Notes (continued)

Chapter 6: Into the 1960s

1. The phrase “the year of Africa” was coined by UN under-secretary Ralph Bunche with reference to the “explosive rapidity” with which Africans were emerging from colonialism. Paul Hoffmann, “Bunche Says ’60 Is Year of Africa,”‘ New York Times, 16 February 1960.

2. Press statement by Senator John F. Kennedy, 1 December 1960. Cited in John C. Stoner, “Anti-communism, Anti-colonialism, and African Labor: The AFL-CIO in Africa, 1955–1975,” 228; “Khrushchev Lauds Anti-Colonial Fight,” New York Times, 28 December 1960.

3. Lovestone to Brown, 5 January and 26 January 1959, IAD Brown files, box 29, file 18; P. Lavon to Meany, 10 April 1960, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 10, file 11; Meany to J. Avrech, 6 June 1960, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 10, file 8; “A Labour School Opens in Israel,” New York Times, 19 October 1960; Meany to Avrech, 23 November 1960, Avrech to Meany, 28 December 1960, and Meany to Avrech, 12 January 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 10, file 8.

4. Springer to Meany, 13 January 1959, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 14, file 14.

5. Brown to Lovestone, 23 January 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960.

6. Transmittal slip, Springer to Rosy Ruane, June 1960, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 10, file 8.

7. Ross to Brown, 30 October 1959, IAD Brown files, box 30, file 18.

8. Brown to Meany, 12 May 1960, Meany files, 1947–60, box 57, file 9; Brown to Lovestone, 2 June 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960; Irving Brown, “Confidential,” 7 July 1960, IAD Brown files, box 1, file 21.

9. Five months later, Mboya reminded Brown that “the airlines have been after me.” Mboya to Brown, 4 November 1960, IAD Brown files, box 30, file 11.

10. David Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget, 146–47, 150–52, 160; Brown to Ross, 13 January 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; Brown to Ross, 7 November 1960, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 19; Mboya to Becu, 30 November 1960, IAD Brown files, box 30, file 11; Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya, 158.

11. “Letter from Irving Brown,” 30 July 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960; Becu to Meany, 8 February 1961, IAD Brown files, box 23, file 12; Brown to Ross, 7 November 1960, and enclosing untitled report dated 5 November 1960, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 19; Yevette Richards, Maida Springer: Pan-Africanist and International Labor Leader, 212. During the visit, Brown met Lumumba’s former press secretary, Serge Michel, and agreed to try to arrange for publication in the United States of a series of articles he was writing on the deposed prime minister. But he met strong resistance from Lovestone, who disagreed with his positive assessment of Lumumba, writing waspishly that, while he wouldn’t call him “a direct agent of Moscow,” he knew “much better and stronger people who were.” Lovestone to Brown, 18 November 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960. At the time of the visit, Lumumba was still at large. He was later arrested and in January 1962 murdered by Belgian troops before CIA plans to assassinate him could be put into effect.

12. “Letter from Irving Brown,” 16 October 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 12, file 17.

13. Krane to Millard, May 1961, Krane papers, box 14, file 18; Brown to Ross, 18 October 1960, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 18; Richards, Maida Springer, 216–21, 226–33; Springer, “Summary of Six Weeks in Africa, 21 September–6 November 1960,” 14 November 1960, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 14, file 3; T. H. Mothibe, “Zimbabwe: African Working Class Nationalism, 1957–63,” 178; Brown to Ross, 14 June 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 21.

From the moment that the Southern Rhodesian Trade Union Congress affiliated to the ICFTU, Nkomo and Mugabe opposed Jamela, seeing membership in the ICFTU as a challenge to their concept of pan-Africanism and at odds with the correct relationship of the trade unions to the nationalist party, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union. The fact that Brown was Jamela’s patron, and especially the practice whereby AFL-CIO financial assistance was paid to Jamela personally (funds over which he retained tight control), were matters that aroused understandable suspicion in SRTUC circles. Jamela also insisted that the SRTUC should exercise autonomy, remaining independent of the nationalist movement. In consequence, he was portrayed as a “sell-out,” and he and his family were eventually in physical danger. Ultimately, his intransigence led to his expulsion from the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, following which the ICFTU decided to end material support for the trade union centre and to redirect it to the party. Timothy Scarnecchia, The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1960–1964, 101–24.

14. Lewis to author, 23 July 1998.

15. Brown to Lovestone, 6 July 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 698, file: Irving Brown. Lovestone was in full agreement that Brown would be unwise to accept the bureaucratic role of assistant general secretary. A month earlier, when Oldenbroek’s future as general secretary was still unresolved, Lovestone had warned: “Whether Oldenbroek, Shodenbroek or Geiger will be Gen Sec, I think your mobility and effectiveness would be destroyed if you became part of a so-called bureaucratic team with Mapara, Pateet and Vic Feather.” (The three named were all rumoured to be possible candidates for such appointment.) Lovestone to Brown, 6 June 1960, IAD Brown files, box 29, file 20.

16. Lovestone to Brown, 11 July 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960.

17. Becu to Geijer, 13 September 1960, Geijer personal papers, box 14; Reuther to Becu, 22 November 1960, Becu papers (ICFTU); Krane to Victor Reuther, 17 January 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 51, file 15. George Weaver and Rudy Faupl were both to play significant roles in international labour affairs, though not as ICFTU assistant general secretaries.

George L. P. Weaver (1912–95) began work as a redcap in Chicago. In 1940, he became assistant to CIO secretary-treasurer Jim Carey. Within the merged AFL-CIO he was responsible for civil rights. In 1958, he rejoined Carey in the electrical workers union as assistant to the president. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he was appointed assistant secretary of labour for international affairs and, as such, was chairman of the ILO’s governing body in 1968. In 1969, he joined the staff of the ILO and worked as special assistant to the director-general. Over the prospect of going to work for the ICFTU in 1960, he told the British labour counsellor that as a black trade unionist he would not want to get involved in the “African situation” as long as Lovestone and Brown were riding high in the AFL-CIO. A. M. Morgan to A. G. Wallis, 16 February 1960, LAB 13/1459. Equally, Lovestone was hardly likely to accept Weaver as the ICFTU’s “American Assistant General Secretary,” regarding him as a “scheming factionalist.” Lovestone to Brown, 18 July 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

Rudy Faupl (1908–81) emigrated from Hungary and joined the machinists’ union in Milwaukee in the late 1920s. He was appointed organizer with the Wisconsin State Federation of Labour in 1936. By the 1950s, he was responsible within the machinists for international affairs and, from 1957 to 1972, served as the US worker delegate to the ILO. Quietly effective as a conciliator, he was trusted by people from both former wings of the movement and generally regarded as a safe pair of hands.

18. Brown to Ross, 15 November 1960, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 18.

19. Brown to Meany, 29 September 1960, Meany files, 1947–60, box 58, file 2.

20. Brown to Ross and Lovestone, 14 November 1960, Meany files, 1947–60, box 58, file 2.

21. Irving Brown, “Report on ICFTU Executive Board,” 7 December 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 12, file 17; agenda item 3a: “Structure of the ICFTU Secretariat,” item 4a: “Tasks of the ICFTU and Its Affiliates,” item 4b: “Relations Between the ICFTU and Its Regional Organizations,” and item 4c: “Relations Between ICFTU and ITS,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 28 November–2 December 1960, ICFTU Archives, folder 103a.

22. Ross to Lovestone, 6 December 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 542, file: Michael Ross; Krane to Victor Reuther, 10 December 1960, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 123, file 13; Millard to Eileen and Bert, 29 November–3 December 1960, Margot Thompson fonds, MG31 B 28, vol. 2, file: C. H. Millard, 1956–61, LAC; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 16 December 1960, Victor Reuther papers, box 26, file 25; Victor Reuther to Geijer and Becu, 6 January 1961, Geijer personal papers, box 58; “Personal Notes Dictated by Walter Reuther,” 8 March 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11; H. F. B. Fane to A. J. S. James, 15 December 1960, LAB 13/1460.

23. AFL-CIO News, 10 December 1960; Becu to Geijer, 12 December 1960, Geijer personal papers, box 14; Geijer to Walter Reuther, 15 December 1960, Geijer personal papers, box 54; Lovestone to Brown, 13 December 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 12, file 17; Ross cable to Brown, 21 December 1960, and Ross to Brown, 22 December 1960, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 19; Victor Reuther to Geijer and Becu, 6 January 1961, Geijer personal papers, box 58; Meany to Reuther, 25 January 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 21; “Personal Notes Dictated by Walter Reuther,” 8 March 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

24. Lovestone to Brown, 23 January 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1; Ross to Brown, 23 January and 27 January 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20; “Personal Notes Dictated by Walter Reuther,” 8 March 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

25. “AFL-CIO and the ICFTU,” 4 March 1961, Geijer personal papers, box 58.

26. Walter Reuther to Meany, 14 February 1961, Becu papers (ICFTU); Ross to Brown, 27 January 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20; Walter Reuther to Meany, 2 March 1961, Becu papers (ICFTU); “Personal Notes Dictated by Walter Reuther,” 8 March 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11; Walter Reuther to Meany, 8 March 1961, Becu papers (ICFTU); Meany to Becu, 9 March 1961, Geijer personal papers, box 58.

27. Brown to Becu, 30 January 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

28. Brown to Ross, 8 February 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20.

29. Ibid.

30. “Notes on Africa by Irving Brown,” 19 February 1961, IAD Brown files, box 7, file 12; Irving Brown, “ICFTU 21st Executive Board Meeting,” 18 March 1961, IAD Brown files, box 23, file 3.

31. Brown to Ross, 8 February 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20; Brown to Ross, 14 March 1961, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 2.

32. Irving Brown, “ICFTU 21st Executive Board Meeting,” 18 March 1961, IAD Brown files, box 23, file 3; Becu to Lovestone, 8 February 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 12.

33. Brown to Meany, 19 June 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1; Brown to Ross, 14 June 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 21.

34. George Woodcock (1904–79) started work as a cotton weaver in Lancashire at the age of twelve. In his mid-twenties, he won a trade union scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, and later obtained a degree from Oxford University. Following two years as a civil servant, in 1936 he joined the TUC as head of its economics department and, in 1947, was promoted to assistant general secretary. Aloof and deeply intellectual, he was prone to treat union meetings as though they were seminars, causing puzzlement among delegates at one TUC annual conference when he famously posed the question: “What are we here for?” “Memorandum of Interview: Discussion with Mr. Walter Reuther, AFL-CIO, 7 May 1959,” TUC Archives, MSS 292/973/16.

35. Woodcock was, for example, disturbed over the $60,000 allocated from the solidarity fund to build the ICFTU College in Kampala. Minutes of joint meeting of TUC International Committee and TUC Commonwealth Advisory Committee, 9 March 1959, TUC Archives, MSS 292/901/15; Woodcock to Oldenbroek, 23 April 1959, TUC Archives, MSS 292/919.66/2. Victor Reuther was concerned at the new general secretary’s attitude toward the ICFTU and urged his brother to stop over in London for a talk with him on his next visit to Europe, telling him: “There is a danger that Woodcock may develop a disinterest in the ICFTU because of the new AFL-CIO tensions and the net effect of this would be to further erode the ICFTU position.” Six months later, Victor Reuther declared himself “very disturbed” about the TUC’s continuing negative attitude as reflected in its wish to abolish the solidarity fund. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 25 January 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 18, and 8 August 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 3.

36. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 28 November–2 December 1960, ICFTU Archives, folder 104a.

37. Ross to Lovestone, 6 December 1960, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 542, file: Michael Ross. The sum included $75,000 that the Americans had earmarked for Nigeria, the purpose of which Becu queried, since no such sum had been requested by the Nigerian unions. Becu to Meany, 8 February 1961, IAD Brown files, box 23, file 12.

38. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 13–16 March 1961, ICFTU Archives, folder 105a; minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 30 October–2 November 1961, ICFTU Archives, folder 106a; Nedzynski to author, 15 April 1999. Stefan Nedzynski (1919–2008) was born in Poznan and served three years in a labour camp following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. On release, he joined the Polish army, fighting in the Middle East and Italy. Refusing to be repatriated after the war, he completed his university studies in Britain and worked for the Post Office Engineering Union before moving to the economics department of the ICFTU in the early 1950s. In 1958, he joined the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) and rose to assistant general secretary. Becu recruited him to the ICFTU in 1961, and he worked for three years as assistant general secretary responsible for organizing, before rejoining the PTTI in 1964 as general secretary. He was proposed as a candidate for ICFTU general secretary when Becu retired but was vetoed by George Woodcock on grounds that he had already quit jobs with the ICFTU twice before. Staunchly anti-communist, he instinctively sympathized with many positions adopted by the AFL-CIO in the Cold War but found working with George Meany difficult. In retirement, he represented Solidarność (Solidarity) overseas.

39. Brown to Lovestone, 8 June 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1; Brown to Ross, 14 June 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 21; Brown to Meany, 19 June 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1; Ross to Brown, 21 June 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20.

40. “Statement to the Executive Board by the General Secretary of the ICFTU on the AATUF [Conference] Held in Casablanca,” 26 June 1961, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 14, file 15; “Africa: The Casablanca Trade Union Conference”: “Statement by N.O. Eshiett” and “Comments by Ahmed Tlili,” Free Trade Union News, June 1961. Becu wrote to Geijer: “I have . . . no hesitation in saying that the Casablanca Conference was [a] hundred per cent political in character and worse than that, there was a real indication that it was communist inspired.” Becu to Geijer, 4 July 1961, Geijer personal papers, box 17; Stefan Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement” (typescript, 1992), 88–89; Nedzynski to author, 20 October 2004.

41. Irving Brown, untitled report, 6 October 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63. Jay Lovestone was unhappy with Brown’s “unorthodox” approach in believing that he could control Ben Seddik and so act as a restraining influence on AATUF. He had never wavered from his original opinion, formed in the mid-1950s, that Seddik was wholly untrustworthy. He was therefore against giving him any help. By all means try to win him over, but Brown needed to remember that Seddik “uses the ICFTU” and is “the leader of an African group urging a break with the ICFTU.” Lovestone to Brown, 18 July 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63. Yet Brown never completely lost faith in Ben Seddik, telling Lovestone: “There is an outside chance that he will make an important turn in the pan-African movement. If our people remain united, there is a real possible split on the issue of disaffiliation and related issues.” Brown to Lovestone, 24 December 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 26. David Brombart, who was present at the 1961 Casablanca conference as an observer and later worked as Brown’s assistant in the AALC, disputes Lovestone’s assessment of Ben Seddik. Brombart shared Brown’s view that Seddik was a nationalist, not a communist, and notes that under his presidency of AATUF over the next decade there was no signed agreement with the WFTU. This was the litmus test for Brown’s strategy. Brombart to author, 2 September 2015.

42. Brown to Ross, 10 August and 15 August 1961, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 20.

43. “Letter from Irving Brown,” 8 June 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63. For Brown’s nuanced assessment of the situation in Africa at this time, see his undated report on the Casablanca conference sent to Lovestone on June 2, 1961. Brown, “Pan-African Trade Union Congress, Casablanca, 25–29 May 1961,” IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

44. Brown to Lovestone, 24 June and 11 August 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; Brown to Ross 14 July 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

45. In Nedzynski’s view, they weren’t. Nedzynski to author, 11 April and 28 July 2004.

46. Becu to Meany, 28 September 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu 1960–65; H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Wallis, 31 January 1962, LAB 13/1615.

47. Becu to Walter Reuther, 19 September 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 124, file 16; Lovestone to Brown, 9 October 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

48. Lovestone to Brown, 9 October 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

49. Brown to Lovestone, 7 November 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

50. Brown’s four-day visit in November 1961 came at a time when the CVT was struggling to survive. Once favoured by the Diem government, it was now subject to repression by this increasingly authoritarian regime. A frequent contributor to the Free Trade Union News, Phan Quang Dan, was imprisoned, and Tran Quoc Buu, president of the CVT, was also considered to be at risk. Brown’s presence signalled American support for both of them. His report on the trip noted both the recent successes of the Viet Cong in identifying with the masses and, in contrast, the corruption and ineffectiveness of the Diem government. Tran Quoc Buu greatly impressed him, and it was in connection with Brown’s talk of a “total fight against a total enemy” that the latter suggested a paramilitary role for the CVT, going beyond labour’s traditional social and political role. Intriguingly, he also wrote that Buu might be considered “in terms of any possible reshuffling of the political control of the government.” Irving Brown, “Report on Vietnam Trip,” 17–21 November 1961, cited in Edmund Wehrle, “‘Reprehensible Repercussions’: The AFL-CIO, Free Trade Unionism, and the Vietnam War, 1947–75,” 165–69. See also Edmund F Wehrle, Between a River and a Mountain: The AFL-CIO and the Vietnam War. Wehrle provides the most detailed account of AFL-CIO activities in Vietnam. Brown’s 1961 trip can be seen as the real beginning of a continuing attempt by the AFL-CIO to influence the political course in South Vietnam via the CVT. As we shall see, the scope for such activity increased with the overthrow of Diem in 1963 and the expanding US military involvement in Vietnam from 1964.

51. Becu to Meany, 28 September 1963, Becu papers (ICFTU). It was all so characteristic of Becu’s indecisiveness and his tendency, when in a tight spot, to try to play both sides of the fence.

52. Becu’s occasional, unexplained illnesses dated back to his ITF days. In the ICFTU, where they became more frequent and disabling, people tended to refer to Becu’s “migraines,” but Harold Lewis, who worked with him at the ITF, considers they may have been more symptomatic of a “nervous breakdown.” Lewis to author, 3 December 2009.

53. H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Wallis, 17 November 1961, LAB 13/1514.

54. Brown to Lovestone, 7 November 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; Brown to Becu, 27 December 1961, IAD Brown files, box 23, file 12; Brown to Lovestone, 8 January 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

55. Brown to Lovestone, 8 January 1962, and minutes of joint meeting of ICFTU International Solidarity Fund Committee and ICFTU Finance Sub-Committee, 18–19 January 1962, IAD Brown files, box 24, file 18.

56. Brown to Lovestone, 14 January 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; Brown to Ross, 27 December 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; “Re: Conversation with George Meany,” n.d. [February? 1962], IAD Brown files, box 33, file 17.

57. Unsigned, untitled memorandum, 27 January 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1. Formerly associated with the hatters union, Braunthal had worked in the ICFTU secretariat for ten years and was keen to return to the United States.

58. Brown to Ross, 30 January 1962, IAD Brown files, box 33, file 22; Brown to Meany, 5 February 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

59. Lovestone to Meany, 8 February 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany 1960–69.

60. Becu to Brown, 24 March 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1; Brown to Meany, 26 March 1962, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 3; Brown to Lovestone, 27 March 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

61. ICFTU Report of Seventh World Congress, Berlin, 5–13 July 1962 (Brussels: ICFTU, 1962), 21; Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 68.

62. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, Berlin, 12 July 1962, ICFTU Archives, folder 107; Brown to Meany, 23 July 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63. The TUC delegation that took exception to Brown’s travels was by no means made up of people with an anti-American bias. Apart from Frank Cousins, the other six elected members were all from the mainstream or right wing of the movement. Brown gave no particular reason for the planned African trip other than that various African leaders had invited him. Becu to Meany, 28 September 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu, 1960–65. On the question of his entitlement to travel to Africa, he was supported by Becu’s deputy, Stefan Nedzynski, who reminded the general secretary of a recent conversation when Brown talked of the need to keep up his interest in Africa. On that occasion, Becu had responded by instructing Nedzynski to cooperate with him in such situations. But Becu gave Nedzynski short shrift, and as the latter recalled: “Becu coldly told me to mind my own business and not to get involved in something that was of no concern to me.” Nedzynski to author, 2 December 2003; Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 94.

63. Brown to Becu, 28 July 1962, IAD Brown files, box 7, file 12; Brown to Meany, 24 August 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Becu 1960–65.

64. Brown to Lovestone, 16 December 1962, and Brown to Meany, 19 December 1962, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 23.

65. Brown to Meany, 24 August 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu, 1960–65.

66. Meany to Becu, 30 August 1962, Becu to Meany, 28 September 1962, and Meany cable to Becu, 4 October 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu, 1960–65; Mboya to Meany, 27 September 1962, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 11, file 5. In Brown’s correspondence files on this topic (IAD Brown files, box 7, file 12), there is a single page, undated and apparently from a longer letter to him, possibly from Mboya, which reads: “The only way to save the situation in Africa now is not through the ICFTU as such, but through dedicated democrats and fighters like yourself and a few others; the programme henceforth should increasingly place emphasis on direct relations between the national centres in Africa and their counterparts like the AFL-CIO. To use the ICFTU organ now is to refuse to recognize the need for a change in tactics. . . . By all means we shall defend the ICFTU and affiliation to it, but by itself alone it will not be enough.”

67. Lovestone to Brown, 31 October 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

68. Brown to Lovestone, 21 November 1962, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Wallis, 8 December 1962, LAB 13/1615. Revealing a remarkable capacity to remain above the fray, Ross wondered why Becu put up with being hammered from left and right, first by the AFL-CIO and then the TUC. Why, he pondered, didn’t he just tell Meany and Woodcock to get together and reach an understanding so that he and the ICFTU could get on with their job?

69. Lovestone to Brown, 17 December 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1.

70. Brown to Becu, 12 January 1963, Becu papers (ICFTU); Brown to Lovestone, 6 January 1963, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

71. Brown to Lovestone, 16 December 1962, and Brown to Meany, 19 December 1962, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 23.

72. Untitled document, 10 January 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 25.

73. H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Read, 15 September 1964, LAB 13/2015. Following military service in the US Marines, Ernie Lee had gained limited experience of trade unionism from working in the South American regional office of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical and Technical Employees in Lima. Ironically, Lovestone had been behind Lee’s hiring by the AFL-CIO, suggesting it to Meany in an attempt to curry favour. It reflected his manipulative side, and he did it without consulting Ross, who was his boss. Ross’s secretary, Rosy Ruane, recalled that on learning of Lee’s appointment, Ross had thrown up his hands in horror. He then told her to “teach him [Lee] the job.” She duly gave up her Thanksgiving weekend to do so. A few days later, she saw his paycheque and noted that it was double her salary. “A girl remembers such a thing,” she mused thirty-three years later. After Lovestone had succeeded Ross and grew frustrated with Lee, she would tease him, telling him he only had himself to blame for suggesting that Lee be hired in the first place. Author interview with Rosy Ruane, 14 January 1995.

74. Brown to Meany, 19 December 1962, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 23.

75. Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record: Meeting with President Meany,” 7 February 1963, IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8; The Scope and Distribution of United States Military and Economic Assistance Programs: Report to the President of the United States from The Committee To Strengthen the Security of the Free World (Washington, 1963).

76. By including in his resolution this reference to a role for employers, he was replicating the practice adopted in AIFLD. Untitled draft (“A new chapter has been opening up . . .”), n.d. [1963?], IAD Brown files, box 1, file 23.

77. Brown to Lovestone, 29 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

78. Lovestone to Brown, 7 August 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 29.

79. Lovestone to Victor Reuther, 24 April 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 27, file 15.

80. Irving Brown memorandum: “Possible Projects for Proposed Afro-American Labour Centre,” 11 August 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 29. In 1963, when the idea of the AALC was first discussed, Ernie Lee seemed to assume that he would become director and had even hired a representative, Rowland P. Pollard, to work in North Africa. Pollard quit his job after a few months.

81. John P. Windmuller, “Leadership and Administration in the ICFTU: A New Phase of Development,” 150–55, 167, 169; Victor Reuther to Windmuller, 11 March 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 10.

82. Minutes of joint meeting of ICFTU International Solidarity Fund Committee and ICFTU Finance Sub-Committee, 14–15 January 1963, ICFTU Archives, folders 879–84; Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 94; Nedzynski to author, 8 August 2004.

83. The IMF had received $30,000 from the International Solidarity Fund toward important organizing work among Latin American metalworkers in 1961, and this was now beginning to pay dividends. But Meany closed the door to any further assistance.

84. Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record: Meeting with President Meany,” 7 February 1963, IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8. A prime example of how Meany and Brown differed over the ICFTU arose six weeks after the launch of the AALC when the ICFTU executive board appointed a working party to review its work in Africa, which most now accepted had been a failure. Among the topics to be considered by the working party was a revised approach that would prioritize such things as vocational training, the promotion of worker cooperatives, housing schemes, and other tools of economic development that the AALC had recently agreed were central to its own approach. Brown regarded the move by the ICFTU as a positive development and, recognizing that it still had a vital role as a clearing house and coordinating centre for devolved solidarity activities in Africa, urged Meany to insist on a seat for the AFL-CIO on the working party beside the three members already appointed—George Woodcock, Donald MacDonald, of the CLC, and Ludwig Rosenberg, of the DGB. But Meany wasn’t interested and declined his advice. When the African unions also requested a seat on the working party, Meany opposed their demand as pointless. And when Tunisia’s Ahmed Tlili remonstrated with Meany for being so negative, the AFL-CIO president rounded on him and told him angrily that he didn’t give a damn for the working party, nor did he consider the ICFTU up to handling problems in Africa. He added: “If things have to be done and money spent in Africa, then I can tell you we are not going to do it through the ICFTU. I’ll give it to Irving Brown to do it.” Irving Brown, “Some Private Notes on the ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964,” IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8; agenda item 4a: “Africa,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964, ICFTU Archives, folder 127.

85. Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 94–95.

86. Walter Reuther to Geijer, 24 January 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 60, file 5; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 18 January 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 4; Becu to Walter Reuther, 8 February and 19 February 1963, Becu papers (ICFTU); Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 1 October 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box, file 4; Walter Reuther to Geijer, 15 August 1963, Geijer personal papers, box 65.

87. Nedzynski to author, 11 July 2004, 9 December 2004.

88. “WPR Notes for George Meany file,” 22 March 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

89. Becu to Brown, 28 January, 29 July, and 10 August 1964, ICFTU Archives, folder 5067.

90. Becu to Brown, 10 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 24; Becu to Brown, 21 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu, 1960–65; Brown to Becu, 31 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 24.

91. Windmuller, “Leadership and Administration,” 151.

92. Becu to Brown, 10 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 24; Kalmen Kaplansky, “Observations on Certain Aspects of International Labour Activities,” 9 January 1964, CLC Archives, reel H-193.

93. It was in the course of these visits that Brown first made the acquaintance of Nana Mahomo, an official of the Pan-African Congress in exile. In the 1980s he was hired by the AALC to take charge of training South African trade union leaders, and as such played a significant part in shaping AFL-CIO policy toward South Africa in the final years of apartheid.

94. Meany to Ross, 13 August 1963, Meany files, 1940–80, box 60, file 19; Brown to Lovestone, 29 July 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 25; Brown cable to Meany, 5 August 1963, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

95. Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 95.

96. Minutes of International Solidarity Fund Committee meetings, 5–6 December 1963 and 3–4 December 1964, ICFTU Archives, folders 112 and 127; agenda item 7: “Conclusions of 19th and 20th International Solidarity Fund Committee Meetings on the Future of the International Solidarity Fund,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 2–4 March 1964, ICFTU Archives, folder 119; Irving Brown, “Some Private Notes on the ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964,” IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8; Nedzynski, “My Days with International Trade Union Movement,” 95; Nedzynski to author, 15 April 1999 and 12 August 2004.

97. Nedzynski to Becu, 12 September 1964, Becu papers (ICFTU); Nedzynski to author, 12 August 2004; Brown to Lovestone, 20 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

98. Irving Brown, “Report of First Year of the Reorganized Activity of the ICFTU New York Office,” 31 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 24; “Code for Political Prisoners,” New York Times, 6 October 1962; Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record: Meeting with President Meany,” 7 February 1963, IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8.

99. Brown to Becu, 31 May 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 24.

100. Untitled report on ICFTU Executive Board, n.d. [March 1963], IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 16.

101. Ibid. African trade union centres belonging to the ICFTU and Christian IFCTU who were not attracted by the neutralism of AATUF formed the African Trade Union Confederation (ATUC) in 1962 as an expression of pan-Africanism that was still open to organizational links with international bodies outside Africa. It merged with AATUF to form the Organization of African Trade Union Unity in 1973.

102. Brown to Becu, 13 March 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 27.

103. “Re: ICFTU College in Kampala, Uganda, June 1964,” undated memorandum on telephone conversation with Irving Brown from Brussels, Belgium, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 28; Becu to Brown, 8 June 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6.

104. Irving Brown memorandum, “Executive Board Meeting of the ICFTU, Brussels, 30 November–3 December 1964,” IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8.

105. Irving Brown memorandum, “ATUC,” 5 October 1964, IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8. Stefan Nedzynski, who had responsibility for ICFTU liaison with ATUC up to his resignation three weeks prior to this meeting, considered Brown’s dealings here hard to credit and “a pipe dream.” Nedzynski to author, 8 August 2004.

106. Buu to President Johnson, 20 May 1964, IAD Brown files, box 39, file 27; Tran Quoc Buu, “Social Progress Key to Victory in Vietnam,” Free Trade Union News, June 1964.

107. Brown told Meany: “This entire programme will involve a certain amount of financial aid . . . In light of the tremendous amounts spent on the military, it seems . . . that there should be no difficulty in getting sufficient amounts.” He was thinking in terms of $10,000 a month in the first instance, with the amount possibly reducing to zero within two years. This was obviously money that was expected to come mainly from non-trade union sources. Brown pointed out that initially it would require a contribution from the AFL-CIO, “augmented from other sources” but always funnelled through the AFL-CIO–CTV Joint Committee. Brown to Meany, 1 June 1964, and Brown to Lovestone, 20 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65. Five weeks later Brown wrote to Lovestone about his flying visit to Saigon. He had met Jim Killen, AID director in South Vietnam and former vice president of the pulp and paperworkers’ union, who was ready to make “all sorts of financial provisions in a proper way so that there would be very little burden on us. . . . In view of the tremendous amount of money being spent in Vietnam, almost $2 million a day, I don’t think that anyone can begrudge us a very, very small percentage.” Brown to Lovestone, 4 August 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

108. H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Read, 27 July 1964, LAB 13/2012. The AFL-CIO experienced initial difficulties in staffing the Vietnamese operation. Henry Kirsch, a former staff member of the National Committee for a Free Europe and veteran of FTUC fieldwork in the early 1950s, and Thomas Altaffer, who first appeared on the scene in 1963 working in the AFL-CIO’s Paris office after Irving Brown had transferred to the ICFTU, were sent to Saigon in 1965. However, Kirsch objected to having to work with Altaffer, pointing out to Meany that he had “previously been identified as a CIA man,” with the result that “the effort to provide direct AFL-CIO assistance to the CVT was subject to the suspicions of the CIA and U.S. government involvement.” Kirsch to Meany, n.d., IAD Lovestone files, file 63(12). Altaffer was almost certainly with the CIA and had been very anxious that his name not be publicized at a press conference called in Saigon. Earlier Lovestone had considered him for a position with the AALC when that body was first being planned but came to the conclusion that he lacked “seasoning.” Lovestone to Brown, 11 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65. A few months after his short-lived partnership with Kirsch, Altaffer disappeared from the scene, and AFL-CIO files contain no further trace of him.

109. Brown to Lovestone, 1 June and 11 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65. Meany would complain to Geijer of Becu’s indecisiveness, the weakness of his programs, and the fact that he was absent from his office so often, either travelling abroad or on sick leave. Geijer’s response was to tell Meany that it was he who bore responsibility for Becu’s deep insecurity, citing the issue of Brown’s dual role, which Meany condoned. “Meany is a not a man one can talk to. He is a man who likes to tell people what to do,” Geijer later told a press conference. A report of the press conference is contained in an untitled document marked “Limited Use,” dated 15 January 1965 and evidently prepared by the Embassy of the United States, Stockholm, possibly by its labour attaché, J. Kaukonen. See also J. Kaukonen to State Department, 20 January 1965, Meany files, 1940–80, box 62, file 8; “Differences of Opinion Within ICFTU,” Landsorganisationen i Sverige, Information to Foreign Countries, series 3, no. 3 (March 1965), Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, Stockholm.

110. Irving Brown, untitled report on ICFTU Executive Board, n.d. [March 1964], IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 16; Irving Brown memorandum for Meany, “Notes on 21st ISFC Geneva Meeting, 18–19 June,” 17 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 27.

111. Brown memorandum for Meany, “Notes on 21st ISFC Geneva Meeting, 18–19 June,” 17 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 27.

112. Irving Brown, “Some Private Notes on the ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964,” Irving Brown memorandum for George Meany, “Executive Board Meeting of the ICFTU, Brussels, 30 November–3 December 1964,” IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8.

113. Lovestone to Brown, 11 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

114. Brown to Lovestone, 23 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 28.

115. Irving Brown, “Some Private Notes on the Executive Board Meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964,” IAD Brown files, box 18, file 8.

116. Becu to Brown, 18 December 1964, Becu papers (ICFTU).

117. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 15–16 March 1965, ICFTU Archives, folder 127.

118. Becu to Brown, 25 March 1965, Geijer personal papers, box 25; Meany to Becu, 29 April 1965, Becu papers (ICFTU).

119. Meany to Becu, 1 March 1965, IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 19; “AFL-CIO May Stop Funds to World Trade Union Group,” New York Times, 3 March 1965.

120. Lovestone to Brown, 4 March 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65; H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Read, “The AFL-CIO and the ICFTU,” 25 March 1965, LAB 13/2015. What bothered Lovestone was not so much fairies as “communists,” and over the next two years he persisted in the view that there were still some of those on the ICFTU staff. J. J. Watson to J. Oates, 8 November 1967, LAB 13/2432.

121. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 15–16 March 1965, ICFTU Archives, folder 127; Kalmen Kaplansky memorandum for Claude Jodoin, “Report on 36th Executive Board of ICFTU,” CLC Archives, reel H-194; “Crisis in World Trade Unions After U.S. Threat to Leave,” Times (London), 15 March 1965. Meany’s explanation was that, when he said “fairies,” he wasn’t referring to homosexuals but to “ineffectual sort[s] of people,” his disingenuous claim being that this was what the term meant in America and Ireland, where his forebears came from. Becu grudgingly accepted this but still noted that he would be upset if he were called a “fairy.” “International Trade Unions Under Fire,” Times (London), 17 March 1965; “At the Bottom of the Garden,” The Economist, 20 March 1965.

122. Kalmen Kaplansky memorandum for Claude Jodoin, “Report on 36th Executive Board of ICFTU,” CLC Archives, reel H-194; “International Trade Unions Under Fire,” Times (London), 17 March 1965; Meany to Becu, 25 March 1965, Becu papers (ICFTU); Becu to Arturo Jauregui, 25 March 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 40.

123. Minutes of TUC International Committee meeting, 23 March 1965, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901; Kalmen Kaplansky to Donald MacDonald, June 1965, CLC Archives, reel H-436.

124. Geijer to Walter Reuther, 28 April 1965, Geijer personal papers, box 40; Vidkun Ulriksson (Swedish labour attaché in Bonn) to Geijer, 18 May 1965, Geijer personal papers, box 72; “Memorandum of Discussion Between Mr. G. Meany and Mr. E. Smith on Wednesday, 30 June 1965,” and “AFL-CIO Application for Refund of Unspent Allocations,” Becu papers (ICFTU). Ernst Smith was a middle-ranking official of a small British trade union whose occasional work for the ICFTU involved conducting an internal audit of the accounts of its overseas offices and reporting back to the ICFTU finance officer. It is not clear whether Meany considered him a whistle-blower or merely reckoned that a well-publicized meeting with the auditor would help to dramatize his accusations of financial malpractice. According to Stefan Nedzynski (who, until six months earlier, had been an assistant general secretary), Smith was not held in high regard as an auditor and was not taken seriously within the ICFTU, although he was recognized within the organization as a troublemaker. He also noted that Smith seemed to relish the chance to parlay himself into high-level ICFTU policy discussions alongside “big league” players like Meany and Brown, trading on items of information gleaned on his travels. Nedzynski to author, 5 November 2003.

125. Irving Brown memorandum to George Meany, “The ICFTU and Its Future,” n.d. [April 1965?], and “Memorandum on the Leadership of the ICFTU Secretariat,” n.d. [1965], IAD Brown files, box 9, file 14. The author of the last document is unknown, though it was evidently the work of someone based in North Africa who had an interest in the region’s trade unions. It referred favourably to supporters of Irving Brown in UGTA and UMT and went on to float the possibility of a joint ICFTU election slate comprising the Tunisian trade union leader Ahmed Tlili for president and Irving Brown for general secretary. Interestingly, it was written in idiomatic English, suggesting that it could have been the work an American. It remains an intriguing possibility that the author was Rowland P. Pollard, who appeared mysteriously as an “AFL-CIO representative” in Algeria in 1964, having evidently been hired by Ernie Lee. After writing a few reports from the field and contributing a news item on the work of CARE in Algeria for the May 1964 issue of the Free Trade Union News, Pollard soon disappeared from the AFL-CIO books, leaving little trace and with hardly anyone in the federation even aware of his existence. ICFTU assistant general secretary Stefan Nedzynski, who devoted much time to North Africa in that period, claimed never to have heard of Pollard, and yet it seems inconceivable that he would not have been aware of a bona fide AFL-CIO representative working in Algeria. Commenting on the contents of a 1964 report that Pollard had sent to Irving Brown from Algeria, Nedzynski noted that its remarks on the trade union situation were factually incorrect and that the author was “probably not a trade unionist.” “I would not be surprised if it turned out that he worked for intelligence” was Nedzynski’s judgment. Nedzynski to author, 17 January 2005.

126. Lovestone to Meany, 24 May 1965, Meany files, 1940–80, box 60, file 20; George Meany, “The ICFTU: Estimate and Perspective,” AFL-CIO News, 12 June 1965, as well as Free Trade Union News, June 1965.

127. Irving Brown, “Memorandum for Record,” 22 June 1965, Brown files, box 8, file 6; Nedzynski to author, 9 December 2004.

