Thruston B. Morton
{{Infobox officeholder
|name=Thruston Ballard Morton, Sr.
|image=Thruston Morton of KY.jpg
|office=United States Senator for Kentucky
|term_start=January 3, 1957
|term_end=December 16, 1968
|preceded=Earle Chester Clements
|succeeded=Marlow Cook
|office2=Chairman of the Republican National Committee
|term_star2=July 1, 1959
|term_end2=June 2, 1961
|predceded2=Meade Alcorn
|succeeded=William Edward "Bill" Miller
|office3=U. S. Representative for Kentucky's 3rd congressional district
|term_start3=January 3, 1947
|term_end3=January 3, 1953
|preceded3=Emmet O'Nea]
|successor3=John M. Robsion, Jr.
|birth_dateAugust 19, 1907
|birth_place=Louisville, Kentucky
|death_date=August 14, 1982 (aged 74)
|death_place=Louisville, Kentucky
|resting_place=Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville
|religion=Episcopalian
|spouse=Belle Clay Lyons Morton (1909-1995; married 1931-1982, his death)
|children=Thruston Morton, Jr. (1932-2017)
Clay Lyons Morton, Sr. (born 1936)
|alma_mater=Yale University
(Bachelor of Arts)
|branch=[[United States Navy}}
|unit=Naval Reserve
|battles=World War II
}}
Thruston Ballard Morton, Sr. (August 19, 1907 – August 14, 1982), was a Moderate Republican member of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He was also an assistant secretary of state in the early portion of the Dwight Eisenhower administration and chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1959 to 1961.
A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Morton attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1929. He was the chairman of the board of his family business, Ballard & Ballard Flour Milling, subsequently sold to the Pillsbury Company. He was also a banker. and the chairman of Churchill Downs, the horse-racing arena.[1]
Morton's brother, Rogers Clark Ballard Morton (1914-1979), was a U.S. Representative in Maryland from 1963 to 1971, when U.S. President Richard M. Nixon named him Secretary of the Interior. Rogers Morton also served as Secretary of Commerce under President Gerald Ford 1976 campaign against the Georgia Democrat former Governor Jimmy Carter.
After his United States Navy service in World War II, Morton in the Republican year of 1946 defeated the Democratic incumbent, Emmett O'Neal (1887-1967), in the Louisville-based 3rd congressional district, 61,899 votes to O' Neal's 44,599 votes. He did not seek re-election to the House in 1952 and was appointed assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affirs.[2]
In the 1956 Senate election, Morton narrowly unseated long-term Democratic incumbent Earle Chester Clements (1896-1985), a former Kentucky governor and
506,903 votes to 499,922. Morton was re-elected to a second term in the U.S. Senate in 1962, when he defeated former Louisville mayor and Lieutenant Governor Wilson Watkins Wyatt (1905-1996).
Morton opposed the U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War and supported the unsuccessful presidential candidacy of New York [[Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who fell far short in his challenge to the nomination of Richard Nixon for a second attempt at the presidency..
References
- ↑ Thruston Ballard Morton (1907-1982) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 8, 2021.
- ↑ Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p. 658.
