Irving Brown

Irving Brown
Born	1911 Bronx, New York City, United States
Died	1989 Paris, France
Occupation	Trade-unionist

Irving Brown (Bronx, 1911 – Paris, July 14, 1989) was an American trades-unionist, member of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and then of the AFL-CIO, who played an important role in Western Europe and in Africa, during the Cold War, in supporting splits among trade-unions in order to counter Communist influence. While he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent, he founded in 1962 the American Institute for Free Labor Development along with former Communist Party of America member and CIA agent Jay Lovestone.

Born in Bronx, New York in 1911, he became a boxer before joining a trade union, where he clashed with the Teamsters. He studied at New York University and at the University of Columbia.

As a lieutenant of the US Army, he was charged in 1944 by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in works concerning the preparation of Operation Husky (the invasion of Sicily), and then concerning the landing in the south of France, in Provence.

In 1987, Brown received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

He arrived in Paris in November 1945 and organized anti-Communist unions, supporting in particular the creation of the French Force ouvrière (FO) union (which he subsidized ) by André Bergeron and Léon Jouhaux, in 1947, and the Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions (CISL), created in 1950. Until 1986, Brown was present at all of the annual congresses of FO. The AFL-CIO's Free Trade Union Committee subsidized FO and other anti-Communist unions in Europe.