120 Days in Deep Hiding: Outwitting Iraqis in Occupied Kuwait

by Dr. Robert E. Morris, MPH'86

"Dr. Robert Morris' story unfolds explosively on August 2, 1990 as Saddam unleashes his rapacious Republican Guards on Kuwait. Escaping an early capture by Iraqi soldiers, the ex-naval officer and Vietnam veteran went into deep hiding in the heart of occupied Kuwait City. For 120 days, Morris and his fellow fugitives led lives of "quiet desperation" to evade the Iraqis. Only yards from headquarters, the groups set up strict rules to avoid capture in the endless round-ups. In time, the group was riven by fear and isolation, experiencing paranoia and claustrophobia. Who among them would flip first? Go berserk? Betray them? Morris' tale is replete with strife, suffering and perilous encounters, and the proof how one can overcome desperate adversity to achieve a moral victory. How he effected his escape only adds to the drama."

--copy from book jacket

Robert E. Morris, MPH ’86, is a native of Boston, Massachusetts and a graduate of the Boston Latin School. He has worked in international health in several countries and continents over the past three decades.

A graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Maryland, he served two years in the U.S. Navy as a Dental Officer-- one of those two years on combat assignment with the U.S. Marine Corps near DaNang, Vietnam. He was decorated by the U.S. Navy for his humanitarian work in Vietnam.

After a private practice in San Francisco, and teaching and developing a health services project at the University of Maryland, he joined the United Nations Development Programme and the Pan American Health Organization as a consultant in training and education based in Trinidad, West Indies. He advised over 13 countries in the Caribbean and South America over the next decade, developing policy, educational and clinical programs in primary health care.

In 1985 he and his family returned to the United States and he attended the Harvard School of Public Health as a Kellogg Fellow. He was then recruited by the State of Kuwait to up-grade its national oral health services. He was there in his Kuwait City apartment on Aug. 2 1990 when the Iraqi Army invaded the tiny Arab emirate. Ironically, his wife Jill and his two children Anna and Trish--vacationing in her native Trinidad—had been caught up in an attempted coup the same week. After a series of remarkable escapades over some 140 days in Kuwait, he returned to the U.S. on a false passport.

When the Gulf War ended, he and his family returned to Kuwait where he led a team of experts in rebuilding the oral health services of the national health care system. He returned with his family to the United States in 1999 and is retired.