America. Ambassador Gavin, who had lost favor
among many moderate Republicans, was replaced
in 1986 by Charles Pilliod. The Iran-Contra affair
consumed public attention, and the relations be-
tween the United States and Mexico eased. In the
1988 Mexican presidential election, the PAN
claimed that PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari
had been fraudulently elected. However, the Reagan
administration did not protest. In 1988, George
H. W. Bush was elected U.S. president and appointed
several other Republicans with ties to Texas and
Mexico, further easing U.S.-Mexican relations.
Impact Mexico and the United States in the 1980’s
set some important precedents for future relations
but also continued many of the same patterns from
previous decades. The 1982 financial crisis, Mexico’s
worst to that date, required a financial bailout that
would be replicated twelve years later, when the Mexi-
can economy would falter again. U.S. and Mexican
governments actively attacked the drug trade, and
the Mexican government worked to undercut domes-
tic corruption. The 1980’s saw the continued trends
of increasing Mexican immigration into the United
States and lawmakers’ attempts to curtail illegal immi-
gration.
Further Reading
Green, Rosario, and Peter H. Smith, eds.Foreign Policy
in U.S.-Mexican Relations: Papers Prepared for the Bilat-
eral Commission on the Future of United States-Mexican
Relations. San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican
Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1989.
The foreign relations installment of a five-book se-
ries discussing Mexican migration, drugs, foreign
policy, economics, and stereotypes.
Langley, Lester D.Mexico and the United States: The
Fragile Relationship. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Histori-
cal description of the relations between Mexico
and the United States from Mexico’s indepen-
dence to the early 1990’s.
Mazza, Jacqueline.Don’t Disturb the Neighbors: The
U.S. and Democracy in Mexico, 1980-1995. New
York: Routledge, 2001. Comprehensive look at
American foreign policy in Mexico.
Velasco, José Luis.Insurgency, Authoritarianism, and
Drug Trafficking in Mexico’s “Democratization.”New
York: Routledge, 2005. Concentrates on the ef-
fects of economic and political changes on social
issues from the 1970’s through the 1990’s.
Ryan Gibb
See also Conservatism in U.S. politics; Crack epi-
demic; Demographics of the United States; Foreign
policy of the United States; Immigration Reform
and Control Act of 1986; Immigration to the United
States; Iran-Contra affair; Latin America; Latinos;
Reagan, Ronald; Unemployment in the United States.MGM Grand Hotel fire
The Event Tragic Las Vegas conflagration
Date November 21, 1980
The MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas killed eighty-five
people, making it the deadliest U.S. hotel blaze since 1946.
The disaster led to tighter fire regulations and broader de-
ployment of water sprinklers in hotel rooms and common
areas.
In 1980, the MGM Grand Hotel consisted of a casino,
restaurants, nightclubs, and convention rooms in a
low-rise section, as well as 2,076 hotel rooms housed
in a twenty-six-story tower. Shortly after 7:00a.m.on
November 21, two employees of a coffee shop spot-
ted signs of a fire in the hotel’s empty delicatessen.
Within six minutes, fire engulfed much of the casino.
The pressure of the hot gases released by the fire
forced open the main doors of the casino, and the fire
quickly consumed the carport outside. Flames de-
stroyed a plywood covering at the bottom of a stair-
well, and smoke shot up the stairs. Heat, smoke, and
flames passed into elevator shafts through unsealed
doors. Sprinklers put out fires in a hallway, and
firefighters doused the blaze on the main floor. How-
ever, smoke passed through the twelve-inch-wide seis-
mic joints running from the casino level to the top of
the tower. It billowed into open shafts, particularly
those that were not properly sealed. Adding to the
problem were smoke dampers that were bolted in
such a manner as to make them inoperable.
Meanwhile, helicopters from government agen-
cies and private businesses flew to the scene to rescue
about 250 survivors stranded on the roof or perched
on balconies. Seven hundred people were injured
by the blaze. Most of those killed by the fire were
claimed by the smoke that billowed throughout the
two-million-square-foot building. Only eighteen of the
victims died on the casino floor, while sixty-one peo-
ple died on the sixteenth through the twenty-sixth
floors. Six other victims died on unspecified floors.
Fire investigators discovered that the blaze beganThe Eighties in America MGM Grand Hotel fire 637