Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-KY), while he was a member of the Warren Commission: “I think Lyndon Baines Johnson was involved in the planning and execution of Kennedy’s death.” Source: his aide Morris Wolff (born 11-30-1936 and still alive in November, 2023)
Morris
Wolff contact info: phone 352-753-0105 and email is moewolff657@gmail.com
QUOTE
He
was still by something that had just occurred, and he sputtered, “They have it
all wrong. They refuse to look at the facts. The forensics are right there. One
bullet came in from the front, and the President grabbed his neck, and his head
shot back in the open limousine. The car had slowed down in front of the Texas
School Depository. The next shot came in from the back, from a window on the 7th
floor, the top floor of the Book Depository building on Dealey Plaza. A third
shot came from behind the motorcade, jerking his head backward as he slowly
passed the area. It was the shot fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, one of two or
three killers. At least two were active that day, one from in front and the second
from the back. The forensics clearly show there were at least two separate shooters,
and they were standing in different places, one from the grassy knoll and one
high in the office building. Our
new President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, now wants to cover up and move on. I want
to delay and get all the facts. They are covering the facts and putting
their collective heads in the sand. LBJ pretends to give me the green light to
press forward with the investigation. But he is secretly telling the others to
bring the hearings to a quick close.”
Senator Cooper was boiling mad,
somewhat out of control for the only time that I had ever witnessed. “They want
to bury the truth under a pile of stones. I think Lyndon Baines Johnson was
involved in the planning and execution of Kennedy’s death.”
As
his driver to and from the Warren Commission hearings, I got to hear the latest
scoop on the way back. I was not just his legal counsel but also had become “Maxie
the Taxi.” Cooper selected me to convey him to and from the Supreme Court building
for the hearings headed by Earl Warren , and that was a lesson van.
UNQUOTE
[Morris Wolff, Lucky Conversations: Visits With the Most Prominent People of the 20th Century, p. 112]
Although a Republican, Sen. John Sherman Cooper was a liberal Republican and he was very close to President Kennedy - so close that JFK and Jackie went to the Cooper's residence in Georgetown to have dinner a mere 8 days after JFK was sworn in as president!
And later JFK and Jackie had the Coopers over to the White House private quarters to have dinner (almost no one gets invited to the private residence of a White House president; you have to be really special to get that invitation)
About Morris Wolff:
[Morris
Wolff, Lucky Conversations: Visits With the Most Prominent People of the 20th
Century, p. 112] Lucky
Conversations: Visits With the Most Prominent People of the 20th Century:
Morris Wolff, Karen Weber: 9781622495986: Amazon.com: Books
Amazon:
Author Morris Wolff was an agent
of change. He established the first international AIESEC Secretariat in Geneva
in 1960 with exchanges in 33 member nations. Morris worked closely in 1963 in the Oval Office with
President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy in writing the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and getting it passed in the U.S. Senate with John
Sherman Cooper of Kentucky.
Morris Wolff remains a man of wisdom and purpose,
courage, integrity, and stamina and he gets things done. Morris is a man
constantly on the move whose incredible life story of perseverance and a
positive mental attitude you will enjoy. He is a forward person who loves to
reach out and meet new people and hold meaningful and enjoyable conversations.
His ingenuity led to his impromptu meeting in Ghana, with President Kwame
Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo in 1960. He met with Nelson Mandela in
prison in South Africa in 1993. He later helped negotiate the peaceful
transition of power from Prime Minister Willem de Klerk to President Nelson
Mandela without a single drop of bloodshed or violence.
David S. Wolff of
Houston is the brother of Morris Wolffe: https://wolffcompanies.com/about/leadership/david-s-wolff/
“Morris Wolff talks
about life, book” – news article from July 4, 2011:https://www.ocala.com/story/lifestyle/2011/07/05/morris-wolff-talks-about-life-book/31444041007/
Morris Wolff talks about life, book
The scholar and Villages resident investigated the
fate of a Swedish diplomat imprisoned in WWII.
https://www.ocala.com/story/lifestyle/2011/07/05/morris-wolff-talks-about-life-book/31444041007/
Morris
Wolff is not just another retiree at The Villages. He may enjoy biking,
swimming and playing tennis, but even though he has had a lifetime of accolades
and accomplishments, he is far from ready to retire and rest on his laurels.
