BLUMENTHAL, WERNER MICHAEL

BLUMENTHAL, WERNER MICHAEL (1926– ), U.S. economist, industrialist, and ambassador. Born in Oranienburg, Germany, Blumenthal left Germany in the 1930s, spent some years in Shanghai where he was interned by the Japanese, and finally went to the United States in 1947. He taught at Princeton from 1954 to 1957, leaving to assume the post of vice president of Crown Cork International. In 1961 Blumenthal became United States representative to the UN Commission on International Commodity Trade, serving simultaneously as deputy assistant secretary of state for economic affairs. In 1963, as President Johnson's deputy special representative for trade negotiations, he was posted to Geneva as ambassador and chairman of the United States delegation to the Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations. After these were completed in 1967, Blumenthal resigned from government service to become president of international operations at Bendix Corporation. Blumenthal became chairman of the Bendix Corporation in 1972. He served as secretary of the treasury in the Carter Administration from 1977 until July 1979. Blumenthal was a member of the American Economic Association and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1997 he became president and chief executive of the Berlin Jewish Museum. In 2002 Blumenthal, as director-general of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, was honored with the Goethe Institute's Goethe Medal, which is recognized as an official order by the Federal Republic of Germany. It is awarded to foreign citizens who have rendered outstanding service to the aims of the institute. (Ellen Friedman / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed)