6

Into the 1960s
Claiming a Second ICFTU Scalp

From the earliest days of the ICFTU it was the contention of the AFL, and later the AFL-CIO under George Meany’s leadership, that the international lacked effectiveness in opposing communism. The point frequently made was that both organizationally and in terms of personnel the ICFTU was not up to the task. Under a new general secretary, Omer Becu, Meany expected and was promised that a central role within the ICFTU would be found for Irving Brown as the AFL-CIO’s leading representative in the field. However, it was soon apparent that Becu could not deliver on his promise in the terms that Meany and Brown considered essential for effective performance. Virtually the entire period of Becu’s general secretaryship was subsequently marred by his inability to establish a smooth working relationship with Meany and Brown. It would damage the ICFTU as a credible organization in the international labour field and led the Americans to focus more on their own program abroad.

AFL-CIO in Africa—“sans ICFTU”

The gathering pace of decolonization at the beginning of the 1960s heightened the sense of anticipation among African nationalists, and 1960 itself was to become known as “the year of Africa.”1 In February, British prime minister Harold Macmillan spoke of the “winds of change” blowing across the continent as those very expectations forced his government to accelerate the timetable for home rule in colonial territories. Nationalist movements that had hitherto focused exclusively on the anti-colonial struggle now prepared for power. Sixteen African states took their seats in the United Nations General Assembly, where, with other developing nations, they soon formed the largest bloc.

Where colonialism and white rule clung on, Africa witnessed a spread of violence that rendered much of the continent a tinderbox. After six years, the vicious war for independence continued in Algeria, with rioting by Europeans in January and December in protest at President de Gaulle’s willingness to dialogue with the FLN provisional government. In South Africa, the apartheid regime intensified its hold as the shooting down by police of eighty Africans protesting over the pass laws at Sharpeville in March led to a state of emergency and propelled a non-violent campaign into armed struggle. In the Congo, the precipitate granting of independence in June by the Belgian colonial authorities, without planning for what would follow the handover, quickly plunged the country into chaos and bloodshed and within weeks brought about a rapid return of the Belgian army. The fate of the Congo became the single most contentious issue in African politics, splitting the pan-African movement between the pro-Western “Monrovia group” and the “Casablanca group” backed financially by the Soviet bloc. Africa moved toward the top of the list of international priorities of both the United States and the Soviet Union. In the closing days of 1960, the US president-elect, John Kennedy, declared: “The fate of Africa which is now the object of a giant Communist offensive will affect vitally the security of every citizen of the United States.” Four weeks later, Nikita Khrushchev promised that “subjugated” colonial peoples “will not be alone in their struggle.”2

1960 was also the year the AFL-CIO set out to establish an ongoing presence in Africa. American labour’s growing interest in the continent was reflected in a new arrangement entered into with Histadrut, Israel’s national trade union centre, to launch an Afro-Asian Institute as a vehicle for training up to 160 African union leaders each year on six-month long courses.3 For some time Histadrut had been operating in tandem with official Israeli government policy as directed by Foreign Minister Golda Meir, successfully cultivating relations with African trade unions and extending help to African nationalists. The benefit of this new link-up for the AFL-CIO was that whereas Africans might look on the West with suspicion, they were generally happy to accept assistance from Histadrut, which was offered “without condescension or paternalism.”4

In January, Irving Brown was sent to Tel Aviv to iron out the details. What was apparent was the Americans’ intention to maintain a low profile so as to avoid accusations of breaching the terms of the Atlantic City accord by sidestepping the ICFTU. It wasn’t quite what the Israelis had understood “partnership” to mean, and there was confusion until George Meany made clear that the AFL-CIO would only act as a sleeping partner. His name would appear on the letterhead as “honorary co-chairman,” but beyond that the Americans would restrict themselves to funding student scholarships. On that understanding, in April 1960 Meany sent $50,000 as an initial contribution to the budget.5

Yet, whatever the public impression Meany hoped to create, Maida Springer, who had recently spent a year in Israel helping to establish a vocational training school for African women, noted: “looks as though we are moving in unison on a unilateral or bilateral activity sans ICFTU.”6 That same month she joined the AFL-CIO international affairs staff from the ILGWU as an African specialist. The commitment that Meany gave later in the year to end independent activities as part of the price for Jaap Oldenbroek’s agreement to step down as ICFTU general secretary would prove to be no barrier to the continuation of the joint arrangement with Histadrut. And with his usefulness in Europe significantly reduced, Irving Brown now concentrated on Africa, making two more extensive tours in May–June and September–November that saw him visit Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Senegal, Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, Nigeria, Congo, and Southern Rhodesia. It didn’t yet amount to a full-blown program for Africa—the necessary funding wasn’t available—but it went beyond the intermittent trips that Brown had previously made to the continent.

With Kwame Nkrumah planning a conference to launch the All-Africa Trade Union Federation in May 1960 (subsequently postponed for twelve months), Brown’s purpose was to reinforce opposition among ICFTU affiliates to any call for mandatory withdrawal from the ICFTU as favoured by centres belonging to the Casablanca group. Nkrumah had chosen Casablanca as the location for the AATUF launch and Mahjoub Ben Seddik, leader of the Union marocaine du travail (UMT), as the conference chairman. Clearly with that in mind, Brown spent a good deal of time in Morocco cultivating Ben Seddik. The latter had opted not to attend the inaugural conference of AFRO in November 1959, and Brown was specifically instructed to convey to him George Meany’s “extreme concern.”7

A visit in May to the Federation of Mali (the planned union of French Sudan and Senegal that proved stillborn) serves to illustrate Brown’s modus operandi. Financial assistance was to be given to the moderate, pro-Western Senegalese unions in the hope that they would gain the upper hand when the two national trade union federations merged. From a budget of $20,000, Brown planned for four Senegalese organizers each to be paid $100 per month plus per diem expenses. There would be funds for transportation ($4,000 specifically earmarked for the purchase of cars for the organizers); leaflets; a regular journal, Travailleurs du mali; and a $2,000 reserve fund for possible “emergencies” occurring during the unification congress in October. The aim, Brown explained with no sense of irony, was to prevent the opposition “buying up people.”8

The following month he visited Nairobi for several weeks to help Tom Mboya prepare for the dedication ceremony of the gleaming new KFL headquarters, which also served as headquarters for the newly created party, the Kenya African National Union, of which Mboya was also general secretary. The ceremony was an event of great symbolism, attended by the Governor of Kenya as guest of honour and a host of labour leaders from abroad flown in at KFL expense. The AFL-CIO’s total contribution to the cost of the building already stood at $56,000, but Brown recommended that further grants of $3,000 be made to cover the cost of the ceremony and $2,500 for air tickets for guests.9 In the context of mounting opposition to Mboya’s leadership, the high-profile event was meant to shore up his position among trade unionists and nationalists. He had overextended himself with his combined union and political roles—now added to by his participation in independence talks with the British government at Lancaster House, London—and had barely secured election as first general secretary of the Kenya African National Union by a single vote. His relations with Nkrumah had soured as the Ghanaian leader now bestowed his favours on Mboya’s chief Kenyan rival, Oginga Odinga. The latter would shortly return from an Nkrumah-financed tour of the Soviet bloc with generous communist funding for his faction. In contrast, KFL finances were in a parlous state, and Mboya’s requests to the Americans for financial help—mostly to cover the cost of internal political battles—were unceasing.10

Irving Brown returned to Africa with Maida Springer for several weeks from September to November, visiting half a dozen countries, including Ghana, Tanganyika, and once again Kenya, but also making important new contacts in Nigeria, Southern Rhodesia, and the Congo. It was only a matter of weeks since Patrice Lumumba had been removed from office—a mere three months into his term as Congolese prime minister—after requesting Soviet military assistance to expel Belgian troops. Brown had previously urged AFL-CIO support for Lumumba as “the only one with whom we can get somewhere.” His purpose now was to demonstrate backing for Alphonse Kithima, leader of the Syndicat national des travailleurs congolais (SNTC), the labour federation closest to Lumumba, who had been a guest at the AFL-CIO’s recent Labour Day celebrations. Brown’s shorthand notes of his visit record: “Must re-establish the [Lumumba-led] coalition. . . . It is a grave error to write off Lumumba or to fight him openly as a Soviet agent which is not true or at least an oversimplification.” As a result of Brown’s visit, the AFL-CIO earmarked $25,000 of its contribution to the ICFTU’s International Solidarity Fund to support the SNTC.11

Brown and Springer spent a busy two weeks in Nigeria as guests of the Trades Union Congress of Nigeria as the country celebrated its independence. Brown addressed mass meetings in Lagos and Ibadan and made an arduous 570-mile road journey upcountry to Kaduna to meet one particular group of union members. The ICFTU had approved a long-term organizing program, but earlier in the year Oldenbroek turned down Meany’s offer to involve Brown in the project. Now, under Omer Becu, the ICFTU was about to release $28,000 for spending on approved activities, but Brown still criticized the lack of visible effort. He recommended that the AFL-CIO earmark $75,000 of its total contribution to the International Solidarity Fund for a more ambitious program in the country, though the Nigerian unions had made no such request for funds.12

The most productive visit by Brown and Springer was their two days spent in Southern Rhodesia, where, because of the level of industrialization, the prospects for unionization were greater than in all other countries except South Africa. The established union leaders were languishing in prison, but Brown and Springer met officials of the recently formed Southern Rhodesian African Trade Union Congress (SRATUC) and encouraged them to be represented at the second AFRO conference scheduled for Tunis in November 1960 and later at the Casablanca conference in May 1961. SRATUC’s president, Reuben Jamela, hitherto little known but an outspoken anti-communist, was chosen to go to Tunis; Brown purchased plane tickets for him and supplied a letter of introduction, and Jamela arrived in Tunis announcing that he had sufficient funds to affiliate his organization to the ICFTU.

The British TUC would later oppose SRATUC’s application to join the ICFTU on grounds that its membership was “racially exclusive.” But with AFL-CIO support, the objection was overcome in April 1961 by a simple name change in which the organization agreed to drop the word “African” from the title of what became the Southern Rhodesian Trade Union Congress (SRTUC). At the conference in Casablanca to launch the All-Africa Trade Union Federation the following month, Jamela proved himself an effective speaker in opposition to the proposal to withdraw from the ICFTU. Within weeks, Brown recommended an AFL-CIO grant of $3,000 for the SRTUC. Evidently visualizing Jamela as a potential equivalent of Tom Mboya for southern Africa, he observed: “Jamela is fast developing into one of the best trade union assets in Africa.” In fact, Jamela soon faced strong opposition from nationalist leaders Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe—hostility that eventually led to his expulsion from the political wing of the nationalist movement.13

Becu’s Dilemma over Irving Brown

Irving Brown’s travels in Africa mattered greatly to Omer Becu, whose term of office as the new general secretary of the ICFTU commenced between Brown’s stay in Nairobi in June and his visit to the Congo in September. Still ringing in his ears was Oldenbroek’s parting warning that he would soon be out of a job unless Meany kept his promise to refrain from independent activities. Yet here was Brown embarking on a whole new field of activity on behalf of the AFL-CIO. Becu himself was widely seen as “the Americans’ man,” a burden intensified by his need to tackle the “Irving Brown problem”—how to integrate the AFL-CIO representative into his operational plans as he had promised Meany he would. His first designated task was to revitalize the secretariat through the appointment of three new assistant general secretaries, and Brown was naturally spoken of as a potential candidate. Decisions on the appointments were expected in his first few months in office, but over this issue Becu was paralyzed by uncertainty.

The new general secretary was a puzzle. As head of the ITF for over a decade, Becu had been an authoritative figure, comfortably in control, especially when handling the interests of seafarers and dockers in a world that was familiar to him. Harold Lewis, who worked under him in the ITF secretariat and later succeeded him as general secretary, recalls that, though intense and highly strung, he thrived on stress.14 Yet the challenge of high office in the ICFTU was of a different magnitude, and the expectations placed on him by the Americans proved crippling. His years as ICFTU president in partnership with Oldenbroek had not been a happy time; in his relations with the general secretary he suffered from an inferiority complex and often appeared to be intellectually dominated by the Dutchman. In 1957 and 1959, when the Americans looked to him as a potential candidate for general secretary, he plainly lacked the confidence to challenge Oldenbroek, and only agreed to be a candidate in 1960, when AFL-CIO animosity meant that the latter’s days were numbered. Yet, even then, Becu had vacillated, misleading his ITF colleagues as to his true intent and losing much face and respect in consequence.

As for the prospect of becoming an assistant general secretary under Becu, Irving Brown shrank from the idea of being deskbound in Brussels. His preference was for a flexible role—working closely with the general secretary, possibly as a special ICFTU representative in Africa, and on important missions elsewhere—while at the same time retaining the independence that went with having his own base in Paris. “If Becu were smart,” Brown mused, “he would go along and I could certainly have a good relationship with him.”15 Indeed, retaining scope for independent initiatives was the top priority. As Lovestone put it:

There will have to be . . . a certain amount of AFL-CIO International activities of the kind which . . . led to the foundation of the Regional Organizations in Asia and Africa and to the saving of the free trade union organizations in Germany, Italy and France. Frankly, if it were not for such independent activities of the AFL-CIO . . . we would have nothing in Africa.16

Five weeks into his tenure as general secretary, Becu was in Washington for discussions with Meany and Walter Reuther on questions of staffing and finance. Meany argued the case for Brown to be appointed as assistant general secretary, but with Reuther’s support Becu fended him off, maintaining that there would be too much opposition to his candidacy. Yet Becu still indicated to Meany his willingness to grant him a significant role. In a throwaway remark to Brown during a private talk, Becu suggested that he might become the director of the ICFTU’s New York office, which carried responsibility for work at the United Nations and from which Bill Kemsley was about to retire. However, Brown brushed it aside and the suggestion was not pursued. In the meantime Meany and Reuther discussed between themselves the idea of offering Becu a choice of George Weaver of the electrical workers or Rudy Faupl of the machinists as American nominee for one of the posts of assistant general secretary.17

Over the next couple of months it became increasingly apparent that Becu, desperate to avoid being labelled “an American stooge,” was reluctant to make any commitment to Brown. He studiously avoided including him in a delegation to Turkey that Brown wanted to join, or even discussing with him its purpose.18 At a meeting of African union leaders in Geneva in September to prepare for November’s AFRO conference, where Brown happened to be the only non-African participant, Becu told him that his presence was an embarrassment. Explaining that he personally had no problem with Brown being there, his concern was over the likely reaction of Europeans. Becu’s identification with the Americans clearly weighed on him, as Brown reported to Meany: “He will do everything to prove his ‘independence.’ . . . He wants to appoint Americans but what I would call ‘non-controversial ones.’ . . . He wants us to continue as before hoping eventually [to ease me] into the picture.”19 For the AFRO conference proper in Tunis some weeks later, Brown received no formal invitation from the ICFTU but attended anyway. He was staying in the same hotel as Becu but the general secretary gave him the cold shoulder, avoiding any serious discussion. Full of resentment, Brown wrote to Ross and Lovestone:

I have developed a relationship [with the Africans] which I can say in all modesty is unequalled by anyone in the ICFTU. However, I refuse to be put in a position any more of merely being on the periphery or appearing as an outsider in the eyes of the general secretary of the ICFTU. . . . I am not seeking any titles . . . but I do want a clear agreement as to [our] relationship. . . . There is no objection . . . for some of us to do the dirty jobs but not to be too obvious when the show is in the big city. In other words, I am one of the boys for the road show and not for Broadway.20

Ahead of the ICFTU’s December executive board meeting, Brown reported to Meany the strong support there was among African union leaders for him to become an assistant general secretary responsible for Africa. It was, they claimed, a necessity if their voice in the ICFTU was to be heard. Yet, despite the commitment made to Meany in Washington that he would utilize Brown’s services, Becu evidently still lacked the courage to follow through. Meany was thus fired up and determined to challenge the general secretary in the board meeting where he was expected to unveil plans for a wholesale restructuring of the ICFTU.

At this board meeting, his first in charge, Becu’s proposed structural changes failed to satisfy Meany. General ideas of a discursive nature were advanced for a more devolved system of administration. The regional organizations were to have greater freedom to plan their activities, there was to be a greater role for the international trade secretariats, and the national affiliates would have leeway to act independently or in a “supplementary” manner, provided the ICFTU was notified of their intentions. Becu’s argument that the interests of the “ICFTU whole” would be “best expressed through its parts” went a long way to meeting the American attachment to independent operations. However, paralyzed by his inability to decide what to do about Irving Brown, and fearful of the reaction in Europe were Brown to be handed a prominent job, he had no proposals for appointing assistant general secretaries and asked for a further six months to make a decision.21

Now on the warpath, Meany told Becu bluntly that he had been given a job to do and had failed to do it. At a private lunch he complained to Arne Geijer that he had received no formal request to nominate for assistant general secretary. He demanded to know what was wrong with Irving Brown. Which affiliates were opposed to his appointment? His personal view, forcefully made, was that Brown was the best-qualified person, capable of addressing the problems in Africa “single handed.” Meany produced a cheque for $230,000 toward settling the AFL-CIO’s outstanding debt to the solidarity fund and said he would hand it over if he were granted what he wanted for Irving Brown. But when Becu failed to bite, he put the cheque back in his pocket.

Later in the session, at a formal dinner in honour of Jaap Oldenbroek where several speakers paid friendly tributes, Meany intervened just as Oldenbroek was about to respond. He told the assemblage that more than anyone else present he had campaigned for the Dutchman’s replacement but that events over the past two months had shown that his support for Becu had been the biggest mistake of his life. “The Brussels meeting was really horrible,” recorded Mike Ross. “The honeymoon with Becu was the shortest on record. Becu was much worse than you ever dreamed—evasive, indecisive, and you can imagine the effect on ‘bluff’ GM.” As the British labour counsellor in Washington noted, it had put the clock back ten years. The fly in the ointment was still Irving Brown.22 If Becu needed any further warning, he was now fully alerted as to the battleground he was entering. In due course, it would claim his scalp.

George Meany turned down a request from ICFTU president Arne Geijer that he be invited to America to discuss his concerns, and, deeming the ICFTU a “cesspool,” the AFL-CIO president flew back to the United States intent on expanding the federation’s independent work abroad. Within days of his return, the AFL-CIO News carried a critical report of the ICFTU board meeting, laying personal blame on Becu and Geijer for failing to deliver on the expected reorganization. Meany convened a meeting of the international affairs committee to agree on proposals for future activity in Africa and summoned home the key representatives—Brown, Springer, and McCray—to be present. He reported that the ICFTU board meeting was the worst he had ever attended, making clear that his personal preference was for pulling out of the organization and making no further financial contributions.

Walter Reuther challenged his account with a different interpretation of the meeting in Brussels, where, in fact, Becu had accepted much of the American thinking on reorganization. The autoworkers’ president criticized Meany for the public attack on the ICFTU leadership in the AFL-CIO News. He also raised eyebrows among committee members when he elicited the fact that Meany had failed to pass over the cheque representing money owed to the ICFTU over the past two years, and that he had omitted to report Geijer’s request for a conciliatory meeting in the United States. Reuther won international affairs committee support for Becu and Geijer to be invited to the executive council meeting scheduled for two weeks later. Meany’s initial reaction was that he would not attend, but he subsequently relented under pressure from executive council members.23

The appearance of Becu and Geijer at the AFL-CIO executive council was an occasion for them to tender olive branches and restate in conciliatory terms the case for a new partnership between the ICFTU and its leading affiliates. Geijer reassured the Americans that they were alert to the threat of international communism and that their biggest challenge was in Africa. He stressed the importance of having an American assistant general secretary to be responsible for organizing work and also invited the AFL-CIO to nominate someone for the directorship of public relations, activities of particular interest to the AFL-CIO that had not previously been earmarked for Americans. For the benefit of executive councillors who had not been privy to their earlier discussion with Meany on the merits and demerits of Irving Brown, Becu explained that although the latter was highly regarded, he was too controversial to be considered as a possible assistant general secretary.

The visitors cut no ice with Meany, and in a final exchange he made clear to them his determination to retain as much independence as possible in international relations consistent with membership in the ICFTU. This would be achieved by “earmarking” American contributions to the solidarity fund for very specific usage. He later told colleagues that he was not going to see Brown “crucified,” and he issued a press statement to counter any negative report that the latter had been “turned down” for an ICFTU job. No such proposal had been made, and thus Brown would continue in his current role.24

Despite George Meany’s obvious reluctance, the executive council went on to confirm the AFL-CIO’s previous decision to contribute at least $3.25 million to the ICFTU solidarity fund over the next three years. At Walter Reuther’s urging, this figure was even rounded up to $4 million through a temporary levy of affiliates. At his regular post-council press conference, however, Meany indicated that $330,000 would be made available for “special work in Africa” outside the commitment to the ICFTU’s solidarity fund. Without describing it as such, this was to be the budget for planned activities by Irving Brown in Gambia, the French Cameroons, Guinea, and Ghana.25 Privately, Reuther made a final attempt to reach agreement with Meany on possible American nominees for assistant general secretary. When that failed, he left it to Meany to submit a proposal, but no nomination was forthcoming. It wasn’t clear whether Meany or Reuther had emerged on top from these events in the aftermath of Becu’s first abortive executive board meeting as general secretary, but the passions of the previous three months were, for the time being, exhausted.26

Brown and Becu Privately Reconciled: Concord Between the “Two Georges”

What took the heat out of the debate more than anything else was a private reconciliation between Irving Brown and Omer Becu achieved following the latter’s appearance before the AFL-CIO executive council. It was Brown who took the initiative, writing to Becu in friendly but businesslike terms to tell him that he would be going back to Africa within a week representing the AFL-CIO on an eight-country visit and that he would be “happy to be of assistance to the ICFTU or to receive any advice from you or any ICFTU representative in Africa.” He would be travelling to Southern Rhodesia, where the ICFTU had plans to station a representative, and he offered his services in investigating the current trade union situation. He gave details of his last trip to East Africa and reported on the problems posed for the Kenya Federation of Labour by the Oginga Odinga forces, which were now backed financially by East Germany.27

Brown knew Becu better than any of his AFL-CIO colleagues, and the ICFTU general secretary reacted positively to the overture. The strained relations of recent months had taught him the need to mend fences with George Meany and, in particular, to try to put some distance between himself and Arne Geijer and Walter Reuther, with whom he had been publicly associated since the three of them joined forces the previous year in campaigning to oust Oldenbroek. He would be more likely to achieve these aims with the help of Irving Brown.

They arranged to meet in Brussels the following week, and over lunch they made their peace. Becu explained that his intentions regarding an appointment for Brown had always been misunderstood. He regarded him as the one American who ought to be an ICFTU assistant general secretary—the time simply had not been right. He had been “on the spot” in discussing the issue in Geijer’s presence and had not been able to reveal that the ICFTU president was the real source of opposition to Brown. The problem was in fact Geijer’s close relationship with the Reuthers. Becu criticized the ICFTU president for insisting on being intimately involved in the appointment process. The question then was: Could the two of them work together—forgetting titles—for the moment? Becu was amenable to the suggestion and, as Brown reported, “Things began to come thick and fast.”28

Becu asked Brown to go to Greece the following month on his behalf and with the full authority of an ICFTU representative to bring together the warring factions of the GSEE led by Makris and Theodorou and to strive for an accommodation between them ahead of the Greek centre’s congress in the autumn. In doing so, he ceded full authority to Brown, agreeing to the latter’s demand that he be allowed to handle the assignment alone and that no other person from the ICFTU secretariat be involved.29 They discussed the likely shape of the new trade union advisory committee to the OECD that the AFL-CIO was keen to join (the OEEC as a European body was about to be transformed into the geographically wider OECD, occasioning a consequent change in the remit of the TUAC). Becu confirmed that he was happy for the AFL-CIO to “help out” in Kenya until the ICFTU had its own representatives in place. He requested a copy of Brown’s report on Southern Rhodesia, which had identified a need for financial support for the SRTUC to cover the cost of office equipment, vehicles, and salaries for full-time officials. He subsequently signalled that the Americans could initiate this with a grant of $5,000, pending his being able to overcome British objections to the Southern Rhodesian centre.30

Reporting their conversation to Mike Ross, Brown still harboured a measure of skepticism about Becu’s new openness, but on balance he believed the Belgian was signalling “an honest and sincere desire to use me.” On his return from Greece in March, a trip he claimed as a success, Brown assured Ross that relations with Becu were sound: “our understanding is good and working.”31 Becu went out of his way to support the AFL-CIO representative in an argument with fellow American Jim Carey and George Woodcock of the British TUC later that month at a solidarity fund committee meeting. And to make sure that Lovestone also understood that the frost had thawed, Becu wrote apologetically, regretting their failure to meet when he was in Washington.32

Feeling more confident and hoping to take full advantage of this positive turn in his relationship with Becu, Brown decided to tackle head-on the negative attitude toward him held by several European union leaders. At an informal meeting of European members of the ICFTU executive board in May 1961, he raised the issue of “character assassination and rumour mongering” aimed specifically at himself and that took place behind the backs of the Americans, telling the TUC’s new general secretary, George Woodcock, in particular, “we cannot continue the whisperings and rumours that have been going on for ten years about myself . . . as well as the AFL-CIO.” Brown was satisfied with the “very frank discussion” that followed, believed that a new atmosphere might now be possible, and reported to Mike Ross: “I think a good start has been made.”33

The arrival on the scene of George Woodcock as TUC general secretary changed the climate of relations between the AFL-CIO and TUC for the better and was to have an important bearing on the internal chemistry of the ICFTU. Woodcock’s predecessor, Vincent Tewson, had been a close ally of Oldenbroek and was at the heart of ICFTU affairs from the very first. He had helped draft its constitution and shape its program and, in subsequent years, whether as president or as chairman of the regional activities committee or its successor, the solidarity fund committee, he was arguably the most influential figure on the executive board. He was also a person George Meany found it almost impossible to work with: in style and temperament the two men were miles apart. But George Woodcock was a different kettle of fish, not least in the fact that he was less absorbed by international affairs. In this respect the path was thus cleared for a more relaxed relationship between the British and American trade union centres. And now that Meany had replaced Tewson as chairman of the solidarity fund committee, he was also more centrally placed than ever to determine the course of policy within the ICFTU.

