robert waters and gordon daniels The World’s Longest General Strike: The AFL-CIO, the CIA, and British Guiana Richard Ishmael BGTUC Georgetown, British Guiana Heartiest congratulations for magnificent fight waged by BGTUC in defense democratic trade union principles in securing Jagan’s withdrawal and firm promise not reintroduce unacceptable labour bill. BGTUC nonviolent and nonpolitical attitude during eleven week strike inspiring to free trade union world. George Meany President AFL-CIO 1 American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations Pres- ident George Meany’s telegram to the British Guiana Trades Union Council (BGTUC) celebrated the end of the world’s longest general strike, an eighty- day work stoppage in British Guiana, today independent Guyana. The BGTUC strike forced the colony’s leftist premier, Cheddi Jagan, to drop a labor bill that the unions believed he would use to destroy the free trade union movement in British Guiana. Almost no one outside of Guyana has heard of the general strike. Almost equally unknown is the secret role played by the AFL-CIO in funding it, and the still-more secret role of the CIA in funding the AFL-CIO’s funding of the strike. More important for the CIA than simply supporting the trade union movement was the larger goal of using the strike to bring down the Jagan gov- ernment. While AFL-CIO officials have denied that they had any political goals in mind beyond stopping Jagan’s labor legislation, by no means would they have objected had Jagan’s government collapsed thanks to the strike. Although 279 Diplomatic History, Vol. 29, No. 2 (April 2005). © 2005 The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Published by Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX42DQ, UK. 1. George Meany to Richard Ishmael, 10 July 1963, RG 1-027, Office of the President: George Meany, 1952–1980, International Affairs Department: Country Files, 1945–1971, box 17, file 1, Caribbean Area: British Guiana, 1963, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Maryland (hereafter GMMA). The telegram was written in all capital letters; the authors have changed it to conventional style for ease of reading.