WfJRKERI ",IN(J(J,IR' 25¢No. 158 20 May 1977

•alre •

•MA Y 16--The supposed invasion ofsouthern Zaire (the former BelgianCongo) may go down in the historybooks as the all-time classic "war thatwasn't." More than any previous armedconflict. the "war" in Shaba province(formerly Katanga) resembles the movie"The Mouse That Roared." In the film,"war" is declared in order to be lost. sothat a bankrupt duchy can be bailed outby "reconstruction" aid. In Zaire's real­life version, phantom battles are "won"or "lost" in government news handoutsfor the purpose of pressuring negotia­tions in Washington or Paris forincreased imperialist aid.

Although Western journalists hungryfor a story flocked to Kinshasa, Zaire'scapital. no one could ever find a frontline. For weeks there was no indicationwhatever of invading troops, proof ofalleged Angolan logistical aid andRussian weaponry, and not a singleshred of evidence supporting the con-

continued on page 4 Moroccan troops disembarking from French transports in Zaire.Der Spiegel

Saudi Oil and German Reactors,

Echoing Richard ~ixon's ill-fated"Project Independence." Carter's do­mestic energy proposals pursue thechimera of energy autarky in three ways.They encourage conversion to coal andfission power, force oil and gas conser­vation through steep price increases andtaxes and provide the energy trusts with"profit incentives" to develop domesticreserves. In other words, the plan offersthe carrot to the monopolies-and the

continued on page 8

Sacrifices for the Workers,Superprofits for the "SevenSisters"

Imperialist rivalries.Of course, Carter's opposition to

plutonium-fueled reactors allegedlyaims at curbing the danger of nuclearterrorists. while fuel cost rises aresupposed to cure a nation addicted togas-gu71ling monster cars and electrictoothbrushes. But it is easily apparentthat the rhetoric disguises a drive toreassert American dominance withinthe Western "nuclear club" (by tighten­ing its near monopoly on the supply ofreactor fuel) and to assure that thePentagon will not be subjected topressure from OPEC oil expo' ,ers in theevent of another i\ear E'.st war (bylessening U.S. dependen~e on foreignenergy sources).

On April 18 Jimmy Carter umeiledhis program to deal with the so-called"energy crisis." "The cornerstone of ourpolicy." he said. "is to reduce demandthrough conservation." In keeping withhis "moral" style. the U.S. presidentgave the citizenry a mock tongue­lashing. inveighing in puritanical tonesthat "ours is the most wasteful nation onearth." Having turned the temperaturein gO\ernment offices down to 65degrees during the depths of last winter'scold snap (and declaring prohibition onhard liLJuor at the White House). Carteris pontificating like a latter-day versionof Cotton Mather and Carrie ~ation

lecturing their flocks on the sins of looseliving.

However. as in the case of his anti­communist crusade for "human rights."at the base of Carter's "moral" energypolicy lie strategic imperialist goals. Ashe put it:

"Further delay can affect our strengthand our power as a nation."Our decision about energy will test thecharacter of the American people andthe ability of the President and theCongress -to govern this nation. Thisdifficult effort will be the 'moralequivalent of war' ......

The analogy is appropriate. for behindboth his domestic energy plan andU.S. opposition to West Europeanplutonium-based nuclear technology isthe reality of exacerbated inter-

Protectionist DriveThreatens Trade War

PAGE 6

Dp~ose AFt-CID Economic Chauvinism-

Oil rig in the North Sea.

Imperialist Aims Behind Carter's"Energy Crisis"

Workers' Power

City employees demonstrating against mayor during recent AFSCME strike.

Limited Edition now available:

Workers Vanguardin BOUND VOLUMES

Volume 1 includes:• WV nos. 1-34• Workers Action nos. 7-10• SUbject index

order from/pay to:SpartacistPublishing Co.Box 1377. GPONew York, NY 10001

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Israel Shahak is a professor oforganic chemistry at the Hebrew Uni­versity in Jerusalem and chairman oftheIsrael League for Human and CivilRights. He is one of the most prominentand outspoken critics of Zionism inIsrael and the foremost spokesman indefending victims of Zionistpersecution.

Dr. Shahak has carefully documentedthe racialist and anti-democratic char­acter of Zionism, especially regardingthe oppression and disenfranchisementof the Arabs living in Israel and theoccupied territories. His publicationsinclude the Shahak Papers. whichconcern the expropriation and whole­sale destruction of Arab villages imme­diately after Israeli independence. andThe Non-Jew in the Jewish State.

As a young boy. Dr. Shahak was avictim of the Bergen-Belsen Nazi con­centration camp. He came to Palestineafter World War II, liVing most ofhis lifein Israel. and became an active anti­Zionist under the impact of the 1967war.

significant that the various bourgeois"civil rights" and "anti-racist" groups,including specially the hypocriticalchurch groups, who have falsely pre­tended to be against anti-Black racism,did not raise one little finger against theanti-Arab racism, of the most crude andNazi-like sort, prevalent now for someyears in the USA. Such things do notcome by "chance", they are organizedand commanded from above for a setend.

Finally, I hope that you will be able inthe future to show how the Palestinianworkers are being divided from theJewish workers by the Zionistic racismand discrimination prevalent here. Foronly by knowing the disease we can fightagainst it. I enclose one of my olderpublications, whose first article dealswith the racism in the constructiontrade.

Sincerely yours,Israel Shahak

P.S. I do hope that you are reading mymaterial sent out regularly to you. Icertainly read your paper from cover tocover and benefit from this!

and urged the city's (largely black andlow-paid) workforce to bolster thepicket lines as the spearhead of amilitant union organizing campaign.Waiting for a "better" Democrat to bailthem out, bemoaning the absence of"fair" media coverage, the AFSCMEleaders were impotent and the strike wascrushed.

The rebuilding of Atlanta AFSCME,and progress for labor organizingthroughout the South, demands leaderscommitted to a break with the labor­hating Democrats. Maynard Jacksonhas proved once again that blackhonchos in the Democratic Party are noless the foes of black and workingpeople than their white counterparts.•

Jerusalem, Israel21 April 1977

The Editor of the "Workers Vanguard"

Dear Friend,I want to express my pleasure and

satisfaction with your article "Crisis inthe Zionist Bunker", of your 15 Aprilissue. It was a very accurate article.

I want however [to] add two points:The first is a minor one: Under the

"Allon Plan" On(l' "Samaria and Judea"and not Gaza Strip will be placed underKing Hussein's rule. More than that his"rule" will under this plan be effectiveonly in civilian matters, such as educa­tion etc. The "security supervision" andspecifically the "right" to arrest people,will under this plan remain firmly inhand of the Israeli government. This iswhat is meant by the phrase so ofteninvoked by the Israeli government, butnever explained by the corrupt USApress, "The Jordan river should be thesecurity border of Israel". The word"security" means in Israel both internaland military security. Annexation (ascolony, not as part of the state) wasannounced by the military governor tothe Gaza town municipal councilalready in February. I enclose theirtelegram of protest (of course manyothers were sent to various recipients).

The second point is much moreimportant, in my opinion: that thesituation you so correctly describe, firstfrom its economic aspect, secondlystarting from the fact that Israel isbrimming over with the most sophisti­cated American weapons, while theArab states are weaker militarily than in1973, all this invites and presages war; awar in which the bankrupt Israelileadership will try to attack the Arabstates like in 1967 (or like in 1956 withthe USA playing the part France andEngland played then). This is a verystrong possibility in my opinion, and thewave of anti-Arab racism so stronglypropagated in the USA from 1973-4, isdesigned to prevent, during the firstweeks of such a struggle at least, anypopular or worker's effective oppositionto such a war. It is, I think, very

_Letter:--. _Anti-Arab Racism

strike in 1970, Jackson proved as anti­labor as any Dixiecrat.

Used to relying on liberal Democratsand civil-rights leaders for "support,"AFSCME leaders sat dumbfoundedwhen an alliance of businessmen, blackchurch leaders and civil-rights groupslined up behind Jackson's union bust­ing. Martin Luther King, Sr. led the"fire 'em!" chorus. Several AFSCMEspokesmen told WV that the unionpleaded with Coretta King to come outin support of the strike; she refused.

When asked how the strike couldhave been won, AFSCME Internationalspokesman Don McClure claimed, "Itcouldn't have been won"! "The only wayyou can win it would be to have thenewspapers give an honest accountingof both sides." If that were the key tosuccess, obviously there would be noAFSCME at all, or any union movementto speak of. The lesson of the Atlantastrike is rather that the workers can relyonly on their own strength and not on"sympathetic" bourgeois politicians ortheir agents within the ranks of labor.

The only alternative to the routsuffered by the union, which surely willembolden anti-labor forces throughoutthe South, would have been a completebreak with the Democrats and militantdefense of the picket lines. AFSCMEshould have called on the rest of Atlantalabor to come out in support of its strike

('omprehensive Employment andTraining Act (CETA) funds to rehirestrikers, since CETA monies are notsupposed to be used for strikebreaking.Yet Jackson had used CETA workers todo struck work throughout the strike!

Their regular jobs filled by scabs,many returning strikers are being put ontemporary CETA jobs and are beingplaced at entry-level wage scales, entail­ing up to 30 percent pay cuts. Local 1644staff coordinator Ray Reliford told WVlast week that of some 75 workers stillnot rehired about 50 who live outsideAtlanta are ineligible for CETA fund­ings and may never get their jobs back.In addition strikers have been strippedof all but 30 days of accumulated sickleave which, in some cases, amounts tofive or six months' pay.

The city has also refused to rehirethose arrested during the strike whohave court cases pending. AFSCMEarea director Leamon Hood told WVthat while three of those arrested in thesit-in had their charges dropped-whenno cops could be found to witness thatthey had done anything!-additionalcharges have been heaped on the otherworkers and union officials arrested,including Hood himself.

The strike of Atlanta's poorest-paidand 80 percent black city workers wasundermined from the beginning by theillusions that had been engendered inJackson by the AFSCME leadership.Leamon Hood admitted to WVthat "wedidn't expect that kind of anti-uniontactic [mass firings] to be administeredby this administration." AFSCME hadsupported Jackson in his 1973 electionas a "progressive" black mayor. But justlike his predecessor Sam Massell, whoreceived AFSCME's support in 1969only to try to break the last city workers

Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson hassucceeded in smashing the strike of thecity's predominantly black municipalworkers. For the courageous strikerswho had resisted a month-long assaultof mass firings, anti-picketing injunc­tions and arrests, the final blow camefrom their own "leaders." On April 27the International office of the AmericanFederation of State, County and Mu­nicipal Employees (AFSCME) with­drew its support of the strike.

This stab in the back came the dayafter strikers had sustained ten arrests ina sit-in at the Mayor's office and, thatevening, overwhelmingly voted downthe recommendation of both the Local1644 and International tops to end thestrike and accept a humiliating defeat.Abandoned by the International. with

AFSCME SabotagesAtlanta SanitationStrike

their Local officials urging a return towork, their ranks cut to 300 by workerswho had already accepted Jackson's"offer'" to rehire them, the strikersfinally threw in the towel April 28 andbegan to return to work.

Jackson was out to break the strikeand the union from the start. He refusedto consider any union demands, whichcentered on a 50-cent per hour pay hike.He fired every striker on the fifth day ofthe walkout and began hiring hundredsof scabs, including strikers who wereintimidated into going back to work. Acourt injunction limited picketing, andarrests were made both on the picketline and in a club-wielding cop chargethat broke up the sit-in at Jackson'soffice.

Not content with having crushed thestrike, the liberal black mayor wants thelast pound of flesh. He delayed rehiringthe strikers on the grounds thatAFSCME's charge that he had brokenthe strike prevented the use of federal

UPI

Atlanta cops arrest AFSCME picket outside Mayor Jackson's office duringsanitationmen's strike.

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Reformists Cheer OnGovernment Control

declaring illegal provisions in Teamstercontracts which gave workers the rightto refuse to handle struck goods.Breaking union power, not "cleaning upthe labor movement," was the real aimof government intervention.

3

The Nixon Connection

With an avalanche of adverse publici­ty descending on him, Fitzsimmonscalled 2,000 Teamster leaders to Wash­ington, D. c., -on April 6 for a morale­boosting pep rally. But the meeting wasa public relations fiasco. With the pressexcluded, dissidents from PROD andthe TDU protesting outside the meetingwalked away with all the publicity.Marching with such slogans as "DumpFitz" and "Expel the Crooks," thesereformists are backing the efforts of thecapitalist state to further subordinatethe union. Both PROD and the TDUparade as "democratic" and "honest"conduits for government meddling inthe union.