Aged fifty-six when he took over the TUC’s reins in September 1960, Woodcock had spent thirteen frustrating years as Tewson’s deputy, during which period he made a reputation as the formidably intellectual architect of TUC economic policy. He had served on the British government’s Constitutional Commission for British Guiana in the mid-1950s and thereby acquired some knowledge of the Caribbean region, but international affairs generally were outside his sphere of interest and certainly not high on his personal agenda. His relations with Tewson had been no more amicable than were Meany’s, and he was in no way identified with his predecessor’s personal commitment to international policy initiatives. In fact, Woodcock would soon show himself to be operating on a quite different wavelength. If he had one objective for international policy it was to cut down on the overseas expenditures he considered wasteful.

There had been a hint of things to come in May 1959 when he deputized for Tewson at a meeting with Walter Reuther, then in Europe to address the May Day rally in West Berlin and to canvass support for a shakeup of the ICFTU’s top leadership. Characterizing the ICFTU in terms that Tewson would never have used, Woodcock told Reuther that it suffered in appeal and reputation in Britain and elsewhere because of a perception that it had been set up as a rival to the WFTU and because of its continuing and undue emphasis on negative anti-communism. He would soon distance himself from those, like Reuther, who argued the urgent need for greater financial resources for the ICFTU.34 Indeed, he reflected a growing TUC disillusionment with the ICFTU following the latter’s criticism of independent British trade union initiatives in colonial territories. This mood was beginning to affect the TUC’s attitude toward the solidarity fund, whose biggest contributor it had been in the years from 1958 to 1960.35

Woodcock’s first appearance at an ICFTU executive board was in November 1960 when Becu unveiled his half-formed plans for reorganization. They were based on the ambitious assumption that $10 million would be raised for the solidarity fund in the period from 1961 to 1964 and that this would include a contribution of $2 million from the TUC. Woodcock was quick to point out that this was the first he had heard of such a figure and that the TUC general council would certainly object to it.36

From the outset, Woodcock’s approach toward international affairs would be characterized by a general skepticism about the ICFTU’s basic raison d’être and, more specifically, a highly critical attitude toward the manner in which international trade union programs were financed. It was largely predicated on the TUC belief that the expensive, “top-down” organizing that the ICFTU undertook in developing countries was wasteful and that, rather than leading to “genuine trade unionism,” it often produced hastily formed national centres that existed more for political reasons than as manifestations of viable trade unionism. But this thinking ran quite contrary to the prevailing view in the ICFTU, and the TUC general secretary found himself largely isolated on the executive board and in a minority of one on the solidarity fund committee.

Of course, Meany had his own deep reservations about the capacity of the ICFTU to achieve much, but thanks to Walter Reuther’s initiative the AFL-CIO was now formally committed to contributing generously to the solidarity fund, and, as chairman of the committee, Meany’s approach was to spend freely. Indeed, he authorized allocations worth $1 million at his first meeting as chairman of the International Solidarity Fund Committee.37 As the recently appointed assistant general secretary with responsibility for organizing, Stefan Nedzynski was instructed to expand the ICFTU’s financial assistance to unions in developing countries “as quickly as it could efficiently be done.” Woodcock routinely objected to such spendthrift practices, but, as Nedzynski noted, during 1961 and 1962 the TUC leader was the odd man out on the solidarity fund committee; his views were listened to respectfully but then voted down.38

The chemistry between Meany and Woodcock benefited from the fact that the latter’s criticisms of spending proposals tended to be directed at the ICFTU secretariat rather than at Meany, whose own federation was often the driving force behind the proposal under consideration. The result was that although they were often on different sides of the argument, “the two Georges,” as they were referred to by the ICFTU secretariat, managed to establish a mutually respectful and harmonious relationship. The TUC leader spent some days with Meany at the ILGWU retreat in the Pocono Mountains in June 1961 to explore amicably whether they could at least “agree to disagree.”39

Figure 11.  George Woodcock, the TUC’s general secretary, 1960–69 (right), at a reception in London in 1963, with US labour attaché John Correll (left) and Jim Carey. While Carey delighted in taunting George Meany, Woodcock and Meany agreed to differ over international policy, before joining hands to cut off funding for ICFTU projects. Courtesy of TUC Library Collections, London Metropolitan University.

In this relatively benign interlude in AFL-CIO–ICFTU relations, Omer Becu, whose tenure had begun so inauspiciously, began to thrive. Reconciled with Irving Brown on a personal and business level, he was also shielded by George Meany from criticisms in the solidarity fund committee that were now more likely to come from the TUC leadership. With funds being pumped into regional organization at an annual rate of $2.5 million—nearly double the level of 1960—the years 1961 and 1962 proved to be, relatively speaking, a “golden age” of achievement for the ICFTU.

In the field, Brown’s efforts in the first months of 1961 were focused on the Casablanca conference in May, where a decision to set up the neutralist All-Africa Trade Union Federation (AATUF) was taken together with a requirement that African national centres disaffiliate from the ICFTU within ten months. On the eve of the conference, Brown took the initiative in convening a strategy meeting of delegates of ICFTU affiliates. But in the conference proper, with voting rights loaded to favour members of the Casablanca group, and the Moroccan Mahjoub Ben Seddik chairing proceedings in partisan fashion, the ICFTU group was outmanoeuvred. The best they could do was to ensure that the conference ended without formal agreement on statutes, organizational structure, or on broader policy issues, and this they did by staging an ICFTU boycott of the final session.40

Following the conference, Brown’s reaction was to urge a flexible approach to AATUF. His motives were never entirely clear or consistent, but he evidently harboured a private view that this new African organization could still somehow be taken over from within or steered in the interests of the West. National centres like the Moroccan UMT, he judged, were capable of being won back to support for free trade unionism. For a year he had been carefully cultivating relations with UMT president Ben Seddik, and though the latter was now the president-designate of AATUF, Brown reckoned that he would be able to influence him: after all, Ben Seddik still hoped for AFL-CIO bilateral assistance for the UMT. Brown recognized that aspects of communism and the policy of the WFTU held attraction for certain members of the Casablanca group, but he maintained that this was often superficial. AATUF was far from being a mere cover for the WFTU. African politics were in flux, and there were many labour groups whose nationalism was beginning to set them at odds with communist objectives.41 It gave Brown grounds for optimism.

Despite his efforts to act as shepherd to the ICFTU’s African affiliates during this phase, and despite his recent rapprochement with Becu, in his reports to the AFL-CIO it still suited Brown’s purpose to run the ICFTU down. The organization was depicted as a secondary, almost dispensable, part of the African equation, counting for little. “I don’t believe that AFRO means anything,” Brown wrote in August 1961, arguing that “to do the job in Africa we must have people who are ready to be most unorthodox in the handling of trade union problems.” Indeed, he routinely painted a negative picture of the ICFTU’s influence: it is “difficult to believe the ICFTU can hold out”; “We’re at a low ebb in terms of the ICFTU”; “The ICFTU at this stage is on the ropes”; “I fear for the ICFTU’s future.”42 Early in June, Brown had noted sharply that “our greatest weakness still lies not in Africa but in Brussels. I believe Becu is willing but still a very prudent man and as yet I can see no one in his staff who measures up to the tremendous responsibility of steering a course of intelligent leadership for our friends in Africa.”43 He criticized “Brussels” for being “dead and faceless as far as Africa goes” and for “incredible passivity and stupidity” over the fact that no one seemed to be in the head office when he phoned in July: Becu off work ill, Stefan Nedzynski on holiday, others about to go on vacation. “I must be nuts,” he told Mike Ross. “I thought we were in crisis.” He conceded that Becu and Nedzynski were doing their best; he just wondered whether it was good enough.44

Omer Becu and Stefan Nedzynski did in fact have a shrewd suspicion of Brown’s tactics in trying to keep AATUF “in play,” and naturally they disagreed with him, considering it a dangerous gamble. After all, AATUF’s line—that African unions should stay clear of the ICFTU and WFTU until such time as these two organizations got back together—was in reality identical to the policy long pushed by the WFTU. But the delicate relationship with Brown and the AFL-CIO was such that Becu and Nedzynski avoided any direct challenge. Of Brown himself, and the personal game of footsie he was attempting to play with AATUF and its general secretary, Ben Seddik, Nedzynski observed years later: “His reports to the AFL-CIO aimed to showcase his expertise and command of the situation. The question was whether his talents here were as great as he imagined.”45 Either way, Becu became conscious of the need to keep Brown away from Africa. And to do so he revived his earlier proposal that Brown should take over the directorship of the ICFTU’s New York office with responsibility for the United Nations.

Brown in New York—or Africa?

At an informal lunch with Becu, Geijer, and Meany on 19 September 1961, held during a meeting of the solidarity fund committee, Brown inquired casually about the candidates being considered to fill the vacant directorship of the New York office that had existed for a year since Bill Kemsley’s resignation. Taking this as a sign of Brown’s personal interest, the general secretary inquired if he would be available for it on a permanent basis. The AFL-CIO representative discussed the idea with Meany, who quickly gave his approval.

Why Brown was now interested in a proposal he had brushed aside a year earlier is not entirely clear. In part the move had some appeal given that his marriage was in difficulties and that his wife and son had moved back permanently to New York.46 But he also clearly sensed that he would be able to parlay this position into something significantly more important than it had previously been during Kemsley’s incumbency. The United Nations had sprung to life as the place where newly independent states, and especially former African colonies, sought to register their presence and concert their strength. Brown relished the prospect of becoming an influential player in such a milieu.

For Becu, a beneficial consequence of Brown’s move to New York was likely to be the closure of the AFL-CIO’s Paris office, which, as he admitted to Water Reuther, had long been a bone of contention among the Europeans. But it was precisely this point that caused Jay Lovestone serious misgivings. The Paris office symbolized the AFL-CIO’s presence in Europe and was “the nudging force, the activating agency” of the free trade union movement on the continent. True enough, Brown had spent less time there in recent years—indeed, it was a matter of regret for Lovestone that trouble spots like Germany and Italy had been ignored—but he warned Meany that if Brown were to relocate away from Paris, the Reuthers would take advantage and substitute via the International Metalworkers’ Federation “the phoney and pseudo-liberal ‘American presence’ . . . in Europe.”47

A certain froideur now crept into the Lovestone-Brown relationship. Over the changed focus of Brown’s work abroad there was a palpable sense of the two men drifting apart. Lovestone made clear his disapproval of the amount of time Brown was spending on African affairs, reminding him pointedly of his recent inability to keep up with his reports. Indeed, Brown was now emerging as his own man and felt less need to write in depth about his dealings with African trade unionists. As the person who had introduced Irving to his wife, Lillie, Lovestone also appeared pained to be learning at second hand from Mike Ross the personal reasons Brown had for the move back to New York. And when finally Lovestone acceded to the transfer to New York—from where Brown still hoped to concentrate on African affairs—he did so with regret. He took issue with George Meany for agreeing to the move, telling him: “You have my opinion and I understand your position, do as you want to do.” Refusing to buy into the idea that the ICFTU would “put on a burst of activity” once Brown joined the staff, he wrote to Brown:

There are some in our ranks who very optimistically welcome the difference in personality between Becu and Oldenbroek . . . [and] conclude that there is a . . . really healthy situation in the ICFTU. I reckon I am a little too old to swing from pessimism to optimism like a pendulum. I think the bureaucratic set-up in the ICFTU is stultifying. . . . Nor will your work in the . . . UN stimulate Geijer into a transformation.48

Becu offered Brown the directorship of the ICFTU’s New York office in principle in early November 1961, and Brown was left to deal with the general secretary according to his own lights in determining the nature of the job. Haggling of a Byzantine nature between the two men now began and was not completed until five months later.

