Talk:David A. Morse

Hi Stewart, I'm part way through editing, tweaking the format and adding reference links for key points and starting the External Links section. I'll return a little later.

One query though: With the 'State Department and CIA' section, while I donlt doubt the points being made, I'm wondering if there is any way we can reference that. Any ideas? cheers, --Bob Burton 15:43, 26 January 2007 (EST)

Edit notes
Hi Stewart,


 * I've gone through and built the external links section and added the full reference. Our general standard is that key points should be supported where it is made in the text by a reference url and a full reference in the external links section. For future reference see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch:References


 * I haven't had time to go through the document links themselves so far, but there were some sections where there was no reference and the text was speculative. In one or two spots I have/will delete material that is pushing legal boundaries that don't appear to be supported by direct quotes or citations. For others, I'll relocate the text here so you can see if they can be refined and/or referenced. I'll work my way through the sections and post relocated material below with my comments/queries indented. Cheers, --Bob Burton 15:08, 28 January 2007 (EST)


 * He would have seen private reports to the US State Department as part of his job, and in no way would he have considered this as 'spying' in the conventional sense of the term.In times of global tension, diplomats needs these 'deniable' and off-the-record channels of communication. So, in his own way, Morse would have provided a conduit for discussion between the US Administration officials and the various European (West and East) and Middle Eastern politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats with whom he had contact.


 * This may well have been the case but we don't know what State Department materials he saw and what, if any, role he played s a go-between. I have added reference links to the archives of Morse so it may well be that in the interviews he gave, he touched on these points.


 * Morse was a highly vocal Democrat at this time
 * I've left this on the article page, but that statement raises the question of how we know this. Maybe its in his papers/archives.


 * (Re Walter Surrey) figure which can mean, either a genuine bureaucrat, or it can mean CIA. Surrey's contacts, suggest the latter.


 * The citation goes to a document from George V. Allen, the President and CEO of the Tobacco Institute. In it he refers to having known Surrey when he was at the State Department and met him at a reception for the new Philippines Ambassador. I'm not persuaded from that alone we can conclude he was CIA.


 * MMurray and Bible were accountants from Australia who had travelled the world together, spending time in the Middle East and in Geneva with UN Agencies. Later they both joined Philip Morris's European division which had its base in Laussane. They were effectively 'joined at the hip', and Bible had once worked for the ILO as budget-director under Morse. Both Australians had moved in the same social circles in Geneva, and been members of the same ex-pat squash club with Morse and his friends.


 * we need a source or sources for this. How do we know this?


 * so Surrey's heart attack was probably brought on by the media exposure of their plans.


 * there is no way of knowing whether the two were linked or not. As the citations don't really help us on this point we are better off not speculating.


 * Morse was probably retained because, in this year, Murray was elected to the overall PM board, and Bible returned from a stint as manager in Australia where he had been highly successful in countering the anti-smoking movement. He was awarded a newly created position of Executive Vice President of PM's International division. This came directly under Murray, and the VP position put him in total charge of PM's PR campaigns in Europe and Asia and the Pacific.


 * Is there a way of tying this down? There are no references for any of the significant points in this par.


 * His legal-practice progressively changed to focussing entirely on providing contact-services with politicians in Europe, and with key bureaucrats in the United Nations and EEC in Brussels. He had close friends in the European Union/Parliament who accepted his lobbying, trade union links in Scandinavia, and some especially valuable contacts with the Vatican authorities.


 * ditto


 * was "a chair in [Andrew Whist|Whist]'s Manhattan apartment" (according to court records).
 * a source is needed for this.


 * Whist probably took control of these organisation by discrete funding, or providing secretarial and organisational services.


 * ditto. If we can't establish from the evidence what happened we are better off not speculating.


 * ACEA or NYSIA would then pay an important European politician handsomely speak (about $20,000 in tax-fee cash), and give them an all-expenses-paid visit for a week in New York. Morse's ex-Deputy/ILO Director General, Francis Blanchard was a lucky recipient of this bonanza.


 * ditto


 * The only price the speaker has to pay is in the boredom of sitting next to a Philip Morris 'minder' both ways in the aircraft while enveloped in an cloud of pro-smoking propaganda. But PR people are chosen for their charm, and after a few nights in New York nightspots ...


 * I deleted this - its too speculative. We don't know that they always had a 'minder' travel with them and if they did we don't know they didn't enjoy each others company or both fervently believe in the tobacco industry's agenda. As for what else they did, we don't know so shouldn't speculate.


 * the Maxwell speech paragraph I have shortened as in the reference I can so no reference to buying newspapers or contributions to politicians.


 * UK newspaper columnists Auberon Waugh and Bernard Levin who both enjoyed a long relationship with the tobacco industry.


 * How do we know this?

Levin was Murdoch's London Times columnist and highly influential, and he became the nominal UK 'president' of Libertad at one time.
 * Ditto


 * Re reference to payment method.
 * I deleted this as there was no supporting reference.


 * You can get a good idea as to the value Libertad provided in providing access to the wealthy and influential, in this news story. (Also  see)


 * Rather than writing it so that people have to follow the links to see what if being referred to here, it would be better to make the point/provide the details and use the links only as supporting references for those who need to see the primary source.


