Brazilian economist, diplomat, writer and professor born in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, unconditional defender of democratic freedoms and free enterprise for over 40 years, emphatically due to the reduction in the size and influence of the state administrative machine in productive activities and the modernization of relations between the State and the society. Son of Professor Waldomiro Campos and D. Honorina de Campos graduated in Philosophy (1934) and in Theology (1937) at the Catholic Seminaries of Guaxupé and Belo Horizonte.
Without financial resources to continue his ecclesiastical career, he went to live and work in the interior of São Paulo until he joined the Brazilian Diplomatic Service (1939) through a public examination. There he met and married D. Estella (1940) and the couple had three children: Sandra, Roberto and Luís Fernando. Appointed to work at the Brazilian embassy in Washington, he took a liking to economics and earned a master's degree in economics from George Washington University, Washington D. C (1945) and a doctorate from Columbia University, New York (1949). In the post-war period, alongside Eugenio Gudin, he participated in the Bretton Woods Meeting, which created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the IMF, and negotiated international credits from Brazil, such as the financing of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, in Volta Round.
As an economist and diplomat, he was an economic advisor to the Brazil-United States Economic Development Commission (1951-1953), director, general manager and president of the Bank National Economic Development Council (1952 /1955 /1959), secretary general of the Economic Development Council (1956-1959) where he coordinated the economic actions of the Government Goals Juscelino Kubitschek, professor of the Chairs of Currency and Credit and Economic Environment at the Faculty of Economics, University of Brazil (1956-1961), ambassador traveling for financial negotiations in Western Europe (1961), delegate to international conferences, including Ecosoc and Gatt (1959-1961), ambassador of Brazil to the States Unidos (1961), Minister of State for Planning and Economic Coordination (1964-1967) in the Castelo Branco government, when he created the Guarantee Fund for Time of Service, the FGTS, the Savings Account, the National Bank for Economic Development and the Land Statute, member of the Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for Progress, representing Brazil, Ecuador and Haiti (1964-1967), president of the Inter-American Council of Commerce and Production, Cicyp, (1968 / 1970) and ambassador of Brazil at the Court of Saint James (1975-1982).
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In party politics, he was a senator of the republic, representing the State of Mato Grosso (1983-1990) and a federal deputy for the PPB of the State of Rio de Janeiro, for two legislatures (1990-1998). in addition to several other positions in councils and public and private entities, he was a resident of the Municipal Development Council, COMUDES, of the City of Rio de Janeiro (1999) and member of the Board of Directors of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development, BNDES (1999). Among great honors in his lifetime, he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of New York, NY (1958) and from the University Francisco Marroquim, Guatemala (1996) and was elected (1999) to Chair No. 21 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, in succession to Dias Gomes.
He has published many works, technical articles, reports on development and international economics, published in various magazines and newspapers, as well as several books such as Economics, Planning and Nationalism (1963), Essays in Economic History and Sociology (1964), Money, Government and Time (1964), Economic Politics and Political Myths (1965), Technique and Laughter (1967), Reflections on Latin American Development (1967), On the Other Side of the Fence (1968), Essays Against the Tide (1969), Themes and Systems (1970), Role of the Private Enterprise (1971), The World I See and Not Desire (1976), Beyond of everyday life (1985), Reckless Essays (1987), Guide for the Perplexed (1988), The Weird Century (1990), Reflections of the Twilight (1991), A Lanterna na Popa - Memórias (1994), Antologia do Bom Senso (1996), At the turn of the Millennium (1998) and others as co-author, for example The New Brazilian Economy (1974) and Creative Forms in Brazilian Development (1975), both with Mário Henrique Simonsen. He died at the age of 84, at his home in Copacabana, in the south of Rio de Janeiro, of an acute myocardial infarction, while he was sleeping, his body being veiled in the salon of the Romantic Poets of the Academia Brasileira de Letras and buried in the ABL mausoleum in the São João Batista cemetery, in Botafogo, in the south of the city. River.
Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
Order R - Biography - Brazil School