Roberto Campos

For the baseball player, see Roberto Campos (baseball).

Roberto Campos
File:Roberto Campos.jpg Roberto Campos
Federal Deputy from Rio de Janeiro
In office 1 February 1991 – 1 February 1999
Senator for Rio de Janeiro
In office 1 February 1983 – 1 February 1991
Brazilian Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office 1975–1982
President	Ernesto Geisel João Figueiredo
Preceded by	Sérgio Affonso da Costa
Succeeded by	Mário Gibson Barbosa
Minister of Planning and Economic Coordination
In office 15 April 1964 – 15 March 1967
President	Castelo Branco
Preceded by	Celso Furtado
Succeeded by	Hélio Beltrão
President of the Brazilian Development Bank
In office August 1958 – July 1959
President	Juscelino Kubitschek
Preceded by	Lucas Lopes
Succeeded by	Lúcio Martins Meira
Personal details
Born	Roberto de Oliveira Campos (1917-04-17)17 April 1917 Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Died	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Political party	PDS (1983–93) PPR (1993–95) PPB (1995–2001)
Alma mater	George Washington University Columbia University
Occupation	Economist, diplomat and politician

Roberto de Oliveira Campos (17 April 1917 – 9 October 2001) was a Brazilian economist, writer, diplomat, politician and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. He served in a number of capacities, including Brazilian ambassador to the United States and to the United Kingdom, minister of planning for the government of Castelo Branco, during the Brazilian military dictatorship, and congressman.

Biography

Early life

Campos was born in Cuiabá, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Initially planning to enter the priesthood, he enrolled in a Catholic seminary in Guaxupé. Later, he received degrees in philosophy and theology from a seminary in Belo Horizonte.

In 1939 Campos entered the Brazilian Foreign Service. Three years later, he was sent to the United States, where he took graduate courses in economics at George Washington University and Columbia University. During this period, he also represented the Brazilian government in international economic meetings, such as the Bretton Woods conference.

Career

Campos left New York City for Brazil in 1949. From 1951 to 1953, he acted as an economic advisor in the second Getúlio Vargas administration, whose hallmarks were the paramountcy of nationalist economic policies. He was one of the supporters of the creation the BNDES (at the time BNDE — National Bank for Economic Development), a public authority whose function was to supply emerging industries with low-interest and long-term credits. After Vargas's suicide, Campos served as economic advisor to his elected successor, president Juscelino Kubitschek.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Campos presented himself as a promoter of "pragmatic, democratic nationalism," as when he tried, as Brazilian ambassador in Washington, to reach an understanding between the John F. Kennedy administration and the left-leaning João Goulart government. Eventually, disagreements with Goulart's policies led to his resignation in August 1963.

Roberto Campos sided with the military regime installed by the 1964 coup, which was greatly backed by Jorge Flores, a business partner of his. The first military president, Marshall Castelo Branco, appointed Campos as his Minister of Planning — and chief economic policy maker, jointly with the Finance Minister Octavio Gouvea de Bulhões — in which capacity he enacted various pro-business and pro-foreign capital — as well as anti-organized-labour — reforms that aimed to modernize the Brazilian economy in a liberal sense. His sympathies for an inconditional pro-American foreign policy and foreign-capital-friendly economic policies earned him, already during the 1960s, his lifelong sobriquet: "Bob Fields" (an anglicized word-to-word rendering of his actual name).

During the late 1960s and 1970s, he disagreed with the increasing amount of state intervention in the economy included in the process of authoritarian modernization achieved by later military administrations and remained at the sidelines, working mostly as an adviser in private enterprise. In 1975, he was appointed Brazilian ambassador to the United Kingdom, remaining in this office for nearly seven years.

At the demise of the dictatorship, he regained political influence and became a politician in his own right. In 1980, soon after the end of the two-party regime, he joined the newly formed pro-government PDS. Two years later, he won the election for an eight-year term as senator for his native state of Mato Grosso. As a member of the electoral college in the 1985 presidential election, he voted for the defeated PDS candidate, Paulo Maluf. Starting in 1991, he served as federal deputy for the State of Rio de Janeiro during two legislatures. In 1998, he was defeated when trying to return to the senate, thus ending his political career.

Later life and death

At the end of his life he tended to portray himself as solitary liberal, fighting against what he called "leftist" (i.e. Big Government) governments and policies, becoming one of the most vocal opponents of socialism in Brazil. His 1994 autobiography A lanterna na popa revises his personal biography — as well as the recent economic history of Brazil — according to this vein.

In 1999, he was elected member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters by a thin margin of four votes.

He died of heart attack on 9 October 2001 at his apartment in Rio de Janeiro. His papers reside at the Universidade Positivo.

He was married. From his marriage resulted two sons and one daughter.

Works

• (1963) Economia, planejamento e nacionalismo
• (1988) Guia para os perplexos ISBN 85-7007-126-4
• (1994) A lanterna na popa ISBN 85-7475-038-7
• (1996) Antologia do bom senso
• (1998) Na virada do milênio ISBN 85-86020-75-3

Further reading

• Perez, Reginaldo Teixeira. Pensamento político de Roberto Campos. Editora FGV, 1999.

Government offices
Preceded by Lucas Lopes	President of BNDES 1958–1959	Succeeded by Lúcio Martins Meira
Political offices
Preceded by Celso Furtado	Minister of Planning and Economic Coordination 1964–1967	Succeeded by Hélio Beltrão
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Sérgio Affonso da Costa	Brazilian Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1975–1982	Succeeded by Mário Gibson Barbosa
Academic offices
Preceded by Dias Gomes	7th Academic of the 21st chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters 1999–2001	Succeeded by Paulo Coelho