president of a major AFL-CIO international union since Walter Reuther had done so in 1946. Arrival in Washington When Wurf arrived at AFSCME offices at 815 Mount Vernon Place in Washington, they were trashed inside and outside. One floor of the building had been leased to a pizza bakery. After examining the account books, Wurf also realized that AFSCME was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Wurf sold the building and moved the union to a smaller office. Also soon after arriving, Wurf discovered and ended an ongoing CIA program within AFSCME. This program funneled around a million dollars to British Guiana between 1957 and 1964 for the purpose of supporting Forbes Burnham over Cheddi Jagan. Constitutional convention In 1965, Wurf called a constitutional convention for AFSCME in Washington. The convention passed amendments that increased representation from large Locals (allowing them more than five delegates, though only one for every additional thousand), decreased the central office's ability to control Locals through trusteeships, and required that union vice presidents be elected locally and not paid members of the "international" office. The convention did increase the powers of the union president, authorizing him or her to "employ, terminate, fix the compensation and expenses, and direct the activities of such office staff, administrative assistants, technical and professional assistants, field staff, organizers, and representatives as are required to carry out effectively the functions of his office." Presidency Wurf's election in 1964 began an area of growth and racial inclusion for the union. Through energetic organizing and aggressive bargaining, AFSCME grew rapidly under his leadership from about 220,000 members to just over one million in 1981. Wurf presided over strikes in New York (1965), Lansing (1966), Memphis (1968), Baltimore (1974) and more. Wurf was a frequent dissenter to the policies of the AFL-CIO and its president George Meany. Civil rights movement Wurf was extremely active in the civil rights movement. He helped establish the first New York State chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the late 1940s. He was a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr., who was working in support of the Memphis sanitation strike when he was assassinated in April 1968. "Let us never forget that Martin Luther King, on a mission for us, was killed in this city. He helped bring us this victory," Wurf later said. Although Wurf did not back the strike initially, due to