Brown was soon telling Lovestone that he had a verbal understanding with the general secretary as to what the job entailed. He envisaged having wide-ranging, albeit vaguely defined, responsibilities, with extensive freedom to travel and to involve himself in international issues:

I believe that I have in general an understanding which throws an entirely new light on the nature and implications of the job. . . . This kind of operation will be quite different from the past and will also still involve quite a bit of continuing and permanent contact abroad even into regions about which up to now I have had nothing to say or do.49

Just how much freedom to travel Brown was contemplating is perhaps suggested by the fact that only days after filing this report, he paid a four-day visit to South Vietnam—way beyond his already wide-ranging beat in Western Europe and Africa. The circumstances of this trip are obscure. The pretext was that he was delivering funds for flood relief, but his report is more interesting for envisioning a role for the anti-communist trade union centre, the Vietnamese Confederation of Labour (CVT), as a possible paramilitary force. The formula that Brown had previously advocated for French dockworkers and Italian metalworkers at FIAT was once again being promoted. The likelihood is that this visit to Southeast Asia was essentially a CIA mission.50

From the start of his negotiations with Brown, Becu knew that he was playing with fire. He was fully aware that those hostile to the American would take a keen interest in any “special conditions” attached to the job. Like Brown, he saw the need to keep agreed details informal. At times he appeared to entertain second thoughts about the wisdom of offering him the post at all. Indeed, he would subsequently try to pin blame on Arne Geijer with the claim that the ICFTU president had pressured him into making the appointment before he had sufficient time to fully consider the implications.51 The negotiating process took its toll on Becu, and for some weeks from before Christmas 1961 into the New Year he was away from his Brussels office suffering from stress.52

Given Brown’s version of what had already been agreed to, Becu’s angst becomes easier to understand in the context of a report filed by the British labour counsellor in Washington. It was based on a briefing by Jim Carey and recorded that at a lunch during an ICFTU executive board meeting involving Becu, Brown, and Carey, “clear conditions were laid down to Irving Brown that if he accepted the ICFTU job in New York, he had to stay there and was not to embark on trips to Europe, Africa or elsewhere independently or on behalf of the AFL-CIO.” Carey claimed that Irving Brown accepted these conditions without reservation. However, the attaché observed that many others doubted that he would abide by them.53

Brown promised Lovestone that, at a future tête-à-tête, “I will give you more details verbally about some of the basic reasons . . . not to . . . demand too many guarantees in writing.” He was intent on avoiding detailed discussions with Arne Geijer, whom he didn’t trust. In lofty tone he wrote to Becu saying that although he had talked with the ICFTU president in general terms about the job, he had avoided issues of finance, personnel, and structure—these being matters for him and the general secretary alone. Later, he made it clear to Becu that he would consider himself as working strictly for the general secretary and no one else.54 Becu, unlike Geijer, was someone Brown believed he could dominate.

On returning from sick leave in January 1962, Becu bowed to a further demand from Brown for a substantial increase in the budget for the New York office. The solidarity fund committee subsequently doubled the budget for 1962 and contemplated a trebling for 1963. The two men also discussed a requirement by Becu that Brown spend five or six months a year in New York, a condition implying, in Brown’s eyes, an entitlement to travel for up to seven months a year during which he would involve himself in “the regional activities of the UN.” Anticipating opposition from Europeans, Brown also raised the possibility that the TUC and the DGB might question his appointment, in which case Becu would need to “square” them, since the American would not accept a situation in which they continued to snipe at him.55

As their negotiations proceeded and rumours circulated that the AFL-CIO representative might be transferring to the ICFTU, some African leaders were alarmed at the prospect of “losing” him, construing the proposed move as a victory for the “European colonialists” in eliminating the “dynamic anti-colonialist element” from the equation. Brown flew to Nairobi for Tom Mboya’s wedding, where the Kenyan took time out from his reception to remonstrate with him on this point. According to Brown’s account, Mboya declared that his transfer to New York would be a “calamity”: Africa was at a turning point and his presence was needed, as only someone like Brown could be trusted. When Africans expressed such views to Meany, the federation president replied exactly as Brown hoped he would, telling them that as an ICFTU official Brown would be able to continue to service them without any change in AFL-CIO aid and assistance, even if this was handled in a different fashion.56

In a memorandum prepared for Ross and Becu in late January that was to take on great importance, Brown set out how he conceived of his likely role. A key passage read:

It would be important for the Director to have access to the different meetings that take place in different parts of the world, especially in connection with the UN and its subsidiary organizations. . . . Given the special situation in Africa, this could become a very serviceable instrument to maintain our contact as a sort of regional servicing of our African organizations. . . . In any event, the Director . . . must have sufficient mobility to move in on all these regional extensions of the UN.

In an imperious tone, Brown also set out his demands for the staffing of the New York office, rejecting the general secretary’s idea that it would be beneficial to have the ICFTU’s long-serving Austro-American economist, Alfred Braunthal, as co-director responsible for dealing with the UN Economic and Social Council. He told Becu that “”there shall be a single Director. There must be a thorough housecleaning,” because there still existed “too many loyalties to the former regime as well as habits of thought and action that cannot be changed. . . . I must have an office set-up in which I can have full confidence based upon their complete loyalty.57 Becu responded to the memo with caution, observing that although he was in general agreement, certain things should not be written down, as Brown had suggested. As a reason, he cited the opposition he was experiencing from the TUC and the international trade secretariats.58

Yet despite Becu’s injunction against committing things to paper, he now proposed to draft a job description: it was just not possible to leave everything to trust. Brown interpreted this as an attempt to backtrack on existing verbal understandings. He protested to Meany that he, personally, didn’t want any “written bureaucratic statement” and was ready to accept Becu’s verbal agreement regarding the substance of the job. Yet Becu now insisted that there had to be something in writing for the executive board to see. Irritated, Brown told him that he could write whatever he wanted for the board’s consumption, but he wouldn’t accept any divided authority in the UN office or any restriction on his freedom to handle all issues relevant to the UN, “at summit, regional or subsidiary level.” In the end Becu chose to supply the executive board with only the sketchiest outline of Brown’s remit.

Still skeptical of the whole project, Jay Lovestone disapproved of Brown’s handling of the negotiations. Recognizing that the job involved more than his former protégé seemed to anticipate—and certainly more than simply changing his letterhead—he doubted the efficacy of “crossing out the word Paris and replacing it with New York and then operating from the latter city as he did in Paris.” In a letter to Meany, Lovestone criticized Brown’s self-important tone and insistence on becoming a “universal ambassador” with “universal authority.” “Modesty is a very great and infrequent virtue,” he reflected, adding: “it is more true to say that the man makes the job than the job makes the man.” In a backhanded compliment, he expressed confidence that “if Irving drops his grandiose notions and stops heralding in advance all he intends and plans to do, he will do a good job. He will grow in the job.”59

The tortuous haggling dragged on to the end of March 1962, by which time “agreement” had been reached, or at least scope for fudging unwritten understandings exhausted. The letter of appointment under which Brown was to start his new job on 1 April, together with a press release, were all that was committed to writing. Becu’s letter to Brown itemized his general responsibilities in the vaguest of terms. Interestingly, there was no specific mention of “travel.” The press release added little more hard information with its statement that “with this appointment the ICFTU . . . will embark on an increasingly active world-wide campaign to implement these [UN] principles in practice.” Yet all that mattered for Brown was his “special understanding” with Becu, about which he promised to inform Meany when next he saw him. To Lovestone he wrote: “The mandate is very clear. . . . I have an honest and firm understanding. My private memo of some weeks back is considered to be a definite and private understanding between us as to our future relationship and work.”60 Whether Becu had quite the same understanding of what was agreed to was very much open to debate.

The test came three months later at the ICFTU’s July 1962 congress in Berlin. The congress proved to be the high-water mark in the brief period of harmony that had characterized AFL-CIO–ICFTU relations since Brown and Becu had made their peace in February 1961. The event was largely free of the discord that had been evident at several earlier congresses. Looking to the future, Becu was optimistic that the coming period would be marked by consolidation and further improvement in its method of working, while his deputy, Nedzynski, recalled simply that at Berlin there was an atmosphere of mutual understanding and friendship and the recognition that progress was being made.61 That perception would soon change.

Irving Brown attended the congress in his formal capacity as director of the New York office. Following the congress, he planned to travel on to Africa, visiting Morocco, Senegal, Kenya, and Southern Rhodesia. In Berlin he was also named as secretary of a delegation to Algeria, where UGTA was planning a congress in the aftermath of the country’s recent independence. However, the British delegates at the congress took exception to his continued activities in Africa and George Woodcock made a formal complaint. Becu’s response was to inform Brown that he was against his plan to travel to Africa since it could expose him to criticism by the British and others. For his part, Brown protested that this was a violation of Becu’s commitment made when he took the job.62

While still in Europe, Brown wrote telling Becu of “serious information” just received from Africa concerning an offensive by the “Casablanca group” in over half a dozen countries from Kenya to Southern Rhodesia. It was the product of a recent trip by Mboya’s rival, Oginga Odinga to Moscow, from where he had returned with £60,000 for “anti-western activities.” If he couldn’t travel on behalf of the ICFTU, Brown was inclined to take a leave of absence for several weeks to attend to the problem.63 He would shortly have information from East Africa that students were making their way to Moscow in growing numbers, travelling via Cairo, where they picked up second passports. Brown’s intelligence was that 150 Kenyans had followed this route in the last six months, while eighty Tanganyikan students were already in Moscow—“and they are organized,” he emphasized.64 He met Becu a few days later to talk the matter over, and according to his account, Becu agreed that he should be in Africa, but it simply wasn’t politic to go now. Claiming that he was beset by enemies in Europe—not only the British but also the Dutch and Belgians as well as Geijer and Reuther—the general secretary told Brown: “After all, the British regard you and me as one and the same.” A week later a disconsolate Brown notified Becu that, regretfully, he had decided against the trip, but would discuss the situation with George Meany. He resented being “half-in and half-out as an accepted representative of the ICFTU” as a consequence of being “too controversial.”65

After hearing Brown’s oral report, Meany wrote to Becu demanding an explanation for his reneging on the commitment to Brown about travel in Africa; without it the AFL-CIO representative would not have taken the job in New York. Meany was also personally aggrieved. He had “gone out on a limb” at the Berlin congress in reassuring worried African delegates that Brown would be visiting them shortly. His own credibility was now at stake, and he asked Becu to stand by the commitment given. Becu responded three weeks later, arguing on the narrow grounds that “team work” in the ICFTU would suffer if staff could challenge the decision of the responsible officer. Meany cabled back to say that he was “puzzled and confused” by the response. By this point he had also heard directly from Mboya of “a serious erosion” of the ICFTU position in Africa that required an on-the-spot visit by Brown.

George Meany now decided that Brown should travel to Africa in November regardless of Becu’s ruling. There was evidently a strong sentiment in favour of pushing ahead with independent AFL-CIO activity as a priority.66 Warming to the new situation, Jay Lovestone joined in what was clearly to become another round of Brussels-baiting, attacking individual members of the secretariat by name.67 On receiving confirmation that Brown had already been dispatched to Africa, Omer Becu cabled Meany requesting a chance to talk to him in Washington. Meany contacted Brown in Kenya and instructed him to fly back for the meeting. He expected little of it and commented to Lovestone: “I see no hope in Becu changing—he is just a small man who is stubborn and standing on his rights (!) as Gen. Sec.”