128. Kaplansky to Jodoin, 23 July 1965, CLC Archives, reel 436.

129. “IVVV Schiet te Kort,” Het Parool, 7 July 1965. Lovestone’s biographer quotes Meany as saying in Amsterdam: “I have been in Brussels and looked at the books, but the money is not satisfactorily accounted for.” Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster, 322.

130. “Notes Concerning Mr. G. Meany’s Statement in Het Parool,” n.d. [July 1965], Becu papers (ICFTU); ICFTU Report of the Eighth World Congress, Amsterdam, 7–15 July 1965 (Brussels: ICFTU, 1962), 505–27.

131. “Isolation of the AFL-CIO in the Congress, Amsterdam, 7–15 July 1965,” LAB 13/2015; Geijer to Becu, 18 August 1965, Becu papers (ICFTU). Bill Mahoney, director of the Canadian section of the United Steelworkers, wrote to the union’s American international president, I. W. Abel, to complain that “Meany ran the [North American] delegation this time as a one-man show.” He went on to say: “It is my view, and I know it was shared by a substantial part of the delegations to the World Congress, that Meany presented a horrible and totally incorrect picture of the attitude of the American labour movement toward other unions in the world.” Mahoney to Abel, 23 July 1965, United Steelworkers of America, Canadian Division fonds, MG28 I 268, vol. 33, file 9.

132. Lovestone to Meany, 17 August 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69. Mischievously, in his letter, Lovestone also sought to associate Walter Reuther with the criticisms prevailing in the Swedish labour press. Reuther and his family had recently vacationed in Sweden with the Geijers. “Forgive me,” Lovestone wrote Meany, “I don’t mean the entire leadership. One man is excluded very definitely from the criticism.”

133. “Auch die heißen Eisen wurden mutig angefaßt,” Welt der Arbeit, 16 July 1965; Lovestone to Georg Leber, 21 July 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 15. Lovestone continued to vent his spleen the next day when he cancelled the AFL-CIO subscription to the German Tribune, which provided a digest of news from West Germany. Lovestone to German Tribune, 22 July 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 15.

134. Brown to Lovestone, 11 November 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65; Bergeron to Lovestone, 29 December 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 5; Lovestone to Meany, 31 December 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 40.

135. Brown to Naomi Spatz, 22 July 1965, IAD Brown files, box 1, file 27; “Memorandum for the Record,” unsigned [Irving Brown], [July] 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6.

136. Becu to Brown, 28 July 1965, IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 19; Brown to Becu, 27 August 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 353, file: Omer Becu, 1960–65; Brown to Lovestone, 1 October 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 31; Brown to Meany, 8 October 1965, and Brown to Becu, 28 October 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6; Brown to Lovestone, 9 April 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67.

137. “Memorandum for the Record,” unsigned [Irving Brown], [July] 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6. Storti attended the AFL-CIO convention in December 1965, hoping to elicit a more cooperative response from Meany. Brown urged that, while in the United States, Storti be given plenty of time alone with Meany and that Lovestone impress on the AFL-CIO president the need to be more than simply passive: “There is a chance to do something if anyone is still interested in the ICFTU.” Irving Brown, untitled document (“After one week in Europe . . .”), 8 November 1965, and Brown to Lovestone, 9 November 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

138. British Embassy, Washington, telegram no. 427 to Foreign Office, 3 February 1966, LAB 13/2432.

139. Author interview with John Vanderveken, 21 April 1995.

140. Minutes of ICFTU Sub-Committee meeting, 21 November 1966, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 4.

Chapter 7: Who Speaks for American Labour?

1. A. M. Morgan to A. G. Wallis, 12 February 1960, LAB 13/1459.

2. Reuther was absent from the infamous ICFTU executive board meeting in November 1960, where Meany rounded on Becu for failing to deliver the staffing appointments expected of him. The UAW leader judged that it was more important for him to remain in the United States as President-Elect Kennedy deliberated over appointments to his administration. Indeed, Reuther had already spent several days as a guest in the Kennedy family home on Cape Cod, at Hyannis Port, where he reckoned he had won Kennedy’s support for the idea of the Peace Corps. Anthony Carew, Walter Reuther, 101.

3. Author interview with Joseph Rauh, 7 July 1987.

4. Lovestone to Brown, 13 December 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 12, file 17. That same week, Victor Reuther was a guest of mayor Willy Brandt in Berlin, where he gave a press interview to the Hannover Telegraf. George Meany’s reaction to this interview spoke volumes about the competition for influence then bubbling up between the two camps. In the interview, the younger Reuther presented himself as an intimate of the president-elect, telling the paper that the Reuthers’ relations with the White House were “even closer than those we had with Truman and Roosevelt” and indicating that he knew exactly Kennedy’s mind on how to handle the Berlin crisis. His remarks received wide international publicity and clearly needled Meany, who read them while in Europe for the ICFTU executive board meeting. He forwarded the text to Kennedy’s brother Robert with a sarcastic covering note: “Dear Bob, I thought you might be interested, and perhaps even amused, by the interview given by a spokesman for the new Administration.” Meany to Robert Kennedy, 6 December 1960, Meany files, 1940–80, box 66, file 3.

5. Lovestone to Brown, 18 July 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 28 July 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 1.

6. Lovestone to Brown, 18 July 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1961–63.

7. H. F. B. Fane to A. G. Wallis, two letters of 24 May 1961, LAB 13/1513.

8. “Dictated by WPR,” 14 August 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

9. Adlai Stevenson to Meany, 7 September 1961, Meany files, 1940–80, box 53, file 19; Lovestone to Virginia Tehas, 13 September 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 389, file: Virginia Tehas, 1956–74; Joseph C. Goulden, Meany, 304. It plainly rankled with Reuther that he had been rebuffed, and in an aide-mémoire written shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, he recorded that in their last private conversation, a matter of days before the president’s death, Kennedy had finally agreed to his appointment to the UN delegation in 1964, having concluded that Meany was wrong to veto him. “Dictated by WPR,” 20 February 1964, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

10. Victor Reuther to Harry Pollack, 24 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 25; Walter Reuther to Leo Cherns, 14 May 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 21; Nat Weinberg to Walter Reuther, 25 January 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 66, file 22. Not all delegates to the UAW convention agreed with the use of interest from the strike fund for international programs. This was something Reuther would later have to take on board when a split between the UAW and the AFL-CIO loomed as a reality and he had to persuade members of the case for withdrawing from the AFL-CIO mainly in terms of domestic disagreements rather than differences over foreign policy.

11. Victor Reuther to Claudio Rocchi, 12 October 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 10.

12. “Victor Reuther Statement to IMF Executive Committee, Oslo, 7–10 August 1962,” Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 115, file 24; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 17 July 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 28.

13. “Discussion of Agenda for UAW International Free World Labour Defence Fund Programme with UAW Department Heads,” Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 8; Victor Reuther to Miles Galvin, 18 February 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 7.

14. Since 1959, the IMF had enjoyed some success in Spain in encouraging the formation of a broad alliance of metalworkers embracing all except the communists. Levinson to Victor Reuther, 9 June 1959, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 120, file 3. The 1962 action marked a new phase of anti-Franco agitation, and in 1962, through meetings between Victor Reuther and Ed Murrow, the head of the U.S. Information Service, the UAW was beginning to press the Kennedy administration for a favourable American response.

15. “UAW Donates $10,000 to Spanish Strikers in Struggle for Political Freedom,” Labour News from the United States, June 1962; Victor Reuther to Alberto Uriarte, 5 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 26; Victor Reuther to Gonzalez Malo and Miguel Ortiz, 19 May 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2(33).

16. Draft press release, 3 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 13; Walter Reuther to Aaron Becker, 10 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 14; Walter Reuther to Becu, 18 May 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 33; Herbert Wehner to Victor Reuther, 24 July 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 5; Victor Reuther to Alfred Nau, 10 August 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 8; Walter Reuther to Makris, 18 May 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 33; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 24 June 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 2. The UAW grant and loan to the Greek national trade union centre GSEE was strongly criticized by Irving Brown, who warned Meany to have no truck with a confidential proposal by Becu that the ICFTU should pass Reuther’s money to the Greeks. Brown to Lovestone, 26 January, 11 June, and 22 June 1964, and Lovestone to Brown, 11 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65.

17. Victor Reuther to C. Chakulya, 6 June 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 3; Walter Reuther to Canon Collins, 1 May 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 34, file 20; Victor Reuther to Fritz Heine, 27 June 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 26; Victor Reuther to Anthony Steele, 8 June 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 36; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 7 July 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 4; Carliner to Victor Reuther, 7 August 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 27.

18. Victor Reuther to Geijer, 31 January 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 9, file 25; UAW questionnaire, September 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 32; Victor Reuther to Graedel, 12 November 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 37; Walter Reuther to Mennen Williams, 20 November 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 23; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 8 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 14; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 21 January 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, file 2, box 18; Jim Crellin, “UAW Will Pioneer with World Auto Union Parley Here,” Detroit News, 1 December 1966; Lewis Carliner, “The Dispute That Never Was,” 608.

19. Victor Reuther to Sargent Shriver, 10 November 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 18; Saville R. Davis, “Organized Labour Steps Up International Programmes,” Christian Science Monitor, 16 January 1966; “UAW Overseas Role Is Stressed,” Detroit News, 23 March 1967; Patrick J. Owns, “UAW’s Peace Corps Gets Back in Action,” Detroit Free Press, 18 March 1967.

20. Victor Reuther to Irving Bluestone, 13 March 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 24; Norman Thomas to Walter Reuther, 17 July 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 18, file 3.

21. The concept of world coordinating councils had been germinating in the automobile industry since 1956. Such councils were established on a firm basis in 1964 and, in 1968, at the height of the UAW conflict with the AFL-CIO, began to aim for the coordination of collective bargaining strategies across national frontiers. Walter Reuther, “Mobilize the Unions Against Super Corporations,” Tribune, 6 June 1969. In 1967, seeking to encourage the extension of the concept to other industries, the UAW arranged for a grant of $20,000 to the International Chemical Workers’ Federation, under the leadership of Charles Levinson, to support the organization’s activities in Latin America, after Levinson adopted the UAW model of world coordinating councils for organizing the oil and chemical industries. As a further show of support, the UAW also affiliated to the International Chemical Workers’ Federation. Minutes of IMF Executive Council meeting, Vienna, 23–28 November 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 51, file 6; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 7 June 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 38, file 20.

22. A key consideration in Italy for the UAW leadership was that, among organized metalworkers, the combined membership of FIM (CISL) and UILM (UIL), together with the non-communist membership of FIOM (CGIL), more than matched the size of the majority communist bloc in FIOM.

23. See “JFK, la Nuova Frontiera e il centro-sinistra italiano,” a special issue of Critica sociale (no. 5/6) published in November 2013, on the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s death, including Schlesinger’s article, “Kennedy, Pietro Nenni e la svolta progressista: Il racconto di Schlesinger.” Reuther belonged to a network formed by Schlesinger in April 1962 under the name of the International Study Group on Freedom and Democracy (ISG). Schlesinger steered this body from his office in the White House, with the help of a European secretariat in Bologna led by Fabio Luca Cavazza. Cavazza was editor of the intellectual journal Il Mulino and was well connected in the State Department and to members of the National Security Council. The ISG aimed to bring together figures from the American centre-left with their European counterparts—politicians such as Ugo La Malfa, Erich Ollenhauer, Giuseppe Saragat, Hugh Gaitskell, and Anthony Crosland. Schlesinger consulted Walter Reuther about his project from the outset; the UAW donated $2,500 by way of seed corn, and Victor Reuther served on the ISG advisory council. Former Socialist International official Adolph Sturmthal, who occasionally advised Reuther on international labour issues and was involved in the early stages of setting up the ISG, warned Reuther about the inadvisability of the group hiring a former CIA officer, Dana B. Durand, to work in the secretariat in Washington. This may have deterred the Reuthers from playing a more vigorous role in the organization, though their personal links with Schlesinger remained strong. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, 263–64; “Proposal for a Worldwide Democratic Initiative,” 29 December 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 40, file 23; Dana Durand to Victor Reuther, 27 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 96, file 11; Adolph Sturmthal to Victor Reuther, 5 July 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 40, file 23; Sturmthal to Williams, 4 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 40, file 22; Sturmthal to Walter Reuther, 13 March 1963, and to Victor Reuther, 22 October 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 18, file 1; Victor Reuther to Durand, 11 October 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 11, file 13; Victor Reuther to Durand, 3 November 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 17.

24. Arnold Steinbach to Carliner, 23 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 37, file 17.

25. Walter Reuther to Bruno Storti, 6 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 8; Victor Reuther, “Memorandum to UAW Officers, Executive Board Members and Education-Citizenship Staff,” 6 March 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 1.

26. Walter Reuther to Italo Viglianesi, 6 June 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 27; Victor Reuther to Val Agostinone, 24 May 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 25; Victor Reuther to Corrado de Luca, 4 August 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 2; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 749.

27. On a recent trip to Italy, Harry Goldberg, of the AFL-CIO international affairs department, had been taken aback on being told by Fr. Mario Reina, Pope Paul VI’s one-time trouble-shooter on labour issues, that the pontiff personally supported the turn to the left and was absolutely in favour of Nenni joining a centre-left government. Goldberg also reported his concern at signs that a new generation of militants in CISL were attempting to compete with the CGIL “on class terms” as an instrument of workers’ struggle. Harry Goldberg, “Meetings with Rev. Mario Reina of Italy,” 18 September 1962, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 9.

28. Before the Reuthers travelled to Italy, Arthur Schlesinger arranged for them to brief Assistant Secretary of State Foy Kohler. Victor Reuther to Graedel, 14 March 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 19; Victor Reuther to Paolo Vittorelli, 18 June 1962, and Victor Reuther to Giacomo Brodolini, 29 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 27; Item 6d “Italy,” IMF Central Committee, 8 August 1962, Oslo, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 114, file 10.

29. Victor Reuther, The Brothers Reuther, 352. There could be no doubting the built-in resistance to a change in policy among embassy staff. Ambassador Frederick Reinhardt had complained to President Kennedy about Schlesinger’s “meddling” in Italian affairs. Military attaché Vernon Walters (a future deputy director of the CIA) had actually recommended military intervention if necessary to block the formation of the centre-left government. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., “The Kennedy Administration and the Centre-Left,” 188. In calling for a change of attitude toward the Italian socialists, Walter Reuther was able to cite the most recent formulation of PSI policy on neutralism as furnished by international secretary Paolo Vittorelli and the meaning this had for NATO. It boiled down to an ingenious statement that, while the PSI retained its commitment to neutralism, it accepted that this could not be pursued on a unilateral basis, since to do so would increase rather than ease international tension. In effect, the differences between East and West had to be settled first before Italian neutralism became operational. Vittorelli to Walter Reuther, 21 July 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 96, file 11.

30. Victor Reuther, The Brothers Reuther, 352; author interview with Victor Reuther, 6 July 1987; Victor Riesel, “What’s Behind Meany-Reuther Split?” New York Mirror, 24 October 1962; “Note for George Meany Files,” 14 August 1962, Victor Reuther papers, box 31, file 11.

31. Victor Reuther to Vittorelli, 10 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 14; Victor Reuther to Frank Rosenblum, 18 June 1963, and Victor Reuther to Brodolini, 18 June 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 25.

32. Victor Reuther to Viglianesi, 20 February 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 8; Walter Reuther to Willy Brandt, 3 April 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 27, file 26; Victor Reuther to Nicolo Pistelli, 27 March 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 35, file 17; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 751.

33. The financial request came via Fabio Luca Cavazza. Cavazza to Victor Reuther, 12 July 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 35, file 20; Victor Reuther to Vittorelli, 2 October 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 4; Victor Reuther to Cavazza, 9 October 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 5. Adolphe Graedel (1902–80) was general secretary of the Swiss Watchmakers’ and Metalworkers’ Union (1945–55) and succeeded Konrad Ilg as IMF general secretary from 1955 to 1970. He was close to Victor Reuther during these years of spectacular membership growth.

34. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 12 February 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 19; Dan Benedict to Victor Reuther, 22 April 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 35, file 23; Victor Reuther to Benedict, 28 April 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 31.

35. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 12 February 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 19; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 13 May 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2(32).

36. Giovanni Mosca (1927–2000) was a member of CGIL’s farm labourers’ union and later metalworkers’ union. He was a leader of the PSI in Milan (1961–64) and, as such, helped form the city’s first centre-left administration in 1961. As leader of CGIL’s socialist faction, he served as assistant general secretary from 1964 to 1972. Between 1963 and 1979, he was a socialist deputy in the Italian parliament.

37. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 7 April 1966, Victor Reuther papers, box 36, file 25.

38. Lovestone to Meany, 31 December 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 40; Edward Scicluna to Lovestone, 12 October 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 11; Scicluna to Lovestone, 21 December 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 10; Scicluna to Lovestone, 12 January 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 11; Lovestone to Scicluna, 28 October 1965 and 5 January 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 11; Harry Goldberg, “Italian Trade Union Situation,” 10 January 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 11.

39. Willy Brandt to author, 20 August 1985; Walter Reuther, “Note: Follow Thru Per Conversation with Willy Brandt,” 11 July 1962, UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records, box 463, file 5; Brandt to Walter Reuther, 7 January 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 27, file 24; Victor Reuther to Brandt, 15 January 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 3; Walter Reuther to Brandt, 29 January 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 27, file 24; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 29 March 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 3; Harold Wilson to Walter Reuther, 29 August 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, box 11; Willy Brandt to Walter Reuther, 15 July 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 27, file 28; Walter Reuther to Tage Erlander, 22 July 1963, Victor Reuther papers, box 28, file 1; Weinberg to Walter Reuther, 21 July 1965, Weinberg papers, box 19, file: Chronological File, July–December 1965.

40. Minutes of IMF Central Committee meeting, Lugano, 16–20 September 1957, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 112, file 7; Joe Miyazawa to Graedel, 8 May 1956, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 106, file 11; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 22 July 1958, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 8, file 5.

41. Although Sōhyō’s leadership was generically Marxist rather than communist, about a quarter of its membership were reckoned to be under communist discipline. Sōhyō leaders were often close to Chinese communists whose claim to be “non-aligned” was taken on faith.

42. Lovestone to Meany, 25 March 1953, Meany files, 1947–60, box 56, file 2; Lovestone to Meany, n.d. [October? 1956], Meany files, 1947–60, box 56, file 15.

43. Deverall to Lovestone, 11 September 1956, Meany files, 1947–60, box 56, file 14.

44. Between 1955 and 1961, under the Japan Productivity Centre’s program, 856 Japanese trade unionists visited the United States, of whom 55 percent were from Zenrō unions and only 20 percent from Sōhyō affiliates. Koji Nakakita, “Incorporating Japanese Labour into the Free World: Cold War Diplomacy and Economic Interdependence, 1949–64,” 207, 211.

45. Edwin O. Reischauer, My Life Between Japan and America, 239; Akira Iwai to Walter Reuther, 28 May 1960, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 106, file 21; Ernest Jones, secretary of the Miners’ International Federation, “Report to the International Solidarity Fund Committee, 13–14 June 1960,” ICFTU Archives, folder 193a; Haruo Wada cable to Meany, 20 June 1960, and Wada to Meany, 22 June 1960, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 27, file 12; Lovestone to Meany, 20 June 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 14.

