Emil Mazey Writes a Letter to George Meany
We print below the essential portions of a letter sent by Emil Mazey, Secretary-Treasurer of the UAW, to George Meany, Presi dent of the AFL-CIO. DEAR GEORGE: I want to set the record...
...What you have done is to cast aside the tenets of trade union morality and truth in favor of falsehood and demagoguery...
...The only issue is whether you are sufficiently honorable and man enough to admit it...
...Another outright lie...
...I call upon you to retract the false statements you made in Miami...
...You owe an apology to the millions of union members all across this nation for your fancy arithmetic in that same speech which led you to conclude that they approved of the Vietnam war by a margin of 600 to 1. The Gallup Poll found, as reported in the New York Times of January 3, 1968, that 43 per cent of the rank and file of organized labor feel that the war is wrong...
...At Miami when you were commenting on the conference of the National Labor Leadership Assembly For Peace, you stated that you had read the resolution passed at our Chicago meeting "in the Sunday Worker two weeks before the meeting took place...
...We print below the essential portions of a letter sent by Emil Mazey, Secretary-Treasurer of the UAW, to George Meany, Presi dent of the AFL-CIO...
...That was impossible, of course, because the resolution was not printed in that or any other paper before it was passed...
...You also said, "That meeting was planned in Hanoi by a special committee that went there...
...I would like to believe that you were misinformed, but that is difficult, since you twice claim personally to have read the resolution in the Sunday Worker two weeks before it was passed...
...But that welcome does not include an invitation to so twist the truth as to accuse me of disloyalty...
...Sincerely, EMIL MAZEY Secretary-Treasurer International Union, UAW...
...The technique of the big lie, the use of character assassination and the suppression of dissent must not become the hallmarks of the American Labor Movement...
...DEAR GEORGE: I want to set the record straight...
...If you had, doubtless you would have named the persons involved...
...Nor can I believe that you really thought that a group had gone to Hanoi to plan the meeting...
...I have been blasted by many kinds of people in the course of my career and I welcome your disagreement with me...
...Regardless of any differences of opinion we may have, I am obliged to call to your attention the utter falsity of certain defamatory statements made by you at the AFL-CIO Convention in Miami, and I believe it is your obligation to make a public retraction...
...None of us are thin-skinned...
...Your conduct in this matter raises serious questions as to your personal integrity and your capacity to lead in the American Labor Movement...
...That statement is a deliberate lie...
...I believe that you know you did not speak the truth in Miami...
...You have equated dissent with disloyalty, and in twisting the facts you have slandered brother trade unionists including Pat Gorman, Frank January 15, 1968 Rosenblum, Al Hartung and myself...
Vol. 15 • May 1968 • No. 3
