Carlos Montero Schmidt
Carlos Montero Schmidt (4 September 1916 – 24 January 1980) was a Chilean agricultural engineer and politician. He served as Minister of the Interior during the second administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in 1955.
Biography
Montero was born in Santa Cruz, Chile, the son of Lindorfo Montero Fuenzalida and María Teresa Schmidt Quezada. He was a grandson of Teodoro Schmidt Weichsel and a nephew of Teodoro Schmidt Quezada and Luis Schmidt Quezada. His brother, Mario, also pursued a political career, serving as Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Lands and Colonization during Ibáñez del Campo's second administration.
He received his primary and secondary education at the Liceo Alemán in Santiago and subsequently studied at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, graduating as an agricultural engineer in 1938. His thesis was entitled Un estudio agrícola y de regadío sobre el Departamento de Ovalle.
He married María Josefina Jaramillo Rosselot, with whom he had twelve children: Felipe, Armando, Patricio, Ramón, María Gloria, Ricardo, Hernán Carlos, Verónica del Carmen, José, Andrés, Francisco José, and Jaime. Through his daughter Verónica, he was the father-in-law of agronomist and economist Juan Carlos Méndez, who served as director of the Budget Directorate from 1975 to 1981.
Montero died in Santiago on 24 January 1980, at the age of 63.
Political career
Montero entered politics in 1936, when he and his brother Mario joined the National Socialist Movement of Chile, remaining members until the organization was dissolved in 1939. He later joined the Agrarian Labor Party (PAL) and in 1954 participated in the establishment of the National Agrarian Party, serving as its president in 1955.
During the second administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, Montero served as Minister of the Interior from 21 January to 30 May 1955. The following year, he was appointed director of the Social Insurance Service.
In 1963, he served as vice-president of the Agrarian Labor Democracy (DAL) party. As a member of the party, he contested the 1965 Chilean parliamentary election as a candidate for the Senate representing the 8th Provincial Grouping of Bío-Bío, Malleco, and Cautín, but was not elected.
During the implementation of the agrarian reform in Chile, Montero became involved in the events surrounding the death of Hernán Mery Fuenzalida, the Linares regional head of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA). Mery, an agricultural engineer and member of the Christian Democratic Party, was killed on 30 April 1970. At the time, Montero was an official of the Agricultural Employers' Union, a member of the corresponding regional federation, and the owner of the "San Esteban" estate. A subsequent judicial investigation determined that Mery had been killed by agricultural worker José Enrique Hipólito Ulloa Hernández.