46. Jay Lovestone saw no sign of any real change in Sōhyō’s approach and advised Meany that it was still “the most dangerous enemy of democracy in the Far East alongside the Chinese Commie outfit.” Lovestone to Meany, 31 October 1960, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 14. The recently retired labour attaché in Tokyo, Ed Skagen, a member of the machinists’ union, disagreed, observing: “We cannot take the stand that Sōhyō leadership is completely dominated by the Communist Party as we will eventually defeat our purposes. We must adopt a position of helpful neutrality and let them work out their own answers to their own problems.” Ed Skagen, “What’s Behind the Tokyo Riots,” The Machinist, 7 July 1960; Skagen to Lovestone, 28 July 1960, Meany files, 1947–60, box 57, file 9.

47. Victor Reuther to Dick Kelly, 25 March 1958, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 3, file 28; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, February 1958, Victor Reuther papers, box 25, file 15; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 22 July 1958, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 8, file 5.

48. Reischauer, My Life Between Japan and America, 161–71.

49. Asahi Shinbun, 7 July 1962; Carliner to Victor Reuther, 7 March 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 1; Victor Reuther to Ross, 29 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 25; Victor Reuther to Arthur Goldberg, 31 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 106, file 31.

50. Ambassador, Tokyo, to Department of State, “Formation of Federation of Automobile Workers Unions,” 19 February 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 108, file 1; Becu to Walter Reuther, 1 August 1962, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 28, file 8; Victor Reuther to Carliner, 11 July 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 12.

51. “Joint Statement by Japanese Joint Trade Union Sponsoring Committee and UAW,” 24 November 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 108, file 7; Pollack to Ross, 25 November 1962, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 28, file 8; A. M. Rosenthal, “Japan Is Stirred by Reuther Visit: Union Unity and Better Pay Seen as Possible Results,” New York Times, 2 December 1962; Victor Reuther to Robert Kennedy, 10 January 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 3.

52. Victor Reuther to Becu, 27 March 1963, and Victor Reuther to Harald Simon, 28 March 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 12.

53. H. F. B. Fane to Department, 18 December 1962, LAB 13/1615.

54. “Memorandum of Discussion with Takeo Katayama at University of Illinois, 15 January 1963,” 7 February 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 44, file 23; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 14 January 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 1; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 12 February 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 3.

55. Haruo Wada to Meany, 8 April 1963, and Meany to Wada, 2 May 1963, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 29, file 4. Haruo Wada (1919–99) began work as a qualified mate in the Japanese merchant marine in 1939. In 1945, he joined the All Japan Seamen’s Union, becoming an organizer in 1948. He participated in the formation of Sōhyō in 1950 and was appointed a permanent secretary. Opposed to the leftward drift under Minoru Takano, he was a central figure in the AFL-backed breakaway that led to the formation of Zenrō in 1954, becoming its first general secretary. With Zenrō’s absorption into Dōmei in 1964, he was elected vice president. As a member of the Democratic Socialist Party, he served as a deputy in the lower house of the Diet from 1969 to 1972 and in the upper house from 1974 to 1979.

56. Haruo Wada, “Free Trade Unionism in Japan: Retrospect and Prospect,” Free Trade Union News, June 1963.

57. Wada to Meany, 4 June and 4 September 1963, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 27, file 13; Wada to Walter Reuther, 9 January 1964, and Ernest Lee to Wada, 23 January 1964, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 29, file 4.

58. Harry Goldberg, “The World Through the Eyes of Sōhyō,” Free Trade Union News, February 1964; Meany cable to Becu, 28 February 1964, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 27, file 15.

59. Lovestone to Meany, 15 October 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

60. Katsumi Yakabe, “Reaction to Meany’s Visit to Japan,” Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, 20 November 1964.

61. Akira Iwai cable to Meany, 12 July 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 27, file 14.

62. Victor Reuther was appalled at the extent to which the Japanese trade unionists he talked to still accepted uncritically the employers’ argument that their firms’ trading position was precarious and so were uneasy about demanding higher wages. Victor Reuther to Weinberg, 4 April 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 1, file 13.

63. Stanley Greenspan to Victor Reuther, 13 December 1965, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 47, file 2.

64. Rosy [Ruane] to Ernie [Lee], 13 January 1966, Lovestone to Ethel Epstein, 18 January 1966, and Epstein to Wada, 11 February 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 29, file 5; Epstein to Lovestone, 15 March 1967, Kihata to Lovestone, 11 April 1967, and Lovestone to Kihata, 20 April 1967, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 28, file 1; Shogo Ohki to Victor Reuther, 20 February 1968, Victor Reuther papers, box 40, file 6; Victor Reuther, The Brothers Reuther, 406.

65. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 28 November 1956, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 2, file 3; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 25 February 1957, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 2, file 14; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 22 July 1958, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 4, file 9; Levinson to Graedel, 15 February 1957, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 2, file 13; Charles Levinson, “Report on the Trade Union Situation and Scope for IMF Action in Latin America,” submitted to the meeting of the IMF Central Committee, Lugano, 16–20 September 1957, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 112, file 7; author interview with Dan Benedict, 29 July 1998.

66. Walter Reuther to Benedict, 23 July 1959, Victor Reuther papers, box 26, file 11.

67. Dan Benedict, “Cuba: Hopes and Fears in Latin America,” July 1961, Victor Reuther papers, box 41, file 15.

68. Victor Reuther to Graedel, 3 November 1960, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 12; Victor Reuther to Graedel, 6 January 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 16; Dan Benedict, “Report to the IMF General Secretary on Inter-American Activities, 1 March–31 July 1961,” Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 120, file 10.

69. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 152, 175–76, 182–85.

70. Victor Reuther to Ted Moscoso, 15 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 68, file 8; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 20 December 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 27; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 20 May 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 33.

71. Victor Reuther to Richard Goodwin, “Towards a Community of Democratic American States,” 4 May 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 61, file 22; “A Labour Programme for Latin America,” n.d. [May 1961?], Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 52, file 27; “On the Need for an Agency Capable of Undertaking Projects in the Labour Field on ICA Contracts,” 6 May 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 9, file 7.

72. Weaver to Goldberg, “A Programme for Labour Action in Latin America,” 24 May 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 52, file 27.

73. “A Proposal for a Comprehensive Educational Programme for Leaders of South American Trade Unions,” 17 August 1960, Meany files, 1947–60, box 56, file 27; John McCollum to Walter Reuther, 17 October 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 8. In the summer of 1961, the AFL-CIO Executive Council voted a further $13,000 to see the UREP project through until the end of the year. Minutes of AIFLD Board of Trustees meeting, 11 October 1961, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 1.

74. At the time, there was confusion in Reuther’s immediate office as to how he had become involved with AIFLD: he couldn’t recall an invitation to the initial May 1961 meeting. Otha Brown to Victor Reuther, 24 May 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 8.

75. J. Peter Grace, “It’s Not Too Late in Latin America,” Minutes of AIFLD Board of Trustees meeting, 11 October 1961, Meany files 1940–80, box 57, file 1. Even if one accepts the legitimacy of a role for employers in this trade union institute, the choice of Grace was hard to comprehend. As president of W. R. Grace, Peter Grace had interests in shipping, sugar growing and refining, paper manufacture, food processing, paint making, banking, and insurance throughout Latin America and was also a director of Kennecott Copper. He was on the political right and was a supporter of the journal Human Events, which shared publishing facilities with the John Birch Society. Irving Bluestone to Victor Reuther, 16 October 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 20. Besides Grace and Brinkerhoff, other business leaders who became members of the board of trustees included Juan Trippe of Pan American Airlines, Robert C. Hill, of Merck and Co., and H. S Woodbridge, of True Temper Corporation. In 1966, AIFLD’s director, Bill Doherty, informed the British labour counsellor in Washington that there were fifty US corporations “contributing” to AIFLD operations. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 30 March 1966, LAB 13/2432.

Jack Otero, who hailed from the railroad clerks’ union and was serving as Latin American representative of the International Transport Workers’ Federation in the early 1960s, was puzzled by the decision to have Grace on the AIFLD board and raised the issue with BRAC’s president, George Harrison, only to be cautioned against questioning Meany’s decision. Harrison told him: “Meany is looking at the big picture, Jack, and you are not even inside the museum door.” Otero got the message and kept his mouth shut. Otero to author, 24 June 2015. Born in Cuba, Joaquin (Jack) Otero (1934–2016) emigrated in 1954 to the United States, where he joined BRAC, the railway clerks’ union. Following his six-year stint as ITF representative in Latin America, he returned to BRAC in 1967 and was, for twenty-two years, an international vice president. He was later assistant secretary of labour during the Clinton administration and chief US government negotiator of the NAFTA Labour Supplemental Agreement.

76. Draft letter, Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, n.d. [September–October 1961], Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 8.

77. McCollum to Board of Trustees of AIFLD, 8 January 1962, and Meany to Grace, 22 February 1962, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 1.

78. This account of how the government had come down in favour of AIFLD was recounted three years later by George Weaver to Victor Reuther’s deputy, Louis Carliner. Carliner to Walter Reuther, “Kennedy Decision to Support American Institute for Free Labour Development and to Disapprove UAW Proposals for a Council for Social Progress,” 10 October 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 4, file 4. Even after the formal launch of AIFLD in June 1962, Victor Reuther was still discussing with his brother how to bring the Council for Social Progress into existence. Victor Reuther aide-mémoire, 12 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 63, file 18.

79. Serafino Romualdi (1900–1967) fled Italian fascism in 1923 and worked in New York as a publicist for the ILGWU. During World War II, he was a staff member of Nelson Rockefeller’s Office of the Coordinator of Latin American Affairs. In the final year of the war, he transferred to the OSS and was sent to Italy by Adolphe Berle (who later devised the intelligence dimension of the Alliance for Progress). He acted as technical advisor to Luigi Antonini on his important Anglo-American trade union mission to Italy and, with OSS permission, handled the distribution of funds intended for the Italian labour movement from the Italian-American Labor Council. After the war, David Dubinsky sent him to Latin America as representative of the Free Trade Union Committee. He transferred to the AFL staff in 1948 and thereafter spent most of his working life in Latin America, in effect as Meany’s personal emissary. He was ubiquitous as the American “ambassador” to labour and a “fixer” among “presidents and peons” of often unsavoury, authoritarian regimes. Following the CIA-backed ouster of President Árbenz in Guatemala, the new military strong man, Colonel Armas, thanked AFL officials for their “clear-cut, anti-communist stand” and referred to the invaluable services of Romualdi. AFL News-Reporter, 13 August 1954. Romualdi became very close to the discredited, Batista-supporting Cuban labour leader, Eusebio Mujal, and helped arrange for him to be resettled in the United States after he fled Cuba in 1959. The new pro-Castro leadership of the Cuban CTC made it a precondition of their remaining in ORIT that Romualdi be excluded from its councils. Their already bad relations with the AFL-CIO became worse when it emerged that Romualdi was assisting Mujal and his supporters in exile to gain recognition in international labour circles. Serafino Romualdi, Presidents and Peons, chap. 2; Benedict to Meyer Bernstein, 20 June 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 120, file 8; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 22 June 1961, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 6, file 27.

80. At the end of his career, Romualdi was prepared to share a platform with such a person as the extreme right-winger Fred C. Schwarz of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 22 June 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 3, file 2.

81. According to Lovestone’s secretary, Rosy Ruane, he tried but failed to dominate Romualdi. Author interview with Rosy Ruane, 14 January 1995. Lovestone complained to Irving Brown: “Romualdi may be in the same building . . . but I hear less from him than even from Castro,” and “Latin American work is the weakest part of our international affairs situation and you know how weak that means.” Lovestone to Brown, 11 July 1960 and 15 May 1961, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1960. Interestingly, Romualdi’s long and detailed autobiography makes only three passing references to Lovestone and none to Irving Brown.

82. Minutes of AIFLD Board of Trustees meeting, 4 April 1962, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 1; minutes of Labour Advisory Committee for Alliance for Progress meeting, 15 August 1962, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 5. Meany’s awareness that he now had this assured source of funding for overseas work coincided exactly with the breakdown in relations between Omer Becu and Irving Brown over the latter’s foreign travel and was doubtless a factor behind the AFL-CIO president’s instructions to Brown to defy Becu. Soon Meany and Brown would start planning for the African version of AIFLD in the shape of the AALC.

83. Romualdi, Presidents and Peons, 426–28.

84. Minutes of AIFLD Board of Trustees meeting, 10 March 1965, Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 24.

85. Draft, Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, “American Institute for Free Trade Union Development,” n.d. [September–October? 1961], Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 8; draft letter, Walter Reuther to Meany, 31 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 11; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 17 October 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 20. Along with these close family appointments, Meany’s son-in-law, Ernie Lee, would soon be seated among the AIFLD trustees.

86. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 1 June 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 11; draft letter, Walter Reuther to Meany, 31 May 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 20, file 11.

87. Draft letter, Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 26 April 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 10, file 5; Victor Reuther to Robert Johnston, 19 March 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 7, file 20; “Confidential: Notes for Discussion with U.S. Metal Unions,” 30 August 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 58, file 1.

88. “Opening Remarks by Serafino Romualdi: AIFLD Inauguration of First Course,” 19 June 1962, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 7; Romualdi, Presidents and Peons, 419.

89. “Conference: Meany, Schnitzler, H. S. Woodbridge, Held in Mr. Meany’s Office in Washington, DC, on Thursday, 27 December 1962,” Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 5.

90. Norman L. Wolfson, “American Institute for Free Labour Development: A Public Relations Memorandum,” February 1963, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 11.

91. Draft letter from Peter Grace, 11 June 1963. The original idea had been for the letter to be signed by both Grace and Meany, but Chase Mellon’s suggestion was that a letter solely from Grace would seem to businessmen to be more “personal.” Chase Mellon to Bill Schnitzler, 11 June 1963, Meany files, 1940–80, box 57, file 6.

92. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 2 November 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 3, file 36; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 8 November 1962, Reuther-Carliner records, 1955–63, box 3, file 37.

93. Victor Reuther to Bluestone, 7 November 1963, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 2, file 11.

94. Labour News Conference, Mutual Broadcasting System, “Building Free Trade Unionism in Latin America, Guest: William C Doherty,” 12 July 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 6, file 9; Romualdi, Presidents and Peons, 289, 291; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 29 July 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 6, file 9; Victor Reuther to Joe Keenan, 31 March 1965, Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 24. On the eve of the coup in Brazil, the US ambassador wrote to Secretary of State Rusk that, in addition to the planned secret delivery of arms of non-US origin, “We are meanwhile undertaking complementary measures . . . to help strengthen resistance forces. These include covert support for pro-democracy street rallies . . . encouragement of democratic and anti-communist sentiments . . . in friendly labour and student groups.” State Department Top Secret Cable from Rio de Janeiro, 27 March 1964, National Security Archives, Washington, DC; “Report on Brazil” prepared by AFL-CIO International Affairs Department, 4 May 1964, Meany files, 1940–80, box 68, file 25. The US military attaché in Rio at the time of the coup was Vernon Walters, who, earlier in the decade, had recommended military action in Italy to prevent the advent of a centre-left government.

Bill Doherty Jr. (1926–2011), who was the son of Meany’s close friend and former letter carriers’ union president Bill Doherty Sr., worked in the regional activities department of the ICFTU (1952–55) before becoming inter-American representative of the PTTI (1955–62) based in Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. He was the first director of AIFLD’s social projects department (1962–64) and then succeeded Serafino Romualdi as executive director (1965–96).

95. Jack Lever to Walter Reuther, 14 January 1965, and “Latin American Development,” 8 February 1965, Victor Reuther papers, box 15, file 25. Jack Otero, who was based in Brazil as ITF Latin American representative at the time, argues that the charge that AIFLD was a “cloak and dagger” operation was overstated and that most AIFLD operatives were more like “Keystone Kops” when it came to political operations. Otero to author, 24 June 2015.

96. Draft letter, WPR to Meany, 11 June 1965, and Walter Reuther to Meany, 9 September 1965, Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 25.

97. Irked by Reuther’s performance at the convention, Lovestone attempted to persuade Meany that remarks Reuther had made afterward on television criticizing both the sclerotic membership of the AFL-CIO executive council and the recent large pay increase voted for Meany were part of a concerted anti-Meany campaign. In future years, Lovestone liked to pretend that he had conceded nothing of substance following Reuther’s call for a dilution of the resolution’s militaristic language. Lovestone to Meany, 31 December 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 40; Goulden, Meany, 355–56, 375–76.

98. “Victor Reuther’s Request for Governor Harriman’s Help in Facilitating Unofficial Contacts with Soviet Trade Unionists, 15 March 1966,” Averell Harriman Papers, cited in Edmund Wehrle, “Reprehensible Repercussions: The AFL-CIO, Free Trade Unionism, and the Vietnam War, 1947–75,” 218; Victor Riesel, “Victor Reuther’s Trip to Moscow Called Open to Searing Criticism,” Flint Journal, 27 June 1966. A year earlier, the UAW had invited the leader of the Yugoslav trade union centre, Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, to visit its Detroit headquarters during a ten-day tour of the United States. The UAW was keen to keep the event low-key, insisting that he travel at his own expense and that the meeting be informal. Victor Reuther also took care to ask the Department of Labor to assume responsibility for booking his travel and accommodation. However, the visit served to break the ice and led eventually to regular exchanges with the Yugoslavs. They began in 1969, following a visit by Walter Reuther to Belgrade in November 1968 for talks with President Tito. Reuther took advantage of his personal contact with Tito to call for the release from prison of the dissident Mihajlo Mihajlov. Carliner to Assistant Secretary Weaver, 15 December 1964, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 4, file 5; Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 21 January 1969, and Walter Reuther to Petrovic, January 1969, UAW Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 40, file 9; Victor Reuther to Ivar Noren, 2 March 1971, Benedict papers, box 30, file: IMF.

99. Riesel, “Victor Reuther’s Trip to Moscow Called Open to Searing Criticism,” Flint Journal, 27 June 1966.

100. Articles by Dan Kurzman, Washington Post, 30–31 December 1965 and 1–2 January 1966; Goulden, Meany, 377–78.

101. Harry Bernstein, “AFL-CIO Unit Accused of ‘Snooping’ Abroad,” Los Angeles Times, 22 May 1966; Goulden, Meany, 377–78. Andrew McLellan (1911–82) was raised in Scotland and emigrated to Canada and then the United States following the 1926 general strike. In 1934, he joined the meat cutters’ union in California. Following military service in the war, he worked for the Texas Federation of Labour from 1947 until he was assigned by the IUF to Central America, based in Honduras. He transferred to the AFL staff as assistant to Serafino Romualdi in 1960 and succeeded him as inter-American representative from 1962. Meanwhile, he continued to act as an IUF consultant until 1965, with effective control of its finance and appointments in Latin America. On these matters, the Geneva headquarters was kept largely in the dark.

