José Ber Gelbard (14 April 1917 4 October 1977), was a Polish-born Argentine activist and politician, and a member of the Argentine Communist Party. He also helped organize the Confederación General Económica (CGE), made up of small and medium-sized business. Beginning about 1954, he was appointed as an economic advisor to Juan Perón and repeatedly was called back to serve as Minister of Finance to successive governments until the military coup of March 1976. He fled with his family shortly before the coup, gaining political asylum in the United States and settling in Washington, D.C.
Early life and education
Born Joseph Gelbard into a Jewish family in Radomsko, Poland, in 1917, his family emigrated in 1930 to Argentina. They settled in Tucumán, north of Buenos Aires. Other family were already there, as well as immigrant communities of Sephardic and European Jews, and Arabs from the Middle East (turcos). During the Great Depression, Gelbard helped support the family as a street peddler of men's ties and belts.
Marriage and family
By 1938 Gelbard had saved some money and married Dina Haskel. They settled in Catamarca, where he started a men's clothing store named "Casa Nueva York". They had children together, including a son Fernando Gelbard. Fernando became a jazz pianist and flautist, composer and record producer. In 1974 he recorded Didi (named for his wife) with a five-man jazz group in Buenos Aires. Their music was ahead of its time in its combination of Latin and Afro-American music, bebop and bossa nova. The record was remastered and released in 2002.
Political career
Gelbard became a Communist activist, involved in several causes, including Jewish armed groups defending the Jewish community in Tucumán from the abuses of local Nazi groups. He joined the Democratic Union, a loose alliance against candidate Juan Perón, during the 1945-46 electoral campaign.
Gelbard became involved in business politics, becoming a leader in the Chamber of Commerce in Catamarca. He represented the small and medium business sectors, many of whose owners were immigrants and new businessmen. He came to believe that the millions of small industries and merchants needed to unite to become a force that could negotiate with Perón's pro-labor forces. He became the "national bourgeoisie's" principal ideologue, and "the most articulate advocate of an alliance between business, the state and labor, behind a federalist and nationalist economic program."
During this period, he helped organize the CGE (Confederación General Económica), a union of millions of industrialists and businessmen, with enough strength to negotiate with the government and labor unions. In 1953, he traveled throughout the provinces organizing businessmen under the CGE and was named as its first president.
In 1954, Gelbard moved with his family to Buenos Aires. He was soon appointed to Perón's cabinet as a minister without portfolio, working on economic issues. He continued his fight for small and medium businesses, opposing perceived imperialist interests and agro interests that would have preferred a country of grain and cattle exporters. He strongly opposed the philosophy of making Argentina 'The world's barn'. The CGE executive committee also had strong representation in the government, sitting on the Comisión Económica Consultíva and participating in its numerous sub-committees: housing, prices, labor, foreign relations, transport and cost of living, for instance.
In 1955, a military coup d'etat toppled Perón. The new military government prosecuted Gelbard and froze his assets, as he was a known advisor to Peron. In later years, the generals called elections, there were new coups d'état, new presidents, and new elections. Gelbard was always called in as an economic advisor of all subsequent presidents, whether generals or democratically elected. In 1972, following a request from General Lanusse, then dictator, Gelbard negotiated the return of General Juan Perón from his exile in Madrid.
After many trips and secret negotiations, elections were called. As Perón was still not allowed to be president, his associate Dr. Héctor Cámpora ran and was elected president on May 25, 1973. At Perón's direction, Cámpora appointed Gelbard as minister of "economy, finance, public works and trade."