Rafael Maximiano Vázquez

Rafael Maximiano Vázquez entered Argentina's foreign service in 1949 after working in the Buenos Aires provincial administration. His career included postings in Norway, Britain, India, Ireland, and the United States, with consular work in Cardiff, New Orleans, and New York. Export promotion was a recurring interest. He became an ambassador in 1972 and represented Argentina in West Germany before moving to Washington in 1975. He presented his credentials to President Gerald Ford on 14 July 1975. ^{1, 3}

He remained at the American embassy through the first months following the March 1976 military coup. In April, the State Department raised the reported arrest of four Argentine agricultural researchers who had studied in the United States with Ford Foundation support. Vázquez promised to contact Buenos Aires immediately. ²

Later assignments took him to Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil. His Cuban posting extended across the changing relationships surrounding the Falklands/Malvinas War, while his Brazilian embassy service fell under Raúl Alfonsín's elected government. After leaving the foreign service, he advised Córdoba Province on exports. He died in Buenos Aires in 2012. Contemporary diplomatic records use Maximiano, although many later references render his middle name as Maximiliano. ^{1, 3}