Bradford Morse

Bradford Morse, (died in 1994) "a former Republican Congressman from Massachusetts who rose to become a top-ranking United Nations official...

"A lawyer who was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1960, Mr. Morse served six terms before resigning to join the United Nations. In his 13-year career there, Mr. Morse supervised a diverse series of relief efforts that ranged from job-training for two million Colombians to a program that built hundreds of miles of secondary roads in five African nations.

"As head of the United Nations Development Program, which helps finance and administer development projects in more than 150 nations, Mr. Morse became an advocate for aid to poor countries and for victims of famine in Africa. In the mid-1980's, when droughts ravaged Ethiopia and the Sudan, Mr. Morse organized a large-scale relief effort with help from a Canadian official, Maurice F. Strong, executive coordinator of the United Nations Office for Emergency Operations in Africa...

"According to friends and associates, Mr. Morse was one of the first Republicans in Congress to express concern over the sharp division among Americans over the country's role in Vietnam, and helped develop the strategy advanced by President Johnson to coax the North Vietnamese into negotiations in 1968.

"In 1972, Mr. Morse was appointed Under Secretary General for Political and General Assembly Affairs. Four years later he was asked to take over as administrator of the United Nations Development Program, which was then facing bankruptcy. He secured record pledges, and was credited with turning the program around financially.

"After retiring from the United Nations in 1986, Mr. Morse became president of the Salzburg Seminar, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass., that brings together politicians, academics and business leaders from the West, developing countries, and countries in the former Soviet Union.

"Mr. Morse is survived by his wife, the former Josephine Anne Neale, and three children: Stephanie Hillary Jennifer Morse, of Naples, Fla.; Susanna Francesca Morse of Cincinnati, and Anthony Bradford Morse of Washington."


 * Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute: Four Freedoms Award (1986)
 * 1974 Honoree, Earth Society Foundation

Related Sourcewatch

 * Charles William Maynes
 * USIP: Former Fellows (Distinguished Fellow, 1987-88)