BLOCKING THE KGB

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100250060-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: January 16, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

v
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100250060-0
1o JAN 1975
by Victor Riesel
STAT
WASHINGTON -It's not
surprising that the Central In*
telligence Agency secretly read
the mail of labor chief George
Meany and his two .'top. In-
ternational affairs specialists '-
and probably, it can be reported
advisedly, the letters dispatched
by the late Walter Reuther. = ? -{
This was done under two CIA
directors - the late Gen. Walter
Bedell Smith and the wraithlike
Allen W. Dulles. They trusted no
one. It was they who decided to,
attempt to use a handful of
American unions to counter the
Soviet's money, manpower, goon
squads, killers, organizers and
centrally commanded.-.political
functionaries in postwar Europe.
Democratic forces were weak
and penniless in Western Europe,
the Middle East and Northern
Italian CGIL (Genera on-
federation of Labor) are the most
..powerful political and economic
para-military forces in their
nations.
Remember, too, that it took
only six Communist members of
the British National Union' of
Mineworkers executive com-
mittee to extend a coal digger's
strike long enough to push the
I l.K. Into economic chaos. And it
toppled the Heath government.
No less a dedicated Socialist than
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
has publicly denounced some
British dock strikes as Com-
munist efforts to destroy his
nation's economy.
If we swing back to the '40s and
'50s we see a war-devastated
U.S.S.R. using its underground
forces and GPU-NKVD and MVD
and Eastern Africa in the late and KGB to smash democracy
'40s and '50s. I while Stalinism recovered. ?
Communist control of labor in i Today the Sgviets are a mighty
Italy, France and Germany' military state. And the West,
would have meant the end of] pouring ..hundreds .of?billions of
democratic governments and dollars a year into the oil-
free capitalism there. In ItalyI Weak economic cing la is a mighty
orce. Thus mmore
the Communist party. had an than ever the U.S. needs to
underground army of 60,000 reinforce weak democratic
armed with artillery, if you i unions abroad.
please. In France, they had over-
5,000 factory cells. In Germany
they were so well organized they
had smooth-coat paper for their
magazines and newsprint for
their Stalinist press. while
Only the naive still fail to un-
derstand, that organized labor
can make or break, support or
smash a free government.
American labor is stillhelping
i
hi
b
d=
i
h
ons a
roa
un
ons w
c
are
democratic anti-Communist i un
unions had to scrounge fora even today under Communist or
sheet of carbon paper- other totalitarian siege. Thus,
Meany has said bluntly that the our unions ai?% bolstering our
AFL built the German labor. allies. And never before have we
movement. Provided them with the people; or 'American in-
wrganizers. Care packages. And, ?dustry;-culture and freedom
ec dies as we do now.
I believe money 11e
African-American Labor Center
On one continent they opened
union housing developments;
elsewhere it's a school, or a joint
union-medical welfare center.
In eastern Brazil I have seat
little huge-bellied starving
children brought back to life in
small AIFLD medical-social
centers. In Africa I've seen auto
repair shops, needle trades
training centers made by the
AALC. In Asia; Korea, the unions
stand for freedom all over the
land.
But that'g only part of the
story. Some 20 years ago or so,
one top American labor chief
took $25,000 to Italy. This money
was to help finance the coun-
teroffensive by free labor against
the Soviet-front forces.
But it was American labor
money and the report is that he
returned with $10,000 saying the
$15,000 left was enough.
But this wasn't CIA money.
There are reports that some
CIA funds went through an AFL
European representative, Irvipg
Brown, to France during the so-called cold war. Whatever the!
source of the money, it went to'
fight off Communist goon squads
who were closing French
Mediterranean ports tol
American relief supplies needed
by lands recently occupied by the
Nazis.
There is Portugal today, much
as Western Europe was in the
early 'SOs. Communists, well
equipped with money and
muscle, control virtually the
Thts .rs being done through the
But all this jumps the- story. Agency for International entire so-called labor movement.
It's not ancient history. It is i Why should we see the wonderful i
DeveloPment It contracts out at
today. Some evenings ago, for Portuguese people captured so
the' rate of some $9 million an-
ix I sat in a small group obviously - without our moving in
listening tening to one of the world's I nually to the labor movement as we did way back then?
eading political savants and which in. turn, virtually ad- I Meant' says, "Neither the AFL
analysts. ministers three freedom forces nor the AFL-CIO ever received
(sometimes jointly with j any funds from the CIA or ever
He predicted obrimly, that the ;American industry); The'
petrodollar crisis would hurl served as a conduit for CIA
?rance, Germany, Italy and even American Institute for Free, funds. Any allegations to the
3ritain ' . into searing Labor Development (AIFLD) in, contrary are false."
'evolutionary upheavals before I Central and Latin America, the' There are many labor leaders'
97.5's end. ? The Communist- Asian-American Free Labor' in many other lands who can't;
:ontroled French CGT (General Institute (AAFLI), and then 'say that about what they've i
7gnfederation of Labor) and the taken from the KGB.
Ir . Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100250060-0