In 1963, General Secretary Poulsen was angered to learn that at the IUF’s Third Latin American Conference two of the participants had listed their affiliation as “United States Army.” A pattern was evident in which the most intense phases of IUF activity in the region happened to coincide with moments of political crisis such as the military coups in Brazil and Bolivia in 1964 and the US-led military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965. Poulsen came to realize that IUF policy in Latin America was, in fact, AFL-CIO policy and simply reflected US interests. Under McLellan’s influence, the IUF had failed to project a native, homegrown form of trade unionism attractive to Latin American workers and in consequence failed to win new affiliates and expand membership. Poulsen estimated that the IUF would have needed the dues income from over half a million members to cover the costs being incurred by the secretariat in Latin America—whereas actual membership was no more than 4,100. In announcing the closing down of the Latin American operation in 1965 for the good of the wider organization, Poulsen said he was unable to confirm or deny the existence of links to the CIA or whether funds originated from other US government agencies. He left it to the AFL-CIO to answer that question. Poulsen to IUF Managing Committee, 3 April 1967, “Conc: Problems of the IUF Regional Activities [Principles, Goals, Performance and Finance],” document in author’s possession; Sigvard Nyström and Peter Rütters, History of the IUF, 279–82. The IUF case illustrated what Victor Reuther believed was taking place more broadly in Latin America in conjunction with AIFLD. In the wake of the IUF scandal, by the spring of 1966 most international trade secretariats had withdrawn from Latin America.

102. Details of the IUF affair had been slow to filter out, and Reuther was slapped down when he first tried to raise it in a meeting of directors of international affairs from various US unions convened by Lovestone in the AFL-CIO headquarters. Reuther also complained to Lovestone that at such meetings called by Lovestone, there were typically almost as many representatives from US government agencies in attendance as from AFL-CIO–affiliated unions. Victor Reuther to Lovestone, 18 March 1966, Victor Reuther papers, box 30, file 31; Lovestone to Meany, 15 April 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15.

Despite Lovestone’s attempt to block open discussion of the IUF case, a few months later an article in New Politics, written pseudonymously by Dan Gallin of the IUF, provided a damning review of AFL-CIO international activity. It confirmed Reuther’s account of events in the IUF and drew attention to similar experiences in other trade secretariats. David Langley [Dan Gallin], “Colonization of the International Trade Union Movement.” Gallin described how, some years earlier, the Swiss general secretary of the PTTI had been dismissed when he enquired how much money was being spent in Latin America (the CWA’s Joe Beirne was then the president of the PTTI). The International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers, with a dues income of a mere $80,000, still managed to employ two dozen officials at American salaries and maintain offices in various parts of the world, funded by a CIA front.

Between 1960 and 1964, the Latin American operation of the public service trade secretariat, Public Services International, had similarly been hijacked by its US affiliate, AFSCME, undertaking to finance activities and staff with grants amounting to some $100,000 a year from CIA-front organizations. None of this was known to Public Services International general secretary Paul Tofahrn in London until AFSCME’s new general secretary, Jerry Wurf, quietly closed down the Washington-based operation. An analogous situation prevailed in the clerical and technical workers’ international trade secretariat (IFCCTE, later FIET), whose president, James Suffridge, was also president of the retail clerks’ union. Much of the cost of staff and offices maintained worldwide by the IFCCTE came from Suffridge’s union. On becoming aware of the wider pattern of American “colonization” of the trade secretariats, IFCCTE general secretary Erich Kissel approached Tofahrn for advice. Tofahrn told him to make a clean breast of what he knew and close down the operation: “You must put an end to free enterprise under the IFCCTE flag . . . chèvre choutisme [trying to reconcile the irreconcilable] inspired by camaraderie will not pay.” Kissel subsequently closed down the organization’s Lima office, whose staff had been instructed by Suffridge to take instructions only from him in Washington. Jerry Wurf to Paul Tofahrn, 18 September 1964, and Tofahrn to Howard McCabe, 22 September 1964 and 27 June 1965; minutes of Public Services International Executive Committee meeting, 13–14 April 1967; “Comment on an Article in the Sunday Times, 16 April 1967,” Public Services International press release, 17 April 1967; Tofahrn to Kissel, 29 March 1967: all documents in author’s possession; “Victor Reuther Dictated Notes from Israel,” 16 February 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 39, file 12.

103. Goulden, Meany, 377–78, 385; Archie Robinson, George Meany and His Times, 252; Frank Cormier and William J. Eaton, Reuther, 414.

104. Goulden, Meany, 379–80; H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 6 June 1966, LAB 13/2432. The walkout of the US workers’ delegation in Geneva in 1966 represented an escalation of US labour’s opposition to recent developments within the ILO. At a meeting of its governing body the previous year, Meany had instructed Faupl to fight hard to reverse a decision made under the rules to allocate additional seats to Soviet bloc representatives on certain committees after they had failed to win them in open elections. Unable to alter the results, Faupl flew back to the United States for a specially convened AFL-CIO executive council meeting where Meany secured approval to take the issue up “at the highest level” within the administration. He duly met Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Labour Wirtz and warned them that if the drift away from tripartism continued and there was not better coordination at the ILO between the US government and workers’ delegations, the AFL-CIO would refuse to nominate worker representatives to the annual international labour conference. In more alarmist terms, Meany told the press that the AFL-CIO might pull out of the ILO. “On Strike Against the World,” New York Times, 12 April 1965.

Reporting on these events, Victor Reuther noted that Faupl had received little support for his position from other labour delegates at the ILO and that he overreacted, apparently under instructions from Meany. Reuther agreed with the prevailing sentiment in Europe that it was morally indefensible to pursue a “cold-war strategy” on the technical issue of committee membership: “It appears that the logic of the AFL-CIO position is that we should not only withdraw from the ICFTU but also the ILO and, I suppose, eventually from the human race.” Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 6 April 1965 and 12 April 1965, Victor Reuther papers, box 28, file 6. Yet AFL-CIO fears over the dilution of the much-prized tripartism of the ILO were long-standing, and the perception was that the problem was growing. Moreover, Assistant Secretary of Labour George Weaver, long a Meany antagonist, appeared willing to make concessions in this area, and the omens for 1966 were not good. Following the 1965 international labour conference, the AFL-CIO’s Bert Seidman reported that a “critical situation” now existed whose outcome would determine whether the ILO was “worth saving.” Bert Seidman, “ILO at the Crossroads,” Free Trade Union News, August 1965.

105. Goulden, Meany, 379–80. Evidence to the contrary comes from the British labour counsellor, Brian Fane, who was in Meany’s secretary’s office waiting to see the president just as news of Chajn’s election came through from Geneva. Meany’s secretary told him then that Faupl had been “instructed” to withdraw the delegation and that she thought that its members would now pack their bags and come home. It came as little surprise to Fane, who, for over six months, had been advising the British government that Meany was looking for a way of quitting the ILO. That was also the perception of his American counterpart, the US labour attaché in London. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 3 January and 6 June 1966, LAB 13/2432.

The same de facto line of command between Meany and Faupl had been evident the previous year in the dispute over the allocation of ILO committee seats. On that occasion, as Lovestone noted, Faupl was instructed to fight for a reversal of the decision and, in the event of failure, to leave in protest. Two weeks after the June 1966 walkout, Fane dined alone with Meany and reported back to London his impression that the AFL-CIO president’s real target in this episode was not Chajn so much as ILO director general David Morse for having lobbied actively on behalf of Chajn and being ready to give special consideration to the recruitment of ILO staff from the Soviet bloc. Meany stressed how communists always succeeded in taking over any organization in which they were active. He also insisted that he had no need of Jay Lovestone to tell him about communists, assuring Fane that he had known all about them long before he met Lovestone. Indeed, Fane noted how Lovestone was privately against the ILO walkout. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 20 June 1966, LAB 13/2432.

106. P. A. G. Westlake to J. Oates, 29 June 1966, LAB 13/2432; Brown to Lovestone, 11 June 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67.

107. New York Times, 11 June 1966; Cormier and Eaton, Reuther, 415.

108. Meany to Walter Reuther, 10 June 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15; Lovestone to Brown, 14 June 1966, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 32.

109. Goulden, Meany, 383–85. Although Reuther was in a clear minority in the executive council, there was support for him in the press, with the New York Times devoting two editorials to the ILO issue. Describing the walkout as a “self-defeating boycott,” it observed: “Building walls instead of bridges seems to be the AFL-CIO’s idea of how to arrive at One World.” The paper approved of Reuther’s protest, which had brought in its train the prospect of a more open debate on the wisdom of Meany’s “adamantine stand” against any East-West rapprochement in the labour field. “Labour’s Foreign Policy,” New York Times, 14 June 1966, and “U.S. Labour’s Iron Curtain,” New York Times, 20 June 1966. “Bridge building” was a policy initiative of the Johnson administration launched in spring 1966 with the aim of reducing cold-war tensions by means of a series of modest steps leading toward peaceful coexistence and settlement of the division of Germany and Europe.

110. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 20 June 1966, LAB 13/2432; Victor Reuther to Benedict, 20 June 1966, Benedict papers, box 17, file: Personal, Victor Reuther.

111. Riesel, “Victor Reuther’s Trip to Moscow Called Open to Searing Criticism,” Flint Journal, 27 June 1966.”

112. See, for example, interviews with Herbert Kemmsies, former AIFLD project manager for Brazil, and Frank Elorriaga on his training by the CIA. Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 29, and box 73, file 27.

113. Joseph Rauh to Walter Reuther, 22 July 1966, Victor Reuther papers, box 17, file 20.

114. “The AIFLD: An Evaluation of Future Prospects in the Light of Its Record to Date,” 15 August 1966, Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 26. Lovestone had advance information that such a document was likely to be produced in pamphlet form and issued on the eve of the executive council meeting. A Riesel column disclosed that the UAW was working in conjunction with a “prolific writer” to produce the document. Victor Riesel, “Around the Labour World,” La Prensa, 12 August 1966. The document was unsigned and is likely to have been the handiwork of Scott Runkle, a Washington-based publicity agent who was engaged from time to time to promote some of the UAW’s more ambitious projects. It bore no reference to the UAW, and it is quite likely that it was simply a draft awaiting further refinement.

115. Cormier and Eaton, Reuther, 415–16; Goulden, Meany, 385; Jack Conway, interview with Alice Hoffman, 23 May 1979, AFL-CIO Oral History Project, GMMA.

116. At Victor Reuther’s prompting, in February 1967, Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson claimed in the Washington Post that the CIA had ploughed vast sums into the labour movement, none of which was spent without Lovestone’s approval. Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, “CIA Figures in Reuther-Meany Rift,” Washington Post, 24 February 1967.

117. Thomas W. Braden, “I’m Glad the CIA Is ‘Immoral.’” See chapter 4 in this volume for Braden’s dealings with the AFL and CIO in the early 1950s.

118. Stanley Levey, “CIA Money and Labour: Whom Do You Believe?” Washington Daily News, 9 May 1967; AFL-CIO News, 13 May 1967. Lovestone and Brown kept a low profile, saying they wouldn’t dignify Braden’s accusations with a reply. Lovestone contented himself with private letters to friendly labour leaders around the world in which he diverted the focus to the late Pierre Ferri-Pisani, to whom Braden had alluded in connection with Irving Brown’s use of CIA money to “pay off his strong arm squads” in the Marseille docks. Acting as the outraged guardian of Ferri-Pisani’s honour, Lovestone wrote: “Every once in a while, you run into an argument or diatribe against Ferri-Pisani as a gangster, tough type, who made trouble in Marseille. Once and for all, I want to nail this slander and lie: Ferri-Pisani was a heroic figure. He spent three years of his life in [Buchenwald]. He is no café resistance figure. He suffered for it. . . . He fought the Communists and they couldn’t stop the food getting in. . . . This is one of the brightest episodes in our effort to help European labour.” Lovestone to André Bergeron, 2 May 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 17. The same letter was sent to many of Lovestone’s contacts overseas. The British labour counsellor met Lovestone a matter of days after Braden’s revelations surfaced and reported that “he looked me straight in the eye and said that he had never taken a penny of CIA funds; that neither he nor any of his staff had ever acted on behalf of the CIA.” J. J. Watson to G. Foggon, 9 May 1967, LAB 13/2465.

119. J. J. Watson to J. Oates, 9 September 1966, LAB 13/2432; “For Peace and Freedom in Vietnam,” AFL-CIO August 1966; Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968, 220; Goulden, Meany, 385–87.

120. Victor Riesel, “Reuther’s Pressing Global Agitation,” Detroit Free Press, 25 October 1966.

121. Reuther’s close aide, Jack Conway, claimed that ahead of the executive council meeting in question, he had checked with Meany’s assistant, Lane Kirkland, about whether Reuther and Meany had reached agreement on this subject. Kirkland, he said, had confirmed as much. Kirkland’s later version was that there had been talks but no agreement. Conway’s perception was that this was the point at which Reuther began to focus on an eventual exit from the AFL-CIO. Goulden, Meany, 385, 387.

122. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 20 June 1966, LAB 13/2432. The unintended way in which international issues came to shape the Reuther-Meany conflict was hinted at in a letter from Scott Runkle to Victor Reuther enthusing over the fact that Meany and Lovestone were being pilloried in the press. He wrote that “though the CIA business is an unplanned aspect of the UAW’s quasi separation, it could be a powerful element in support of your position.” Runkle to Victor Reuther, 27 February 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 17, file 6.

123. Goulden, Meany, 385–88. For the special executive council meeting, Lovestone had initially prepared a summary of the AFL-CIO’s international work since the merger, with a focus almost entirely on the federation’s anti-communist activities. Shrewdly, Meany recognized that such emphasis would leave them wide open to Reuther criticism that the AFL-CIO approach was entirely negative, reflecting “insufficient concern for the needs of the ‘struggling masses’—and all that jazz.” Lovestone was sent away to redraft it and include references to policies in the field of development, support for the United Nations, liberation movements, disarmament, and opposition to right-wing dictators. Meany to Lovestone, 25 October 1966, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 11. After the meeting, Joe Curran told the press of his disgust that Reuther had “sold us down the river” by not attending. Regarding Reuther’s absence, Meany managed a tone of weary insouciance: “That’s his privilege. We’re a free institution. There’s no compulsory attendance.” Patrick Owens, “Reuther Loses an Ally in Foreign Policy Row,” Detroit Free Press, 15 November 1966.

124. Goulden, Meany, 388; J. J. Watson to J. Oates, 8 December 1966, LAB 13/2465.

Chapter 8: Toward an Independent Role

1. Frank Costigliola, “Lyndon B. Johnson, Germany, and ‘the End of the Cold War,’” 193–200.

2. George Meany, “A Return to Appeasement,” Free Trade Union News, May 1964; “Statement of George Meany on Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 27 August 1963, Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,” Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 31; “Has Communism Abandoned Its Drive for World Domination?” Free Trade Union News, August 1964. In January 1965, while attending the funeral of Winston Churchill in London, ambassador-at-large Averell Harriman discussed with TUC general secretary George Woodcock the issue of trade with communist countries and expressed support for long-term credits and a broadening of cultural exchanges to include organizations such as trade unions. Lovestone fumed: “I am at a loss to understand what business it was of Harriman’s to engage in such conferences with trade union leaders—and for such purposes.” Lovestone to Meany, 29 January 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

3. Jacob Potofsky, interview with Neil Gold, 6 July 1964, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Records, Collection 5619, box 188, folders 1–3, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Lovestone to Meany, 5 November 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 45.

4. Brown to Meany, 26 November 1963, and Brown to Lovestone, 24 December 1963, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 26; Lovestone to Bergeron, 26 January 1964, IAD Country Files, 1945–71, box 2, file 5; Brown to Lovestone, 26 January 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65; Free Trade Union News, March 1964; Harold Lewis to author, February 2011. André Bergeron (1922–2014) worked as a printer and participated in the 1936 strikes that brought the Popular Front to power. He was forced to leave France during the war and worked in Austria. In 1946, he became secretary of the CGT printers’ union in the Belfort region, identifying with the Force ouvrière faction. After the split from the CGT in 1948, he was secretary of FO’s regional printers’ union and, from 1950, a member of FO’s national executive committee. He was elected FO general secretary in 1963 and held the post until 1989, during which time he was the AFL-CIO’s most vocal ally within the ICFTU.

5. Bergeron to Meany, 8 June and 24 June 1964, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 5; “Letter from Irving Brown,” 20 June 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 27; Lovestone to Meany, 7 August 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 35.

6. Lovestone to Brown, 31 October 1962, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1. The “emergency laws” were required by the Allies as a condition for transferring full sovereignty to the Federal Republic. They were resisted for years by youth and labour groups and were only finally passed in 1968. Georg Leber (1920–2012) served in the Luftwaffe during the war and, in 1945, became a bricklayer before being appointed as a regional official of the building workers’ union in 1949. He became vice chairman of the union in 1955 and then served as chairman from 1957 to 1966. As a member of the SPD, he was elected to the Bundestag in 1957. From 1966, he served as minister of transportation in the Grand Coalition and was minister of defence (1972–78) under chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt.

Otto Brenner (1907–72) was born in Hannover and worked as an electrician before losing his job under the Nazis. In 1931, he joined the Socialist Workers Party in opposition to the SPD and, in 1935, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. After the war, he became a district secretary in IG Metall while also serving as an SPD member of the state legislature. A militant leader of the campaigns for codetermination and against rearmament, he was labelled by Lovestone as “the worst opponent we have in the DGB.” Lovestone to Meany, 23 March 1955, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 705, file: George Meany. In 1952, he became vice chairman of IG Metall and then chairman in 1956, a position he held until 1972. In 1961, he was elected president of the IMF, in which capacity he worked closely with Walter Reuther.

7. “Memorandum on German Building Workers Convention, 22–29 June 1963,” Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 30. The construction workers’ congress in 1963 was held in the Benjamin Franklin Halle, which had been built in 1957 as a gift of the United States to the City of Berlin. As Kennedy prepared to speak, Meany handed him a scribbled note containing a quotation from Benjamin Franklin that formed an inscription on the wall of the building: “This is my home; this is where I belong, where freedom is.” The president prefaced his remarks with the quotation and thus set the tone for his celebrated “Ich bin ein Berliner” address later that day outside the city hall. For that speech, Ted Morgan credits Lovestone with responsibility for feeding Kennedy the line “I too am a Berliner”—a departure from the prepared script—which Kennedy jotted down phonetically in Mayor Willy Brandt’s office minutes before speaking. However, the president was unable to pronounce the German for “too” [auch] and so chose to keep it simple. Kennedy’s improvisation lent the speech a cold-war tone that had not originally been intended. It clearly disturbed Brandt, who was expecting something more low-key and constructive. Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster, 334; Frederick Taylor, The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961–9 November 1989, 337–40; Robert Kennedy to Meany, 11 May 1965, Meany files, 1940–80, box 64, file 4. Lovestone’s cultivation of Leber would assure the AFL-CIO of an ally of special influence within the Brandt-led government in 1972, when the construction union leader became minister of defence of the Federal Republic.

