EWSMEN covering the re-
cent AFL-CIO convention
. here were a favorite tar-
get of Jay Lovestone, head of
the AFL-CIO’s International Af-
“fairs Department. Chatty as
Could be; he revealed to Ken
Clawson, Toledo Blade and
others that he collects and dis-
tributes to federal agencies in-
formation gathered by his world
Wide network of contacts. He
denies as has been charged by
‘Vic Reuther, UAW leader and
Others that he is a CIA agent.
“I am-a trade unionist and
American,” he said. ‘When our
People come up with informa-
tion vital to the national secur-
ity, I turn it over to the proper
authorities.” (quoted in the
_ Toledo Blade, Dec. 17, 1967).
Pontificating in the luxurious
lobby of the Americana Hotel
here, Lovestone claims that peo-
ple trained under his department
are able to discover information
Of intelligence nature “because
they are closer to the people.”
“Those Harvard and Yale gra-
duates that work for our govern-
ment can’t get information be-
Cause they have no rapport with
the people. They look down on
1€ people,” observed Lovestone
Plously.
_ Asked about the United Auto
Workers leaders’ obvious dis-
taste for his line of work, Love-
Stone told some of the newspa-
Per lads and lassies, that milked
him for comments during the
four day sessions, “for all the
Reuthers have- to say about our
Operational methods, don’t for-
8et that it was Victor who ac-
Cepted CIA money.”

AFL-CIO MIAMI CONVENTION

He said he had “ideological
differences” with the Reuthers.
As an illustration he said he and
the AFL-CIO were currently in-
volved in an “underground move-
ment in Spain of anti-Franco
forces, consisting of trade union-
ists, Catholics, anarchists, even
monarchists, but no communists.

“Victor would have us include
the communists and the Falan-
gists but we know better. These
latter groups would form a co-
alition with Franco and crush
the movement,” he claimed.
Asked about his operations in
Latin America, by some of the
newsmen, because they claimed
more. agents, more attention,
more money is spent there, he
told about “his graduates.”

The vehicle with which Love- .

stone operates in Latin America
is the ‘American Institute for
Free Labor Development”
(AIFLD) which has as its gov-
ernment counter part the Agen-
cy for International Develop-
ment (AID).

Lovestone had a special gra-
duating breakfast at the AFL-
CIO convention here for 200
graduates of his “school.” This
reporter was in the graduating
ceremonies and listened to Love-
stone make his commencement
speech. One of his big points is
that “his students” learn how to
answer communist arguments
and “Red agitators.” In the last
two years AIFLD got $250,000
from the-~ AFL-CIO. . Another
$50,000 was appropriated pos-
sibly for the school we sat in

on. Many times this amount -

however comes from AID.
The “school graduates” we sat

amongst, get a year’s salary
from Lovestone’s AIFLD when
they return home to Latin Ame-
rica. He said when asked by
ome newsmen later, it amounts
E $1,000 to $2,000 and the
money is to sustain them until
they are able to re-enter the
labor movement, or organiza-
tions they are assigned to.

The aquaintanceship of Reu-
ther and Lovestone goes back to

the factional fight in the late
thirties inside the UAW. Love-
stone supported Homer Martin,
then the president, who was
booted out when the rest of the
UAW leaders discovered he was
getting checks from the Ford
Motor Co. Martin later went to
work in the notorious Service
Department at Fords.

David Dubinsky, of the Ladies
Garment Workers Union, who

Lovestone’s anti-communist school

By WILLIAM ALLAN

had his fingers in UAW affairs
at the same time, hired Love-
stone, who by this time had
dropped all pretense of being
any kind of revolutionary. He
had been kicked out of the U.S.
Communist Party in 1929 for
factional disruption and phony
theory about American capital-
ism being “exceptional” to eco-
nomic crisis.

Lovestone during one of his
chats with Clawson of the
Toledo Blade broke down and
confessed that he abandoned
“Marxism in 1940, to throw my-
self into the struggle against
Hitler as head of the labor Com-
mittee of the American Com-
mittee to Defend America.” He
then related how after the war
he became involved with the
American Labor Conference for
International Affairs, ommitting
that it was an outfit formed by
his boss David Dubinsky for
red-bating, disruption in the
unions and anti-Soviet baiting.
The CIA channeled lots of money
into this operation. One of its
main purposes was to beat back
progressive leading European
unions.

He says he was one of the
founders of the International
Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU).

It was interesting in the
breakfast for “his graduates” to
listen to Lovestone patiently ex-
plain how 60 American corpora-
tions doing business in Latin
America, put money into AIFLD,
and how that money is “good
business” and “we must teach
Latin American employers that
itciss?

-Reuther should have been there...

TOP aide of United Auto

Workers Union president

Walter Reuther jokingly
asked this reporter when he re-
turned from covering 7th Con-
Stitutional Convention of the
AFL-CIO in Florida, “how did
you like the meeting of the Cab-
inet Ministers?” There were five
Rorason Cabinet ministers, plus
Ohnson himself at the sessions.
To which, this reporter re-
Plied, “it would have been a lot
ene Productive, if Walter Reu-

€r had been present.”

