Bela Gold

Bela Gold, also known as Bill Gold was born 30 January 1915 in Kolozsvár, Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), and was married to Sonia Steinman Gold in 1938.

Biography

He was the son of Esther (1891-?) and Leo Gold (1890-?), and had a brother, William Gold (1921-?). His father was a dry goods salesman, and the family had emigrated in 1920. [1930 US Census for Bronx, New York]

Gold attended New York University majoring in industrial engineering for four years, then attended Columbia University for two years in graduate studies on economics. His name appears on the Venona list of suspected Soviet subversives in the United States, affiliated with the Silvermaster group.

In Washington D.C., Gold worked for the Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization, and for the Economic Programs in the Foreign Economic Administration. In 1942, Gold described his job as principal social science analyst, and that his duties were to carry out special administrative research assignments for the Chief of the Bureau of Intelligence, Office of Facts and Figures, for the head of the Division of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agriculture Economics, United States Department of Agriculture. On a government questionnaire, Gold stated he was best suited for directing research requiring knowledge of many engineering, managerial and economic aspects of industrial operations, and also as a director of social research.

Gold served as an adviser on Foreign Economic Development Problems and Programs. Specifically he arranged for the analysis of plans and projects for the reconstruction of war damaged areas and the economic development of foreign countries, and helped formulate programs for major geographical areas of the world in conformance with the long-range interests of the United States. Gold would apprise the relationships among industry, reconstruction, foreign development, U.S. conversion, and foreign disposal requirements, for the effective adjustment to one another, and apprise the relationship between war relief and immediate rehabilitation measures, and longer run proposals to minimize waste and major gaps in the continuity of reconstruction programs. And Gold would arrange for the comparative analysis of U.S. postwar requirements for war materials and consumers' goods and the production potentials and local market potentials of alternate development requirements.

References