LABOR, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND WORLD AFFAIRS:

The Papers of David A Morse (1907-1990), Director-General of the International Labour Organisation, 1948-1970, from the Seeley G Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University

Part 1: International Labour Organisation Files

Part 2: Subject files A-Z

Part 3: Special Subject Files, Writings and Speeches

Publisher's Note

The David A Morse Papers document the life and times of David Abner Morse (1907-1990), American lawyer, soldier, and public official. While he distinguished himself in legal, military, and governmental circles, the most fruitful years of his life were spent at the helm of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the oldest member of the United Nations’ family of specialised agencies. As Director-General of the International Labour Office in Geneva from 1948 to 1970, Morse guided the increasingly complex activities of this tripartite organisation, which unites in one body the representatives of workers, governments, and employers. No one has had a longer tenure as its head, and no one has presided over such far-reaching changes in its composition and orientation. Drawing on a variety of experiences in the field of domestic and international labour, including appointments as Assistant, Under, and Acting Secretary of Labor in the Truman administration, Morse gave practical meaning in a post-war context to the ILO’s underlying philosophy, namely, that “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.” The pursuit of this object won for the ILO the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969. The David Morse Papers contain correspondence, reports, memoranda, subject files, speeches, articles, and interviews that document this long, productive career.
Part 1 of this microfilm project covers the Papers of David A Morse as Director-General of the ILO (Boxes 1-14). There are letters, memoranda, articles, booklets, reports and other material relating to the ILO for the period 1934 to 1991. The bulk of the material relates to the period of Morse’s tenure as Director-General, 1948-1970. The material in these 14 boxes represents only a fraction of the documentation which passed through Morse’s hands in the course of his long sojourn in Geneva, but the concentration of important documents and material of special interest to Morse imbues it with a distinctly personal quality.

Pope Paul VI’s visit to the headquarters of the ILO and the conferral on the ILO of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969 are both well documented. Both were of great symbolic significance to Morse.

The material is organised by folders in a single alphabetical sequence. The following gives a flavour of some of the file headings:

“Action of the ILO: Problems and Prospects”, 1974
“The Amazing ILO”, 1948
Andean Indian Project, 1954
Bevin, Ernest, 1948
China, 1948
Colombia, 1970
Cox, Robert W, 1956-1957, 1961, 1963-1966, 1969
“David Morse and His Global Skill-Building Program”, 1960
European Economic Community, 1962
International Centre for Advanced Technical and Vocational Training, 1963-1985
International Institute for Labour Studies, 1962, 1965-1966
International Labour Conferences, 1946-1970 (Morse’s own files on these meetings)
Marshall, George C, 1948
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1952
Rusk, Dean, 1948
South Africa, 1963-1964
Soviet Union, 1954-1970
“United States’ Participation in the ILO: Redefining the Role”, 1989
Vietnam, 1966-1967
World Employment, 1970-1973

Preserved in these files are a number of revealing memoranda of meetings between Morse and prominent figures of his day. These include a discussion with Vincent Auriol in 1948 in which the President of France took exception to the American media’s calls for “a strong man” in the Elysee Palace, a heated discussion with George Meany in 1963 in which the head of the AFL-CIO accused Morse of being soft on communism, and a discussion with Adlai Stevenson within a week of his death in 1965 in which the two-time Democratic presidential candidate voiced his dissatisfaction with the Johnson administration’s policies in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. There is also a summary of Morse’s meeting at the Chinese Embassy in Paris with Dr Wang Shih Chieh, Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, in October 1948, which looked forward to the inauguration of the new ILO policy in Asia.

Of particular interest, too, are a pair of memoranda recording Morse’s discussions with representatives of the Soviet Union and the United States in 1970 on the contentious matter of the appointment of a Soviet Assistant Director-General. Morse’s diplomatic skills are evident and, in particular, his ability to prolong a process whose resolution could (and ultimately did) have negative consequences for the ILO. Other insights offered by these documents relate to the international “jockeying and politicking” (to use Morse’s words) which can precede the election of the head of an organisation such as the ILO; the implications of domestic politics and, specifically, McCarthyism, for international civil servants of American nationality; and Morse’s relationship with his staff as manifested in his correspondence with two pivotal subordinates: Jef Rens, his second in command in Geneva, and Thacher Winslow, head of the ILO’s office in Washington, DC.

