ROSEAU, Minn. (AP) Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland, a farmer from northern Minnesota who was tasked with selling President Jimmy Carters unpopular Soviet Union grain embargo to other farmers, died Sunday. He was 90.
As agriculture secretary, Bergland had the difficult job of defending to Midwest farmers Carters unpopular 1980 decision to embargo grain sales to the Soviet Union after the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Walter Mondale, who was vice president when Carter was in the White House, recalled Sunday that both he and Bergland did not like the grain embargo.