Wayne Morse

In 1944, Morse won the Republican primary election for senator, unseating incumbent Rufus C. Holman, and then the general election that November.[5] To secure the support of the ultra-conservative wing of the Oregon Republicans in 1944, Morse had presented himself as being more right-wing than he really was, criticizing the New Deal in vitriolic terms through he also praised the wartime foreign policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[8]

Once in Washington, D.C., he revealed his progressive roots, to the consternation of his more conservative Republican peers.[5] Morse had intended to pull the Republican Party leftwards on the issue of union rights, a stance that put him at odds with many of the more right-wing Republicans.[9] Morse's political heroes were other progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette, and despite being a Republican admitted that he had voted in the 1944 presidential election for Franklin D. Roosevelt against the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey.[10] He was greatly influenced by the "one world" philosophy of Wendell Willkie, making it clear from the onset he was an internationalist, which caused much tension with the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Robert A. Taft who favored a quasi-isolationist foreign policy.[11]

Morse believed that World War II had been partly caused by American isolationism and in one of his first speeches before the Senate, in February 1945, called on the United States to join the planned organization that would replace the League of Nations, namely the United Nations (UN).[12] As a former law professor, Morse believed very strongly in international law, and in the same speech called upon the United Nations to be an "international police organization" with such powers as to enforce via military means international law against any nation that might break it and to be given the power to prevent rich nations from economically exploiting poor nations.[13] In another speech in March 1945, he called upon the two militarily strongest members of the "Big Three" alliance, namely the Soviet Union and the United States to work together after the war to preserve the peace and end poverty all over the world.[14] In a speech in November 1945, he declared his concern as he "watched some of the nations of the world taking a toboggan ride down the slopes of national aggrandizement and into the abyss of blind nationalism."[15] In the same speech, he deplored the "rattling of swords and manufacturing of atomic bombs" as he called the nations of the world to stop dividing themselves into "power blocs", to take their disputes to the World Court and for the UN to have control of nuclear weapons, which he maintained were too dangerous to be entrusted to any nation.[16]

In January 1946, after President Truman delivered an address criticizing Congress and defending his proposals,[17] Morse referred to President Truman's speech as a "sad confession of the Democratic majority in Congress under the President's leadership" and called for the election of liberal Republicans in the midterm elections that year.[18] Also in January 1946, Morse called on Congress to vote on President Truman's pending legislation, citing continued delay would produce "a great economic uncertainty" and add to "reconversion slow-up". He asserted that Americans were entitled to Congress being held accountable for the passage of bills.[19] In 1946, Morse cosponsored legislation proposing a full Senate investigation into labor dispute causes, saying in March, "I think we've got to find out whether certain segments of industry are out to wreck unions."[20] He was outspoken in his opposition to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which concerned labor relations.[21]

In April 1946, Morse in a speech denounced "blind national isolationism" and the tendency of many Americans to forgot about their responsibilities to the "one-world community" in which they lived.[22] He charged that too many Americans had a "holier than thou" attitude towards other nations and the assumption "that if any bad faith is ever practiced within the world of nations, it is always practiced by nations other than the United States."[23] Morse concluded that America had not always practiced "simon-pure" behavior and had economically exploited poor nations.[24] In a speech in February 1947, Morse called Wendell Willkie his principle inspiration in foreign policy, saying that "human rights cannot be nationalized or become the monopoly of any nation" and the nations of the world must work towards "a one-world philosophy of permanent peace."[25] Morse argued that a system of international law was needed to protect the weak nations from being dominated and exploited by strong nations.[26] Morse strongly criticized imperialism, saying neither the Netherlands or Great Britain were suitable allies for the United States, criticizing the Dutch for attempting to reconquer their lost colony of the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and the British for staying in the Palestine Mandate (modern Israel) against the wishes of the majority of people in Palestine, both Jewish and Arab.[27] Morse urged both the Dutch and the British to leave the Dutch East Indies and Palestine, saying they did not have the right to rule places where they were not wanted. He supported Zionism, arguing that after the Holocaust the Jews needed their own state, and urged Britain to leave Palestine so that a Jewish state to be called Israel could be created.[28]

Though Morse had early on called for the United States to work with the Soviet Union, as the Cold War began he supported the foreign policy of President Harry S. Truman as necessary to stop Soviet expansionism.[29] Morse voted for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, for the National Security Act and for the United States to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).[30]

