Abram Named President of American Jewish Committee; is U.S. Aide

The American Jewish Committee today announced the appointment of Morris B. Abram, prominent communal leader and attorney, as president of the organization. He succeeds A.M. Sonnabend, Boston industrialist, who died last Tuesday of a heart attack in Palm Beach, Fla.

Mr. Abram, who was chairman of the executive board of the American Jewish Committee, is currently the United States representative to the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. In this position, he recently submitted a draft convention on the problem of racial and religious discrimination, and he has been especially active in drawing international attention to anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. He was also the first legal chief of the Peace Corps at the time of its formation.

A native of Fitzgerald, Georgia, Mr. Abram is now practicing law in New York. He has served as an attorney in crucial cases dealing with major civil rights and civil liberties issues. He was the attorney in a 1962 case before the Atlanta Federal District Court which struck down Georgia’s county unit election system, and its denial of voting rights to the people of the state’s more populous counties. The case was affirmed on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus bringing to an end Mr. Abram’s 14-year effort to outlaw this voting system.

Mr. Abram was graduated from the University of Georgia, summa cum laude, and received a Doctor of Jurisprudence Degree from the University of Chicago Law School. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he was named a Rhodes Scholar and earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees at Oxford University, England. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Force, where he rose to the rank of major, and was awarded the Legion of Merit. He was a member of the American prosecution staff at the Nuremburg trials.