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Bernard Mannes Baruch[burOOk´] Pronunciation Key, 1870–1965, U.S. financier and government adviser, b. Camden, S.C. He grew rich through stockmarket speculation before he was 30. In World War I he advised on national defense and was (1918–19) chairman of the War Industries Board; he helped frame the economic provisions of the Versailles Treaty (1919). In World War II he became (1942) special adviser to James F. Byrnes and wrote the report (1943) on postwar conversion. As U.S. Representative to the UN Atomic Energy Commission (1946) he formulated plans for international control of atomic energy.
See his autobiography Baruch (2 vol., 1957–60); biography by W. L. White (1950, repr. 1971); J. Schwarz, The Speculator: Bernard M. Baruch in Washington, 1917–1965 (1981).
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