In March 1948, Morse said he would support a tax reduction on the premise of world conditions worsening and Congress thereby being forced to recall the tax cut and admitted both his personal fear of large reductions and belief that Americans wanted tax cuts.[31]

In February 1949, during a Senate Labor committee session, Morse stated the Truman administration labor bill was not going to pass in the Senate based on how it was presently written and that "a lot of compromises must be made".[32] That year, Morse also put forward legislation that would impose national emergency strikes be handled on a case-by-case basis, the plan being turned down by the Senate on June 30 in a vote of 77 to 9. The vote was seen as a victory for supporters of the Taft-Hartley Act's provision allowing the government to get injunctions against critical strikes, though opposition was noted to have arisen from senators that did not favor this provision.[33]

In 1950, when Truman used United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 as the legal basis for committing U.S forces to action in the Korean War, Morse supported his decision.[34] At the time, Morse argued that Article 2 of the American constitution gave the president "very broad powers in times of emergency and national crisis" and that the resolution from the UN Security Council was binding.[35] At the same time, Morse also warned Truman to "not get sucked" into a war in Asia and condemned him for agreeing to support France in its efforts to hold onto Vietnam.[36] Taft was opposed to using Resolution 84 as the basis for going to war in Korea, and in subsequently brought More around to his viewpoint that Truman acted illegally by not asking Congress for a declaration of war.[37]

In November 1950, Morse stated his belief that the incoming 82nd United States Congress would attempt revamping the Taft-Hartley Act and while admitting his continued opposition to the law, acknowledged portions of the Act that he believed could be incorporated into subsequent legislation.[38]

Morse was reelected in 1950.[5] Earlier in that year, he was one of the six Senators who supported Margaret Chase Smith's Declaration of Conscience, which criticized the tactics of McCarthyism.[39]

Morse was kicked in the head by a horse in 1951. He sustained major injuries: the kick "tore his lips nearly off, fractured his jaw in four places, knocked out most of his upper teeth, and loosened several others."[40]

In protest of Dwight Eisenhower's selection of Richard Nixon as his running mate, Morse left the Republican Party in 1952.[41] Morse criticized the 1952 Republican platform with its call to repeal much of the New Deal and further felt that Eisenhower had shown cowardice by his refusal to publicly criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom Morse felt was a menace to American democracy.[42] The 1952 election produced an almost evenly divided Senate; Morse brought a folding chair when the session convened, intending to position himself in the aisle between the Democrats and Republicans to underscore his lack of party affiliation.[43] Morse expected to retain certain committee memberships but was denied membership on the Labor Committee and others. He used a parliamentary procedure to force a vote of the entire Senate, but lost his bid. Senator Herbert Lehman offered Morse his seat on the Labor Committee, which Morse ultimately accepted.[43]

Following Morse's defection, Republicans had a 48–47 majority; the deaths of nine other senators, and the resignation of another, caused many reversals in control of the Senate during that session.[44] In 1955, Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson persuaded Morse to join the Democratic caucus.[45]

In January 1953, after Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Charles E. Wilson as United States Secretary of State, Morse told reporters a possible objection to the nomination could stem from the more than 10,000 General Motors shares owned by the nominee's wife.[46] In February, Morse stated that Eisenhower was partly to blame for a waste of both American manpower and money as it pertained to overseas military bases, reasoning that this had occurred while he was commander of NATO forces in Europe under the Democratic administration of President Truman.[47] In July, Morse joined nine Democrats in sponsoring a bill proposing a revision of present law to add 13,000 people to Social Security and aid benefits increases.[48] Later that month, after the death of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft and questions arose of continued Republican control of the Senate, Morse confirmed his "ethical obligation" to vote with members of the party on organizational issues, citing his belief that he was acting on behalf of the American people given the Republicans gaining a majority in the 1952 elections.[49]

