Obstacles impeding Burgess's international labor work in Burma
The influence of McCarthyism and the desires of the State Department presented serious obstacles to Burgess's Burmese labor work. Georgia Senator Walter George played up Burgess's southern identity in order to help him receive ambassadorship to Burma. George's strategy also helped him receive the endorsement of the labor movement.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with David Burgess, September 25, 1974. Interview E-0001. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- DAVID BURGESS:
-
...I went to the convention, I
think at the end of '54 in Los Angeles, and had a long talk with Walter
and Victor Reuther. I said, "I grew up in China, I tried to get
to China during the war, with the Quaker Ambulance corps. I'm interested
in international labor work. Do you have any suggestions?" And
so they worked it out. I was about to be appointed labor attache to
Burma, but then the key guy for India fell out. Then I left Atlanta in
July of '55 and went to work for Victor Reuther, I thought, for a couple
of weeks. But, strange things happened. The State Department didn't want
me.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
Why?
- DAVID BURGESS:
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Well . . . CIO, Walter Reuther recommendation, they wanted their own
boys. They had another man's name for the post, at least on paper. But a
queer thing happened. Jamie Mackey who was later a congressman and very
prominent inent lawyer, told me to see his cousin
Jack Carlton who was the Administrative Assistant to Senator Walter
George of Georgia.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
Walter George?
- DAVID BURGESS:
-
So I was able to get to Walter George. And Walter George said to the
State Department, "You can't do this to a Georgian named
Burgess." He called the deputy (Max Bishop) of the State
Department under Secretary Herbert Hoover, Jr. to his office on the Hill
and gave them hell, said, "This damned Georgian is going to
have that position." . . . But it was partly on the supposition
that this Georgian was gonna have that position because the Senator
thought that was the way of swinging CIO votes to George. The dressing
down of Bishop was not here altogether altruistic. George eventually did
not run against Herman Talmadge. I think he would have beaten him
anyway. But I have to thank Walter Reuther and Walter George for getting
me to India as this was the end of the McCarthy era. The Department
spent ten months investigating my record. They went back to southeast
Missouri and interviewed all the plantation owners. They examined
everything about my college . . . peace petitions I'd signed in college,
my association with Jack McMichael, my work as head of Student Christian
Movement peace committee previous to '41. These were examined and gone
over. I just barely squeaked through, and later I remember a CIA fellow
in New Delhi said to me later, "Dave, I don't see how in the
hell you ever got in this position." I went to New Delhi in
December of 1955. Since then I haven't been South of Virginia until my
present trip to Chapel Hill.