We have no sympathy withFitzsimmons and his shady cronies, whohave imposed one sellout contract afteranother on the Teamster ranks inaddition to trying to milk the pension

continued on page 9

The Nixon administration helpedprove that the government is notinterested in honest union officials, justpliant ones. Frank Fitzsimmonsavoided the legal hassles that hadplagued Hoffa by maintaining close tieswith the White House. "Fitz" waspersonal friends with Nixon, attorney­general John Mitchell and his successorRichard Kleindienst, who, it was late;revealed, got a $125,000 kickback forarranging a pension fund loan to aninsurance company while he was deputyattorney-general. The law offices ofpresidential assistant Chuck Colsonreceived the Teamsters' $200,000-a-yearbusiness when Colson left the WhiteHouse during the Watergate scandal.

Despite Nixon's ignominious fall,things might have gone along quietly forFitzsimmons. But the "disappearance"and certain murder of Hoffa in 1975sparked renewed demands for federalinvestigation of the union. Hoffa's driveto re-enter the IBT leadership andreports that he was ready to blow thewhistle on Teamster ties to organizedcrime created powerful enemies. Suspi­cion now centers on Anthony "TonyJack" Giacalone, a reputed DetroitMafia leader, Tony Provenzano, aTeamster vice president from NewJersey, and three of "Tony Pro's" boys,two of whom are Teamster businessagents. A grand jury in Detroit has alsosubpoenaed Fitzsimmons' personal andunion records in an effort to determinehis whereabouts shortlv before and afterHoffa's disappearance~

With the heat on. attention onceagain turned to the pension fund.Empowered by the 1974 EmployeeRetirement Income Security Act LaborDepartment agents marched i~to theChicago headquarters of the fund inJanuary 1976 and demanded all thebooks. Last fall, the Ford administra­tion conducted the first shake-up,forcing the resignation of all the trusteesexcept the four who just stepped down.Carter's labor secretary, F. Ray Mar­shall, took over personal control of thecontinuing probe when he assumedoffice and pushed through the finalpurge,

TDUdemonstratorsin Washingtonchime in withgovernment/press attack onTeamstersunion. Class­consciousunionistsdemand bosses'state out of thelabor movement.Only unionranks can. cleanout the pro­capitalistbureaucracy.

fairness of Federal law enforcement."After a long string of acquittals andhung juries, Jimmy Hoffa was sent tojail in 1967. What disturbed the govern­ment was. not so much Hoffa's dippingInto the till as the enormous power hewielded as the authoritative and popularchief of the Teamsters.

Hoffa had reached out from theTeamsters' Midwest stronghold toorganize the Southwest and southernstates. at a time when no other unionscould make headwav in the South.From the Minneapoli~ Trotskyists whopioneered the organizing of long­distance trucking. Hoffa had learnedand utilized the tactic of "hot cargoing"non-union cartage. By 1964 Hoffa hadsigned the first nationwide masterfreight agreement and had the po\\er totie up the country. That same year. thegovernment finail y managed to get aconviction.

The notorious McClellan hearingsfocused overwhelmingly on the Team­sters and produced the Landrum­Griffin Act, a sledgehammer against allunions. In addition to authorizingsweeping government and court powersto investigate and alter union finances,elections and other internal affairs, theact struck at the hot-cargo tactic,

Jimmy Hoffa

for over 20 years. They have not"cleaned up" the union so far, nor willthey do so now, for this is not theirpurpose. Under the fraudulent bannerof "fighting corruption," the federalgovernment is out to bridle the largest(2.2 million members) and potentiallymost powerful union in the U.S.

Robert Kennedv went on a decade­long vendetta to· "get Hoffa," whicheven Chief Justice Earl Warren charac­terized as an "affront to the quality and

ing crucial publicity for the capitalistsortie into the' union. .

The fund, widely known as theCentral States Pension Fund, has over$1.4 billion in assets, covers 450,000Teamsters in 33 states and is by far thelargest of some 200 Teamster pensionfunds. It is, in fact, the largest pensionfund in the U.S. and a major lender. It isalso unique because of the hitherto highdegree of union control of the fund.

Jimmy Hoffa established the fund in1955, a~d virtually no loan could bemade without the' approval of eitherHoffa or his right-hand man andfinancial consultant, Allen Dorfman.Widely reported to be one of theTeamsters' main links to organizedcrime, Dorfman went to jail in 1971 foraccepting kickbacks on pension fundloans. Innumerable press accounts havereported millions passed to well-knownMafia leaders, friends of Teamsterofficials and even trucking employers.

Some of the better-knowninvestments were in Las Vegas casinosand southern California resorts, mostnotably the La Costa Country Club, areputed hang-out for Teamster andunderworld figures. Some 75 to 90percent of the fund's investments were inspeculative real estate.

There is no question that theTeamster leadership's gross misuse ofthe fund's assets has been at the expenseof the membership. Fund executivedirector Daniel J. Shannon recently tolda Congressional committee that thefund does not have enough assets tomeet its commitments, and the govern­ment estimates that $400 to $700 millionmay have "disappeared." Shannon'saides say that in the future full benefitswill be obtainable onlv after 30 vears'seniority instead of the 20 pre~entlyrequired.

lJ ntil last year, the fund did not evenkeep records. names or addresses on theTeamsters it covered' Through a mazeof complex and stringent requirements.Teamsters arc required to prO\e theirown eligibility. In an industry withthousands of employers. frequent bank­ruptcies and mergers. Teamsters oftenwork for manv different firms. Retriev­ing records is' a staggering task; ofteneven a short break in service years agomay result in a union member beingdisqualified.

Two Decades of GovernmentIntervention

Grand juries, congressional commit­tees. Labor Department and FBI spieshave been prying into Teamster affairs

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, CharlesBurroughs, George Foster, Liz Gordon, JamesRobertson, Joseph Seymour

Published weekly, except bi-weekly in August'and December, by the Spartacist PublishingCo, 260 West Broadway. New York, N.Y.10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial),925-5665 (Business). Address all correspond­ence to: Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, NY10001. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year.Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y.

Opinions expressed in signed articles orletters do not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

WORKERSVANtilJARB

Marxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.

20 MAY HU7

After more than a year of intensivegovernment investigation and underthreat of federal prosecution, Interna­tional Brotherhood of Teamsters (lBT)president Frank Fitzsimmons and IBTvice president Roy Williams, along withtwo management representatives, wereforced to resign April 30 as trustees ofthe Teamsters' massive Central StatesSoutheast and Southwest Pensio~Fund.

Under terms of the agreement with aLabor and Justice Department taskforce and the Internal Revenue Servicethe trustees stepped down in exchang~for restoring the fund's tax-exemptstatus. The IRS revocation threatenedbankruptcy for the fund and the loss ofpensions for several hundred thousandTeamsters. The government also agreedto end its investigation of the manage­ment of fund assets, although it retainsthe right to prosecute for pastinfractions.

More importantly, the trustees of thefund were forced to hand control of theassets and investments of the fund overto outside firms; remaining trustees willhave authority over only benefit pay­outs and eligibility. The Crocker Na­tional Bank of California and theDallas-based Lomas and NettletonFinancial Corporation will now havetotal control of future investments. JessHay, Lomas and Nettleton's chiefexecutive, just happens to be chairmanof the Democratic Party's nationalfinances, raised $300,000 for JimmyCarter last year and stands to reap a nicecommission off pension fund deals.

The federal government action inripping control of the pension fund fromthe Teamsters is an outrageous en­croachment on the independence of theunions. It represents one of the greatestgovernment invasions of union affairssince the anti-labor Landrum-GriffinAct was passed in 1959. And the currentfuror over the pension fund may be justthe beginning of a new legislative assaulton the labor movement.

Senate and House leaders are callingfor an intensified Labor Departmentcrackdown and new Congressionalhearings to "explore" the Teamstersfurther. Scandalously, these labor­baiters are receiving active support fromreformist "opposition" groups in theunion. such as the Teamsters for aDemocratic Union (TDU) and theProfessional Drivers Council (PROD),who are acting as accomplices of thegovernment attack. Their cries for"help" from the government are provid-

Hands Off the Teamstersl

=

Apesteguy/Slpa

attention from the sorr\: ~tate'o( hisarmy (the former Shaba commanderwas reported to have pocketed $274,000intended for troop pay), Mobutu soughtto make folk heroes out ofa company ofseveral hundred pygmies, part of Zaire­an forces attempting to retake theformer district army headquarters ofMutshasa. The imperialist press had afield day, featuring reports offour-foot­high soldiers stalking through ten-foot­high elephant grass, drilling with blowguns and bows and arrows.

Meanwhile, in Washington it wasrevealed that Mobutu wanted his newlyacquired C-130 filled with $50,000worth of Coca-Cola. (After all, IdiAmin has his C-130 filled up withJaguars and fancy furniture on periodic

Left Suckers, .. and Charlatans

While Washington has been regurgi­tating the line spun out by Mobutu'spress agents, much of the left has beendoing the same with interviews suppliedby his opponents, the Congolese Na­tional Liberation Front (FLNC). Thesemi-Maoist Guardian (6 April), lead­ing purveyors of "Third Worldist"bombast in the U.S., proclaims:

"The latest developments in Zaireconfirm once again that the storm

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shopping trips to London.) A StateDepartment spokesman commentedthat the troops had to drink something,and the water was probably bad. Coca­Cola had nothing to say, except thatthey were glad it wasn't Pepsi. For goodmeasure, a New York Times (13 April)editorial, entitled "Zaire Made Clear."managed to get the name of the tribe ofthe Shaba rebels wrong (they areLundas, not Lubas). Newsweek (25April) reported that Zairean pilots weredropping their bombs from 4,000 feet,an impossibly high altitude, and hittinggiant termite hills instead of rebel supplytrains. Altogether it appears that wellunder 100 people have died in this comicopera "war."

Statd [)epa~tine~t~;de's reported tha't 67percent of the "free world" cobaltproduction. a third of the industrialdiamonds and 7 percent of the coppersupply hung in the balance. Belgium wasreported to be sending up to 30planeloads 01 infantry weapons andammunition to close the breach.

But what is a mere million? Still notenough for Mobutu, so he hit the panicbutton with a "leaked report":

"ZAIRE COPPER CITY REPORT­ED TAKEN BUT THEGOVERNMENT SAYS NOT YET"(IH March)

Yet you can't keep those plucky Zaireantroops down:

"ZAIRE FLYING TROOPS TO BAT­TLE AREA IN BID TO REPULSEINVADERS" (19 March)

Mobutu"s initial response was toclamp censorship on all newspaperaccounts leaving the country. But then,quickly shifting gears, "the Guide"allowed handfuls of reporters to makebrief and carefully supervised visits to"the front." Soldiers would snap toattention for photographers, then re­lapse into lethargy. Guns were fired tosupply the sounds of battle. To divert

Comic Opera

While Mobutu was drawing up hisshopping lists, the conflict remained asmurky as ever, with ambiguities andabsurdities on every side. A dispatchfrom New York Times correspondentMichael Kaufman termed Zaireangovernment information "conflictingand wrong"; reports began to filterthrough of incredibie corruption anddisintegration in the army. Towns "lost"were abandoned without a shot fired,often accompanied by mass desertion bysoldiers who had not been paid inmonths; battles "won" turned out to bere-entry into those same villages. nowhereft of population and sometimesbombed Vietnam-style.

And. of course, the sequel:"ZAIRE AGAIN APPEALS FORU.S. ASSISTANCE" (22 March)

So it went. A few weeks laterWashington coughed up an additional$13 million in military equipment("non-lethal," assured the State Depart­ment pressroom). France supplied 14Mirage jets. and Zairean officialsannounced that the aircraft were imme­diately pressed into service and bombed"rebel positions." Each new infusion ofmateriel brought instant "victories,"which, however, proved short-lived andwere followed by more "urgent re­quests" fired off to Paris, Brussels andWashington.

French military advisors arriving in Zaire.FLNC

The story of the "war" in southernZaire to date has been manufactured inthe government offices in Kinshasa, theebb and flow of the "fighting" closelysynchronized with the activities ofMobutu's lobbyists abroad. This can beseen by a simple glance at the parade ofheadlines in the New York Times. Thechain of events was set'off by a Kinshasaannouncement of the "invasion" onMarch 10. The J:"imesreproduced this asgood coin:

"ZAIRE SAYS ANGOLA 'MERCEN­ARIES' CROSS BORDER, SEIZETH REE CITIES" (II March)

Battle News Flim-Flam

new air cover and supplies (()r M'obutu\lorces ag.ainst left-wing rebels.

The following day, to emphasize thebattle readiness of the rag-tag Zaireanarmy, the official news agency reportedthat two of the "cities" were "recap­tured." But lest Western capitals breathea sigh of relief and forget about theirally, it announced that the goal of the"invaders" was the copper mining centerof Kolwezi.