In 1953, Morse conducted a filibuster for 22 hours and 26 minutes protesting the Submerged Lands Act, which at the time was the longest one-person filibuster in U.S. Senate history (a record surpassed four years later by Strom Thurmond's 24-hour-18-minute filibuster in opposition of the Civil Rights Act of 1957). In 1954, with France on the verge of defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Eisenhower tentatively put forward a plan code-named Operation Vulture for American intervention. In a speech, Morse spoke against intervention, saying "The American people are in no mood to contemplate the killing of thousands of American boys in Indochina" on the basis of "generalities".[50] Morse also demanded that Congress be allowed to vote on Operation Vulture first, stating "if we get into another war, this country will be in it before Congress ever has time to declare war".[51] After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, Morse accused Eisenhower of making the same mistakes as France did by assuming that a military solution was the best solution to Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism.[52] Morse argued that the United States should work through the United Nations for a diplomatic solution of the Vietnam issue and to promote economic growth that would lift Vietnam out of its Third World poverty.[53] He argued that such a policy would give the Soviet Union "clear notice" that the world community intended to protect the nations of Indochina their "right to self-government until such time as free elections can be held".[54] About the Geneva Accords which ended the Indochina War, Morse accused the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, of having led America into "a diplomatic defeat of major significance."[55] In September 1954, Morse voted for the United States to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization because it conformed to the UN Charter.[56]

In late 1954, the First Taiwan Straits Crisis began and Morse led the fight in the Senate against what became the Formosa Resolution.[57] Morse argued that the "predated authorization" of military force that the Formosa Resolution allowed violated the constitution as he noted the constitution explicitly stated that Congress had the power to declare war, and at most the president can do is merely ask Congress to declare war if he feels the situation warrants such a step.[58] Morse proposed three amendments to the Formosa Resolution all of which were defeated.[59]

After a term as an independent, during which he campaigned heavily for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Richard Neuberger in 1954,[60] Morse switched to the Democratic Party in February 1955. The New York Times' Saturday, February 19, 1955 issue featured a front-page photograph of Morse with the caption, "Democrats Welcome Morse to the Fold." The New York Times' noted that Morse had made the switch and registered as a Democrat that Friday in his hometown of Eugene, Oregon.

In his book, Profiles in Courage, Sen. John F. Kennedy makes reference to Morse's time in the Republican and then later in the Democratic Party during Kennedy's tenure in the Senate.

When the Formosa resolution came to a vote in January 1955, Morse was one of the three senators who voted against the resolution.[61] In February 1955, during his first public appearance as a Democrat, Morse stated that the vote on the Formosa resolution would have been different if senators were not under the belief that a resolution for a ceasefire was going to be introduced the following week and that Americans did not want war with the Chinese.[62]

Despite his changes in party allegiance, for which he was branded a maverick, Morse won re-election to the United States Senate in 1956. He defeated U.S. Secretary of the Interior and former governor Douglas McKay in a hotly contested race; campaign expenditures totaled over $600,000 between the primary and general elections, a very high amount by then-contemporary standards.[63]

In March 1957 when King Saud of Saudi Arabia visited Washington and was hailed by Eisenhower as America's number one ally in the Middle East, Morse was not impressed.[64] In a speech before the Senate, Morse stated: "Here we are, pouring by the way of gifts to that completely totalitarian state, Saudi Arabia, millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money to maintain the military forces of a dictatorship. We ought to have our heads examined!"[65] Morse charged that Saudi Arabia's abysmal record on human rights made it an unacceptable ally.

In 1957, Morse voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He was the only Senator opposed to the bill who was not from the South.

In 1959, Morse opposed Eisenhower's appointment of Clare Boothe Luce as ambassador to Brazil. Morse, who had known Luce for many years,[40] chastised Luce for her criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt.[66] Although the Senate confirmed Luce's appointment in a 79–11 vote, Luce retaliated against him.[66] In a conversation with a reporter at a party before she departed for Brazil, Luce commented that her troubles with Senator Morse were attributable to the injuries he sustained from being kicked by a horse in 1951.[67] She also remarked that riots in Bolivia might be dealt with by dividing the country up among its neighbors.[66] An immediate backlash against these remarks from Morse and other senators, and Luce's refusal to retract the remark about the horse, led to her resignation[40] just three days after her appointment.[68]

On September 4, 1959, Morse charged Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson with having attempted to form a dictatorship over other Senate Democrats and with failing to defend individual senators' rights.[69]

Toward the end of the 1950s, Morse's relationship with Richard Neuberger, the junior senator from Oregon, deteriorated and led to much public feuding. The two had known each other since 1931, when Morse was dean of the University of Oregon law school, and Neuberger was a 19-year-old freshman. Morse befriended Neuberger and often gave him advice, and he used his rhetorical skill to successfully defend Neuberger against charges of academic cheating.[70] After the charges against him were dropped, Neuberger rejected Morse's advice to leave the university and start afresh elsewhere but instead enrolled in Morse's class in criminal law. Morse gave him a "D" in the course and, when Neuberger complained, changed the grade to an "F".[71]