 * Geoffroy Giscard de Estaing, the nephew of ex French President (later European Parliamentary leader) Valerie Giscard de Estaing.


 * How do we know the two are related rather than just sharing a surname?


 * For many years, Morse and his partners (Paul Dietrich and wife Laura Jordan Dietrich) virtually ran the Vatican's "Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta' in the USA. The whole Dietrich family was involved with the Knights of Columbus, but this organisation carries little clout.


 * The supporting reference link only states that Paul was on the Board of Directors of the organisation but didn't say how long for or mention his wifes role. It makes no mention of the Knights of Columbus. The reference makes no mention of Morse.


 * Their management offices in the Knights of Malta gave them a say in recommending which rich-and-famous Catholic would get the Papal Knighthoods each year and which top Catholic executives would be provided with a cherished Vatican diplomatic passport. The organisation has been described by social historian Stephen Birmingham as "comprise what is perhaps the most exclusive club on earth. They are more than just Catholic aristocracy. They can pick up a telephone and chat with the Pope."

The US Chapter at this time had about 1750 members described as "the cutting edge of right-wing Catholicism ... a hidden mating ground where the Catholic church and the U.S. ruling elite intersect." It is not just business-networking; it certainly does serve a humanitarian purpose, especially in Latin America -- and it would have been useless to Morse and the Dietrichs if it hadn't.


 * I'm not persuaded, on the available evidence, that this connection had any role in Morse founding the International Institute for Health and Development. It seems to me that more likely it was Dietrich's role as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University that was more significant. So I have relocated it off the article page for the moment.


 * Dietrich, Morse, Blanchard and the chief executive group of Australians at Philip Morris at this time (Bible, Murray and Whist) were all Catholic, and somehow they convinced (with a $1 million grant guarantee) the Church authorities and the University chancellors to become involved in what they probably thought was a humanitarian organisation.


 * How do we know this? I have relocated it off the article page for the moment.


 * Philip Morris even managed to get the University (without realising it) to grant honorary degrees to Health Ministers who didn't attack smoking.


 * What the documents show was that IIHD were recomended to be funded by PM to the tune of $240,000 and that one strand of its work was to be an award to a Minister of Health. The second reference, to a 1994 document, indicates that a IIHD survey indicates that Ministers of Health identify tobacco control as a low priority. But we don't know who the prize was awarded to in 1990 and what their view on tobacco control was.


 * Paul's wife Laura Jordan Dietrich had her own UN and State Department contacts. She had been a high-ranking woman under the Reagan Administration as the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights which involved many visits to Geneva and many other countries.


 * I have relocated this for the moment as we donlt have any reference links indicating her role.


 * It's not clear that he provided any services to the tobacco industry, although he did give his card to senior-executive PR operator, James Bowling, in 1977, and apparently he mention his links with Bible. He also talked to Bowling about the disaffection the WHO executives had with anti-smoking programs.  (See also:  referring to: )


 * This par is a bit off-topic for a profile on Morse. It really belongs on a page about Furth.


 * Eventually, by using the old Morse and Republican contacts, Paul Dietrich managed to get himself elected onto WHO's PAHO Communications Advisory Committee (along with Jimmy Carter) and he then took over the organisation of PAHO's broadcast promotions for a major Latin American health conference.  The aim was to disrupt any attempt from the PAHO to focus their efforts on anti-smoking measures in Brazil.


 * I changed this par, as the references don't indicate how Dietrick got elected to the PAHO committee. And if if Carter was on the same committee that is better dealt with in a separate section or on a PAHO page. (Some could read the original sentence as implying that Carter was also elected via Morse's contacts which is not intended..


 * Dietrich did his part through many letters-to-the-editor and op-ed pieces (paid for by the tobacco industry)


 * How do we know this?


 * Dietrich did his part through many letters-to-the-editor and op-ed pieces (paid for by the tobacco industry) which were planted in the Wall Street Journal and other business-oriented publications in America and Europe.


 * We need one or more references here.


 * In 1983, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds Tobacco had also combined to secretly purchase the Saturday Review magazine, which was one of the top US magazines of the time.


 * How do we know this? Is there a reference?

The famous editor, Norman Cousins was fired after he had refused to run cigarette advertisements, and Frank Gannon, the son of a Philip Morris research executive, became the nominal editor.


 * we need references for both these points. And perhaps this is more relevant for a page on Saturday Review than one specifically on Morse.


 * The magazine then became flooded with double-spread tobacco ads and articles which overtly or underhandedly attacked anti-smoking activism; but it didn't survive long.


 * Any references for this?


 * For a while, Dietrich used the IIH&D and the remnants of the Saturday Review as an industry editorial service, employing syndicated newspaper columnists like Donald Lambro to write pro-smoking articles for other publications and general syndication.


 * the reference indicates that Lambro was a sydicated columnists but not that he was employed by Dietrich/Saturday Review. So again, we need some references if we are going to have that point on the article page (though again, its seems a little tangential to the Morse page so again perhaps better on an article about Saturday Review.

--Bob Burton 21:14, 28 January 2007 (EST)