American Labor’s Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL-CIO during the Cold War ed. by Robert Anthony Waters Jr., Geert Van Goethem (review)

This impressive study of AFL-CIO actions on the international stage is a must-read for students of labor history. The collection has fourteen essays detailing AFL-CIO actions in Europe, Latin America, North Africa, Africa, and Asia. With a foreword by Marcel Van Der Linden and a concluding essay by Federico Romero, the collection promises to become a standard work on the subject of internationalism. As the editors remark in their introduction, the subject is one that envelops “intrigue, fascinating characters, and drama” (1). The first section of the book concentrates on why the American labor movement engaged in the international arena. Van Goethem traces out how the AFL first began to involve itself in foreign affairs. The actions of Samuel Gompers and William Green are situated in domestic politics and international events such as World War I and the rise of fascism and Nazism. But most of the early energy was transformed into anti-communist diatribes. Jay Lovestone, the repentant ex-communist, was very much part of this process of wanting to fight both Nazism and communism. In some respects the AFL, and then the CIO, reflected their government’s demand for spreading freedom and democracy. Such a posture ensured that the AFL and CIO would become estranged from the British and European labor movements. Quenby Olmsted Hughes takes the reader through the post–World War II era. Hughes focuses on how the AFL saw the Soviet Union as a “slave labor” state (23). At this time, the AFL provided evidence of appalling labor conditions throughout the Soviet Union. Also in the 1950s, the AFL and the CIA solidified their ties. Each used the other to further their respective aims of isolating the Soviet Union. But while the AFL, and then the AFL-CIO, continued its anti-communist offensive, it gave short shrift to the actions of its female officers and members. Yevette Richards details how the AFL-CIO refused to acknowledge that female officers could play a key role on the Women’s Committee of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Suspicion of their European counterparts prevented the AFL-CIO hierarchy from engaging in concrete connections with the ICFTU. Underlying this reticence, according to Richards, was the inability of the AFL-CIO to overcome their deep-seated commitment to male dominance.

In part 2, the emphasis shifts from generalized conditions to a series of case studies of the transatlantic connections. Alessandro Brogi’s essay looks at the AFL-CIO attempts to influence the Italian labor movement. According to Brogi, the AFL-CIO was well ahead of the US State Department in perceiving the Italian Communist Party as a direct threat to the international order. Correspondingly, the AFL-CIO threw its lot in with the Italian socialists. Such a tactic failed, according to Brogi. The Italian Communist Party retained its dominance throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Brogi’s analysis is a cautionary tale for those in the AFL-CIO who believed agitation and dollars alone could encourage anticommunist fervor. Staying in Europe, Barrett Dower’s essay on France focuses on the actions of AFL officer Irving Brown. Brown struggled to wean French trade unionists from France’s main communist group, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). Paltry funding from the AFL hampered his efforts. But as the Cold War began to heat up, the funding sources increased. Much of the new money came from the CIA, so that by the 1950s the AFL and CIA were cooperating with intelligence and money. But according to Dower’s analysis, such support was sparsely distributed, and Brown’s vitriolic anticommunism won him very few French allies. The AFL-CIO record with the Polish Solidarity movement was much more successful. Eric Chenoweth details how the AFL-CIO led the way, followed...