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The AFL-CIO Approaches the Vietnam War, 1947-64 LaborHistory, Vol. 42, No. 3, 2001 “NoMore Pressing Task than Organization in Southeast Asia”: TheAFL– CIO Approaches the VietnamWar, 1947– 64 EDMUNDF. WEHRLE* The Vietnam War standsas the most controversial episodein theAFL– CIO’ s four decadesof existence.The federation’s supportfor thewar dividedits membership and drovea wedgebetween organized labor andits liberal allies. By theearly 1970s, the AFL–CIO wasa weakenedand divided force, ill-prepared for adecadeof economic decline.Few, however, recognize thecomplex rootsof the federation’ s Vietnam policy. American organized labor, in fact,was involved deeplyin Vietnam well beforethe American interventionin 1965. In SoutheastAsia, it pursuedits ownseparate agenda, centeredon support for asubstantial SouthVietnamese trade unionmovement under theleadership ofnationalist Tran QuocBuu. 1 Yet,as proved tobe the case for labor throughout thepost-World War IIperiod,its plans for SouthVietnam remained very muchcontingent on its relationship with the U.S.state. This oftenstrained but necessary partnership circumscribedand ultimately crippled thefederation’ s independentplans for Vietnameselabor. Trade unionistsin SouthVietnam foundthemselves in asimilar, although more fatal, bind,seeking to act independently,yet boundto the Americans anda repressiveSouth Vietnamese state. Scholars today oftenportray post-warAmerican organized labor asa partner (usually acompliant juniorpartner) in an accordor corporate arrangement with other “functionalgroups” including thestate and business. 2 While thereis undeniabletruth *Theauthor wishesto thank Robert Brigham, GaryHess, David Sicilia, LeeSayrs, and Jacqueline Johnson. Thearticle is dedicatedto the lateStuart Kaufman. 1TheAFL– CIO’ s interactionwith the VietnameseConfederation of Labor has receivedno prior treatmentfrom historians. Philip Foner, U.S.Labor and the Vietnamese War (NewYork, 1989)treats domesticopposition to the waramong Americanunionists. PeterLevy, The New LeftandLabor in the 1960s (Champaign, IL,1994), takes up the generalissue of labor and socialmovements in the 1960s.What scholarly workhas beendone on labor and foreignpolicy generallyattacks Americanlabor’ s international workas merelyan extensionof of cial American policy. Inthis regardsee Ronald Radosh, American Labor andU.S. Foreign Policy (NewYork, 1969),and morerecently Beth Sims, Workersof the WorldUndermined (Boston, MA, 1992),and Elizabeth McKillen, Chicago Workersand the Quest fora Democratic Diplomacy, 1914–1924 (Ithaca, NY, 1995).A limited workthat provides amorepositive appraisal is Philip Taft, Defending Freedom:American Laborand Foreign Affairs (Los Angeles,CA, 1973). 2For worksthat negativelyevaluate American labor’ s closerelationship with the statein the post-war periodsee: Christopher Tomlins, The State andthe Unions: LaborRelations, Law,and the OrganizedLabor Movement in America (NewYork, 1986);Patrick Renshaw, American Laborand Consensus Capitalism, 1935–1990 (Jackson, MS, 1994),xix; Michael Davis, Prisoners ofthe American Dream:Politics andEconomics in the History ofthe U.S.Working Class (London, 1986);David Brody, “TheBreakdown ofLabor’ s Social Contract,” Dissent, 39 (Winter, 1992),32; David Brody, Workersin Industrial America;Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle (NewYork, 1980),173– 214; as wellas worksby legalscholars Karl Klare, KatherineStone, and James Atleson. MelvynDubofsky, The State andLabor in ModernAmerica (Chapel Hill, 1994)offers a moresanguine view. For asenseof the generalcorporate environment in which ISSN0023-656X print/ ISSN1469-9702 online/ 01/030277–19 Ó 2001Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/00236560120068128 278 E. F. Wehrle tothese portrayals, thevery idea of“corporatism”was anathema topost-war American labor leaders,especially thosein theAFL. 3 Indeed,the leadership ofthe AFL loudly trumpetedits determination tomaintain aprincipled distanceand independence from the state.4 Suchautonomy wascentral toAmerican labor’s harsh critique ofwhat it insistedwas a world-wideCommunist conspiracy. Unions in Communistcountries werehardly unionsat all, according tothis critique, butmerely extensionsof thestate. American unions—by contrast—were “ freetrade unions,”operating independentlyand in thebest interests of workers. Yetremaining freeof state in uence proved difcult for American labor, especially in theera ofthe expanding state.While theAFL andlater theAFL– CIO wouldhave preferredto carry outits Vietnam program through its ownauspices or thoseof the International Confederationof Free Trade Unions(ICFTU), an international feder- ation ofanti-Communist labor movementsfounded in 1949, lack ofadequateresources hinderedthese options. As the situation in Vietnam neareda crisis point