Indeed, the encounter in Washington was wholly unproductive, with Mike Ross recording what an unhappy experience it was for Becu. Prompted by the TUC and the DGB, he came with a list of complaints about Brown’s activity in Africa, while Meany in turn expressed consternation at the general secretary’s attitude.68 Nothing was resolved, and Irving Brown returned to Tanzania the following day to resume his participation in the government’s independence celebrations. Becu travelled on to Ottawa and unburdened himself to leaders of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The CLC’s international director relayed to Lovestone’s office the essence of Becu’s thinking: “You fellows in the ICFTU New York office had better make up your minds whether you are working for the ICFTU or the AFL-CIO.”69

In correspondence over Christmas 1962, Becu attempted to resolve his disagreement with Irving Brown, but the latter rejected any suggestion that “foreign travel” was the only issue. Addressing him formally as “Dear Brother Becu,” he insisted that principles were involved and that he was continuing to abide by the terms of their understanding. “If you wish to deny or repudiate that agreement then that is another matter.”70 Plainly upset, he told Meany: “I don’t want to continue—if possible—in this [ICFTU] morass. I look forward to being liberated from a set-up where intrigues, untruth and anti-Americanism plus political ignorance rule the day.” And in a similar vein he wrote Lovestone that he could no longer work for a man who lied and hid behind “bureaucratic arguments” to sabotage any dynamic action associated with the Americans.71 These outbursts reflected Brown’s anger. But in calmer moments his instinct was always to keep one foot in the ICFTU camp, and it would be some time yet before he accepted the inevitability of choosing between the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU.

Origins of the African-American Labour Centre

Sensing that Brown’s time in the ICFTU’s New York office might be coming to an end, Lovestone was already working on a proposed reshuffle in AFL-CIO international affairs department responsibilities, with Brown restored to his role in Europe and another American taking over his current responsibility to the ICFTU. With the recent Cuban missile crisis fresh in mind, and insisting that American world leadership was confronted by new challenges, Lovestone argued that once again an AFL-CIO presence in Europe was “indispensable,” which meant Irving Brown resuming his AFL-CIO role in Paris with primary responsibility for Europe but also able to make side trips to Africa.72 Yet in making this case for a “return to Europe,” Lovestone stood alone, apparently without support. The ground around him was beginning to shift.

A recent addition to the staff of the international affairs department toward the end of 1962 was Meany’s son-in-law, Ernest Lee, appointed as executive assistant to the international affairs director, Mike Ross. He would come to serve as a gatekeeper to Meany, with the result that Lovestone found it harder to gain the president’s ear. Mike Ross himself was terminally ill and absent from the office for several months in 1963, and when he died in November some close observers already assumed that Ernie Lee was likely to be appointed to replace him. That no announcement of a successor to Ross was made for three weeks following his death suggested that this was at least under consideration. Indeed, the British labour counsellor’s intelligence was that during this hiatus “the New York group”—essentially Dubinsky and his colleagues in the needle trades—had been forced to apply pressure on Meany to ensure that Jay Lovestone was named as director. When the latter’s appointment was confirmed, he was a month short of his sixty-fourth birthday, and the assumption was that he would hold the post for just a couple of years and then stand down in favour of Lee.

Ernie Lee, a former US Marine, was widely regarded as a lightweight; Irving Brown rarely referred to him by name but rather as “the son-in-law.” With scant trade union background, he would bring little by way of knowledge or experience to the international affairs department. Yet the possibility that Meany had toyed with the notion of appointing him ahead of Lovestone suggests that the federation president was relaxed about the idea of conducting AFL-CIO foreign policy largely according to his own lights without the need of help and advice from people whose forte was their familiarity with the personalities and politics of myriad foreign labour organizations. There was nothing dramatic to suggest that Lovestone was positively out of favour, but occasional signs suggested that with Lee as the interface between Meany and Lovestone, the latter was not always as well informed of Meany’s thinking as he would like to be. Some months after he was named international affairs director, the British labour counsellor discovered that Lovestone knew nothing of an impending visit to the United States by the TUC’s George Woodcock during which the TUC leader was scheduled to speak alongside Meany at a union convention. The labour counsellor noted that Lovestone’s lines of communication to Meany were perhaps not as good as he pretended “apart from the family pipe-line to Ernest Lee.”73

Meany’s international focus was now increasingly on the idea of regional institutes—auxiliary bodies of the AFL-CIO—of which the American Institute for Free Labour Development (AIFLD), established for Latin America and funded principally by the US government, served as a model. While Lovestone wanted to restore Irving Brown to Europe, Meany was more interested in the latter’s latest ideas for a stepped-up program of work in Africa. In a letter to Meany, Brown wrote of the need for “someone with overall authority to put into effect a master plan of action and organization.”74 Overall, he reckoned the challenge from Soviet and Chinese communism in Africa to be as great as ever. The free trade union battle against AATUF was certainly not lost—that body had achieved little—but the appeal of “positive neutrality” was proving strong in labour circles and the ICFTU was clearly losing the fight to retain the affiliation of African trade union centres. In the circumstances, Irving Brown saw the need for a dedicated American body equipped with a wide-ranging program and adequate long-term funding to address the new situation. He first discussed his idea with Meany in February 1963, reporting to Lovestone:

As for the question of our labour institute . . . on Africa, he [Meany] is all for the idea. . . . It is clear he is leaning more and more towards . . . promoting and supporting many of these activities through such an institution as . . . we are planning. . . . He seemed increasingly receptive to the idea of moving out into fields through what could be called “American instruments” on a tripartite basis, and if necessary in cooperation with other governments.

The Kennedy administration was currently reviewing its strategy for foreign aid through a committee chaired by retired General Lucius Clay. Brown had private talks with Clay over the idea of an African labour institute and reported to Meany on Clay’s favourable reaction.75

Asked to draft a resolution for the AFL-CIO executive council, Brown wrote of a “new chapter” opening up in Africa. He noted that the task of African unions was significantly different from that in developed economies, with a primary emphasis on nation building. Beyond this, African unions needed help in launching and managing cooperative enterprises, along with assistance in teaching vocational skills. To these, Brown added two more important tasks—help with workers’ housing and community planning. To tackle such issues there was a need to go beyond the traditional type of American trade union solidarity and to mobilize the resources of government, labour, and employers in the United States. He was thinking in terms of a version of AIFLD for Africa, and the resolution adopted by the executive council instructed Meany to explore the possibility of establishing such an institution.76 Under the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies the AFL-CIO was pushing at an open door in its quest for government funding. As Irving Brown observed, “the idea is in tune with the times.”77

Talks with government only began in 1964 and without fanfare, but by summer George Meany had secured the full support of AID director David Bell for the AFL-CIO proposal.78 When rumours of the new initiative first leaked out, Victor Reuther, who was a member of the Labour Advisory Committee to AID, was anxious to prevent it becoming yet another “Brown operation,” wrote to Lovestone requesting further details and for the matter to be placed on the agenda of a forthcoming meeting of directors of international affairs of AFL-CIO affiliates. Lovestone fobbed him off, saying that the proposal was “nowhere near any concrete shape.”79 Approval was now a formality, simply requiring the official submission of an AFL-CIO prospectus to AID’s Labor Advisory Committee. The formal proposal submitted under Brown’s name was a fifteen-page document loosely listing a series of general suggestions for activities in a dozen African countries: there was no attempt at rigorous discussion or careful costing. For most of the countries listed there was general talk of the need for unspecified vocational training courses and help with cooperatives of various kinds. A press release in September announced that Irving Brown would be the executive director of the new institute—to be named the African-American Labour Centre.80 The public launch at New York’s Commodore Hotel followed in mid-October. An important new venture was about to get under way under Irving Brown’s direction—but with it also another chapter in the long-running battle with Omer Becu arising from Brown’s continuing insistence on combining his ICFTU responsibilities with work undertaken for the AFL-CIO.

Taking the Fight to Becu

An assessment of the ICFTU’s 1962 congress in Berlin written shortly after the event by the American labour historian John Windmuller was upbeat in noting that Omer Becu had emerged as “an important power in his own right” and had transformed the ICFTU secretariat into “an entity to be reckoned with,” the self-confidence and esprit de corps of staff now plainly evident. Income had doubled since the previous congress (largely through the trebling of solidarity fund contributions), with the result that organizing and educational activities were expanding at a faster rate than ever before and the “moral authority of the ICFTU” within the wider labour movement was on the rise. The article heralded the advent of a new phase in ICFTU development. Yet even before the article found its way into print, Victor Reuther advised Windmuller that it was six months out of date.81 What had changed, of course, were Meany’s relations with Becu, which had been seriously damaged over Irving Brown’s travel and the AFL-CIO president’s instruction to him to defy the ICFTU general secretary. Renewed hostilities had broken out, and the main weapon to hand for Meany as chairman of the solidarity fund committee was his ability to restrict the flow of funds available for spending on development work—in the parlance of the New York plumbing trade where his roots lay, “turning off the water.” The free spending of the solidarity fund committee witnessed in 1961–62 was now about to go into reverse.

George Meany no longer believed he could trust Becu’s word. The extent of his resentment became apparent at a landmark meeting of the solidarity fund committee over which he presided at AFL-CIO headquarters in January 1963. It was a brutal encounter that was etched in the memory of those present. In the chair, Meany opened the meeting in a foul temper, complaining that the voluminous documentation made it hard to derive an overall picture of solidarity fund projects. Hitting his stride, he said he was “very disturbed”; the fund had become a “financial giant” faced with never-ending demands of “ridiculous proportions” that were bound to lead to “absolute collapse.” As Stefan Nedzynski recalled, it was now less a meeting than a monologue by Meany. He would occasionally put an irate question to Becu without allowing him a chance to reply and then plough on through the agenda, turning down spending proposals left and right without taking a vote. In sweeping terms, he insisted that many areas had seen “no progress at all,” and he complained that everyone working in the African trade union movement seemed to be on the ICFTU payroll. The general thrust was that the ICFTU had been living beyond its means, but the party was now over.

In this situation, Becu was a man backpedalling ineffectually before an advancing steamroller, conceding that “perhaps too much money had been spent” here, acknowledging that “some waste” had been incurred there, but protesting that the nature of the work made it difficult to quantify success. Other committee members failed to speak up forcefully in defence of programs, though Ludwig Rosenberg, the DGB’s recently elected president attending the committee for the first time, was plainly offended by Meany’s bullying manner, muttering “quatsch, quatsch” (rubbish) to himself throughout the proceedings.82

The outcome was that many new spending proposals were rejected. No grants were allocated to the trade secretariats for organizing work, though previously 10 percent had gone to them and their share had been expected to increase in this latest round. Meany argued that they were capable of standing on their own feet, and he was particularly dismissive of the idea of granting funds to the International Metalworkers’ Federation. Hadn’t Walter Reuther’s UAW recently established its own solidarity fund of $2.4 million, much of which was likely to find its way into the IMF?83 Ongoing ICFTU regional programs requiring a further injection of funding were granted only sufficient funds for the next six months. Perversely, proposals rejected included some that were close to the heart of the AFL-CIO—in Nigeria and Kenya, for example—that Meany had previously been only too happy to finance.

Irving Brown had played a decisive role in whipping up Meany’s animosity toward Becu, but core ICFTU’s programs were now in the line of fire and that wasn’t something he had bargained for. Whatever his personal relations with Becu, Brown regarded the ICFTU as an important agency in international affairs. His own value to Meany was as an advisor on tactics and strategy to be adopted with regard to the politics of this body; it was his theatre of operations, the organization that enabled him to exert a personal influence. Now he manoeuvred behind the scenes hoping that Meany would agree to a financial lifeline for strategically important ICFTU programs. “I haven’t been fired yet,” he pointed out with reference to his insubordination of Becu, and Meany assured him: “Don’t worry, you won’t be fired.” Meany mused that had Becu been “more of a man” at the solidarity fund meeting, defending his proposals more vigorously, he might have been able to get some of these programs through.84 But now in a mellower frame of mind, the federation president relented and basic allocations were made. Yet it was abundantly clear that a new situation had arisen and relations between George Meany and Omer Becu would never be restored.85

Figure 12.  Ludwig Rosenberg, DGB president, 1962–69 (left), with Henry Rutz and Irving Brown, at the Stockholm congress of the ICFTU, in July 1953. Rosenberg grew to detest George Meany. The sentiment was reciprocated. Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, University of Maryland.

