Dean Rusk (1909–1994)

2999 As I Saw It, by Dean Rusk as told to Richard Rusk edited by Daniel S.Papp (read 6 Aug 1997) I found this book exceptionally interesting. The part before he became Secretary of State was all new to me--when he was named in 1960 I did not remember ever hearing of him before. He was born on a farm in Cherokee County, Georgia. in 1909, and in sixth grade was so poor he sometimes went to school barefoot. He went to Davidson, and then as a Rhodes scholar to Oxford, taught at Mills College, show more and then to World War II. After the war he was in Washington and in 1953 went to the Rockefeller Foundation till 1961. The book is unpretentious and Dean Rusk is a very decent and sincere man. His position on Vietnam was carefully reasoned and as I read this book I again realized how we got into Vietnam and how much sense it made to think we should not let Vietnam be taken over by the Communists. The book is well worth reading. At the end of the book he has a chapter on the events in Eastern Europe: he was just as surprised as I was at what was happening and in 1990 did not see the Soviet Union would disappear in 1991. So I should not be too surprised that I was as surprised by the events of those years as I was. show less