External video
Presentation by Mason Drukman on Wayne Morse: A Political Biography, June 5, 1997, C-SPAN

According to Mason Drukman, one of Morse's biographers, even after the two men had become senators, neither could get past what had happened in 1931. "Whatever his accomplishments," Drukman writes, "Neuberger was to Morse a man flawed in character"[72] while Neuberger "could not forgive Morse either for propelling him out of law school ... or for having had to protect him in the honor proceedings."[73] Morse later helped Neuberger, who won his Senate seat in 1954 by only 2,462 votes out of more than a half-million cast, but he also continued to give Neuberger advice that was not always appreciated. "I don't think you should scold me so much," said Neuberger, as quoted by Drukman, in a letter to Morse during the 1954 campaign.[74]

By 1957, the relationship had deteriorated to the point where, rather than talking face-to-face, the senators exchanged angry letters delivered almost daily by messenger between offices in close proximity.[75] Although the letters were private, the feud quickly became public through letters leaked to the press and comments made to colleagues and other third parties, who often had trouble deciding what the fight was about.[76] Drukman describes the feud as a "classic struggle ... of dominating father and rebellious son locked in the age-old fight for supremacy."[77] The feud ended only with Neuberger's death from a stroke in 1960.[78]

Editorial cartoon from The Oregonian during Morse's run for the Democratic nomination.

Morse was a late entry in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. It began unofficially at a 1959 press conference held at the state capitol in Salem by local resident Gary Neal and other Morse supporters. They declared they would put Senator Morse on the ballot by petition.[79] As early as April 1959, Morse told a meeting of the state's Young Democrats that he had no intention of running. The group still voted to advance Senator Morse, after Congresswoman Edith Green introduced him as a favorite son.[80]

Gary Neal was persistent and by winter of 1959 was nearing completion of his signature petition to place Morse on the May ballot. Morse soon found himself at a meeting with Neal where they discussed his efforts. Neal said to Morse, "if we [supporters] don't put your name on the ballot, your enemies will."[81] It was clear the elephant in the room with Gary Neal and Wayne Morse was the Oregon Republican Party. Morse shot back about the Oregon Republicans, "I say to the Republican Party, trot out your governor. I'm ready to take him on."[81]

On December 22, 1959, Wayne Morse announced his candidacy for president.[82] He said at his announcement, "Although I would have preferred not to have entered the Oregon race, I shall not run away from a good political fight if it is inevitable."[82] The Morse for President Oregon Headquarters was located at 353 S.W. Morrison St. Portland, Oregon 97204.[83] The Morse entry into the presidential race did not sit well with many who had anticipated significant campaigning in Oregon from a large field of candidates. Morse was accused of flip-flopping on whether or not he would run.[84]

Morse filed to run in May primaries in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Oregon, in that order.[85] He had solid connections in all three areas. Oregon was his home and where his wife and family lived. He owned a small farm in Poolesville, Maryland,[86] and had spent fifteen years fighting for D.C. home rule, sponsoring legislation for that cause. Kennedy did not enter the D.C. primary.[87] Senator Hubert Humphrey was Morse's main opponent in the D.C. contest, which Humphrey won 7,831 to 5,866.[87]

Morse had known when he entered the Maryland contest that he was climbing an extremely steep hill, and had hoped to offset a potential loss there with a win in the District. John F. Kennedy was a Catholic and Maryland was the birthplace of the American Catholic church. Morse attempted to generate as much media coverage as possible. The New York Times caught wind of the Morse campaign and did their best to follow Morse around. Morse made his liberalism a key issue at every campaign stop. His remarks in Cumberland, Maryland suggest that Kennedy was anything but a liberal:

When the Eisenhower Administration took office one of its first objectives was to riddle the tax code with favors for big business and it did so with the help of the Senator from Massachusetts. We need a candidate who will reverse the big money and big business domination of government. We need a courageous candidate who will stand up and fight the necessary political battle for the welfare of the average American. Kennedy has never been willing to do that.[88]

As Morse had predicted, he lost to Kennedy in Maryland. Morse continued to pursue his liberalism strategy as the campaign moved to his home turf. Oregon Democrats prepared for a showdown between Morse and Kennedy, although five candidates would appear on the Oregon ballot. Humphrey, to this point Kennedy's main challenger in the primaries, had lost badly to Kennedy in West Virginia and had dropped out of the race.

