biography
| name: |
Baruch, Bernard (Mannes)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1870–1965)
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| biography:
| Financier, public official, and philanthropist, born in Camden, South Carolina, USA. Starting on Wall Street at $3 a week, he became a multimillionaire by his mid-thirties through his stock investments. He chose to devote himself to public affairs, and became a friend of Woodrow Wilson, who appointed him chairman of the War Industries Board (1917) and a member of the president's war council. He participated in the postwar peace conference, and with John Foster Dulles he co-wrote The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty (1920). Usually preferring to act as a personal consultant instead of holding official appointments, he continued to advise every president from Wilson through to John F Kennedy. During the 1930s he advocated that the US prepare and organize itself for the war he saw as inevitable, and accepted President Franklin Roosevelt's offer to chair a committee on mobilization legislation (1934). After World War 2 he also accepted an appointment from President Harry Truman as ambassador to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (1946). But for the most part he preferred his near-legendary role as ‘Mr Baruch’ offering advice from a park bench. He made many gifts to educational institutions, notably his alma mater, City College of New York. |
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