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MEANY-LOVESTONE-CIA

Cloak-and-dagger unionism

HE International Labor Or-
ganization, a specialized
agency of the United Na-

tions, recently had the audacity
to elect a president from Poland.
This move brought forth the
ire of George Meany, the “hon-
est plumber” president of the
AFL-CIO, and he ordered the
American delegation to boycott
the ILO.

To anybody with the slight-
est knowledge of the pathologi-
cal anti-Communism of George
Meany, and his shadowy advisor
Lovestone, this recent action
causes no surprise. Meany has
always been with the ultra-Right
of the United States, opposing
even diplomatic connections
with the socialist countries.

The conduct of the American
labor delegation to the recent
_meeting of the ILO in Geneva
was classical Meany. When the
ILO elected Leo Chajn of Poland
as chairman, the American labor
delegate walked out. The repre-
sentative of American employ-
ers did not withdraw, only the
labor representative.

Meany’s actions appeared to
be too much even for the gov-
ernment to take. United Na-
tion’s Ambassador Goldberg,
Secretary of Labor Wirtz, Un-
der-Secretary of State Ball, and
finally President Johnson con-
ferred with Meany to get him to
order his delegate back.

The American delegate did go
back long enough to be elected
on to the executive board, but
then the conference also elected
Pyotr T. Pinenov of the USSR
to the executive, and Meany ap-
parently really took off.

In breaking precedent by
electing representatives to its
leading body from-socialist coun-
tries, the ILO is reflecting at last
the reality of the world, but back
in the United States, the meet-
ing of the Executive Council of
the AFL-CIO also reflected an-
other reality. The Meany-Love-
stone line was challenged, both
publicly through a letter from
the United Auto Workers de-
nouncing Meany’s position, and

at the council meeting itself by .

Walter Reuther, president of the
UAW.

While the outcome of the
meeting appeared to support
Meany it is significant that the

matter was raised at all. More--

over, the council also agreed to
organize a full-scale discussion
on the international policy of
the AFL-CIO during the fall, as
well as to investigate charges
that its overseas operations are
a front for the Central Intelli-
gence Agency.

What kind of discussion is
organized in the fall will depend
on many factors, but the stench
of the international operations
which are conducted in the name
of the American labor move-
ment is becoming impossible to
ignore.

One area of these operations
is Latin America.

A recent article in the New
York Times magazine devoted
to Latin America reveals the fol-
lowing:

“The Americans not only prop
up Latin-American business but
even the trade unions.

“The great AFL-CIO employs
training officers and lecturers
throughout the subcontinent and
is subsidized by the govern-
ment.

“Its representative in Sao
Paulo; an American trade-union

officer called Gilbert Richmond,

refused to see anything strange
in the U.S. government backing
the operation: ‘Our answer is
that the U.S. supports almost
every kind of institution — I'd
cut a lot of them out. Why
shouldn’t it support the unions?
It would look suspicious if it
didn’t.’ Funds came not only
from AFL-CIO and the USS.
government but “from big busi-
ness — not all big business but
especially those companies with
interests in Latin America.”

By RAE MURPHY

“The spectacle of big business
financing its own unions is odd
indeed. But the AFL-CIO makes
it clear that the unions will not
be too militant. Their represen-
tative, Charles E. Wheeler, dir-
ector of the American Institute
for Free Labor Development in
Buenos Aires, said that ‘our aim
is to help all the unions which
have not been infiltrated by the

a9

Commies and so on’.

If one examines the back-
ground of the American Insti-
tute for Free Labor Develop-
ment it does.not seem odd at
all that big business finances
much of its operations or that
militancy is not one of. its char-
acteristics.

Joint chairmen of the institute
are George Meany and Peter

. Grace, a multi-millionaire indus-

trialist who is one of the largest
investors in South America.
Other members include the pre-
sident of Anaconda, as well as
a representative of Nelson Rock-
efeller.

