Irving Brown

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Irving Brown (1911-1989) was an anti-communist labour leader active in the AFL-CIO's CIA-backed international operations during the cold war.

Early life

Brown was born in the Bronx in 1911. His father Ralph was a milk wagon driver and minor trade union official. His mother was a Russian immigrant. He attended New York University in the early 1930s.[1]

Brown briefly joined the Communist Party in 1929, but left after the expulsion of Jay Lovestone, who had by then become his mentor. Lovestone got him a job as research director of Local 22 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. He also joined the Socialist Party as a Lovestoneite infiltrator within its leftwing caucus, the Revolutionary Policy Committee.[2] At the party's 1934 convention, he was accused of being a "Lovestone stooge."[3]

In May 1937, Brown was badly beaten up while trying to organise a non-union Ford plant in Chicago.[4] In 1939 and 1940, he was heavily involved in Lovestone's failed attempt to break the influence of Communists in the United Auto Workers union.[5]

OSS

Brown carried out secret work for the labour desk of the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War, developing a close relationship with Bill Donovan.[6]

Free Trade Union Committee

France

Brown left the US for Paris in October 1945, to become the European point-man for Lovestone's Free Trade Union Committee.[7] In France, Brown backed dissident trade unionists such as Léon Jouhaux, Robert Bothereau and Force Ouvriere against the communist leadership of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT).[8]

In 1948, Brown began funding Pierre Ferri-Pisani in a violent struggle with the communists for control of the Marseilles docks.[9]

Britain

In November 1947, Brown travelled to Britain in an attempt to persuade the TUC to leave the World Federation of Trade Unions. Although he was initially rebuffed, the TUC left the WFTU for the International Congress of Free Trade Unions in 1949.[10]

Italy

In Italy, Brown began working with the US embassy to strengthen anti-communist forces in the CGIL labour conferederation in the immediate post-war years. He identified the Catholic trade unionist Giulio Pastore as a possible leader of a split.[11] Pastore's Catholic faction were expelled from the CGIL in July 1948, but it was not until 1950 that Brown was able to persuade other non-communists to join them in a new CISL federation.[12]

Greece

Brown travelled to Greece in 1947 with US Labour attaché Samuel Berger, at the suggestion of Ernest Bevin[13]

Finland

In October 1949, Brown visited Finland where the socialist majority in the SAK trade union was under pressure from the communists. This eventually led to funding for the socialists from Frank Wisner and in 1951, the SAK became the last non-communist union to pull out of the World Federation of Trade Unions.[14]

Congress For Cultural Freedom

According to author Frances Stonor-Saunders, Brown formed part of the 'ruling apparat', based at Melvin Lasky's home, during the CIA-backed Berlin Congress for Cultural Freedom in June 1950.[15] According to Mamaine Koestler, the conference's Freedom Manifesto was pushed through Brown along with Arthur Koestler, Sidney Hook, James Burnham and Melvin Lasky.[16]

Frank Wisner subsequently appointed Brown to the steering committee of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.[17] Brown was among those present at a November 1950 meeting in Brussels which a greed a permanent structure for the Congress.[18] Brown initially backed Koestler's nominee for secretary-general of the new organisation, the former Comintern officer Louis Fischer, whose candidacy was rejected at the Brussels meeting, in part, according to Brown, because of a prejudice against ex-communists.[19]

British Society for Cultural Freedom

Brown attended a meeting of the British Society for Cultural Freedom in London in January 1952 and instigated the appointment of Labour MP Woodrow Wyatt to its executive committee.[20]

Bilderberg

Brown was a member of the American contingent at the Bilderberg Conference in May 1954.[21]

The New Leader

Brown effectively subsidised The New Leader magazine by arranging for thousands of European subscriptions to be taken out free of charge in the early 1950s.[22]

FBI

Brown's radical background made him a figure of some interest to the FBI. In 1952, J. Edgar Hoover wrote in the margin of one report: "We should be alert to Lovestone, Offie and Brown, as I have grave doubts about this trio."[23]

In 1954, the Assistant Secretary for International Labor Affairs Spencer Miller alleged that Brown had used CIA money to buy gold on the black market in Greece. His allegations were dismissed by Hoover.[24] Inquiries by CIA director Allen Dulles also turned up nothing.[25]

Vietnam

Brown visited Saigon in 1961, where he supported the CVT led by Tran Quoc Buu, who visited Washington in May 1964.[26] He returned to Saigon with money for the CVT in March 1968 in the wake of the Tet offensive.[27]

African-American Labor Center

Brown was executive director of the African American Labor Center from 1965 to 1973.[28]

Final years

In 1982 Brown replaced Lovestone's successor Ernie Lee as director of international affairs at the AFL-CIO. In 1986, he suffered a stroke which was followed by another eight months later. In 1988, Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom but he was unable to attend the ceremony. He died on 10 February 1989.[29]

Affiliations

Connections

External resources

Notes

  1. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.113.
  2. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.113.
  3. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.114.
  4. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.113.
  5. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.131.
  6. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.93.
  7. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.113.
  8. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.178.
  9. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.187.
  10. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.39.
  11. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.190.
  12. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.192-193.
  13. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, pp.166-167.
  14. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, pp.201-202.
  15. ↑ Frances Stonor-Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? Granta Books, 1999, p.75.
  16. ↑ Frances Stonor-Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? Granta Books, 1999, p.82.
  17. ↑ Frances Stonor-Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? Granta Books, 1999, p.87.
  18. ↑ Frances Stonor-Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? Granta Books, 1999, p.88.
  19. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.105.
  20. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.207.
  21. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.244.
  22. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.134.
  23. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.231.
  24. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.237.
  25. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.239.
  26. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.236.
  27. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, p.340.
  28. ↑ Glenn Fowler, Irving Brown, 77, U.S. Specialist On International Labor Movement, New York Times, 11 February 1989.
  29. ↑ Ted Morgan, A Covert Life, Random House, 1999, pp.366-367.
  30. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.182.
  31. ↑ Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? Frank Cass, 2003, p.196.
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