8. Lovestone to Storti, 16 May 1964, and Storti to Lovestone, 18 March 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 10; Lovestone to Meany, 4 March 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69. Bruno Storti (1913–94) was a law graduate and active member of the Catholic workers’ movement when he became a national secretary of CGIL’s civil service union after the war. With the 1948 split in the Italian labour movement, he became a deputy confederal secretary of LCGIL in 1948 and then confederal secretary of CISL, its successor, in 1950. In 1954, he became an assistant general secretary of CISL and, in 1959, succeeded Giulio Pastore as general secretary, a post he held until retirement in 1977. In 1959, he was elected to the Italian legislature as Christian Democrat deputy for Rome. Between 1965 and 1972, he served as ICFTU president in succession to Arne Geijer. His growing openness to dialogue with the Soviet bloc in the 1960s caused him to lose favour with the AFL-CIO and was an important factor in the latter’s decision to quit the ICFTU in 1969.

9. Lovestone to Brown, 25 April 1961, IAD Lovestone files, box 13, file 1. Woodcock pointedly refused to condemn what Meany always referred to as the “so called” unions of the Soviet bloc: “I make no qualitative judgement about the two [union types]. . . . The time may come when we will all grow up . . . when we might find a basis for common action and understanding which I agree is the basis of trade union unity.” Report of 94th Annual Trades Union Congress (Blackpool, 1962), 393.

10. Kalmen Kaplansky to Claude Jodoin, 25 February 1964, CLC Archives, reel H-193.

11. Brown to Lovestone, 11 November 1965, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1964–65; minutes of TUC International Committee meeting, 25 May 1965, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

12. Jay Lovestone, “No Free Trade Union Exchanges with State Company Unions,” Free Trade Union News, May 1966. To make clear where the AFL-CIO stood with regard to the British labour movement, Lovestone recommended to Meany that they should provide a dinner with full red-carpet treatment for British deputy prime minister George Brown, who was due to visit Washington shortly. Brown, a committed anti-communist, was famous for having publicly insulted Nikita Khrushchev ten years earlier when the Soviet leader, on a visit to Britain, was addressing a dinner in the House of Commons given by leaders of the Labour Party. A former official of the British transport workers’ union, Brown was a leading rival of Prime Minister Harold Wilson and, as Lovestone noted, “a vigorous friend” of the AFL-CIO. Honouring him with a formal dinner would, Lovestone argued, “strengthen his stand in the Labour Party and the TUC against pseudo lefts and phony liberals.” Lovestone to Meany, 2 September 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15.

13. Lovestone, “No Free Trade Union Exchanges with State Company Unions”; Victor Riesel, “Inside Labour: George Meany Learns of Newest Soviet Espionage Operation Against Labour,” syndicated column, 26 October 1966.

14. Kuno Brandel to Lovestone, 3 May 1964, and Lovestone to Meany, 7 May 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

15. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 2–4 March 1964, ICFTU Archives, folder 119; Jay Lovestone, “Memorandum on German Developments,” 20 July 1964, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 35. Ludwig Rosenberg (1903–77) became a full-time officer of the federation of clerical workers at the age of twenty-five. In 1933, he fled from the Nazis and lived in England, finding employment in the British Foreign Office during the war. He became international secretary of the DGB in 1949 and was a delegate at the founding conference of the ICFTU. He took charge of the economic department in 1954 and, in 1959, became DGB vice chairman. Elected chairman in 1962, he led the organization until retirement in 1969. Erudite, but with a tendency to arrogance, as DBG chairman he became an increasingly acerbic critic of AFL-CIO international policy, his personal dislike for Meany being fully reciprocated by the federation president.

16. Lovestone to Meany, 30 November 1964, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69; agenda item 10: “Communist Tactics on the International Trade Union Scene,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 30 November–3 December 1964, ICFTU Archives, folder 120; Brown to Lovestone, 4 January 1966, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 13.

17. Jones to J. Oates, 20 April 1966, LAB 13/2432.

18. Lovestone to Meany, 18 October 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 40; Lovestone to Meany, 5 November 1965, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 45; Meany to Ludwig Rosenberg, 30 November 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13.

19. Rosenberg to Meany, 15 December 1965, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13.

20. The WFTU had lost its Chinese affiliate, and the French and Italian affiliates were in open revolt against its blanket opposition to the EEC.

21. Meany to Rosenberg, 13 January 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13.

22. Lovestone to Lee, 22 January 1966, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 16.

23. Brown to Lovestone, 9 April 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67; Lovestone to Brown, 12 April 1966, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 32; “George Meany Message to DGB Convention,” Berlin, 3 May 1966, Meany files, 1940–80, box 66, file 4. Lovestone combined his congress appearance with a personal visit to Konrad Adenauer for the purpose of calming the ex-chancellor’s worries over US policy in Vietnam. After seeing him, Adenauer wrote appreciatively to Meany: “I was very glad that Mr. Lovestone was sent to clear up doubts . . . about the attitude of the U.S. . . . I believe that your wisdom, understanding and vision will render great service . . . in the field of inter-American and German foreign policy. We will need your advice and experience more than ever.” Adenauer to Meany, 24 May 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15.

24. “DGB Meet Acts on Emergency Law, East-West Relations,” Free Trade Union News, May 1966.

25. Lovestone to Meany, 7 November 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15. Willy Brandt was treated coolly when he was next in Washington in the winter of 1967, AFL-CIO leaders making no effort to extend hospitality. To his old friend and editor of the construction workers’ journal, Kuno Brandel, Lovestone wrote: “It will be a very long time before I get myself involved in sticking my neck out for the DGB or the SPD. . . . No matter what our German colleagues, who have behaved in the most indecent manner towards us, do, we will stand by our basic policies.” Lovestone to Brandel, 17 March 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 20.

26. Aide-mémoire, n.d. [April 1967], IAD Brown files, box 1, file 27; Lovestone to Brandel, 16 May and 18 May 1967; IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 17.

27. Meany to Rosenberg, 16 May 1967, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 17.

28. Meany to Rosenberg, 7 June 1967, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13. Dealing with this controversy in Welt der Arbeit, the head of the DGB’s press department, Walter Fritze, said that while the paper was willing to publish any comments received from the AFL-CIO, Rosenberg was not prepared to prevent publication of any material simply because Meany did not approve of it; the DGB did not practise censorship. Welt der Arbeit, 2 August 1967.

29. Lovestone to Elly Borochowitz, 16 June 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 18; “Summary of Letter by Brandel to Rosenberg, 23 June 1967,” Meany files, 1940–80, box 63, file 22; Meany cable to Rosenberg, 7 July 1967, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13.

30. “Report on Activities, Supplement III, The ICFTU Regional Organization: Its Present Situation and Positive Proposals for the Future,” n.d., and minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 5–11 July 1965, ICFTU Archives, folder 131; J. E. D. Slater to A. G. Read, 31 March 1965, LAB 13/2012.

31. J. Kaukonen to State Department, 20 January 1965, Meany files, 1940–80, box 62, file 8.

32. “The Trade Union Situation in Africa,” statement issued by the AFL-CIO Executive Council, 1 March 1965. Brown wrote in June 1965: “I found very little criticism and a rising recognition of these new types of international trade union action.” Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record,” 22 June 1965, Brown files, box 8, file 6.

33. Brown to Lovestone, 14 August 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67; Irving Brown, “African-American Labour Centre at Work,” Free Trade Union News, August 1967; “Centre Afro-Américain du Travail en Action,” presentation to Pan-African Cooperative Conference, n.d. [1967], IAD Brown files, box 2, file 1; Irving Brown, “Notes on Trip to Africa, 28 November–16 December 1968,” 10 December 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 37; Brown to Lovestone, 18 April 1970, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 357, file: Irving Brown, 1970; “Ethiopian Labour Centre Built with AFL-CIO Help,” Free Trade Union News, May 1970; Emily Hoyt, “Five Years of African-American Labour Centre—Record of Achievement,” Free Trade Union News, August 1970, and Brown to Lovestone, 15 December 1970, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 357, file: Irving Brown, 1970.

34. Asked by the Foreign Office for an update on what the ICFTU knew about AALC operations, the British labour attaché in Brussels wrote: “In practice . . . nobody has the remotest idea of what [Brown] is really doing or seeking at any given time. . . . He is a man who operates in the shadows and the half-lights, pulling strings behind the scenes, pursuing his own purposes in all sorts of mysterious ways, intriguing, deceiving if necessary, and is generally the type of person it is almost impossible to tie down . . . a law unto himself.” R. O. Barritt to G. Foggon, 24 January 1966, LAB 13/2012. For Brown’s high-level contacts in Africa, see Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record,” 22 June 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6; Brown to Lovestone, 1 September 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 39; Brown to Lovestone, 7 September 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; Brown to Lovestone, 15 December 1970, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 357, file: Irving Brown, 1970; Brown to Meany, 29 December 1970, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6; Brown to Meany, 18 September 1973, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 11.

35. Donald Robinson, untitled draft (“In the African city of Nairobi . . .”), Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 28; Hubert Humphrey to Meany, 12 January 1968, Victor Reuther papers, box 30, file 28; Ben Rathbun, The Point Man: Irving Brown and the Deadly Post-1945 Struggle for Europe and Africa, 323.

36. J. E. D. Slater to J. Oates, 7 November 1967, 23 July 1968, LAB 13/2244.

37. Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record,” 22 June 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6.

38. Wogu Ananaba, The Trade Union Movement in Nigeria, 277; J. E. D. Slater, “[Report on] United Labour Congress, Nigeria,” 21 June 1965, LAB 13/1972.

39. Irving Brown, “Memorandum for the Record,” 22 June 1965, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 6; W. J. Vose to J. Oates, 14 January 1966, LAB 13/2012; minutes of ICFTU International Solidarity Fund Committee meeting, 4 February 1966, ICFTU Archives, folder 135.

40. Irving Brown, “Report on Nigeria,” 1 February 1966, and Meany to Brown, 27 January 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 514, file: George Meany, 1966; Brown to Lovestone, 28 January 1966, IAD Brown files, box 7, file 12; Lovestone to Meany, 7 February 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15.

41. Irving Brown, “Confidential Memorandum,” 21 April 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 34.

42. Brown to Lovestone, 14 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; H. P. Adebola to Meany, 25 August 1967, LAB 13/2578; Meany to Adebola, 26 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 11.

43. Arnold Zack, From A to Z: A Memoir by Arnold Zack, 156–60. The funds acquired by Lovestone for the union election in Ghana were presumably from a dormant account originally set up for covert work in Berlin. Lovestone to Meany, 25 April 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 15; Lovestone to Brown, 12 April 1966, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 32. Benjamin Bentum had been the leader of Ghana’s forestry workers before taking a ministerial post in Nkrumah’s government. He was one of the few Ghana TUC leaders who were not ardent followers of the Nkrumah line and was better known as a moderate who, on a visit to China in 1963, had controversially refused to subscribe to a joint statement on the evils of American “imperialism.”

44. Brown to Lovestone, 14 August 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67.

45. J. E. D. Slater to J. Oates, 3 February 1967, LAB 13/2244; Irving Brown, “Report on African-American Labour Centre Conference with African Representatives to Annual ILO Conference,” 20 June 1967, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 1, folder 27. At one of a series of three AALC seminars planned as a follow-up to the meeting in Geneva and held in Kampala in February 1968, Don Taylor—an invited speaker who was an official of the Canadian steelworkers—was warmly received when he told the African trade union participants that the AFL-CIO should divest itself of government financial backing for the AALC. Taylor argued that the labour centre threatened the independence of both the AFL-CIO and the recipient African labour movements and was, indeed, a potential source of embarrassment to the US government itself. Reporting to his superiors in Canada, he noted that these remarks didn’t seem to upset the AALC’s deputy director, who was in attendance, although the US embassy people present “looked a bit uncomfortable.” His message home was that the Canadians could, in concert with like-minded national labour movements, play a significant part in “putting a damper on the AALC’s adventures and helping to provide alternative and more respectable forms of . . . trade union assistance.” Don Taylor to Bill Mahoney, “My Visit to Uganda in Connection with the Afro-American Labour Centre Seminar,” 16 February 1968, United Steelworkers of America, Canadian National Office fonds, MG28 I 268, vol. 33(9), LAC.

46. J. E. D. Slater to J. Oates, 7 November 1967, 20 May 1968, LAB 13/2244; “The Position and Prospects of Pan-African Trade Unionism at the Beginning of 1968,” Intel 3, Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office to Certain Missions, 14 February 1968, LAB 13/2244.

47. As an army officer, Joseph Mobutu (1930–97) was responsible for removing from office elected Prime Minister Lumumba in 1960. He was also implicated in Lumumba’s murder the following year, by which time he already enjoyed close links with the CIA. Promoted to army chief of staff, it was from this position that he seized power in 1965 and embarked on a campaign to impose personal rule. His regime was marked by corruption, brutality, and violations of human rights. The political party that he created, the MRP, was the only legal political organization between 1967 and 1990. Throughout the same period, all independent trade unions were illegal. He was forced out of office in 1997, the year he died.

48. It was through the National Labour Council that the practice of “obligatory civic work” was introduced by Mobutu in the 1970s, evolving over time into a system of forced labour.

49. J. E. D. Slater to R. O. Barritt, 31 March 1967, LAB 13/2012. Brown’s generally sympathetic reporting of Mobutu’s regime contrasts with the withering assessment of British ambassador Sir John Cotton. He described Mobutu’s rule as “comparing unfavourably with other similar dictatorships” in terms of repression and Mobutu himself as “quite unfit to govern,” though likely to enjoy continued American support because of Washington’s fear of a left-wing alternative. Cotton to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 22 August 1967, FCO 38/126, and Cotton to Stewart, 20 August 1968, FCO 25/55, National Archives, Kew.

50. Brown to Lovestone, 10 August 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 34.

51. “Agenda, Paris, 14–15 January 1972—Exchange of Views,” IAD Brown files, box 2, file 5.

52. Ibid.; Irving Brown, “Notes on Trip to Africa,” 1 September 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 39; Brown to Meany, 18 September 1973, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 11. Much appreciated by Brown was Mobutu’s “courageous stand against the Arabs” in the lead-up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

53. Jef Rens to Meany, 3 March 1967, IAD Brown files, box 1, file 23; J. E. D. Slater to R. O. Barritt, 31 March 1967, LAB 13/2011.

54. R. O. Barritt to Labour Department, 10 March 1967, and Barritt to Slater, 14 April 1967, LAB 13/2011.

55. Rens had previously been an assistant general secretary of the Belgian FGTB. Prior to his recent retirement from the ILO, he had enjoyed vigorous support from the AFL-CIO in battles with his superior, ILO director general David Morse, over the latter’s attempts to restructure the ILO and better accommodate the member states from the Soviet bloc.

56. Brown to Lovestone, 22 October 1966, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67; agenda item 3: “Resignation of the General Secretary and proposals for the appointment of an Acting General Secretary,” minutes of ICFTU Sub-Committee meeting, 13–14 January 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 376; minutes of ICFTU Extraordinary Executive Board meeting, 14–15 March 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 143; Walter Reuther to Rens, 19 January 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 26.

57. Agenda item 4: “Duties of the New Assistant General Secretary,” minutes of ICFTU Sub-Committee meeting, 13–14 January 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 376. Morris Paladino (1920–91) had been a member of the garment workers’ union when he was posted to Latin America in 1960. There he worked as a lecturer for the AFL-CIO in Brazil, as director of organization and later assistant general secretary for ORIT, and then, from 1964, as deputy executive director of AIFLD in charge of planning and administration. Meany insisted that at the ICFTU he be given charge of the department of organization, which was responsible for relations with international trade secretariats, and work in the emerging field of vocational training and cooperative enterprise. Following the AFL-CIO withdrawal from the ICFTU, he became the director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute.

58. Rens to Meany, 3 March 1967, IAD Brown files, box 1, file 23. Victor Reuther suspected that Rens was also alarmed at the recurrent allegations of CIA financing of AFL-CIO activities abroad. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 18 April 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 26.

59. “Message from Mr. Jef Rens to All the Members of the Sub-Committee,” 14 March 1967, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6.

60. Minutes of ICFTU Sub-Committee meeting, 14 March 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 376; minutes of ICFTU Extraordinary Executive Board meeting, 14–15 March 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 143.

61. Alfred Braunthal wrote to Brown on 24 March confirming the agreement that Brown would vacate the post of ICFTU New York director, to take effect from 15 April. (His reference to their meeting having taken place on 16 April is clearly an error.) Braunthal noted that Brown was to be replaced in the New York office by his deputy, Paul Barton, and that George Meany had agreed to this. Alfred Braunthal to Brown, 24 March 1967, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6.

62. Lovestone to Kuno Brandel, 17 March 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 20. As a student during the war, Harm Buiter (1922–2011) had been active in the Dutch resistance. After completing university, he worked for the Dutch metalworkers (NVV) before appointment in 1956 as general secretary of the European Trade Union Secretariat, which represented the unions of the European Communities (Coal and Steel, Economic, and Euratom). In that capacity he worked closely with the leftist German metalworkers’ leader, Otto Brenner, the president of the IMF. It was indeed Buiter who won over Brenner to support for the Common Market, introducing him to Jean Monnet and interpreting for the two men at their first meeting. A casualty of Meany’s bruising battle with the ICFTU that led to the AFL-CIO’s withdrawal in 1969, Buiter resigned as ICFTU general secretary in 1971 to become the mayor of Groningen.

63. Buiter to Storti, 15 November 1966, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 3.

64. James A Suffridge, “Memorandum of Activities Representing President Meany and AFL-CIO, Brussels, Belgium, 15–21 May 1967,” IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 21.

65. Brown to Meany, 23 May 1967, IAD Brown files, box 8, file 8. Pierre Felce had been a close supporter of Ferri-Pisani within Force ouvrière. He was regarded as a moderate among the traditional socialists who formed the core of FO’s membership and, as a member of the French Chapter of the Atlantic Institute, was committed to French membership in NATO. Irving Brown advised: “This would be the time to go all out for the FO and not cut down as is being done.” “Suggested Procedure re Election of General Secretary,” n.d. [August 1967?], Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 46; “Letter from Irving Brown,” 6 June 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1966–67; Lovestone to Meany, 7 June 1967, Meany files, 1940–80, box 64, file 15.

66. Author interview with Stefan Nedzynski, 11 November 1995; Nedzynski to author, 17 June 2005.

67. Apart from talks with Thieu and Ky, Brown also had discussions with the infamous chief of national police, General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, who two weeks earlier gained worldwide notoriety when, in front of TV cameras, he executed a captured Viet Cong officer in the street with a pistol shot to the brain. With the CVT leadership, Brown reviewed the scope for material assistance to repair the organization’s headquarters, which had been targeted by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive. In these talks, he encouraged Buu to involve the CVT more in the political process, The following year, Buu formed the farmer-worker party, the Cong Nong, in an attempt to inject a reformist element into South Vietnamese politics. It was in the hope that this American-backed initiative would pay long-term dividends that Meany remained a supporter of the US military intervention for as long as he did. Fernand Audie to Lovestone, 16 March 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 31, file 6; Brown to Lovestone, 14 March 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; Gwenn R. Boardman, “CVT—Force for Social Progress in Vietnam,” Free Trade Union News, September 1968; Edmund Wehrle, “Reprehensible Repercussions: The AFL-CIO, Free Trade Unionism, and the Vietnam War, 1947–75,” 279–80.

