2025/08/06 by Kevin E. Grimm · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Defense, Military, and Policy Studies #Political and Economic history of UK and US
paper · doi:10.1093/dh/dhaf056
openalex publication_date 2025/08/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In April 1952, the top international representative in Europe for the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Irving Brown, wrote from Brussels to his like-minded boss in New York City, Jay Lovestone, that officials in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) wanted “to call a meeting of the NATO country trade unions in order to discuss the effects of re-armament on the standard of living of the people.”1 While Brown believed the meeting “would be disastrous” and claimed “our French friends and certain CIO ignoramuses” had been wrong about projected declines in workers’ living standards after the start of the Korean War, his phrasing indicated how a number of Western labor leaders in the early Cold War situated their attitude toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) within their larger approach to rearmament and its effects on workers.2 The meeting itself, which took place in October of the same year, marked the culmination of almost two years of ICFTU thinking and activity—including direct contacts with top NATO officials—related to NATO and Western rearmament.