Wayne Morse

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Wayne Morse
Wayne Morse (left) in the Oval Office with President Johnson in 1967

Wayne Lyman Morse (born October 20, 1900 in Madison , Wisconsin , † July 22, 1974 in Portland , Oregon ) was an American politician and lawyer. Morse was a Senator for Oregon from 1945 to 1969 . He was a member of the Republicans from 1945 to 1952 and of the Democratic Party from 1955 .

Life and political career

Morse came from the American Midwest . After graduation, he moved to Oregon, where he began teaching at the University of Oregon Law School . He was a member of the Republican Party and was elected to the US Senate shortly before the end of World War II. After Dwight D. Eisenhower's election as US President in 1952, Morse resigned from the party, but retained his seat in Parliament. In 1955 Morse joined the Democratic Party and was subsequently re-elected twice. In 1960 he wanted to run as his party's presidential candidate, but failed early on in the party's internal nomination process, which John F. Kennedy ultimately won .

A few years later, Morse was one of only two senators to vote against the Tonkin resolution . This authorized the President to carry out military operations in Vietnam without a declaration of war. The adoption of this resolution on August 7, 1964 marked the official start of the Vietnam War . Morse spoke out against the war in the years that followed. In 1968 he lost the Senate elections to the Republican Bob Packwood , who mainly criticized his rejection of the Vietnam War. Morse ran for re-election in 1972 and 1974. He died of kidney failure at the age of 73 on July 22, 1974 during the election campaign.

literature

  • Mason Drukman: Wayne Morse: A Political Biography . Oregon Historical Society Press, Portland, Oregon 1997, ISBN 0-87595-263-1
  • Arthur Robert Smith: The Tiger in the Senate. The Biography of Wayne Morse . Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1962
  • Lee Wilkins: Wayne Morse: A Bio-Bibliography . : Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1985, ISBN 0-313-24268-2

Web links

Commons : Wayne Morse  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Wayne Morse in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)