Word: goldberg
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Goldberg won fame as general counsel for the CIO and later the United Steelworkers. He suffered setbacks in that role, principally during the 1952 and 1959 steel strikes. But as a labor lawyer, he reaped political hay that gave a definite boost to his ambitions for public service. He played a major role in fighting Communist influences in CIO labor unions, in kicking the Teamsters out of the AFL-CIO, and in swinging a large part of organized labor behind the Presidential drive of Senator John F. Kennedy...
After a few years as the head of the Labor Department, Kennedy appointed Goldberg to the Supreme Court. It was widely reported that he found the ivory tower atmosphere stifling, not exciting enough for an avowed activist. Yet in late 1964, reports began to circulate that Goldberg had gotten used to his new job, and was beginning to enjoy his role in determining long-term Constitutional principles. Yet he left abruptly in July, 1965, to succeed the late Adlai Setvenson as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations...
...probably returned to service in the executive branch confident that his abilities and patience at a bargaining table could help to solve the conflict in Vietnam. After all, conflict-solving through long, often dull talk, had been the premise for Goldberg's entire career. But this time he wasn't a mediator or adversary in a domestic labor dispute; he had involved himself in the more subtle--and far more perplexing--world of international politics. Unlike American labor-management disputes, international opponents find it difficult to agree on ground rules, much less what terms of settlement actually mean...
...question that arises is whether Goldberg duped himself. Contrary to the mawkish speech President Johnson delivered when he announced Goldberg's appointment, indications are that the Ambassador has not joined the White House inner council on Vietnam. Goldberg, for all his praise of Secretary--General U Thant--and he probably means it--has been unable to make Johnson's policy comprehensible to Thant, or Thant's view-point comprehensible to Johnson...
...appears that Goldberg's more important task is to convince the representatives of other nations in New York that American aims in Vietnam transcend the old principle that Communism must be repelled wherever it threatens. Goldberg also must try to persuade non-aligned nations as well as America's allies that the President actually is concerned about their carping on the war. This is a pretty difficult chore, but why else would a Supreme Court Justice step down to the U.N. post unless it was a matter of the highest national urgency--and legerdemain...