Wolff
splits his time between The Villages and Daytona Beach, where he is an
associate professor and also director of the Quality Enhancement Plan at
Bethune-Cookman University, a program to strengthen the writing skills of
freshman at the predominantly black college.
"It's
wonderful to be privileged to become 74. You live your life in a way that you
just appreciate every day," Wolff said.
He
said he appreciates the ability to still make a difference, which he had done
most of his life.
Just out of Yale Law School, Wolff
found himself on the staff of then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Wolff
wrote sections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and remembers the many Saturday
brainstorming sessions when Kennedy, with his dog Boomer, sat with his staff
and discussed the best way to go about writing the historic bill.
"They were amazing learning
sessions for a young lawyer," said Wolff.
As a legal counsel to the White House,
Wolff also spent time in the Oval Office briefing President John F. Kennedy on
the Civil Rights Act and ultimately was assigned to brief Congress.
"It
was very exciting to be part and parcel of that, and to be a young lawyer
sitting at the elbow of these great men like Everett Dirksen, Hubert Humphrey
and John Sherman Copper, who became my senator," Wolff said.
To help in the politics of passing the
Civil Rights Act, Wolff was assigned as Legislative Aide to the Republican Senator
from Kentucky who led the effort to pass the historic Civil Rights Bill.
Around
that time, Wolff remembers it being a hot day in August when he accompanied his
friend and Yale classmate Marion Wright Edelman in the 1963 March On
Washington.
They
witnessed the "I Have A Dream" speech from the fifth row and met Dr.
Martin Luther King afterward.
"It
was just a march. I didn't realize at the time it would become such an iconic
moment," Wolff recalled.
Those
were not his first or last brushes with world leaders.
As
president of the International Association of Students of Economics and
Commerce, Wolff turned a chance encounter with Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah
and the Congo's Patrice Lumumba into a productive private meeting.
Years
later, he would turn a chance encounter with President Bill Clinton into
another private Oval Office session with a sitting President.
Wolff
is generous in relating such anecdotes, as well the gems of wisdom that helped
mold him. According to him, his father's favorite saying was, "The only
sin in life is to aim low."
Wolff
did not disappoint. He became a renowned international lawyer, a scholar, an
educator and a humanitarian.
Among his many accolades and honors are
the 1993 United Nations Peace Award for Humanitarian Service given at Carnegie
Hall on the same stage with Audrey Hepburn, and the National Council of
Christians and Jews Medal he was awarded in 1983 along with Rosa Parks.
In 2005, Wolff was honored by the US
Congress for his efforts to seek the release from the Soviet Union of Swedish
Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg saved the lives of more than 100,000
Jews, helping them escape during the Holocaust, only to be imprisoned by the
Russians at the end of WWII.
In
1983 the Wallenberg family asked Wolff to sue the Soviets for Raoul's release.
Rescuing Wallenberg was the subject of Wolff's meeting with Clinton.
With
the approval of Congress, Wolff secured a $39 million judgment and demand for
immediate release from the Soviets in a U.S. Court. The case has gone on for 27
years, with the original $39 million now worth $142 million.
While
many have considered Wallenberg long dead, Wolff said he recently received from
a source a copy of a KGB memo that proves Wallenberg was alive and being held
as recently as 1998.
"Whatever
Happened to Raoul Wallenberg" is the book Wolff has written about what he
calls his greatest case and accomplishment. It has garnered praise from people
including Clinton, Elie Wiesel and Anatole Scharansky.
Meanwhile,
Wolff shows no signs of slowing down.
"He
has this revolving mind," said Patricia Pawlowski, the life partner Wolff
calls "my angel."