A typical letter from Thacher Winslow (Box 1, Folder 7) and marked “Strictly Personal and Confidential” reports on the latest developments in Bolivia on the Andean Indian Project:

“The other day Bill Dillingham, who, as you know, has been in Bolivia on the Andean Indian mission, came in to see me and gave me his side of the mess into which the project seems to have gotten. I took all he said with a grain of salt, and would not have written to you at all about it, but today I was in the Department of Labor and saw a dispatch from Bolivia which confirmed some of Dillingham’s story from a completely different source.

This dispatch stated that the Foreign Minister, Cuevera, had stated that Alvarado was working with one of the Patinos against the interests of the present Bolivian regime. In these efforts he was being aided and advised by two so-called ex-patriot Bolivians working for the ILO - Crespo and Caballero. Dillingham had told me somewhat the same story, and said that one of the reasons he was in the doghouse was because Alvarado claimed that he and de Lozado (who was also in the doghouse) were too sympathetic to the Bolivian Government and were therefore, at least temporarily, removed from their jobs. He also told me that, because of this situation, Bolivia now wants the UN to take over the project.

I appreciate that this is only part of the story, but again I wouldn’t even call it to your attention except that here is a top US official in Bolivia writing that the Foreign minister is complaining about the interference of Alvarado and other ILO officials. ”

William K Opdyke’s piece on “The Amazing ILO” (Box 1, Folder 5) praises the activities and achievements of the ILO:

“Twenty-nine years ago, an international organisation was born! And for twenty-nine years it has lived through wars and all the man-made strife of that period. As its motto, the International Labour Organisation sticks doggedly to this challenge: “If you wish for peace, work for justice.” An inter-governmental agency with a membership of 55 countries, including the USA, it seeks by inter-nation action to improve labor conditions, raise living standards and promote economic and social stability. And in this, its twenty-ninth year, it is stronger than ever. Chief “secret” of its strength all over the world is its tripartite makeup. By that is meant the active participation of accredited delegates from 55 nations representing directly the interests, policies and programs of employers, workers and governments. No other such international organisation exists today. Nothing like it ever existed before, and yet it works quietly, effectively, and with undisturbed dignity to improve working conditions all over the globe…”

There is an interesting 37-page document on “Decision-Making in the ILO” which looks at the evolution of policy-making and the various factors influencing policy decisions in the years after the Second World War through to the Cold War era of the 1950s and 1960s. Why was the ILO in such a weak position at the San Francisco Conference? Was the US position “friendly” to the ILO at this crucial post-war conference? What was the significance of the Soviet Union’s absence from ILO membership and how did this change over time? How did Cold War bi-polarity, with the western alignment of the ILO, provide conditions favourable to the development of two of the ILO’s major post-war programmes: a normative programme in the human rights field and an operational programme in the manpower field ? (see Box 1, Folder 25).

Boxes 15 and 16 contain microfilm of International Labour Office records.

The material in Boxes 17 to 45 of the David A Morse Papers, comprising reports of the Director-General, missions of the Director-General, and proceedings of ILO Conferences, 1946-1970, is not covered by this microfilm project.

Part 2 concentrates on his A-Z alphabetically arranged sequence of General Subject Files (Boxes 46-66). The bulk of this material covers the period 1939 to 1970, although there are a significant number of later items as well. These subject files are the most diverse component of the Morse Papers, ranging from highly personal matters to relatively inconsequential ones and touching on innumerable aspects of Morse’s life.

This material is also the broadest of any in terms of time span, for while most of it postdates the Second World War, it includes documents held by Morse's family prior to his birth. The bulk of its folders are identified by the name of the individual or organization to whom or to which their contents relate, but a number are constituted on a broader basis, as in Morse’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts requests or in the obituaries and tributes which followed his death. Much of the material, be it personal correspondence or organisational documents, is routine, though at various junctures an issue of particular moment manifests itself. Considered collectively, this material provides a multidimensional picture of Morse’s interests and involvements.

That Morse was seldom idle, even after his departure from the ILO, is readily apparent on the basis of this material. His close association with institutions and organisations such as Rutgers University, the World Rehabilitation Fund, and the Council on Foreign Relations is well documented. So, too, are his relationships with individuals the world over.

The Millard Cass folder attests to the sometimes troubled nature of Morse’s ties with George Meany, the pugnacious head of the AFL-CIO, and to the broader issue underlying this tension, namely, “whether,” in Morse's words, “the US Government and other governments want to continue to maintain the ILO as a universal organization within the framework of the United Nations family, or to reduce it to a small, tightly knit group of countries which have the objective of carrying on political warfare with the Communists.”

