to Cuba, including United States-branded cars manufactured in Argentina. (The US was forced to accept this action after Gelbard threatened to close all US car factories in the country.) He planned many economic missions. Gelbard headed large groups of Argentine businessmen and industrialists on visits to Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other countries. On 1 July 1974, Perón died, leaving a divided party. Isabel Perón, his widow, who had earlier been chosen Vice President as a compromise between feuding factions, succeeded him to the presidency. Increasingly strained by rising labor union wage demands and the 1973 oil shock alike, the Social Pact gradually was unable to contain inflation, and class cooperation declined. In November 1974, Gelbard resigned, as the country's economic indicators continued to decline and his "Zero Inflation" plan failed. In March 1976 the military made a coup d'etat and overthrew Isabel Perón's presidency. Later accused of having bribed military officials to be allowed to leave, Gelbard and his family left the country before the coup and obtained political asylum in the United States. All his assets in Argentina were frozen. The reigning military junta sentenced Joseph Gelbard and his son Fernando to death in absentia. Death On 4 October 1977, Gelbard died of a heart attack in Washington, D.C., aged 60. Under a Radical government, his son Fernando later returned with his family to Argentina after the return of democratically elected government. In 1989 he was appointed as Argentine ambassador to France. He filed a claim for US$20,000,000 with the Argentine government, for "all the time he could not make use of the family assets confiscated by the military." It is unclear whether he succeeded in his claim. References Further reading Maria Seoane, 'The goddamn bourgeois.' The Secret History of José Ber Gelbard, Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta, 1998 Julián Blejmar, 'José Ber Gelbard.' La patria desde el boliche, Buenos Aires: Editorial Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, 2019 1917 births 1977 deaths Argentine Ministers of Finance Argentine people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish Argentine politicians Jewish socialists People from Radomsko Argentine activists 20th-century Argentine economists Polish emigrants to Argentina Argentine expatriates in the United States