51. Memorandum of a Conversation, New York, December 13, 19561
SUBJECT
- Longshoremen’s Boycott of Communist Freight
PARTICIPANTS
- Commissioner Felix, New York City Department of Labor
- Commissioner Rothblatt, New York City Department of Commerce
- Captain Bradley, Head of the ILA (Int’l Longshoremen’s Association)
- Mr. Gleason, Organizer of the ILA
- Mr. Daniel Goott, Department of State
- Mr. Robert Blake, Department of State
- James Pratt, USUN
Two State Department officers, Mr. Goott (G) and Mr. Blake (EE) came to New York yesterday for a pre-arranged interview with representatives of the ILA and of the New York City administration for the purpose of discussing the effect which the recently announced ILA boycott of Communist goods will have on official shipments to Soviet and satellite missions in the US. They made it clear to Captain Bradley and Mr. Gleason that the State Department takes no official stand regarding the boycott insofar as it affects commercial cargoes. The only interest of the State Department is to attempt to ensure that official shipments consigned to the Soviet and satellite missions here will not be interfered with. The reason for our concern is the thinly veiled threat which Soviet representatives in Moscow and also in the UN have made to the effect that they will retaliate against our missions in Eastern Europe if their shipments are interfered with here.
Captain Bradley said he now understood the problem. He had been working under the impression that the State Department was going to attempt to persuade the longshoremen to lift the boycott completely. He said, however, that this was a matter which would have to be taken up with the whole ILA membership and promised that he would do so at the first opportunity. This opportunity will come at a meeting on Monday (12/17). He therefore asked if the Department could send him a letter2 explaining the situation. Mr. Goott and Mr. Blake promised to do so through the medium of Commissioner Felix.
Because an article written by Victor Riesel in the Daily Mirror charged that the State Department was seeking to pressure the longshoremen into lifting the boycott completely, Commissioner [Page 155] Felix declared that he had received inquiries from a number of papers and he felt it would be necessary to make a statement on the subject. Accordingly, he and Mr. Goott agreed on a line explaining that the Department’s interest was confined to official traffic. This was the origin of stories which appeared in some papers today on the subject.