Леонард Вудкок: Американдық профсоюз жетекшісі және дипломат

American labor leader and diplomat

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 after being the last Chief of the US Liaison Office in Beijing.

Woodcock was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1911. He was 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. Both mother and son returned to the United Kingdom for the duration of the war, where he attended school. The family members were eventually reunited and sought a new life in North America. Originally settled in Canada, they relocating a few years later, to Detroit, Michigan.

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.

In 1970, he became UAW president, succeeding Walter Reuther, who died in a plane crash. Woodcock was an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement, marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and adding his voice and political clout to the cause. He was a champion of both minority and women's rights, pushing for comprehensive nondiscrimination rules and introducing the first union wide contracted maternity leave in the United States. Woodcock appeared on Nixon's enemies list at #9 while he was UAW president with the annotation "No comments necessary."

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).

The archival records of 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 and UAW Vice President’s Office: Leonard Woodcock Records, two extensive collections that document his time as an executive with the UAW. The 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.