"You
never know what the day is going to bring," Pawlowski said. "He's
always having these epiphanies."
According
to Wolff, the main epiphany that has guided him through the years is something
he learned as a Jewish/American exchange student in Germany after World War II:
"We are not here to disturb other people or to fight old battles, we are
here to make the world a better place."
Very Nice 2019 Psi Upsilon Fraternity article honoring Morris
Wolff, the former aide to Sen. John Sherman Cooper:
[“A
Lifetime of Serving Society: Morris Wolff, Gamma ’58 (Amherst),” Phil Upsilon
Fraternity, 2019]
A
Lifetime of Serving Society – Morris Wolff, Gamma ’58 (Amherst) (psiu.org)
At the age of 83, Morris Wolff, Gamma ’58 (Amherst) still rides
his bicycle eight to ten miles a day. Now living in central Florida, Wolff was
born and raised in Philadelphia. He considers himself to be a very lucky man as
he reflects on his life experiences and enjoys God’s humor and the craziness
that life brings about, especially when it comes to the people he has had the
opportunity to meet and work alongside with.
In more than eight decades of life, Morris Wolff has worn many
hats. He has been a husband, an author, a civil rights lawyer, a teacher, an
activist, and an advocate against injustice. He worked many years as a
respected and well-known human rights lawyer and has been sought out by many to
work in emancipation efforts for various groups of people, often working pro
bono.
“Wherever I saw
injustice, I felt called to help and to heal,” said Wolff as he explained how
he was inspired to write his first book, ‘Whatever Happened to Raoul
Wallenberg?,’ which tells the story about his efforts alongside the
Wallenberg family of Sweden to rescue Raoul after his wrongful imprisonment by
the Soviet Union following World War II. Wolff was contacted by
Wallenberg’s family after Wallenberg had already been in a Soviet prison for 39
years. Wallenberg had become the forgotten hero of the Holocaust and Wolff went
to work immediately to attempt to rescue him, suing the Soviet Union to secure
the Swedish diplomat’s release. Wolff won a $39 million verdict against the
Soviet Union and later joined forces with Israel’s officials and a former US
ambassador to rescue Wallenberg. Unfortunately, Wallenberg was never released.
Wolff’s passion for righting wrongs and interjecting when he
encountered injustice began from a young age. That pillar of confronting
injustice was an important part of his upbringing, and eventually led him to
join two of his three brothers who were also involved in Psi Upsilon Fraternity
at Amherst College.
One of Wolff’s favorite and lasting memories at Amherst is when
his fraternity brother, John Boettiger Gamma ’60 (Amherst), requested the
fraternity hold a tea party so that he could bring his grandma as a guest.
Boettiger wanted to show his grandmother where he lived and what he was doing
in college. His grandmother was none other than former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Wolff played an important role in this day that would leave an impression on
him forever, as he picked her up from the airport and transported her to the
Psi Upsilon house. As Wolff would find out quickly, this one-on-one time he
spent casually with Roosevelt would change his career trajectory forever, as
well as fuel Wolff’s fascination with meeting important people, which continued
to play a part in his life experiences in meeting Martin Luther King Jr.,
Robert Frost, John and Jackie Kennedy, and many more figure-heads.
Wolff describes Eleanor
Roosevelt as such a kind and gentle woman, who genuinely cared enough to sit
down and give guidance to young men such as himself. When Wolff first met
Roosevelt, he had been determined to go to Harvard Law School, but in the short
few hours he spent with Eleanor Roosevelt in transit, she encouraged Wolff to
attend Yale instead, a decision which impacted Wolff’s life greatly.
Roosevelt sustained her friendship with Morris Wolff, later
connecting him in September of 1958 with Fred Rodell, a progressive liberal
democrat and law professor at Yale. Wolff was drawn to Rodell’s unorthodox and
maverick nature, both characteristics Wolff felt as though he too embodied. He
quickly became Rodell’s research assistant and gained Rodell’s highest praise
with his passionate and well-researched work. “This is the finest piece of student research and writing
that I have seen in my 36 years of teaching law,” wrote Rodell on Morris’
research paper that would later be published in the Winter 1963 New Jersey Bar
Journal.
