Adolf A. Berle and in the expansion of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1944. After the war, Berle served as Ambassador to Brazil from 1945 to 1946. In October 1945, two days after the deposition of president Getulio Vargas, Berle pledged for the freedom of the Brazilian communists who were being incarcerated by the government since the beginning of the month. He then returned to his academic career at Columbia. Berle was a founding member of the New York State Liberal Party, a breakaway faction of the American Labor Party,
Getúlio Vargas was growing. After four years, however, pro-US President Eurico Dutra wasted huge quantities of money protecting foreign, mostly US, industry, and distanced himself from the ideas of nationalism and modernization of the country championed by Vargas. Vargas returned to politics in 1951 and through a free and secret ballot was re-elected President of the Republic. Hampered by the economic crisis largely engendered by the policies of Dutra, Vargas pursued a nationalist policy, turning to the country's natural resources and away from foreign dependency. As part of this policy, he founded Petrobrás (Brazilian Petroleum), a large, multinational petroleum concern largely owned