Between a River and a Mountain: The AFL-CIO and the Vietnam War

6. Free Fall, 1968–69

6Free Fall, 1968–69 If the mid-1960s, despite unprecedented prosperity and political power, proved unful‹lling and anxiety ridden for organized labor, a downward spiral following the Tet Offensive quickly con‹rmed that all was not well with the free trade union agenda, neither in Vietnam nor at home. Indeed, over the course of roughly a year, the fortunes of free trade unionism went into free fall. In quick succession, the Democrats lost the White House, Walter Reuther pulled his UAW out of the AFL-CIO, and Meany ‹nally divorced his organization from the ICFTU. The repercussions of these painful events reverberated through national and international labor, leaving wounds that would linger for decades. Defying bad omens everywhere, Meany remained wedded to his agenda in Vietnam. But even there he suffered setbacks. The CVT, just as determined to maintain a proud facade of independence as American labor, reacted with deep ambivalence to the creation of a permanent AFL-CIO labor advisory of‹ce in Saigon. Soon relations between U.S. and South Vietnamese labor grew strained, adding to the mounting woes faced by free trade unionists. Losing Ground For free trade unionists, the tumult surrounding the Saigon electrical workers ’ strikes and the subsequent Tet Offensive in the early weeks of 1968 opened a year of unnerving setbacks. At the causal center of this annus horribilis lay the Vietnam War. By the end of 1968, the war had poisoned the Democratic Party coalition, fomented the ‹rst serious challenge to U.S. 135 labor unity since the formation of the CIO in the 1930s, and driven a wedge between the AFL-CIO and international labor. Over the course of roughly eighteen months, the AFL-CIO went from an organization at the center of national and international power to one increasingly isolated from its former liberal allies, international labor, and key segments of the American trade union movement. From the beginning, the 1968 presidential campaign portended trouble. Frayed and divided by the Vietnam War, the liberal coalition, which had elected LBJ so overwhelmingly in 1964, veered toward collapse. While the core of organized labor stood solidly behind the president, a growing group of liberal antiwar activists frantically searched for an alternative. In late 1967 came the ‹rst signs of serious, Vietnam-induced ‹ssures in the Democratic coalition. The leadership of Americans for Democratic Action, whose membership included numerous high-ranking union leaders, announced that short of immediate negotiations to end the war it would abandon LBJ and back an antiwar candidate. When requisite developments failed to materialize, the ADA threw its support to Senator Eugene McCarthy. Refusing to abandon the president and his war, one by one, led by Vice Chairman Leon Keyserling, trade unionists resigned from the ADA in protest. Board members I. W. Abel, president of the United Steelworkers of America; Louis Stulberg, president of the ILGWU; and Joseph Bierne, president of the CWA, all resigned. Calling it “one of the saddest days of my life,” ILGWU lobbyist Evelyn Dubrow, a founding member of the ADA, also withdrew. Walter Reuther remained on the organization’s board but suspended the UAW’s yearly contribution of twelve thousand dollars.1 Through the jolt of the Tet Offensive and the president’s near defeat in the New Hampshire primary, mainstream trade unionists stayed loyally beside Johnson, even as liberals jumped ship in droves. The president’s sudden withdrawal from the presidential campaign on March 30, 1968, shocked the AFL-CIO leadership. “I don’t know how long it will take me to recover from the atomic bomb which President Johnson hurled,” wrote Lovestone to Meany. “Frankly, I am at a loss to understand the move.”2 Stunned, labor leaders scrambled to ‹nd a new candidate. Some, including key members of the UAW’s Executive Board, lined up behind Robert F. Kennedy, and several joined the New York senator’s campaign staff.3 But to free trade unionists Kennedy was suspect as a dove. And Eugene McCarthy offered even slimmer pickings; the Minnesotan was both a dove and a moderate on many social and economic issues.4 Desperate, Meany begged Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the only Democratic candidate he saw as committed to the AFL-CIO’s agenda in Vietnam, to enter the race. When Humphrey temporized, Meany, bucking the federation’s tradition of neutrality during the primary process, personally walked the two blocks from Between a River & a Mountain 136 his of...