IN THE MAGAZINES
Bensman, David
UNION DEMOCRACY REVIEW, No. 1, Fall 1972. Unfortunately, few people except unionists know or care much about the internal life of the American labor movement. For those who are interested,...
...This occurred on the initiative of State Department Asia specialists, aided by McGeorge Bundy, despite Rusk's opposition...
...they not only can affect the way policy decisions are implemented, but, through sheer persistence, the very direction of American policy...
...Bill Moyers played an important role in convincing the President that the public would support peace initiatives...
...Prospects improved in 1962-63 when Michael Forrestal, Allen Whiting, and Roger Hilsman entered the State Department and began to prepare new initiatives...
...trade with China and a change in the American position on Chinese representation at the UN...
...In the case of the United Mine Workers, the Trbovich decision meant that the dissident Miners for Democracy would have the right to a fair chance in the December 1972 elections...
...he is now, many years later, a leader of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) , composed of Americans who fought in the International Brigade...
...The VALB recently sent a letter to all parallel veterans' groups throughout the world pointing out that the Polish-Jewish veterans "are of advanced age, many with infirmities received in Spain or in later anti-facist struggles" and appealed for further pressure on the Polish government...
...it then made a number of efforts to apply pressure quietly on Polish officials in the U.S...
...When Kennedy took office, the State Department was without a large corps of experts prepared to advocate a change of policy toward China—this was a result of the McCarthy purges of the early '50s...
...The decision gives dissident union members the right to intervene in suits brought by the Labor Department against trade union officials...
...Nixon was both lucky and shrewd...
...Wellman writes that in 1970 the VALB was informed that almost 100 Polish Jewish veterans of the Spanish Civil War, who had fought as the Botwin Unit of the Dombrowski Brigade, and who have since (because of Polish antiSemitism) emigrated to Israel, had had their pensions cut off by the Polish government...
...None of these efforts was successful...
...A publication of the Association for Union Democracy, the Review's purpose is to promote the "principles and practices of internal union democracy in the American labor movement," and to report on the efforts of unionists to exercise their democratic rights...
...He faced no danger from the Democrats to his left, and right-wing Re publicans had nowhere to turn...
...CHINA QUARTERLY, April-June 1972...
...By late 1965, a major step toward unfreezing China policy was taken, when the State Department gave public health specialists clearance for travel to China, lifting a 15-year-ban...
...So far, to no avail...
...The first issue carries a report on the Supreme Court's January 17, 1972, decision (Trbovich v. United Mine Workers...
...5) The Democratic party's fear of right-wing attacks lived on: Mr...
...He came to office at the right moment in history in terms of Peking's evolving world view, American public opinion, and the bureaucracy's stage of development...
...On the Making of U.S...
...For those who are interested, Herman Benson's new Union Democracy Review is a must...
...To the American public, the Nixon-Kissinger rapprochement with China seemed a bolt out of the blue, reversing a policy of two decades' unremitting hostility toward Communist China...
...Why did it take a Republican administration to bring flexibility to American policy...
...Why were initiatives halted in 1966...
...The first two years under Johnson saw little activity toward detente with China as domestic politics and Vietnam absorbed the Administration...
...Then, following up the peace feeler, Washington used the "heretofore sterile" Warsaw ambassadorial channel to reassure the Peking government that the United States was not supporting any Chinese Nationalist effort to invade the mainland...
...China Policy: 196169," by James C. Thompson, Jr...
...For instance, in the case of Local 6 of the Hotel Employes Union, the Review found that the Labor DepartmentSupreme Court action (1968) leading to new local elections has not given rank-andfilers the ability to contest local leadership...
...IN THE MAGAZINES...
...So writes James C. Thompson, a Far East expert in the State Department under Kennedy and Johnson...
...it reports on the results of those decisions, and on the fate of dissident movements forgotten by the press...
...Lincoln Vets Support Botwin Unit," by Saul Wellman...
...Nevertheless, State Department discussion of possible initiatives toward China began as early as 1961...
...3) American policy-makers grew absorbed with Vietnam...
...On July 12, LBJ delivered an address calling for a policy of "cooperation and not hostility" with the mainland...
...Johnson even hinted at a resumption of U.S...
...2) Secretary of State Rusk was a "theologian and zealot on Chinese Communist iniquity" and therefore did not push LBJ to take initiative...
...In reality, the Nixon initiative was not based solely on a sudden policy shift by the Republicans, since throughout the 1960s Far East specialists in the State Department worked diligently to prepare the basis for a policy shift...
...By 1962, Mose Harvey presented a paper in the State Department proposing rapprochement with China because of what he predicted would be a permanent SinoSoviet split...
...Thompson suggests a number of reasons: (1) LBJ was insecure in his handling of foreign affairs, and feared to break radically with tradition...
...Perhaps the most important reminder Thompson's story has to offer, however, is the importance of the State Department's middlelevel personnel...
...Not only did China turn down American "charity," but the Cuban missile crisis and the Indochina border war forestalled further attempts at detente...
...Obviously the struggle for union democracy must be continuous, and the Review gives a continuity of coverage unavailable elsewhere...
...Union dissidents have found it necessary to do this so as to ensure themselves proper representation in court, since they find the Labor Department is often an inadequate representative...
...JEWISH CURRENTS, September 1972...
...Union Democracy Review goes beyond reporting official actions of the courts and government bodies...
...These efforts failed...
...The Kennedy administration tested Harvey's perspective, offering China "food-forpeace...
...The VALB, apparently loath to believe that a Communist government could do something quite so nasty, investigated the charges and found them true...
...it also tried to bring up the matter at the 35th Anniversary Conference of the French International Brigade in November 1971...
...The author of this article was a political Commissar in the 15th International Brigade, composed of North and South American volunteers who fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War...
...4) China became absorbed with her own internal problems as the Cultural Revolution was unleashed...
...In 1966, Vietnam seemed sufficiently stable to allow for greater movement in China relations...
Vol. 20 • January 1973 • No. 1
