Maritime Figure Morse Dies

Clarence G. Morse, a maritime official in the Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford administrations, died Monday in a Burlingame, Calif., hospital. He was 81 and was chairman of the Federal Maritime Board when it and the Atomic Energy Commission authorized the construction of the first U.S. nuclear-powered merchant ship in the late 1950s.

The cause of death was not announced.

Morse, who retired from his admiralty law practice in 1979, served as both the chairman of the Federal Maritime Board and as federal maritime administrator between 1955 and 1960. He was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971 to serve another term on the Federal Maritime Commission, by then the new name for the board which operates within the Commerce Department.

A 1928 graduate of the University of California, he practiced law in San Francisco before being appointed general counsel to the maritime board in 1954. The next year President Dwight D. Eisenhower made him the nation’s federal maritime administrator.

During his tenure, trade routes were established through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Great Lakes and more than 125 merchant ships were either constructed or authorized. The period marked the end of America’s dominance of the commercial seas, however, as foreign-flag vessels began to haul more of the world’s cargo.

At the end of the Eisenhower Administration, Morse became president of the Pacific Far East Line. He later went into private law practice. Nixon then reappointed him to the commission, and he left it in 1977.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne, and two daughters from a previous marriage.