Jay Lovestone
From Wikinfo
See also Critical views of Jay Lovestone
Contents |
Early History
Jay Lovestone, 1897-1990, born Jacob Liebstein in Lithuania, emigrated with his parents ten years later to New York's Lower East Side. A student activist at the City College of New York, he was a member of the Communist Party USA from its founding in 1919. A close associate of Charles Ruthenberg after Ruthenberg's death he briefly led the Party but was purged in 1929 during factional struggles [1]. After being expelled from the Party he carried on his political and union organizing activities though the Independent Communist Labor League. This competing organization never attracted mass support.
Anti-Communist Activities
By the end of World War II he had become an active anticommunist founding with Irving Brown the Free Trade Union Commission or American Institute for Free Labor Development, an organisation sponsored by the AFL which worked internationally organizing labor unions, in Europe and Latin America, which were not Communist controlled. In connection with that work he cooperated closely with the CIA, feeding information about Communist labor union activities to James Angleton, the CIA's counterintelligence chief.
AFL-CIO Activities
Within the AFL-CIO Lovestone was affiliatged with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). He served as head of the AFL-CIO Free Trade Committee, essentially functioning as George Meany's foreign-policy adviser. In 1974 he was expelled from the AFL-CIO upon discovery of his longstanding CIA connections.
Reference Materials
Lovestone donated his extensive records to the Hoover Institute. An associate Louise Page Morris has also donated her correspondence. Lovestone's FBI file is reported to be 5,700 pages long.
Further Reading
- Ted Morgan, A Covert Life:Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist & Spymaster, Random House, 1999, hardcover, ISBN 0679444009 Because of high demand the price of this book is quite high on Amazon.com, for a more reasonable price try ABE --- Amazon reviews of A Covert Life
- Fred Hirsch, An Analysis of Our AFL-CIO Role in Latin America or Under the Covers with the CIA, 1974, 57 pages, look for this on ABE --- Brief review by William Blum