The Kennedy campaign began to focus on Oregon. Its workers repeatedly denied that Morse was a serious candidate, but to make sure of a win, the campaign sent Rose Kennedy and Ted Kennedy to speak in Oregon and outspent Morse $54,000 to $9,000.[89] Morse often found himself responding to Kennedy's claim that he was not a "serious candidate", by proclaiming: "I'm a dead serious candidate."[90] Quietly, Oregon Democrats began to worry about what a loss for Morse would mean in 1962 against possible Republican challenger Governor Mark Hatfield. Morse would use this to his advantage to help sway undecided Democrats, claiming that if he lost in the primary, it would certainly help Republicans defeat him in 1962. Kennedy brushed off this argument by claiming that regardless of the outcome of the presidential primary, the people of Oregon had a tremendous respect for Wayne Morse and would send him back to the Senate, and that he would even come back to Oregon in 1962 to campaign for him.[91] On Election Day, Morse came up roughly 50,000 votes short of defeating Kennedy. Morse abandoned his presidential race that same week.[92]

Morse largely sat out the rest of the 1960 campaign. He even opted out of going to the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Instead he sat at home and watched it on television from Eugene.[93]

In September 1960, after Democrats James Eastland and Thomas Dodd asserted that lower-ranking officials in the State Department had cleared the way for the regime of Fidel Castro to reign in Cuba,[94] Morse denied the charge and stated that he knew of no basis for the claim.[95]

In February 1961, during a press release, Morse announced his intent to request $12 million for civil works in Oregon from Congress, furthering that the request would be based around information gathered by the Corps of Engineers and that the state of Oregon was facing "serious economic conditions".[96] In March 1961, after President Kennedy nominated Charles M. Meriwether for Director of the Export-Import Bank, Morse labeled Meriwether as racist and antisemitic. Morse added that President Kennedy owed an apology to every Jewish and black person in the United States as a result of the appointment.[97]

In April 1961, Morse was outraged by the Bay of Pigs invasion, and in a letter to the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, accused the Kennedy administration of acting unconstitutionally as he expressed his "deep regret" that Congress was not informed by the administration "prior to making its decision to intervene in the Cuban invasion through granting logistic and other support to the Cuban exiles."[98] In May 1961, Morse announced that the Senate Latin Affairs Committee would investigate reports that the United States was holding survivors of the Bay of Pigs Invasion incommunicado on U.S. submarine base in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Morse said the investigation had primarily been handled by White House staff instead of State Department officials.[99]

In January 1962, at the nomination hearing of John A. McCone whom Kennedy had nominated as CIA director, Morse accused the CIA having "an unchecked executive power that ought to be brought to an end".[100] Speaking of the Bay of Pigs invasion, he accused the CIA of engaging in reckless actions that could easily cause a war and stated: "We are in a situation in which we shall probably never again see Congress pass a declaration of war prior to the beginning of a war."[101]

In February 1963, Morse stated that the United States was providing France with more foreign aid "than any other country in the world" and that France was concurrently not fulfilling responsibilities as they pertained to NATO, adding that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would investigate how much aid France should receive from the US amid its continued defiance and France should be allowed to be independent foreign policy outside of the Atlantic alliance if President of France Charles De Gaulle wanted to.[102]

In February 1963, after President Kennedy contended that American air cover for the Cuban invasion was never promised, Morse stated that the comments were supported by the testimony of members of the Kennedy administration following the invasion and that the document containing the testimony should be made public as a result of "subsequent developments". Morse contended that the Kennedy administration-created Alliance for Progress was "a belated program" that should have been created during the previous decade at a time with lessened "critical and social pressures" and furthered that "a great mistake" would be made in believing the program would be successful in completing its goal within 10 years.[103]

In the spring of 1964, Morse began to call the Vietnam War "McNamara's War" after the hawkish Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.[104] In a speech on 17 April 1964, Morse stated "Not one voice has yet answered my contention that the United States, under the leadership of Defense Secretary McNamara, is fighting an illegal and unwise war in Vietnam.".[105] A month later on May 20, 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to vote for a request of additional $125 million dollars in aid to South Vietnam, Morse voted against the request, accusing Johnson of "trying by indirection to obtain congressional approval of our illegal, unilateral military action in South Vietnam without coming forward with a request for a declaration of war."[106]

