Beginning about 1954, he was appointed as an economic advisor to Juan Perón and repeatedly was called back to serve as Minister of Finance to successive governments until the military coup of March 1976.

[1] During the Great Depression, Gelbard helped support the family as a street peddler of men's ties and belts.

He became the "national bourgeoisie's" principal ideologue, and "the most articulate advocate of an alliance between business, the state and labor, behind a federalist and nationalist economic program.

The CGE executive committee also had strong representation in the government, sitting on the Comisión Económica Consultíva and participating in its numerous sub-committees: housing, prices, labor, foreign relations, transport and cost of living, for instance.

At Perón's direction, Cámpora appointed Gelbard as minister of "economy, finance, public works and trade.

[4] Public investment was featured in a dominant role in the plan, with a government group, Corporación de Empresas Nacionales (CEN), set up to oversee this.

[5] Gelbard boosted exports by unilaterally lifting the Cuban blockade and selling one billion dollars in good to Cuba, including United States-branded cars manufactured in Argentina.

Gelbard headed large groups of Argentine businessmen and industrialists on visits to Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other countries.

Increasingly strained by rising labor union wage demands and the 1973 oil shock alike, the Social Pact gradually was unable to contain inflation, and class cooperation declined.

In November 1974, Gelbard resigned, as the country's economic indicators continued to decline and his "Zero Inflation" plan failed.

Later accused of having bribed military officials to be allowed to leave, Gelbard and his family left the country before the coup and obtained political asylum in the United States.