68. Brown reported on the scope for Force ouvrière to develop further as a “responsible and efficient trade union movement” and to serve as “an essential stabilizer” in French society. As ever, he talked up FO’s prospects. He envisaged a two-year organizing drive that would require him to spend more time in France. His idea was to involve the group around the former communist, August Lecoeur (now an FO member), and his publication, La Nation socialiste, and focus on winning over disillusioned CGT cadres in metalworking and construction. Noting that the Soviet trade unions had announced a grant of $300,000 for the CGT, Brown proposed that the international free trade unions be asked to raise $1 million so as to finance the work of up to fifty organizers. Bergeron was subsequently brought over for the AFL-CIO executive council meeting that discussed the proposal. The $5,000 per month that the federation actually voted for FO, and for only six months, was a pittance alongside Brown’s big talk of a $1 million fund. This eye-catching figure may simply have reflected his tendency to “think big,” but it is possible that his report to Lovestone was also intended for influential friends outside the trade union movement. Irving Brown, “Report and Proposal on France and Labour,” 9 July 1968, and Brown to Lovestone, 30 August 1968, IAD Brown files, box 17, file 14; Brown to Lovestone, 24 July 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; Joe Beirne, “ICFTU Meeting, Brussels, 3–5 July 1968,” IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 21.

69. Attempts at healing the rift between SAK and SAJ had been in train for some time and were backed by mainstream leaders of the Finnish trade unions and social democratic party who believed they were capable of containing the communist minority in SAK. Brown was unconvinced and lent his support to SAJ president Jaako Rantanen’s opposition to “premature unification.” He recommended giving financial assistance and reported to Lovestone: “They will need much more resources to carry on the fight. . . . The amounts [are] very high.” In the event, the merger was agreed and was completed by June 1969. What funding was requested by Rantanen or provided by Brown during this process is unknown. It was a highly sensitive subject: the SAJ was dogged by allegations that it had previously received CIA funding. Evidence suggests that financial help from American unions was reaching favoured recipients within the merged SAK well into the 1970s. Brown to Lovestone, 1 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 35; Brown to Lovestone, 2 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; Brown to J. C. Turner, 16 September 1977, IAD Brown files, box 5, file 3.

70. Lovestone to Paladino, 4 August and 25 August 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74.

71. Harold Lewis, then with the ITF and later its general secretary, notes that, at the time, Felce’s national union was affiliated to the ITF with a membership of 2,250—down from the already insignificant total of 7,000 of 1952. He remarks that the FO transport workers—indeed Force ouvrière itself—“had a standing in the international movement out of all proportion to their domestic significance . . . acting out the fiction that they really did have members and influence and were not mere cyphers.” In this context, Lewis regarded the support for Felce shown by Lovestone and Brown—“clearly intelligent, in many ways very well informed, hard nosed”—as “an unfathomable paradox.” Lewis to author, 9 January 2005.

72. Lovestone to Meany, 6 June 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 3, file 46; Jay Lovestone, “Report on the ICFTU Executive Board, 4–5 October 1967, 12 October 1967,” IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6.

73. Lovestone to Paladino, 25 August 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74; Lovestone to Harry Goldberg, 11 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 10. On his appointment, Buiter’s salary was worth 25 percent more than Becu had received. Lovestone calculated that, with other supplements, his remuneration would amount to 45 to 50 percent above that of Becu. He had also negotiated a unique provision for severance pay under which he would receive a year’s salary plus one month’s salary per year of service if congress or the executive board terminated his contract before retirement age. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 4–6 October 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 145.

74. Brown cable to Lovestone, 11 September 1967, and “Letter from Irving Brown,” 12 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 33.

75. Lovestone to Goldberg, 15 September and 29 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 10; Lovestone to Brown, 21 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 33. The apparent diminution of Lovestone’s influence was a theme that recurred around this time in the reports of the British labour counsellor in Washington, who noted that Lovestone, approaching his sixty-eighth birthday, was also beginning to look old and tired. H. F. B. Fane to J. Oates, 30 March 1966, LAB 13/2432.

76. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 4–6 October 1967, ICFTU Archives, folder 149.

77. Jay Lovestone, “Report on ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 4–6 October 1967—Brussels, Belgium,” 12 October 1967, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6. Paul Barton (Jiří Veltruský), a member of Brown’s staff in the ICFTU’s New York office, who had recently succeeded him as director, joined in Lovestone’s campaign to undermine Buiter, his boss, barely a month after the latter’s confirmation in office. He sent a confidential briefing paper to Meany attacking the general secretary and his Brussels staff in the same scurrilous terms in which Irving Brown had once routinely attacked Becu. His observations ranged widely over the style and substance of Buiter’s leadership, talking of a “paralysing crisis” in the secretariat and the general secretary’s “alarming” tendency to work through a “personal clique” of incompetents while employing “delaying tactics” in handling the burning issue of trade union contacts with Eastern Europe. His main point was that Buiter was vulnerable and could be defeated at the next congress. To achieve his “elimination,” Barton suggested that, as the staff member responsible for administration at the upcoming ICFTU World Economic Conference that would precede the next congress, he was in a position to use the conference as a launch pad for a challenge to the general secretary. It would provide an opportunity for any rival to Buiter to demonstrate his competence, and Barton would ensure that the person had ample scope to showcase his talents. Paul Barton, “Confidential—ICFTU,” November 1967, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6. This was a remarkable document for a member of the ICFTU staff to send to a vice president of the organization, dealing as it did with the alleged personal and professional defects of the recently appointed general secretary. Meany could have put an immediate stop to such mischief but chose not to, just as he had done nothing to rein in Irving Brown’s earlier efforts to undermine Jaap Oldenbroek and Omer Becu. Indeed, he was soon to hire Barton as an AFL-CIO representative working in the Paris office.

78. “Report of ICFTU Finance Sub-Committee, 10–11 January 1968,” ICFTU Archives, folder 149; Lovestone to Brandel, 22 January 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 20.

79. There could be no doubting the Soviet effort to liberalize industry. Under the 1965 “Liberman reforms,” “capitalist” material incentives had been adopted that aimed at more efficient production. Liberman’s importance was recognized in the United States when, on 12 February 1965, he became the only Soviet economist ever to make it to the front cover of Time magazine. The AFL-CIO leadership was quite right that liberalization among trade unions lagged far behind. But rather than accept this as justification for shunning them à la Meany, people like Charles Levinson, general secretary of the International Chemical Workers’ Federation, argued that it was imperative to engage with Soviet bloc unions over the dumping of low-priced goods on Western markets and the transfer, by multinational firms, of plant to the Soviet bloc to capitalize on lower labour costs, both of them products of communist collaboration with Western capitalism that had been encouraged by the Liberman reforms. Charles Levinson, “East-West Trade and Union Contacts: An Increasingly Irrelevant Controversy for Trade Unions,” International Federation of Chemical and General Workers’ Unions, Geneva, 1968, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 38, file 25. Levinson sent a copy of this discussion document to Victor Reuther on 6 August 1968.

80. It was the developing contacts between these three trade union centres and the Soviet bloc that lent urgency to the work of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, which was modelled on AIFLD and the AALC. Shortly after the opening of the institute’s field office in Saigon in 1968, Ernie Lee wrote that if these Asian-Pacific centres “do not hold back, we are in deeper water.” He suggested that Lovestone make a trip to Tokyo in one final attempt to reason with them and “then push the [independent] regional activities as hard as possible.” Lee to Lovestone, 19 April 1968, Meany files, 1940–80, box 64, file 1.

81. Paladino to Lovestone, 31 July 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74.

82. Welt der Arbeit, 23 June 1967; “Summary of Letter by Kuno Brandel to Rosenberg, 23 June 1967,” Meany files, 1940–80, box 63, file 22.

83. Lovestone to Goldberg, 15 September and 29 September 1967, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 10. As the architects of the government’s incipient Ostpolitik, the SPD members of the Grand Coalition, Willy Brandt and Herbert Wehner, were already under a cloud. Lovestone deemed them “anti-American.” For a time, Georg Leber, now a minister in the coalition government, also found himself out of favour with the AFL-CIO. Lovestone to Brandel, 22 January 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 20; Lovestone to Leber, 21 March 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 17.

84. Lovestone to Paladino, 4 August 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74.

85. J. J. Watson to J. Oates, 8 November 1967, LAB 13/2465; Jay Lovestone, “Report on ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 4–6 October 1967, Brussels, Belgium,” 12 October 1967, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6. Lovestone commented: “This dangerous [TUC] policy has already led to the likelihood of the Communists taking over the second biggest affiliate [Amalgamated Engineering Union] and, together with Frank Cousins’s Transport Union [Britain’s biggest] changing the entire face and course of the TUC.”

86. Jay Lovestone, “Report on ICFTU Executive Board Meeting, 4–6 October 1967,” IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 6.

87. The director of the original department was Alois Adamczyk, the exiled Polish trade union leader who had previously led the New York-based faction within the ICFTUE. However, Lovestone never trusted him, and under his leadership the department failed to operate with the vigour and purpose that the AFL-CIO had hoped for. With Adamczyk’s death in 1959, the operation fell into abeyance.

88. “Relations Between Free Trade Unions and Communist-Controlled Trade Union Organizations,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 4–6 October 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 1.

89. George Woodcock, “Blackpool TUC Will Welcome Soviet Delegates,” Morning Star, 24 July 1968; Lovestone to Bergeron, 7 August 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 7.

90. “Relations Between Free Trade Unions and Communist-Controlled Trade Union Organizations,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 4–6 October 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 1. Lovestone was supremely confident in his ability to dominate any discussion on this topic. He had for some time been trying unsuccessfully to lure European trade union leaders into writing articles for the Free Trade Union News justifying their approach to contacts with Soviet bloc organizations. It was a matter of frustration that no one took up his offer, thereby denying him the chance to publish an accompanying demolition of their naïve offerings. Lovestone to Paladino, 4 August 1967, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74.

91. “The Manifesto That Angered the Soviet Leadership,” Manchester Guardian Weekly, 18 July 1968.

92. Alexander Shelepin (1918–94) had recently been appointed to the AUCCTU post, an intriguing move since he was previously responsible for the KGB. For some years he was a rising star in Soviet politics—first secretary of the Komsomol (1952–58), then head of the KGB (1958–61), and then, in 1961, deputy premier under Khrushchev, in whose ouster, it has been alleged, he was complicit. As KGB head, he ordered the killing of a Ukrainian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, in Munich in 1959 and was unable to make a scheduled visit to the DGB in the early 1970s for fear of being arrested in connection with this. Shelepin also signed the indictment of the U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who was shot down over Soviet territory in 1960. From 1964 to 1975, he was a member of the Politburo and, as the youngest such member, had ambitions to replace Party secretary Leonid Brezhnev.

93. “Ludwig Rosenberg’s Moscow Talks,” Die Quelle, July–August 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 17; Jay Lovestone, “Rosenberg’s Mission to Moscow,” 17 June 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 13.

94. Victor Reuther to Rosenberg, 11 July 1968, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, file 3.

95. Raised in East Germany, Otto Kersten (1928–82) was sentenced in 1953 to fifteen years’ forced labour for involvement in the social-democratic opposition to the communist regime. Released early, in 1960 he went to work for Harm Buiter on the staff of the European Trade Union Secretariat. He became head of the DGB’s international department in 1965 and, in 1972, succeeded Buiter as ICFTU general secretary.

96. Jay Lovestone, “[Report on] East-West Committee Meeting, Friday, 28 June 1968,” IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 21. In a lengthy discussion document on East-West visits in August 1968, Charles Levinson, general secretary of the International Chemical Workers’ Federation, expressed a view increasingly heard in ICFTU circles that the AFL-CIO seemed headed for isolation, adding that this was not entirely unwelcome. Levinson, “East-West Trade and Union Contacts: An Increasingly Irrelevant Controversy for Trade Unions.”

97. Lovestone to Meany, 21 August 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

98. Lovestone to Dale Good, 3 September 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 16; Lovestone to Joseph Godson, 9 September 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 6.

99. Irving Brown warned Lovestone of this latest tendency to distinguish between Soviet bloc communist countries that did invade and those that didn’t invade, creating a basis for continued friendly relations and eventual discussions of unity with the latter. Brown to Lovestone, 14 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69.

100. Lovestone pooh-poohed Kersten’s argument, dismissing him as “the little petty bureaucrat.” Lovestone to Good, 13 September 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 16; agenda item 8: “Czechoslovakia,” ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 20–22 November 1968, ICFTU Archives, folder 152.

101. Paladino to Meany, 10 September 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 359, file: Harm Buiter, 1967–70; Lovestone memorandum, “Conference with Buiter, 17 October 1968, Madison Hotel Restaurant, Montpelier,” 18 October 1968, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 16.

102. Within a year the UAW was also working on plans to include the Yugoslav unions in a three-way project with itself and the Swedish metalworkers, focusing on assistance to unions in the developing world. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 16 September 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 30, file 7.

103. Agenda item 9: “Report of Second Meeting of Committee on Relations Between Free Trade Unions and Communist-Controlled Trade Union Organizations,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 20–22 November 1968, ICFTU Archives, folder 152; Morris Paladino, “[Report on] Meeting of East-West Committee, 19 November 1968,” Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

104. Brown to Lovestone, 14 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69.

105. It was a measure of the bad blood between the UAW and the AFL-CIO that although copies of the administrative letters were widely distributed, no copies were sent to the AFL-CIO per se. Frank Cormier and William J. Eaton, Reuther, 417.

106. Ibid., 416–17; Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit, 409; Joseph C. Goulden, Meany, 390–93.

107. Minutes of a special session of the UAW International Executive Board, 1–2 March 1968, UAW Region 9a, box 24, cited in Kevin Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism 1945–68, 237.

108. Scott Runkle to Victor Reuther, 27 February 1967, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 17, file 6. Bill Mahoney, head of the Canadian section of the steelworkers’ union and thus one who might be expected to empathize with Reuther, later admitted to Meany that the UAW president’s behaviour had been “alien to democratic traditions.” He noted that few Americans or Canadians understood what Reuther was up to and that he was thus not surprised that trade unionists elsewhere were inclined to be puzzled. Mahoney to Meany, 12 December 1968, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 6.

109. Lovestone to Brandel, 22 January 1968, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 1, file 20; Lovestone to Meany, 17 January 1968, Meany files, 1940–80, box 64, file 1.

110. A White House aide told President Johnson: “Walter is playing seven card stud, high-low, with Mr. Meany, the last card coming face down on election day.” Boyle, The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 237.

111. Reuther to Levinson, 27 March 1968, Rebhan records, 1965–80, box 4, file 16; “Relations with the AFL-CIO,” Resolution of the 21st Constitutional Convention of the UAW, 4 May 1968, Rebhan records, 1965–80, box 8, file 3.

112. “Transcript of President George Meany’s Press Conference, Executive Council Meeting, Washington, DC, 13 May 1968,” and Reuther, Mazey, Woodcock, and Greathouse to Meany, 1 July 1968, Victor Reuther papers, box 11, file 11. In the battle to sway outside opinion, the AFL-CIO gained considerably with its closely argued statement To Clear the Record: AFL-CIO Executive Council Report on the Disaffiliation of the UAW, which was issued in April 1969 and translated into four languages. Prepared by Meany’s executive assistant, Lane Kirkland, who was about to move up to the post of secretary-treasurer, it served as a powerful refutation of the UAW’s criticism of the AFL-CIO leadership. The document pointed up factual errors in Reuther’s “administrative letters” and highlighted his erratic behaviour in the lead-up to the UAW’s disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO. And, of crucial importance, its argument went completely unanswered. Walter Reuther’s executive assistant, Irving Bluestone, was tasked with drafting a response, and he produced a list of headings around which a rebuttal might be framed. But there was no follow-up. Bluestone to Walter Reuther, 21 May 1969, and Bluestone memorandum, “Items for Possible Response,” 17 May 1971, Victor Reuther papers, box 33, file 6; author interview with Irving Bluestone, 17 June 1987. Thus the long-running Reuther-Meany struggle concluded with the federation having the last word and very much holding the upper hand. It is impossible to judge with any precision the effect that the AFL-CIO statement had internationally, but it is reasonable to assume that union leaders abroad who subsequently adjusted their view did so, at least in part, in light of this document.

113. Walter Reuther to Storti and Buiter, 23 May 1968, Reuther-Carliner records, 1962–68, box 59, file 8.

114. Untitled transcript of ICFTU–AFL-CIO meeting, Monday, 27 October 1969, New York City, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 1. The goodwill toward the AFL-CIO in Europe was already in short supply. Following the ICFTU’s Amsterdam congress in 1965, Meany had been out of favour among large numbers of European trade unionists, and since then the AFL-CIO backing for the Vietnam War had become a particular cause of disagreement. In 1968, William Gillen was the latest AFL-CIO fraternal delegate at the British TUC conference to experience a frosty reception. He wrote personally to Meany: “If there is a soul in Great Britain who supports our position in Vietnam, I didn’t encounter him: I’m reasonably sure he wasn’t at the TUC congress. Last year, I was in Japan and found a similar reaction. Right or wrong, hawk, dove or chicken, our position on that issue is getting awfully lonesome in the world.” Gillen to Meany, 25 November 1968, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 4, file 3. The next year, Les Dennis, president of the railroad clerks, was also booed and jeered during his fraternal address to the TUC conference. Dennis to Meany, “Special Report,” 8 September 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

115. Lovestone to Meany, 27 May 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

116. Following the meeting with the AFL-CIO, Buiter and Lovestone dined alone. Their conversation ranged widely, with Buiter mentioning at one stage the depth of Arne Geijer’s “hatred of and bitterness toward the Americans—especially Meany” and noting that Geijer’s views carried much weight with the Germans. From Lovestone’s account of the conversation, it sounded rather as though Buiter understood how much trouble he was now in with Meany and was seeking to deflect some of the hostility onto Geijer. Agenda item 3: “Reports of Special Joint Meetings of the ICFTU Sub-Committee and the Finance and General Purposes Committee,” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 12–14 March 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 158; author interview with Harm Buiter, 2 July 1995; Lovestone memorandum, “Conference with Buiter, 17 October 1968, Madison Hotel Restaurant, Montpelier,” 18 October 1968, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 16.

117. Meany to Buiter, 8 November 1968, ICFTU Archives, folder 152.

118. Geijer to Walter Reuther, 16 December 1968, Rebhan records, 1965–80, box 4, file 3.

119. Lee to Lovestone, 22 November 1968, IAD Lovestone files, box 41, file 21; Meany to Buiter, 16 December 1968, cited in agenda item 9: “Chronological Account of Developments Leading Up to and Following the Application for Direct ICFTU Affiliation of the UAW, Appendix VI,” prepared for the meeting of the ICFTU Executive Board, 30 June–1 July 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 158. Meany subsequently told a briefing meeting for foreign labour attachés that his initial anger at the executive board’s decision intensified when he read the minutes of the meeting and realized that Buiter had not reported all the salient details. He emphasized that the withdrawal had been caused neither by the UAW application as such nor by the issue of East-West contacts. It was a direct consequence of Buiter’s unprincipled behaviour. J. J. Watson to Miss E. R. Ryland, 11 April 1969, LAB 13/2674.

