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January 31, 2005

Fernando Henrique Cardoso Gives Fourth Annual Kissinger Lecture on Feb. 22

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, sociologist, politician and president of Brazil from 1994 to 2002, will deliver the fourth annual Kissinger Lecture on Foreign Policy and International Relations at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 22, in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but space is limited. No tickets are required

The lecture will be cybercast live on the Library’s Web site at www.loc.gov. After Feb. 22, the webcast of the lecture will be featured on the Library’s Web site at www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc and www.loc.gov/kluge.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Cardoso received his doctorate from the University of Sao Paulo, where he began his career as a sociology professor and opponent of Brazil’s military dictators. He lived in exile from 1964 to 1968. Upon his return to Brazil, the government suspended his civil rights, and he was banned from teaching.

Cardoso was later elected to the Senate representing the state of Sao Paulo and became one of the founders of Brazil’s centrist Social Democratic Party. Known as an inflation-fighting supporter of free market reforms, Cardoso became economy minister of Brazil in 1993. He has been credited with turning the troubled Brazilian economy around.

Cardoso was elected president of Brazil in 1994. He worked to reduce the role of the state in the economy, reorganize the federal bureaucracy and the social security system, renew federalist relationships and overhaul the complicated tax system, and he attempted to effect electoral and party reforms in order to strengthen the representation of political parties. Cardoso also actively encouraged foreign investment in Brazil.

During his second term, Cardoso carried out improvements in education and rural health care as well as the resettlement of a large number of landless peasant families.

Cardoso’s scholarly writings include the classic "Dependency and Development in Latin America" (1969), a work that established his reputation as a world-class sociologist. He has been visiting professor at various academic centers in Europe and the United States, including the College de France, the University of Paris, the University of Cambridge, the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University.

In 2003-2004, Cardoso was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Library of Congress’ John W. Kluge Center. He is currently professor at large at Brown University’s Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies.

The establishment in 1999 of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress by friends and colleagues of the former secretary of state created an endowment to provide for the annual Kissinger Lecture in addition to the Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations. The lecturer, an individual who has achieved distinction in the field of foreign affairs, is chosen annually by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

The inaugural Kissinger Lecture was delivered in October 2001 by Henry Kissinger himself, the second by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/fellowships/lectures-destaing.html) in February 2003, and the third by George Shultz in February 2004 (www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/fellowships/lectures-shultz.html).

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PR 05-001
01/31/05
ISSN 0731-3527

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