The prevailing sentiment in this material, however, reflecting the tenor of Morse’s life, is one of mutual respect and, frequently, affection. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s folder, for instance, contains a note in her hand to Morse which can only be described as heartfelt. Morse’s relationship with Francis Blanchard, the second man to succeed him as Director-General, is another case in point. Blanchard’s folder demonstrates that Morse fulfilled the role of an éminence grise, ever ready with words of counsel and comfort. Perhaps the most arresting example of Morse’s concern for others, even at one step’s remove, can be found in Alain Rens’s folder. Rens, the son of Morse’s deputy, Jef Rens, joined the French Foreign Legion, an entanglement which he soon came to regret and which Morse went to great lengths to undo. That all was not eirenic in Morse's life is evidenced by such folders as Herman Cooper’s, Westbrook Pegler’s, and George Shaw Wheeler’s. They relate in one way or another to the anticommunist fears, sometimes justifiable and sometimes not, which gripped the United States at the height of the Cold War. Also included here are the censored photocopies of the Morse files collected by such government organisations as the FBI and CIA.

Part 3 covers a number of different subseries as follows:
Special subject files on the Allied Military Government, 1940-1947
Special subject files on the Department of Labor, 1945-1954
the Papers of Mildred H Morse, 1900-1969
Special subject files on the United Nations Development Programme, 1961-1973
Addresses, Writings, Interviews and Speeches, 1930-1990

Part 3 starts with material on the Allied Military Government (1940-1947) and documents Morse’s military career during the Second World War in considerable detail. The material includes general army records as well as records specifically related to Morse’s tenure as head of the Labor Division of the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory in Sicily and Italy and head of the Manpower Division of the United States Group Control Council for Germany. Material concerning Japan is also present in the form of the final report of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers’ Advisory Committee on Labor, entitled “Labor Policies and Programs in Japan.” A revealing account of Morse's wartime experiences, particularly with regards to Sicily and Italy, can be found in a journal recording his activities in various places, including North Africa, Sicily and Italy, England, France, Germany, and Austria. A haunting memento of his military career, which brought him face to face with Hitler's liberated concentration camps, is a yellow Star of David bearing the French word, “Juif.”

Morse’s general army records span the period from his request for an interview with the United States Army in March 1942 (subsequently he was accepted as a first lieutenant), to his receipt of the Legion of Merit in June 1946, nine months after his voluntary discharge. This material also includes selective service cards from 1940 and 1941 and the somewhat belated transmittal letter which accompanied his commission as lieutenant colonel in 1947. The general army records are mainly composed of “extracts,” that is, orders and station assignments given to officers. Information issued to officers briefing them on certain codes of conduct, such as confidentiality, and detailing military activities, such as the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory manual on “plan, proclamations and instructions” are present as well. The last folder in the general army records sequence also contains documents relating to Morse’s promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, his receipt of the Legion of Merit for his conspicuous services, and original copies of the May 8, 1945 editions of the New York Herald Tribune and The Stars and Stripes celebrating the surrender of Germany and the end of the war in Europe. Material relating to Morse's German involvements consists mainly of reports on labour such as “Tentative Labor Plan for Germany” and “Annex XVIII (Manpower) of Basic Preliminary Plan Allied Control and Occupation of Germany (Control Council Period).” Material relating to Morse’s work in Sicily and Italy is much more diverse and plentiful. It includes general orders and extracts, minutes, background documentation on Sicily and Italy’s labour situations, newspaper clippings, and reports concerning various labour-related issues. The drafts of Morse’s labour policy, which dealt with the abolition of the fascist labour system and the establishment free trade unions and labour offices, illustrate the evolution of civil reconstruction amid conditions which were at best unstable.

Part 3 of this microfilm project goes on to cover the files on the Department of Labor (1945-1954). This consists of material relating to Morse’s tenure as Assistant, Under, and Acting Secretary of Labor in the Truman administration between July 1946 and August 1948.

For the most part, the contents of this subseries can be divided into three broad categories: intra-departmental material, inter-departmental material, and extra-departmental material. The character of the documents tends to be impersonal, not that the human dimension is entirely absent. Morse’s dealings with Secretary Lewis Schwellenbach and the upper echelons of the department convey a clear sense of the style and substance of his administrative role. The topics covered in this subseries are varied, ranging from the contentious Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, to the family budget of urban workers to the equitable participation of minorities in the programs and services of the department.