The State Department took the bait,and within days we read:

"U.S. FLIES SUPPLIES TO ZAIRETO ASSIST IN HALTING INV A­SION" (16 March)

A million dollars in field equipment,fuel, C-rations, parachutes, etc. wasbeing rushed to the scene. To forestallcriticisms from Congressional liberals,the secretary of state chimed in:

"VANCE SAYS INVADERS INZAIRE THREATEN VITAL COP­PER MINING" (17 March)

1Mobutu Sese Seko

Zaire...(continuedfrom page 1)tent ion by Zairean strongman MobutuSese Seko that the whole business was aCuban-led invasion.

On the other side, when the identity ofthe rebels was finally established, theyturned out to be curious candidates forthe role of "Marxist revolutionaries."Their leader, "General" (why not)Mbumba, was a former Katangangendarme under the secessionist regimeof Belgian puppet Morse Tshombe, andlater an anti-guerrilla commando leaderfor the Portuguese army in Angola!

Perhaps the only fact .to emerge withany clarity is that Mobutu, who hasproclaimed himself "the Guide" ofZaire, has scored a diplomatic success.By adroit stage-managing of news andpleas for a foreign bail-out, the self­aggrandizing dictator has garnered awealth of military materiel from France,Belgium, the United States and China.In mid-April, France airlifted 1,500Moroccan soldiers to stand guard dutyover "recaptured" mud-hut villagesunder the supervision of French andBelgian "military instructors."

Also on the scene are Egyptian pilotsand even a "Ugandan suicide strikingforce." Mobutu has won virtuallyunanimous endorsement from the Or­ganization of African Unity (OAU) for"defense of the territorial integrity" ofZaire, although there is no evidence thatthe insurgents intend to dismember thecountry. Meanwhile, from anxiousinternational creditors he has reportedlymilked additional millions to coverinterest payments on a staggeringexternal debt of nearly $3 billion.

On the imperialist side there wasinitial embarrassment over coming tothe rescue of such a blatantly repressive"free world" regime. At a press confer­ence last month, U.S. president Carterwas asked how he could defend theMobutu dictatorship as "a defender ofhuman rights." Carter replied:

"I've never defined Zaire as a defenderof human rights. I know that there aresome problems in Zaire with humanrights, as there are here and many othercountries. But our friendship and aidhistorically for Zaire has not beenpredicated on their perfection in thedealing with human rights."

--New York Times, 23 April

Certainly not! And Carter was well­advised not to advertise the Mobutugovernment's "defense of humanrights," for U.S. hands are far fromclean. The Central Intelligence Agencyhas been funneling large sums to theircorrupt "number one man in Africa"since the early 1960's, even before heseized power in an army coup d'etat. Itwas revealed last year that the CIAexpended great efforts in an attempt topoison Congolese premier Patrice Lu­mumba (although disingenuouslyclaiming non-involvement in his 1961assassination). And in 1965, CIA­dispatched Cuban exile mercenaries

The Times [London]

Zaire government troops rest after being flown in to Kolwezi in Shabaprovince.

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4 WORKERS VANGUARD

•

center of the people's struggle againstimperialism and neocolonialism hasshifted dramatically over the pastcouple of years to Africa."

Interestingly, despite the "stormcenter" hovering over Shaba province,two weeks earlier the Guardian hadwritten that: "Insufficient evidenceexists at this point to say whether theexiled Katanganese are now a progres­sive force ...... But it only took a coupleof FLNC communiques calling Mobutua "fascist" and making occasionalreferences to "socialist ideology" for theGuardian to conclude that the formerKatangan gendarmes had been "radical­ized" by their alliance with the M PLA inAngola after 1974.

If the aging New Left "ThirdWorlders" of the Guardian are taken inby the rhetoric of these former mercena­ries of the Portuguese army, the reform­ist, ex-Trotskyist Socialist WorkersParty (SWP) thinks it has spottedanother Vietnam in the making. In the28 March Intercontinental Press SWPleader Joseph Hansen writes, in anarticle entitled "Zaire-Beginning ofAnother Vietnam?":

" ... the downfall of the dictator[Mobutu] could have an explosiveeffect. unleashing forces that could notbe repressed or contained ...."Carter's decision to take steps towardshoring up the Mobutu regime arereminiscent of those taken by Kennedyat the beginning of involvement inVietnam."

The SWP's Militant (I April), in turn.

carried a front-page hea~i1ine. "U.S.War Danger in Africa."

Evidently as a result of its unendingsearch for a "single-issue" gimmick toreplace the anti-Vietnam war move­ment, the SWP has lost all sense ofproportion. Already last year, when theMilitant proclaimed Angola a newVietnam, we pointed out that the UnitedStates had no strategic interests orcommitments in central Africa com­parable to those which motivated itsbitter-end intervention in Indochina. Topresume that 500-to-5,000 ex-Katanganmercenaries could trigger such a reac­tion, from the leading imperialist poweris simply absurd.

The pro-Moscow Communist Party,as could be expected, has concentratedon reprinting statements by the Angolangovernment denying direct involvementin the Zaire fighting. But the mostcynical and incredulous of all are thePeking-loyal Maoists. They receivedtheir instructions when a 19 Marchdispatch of the Hsinhua News Agencytook up Mobutu's anti-Soviet diatribes:

"The recent armed invasion of theRepublic of Zaire by several thousandmercenaries from Angola shows that itis a premeditated and planned aggres­sion engineered by the Soviet social­imperialists, another major step of thelatter to intensify their infiltration andexpansion in Africa."

According to the CP's Dai~v World (28April), China has also supplied some 30tons of war supplies to grease Mobutu's

palm, just as it came to the aid of theCIA-financed. South African-ledFNLAi UNITA forces last year inAngola. In an interview in the 29 AprilJeune Afrique, Mobutu confirmed thathe has received "supplies and differentmaterials" from Peking.

American Maoist groups,particularly the slavishly pro-PekingOctober League (OL). parrot the sameiine. The OL's Call (9 May) announced:"The evidence of Soviet Cuban master­minding of the Zaire invasion is exten­sive.... Two Katangans captured lastweek by the Zaire army admitted thatthey had been trained by Cubans."Some evidence! The article goes on tocite Soviet T-54 and T-55 tanks "rollingthrough Shaba" and "Spanish-languagedocuments ... found on the battlefield"as well as "white soldiers ... observedfighting with the black Katangans" and"6,000 boxes of Soviet-made arms andammunition" allegedly captured byMobutu's forces.

Such ludicrous reports illustrate thelengths to which the Maoists will beforced to go as the mindless mouth­pieces of the Peking bureaucrats. Thereis no evidence for any of these "facts"except Mobutu's own press releases.This article, and similar Maoist dia­tribes against "Soviet social-imperialistaggression in Zaire," is nothing but ashameless apology for U.S. and Frenchimperialist intervention in support of

the murderous Mobutu regime.

In contrast to these professionalcheerleaders for bourgeois nationalists,revolutionary Trotskyists hold that,"No basis exists for Marxists or theworking class to take sides in the Zairecor.nict" ("Cuba in Africa." WV No.153, 15 April). At the same time wesharply oppose U.S./ French/ Belgianefforts to shore up the Mobutu regimeand further entrench imperialist inter­ests in central Africa. No military or"economic" aid to Zaire- noimperialist-led troops or advisors for thebutcher Mobutu!

While the Maoists view suchreactionary neo-colonial dictatorshipsas the vanguard of the struggle againstSoviet "fascism"; while "Third World"enthusiasts hail former colonial mercen­aries as the revolutionaries of the hour,and social-democratic reformists lookfor yet another alliance with the liberalson a "U.S. out of..... program-­Marxists point to the vital role of theproletarian concentration in the copperbelt of southern Zaire and Zambia. Onlyby mobilizing this force behind aTrotskyist party-linking it to the five­million-strong black proletariat ofSouth Africa-can imperialist toadieslike Mobutu be swept away and re­placed with a workers and peasantsgovernment which will end tribalistconflict and imperialist oppression,establishing a socialist federation ofsouthern Africa.•

Healyites, Messengers of Qaddafi

Healyite News Line (8 September 1977) halls "Libya's Day."

prescribes legal punishments such ascutting off the tongues of liars and thehands of thieves. At least 700 politicalprisoners have been reported held inLibyan jails. Regarding one trial of 17prisoners (acquitted in 1974) againstwhom Qaddafi personally intervened toimpose new sentences of life imprison­ment and death. Amnesty Internationalrecently noted: "The accused wereallegedly Marxists, Trotskyists, andmembers of the Islamic LiberationParty" (Intercontinental Press, 4 April1977).Qaddafi's 1973 "cultural revolu­tion" laid out his "Five Principles,"including:

"We must purge all the sick people whotalk of Communism, atheism, whomake propaganda for the Westerncountries and advocate capitalism. Weshall put them in prison."

And:"We live by the Koran, God's book. Wewill reject any idea that is not based onit. Therefore we enter into a culturalrevolution to refute and destroy allmisleading books which have madeyouth sick and insane,"

~New York Times. 22 May 1973

Qaddafi's idea of "refutation" is simple:he ordered "the burning of books that

continued on page I"

GADDAFI PUTSTHE RECORD STRAIGHT

"Revolutionland"

We are more than happy to giveQaddafi's policies "the attention theydeserve." Qaddafi is fanatical in hisdevotion to the Koran, which sanctifiesthe feudal enslavement of women and

funds"-paid little or no attention toQaddafi and his so-called "Revolution­land." In the six months prior to itscollapse, we could locate only onearticle in Workers Press dealing specifi­cally with Libya, and this was implicitlycritical of Qaddafi, reporting a protestby Libyan students in London againstthe police slaughter of "at least 16students" at a demonstration at Libya'sBenghazi University (Workers Press, 14January 1976).

On 8 September 1976 News Linecarried a centerfold spread on Tripoli's"anniversary celebration" of Qaddafi'smilitary coup. Boasting huge photosand snide comments about the bour­geois press' lack of coverage of theglorious event, News Line's spread on"Libya's Day" was a sharp departurefrom the silence of Workers Press theyear before. Something has changed,and it wasn't the Qaddafi regime.

What is perhaps most curious is thatWorkers Press, the previous Healyitedaily-which folded in February 1976with the presumption of "lack of

News Line hailed the London publica­tion of the Libyan strongman's GreenBook as "an uncompromising rejectionof parliamentary democracy in favourof 'the authority of the people·... TwoLabour MP's who pushed the bookwere taken to task for giving it "apatronizing send-off'; their praise of theGreen Book as "challenging, stimulat­ing, moral" is evidently insufficientlyfulsome for the WRP's taste. Qaddafi'sHealyite press agents complain that his"writings and his drive towards people'sdemocracy hardly received the attentionthey deserve."

The WRP has in the last year beenmaking up for that with a vengeance.Over 20 articles on Libya have appearedin News Line, not to mention aconsiderable increase in "special re­ports" from Tripoli and attacks onSadat's Egypt. News Line's castigationof Egypt, described as "near bankrupt­cy," for its repression of leftists iscompletely in accord with Qaddafi'sfeud with Sadat-and contrasts sharplywith the Healyites' silence on repressionin Libya.

An article in the 14 October 1976News Line, for instance, discussed aBBC television interview with Qaddafiand dismissed the interviewer's inquiryinto political prisoners in Libya as oneof the bourgeois media's "stock-in-tradequestions," ,Vews Line smugly added,"Gaddafi was unmoved. saying thatthev were 'enemies of the revolution',"Th~ Healyites praised the program forhaving "broken at least part of theGaddafi enigma and answered some ofthe US State Department and Zionistlies," but complained that the interviewwas not shown on prime time:

"Miss Kewley's profile rightly belongedin the SSCs prestige slot, 'Panorama',"It is a measure of the censorship ontelevision that it was squeezed into the'religious programmes' departmentwhere it could not do justice to thesubject ~f Islam or its leadingadvocate,

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Something stinks in News Line, dailygarbage organ of the British HealyiteWorkers Revolutionary Party(WRP)-and it's not simply that itcontinues these political bandits' unsa­vorv record of sectarianism, Stalinistgangste~ism and egregious opportun­ism. Ever since News Line's inception onI Mav 1976, it has been a mouthpiecefor the megalomaniacal ravings and"people's democracy" pretensions ofColonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya.Month after month articles in NewsLine have lauded the dictator in weirdlyshameless fashion, hailing his "agricul­tural revolution," his support to the"Arab Revolution," detailing his everyattack on the "high treason" of Egypt'sAnwar Sadat, and so forth.

Thus a brief article in the 26 February

20 MAY 1977 5

.-

Dpp.ose AFt-CIO Economic Chauvinism

ProtectionistDriveThreatensTrade War

The world capitalist economy has byno means fully recovered from the 1974­75 depression. In every major capitalistcountry unemployment is substantiallyhigher than in 1973, and the rate offixedcapital investment stands below that ofthe 1972-73 boom. The major capitalistpowers have responded to the weakrecovery from 1974-75 by two signifi­cant changes in policy. One is a drive forfiscal austerity, seeking to transferresources from government-providedsocial services to private capital accu­mulation. The other is an increasingtrend toward trade protectionism.

Although the London economicsummit of May 7-8 declared "the need tomaintain our political commitment toan open and nondiscriminatory worldtrading system" (New York Times, 9May), in reality protectionist measures,particularly against Japan, have recent­ly proliferated. Furthermore, the Lon­don summit communique contains theusual escape clause upholding "the rightof individual countries under existinginternational agreements to avoid sig­nificant market disruption." "Marketdisruption" is a euphemism for in­creased import competition; "avoiding"it means tariffs and import quotas.

Last August the Ford administrationforced Japan to "voluntarily" restrainexports of specialty steel and thenimposed quotas on European suppliers.This February the European CommonMarket slapped a 20 percent duty onJapanese ball bearings, claiming thatthe Japanese were dumping, i.e., sellingexported goods at lower prices than inthe domestic market. Two months laterthe U.S. Customs Court, in what couldbe a landmark decision, ruled thatrebates of excise taxes for Japanesetelevision sets were a hidden exportsubsidy. The immediate effect will be anadditional 15 percent duty on JapaneseTV equipment. If this ruling is appliedgenerally, it will mean major tariffincreases on almost all Americanimports, no doubt provoking foreignretaliation.

While the statesmen prefer to cloakthe threat of trade war in diplomaticeuphemisms, the business press has notbeen blind to what is happening. Thispast month, two of the most prestigiousbusiness-oriented journals in theEnglish-speaking world-the LondonEconomist and Business Week-haverun feature articles on the rising tide ofprotectionism. As the Economist (23April) article stated:

"There is a strong whiff of pro­tectionism in the air. and the groundis increasingly littered with tariff andnon-tariff barriers. A grim number ofcountries now want to check imports toprotect domestic industry and fend offyet higher unemployment. ..."The protectionist pack grew in numberand strength during the 1974-75recession. Now it is in full cry."

The main target of both U.S. andCommon Market protectionism IS

6

New York garmentworkers rally lastmonth joinedindustry clamor forlighter protectionistcurbs on imports.

Japan. Independent of American ac­tion. the Common Market has negotiat­ed "voluntary" "orderly marketing"agreements with Japan covering carbonsteel, television sets, calculators andshipbuilding. As a leading Japanesesecurities analyst bluntly put it: "Order­ly marketing simply means, 'Cut ex­ports'" (Business Week, 9 May). Eu­ropean protectionism against Japanfosters American action and vice veLa.When the Common Market limitsJapanese exports of a particular pro­duct, Japan, Inc. naturally seeks to sellmore in the U.S.; this, of course,strengthens protectionist forces in theU.S., and so on.

Despite previous measures takenagainst it, Japan's international compet­itive superiorily remains overwhelming.In 1976 Japan's exports to the U.S.increased by 41 percent and to theCommon Market by 27 percent; herimports from the U.S. and Common

Neal Boenzi/New York Times

Garment workers at April protec­tionist rally in New York.

Market increased by 1.6 and 3.5 percentrespectively (Far Eastern EconomicReview, 4 February)!

The American and West Europeanbourgeoisies will not tolerate this kindof trade imbalance. Carter's UnderSecretary of State for Economic Affairs,Richard Cooper, sounded a veiledthreat to Japan: "If Japan takes a policyto run a surplus, it imposes seriousadjustment costs on other countries"(Wall Street Journal. 12 January).Feeling the heat at the London summit,Japan's prime minister Takeo Fukuda,likened the present protectionist climateto that of the Great Depression.

What accounts for Japan'sextraordinary competitive superiority?According to official spokesmen, it iscapitalist virtue itself. The Far EasternEconomic Review (4 March) quotes ananonymous trade official: "We workharder than the Europeans, we are moreefficient, and still they blame us for alltheir troubles."

This is disingenuous. Japan, Inc. is nopillar of capitalist work ethic, freemarket virtue. To begin with, Japanstrictly protects its own agriculture, onearea where the U.S. and West Europeboth enjoy a marked competitiveadvantage. When Walter Mondalevisited Japan in early February, hemade a point that it was the onlycountry in the world which banned mostAmerican citrus fruit, claiming it consti­tuted a health hazard because ofchemical fungicides.

Japan has the most effectiveindustrial monopolies in the world.Importing and distributing firms areclosely linked to manufacturing and thebanks through great monopolisticcomplexes, some, like Mitsui andMitsubishi, stemming from thenineteenth-century zaibatsu. Japan'strading companies normally mark upimports far more than comparabledomestic products. Thus Japaneseindustry protects itself from foreigncompetition without recourse to directgovernment tariffs or quotas.

The paternalistic system of lifetimeemployment in Japan's major firms is animportant source of labor peace andsocial stability. Therefore, faced withfalling export demand, Japanese firmstend to cut prices rather than cut backproduction. The accusation that Japan­ese industry dumps·-sells in foreignmarkets cheaper than in its moreprotected home market-is true thoughundoubtedly exaggerated. In contrast toprotectionism, pricing exports belowdomestic products is not against theinterests of the international workingclass. For proletarian socialists mea­sures to counter dumping are no morejustifiable or supportable than any otherform of protectionism.

U.S. Imperialism: From FreeTrade to Protectionism

Just as mid-nineteenth-century Bri­tain's overwhelming industrial superior­ity made it the leading advocate of freetrade at the time, so after World War IIthe U.S. imposed free trade on its war-

damaged allies and the defeated Axispowers. Entering the war from a highlydepressed economic condition, the U.S.was able to combine a vast armamentsprogram with extensive capital renewal.In the late 1940's it was the war­damaged and more backward Europeaneconomies which resisted made-in­America free trade. The free-tradeaspect of the post-war American imperi­alist order was embodied in the 1948General Agreement on Tariffs andTrade (GATT), whose preamble lookstoward "the substantial reduction oftariffs and other barriers to trade and tothe elimination of discriminatory treat­ment in international commerce."

The first break from this liberal tradepolicy came in the early 1960's overtextiles apparel. Textiles and par­ticularly apparel are relatively labor­intensive industries using simple tech­nologies. Under a rational internationaldivision of labor, advanced countrieswould import much of their clothingand other textile products from back­ward countries. Japan itself imports asubstantial share of its textiles! apparelfrom China, South Korea and otherbackward Asian states.

Under pressure from an unholyalliance of AFL-CIO unions and vio­lently anti-labor Southern textile mag­nates (like Robert Stevens), the Ken­nedy administration in 1962 forcedthrough the so-called Long TermAgreement in cotton textiles, p detailedmarket-sharing scheme. The maintargets were Japan and its Far Easterneconomic satellites like South Koreaand Taiwan. In 1973 the cotton agree­ment was extended to all fibers and isnow known as the Multifiber Agree­ment (MFA). AFL-CIO unions regardthe MFA, which allows a 6 percentannual growth in imports, as too liberaland are actively campaigning to make itfar more restrictive.

The main industrial force behindAmerican protectionism is steel. Unliketextiles apparel, steel is a capital­intensive. technologically dynamicindustry. There is no rational reasonwhy foreign steel-mill products shouldtake an ever increasing share of theAmerican market. The uncompetitive­ness of the U.S. steel industry resultsfrom monopolistic pricing and lack ofinvestment in new technology since themid-1950's. In 1956 imports accountedfor only 1.7 percent of domestic steelconsumption, but by 1968 imports

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It is an established historic fact thattrade wars lead to total wars. Theattempt to achieve commercial advan­tage through direct state interventionprovokes counter-intervention by theaffected state. Japan "got under" the3ritish colonial tariff barrier when in1941 Yamashita's 25th Army sweptdown the Malayan peninsula and tookSingapore. The U.S. acquired a strongnegotiating hand against German eco­nomic nationalism when Patton's ThirdArmy crossed the Rhine in 1944.

The final tariff negotiators are gener­als. Those workers who campaign fortariffs and quotas against Japan todaymay find their sons fighting Japanesefellow workers by very different, blood­ier methods tomorrow. Only socialistrevolution on a world scale can preventthe outbreak of renewed interimperialistwar and the barbarism which such acatastrophe would bring.

The working-class answer to unem­ployment and competitive wage­slashing is not protectionism. It is theexpropriation of American capitalismand the establishment of a plannedeconomy. An internationally plannedsocialist economy would not only securepermanent full employment but woulddo so with a greatly reduced work yearand a far higher standard of living forworking people throughout theworld.•

Many workers may believe thatrestricting imports is a means to jobsecurity and a floor under wages. Whileprotectionist measures can providesome groups of workers a temporaryadvantage, the overall economic andpolitical effect on the working class isdisastrous.

Protectionism means inflation. H igh­cr tariffs on television sets or quotas onshirts and shoes lead immediately anddirectly to higher prices for these itemsand to a fall in the living standards of allworking people. The obvious contribu­tion of imported consumables to theliving standards of American workersrepresents the advantages of the interna­tional division of labor.

erous tactic attacks foreign workers, notthe bosses, and fuels interimperialistrivalries that can ultimately lead to war.

Economic Nationalism VersusSocialist Internationalism

The creation of a "",orld market ishistorically one of the most progressiveaspects of capitalist development. Thisdevelopment lays the basis for rationalglobal economic integration, which willcome only with socialist economicplanning. Conversely, the twentieth­century tendency toward trade protec­tionism and national economic autarkyexpresses the decay of capitalism and isan attack on the productive forces ofsociety. The most extreme example ofeconomic nationalism was Nazi Ger­many. The Nazis regarded foreignmanufacturers much as they regarded"foreign" Jews-as an impurity in theGerman economic body.

In an article entitled "Nationalismand Economic Life" (1933), Trotskypointed to the reactionary nature offascism in economic as well as politicallife:

'The policies of a closed economy implythe artificial constriction of thosebranches of industry that are capable offertilizing successfully the economy andculture of other countries. They alsoimply an artificial planting of thoseindustries that lack favorable condi­tions for growth on national soil. Thefiction of economic self-sufficiency thuscauses tremendous overhead expendi­tures in two directions. Added to this isinflation...."The progressive task of how to adaptthe arena of economic and socialrelations to the new technology isturned upside down and is made to seema problem of how to restrain and cutdown productive forces so as to fit themto the old national arena and to the oldsocial relations. On both sides of theAtlantic, no little mental energy iswasted on efforts to solve the fantasticproblem of how to drive the crocodileback into the chicken egg. The ultra­modern economic nationalism is irrev­ocably doomed by its own reactionarycharacter; it retards and lowers theproductive forces of man."

-- Writings. /933-34

The main reason we oppose protec­tionism is not that it is economicallywasteful, although it is certainly that.The German Social Democrat AugustBe.bel once said that anti-semitism was"the socialism of fools." By analogy,then, trade protectionism is the "eco­nomic planning of fools," Protectionismdiverts the struggle for full employmentand higher living standards from social­ist collectivism to competition againstforeign capital and labor in alliance withone's own bourgeoisie. The chauvinist,even racist nature oT the AFL-CIO'santi-import campaign arises from thelogic of protectionism itself.

65,000 Jobs Endangeredby Imported Specialty Steel

tional corporations have amply demon­strated that they have a higher callingthan the national interest of the UnitedStates. Therefore, the people of theUnited States must turn to theirgovernment to protect them in waysthat only a government can."

The current vanguard of the AFL­CIO anti-import campaign is the Com­mittee to Preserve American ColorTelevision, consisting of five companiesand 12 unions. Jacob S. Clayman, co­chairman of the committee andsecretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIOIndustrial Union Department stated: "Ithink there is growing awareness inCongress that somewhere soon the linehas to be drawn or America's industrialbase will erode rapidly, and God knowswhere that will take us" (UPI, 14April).Clayman's television committee andsimilar protectionist lobbies are anincreasingly important form of politicalcollaboration between the representa­tives of the workers and the capitalistswho exploit them.

Import protectionism is not limited tothe neanderthal Meanyite yahoos. TheUnited Auto Workers (UAW), theclosest thing to a social-democratictrade union in the U.S., is no lessprotectionist than the AFL-CIO. Inearly 1976 the Woodcock bureaucracyappealed to the lTC, claiming that allmajor foreign auto manufacturers weredumping in the U.S. market. The ITCruled against the UAW at that time, butUAW chief Woodcock has continued tobeat the protectionist drums.

The most blatantly anti-foreign andoutright racist campaign comes fromthe textile/ apparel unions, the Interna­tional Ladies Garment Workers Union(ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Cloth­ing and Textile Workers Union(ACTWU). For years these unions haveorganized demonstrations appealing tothe worst kind of "yellow peril" racism.For example, the ILGWU recentlypicketed department stores with itsmembers masquerading as Chinesecoolies.

The ACTWU adamantly refuses tocall for a labor boycott of non-unionproducts in its campaign to organizeJ.P. Stevens (see "Cowardly LegalismDisarms J.P. Stevens Workers," WVNo. 154,22 April), on the grounds thatsecondary boycotts are illegal. Yet muchof the financial and other resources ofthe textile! apparel unions is used topressure the government to boycott theproducts of Asian workers! This treach-

Clearly it should not have taken 30 yearsto discover this supposed legal contra­diction. Increased protectionist senti­ment is the real cause of the court ruling,and behind this lies the loss of the U.S.'previously unchallenged economichegemony which had lasted since WorldWar II.

Meany's AFL-CIO: Vanguard ofEconomic Chauvinism

The most important political forcecampaigning for extreme protectionismis the AFL-CIO. And the unions'campaign is based on grossly chauvinistdemagogy and even appeals to anti­oriental racism. Writing in the Ameri­can Federationist (January 1977), AFL­CIO economist Elizabeth R. Jegerdeclares protectionism to be the highestform of patriotism:

"... we live in a world of managedeconomies. among friends and foesalike. We cannot continue to support alaissez-faire trade policy. The multina-

Newsweek

USWA billboard is part of union's treacherous campaign for importquotas onsteel.

represented 16.7 percent (Thomas B.Curtis and John Robert Vastine, Jr.,The Kcnnedr Round and the Future ofAmerican Trade [1971 ]).

In 196X the Nixon administrationnegotiated the first of its famous"voluntary" agreements with Japaneseand European steel producers. The 196Xagreement was a compromise which leftthe U.S. steel industry dissatisfied; itwanted a detailed inter-governmentmarket-sharing treaty. In 1972 the steelagreement was renegotiated and mademore restrictive; the allowed annual rateof growth was cut from 5 to 2.5 percent.However, since the 196X and 1972agreements were stipulated in tonnage,foreign suppliers naturally concentratedon the more expensive special (stainlessand tool) steels. So the U.S. industrystarted to scream that it needed protec­tion for these products. Last August theFord administration obliged with im­port quotas on special steel.

Divisions Within the AmericanRuling Class

Protectionism has produced a certaindivision between industrial vested inter­ests, supported by the unions, and themore responsible representatives ofAmerican imperialism. The politicalleaders of the American ruling classrealize that an all-out trade war withJapan, necessarily having repercussionsin Europe, would fatally undermine theU.S.-led alliance against the Sovietbureaucratically degenerated workersstate. Both the Nixon! Ford! Kissingerand Carter;, Vance! Brzezinski adminis­trations have resisted industry pressurefor ever greater protectionist measures.Carter's chief trade negotiator, RobertStrauss, has stated, "there is no alterna­tive to free trade" (Wall Street Journal,31 March).

Congress, which is more responsive tolocalized vested interests, has becomeincreasingly protectionist. The 1972Burke-Hartke bill, strongly supportedby George Meany's AFL-CIO, was themost economically nationalist measuresince the early 1930's. It called forimport quotas on a broad range ofproducts and also restrictions on theexport of capital. The Nixon admini­stration opposed Burke-Hartke and itwas killed in committee.

However, the Trade Act of 1974 laidthe basis for greater protectionism. Theact created the International TradeCommission (ITC) whose function is"to determine whether an article is beingimported into the United States in suchincreased quantities as to be a substan­tial cause of serious injury, or the threatthereof, to the domestic industry." Sinceits creation the ITC has been a protec­tionist body. Its ruling on special steelsin 1976 forced Ford's hand; in the pastfew months the ITC has recommendedthat the television and shoe industry besubject to import controls.

The most extreme protectionistmeasure to date has come from the thirdbranch of the American government­the courts. When the Treasury Depart­ment ruled that excise tax rebates forJapanese television sets were not anexport subsidy, Zenith appealed to theU.S. Customs Court. On the basis of anobscure 1897 law, the court found inZenith's favor; the Treasury Depart­ment is appealing.

The unexpected Customs Courtdecision caused quite a stir in the worldof international commerce. TreasuryDepartment chief Michael Blumenthalcommented:

"The decision, if allowed to stand,would have the most serious conse­quences for all trading relationshipsthat have been built up since World WarII. There is every likelihood that everydomestic industry with import competi­tion would come in with a request forcountervailing duties on all kinds ofthings."

Business Week. 25 April

The Customs Court ruling illegalizes animportant element of post-war interna­tional trade policy, one explicitlystipulated in Section XVI of GATT.

20 MAY 1977 7

The Nuclear Tangle

These disputes over plutoniumdominated both the recent London"economic summit conference" of impe­rialist chiefs and the ongoing Salzburgconference of the International AtomicEnergy Agency.

In London exchanges between WestGerman chancellor Helmut Schmidtand U.S. president Carter were de­scribed as sharp. Schmidt had re-

can profit by producing fuel. Whenprices go up. new reserves are miracu­lously "discovered."

A few examples tell the story. U.S.domestic oil production has fallen overthe last few weeks to a 12-year low ofonly half of total consumption. Carterascribes this to "our rapidly shrinkingresources." It is nothing of the sort. Thelong-term dependence of the U.S. onOPEC oil is due to the fact that the sameoil companies make more profits byextracting Near East petroleum than bydrawing from Texas wells. In the shortterm there is most likely a deliberatecutting back of domestic production inanticipation of the promised higherprices. The natural gas shortage lastwinter, for example, was the result ofrefusal by the producers to sell at theregulated interstate rate.

In fact, the alleged shortage of oilwould disappear overnight if it becameprofitable to extract the more than onetrillion barrels estimated to be con­tained in North American shale and tarsands. But the oil companies last yeardropped research into extraction tech­niques from shale because at currentprice levels they offer no profit.

Carter's proposals to switch to coaland nuclear power, therefore, are not aresponse to any kind of final depletionof fluid fossil fuels. Behind the plan isgeopolitics pure and simple. As wepointed out previously:

"In any case, what has the imperialistrulers more immediately worried is theprospect of a sudden drop of importedsupplies, a very real prospect given theintense renewal of inter-imperialistrivalrv."Among the Western powers. the moveto nuclear fission power arises out ofeconomic competition and is ultimatelypart of a trend toward economicautarky on the road to a new imperialistwar."

"Nuclear Energy and theWorkers Movement," WV No.146. 25 February 1977

These international rivalries haveproduced two Carter energy programs:one attempts to make the United Statesindependent of OPEC by increasingreactor construction and domestic fuelproduction: the other attempts to makeWest Europe and Japan more depen­dent on the U.S. for uranium fuelsupplies.

The West European bourgeoisieswere even more acutely hit by the shockwaves of the 1973-74 OPEC boycott,since the bulk of their oil comes from theNear East. This led to a drastic accelera­tion of plans for nuclear energy,predicated upon the development ofbreeder reactors which manufactureplutonium fuel. However, within recentweeks Carter has called for a halt in boththe development of breeders and thedeployment of reprocessing facilities.As a symbolic gesture he moved to deferconstruction of the Clinch River,Tennessee, breeder reactor.

Carter's stated objection is the dangerof proliferation of atomic weapons tosmaller countries should plutoniumbecome too abundant. However, hisNATO allies could not help but noticethat a result of the deferral of breederreactor and reprocessing plant construc­tion would be to strengthen the U.S.position as the major supplier of nuclearfuels and the dominant force in theWestern "nuclear club." In addition. theFuropeans lear that with the abandon­ment of plutonium an lDcreasing pro­portion of American-processed en­riched uranium would be diverted Iromforeign ~alcs to consumption hy domes­tic light \\ater reactors.

Wilson/Newsweek

Sacramento nuclear power plant

clean-air laws and an increased commit­ment to breeder reactors.

Their fallback position has been tomount a major lobbying effort toincrease the windfall already guaranteedunder the Carter plan. This includespressure on Congress to raise thecontrolled price of natural gas by anadditional 15 percent over the adminis­tration figure, set aside environmentalrestrictions on strip mining and excludeimported cars from the fuel-efficiencyrebates.

The essence of Carter's nationalenergy plan is conservation by cuttingback demand through higher prices onthe one hand and increased domesticsupply through higher profits on theother. The purpose is strategic strength­ening of U.S. imperialism, not "livingwithin our means" or similar conserva­tionist claptrap. And the "cris.is" is apublic relations gimmick to sell super­profits for the monopolies but the bitterpill of "sacrifice" for the millions.

CIA experts to the contrary. "totalestimated world reserves" are a veryelastic concept. As the conservativeBritish Economist (23 April) put it,"World energy reserves are not runningout in any long-run sense of that phrase.There is a lot of oil and gas in the groundwhich is thus far unpumped andunfound ...." Under capitalism whatdetermines available energy resources isabove all whether or not corporations

Behind the "Crisis"

-Redut.Annum En«ttgy

-R.dlJettmport(l(J $t\at

• Reduce 1965 OUltnpor.~A Day T06 f

II

-Reduce 1<;)85 Q~uoHr<

-lncroilse'085 COf1~400 Mrlhon Ton."

James Schlesinger details energy plan.

and Budget director Bert Lance (aCarter crony) retracted and privateeconomists disputed.

In addition, Carter promised thereturn of windfall tax revenues raised bythe program's implementation, a prom­ise which was quickly withdrawn bySchlesinger. Even the "taciturn energyczar" was moved to philosophizing,while posing with a scowl in front of aposter calling for endless reductions andcutbacks. He exhorted Congress, "makeno small plans. They have no magic tostir the hearts of men" (New YorkTimes, 4 May).

But Carter's real selling card was notquotations from William James, norSchlesinger's trump the authority ofWinston Churchill. The administra­tion's ace-in-the-hole was a "secret"Central Intelligence Agency studyshowing that the Soviet Union would beforced to import .15 to 4.5 millionbarrels of oil a day by 1985 and that 90percent of world petroleum reserveswould be depleted by the year 2000.Thus Carter put forward the spectre ofthe U.S. and USSR fighting it out forincreasingly precious Saudi reserves.

There were more than a few problemswith this CIA "study." As it turns out,the agency has been erroneously pre­dicting declining Soviet petroleumoutput regularly since 1970. The "study"places Saudi Arabian reserves at half theSaudi government's own estimates, andits figures for world reserves were basedon those of the oil companies. EvenSchlesinger's staff conceded that the"study" was bunk.

Thus there was little substance toCarter's public relations campaign to"sell" his energy plan. But why shouldthere be? According to the rules of thecapitalist game, the real "pitch" must bedirected at the corporations and theirspokesmen in the labyrinth of Congres­sional committees which will process thelegislation. They certainly will not bebamboozled by talk of "meaningfulsacrifices," and no program to increasethe profits of the oil trusts could hope towin enthusiastic public support.

In fact. with the faintest populist auraof eventual anti-trust action and exten­sion of regulation to intrastate naturalgas sales, the administration had count­ed upon an angry response from theunpopular oil companies to rally sup­port for its proposals. With uncommoncandor. the Sell York Times (25 April)noted that this would "divert publicattention from the fact that the essenceof the Carter plan was higher energyprices."

The oil giants chose a more "subtle"course. Rather than a broadside attackon the Carter plan, three energy com­pany executives appeared on Meet thePress to support the program with"caveats." Of course, there were morecaveats than support. In reality, the"seven sisters" called for a policy,codified in a Republican Party propos­al, which calls for the removal of pricecontrols, a five-year moratorium on

Clearly an austerit~ program whichimpinges on so sacred an Americaninstitution as the souped-up V-~ gasgUII!cr requires some high-poweredsalesmanship. particularly since allopinion polls indicate that most Ameri­cans do not even believe there is an"energy crisis."

Grabbing prime-time slots onnationwide television three times in aweek, Carter did his best to glamorizesacrifice ("painful," to be sure, "but so isany meaningful sacrifice"). In theprocess he managed to plant his foot inhis mouth more than once. On twooccasions he predicted a favorableeconomic impact from his plan, aprojection which Office of Management

The CIA "Study'"

"EnergyCrisis"...(continued/rom page I)stick to the working people.

For the "consumer," Carter has a taxpenalty I rebate scheme which woulddiscourage the purchase of large auto­mobiles, a tax on "old" oil which wouldeventually raise its price to the currentcost of foreign crude, tax credits oninsulating housing and solar heatingequipment as well as progressivelysevere gasoline taxes if consumption ofpetroleum fails to drop to satisfactorylevels.

For the trusts, Carter's plan promisesan incremental increase up to the full1977 world price for oil produced bynew wells, the control of interstate andintrastate natural gas sales at a price tiedto that of world crude (20 percent abovethe current controlled price), simplifica­tion of nuclear plant licensing proce­dures, total decontrol of the price ofgasoline and myriad tax incentivesdesigned to promote conversion byutilities and industrial plants to coal.

The officially anticipated result of thisprogram is an energy growth rate oflessthan 2 percent a year, an increase inannual coal production by 65 percentand a reduction of oil imports from 16million barrels to 6 million barrels perday.

Motivating the administration na­tional energy plan is the bourgeoisie'sdesire to avoid what Carter euphemisti­cally calls "future embarrassments,"referring to a repetition of the 1973-74OPEC embargo. Over the last decadethe possibilities for such "embarrass­ment" have increased dramatically, asU.S. petroleum imports have increasedfrom 12 percent of total consumption to46 percent in 1976.

The push toward autarky, through ashift to increased use of coal anduranium, reveals significant fissures inthe international imperialist order. As ifto highlight this point, the Carter plandoubles the size of the U.S. "strategicstockpile" of oil to one billion barrels, aten-month supply. It is also notable thatwith all the talk of conservation there isno provision in Carter's plan forimproved mass transit. The governmentenergy program resembles nothing somuch as the sort of "austerity" measuresordered in wartime.

This should not come as a surprise,since the whole plan is the brainchild ofenergy secretary James Schlesinger, theformer director of the CIA and Ford'ssecretary of defense until he wasdumped for being too "hawkish." AtSchlesinger's instigation, the DefenseDepartment recently switched its retali­atory policy from inflicting "unaccept­able" damage to achieving "a secondstrike capability which can do ... ["theenemy"}, not significant or serious, butvirtually irreparable damage as a mod­ern nation and great power" (New YorkTimes, 15 May). This "second strikecapability" would in practice lookcuriously like capability for a preemp­tive first strike and is the basis forPentagon plans for massive increases inweapons spending over the next fewyear,.

=

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

(cofl{inued(rom paKe 3)

funds dry. But the bosses' courts andgovernment agencies will not throw outthe pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.The last thing the bosses want is a reallydemocratic labor movement led byclass-struggle militants. If the govern­ment jails one corrupt labor leader. itwill only be to replace him with anothertraitor to labor's cause. In the mean­time, the government will tighten its gripon the only mass organizations of theworking class.

But PROD and the TDU's maincomplaint is that the government hasn'tintervened enough! PROD spokesmencastigate the Labor Department forbeing too soft and have been meetingwith representatives of the Labor andJustice Departments' task force forsome time to help spur on the investiga­tions. Having learned absolutely no­thing from the bitter experience of theWagner Act, Taft-Hartley andLandrum-Griffin, PROD is urging anew round of congressional hearingsand an expanded Senate probe of theunion, i.e .. more repressive anti-laborlegislation.

An offshoot of a Ralph Nader"public interest" project, PROD servesas little more than a coordinating centerfor lawsuits against the Teamsters.Although it claims several thousandTeamster supporters. PROD's mainleader. Art Fox, is not even a member ofthe union. Fox is an attornev who suesthe union as a full-time job.'

The TDU claims to be for "rank andfile control of the union." but likePROD. it relies on the government to dothe job of "fighting" the bureaucracy.One cannot pick up an issue of the TD Unewspaper. Convoy, without reading ofnew court suits filed against the union.The Detroit TDU's paper, The Rankand File Speaks (April 1977), lamentedthe government's "plodding half­hearted investigations," but hailed theremoval of Fitzsimmons as a "little steptoward pension reform. So far, sogood"

Several days after the Washingtonrally. WV interviewed the TDU's mainspokesman, Pete Camarata. Alreadyengaged in a court suit to prevent hisexpulsion from Detroit Local 299,Camarata explained the TDU's positionon the government's intrusion into theUnion:

"As far as what the TDU believes andwhat they think. they want the rank andfile to put pressure on. but I'm surethey're willing to accept the governmentintervention. And they're certainly notgoing to work against it. ... I think theunion's so corrupt right now that youneed it [government intervention] for awhile. at least till you get thingsstraightened out."

Camarata, who recently told theDetroit News that he is a member of theInternational Socialists, a social­democratic outfit which itself has a longhistory of supporting court suits againstthe unions, is merely explaining thelogic of all liberals and reformists. Forthem, the racist, impet lalist, strike­breaking government i~ an ally againstthe union misleaders. Acting as the cat'spaw of reaction, they invite the govern­ment to tighten its stranglehold on theunions even more than it has already.

The capitalist state's constant strivingto subordinate the unions to its controlis in fact the major obstacle both tounion democracy and to putting theunions on a class-struggle course. Thegovernment of the corporations andbanks, which fights every outbreak ofclass struggle tooth and nail, will neverbe a "friend of labor." The fools andcharlatans of the TDU PROD ilk whoaid the government rape of the unionsdeserve the scorn of every labor mili­tant. Only a movement that begins bykeeping the government out of theunions will be able to oust the corrupt,class-collaborationist bureaucrats andlead labor in the fight against thecapitalists and their state.•

Teamsters ...

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3,00 F.F.

Times. A. H. Raskin. a leading bour­geoIs commentator on union affairs.noted:

"The prospect of a long coal strike atyear's end is among the gravest threatsto fulfillment of President Carter'senergy program. White House officialsare already pondering what action theGovernment might take to head off astoppage that would impede the desiredshift from oil to coal."

While the capitalists are plotting theirstrategy, however, the United MineWorkers (UMW) is in disarray, theleadership unable to organize the newlyopened mines and Western strip mining.The UMW ranks must be prepared towage a bitter fight this year if they are toavoid defeat at the hands of energytrusts temporarily backed by the entireruling class.

As for the ostensibly socialist left, itsresponse has been largely in workeristterms, seeing Carter's energy plan assimply the latest bosses' scheme totighten the economic screws on labor.The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), forexample, entitled its analysis of theadministration program "Higher FuelPrices' Mean Fatter Profits" andproclaimed:

"The real aim of the bipartisan energycampaign is to roll back environmentalprot(:ction. to break union opposition.to speed up production. and to undercutsafet\' standards."

- Hilitanl. 6 May

The semi-Maoist Guardian similarlyentitled its article "Energy Plan FuelsPrices, Profits." and the reformistcontent could easily have been switchedwith the ,'I1ilitant article.

The direct economic impact ofCarter's energy plan. its threats to thejobs and living standards of Americanworking people. cannot be ignored.Attempts to implement it could welllead to explosive battles, as occurredwhen independent truckers tied up the\few Jersey Turnpike, and West Virgi­nia miners struck against the gasolineshortages and sharply increased fuelprices following the OPEC boycott.

The program for a militant working­class struggle against the capitalistenergy plans is not increased regulationor a price rollback, as the truckersdemanded. Wielding a complete verticalmonopoly. from exploratory drilling tosales at the pump, the oil cartel's controlof production and distribution hasrepeatedly enabled it to escape govern­mental supervision. It shifts profits tolower-tax juriSdictions, withholds wellsfrom production in order to drive upprices. engages in open price fixingwhere its market control is unchal­lenged, wages cut-rate gasoline wars todrive out independent distributors,purchases votes in Congress, withholdsand lor falsifies statistics on reserves.

Governmental regulation of the oilmonopolies is a pipe dream. Even"nationalization" of production inmany OPEC countries has not alteredthe power of the real petroleum cartel,the "seven sisters." Workers committeesmust open the books of these imperialistvultures. The profit-crazed energy trustsmust be expropriated without compen­sation. But the "friend oflabor" Democ­rats such as Henry Jackson will notcarry out such a program.

Whether couched in the "moral"rhetoric of Jimmy Carter or in morenaked terms of corporate self-interestand imperialist domination, capitalistprograms to meet the "energy crisis"ultimately lead to war. This is theinexorable logic of an Irrational systembased on production for profit ratherthan social need. A rational develop­ment and allocation of energy resourcesrequire the establishment of a workersgovernment and socialist planning on aworld scale.•

/

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arsenal. but we point out that theimperialists, and in the first place theU. S., are the greatest nuclear terroristsof all. What a Schlesinger threatens todo to the Soviet Union, no Idi Amincould ever accomplish.

The ominous dynamic of nuclearproliferation is not restricted to pettyrivalries among minor powers. Armscompetition is beginning to be felt evenwithin the heart of NATO. As C. L.Sulzberger observed in a New YorkTimes (7 May) column:

"... the French are beginning to mutterthat the Germans are edging toward acapability of atomic arms manufacturewhich would attain an edge over Franceand add to their already ascendantconventional forces, to say nothing ofeconomic and financial advantages."

Labor and the Left

Almost universally within the left andlabor movement the fundamental impe­rialist aims of Carter's energy programhave been ignored. Instead we aretreated to a barrage of populist propa­ganda making the simple point that theoil giants will be making money handover fist while the workers pay more fortheir gasoline.

Since Carter is seeking to findcommon ground with the energy trustsin higher prices for domestic produc­tion, United Auto Workers (UAW)president Leonard Woodcock figuredhe could exploit the patriotic theme byjoining the auto companies in opposingtax rebates on purchases offuel-efficientimported cars.

If UAW members are threatened withjob losses by Carter's energy program,mine workers are threatened by agovernment-backed employer offensiveto meet the prospect of a massiveincrease in coal production. This offen­sive will be aimed at breaking orhamstringing the union, which is bothhistorically militant and the one sectorof the American proletariat which hasengaged in significant struggles since the1974 economic downturn.

In an article in the 27 April New York

ri;ltives. such as a thorium-based fuelcycle. were rejected. as West Europe iswell ahead of the U.S. in the develop­ment of plutonium breeders and reluc­tant to junk these efforts.

Involved in all of these machinationsare strategic considerations, often di­rectly military in character. Among allcountries the move to nuclear powerflows in part from the desire to developan atomic weapons capability. In thecase of several smaller capitalist powersthis is the primary motive. Thus Pakis­tan wants reprocessing plants fromFrance for one reason-to counter·India's development of an atomic bomb.The virtually inescapable consequenceof the projected deployment of reactorsby 60 countries will be widespreadnuclear arms proliferation.

The workers movement is notindifferent to the prospect of everytinpot dictator brandishing a nuclear

sponded to Carter's oppbsition toplutonium with the announcement of afour-year West German energy re­search budget of $2.7 billion, more thanhalf of it earmarked for breeder devel­opment. Accompanying this announce­ment was a statement that the FederalRepublic intended to continue exportsof both reactors and reprocessingfacilities, despite U.S. opposition to arecent deal with Brazil.

Contributing to the tension was anaked display of U.S. muscle. Since lastJune all exports of enriched uraniumfrom the United States had been frozen.Carter continued this freeze pendingconsideration of his plutonium propos­als. As a result, eleven reactor stations inEurope, all dependent on Americanfuel, were threatened with closure. In agesture to appease Schmidt and to givecredibility to Carter's promise to supplyenriched uranium to all countries

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Problems of WorldRevolutionMay 12Reformism Today: SocialDemocracy and StalinismMay 26Marxism and the WomanQuestionJune 9The National Question andWorld RevolutionJune 23Class Struggle and RacialOppressionJuly 7Political Revolution in theDegenerated/DeformedWorkers StatesJuly 21The Party, the Trade Unions andthe Proletarian RevolutionPlace: Britannia Center (Senior

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By switching back to coal Carter hopes to limit the need for importedenergy.

accepting U.S. guidelines, the exportswere unfrozen in time for the Londonsummit. But the point had been made.

Not surprisingly, little progress to­ward an agreement on nuclear energypolicy was achieved in London. WestGerman capacity to produce nucleartechnology exceeds its own domesticneeds, mandating exports to keep theindustry viable. France, also, has hopedto finance its advanced breeder programthrough exports. Thus a joint Soviet­British proposal to the "nuclear suppli­ers club" to ban sales of "sensitive"equipment unless purchasers agreed toconstant inspection was rejected byFrance. Similarly, U.S. attempts toattract interest in non-plutonium alter-

20 MAY 1977

Striking coal miners in Stearns, Kentucky.

months! The indictments have beenobtained on the testimony of kill-crazygun thugs, who would say and doanything their employer told them to,against courageous strikers simplytrying to defend their picket line andtheir lives from these scum.

The United Mine Workers and theentire labor movement must rally to thedefense of the Stearns strikers. Thepresidential candidates in the UMWseem, however, too busy to come to thescene. Only Harry Patrick has madeeven a token appearance. Perhaps theabsence of Patterson and Miller can beexplained by the fact that the Stearnsminers, who cannot get a UMW charteruntil they win a contract, cannot evenvote in the upcoming election!

A mobilization of the UMW's muscleis desperately needed to stop the anti­union terror at Stearns and to win thislong and important strike. The Sparta­cist League and Partisan DefenseCommittee urge that donations for thelegal defense of the indicted strikers besent to: Miners Legal Defense Fund,1521 16th Street, N.W., Washington,D.C. 20036.

Stop the Gun Thug Terror! Drop theIndictments! Victory to the StearnsStrike! •

United Mine Workers Journal

ad'1iits that hc' has .J hard tll11l' dlstln­!2ul,hll1g hlI1beif from \li1kr Patricksupporters \\ iii no douht tr\ to llSl'Miller's llauntmg of thl' IE8 andDistrict 6 miners to their ad\antage. butthey arc also engaged in guttcrsniringattacks on Patterson. A "fact sheet"being distributed by some Patrickbackers points to Patterson's threedivorces and asks scurrilously: "How doyou expect to run a union of 270,000members when you can't even organizeyour own household." With the leastbureaucratic backing of the threecandidates and true to the Millertradition, Patrick has appealed to thefederal government for help. On May 2,he made a request for Labor Depart­ment supervision of the election, whichwas declined.

Patterson has also brought the bosses'state into the union. He obtained atemporary federal court injunctionbarring publication of the UMW Jour­'nal for several weeks when, because ofhis partial slate, he and his runningmates were declared "independents"and not allowed to pool their space inthe paper to make a campaign state­ment. Thus, all three candidates are forbringing the anti-labor governmentagencies and courts into the internalaffairs of the union.

Those who use the courts against theiropponents in the union inevitably willuse the same agencies against the rankand file. T.ime after time Miller hasattempted to enforce compliance withfederal court orders against wildcattingminers. And so also with Patrick andPatterson, who have consistently sup­ported these measures on the IEB. Allthree voted for Miller's IO-point anti­strike program in September 1975. Thisdraconian measure provides for harshdiscipline against union members whostrike without authorization. Sparkedby a wildcat of 120,000 miners for thelocal right to strike, a vital demand

claims he was shot at the mine. Thesecurity company's president, BobStorm, claims he was beaten up at themine site. Blue Diamond vice presidentFrank Thomas was reportedly met by agroup of the strikers' wives outside thecounty courthouse and left the encoun­ter somewhat more tattered than hearrived.

Three of the guards say that late onthe night of April 13, as they wereleaving the mine, they were disarmedand given a ride around the county by agroup of strikers in a pick-up truck.They were dropped off later minus theirpants. When two armed and irateguards came to retrieve their embar­rassed cronies, however, they set off agunfight, leaving the two seriouslyinjured.

A grand jury has indicted 31 people asa result of this incident, 27 of whom arestrikers. Each is charged with threeserious felonies: kidnapping (for thealleged "ride"), robbery (for taking theguns!) and assault.

These indictments are a scattergunattempt to break the strike. UMWspokesman Ben Elliot told WV thatseveral of those indicted have not evenbeen active in the strike and that one hasbeen in military service in Texas for

Mudslinging and Strikebreaking

Trying to appear as the continuationof the "reform" movement, Patrick

hIS pnS!tll)f1. One miner \\as !oud!\applauded \\ hen he stated that the rankswould defend their president if he WeIeunder attack and then added: "But Idon't know about you. buddy."

Ihe District 6 miners asked the Boardto declare the issue in their strike"national in scope." Such disputes canbe resolved only at the national levelbetween the UMWand the BituminousCoal Operators Association (BCOA).Miller attempted to rule this motion outof order but was overridden by theBoard which then passed the motion 12to 8 with 2 abstentions. Both Pattersonand Patrick, wanting to look "militant,"jumped in to support the motion whichMiller opposed.

This is the first time the "nationalscope" clause of the contract has beeninvoked. In effect, it calls for reopeningthe contract on the issue and sets thestage for a nationwide walkout, if it wereseriously pushed, which, of course, noneof the bureaucrats have in mind.

Miller highhandedly refused to imple­ment the motion. He sent a vaguelyworded message to the BCOA but didnot even request a meeting to discuss theissue. He said the resolution from theIEB was "rather vague" and perhaps"illegal" and added, "It may be rilignore the board as I have sometimesdone in the past" ( Wall Street Journal,II May).

As for Patterson, Patrick and theirIEB cronies, they sought chiefly to usethe grievance to embarrass Miller. Theyhad no intention of declaring a nationalstrike over the issue involved and stoodby as rank-and-file militancy dissipated.At last report, only the originally struckmine in Ohio was still closed over thegrievance, with one other pit strikingover a separate issue.

(continued from page 12)put your head up above those sandbags,it was fair gdme."

Limited by a court injunction to justeight pickets on the road leading to themine. the resourceful strikers boughtproperty adjacent to the road. Therethey erected a small building as their"local halJ." stacked up protectivesandbags and have been meeting earlyevery morning to bolster the pickets.While there are only eight picketers atthe entrance, they are backed up byscores just across the road.

Reminiscent of the bitterly fought1973-74 Brookside strike in HarlanCounty, the miners' wives, mothers andsisters have played a crucial role. Theyhave joined the picketing and heldprotest demonstrations to bring publicattention to Blue Diamond's use of gunthugs, injunctions and state troopers tobreak the strike.

The Kentucky state police are oldhands at strikebreaking. Escortingthe company goons across thepicket line, they are a second wave ofarmed and "legal" terror against thestrikers. On March 12, Sheriff Perrystopped seven security guards fromentering the mine at 3 a.m. They wereladen with pistols, rifles and, accordingto one UMW source, "enough ammuni­tion to blow up the county." But theguards were released at the localcourthouse without being charged andwere escorted back to the mine by threecarloads of state troopers in full riotgear. The troopers then arrested twostrikers for violating the injunctionlimiting picketing!

But bullets and cops have notintimidated the strikers. Some of thecowardly security guards have chargedthe strikers with seeking to stop theirbloody attacks. One gun-toting goon

Joan SydlowArnold Miller

Stearns, Ky...

typical resourcefulness in making theiraction effective. Following a May 2meeting of 1,000 miners, car caravanswere dispatched to shut down non­union coal operations. Two hundredstrikers picketed the entrance to theSeaway River Terminal in Bellaire,Ohio, used by several non-union com­panies to load river barges. Some 15coal trucks were turned back. Fourteenminers were arrested in western Penn­sylvania where 200 tons of coal weredumped on a state highway.

But at the Board meeting, theirgrievance became an electioneeringfootball. Predictably, Miller denouncedthe strike and said that since aninjunction had been won against Pea­body's absentee policy, "Therefore,there is no problem" (MorgantownDominion Post, 10 May). This was notthe opinion of the contingent of District6 miners who came to the IEB andsucceeded in getting the floor to defendtheir strike. The workers repeatedlyhooted and jeered as Miller explained

(continuedfrom page 12)

her office with the door closed causedthe door to be removed so that "disloy­al" behavior could be observed. In themiddle of last winter's bitter cold,Patrick charged that Miller had turnedoff the heat in his office. All travel to thecoal fields must now be personallyapproved by Miller.

All employees must sign in and out atthe headquarters' front door and allstaffers must get written permission towork on weekends or after 6 p.m.; alllong distance phones are cut off at thesetimes. In addition, Miller has hired three$20,000-a-year "security men" to prowlthe building and insure compliance withhis directives. The lurking figurescaused Patrick to shoot off a memodemanding that Miller's thugs be keptoff "his" fourth floor.

In keeping with this atmosphere thequarterly International ExecutiveBoard (IEB) meeting held May 9-14 inMorgantown, was an almost uninter­rupted session of bickering and back­biting. Miller had hoped to wrap up themeeting in "a day or so" to enable him tocampaign for his supporters in electionsheld May lOin Districts 17, 30 and 31.But the IEB majority tied the UMWpresident up in a week-long series ofdisputes in which he was the continualloser. About the only thing the Boardagreed on was to adjourn for a day sothat Miller could meet with JimmyCarter on May 12. All of the squabblingbureaucrats are anxious to please thepeanut boss in the White House. In turn,Carter, whose energy program calls forthe expansion of coal production bytwo-thirds by 1985, wants guarantees oflabor peace from UMW leaders.

The IEB has consistently foughtMiller for control of the staff, vetoinghis appointees and reinstating those hehas fired. This meeting of the IEBoverturned two recent Miller appoint­ments. Louis Antal, a strong Millersupporter, had been designated to fill avacant IEB seat from District 5. TheBoard. however, voted to leave the seatvacant.

In another manuever. the IEB barredone member of Miller's slate from theelections. Since Patterson has notfielded a full slate. only Patrick wouldhave had a complete list of candidates.The U \1W constitution requires at leasttwo full slates or else all candidates mustrun as individuals. Many of Miller'scandidates are unknowns and dividingthem from the incumbent presidentwould significantly lessen their chancesat the polls. However, the UMW tellerswho are in charge of the elections (andwere part of Miller's 1972 slate) declaredthe decision void later in the week. TheIEB voted to "discuss" the matterfurther with the tellers.

As president and chief publicspokesman for the UMW, Miller hashad to take most of the heat for thebureaucracy's repeated efforts tosquelch wildcat strikes. Now that Milleris despised by many militant miners whovoted for him in 1972, his equally anti­strike opponents are trying to use hiswell-known strikebreaking actions as afactional club.

As the IEB got under way. severalthousand Ohio miners from District 6were wildcatting over new absenteepolicies being arbitrarily introduced andenforced by the Peabody Coal Com­pany. The Peabody strike was theculmination of more than two weeks ofseparate strikes in Ohio and WestVirginia over company discipline, safetyviolations and other grievances. By May6. more than 22,000 miners were out andevery UMW mine in Ohio was closed.As many as 7,000 miners from southernWest Virginia struck in sympathy withthe District 6 workers as did 1,200 inwestern Pennsylvania.

The Ohio strikers demonstrated

UMWElections...

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10 WORKERS VANGUARD

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entatives of Miss Vanessa Redgrave'sWorkers' Revolutionary Party, forinstance. have visited Libva three timesin the past twelve months. Nor has itdiminished the affection of thosecountries like Malta, which feel, withsome reason, that Colonel Qaddafi hasproved to be their only friend."

Malta's reasons are obvious. Aboutto be impoverished by the closing ofNATO bases, Malta is now dependenton Qaddafi's aid to remain solvent. Themendicant guerrillas who flock toTripoli seeking Soviet-made arms andLibyan oil money reportedly haveincluded Muslim secessionists from thePhilippines and Ethiopia, opponents ofanti-Qaddafi Arab regimes (Sudan,Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco), theProvisional IRA and various Palestini­an organizations. Naturally, suchgroups do not bite the hand that feedsthem and have accorded Qaddafi a highplace in the pantheon of "anti­imperialist" leaders.

Corrupt

Workers Press, which folded on 14February 1976, titled itself the "DailyOrgan of the Central Committee of theWorkers Revolutionary Party." Heavypublicity in the preceding months forthe paper's "Crisis Fund" and direwarnings that "the future of the paper isin doubt" would lead to the presump­tion that it closed up shop for lack offunds. Yet the "Final Edition" EditorialRoard statement does not explicitly sayso; instead, the Healyites tersely an­nouncethat their printing firm, PloughPress, will cease operations.

The Healyites, normally so fond ofdenying inconvenient reports on thegrounds of their bourgeois sources, hidbehind an abstract and irrelevant set ofstatistics from one of the great bour­geois interests, the British PrintingIndustrial Federation, on "rises ingeneral expenses" increasing printingcosts. For two and a half months noHealyite newspaper appeared. ThenNews Line sprang to life-but not as anykind of party organ-with a formatwhich included paid advertising. Atabout that same time Healy wasreplaced by Mike Banda as WRPgeneral secretary.

The WRP ranks have been kept busywith the usual tn:KS across England­and lately the "Children's Crusade"across Europe-designed in part to keepthem too exhausted to notice theircorrupt leaders' maneuvering. But evena cursory look at News Line's year-longpandering to the oil-rich Qaddafi forcesthe observation that there is indeedsomething very rotten in the state ofDenmark.•

7:30 p.m,20 May 1977

BERKELEY

Spartacist League Forum

Soviet Dissidents and theCIA's "Human Rights"Crusade• Imperialist Butchers Exploit

Stalinist Crimes• Defend the Gains of the October

Revolution!

Speaker: George FosterSpartacist LeagueCentral Committee

Tan Oak Room • University of CaliforniaFor more information call (415) 835-1535

(continued from page 5)

contain imperialist, capitalist, reaction­ary, Jewish or Communist thoughts"(New York Times, 18 April 1973).

Grotesque

The sordid history of the Healyites isreplete with examples of slaveringenthusiasm for left-talking "ThirdWorld" nationalists and Stalinists.Workers Press gratuitously proffered"leftist" cheerleading to assorted petty­bourgeois anti-working-c1ass forma­tions, from the Maoist Red Guards tothe Angolan MPLA. But the WRP'spandering to Qaddafi is surely a newlow.

Perhaps the most disgusting was afull-page "special News Line interview"with Hamied Jallud, general secretaryof the "Libyan trade union federation,eq uivalent of the British TU C" (14September 1976). To News Line ques­tions about collective bargaining andthe right to strike, the Qaddafi bureau­crats replied, "The role of the tradeunions in socialist countries is complete­ly different from capitalist countries"!After all, "the responsibility of the tradeunions is to educate the workers andincrease production"; Qaddafi's "Gen­eral People's Congress" will look afterthe workers' interests. The WRP'sshameless presentation of Qaddafi'srepression of the Libyan working classleaves no doubt of its utter subjugationbefore this capitalist dictator.

News Line hailed the "GeneralPeople's Congress" held in early Marchin Shebha, a small desert villagedistinguished by Qaddafi's having goneto school there. Fidel Castro was theguest of honor as the "Congress"renamed Libya the "People's SocialistLibyan Arab Public" (sic) and kickedoff Qaddafi's "Third Universal Princi­ple" which he modestly claims solves"the problem of democracy."

The Healyites have had some"problems" with "democracy" them­selves; their solution has generally beento beat up political opponents. Qaddafi,who-unlike the WRP-holds statepower, has worked out a more elaborateschema. His little Green Book explainsthat "both administration and supervi­sion become popular" through "com­mittees everywhere"-while Qaddafibecomes head of the "General People'sCongress" which runs everything and isso "popular" that it meets once a year.The sinister meaning of this "solution"comes out in the slogans pasted uparound Shebha: "Parliaments are de­funct," "representation is a fraud" and"Parties are treason" (London Guardi­an, 3 March 1977).

"Parties are treason"-what aboutthe Workers Revolutionary Party? Inthis "People's Public" where commun­ists are to be jailed and butchered andtheir books burned, ostensible leftistswould have to do some pretty peculiarthings to survive-and News Line hasmade it clear the WRP would be morethan willing to do them. The LondonTimes (6 September 1976) reported:

"The repression ... in Libya has not, ofcourse, weakened the interest of left­wing groups in other countries. Repres-

Healyites...However, one major problem that

looms before the UMW is the increas­ingly large section of the industry thatremains unorganized. The output ofunorganized mines has become somassive that it could seriously undercuta nationwide coal strike. The expandingcoal industry has been able to outstripthe union by opening new mines andfighting off union organization. In 1972,over 70 percent of the bituminous coalin the U.S. was under UMW contract.Today, that figure has fallen to 54percent and is still dropping.

The bitter 13-month struggle toorganize Harlan County's Brooksidemine in 1973-74 required a nationwideshutdown of the mines to finally win acontract. The drawn-out struggle atBrookside is now being repeated in aneven more violent conflict at Stearns'Justus Mine in southeastern Kentucky(see accompanying article). More andmore non-union coal pours out of theAppalachias.

But an even greater threat faces theUMW from the rapidly expanding high­output mines in the West. In 1975,Western coal accounted for about tenpercent of total U.S. production. Butwithin ten years, that figure is expectedto reach nearly 30 percent. Most of thesemines are non-union.

Many coal operators under UMWcontract in the East are operating non­union mines in the West. They areresisting the UMW's principle of a singlenational contract covering all soft coalmines. A strike on since last Novemberat the Stansbury Coal Company inRock Springs, Wyoming, has been thescene of company-inspired gunfire, andscabs are resuming production. TheUMW has also suffered NLRB electiondefeats at the hands of the OperatingEngineers union, which promises theWestern miners high base wages becauseof its even cheaper pension and medicalplans.

Using the organized mines as a lever,it is possible to bring the non-unionmines (including the Western stripmines, many of which are owned byEastern coal companies) under theUMW contract. Brookside, despite themassive bureaucratic incompetency andneedless delay, proved that the power ofa nationwide shutdown is the key toorganizing victory.

But none of the candidates for theUMW presidency want to pursue suchmilitant tactics. Miller has done little topush Western organizing efforts. Patter­son and his IEB supporters have balkedat increasing organizing funds. Patrick,on the other hand, is ready to scrap thenationwide contract and says the UMWmight even negotiate Western contractson a mine-by-mine basis. This wouldopen the door to destroying the gainsEastern miners have achieved and invitethe coal companies to split the union intwo.

Though the bureaucratic contendersin the UMW will be stooping to find newmuck to throw at each other in the nextmonth, they will not come up withanswers to the problems facing theUMW ranks. The general response ofthe miners to the campaigning so far, infact, seems to be a very understandableskepticism. Returns from preliminarysparring among the bureaucratic fac­tions in recent elections for officers inseveral Districts have been inconclusive,with no wing of the bureaucracydecisively defeating another.

The coal miners' often demonstratedwillingness to fight the bosses will besquandered by support to any of thebureaucrats seeking their votes. Thedead-end of lesser-evilism has beengraphically demonstrated by the strike­breaking reign of Arnold Miller. A realbreakthrough for the union demandsthe construction of a class-struggleleadership which can both channel themilitancy of the miners in a united fightagainst the coal operators and overcomethe parochialism and political back­wardness widespread in the coal fields.The Pattersons, Pat ricks and Millersoffer only new betrayals.•

\

IWV Photo

._.....•..•.;.....••; .. \.::' .

~:,

Harry Patrick

One year subscription (48 issues): $5­Introductory offer: (16 issues): $2. Interna­tional rates: 48 issues-$20 airmail/$5 seamail; 16 introductory issues-$5 airmail.Make checks payable/mail to: SpartacistPublishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York,N.Y. 10001

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WorkersVanguard

Facing a National Strike

The election scheduled for June 14was moved up from the traditional earlyDecember date by the last UM Wconvention. The switch was largelymotivated by the desire to keep negotia­tions on the next contract out of Miller'shand. Though his term will still notexpire until December, the conventionstipulated that the new president-electwill be the union's chief bargainer.

There are enormous pressures for anational strike when the coal contractexpires December 14. The ranks arerestless and eager to fight. They knowthat coal prices have tripled in the lastfive years, that the industry is boomingand that Carter's energy programpromises tens of thousands of new jobsin the coming decade, plus enormousprofits for the coal companies. In mostcircumstances, this situation wouldenormously strengthen a union's hand.

the grievance procedure which couldresult in an authorized walkout. Thebureaucrats' real intention is to under­mine spontaneous walkouts by isolatingthem and, especially, to stop sympathystrikes spread by roving pickets, a mainUMW tactic. The tough contractlanguage being proposed so as to insurethat only local strikes take place isaimed directly at the UMW's mostsacred and powerful principle-nevercross any picket line.

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MARXIST WORKING-CLASS WEEKLY OFTHE SPARTACIST LEAGUE

which was abandoned by Miller in the1974 contract bargaining, the newbureaucratic sledgehammer neverthe­less failed to prevent a strike againstcourt injunctions which spread toinclude half the union in the summer of1976.

Now, hoping to contain the strikesthey have been unable to prevent,Miller, Patrick and Patterson have allcome out for a limited right to strikeover local grievances when the currentcontract expires December 6. A Localvote would be held at a certain stage of

20 MAY 1917 11

W'liNEliS '1I"'UlllilJWildcats in the Coal Fields

Backstabbing, Strikebreakingin UMW Elections

12

State police escorted thugs through mine workers' picket line at BlueDiamond Coal Co. mine in Stearns, Kentucky.

20 MAY 1977

Security strikebreaking outfit werebrought in to break the picket line andpave the way for scabs to reopen the pit.

Heavy-caliber gunfire has been pour­ing out of the well-guarded mine siteever since. It is particularly intense atnight, but the thugs have also opened upin broad daylight and have even gone"hunting" for miners. One striker wasattacked by gunfire in his home. Whenhe managed to drive away to seek help,he was ambushed and wounded in theshoulder.

"It's like a war," McCreary Countysheriff Joe Perry told the U;\-HIl Journal(4 March 1977). "There are sandbags ont he picket side of the road leading to themine because there's been so muchshooting." In a moment of candor, rarein his profession, the sheriff added,"Men on picket lines are not carryingguns. The guards are carryingsidearms."

Perry says he has been called to themine to investigate reports of shootingsalmost every night since the guardsstarted arriving. Striker Mike Cashdescribed one day on the picket line: "Iwas sitting right there on the picket lineyesterday around noon, when theysuddenly cut loose. It was just like aturkey shoot for 15 or 20 minutes. If you

cOlltinued on page 10

Steelworkers election earlier this year,But the pickings have been slim so far.The Miners for Miller Fund hasaccumulated only $28,000, less than athird of projected campaign expenses.

Increasingly isolated, Miller hasresorted to petulant displays of hisdiminishing power, largely confined toadministration of UMW headquartersin Washington, D.C. Paranoid-proneMiller has taken to grandiose historicalallusions to describe his plight. "J uliusCaesar had his Brutus," he told the WallStreet Journal (22 December 1976),"but I've got about a hundred Brutuses."

Rumors that Miller's secretary hadbeen seen talking with Harry Patrick in

continued on page /0

man for George Wallace's presidentialbid.

Miller has also lost a lot of supportfrom the liberals who bankrolled his1972 race and engineered the interven­tion of the U.S. Labor Department inhis behalf. The proliferation of wildcatstrikes and Miller's inability to controlthe ranks makes him a liability to hisformer liberal backers. Paul Fortney,Miller's new press secretary, whoformerly worked for the Fred Harrisand Jimmy Carter campaigns, told WVhopefully that "Rauh can unlock all theEastern money." Joseph Rauh is thecold-war liberal who was the mainconduit for liberal funds to Miller in '72and for Ed Sadlowski in the United

In the small town of Stearns insoutheastern Kentucky a violent union­busting attack is under way. Some 160members of the United Mine Workers(UMW). on strike for nine months, arefacing a vicious assault by gun-totingthugs being imported from surroundingcounties and states by the Blue Dia­mond Coal Company.

The Stearns Justus Mine was boughtup by Blue Diamond three months afterthe workers voted for UMW representa­tion. Owned by Gordon Bonnyman ofKnoxville, Tennessee, Blue Diamond isone of the largest and most vicious sca bcoal companies in the country. Bonny­man runs three Kentucky mines: theJustus Mine in Stearns, the Scotia minewhere 26 miners were killed in a mineexplosion in March 1976, and theLeatherwood mine.

The UMW was broken at Scotia in1965, at Leatherwood in 1964. and BlueDiamond is determined to remain non­union by breaking the strike at Stearns,which began last July as the minersattempted to get their first contract.After stalling for months, the companybroke off negotiations on January 28. Aletter was sent to every striker advisingthat the company would "seek perma­nent replacements" for the men. "Secu­rity guards" from the notorious Storm

Another "Bloody Harlan" atStearns, Ky.

Miners Resist CoalOperators' Gun Thugs

race. Miller has since discredited himselfamong the most militant miners for hisfour-and-a-half year record of opposingevery outbreak of mine workers' mili­tancy. Sensing a sinking ship, his formersupporters have deserted him left andright. Patrick was a Miller stalwart in"Miners for Democracy" and nowwants the top job himself; vice presidentMike Trbovich ran with Miller in 1972and now supports Patterson.

Miller has turned increasingly toright-wingers and ex-Boyle hacks to fillout his slate. Sam Church, Miller's vicepresidential running mate, backedBoyle in 1969 and 1972. Another Millercandidate, James Blair, is a retiree whoin 1968 was a Kentucky county chair-

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia-Asthe June 14 United Mine Workers(U MW) presidential election drawsnear, a bitter dogfight is raging in theunion's upper echelons. "Reform"president Arnold Miller is squared offagainst former ally and UMWsecretary-treasurer Harry Patrick andDistrict 23 director Lee Roy Patterson,a longtime supporter of Miller's prede­cessor, the notoriously corrupt W. A."Tony" Boyle.

The line-up of "reformers" vs. Boyleloyalists which polarized the last elec­tion has completely broken down. The"Miners for Democracy," held togetherby nothing but rhetoric and personalambition, disbanded soon after the 1972