Beschreibung
Wraps 16x24cm, (8)pp captioned b/w photos. Very good, lightly creased. No publisher or author stated, but very likely the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers, whose President Fred Hollingsworth features prominently. Very good. Extremely rare - not recorded on Worldcat or Library Hub, with just 1 copy located at the Working Class Movement Library, which described the visit and its significance extensively in one of its Bulletins: "Exactly three months to the day after his flight in Vostok I had ushered in a new age of space exploration. the trim figure of Yuri Gagarin strode down the gangway of a British Viscount airliner and walked briskly out across the runway of Manchester airport towards a sea of expectant faces, and flashing camera bulbs. The Macmillan government, which had initially been reluctant to invite the cosmonaut to Britain, hastily added an extra day to his schedule and offered a grudging official sanction to what had originally been conceived as a trades union-sponsored tour, aimed at promoting economic co-operation between the East and West. In marked contrast to the ageing Soviet leadership, Yuri was young, dynamic and glamorous". The visit was organised by local trades councils, and civic leaders hosted a lavish reception for him at the Town Hall. "The nature and long-term political significance of his visit. was to be hotly debated. The prestige of the labour movement. and the Foundry Workers' Union. had been greatly enhanced. Gagarin was a potent symbol of the power of organised labour and socialist thought". The Union presented him with honorary membership, and Gagarin responded with messages championing working class rights and interests, and world peace. Later at the Metro-Vickers factory he said 'There is plenty of room for all in outer space. I visualise the great day when a Soviet spaceship landing on the moon will disembark a party of scientists, who will join British and American scientists working in observatories in the spirit of peaceful co-operation'. Khrushchev had scored a valuable public relations success in the West, while for Gagarin himself, the visit had been nothing short of a triumph" (John Callow, WCML Bulletin 10, 1990). Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 4217
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