The bulk of the material in this subseries is intra-departmental, including budget reports, general orders establishing policies and procedures for various activities, draft legislation, statutes describing the purpose of departmental units, and plans for the department’s 35th anniversary. This category also contains material relating to programs and services within the jurisdiction of the department such as the United States Employment Service, the Women’s Bureau, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the Veterans Employment Service. The activities of the department itself are documented in large part through reports on the progress of various domestic and international programs and through memoranda between officials suggesting changes within or alternatives to such programs.

The inter-departmental material in this subseries consists of documents exchanged between the department and other governmental offices and officials, including reports on joint programs and issues of departmental concern. For example, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Agriculture were all involved in the Food Conservation Program established by President Truman. The White House, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Atomic Energy Commission were also among the department’s correspondents.

For its part, the extra-departmental material consists of correspondence and associated documents exchanged between Morse or his colleagues and external bodies such as the International Labour Organisation, the Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock and Repair Company, United States Steel, and the University of California’s Institute of Industrial Relations.

A number of congratulatory letters and telegrams from Morse’s friends and relations on the occasion of his appointment as Assistant and Under Secretary of Labor inject an element of personal warmth.

We also include the Papers of Mildred H Morse (1900-1969). These consist chiefly of letters written to or from Mildred Morse, Morse’s wife of 53 years, between 1919 and 1969. The broad time span of this subseries, which includes correspondence between members of Mrs Morse’s family prior to her birth as well as childhood notes, offers a rich and evolving portrait of Mrs Morse and her world. Of particular interest in this regard is the folder relating to Mrs Morse’s presentation at the Court of St James in 1931. She was one of a privileged circle of debutantes to appear before the British King and Queen. Among the items contained in this folder are an exchange of letters between her mother and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Longworth, who put forward her name, and a number of effusive newspaper clippings.
The majority of this correspondence, which is the most intimate of any in the Morse Papers, dates from the time of Morse’s overseas service in the Second World War. The couple exchanged hundreds of letters during this period, often using affectionate names such as “angel duck” and “angel pie,” and unique to Mrs Morse, “Pedie” or “Peter”. As Morse put it in a letter written in England in May 1944, “I’ve seen lots of things these last months, but never anything or anyone that even starts to resemble the beauty and quality of my adorable sweet wife. And I'm not just saying this to hear myself talk, it comes from awful way down deep.” The Morses’ diary-like correspondence took various forms, including postcards, densely written V-Mail, and letters, and, thanks to fairly consistent dating and, in many cases, sequential numbering, scholars can follow the couple’s lines of thought and, within the limits imposed by military secrecy, lines of action on both the home and foreign fronts.

This correspondence sheds light not only on the mentality of the Morses but on that of American citizens in wartime. In addition to mutual devotion, the emotions which manifest themselves include frustration – “let's get the damned war over with” (October 1944) - revulsion at Nazi barbarism - “one can't afford to be too homesick when such monsters are loose in the world” (October 1944) - and sorrow over the death of Franklin Roosevelt - “yesterday was the saddest day that I have known since my father died” (April 1945).

We also include in full the entire subseries on the United Nations Development Programme (1961-1973). For the most part, this is material Morse acquired or generated as Chairman of the United Nations Development Programme’s Advisory Panel on Programme Policy, a position he held from 1970 to 1972. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is devoted to providing multilateral pre-investment aid to the world’s low-income nations in an attempt to alleviate and, ultimately, eradicate global poverty. The scope of its work in Morse's time can be gauged by the number of experts serving under its auspices (8,200 in 1968) and the cumulative value of its major completed and uncompleted projects ($2.8 billion by 1970). Under Morse’s leadership, the Advisory Panel on Programme Policy was responsible for recommending what the position of the United Nations Development Programme should be on various issues and what policies it should pursue in the fulfilment of its mission. A fair amount of the material in this subseries relates to the internal workings of the Panel and the United Nations Development Programme as a whole. This includes such items as interoffice memoranda concerning meetings and various matters in need of discussion and resolution, reports by Panel members, such as “The Role of UNDP in Education and Training,” monthly management reports, and plans for headquarters restructuring.

