Adolf A. Berle | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Berle in 1965 | |
| United States Ambassador to Brazil | |
| In office January 30, 1945 – February 27, 1946 | |
| President | Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman |
| Preceded by | Jefferson Caffery |
| Succeeded by | William D. Pawley |
| Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs | |
| In office March 5, 1938 – December 19, 1944[1] | |
| President | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Chamberlain of New York City | |
| In office January 1, 1934 – March 5, 1938 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Buckley |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Adolf Augustus Berle, Jr. (1895-01-29)January 29, 1895 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | February 17, 1971(1971-02-17) (aged 76) New York City, New York |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingPeter |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (BA,MA,JD) |
| Profession | Lawyer,diplomat,author,educator |
Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (/ˈbɜːrli/; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat.[2] He was the author ofThe Modern Corporation and Private Property, a groundbreaking work oncorporate governance, a professor atColumbia University, and an important member of US PresidentFranklin Roosevelt's "Brain Trust."
Berle was born inBoston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary Augusta (Wright) and Adolf Augustus Berle.[3] He enteredHarvard College at age 14, earning a bachelor's degree in 1913 and a master's degree in 1914. He then enrolled inHarvard Law School. In 1916, at age 21, he became the second youngest graduate in the school's history, behind onlyLouis Brandeis.[4]
Upon graduation Berle joined theUS military. His first assignment as anintelligence officer was to assist in increasing sugar production inthe Dominican Republic by working out property and contractual conflicts among rural landowners. Immediately afterWorld War I, Berle became a member of the American delegation to theParis Peace Conference, advocating for smaller nations' rights of self-determination. In 1919, Berle moved to New York City and became a member of thelaw firm of Berle, Berle and Brunner.
Berle became a professor ofcorporate law atColumbia Law School in 1927 and remained on the faculty until retiring in 1964. He is best known for his groundbreaking work incorporate governance that he co-authored, with economistGardiner Means,The Modern Corporation and Private Property. It is the most quoted text in corporate governance studies. Berle and Means showed that the means of production in the US economy were highly concentrated in the hands of the largest 200 corporations, and within the large corporations, managers controlled firms despite shareholders' formal ownership.Berle theorized that the facts ofeconomic concentration meant that the effects ofcompetitive-price theory were largely mythical.[5] While some advocatedtrust busting, breaking up the concentrations of firms into smaller entities to restore competitive forces, Berle believed that that would be economically inefficient. Instead, he argued for government regulation and became identified with the school of business statesmanship, which advocated that corporate leadership accept (and theorized that they had, to a great extent, already accepted) that they must fulfill responsibilities toward society in addition to their traditional responsibilities toward shareholders.[6] Corporate law should reflect this new reality, he wrote inThe Modern Corporation: "The law of corporations, accordingly, might well be considered as a potential constitutional law for the new economic state, while business practice is increasingly assuming the aspect of economic statesmanship."[7]
Berle was an original member ofFranklin D. Roosevelt's "Brain Trust", a group of advisers who developed policy recommendations. Berle's focuses ranging from economic recovery to diplomatic strategy[8] during Roosevelt's1932 election campaign. Roosevelt's "Commonwealth Club Address", a speech written by Berle on government involvement in industrial and economic policy, was ranked in 2000 as the second-best presidential campaign speech of the 20th century by public address scholars.[9]While remaining an informal adviser of Roosevelt after the election, Berle returned toNew York City and became a key consultant in the successful mayoral election campaign of reformerFiorello LaGuardia. From 1934 to 1938, Berle managed the city's fiscal affairs as its lastChamberlain.
