Robert J. Morris

Robert John Morris (September 30, 1914 – December 29, 1996) was an American anti-communist activist who served as chief counsel to the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security from 1951 to 1953 and from 1956 to 1958, was President of the University of Dallas and founded the now-defunct University of Plano.

Biography Morris grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, where his father actively opposed Frank Hague, the city's longtime mayor and Democratic Party boss of Hudson County. In the April 1958 primary, Robert Kean won the Republican nomination with 43% of the vote, defeating U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Appointments Secretary Bernard M. Shanley, who had 36%, and Morris, whose 70,000 votes represented more than 20% of the primary votes.

As a resident of Texas, Morris ran for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in both 1964 and 1970, being defeated both times by George Herbert Walker Bush, a Massachusetts native. Maddox, who had been described as the front-runner prior to the convention, won the nomination on the first ballot, Morris came in second with 80 delegates (23.6%) and Rarick had 79 (23.3%).

Back in New Jersey, Morris entered the 1982 Republican U.S. senatorial primary, dropping out of the race in May, saying that he had accomplished the goals he sought to achieve of bringing attention to Soviet expansionism and moral deterioration. The nomination went to Millicent Fenwick, a liberal Republican congresswoman, who was then defeated by Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

In 1984, Morris again ran in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, facing off against Mary V. Mochary, the Mayor of Montclair, New Jersey who had been guided by the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan. Mochary won the June primary with 61% of the vote, with Morris's 70,000 votes representing nearly 29% of the total.

Anti-Communist activism Morris was chosen as president of the University of Dallas in 1960. His outspokenness on anti-Communism and other issues created conflict within the school, and he left in 1962.

Building on the difficulties faced by one of his children, Morris founded the University of Plano in Plano, Texas in 1964 with a focus on the education of mildly disabled college-age students using techniques from the Doman-Delacato Method, such as crawling and creeping, that were intended to stimulate brain development. He remained at the school until 1977 and it closed its doors shortly thereafter.

Author and columnist Morris' column Around the World, was published for more than two decades, starting in 1960. The column appeared in newspapers including the Manchester Union Leader and The New York Tribune. His 1963 book Disarmament: Weapon of Conquest achieved a modicum of success after its publication in 1963, one of five books he wrote that mostly focused on the disintegrating world order.