Walter Reuther was particularly irked to learn that the grant application submitted by the IMF for organizing work in Latin America had been rejected and asked Becu for the verbatim minutes of the meeting together with documentation on the background to the dispute with Brown. He intended to challenge any attempt by Meany to have the AFL-CIO executive council nod through approval of the new constraints on solidarity fund expenditure, and he put in a rare personal appearance at the next ICFTU executive board in March 1963 to argue against the recent turn of events. Yet he had to settle for a reduced scale of funding for fieldwork by the international trade secretariats, and he largely failed to prevent a further reduction in AFL-CIO contributions to the solidarity fund, which in August 1963 was cut by almost half, translating into a reduction in the ICFTU’s budget for regional development of at least 30 percent.86

In the solidarity fund committee, “the two Georges” now formed a powerful alliance to curtail expenditure. From 1963 their shared concern was to confine funding to the maintenance of ICFTU regional offices and staff and the administration of training schools. Organizing activities beyond this would largely be the responsibility of the trade secretariats, which would need to find their own sources of funding. In Woodcock’s case, the new, parsimonious regime was a reflection of his personal belief that the ICFTU had been misconceived from the outset. For Meany, it signalled the fact that the ICFTU was declining in importance, as he visualized the growth of AFL-CIO independent international activity undertaken with the benefit of generous US government funding for the AFL-CIO “auxiliary institutes,” one already operational in Latin America and another under consideration for Africa.87

Reuther’s attendance at the ICFTU’s board meeting in March appeared briefly to embolden Becu to stand up to Irving Brown. When the latter turned up in Brussels, having travelled to the meeting without authorization, Becu challenged his presence and ordered him back to New York. Brown immediately notified George Meany in Washington, who in turn instructed Bill Schnitzler, his substitute at the board, to leave the meeting as well in the event that Brown was ejected. It was a crucial test of Becu’s authority. Over the previous five months, Brown had travelled to Africa on four occasions, twice on ICFTU business but twice also purely at Meany’s behest on behalf of the AFL-CIO. His appearance in Brussels in March 1963 was yet another instance of his thumbing his nose at Becu. In the event, the general secretary was unwilling to take on Meany directly. Faced with the prospect that Schnitzler would walk out, he was forced to knuckle under and live with the fact that Irving Brown was a law unto himself, performing his ICFTU functions as he saw fit and otherwise bypassing Becu when it suited him.88 The long-term damage to Becu’s standing as general secretary caused by this episode was incalculable.

In the months ahead, Becu would make attempts to restrict Brown’s travel, but always on technical grounds and never alluding to the real political reason for doing so—the fact that other powerful affiliates were up in arms at the cavalier way in which the AFL-CIO used Brown’s services for its own purposes. He challenged Brown over air travel expense claims submitted for trips from New York to Nairobi, New York to Leopoldville, and New York to Paris, Athens, and Addis Ababa, pointing out that he had no recollection of asking him to undertake the journeys and asking for an explanation: “We have nothing on record to show that you made these trips on ICFTU business,” he wrote. It spoke volumes for Becu’s complete loss of authority that Brown simply disregarded the letter, forcing the general secretary to write again six months later to remind him that an answer was still awaited.89

Brown’s attendance at all UN regional meetings could not be guaranteed, Becu explained patiently, since the general secretary had to have the final word on matters of spending. He declined to ask for a further increase in Brown’s budget that had previously been in the cards, noting that travel was an item on which savings could be made. Wearily he wrote:

Dear Irving,

I regret very much that this personal correspondence has to continue, but I hope that I can make the position clear so that we can finally achieve a fruitful working relationship. . . . I could never have made any firm agreement with you . . . [over] your being given authority to go anywhere you felt your presence was necessary. . . . You must realize . . . that final decisions . . . remain with me.

But Brown’s defiance continued, and he replied:

It is quite clear . . . that you no longer have the same conception of the UN post. . . . I am questioning your concept of my job which is not in line with the basis on which I came to work for the ICFTU. I shall continue on that basis until informed otherwise—which is to work within the UN as a total operation and not merely as an office in New York.90

Having assured Brown that his defiance would not lead to the sack, Meany now backed him to the hilt, with the result that Brown simply continued to combine his official position with his de facto role as roving AFL-CIO representative. As John Windmuller’s contemporaneous review of ICFTU “progress” noted coyly: “It is not yet quite clear, however, whether Brown has completely switched roles from an AFL-CIO to an ICFTU representative.”91

Brown returned to Africa twice more that year, in July–August and November–December. As Kalmen Kaplansky, international director for the Canadian Labour Congress, noted, Brown was spending as much time in Africa as ever on Meany’s behalf, while foreign visitors to the ICFTU’s office in New York never knew for sure whether they were being received by the AFL-CIO or the ICFTU.92 Out of these trips came a further tranche of AFL-CIO assistance for sections of the Southern Rhodesian and South African labour movements, each of which received $5,000 in August 1963.93 From East Africa, Brown wrote to Lovestone expressing satisfaction with his visits: “Someone has to pick up the pieces since the ICFTU is in its greatest crisis—except it is unconscious of it all.” Significantly, it was to Meany rather than his official boss that he cabled a request for permission to interrupt his travels and fly back to the United States to consult and advise before the AFL-CIO executive council formalized its new approach to the solidarity fund committee in August 1963.94

In late 1963, Stefan Nedzynski initiated one last attempt to restore Omer Becu’s all-important personal relations with Meany. He convinced Becu of the need to make a conciliatory gesture, and through Irving Brown he got Meany to agree to a private meeting in New York shortly before the next scheduled meeting of the solidarity fund committee. On the surface their tête-à-tête seemed to go well. Relieved, Becu persuaded himself that Meany wanted a reconciliation and, forgetting the time difference with Europe, put in a call to Brussels and awoke Nedzynski in the early hours of the morning to report that they had “turned a corner.” Aware that Meany would want to talk about finance with Becu, Nedzynski had prepared a one-page briefing note for his boss that contained the key headline figures. But when the solidarity fund committee met formally just days later and Meany raised the question of total anticipated expenditure, Becu cited a figure $500,000 higher than the one he had mentioned at their earlier private meeting. Confusing the totals on Nedzynski’s briefing paper, he had inadvertently misled Meany. The AFL-CIO president was outraged. Again it boiled down to a question of personal trust, and Meany concluded that his money was no longer safe with Becu. There was now no way back for the ICFTU general secretary.95

The meeting proved to be another disaster, with Meany again on the offensive. More proposals were turned down and new spending restrictions imposed. It was decided that unspent allocations could no longer be carried forward from one year to the next. The result was to be an accumulation of “unspent balances” that would become the subject of Meany’s next onslaught on Becu. The secretariat found itself squeezed from opposite ends, with Woodcock on the one hand complaining of profligacy and, on the other, Meany accusing the Brussels secretariat of hoarding unspent balances in interest-accumulating investment accounts as though this was a corrupt use of funds originally intended for constructive purposes. In light of these “swollen reserves,” Meany now proposed a further cutback of 25 percent in American contributions to the solidarity fund while the unspent balances were run down. Ominously, he also warned that he would be sending in his own AFL-CIO auditors to check on where the money went.96

Figure 13.  Omer Becu, the ICFTU’s general secretary, 1960–67. This photograph was taken in 1950, at the start of Becu’s decade as general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation. Already by 1964 he seemed to Stefan Nedzynski a “finished, beaten man”—and, in January 1967, his would become the second ICFTU scalp claimed by Meany and company. Courtesy of AMSAB–Institute of Social History, Ghent.

Becu’s demoralized deputy, Nedzynski, made a final effort to encourage the general secretary to fight back. He informed Becu that he had recently been offered the general secretaryship of the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) but assured him that he would stay and fight alongside him at the ICFTU if Becu was prepared to mount a resistance to the policy of spending cutbacks. Becu was weary and suggested they defer the discussion until another day. But that day never came, and, in September 1964, Nedzynski tendered his resignation as ICFTU assistant general secretary. Omer Becu, he maintained, was now “a finished, beaten man, pitiful in his attempt to hold on.” In Brown’s eyes, too, the International was led by a “sick man” for whom “I even began to have pity . . . watching his helplessness and ineptness.” Yet he and Meany were largely responsible for Becu’s mental and physical condition.97

A Law unto Himself

It is hard to assess Irving Brown’s performance purely in terms of his role as the ICFTU’s director for United Nations affairs, since he combined this with a wider range of activities. Following his appointment, he quickly recruited a small team of able assistants, including the Czech exile Paul Barton (Jiří Veltruský) as economist and José Maria Aguirre, former editor of the ICFTU’s Free Labour World, with responsibility for publicity. Although Brown complained of being prevented from hiring an African and an Asian so as to fully “internationalize” his staff, the general impression created was of a New York office demonstrating more dynamism than previously when Bill Kemsley supervised an undermanned and underfunded operation. Brown wanted to make his presence felt in and around the UN and early on preened himself when a statement on political prisoners that he had issued to the General Assembly prompted a supporting editorial in the New York Times.98

He was also in at the beginning of the discussions in the UN’s Economic and Social Council in July 1962 that led to the convening of the UN Conference on Trade and Development and eventually spawned the permanent agency UNCTAD. In this area, he claimed personal responsibility for persuading the head of the US delegation to the General Assembly to drop his opposition and embrace the initiative. Along with Paul Barton, Brown worked on early proposals for the conference, but when the row over his unauthorized travel erupted, Becu blocked him from attending the Preparatory Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva. Brown was up in arms and remonstrated with Becu: “It is inconceivable to me that we can plunge into the work of the Preparatory Committee of the coming UN World Trade Conference and not follow it through to the very end.”99 The issue also highlighted the turf warfare that was ongoing between the New York office and Alfred Braunthal’s economic research department in the ICFTU secretariat. Brown’s claim was that the real initiative had come from him, whereas the input from the secretariat had been “pitifully inadequate.” Excluded from the preparatory meeting, he protested that the ICFTU was being represented by a “faceless, uninformed delegation” whose members—Alfred Heyer and Heribert Maier—were ill equipped to deal with the subject. “The exchange of letters and proposals between the New York and Brussels offices of the ICFTU,” he argued, “reveal what can only be called a state of bankruptcy in . . . the secretariat.”100

Brown was also frustrated by the failure of the ICFTU to act on his proposal to open a permanent office in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where the Organization of African Unity was in the process of establishing itself as a vehicle for unifying the competing strands of pan-Africanism. This was where attempts would eventually be made to reconcile AATUF and those African centres that insisted on their right to affiliate to the ICFTU or the Christian international. Brown considered it essential for the ICFTU to have a continuing presence there. Such an office would clearly have provided an important field base for his African activities, but Becu’s moves to restrict his foreign travel helped ensure that there would be no African sub-office for Brown.101

As relations between Omer Becu and George Meany went into terminal decline from late 1963 onward, Brown’s open defiance of Becu increased across a range of issues. In March 1964, he wrote to the general secretary advising him of his refusal to distribute an ICFTU press release critical of a general strike in British Guiana waged as part of Cheddi Jagan’s attempt to seize control of the labour movement for his ruling party. The press release was entitled “ICFTU Denounces Intimidation of British Guiana Sugar Workers,” but Brown felt that its language was too mild and complained that while the word “denounce” appeared in the heading, the body of the text merely spoke of being “gravely disturbed” by Jagan’s action. Brown demanded more red meat, and he remonstrated with Becu: “I regard the protest to Cheddi Jagan as a pitiful demonstration of political understanding and a feeble action. . . . There is a an utterly unwarranted assumption here that it is possible for an avowed Communist [i.e., Jagan] . . . enemy of free trade unionism to safeguard democratic freedoms.” The release, he said loftily, “would only raise the most serious questions among informed people as to the ICFTU’s comprehension of the crisis for free trade unionism in British Guiana.”102

