Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding
British pro-NATO committee of Labour and trade union figures, founded in 1976
| Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding
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|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Joseph Godson |
The Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding (LCTU) was a British committee of figures from the right of the Labour Party and trade union movement which promoted the Atlantic alliance. It was set up in 1976 by Joseph Godson, a former US labour attaché in London, and received funding from NATO and from US sources. Its press operation was the Labour and Trade Union Press Service. The Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding (TUCETU) was its successor.
Foundation
In Lobster in 1996, Tom Easton wrote that Joseph Godson, after retiring from US government service, had stayed on in London and, "with money from the US Congress and NATO", had set up the LCTU. Easton named David Owen and William Rodgers as involved, and Frank Chapple of the electricians' union as its long-time treasurer.[1] In a later issue Easton described the LCTU as "the US-funded" forerunner of TUCETU, "set up in 1976 by Joseph Godson, a close ally of Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell when serving as US labour attaché in London".[2]
According to The Guardian in 1985, the committee was the labour section of the British Atlantic Committee, which lobbied for NATO among European trade unionists, and had no connection with the Labour Party itself. The paper reported that the funding of the committee remained secret until 1980, when the British government said that NATO had given £32,000 over the previous four years, and that Godson had told the paper he understood the money had come from the American Youth Council.[3]
Labour and Trade Union Press Service
The committee's bulletin, the Labour and Trade Union Press Service, was issued to trade union papers. In 1981 The Leveller reported that the press service was "100 percent subsidised by NATO" and had been started by Joseph Godson.[4] Tribune reported in July 1980 that a pamphlet by William Rodgers, then Labour's opposition defence spokesman, attacking Labour's opposition to the siting of Cruise missiles had been published by the "NATO-funded" LCTU. It also reported that the press service had in August 1979 carried an attack on the left of the Labour Party by Terry Duffy of the engineers' union.[5] Easton wrote that Alan Lee Williams had chaired the press service.[1]
Members
Phil Kelly named the following British members in 1981: David Owen, William Rodgers, Tom Bradley and Frank Chapple; he added that three leading right-wing US trade unionists were vice-chairmen.[4] The Guardian in 1985 listed members including Chapple (by then Lord Chapple), Roy Mason and Lord Stewart, and named Lane Kirkland as one of the committee's American vice-presidents.[3]
US funding
The Guardian reported in 1985 that, according to the National Endowment for Democracy's internal annual report to September 1984, the LCTU had received $49,000, used to finance a delegation of about 12 people to a seminar on western defence in Brussels in May 1984.[3] Easton wrote in 2004 that the NED, under Carl Gershman, had channelled US funding in the 1980s to "Godson's Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding", the actors' union Equity and the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.[6]
US visitors' programme
Easton also described an episode in the early 1980s, when the Labour left was challenging the siting of a new generation of nuclear weapons in Britain. A rising trade union official, proposed for a US government visitors' programme trip on the recommendation of a colleague active in the LCTU, was invited to the west London home of Joseph Godson, where a copy of Philip Williams's biography of Hugh Gaitskell lay on the coffee table; Easton wrote that it was clear to the official that his response to the book would have some bearing on his travel plans.[7]
Successor
The LCTU became the Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding; Easton, citing David Osler's earlier article in Lobster, referred in 2004 to "the former Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding" as "now TUCETU".[6]
See also
- Joseph Godson
- Labour and Trade Union Press Service
- Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding
- British Atlantic Committee
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tom Easton, Who were they travelling with? SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party, Lobster, issue 31, June 1996, accessed 5 November 2026.
- ↑ Tom Easton, Tittle-tattle, Lobster, issue 45, Summer 2003, accessed 5 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Britons get cash from US 'slush fund' / British organisations receiving money from US sources to 'promote democracy', The Guardian, 9 December 1985.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 An Unholy Alliance by Phil Kelly from The Leveller #52 (1981).
- ↑ Rodgers' attack on Labour policy backed by NATO funds, Tribune, 18 July 1980, tribunemag.co.uk, accessed 5 November 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Tom Easton, Terrorism, Anti-Semitism and Dissent, Lobster, issue 47, Summer 2004, accessed 5 November 2026.
- ↑ Tom Easton, Hugh Gaitskell (review of Brian Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell, London: Richard Cohen), Lobster, issue 32, December 1996, accessed 5 November 2026.