George Meany - Vietnam War

Vietnam War

Meany defended "the aims" of Lyndon B. Johnson's policy in the Vietnam War. He criticized those labor leaders, including Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, who called for the U.S. to withdraw its military forces from Vietnam, a policy that he predicted would lead to a communist victory in South Vietnam and the destruction of its free trade-unions.

A 1966 article in the Miami News stated that Meany demanded that unions give "unqualified support" to Johnson's war policy. Critics opposing Meany and the war included Ralph Helstein of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, George Burdon of the United Rubberworkers and Patrick Gorman of the United Auto Workers.

Charles Cogen, president of the American Federation of Teachers opposed Meany in 1967 when the AFL-CIO convention adopted a resolution "we pledge the continued support of American labor in Vietnam". Walter Reuther stated that he was busy with negotiations with General Motors in Detroit, and could not attend the convention. "Sniping" at Meany, Reuther issued "demands" "to make the AFL-CIO more 'democratic'". In his speech to the convention, Meany said that, in Vietnam the AFL-CIO was "neither hawk nor dove nor chicken", but was supporting "brother trade unionists" struggling against Communism.

Meany's support for Vietnam continued even in the final days before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in April, 1975. He called for President Gerald Ford, if needed, to provide a U.S. Navy "flotilla" to ensure that hundreds of thousands of "friends of the United States" could escape before a Communist regime could be established. He called for rescue of refugees from Vietnam. He also appealed for the admission of the maximum possible number of Vietnamese refugees to the United States. Meany blamed Congress for "washing its hands" of the war and so "undercut" South Vietnam's military forces, damaging their "will to fight"; in particular, Congress had failed to provide adequate funding for U.S. troops to stage an orderly withdrawal, Meany stated.