family’s hotel companies.
“I’m writing the only authorized biography that will exist, just that right now I have other work to do,” he cautioned at the time. “I will answer any questions you have, but regarding your book all I ask is that you don’t put in too many lies.”
Vicente Fox was the PAN (National Action Party) politician who in 2000 ended the seventy-two years of uninterrupted government by the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Slim, who says he voted for the PRI in those historic presidential elections, financially supported Fox’s campaign. After winning the elections, Fox governed Mexico between 2000 and 2006, maintaining a close relationship with Slim, which was evident not only in the lack of regulation of Slim’s telecom monopoly, but also in the appointment of former Grupo Carso employees to key government departments. One such person was Pedro Cerisola, a former Telmex executive who became minister of communications and transport.
During those years, Slim was regularly invited to meetings at the official presidential residence and office of Los Pinos. On one of those occasions, after a lunch meeting, Slim visited the library and for some reason, one of the leather-bound books caught his eye. The title on the spine was “Leonardo,” and he went to have a closer look. He picked it out of the shelf, opened it, and found a handwritten note on the first page: “This book was donated by Linda H. de Slim.” It was a biography of the famous Italian inventor and artist, and donated by Slim’s mother, Linda, to the presidential library in the ’70s. Slim showed me a facsimile of that biography of da Vinci that he had made. As well as showing Slim’s special connection with books, this episode is also revealing of the Slim family’s long-standing close ties to the presidency at Los Pinos.
“So, is this the library where you keep your most prized volumes?” I ask.
“Look, I don’t have a uniform mentality. I am very plural.”
“But this is a special library, and it’s interesting to see it, because, as they say, ‘By your books you will know thyself.’”
“No, you won’t get to know me, because these are also books here about all the stupid things you can think of,” he scoffs, and then resumes the tour of the library. “Look, here is the annual report from the Banco de México 1994. Why ’94? Because here is the history of the devaluation,” he shows me a series of economic indicators in tiny print and points out the date: March 21. “Here is Colosio, here the reserves, and how far they are taken. Here is the ‘December error,’” he says, alluding to the mishandling of the sudden devaluation of the Mexican peso that took place that month. This was a factor that, along with the political instability following the assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and the Zapatista uprising, led to a severe financial collapse of major international consequences, known as the “Mexican peso crisis.” The IMF managing director called it “the first major crisis of the twenty-first century,” and it has been argued by some that one of the underlying causes was the too-rapid process of banking liberalization in the country.
Then he pulls out a hardcover book. It’s the memoirs of George Bush Sr. On the first pages there is a dedication, but all I manage to read is: “Family and friends,” and a date, May 2006.
“This book by Bush is out of this world. Did you know that he and Gorbachov made a deal?”
“To end the Cold War?”
“No, no, not just that. They also agreed to bring democracy and freedom to the whole world. What happened in Chile—Pinochet’s resignation—was their doing. So was Panama—the fall of Noriega—and everything that happened throughout Eastern Europe—the Prague Spring. A fascinating read.”
Another of the signed copies that Slim shows me is Leadership, by Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York, famous for implementing repressive policies. I barely manage to read the final words in Spanish: “With admiration and friendship,” and then the signature of the author, who is now a security consultant. Near Giuliani’s book is El desacuerdo nacional (The National Disagreement), by Manuel Camacho Solís, the Mexican politician who in 1994 acted as an intermediary between the government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Slim reads the dedication to me: “To Carlos Slim, who can see the forest for the trees and turn what he imagines into reality, with my friendship and determined conviction of reaching an agreement to grow with justice.”
We carry on along the bookshelves and he takes out a bound manuscript whose cover says, “Revolutionary Wealth, Alvin Toeffler.”
“Alvin Toeffler asked me to take a look at this before it was published.”
He flicks through the volume, where I notice some handwritten notes in the margins of the greatest contemporary futurologist, who is a friend of Slim’s.
“And did you make any corrections?”
“It has some numbers errors.”
“And did Toffler make the changes?”
“No, because in the end I didn’t get them to him in time.”
Unlike the book Why Nations Fail, of which Sanborns bought the small amount of 700 copies, the Spanish print run of Revolutionary Wealth was bought almost in its entirety by Slim’s chain.
The tour of his library continues, and at some point we are right in front of the book Los retos que enfrentamos (The Challenges We Face), published in 2014 by former president Felipe Calderón, but Slim ignores it. Meanwhile, he picks out with enthusiasm an old volume entitled Desarrollo estabilizador (Stabilizing Development), by Antonio Ortiz Mena, and exclaims:
