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1 youth conferences by individuals broadly representative of 2 the Nation's students."

94-487 O - 68 - 2

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE,
Washington, D.C., May 1, 1968.

Hon. LISTER HILL,

Chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,

U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This letter is in response to your request of May 17, 1967, for a report on S. 1779, a bill "To establish an international health, education, and labor program to provide open support for private, nongovernmental activities in the fields of health, education, and labor, and other welfare fields."

This bill would establish, as an independent agency of the Government, an International Health, Education, and Labor Foundation, composed of a Director and a policy-making Council consisting of 11 members appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The purposes of the Foundation would be to establish and conduct an international health, education, and labor program under which the Foundation would provide open support for openly conducted private nongovernmental activities in the fields of health, education, labor, and other welfare fields, designed (1) to promote a better knowledge of the United States among the peoples of the world; (2) to increase friendship and understanding among the peoples of the world; and (3) to strengthen the capacity of the other peoples of the world to develop and maintain free, independent societies in their own nations.

To these ends, the Director would be authorized to make grants to private nonprofit agencies and organizations organized in the United States, to public or private nonprofit educational institutions in the United States, and to individuals or groups of individuals who are United States citizens and are not governmental employees, for the purpose of enabling them to assist, provide, or participate in international activities, conferences, meetings, and seminars in the fields of health, education, and labor, and other welfare fields related to the purposes of the bill. None of the funds granted could be used to support any intelligence-gathering activity on behalf of the United States or any activity carried on by any officer or employee of the United States. No agency of the United States would be authorized to request or require any recipient or any beneficiary of a grant to obtain or supply information relating to any activity supported by such a grant, except that the Director could require reports solely to determine that the funds granted are applied for the purposes for which application is made.

The bill would authorize to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to carry out its purposes, except that the aggregate amount appropriated prior to June 30, 1972, is not to exceed $100 million.

As mentioned in our report to your Committee in S. 981, a bill to authorize grants to finance travel to international youth conferences, the President has requested Secretary of State Rusk to serve as chairman of a special committee, which will include representatives of the Executive, the Congress, and the private community, to study the kind of mechanism which should be utilized to provide public funds openly for overseas activities of organizations deserving of public support. Aid of the kind contemplated by the present bill would seem appropriate for consideration by that committee. We, therefore, recommend that no favorable action on proposed legislation such as this bill be taken until that committee has had an opportunity to make its recommendations and we have had an opportunity to study them.

We are advised by the Bureau of the Budget that there is no objection to the presentation of this report from the standpoint of the Administration's program. Sincerely,

WILBUR J. COHEN, Acting Secretary.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I introduced this bill on the 15th of May last year with the cosponsorship of the distinguished Senator who sits at my left here, Senator Morse of Oregon, who is chairman of the full Education Subcommittee, and it was with his aid and concurrence, and that of Senator Hill, chairman of the full committee, that this special subcommittee was set up to hold hearings.

Since we introduced the bill, it has gained terrific public support and interest that it did not have at the time.

Our vital national interest in this field is well known. For 15 years the Central Intelligence Agency, following National Security Council

initiatives, coutributed millions of dollars to private organizations involved in international affairs, health organizations, educational organizations, and labor organizations. That CIA funding, with its negative implications, has rightly been stopped. But no one can doubt our continuing national interest in seeing private involvement grow, and the greatness of America recognized and moved forward in these international fields of health, education, and labor.

What this bill proposes to do is to stimulate this involvement openly and publicly. Other nations support their student movements in international organizations. Other nations support their labor organizations in international work. Other nations openly support these health movements.

The problem with our doing it through the CIA came about because some people thought we couldn't get Congress to appropriate the money openly, to be frank about it, so they went through CIA because the work needed to be done so badly. They thought that by the secret moneys Congress would appropriate a lump sum, and some could be used for these good purposes. Well, the fact it was done secretly made the whole purpose suspect when it should be open and aboveboard.

The main objective of this bill is to see that this Government does not fail in what I think are its greatest international opportunities in the world, and that its participation is open and public so that everybody will know at home and abroad that our Government is supporting these different activities.

We need to create means by which the private sector can increase its involvement in international relations to the point that it will be recognized as a vital part of our foreign policy, and in a way that there will be nothing that tries to put a clamp on anybody and nothing connected with the gathering of intelligence, because that makes organizations suspect.

Some of the characteristic features that make America great, in education, science, arts, and humanities should provide a new dimension in our foreign relations. In this new dimension we can fight with the weapons of peace, both learning and teaching at the same time.

We are going to have appearing hare and tomorrow before this subcommittee representatives of private groups who have demonstrated their willingness to meet the challenge of this new international effort. I welcome their suggestions.

I am very glad this morning that the distinguished Senator from Oregon could forgo his activities in his home State, and come back to join with us in this opening session. With his long membership on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as his chairmanship of the Education Subcommittee of the Senate, he has a dual expertise that we badly need on this bill. Senator Morse, we would like to hear from you.

Senator MORSE. I want to say a sentence or two. I am pleased to follow your leadership again. I am very proud that you have introduced this bill, and I am pleased to cosponsor it with you. I think it speaks for itself. There is no question about the need for it. The witnesses will make a case for it.

I am very glad we are having Mr. Joe Beirne as our first witness. I want to hear him.

I want you to know that as chairman of the Subcommittee on Education, you will have my complete cooperation, and I will try to

push this bill through the subcommittee and the full committee on the floor. I commend you. I want to thank the witnesses on the list for coming this morning to testify. I am ready to hear them.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you, Senator Morse.

I want to say, when we introduced this bill 11 months ago, we did so not because of a great public demand that we do something. We introduced it because we felt that it was needed.

Mr. Joseph A. Beirne, president of the Communication Workers of America, as one of the first of the private groups that began to tell us a considerable time ago he was interested in this. His whole organization is dedicated to good will and understanding around the world, believing in the free enterprise system, and believing in the individual dignity of man.

President Beirne, we welcome you here, knowing that you volunteered some time back to come in and say, "We will help on that bill." Thank you for your leadership.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Beirne comes to the witness chair, I want this record to show, and I speak for the moment as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and chairman of the Subcommittee on Latin American Affairs, I want to qualify this witness although he doesn't need qualification-by telling you, Mr. Chairman, on this record, of the great work that the head of this great union, our witness this morning, has done in Latin America, where he has been one of those in the American labor movement that has helped extend into Latin America this whole concept of the free labor movement in the United States, transported to Latin America.

I will not take more of his time other than to say that I can document the work that this witness has done in Latin America for some years. He has worked closely with the State Department. He has worked closely with the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs; and he has also, I may say, worked closely with the Foreign Relations Committee with regard to this movement.

I want to thank you for the leadership that you have extended in the field of foreign affairs, vis-a-vis the importance of exporting to Latin America the whole concept of our Nation's economic freedom in this country by way of the labor movement, and the importance of free collective bargaining in Latin America, and to the development of their own economy.

As you well know, because of your interests in Latin America, Mr. Chairman, they have not had the same concept of trade unionism in Latin America as we have had here; pretty much subordinated too frequently to governmental policies, rather than being a really free labor movement; and you have done much, along with George Meany and others, to get them to understand what we mean by a free trade union movement; and I want to thank you, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Thank you, Chairman Morse. I mention in passing also that Senator Morse is chairman of the Latin American Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate.

That subcommittee, due to the Senate responsibility in the field of treaties, has more responsibility for our relationship with Latin America than any other legislative group, body, or committee of this Congress of the United States. President Beirne, we are glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. BEIRNE, PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATION WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO

Mr. BEIRNE. Mr. Chairman, my name is Joseph A. Beirne. I am president of the Communications Workers of America.

I wish to thank both Senator Yarborough and Senator Morse for their very flattering remarks. I would prefer, if there are no objections, to not read my statement, but to put my statement in the record, and just talk.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Beirne, you have appeared before Senate committees many times. Your prepared statement is ordered to be printed in full at this time. Proceed in your own way. (The prepared statement of Mr. Beirne follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. BEIRNE, PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATION WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO

Good morning Mr. Chairman. My name is Joseph A. Beirne and I am President of the Communication Workers of America, affiliated with the AFL-CIO. I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before this special sub-committee to comment upon S. 1779. The broad purposes of this proposed legislation are commendable and deserve the closest attention of the Congress. Personally it gives me great pleasure to see the interest which the Committee has shown in these matters. I believe the Committee and the Congress as a whole, now has the opportunity to create some imaginative new tools of foreign assistance.

The CWA as well as other unions of the AFL-CIO have long had an interest in international affairs, particularly in this hemisphere. The AFL-CIO has consistently supported the foreign assistance program of the United States and our participation in the various multilateral agencies. Within this framework, technical assistance programs have been of particular interest, because we believe that only through a program of continual contact by technicians, farmers, trade unionists, academicians, etc., in problem-solving situations can real communication of skills and attitudes be achieved.

One of the principal shortcomings of the foreign assistance programs, as I see it, is that insufficient attention is paid to people-the workers, students, and farmers. It seems rather ironic that in a foreign assistance program which is in part moticated by the mass movements in the developing nation so little importance is given to the people, It is ironic now, it may be tragic in a few years.

The Bill before you, or one like it, can be the beginning of a new era in foreign assistance. If economic development is really going to result in political and social development then greater efforts must be made both by this country and by those which we assist to achieve a more rapid and just distribution of the wealth generated in the development process. One of the most important ways to achieve this new sharing of national wealth is by equipping the people with the skills to contribute to the expansion of the Gross National Product and by creating organizations such as trade unions to use modern techniques in demanding their share of the national income. I believe trade unions free of domination of political parties, governments, management or self-serving individuals can insure that the mass of the people will benefit from economic growth and will be able to participate meaningfully in the political process.

Before I address myself to the bill before you, I want to tell you of some of the present programs of American and International trade unions in the developing countries. I come to you this morning both as an elected official in an American trade union and as an official in organizations specifically established to assist trade unions in developing countries. The American Institute for Free Labor Development in Latin America, the African-American Labor Center, and the newly formed Asian-American Free Labor Institute all contract with the Agency for International Development to assist democratic trade unions.

These organizations perform their mission by providing classroom instruction in trade union skills, community development, cooperatives, and economics, by assisting the trade unions to develop projects which will show immediate and tangible results of trade unionism, and by helping unionists as they face the day to day problems of organizing, dues collection and collective bargaining. The classes offered may be evening seminars for two weeks-on a very basic level,

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