Cyrus R. Vance Collection of Dean Rusk Audiovisual Materials
Collection DescriptionHistorical NoteDean Rusk was born on February 9, 1909 in Cherokee County, Georgia. He attended Lee Street Elementary and Boys' High School in Atlanta, Georgia. Rusk obtained an A.B. degree from Davidson College, North Carolina in 1931, and a B.S. (Rhodes Scholar) and M.A. in 1933 and 1934 from St. John's, Oxford, England. He returned to the United States to become Associate Professor of Government and Dean of Faculty at Mills College, Oakland, California, from 1934 to 1940 and studied law at the University of California, Berkeley, class of 1940. Rusk served in the United States Army from 1940 to 1946 in the China-Burma-India theater. At first he served with the Third Infantry Division, then later with the Military Intelligence Service. Rusk was released from duty with the rank of colonel. After his military career ended, Rusk joined the Department of State from 1947 to 1952, as Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs and for Far Eastern Affairs. From 1952 to 1960 he was president of the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Rusk to the office of Secretary of State. He remained in this position until 1969, through the administrations of Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk was in office during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, when East Germany began constructing the Berlin Wall, and as the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was also Secretary of State during the height of the Vietnam Conflict. In 1970, Rusk came to the University of Georgia's School of Law as the Samuel H. Sibley Professor of International Law, and he later established the Dean Rusk Center for International and Comparative Law. Rusk served the University of Georgia until his death on December 20, 1994. Rusk married Virginia Foisle in June, 1937. They had three children together, David Patrick, Richard Geary and Margaret Elizabeth. In 1990, As I Saw It, the book he co-authored with his son, Richard, was published. Cyrus Roberts Vance was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia on March 27, 1917. He attended Yale University, receiving his B.A. in 1939 and his law degree in 1942. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Vance practiced law at the Wall Street firm of Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett, becoming a respected international lawyer. He entered government service as a Senate committee counsel in 1957. and later served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as secretary of the army (1961-62), deputy secretary of defense (1964-67), and U.S. negotiator to the Paris Peace Conference on the Vietnam War (1968-69). He also served as special envoy to Cyprus (1967) and Korea (1968). As President Carter's secretary of state, Vance opposed the 1980 attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran and resigned after the mission failed. He joined William Jennings Bryan as the only Secretaries of State to resign their posts over principle. "I knew I could not honorably remain as secretary of state when I so strongly disagreed with a presidential decision that went against my judgment as to what was best for the country and hostages," Vance later explained. He subsequently served on several diplomatic missions, in particular as head of the United Nations' efforts to negotiate an end to the violence following the dissolution of Yugoslavia (1991-92). At various times Vance also served on the boards of corporations, universities, foundations, and other organizations, and was chairman (1988-1990) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 1947, he married Grace Sloane Vance, with whom he had five children. Cyrus Roberts Vance died on January 12, 2002 after a lengthy struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The memoirs of Cyrus Vance are published in Hard Choices: Critical Years in America's Foreign Policy (1983). Vance has also written: Common Security : A Blueprint for Survival (1982) and Building the Peace : US Foreign Policy for the Next Decade (Alternatives for the 1980's) (1982). Also of note are Davis S. McLellan's biography of Vance: Cyrus Vance (1985) and former Carter national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's memoirs, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977-1980 (1983). Scope and ContentCyrus R. Vance Collection of Dean Rusk Audiovisual Materials includes 12 VHS videocassettes of programs produced by the Southern Center for International Studies. Eleven of the tapes are copies of the interviews Dean Rusk did with Edwin Newman in 1985, and one tape is a copy of the Center's 7th Annual Report of the Secretaries of State, recorded in 1989. Organization and ArrangementCyrus R. Vance Collection of Dean Rusk Audiovisual Materials is arranged by format. Administrative InformationPreferred CitationCyrus R. Vance Collection of Dean Rusk Audiovisual Materials, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641. Processing NotesThe videotapes are edited versions of interviews already housed at the Russell Library in unedited form in the Dean Rusk Papers (Rusk AV 95-69 a-m). User RestrictionsCopyright is held by the Southern Center for International Studies, 320 W. Paces Ferry Rd. NW, Atlanta, GA 30305. Requests for duplication or copyright clearance should be submitted in writing to Julia Johnson-White, Vice President/Legal Counsel and Director of Educational Programs. Copyright InformationIt is the particular responsibility of the researcher to obtain permission to reproduce material for publication. Persons wishing to reproduce materials in the Russell Library collections should consult the Director. Reproduction or quotation of any item must contain a complete citation to the original. Finding Aid PublicationFinding aid prepared on: 2011. Related Materials and SubjectsSubject TermsRelated Collections in this Repository
Thomas J. Schoenbaum Collection of Dean Rusk Files Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Parks Rusk Collection of Dean Rusk Papers William Tapley Bennett, Jr. Papers Related Collections in Other RepositoriesCyrus R. Vance and Grace Sloane Vance Papers, Yale University Cyrus R. Vance Oral Histories, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas Dean Rusk Oral Histories, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas Dean Rusk Personal Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, National Archives and Records Administration, Boston, Massachusetts Dean Rusk Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York Dean Rusk Files, Department of State, Washington, DC |
Special Collections Libraries
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-1641