Oral Histories

Childhood in Peru, schooling in Chile, New York City; journalist: 1927-1932, metals market reporter, assistant editor, Engineering and Mining Journal; 1932-1934, editor, Madison, NJ, Eagle: Prohibition, the mob, Morro Castle fire; 1935-1941, mining securities analyst, Standard Statistics Co.; WWII: vice president, Metals Reserve Co. (Reconstruction Finance Corp.), procurement of strategic minerals, incompatibility of Henry Wallace and Jesse Jones, Combined Raw Materials Board, Premium Price Plan and committee, U.S. Commercial Corp., black markets, new field of mineral economics; 1946-1988, American Smelting & Refining Co. (ASARCO), vice president, director, vice chairman: marketing non-ferrous metals and non-metallic minerals internationally, forming Southern Peru Copper Corp., maintaining LIFO inventory, Mt. Isa Mine, 1967-68 copper miners strike, Pennzoil takeover attempt; from 1989, director, Magma Copper Corp.; discussion of American Mining Congress, 1951 Paley Commission report, nationalist movements, price stabilization efforts, trade associations, commodity cartels, environmentalism; wife Elaine Mandel Strauss and polio, Albert Gore, Sr.'s germanium mine, friend Mauricio Hochschild.