in theearly 1960s, theAFL– CIO came torealize that its program for SouthVietnamese labor couldonly berealized with substantial help from theU.S. government. In Vietnam, Buuand his edgling labor movementsuffered a similar struggle toretain an air of autonomy andlegitimacy in apost-colonial environmentthat exultedthe ideal of independence,yet in reality necessitateda painful dependenceon outside forces. Neither labor movementever fully managed tomaster thebalancing act required of modernfree trade unions. * * * * * * By thebeginning ofWorld War II, agroup ofdedicated internationalists with strong anti-Communistleanings had assembledat theAFL headquarters in Washington,DC. Includedin thegroup wereDavid Dubinsky,George Meany, Jay Lovestone,and MathewWoll. 5 Lovestone,an early leader ofthe American CommunistParty, who organizedlabor operatedsee Michael Hogan, The MarshallPlan: America, Britain, andthe Reconstruction ofWestern Europe, 1947–1952 (NewYork, 1987),13– 17. 3GeorgeMeany, speechto Commonwealth Club, June 28,1946, 7/ 6, MeanySecretary Treasurer Papers, GeorgeMeany Memorial Archives, SilverSpring, MD(henceforth GMMA). Perhaps an outgrowthof tense labor relationsduring wartime, AFL SecretaryTreasurer George Meany was particularly vehementthat labor should keepa principled distancefrom government in the post-war period. Meanylinked his opposition to governmentcontrols to his anti-Communism in aspeechin San Francisco in the summer of1946: “ governmentinterference in business leadsto moreand morebureaucratic control and eventuallyto statesocialism, whetherunder the name ofcommunism orfascism.” On the general revivalof collective bargaining and rejectionof corporatism in the immediate post-war yearsalso seeNelson Lichtenstein,“ From Corporatism to CollectiveBargaining: OrganizedLabor and the Eclipseof Social Democracyin the Post-WarEra,” in SteveFraser and GaryGerstle (eds.), The Rise andFall ofthe New Deal Order,1930– 1980 (Princeton,NJ, 1985),122– 152; and Lichtenstein, Labor’s Warat Home:the CIO in WorldWar II (NewYork, 1982),16; Stephen Fraser, LaborWill Rule: Sidney Hillmanand the Rise of American Labor (NewYork, 1991),213– 214. 4Thepersistence well after the 1930sof a strandof vocal anti-statism within the AFL and to alesser extentthe CIO has receivedlittle treatment from historians. Two historians who have examinedthe phenomenon to some extentare Christopher Tomlins, The State andthe Unions: LaborRelations, Law,and the OrganizedLabor Movement in America (NewYork, 1986),and TheodoreC. Liazos,“ BigLabor: George Meanyand the Makingof the AFL-CIO, 1894–1955” (unpublished PhD diss, Yale Univ., 1998),9– 12. 5Theformative experience for several members ofthe groupwas the intensebattle betweenCommunists and Socialists forthe controlof the garmentindustry unions ofNew York City in the 1920s.In this regard see Fraser, LaborWill Rule ,170,183, 233– 234; David Dubinsky, ALifewith Labor (NewYork, 1979), TheAFL-CIO Approachesthe Vietnam War 279 turnedsharply against Stalin after 1929, becamethe intellectual leader ofthis group. Early advocatesof intervention against theNazis, theAFL internationalists remained intenselyanti-Communist even during thewar andinsisted— even as the U.S. was allied with theUSSR— that Communismand Fascism werebut two sides of the same totalitarian coin. After thewar, the AFL internationalists devotedthemselves to challenging the advancing threat ofCommunist unions in WesternEurope. With limited resourcesand facing determinedCommunist opposition, the initial struggle proved challenging for theAFL internationalists. Butmassive interventionby theAmerican statein theform ofthe Marshall Plan—which helpedfund labor’ s anti-Communistwar— tipped the scalesagainst Communist-controlledunions in WesternEurope. 6 This pattern of American organized labor attempting toact autonomouslywith mixed results,followed by adecisiveintervention by theAmerican state,repeated itself in Vietnam. It wasin themidst of their battle for Europeanlabor unionsthat theAFL rst encounteredthe Indochinese issue. Beginning in 1946, French determination to reassertcolonial control over Vietnam sparkeda bitter war betweenthe French, with their superior repower,and the Viet Minh,using guerilla tactics.While initially silent onthe issue, in 1947 theFrench CommunistParty declaredits oppositionto the war in Indochina.To further supportthis position,French Communistsinaugurated a program ofsabotage andstrikes to halt shipmentsof materials tothe war. 7 AFL Europeanrepresentative Irving Brownand legendary French waterfrontlabor leader Pierre Ferri-Pisani organized anti-Communistunionists to break thestrikes and coun- ter thesabotage. 8 Giventhe French Communistcampaign against thewar, the AFL quickly came to view theIndochinese war aspart ofaninternational Communistconspiracy
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