CIA & AFL-CIO: THE BIGGER STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600460023-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 18, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

n. r.. OX, vLL:i
Victor Reuther read the disclosures of CIA's secret financial
xa-ion.sorship of the National Student Assn. with wry interest.
"All 1'11 say now is that there is a lot bigger story in the
CIA's financial and other conncctlons with the Ai' L-CIO tha
,with the students," he Said over a telephone from Washington.
"I did my best to.try to lift the lid on it. And some day it will
all come out,"
Reuther, director of international affairs for the Autoniobi]
Workers Union ;ind brother of the embattled UAW leader, we
reluctant to'amplify his charges at this juncture because of the
union's strained relations with the AFL-CIO council. .
But he added he would "stand by everything I've said be
s Sore" about the labor organization's involvement with CIA. l:;
suggested that it was- unfortunate and ironic that .the storm hai
broken over NSA because he believes much of its work has beet
useful. lie takes a dimmer view of the AFL-CIOs operations.
iror the AFL-CIO's top officialdoin, the explosion over CI:
comes at a painful moment because its executive council is meet
ing shortly in Miami and there will undoubtedly be press inquir
ies on the subject. But any major confrontation within the court,
61 is unlikely in the light of Walter Reuther's resignation iron,
that goethere are no indications that any other leader of signti
cunt .stature will ask embarrassing questions.
1\'hatever thy; extent of CIA's financial support for I.oc
'
stone
s many maneuvers, the uncontestable fact is that he It
continued to receive a blank check from AFL-CIO leadership.
Not until long afterward did it become known that one
:leftist but constitutional government had been replaced by ea
The record, of course, is not wholiv neaatire:- during it
five role in strengthening democratic unionism; it is only In recet
years, amid the turmoil in the Communist world and the shifts i
But the issue of the AFL-CIO's relations with CIA transccni
t?ictor Reuther. It has been the traditional bonsc ofvAI?"L-CI
spokesmen. at international con tresses that they speak as fe
,directly or indirectly, and who work }tand?in-hand with an Intel
Bence network that has become a stale within a state?
The damage now suffered by the-National Student Assn.
incalculable, But there will be far larger world repercussions
.the AFL-CIO's chief foreign-policy operatives are revealed
have been subsidized partners in CIA's games, and if the CIA
even shown to have taken a' hand in Internal union conflicts her
what'has begun 'to happen to CIA. and many inatituticna bigg
d11.a11y awkward because too' many men of labor privately know
too much about the facts. Bland denials may become, increasingly
hazardous in the face of the Congressional curiosity that tine std-
dent story has already stimulated.
Such an investigation, it can be flatly stated, would reveal
that various international and Latin-American operations of the
,.AFL-CIO have been heavily subsidized through CIA conduits.
It would also disclose at least one sensational case of quiet
CIA intervention in- an election in an AFL-CIO union. When the
"
"
CIA man
won, the union's staff and budget rose and its inter
national activity suddenly increased in Latin America and the
Middle Fast.
And finally an inquiry would show innumerable instances in
which AFL-CIO agents collaborated with CIA's cloak-and-dag
er
g
.
-men in an infinite variety of coups and undercover intrigues.
FOIAb3
d For e?1f&0 mts>CIA-RDP-,
is Jay Lovestone, sometimes known as George Meany's personal
secretary of state. Lovestone, a Communist leader in: the 1920s,
has become in modern times'a high?flying hawk whose views are .14
often indistinguishable from Barry Goldtvater's. Last 'Julie he .I
told an interviewer that he favored a "more forceful" position on
thee.,
th
_'_
--'- - , t
a
an Presi
nt o
military strength and no appeasement" as his slogan;
Lovestone and Victor Reuther have frequently clashed. and 1
Willi- CIA. He also observed that "the tragedy- of AFL-CIO activi?'
tics in the field of foreign affairs is that they area vest-pocket
operation by Jay Lovestonc." ' .
Lovestone, a GG-year-old, high-spirited veteran of'many public
end cla,-Iestine wars, has always blandly denied' any close ties t
to CIA. 13ut few sophisticated laborites have doubted the intimacy.
Approved For Release 2000/08/03: CIA-RDP75-00149R000600460023-4