Papers of ADOLF A. SERLE, 1912-1974

Papers of ADOLF A. SERLE, 1912-1974 Accession Numbers: Ms. 74-11 , Ms . 74-14, Ms . 75- 9, Ms . 83-11 , The papers were presented to the Library by Mrs. Adolf A. Serle in 1973, 1974, a nd 1982. Mrs. Be rle 's copyrigh t interest in these papers has been do nated to the' Un ited States Government. However, Mrs. Serle and Travis S. Jacobs published an edited version of Adolf A. Berle 's diary under the title Navigating the Rapids 1918-1971: From the Papers of Adolf A. Serle. Copy right to tha t part of the diary published in Navig a ting the Rapids, which amoun ts to approximately 20 percent of the total di ary fi le, has been retained by the publishe r Harcourt Srace Jovanovich, Inc. Researchers who wish to re produce or quote from copyrighted portio ns of the diary must. obta in permission from the publisher. Quantity: 98 linear feet (196,000 pages) Restrictions: These papers conta in documents restricted in accordance w ith Executive Order 12356, and material that might be used to e mba rrass, harass, or injure living persons has been c losed. Rela ted Material: Transcript of the interview with Adolf A. Serle conducted by the C olumbia Oral History Project. Permission to c ite or quote must be obtained from Mrs. Adolf A. Serle. Electros tptic copies of correspondence between Fletcher Warren and A. A. Serle from the Warren Papers in East Texas State Unive r si t y Library at Commerce, Texas 75428. I ADOLF A. BERLE. 1895 - 1971 Biographical Sketch Adolf A. Berle was born on January 29 , 1895, in Boston, Massachusetts, the second of four children of Dr. Adolf Augustus and Mary Augusta (Wright) Berle. He graduated from Harvard College in 1913, after major ing in history, and received his M.A. degree the following year. In 1916 at age twenty-one he became the youngest man to receive an LL.B. degree from the Harvard Law School and began practicing with Louis D. Brandeis's firm. When the United States entered World War I, he enlisted in the Army. After receiving officer training at Plattsburg, New York, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and served at the Army War College in Washington, D.C. as an intelligence officer. In 1918 the Army sent him to Santo Domingo to settle land titles for U.S . sugar companies in order to increase sugar production for the war effort. He drafted a land law that is still operative in the Dominican Republic. After the armistice he remained in the Army and served with the American Commission to Negotiate the Peace at Paris as an adviser on Russian, Polish, and Baltic affairs . He protested the Versailles settlement in May, 1919, and requested to be relieved from his duties with the Commission. His request was granted the following month. After his discharge in July, 1919, Berle moved to New York where he resumed law practice with the firm of Rounds, Hatch, Dillingham, & Debevoise. He became a volunteer worker with the Henry Street Settlement and, at the re quest of the American Indian Defense Association, helped to secure the land titles of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico and assisted in drafting the Pueblo Indian Land Law of 1924. He became a member of the firm of Lippitt & Berle in 1924, and in 1929, he organized with his brother Rudolf the firm of Berle and Berle . Meanwhile he had started teaching, first as a lecturer at the Harvard Business School from 1924 to 1927, and then as associate professor and professor of corporation law at Columbia University from 1927 to 1963. He was on leave of absence during World War II and became profes sor emeritus in 1963 . He served as special counsel to a committee of the Ohio State Bar Association in revising the Ohio Corporation Law in 1926- 27, and in the same capacity to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in revising the Wisconsin Securities law in 1931- 32. Berle's association with Franklin D. Roosevelt began as a member of the Brain Trust, a group headed by Raymond Moley which advised Governor Roose velt during his campaign for the Presidency in 1932. Although he declined a full- time position in the Roosevelt administration, he helped to write a section of the Bankruptcy Act, assisted the Reconstruction Finance Corpora tion in railroad reorgani~ations, and was special counsel to the R.F.C . from 1933 to 1938. He also participated in the Treasury Conference during the "Bank Holiday" in March, 1933, and advised the government on stock ex change legislation in 1933 and 1934. He went to Cuba in August, 1933, at III the request of the State Department as f i nanci al adviser to the American Embassy in Havana . In 1934, he was el ected a member of the Advisory Com mittee