By 1964, Morse had the reputation of being the "Typhoid Mary" of the Senate, an eccentric whose humorlessness and teetotalism made him widely disliked and shunned by the other senators.[107] Morse's refusal to drink alcohol under any circumstances together with a lack of humor that was legendary within the Senate excluded him the "Club" of the Senate, where important informal meetings were held in private in a convivial atmosphere where much alcohol was consumed. When Morse spoke before the Senate, he usually allowed only five to ten minutes to speak before the other senators voted to cut him off.[108] However, Morse was also known as a stubborn and cantankerous character who was determined to uphold Congress's powers against the presidency, and in a memo to President Johnson in March 1964, William Bundy predicated that Morse was the senator most likely to oppose a congressional resolution giving Johnson the power to wage war in Vietnam..[109]   

On August 7, 1964, Morse, who had won re-election in 1962,[41] was one of only two United States senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Alaska's Ernest Gruening was the other). Ten other senators voted "present" or missed the vote.[110] It authorized an expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. His central contention was that the resolution violated Article One of the United States Constitution, granting the president the ability to take military action in the absence of a formal declaration of war.[111] In a speech before the Senate, Morse stated "I rise to speak in opposition to the joint resolution [S.J. Res. 189]. I do so with a sad heart. But I consider the resolution, as I considered the resolution of 1955, known as the Formosa resolution, and the subsequent resolution, known as the Middle East resolution, to be naught but a resolution which embodies a predated declaration of war."[112]

In a speech on 18 February 1965, Morse in a speech “completely” repudiated Johnson's Vietnam policy, accusing the president of leading the United States into a war unconstitutionally.[113] When Johnson announced the beginning of the strategic bombing offensive against North Vietnam code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, Morse stated the president "has not the slightest legal right under the Constitution of the United States to be bombing North Vietnam, short of a declaration of war."[114] On 24 March 1965, the first campus protest against the Vietnam War took place with a "teach-in" at the University of Michigan.[115] In a letter to John Donoughue, the organizer of the protest at the University of Michigan, Morse praised the "Teach-in Protest" and stated: "It is urgent that the American people insist that their country return to a respect for law before we create a holocaust in Asia."[116] In April 1965, Morse took part in an anti-war protest for the first time when he spoke at a "teach-in" at the University of Oregon where he offered lavish praise for the student protesters, saying that as an old man it gladdened him to see so many young people willing to take a stand.[117] On 8 June 1965, Morse was the lead speaker at an anti-war rally attended by 17, 000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York.[118]

Senator Morse (right) seated with Senator J. William Fulbright during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the progress of the Vietnam War in 1966

During the following years Morse remained one of the country's most outspoken critics of the war. It was later revealed that the FBI investigated Morse based on his opposition to the war, allegedly at the request of President Johnson in an attempt to find information that could be used politically against Morse.[119] In June 1965, Morse joined Benjamin Spock, Coretta Scott King and others in leading a large anti-war march in New York City. After that, Morse "readily joined such protests when he could, and eagerly called upon others to participate."[120]

In February 1966, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright, held televised hearings about the Vietnam war, which Morse took part in as a member of the committee.[121] Johnson sent General Maxwell Taylor before the committee as a rebuttal witness. In response to Taylor's testimony, Morse said: "I happen to hold to the point of view that it isn't going to be long before the American people, as a people, will repudiate our war in Southeast Asia".[122] In response, Taylor stated "That of course, is good news to Hanoi, Senator".[123] An infuriated Morse snapped back: "I know that is the smear that you militarists give to those of us who have honest differences of opinion with you, but I don't intend to get down in the gutter with you and engage in that kind of debate, General!"[124]

In the 1966 U.S. Senate election, he angered many in his own party for supporting Oregon's Republican Governor, Mark Hatfield, over the Democratic nominee, Congressman Robert Duncan, in that year's Senate election, due to Duncan's support of the Vietnam War. Hatfield won that race, and Duncan then challenged Morse in the 1968 Democratic senatorial primary. Morse won renomination, but only by a narrow margin. Morse lost his seat in the 1968 general election to State Representative Bob Packwood, who criticized Morse's opposition to continued funding of the war as being reckless, and as distracting him from other issues of importance to the state.[111] Packwood won by a mere 3,500 votes, less than one half of one percent of the total votes cast.[125]