New Man

Jorge Tello Peón, an expert in corporate and governmental organization, has been named Felipe Calderón's national security advisor. From what I gather, he is not replacing anyone but rather filling a new position, a perfect example of the on-the-fly reorganization that is all-too-typical here.

Tello Peón will hopefully smooth out the recent friction between Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna and Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, and generally make the security strategy more wholistic and better coordinated. Evidently, no man is better suited for the job. Tello Peón had been working at Cemex, and before that he had decades of experience working in the highest levels of Mexico's security agencies. Tello Peón oversaw the creation of Cisen, and later directed the intelligence agency in the 1990s. In today's column, Jorge Fernández Meléndez wrote:

Jorge Tello Peón is perhaps not only the most respected national security specialist inside and outside of the country, but also the man that, with a complete team and, as a result, very clear political direction, provided the best results to the Mexican state in those difficult tasks.

He's got his work cut out for him.