Rusk, Dean (1909-1994), served as United States secretary of state from 1961 to 1969 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. As secretary of state, he became a leading spokesman for the Johnson administration’s Vietnam War policy.
Rusk was born David Dean Rusk in Cherokee County, Georgia, on Feb. 9, 1909. He graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1931 and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar in 1933 and 1934. In 1934, he became a political science professor at Mills College (now Mills College at Northeastern University) in California. He was made dean of the faculty at Mills in 1938.
Rusk joined the Department of State in 1946 and served as director of its office of United Nations affairs from 1947 to 1949. During these years, he helped bring the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into being. From 1950 to 1952, during the Korean War, Rusk served as assistant secretary of state for far eastern affairs. From 1952 to 1960, he was president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Rusk was made a “distinguished fellow” by the foundation in 1969. In 1970, he became a law professor at the University of Georgia. Rusk died on Dec. 20, 1994.
