(David) Dean Rusk

US secretary of state (1961–9), born in Cherokee Co, Georgia, USA. He studied at Davidson College and at Oxford, and in 1934 was appointed associate professor of government at Mills College, Oakland, CA. After World War 2, he held various governmental posts: special assistant to the secretary of war (1946–7), assistant secretary of state for UN affairs, deputy under-secretary of state, and assistant secretary for Far Eastern Affairs (1950–1). In 1952 he was appointed president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and from 1961 was secretary of state under Kennedy, in which capacity he played a major role in handling the Cuban crisis of 1962. He retained the post under the Johnson administration, retiring in 1969. After leaving public service, he became professor of international law at the University of Georgia.

David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F.

Dean Rusk was born in Cherokee County, Georgia, where his name was given to a local middle school. Rusk then went to Davidson College in North Carolina and joined the fraternity KA, graduating in 1931 and then went to St. John's College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, he received the Cecil Peace Prize in 1933.1934 to 1940 he taught at Mills College in Oakland, California.

He returned to America to work briefly for the War Department in Washington. He joined the Department of State in February 1945 working for the office of United Nations Affairs. He was made Deputy Under Secretary of State in 1949. He was made Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs in 1950 and played an influential part in the US decision to become involved in the Korean War, and also Japan's postwar compensation for victorious countries, such as the Rusk documents. Rusk had become a Rockefeller Foundation trustee in April 1950 and in 1952 he left the Department of State in 1952 to succeed Chester L. On December 12, 1960, Rusk was named Secretary of State, assuming his office in January, 1961.

As Secretary of State he was consistently hawkish, a believer in the use of military action to combat Communism.

Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.

Following his retirement, he taught international law at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia (1970-1984).

He was the second-longest serving Secretary of State, behind Cordell Hull.

He married Virginia Foisie in 1937 and they had three children.