MORSE PAVES WAY TO MAKE COMEBACK AS U.S. SENATOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360061-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 61
• Publication Date: October 3, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

PORTLAND, ORE. STATINTL
OREGONIAN
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Fly flM li'LANN
[A iInie,-Wmshinplon Fns? Sarvico
WASHINGTON -- Lyndon
J?cillns on went there to buy a
good Devon hull. -The late
grew Pearson went there of-
ton to swap hay, calves and
political stores.
But those times are gone;
anted now former Oregon sen-
ator and cattle breeder
Wayne L. Morse is selling,
the farm he has worked near
the western Montgomery
County town of Poolesville
for the past 25 years.
He says he will now spend
about 90 per cent of his time
Ili Oregon, although lie will
maintains all at'artnicnt at
-the Watergate as a base of
operations here.
At the age of 70, the first
sand foremost congressional
critic of the Vietnam war an-
nounced last week in T_;u-
;e;ne, Ore., he will enter the
i de-emphasize the military inn
Vietnam and that's to eliini-
nate it.' Ile said, '1'm far.
from con.vinccd you're
'They, did it
Ten days after the meet
ing, Kennedy was assassinat1
ed, and Morse says any evi-
dence of an "intense study" i
of Vietnam policy by the
Kennedy administration is:
probably under lock and key'
with the Kennedy library pa-;
Pers.
As for fellow cattle breed-1
er Lyndon Johnson, More
believes he was "(1eceived
about Vietnam in the early
stages of his administration.
"Jut they turned him into a
deceiver himself," he said.
ularly passionate: ills Devon
-cows and the Vietnam war.
I-Jo talks about both in the
panic senatorial rhetoric. (If
K?Iiis ca;if ware to die, Wayne
Morse declaims, it would bo.
"`a groat tragedy.")
No surprises
}even in the serenit.y.of his
) OOiCsvil:le surroundings,
?Iorse can shil make the war
thou.sanda cf mile;, away
scorn as_ real as the cattle
ihoashy.
The Pe.iit'.a goo Tapers,
Morse says, produced "noth-
ing; that surprised- me.. I
know the State Deparrtment,
I know -th: Pentagon.
"The war started when Y:i-
emnhoiver. and Nixon and
Dulles announced their con-
tainnient policy of Asia. A
lot of people think they had
nothing to (to with the war.
They hatched the war."
The record shows that in
1954, Morse announced the
United States was "in great
danger of being; catapulted
Leto the.Indochinese war."
Morse's voice rises. "They
wanted war in. Indochina.
They. (lid everything to stir
one tip, Where did Diem
conic from? We set him up
in office and we militarized
Morse is firmly convinced
that: John F. Kennedy would
have totters the country Out
of Vietnam, because one clay
in November of 19663, Kenne-
dy told Morse he was com-
nsissioning an "intense re-
view" of the country's Viet-
narn policy.
"I kept talking to him
(that (lay) about the effect of
Our policies, and Kennedy
kept saying, 'that's not my iai ?
tention,' " Morse recalls.
"I made all my points.
told him he was continuing
the l!;isenhower policy. lie
said he was de-enmphasizing
the military policy -- that
race. for the Senate, where.
he served for 24 years before
lo:;iri , hi$ seat i71 T968.
Ile is 'meeting with polcn-
x;:i;,gl financiall supporters and
drawing up a campaign
budget, and he says the
chances .arc "seven in ten"
h.n will rim in 1972 against
Republican Sen. Mark Hat-.
field.
A . reporter who made an'
unexpected visitto the farm
recently found Morse
dressed in faded dungarees,
brown cowboy boots and in
old shirt. With leis bushy eye-
' white hair anti light
white -moust'ac'he, he looked
very anuc.h like a David Lev-
tine caricature of a. 'state
mass-turned hippie. .
-Ile can still draw out a st:o
Ty or speech longer than
even Hu.hert, ITumphrey. And
so, for more than four horns
while sweeping out his
cottages, showing 6ff his cat-
tic and caring; for a sick calf
Morse interwove anec-
e+ntea about. hie, farm with
-,lurks aho'.it his days in the
was the lime wl c 1 i'c: ?
''iiere 'aiAPPir6moof6r'e- -- - E itl~}Qt ' 4
rtbout which Morse ispartic cation. I said, '.Mr. reai;
---- - ---I .itent, there's just one way" 1q'
And who. are "they?"
Morse Is asked. "'l'ime Ros-
tows, the J3undys, the joint
Chiefs, the 'CIA, the whole.
Gulf of Tonkin resolution,
sponsored by Sen. J. William
Pulbright, D-Ark., passed.
the Senate, 55 to 2, the two
dissenters were Morse and
Sen. Ernest Gruening, D-
Alaska. The record shows
M o r s e characterized the
United States as the "provo-
cateur:" in the Tonkin inci-
dent, saying, "we have been
making convert war in
Southeast Asia . for some
time, ? instead of seeking to
keep the peace."
When Johnson . escalated
the wa'r, Morse escalated his
verbal attacks on the coun-
try's policies. He acknowl-
edges now that the became
known in the Senate as the
"five o'clock shadow" be-
cause of the frequency with
which he rose on the Senate
floor late in the afternoon to
berate the war policy.
Did Johnson ever rebuke lost his legs -??- but Morse out
Morse for his opposition? of office has managed to be
"No," replies Morse. "He
knew his men. The basis on
which we operated was com-
plete frankness. I never hesi-
tated to tell the President
what I thought."
the road. Out, in Orel on, he
says, he will rent another
farm near his home in Eu-
gene and will keep another
35 Devon there.
. Morse will also maintain a
small apartment at the Wat-
ergate Downtown' as a base
for law work here. He
seemed- somewhat embar-
rassed about living in such
an establishment symbol,
but explained it was close to.
the Senate and he had
bought the apartment before
the building was construct-
ed.
The cottage at Morse's
farm, fashioned out of an old
milking barn and hen house,
is, 1~!iiecl with simple old wood
fur,uture. The walls are cov-
ered with banners and pen- i
nants from the fairs and cat-
tle shows he has, won: The
Maryland and Oregon State
fairs, the Montgomery Coun-
ty fair-. On one. wall is an old,
touristy sportsman's map of .
Oregon. '
When he began to give
speeches . over and over
'again on the Senate floor, he
recalls a lot of people asked
why.
"It's because I was a
teacher. (IIe was a law pro-
fessor at the' University- of
Oregon.) A teacher knows
the value -of repetition and
the capacity of his class.
And it-takes speeches four or
five times a week to raise
doubts in the mind of a Unit-
ed States Senator."
Of his loss to Sen.. Robert
Packwood, R-Ore., - Morse
asserts, "the war beat me. I
refused to' honor Johnson's
policies . the Senate was
h a yr h i sh in 1968. Why
shouldn't the people of Ore-
gon be?" There is an ele-
ment of pathos to a senator
who has lost office like
t'11at of an athlete who has
p`t3riUIlUo
He is asking $2,000 an acre
for the farm, which has tw.w'o
small spring; lcd ponds on it.
Sono for Oregon
110 is also selling most of
the 105 hcacl'of Devon cattle
on the faun althouoh he
1Q1tiAt R-DF $0-6)f#QIP,000300360061-6
nest in a rented barn across ,
Rut that was then, and this