Wendell Berge

Wendell Berge (born 1903 in Lincoln, Nebraska, † September 25, 1955 in Washington, D.C.) was an American business lawyer and head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice from 1943 to 1947.

Life and career

Berge came from a family close to the Democratic Party. He studied law at the University of Nebraska and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1925. He continued his studies at the University of Michigan, obtaining two juridical doctor degrees in 1930. After a brief tenure as lawyer in New York City, Berge went to Washington D.C. in 1930 at the invitation of John Lord O'Brian, a prominent antitrust lawyer and head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. There he worked as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General before becoming Chief Assistant to the new division head Thurman Arnold in 1938. In 1941, Berge was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Investigation Division of the Department of Justice by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later in 1943, he became head of the Antitrust Department in the same ministry. During his term in office, Berge gave a series of (later printed) addresses.

Berge strongly supported the view that any monopoly would harm the free economy. In 1944, he published the martial book ‘Cartels: Challenge to a Free World’ which made Berge, along with Joseph Borkin, Charles Welsh and Corwin D. Edwards, one of the spokesmen in the new campaign against international cartels. This corresponded to a radical ‘anti-monopolist’ position of the Roosevelt Progressivists, which had developed since 1937, and now dominated between 1943 and 1946 in American politics. However, this notion of international cartels was rejected by both conservative and Marxist sides on the premise that it was unrealistic or imperialist. Berge's book also became an international success: From 1946 on, it was translated into several Scandinavian languages, 1947 into Russian and 1953 into Serbo-Croatian.

After his term as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Berge worked as a member of the law firm Posner, Berge, Fox & Arent in Washington, D. C.. Wendell Berge died on September 25, 1955 in Washington from a heart attack.

The Washington Post regretted in its obituary: “The death of Wendell Berge takes from Washington one of its most public-spirited lawyers and a man who made a notable record in antitrust enforcement.”

Works and speeches

• Criminal jurisdiction and the territorial principle. Dissertation, University of Michigan Law School 1928.
• The Case of the S. S. ‘Lotus’. In: Michigan Law Review. Band 26, 1928, Nr. 4 (19280201), S. 361–382.
• The monopoly investigation, what it means. An address before national retail credit association. 20 February 1939, Rochester, New York.
• What shall we do about cartels in the post war period? An address ... prepared for delivery at a conference of the People's Lobby, Inc. 12 February 1944.
• Cartels: Challenge to a Free World. Public Affairs Press, Washington 1944.
• What substitute for private international cartels? An address ... prepared for delivery before the People's Lobby (broadcast over NBC). 3 May 1945.
• Cartels as Barriers to International Trade. In: Law and Contemporary Problems. Band 11, 1946, Nr. 4, S. 684–695. Online available through https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol11/iss4/5.
• Kartellerna - ett världshot. Appell för en fri värld. Kooperativa förb., Stockholm 1946. Online available through http://worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/186492879.
• Mezhdunarodnye karteli. Gos izd-vo inostr. lit-ry, Moskva 1947. Online available through http://worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/43442238.

Sources about Berge

• Orbituary of Christian Register, November 1955, http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/wendell-berge/