Vietnam War Stalwart Dean Rusk Dies At 85

ATHENS, Ga. - Dean Rusk, who as secretary of state under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson helped enforce the Cold War containment of communism with the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vietnam War, has died. He was 85.

His death last night was announced today by the University of Georgia, where he taught international law after leaving Washington in 1969. He left teaching in 1984 and had suffered from heart disease.

Rusk was appointed secretary of state by Kennedy in 1961. After Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Johnson insisted Rusk stay on, and Rusk remained secretary of state until Johnson's term ended in 1969.

In those eight years, Rusk presided over four major global events: the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the signing of a nuclear non-proliferation treaty with the Soviet Union and the Vietnam War.

Rusk supported Johnson's policy on Vietnam so strongly that he became a favorite target of anti-war lawmakers and protesters. Even his son, Richard, called his father "an architect of a war that killed 58,000 Americans and nearly a million Vietnamese."

Rusk defended his role in the Vietnam War in his son's 1990 book, "As I Saw It," which is Rusk's life story as told to Richard Rusk.

"Because of this nation's commitments, I had a duty to perform; to try to prevent North Vietnam from overrunning South Vietnam by force. That was my job and I tried to do it," Rusk said in the book.

Rusk said he viewed the Vietnam War as making a contribution to world peace. "If we can deal successfully with this type of aggression - wars of liberation - I think we may well look forward to a considerable period of peace in the years ahead."

In a 1974 interview, Rusk said he "underestimated the tenacity of the North Vietnamese (and) I overestimated the patience of the American people."

Rusk also said he thought the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by exiles was a mistake. Available public evidence indicated Rusk did not support the ill-fated attempt but went along with the president's decision to OK the CIA-inspired attack that was crushed by Fidel Castro.

Assessing his contribution, Rusk said shortly after leaving office: "I added eight years to the period in which no nuclear weapon was fired in anger."

When Kennedy successfully pressured Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to dismantle Cuban missile sites aimed at the United States in 1962, Rusk said: "We're standing eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who served with Rusk and was also vilified over Vietnam, today praised him as "the most selfless, devoted servant of our nation that I've ever known."

David Dean Rusk was born on Feb. 19, 1909, in Cherokee County, Ga., the son of a Presbyterian minister who became a farmer and teacher to support his five children.

After study at Davidson College in North Carolina, Rusk won a Rhodes scholarship and studied at Oxford. Returning to the United States, he taught political science, then served in the Army during World War II.

Rusk joined the State Department after the war. He was assistant secretary for Far Eastern Affairs when the North Koreans invaded South Korea in 1950.

Rusk was president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1952 until joing the Kennedy Cabinet.