Present as well are preparatory documents for each of the Panel’s “Sessions” consisting of various reports on “Advisory Panel Questions” to be discussed at these meetings. Topics include “The Role of the UNDP in Promoting Investment Follow-Up”, “The Role of the UNDP in the Development and Adaptation of Science and Technology in Developing Countries”, and “The Time-Lag Between the Identification of UNDP Projects and Their Implementation Under Project and Country Programming”.

Other material in this subseries includes information gathered from various seminars that Morse attended and correspondence with a number of United Nations organisations, among them the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

A variety of non-governmental organisations outside the United Nations system are also represented, including the AFL- CIO, the Institut Français du Pétrole, and the Society for International Development.

Finally, in Part 3, we also make available all of Morse’s Addresses, Writings and Interviews (1930-1990). They are mostly neatly bound on a chronological basis, offering a remarkably comprehensive record of Morse’s perspective on a wide array of subjects, as well as the views of the entities on whose behalf he wrote and spoke, over the course of 60 years. Indeed, if the transcripts of the oral history interviews in which he participated are taken into account, this series can be said to encompass within itself an entire lifetime. Most of the thousands of words recorded here were intended for public consumption, but there are also items of a personal nature, the most notable of which is a volume of intimate reflections which spans the decade between 1956 and 1966 and which touches on such matters as global peace, education, poverty, and international personalities.

The category of addresses consists of Morse’s utterances between 1936 and 1990, the majority of which were made in his capacity as Director-General of the ILO. They range from his message to the Scottish Trades Union Congress in 1949 to his speech at a luncheon in honour of the Vice President of Brazil in 1956 to his talk for the Voice of America in 1962 to his lecture on the occasion of the ILO’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969. Morse’s visibility after his departure from the ILO is borne out by a substantial number of public utterances, the last of which, appropriately, took the form of a contribution to a panel on the organisation he had once directed. Presented shortly before his death, his thoughts on the ILO are a revealing encapsulation of the story to which so large a proportion of the Morse Papers is dedicated.

The category of writings, which spans the years between 1930 and 1989, consists primarily of articles and the introductions and conclusions to Morse’s Reports as Director-General of ILO. Morse's articles range from “Industrial Peace -- At What Price?” in 1946 to “The World Situation and the ILO” in 1956 to “World Tragedy: More Workers than Jobs” in 1962 to “Labor in the Public Sector: An International Perspective” in 1978. His words appeared in a variety of publications, both in the United States and overseas, including the International Social Science Bulletin, The Indian Worker, the Ecumenical Review, and the Political Science Quarterly. A partial bibliography is available. In common with other public figures, Morse's writings, like his addresses, were, in many cases, drafted for him, but, as his surviving marginalia attest, he made them his own. Very much his own are the transcripts of two oral history projects to which he was a contributor after his departure from the ILO. One was conducted by Columbia University and the other by the Harry S Truman Library, and, together, they constitute an autobiography of sorts, notable for its breadth and periodic depth and for its discursive spontaneity. The interviews commissioned by Columbia University were conducted in two stages. The first documents Morse’s background, his childhood, student days, and first governmental appointments. The second carries Morse from his work as Chief Counsel for the Petroleum Labor Policy Board of the Department of Interior to his work as Director-General of the ILO, concluding with a discussion of his activities upon his return to the United States. Morse's association with the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor is passed over lightly, by virtue of the extensive treatment it receives in the interviews commissioned by the Harry S Truman Library, the focus of which, of course, is the Truman administration. Both sets of interviews commissioned by Columbia University are indexed.

The legacy of David Abner Morse, who died on December 1, 1990 at the age of 83, was global. As Director-General of the ILO, a specialised agency of the United Nations, for an unprecedented 22 years, he dedicated himself to improving the lot of workers throughout the world. A man of high ideals and exceptional acumen, he upheld the universality of workers' socio-economic rights amid the conflicting claims of communist and non-communist systems and have and have-not nations. In 1969 he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the ILO, a recognition of the organisation’s contribution to international harmony and prosperity under his leadership.

For Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1982 to 1991, “Flair for leadership and diplomacy, dynamism, charm, dignity - these were among his many radiant qualities. But above them all was the compassion and the care for the vulnerable of the earth, and the love of social justice which inspired all his endeavours.”

For George Shultz, Secretary of Labor in the Nixon administration and Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, Morse possessed an innate, instinctive understanding of the need for standards of behaviour. “He saw the human side of enterprise . . . . He stood, it seemed to me, always for a blend of power and principle, not simply interest and power, but principle and power.”