But AIFLD is not simply a
consortium between American
capital and the right-wing lead-
ership of the AFL-CIO; the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency is also

. a partner in the operation. In

an article in ‘he Nation, July 5,
1965, Sidney Lens, brings out
the following facts about it:

“When AIFLD was formed in
1962, three or four men were

GEORGE MEANY

considered for the top post. Two
of them, whom I have known
for many years, told me that
they veered away from the job
when they heard background
whispers of a certain Michigan
Fund.

“The Michigan Fund is one
of eight foundations which ac-
cording to Rep. Wright Patman,
funneled almost $1 million to
to J. M. Kaplan Fund of New
York from 1961 to 1963. And
the Kaplan Fund was in turn,
says Representative Patman, a
‘secret conduit’ for the Central
Intelligence Agency. The Michi-
gan Fund has an address but
no telephone listing. One year,
before it got Internal Revenue
permission to withhold operat-
ing data, it listed total annual
expenses of $60.51.”

Recently a further example
of the AFL-CIO involvement on
behalf of the CIA in Latin
America was disclosed by Victor
Reuther, International Director
of the UAW and himself a mem-
ber of the International Depart-
ment of the AFL-CIO. Accord-
ing to Reuther, eight agents of
the CIA operated in Panama
with credentials of the Interna-
tional Food and Drink Workers
Federation.

Jay Lovestone, who is direc-
tor of the AFL-CIO International
Department, makes little secret
of his connections with the CIA
and State Department. He was

' described by one writer during

his days with the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union
as having a personality that was
“half cloak and suit and half
cloak and dagger.” He is a no-
torious supporter of every right
wing front in the United States,
from the China Lobby to the
“Free Cuba Committee.”

The actions of the Meany-
Lovestone clique have by no
means been limited to South
America. Even before the end
of the Second World War they

July 2, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 6

were active in Western Europe
Splitting the trade union move-
ment. From organizing to break
the general strike in France in
1947, to recruiting thugs to
break the boycott of the Mar-
seilles longshoremen who had
refused to unload American
arms in 1960.

Meany and Lovestone have

opposed every effort to ease the —

cold war and to develop con-
tacts between East and West.
Their implaccable cold war line

has become so ludicrous thal —
they are even at odds with the ~

International Confederation of
Free Trade Unions, a_ trade
union centre they themselves
fostered as a division within
the international
movement. A while back in 4
temper tantrum, Meany called

the leaders of the ICFTU at

“inefective bureaucracy right

down to the fairies.”

Yet the main reason for the —

crumbling international positiom

trade union —

a

of Meany would not be the e* —

posure of his seamy activities
abroad on behalf of U.S. im

perialism. The issue is placed

in an article in The Dispatchet

organ of the International Long”
shoremen’s and Warehousemen’s
union, which said that “a ‘peace
rebellion’ may be in the making
within the AFL-CIO.”

The article describes the at
mosphere at the last conferenc®
of the AFL-CIO which adopte
a policy of full support fof
Washington’s war in South Viet
nam, which was supposed to be
even then a modification of 2"
even more war-like statement
drafted by Meany and Love
stone. The article continued t?
state that a growing number OF
trade union leaders in the U-5
were coming out for. negotia-
tions in Vietnam and more
were supporting the developing
peace movement in the Unite?
States. ;

Lately the open challenge t?-

the Meany line has develope
to the point where several key
affiliates of the federation hav®
adopted policy resolutions ©
Vietnam in open contradictio"

to the position advanced scarc®

ly six months ago in the AFL
CIO convention.

Thus the natural aspiration’
of the American workers 1
peace and for international bro”
therhood are reaching into thé
inner sanctums of the trad®

union establishment. . The facts —

of life are that this moveme?

will grow to eventually topple

this preserve of the cold Ww?

and write finish to a most dis —

gusting and sinister chapter ™

the history of the trade unio |

movement on this continent.