Morris B. Abram papers

Morris Berthold Abram was born in 1918 into a Jewish family in Fitzgerald, Georgia, the son of Sam Abram, a Romanian immigrant, and Irene Cohen Abram. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia) in 1938. Abram then was selected as a Rhodes Scholar; however, his admission to the University of Oxford (Oxford, England) was delayed due to World War II. Instead, he attended the University of Chicago Law School (Chicago, Illinois), where he received a Juris Doctor degree in 1940 before serving as an U.S. Army Air Corps public relations officer. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Oxford, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a master's degree in 1952. During his time at Oxford, he joined the staff of the International Military Tribunal prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Abram was a civil rights attorney. Abram spent fourteen years in a legal battle to overturn the county unit system in Georgia, culminating in the Supreme Court case Gray v. Sanders (1963). In 1963 he joined the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (New York, New York). In addition, Abram was appointed to several government posts in the 1960s, including as the chief counsel to the Peace Corps, the United States member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorites, and the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Abram was also active in Jewish advocacy organizations and a leader in Jewish public life. He served as president of the American Jewish Committee (1963-1968), before serving as president of Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts) from 1968-1970. In the 1980s, Abram chaired two important Jewish advocacy organizations, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (1983-1988) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (1986-1989).

In 1973, Abram was diagnosed with leukemia. Despite receiving a terminal diagnosis, Abram survived his battle with the illness, which prompted him to write an autobiography, The Day Is Short (1982). Abram went on to serve on several commissions related to health care issues and medical ethics: the New York State Moreland Act Commission on Nursing Homes and Residential Facilities (1975-1976), the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979-1983), and the National Leadership Committee on Health Care (circa 1987-1989).

In his later life, Abram served in several presidential appointed roles. President Ronald Reagan appointed Abram as vice-chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1986). In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Abram as the Permanent Representative of the United States to the European Office of the United Nations, a post which he held until 1993. In 1990 he served as the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

In 1993 Abram founded the United Nations Watch, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and became a vocal critic of the United Nations.

Abram was married three times, to Jane Maguire (married 1944-1974), Carlyn Fisher (married 1975-1987), and Bruna Molina (married 1990 until his death in 2000). He had five children with Jane Maguire Abram: Ruth; Ann; Morris Berthold, Jr.; Adam; and Joshua.