Morse, the son of immigrants Morris Moscovitz and Sara Werblin, was born in New York on May 31, 1907. He grew up in Somerville, New Jersey and attended Rutgers University, graduating in 1929. Deciding on a legal career, he studied law at Harvard University and was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1933. In 1937 he married Mildred E Hockstader, daughter of Leonard Hockstader and Aline Straus and granddaughter of Oscar S Straus, Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Theodore Roosevelt. The union, which spanned 53 years, could not have been happier.

Morse’s interest in and commitment to the public welfare in general and labour concerns in particular were evidenced by his involvement in the New Deal of the Roosevelt administration. Between 1933 and 1939 he held a number of governmental posts, including Chief Counsel for the Petroleum Labor Policy Board of the Department of Interior, Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, and Regional Attorney for the Second Region of the National Labor Relations Board. The objectivity he would be called on to exhibit as head of the ILO was apparent in his appointment in 1941 as Impartial Chairman of the milk industry of metropolitan New York. On leaving the public service, Morse became a named partner in the law firm of Coult, Satz, Tomlinson, and Morse. He also found time to lecture on labour relations, labour law, and administrative law at various educational institutions.

Shortly after the United States entered the Second World War, Morse joined the Army. From 1943 to 1944 he served as head of the Labor Division of the Allied Military Government in Sicily and Italy, where he formulated and implemented labour policies and programs for the American and British liberators. He filled a similar role from 1944 to 1945 as head of the Manpower Division of the United States Group Control Council for Germany. One of his tasks was to work with representatives of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States to harmonise their approach to labour matters in occupied Germany, an involvement which undoubtedly helped to prepare him for his work at the ILO. At the war’s end, he held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and, in 1946, was awarded the Legion of Merit.

On his return to the United States, Morse re-entered civilian life as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a post he held from 1945 to 1946 when President Harry Truman named him Assistant Secretary of Labor. In this capacity, he focused his attention on the creation of the Department's Program of International Affairs.

Named Under Secretary of Labor in 1947, he briefly filled the position of Acting Secretary on the death of Lewis Schwellenbach in 1948.
It was in this year, too, that Morse embarked on the most significant phase of his career, that of Director-General of the ILO. He was no stranger to this organisation, having represented the government of the United States as a member of its Governing Body and as a delegate to its annual International Labor Conference. His election to the post of Director-General, which entailed a move to Geneva, brought with it many challenges. It is a measure of his success in facing them that the ILO changed the regulations which would have limited his tenure to a single ten-year term, renewable for three years, to allow for his re-election, which occurred in 1957, 1962, and 1967. (In 1961, he resigned but was persuaded to reconsider.)

Morse brought to his new position a broad and vigorous vision of the potentiality of his office and the ILO as a whole. He exercised a leadership which was at once impartial and engaged and which incorporated three fundamental principles: the need for socio-economic reform, the importance of the rule of law, and integrity. Integrity was a quality he demanded of everyone who worked with him, and he was equally protective of the integrity of the ILO, deftly resisting political pressure, whether it stemmed from the rivalries of the superpowers or the process of decolonisation. As an American, he was particularly vulnerable to the animus of McCarthyism, but he weathered this storm with firmness and dignity.

According to Gullmar Bergenstrom, Vice-Chairman of the Governing Body from 1969 to 1979, “Morse was both Director and General. As Director [he was] a most skilful administrator. He appointed the right people to the various top posts in the Office, which was, of course, a policy decision of highest importance. As General he aggressively defended the ILO's sphere of competence against various young mushrooming and sometimes self-propelling agencies with ambitions to encroach on the ILO field.” There was a manifest need for each of these functions. The organisation Morse inherited was a product of the Treaty of Versailles, and, amid the burgeoning international bodies of the time, its relevance was under threat. He immediately set out to revitalise the ILO along three lines.

First, Morse believed that the ILO could not be a static entity but, rather, would have to adapt to new circumstances if it was to be an effective force for good in the world. He therefore expanded its sights and its reach beyond its traditional role as a setter of international labour standards. Under his leadership, sweeping organisational changes took place. The membership of the ILO grew from 52 to 121 nations, giving it a universal character. Its staff increased fivefold, from some 600 to some 3,000 men and women of diverse nationality. Its annual budget rose from about $4,000,000 to about $60,000,000. Morse laid the foundation for a new headquarters and established an extensive network of field offices. The educational activities of the ILO were given a new impetus with the establishment of the International Institute for Labour Studies in Geneva and the International Centre for Advanced Technical and Vocational Training in Turin.

