Attorney, expert in labor-management relations, Secretary of Labor for
President
John F. Kennedy, he graduated from Northwestern
University in 1930 summa cum laude as top student in his class. During
WWII while serving in the OSS he organized anti-Nazi European transportation workers behind
enemy lines into a vast intelligence network. As general counsel for
the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Goldberg helped to merge that
union with the American Federation of Labor in 1955, forming the
AFL-CIO. After being appointed Secretary of Labor, he was an advocate
for African Americans to reduce racial discrimination in employment.
President
Lyndon B. Johnson urged him in 1965 to head the U.S.
delegation to the United Nations, but he resigned as U.N. ambassador in
1968 because he disagreed with Johnson's escalation of the war in
Vietnam. In 1970 he ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York. He was
U.S. ambassador at large under President
Jimmy Carter in the late
1970s.
