Eastern Europe, 1945-1971

This series contains correspondence, reports, minutes, legislative bills, speeches, clippings, proceedings, posters, pamphlets and other printed material, and photographs. The series spans 1945-1971 while the bulk of the material dates 1948-1970.

The records document efforts of U.S. and Eastern European labor leaders to build a free trade union movement in Post-World War II and Cold-War Europe. They are particularly valuable in illuminating relations among trade union and government officials. These materials also reflect the AFL-CIO's interest in reestablishing democratic, free market governmants in those countries. Subjects include: U.S. government policy and relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries and efforts to contain communist influence in European free trade unionism; Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev's visit to the U.S. in 1959; refugee and relief policy in Post-War Europe; the development and efforts of free trade unions and governments in exile of eastern bloc; the work of the International Conference of Free Trade Unions; the effects of communism on the labor movement; and general American-Eastern European political relations.

Major correspondents include: George T. Brown {Director International Affairs Department AFL-CIO), Irving Brown, George P. Delaney (Special Assistant to the secretary United States Department of State), Ernest Lee, Jay Lovestone, George Meany, Leo Perlis (Director Community Services Committee AFL-CIO), Henry Pollak, Harm G. Buiter {General Secretary International Congress of Free Trade Unions), Frank Cifka (Secretary Czechoslovak Free Trade Union Federation), George M. Dimitrov (President of the Bulgarian National Committee in Washington DC), Dr. Jaroslav Frofous {President Free International Federation of Former Totalitarian Political Prisoners), I.B. Gereben {Co-President Hungarian Freedom Fighters Federation), Mike Kovach {Pres Hungarian society), General Gyula Kovacs (Vice President Committee for Hungarian Liberation Incorporated), Jozef Lettrich (Vice President Council for a Free Czechoslovakia), Charles Peyer (Chairman, Hungarian Trade Union Federation in Exile, May 1953), James M. Read (Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and K. Rejchrt (Secretary Czechoslovak Free Trade Union Committee in Exile), and Bela Varga {Former Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament and President of the Hungarian National Council, 1954).