Leonard Woodcock

Ambassador Leonard Woodcock
1st United States Ambassador to China
In office February 27, 1979 – February 13, 1981
President	Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Himself as Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China
Succeeded by	Arthur W. Hummel, Jr.
Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China
In office July 26, 1977 – February 27, 1979
President	Jimmy Carter
Preceded by	Thomas S. Gates, Jr.
Succeeded by	Himself as United States Ambassador to China
5th President of the United Auto Workers
In office 1970–1977
Preceded by	Walter Reuther
Succeeded by	Douglas Fraser
Personal details
Born	(1911-02-15)February 15, 1911 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Died	January 16, 2001(2001-01-16) (aged 89) Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Lola A. Martin (m. 1941) Sharon Tuohy (m. 1978–2001)
Children	3
Alma mater	College of the City of Detroit

Leonard Freel Woodcock (February 15, 1911 – January 16, 2001) was President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China (and the last Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing).^[1]

Early life

Woodcock was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1911, the son of Ernest Woodcock and Margaret Freel. At the outbreak of World War I, the family was living in Germany and Ernest was interned. While Leonard had been born in the United States, his parents were British and mother and son returned to the UK for the duration of the war. The family was eventually reunited and sought a new life in North America. They originally settled in Canada, relocating a few years later, to Detroit, Michigan.

The United Auto Workers

The pressures of the Great Depression led Woodcock to drop out of College of the City of Detroit in 1933. He found work as a machine assembler in Detroit, and both he and his father became involved in the union movement. Woodcock became International Vice President in 1955 and in 1970 he succeeded Walter Reuther as UAW president, after Reuther's tragic death in a plane crash.

Woodcock was an active participant in the civil rights movement, marching with Martin Luther King and adding his voice and political clout to the cause. He was a champion of both minority and women's rights, pushing for comprehensive non-discrimination rules and introducing the first union-wide contracted maternity leave in the US.

It was during his time at the helm of the UAW that Woodcock appeared on Nixon's enemies list at #9, with the annotation "No comments necessary".^[2]

China

In 1977, Woodcock retired from the union and was named by President Jimmy Carter as head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing which, in the absence of full diplomatic relations, served as the de facto U.S. embassy in the People's Republic of China. During this same period, Woodcock was charged with leading a special delegation to Laos and Vietnam in search of POW and MIA American soldiers.

After leading negotiations to establish full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1979, Woodcock was appointed the first United States ambassador to the PRC, and the first ambassador to mainland China since 1949, when Leighton Stuart served as ambassador to the Republic of China.

Though some questioned appointing a labor leader to head such a delicate a diplomatic mission, Carter insisted that he needed a negotiator. A Doonesbury cartoon at the time read, "If he can take on the Big Three, he can handle the Gang of Four."

In a 2000 speech at the White House to celebrate 20 years of Most Favored Nation status, former President Carter said of the time:

''One of the choices I had to make was whom to send to China to begin the secret negotiations with Deng Xiaoping; he was the unquestioned ruler of the nation. And I chose a man who was the senior statesman of the American labor movement, Leonard Woodcock—respected by, I guess, every working man and woman who was a member of a union or not in this country, and he was also respected by all those who had dealt with him from the management side. And he was my personal representative in Beijing.

Leonard Woodcock, working directly with me from the White House, negotiated successfully the terms for normalization of diplomatic relations. And on the first day of January, 1979, we formed those relationships. That year, Leonard Woodcock, still highly conversant with, and whose heart was attuned to, the labor movement of America, negotiated the first trade agreement, Most Favored Nations agreement, with China, in 1979. And now for 20 years, each year the Congress has confirmed his decision, and mine.''^[3]

Personal life

Woodcock married Loula Martin, with whom he had three children, in 1941. He was remarried in 1978, to Sharon Tuohy, a nurse working with the American delegation in China. He later taught political science at the University of Michigan, living in Ann Arbor with Sharon until his death on January 16, 2001.

Woodcock had three children, Leslie Woodcock Tentler (professor of history), Janet Woodcock (photographer) and John Woodcock (ret. Lt Col, USAF); two daughters-in-law (Carol, framer, partner of Janet and Susan, married to John) and a son-in-law (Thomas Tentler, professor of history); and three grandchildren, Sarah Tentler (speechwriter and political advisor), Daniel Tentler (lawyer) and Gregory Tentler (professor of art history).

Archival and Historical Materials

The archival records of Leonard Woodcock can be found mostly at the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs. Notable are the UAW President’s Office: Leonard Woodcock Records^[4] and UAW Vice-President’s Office: Leonard Woodcock Records,^[5] two extensive collections that document his time as an executive with the UAW. These materials include Woodcock’s personal correspondence, photographs, official memorandum, and other various record types. Additional repositories with historical materials chronicling Woodcock are the Bentley Historical Library and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

References

• "Woodcock, Leonard Freel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004.