In Africa, Brown went about his business almost without reference to Becu, even while at times presuming to act on behalf of the ICFTU in matters of utmost importance. In June 1964 he held talks with Ugandan prime minister Milton Obote in an attempt to reach agreement on the disposal of the ICFTU college in Kampala that the government wanted closed down. Becu would later accuse Brown of having entered into negotiations without authorization.103 Likewise, on an unauthorized visit to Nigeria in autumn 1964, Brown met AFRO’s newly appointed regional secretary Momodou Jallow and “agreed to work out a common programme” with him for the coming months, an arrangement clearly concluded on behalf of the AFL-CIO.104 Also in autumn 1964 Brown discussed with union leaders from Senegal and Tunisia how to help in paying off the debts of the African Trade Union Confederation (ATUC), with which the ICFTU had friendly relations. He talked of passing a sum of $100,000 through a Geneva Bank on behalf of the ICFTU, though the organization had neither formal responsibility for ATUC nor budget for the assistance he proposed.105

During these days when he routinely disregarded the general secretary, Brown made a second visit to South Vietnam in June 1964. It followed a visit to the United States the previous month by Tran Quoc Buu, president of the CVT, as a guest of the AFL-CIO during which Brown accompanied him. The AFL-CIO arranged for Buu to meet President Lyndon Johnson at the White House, where he laid out plans already discussed with Brown and Lovestone for AFL-CIO–CVT cooperation. As part of this, Buu made the case for the CVT to have a central role in what would come to be known as “pacification” by creating “an almost para-military type of civilian organization to . . . transform the indifferent and neutral mass of people into an active barrier against the communists.”106

Taking as read President Johnson’s favourable reaction, Brown impressed on Meany the need to follow up with the administration to guarantee support and for Buu to return as quickly as possible to Vietnam to ensure there was no objection from General Khanh, head of the military junta. The AFL-CIO would immediately begin to send personnel to Vietnam to lay the foundations for the program, with Brown himself among the first to visit the following month.107 There was no discussion of this with Becu, and the indications are that the project was arranged in conjunction with the intelligence services.108

In reports to the AFL-CIO during this period, Brown cruelly mocked Becu for being invisible or beyond reach, whether as a result of his incessant travel or because his frequent nervous ailments kept him away from work. In May–June 1964, he reported that in recent weeks the general secretary had been in New York, Tel Aviv, Athens, the French-Spanish border (“to meet the wrong kind of Spaniards”), and Stockholm. He joked:

The phantom is somewhere in the world and the latest report is Athens—of all places. If he is now meddling again with Makris, his psychological absenteeism takes on a most revolting physical presence! It is absolutely amazing that one calls Brussels—his home office—and one can almost feel the embarrassment at the other end of the line when one puts the now infamous question—“Is Omer there?” He is but he isn’t and now even worse, he isn’t but he is.109

His verbal attacks on Becu extended to the ICFTU secretariat, which he characterized as “a very mediocre and unrepresentative kind of staff” with “no one who can carry weight with either governmental or intergovernmental bodies.” In June 1964, he wrote: “The organization is down to its lowest point of morale and there is an absence of any overall dynamic direction and organization. . . . Documents reveal large accumulation of bits and pieces but no central guiding hand of leadership.” Yet he still distinguished between the mediocre personnel and the ICFTU itself—a potentially worthwhile organization.110 Increasingly on his mind was the fact that Becu’s term as general secretary was coming to an end; there would soon be talk of a succession. Although he himself had vacillated in the past over joining the ICFTU staff, he had never entirely abandoned the idea of filling the top post. Certainly he never conceded that anyone else was better qualified for the job.

Many people reading his vitriolic reports would have drawn the logical conclusion that the ICFTU was, from top to bottom, a lost cause and best abandoned. That surely was their long-term impact on George Meany. But Brown believed that he could continue to fire salvo after salvo of wounding criticism and still expect the organization to survive intact and be in a position to furnish him with an international stage on which to perform. That was his assumption when he told George Meany in June 1964: “If the present [ICFTU] situation is not changed very soon—and this means in one way or another a new leadership—there will be little hope at the next Congress in 1965 to save the situation.”111 Five months later, in another knowing nudge, Meany was reminded of the absence on the scene of any credible successor to Becu, especially with the recent resignation of Stefan Nedzynski, and Brown reported that most people he talked with in Europe wanted to know what the Americans proposed to do about it.112

Heading for the Amsterdam Congress

As the ICFTU’s 1965 congress in Amsterdam approached, the launch of the African-American Labour Centre (AALC) revived the vexed question of Brown’s dual role, working for the ICFTU while undertaking activities on behalf of the AFL-CIO. Only relatively late in the negotiations with AID over the centre’s shape and funding did Lovestone suggest that Brown discuss with Meany the obvious conflict of interest involved in Brown becoming executive director: “It is better to clear the matter thoroughly. . . . I am not the only one who sees the need of such consideration. Others have posed the problem.”113 Meany and Brown met in Geneva two weeks later to review the AALC project. Whatever passed between them on the undoubted conflict of interest, Brown clearly considered it insufficiently important to record in his report back to Lovestone. There was absolutely no doubt that Meany understood the AALC position to be a full-time job; Brown had told him quite specifically that he would be able to devote himself “full time,” especially as the UN General Assembly was not in session.114

Sight of the official AALC press release announcing Irving Brown’s appointment in September was the first confirmation Omer Becu had that Brown would be running the new institute. He had not been consulted about the project, nor was its launch discussed at the ICFTU executive board in November–December. On that occasion, Meany heaped insult on injury when he brought with him a cheque for the AFL-CIO contribution to the solidarity fund and, not for the first time, decided against handing it over. Brown described how “the general secretary . . . presented a pitiful picture of a beaten, psychologically and possibly physically sick man.”115 Becu waited a couple of months before writing to Brown to protest at the obvious discourtesy of not discussing the AALC with him.116 Brown’s response was simply to write back three weeks later affirming, without comment, that he accepted the statement of allegiance that all staff members of the ICFTU were bound by.

Becu had not previously risked challenging Brown’s loyalty throughout his long months of disobedience by invoking the allegiance clause, doubting that the wording was sufficiently unambiguous to withstand a challenge. But now he proposed an amendment to the statement at the March 1965 ICFTU executive board, the effect of which was specifically to bar staff members from taking up other jobs or functions, whether paid or unpaid, without the written permission of the general secretary. The amendment was approved, with Meany dissenting. The AFL-CIO president pointed out that Brown was acting unpaid as head of the AALC, of which he himself was the chairman. The objectives of the centre were clear, and he defied anyone to show that they were in any way contrary to ICFTU policy. The charge of “incompatibility,” he said, was simply a pretext to get rid of Brown, and he would not be a party to it.117

In follow-up correspondence with Becu, Meany asserted that hitherto there had been no confusion arising from Brown’s holding two responsibilities and that he had never taken “instructions from any national or outside international organization which might interfere” with his duties. Moreover, Brown had put in far more hours for the ICFTU than a 100 percent commitment to the job required, and Meany suggested that his work for AALC would enhance his contribution to the ICFTU. As the amended statement gave the general secretary the right to authorize staff to hold additional positions, Meany therefore requested Becu to do so in this case. He signed off in breezy fashion: “Looking forward to hearing favourably from you on this matter.”118

Persisting with the financial squeeze on the ICFTU, Meany concurrently won the backing of the AFL-CIO executive council to demand a full ICFTU accounting of all contributions made to the solidarity fund since 1961 (which he reckoned might amount to $3 million) and the return of the AFL-CIO’s pro rata share of unspent monies. At his regular press conference, Meany tossed out the suggestion that the AFL-CIO might quit the ICFTU, speaking of it as an organization that was “going downhill,” a “real bureaucracy,” and with a staff infiltrated by “fairies” (or “homosexuals,” as the New York Times incorrectly reported him saying).119 His undiplomatic language disturbed even Jay Lovestone, who described his remarks as “an unfortunate occurrence” and commented that “in all good apartment houses the family laundry . . . is not in the front parlour but only in the basement.” At a meeting attended by Washington-based labour attachés, Lovestone also rowed back from Meany’s casual suggestion of a possible American withdrawal from the international: there was no such intention. He did, however, express strong criticism of Geijer, Becu, and their colleagues in their capacities as officials of the ICFTU.120

Yet Meany’s press statement, and especially his gratuitous reference to fairies within the secretariat, became a major issue at the mid-March meeting of the ICFTU executive board, two weeks later. The staff association had cabled Meany asking him to issue a public denial, but none was forthcoming. Meany now took the position that, as the issue was not on the board’s agenda, he was not prepared to answer charges arising from a statement attributed to him by the New York Times. George Woodcock insisted that his position was “indefensible”: a casual denial of the alleged statement at this stage, after it had been repeated and gone undenied for several days, was simply not enough. Meany eventually agreed to provide a written explanation and to meet with representatives of the staff association.121

Meany left the executive board meeting still defiant and immediately gave another press conference at which he talked in more lurid terms about “hidden incomes” being paid in addition to basic ICFTU salaries and of his determination to eliminate practices that were “certainly unethical if not something worse.” He repeated his request for a full accounting, which he felt confident that the auditor was capable of providing. But he also upped his demand for a refund, now calling for it to be backdated not to 1961, as previously indicated, but to 1958, when the international solidarity fund was first launched. Meany followed up with a letter to Becu in which he again registered his dissatisfaction with the latest financial report provided by the general secretary. Exasperated, Becu maintained that he didn’t know what Meany meant: nothing in the accounts was hidden. He also protested that Meany had offered no concrete evidence to support his general claim that, as an organization, the ICFTU was ineffective. Becu’s pride was stung, and he quickly announced to the press that he intended to stand for a further term of office.122

Reporting back on the executive board meeting to his TUC colleagues, Woodcock expressed some sympathy for the AFL-CIO’s wish to spend its money as it thought best but regretted that its self-justification “unnecessarily involved denigration of the ICFTU.” At bottom, Woodcock concurred with the view, also held in Canadian labour circles, that Meany’s demand for a refund sprang from an attitude that the ICFTU should function primarily as an anti-communist organization. That explained most of the sparring over ICFTU finances and Meany’s strong hints about the misuse of funds.123

Meany’s belligerence in the spring of 1965 had aroused widespread resentment, and this was still palpable as the date of the ICFTU’s July congress approached. Arne Geijer wrote to tell Walter Reuther that “the situation of the ICFTU is serious” and that there was a “crisis in confidence.” Writing from Bonn after talks with DGB chairman Ludwig Rosenberg, the Swedish labour attaché reported that Meany’s behaviour had been counterproductive in Europe, his own view being that “irreparable damage” had been done to the ICFTU “by Meany’s decision to bring out all of its differences in the public press.” A week before the congress, Meany arranged a meeting with the ICFTU’s travelling internal auditor, Ernst Smith, to discuss the financial accounts and told him that if, at its meeting in advance of the congress, the International Solidarity Fund Committee didn’t agree to pay back the sum he demanded, the AFL-CIO “would be out of the ICFTU.”124 Among affiliated centres, there was general despair at the state of the ICFTU, and few people viewed the future with optimism. Nevertheless, there was a strong sentiment among European affiliates not to see Becu hounded out of office so cruelly as a consequence of Meany’s unremitting offensive. Yet Becu’s health was failing—indeed, he took a further six weeks’ sick leave in the period between the executive board meeting in March and the July congress—and it was hard to see how the organization would benefit from his re-election.

