Donald R. Morris

Donald Robert Morris (November 11, 1924 – December 4/5, 2002) was an American naval officer, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, novelist, military historian and foreign affairs writer. He joined the navy in 1942 and after World War Two studied electrical engineering at the United States Naval Academy. Morris served in the Korean War before joining the CIA in 1956, for whom he carried out anti-espionage duties in Berlin, Paris, Kinshasa and Vietnam. Morris had published a novel, China Station, in 1951 and in 1957 published Warm Bodies, based on his naval service; this was made into the film All Hands on Deck in 1961. In 1965 he published The Washing of the Spears, a history of the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, a book he had worked on mainly during a five-year posting in Berlin. Morris retired from the CIA in 1972 and became a foreign affairs column writer for the Houston Post. He later published his own foreign affairs newsletter.