Second, Morse believed that the ILO had a global commitment to build peace, and that orderly socio-economic change within countries was a prerequisite for peace between countries. Whether the issue was a labour dispute in the ILO itself, the credibility of the labour movement in the Soviet Union, or apartheid in South Africa, Morse maintained that the best way to achieve change was to effect it through existing socio-economic institutions within the rule of law. He insisted, too, that the ILO’s contribution to peace building be truly tripartite, involving workers, governments, and employers in a common quest for a more just world. Morse's commitment to this principle was nowhere more evident than in his position on the 1969 Nobel Peace Prize, a personal tribute as much as an organisational one. Francis Wolf, Legal Adviser of the ILO from 1963 to 1987, was instructed to contact the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament to request that the award be given solely to the ILO lest individual accomplishments overshadow tripartite ones. Accordingly, on December 10, 1969, Morse accepted the Nobel Peace Prize “On behalf of all our constituents, governments as well as employers and workers of our 121 member States, on behalf of all my staff, and in tribute to all those who in the past have faithfully served our Organisation.”

Third, Morse believed that symbolism, however potent, was no substitute for action. He won a reputation as a “practical idealist” as he initiated new forms of technical assistance to enable countries to meet the standards and abide by the principles espoused by the ILO. Underdevelopment and the poverty which betokened it became a major preoccupation for him, though in focusing on the myriad needs of the developing world, he did not neglect the problems confronting industrialised societies. Among the issues Morse addressed through new programmes and emphases were labour-management relations, workers’ education, management development, supervisory training, manpower planning and employment creation, rural development, and promotion of small-scale industries. The World Employment Programme, launched in 1969, was one of Morse’s principal legacies. It sought to raise the employment level and, thus, the quality of life of millions of marginalised men and women through such measures as stemming the migration of populations from rural to urban areas. When Morse relinquished his post as Director-General in 1970, the ILO, once a frail survivor of the discredited League of Nations, could take satisfaction in a new vitality and a new prominence.

Morse did not rest on his laurels upon his return to the United States. He took up the practice of international law in New York and Washington, DC, assuming a leading role in his firm, which grew considerably in the years which followed. His concern for the welfare of the global community did not abate. He served as an adviser to the United Nations Development Programme, chairing its Advisory Panel on Programme Policy, and was active in such organisations as the World Rehabilitation Fund, the United Nations Association of the United States of America, and the Council on Foreign Relations. His contribution to these and other bodies was highly valued. As David Rockefeller, Honorary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in 1994, “He was a man of extraordinary quality and distinction who devoted the major part of his life to public service . . . . David was an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations for some 30 years, and to many here and around the world, he was a staunch and trusted friend.”

Morse’s life was crowned with many achievements, and the list of honours he acquired is long. In addition to holding a number of honorary doctorates, he was decorated by countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. France made him a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour, the highest decoration a foreign national can receive. He also received the Meritorious Public Service Award of the Sidney Hillman Foundation and the Human Rights Award of the International League for the Rights of Man.
What Morse did in life was very much a reflection of whom he was, and it is perhaps in the realm of intangibles that he left his most enduring mark. According to Francis Blanchard, Director-General of the ILO from 1974 to 1989, “David Morse was such a remarkably successful leader because he was such a remarkable human being. His warm personality and great personal charm had an almost magic effect on all with whom he came into contact . . . . Those of us who worked with him in the International Labour Office remember with admiration, respect and affection how deeply he influenced our work and our lives.”

The Morse Papers shed ample light on his activities, the concerns which animated them, and the relationships in which they were centred. There is material on both the public and private aspects of his life and career. Researchers can expect to encounter both the large and the small in Morse’s life - from his views on internationalism to his views on small-town New Jersey - and in the process, construct a rounded picture of an influential public figure in the last half of the twentieth century.

Throughout his life, Morse met and corresponded with many individuals of national and international significance concerning labour issues. This collection contains correspondence or records of discussion with Dean Acheson, Leonid Brezhnev, Dwight D Eisenhower, Dag Hammarskjöld, Averell Harriman, Paul G Hoffman, C Wilfred Jenks, David Lilienthal, George Marshall, Leopold Senghor and U Thant.

<back