of the Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange . As Chamberlain of the City of New York from 1934 to 1937, Berle wor ked to improve the City' s f inances and to acquire and unify under public ownership and control the rapid transit railroads . V~en the office was abolished in 1937, on his r ecommend ation, he became t emporary chairman of the Plan ing Commission of the City of New York, a member of the City Housing Au thority, and chairman of a committee to study New York' s sub stitute teacher system. From 1938 to 1944, Berle was an Assistant Secretary of State . He took particular interest in Latin American affairs serving as a U. S . delegate to inter- American conferences in Lima (1938), and Havana (1940). (He had been a U. S . delegate at Bueno Aires in 1936- 37, and later attended the conference at Mexico City in .1945 . ) His duties at the Department of State included postwar planning, negotiating with Allied governments in exile, coordinating, U.S. and foreign intelligence activities, evaluating t rends in international finance, dr afting government statements on international questions , and writing speeches for the Presid ent and administration offi cials . He was president of the International Conference on Civil Aviation in Chicago in 1944, and chairman of the United States melegation . He served as United States ambassador to Brazil in 1945- 46. After the war Berle returned to l aw practice and teaching in New York . He was chairman of the Liberal Party of New York State from 1947 to 1955 , and assi s ted s uch foundations as The Fund for the Republic, the Rockefeller Br other s Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Committee on Human Ecology during the 1950' s and 1960 ' s . He also maintained an interest in Central and South American affairs and in 1956 assisted in the sett le~ent of a di spute between Nic ar agua and Costa Rica . When John F . Kenned y was running for the presi dency in 1960, he asked Berle to be chairman of a t ask force to study Latin American problems . On J anuary 25 , 1961, he was made Consultant to the Secretary of State and on J anuary 31, President Kennedy set up the Interdepartmental Task Force on Latin America to coor dinate "all policies and progr ams of concern t o the Americas" with Berle as chairman . He r eported to the Pres i dent and Secretary of State Dean Rusk . He resigned from the State Department in July, 1961, aft er submitting to the President the final report of the Task Force . In addition to his teaching at Columb ia, Berle was a lecturer at t he United States Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1954- 65, Chairman of the Board of the Ecole De l ' Europe Libre (Strasbourg, France ), 1948- 59 , and t r ustee of the University of t he Andes Foundation. He was a Trustee (1934- 51 ) and Chairman of the Board of the Twentieth century Fund (1951- 71), as well as a Trustee of the Free Europe Committee (1948- 63 ), Director, Treas urer, and Chairman of the Board of the American Molasses Company (1946- 71 ), Dir ector of the Savings Bank Trust Company, (1932- 38), and counsel thereafter, and Dir ector of Nationwide Corporation , (1956- 71 ) . LV Mr . Berle' s books include the immensely influential study The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) written in collaboration with Gardiner Means , Liquid Claims and National Wealth (1934) with Victoria Pederson, The Natural Selection of Political Forces (1950), The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution (1954), Power Without Property (1959 ), Latin America; Diplomacy and Reality (1962 ), The American Economic Republic (1963), and Power (196). He wrote numerous articles and book reviews in law journals, Survey Graphic , The Reporter, New York Times, Vital Speeches, Harper ' s Magazine, and other publications. Adolf A. Berle died on February 17, 1971, in his home at 142 East Nine teenth Street, in New York. In 1973, Beatrice Bishop Berle, whom Adolf A. Berle married in December, 1927, and Travis Beal Jacobs produced an edited version of a diary kept by Mr. Berle from 1937 to 1971. It was published by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich under the title Navigating the Rapids 1918-1971. Since no formal diary was found for the years 1918-1936, the record was constructed from Berle ' s correspondence and writings; his handwritten diary entries for 1918- 19, covering his service with the American Commission to Negoti ate the Peace, and for 1923- 24, describing his work with the Pueblo Indians; excerpts from his wife ' s diary; and passages from his Columbia University oral history transcript.

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