120. Walter Reuther to Geijer, 16 January 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 28, file 15.

121. Meany’s relations with the Christian grouping in Latin America, Confederación latinoamericana de sindical cristiana (CLASC), were notoriously bad, and, in October 1968, Buiter had incurred the wrath of the AFL-CIO by floating the idea of unification with the World Confederation of Labour. In contrast, the UAW had managed to maintain a rapport with CLASC and had recently helped to finance a visit of its leaders to the United States for the purpose of building bridges. Lovestone to Meany, 14 October 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69; Victor Reuther, “Visit of CLASC Delegation from Latin America to the U.S.,” 1 October 1968, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 24, file 16; Victor Reuther to Harold Gibbons, 18 July 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 1, file 9.

122. Benedict to Victor Reuther, 19 December 1968, Victor Reuther papers, box 53, file 22; Victor Reuther, “Dictated Notes from London,” 7 February 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, file 23. Within the ITF, Frank Cousins was touting the idea of admitting the teamsters, and the Reuthers voiced strong support. Victor Reuther to Jack Jones, 12 January 1970, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, file 20.

123. Paladino to Meany, 21 January 1969, and “Notes on Telephone Conversation [Lovestone-Paladino], 22 January 1969,” Meany files 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

124. Lee to Meany, 7 February 1969, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 16; “Joint Meeting of the Sub-Committee and the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the ICFTU, 11 February 1969,” report submitted to the meeting of the TUC International Committee, 25 February 1969, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

125. Victor Reuther, “Dictated Notes from London,” 7 February 1969. Reuther dined that same evening with Frank Cousins and Jack Jones, the former and current general secretaries of the British transport workers’ union, and formed the clear impression that while they sympathized with the UAW, on this issue they were not willing to challenge George Woodcock or his successor, Vic Feather, who became TUC acting general secretary that month. Jack Jones to Victor Reuther, 21 March 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 29, file 4.

126. Rosenberg to Walter Reuther, 9 January 1969, Otto Brenner to Walter Reuther, 2 January 1969, and Victor Reuther to Brenner, 16 January 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, file 9.

127. Paladino to Meany, 21 January 1969, “Notes on Telephone Conversation, 22 January 1969,” and Ernie [Lee] to Virginia [Tehas], 31 January 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

128. Victor Reuther, “Dictated Notes from Dusseldorf,” 10 February 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 35, file 10. A further sign of support for the UAW melting away came when, on the same mission, Reuther travelled to Rome to see Bruno Storti. The CISL general secretary was conveniently “unavailable” and palmed Reuther off to his assistants. Ernie [Lee] to Virginia [Tehas], 31 January 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

129. “Joint Meeting of the Sub-Committee and the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the ICFTU, 11 February 1969,” report submitted to the meeting of the TUC International Committee, 25 February 1969, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901; Rosenberg memorandum to the DGB Executive Council, “Recommendations of the ICFTU Sub-Committee to the Executive Board Regarding the UAW Application for Affiliation to the ICFTU,” 13 February 1969, IAD Brown files, box 5, file 6. That Buiter was also one of the five in favour of the motion would hardly have impressed Meany; it merely served to underline how slim the majority was.

130. Meany to Buiter, 22 February 1968, cited in agenda item 9: “Chronological Account of Developments Leading Up to and Following the Application for Direct ICFTU Affiliation of the UAW, Appendix VIII,” prepared for the meeting of the ICFTU Executive Board, 30 June–1 July 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 158; Brown to Lovestone, 28 February 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69; J. J. Watson to A. M. Morgan, 24 July 1969, LAB 13/2674.

131. Jay Lovestone, “The Chasm Is Unbridgeable,” Free Trade Union News, February 1969.

Chapter 9: Au Revoir Becomes Adieu

1. Victor Feather (1908–76) worked as a retail clerk and was a member of the shop assistants’ union before being appointed as assistant in the TUC’s department of organization at the age of twenty-nine. He remained with the TUC for the rest of his working life, rising slowly through the bureaucracy until he was appointed general secretary in 1969, just four years before his retirement. Though new to the ICFTU executive board, he had considerable previous experience of international trade unionism, having been sent on a wartime delegation to the USSR and, in 1945, to Germany and Greece to advise on the re-establishment of democratic trade unions. He had also been on ICFTU missions to Japan and the Far East. At the TUC, he became the acknowledged expert on communist activities within the British labour movement. Although he was firmly anti-communist, his first press interview after replacing Woodcock was, ironically, with the Soviet trade union journal Trud—“Shelepin’s sheet,” as Lovestone termed it. Bemused by this, the latter commented to Meany, “The ways of the British are hard to explain.” Lovestone to Meany, 6 February 1969, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 16. Having played a leading part in the failed bid to entice the AFL-CIO to return to the ICFTU, Feather spent his remaining years as general secretary warily overseeing the deepening relationship between the TUC and the unions of the Soviet bloc.

Heinz-Oskar Vetter (1917–90) worked as a locksmith in the coal mining industry before serving in the Luftwaffe throughout the war. Returning to civilian life, he became a full-time official of the miners’ union in 1952, a member of its executive board in 1960, and assistant chairman in 1964, with responsibility for its international links. A last-minute candidate for the DGB post in 1969, after the front-runner suddenly withdrew, he was barely known outside his own union at the time of the election, which saw a full one-third of the congress delegates abstain. Lovestone suggested to Meany that although Vetter might be an improvement on Rosenberg (whom Meany heartily detested), he was essentially a weak figure who would not seek to dominate the leaders of the DGB’s powerful national unions. Lovestone to Meany, 2 June 1969, IAD Lovestone files, box 49, file 16. In fact, Vetter was to have a significant influence in the international field.

2. Minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 12 March 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 158; “Meeting of ICFTU Executive Board, Brussels, 12–14 March 1969,” report submitted to the meeting of the TUC International Committee, 25 March 1969, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901; untitled record of telephone conversation, Harry Pollack and Dan Goott, 12 March 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7; John Herling’s Labour Letter, 26 July 1969.

3. Val Agostinone to Victor Reuther, 18 March 1969, Rebhan records, 1965–80, box 8, file 37; Otto Kersten, “Letter to All German Labour Attachés,” 24 February 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 474, file: AFL-CIO; Welt der Arbeit, 28 February 1969; Kersten to Victor Reuther, 19 March 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 28, file 6.

4. Walter Fritze, “Not in Danger,” Welt der Arbeit, 21 March 1969; Der Spiegel, 3 March 1969; Lovestone to Leber, 14 January 1969, IAD Country Files, 1945–71, box 3, file 2; Meany to Rosenberg, 1 May 1969, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 14. Irv Lippé, the US labour attaché in Brussels, was sensitive to AFL-CIO displeasure at the treatment of the issue in Europe’s labour press and admitted to Victor Reuther that he felt under pressure from federation headquarters to self-censor his reports so as to match up with AFL-CIO views. Victor Reuther, “Dictated Notes from Europe,” n.d. [1969], Victor Reuther papers, box 34, file 28.

5. Lovestone to Dale Good, 21 March 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 16.

6. J. J. Watson to Miss E. R. Rylands, 11 April 1969, LAB 13/2674.

7. Initially, Paladino described his relations with Buiter in the headquarters as “an armed truce, with staff in the middle worrying about their scalps and not willing to take bets.” Discussions between the two men had become “table-pounding arguments.” But later he argued to Lovestone: “I can do more good by trying to influence HB . . . rather than have stand-up fights on every issue.” Irritated by Lovestone’s carping criticism, he protested: “I can do with less taunting.” “Notes on Telephone Conversation (Lovestone-Paladino), 22 January 1969,” Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7; Paladino to Meany, 23 March 1969, and Paladino to Lovestone, 11 August 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74. Harm Buiter recalled that although Paladino had been appointed to keep an eye him, they still managed to deal with each other in a friendly manner. This once led Paladino to joke that it spelled danger for both of them. Author interview with Harm Buiter, 2 July 1995.

8. Lovestone to Dale Good, 21 March 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 16; Lovestone to Meany, 28 February 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7; Brown to Lovestone, 28 February 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 356, file: Irving Brown, 1968–69.

9. “Letter from Harry Pollack,” 29 April 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 64, file 2.

10. Lee to Meany, n.d. [8 May 1969], reporting telephone call from Paladino, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

11. Victor Reuther to Executive Board members, 3 June 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 40, file 22. Buiter had recently told Paladino that although he understood he was part of the problem, everyone, including the TUC, had assured him that he would not be sacrificed. Lee to Meany, n.d., Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

12. Section G, International, para. 253, “Relations with the AFL-CIO,” Annual Report of the Trades Union Congress (Portsmouth, 1969), 340–41; Lee to Meany, 8 May 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7; “Appendix XI: Chronological Account,” in “The AFL-CIO and the ICFTU: Statement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council, Washington, 14 May 1969,” and Burton Bendiner cable to Victor Reuther, 18 June 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 40, file 13. Contributing to this changing mood was the AFL-CIO’s document To Clear the Record: AFL-CIO Executive Council Report on the Disaffiliation of the UAW, along with the resulting perception in the international labour movement that Meany did have genuine grounds for complaint about the way the UAW application had been handled.

13. Lane Kirkland (1922–99) joined the U.S. Merchant Marine in 1939, aged seventeen and, as a member of the International Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots, rose to the rank of chief mate during the war. After the war, and following university studies at Georgetown University, he joined the AFL in 1948 as a member of the research department. He was to remain with the federation for the rest of his working life, apart from a two-year break as research director of the Union of Operating Engineers (1958–60). During the 1960s, he was executive assistant to George Meany before being appointed secretary-treasurer in 1969. On his appointment, the British labour counsellor sensed that Meany was keen to involve him in international affairs in a way that his predecessor, Bill Schnitzler, never had been. The labour counsellor also saw this as a possible sign of Lovestone’s waning influence. Lovestone was not an intimate of Kirkland’s and was noncommittal when asked about his reaction to Kirkland’s elevation. J. J. Watson to A. M. Morgan, 24 July 1969, LAB 13/2674. Kirkland succeeded Meany as AFL-CIO president in 1979 and served in that position until his retirement in 1995.

14. In his subsequent account to the committee, Feather claimed that Meany “welcomed” the suggestion. But the Americans transcript of the meeting recorded nothing so upbeat. Untitled transcript (“Storti . . . reviewed the past”), 17 June 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 8; “Joint Meeting of the ICFTU Sub-Committee and the Finance and General Purposes Committee, and Meeting with AFL-CIO Representatives, Geneva, 17 June 1969,” report submitted to the meeting of the TUC International Committee, 24 June 1969, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

15. Paladino to Lovestone, 18 June 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74; Lovestone to Edward Scicluna, 9 July 1969, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 5, file 11.

16. On Geijer’s insistence on reciprocal loyalty, see Geijer to Walter Reuther, 16 December 1968, Rebhan records, 1965–80, box 4, file 23.

17. Feather had been acting general secretary for only four months, Vetter had been in his post for two months, and Kloos of the Dutch NVV was not a titular member of the executive board but was substituting for Debunne, who was scornful of the exercise and chose not to attend. Apart from Buiter and possibly Kloos, none was known as a strong supporter of the UAW bid for affiliation. The “ICFTU Five” were also hobbled to some extent as Bruno Storti became preoccupied with the “hot autumn” of trade union militancy in Italy. Indeed, in August he paid a secret visit to Meany (the Italian Embassy in Washington was under strict instructions not to make known his presence in the city) to discuss CISL’s need for American help as he faced increasing internal pressure for unity with the CGIL. Arguably, in such circumstances he was in no position to take a firm line with Meany in the talks over ICFTU reaffiliation.

18. There had been a fierce row in the executive board when Donald MacDonald of the CLC argued that Buiter might feel forced to resign if he were not supported. For the TUC, Fred Hayday countered that this was to put unfair pressure on board members. Agenda item 9: “Report of the Special Joint Meeting of the ICFTU Sub-Committee and the Finance and General Purposes Committee (Geneva, 17 June 1969),” minutes of ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 30 June–1 July 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 160.

19. ICFTU Report of the Ninth World Congress, Brussels, 2–8 July 1969 (Brussels: ICFTU, 1969), 15–16, 328. On Victor Reuther’s globetrotting and bid to line up international support for the UAW application, see his reports in Victor Reuther papers, box 33, file 32; Victor Reuther to Fay, 9 July 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 28, file 10.

20. J. J. Watson to A. M. Morgan, 24 July 1969, LAB 13/2674.

21. Bergeron to Lovestone, 1 August 1969, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 2, file 7.

22. Vetter to Meany, 27 June 1969, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 2.

23. Joe Beirne to Meany, 5 August 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7. Vetter’s weakness within the DGB was reflected in his lack of control over his own press. Despite his emollient tone in letters to Meany, Welt der Arbeit was still uncompromising in its approach to the AFL-CIO, commenting with respect to the Geneva meeting: “As much as Vetter wants a return of the AFL-CIO, he is not prepared to make any concessions to the Americans.” It also went on to insist that, in matters of aid to developing countries, the ICFTU must be given freedom to operate “without being influenced by government interests and power politics motives.” Walter Fritze, “ICFTU at the Crossroads,” Welt der Arbeit, 18 July 1969. In the wake of these comments, the hapless Vetter wrote apologetically to Meany explaining that it was difficult to control what the labour press said. He enclosed a piece he had written about the ICFTU congress in which he praised an article written by Meany and talked of his personal commitment to reaching a settlement with the AFL-CIO. Vetter to Meany, 4 August 1969, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 14.

24. Beirne to Meany, 5 August 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 7.

25. Meany to Feather, 11 August 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 6.

26. Text of cable from London Embassy to State Department, n.d. [24 August?] 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 59, file 12.

27. Victor Reuther to Walter Reuther, 26 August 1969, Victor Reuther papers, box 28, file 16.

28. Untitled transcript of ICFTU–AFL-CIO meeting, Monday, 27 October 1969, New York City, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 1; John Windmuller, “Internationalism in Eclipse: The ICFTU After Two Decades,” 522.

29. Untitled transcript of ICFTU–AFL-CIO meeting, Monday, 27 October 1969, New York City, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 1; Paladino to Lovestone, 14 November 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74; Lovestone to Joseph Godson, 14 November 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 6.

30. The “Five” were now down to four. Italy’s “hot autumn” of 1969 kept Storti at home, and he missed the follow-up talks with the AFL-CIO.

31. Paladino to Meany, 14 November 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 383, file: Morris Paladino, 1967–74; “Relations with the AFL-CIO: Report of a Meeting of ICFTU Representatives, Dusseldorf, 16 November 1969,” TUC International Committee, 20 November 1969, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

32. Victor Reuther said that the rejection of the UAW application was a sign of the collapse of confidence in the ICFTU on the part of affiliates, telling the UAW executive board: “What is really happening is the major organizations are really deserting the ICFTU. They just don’t care about it any more because they have for years now been ignoring major policy statements which Meany has insisted that the ICFTU adopt, but which are totally unrealistic . . . so each national centre goes ahead and does what it damn well pleases anyway.” Minutes of UAW International Executive Board meeting, 17 December 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 40, file 23.

33. He gave the greatest credit to the TUC’s international secretary, Alan Hargreaves, for his tenacity in both the Finance and General Purposes Committee and on the executive board in opposing Buiter and neutralizing Debunne, “who can be a devastating rabble-rouser.” A reflection of the woolly thinking among some was Vetter’s behaviour in voting in favour while simultaneously demanding assurances that the AFL-CIO would return without further discussions of the internal affairs of the ICFTU and yet believing that the federation would, in any case, opt to stay outside. According to Lovestone, Vetter was of the view that the AFL-CIO preferred to remain independent since it believed the Third World was full of communists and therefore needed to work alone in the field. Lovestone to Good, 5 December 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 17.

34. Lee to Meany, 26 November 1969, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 8; Paladino to Meany, 2 December 1969, IAD Lovestone files, box 42, file 1; agenda item 6: “Relations with the AFL-CIO,” and item 14: “UAW Application for Affiliation,” ICFTU Executive Board meeting, 26–28 November 1969, ICFTU Archives, folder 162.

35. Author interview with Frank Winn, 20 April 1987.

36. Minutes of UAW International Executive Board meeting, 17 December 1969, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 40, file 23.

37. Lovestone to Meany, 8 September 1969, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

38. “Vetter Views Future USSR-FRG Trade Union Relations,” Moscow Radio, 8 December 1969; Welt der Arbeit, 12 December 1969; Heinz-Oskar Vetter, “Labour’s East Policy,” New York Herald Tribune, 30 January 1970; Vetter to Lovestone, 20 January 1970, and Kersten to Lovestone, 5 February 1970, IAD Country files, 1945–71, box 3, file 14.

39. Lovestone to Godson, 22 January 1970, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 6. Jay Lovestone took issue when the US labour attaché in Bonn suggested that international secretary Otto Kersten was the person responsible for the drift of DGB policy. Lovestone argued that it went much deeper than that and reflected the weight of SPD ideology on Vetter’s thinking, describing him as someone “whose heart and mind and dictates are elsewhere . . . consciously or otherwise serving others.” In his judgment, the DGB chairman was incapable of playing a positive, independent role in facilitating free-world labour reunification. Lovestone to Good, 8 August 1969, Lovestone papers (Cornell), box 2, file 17.

40. Untitled transcript of ICFTU–AFL-CIO meeting, 15 February 1970, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 9; “Relations Between the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU, Meeting in Miami, 15–16 February 1970,” report submitted to the meeting of the TUC International Committee, 24 February 1970, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

41. Beirne to Meany, 25 March 1970, Meany files, 1940–80, box 61, file 9.

42. Victor Reuther to Mapara, 23 February 1970, Reuther-Rebhan records, 1968–72, box 1, file 19.

43. “Meeting of Representatives of the AFL-CIO and of the ICFTU, Geneva, 25 June 1970,” TUC International Committee, 21 July 1970, TUC Archives, MSS 292D/901.

Chapter 10

1. The person appointed, Ted Thompson, had a wartime background in British military intelligence and postwar employment on the staff of the International Socialist Conference. Immediately prior to his appointment, he worked as a publicity officer for the ICFTU. Denis Healey to Kenneth Younger, 19 March 1951 and Healey to Thompson, 19 and 29 March 1951. Papers in the private collection of Victor E. Thorpe.

2. Jack Herling, Washington Daily News, 24 January 1957.

3. Lovestone to Meany, 27 May 1968, Lovestone papers (Hoover), box 379, file: George Meany, 1960–69.

4. Morris Weisz, former labour attaché, official in the Marshall Plan, and driving force behind the Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, has suggested on various occasions that the problem was the secrecy surrounding the CIA funding of union programs, not the CIA funding per se. See Morris Weisz, interviewed by Melbourne Spector, 30 July 1990, Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; a transcript is available at https://adst.org/oral-history/oral-history-interviews/#gsc.tab=0.