Arthur D. Morse

Morse died June 1, 1971, as a result of a motor vehicle accident in which he was a passenger, while attending a conference in Yugoslavia on “The New Frontiers of Television.”

Morse’s best selling book, “While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy” was published in 1968 by Random House, concerning the controversy over the United States and Allied response to the Holocaust during the Second World War. Morse indicts the Roosevelt administration, and particularly the US State Department and certain officials in it responsible for refugee and Jewish affairs, for failing to act when there was a possibility of rescuing substantial numbers of Jews from annihilation by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Morse resigned from CBS in 1965 to write “While Six Million Died”. After its publication, he helped found the International Broadcast Institute (IBI) in 1969, headquartered in Rome, and served as its executive director.

Morse was the author of several books on the social issues of his time, such as “Schools of Tomorrow — Today” published by Doubleday in 1960 and covering diverse topics such as team teaching and summer programs for gifted students.

In 1953, he joined CBS News and became a reporter- director for Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now television series. He was a producer-writer for CBS television documentaries on major American social issues during the 1950s and 1960s, such as the first presentation of the cigarette-lung cancer connection and public school desegregation.

Morse further criticized President Roosevelt for abdicating moral leadership on the issue until Morgenthau’s report forced his hand in 1944. Morse also criticizes the British for supporting the rescue of European Jews while keeping Mandatory Palestine closed to refugees, and Pope Pius XII for his public silence in the face of the information about the genocide taking place that was made known to him too.

Morse contended that Secretary of State Cordell Hull and several State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long, and Foreign Service officer Robert Borden Reams, in charge of the so-called “Jewish question” in the State Department’s Division of European Affairs, consistently delayed, obstructed or opposed efforts to save Jews from the Nazis in Europe, or to admit them as refugees into the United States. As one example, he cites that as early as August 1942, Gerhart Riegner, a representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva received information from a reliable German source that Hitler had ordered the extermination of all the Jews in Europe, and reported it to the U.S. Consulate in Geneva. The State Department did not act upon this information or transmit the message to American Jewish leaders as Riegner had requested.

Arthur David Morse (December 27, 1920 – June 1, 1971) was an author and television producer for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and a World War II historian. As a journalist, he worked both in print and television and concerned himself with investigating the social issues of his day. As an author, he is best known for “While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy”, his book concerning the inaction and disregard of the United States government, especially the State Department, for the genocide of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War.