Hurley was one of many dockers who met Buchman and his colleagues. When The Forgotten Factor was shown in Poplar, East London, in November 1951 ten present and past officials of three rival dock unions sent invitations to every Member of Parliament, as well as to dockers and dock employers.

Similar effects could be quoted from many countries. Some were reported in the local or national press,* while others were recorded in various Moral Re-Armament Information Services. Indeed, it was upon such accounts in MRA publications that the compiler of the ICFTU report relied for what turned out to be an uncompromising attack on Moral Re-Armament.

(* For example Miami Herald (25 March 1950): 'National Airlines. Pilots Union Settle Grievances. Philosophy of Moral Re-Armament Ushers in Era of Understanding'.)

The existence of this report was first revealed in a daily bulletin issued by the ICFTU Secretariat during the Confederation's Third World Congress at Stockholm in July 1953. It stated that 'a report was presented on the Moral Re-Armament Movement, headed by Dr Buchman, with particular reference to its attempted incursions into the field of industrial relations' and added that 'free trades unions would be well advised to guard against any interference from quarters whose financial backing is in any case dubious'. The world press naturally concluded that, as the New York World-Telegram and Sun reported, 'The ICFTU meeting in Stockholm has passed a resolution condemning MRA for "anti-Trade Union efforts".13

This was not so. A draft report did exist, which was presented to the Executive by the Secretariat at Stockholm. But neither at the Stockholm meeting, nor at any other time, was this report or any resolution concerning it presented to or voted on by the Congress itself, the only body entitled to make policy statements on the Confederation's behalf. The report was nevertheless issued the following September as a supplement to the Secretariat's Information Bulletin.14 Again there was world-wide publicity.

The report declared that it had been prepared at the request of the Socialist Trade Unions of India, Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS). The HMS's President, Sibnath Banerjee, promptly denied that either he or his executive had made such a request. Later it emerged that an individual HMS official had made a personal, unofficial inquiry as a result of the wide response to Moral Re-Armament in India. An official of the ICFTU Secretariat had thereupon suggested that he put his inquiry in writing, which would enable a report to be made.

The theme of the report was that 'MRA interfered with Trade Union activities' and was engaged in 'anti-union efforts, even to the extent of trying to found "yellow unions"'. It also stated that 'MRA's results in industry are illusory' and that its 'dubious financial sources . . . mean that the movement has to make concessions scarcely in keeping with the original Buchman programme'. By this last statement the report presumably meant that MRA received large sums from industry and was therefore biased in favour of management. No inquiry was directed by the ICFTU to Moral Re-Armament before this allegation was made. The American Federation of Labour and the Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL and CIO) did make such inquiries and were shown that, in the relevant year, no contributions were received from the larger industrial organisations or companies in America, and that in Britain gifts from all industrial sources had been less than three per cent of the whole.

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