Then, from 1938 to 1944, Berle was Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.[10] Throughout the Roosevelt administration, Berle consulted on important international and industrial New Deal projects, such as the creation of theSt. Lawrence Seaway, the development of the administration'sGood Neighbor Policy toward Latin America, and the establishment of theInternational Civil Aviation Organization.[10] Outside of Latin America, Berle argued "that control of the incomparable energy reserves of the Middle East would yield 'substantial control of the world.'"[11]by 1941, Berle had charge of the intelligence activities in the State Department, working with the FBI in Latin America and the OSS in Europe.[12] He was in touch with anti-fascist and anti-Communist Europeans, with the goal of building a liberal democratic coalition in Europe. Berle became entangled in incessant turf wars among intelligence agencies. Critics on the left accused him of being too hostile toward Moscow, and Secretary of StateCordell Hull was annoyed at his access to Roosevelt. In 1944 he was reassigned to take charge of negotiation with the Allies regarding a postwar commercial aviation agreement.[13]
In 1939, Berle became an early member of theNational Lawyers Guild (NLG). According to the NLG'sA History of the National Lawyers Guild 1937-1987, two factions arose as early as 1940. External events heightening these tensions included theHitler-Stalin Pact of September (1939), the Russian invasion of Finland (1940). One faction, led by Berle andMorris Ernst, supportedNew Deal policies. The other, led byOsmond Fraenkel andThomas I. Emerson, supported freedom of speech and press as well as Anti-Fascism (seen at the time as aPopular Front stance, thus pro-Communist). Other issues supported by Fraenkel, Emerson, the National Executive Board and many chapters included: support for Loyalist Spain, criticism ofJ. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and support for labor unions. Berle and Ernst recommended anti-communist oaths, which Fraenkel and Emerson opposed. Many Berle and Ernst supporters left the NLG by 1940. During the NLG's 1940 convention, newly elected presidentRobert W. Kenny of California and secretaryMartin Popper of New York sought to persuade members to return. During a phone call from Kenny, Berle gave him a short list of lawyers to leave as a simple matter of "cleaning house": Kenny rejected the request.[14]
During his tenure as Assistant Secretary of State, Berle rentedWoodley Mansion, which had once been owned byGrover Cleveland andMartin Van Buren, from secretary of warHenry Stimson in 1939. On September 2,Whittaker Chambers arrived at Woodley to tell Berle that several senior government officials, includingAlger Hiss, a respected member of theState Department, were members of a Soviet "apparatus" designed to influence US policy and pass classified documents and information to the Soviets. Chambers's autobiography asserts that Berle and the journalist who set up the meeting,Isaac Don Levine, met with Roosevelt and conveyed what Chambers told them, but Roosevelt unequivocally refused to take any action.[15] Hiss remained at the State Department during and after the war in positions, including as Roosevelt's principal adviser on Soviet affairs at the Yalta conference, as a delegate to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference and as Secretary General of the San Francisco conference establishing the United Nations. In 1948, Chambers repeated his accusations to theHouse Committee on Un-American Activities. Hiss denied the accusation in testimony to the Committee, leading to his trial and conviction for perjury. Berle provided incorrect and misleading testimony before the House Committee about his meeting with Chambers, which was contradicted by both his notes taken subsequent to the meeting and a personal diary entry that acknowledged that Chambers had implicated Hiss in espionage.[citation needed] Explaining Berle's evasive testimony,Allen Weinstein wrote in his bookPerjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case: "His major concern in 1948, at a time when Berle was a Liberal Party leader in New York working forTruman's election, was to defuse, if possible, the influence of anti-Communist sentiment and of the case itself in that election year."[16]
In 1943, Berle's duties in the State Department involved political supervision of the various clandestine activities necessitated by the war. Working with his assistantCharles W. Yost, Berle liaised with theOSS, and with the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Berle also was a major architect in the development of federal farm and home owners' mortgage programs and in the expansion of theReconstruction Finance Corporation.[17] He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1944.[18]
After the war, Berle served asAmbassador toBrazil from 1945 to 1946. In October 1945, two days after thedeposition of presidentGetúlio Vargas, Berle pledged for the freedom of the Brazilian communists who were being incarcerated by the government since the beginning of the month.[19]
He then returned to his academic career at Columbia. Berle was a founding member of theLiberal Party of New York, a breakaway faction of theAmerican Labor Party, which had lost support as a result of its sponsorship of CongressmanVito Marcantonio, a Communist sympathizer. For nearly a decade, Berle served as chairman of the Liberal Party. His main goal was to fight off far-left and Communist influences. He also chaired theTwentieth Century Fund for the two decades following World War II.
Berle briefly returned to government service for the first half of 1961, serving under PresidentJohn F. Kennedy as head of an interdepartmental task force onLatin American affairs. During that time, he was primarily involved in forming the US response to a newly communist Cuba, which included both the failedBay of Pigs invasion and the initiation of theAlliance for Progress, an economic development policy aimed at the region.[10]: 325–334
Berle continued to write academic work related to corporate law. His article on "Property, Production and Revolution" was a key statement of the theory behind theGreat Society program of PresidentLyndon B. Johnson. He was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1965.[20]
Adolf Berle married Beatrice Bishop (1902–1993), the daughter ofCortlandt Field Bishop (1870–1935) and Amy Bend (1870–1957), in 1927. Beatrice was the granddaughterGeorge Hoffman Bend (1838–1900), a member of theNew York Stock Exchange and prominent in New York Society. Adolf and Beatrice had two daughters and a son. He had ten grandchildren.[21]
In 1971, Berle died inNew York City, aged 76.[21]His wife edited and published selections from his diaries posthumously in 1973 asNavigating the Rapids: From the Papers of Adolf A. Berle.[21][30]
According to historian Ellis W. Hawley:
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | United States Ambassador to Brazil 30 January 1945–27 February 1946 | Succeeded by |
| Chargé d'Affaires |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary | ||
| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | ||
