Between a River and a Mountain: The AFL-CIO and the Vietnam War by Edmund F. Wehrle

Abstract

190 Michigan Historical Review unions offered security above all else. As the progressive arm of the Democrats from World War II through the late 1960s, the labor movement, centered especially in theMidwest and led by unions such as the United Auto Workers, continued its educational mission yet did so inways thatmoved farther away from Gompers's voluntarism. Sinyai's analysis of the changing meaning of civic education in the American labor movement rests primarily on the views of union leaders. Although references are made in places to the political behavior of specific unions, Sinyai's arguments would have benefited from greater attention to developments at the local union level. How did local unions' "schools of democracy" reflect the views of union leaders? How did the rank and file's political behaviors impact union leaders' views? Still, Sinyai's book offers an important perspective on the vital contributions of labor unions to American political culture. Wilson J.Warren, Department of History Western Michigan University Edmund F. Wehrle. Between a River and aMountain: TheAFL-CIO and the Vietnam War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Pp. 320. Bibliography. Drawing. Index. Notes. Photographs. Paper, $25.95. In Between a River and aMountain, Edmund F. Wehrle demonstrates that the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and later the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) were deeply and integrally involved in the Vietnam War. The relationship between the American labor federations and Vietnam began shortly after the Second World War. The AFL saw its postwar mission in the world as advancing free trade unionism. Ideally, independent unions were advocates for worker and human rights. They were also proponents of full-employment pohcies and vigorously anticommunist. In other words, the AFL and later the AFL-CIO sought to recreate themselves around the world. Initially, the AFL's foreign-pohcy endeavors languished. But in the late 1940s, the United States government offered a helping hand. In a Faustian bargain that Wehrle states significantly weakened the AFL CIO in the long term, the federation took the money. In return, by the late 1950s the AFL-CIO had become an international force supporting anticommunist labor movements around the world and in particular in Vietnam. The AFL-CIO did not create the Vietnamese labor movement. Book Reviews 191 Its roots were in the 1920s when Vietnamese workers sought to fight oppression in the factories and colonialism at the same time. In the 1940s two Vietnamese union leaders?Tran Quoc Buu and Gilbert Jouan? forged the Vietnamese Confederation of Labor (CVTC, later renamed the CVT). The CVTC and the CVT had a difficult relationship with the South Vietnamese government. Like the AFL and the AFL-CIO, the Vietnamese federation struggled to remain an independent "third force." Eventually its alliances with both the South Vietnamese dictators and the Americans compromised its position. Stuck between those forces, the CVT became "pinched between a river and amountain" (p. 4), and the Vietnamese labor movement ultimately failed to forestall the political, economic, and military disasters that subsequendy occurred in South Vietnam. Losing the war inVietnam also contributed to the downfall of the AFL-CIO, as George Meany's unmovable stance on the war shattered the United States labor movement. Between a River and aMountain is easily one of the best books that I have read in a long time. Wehrle's narrative is engaging and hvely, and his story is compelling. One would hope that more historians would follow the path that he has blazed and investigate the relationships between the United States labor movement and the world. Andrew E. Kersten University ofWisconsin-Green Bay David K. Wiggins, ed. Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2006. Pp. 500. Bibhographical essay. Index. Notes. Photographs. Cloth, $34.95. Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes offers a welcome addition to the field of sports history. Respected historian David K. Wiggins has collected nineteen biographical essays that investigate how sports and sports figures have reflected racial struggles inAmerican society throughout the twentieth century. Among the well-crafted essays from awide array of sports scholars, readers will find familiar names, such...