WAYNE MORSE - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 34654

WAYNE MORSE.
Maverick Senator who voted against Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Photograph inscribed and signed: "To - Norm Schulman - Thanks for your/friendship -/Wayne Morse". B/w, 5x7. Fine condition. Accompanied by an unsigned telegram from Morse (2p, 8½x5½), 1968 September 29, proposing to his campaign opponent, Robert Packwood, a televised debate. Lightly creased. File holes at top; printer holes at each side. Ink notes (unknown hand) on page 1. Wayne Morse (1900-1974) represented Oregon in the U.S. Senate (1945-1969). First elected as a Republican, Morse quit the Party in 1952 to protest Richard Nixon's selection as its Vice Presidential candidate. After an interval as an Independent, he won his last two terms as a Democrat. In 1953, Morse set a record for the longest one-man filibuster in Senate history, speaking continuously for 22 hours and 26 minutes to block action on proposed oil legislation (His record was later beaten by Senator Strom Thurmond's 1957 filibuster of a civil rights bill.) In 1964, Morse was one of only two members of the U.S. Congress to vote against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a broad authorization for President Lyndon Johnson to use force in Vietnam. Both Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, claimed that the resolution gave them the authority to wage war in Southeast Asia without a formal Congressional Declaration of War. Morse lost his bid for a fifth term to Robert Packwood (by only 3,000 votes) in 1968. Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1973. Morse was campaigning again for a Senate seat when he died. Two items.