The Most Dangerous Man In Detroit: Walter Reuther And The Fate Of American Labor

605 Pages·1995·12.348 MB·English

by  Nelson Lichtenstein

MAN IN DETROI T
Archives of Labor and Urban Affairst Wayne State University
N E L S O N L I C H T E N S T E I N
BasicBooks
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © 1995 by BasicBooks,
A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be
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Designed by Elliott Beard
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lichtenstein, Nelson.
The most dangerous man in Detroit : Walter Reuther and the fate of American
Labor / Nelson Lichtenstein,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-465-09080-X
1. Reuther, Walter, 1907-1970. 2. Trade-unions—United States—Officials and
employees—Biography. 3. Labor leaders—United States—Biography. 4. Trade-
unions—Automobile industry workers—United States—History. 5. International
Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of
America—History. I. Title.
HD6509.R4L53 1995
331.88'1292'092—dc20
[B] 95-16874
CIP
95 96 97 98 ❖ /HC 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my parents:
Beryl Rose
and
Theodore Samuel
Lichtenstein

Walter Reuther is the most dangerous man in Detroit because no one is
more skillful in bringing about the revolution without seeming to disturb
the existing forms of society.
—George Romney, Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, 1945

PREFACE xi
1 FATHER AND SONS 1
Ä LIFE AT THE ROUGE 13
9 TOOLING AT GORKY 25
4 RADICAL CADRE AND NEW DEAL UNION 47
m THE WEST SIDE LOCAL 74
O GENERAL MOTORS AND GENERAL MAYHEM 104
"9 POWER UNDER CONTROL 132
« 500 PLANES A DAY 154
O FAUSTIAN BARGAIN 175
MO PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS IN WORLD WAR II 194
11 ON STRIKE AT GENERAL MOTORS 220
ix
X CONTENTS
m s “UAW AMERICANISM FOR US” 248
M S THE TREATY OF DETROIT 271
14 AN AMERICAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 299
m m REUTHER ABROAD:
“PRODUCTION IS THE ANSWER” 327
16 DEMOCRATIC DILEMMAS 346
mmr uneasy partners 370
m m A PART OF THE ESTABLISHMENT 396
m o FROM 1968 TO BLACK LAKE 420
EpUo^ue: “WHAT WOULD WALTER DO?” 439
NOTES 447
INDEX 551