Beltrán, Pedro (1897–1979)

Pedro Beltrán (b. 17 February 1897; d. 16 February 1979), Peruvian landowner, economist, publisher, and politician. Born in Cañete, he became a distinguished representative of liberal interests among the economic elite of coastal Peru. He studied at San Marcos University and in London at Kings College and the London School of Economics, from which he received a master's degree in economics in 1918. On his return to Peru, he promoted agricultural modernization and organized cotton and sugar producers. By 1929, Beltrán had become the president of the influential National Agrarian Society and a member of the board of directors of the Peruvian Reserve Bank.

After the fall of President Augusto B. Leguía in 1930, Beltrán continued to exercise his influence as a leading exporter of agricultural goods through the daily newspaper La Prensa, which he bought in 1934. Between 1944 and 1946, Beltrán was the Peruvian ambassador to the United States and presided over the Peruvian delegation at the Bretton Woods conference. He vigorously opposed state controls over imports and foreign currency exchange under president José Luis Bustamante y Rivero (1945–1948). In 1956, Beltrán was imprisoned by Manuel Odría for his opposition as head of the National Coalition, a civilian political group. In 1959–1960, during the second Prado administration, he served as minister of finance. In 1974 the military government expropriated his newspaper. He lived thereafter in exile in New York City, where he died.

See alsoPeru, Organizations: National Agrarian Societyxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosemary Thorp and Geoffrey Bertram, Peru, 1890–1977: Growth and Policy in an Open Economy (1978).

Gonzalo Portocarrero Maisch, De Bustamante a Odría (1983).

                                Alfonso W. Quiroz