Despite clear signs that Meany’s behaviour was alienating Europe’s national trade union centres, Irving Brown convinced himself that the Americans could capture the leadership of the ICFTU if only they would apply themselves and orchestrate a vigorous campaign. In a strategy document drafted for Meany in the spring, he expressed genuine concern that the ICFTU was in deep crisis. But, unlike Meany, he was opposed to allowing the organization to collapse further. He urged the federation president to give the green light for a pre-congress campaign to galvanize those affiliates disillusioned with the existing leadership, to sweep Becu aside, and to take over the reins of the ICFTU. Indeed, he seemed ready to believe that he, personally, could play an important role in saving it—even leading it. Many would have considered him delusional, but he encouraged friends to talk up his leadership credentials in the months leading up to the congress, and a document emanating from North Africa that circulated in the early spring of 1965 advanced the case for Brown to replace Becu as general secretary.125

Lovestone followed up with an article for publication under Meany’s name, which borrowed heavily from Irving Brown’s strategy document—especially its focus on the core objective of fighting communism and the need for a dedicated department within the ICFTU to oversee this. It concluded that a “militant and effective” ICFTU was still needed, just as it was in 1949. In delivering the draft to Meany, Lovestone predicted that the article would immediately become the basis of discussion as to what the ICFTU has been and what it has to be in the future.”126

However, even though he put his name to the article, which appeared in both the AFL-CIO News and the Free Trade Union News, and even though Irving Brown was upbeat about the positive reception he claimed the article was receiving internationally, in practice Meany evinced no real sign of enthusiasm for such an American-led campaign within the ICFTU. Years later, Stefan Nedzynski recalled that these attempts by Brown and Lovestone to influence Meany were inevitably doomed:

Meany was by that time convinced . . . of the [ICFTU’s] inherent ineffectiveness. . . . He was no longer interested in reforming the ICFTU but wanted to settle his accounts with Becu and after that to reorganize AFL-CIO international activities on a unilateral [basis]. . . . Brown’s optimism about his chances of election to the [general secretary] post were an excruciating exercise in wishful thinking. . . . [Europeans] would have regarded it simply as scandalous for Meany to propose Brown as the next general secretary. Meany was realistic and knew that, but above all he was not interested in that business at all.127

Facing a threat of a pullout by the AFL-CIO if the rebate demanded by Meany were not paid, the solidarity fund committee agreed unanimously on the eve of the congress to refund $818,000. But if the hope was thereby to reduce the level of acrimony, it was to no avail.128 George Meany approached the July congress, held in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, with the almost cavalier attitude of one who cared little whether the ICFTU survived or perished. On the opening day, he gave a provocative interview to the Amsterdam social-democratic paper Het Parool in which he once again spoke witheringly of the management of ICFTU finances, saying that the organization resembled more a bank than a trade union body and instancing “clever accounting tricks” through which approximately two and a half million dollars were “hidden in funds with incorrect names” instead of being available to help unions in developing countries.129 Arne Geijer, about to retire as ICFTU president, was forced to explain to congress delegates that it all turned on the propriety of establishing reserves consisting of money that had been earmarked for projects that ended up not being pursued so that the funds could be used for other purposes in the future. Becu repeated his insistence that, as chair of the International Solidarity Fund Committee, Meany had regular access to the accounts and that if the financial situation was “news” to him, it should not have been. However, Meany remained combative, retracted none of his criticisms, and concluded his main conference address defiantly: “So that is our story, and if you like it, it is all right, if you do not, it is all right with me.”130

Figure 14.  Walter Reuther (left) and Arne Geijer, ICFTU president, 1957–65. Reuther’s closest ally in Europe, Geijer had little patience with Meany’s belligerence, commenting that “Meany is not a man one can talk to. He is a man who likes to tell people what to do.” Courtesy of Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, Stockholm.

The congress thus began in a state of uproar and continued in a climate soured by the position taken by the AFL-CIO president. Amsterdam 1965 was arguably the lowest point to date in the ICFTU’s troubled history. Omer Becu was duly re-elected at the congress, though it was more a vote of pity than of confidence. His acceptance speech hinted at his eventual retirement and the possibility that he might not even serve a full term. Indeed, the ICFTU soon found itself again drifting aimlessly as Becu was forced to take increasing amounts of sick leave amid rumours that he had suffered a heart attack.

Meany’s standing in Europe was much diminished. A British diplomatic report spoke of the AFL-CIO president excelling himself at Amsterdam by his “impulsiveness, clumsiness and calculated offensiveness,” which brought about the “total isolation of the AFL-CIO within the ICFTU.” Geijer wrote to Becu regretting that “just one person” was responsible for Becu’s difficulties, observing that, had it not been for Meany’s “remarkable interview in the Het Parool” and a bullying move by the AFL-CIO to claim one of the executive board seats reserved for North Americans and traditionally filled by a Canadian delegate, the congress might have been considered a success.131 For his part, Lovestone made a point of checking on reportage in the Swedish labour press, which, he noted, was largely under the control of Geijer’s LO, and wrote to Meany: “I have never read anything more scandalous, more dishonest, more scurrilous against the U.S., its foreign policy, its trade union movement and its leadership.”132

Lovestone was also outraged that the DGB organ Welt der Arbeit described Meany as an “enfant terrible,” with Ludwig Rosenberg quoted as saying that the AFL-CIO president was “too anti-Communist.” Calling on the DGB to repudiate the journalism, Lovestone complained that it was “a vicious, hostile write-up unworthy of an organization . . . which the AFL-CIO has always spared no effort to help.”133 Lovestone linked the anti-American criticisms that followed the congress to more recent news that the TUC was planning to send a delegation to visit the Soviet trade union centre and that the FGTB congress had passed a resolution aiming at possible closer relations with the CGT and CGIL within the European Common Market. By the end of the year he was advising Meany:

I am more and more coming to the conclusion that the Amsterdam barrage against the Americans and particularly you was preconceived and carefully planned with an ulterior motive—the preliminary purpose being to reduce American influence in the ICFTU and to provoke us into non-participation in the ICFTU with a view to opening the doors to the Soviet Communists and their agents in Europe and elsewhere.134

Irving Brown, however, recognized that a large part of the problem was of the Americans’ own making, citing especially their “shoddy performance” on ICFTU finances. He told his secretary that, in the wake of the Amsterdam congress, the position of the AFL-CIO was “far from what it used to be in terms of leadership and influence” in the international movement. During the congress he, personally, felt like “an outsider looking in at a traumatic experience à la Kafka.”135

Still, the logic of Brown’s analysis was that the ICFTU had to survive as a credible organization. At a minimum, it gave the Americans access to organized labour in parts of the world where otherwise they might not be welcome. It was necessary for the AFL-CIO to hang on as a member of the ICFTU and not pass up any opportunity to influence its future direction. What was needed was a more systematic application of the carrot and stick to achieve American ends—which, as in the past, would involve a constantly shifting mixture of programmatic criticism, denigration of personnel, offers of material support with strings attached, and efforts to feed in strategic thinking derived from the federation’s distinctive world view. This had been the AFL-CIO’s approach for most of the ICFTU’s existence. Meany could be relied upon to wield the stick with demands for financial stringency. The task for Brown and Lovestone would be to counterbalance Meany’s negative approach and endeavour to maintain a positive influence at the heart of the ICFTU.

Brown was under pressure from Becu to choose between the directorship of the AALC and his ICFTU post in New York. In August 1965, he notified the general secretary that he would be relinquishing his ICFTU position, but in a friendly gesture he suggested that the date could be by mutual agreement so as to guarantee a smooth transition. He also promised to do everything possible to establish cooperative relations between the ICFTU and the AALC. Becu reciprocated in kind, inviting Brown to continue in the post for as long as necessary while the search went on for an American to replace him. In the event, “as long as necessary” turned out to be eighteen months. In the meantime, Brown met Becu’s request for a memorandum on the future work of the New York office and drafted a budget (which included a provision to increase his own salary). Becu expressed pleasure at Brown’s efforts, and as Brown reported to Lovestone: “all love and kisses and all for cooperation.”136

However, Becu was at this point physically and psychologically unable to handle the pressure of the job of general secretary. To compensate for his unreliability, Bruno Storti, the ICFTU’s newly elected president, proposed to rearrange his own functions as general secretary of CISL and as a Christian Democrat deputy in the Italian legislature so as to be able to function in Brussels as a quasi–“executive president” for six months of the year, provided he had strong American support. But try as he might to woo the Americans, their backing wasn’t forthcoming.137 A cable from the British Embassy in Washington to the Foreign Office summed up what was now becoming clear: “MEANY SAID TO BE NO LONGER INTERESTED IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS. ACTING LIKE A SPOILED CHILD WHO CANNOT HAVE HIS WAY.”138

Under concerted exhortation from Brown and Lovestone, the most Meany would do was submit the name of an AFL-CIO candidate—Morris Paladino, originally with the garment workers and latterly an official of ORIT and AIFLD—for assistant general secretary. But rather than see the offer of Paladino’s services as a gesture of American support, Becu appears to have felt threatened by it.139 The ICFTU general secretary failed to keep an appointment in New York to interview Paladino and shortly afterward was again on protracted sick leave, from September to November 1966. Meany then wrote in his capacity as chairman of the solidarity fund committee, laying down to members basic conditions for the AFL-CIO’s continued backing for the fund. This involved a further restriction in the amount of activity supported by the fund—in effect, cuts worth some $500,000, or almost one-third of the fund’s existing outlay. Meany offered no commitment to maintain future AFL-CIO contributions, even at the reduced level, and warned that if the committee failed to operate within the limits he proposed, then “it would be finished” as far as the AFL-CIO was concerned.140

By this point, the ICFTU executive board had also had enough of Omer Becu and began to look for a replacement. In early January 1967, the general secretary tendered his resignation. It was an inglorious end to the career of a man in whom many had once placed high hopes. His leadership of the ICFTU had been undistinguished, but this was by no means all his fault. Becu was, in fact, the second ICFTU general secretary to have begun office as nominee of the AFL-CIO, only then to fall victim to a wounding American-led campaign against him.

By the beginning of the 1960s, George Meany set little store by the ICFTU, despite the replacement of Jaap Oldenbroek as general secretary by the Americans’ favourite, Omer Becu. The latter’s welcome proposal to revise the modus operandi of the ICFTU and devolve to affiliated centres much of the responsibility for undertaking solidarity work overseas, provided it was done by agreement with the ICFTU, left Meany still aggrieved at Becu’s failure to make good a promise to appoint Irving Brown to a position of influence in the ICFTU secretariat. Hostility to Brown among European affiliates proved too strong for Becu, who quickly realized that he could not deliver on his commitment to Meany. For the AFL-CIO president, the capacity to trust colleagues was fundamental: his inability to do so with Oldenbroek had doomed their relations, and the same factor now threatened to cripple his relations with Becu. It seems quite possible that, had Meany been able to win the backing of fellow leaders of the AFL-CIO in 1961, he would have led the federation out of the ICFTU. Even as chairman of its solidarity fund committee, with responsibility for strategic ICFTU spending decisions, his attitude toward the organization remained at best skeptical.

After Becu appeared to relent by giving Brown responsibility for UN affairs—only then to attempt to restrict his freedom of movement and manoeuvre—Meany’s relations with the general secretary turned openly hostile. Meany demonstrated his capacity for infighting with Becu in brutal fashion from 1963 onward, and as Brown defied Becu, with Meany’s full backing, the latter appeared to care little whether or not the ICFTU survived. What became clear was that the AFL-CIO would not relinquish the right to run its own programs abroad independently of the ICFTU. Irving Brown’s increasing involvement in African labour affairs was testimony to that, although he would claim that he was only compensating for the ICFTU’s failure to deliver on policies to which it was formally committed. The development of the Brown-Meany plan for a dedicated AFL-CIO labour institute for Africa modelled on the recently launched AIFLD, and similarly funded from the US government’s aid budget, marked the big shift in American priorities as relations with the ICFTU went into terminal decline.

The first half of the 1960s saw George Meany in his pomp in international affairs, a man evidently confident in his direction of travel and able to write his own script as he embarked on a new, expanded phase of activity through the three government-funded regional auxiliaries that he envisaged. This was also a period marked by a change in the chemistry between Lovestone and Brown and between the two of them and Meany. Lovestone disapproved of Brown’s move to New York to take charge of the ICFTU’s UN operation and also of the amount of time his former protégé now devoted to Africa. For Lovestone, Europe continued to be the main cockpit in the Cold War: Paris, not New York, was where Brown should be based. But Brown was less inclined than previously to defer to Lovestone, and their partnership would never be quite the same again.

Irving Brown also differed from Meany in his assessment of the ICFTU’s potential, viewing it as capable of reform if only the AFL-CIO top leadership would devote more time to making the organization work. Yet Meany was largely deaf to Brown’s argument. He was likewise unmoved by Lovestone’s reservations about the AFL-CIO move to create the “auxiliary institutes,” a development always likely to diminish the importance of the international affairs department and thereby Lovestone’s own role. The signs were that Jay Lovestone’s importance to George Meany as an advisor on international affairs was waning, even as he was confirmed as Mike Ross’s successor as director of the international affairs department. The appointment of Meany’s son-in-law, Ernie Lee, effectively as a gatekeeper to the president’s office, was the most obvious indicator of that.

For Walter Reuther, the prospects for a new relationship between the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU under Becu soon palled as Meany’s disenchantment with the ICFTU general secretary grew. Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there had been much speculation within the AFL-CIO about a possible Reuther challenge to Meany for the presidency, but the UAW president’s support among other union leaders had fallen away thereafter. He was unable to check Meany as he turned firmly against the ICFTU and began to restrict its funding. And it was against this background that Walter Reuther now forged ahead with the UAW’s own ambitious international program.