“Certain human beings deeply influenced me along the way,”
recalled Wolff while speaking of his time studying under Rodell.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Morris’ career propelled him into fulfilling his
passions as he was specifically chosen in 1963 to work for Robert “Bobby”
Kennedy in Washington D.C., making $5,200 as his annual salary. Working for
Kennedy, Morris became a key element in not only drafting parts of the Civil
Rights Acts, but also a bargaining chip in securing the votes to pass it.
“All of that started with Psi Upsilon and the visit from Eleanor
Roosevelt,” Wolff said.
One of Wolff’s greatest motivators continues to be his
discomfort and disdain for the misuse of power and injustices, particularly
within government. He is vocal about his dislike for bullies, whether it be
kids in the schoolyard, hazing in a fraternity, or those who are in political
power. Wolff is still consistently outspoken in these scenarios, and always has
been. He, only half joking, credits this to his Jewish heritage and his Quaker
educational background.
“They taught me to speak up when things were wrong and
unacceptable.”
Wolff explains that Psi Upsilon’s pillar, Service to Society,
rings most true to him and his life accomplishments. From his upbringing, to
his education, to his profession, he feels as though his life has truly been
devoted in his service to society. After working in the thick of the Civil
Rights movement and legislation, Wolff continued to embody service to
society. After spending some time in the justice system, Wolff saw a need
from the younger population to be equally and fairly represented. He began the
TAKE A BROTHER program of Philadelphia which was committed to saving hundreds
of young people from injustice within the justice system. The genius of the
program involved matching little boys in trouble with the law to outstanding
high school boys in the neighborhood in a mentorship fashion. Wolff partnered
with his wife Patricia, going into the public high schools to find these
outstanding boys to lead these wayward boys away from the life of crime. The
program awarded the high school boys with college scholarships. Wolff explains
that in Philadelphia at this time, many young kids were pushed through the
justice system without much of a chance to learn, grow, and become future
contributing members to society. The innovative program received a Points of
Light award from President George H. W. Bush.
“Psi U focuses on the human heart as a place of knowledge and
positive energy,” says Wolff, “This has motivated me to intervene and teach to
the heart of these youth, where others had failed.”
Sixty years after his time as an undergrad member in Psi
Upsilon, Wolff still recognizes the impact those four years of membership and
brotherhood had on him. He still maintains friendships with fellow brothers
Freddie Greenman, Gamma ’58 (Amherst) and John Lagomarcino, Gamma ’58 (Amherst)
after all this time. As he sang over the phone “O Dear Old Shrine,” one of many
songs Psi Upsilon members hold sacred, Wolff made it clear and apparent that
his love for the organization and friendships have not faded over the years. To
Wolff, Psi Upsilon’s motto, “Unto us has befallen a mighty friendship,” is the
brotherly oath that each brother belongs to each other, from the heart.
Morris and his wife Patricia at the 2019 176th Psi Upsilon Convention in Chicago.
“I’ve been very, very lucky,” Wolff concludes. “I am looking
forward to as many more years of health and happiness as possible.”
We’re proud to announce
Morris as a recipient of the David A.B. Brown, ΕΦ ’66, Distinguished Alumnus
Award. The Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest award which may be
bestowed upon an alumnus of Psi Upsilon for bringing honor to the Fraternity by
exemplifying the true spirit and meaning of brotherhood and moral leadership in all
that they do and say, for dedicated and unselfish service in pursuit of the
advancement of the Fraternity, and for demonstrating a commitment to serve the
educational environment, their community, and their country. We would like to
congratulate Brother Wolff on this award and thank him for all his hard work
and reflection on Psi Upsilon. We are honored to have him as a member of our
fraternity.