All kinds of interpretations
and stories were about as to why
b president Walter Reuther
Fe beesed the AFL-CIO conven-
19n after nationally known pro-
Hee of a confrontation with
He President, George Meany,
an his pro-war policies and
percening hand on the main
on of unionized American
a 14,000,000 in the AFL-

Reuther himself told Detroit
pe omen several days before
Re AFL-CIO convention opened,
- ¢. 7, that if he had to make a
4, Clce between fighting General
5a or George Meany, he

nee G.M. (he was nego-
GM & a new contract with
eee same Detroit newsmen
‘ Te well aware that Lou Seat-

N, director of industrial rela-
~ Hons for G.M., had said his com-

ghety Was willing) ;to~ pay) the.

Ford-Chrysler economic pack-
age. This left representation
stewards time to be increased,
working conditions as the Big
Fable top issues. Reuther, in the
estimation of newsmen here
who know him well, could easily
have spent a couple of days at
the AFL-CIO convention and it
would have changed many
things. —

There were many delegates
who awaited the arrival of the
UAW delegation to lead the
fight on the issue of peace,
streamlining the AFL-CIO, and
for pushing for a great drive to
organize the other 50 million un-
organized members of the work-
ing population in this country.

Reuther’s failure to lead the
UAW delegation to do battle on
these issues, was the biggest
letdown of the convention and
left the platform to a veritable
parade of Cabinet ministers,
heads of government depart-
ments, until there was no room
for day to day bread and butter
issues, or a challenge to the
warmongering of these Wash-
ington war hawks.

Warmongers like Joe Curran,
president of National Maritime,
Paul Hall, Seamen’s Interna-
tional Union; Tommy Gleason,
Int. Longshoremen’s Union; Jay
Lovestone, Meany’s “foreign
minister” and lesser fry had a
field day yipping and hollering

their/swpport for Meany and his .:)

wartalk from the rostrum.

The unions like Steel, Elec-
trical, Clothing, Meat Cutters,
the printing trades, Packing-
house, sat in silence, and it took
a union like the American Fed-
eration of Teachers (142,000
members) through their presi-
dent Charles Cogen, to challenge
the Meany warline and resolu-
tion supporting the Johnson ag-
gression in Vietnam, to counter
with a proposal .the Federation
stay neutral. Only Leon Davis
of the Retail & Wholesale
Union, New York, and A. Tof-
foli, Colorado States Federation
of Labor, got the floor to speak
against the pro-war resolution.
Some 13 speakers against the
pro-war resolution were lined
up but Meany ramrodded the
resolution through. If Emil
Mazey, UAW secretary treasur-
er had been there like two years
ago in the AFL-CIO conven-
tion in San Francisco, Meany
wouldn’t have dared to shut off
debate. Or if Reuther had been
there, likewise, it would have
pulled together the undoubtedly
large group of anti-war forces.

“Will the UAW pull out of the
AFL-CIO?” was the question
most kicked around in bull ses-
sions. Many are reading him
out of the AFL-CIO by next
spring (February, when the Ex-
ecutive Council has its meeting
and where he says he is going

tion on his program) but no
signs exist in Detroit that this
is the UAW’s choice—to leave
the main body of the American
labor movement.

Since he now uses the side-
door when invited to the White
House, whether Reuther and his
auto workers stay inside the
AFL-CIO or leave, won’t change
his sidedoor status with John-
son. When Johnson spoke in
New York some weeks ago at
the Jewish Labor Committee
banquet, the President called the
roll of “great labor leaders”
ranging from the late William
Green and Phil Murray, to John
L. Lewis, George Meany, David
Dubinsky, Louis Stulberg and
Alex Rose. But not one mention
did the President make of Wal-
ter Reuther, who was president
of the CIO. Maybe Johnson

‘knows something about Sen.

McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy
and Reuther that other folks
don’t.

Meanwhile Reuther isn’t isola-
ted. During the Ford strike the
Teamsters were willing to help
him if the coffers ran dry. There
is a well established relationship
between both unions. The Team-
sters and UAW International of-
fices are both in Detroit and it’s
only a dime phone call. The
Teamsters now have a member-
ship of 1,992,000 an all time
high and they expect to reach

for the: long, awaited -confronta-; , the two;million mark soon: «

He also has working relations,
communications with all the old
CIO unions, so he is not alone
or parting with “old friends” as
some scribblers claim. —

The UAW will have a conven-
tion (legislative) in May at At-
lantic City, with over 3,000 dele-
gates. It will be politics all the
way, with full blown debate on
presidential candidates, a pro-
gram for the 1968 elections, for-
eign policy debates, the great is-
sue of the poor, unity of labor
and elections of officers.

A powerful rank and file move-
ment inside the UAW might
have convinced Reuther to go to
Miami and not “cop out.” Such
a movement has to be effective
and established if the May con-
vention is to make a mark on
the American political scene. It’s
such a movement that has its
beginnings in the new united
caucus of Ford, G.M., Chrysler,
skilled trades. f

Also the Black caucus. is
springing up, and will have a
program and speakers for that
May convention, so that matters
effecting the welfare of the
union and the issues of the day.
are not left to the whims of
Reuther.

Definitely, however, Reuther’s
absence from the AFL-CIO con-
vention in Miami didn’t herald
the auto workers’ withdrawal
either from the AFL-CIO or the

.« Struggles .effecting:all. labor.,.
is JANUARY (37, 968 SPACIETRIBUNES Page 5

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