20 December 1994 - The Legacy of Dean Rusk

On this day in 1994, Dean Rusk died at the age of 83. Rusk served as Secretary of State from 1961-1969, in both the John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations.

Rusk's diplomatic skills helped diffuse the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and helped the United States and Soviet Union come to agreement on the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, ending the practice of above-ground testing of nuclear weapons. Rusk was proponent of the Domino Theory of foreign policy, and therefore a strong supporter of the United States intervention in Viet Nam.

After Nixon's election in 1968, Rusk came to the University of Georgia where he taught International Law until 1985, when he took emeritus status. In 1977, the University created the Dean Rusk Center for International, Comparative, and Legal Graduate Studies. He is buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery.

Learn More:

• As I Saw It by Dean Rusk in the Heritage and general collections.
• Waging Peace and War: Dean Rusk in the Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson Years by Thomas J. Schoenbaum in the general collection.
• Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy in the general collection.
• Thirteen Days (2000 film) in the DVD collection.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis by Susan Clinton in the children's collection.
• The Dean Rusk Center at UGA.