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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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was the beginning. He went back and talked to people. Then people started to come here, from different parts of the government and culture, and would come to meet with me and say, “We've got to do something together.” Then we did that all day conference, “Workers' Culture: The US and Swedish Experience,” where they sent here a delegation to participate. I arranged for conferences in different cities at the UAW and Canada and Washington, and a big one here with 350 workers. All day.

Q:

Right, we talked about it.

Foner:

Okay. The Minister of Culture, Bengt Goransson -- who's now the minister of education and culture. He came and he said, “We are going to have a continuing relationship. We're going to work out something.” That became the beginning of Images of Labor going over to Sweden. I've gone there three times, and I've met a lot of people. We have a great relationship.

I met the prime minister there a couple of times, I met him here too. I remember one time I was with the prime minister, Rolf said, “We're going to go to Upsala. There's a rally where Olof Palme and Felipe Gonzales are going to speak. You've got to come with me.” I went there, and when it was over he again introduced me to the prime minister. We were walking in the streets from the rally, with people all around us and people interviewing him, and I said to him, “In our country, this is crazy.” Then he said, “You know in our country it's regular. In our country we do it all the time.” He said, “You know we used to have, [?] used to go to work in the underground. He used to also drive around on a bicycle. We have that all the time, it's a tradition here.” Great loss, great man.

Q:

They said he was on the subway that night, going to the movies.

Foner:

He's a great guy, he's a great guy. Really, I met him a couple of times. I met his wife, a lovely person. His son was at Harvard, we met him. But he was a giant in terms of trying, on peace. I remember when he spoke at Riverside Church, the last time he was here, after he spoke Bill Coffin and Cora invited a few people upstairs to talk and ask questions. I remember he answered the question about Nicaragua, and he spoke about the elections that had taken place in Nicaragua. He said, “We had people there.” He said, “I don't know what your press is doing. It's not the greatest election in the whole world, but it's the free-est election they've had in any place in Latin America, in Central America, in years! Your people are still yelling about the fact that they're out to destroy that government.” He was good on those





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